“He went far, no doubt, Corazon,” said old 13 Anita comfortably. “He goes so fast on El Rey that time as well as distance flies beneath the shining hoofs.”
Anita was like her people, mystic and soft-spoken.
“True,” said the girl gently, “I forget, El Rey is mighty. He went very far I make no doubt. We’ll hear him comin’ soon.”
Then she poured steaming coffee in the cups about the table, smiling down in the eyes upturned to hers. Billy, Curly, Bent Smith, Jack Masters and Conford, the foreman, they all had a love-look for her, and the girl felt it like a circling guerdon. She was grateful for the sense of security that seemed to emanate from her father’s riders, a bit wistful withal, as if, for the first time in her life, she needed something more than she had always had.
“Which way did Dad go, Billy?” she asked, “north or south?”
“North,” said Billy, “he rode th’ Cup Rim range today.”
When the meal, a trifle silent in deference to Tharon’s silence, was done, the men rose awkwardly. They stood a moment, looking about, undecided.
Conford picked them up with his eyes and nodded out. He felt that just maybe the girl 14 would rather be alone. But Tharon stopped the reluctant egress.
“Don’t go, boys,” she said, “come on in th’ room. There’s no moon tonight.” But she did not play on the melodeon. Instead she sat in the deep window that looked over the rolling uplands and was quiet, listening.
“Turn out th’ light, Bent,” she said, “somehow I feel like shadows tonight.”