Chapter 3
David was in the barn before the sky had any color to it, working by lamplight because there wasn't any other light to work by yet.
He ran his hand down June's foreleg, checked the cinch, tested the stirrup leathers with a hard pull, then moved to her saddle bags and made sure the buckles sat flat where they wouldn't rub.
June stood still for all of it, but her ears kept swinging toward the open barn door, toward Whiskey's stall, toward every sound that wasn't ordinary morning sound.
She knew this wasn't a ride to the Coopers' plot.
She'd carried him the last leg home the year before, half-starved and half-broken himself by then, and she'd carried him every mile since without complaint.
David rested a hand against her neck a moment, feeling the warmth of her under his palm, and she leaned into it the way she always did when he stood still long enough to let her.
He checked the rifle scabbard next, made sure it rode where his hand could find it without looking, then worked back along her side checking each strap a second time even though he'd already checked them once. Some habits didn't need a reason beyond themselves.
Russ was already there, cinching Whiskey's pack saddle down with care that never wasted a motion.
"You know I packed that," Russ said, without turning around.
"I know."
"Then why are you checking it?"
"Because I'm riding with it."
Russ grunted, which David took as agreement, and kept working. He shifted one strap an inch, tightened a buckle David hadn't noticed had loosened, and stepped back to look at the balance of the load with his head tilted.
"Don't get greedy coming home," Russ said.
David looked at him.
"You find that railcar full, you're going to start looking at Whiskey like he's a freight wagon," Russ said. "He's not. Weight's got to balance side to side no matter how much you want to load onto him. Eating your way through the food doesn't buy you room for something twice as heavy."
"I know what he can carry."
"Then remember it when you're standing next to a year's worth of supplies and telling yourself one more case won't matter."
David didn't argue with that, because Russ wasn't wrong, and they both knew it.
Russ ran his hand once more along the top of the pack, checking the ropes were seated where he wanted them, then stepped back and looked at the whole animal the way he looked at a wagon before a long haul — assessing, not admiring.
"Whiskey'll carry what he's carrying without complaint," Russ said. "Just don't turn him into something he isn't a hundred miles from home."
"Noted."
Russ wasn't quite finished. "Check his back every time you stop, even the short ones. Same for the other three. A rub starts small — you won't see it if you're not looking, and by the time you can see it, you've already got a problem that costs you days instead of minutes."
"I know how to check a back, Russ."
"I know you do. I'm saying it anyway, because you'll be tired in a week and tired men skip the small things.
" Russ tapped the side of Whiskey's neck.
"And watch what they eat. A horse that's off his feed two days running is telling you something before he's able to show you anything else.
Don't wait for him to go lame to believe him. "
"Anything else?"
"Rotate the load where you can. Don't let the same side carry the heavy end mile after mile if you can help it. Saves his back, saves yours arguing with him about it later."
David listened without interrupting, even though he already knew half of it. Russ wasn't saying it because David needed the reminder. He was saying it because riding along in words was the only way Russ had of coming with them at all.
Smokey was already up, moving between the stalls with his nose working, checking Whiskey's packs the way he checked everything before David went anywhere — not nervous, just thorough.
When he finished, he came and sat near David's boot and didn't move again.
Nobody had to explain to him that he was going. He already knew.
Curtis came in leading two Appaloosas, their coats mottled with roan patches across the hip, hooves striped in the pale early light.
David's first impression wasn't their color.
It was their legs — thick bone, big feet, built for miles of bad ground rather than a ribbon at a county fair. He liked them immediately.
One of the two stood while Curtis worked around it, patient as a fence post. The other kept nosing at Curtis's shoulder, then at his coat pocket, then leaned to investigate a loose strap on its own saddle until Curtis pushed its head away without looking.
"Good animals," David said.
"They'd better be. Bought them off a man three counties over the year before everything went sideways. Paid too much and never regretted it once."
David walked a slow circle around the nearer horse, running a hand down each leg the way he'd have done with any animal he was about to trust with a month on the road. Sound feet. Good knees. No heat anywhere he pressed.
