.

.

.

5

Slim stood staring at the bedroom door. Jess's exchange with Carlin had been perfectly audible, as no doubt his partner had intended. It was imperative that Carlin did not find out Slim was in town and that Jess was now turning his hand to honest ranching in partnership with him. Such information would put paid to any hope of infiltrating the organisation and would almost certainly incite Carlin to revenge on Jess. Slim had no idea what kind of yarn Jess was spinning the gang leader, but knew him to be a very inventive liar when occasion called. This was probably fortunate under the circumstances and, if ingenuity could do it, Jess would give his best effort to keeping Carlin away from the hotel for as long as possible. Slim, meanwhile, must certainly quit the building and find their messenger without delay.

The only problem was that he knew nothing about the man except that he drove a wagon and was called Samson. Since nearly everyone who didn't arrive on horseback came in a wagon, the town's yards and few miserable streets were thronged with vehicles. As for the name, all it might possibly indicate was a tendency to avoid barbers and a penchant for loose women, of whom the town boasted several, although not nearly enough for the predominantly male population. As a means for locating someone, neither of these characteristics was particularly helpful.

Slim knew he did not have very long to formulate a plan of action. It would obviously not be a good idea to go round the town chasing up the innumerable owners of wagons or the scarce commodity of loose women, even if he had been inclined that way. To do so would be to court an encounter with Carlin, which at all costs and probably at the expense of considerable effort and risk on Jess's part, they were seeking to avoid. So what else could he deduce about the messenger?

He was someone who would escort a young woman safely across dangerous terrain. Probably not one for the loose women, then. This conclusion was considerable relief to Slim.

He was a friend, no, more than that, a comrade of Jess's. This was not much help as Jess's old acquaintance came in all shapes and sizes, but with a distinct leaning towards trouble in bars.

He was part of a covert, but apparently legal, organisation engaged in tackling major crimes across the continent. He would therefore presumably not draw attention to himself unnecessarily: which was not going to make finding him any easier. Unfortunately the former members of this Confederate troop knew each other so well that, despite their 'raiding wolf pack' name, they would need nothing so obvious as a wolf-head sign to identify them.

He drove a wagon. Now there were lots of types of wagons, but it was a safe bet that this one and its owner had some legitimate reason for moving from town to town, as a cover for their real business. It could mean he was selling goods or trading the spoils of hunting and trapping or offering some kind of service or skill which people needed. So he wasn't going to be parked in someone's yard: at least not unless there were other Ranulfiar in the town, which Slim seriously doubted. He'd be somewhere he could plie his trade. Not on the main street, but somewhere frequented by enough people to bring him custom: maybe the back of one of the saloons (not a good bet from Slim's point of view) or near the Livery? It would be too much to hope that he would be in the hotel stable-yard!

Shortly after this, Slim acted – literally. He jammed on his hat right down over his eyes, turned up the collar of his coat and let his normally upright carriage fall into a slouch. The tarnished mirror which graced the room showed him that this effected quite a transformation. He only hoped he could keep it up. There was no shortage of shifty characters trying to avoid being recognised in this town. He's have stuck out a lot more if he had assumed his normal open, confident and law-abiding method of proceeding. As it was, he shuffled out of the room via the balcony door, just in case Carlin came back to the room he had vacated. He was doing a fair imitation of one who has been at the cheapest whiskey as he descended the stairs.

Samson was not in the hotel yard. Slim slouched off to the Livery stables. There was plenty of evidence of wagons here, with several prairie-schooners lined up along the wall. Presumably the ones which had brought the children. Slim's jaw clenched in anger, but he made himself go on slouching and shuffling lazily, as if he had nothing much in mind, until he had circumnavigated the entire place. There was no sign of a trading wagon of any kind. But, with the shipment passing through, it was likely that anyone not connected with it would have been encouraged to move somewhere else. The question was, where?

"Hey, you!"

Slim just prevented himself from swivelling smartly and alertly towards the voice at his back. Instead he lurched round, catching hold of the corral fence to steady himself as if slightly the worse for wear. A man had come out of the Livery barn, a bridle in one hand and the other hovering meaningfully over his gun. Slim contrived to look as harmless and incurious as he could.

"Whad'ya'want? You lookin' for somethin'?" the man demanded suspiciously.

"Nope. Looking for someone. Might be around. "

"Well there ain't anyone here!" the man asserted, possibly truthfully.

"Looking for a friend," Slim persisted. "Trader. He pulled in here. Said he'd give me a lift when he moved on."

"Oh, y'mean the smith? Left town today – early."

"Bastard!" Slim allowed his assumed character language he would never normally use. "He said he'd wait. Where's he headed?"

The man shrugged. "Left by the north road. Now push off! He ain't here!"

