Lando

'You've had some grub?'

'Coffee ... just coffee, and some talk with Gin.'

Gin, was it? He wasted no time getting down to cases. 'You'd better eat,' I said. 'Come daybreak, we're going down to the Point.'

'Ah?' he was pleased. 'So you did remember?'

'Took me a while, but it was coming to me.'

'Gin said you'd recognized the shelter--andthe marker, too.'

'You'd better sit down and wrap up,' Gin advised. 'You aren't well.'

She put the blanket around him when he sat down andwitha tiny prick of jealousy I couldn't help but think that if pa were shaved and fixed up they'd make a handsome pair.

I got out the frying pan and mixed up some sourdough, listening to them talk the while. He had the pleasant voice I'd remembered, and the easy way of moving. Glancing over at them, it came over me that pa was here ... he was alive.

I'd been too stunned to take it in rightly before, and it was going to take some getting used to.

His eyes were on me as I shook up that bread, and I suppose he was wondering what sort of a man I'd become. But there was something else in his mind, too.

'You speak as if you'd had no schooling,' he said. 'Not that it's better or worse than most men speak out here.'

'We'll have to talk to Caffrey,' I said.

'He used your money for his own self. I've been caring for myself at your old cabin since I was twelve.' Looking up at him, I grinned.

'With some help now and again from the Cherokees.'

'I worried about Caffrey,' pa said, 'but I was in a hurry to get off. And that reminds me.

We'd best get out of here. If they find me with you, you'll all be shot.'

'Not without that gold,' I said. 'We came this far for it.'

'There's some all ready to go,' pa said.

'I've taken it out myself. The rest--most of it--w take time.'

Gin looked over at me. 'Orlando, I think he's right. He's a sick man. The way his breathing sounds, he may be getting pneumonia.'

The ^w had a dread sound, and it shook me.

Miguel was sleeping, but it came on me then that we'd best move the cattle a little way, like to new bedding grounds, but hold them ready for a fast move when darkness came.

'Is that gold where it can be laid hands on?'

I asked.

'It is.'

'We'll move the cattle on to the end of the inlet and bed down there, like for night. Short of midnight we'll make our run.'

My mind was thinking ahead. Gin probably was making the right guess, for pa looked bad. He had been lying out in the brush without so much as a coat, just shirt and pants. Even his boots were worn through and soaked.

Leisurely, we rounded up the cattle, with pa keeping from sight in the brush, and we walked them on not more than a mile. Then, late afternoon, we built ourselves a new fire and settled down as if for the night.

Rounding up those placid steers I'd been keeping my eyes on, we brought them up to camp.

Then, with pa resting, we waited the coming of night.

Miguel was restless. He never was far from his horse, and he worried himself until he was taut as a drumhead, watching the brush, listening, afraid something would go wrong before we could get away.

'I'm going into Guadalupe,' I said to him.

'We need a couple of horses.'

There was no way he could deny that, although he wished to. We had no mount for pa, and if we made a run for it, we'd be riding from here clean to the border.

Miguel shrugged. 'I think it is safe enough,' he admitted reluctantly, 'and we have reason to get horses.'

Gin had money. She had more than I did, which wasn't much, so she turned over a hundred dollars to me and I saddled up the dun. Just before I left, I walked over to where pa was lying, with Gin setting beside him. No question but he looked bad.

'You take it easy,' I said. 'I'll get two, three horses and come back.'

'What about pack horses? For the gold?'

'Packs would make the Mexicans mighty curious, so I figured on steers. Nobody will pay any attention to the herd.'

'They'll be seen.'

'Maybe ... but with horns moving, and the dust, the shifting around of the animals ... I think we've got a chance.'

It was a mite over four miles to Guadalupe, and not even a dozen buildings when I got there, most of them adobe. There was a cantina, a closed-up store, and the office of the alcalde, with a jail behind it. The rest were scattered houses and one warehouse.

In a corral were several rough-looking horses, but nobody was around. The air was chill, offering rain. At the hitch-rail of the cantina stood more horses, three of them led stock. I tied up the dun and went inside.

It was a low, dark room with a bar and several tables. Three men were at the bar, two of them standing together, their backs to me. A broad-shouldered Mexican with a sombrero hanging down his back by the chin-strap, and crossed cartridge belts on his chest, stood at the end of the bar, a bottle before him. He looked like a Herrara man to me. The other two were lounging with a bottle between them. The Herrara man was obviously interested in them.

Walking up to the bar, I put my elbows on it and ordered a beer.

The operator of the cantina accepted my money and flashed a brief smile at me, but in his eyes I thought there was a warning, an almost imperceptible gesture toward the Herrara man, if such he was.

'Holding cattle outside of town,' I said suddenly. 'We've played out our horses. Know where I can buy a couple, cheap?'

For maybe a minute nobody made any sign they'd heard me, and then the man next to me said, 'I have three horses, and I will sell--but not cheap.'

It was the Tinker.

Without turning my head, I picked up my bottle of beer and emptied the rest of it into my glass. 'Another,' I said, gesturing.

'I saw them,' I added, 'at the rail. They are fit for buzzards.'

'They are good horses,' The Tinker protested. 'I had not considered selling them until you spoke. The buckskin ... there is a horse!'

'I'll give you eight dollars for him,' I said, and tasted my beer.

For half an hour we argued and debated back and forth. Finally I said, 'All right, twelve dollars for the buckskin, fifteen for the bay--the paint I do not want.'

The Tinker and his silent companion, at whom I had not dared to look for fear of drawing attention to him, seemed to be growing drunk. The Tinker clapped me on the shoulder. 'You are a good man,' he said drunkenly, 'a very good man! You need the horses--all right, I shall sell you the horses. You may have all three for forty dollars and a good meal ... it is my last price.'

I shrugged. 'All right--but if you want the meal, come to camp. Forty dollars is all the money I have.'

There on the bar I paid it to him in pesos, and we walked outside, the Tinker talking drunkenly. The Herrara man's eyes were drilling into my back.

'He's watching us,' the Tinker said as I stopped to look over the horses.

Straightening up, I looked into the eyes of the other man--Jonas Locklear.

'Cortina had me turned loose,' he said, 'on condition I get out of the country. He didn't want Herrara to know for the present.'