“Isn’t that it?” said Fielding.
Roe twisted his mouth and did not offer another comment.
Fielding picked up the conversation. “Things go on. I was over and saw Selby earlier. Just talkin’ about things in general. I’ve got another trip to go on in a couple of days, and I thought I’d check with you others before I take off.”
Roe rubbed his face and said, “Not much goin’ on right now. I think everyone’s sittin’ tight after what’s happened.”
“Seems like. You know, when I talked to Selby a couple of days ago, he was all for stickin’ together, but now it looks like he’s hunkerin’ down.”
“Suppose so.” Roe lifted the cigarette and smoked it down to the last pinch.
“It’s all right with me. I just like to know how things stand.”
“Hard to know.” The old hat lowered as Roe dropped the cigarette butt and stepped on it. He had his tongue between his lips as he looked up.
Fielding felt as if he was still missing a piece. “Has something else happened, or has this thing with Lodge got everyone down?”
Roe moved his mouth and then spoke. “Maybe either or both.”
“Something new, then?”
The pale brown eyes held on him for a few seconds. “That kid Mahoney died yesterday. You know he got shot.”
“I heard that, but I also heard no one was sayin’ how or where.”
“All the same, you don’t know whether it’s goin’ to give them reason to do something more.”
Fielding saw it all in a moment. Not only did Selby and Roe not want anything to come back on them, but if they sat tight enough, it might come only to the man who was assumed to have fired the shots at Mahoney. Selby and Roe were all for sticking together when they needed Fielding’s help, but now when it looked as if he might be marked, he was on his own. Not only was Lodge’s prediction true, but so was another comment that Fielding had not forgotten. Susan Buchanan herself had told him in her polite way that it was not worth it to stick up for people who probably wouldn’t do the same for him. And that was the way things stood now.
“Maybe they will try something,” Fielding said. “At least I know more than I did before.”
“I thought Bill might have told you.”
“No, we didn’t get around to that.”
“Well, I didn’t like the little snot myself. The way he started that fight.”
“It wasn’t the only one. But I guess he’s done now.”
“A lot of good it did him.” Roe twisted his head in an odd kind of exercise, and then with a quickened tone he said, “Oh, here’s Bel.”
Fielding turned to see Isabel. She was wearing a dark blue dress and dark shoes, and her hair hung loose as it often did. Her eyes sparkled and her clean teeth showed as she spoke.
“Hello, Tom. I thought I heard voices.”
“We were just talkin’,” said her father.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Nothin’ to it.”
“That’s right,” said Fielding. “And I think we were just about done, weren’t we?”
“I guess,” said Roe. He had taken out his pocketknife and opened it, and now he clicked it shut and put it away.
“It’s good you came out,” said Fielding. “I was getting ready to leave.”
“Well, I can walk along with you as far as the road.”
“I won’t complain.” Fielding looked at Roe, who had taken out his tobacco sack and was opening the drawstring. “Thanks for the talk,” said Fielding.
“You bet. Be careful, now.”
“I will.” Fielding turned the horse and fell in beside Isabel.
After they had walked a few yards, she said, “I’m glad you stopped in today.”
He made a smile. “I’m sorry if I’m not in a cheery mood.”
“I heard some of it. Papa doesn’t want to have much to do with anything, does he?”
“He and Bill Selby both. I guess I can’t blame them much.”
“They seemed to appreciate your help when they needed it.”
“I think they did. But other things have happened since then. Richard Lodge, and then this kid Mahoney. You heard about that?”
Isabel nodded, and the shine of the sun moved on her dark hair. Her eyes had a pained expression and then relaxed.
“I can’t say I’m very sorry,” Fielding went on. “He was the one who pushed Ed Bracken into the gunfight, and I’m pretty sure he got shot when he opened fire on me and killed my horse.”
She put her hand on his arm as they continued walking. “No one can blame you for that.”
“No, but they might want to get even. I think that’s part of why Selby and your father want to lie low.”
“I’m glad you’re not like that.”
“Thanks. It’s just not a pretty spot to be in.”
“You’re your own man,” she said. “You stick up for yourself. Maybe someone else doesn’t like it, but it counts a lot with me.”
“Thanks for that, too.”
They walked to the end of the lane and turned to each other. Fielding cast a glance toward the yard and saw her father gazing in their direction. With his left hand, Fielding took off his hat and held it as a shield as he leaned forward to kiss her.
As they parted he said, “So long for now. I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Be careful. And I’ll be thinking of you, too.”
He led the bay out a few steps, checked the rigging, and swung aboard. He turned in the saddle to wave, and he caught her smile.
The glow stayed with him for a while, but the meetings with Roe and Selby came back to remind him of how things stood. He was on his own now. He had no one to blame. It was of his own making, and he had to face what would come. This whole feud had moved from push and shove to bullets and blood, and it wasn’t likely to go away by itself.
Chapter Twelve
The broad, bladelike part of the needle glinted in the morning sunlight as Fielding pushed the instrument through the canvas. Then he reached around, grasped the tip, and pulled the needle the rest of the way until the thread was tight. He looped the thread over the seam and poked the needle in place again. Tucking his elbow against his side, he moved his right hand so that the eye end of the needle rested in one of the steel pits in the buttonlike thimble, which was set in a leather strap that ran across his palm. He made sure the needle was straight, then pushed with the heel of his hand until the shiny tip broke through again.
When Isabel had first given him the needle, he thought it might be large and dangerous for his purposes, but now that he was trying it out, he could see it was safer than the smaller one, which sometimes went off course and jabbed him in the finger as he held the fabric.
He worked his way along the seam, repairing the rip in the sheet of canvas. From time to time, the blade of the needle flashed. Fielding imagined a sailmaker, sitting at a workbench in a sunny seaport town, working beneath a blue sky as white sails filled the harbor like so many leaves in an aspen grove. He pictured a bearded sailmaker in a knit cap, with barrels of flour and molasses stacked on the wharves in the background, as in a painting. On the ships in the harbor, sailors pulled on ropes, tied knots. Cowboys of the seas, he had heard them called, weathered men who sang songs as they spliced heavy ropes.
Fielding did not know any seafaring songs except “Little Mohea” and “The Keyhole in the Door,” but he knew that many of the songs sung by cowpunchers were based on older versions that came across the ocean. Right now, a fragment of a rangeland song ran through his mind as he worked the stitch.
“At the first break of morning
I’ll rise with the day
And gather my horses,