“Oh,” she said, looking up.
He smiled. “Why don’t you sit down for a few minutes?”
“I shouldn’t, really.”
“Don’t you usually get a little time to yourself in the afternoon? Seems to me you do, and you deserve it.”
She wavered with her hand on the back of a chair. “Ever since that day last spring when we talked for a few minutes, I’ve thought we have something in common.”
Her dark eyes softened. “It seemed like it. But every man and boy who comes through here wants me to listen to his story.”
“Even Mr. Shepard?”
“Well, no.”
“Maybe you see me like the rest, but I hope not. After all, you do know me a little bit, and I’m going to be here for a while, so it’s not as if I’m a complete stranger.”
“I know.”
He gave what he hoped was an encouraging look. “Well, sit down here for a few minutes. There’s no harm. It’s all in the open.”
She shrugged, and with a smile that seemed apologetic, she pulled out a chair and sat down. “Mrs. Porter says you quit being a blacksmith’s boy and went to being a cowboy.”
“I suppose I did. But I was free to do what I wanted. I wasn’t indentured. Are you?”
“No. I don’t know if anybody is these days.”
“Don’t you think it’s all right, then, if a person wants to make a change?”
“For you, I suppose.” She looked around and lowered her voice a little. “But it’s different for a girl.”
“But you know what I mean?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought you would understand.”
Her eyes brightened, and her smile was relaxed. “So are you planning to keep on doing the same thing?”
“You mean ranch work? I think so, at least for another year or two. How about yourself?”
She made a light puff with her lips. “I’m not at a point where I have a plan. So far, I just work one day to the next, one month to the next.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I guess not. It’s hard for a girl to have a plan anyway. Everyone expects she’ll have someone else to make decisions for her.”
“Seems like it.”
“And how about you? After you’ve been a cowboy for a couple of years, what do you want to do next?”
He looked at her soft, clear features. Here was a person like himself, who came from nowhere. He wondered if she thought the same way he did—if she wondered how much a person could hope for or expect, how much a person had a right to want something. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t have it laid out ahead of me. But there’s something I have to do before I do anything else.”
Her eyes showed interest. “What’s that?”
Now it was his turn to look around. “I haven’t told this to anyone else, and I probably won’t until I have to.”
She nodded.
“But you remember what I told you about the first part of my growing up? I said I lived with my grandfather, and he died. Well, I don’t know for sure if he was my grandfather. I called him Pa-Pa, and he was like a father to me. But the people who took me in told me he was my grandfather, so that’s the way I left it.”
She leaned forward. “And you want to find out?” “That’s part of it. The other part is, he didn’t just die.”
Her eyes widened.
“Someone came and killed him, and as far as I know, no one was called to answer for it. But I have an idea who it was.”
Ravenna did not act girlish, as he thought she might. She just looked at him and nodded.
“What I want to do is find out why—who was behind it if someone was, and why that person would want to kill this man who cared for me like a father.” He let out a long breath. “After that, I can decide what to do next. But until then, this is the thing I have to do.”
She nodded slowly. “You have to do it for the man who cared for you as well as for yourself. And because it’s just not right.”
“That’s it. That’s the whole thing.”
Shortly after he went to his room, Ed heard Mrs. Porter come in. Then the house went quiet again. No sounds came from the room next door, nor from any of the other lodgers, most of whom Ed imagined were at their day’s work. Figuring he had a good three hours before he even thought of getting ready for sup- per, he put on his hat and coat and went out for a walk.
He had checked on the horse in the morning, so he didn’t need to go there. Nor did he want to visit a saloon this early, though he realized that any time of day might be suitable for his purposes. In the few days he had spent in town so far, he had walked up and down all the streets. He knew where Tyrel Flood’s house, or shack, was located, and he decided to drop by there.
The shack was built of dark lumber—vertical boards and battens—and had a small, slanted porch with an overhead covering. Ed stepped up from the dirt path onto the porch and knocked on the door.
“Come in!” came the call.
Ed turned the knob and pushed the door inward. “Come in,” said the old man again.
Ed crossed the threshold and squinted in the dark interior, where the only light came through the front window. He made out Tyrel Flood sitting in a wooden armchair and wearing his cap and overcoat.
“Hello, there,” said the old man. “I believe you two know each other.” He waved his hand to the right, where Mr. Shepard sat in a stuffed chair.
As Ed nodded to both men, he observed a whiskey bottle sitting on a low table between them.
“Sit down, sit down.” Tyrel pointed at a straight-backed chair next to the window. “Wait. Get yourself a glass first, and I won’t have to get up.”
Ed went through an open doorway to a kitchen area, where dirty dishes were stacked on a sideboard. A mottled brown-and-yellow cat rose from the mess, dropped to the floor, and glided into a bedroom. Ed opened a cupboard and found a glass. Back in the living room, he poured himself two fingers of whiskey and took a seat by the dirty window.
“Cam was tellin’ me earlier that you have an interest in the King Diamond Ranch.”
“Not much.”
“Says you asked about old Snake Eyes.”
“That was a while back.”
