any rate, the others began to leave, looking for some place safer. I was the last to go, and I just got away with my life. That was some months ago, early this spring. I’ve been trying to make it to Montana ever since.”
Taking a chance, he added, “You make pretty good time with those horses on the interstate.”
“When we move,” said Sanderson, “but we stop for customers. Tell me how you got this far.”
Sanderson listened with what Jeebee found to be a surprising amount of interest for somebody who was simply a passerby on the highway, and who, by the very nature of his business, must be meeting new people all the time. Jeebee had not really finished talking about his background when they emerged from the set of trees over the highway and came down to the wagon. The girl’s horse was tied to the wagon and she herself was on the wagon seat. She jumped down as they came into sight and came partway to meet them.
“I’m glad you’re back, Dad,” she said. “I was just starting to think about leaving Nick here and going after you after all!”
“That wouldn’t have been smart, Mary,” Sanderson said, shaking his head. “You know I’ve always told you —stick with the wagon. That’s your strong point. Stick with it. You’re like somebody who’s got a fort and runs outside it where they can be picked off, if you leave it.”
He turned to Jeebee. “Jeebee,” he said, “this is my daughter—” Again Jeebee thought he heard the name “Mary.”
“M-e-r-r-y,” spelled the girl, looking hard at him. “Merry!”
“I’ll remember,” said Jeebee, to his own surprise, flushing a little under his beard.
“Merry,” said Sanderson, “this is Jeebee—what did you say that full name of yours was?” he added, turning to Jeebee.
“Jeeris Belamy Walthar,” Jeebee answered.
“Glad to meet you, Jeebee,” Merry said levelly. She glanced at the two rifles Jeebee now carried, one in each hand.
“That’s right, Merry,” Sanderson said. “That’s all our friend here owns, except that wolf of his, and he doesn’t even own that. But I’ve been learning about him.”
Swiftly, and briefly, he sketched in Jeebee’s background for her.
“What I’m thinking, Merry,” Sanderson wound up, “is we might offer Jeebee, here, a chance to earn what he needs.” He turned to Jeebee.
“How would you like to work with us for a couple of months before we turn south? You might just be able to pay for at least part of what extra you need.”
CHAPTER 8
“Dad?” Merry said, and gave him a long look. “You’re sure?”
“He’s alone,” Sanderson answered. “I think he’ll do all right for us.”
Merry said nothing more. It had not been a father-daughter interchange. It had been a statement made by a leader to a subordinate.
“Still and all,” said Sanderson to Jeebee, “why don’t you tell Merry something more about yourself, the way you told me.”
Feeling more than a little awkward, Jeebee tried to explain some of the statistical exploration of the world economy he had been engaged in when the world itself collapsed. He got tangled up in his own explanations and finally gave up. But Merry’s tense animosity toward him, surprisingly, seemed to have relaxed. It was oddly as if both father and daughter looked for understandings outside and beyond normal verbal explanations.
“But this wolf of yours,” said Merry, after a moment when he finally fell silent, “how do you know he’s a wolf, and not just a dog that looks a lot like a wolf?”
This, too, was too complicated to explain. It was hard to explain a conviction born from experience in the hard logic of words. But long since Jeebee himself had given up all doubt.
“He’s not a dog,” said Jeebee.
“Could be a mix,” Sanderson put in, “Dog-wolf. But what difference does it make? Merry, why don’t you show Jeebee around everything.”
“Everything?” Merry frowned at her father.
“Well,” said Sanderson, “you don’t need to take him into our own rooms. But let him look inside the rest of the wagon, see the horses, and everything else.”
“How about having him bring that wolf of his in here first?” Merry asked.
“He won’t come,” said Jeebee. “Not with the rest of you here. You’re strange and he doesn’t trust you.”
“Been shot at, has he?” said Merry.
“Something like that,” said Sanderson, a touch of impatience in his voice. “Give him a quick look around, Merry. Then we can get going again.”
“Come on,” Merry said to Jeebee.
She wheeled her horse around and went back down alongside the wagon at a walk. Jeebee hurried to catch up with her. They were back at the end of the wagon in a few steps. Jeebee had expected to find the horses scattered all over, but they had simply stopped where they were and were peacefully cropping the grass of the median.
“Can you ride?” he heard Merry asking bluntly.
He turned to look up at her. With the shadow of that hat brim of hers over her blue eyes—it was a large, Stetson-like hat—she looked severe.
“Not really,” said Jeebee, uncertain what level of horseback skill she meant by “ride.”
“Well, you’re going to have to learn, then,” she said. “I’ll pick out the most easygoing riding horse we have for you to start learning on, but you better be prepared for something a little more than they’d have given you once at a for-hire riding stable.”
She lifted off a coil of rope that was fastened to her saddle, shook it out, and he saw that it was a lasso. Gathering it up again, she rode into the midst of the horses, dropped the loop expertly over the neck of a slim gray animal, and led it, plodding gently, back to Jeebee.
“Here, hold her,” she said, handing the rope of the lasso to Jeebee, so that his hands closed about it only some six inches from the neck of the horse. She dismounted and dropped her reins onto the ground. Her horse stood where it was. The gray mare Jeebee held looked at him with calm eyes.
“I’ll get some gear,” Merry said.
He watched her go and saw that the rear of the wagon was closed with a wooden back wall just like its front, with a regular door inset in it. A boxed-in single step below the door made it easy to reach the entrance from the ground. She went through the door and was gone only a little time before coming back with another saddle and a set of reins, the saddle riding on her forearm with the stirrup leathers dangling down on either side, and the metal stirrups themselves chiming together as she moved.
She put the bridle and saddle on, drew the cinch strap tight, and buckled it under the belly of the gray mare.
“All right now,” she said. “Mount up.”
Jeebee put down his two rifles, took hold of the saddle horn, found the stirrup with the toe of his boot, then stopped himself. He was on the horse’s right side instead of its left, the customary side for mounting.
“It’s all right,” said Merry as he started to go around the animal, with a touch of exasperation very like her father’s in her voice, “any of my horses you can mount from either side. They’ll stand if you drop the reins to the ground and lie down so you can lie between their legs and fire a rifle across their body, if you have to. But we’ll get to that later. Now, mount up!”
Jeebee hoisted himself clumsily into the saddle. His left toe searched for and found the other stirrup. He had a moment’s feeling almost of triumph.
“All right now,” said Merry, “walk her around a bit.”
Jeebee struck with both heels at the side of the horse under him. The mare leaped forward with a suddenness that almost unseated him and in panic he hauled back hard on the reins. The mare skidded to a stop and then began to back up.
