earth. There were no fences anywhere to enclose the wide ranges of hard buffalo grass. Aspen clothed the river edges and willow slanted out over the water. It was all that he expected and it was intact. He could live with everything he saw and he was at a good age to start living.
The first thing to buy was a gun to buckle to his hip.
When the hooves of a single rider beat on the ground Latigo walked out into sunlight. The rider swept up the draw and reined within yards of the house. He was young, hard-faced and lean, like any one of the three who had ridden away from the sheriff’s office. He sat upright in the saddle while Latigo approached then leaned forward, elbow on the horn, and stared, eyes deepset under straight eyebrows but cold, his brown-skinned face clear and lighted. Latigo was sure he was one of the three, all had the same empty depth about the eyes, all seemed ready to squeeze the trigger, all had the look that came from never trusting, never being trusted.
“What can I do for you, stranger?”
He had placed the Winchester rifle in the gun rack inside the door, his first act of possession, so he was unarmed. The man on the horse wore a gun on each thigh. The rider stared, not taking his eyes from Latigo’s face. He straightened and clasped the saddle horn with both hands. “You the owner around here?” he asked; a question only, with no real interest in any kind of answer.
“That’s right.”
“Name of Lansen?”
“Something you want?”
“I got what I came for, Mister Lansen.”
Latigo stood forward and looked up so the man on the horse could see his face. “A good look at me. Is that what you came for?”
The rider did not answer. He stared longer then wheeled the horse. Latigo watched him ride down the draw and out of sight. He whistled and the gelding stretched a long neck out over the corral fence. He carried the saddle to the rail.
At the livery stable he said: “Can I borrow your buck-board? Got lots of stuff to hitch out.”
“Where you at, mister?”
“Lansen ranch.”
“Sure. Hitch up one of the work horses. You’ll find the wagon out back.”
In the general store Ed Harrison listened and nodded his head. “Can give you almost any kind of gun being used. You name it, mister. Almost sure to have it.”
“A Colt would suit.”
“Got a real nice pistol handy. Reckon one’s all you want.”
“Only takes one gun to kill a man.”
“Who’re you aiming to kill, son?”
“The fellow who’s aiming to kill me.”
“You’re sure somebody is?”
“It’ll turn out that way.”
Harrison laid the Colt six-gun on the glass-topped showcase and moved to the front of the store as the doorbell tinkled. Latigo selected a gunbelt and buckled the leather so the hang and feel were right. He was opening the chamber of the gun when the fair-haired woman came in and he turned to wait and to watch. There was no fury behind her eyes. She did not wear a hat and her yellow hair was plaited in a thick rope and bound up at the back. She wore a short fringed and beaded buckskin jacket and was still the finest looking woman he’d seen.
But she rode a high horse. Someday somebody would take her down a peg or two and when it happened dust would cloud the air inside the corral and there’d be noise and anger and she’d be hurt. He looked away before their eyes could meet.
“Father needs tobacco,” she said carelessly to Harrison.
Latigo picked up bullets and handled the six-gun. She walked to where he stood. “There’s something I’d like to know,” she said.
He touched his hat to her. “Yes, ma’am?”
“You saw the fight yesterday, Joe Erskine and Ben Nevin. . .”
“Yes, ma’am. I saw the fight.”
She remembered what he had said to her, how he had looked at her and the movement of his body as he swung himself easily up into the saddle. She had been troubled all day afterwards because she wasn’t sure that he was only what he looked like, a cowhand on a horse, something you see every day of the year; men who rode from town to town or spread to spread for sometimes less than thirty dollars a month and keep, putting down no roots, running with the cattle, growing lean and hard and lined and, with loneliness shining out of their eyes, being spoiled forever for anything else because the promise of men had been beaten out of them. So far he hadn’t been to the ranch to ask for work but if he was a cowhand he would come. They always did.
“What were they fighting about?”
“Didn’t ask, ma’am.”
“But you were there. You saw it.”
“Still didn’t ask. Figured it was none of my business.”
“It’s my business,” she said sharply.
He ignored the heat in her voice and the ring of command. He thrust a bullet into the chamber with unusual slowness. “That doesn’t make it mine, ma’am.”
She could have been angered by that and chose not to be though the edge on her voice remained.
“Did you see anything. . . and don’t tell me you saw them fighting. I know that much.”
The feel of the pistol was smooth and clean and comforting, different from the Winchester; closer to you and more like a part of you; an arm, maybe, or a hand. In Gila Bend a gun could be a friend.
“Saw what I was looking at.”
Her breasts rose with a sharp intake of breath. He found her eyes uncertain, ready to be exasperated but afraid. “You’re not on a horse now, ma’am,” he said calmly. “Wouldn’t talk down to people if I were you.”
She didn’t look away and the wrath didn’t rise. “Are you a cowhand, looking for work? If you are I can help you.”
“No, ma’am.”
She was disappointed. “You’re stubborn!” she said.
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m stubborn.”
“I’ve broken horses before, mister!”
He placed the last bullet and with a twist of the fingers spun the chamber. “Ever break men?”
Her eyes did not leave his face. She should have flared up by now. He was surprised that she hadn’t. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I’ve broken men. I did it with a whip in my hand.”
“I guess they never fought back, ma’am.”
“I had the whip!”
He recognised