Tyrel laughed. “Nothin’ wrong with bein’ careful, like we said the other night. But unless I miss my guess, I’d say you’re not cut from the same cloth as them fellers.”
“I don’t know them.”
“Suffice it to say that Cam used to, but he was a little too honest for them. Isn’t that right, Cam?”
Ed looked at Mr. Shepard, who nodded as he sat with his eyes half closed and seemed to be melting into his armchair.
Tyrel raised his glass and drank from it. “You’re among friends here, boy, if you want to be. What ever your interest is in the King Diamond Ranch is your business, but if there’s anything I can tell you about Snake Eyes or his boss, old Ramses, don’t be too shy to ask.”
Ed took a sip of his whiskey. “I suppose there might be one thing.”
“And what would that be?”
“Why do you call him Ramses?”
Tyrel laughed. “Oh, that’s just a joke. Ramses was a big shot in ancient Egypt. One of the pharaohs. This fella acts like that, so we’ve got our little joke.”
“I see.”
“There’s a little joke in everything, don’t you think?”
“Most things, maybe.”
“Well, don’t worry anyway. Talkin’ like this is just a way to pass the time.” Tyrel held his glass up in salute, and Ed did the same. Over in the stuffed chair, Cam Shepard hoisted his in a slow, uncertain motion.
Chapter Six
Ravenna came down the steps in a long wool coat and a fur cap. The coat, which had the darkness of her hair but not the glossy texture, stood out in contrast with the snow in the background. Her cheeks had good, rosy color, and her eyes were lively as she smiled.
“Mrs. Porter thinks you’re a wonde
rful young man for clearing the snow this way.”
Ed tossed a shovelful aside into the street. “Don’t mind it at all. It’s good exercise, makes me feel better after being inside so much. And it doesn’t cost me anything.”
“It would cost her something. It did last year, she said, but she didn’t tell me how much.”
Ed worked on, enjoying the exertion and appreciating the attention. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Mr. Shepard told her you clean off old Mr. Flood’s doorstep and walkway as well.”
“It’s not as much as here. It’s somethin’ to do, and it’s a lot easier for me than it would be for him.” Ed looked at the steps he had just cleared, and he was glad Ravenna had been the first person to walk on them. “Did she say anything about it?”
“Not really. I don’t think she cares for him, though.”
Ed gave a short laugh. “I wouldn’t expect her to.”
Ravenna stepped onto the sidewalk to keep up with him as he moved along. “She says you could be charging.”
“Him, not her.”
She laughed. “I think so. But other places as well.”
He spoke across his shoulder as he turned to toss the snow. “It would be a slow way to make anything.” He paused and rested the shovel. “What ever there is to be made, I wouldn’t want to be takin’ it from the boys in town. Just doin’ this little bit, I’m causin’ someone a loss of income.”
“But not by doing Mr. Flood’s.”
“Probably not. I think if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done very often. The snow would just get trampled, like it does elsewhere, and that’s no good for an old man who gets around like he does.” Ed shoveled until he went past the edge of Mrs. Porter’s property. Then he straightened up and turned to meet Ravenna’s cheerful face.
“It’s kind of you to think of others,” she said.
He smiled as if he had been caught at mischief. “It’s easy to do right now. I don’t have anything else pressing me. But don’t think I’m too much of an angel.”
Her eyes were roving over his features, searching. “I know. Nobody is. Especially when things have been done to you.”
He felt that she went right into him. “You’re prettiest when you get serious.”
Her eyes still played over him. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. It makes you different. You lose something. That’s why it seems like you and I found each other. We’re alike in that way.”
She lingered for a moment and nodded. Then she stepped back and turned. “Well, now that you’re finished here, what will you do next? Go do Mr. Flood’s?”
“I think so. Then I’ll check on my horse.”
“Mrs. Porter says a horse is an expense.”
“It is, but I saved money buying this one when I did. The price of horses goes down when you’re goin’ into winter because you’re lookin’ at feedin’ ’em. Unless, of course, you just pull their shoes and turn ’em out to graze for themselves.”
“So you save the money that you’ll spend keeping him for the winter?”
“Something like that. And furthermore, it’s worth it to me to have a horse on hand if I need it.”
She came to the steps and paused. “I wish you would bring him by some day and show him to me. I’d like to see him.”
“I’ll do that. I usually take him out the other way, but I’ll bring him by here.”
He watched as she turned and went up the steps. I’m going to kiss you some day, he thought.
With three recent snowstorms less than a week apart, the snow had piled up on the rangeland as well as in town. In the Rimfire Saloon, Ed heard that the deer from the breaks north of town had come down onto the flats, and some of the men from town had knocked off half a dozen. Meat was meat, the talk went. Keep ’em off the haystacks.
Ed brought the buckskin to the rail in front of the boarding house, and when he went in for his rifle he invited Ravenna to come out and see the horse.
“Oh, he’s nice-looking,” she said. “I like the dark mane and the light color on the rest of him. Almost like a palomino, isn’t it?”
