Chapter Four Night Riders
They rode away from the poisoned spring beneath a silence no one had ordered.
The herd felt it. Cattle that had settled into the trail’s rhythm now balked at shadows, crowded one another at narrow ground, and lifted their heads whenever the wind carried an unfamiliar scent. The men spoke only when work required it.
Hank kept the drive moving until the graves disappeared behind the ridge.
He had buried cattle before. Disease, broken legs, winter starvation, and simple bad luck took animals without asking permission. What troubled him was not the loss of four head. It was the intention behind it.
Someone had known the route.
Someone had reached the spring before them.
He rode point with the altered map folded inside his coat and the taste of bad water in his mouth. Every few minutes he looked back along the column until he found Drew.
The stranger rode swing now. He had earned the position, yet he sat Ghost with none of the confidence he had shown in the roping contest. His shoulders were tight. Hank could see the black bandanna still around his wrist.
Drew had lied at the water hole.
Hank did not know about what. He knew only because of the fractional delay before the answer, the way Drew’s gaze had moved to his own coat before he said no. The lie was small enough that most men would have missed it.
Hank had spent years becoming a man who missed nothing.
At midday, Sam rode up beside him. “Carter found a place to bed the herd five miles north. Open ground. One low ridge.”
“Water?”
“A seep. Enough for the horses, not the cattle.”
“They drank this morning.”
“Most of them did.”
Hank looked toward the western sky. Thin clouds had begun gathering over the plains, their undersides bruised purple. “We stop before dark. Double the outriders.”
Sam studied him. “You think they will come back.”
“I think men who poison water do not ride away satisfied with four cattle.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“Not yet.”
“Any idea why White looked like he had swallowed a nail when you asked about evidence?”
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “You saw that.”
“I have known you twenty-three years. I learned to watch the same things.”
“What do you think?”
“I think he knows more than he is saying.”
“So do I.”
“And you are moving him to night watch with you.”
Hank turned in the saddle. “Who told you that?”
“You did, just now.”
“I said double the outriders.”
“Meaning me on one side and White on the other, unless you intend to spend the night with Carter.”
Hank looked back at Drew.
Sunlight struck the damp line of his lower lip as he drank from a canteen. Memory arrived without mercy: that mouth against his body, Drew above him in the grass, the quiet authority with which he had said wait.
Hank shifted in the saddle.
Sam noticed. Of course he did.
“You might try questioning him before you remove his clothes,” Sam said.
“Ride ahead.”
“I am ahead.”
“Farther.”
Sam urged his horse forward, laughing beneath his breath.
They reached the ridge an hour before sunset.
The crew circled the herd on open grass while Cookie made a cold supper to avoid a fire visible for miles. Hank walked the perimeter twice, checking the ground for tracks and testing the wire on every improvised gate.
Drew approached while he was tightening a picket line.
“You are avoiding me,” Drew said.
“I have been moving three thousand cattle.”
“You found time to look at me.”
Hank pulled the knot harder. “I was making sure you remained where I assigned you.”
“And did I?”
“No.”
Drew glanced around. The nearest hand was fifty yards away. “Where was I supposed to be?”
“Not carrying something you refused to show me. Not lying beside poisoned water. Not looking guilty every time I come near you.”
Drew’s face went still. “You have decided I am guilty.”
“I have decided you are frightened.”
“Of you?”
Hank stepped closer. “I wish I knew.”
The wind lifted Drew’s hair beneath his hat. He looked tired, dirt collecting in the lines beside his mouth, but desire still moved visibly through him when Hank entered his space. It showed in his breathing and in the tightening front of his trousers.
Hank’s body responded with equal honesty.
Drew saw it and lowered his voice. “This is a poor method of interrogation.”
“It worked in the arroyo.”
“You learned almost nothing.”
“I learned you know exactly what you are doing.”
“Is that what troubles you?”
“No.”
“What does?”
Hank reached for the black cloth around Drew’s wrist. He hooked one finger beneath it and pulled the hand between them.
“You kept this.”
Drew looked down at their joined hands. “You gave it to me.”
“I used it on your shoulder.”
“You left it in my hand.”
“That is not the same.”
“It was to me.”
Hank’s thumb found the pulse beneath the cloth. It beat hard.
For several breaths, suspicion lost ground to something quieter.
Then Sam called for the riders, and Hank released him.
“First watch,” he said. “You ride with me.”
“Because you do not trust me?”
“Because I intend to find out whether I can.”
Darkness came without moonlight at first.
