Who were they? was the question: Watching from the windows as they had waited for the Indian, Moon and Bren Early with their glasses on the riders raising dust across the old pasture.

“Seven, eight,” Bren Early said. “Like cowpunchers heading for town.”

“Starting to hang back, sniff the air,” Dana Moon said. What did those people out there know, looking this way? First, trailing Apaches with a horse herd and a white woman. Then, seeing a man in a derby hat riding off with her. They would have to be confused.

“They traded shots,” Bren Early said and paused, thinking, Then what? “If they wanted the horses, why didn't they take 'em?”

Which was about where Moon was in his own mind. “Say they did, and left somebody with the herd. How many you count, Bo?”

“Ten,” Bo Catlett said. “Coulda been another one.”

“And they saw you for sure.”

“Couldn't miss us-time I got the lady turned around.”

“They're cowhands,” the McKean girl said, with that edge to her tone again, not feeling very rescued crowded into this adobe room with four men and animals. She had moved up by Moon's window and stood close to him, seeing the hard bump in his jaw, wondering if he would ever spit; then would look over at Bren Early, maybe admiring his long wavy hair, or the tight, shrunk-looking suit molded to his tall frame. Squinting out the window, she said, “You can tell by the look of them, the way they ride.”

Still, the McKean girl had to admit-without saying it aloud-it was a bunch of riders for not having any cows, and moving south at that, not like they were heading home from a drive.

“There was a man used to sell us beef at San Carlos,” Moon said. “I believe the name was Sundeen.” Still watching through his glasses, seeing the riders at four hundred yards now, spreading out more as they came at a choppy walk, not a sound from them yet.