The first wagon was already loaded. Carmela had put Eva on the floor between two sacks and got up beside her. Luis knelt at the back, holding Mateo's boot clear of the tailboard while Esteban helped him settle. They had made a bed of blankets long enough for the bad leg.
Teresa stood on the second wagon, taking the last pack from Inés. Rafael held the team. Benito was stripping a saddle from a borrowed gelding, his eyes on the men behind Ruth.
“All six,” Teresa called. “Don't leave one tied.”
Ruth counted bridles dropping, the six riding animals coming free in pairs. The two pack geldings nosed at their unloaded saddles. Eight went into the fifty-two loose, unfamiliar without people on them but still part of the same lot.
Lark stood against Ruth's shoulder.
The big enclosure lay to the north of the lane. Its gate was open. Mateo had remembered the boards correctly: stout at the top, ugly at the bottom, a gap too small for a horse to pass. On either side, long fence wings reached toward the road. The eastern wing ended in a hinged panel that could be drawn partway across the lane, making a funnel into the enclosure. Below its stout post was the small foot gate Ruth remembered.
She could get out there. The wagons stood east of it, beyond the turn, their route open toward the settlement. Harlan and his men were west. Between them the herd stood restless, looking for grass and for a way out of its own crowding.
Ruth led Lark to the eastern wing, lifted the wooden bar from its socket and pulled the hinged panel across part of the road. It dragged through the dust. She set its end against the old stop post, leaving the stock a broad angled passage into the enclosure while closing the straight route toward the wagons. The narrow foot gate remained beside her, outside the panel's sweep. Benito held the nearest mares back until she was clear.
“Rifle,” Ruth said.
Teresa reached down. Ruth gave it to her. Teresa unloaded it and slid the rifle under the flour sack, its muzzle toward the empty rear corner. Then Ruth undid Lark's saddle. The cinch dragged under the mare's belly. Lark shifted, and Ruth steadied her with a hand, angry at herself for taking too long over a familiar buckle.
“Leave the saddle,” Benito said.
She handed it up instead. Teresa took its weight with a grunt and shoved it onto a sack. The bridle followed. Ruth kept a rope halter on Lark, its lead through her burned hand.
Behind them Asa called for Benito to stop.
Benito laid the last borrowed bridle on the rear wagon. He took off his hat and waved it once at the horses behind him. Not a wild flourish. The animals turned away from his shoulder and hat toward the open space Ruth had prepared.
Moth put her head beside Lark's neck.
“Wait,” Ruth said, to the mare, to Benito, to everything she couldn't hold still.
Rafael had his team facing east. Teresa and Inés were in the wagon. Benito stepped onto the back but stayed standing, his hat in his hand. The first wagon rolled forward until its rear wheels cleared the east wing.
Beyond it the road ran bare to the bend. Ruth could see a woman's skirt there, a white cloth moving above the low bank. The people Esteban had promised. Still too far to reach the wagons.
Asa turned his horse toward the strip of road between the nearest mares and the cut. If he got through, he would reach Rafael before the walking people did.
Ruth led Lark toward the funnel. Moth followed two steps, stopped, and looked sideways at the herd. A gelding pressed against her hindquarter. Ruth couldn't force the turn. She let Lark stand, then move, offering an ordinary path to animals already looking for one.
Moth came on.
Three mares followed her. The turn began to make itself. Benito swung his hat low again, then climbed fully into the wagon as Rafael urged the team forward a short distance. Ruth raised her free hand.
“Keep going. Don't stop before the bend.”
He looked at the men behind her, then clicked to his team.
Asa rode at the herd's western edge. “Hold them.”
“They're going in,” Ruth called.
“Hold them where they are.”
The animals heard a man behind them and moved away. His approach added the very pressure he didn't want. Wade called to him, but a gelding had already turned sideways and pushed another into the lane. Ruth walked Lark farther into the funnel, keeping close to the eastern wing where the foot gate waited.
The first mares entered the enclosure. There was open grass beyond the gate. Their heads lowered and lifted, curious. More horses came up behind them. The flow crossed the direct road, bodies passing between Harlan's approach and the wagons.
Ruth meant to draw Lark back along the wing and onto the road before the last horses came. She had left herself the lead, the narrow pocket beside the post, the chance to turn her own mare while the others continued past. The foot gate would let Ruth out; it was too narrow for a horse.
