“Get your water out of the river?” he asked.
“No. There’s a spring by those willows to the right.”
Rock found the spring, a small pool bubbling out of white sand, clear as crystal and cold as ice. He filled the pails and brought them back. The girl was peeling potatoes when he came in. Sliced bacon sizzled in a pan.
Rock went to the stable by the river bank, unsaddled the three horses, took off his pack, fed and watered all four. When he reached the house again supper was on the table. They ate in silence. The sun filled the valley with the fire of its last beams. Bright shafts shot dazzling through the windows, a yellow blaze that grew red and then rose pink and faded into a pearly gray. Yellow-haired Betty laid down her spoon, slid off her chair, climbed on Rock’s knee, and snuggled her round face against his shirt. In two minutes she was fast asleep.
The girl, who had been sitting with her eyes absently on her plate, smiled briefly—a phantom smile that strangely transformed her face.
She was young to have a kid like that, Rock thought. And it was tough losing a man by the gun route. Was it going to be his lot to step into the breach? If—if—— Well, he had to get to the bottom of this, somehow. Here was a fellow who looked exactly like him, same build, same age, same features, shot down in a river bottom. It smelled of ambush. The Seventy Seven was less than an hour’s ride to the west. And Elmer Duffy was running the Seventy Seven. For the moment the Maltese Cross and Buck Walters and the mission he had undertaken for Uncle Bill Sayre had no place in Rock’s mind.
The girl took the baby out of his arms and carried her off into a bedroom. Rock put away these reflections and gathered the dishes off the table and began to wash them.
“I might as well earn my night’s lodging,” he murmured whimsically, probably to hide the fact that he was moved by a desire to make his sympathy take some practical form.
The girl reappeared, put the food away in a pantry, took a cloth, and wiped the dishes as Rock washed. She made no comment. She moved quickly, and efficiently. Her hands were deft. But her mind was elsewhere. She was scarcely conscious of him, Rock perceived. And when the supper things were finished, he went outside and sat down on a chopping block to smoke a cigarette in the twilight.