Slim shrugged too and slouched away, thankful that the shadows of the buildings and the gathering dusk would soon conceal his movements. He made his way slowly and carefully and pseudo-drunkenly round the outskirts of the town, but, despite numerous cautious and discreet questions, nowhere could he find a trace of a trading wagon owned by a man called Samson. If he had been prone to despair, he would have been in the depths of it by the time he had shuffled his way back to the hotel stables. As it was, his back and neck ached abominably from his unaccustomed posture and his head was thumping with tension and frustration, but his determination was as strong as ever. He just needed to think round the problem more – and catch some more sleep, because the whole of this investigation seemed to be taking place during the night!

Despite his fervent desire to collapse into a comfortable bed, it was going to be really bad policy to return to the hotel room with Carlin potentially as a neighbour. He decided to risk bedding down in Alamo's stall. There was also some chance of Jess being able to locate him there.

In this, he was entirely correct. So correct that he actually fell over Jess in the darkness of the stall, where he was curled up, fast asleep, against a pile of hay in the corner. Alamo shifted irritably. He was a good-mannered horse, but he disliked being kept from his food by his humans. Now both his owner and the other one were sprawling over most of his bedding and muttering fiercely at each other in a most upsetting way. Alamo, like Slim, preferred life to be reasonably civilised. He snorted and backed away against the partition as far as he could.

When they'd finished hissing "What the heck are you doing here?" and "Don't ever shock me like that again!" at each other, they progressed to muttering: "been waitin' so long, no wonder I fell asleep" and "if anyone's going to bed down here, it's my horse's stall!" and other such irritated assertions. Eventually, however, relief got the better of them and, as so often, they broke down into muffled laughter as the funny side of the situation struck them.

Jess was not surprised Slim had been unable to find Samson. "Guessed he might move out of town. Too many of Carlin's men about now."

"Yeah, I figured I'd better stay out of sight. I can try tracking him tomorrow."

This brought a slightly derisive chuckle from Jess. "Y'gonna track one of the Ranulfiar?"

"He's a trader. He can't just disappear off the map."

"Y'wanna bet?" Jess yawned. "Look, we'll both go after him before dawn an' I'll show you where to look. Even if someone sees us leavin', they ain't gonna see enough to know who we are." He gave another mighty yawn. "I'm turnin' in."

"And you're getting up before dawn?" Slim sounded understandably sceptical.

"Trust me."

"I do. I just know what you're like about getting up in daylight, never mind before dawn!"

"Trust me! I'll be here before daybreak," Jess said again. And on that note, they parted for the few remaining hours of rest.

# # # # #

The beginning of a new day was heralded by the harsh grating of the prison door being unbarred. It seemed that light flooded into the gloom of the interior, even though the sun had not risen and dawn was an hour away. Around her, a silent flood of small bodies swept Chantal towards the opening and the black figures of the guards standing bleakly against the lighter background of the courtyard. The air was filled with the soft patter of little feet, sobbing breaths and subdued cries. As if they were one person, the crowd of children turned towards the locked gate between the two buildings. It was no longer locked, but flung open on a descent into black depths. Flaring torches lighted the way down the narrow, rocky path. Down and down the crowd plunged, gradually thinning as children turned off the main path on to tiny ledges clinging to the sides of the canyon. Down and down - to the lowest levels - to the oily sump of blue clay - to a battered trowel thrust into her hand. The day's labour had begun.

# # # # #

"Wake up! There's work to be done!"

This greeting of the new day was redolent with irony. Slim had so often shaken Jess out of his slumbers with much the same words. Now it was his turn.

Alamo and Traveller were already saddled and all he had to do was to slake his thirst from the canteen and mount up. They rode out of the town as quietly as they could, keeping all the while to the shadows at the edge of the street until the buildings fell away and they were in open country. The road rolled on before them, cross-hatched with wagon tracks, impossible to separate into individual trails. It simply led into an endless nowhere.

They might not seem to be going anywhere, but Slim had come to respect the skills and resources of the covert group of retired raiders. No doubt they would find Samson, provided he wanted them to. He became aware, as they rode gently along, that Jess was tracking – not obviously, but he seemed to be keeping a very close eye on the left-hand side of the trail. They'd ridden perhaps five or six miles when Jess halted Traveller and jumped down to kneel and examine something almost concealed in the grassy fringe edging the road.

Slim got down too. He was hampered by the continuing pre-dawn twilight, but could not make out anything special. Close by Jess's boots were a few scattered stones, some twigs and a couple of leaves: nothing more than the wind-driven debris which you would expect on any highway. At least, nothing more until Slim realised it was a long time since they'd passed a tree.

