He walked out of the field, past the lowered bars, and crossed the road. Behind him came the squeak and jumble of the carriage moving along uneven ground. When it wheeled north into the road, Dan was already past the elderbushes which hedged a wheat field near the summit of the ridge. The horses’ feet were muffled and wooden on the hard-packed dirt; a tail of thin dust floated lazily up from the rear wheels, and Dan wondered why Cybo hadn’t been along.

He looked back at the little rock-oak copse, the tumbled stone fences, and the limpid haze of the western ridge and South Mountain beyond. Those buzzards had come back. They were flying higher and more cautiously, as if at any moment they expected Ty Fanning’s revolver to spurt at them again.

Chapter 6

6.

Mr. Orcutt showed him the will, read paragraphs, re-read them in a dry and mildly approving voice. He opened document after document. Two houses in Trenton, New Jersey. The farm near Paoli. The half-interest in the Philadelphia book-bindery. The fourteen hundred and twenty-seven dollars in the bank. All the tiny, overlapping little claims and indebtednesses which hinged locally around the name of Pentland Bale.

“He was a good business man—your grandfather. A shrewd man, and he prospered accordingly.” Orcutt took off his glasses and wiped them with a loose end of the rusty scarf he tied around his collar.

Dan shook his head. “Not shrewd. He was entirely too kind for shrewdness. You have listed several thousand dollars of bad debts on which you feel that little can ever be realized. Those weren’t the doings of a shrewd man, and I deplore the adjective.”

The lawyer curled his lower lip back between his even, yellow teeth and pressed it lovingly. “However that may be, Dan, your grandfather has left you very well off.” He swallowed. “I will be glad to offer any assistance which I may in—the carrying out of your stewardship.”

“Thank you, sir.” Dan stood up and reached for his hat.

Orcutt looked surprised in a plain, stony way. His hand closed on the sheaf of papers. “You wish me to execute your affairs for the present? Naturally, I expected to attend to the will, the admitting to probate, and ordinary forms. But these other matters: collections, the receipt of these various monies—”

“If you assume them all for the present, I shall appreciate it. Perhaps you may care to shoulder the care of them indefinitely.”

Orcutt nodded gravely. He lifted his head with the felicitous pride of a man who takes abnormal comfort in his own honesty. “I will endeavor to serve you, Dan, as I served your grandfather.” There was a tiny prickle of pink light in each of his dull brown eyes. “Dan, there is a rumor going about the town. I heard it first yesterday, after the funeral. Two rumors—”

Dan said, “This is a village. Rumors—”