The Overlanders Read Online Free Page B

his cheeks but Grete’s hard stare was too much for him. He wheeled around and stamped over to the kid’s pony, slammed aboard and rode off.
    The kid, studying Farraday, filled a tin at the tailgate, got himself a scald of java and hunkered down beside the fire. Grete felt the girl’s regard, but kept his glance on the cook, now viciously scraping at his ovens with a fire hook. Grete said to the kid, “Thought there was two of you out with those horses.”
    “Rip’s got his eats with him.”
    It occurred to Grete he would be a heap smarter to get this deal down on paper but he was leery of mentioning this lest the girl, perhaps already regretting it, make of the suggestion an excuse to back out. He watched her get up and drop her things in the wreck pan. He looked away when she wheeled, ignoring her approach.
    “Could I bother you a moment?”
    He said ungraciously, “What is it?”
    “Come over to the wagon.”
    She took his arm when they got into the dark. This bothered him too. He resented the ease with which she made him aware of her. She felt his antagonism and stopped, stepping back from him. She fetched a crackle of paper from a pocket of her riding skirt. “We might as well do this right while we’re at it.”
    The paper was folded around the stub of a pencil. He took it into the light, the twist of a smile tugging his lips as he read. It was his side of the bargain, making over half the ranch in exchange for half the stock and the rights vested in him as trail boss. He masked his elation, appearing to hesitate. Coming back, he said, “And the part I’m to keep?” She held it out and they swapped. “Was it a steal you ran from,” he said, “or a killing?”
    Her chin came up. “I don’t recall asking you.”
    He felt it go into him, gaff, shaft, and haul rope. Whatever else she might be this girl was no fool. He glared, halfway hating her. “What’s that kid doing here?”
    “Weren’t you ever his age?”
    He had no patience with sentiment. “I must have been loco to tie myself up with this kind of outfit!” He looked at her bitterly, catching dead-on the frozen stare she sent back to him.
    “I don’t care what you think — what you’ve been, even. But there is one thing I won’t tolerate from you and that’s treachery!”
    It brought him up short.
    He thought in that moment to catch a flutter of hoofs, but with the wind pirootin’ round and her paying no attention he supposed he must have imagined it. He said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Stein’s Pass.”
    “What about it?”
    “I heard what you said.” Her eyes were on him narrowly. “How else do you propose to get through those mountains?”
    He reckoned again to be hearing that faint plop of hoof sound and twisted his head without adding to his knowledge. He swung back to her. “You hear anything?”
    “Let’s stay with the steer we’ve got hold of.”
    The sound came to Farraday plainly then, nearer now, almost up to the camp, but the freight of anger and suspicion in her tone dragged his caution away from it. “There’s a trail,” he said, “through from Animas —”
    “Forty miles out of our way,” she said flatly.
    “For an outsider, by God, you’ve got some mighty queer savvy.”
    Her chin tipped up. “Wait over there,” she called, lifting her voice. “I’ll be through here directly.” Her eyes came back to Grete. “What is there at Stein’s you’re so scared to face up to?”
    Farraday reddened. “Not scared,” he said. “It just don’t make sense —”
    “Then I’ll see if we can’t find some!” She brushed past him sort of panting and went, half-running, toward the fire.
    Farraday, tramping after her, was riled enough to taste it when the shape of the horse drawn up by the wagon turned out to be Idaho. Grete heard her say to the man as he stepped into the firelight, “Is there any good reason for avoiding Stein’s Pass?”
    The gunfighter, hunching thin shoulders, gave