As he came to this conclusion, Jess remounted with a satisfied grin. "Ok, here's what you do," he instructed. "Ride on for another mile and a half. You'll see signs of a herd crossing the trail – maybe steers, maybe pronghorn or elk, it doesn't matter. Follow the herd west until you see trees. Go to the trees, even if the herd tracks veer off. You'll find Samson and the wagon somewhere close by."

Slim nodded, not entirely convinced that Jess was not just making it up, but willing to give anything a try. His partner obviously sensed this, because he jerked his chin in the direction of the patch of ground he had been examining and explained briefly: "Trail-sign." Secret trail-sign, of the kind often used by the tribes, it appeared.

Jess turned Traveller as if it had been agreed that they would separate here. Alamo snorted, not wanting to part from his stable companion. Slim felt much the same.

"Just a minute, where are you off to?"

"You can manage the next bit yourself," was the cheeky answer, implying as it did that Slim was no good at tracking, instead of acknowledging that he had been deferring to Jess's expertise and extra familiarity with their quarry.

"Yeah, fine – but what are you up to?"

"I'm gonna make sure I'm seen innocently in town. Carlin's busy with something today, he said, and we both know what that means!" His breath hitched for just a second, but he went on calmly, "He knows I'm around now, so I ain't takin' any risks."

"That'll be a first, then," Slim pointed out perfectly truthfully. "Or were you planning to sleep the day away?"

"Could do with it," Jess admitted, "and at least I'd have my room to myself for once!"

Slim looked at him hard. Neither of them brought up why the room was empty. Under the circumstances, he reflected, there seemed little likelihood of Jess sleeping peacefully – but you never knew. His own concern was evidently palpable, since Jess returned the hard look and said: "What's up with you? Come on, spit it out!"

Caught unawares, Slim blurted out his deepest fear before he could consider its effect on his hearer: "Jess, you know what will happen if they find out she's not a kid!"

Jess went quite still for a moment. Then he replied coolly: "Yeah. We discussed that."

"You did? You didn't have time!"

"It was a while ago," Jess told him casually. His right hand dropped and quickly touched the gun-fighter's slick weapon, which he had reinstated for this investigation. "I've got a rep – you know that. It ain't gonna go away just because I stick this in the hiding place and say 'I'm retired, I'm just a rancher now'. You know who's come after me in the past and there's no tellin' who will in the future ..." He stopped abruptly and seemed to be considering deeply how to explain himself. "There's those who won't stop at hurtin' someone because they matter to me. Now you an' I, between us, can defend Andy and Mike – and Jonesy if need be – "

He was interrupted by a splutter of surprised laughter from Slim, who was imagining Jonesy's reaction to the mere idea Jess would actually admit to the deep affection they held for each other. Hastily, he pulled himself together and said encouragingly: "So?"

Jess gave him a quizzical look and went on: "I don't need motherin' and housekeepin' and all that domesticated stuff." Slim was tempted to call him on this one, since Jess took shameless advantage of all such responses from susceptible females of any age. But he kept quiet as Jess continued: "Not for the long trail, anyway. Nor the kind of woman who needs lookin' after all the time. I can't guarantee to do that or afford be distracted by worryin' about her safety if it comes to a fight – that would turn her into a weapon to use against me. It's got to be someone be strong enough to fend for themselves and not be afraid, except when it makes sense to be."

"Like Troy?" Slim suggested, rather wickedly, considering how relations had worked out between the three of them.

This brought a derisive snort from Jess and the further comment: "Someone loyal, who ain't gonna sell you out when things get tough!" He stopped again, struggling for the words to share what it was not easy to express. "Someone who'll work all day next you, walk through the desert beside you and stand face to face when you can't agree. Someone who'll travel the trail with open eyes … and take the risk and face the fight … and be willing to share the danger and the outcome equally …"

His voice faded into silence. He was not looking at Slim. His gaze was fixed on the distant town and the shadowy fort beyond it. At length, he drew himself back to where they were and to the conversation: "So quit worryin', will you? You'll wear y'self out, doin' enough for all three of us!" This was somewhat unfair, since he knew perfectly well that worry was a sure sign Slim was caring about someone, for which Jess was inwardly very grateful. Nonetheless, he finished up pragmatically: "And frettin' about it ain't gonna make a deal of difference now."

"Just as long as you don't jump into something rash trying to make a difference yourself!" Slim told him lightly. "Didn't I get some instructions about hog-tying you today? Seems like a good idea."

"Yeah? Well, keep the good ideas to y'self till you've got reinforcements!" Jess retorted. "I ain't lookin' for trouble! But if we're not back in the hotel by dawn, you'll know where to find us." He gave Slim a long, trusting look. "I know you won't let us down!"

And with that, he urged Traveller straight into a gallop and disappeared in the direction of the town in a cloud of dust.