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6

Slim sat still on Alamo until he could no longer see the flying horseman in the pale light of the dawn. He felt rather as if a jolt of lightning had gone through him. He had been trusted with a lot more than a potential rescue. Of course, he'd realised that Jess habitually concealed deep feelings, as he had done over Ann Rhodes, but he had interpreted the wrangling with Chantal as nothing more serious than the kind of brotherly battle Jess had waged with Troy. He turned his horse and rode onward, deep in thought.

So deep in thought was he that he nearly missed the broad slot of steers' hooves cutting up the surface of the road and was only alerted to it by the slight stumble in Alamo's pace. The light was improving by the minute and the trampled grass and gouged up earth were easy to see once he'd left the road itself. Sure enough, when he had followed the slot for about another mile, he could make out trees on the horizon, a little to the north. He veered off the trail of the herd, which he could see grazing quietly not far in front of him, and headed directly for the wood. And sure enough again, he could just make out, here and there, faint wagon tracks, although he had no means of telling how old they were.

The trees proved to be a long spur of woodland, the outrider of the heavily forested mountain slopes. He made for the northern edge, figuring Samson was likely to camp on the far side from the town and hoping that he wasn't going to have to search for the wagon on the steep slopes of the real forest. Finding it was not going to be easy if it was as well hidden as he would expect from a member of the Ranulfiar.

Consequently he rode slowly and very quietly along the skirts of the wood, peering between the dark trunks for a more substantial shadow. It was not long before something loomed up, but it looked like an outcrop of rocks around which the wood had grown. Just the place to hide a wagon. Slim dismounted and led Alamo into the trees, dropping the reins so that he would not stray. He began to approach the rocks cautiously.

He had made only a few paces towards them when the quiet of the early morning shook with a low and ferocious growl. He sensed a creature moving to the left of him, but the growl came again, directly in front of him. Slim had no idea what was making the noise, for it was still very dark under the trees – it could be a cougar or a wolf or just possibly a very unfriendly guard dog. He wisely stood still.

Behind him there came the click of a rifle bolt and he felt the nudge of the barrel in his back. He stepped forward, hoping that the dog – if it was a dog – was not going to take a bite out of his leg. The rifle prodded him, directing him to walk round the outlying boulders until, behind the huge central pile, he came up to tethered horses, a banked-down campfire and the wagon itself. He heaved a sigh of relief.

The man holding the rifle did not speak a word until he had struck a match and regarded Slim by its flickering light.

"You must be Sherman."

Slim took his hat off and held out his hand. The man looked him up and down, as if verifying his appearance. Having done so, he propped his rifle against the wagon wheel and issued a brief command: "Stand down!"

It was so familiar that Slim almost reacted automatically, until he realised it was addressed to two huge, shaggy grey dogs, who resembled nothing so much as a couple of wolves. The pair dropped into a crouch at the other side of the camp-fire. Their gleaming eyes never left Slim.

"Don't mind them." The man took Slim's outstretched hand in a bone-crushing grip which mercifully did not last long. He kicked the fire into life and set a coffee pot on the stones around it.

"How did you know me?"

The man, Samson as he must be, gave a guttural laugh. "Description went round that time the Wolf-cub was after getting you out of a tumbleweed wagon."

Slim nodded, vivid memories coming back abruptly – but not of that time. No, it was the casual nick-name, the designation of Jess as the youngest member of the pack, which struck deep. He looked carefully at this man, who had been through so much with his partner.

He saw a man of middle height, shorter than Jess, but immensely powerfully built. Just the muscles of his arms and shoulders made Slim glad his handshake had not been prolonged. He was older than Slim had expected, although there was no reason to suppose that the troop had been made up solely of young hot-heads. The shrewd eyes watching him closely were bright brown under shaggy brows. The man's hair was shaved close and he seemed to be wearing a leather apron and pants and nothing much else. From the equipment around the wagon, it was obvious that he was a smith.

Samson was handing him coffee and Slim hastily dragged his attention back to the business, rather than the man. He sipped the strong brew cautiously, making a mental note that Jess was not the only one who liked coffee which could take the enamel off the inside of a mug.

