"So why are you telling me all this?"
"Well, there are two reasons. First, because it might be dangerous. After all, we're following a few men who have stolen, what, a dozen cattle at least? That we know of?"
More than that, Catherine thought. She nodded.
"So it could be I get caught. I don't plan on it, and I'm pretty good at staying out of people's way, but I don't want to take any risks with it, and I don't want it so nobody knows where I'll be."
"And the other?"
"I'm not going to be able to go too far with just followin' 'em, you know? Eventually, I'm gonna have to find my way to someplace they would get rid of the steers. They ain't likely to keep 'em, after all, not with the brands and earmarks showin' that they's stolen."
"I'm not sure what you're saying."
"Well, the problem is, that's not something I know too much about. I would need someone to show me where to go to research that kinda thing, and that's where you come in."
Twelve
Glen rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes. He couldn't sleep yet. Night guard was hardly a position he wanted to play. Then again, doing the right thing always meant doing something he didn't want to do. He wouldn't regret it in the end, if it meant that he caught the people responsible for stealing Catherine's cattle.
He realized after a moment that he had considered her things before he had considered his own, and wondered at that for a moment. But there wasn't much worrying to be done. After all, he did what he had to do, and that was that. Whether it was for himself, or for her, didn't much matter.
What mattered was that it needed doing, and he was going to be the one to do it. At first he didn't know if he was seeing anything. He couldn't afford any lights. Nothing that would let someone on the outside know that he was there. He'd been trying hard to still his breathing, still his movements, pressed back into a haystack.
Just more inky blackness in the black night, too dark to see anything, and never still for an instant. There was always something out there, something that was moving and trying to survive. The fact that he was only looking for one very specific thing, trying to do something very different, meant that he was relying on his eyes and relying on the fact that if he didn't catch them today, then it was only a matter of time.
But then he heard the sound of wood moving on wood, the soft creak of the block going up. Whoever was doing it was being careful—he didn't hear it come down on the peg on the other side of the gate, even as his ears strained against the night.
He looked harder, staying perfectly still. He didn't go for his gun. A gunfight in this darkness would only turn into trouble. He settled his hand on it anyways. He didn't want a fight. He would surrender if he thought it would save him, if they caught him there. But that might not have been a possibility.
There were three, at least. Two stood guard by the gate. He could barely make them out, but the fact that they were in near-constant motion helped to make out their movements. Their heads were swiveling from side to side, scanning the horizon too quickly to see anything clearly.
They'd catch movement, though, if it was there to be seen, and that was all they needed. The rifles in their arms were all Glen needed to see to know that he shouldn't pick a fight with them. It wouldn't be a little thing, a case of shooting a few warning shots and having them run off into the night.
They'd be shooting back, and he wouldn't be able to wing 'em and hope for the best. A gunfight between them would be them or him. He weighed his odds, and realized that he liked them. That is, of course, if he was itching to kill a body. He'd already had enough taste of that.
The cows they took were small. His. Two of them. The three men hurried them along, got back up onto their horses, and as Glen watched them go, he took in a deep breath. His night was just beginning.
Catherine stepped out of her room and had to stifle a shout. She had to remind herself that she couldn't wake the children. They still needed their sleep, but if she was up, then she was up. And so, it seemed, was Glen Riley. Not only was he up, he was sitting on her sofa, a single candle lit and his hands resting on his knees.
"You think you could pour me a cup of your delicious coffee, Ma'am?"
"What are you doing in here?"
Part of her didn't mind that he was there, but another part of her mind was churning with questions. He had never come in without her permission before, except to pop his head in a minute to tell her if he was leaving the property. That he had come in, while she was sleeping, and waited there in the dark…
"I'll talk to you about it in a minute. Over coffee."
She noticed him rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers, watched those rubbing fingers move to the sides of his head. If he'd slept, it hadn't been much. The man looked like he'd been through hell.
She decided not to question it. If he wanted to tell her what was going on, then he would. If not, then she wouldn't quest
ion it. It wasn't her place to question, anyways. She wasn't his woman, the dreams she'd had last night—and more than once in the nights before that—notwithstanding.
Instead, she pulled on her apron and got busy. A few cracked eggs, a couple thick slices of bacon, and the coffee. A few easy minutes later she dropped the plate in front of him, fishing a fork out of her pocket.
"Here you go." She busied herself turning on the oil lamps around the house, since the sun was still barely creeping over the horizon. "You look tired."
"They're going north. I followed them for 'round three hours before I lost the trail. Past where they would have turned around, if it were a trick, I think."