CHAPTER 1 — AT HOME
He was at the corral at first light with the boy.
The country east had the gray of morning in it and the cottonwoods at the creek bend stood in the shape they had stood in for as long as Walker had been at the place. The mare in the corral was the bay he had kept since the spring. Mason had her on the place again after the lameness of the fall. Walker stood at the rail with the boy at his elbow and watched the bay drink.
Mitchell was nine.
He had been at the rail with Walker every morning of the eight months since Walker had ridden home wounded from the country east. He had made of the rail and the corral the place he stood, the way a man makes a place. He had a piece of strap in his hand that he was working with the punch and a small can of saddle soap at his feet. He worked the strap the way Walker worked a strap.
"She is drinking slow."
"Yeah."
"She did not drink slow yesterday."
"She did not."
The boy looked at the bay a while.
"Has she got something on."
"She is drinking slow because the wind is from the south and she does not like the wind from the south while she drinks. She will be all right."
Mitchell looked at his father.
"You read all that off a horse drinking."
"Yeah."
"That is what you do."
"I do."
The boy went back to the strap.
* * *
Lucy came out of the house at the second hour after first light.
She walked across the yard at her own pace with her hand in Rose's hand and her bonnet crooked at the side. She had been walking close to a year. She had learned to fall and learned to stand and now walked the country between the porch and the corral as if she had set it there. She was two and a half. She had put her face in Rose's neck the morning Walker had ridden out east a year before and would not lift it. She came to the corral now and let go of Rose's hand and walked the last paces to the rail on her own and put her hand on Walker's leg.
He laid his hand on her back.
"Father."
"Yeah."
"Bay."
"That is the bay. That is right."
"Bay drinking."
"Yeah."
She watched the bay a while. Rose stood at the corral two paces back and watched her sister and watched her father and did not say anything.
Rose was seventeen.
She had begun to take the wagon to Silas in the spring. She drove the team with the same set in her shoulders Walker drove a team with. She had Anna's eyes and Walker's set. She had been at the door of the kitchen the morning the federal courier had come, the morning the wire about the Whittling papers had come, the morning the bills of lading had been signed for at Cheyenne and the case had been entered into the federal record. She had not asked anything. She had read it from her father's face.
She read it from his face now and looked at him and looked at the bay and said nothing.
* * *
Walker walked back to the house with Lucy on his arm at the end of the morning.
Anna was at the basin in the kitchen. She had been at the basin every morning of the eight months since he had come home. She washed without looking up when he came in. He set Lucy on the bench at the table and Lucy reached for a piece of bread that Anna had set there. She ate slow.
"You were at the corral a long time."
"The boy is good with the strap."
"He has been at the strap an hour every morning for a long time, Walker."
"Yeah."
"He is not going to stop."
"No."
Anna wiped her hands on the apron and turned at the basin. She looked at him.
"Mason said the bay is fit again."
"She is fit. She drinks slow in a south wind."
"That is a small thing to know."
"It is."
She went back to the basin.
* * *
He sat at the table after the morning's work and read what had come up from Cheyenne.
The federal court at Cheyenne had been working the Whittling papers since the wire. Walker's leather case from the country south of the line south had gone east in the federal post and had been entered as exhibit at the court in the spring. Six men had been taken at the spur at Two Forks in the late spring. Two more in the summer. Three of those had been hands. Two had been at the freight office. The sixth had been a man Walker had not seen in any of his work, a man named Coulter who had been the one who set the bills of lading in motion at the spur.
The federal court had asked Walker to come to Cheyenne in the summer to give an account.
Walker had ridden to Cheyenne in July and had given the account. He had been four days at the court. He had slept at a room above a livery on the south end of the town. He had ridden home at the end of the four days. He had not been east of Silas since.
The court at Cheyenne had been writing him every six weeks since with what they had taken. Walker read the letters at the table and put them in a drawer in the desk in the back room. He had not heard from Judge Hollister for three months.
The case had been the system. The system was being unmade at the court. Walker did not need to be at the court for that work. He was at the place. He was at the corral with the boy at first light. He was at the basin with Anna in the morning. He was at the porch in the evening with Lucy on his knee.
He had thought, in the eight months since he had come home, that the case might be done.
* * *
Mason came up from the barn at the end of the afternoon with a rider behind him.
The rider was on a sorrel that was sweated through. He was about thirty. He had federal black on him and a wire pin at the collar and a dispatch case at the back of the saddle. Mason held the gate and the rider rode through and dismounted at the rail.
Walker came down off the porch.
"Marshal."
"Yeah."
"Out of Cheyenne. Federal courier. I have a wire from Judge Hollister for you."
"Bring it."
The courier took the dispatch case off the saddle and opened it on the rail and laid the wire on the leather. It was a single sheet of yellow paper folded once. Walker laid his hand on it and did not pick it up at once.
He looked at the courier.
"How long out of Cheyenne."
"Five days."
"You stop at Silas."
"Yeah. The man at the post office said you were on the place."
"All right."
He picked up the wire. He read it.
He read it twice. He folded it and put it in his coat.
"Mason."
"Yeah, Marshal."
"Take the courier in. Feed him. Put the sorrel up. He is going back to Cheyenne in the morning."
Mason took the rein of the sorrel and led the courier toward the barn. Walker stood at the rail a moment. Then he turned and went up the path to the porch and into the house.
Anna was at the basin. She did not look up.
"You have a wire."
"Yeah."
"From Cheyenne."
"Yeah."
She did not turn. She went on with the work at the basin.
"You will tell me when you are ready, Walker."
"I will."
He went into the back room and laid the wire on the small table and sat down and looked at it for a long time.