She was now wiping the fingers with which she had searched him on the legs of her jeans. He was offended, then suddenly embarrassed. Sanderson was getting down from the wagon seat, leaving his rifle up there, and the girl, for she could not be much more than that, Jeebee thought, had already reholstered her revolver in order to search him.
“All right,” said Sanderson, now standing on the ground in front of Jeebee, “what do you need?”
“A couple of horses,” said Jeebee. “Supplies and tools.”
Sanderson laughed.
“For someone just standing there with nothing on you,” the wagon owner said, “you want a lot. What are you going to offer for all that?”
“Oh, I’ve something to pay with,” said Jeebee.
He reached in between the buttons of his shirt to the money belt underneath. With three fingers he reached inside and gathered three of the heavy coins. He brought them out and displayed them on his open palm for the wagon driver to see.
“So that’s what you had in that hideout belt,” said the girl’s voice behind him. “I felt them there, Dad, but I figured they couldn’t be anything dangerous, so I didn’t say anything.”
Jeebee looked back at Sanderson and was surprised to find the man silently laughing.
“And you were right enough, Mary,” Jeebee thought he heard him say. After a quick glance at his daughter, Sanderson’s eyes fastened on Jeebee, again.
“Gold,” he said, and shook his head.
“But it actually is gold!” Jeebee said urgently. “These are gold coins! I collected them over about a two-year period. I belonged to a Gold Coin of the Month mail-order club.” He offered his laden palm to the wagon driver.
“Go on,” he said. “Check them out for yourself. They’re almost pure gold. You can bite into them easily. Besides, somebody like you ought to know gold when you see it.”
“Oh, I believe you. They’re gold. Those are Krugerrands, all right,” said Sanderson. “It’s just that they aren’t going to buy you a lot. I couldn’t offer you much for them. Too risky to try trading with most people, too hard to find a buyer you can trust. The safe things to trade now are low-bulk, everyday necessities people nowadays can’t find or make easily.”
After he finished, there was a long moment of silence and then Sanderson spoke again.
“Just what did you figure on buying besides horses?” he asked Jeebee.
“What I need to survive with,” Jeebee said. “I’m headed for my brother’s ranch in Montana. I figure once I get there, I’ll be safe. I’d hoped to buy just a couple of horses from you, one to ride and one to pack; and for the packhorse, say, a spade, an ax, some blankets, some basics like flour and sugar and maybe bacon. I need a sidearm of some kind. A revolver, if you’ve got one to spare, and ammunition for that and the rifle I threw down back there, plus another one I’ve got up in the trees. I’ve been waiting a couple of weeks now for somebody to come by who looked like they might be safe for me to try to buy from. I might not even have come out for you if it hadn’t been for Wolf.”
“How much of that gold have you got?” Sanderson asked.
“Twenty-three coins,” said Jeebee. “All practically pure gold.”
“Well, I’ll tell you right now,” said Sanderson, “that much gold wouldn’t even begin to buy you a packhorse. Maybe a shovel, an ax, and a sidearm—maybe.”
He looked at Jeebee awhile longer.
“Got anything else to trade?” he asked.
“Nothing I can spare,” said Jeebee.
Sanderson stood for a minute as if thinking. For all that Jeebee overtopped him by about an inch or so, and the fact that he must be twenty years older than Jeebee, Sanderson was square-shouldered, thickly built, and strong looking. He passed his rifle to the young woman. She took it without a word.
“Come on,” Sanderson said to Jeebee, “we’ll go pick up that rifle you threw away, and look at what you’ve got.”
“Dad—” began the girl.
“You just stay here,” Sanderson told her. “I’ll be all right. You’re the one could be made use of by someone hiding up in those woods. If they’ve got me, they’ve got nothing. Everything that’s valuable is down here; and you’ve got Nick.”
Jeebee blinked a little. “Nick” must be the third person he had seen by the light of the fire beside the wagon the night before. He assumed that this Nick, whoever he was, was in the wagon. In any case, Sanderson had already started toward the trees and Jeebee turned and caught up with him. They found the rifle—in fact Sanderson found it before Jeebee did, picked it up, hefted it in his hand, turned it about, and worked its action.
“Nothing great,” he said, “but you’ve kept it in pretty good shape.”
He had ejected the cartridge that Jeebee had automatically jacked into the chamber the moment the wagon appeared in his binoculars, and removed the clip. Now Sanderson picked up the shell and gave it back to Jeebee, along with the clip.
“Put that in your pocket,” he said. Jeebee took them wordlessly. He and Sanderson went on up into the woods and Jeebee found the .22, which he also handed to Sanderson. The .22 was a single-shot and Sanderson jacked the cartridge out of it as well and handed it to Jeebee to pocket, then gave him the rifle. Neither one of them said anything and they went on through the trees back away from the road and the wagon.
“Where’s your camp?” Sanderson asked as they stepped into the dappled shade of the woods.
“It’s in another grove behind this one,” Jeebee answered. “We can go there if you like, but there’s nothing there. Nothing at all. It’s just a place where I light a fire at night and sleep.”
“Let’s look anyway,” said Sanderson.
They went on through the little patch of woods, across the open space behind and into the further trees. When they reached the campsite, Sanderson swept his eyes around and immediately focused on the bag Jeebee had made out of the canvas and hung up in the tree, bulging with canned goods from the root cellar.
“What’s that?”
“Cans of food I got from a root cellar,” Jeebee answered. “Do you want me to climb up and get one to show you or would you like to climb up and see?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Sanderson. “You climb up and bring the whole thing down.”
Jeebee shrugged, climbed up the tree, and with some effort brought the container down. He opened it up.
“By God, you weren’t kidding!” Sanderson poked with his boot toe among the cans. “Any of them make you sick?”
“Not so far,” Jeebee answered. “They’re all still short of the expiration date stamped on them.”
“All the same.” Sanderson stopped poking at the cans. “It’s no good for trade with me. We’re not short of food back at the wagon, and I wouldn’t dare trade it to someone else just in case they got sick from it in spite of the date.”
He glanced around the campsite.
“You were right enough,” he said, “there’s nothing here but the ashes of your fire, covered over.”
“I told you,” Jeebee answered.
“Call that wolf of yours in,” said Sanderson. “I’d feel more comfortable with him in sight.”
“He won’t come just because I call,” Jeebee answered. “He comes and goes as he likes.”
Sanderson stared at him. “Then why do you say he’s your wolf?”
“I didn’t want you to shoot him.” Jeebee searched for a word that would explain his connection with a wolf. “He’s my partner.”
The last word sounded strangely on the still air of the little patch of forest. Sanderson smiled. It was just the slightest quirk at the corner of his lips. But his eyes looked back around the empty space of the campsite.
“Maybe,” he said. “In that case how do you know he’s not gone for good?”