[I]
Jack Tesno had been riding into the timbered Cascade Mountains since dawn. Now, consulting a biscuit-thick Raymond watch, he reined off the writhing new supply road and followed a creek through the pines till he found a sun-freckled ellipse of grass that would make a suitable nooning place.
Knowing that his blue roan wouldn't stray from this spot of pasture, he unsaddled the animal and turned it loose, reins dragging. He dug cold biscuits and a wedge of cheese from his saddlebags and lunched stoically; a lean, catlike man with eyes the color of blue agate and a splash of gray in his black hair that made him look older than his thirty-two years. He lay on his belly to drink of the flashing mountain water. Then, impulsively, he peeled off his clothing and plunged into the stream. He bathed himself, splashing and rolling like a boy, lying still in the icy current till he began to feel numb. Teeth chattering, he found a sunny place on the bank and stretched out in faintly warm grass. After a while he felt a part of something big and good, and the affairs of man seemed of little consequence.
It didn't really matter much of a hoot, if the railroad got pushed across these mountains on schedule, he decided. Not when you lay with the earth against your skin and the sun drying you from a pine-fringed patch of sky. What mattered was that you made up your mind to see the job through—to lay your life on the line, if necessary, to do your part in pushing it through. That was the difference between you and weaker men.
When you come right down to it, he thought, that's all I get paid for—making up my mind.
Troublebuster, the contractors called him. The job embraced a score of delicate and dangerous tasks, but on the whole he thought of himself as a peace officer without legal status. He found himself forever laying down the law to tough and often influential men: usually when there was no law to lay down except what he made up to fit the circumstances. He had long since ceased to be surprised that he could get away with this. Yet he knew he could not get away with it forever.
Making up my mind, he thought. A strange process. He knew what he would decide, he guessed, but it took a little time and a little solitude to do it.
He was on his way to see old Ben Vickers about a job. It was a top-paying job. That meant it would be a tough one. Yet he didn't need the money badly. He had stashed away enough for the start in the cattle business he had always wanted. I ought to quit, he thought. Now, before I get a bullet in the guts or a pick-point between the shoulder blades, or maybe just crack under the strain and wind up in the foolish house....
The sound of hoofs, muffled on the soft forest floor, brought him to his feet. He reached for his clothes as a rider wove through the trees and reined to a halt. The man was young, round-faced, and freckled. He wore boots, jeans, and a faded checked shirt. He was plainly startled by Tesno's nudity. He pushed his Stetson to the back of his head to reveal a shock of dark red hair.