High on the first prow, wedding bag under the backless seat and the sun softening the wool of her dress, Ma leaned in front of Hattie Lampson and spoke to the driver. The ranch, with no men left behind and guarded only by the Indian child, had disappeared down its faraway indentation in the glazed sand.
“Swing us a little to the other way. I sense it more to the right.”
The woman sawed the reins.
Thus they traveled a dog’s pace on an enormous field that once, perhaps, had been cultivated with shrub, tree and herb, now extinct, which swelled before their eyes at moments with a few head of cattle, with larvae that clustered and disappeared. Not another rider or wagon train crossed their path.
Ma held her hand clasped to her eyes and peered through the thin red line between her fingers. She sat high, a gunman who had crossed the route for forty years on a rocking coach.
“A mighty lot of you turned up.”
“Yep,” said the driver.
“Hattie,” Ma spoke louder, “I’m much obliged. Since you changed your mind.”
The mother of the Lampson boys said nothing, seated in the open heat between a woman almost married to her own son and another still married after rearing five grown men. For Hattie Lampson was taken during the trip to town. Her flat, boneless nose was cold. She nodded.
“Clare by dark,” said Ma to the driver, “maybe sooner.” She shifted. Her long skirts pulled, and she changed her chin to the other hand.