They reached the forty-third mile in the last light. Carmela knew a hollow there with grass enough for the night. The stock had watered thoroughly at Red Tank, but the horses still spread with hungry determination when Benito let them graze. Nobody had the strength to resent them for it.
Mateo couldn't dismount without help. Ruth and Benito took his weight while Carmela held the horse. They lowered him onto a blanket. He said thank you in a voice so ordinary that Eva burst into tears.
“It's all right,” he told her.
“You say that when it isn't.”
“Then come here and look.”
She crouched beside him, suspicious. He showed her where his trouser leg had torn, making the injury a thing he could discuss instead of something she had to imagine. Ruth turned away and found Teresa watching Benito.
He was unloading the shotgun. Mateo had taken it back once they reached the hollow, but Benito had asked to clean it. Now he laid it beside the blanket and checked his pistol. The care with which he did it made Ruth uneasy.
“We need wood,” Teresa said.
“There's wood.”
“Then walk with me.”
Ruth went to help. Teresa looked as if she might tell her not to, then let her come. They climbed to the lip of the hollow, where a low stand of dead brush offered fuel. Beyond it the trail bent between two banks, a place where a rider would have to pass close to whoever waited above.
Benito stopped looking for wood.
“Asa comes this way,” he said. “In the morning, if not tonight.”
Teresa broke a branch against her knee. “I know the road.”
“From there you wouldn't need much.” He pointed to a dark lump of rock. “One shot. He falls, the others stop. We get a lead.”
“And then?”
“Then we go.”
“With you?”
He didn't answer quickly enough.
From the rock Benito could shoot almost straight down at the bend. Ruth had to make herself look at the place where Asa would fall.
“He won't be alone,” she said.
Benito rounded on her. “No? I thought perhaps they'd all gone home after you paid for coffee.”
She held still.
“Asa held me while Ellis hit me,” Benito said. “Wade watched. Harlan asked if I'd learned not to take what wasn't mine. I was taking my shirt. The one Teresa made.”
Ruth remembered the scar at his hairline. She lowered her eyes.
“I didn't—”
“I know. You weren't there. You were somewhere better.”
Teresa set the branches down.
“Look at me.”
He didn't.
“Benito.”
“I heard.”
“Then look.”
He faced her at last. She was shorter, but she stood so close that he had to lower his chin.
“If you stay here, Inés comes back for you. You know she will.”
“Don't let her.”
“You tell me how. Tie her to the saddle? Hit her? You teach me.”
“That's not fair.”
“No. It isn't.”
Below them a horse snorted. Benito's eyes moved toward the hollow. Inés was holding a cup for Eva while Mateo spoke to them. Ruth could see the girl's head tilted to listen, the way she had tilted it over the broken fence.
“He'll never pay,” Benito said.
Teresa bent for the wood. “I want you at my table. I'm greedy that way.”
He rubbed his face hard enough to move the skin. Ruth didn't know where to look. She wanted to put her own gun beside his, to declare that she would take the risk instead, and knew that it would be another way of making his anger useful to her.
She picked up Teresa's fallen branches.
Benito stood a while longer. Then he came down with them.
Wade arrived while the beans warmed. He called before he came close, keeping his hands away from his belt. Ruth stood with her rifle. Benito took a place at the edge of the light, his pistol still holstered.
Wade looked at Mateo's leg.
“Asa said you'd hurt yourself.”
“Asa's full of news,” Mateo said.
“You heading back in the morning?”
Carmela put down the spoon. “We're going to Esteban.”
Wade's horse shifted.
“Your cousin?”
“Tomorrow. There's work. A roof. People expecting us. That's where we're going.”
“With sixty stolen horses?”
“With my children.”
Wade looked toward Ruth. She could see him understanding that the failed sale hadn't ended anything. There would be no discouraged return to the ranch. He shifted in the saddle, looking from Carmela to the packed bundles.
“You'll make him come himself,” he said.
Ruth tightened her hand around the rifle. “He was at Red Tank. He didn't look lost.”
Wade waited. Carmela picked up the spoon and went back to stirring.
He turned away in the dark. They heard his horse climb, then move faster once the ground leveled. Ruth knew he would tell Harlan before dawn.
Benito watched the place where he had disappeared. Teresa held out a bowl. Her brother took it.
“Too much salt,” he said after a mouthful.
“Walk back and fetch your own.”
He almost smiled. Then he sat beside Inés, who began telling him how the dog had chosen Luis because Luis had no dignity.
Ruth went to Lark and ran her hand down the mare's neck. Beyond the hollow the trail was empty. It would not be empty in the morning.