At the seep Luis announced that he could have run the horses twice as far if everybody would stop being afraid of tiring them.
Inés looked up from the shoe she was stitching.
“Would you carry them afterward?”
“I didn't mean run all day.”
“How long, then?”
“Long enough.”
“That's useful. Tell the horses.”
Ruth hid a smile in her cup. Luis saw it and stalked off to fetch wood he hadn't been asked to fetch. A minute later he came back with an armful too large to carry neatly. Benito took half without comment.
They had ridden fourteen miles, though Ruth's body argued for forty. The second day on the road had drawn them out and worn them down. Dust lined the inside of her nose. Lark had a small rubbed place beneath the girth, which Ruth cleaned, then altered the pad so the leather wouldn't work against it. The mare turned her head to inspect this care, found it satisfactory, and went back to eating.
Mateo settled beside her with a stick and drew the road in the dirt.
“Red Tank. Nine miles from here. We'll reach it before the day's hot if we start early.”
“Silas has a holding pen?”
“A yard and good water.”
“You know it?”
“I've shod for him.”
Ruth waited. Mateo drew the next turn.
“He pays,” he said.
It wasn't the endorsement Ruth had wanted, but it was something.
Carmela came over with a scrap of paper folded into a hard little square. Ruth had seen it once before, in the harness shed. She had not been invited to read it then.
“Esteban will leave word at the last water. Under the flat stone by the white post. If the wagons can come, there'll be two.”
“Can they come farther?” Ruth asked.
“Not here. Not into Harlan's reach with hired teams.”
Mateo scratched another mark. “The lane is before the settlement. Two miles. Old stock road, banked cut on one side. Fences on the other. I've put animals through there.”
“Which way?”
“Toward the holding ground, mostly. There's a big enclosure off the road. Gate wings reach across the lane.”
Ruth pictured the place imperfectly: a cut too shallow to call a canyon, fences running along a slope, a gate set where stock could be turned from one passage into another. She had driven horses there years ago with Wade. They had lost an hour because one mare wouldn't leave the fence, and Wade had finally walked the route himself to show her the opening.
There was a small foot gate at the far end. She remembered crawling through it with a dropped lead rope. Her borrowed mount had stood with its head over the boards while Ruth swore at a splinter in her palm.
“If we get that far,” Ruth said, “we can put the horses in there while we sort things.”
“If you sell them tomorrow, we won't have them,” Teresa said.
She had come up quietly. Her hands were red from washing the children's shirts in cold water. Ruth wished she didn't sound as if she doubted every word.
“I mean whatever's left.”
“How many will be left?”
“I haven't bargained yet.”
Teresa spread a shirt over a bush and pulled the sleeves straight.
“Don't promise him the ones we're riding.”
“I won't.”
That night Ruth took the first watch with Mateo. Benito went to sleep beside Inés. She had kept a corner of his coat over her feet, and he pulled it farther across her without waking her.
Mateo sat with the shotgun across his lap and loosened his boot.
“Does it always swell like that?” Ruth asked.
“When I ask it for too much.”
“We're asking.”
“I noticed.”
On the far slope a horse moved against the sky. Ruth wondered if Harlan had eaten.
“He used to sit up when I was sick,” she said.
Mateo adjusted his leg.
“Let me sleep a little if you're going to keep talking.”
She laughed under her breath. Then Lark lifted her head.
A rope scraped wood below the pond. Ruth stood. Ellis was at the old opening in the fence, mounted, with Moth on a lead. Two mares followed her west. He had come down out of sight of the fire while Ruth watched the ridge.
She took Lark's rope in one hand and her rifle in the other.
“Leave her.”
Ellis turned his horse sideways in the opening. “She's not yours.”
That was true. Ruth had no answer that would stop him. Moth leaned against the rope, wanting Lark, and Ellis jerked her head toward him.
Ruth stepped between his horse and the mare.
“Don't pull her through that wire.”
“Get out of the way.”
He pressed forward. His horse's shoulder caught Ruth high on the arm and pushed her into the fence. The rifle barrel struck a post. She heard Mateo call her name.
Ruth could have raised the gun. At that distance she could hardly miss the horse. She lowered it instead, ducked under Moth's lead and pulled Lark into the open ground east of the fence. Moth swung after her.
Ellis held on. For an instant the mare stood braced between him and Lark, her head twisted, her feet scraping for purchase. Then Benito rode out of the dark at Ellis's flank.
“Let go.”
His pistol stayed in his belt. His horse was close enough to bite Ellis's boot.
Ellis dropped the lead. He wheeled west, slapping his coiled rope against his leg. The two loose mares trotted away from him. Others lifted their heads and followed, spreading along the bank toward the open country.
“Back,” Mateo shouted to Benito. “Turn those two.”
Benito went. Ruth handed the rifle to Mateo and caught the end of Moth's dragging rope before it could reach her feet. Behind her Carmela was gathering the children. Luis tried to get past her. She caught him by his shirt.
“Stay with your sister.”
“I can help.”
“Help her.”
Ruth tied Moth inside the fence and mounted Lark. She could see three pale backs moving beyond Benito, farther out than the rest. Ellis was above them now, letting his horse walk. He didn't have to take the animals. He could scatter them and leave the gathering to her.
She rode across his line. He checked his horse when he saw how close she meant to pass.
“You want them sound?” she said. “Quit driving them into the stones.”
For a moment he seemed about to crowd her again. Then Asa called from the slope, sharp enough to carry over the pond.
“Ellis. Leave it.”
Ellis cursed at her and went uphill. Asa stayed there until he was past, then turned after him.
Ruth and Benito brought the horses back at a walk. Twice they nearly had the outer mares turned; twice another animal slipped away behind them. In the dark a count was a guess. Carmela held the near opening while Teresa took the last little sack of oats from a pack and shook it into the feed pan. The rattle brought Moth pulling against her rope. Lark came to it, and the others came after Lark.
They had to use every handful. Benito bent to scrape the last grains out of the sack with two fingers.
When they had sixty again, Ruth untied Moth and turned her back among them. Mateo sat where he could watch the opening. He wouldn't let Ruth take his place.
“You went up to a mounted man on foot.”
“He was taking her.”
“I saw. Don't do it again.”
Her upper arm had begun to throb. She rubbed it, then stopped before he noticed. The children were awake. Eva watched every rider move as if one might vanish. By the time she settled, more than an hour of the next watch had gone.
Ruth lay down without taking off her boots. She had thought Harlan would protect his horses from a fight. She had not thought how much harm his men could do without firing a shot.
She got up again when Lark moved. It was only the mare shifting her feet.
Before dawn they packed in the cold. Ruth's eyes hurt from keeping them open. Teresa rolled the empty oat sack into the pack; there would be no grain to coax another scattered horse before Red Tank. Eva refused the blanket that had been hers yesterday and demanded Luis's. He gave it to her with a sigh so enormous Benito asked if something had died inside him.
The horses came off the grazing reluctantly. Ruth led them through the pale light, Moth behind Lark, the other fifty-one loose animals following in scattered pairs and clusters. The mounted and pack geldings took their places. Mateo counted, then Ruth counted again.
Sixty stolen horses. One of her own. The same number as yesterday, though everything else felt smaller: time, warmth, room to change her mind.
By late morning a low red tank came into view above a yard. Smoke rose from a chimney. A dog ran barking along the fence.
Ruth loosened her shoulders and rehearsed Silas Reed's greeting in her head. It was an old trick before a difficult sale: imagine the buyer delighted to see you.
When Silas stepped onto his porch, he didn't smile.