“About you keeping off this ranch?”
Duffy nodded. Rock could understand his watchfulness.
“Shucks! I’ve changed my mind about caring a whoop whether you come here, there, or the other place,” Rock said slowly, “so long as you act white. But there’s something I do want to tell you, Duffy. Up the river yesterday somebody took a pot shot at me. Nona heard it.”
He looked at her. For a second her face was a study. Would she play up to his lead? Rock didn’t know himself precisely why he did this, except that instinctively he took the opening Duffy gave him.
But her words came with sharp emphasis. Her wits were nimble.
“I heard the shot. I didn’t see who fired.”
“I don’t like to be shot at from ambush,” Rock said pointedly.
“You say I’d do that? Did do that?”
A rising inflection put an edge in Duffy’s tone. The tan of his long, homely face went a brick red.