“Demery?”

There was no answer. His eyes moved from one end of the low-ceilinged room to the other, past Demery’s open roll-top desk, past the plank table where the stage passengers ate to the small mahogany-stained bar. The dimness was a relief after the outside glare. It was quiet here, restful, and momentarily it occurred to Willis Falvey that perhaps he might stay here instead of riding all the way to Fuegos.

No, he thought then. He would want to remain all night, and that could prove embarrassing. Not like at Fuegos where he could drink all he wanted in the privacy of a hotel room-in what passed for a hotel room-then sleep it off.

Well, he could have one here…at least one. He called for Demery again, waited, then walked to the bar and poured himself a whisky. This would be the start. Perhaps by this evening he would have forgotten, for a time, Frank Renda and the convict camp and his wife, Lizann.

A horse whinnied-the sound coming from the backyard where the corral was located-then Karla’s voice.

Falvey listened, then drank down the whisky. He left the bar, walked through the kitchen, and from the back door saw Karla outside. She was rubbing down one of the relay horses in the shade of the long, main stable that extended out from the back of the adobe almost to the corral.

Willis Falvey’s eyes raised suddenly. No, there was nothing there; but for a moment he thought he had seen someone standing on the far side of the mesquite-pole corral.

“Karla.”

She looked up, seeing Falvey coming out from the adobe, his gaze shifting now and again to the corral. He was unnaturally conscious of himself, she knew, and he had to be occupied when he thought someone was looking at him-even if it was only to glance at corralled horses. The few times he had been here before, Karla noticed this-his obviously self-conscious actions, his almost complete lack of anything to say-and in a way she felt sorry for him. He was out of place at the convict camp, especially as government superintendent, and Karla was sure he realized it more than anyone else.