"Folks jest sort o' call me 'Yuma'—that's where I come from, Yuma."
"But everyone has to have at least two names. Don't you have any other?"
"Most o' the gents I seen around this yere Basin lays claim tuh a couple o' names an' lies when they does so." Yuma straightened and looked directly at the girl with his clear blue eyes.
"That remark," she said, "calls for a little expanding. What do you mean?"
"Oh, 'tain't nothin' tuh take offense at," the blond man said slowly. "A lot o' gents in this country left their right names east of the Mississippi, but I'd sooner not use any name than tuh borrow one that might belong tuh some other gent."
Penny feigned a bit of anger. "Do you mean to imply that Cavendish isn't our right name?"
"Aw, shucks, ma'am—nothin' like that. I reckon you an' yore relatives has a right tuh the name, but they hain't many others on this spread that was born with the handle they're usin' right now."
"Go on, Yuma. This is interesting."
Yuma saw Rangoon crossing toward the bunkhouse from the saddle shed. "Thar," he said, "goes a gent that lays claim tuh the name o' Rangoon. Last time I seen him, he called himself Abe Larkin, but he made that name sort o' dangerous by usin' it when he shot up a couple homesteaders near Snake Flats."
"You mean he's a murderer?"