"Mr. Dawson!" The boy's voice cracked. "They were here! Measuring! I — I didn't know what to do!"
"You did right, son." Reed dismounted — clapped the boy's shoulder. "Watching. That's the job."
"But — " Ned gestured — helpless — at the stakes. "What does it mean?"
"It means," Reed said — quiet, leading his horse, "that Mr. Thorne is done asking nicely."
"Are you — " Ned swallowed. "Scared?"
Reed — stopping, the yard, the dusk coming gold — considered lying. Didn't.
"Yes," he said. "But scared never stopped a Dawson yet."
"I'm not a Dawson," Ned whispered.
Reed — turning, the boy, the shotgun — looked at him long.
"Aren't you?" he said — soft. "Huh. Could've fooled me."
And Ned — seventeen, orphan, son — stood a little straighter. While the stakes stood along the river — T.C.M., neat letters — and the Rio Seco sang past them, indifferent as time.
Sunday, Reed thought — unsaddling, the rifle close.
Three days.
Supper was quiet — beans, bread, the lamp low. Ned — pushing food, thinking — finally spoke.
"Mr. Dawson? If they come — Sunday — "
"They'll come," Reed said — honest. "Men like Thorne don't bluff."
"Will we — " Ned stopped. "Will it be — like the war?"
Reed — setting down his spoon, the lamp flickering — looked at the boy. Long.
"No," he said finally. "The war was — " He paused. "Bigger. Dumber. This — " He gestured — the dark outside. "This is ours. Our river. Our say."
"Were you scared? At — " Ned hesitated. "Antietam?"
"Terrified." Reed's voice was flat, true. "Every man there was terrified. The brave ones — " He met Ned's eyes. "The brave ones were terrified and stood anyway."
"Like — " Ned whispered. "Sunday?"
"Like Sunday," Reed agreed.
After — the dishes, the rifle cleaned, the lamp low — Reed sat on the porch. Alone. And thought about cornfields. Smoke. Boys who'd talked like goodbye.
Not this time, he thought — the river singing, the stakes standing in the dark.
This time, we hold.
He remembered the cornfield — Antietam, September, the smoke so thick you breathed it. The order — forward — the men rising. The ball — hot, sudden — taking his leg.
He'd lain — hours, the mud, the screams — thinking about Mara. The ditch. Eben's hands.
Live, he'd told himself — fierce. Live, damn you.
He had. Seventeen years of limping proved it.
And now — another man — another taking — wanted what Eben built.
Reed — the porch, the rifle oiled, the stars hard — felt the old soldier wake. Not eagerly. Wearily. The way old soldiers wake.
No more cornfields, he thought — checking the action, smooth. This time, we hold ground that's ours.
The river sang. The night settled. Somewhere — north — thirty men slept by their fires.
Let them, Reed thought — grim, ready. Sleep well.
Sunday's coming.
Three days, he thought — checking the rifle once more, the action smooth.
Three days. Then Sunday.
Chapter 4 — The Trading Post
Harriet Voss's trading post was the heart of Paloma — the store, the post office, the gossip, all under one adobe roof.
She was fifty-nine, small and iron-gray, with spectacles she didn't need and a smile she rarely wasted. She'd come to Paloma twenty years back — a widow, they said, from back east. She'd bought the trading post cash. She'd stayed.
No one knew where the cash came from.
Reed found her Thursday evening — entering figures, the ledger open, the lamp low.
"Harriet."
"Reed." She didn't look up. "Thorne?"
"How did you — "
"Everyone comes to the mill eventually," she quoted — dry. "He offered?"
"Ten thousand."
"Hmm." She entered a figure. "And you said?"
"No."
"Good." She looked up — the spectacles, the sharp eyes. "He'll come Sunday. With men."
Reed — staring — said: "How do you know that?"
"Because I know Marcus Thorne." She closed the ledger — precise. "Reed. Listen. I've — " She paused. "Watched him. Twenty years." She stood — walked to the window, the dusk. "He's drowning, Reed. The notes. October." She turned. "Desperate men do desperate things."
"What notes?"
Harriet — quiet for a long moment — said: "Debts, Reed. Thorne's. Held by — " She stopped. "Someone."
"Someone?"
"Someone who's been buying them." Her voice was level. "Quietly. For years."
Reed — slowly — understood. Or began to.
"Harriet. Is that someone — "
"Sunday, Reed." She cut him off — gentle, final. "Hold till Sunday. Whatever happens — hold."
"Why Sunday?"
"Because Sunday," Harriet said — the iron showing, "is when the Santa Fe stage comes in."
She reopened the ledger — dismissed, the widow, the storekeeper.
Reed walked home — the dusk, the questions — thinking about ledgers. About twenty years. About the particular way Harriet Voss had said someone.
Hold till Sunday, she'd said.
Well, Reed thought — the rifle on his shoulder, the river singing — it's Thursday.
Three days.
I can hold.
Twenty years ago, Harriet Voss had stepped off the Santa Fe stage into dust and stared.
Paloma — then — was smaller. Poorer. The trading post — adobe, the roof sagging — had a sign: FOR SALE. The owner — old Ruiz, dying — wanted cash. Only cash.
Harriet — thirty-nine, widow's black, the east still in her voice — had counted it out. Every dollar. All she had left in the world.
Where it came from — no one asked. No one asks a widow in black.