The Wagonmaster stared at them through narrowed eyes and sucked in his cheeks. "Nice-looking lady like you always has something to barter."
Valentine watched cords pop out on Duvalier's neck. She glared at the Wagonmaster.
He lost the staring contest and shrugged. "But charity's always been my middle name. Okay, looks like I might be out two horses. How's this: if what you say is true, as far as I'm concerned the information is worth two good horses. If you're wrong, I'll be relieved but expecting either their return or payment. Tell Mr. Hendricks that a couple calfs out of one of those big reds he breeds would be adequate. Sound like a deal?"
Valentine looked at Duvalier. "Deal," they said in unison.
"I'll even throw in saddle blankets. Sorry I can't do any better, good tack is hard to come by. We ain't short of leather by a long shot, but good saddle makers are rare."
"Do you have any idea where we can find the Eagles?" Valentine asked.
"You aren't leaving now? It's getting dark in an hour or so."
"Afraid so, sir," Valentine said.
"Hope you know what you're doing. Hard riding in the dark is a good way to lose a horse. The Eagles are about forty miles northwest of here. It's calving time, so they're in a good anchorage, with water and wood under one of the big ridges."
"And where's that?" Valentine asked.
"Go dead northwest until you come to a big ridge, runs the whole skyline, a good ten or fifteen miles long it is. If you hit a little stream, turn left; if not, turn right. They're at the head of that little stream. You should see the cattle a long way off-Eagle's got thousands."
"Thank you, sir," Duvalier said.
"Good luck to you, Mr. Lawson," Valentine added.
Lawson began barking out orders, and his men hurried to comply.
"Nice diplomacy, Smoke," Valentine said as they left the wagon with one of Lawson's riders. "Never would have guessed you had it in you."
She squeezed his hand. "You'd be surprised at what I've done with my mouth, if it gets me where I need to go."
They rode out at nightfall, heading northwest. Valentine's stomach sometimes got ahead of his brain, and his insides were doing flip-flops from fatigue. And he had a new worry. When they dismounted from the improvised, blanket-and-rope saddles to walk the horses for a while, Valentine's concerns finally made it to his voice box. "I don't get it, Ali. How does he know so exactly where the Eagle's Wing camp is? They camp in different spots every year, don't they? You said Bar Seven and the Eagles aren't even friendly."
She stopped for a second, then shook her head.
"Valentine, their horsemen range pretty far. Hunting, rounding up strays. Sometimes looking for other Trekkers' strays, if I know the Bar Seven. He gave us the horses, didn't he? If he were in cahoots with the Twisted Cross, which is what you're suggesting, why not just hand us over to them, dead or alive? They had a good twenty guns hanging around those wagons, and their men know how to use them. We wouldn't have had a chance. Stop being paranoid. The Bar Seven are on the shady side of the line, sure, but I've never heard of one group of Trekkers betraying another. Every other Trekker brand would come down on them from every direction but up, and they'd try that if their horses could jump high enough. It'd mean the death of-"
"Enough. You win. You get hold of a man's ear so he has to chew it off to end the arguments."
The hard miles crossing the Dunes left Valentine's brain swimming. He finally convinced himself that the disquieting feeling he had from the Bar Seven came from lack of sleep.
They cold-camped for a couple of hours, deciding rest was more important than hot food. Duvalier kept his spirits up by promising him a sizzling steak on their finding the Eagle camp. While the horses cropped grass, they shared a soda-cracker-and-cheese meal that brought them back to their first journey together.
At noon the next day, they caught sight of their destination. Lawson was not kidding about the ridge. The grassy monster loomed like a tidal wave over little lines and clusters of trees at its base, following the eastward-flowing stream he described. Herds of cattle were scattered on the floor of the valley and the steep slopes of the dune.
Valentine traced the base of the hillside with his binoculars. At last he spotted it, an irregular triangle of wagons parked on a hummock at the base of the hill. The base of the triangle spread out as a concave arc, and the peak trailing up the hillside. On top of the ridge, like the mast of a ship, an observation post stood on a single trunk of timber. He whistled in appreciation.
"You don't know the half of it, Val," Duvalier said. "They've got other herds we can't even see. Counting all the families, there're over sixteen hundred people in this traveling circus. There's about a five cows to every person."
"What about that steak," Valentine said, training his binoculars across the red and red-white herds.
"Coming right up, sir," she said, touching her heels to the horse's sides lightly. Their horses broke into a trot, catching the smell of their kind coming from the three-sided enclosure.
On closer inspection, the wagon laager was even more impressive. Hundreds of wagons made a wall centered on the little spring in the hummock.
"They have three kinds of wagons," Duvalier explained as they cut through the herds. A bull or two stared at them, but most of the cows took no notice. Valentine noticed a lot of calves-a few still knock-kneed newborns-dutifully trailing behind their mothers. "Most of them live in little house-wagons, which they told me are based on Gypsy wagons, whatever Gypsies are. No, I don't want any history lessons, Val. Those are drawn by horses. Then there are the supply-wagons; those are the ones with the big rear wheels and the small front ones. They take oxen because of the heavy load, sometimes as many as sixteen. Most of what you see on the walls are those or the long battle-wagons. The battle-wagons are drawn by draft horse teams, and when they stop anywhere for longer than a day or so, they fortify. The battle-wagons have sheets of metal that they put on the outer face, joined kind of like double-paned windows, with rifle loopholes. They fill the space between the aluminum sheets with sand. The kids even help with this. They have little shovels and buckets they carry. In the space of an afternoon, they can build a pretty substantial wall by hooking the wagons together, and within a couple of days, they have trenches dug and the walls filled in."
As they grew closer, Valentine saw the battle-wagon scheme in practice. The triangular fort even had little mini-forts at the corners, clusters of four wagons projecting out like towers at a castle's corner, covering the main gate.