She had counted on that pocket being wide enough.
Lark looked over her shoulder toward the road, saw the wagon moving away and tried to turn. Moth stopped across the mouth of the enclosure. The horses behind her crowded. One struck a rail with its hoof.
“Easy,” Ruth said. She let Lark face forward again.
Moth moved. The crowd loosened.
Ruth's heart beat hard enough to blur the edges of what she saw. The foot gate was at her hip. She could get it open with her free hand. If she pulled Lark back now, the mare would turn across the funnel and Moth might follow. A gap would open behind them. Asa was already working his horse along the cut, looking for exactly that gap. Rafael's wagon was only a few lengths beyond him. At the bend the woman had lowered the white cloth and begun to hurry.
Harlan had mounted. She saw him beyond the moving backs. He wasn't shouting. His mouth was set, his horse dancing under him because the herd blocked the road it had been asked to take.
“Ruth!”
She couldn't tell whether the call was a warning or an order.
Lark pressed her muzzle against Ruth's shoulder. It was a small familiar demand: move your hand, scratch here, pay attention. Ruth had done it in rain, in hired stables, beside roads where there was nobody else she knew.
She put her palm against the mare's face. The burned skin hurt. Lark breathed into it.
She tightened her fingers on the lead. She could turn Lark across the funnel and bring her out along the wing. Moth would turn too. The nearest mares had already begun to lean that way.
Asa's horse took a step into the opening.
Ruth let Lark face the enclosure. Moth moved forward, and a brown gelding crossed the strip where Asa had tried to pass. His rider hauled him back from its shoulder.
She loosened the halter.
Lark lifted her head, impatient with the delay. Ruth slipped the rope free of her nose and laid her hand against the mare's neck, turning her toward Moth and the open grass. A gelding passed close behind. Lark stepped away from its shoulder, into the enclosure.
Ruth could still have caught her mane.
She opened the foot gate instead.
The little foot-gate catch stuck. She lifted too hard, skinned her knuckles, then pulled the narrow gate toward her to free the catch. Behind her a horse squealed. Wade was calling for Asa to give the animals room. Harlan's voice came through it, saying her name again.
The catch rose.
Ruth pushed through one shoulder at a time. Her coat snagged on the latch. For one wild second she pulled backward against it, doing exactly what she knew not to do with a frightened horse. Then she stopped, found the caught cloth, and tore it free with her hands.
She closed the foot gate behind her. Through the boards she saw Lark among the mares, head high, looking for her. The dark ears turned. Ruth couldn't make herself move.
“Ruth!”
Teresa, this time. The rear wagon had gone only a few dozen yards. Rafael held the team to a slow walk while Benito leaned from the back, arm extended. He wasn't close enough to reach her. He was telling her where to go.
Ruth ran.
She wasn't good at it. Her legs had spent four days fitting themselves to a saddle. The first strides jarred her knees. Her boot struck a stone. She stumbled, caught herself and went on. Behind her the herd kept passing through the turn, the six now-unridden geldings among the last. She heard Asa cursing at an animal he couldn't push through the press.
Benito caught her forearm. Her burned palm scraped the tailboard as she tried to pull herself up, and she cried out. He didn't let go. Teresa took the other arm, and between them they hauled her onto the tailboard, knees first.
“Up,” Teresa said. “Get up before you fall under it.”
Ruth crawled into the wagon. Inés moved the saddle so she could sit. Rafael urged the team into a quicker walk. The bed jolted beneath them.
“Go on,” Ruth said. “He's coming through.”
Rafael lifted the reins. The team went into a slow trot. Teresa caught Ruth's shoulder to keep her from falling backward. At the bend Esteban had stopped his wagon among the walking people. A man ran toward them, leaving a woman to gather his basket where he had dropped it.
Ruth turned.
Asa tried the road again. The last two geldings crossed in front of his horse and he had to turn it sideways. When he straightened it, the man who had dropped the basket was already at Rafael's leaders. He moved aside and ran beside them toward the others.
Beyond the crossing, through dust and rails, Lark stood with her body facing the enclosure and her head turned toward the wagon.
Ruth held the empty halter so tightly that Teresa had to take it from her before the rope cut deeper into her hand.