As though he hadn’t spoken, she went on, “I’ll find Sergeant Flanders and tell him to get you another horse. Meanwhile, you will take that saddle off Tordo at once!”
“I ain’t about to do that, ma’am. Let’s see, you’d be Lieutenant Stanley’s wife, I guess?”
“What difference does that make?”
“Not one bit, Miz Stanley. Except it ain’t going to do you no good to call the sergeant. He told me you’d be mad, when I’d made up my mind which horse I wanted. It didn’t matter to me then, and it don’t matter none to me now.”
She stamped a booted foot. “Long, if you don’t take that saddle off Tordo right this minute, I’ll…”
“You’ll do what?” Longarm had held his temper, but he was getting angry now. “I need this gray for my business. You just want him for funnin’. It’s a government horse, and I figure my claim to it’s just a lot better’n yours is. Now, I can’t waste no more time arguin’ with you. I got my job to tend to.”
As Longarm turned away to mount the gray, she moved cat-quick, raising the riding crop to slash at him. As fast as she acted, Longarm reacted faster. He caught her arm as it came down and held it while he took the crop off her wrist and tossed it on the ground. She brought up her free arm to slap his face, but Longarm grasped it before the blow landed. For a moment, they stood there with arms locked, anger flowing between them like an electric current where flesh touched flesh. Then she relaxed, and Longarm released her.
They were glaring, eye to eye, when Sergeant Flanders came hurrying up. His arrival broke the tension. He said, “Now, let’s don’t you and Marshal Long go having words, Miz Stanley. I hope you ain’t blaming me. I told him …”
“It’s all right, sergeant,” she broke in. “Mr. Long’s explained that you tried to tell him I laid claim to Tordo.”
“I’ve convinced the lady my claim’s better’n hers, sergeant,” Longarm said. “Now if you’ll give me that form you got, I’ll sign it and be on my way.” He took the requisition Flanders had in hand, rested it on the saddle and scrawled his name on the proper line. Handing the form back to the sergeant, he said, “Now, if you’ll show me where the commissary’s at, I’ll swing by there and pick up some rations and be on my way.”
Flanders pointed to a sprawling warehouse-type building a short distance away. Longarm nodded and swung into the saddle. Touching his hatbrim to the woman, he rode off, leaving them looking at his back as he made his way to the commissary. He didn’t turn to look back at them.
Following the directions he’d gotten at the commissary while waiting for the rations he’d drawn to be assembled, Longarm rode due west from the quartermaster depot. The houses of San Antonio lay to his left; the city was just beginning to push northward. The line of closely settled streets stopped nearly two miles south of the army depot, although there were a few scattered dwellings, most of them marking small farms, between the bulk of the town and the military installation.
Longarm was taking his time, getting acquainted with the habits of the gray horse. Tordo had been well trained. The animal responded to the pressure of a knee and the touch of a boot-toe with as much readiness as it did to the rein. For the most part, after he’d satisfied himself that the dapple was the kind of mount he could trust, Longarm let the horse pick its own way across the grassy, tree-dotted plain that sloped gently to the banks of the San Antonio River, half a mile ahead of him, now.
He’d reached the riverbank and was looking for signs of a ford when thudding hoofbeats caught his attention and he turned to look behind him. Mrs. Stanley, mounted on a roan that must have been her second choice of the horses in the corral, was overtaking him fast. Subconsciously, Longarm noted that she sat on the horse well, holding to the saddle easily as the roan loped toward him. He reined in and waited. She drew alongside and brought her mount to a stop.
“if you’re looking for a ford, the best one’s only about two hundred yards upstream,” she said. “If you don’t mind company, I’ll ride with you a little way.”
“If you’re scheming to talk me into swapping horses, you’ll just be wasting your time,” Longarm warned her. “Otherwise, I’ll be right pleased to have you ride alongside me, Miz Stanley.”
“I promise that I won’t try to persuade you.”
She seemed to have gotten over her fit of anger; her voice was light and pleasant. “I really rode after you to apologize for the way I acted back at the depot. I don’t usually behave so thoughtlessly.”
“Wasn’t no need to come apologizing, ma’am. I don’t hold grudges over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“Just the same, it was childish of me. I understand why you’d need the best horse you can find, in your job. It must be a dangerous one.”
“I reckon it is, sometimes.” Longarm wasn’t given to dwelling on the dangers of his work. In his book, a job was a job, and you did it according to your best lights.
“Here’s the ford,” she said, pointing to the spot where the river’s green water took on a lighter hue as the stream spread out to run wide and shallow over a pebble-covered underwater limestone shelf. Turning their horses, they splashed across through water only inches deep.
“Guess you must ride this way pretty often,” he suggested after they’d covered a few hundred feet on the west bank of the river.
“Almost every day. Riding’s about the only relaxation I have in this dull little town. Especially now, when my husband’s away on a training exercise.”
“Funny. I never figured San Antone was so dull.”
“I don’t suppose it would be, for a man. You’ve got the gambling places and the dance halls and saloons. But all I’ve got is the company of other army wives, and we get bored with one another after a few gossipy afternoon teas. At home, now, it’s a different thing.”
“Where’s home to you, Miz Stanley?”