The storm clouds moved east without rain, covering the stars and leaving the plain nearly black. The cattle settled in a wide mass below the ridge. Four riders circled them slowly, singing whenever the animals grew restless.
Hank and Drew took the northern side.
They rode fifty feet apart.
Leather creaked. Insects sang in the grass. A calf cried for its mother and received an irritated answer from somewhere inside the herd.
Drew waited for Hank to begin.
Hank did not.
After their third circuit, Drew said, “How long do you intend to punish silence?”
“As long as it takes.”
“For what?”
“The truth.”
“Ask me something I can answer.”
Hank turned his mare toward the ridge. Drew followed.
At the top, the herd spread below them like dark water. Hank dismounted and checked the horizon with field glasses. Nothing moved beyond the cattle.
Drew remained in the saddle. “What are you expecting to see?”
“Men.”
“The riders from the spring?”
“Maybe.”
“You believe they followed us.”
“I believe they knew where we would water.”
Drew’s grip tightened on the reins.
Hank lowered the glasses. “You have a private map of this trail.”
“So do half the cattle companies in Texas.”
“Not this route.”
Drew looked over the plain rather than at him. “Ask something else.”
“Who is your father?”
The question landed cleanly.
Drew’s face did not change, but Ghost moved beneath him, responding to the tension in his legs.
“A difficult man,” Drew said.
“That was not what I asked.”
“It is the answer I can give.”
Hank mounted again. “Then give me one you have never given anyone.”
Drew looked toward him. “Why?”
“Because you have asked me to surrender in the dark while keeping every locked door inside yourself.”
A faint, humorless smile touched Drew’s mouth. “You think what happened at the spring was easy for me?”
“You were in control.”
“I have been controlled my entire life. I know what it looks like. I wanted to give you something different.”
Hank’s anger faltered.
They resumed the circuit.
Drew spoke after several minutes.
“My father chose where I studied,” he said. “What I read. Which horses I could ride. Which men were respectable enough to know and which men were useful enough to employ. He once selected a woman he expected me to marry because her family owned land beside a route he wanted.”
“What happened?”
“I met her.”
“And?”
“She was intelligent. Kind. Entirely uninterested in being purchased.”
Hank almost smiled. “What did you tell your father?”
“Nothing. She ended the arrangement herself.”
“You let her do it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a coward.”
The word was too blunt for the man who said it.
Drew continued. “Defiance had always carried a price. By then I had learned to let other people pay it.”
Hank studied his profile in the darkness.
“Coming north was his decision?” Hank asked.
“Yes.”
“Joining my drive?”
A pause.
“Not entirely.”
The answer warmed and warned him in equal measure.
“What did he send you to do?”
Drew looked at him. “That is the question I cannot answer.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Both.”
Hank faced forward before anger made him reckless. “Then perhaps this ends here.”
“The work?”
“You know what.”
Drew’s horse came closer. Their knees nearly touched in the saddle.
“Would ending it make you trust me?” Drew asked.
“No.”
“Would it make you stop wanting me?”
Hank’s arousal tightened painfully beneath his trousers, as if his body resented the question.
“No.”
Drew looked down, seeing enough in darkness to understand. “Then do not call distance honesty.”
Before Hank could answer, the lead cattle shifted.
A ripple moved through the herd. Heads lifted one after another, horns catching the first edge of emerging moonlight.
“Something is wrong,” Hank said.
They rode down the ridge.
A small group of steers had begun drifting north, following an older red cow. Hank moved to turn the leader. Drew circled the opposite side.
The cow broke into a trot.
Hank pursued. “Left!”
Drew cut across her path. Ghost pinned his ears and matched the cow’s movement, but she slipped between them and gained speed.
“Winner chooses,” Drew called.
Hank stared at him. “Now?”
“Unless you are afraid to lose.”
The absurdity of it almost made Hank laugh.
Almost.
He lowered himself over the mare’s neck and went after the cow.
They raced beneath the moon, the red leader driving six steers ahead of the herd. Drew reached her flank first. Hank anticipated the turn, crossed behind him, and closed the opening before she could escape. The cow slowed, wheeled, and started back toward the others.
Hank drew his horse to a stop.
Drew came up beside him, smiling despite himself.
“You cheated,” Drew said.
“I anticipated.”
“You used me as a barrier.”
“You were available.”
“That sounds dangerously close to winning.”
“It sounds exactly like winning.”
The cattle rejoined the herd.
Hank pointed toward a stand of low cottonwoods beyond the ridge. “There.”
Drew’s smile faded into awareness.
“What do you choose?” he asked.
Hank looked over him slowly. “I have not decided.”
“That may be the cruelest answer.”