Sanchez crossed himself. He knew the man’s feet, his boots, his spurs. Not so long ago he had tied those feet under a horse’s belly.
Sanchez coursed like a questing hound for the sign. Many tracks of horses. A loose horse without the Fishhook brand. All of which made mystery enough.
“Miss Taisie,” demanded Milly, “You’se all a-trimble, chile! Who dat man? Who him were standin’ thah?”
She caught the hand Taisie had against her bosom, the hand that covered her temple.
“No! I don’t know!” she heard her mistress say.
But Jim Nabours was harder to satisfy when he came in soon after sunup, his face lined as though he had lost pounds in the night ride. He cursed openly as he snatched loose his cinches and turned off his trembling and sweat-stained night horse. Then he turned to Taisie, who had come over to the men’s camp.
“Who done it?” he demanded. “You a-shooting at some shadow? Look what you done! We get this run, just when they was gentling. I thought you was a cow hand!”
The girl was on the point of saying that, yes, she had shot; that she was sorry. She put a hand to her temple. . . . He had kissed her there.
“Jim, I did not shoot.”
“Who did, then? That fool nigger woman? You—Milly?”