Chapter 1 — At Home
The yard had the sound first.
He heard it through the back wall of the house and through the kitchen door and out onto the porch where he stopped at the post and stood. Rose at the far side of the yard moving in a hard line and Lucy three paces behind not running so much as keeping up, her small boots set down hard on the dust to hold the pace, and Mitchell between them at a slow lope with his arms loose. Lucy had been walking three months. She had not yet learned to fall.
Walker rested his hand on the post and watched.
Anna came out behind him. She stopped at his shoulder.
"You letting them run it out."
"They will settle."
"Does not look like it."
"They do not need to."
Anna did not answer. She watched Rose cut the line at the corner of the dooryard and Lucy turn after her and Mitchell hold the middle.
"Rose is pushing it."
"She always does."
Lucy stumbled at the turn. She caught herself on a hand and was up before Mitchell had finished the slowing of his pace to her. He held alongside her until she had her feet again and went on.
"They watch each other," Walker said.
"They do."
The wind moved across the yard from the south and lifted a small swirl of dust at the gate and laid it down. Walker stepped down off the porch.
He did not call them.
The children saw him before he reached them and the running came down without breaking into a stop. Rose slowed first. Lucy after. Mitchell last.
"That is enough."
Mitchell looked up at him.
"Not yet."
"It is now."
Mitchell held a moment and let it go.
"Take care of the horses."
Mitchell turned for the corral.
* * *
He was eight. He stood at the rein the way Walker stood at a rein. He set his hand on the bay's neck the way Walker set his. Walker came up beside him at the corral and did not say anything about it.
"You checked them this morning."
"Yes, sir."
"Then you check them again."
Mitchell looked at him.
"Why."
Walker laid a hand along the bay's neck. The heat was right under it. He moved along the line and felt at the gray's withers and at the small place behind the ear where a horse cooled first.
"Because they will not tell you when something is wrong."
Mitchell took it without asking more.
They worked at the gear. Mitchell pulled the cinch and reset it and Walker watched without correcting. Mitchell brushed his hands on his pants when he was done and turned to him.
"You want to ride."
"Yes, sir."
Walker took down the saddle.
* * *
They rode out past the gate and into the open ground east of the house. The country there ran flat for a mile to a low rise where a stand of cottonwoods stood at a creek bend. A meadowlark called from the cottonwoods.
Mitchell rode at Walker's right shoulder a half length back. He did not crowd. He did not drift.
"You always ride like this."
"Like what."
"Not fast."
"Fast does not last."
Mitchell thought.
"It gets you there."
"Sometimes."
They rode another length. The grass under the horses was the grass of a dry summer that had not yet broken into fall.
"I am going to be a marshal."
Walker did not answer.
He let the words sit in the country between them. Mitchell did not press.
"Why."
"Because you are."
"That is not a reason."
Mitchell rode another length.
"Because it matters."
Walker looked at him then. He looked at him longer than he had looked at him in some time. He looked at the small set of the shoulders and the hands at the rein and the way the boy sat the saddle without working at it, and he looked back at the cottonwoods.
"It does."
Mitchell nodded once as if the thing had been settled.
They reached the bend at the creek and turned the horses without speaking and rode back the way they had come. Walker did not look at the boy again on the ride in. He did not need to. The boy was at his right shoulder a half length back where he had been the whole way out.
* * *
Anna was at the door when they came in.
The kitchen had the smell of bread going. He set his hat on the small table by the door.
The children came in without being called. Rose first, Lucy at her hand, Mitchell behind. They took their places at the table and Anna brought the bread and the stew. There was no Sunday in the meal. It was a Thursday and the meal was a Thursday meal.
They ate.
Lucy ate with her hand and the small spoon Anna had set for her. Rose cut Mitchell's bread for him without being asked. Walker watched the table without watching any one place at it.
The knock came at the door.
It was not loud and it was not fast. It was the knock of a man who had ridden in and had stood at the door for a moment before raising his hand to it.
Walker laid his spoon down.
He looked at Anna once and she at him. Neither of them stood. Rose looked at her father. Mitchell looked at the door.
The knock came again.
Walker got up. He took his hat from the table and set it on his head and went to the door.
The man on the porch was not a man Walker knew. He was about forty. He had on a working coat with the dust of the road on the shoulders. His hat was in his left hand.
"Marshal."
"Come in."
"I will not. I came at supper. I would not have come at supper but I rode three hours to come."
"Your name."
"Doyle. James Doyle. I have a place six miles north of Silas."
"Mr. Doyle."
"They hit my herd this morning before light. Drove what they took north. Left some in the field."
"How many drove."
"I do not know. Four or five. Six maybe. The hands were at the bunkhouse and did not see them go through. My foreman saw the dust off the rise at sunrise and rode out. They were an hour gone by then."
"How many head."
"They took most of two hundred. Left maybe twelve. Three of those are dead in the field."
Walker held a moment.
"I will ride up at first light."
"I will be at the place."
"Mr. Doyle."
"Go ahead."
"Do not move what is in the field."
"I will not."
The man set his hat back on his head. He turned and went down off the porch and to his horse at the rail. He was up and gone before Walker had closed the door.
* * *
Walker came back to the table.
Anna had not moved. The children had not spoken. Rose was looking at her hands. Lucy was looking at Rose. Mitchell was looking at Walker.
Walker sat down.
He took up the spoon. He ate what was on the plate. He did not say what had been at the door. The children did not ask. After a while Anna got up and brought down the lamp from the shelf above the stove and lit it and set it on the table and the room came up yellow against the window.
When the meal was done Mitchell took the plates to the sideboard without being asked. Rose took Lucy by the hand and led her into the back room.
Anna stood at the stove.
"In the morning."
"That is so."
"How long."
"I do not know. Three days. Five maybe. It is a herd run north."
She did not answer. She wiped her hands on her apron and folded the apron and laid it over the chair and went into the back room with the children.
* * *
Walker went out onto the porch.
The yard was quiet. The stars were up. Mason came up from the barn at the gate.
"Marshal."
"Mason."
"You riding."
"In the morning. Three days. Five maybe."
"I will be on the place."
"Good enough."
Mason went back to the barn. Walker stood at the porch a while.
He came back inside and into the back room where Anna was sitting on the edge of the bed with Lucy asleep against her shoulder. He took off his coat and hung it on the peg behind the door.
He sat on the edge of the bed beside her. She did not look at him.
"Walker."
"I am here."
"Come back."
"I will."
She nodded once. She laid Lucy down in the cradle at the foot of the bed and got into bed and turned the lamp down.
Walker sat a while in the dark. Then he lay down.