His host waved a hand to a nearby barrel by way of offering Slim a seat. When he sat down, Samson went to the back of the wagon and rummaged for some minutes, before returning with a thin sheet of deerskin and an ink pen.

"Give me the details," he commanded without further ado.

"You want me to write them?" Slim offered.

Samson raised an eyebrow and said shortly: "Not unless you can write in code?"

"Not your code," Slim agreed and set about giving the clear account of the fort which he had set in his mind. Samson's pen travelled over the vellum in a circular pattern, transcribing minute marks and pictograms as Slim spoke. When it was finished, he whistled softly and one of the great hounds came obediently to his side. Samson loosened the collar it was wearing, turned it inside out and fed the deerskin document into the space between the two layers of leather. This done, he fastened the collar and took the dog's head between his hands.

He breathed gently on it, with it, for a few moments, then whispered: "Keilder! Find!"

The dog instantly bounded away, its coat blending seamlessly with the shadows of tree and grass. It was gone before Slim could draw breath. Samson gave the fire another kick and tossed on some more wood. "Let's have breakfast."

He sent the other dog into the wood to keep guard and Slim to get water from the nearby spring for fresh coffee. Soon the savoury smell of bacon hash was filling the clear, cold morning air and Slim realised how hungry he was. They ate in silence, companionably and with a speed which would have done justice to Jess.

Samson said as much, when he had dumped their dirty plates in a bucket of water warming over the fire and poured them some fresh coffee. "Guess we're lucky we haven't got the young wolf eating twice enough for his size," he remarked with a grin.

Slim nodded, being used to having to make sure that he got his fair share of whatever was going. "Was he starved when he was young?"

"We all starved." Samson's eyes were dark with recollected suffering and Slim reminded himself that they had been on different sides. "But, yes, it was always worse for the youngsters, none more so than Jess. He'd been fending for himself for three years before they dumped him in the troop."

"Dumped?"

Samson grinned again. "Didn't Vin tell you? Everyone else had totally failed to instill any discipline into him, so they figured he might just be suitable material for the wildest and least conventional company."

Slim remembered Warwick's casual words about being ordered to thrash Jess. "He did mention it."

The older man laughed. "Good job Cal was our sergeant. At least, he had strong ties with Jess." But his face became serious as he continued: "And he understood what the boy had been through. It was a dark time all round."

"Yeah. Stupid too, in many ways," Slim agreed. "But now there's other things just as dark."

"Things we can do something about without killing so many men!" Samson peered at Slim's expression and demanded: "What's the matter? Has he done something wild again?"

"Not Jess. The girl."

Samson whistled and said shrewdly: "I reckoned she had a tougher spirit than you'd look to see in any soft girl from the east. She'll need it around Jess, too."

"Yeah." Slim's tone was miserable. He felt that somehow he should have prevented the whole mad scheme, not least because the investigation was his responsibility.

"So what's she done?"

Slim told him. When he had finished, Samson shook his head. "Risky!"

"Yeah. They seem to like taking risks."

"Make a good pair, then," the other man said sagely. "There's never been a time when Jess didn't jump straight in without looking at the depth of the water. But you'll know that, being his partner."

Slim nodded. Much shared experience had enabled him to cope with Jess's recklessness. He just felt a fearful responsibility for a girl he had only met a few times.

Samson seemed to sense this. "She's not stupid," he pointed out. "And if Jess's taken her training in hand, she's not helpless. And you'll do what you can, when you can, and avoid the risk of alerting Carlin. Now, make yourself comfortable. You've got a long wait if you can't go back before nightfall."

In the event, Slim did not even start back for the town until far into the night. The dog had done its work well and with dusk the man named Keilder slipped through the trees and joined them round the fire. He was followed by another couple of the Ranulfiar, whom Keilder had alerted, and all were eager to hear and commit to memory Slim's account of the place they had to attack. Talk ran over beyond supper and so it was into the small hours when Slim finally arrived back at the hotel, climbed to the balcony and eased open the door of the room.