Silas Reed watched the horses until Ruth dismounted. Then he watched the riders on the rise behind them.
“I was going to say you look well,” he told her. “But you've brought a poor argument.”
He had acquired a beard since she last saw him, narrow and carefully trimmed, which did nothing to improve the long, suspicious shape of his face. His shirt was clean. Ruth had always distrusted that in a man who claimed to work with horses.
“You haven't heard it yet.”
“I've been hearing it since your dogleg out of the wash.”
“Those are good animals.”
“I know whose animals they are.”
The dog came to sniff her boot. She let it. Silas stayed on the porch, giving himself the height of the top step.
“You said if I needed a buyer in a hurry—”
“I remember what I said. I also remember the last time, when it was my property you brought back instead of Harlan Voss's you brought away.”
“You knew I wasn't coming here with a formal introduction.”
“No. I thought a small lot. Quiet. A seller with a good reason for going somewhere else.”
“I have a good reason.”
He looked toward Eva, who had begun to cry because she wasn't allowed to chase the dog. Carmela held her on the saddle. Teresa stood beside the pack horses. They could hear every word.
“You have seven,” Silas said. “And four men watching you count them.”
Ruth glanced back. Harlan sat with Asa and Wade where the trail widened above the yard. Ellis had gone farther along the fence. They had made no effort to hide. Harlan lifted a hand when he saw her looking, almost politely.
“He doesn't own them,” Ruth said.
Silas stepped down at last. “No. But he owns these horses. You sell them, I pay you, he comes here and asks after sixty head wearing his mark. What would you like me to say?”
“What have you said before?”
“Less. About fewer.”
She followed him toward the trough. “A low price. You know I expected that.”
“You expected a price. There's the mistake.”
Moth had pushed ahead of the others and was trying to put her nose into a bucket. Silas moved it away. She pursued it with stubborn dignity.
“See?” Ruth said. “You'll never need to fetch that one.”
He nearly smiled. The little movement gave her hope, and she hated him for it before he had taken it away.
“Ruth. Not this lot.”
“Twenty of them.”
“No.”
“Ten. The rest go back with his men. You keep them here until—”
“Until I have a better lie?”
“Until they're out of his reach.”
Silas put both hands on the trough. Water ran through a pipe from the raised tank, splashing into the green depth. Behind it the stock pond spread under a low bank, well kept, with room for watering groups. She had counted on this water. She had counted on all of it.
“If you turn his men loose with fifty, they ask where the ten are. If you keep the fifty, I have him sitting on my porch while you get away. I don't buy that kind of trouble with horses in the bargain.”
“You owe me.”
He looked up.
For the first time she wished she had not said it. It sounded exactly like Harlan at his desk, and she couldn't find a way to take it back without losing the last thing she had.
Silas saw something in her face. His own softened a little.
“I paid you. Good money. You did me a kindness over and above that. I'll return one. You can water them. Rest them. I'll sell you provisions at what they cost me. You can put your saddles on different animals if a back's sore. But I won't take title I can't defend to sixty horses with the owner staring down my neck.”
“Don't dress it up. You've bought worse title.”
“Worse paper. Fewer witnesses.”
He stepped away from the trough. Ruth followed. She could feel everyone watching her attempt to turn him back.
“You'd let him take children?”
“Don't put that on my porch.”
His voice was suddenly hard. Eva stopped crying. Ruth heard the silence she had made and wished she could have fallen through the dirt.
Silas lowered his voice. “I'll give you water. Food. Shade. I won't call his men in, and I won't buy his stock. That's what I've got.”
“You could do more.”
“So could a lot of people.”
She went back to Lark. Her fingers wouldn't work the buckle. She pulled it twice before realizing there was nothing to unbuckle; she was standing there trying to remove a strap she didn't need to touch.
Mateo came forward.
“Water first?”
She nodded.
He went about it with Benito. The two men brought the loose horses down in manageable groups while Luis and Inés held the others above the bank. Silas opened the side yard. Teresa started unloading the packs. Carmela got Eva down and gave her a piece of bread.
They moved around Ruth as people moved around a post.
She had expected anger. She found the absence of it worse. Nobody had believed in her buyer enough to be surprised.
Harlan rode down while the last horses drank. He stopped outside the fence, took off his gloves and looked toward Silas, who had retreated to the porch.
“Afternoon, Reed.”
“Not yet.”
Harlan looked up at the sun. “Well, you're right. Long morning.”
Silas said nothing. Harlan turned to Ruth.
“I told Wade you'd wear yourself out before you ran out of ideas.”
Her rifle was on Lark. She had left herself two steps from it. Harlan noticed, she knew he did, but he kept his hands on the saddle horn.
“You've made your point,” he said. “Nobody's hurt. Come back. We'll settle it at home.”
Across the yard Benito straightened. Mateo put down a bucket with exaggerated care.
“You've watered,” Harlan went on. “Let the stock graze an hour, then turn them. I'll ride with you.”
It was the ease of it that undid her: his assumption that the trouble had reached its natural end, that her attempt was over because the man she trusted had declined to buy what she stole.
“I'm not ready,” she said.
Harlan studied her. He might have stepped down. The fence was low. His men were close enough to come when called. Ruth put her hand on Lark's shoulder, closer to the scabbard, and saw Mateo shift his shotgun where Harlan could see it.
Harlan sighed.
“Don't make them foolish, Ruthie. You know what Asa can do with a gun.”
“Then keep him from doing it.”
He looked toward the horses, still crowded near the water, and the child sitting on a sack. His jaw tightened.
“An hour,” he said. “Think it over.”
He rode back up the slope.
Silas came down from the porch with a sack of oats. He set it by Ruth's boot.
“You still want food?”
“Yes.”
“Then come choose it. I've got work waiting.”