“That’s why they call it a buckskin. Color of tanned deer hide. If he’s got a cream-colored mane and tail, they call him a palomino, and if he’s got a black mane and tail he’s a buckskin.”
“I like him. No wonder you bought him.” She turned her eyes from the horse to the rifle and scabbard Ed held at his side. “So you’re going to go get a deer.”
“Going to try.”
“What will you do with it?”
“If I get one, I’ll give it to Mrs. Porter. Clean it first, of course. Maybe give a little of it to Tyrel Flood.” He shrugged. “It’s somethin’ to do, anyway.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks. If I’m not back by dark, take it as a good sign. If I’m back earlier, you can guess I didn’t do any good.”
He tied on the scabbard so it rode under his left leg with the rifle stock forward. With his rope tied on the other side, he was ready to go, so he swung aboard and rode north out of town.
From the talk in the Rimfire Saloon, a man would think that all he had to do was ride a ways out of town, shoot a deer by the side of the road, and come back. It became evident, however, that things weren’t going to be that easy. The deer, if there were any left that hadn’t been run off, were not standing around in plain sight.
Ed rode for a couple of miles through a white expanse. He saw horse tracks coming and going but no signs of a hunting party or big slaughter. The wind had blown since the day before, so he figured all the earlier marks had been covered over. He kept an eye out for fresh deer tracks, and after a while he saw a set that crossed the road and led off into a small draw to his left. A winding row of leafless bushes and low trees showed what was most likely a watercourse in good weather and a bit of shelter in times like this.
Dropping off the road, he followed the tracks for a quarter of a mile and decided to dismount. Lifting one boot at a time out of the snow, he took off his spurs and put them in the near saddlebag. Then he pulled out the rifle and went ahead on foot, leading the horse.
In his field of vision there were only two colors—the dazzling white of the full cover of snow, and the grayish brown branches that stuck up here and formed shadowy nooks there. What a hunter did was look for shapes out of place.
After half an hour of trudging, he saw such a shape. First he saw the ears and nose, then the husky front quarters and straight back until the hindquarters disappeared behind a screen of snow-laden branches.
He crouched in front of the horse, hoping that most of his shape would be absorbed by the larger form in back of him. The deer was stock-still, its head against a background of branches. Then the head turned, and two branches turned with it.
Ed levered in a shell, slow and quiet, and brought up the rifle. The rear sight came into view, lined up with the bead of the front sight, and found the dark center of the deer’s front quarters. When everything came together, Ed fired.
The deer lurched, leaping up and out from the cover. It took two bounds, floundered backward, and fell over.
Meanwhile the buckskin was pulling back on the reins. Ed held on tight, facing the horse and pulling straight back and down. When he got the animal settled down, he tried poking the rifle into the scabbard, but the horse kept moving away. After a long minute of resistance, Ed got the rifle put away and led the buckskin forward.
After a hundred and fifty yards of slogging through the snow, he felt a quick lift at seeing bright specks of blood on the white blanket. A few yards beyond he saw an antler, motionless, sticking out of the snow where the deer fell. Now the work would begin.
He used the rope to tie his horse to the bushes, not wanting to have the buckskin pull away and run off, leaving him out here on foot with a dead deer. From the right saddlebag he took out a leather sheath holding a bone-handled knife and put it on his belt. Next he stamped and shuffled until he had a six-foot area packed down we
ll enough to work on. Pulling the deer by its antlers, he dragged it into the open space and took a breather to look at it. The buck was admirable, with three tines on each side plus eye guards, and it laid out as a big animal. It had a dark chest, a tan-gray coat, and a creamy underside. There would be meat for a while.
After an hour of stooping and straining, he had the deer field-dressed and the cavity drained. He washed his hands in the snow, cleaned his knife, and went for the horse. After putting the sheath knife back in the saddlebag, he untied the buckskin and led him up to the deer so the horse could see it and smell it. Then, doubting his own ability to wrestle the floppy carcass up onto the saddle of a sashaying horse, Ed trussed the deer’s front feet against the neck and snugged the rope around the base of the antlers. All this time he had the other end of the rope tied to the horse’s neck. Now he untied it, led the horse around by the reins to face the deer, held the loose end of the rope on the off side of the saddle, and mounted up. As soon as he did, he remembered his spurs in the saddlebag, but once the horse leaned into pulling the weight, Ed decided to wait and see how things would go.
The cover of snow, a foot deep on the average, made for smooth dragging. The carcass slid along, jerking once in a while but not hanging up.
When Ed came to the road, he stopped the horse for a breather. He gazed up the trail to his left, and the appearance of a dark figure sent a jolt to the pit of his stomach. A horse and rider had just come out of the breaks a half mile away. Even at the distance, Ed knew as if by instinct that the man was the old assassin Bridge.
A second rider came out of the breaks, a heavier man on a taller horse. He caught up with the first rider and fell in alongside.
If it were anyone else in the world, Ed might have asked for help in getting the deer up and onto the horse, but he knew he did not want to talk to these two men right now. He did not want them to know him yet. He wanted to meet them at a time of his choosing.
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