"How old?"
"Both around nine. Old enough to know better, young enough to still have the legs for it."
"What have you done with them?"
"Hunted off both. Crossed some rough country up past the ridge line a few times, back before the roads got bad, chasing a deer that never did let me get close enough.
Worked a little cattle with them too, the two summers before everything went sideways.
" Curtis ran a hand down his neck. "This one never gave me much trouble.
I got him used to gunfire, hunted around dogs, took him over downed timber — didn't matter much.
That's why he's Karen's. She doesn't need a horse that'll argue with her all day.
She needs one that's been there before and knows his job. "
"And the other?"
"He is smarter than he ought to be, which causes its own trouble. But he's fast when it counts, and he doesn't quit on rough ground. I'd rather have that under me than under somebody who's never ridden a horse with an opinion."
David nodded. That was about as much explanation as he needed. Curtis didn't pick animals carelessly, and knowing these two had already proven themselves on ground worse than a muddy county road did more for David's confidence than the shape of their legs had.
Karen came out with her bag and a bedroll under one arm, stopping to look at the two horses.
"Which one's mine?"
Curtis nodded at the quiet one. "Him."
Karen studied the horse a moment. "Does he have a name?"
Curtis didn't answer right away.
"Curtis."
He looked at the ground like it had suddenly gotten interesting. "Waylon."
Karen looked at the second horse, already half-smiling. "And that one?"
A longer pause this time.
"Willie."
Karen looked between the two Appaloosas, then back at Curtis. "Waylon and Willie."
"They're good horses," Curtis said, like that settled the matter.
"I didn't say they weren't." Karen kept looking at him. "You name all your animals after country singers?"
"No."
She waited.
"Depends on the animal."
"I'm afraid to ask."
"Then don't," Curtis said, and went back to checking Willie's cinch like the conversation was over.
David kept working on Whiskey's lashings and didn't let himself smile where Curtis could see it.
Curtis adjusted Waylon's stirrups up two holes for Karen, checked them once she was up, and stepped back.
Karen sat the horse easily enough, not like somebody who rode often, but like somebody who'd ridden enough not to be afraid of it. She gathered the reins, found her balance, and let her weight settle before she asked anything of him.
"How do you want him?" Curtis asked.
"However he wants to be."
Curtis almost smiled at that. "Good answer."
She walked him a slow circle around the yard, turned him, backed him a couple of steps. Waylon did all of it without any fuss, ears loose, weight settled, the kind of animal that made a rider look better than they were without either of them working at it.
"He always this easy?" Karen asked.
"Until he isn't."
"That's reassuring."
"He's a horse."
David watched from beside Whiskey, checking the pack cinch one more time out of habit, and saw the same thing Curtis clearly already knew — Waylon was going to carry Karen through this trip without either of them needing to think much about the other.
That mattered more than it looked like it should.
A month on the road was a long time to spend learning to trust an animal from scratch.
Waylon stood quietly while she gathered the reins again.
Willie, meanwhile, had wandered close enough to put his nose against Karen's saddle bag where the strap hung loose.
"That's Willie," Curtis said, pulling the horse's head away by the halter.
"I'm beginning to understand the difference," Karen said.
Rebecca came out onto the porch despite what Karen had told her the night before, moving carefully, one hand on the rail, her bandaged foot still favoring the other.
She had the leather map case under one arm, wrapped in waxed cloth before that, protected against whatever weather they'd meet on the road.
"You didn't need to get up for this," Karen said.
"I wanted to."
She made her way down the porch steps one at a time, careful with the bad foot, and David crossed to meet her rather than make her walk the whole distance.
Before she handed the case over, she opened it and pulled one sheet free, holding it so only David could see it.
"This code, here." She pointed to a short string of letters near the top. "What does it tell you?"
David looked at it a second. "Origin terminal. Not the yard — where it started before it got routed to the yard."
Rebecca almost smiled. She pulled a second sheet and held it toward Karen instead. "And this one?"
Karen leaned in, studying the line Rebecca's finger rested on. "Contents code. That's the boots."