‘Certainly, sir. What size is the lady?’ The shopkeeper was the shape of two large pumpkins placed on top of a pair of legs, with a smaller one for her head. But her dress of frilled calico was well made.

Clancy sketched vaguely in the air. Mrs Pumpkin nodded. ‘I’d say a medium, sir. You can always take a dress in, that’s what I always say, but you can’t let out what isn’t there, and a bit extra trimmed off the hem is always useful for darning.’ She pulled out a rack of dresses, sensible blues, a virulent pink, a white any woman would regret after ten minutes in the dusty street, or maybe it was only intended to wear indoors . . .

And then he saw it. Roses, or rather rosebuds, tiny pink ones too small to see what they were from a distance, each with two green leaves. ‘That one,’ he said, carefully ignoring McKenzie’s advice. Well meant, but why shouldn’t he give the girl a dress, especially as she couldn’t shop for herself? He was old enough to be her father.

‘Excellent taste, sir. I have some lovely ribbons here.’

He bought one in pink and one in green, then, with a little misgiving, a bonnet too, which Mrs Pumpkin assured him matched the dress.

Shoes, he thought suddenly, Rose couldn’t wear boots with that dress, just as Mrs Pumpkin asked hopefully, ‘Shoes, sir? And I have stockings in lisle or silk or cotton.’

It was a large package when she’d finished, wrapped up in brown paper, tied with string, with a strong handle. He hooked it onto the back of his saddle.

McKenzie glanced at it, but didn’t comment. Perhaps he thought they were new clothes for himself. He had indeed bought another pair of boots — the last pair had gone at both heel and toe and were beyond a cobbler’s mending — as well as socks. He had what McKenzie and Tiger regarded as a strange habit of liking fresh socks each morning, instead of waiting till they could stand by themselves, then soaking them to remove a month or two’s accumulated dust and sweat.

They rode out of town slowly. Neither felt like talking, having had more people chattering about them in the past few days than they’d had in years. Clancy looked at the distant spire of smoke that was their campsite with affection. Mrs McKenzie was expecting them. He could smell dinner a quarter of a mile away — roasting meat — and she’d probably have made real bread too, with the time to catch and grow wild yeast from sugar water and raisins so the bread rose instead of using wood ash water.