The Kentuckian crouched, alert, Anse beside him now, both listening for any suspicious sound. At last they huddled into their clothes, hurried back to the bunkhouse. Bartolomé was there waiting for them.
"You Tejanos—" There was no pretense of friendliness in his hail. "The patrón will see you, pronto!"
They went, tugging their clothing into order as they paused outside the door. Drew rapped, took the sound from within as an invitation, and pushed aside the heavy oak planks.
Outwardly the room was unchanged. No one had moved those old Spanish chests, the skin rugs, the table, since his last visit there. But he had the feeling that it was chill now, cold, as if a hearth fire had been allowed to die into ashes. Perhaps that thought crossed his mind because Hunt Rennie stood by the fireplace moving the toe of his boot back and forth across a smear of gray powder. His back greeted them unwelcomingly, and the silence lengthened uncomfortably until Drew did as he always had and met the unpleasant head-on.
"You wanted us, suh?" It was like being back in the army. Even his arm twitched as if some muscle was activated by memory to make one of those informal military salutes the scouts favored.
Hunt Rennie did turn now. His eyes leveled on them. In the light of the candles his cheeks looked even more hollow tonight, and he moved stiffly as might a man who[pg 120] was not only bone-tired in body, thought Drew, but weary in mind as well.
"You are Anson Kirby?" he addressed the Texan first.
"Yes, suh." Anse, too, must be caught up in the same web of memory. That was his old report-to-the-commanding-officer voice.
"I understand you two thought it necessary to take on some troopers in the Jacks."
What was the proper reply to that? Drew wondered. Probably it was best to follow the old army rule of keep the mouth shut, never volunteer, no explanations. If Hunt Rennie had had the story from Topham or Nye, he already knew how the fight began.