‘Never been on a horse,’ he says slowly. ‘Now that’s something you don’t often hear in this part of the world . . . Well, well, well! He looks thoughtful. ‘Want to try?’

‘What?’

‘Riding. Want to try it?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, why not? If you’re up to it.’

‘Give me one good reason why I should go anywhere with you.’

He stretches out his hand. ‘I absolutely intend to.’ And when I still hesitate, he takes my hand anyway and pulls me to my feet. ‘Come with me, Alice, there’s something I want to show you.’

Two of the boniest horses I’ve ever seen, one a chestnut, the other a pale grey, stand nuzzling at the ground just beyond the cabin deck, their narrow backs covered in blankets and saddles.

‘Indian ponies,’ Duval says.

‘Are they yours?’

‘Winfred’s brother’s. They’ve come up off the reservation.’

The horses snatch at the new shoots of oily grass poking through the gaps in the deck.

‘Poor bastards have been living on dust the whole winter. Talk about pigs in clover.’

I touch my fingers to the soft muzzle of the chestnut and stroke the hollow cavities on either side of its nose. I’m actually a little nervous of horses.

‘Now, you know something about these creatures, right?’ Duval says. ‘The section with the teeth is the front, the tail is the back.’ He steers me round. ‘This middle bit is the seating area.’ He laces his fingers together. ‘Think you can get up there?’

‘I think I can manage,’ I say archly. I put my good foot on his hands and he throws me up as if I weighed no more than a pencil.

‘This is a Mexican saddle.’ Duval moves my ankle forward and adjusts the straps. ‘Not as comfortable as an American saddle, not as much leather. Pretty, though.’

‘It’s beautiful.’ I smooth my hand over the rough white stitching.

‘It belonged to an old farmhand I used to know. He left it to me when he died.’ He unknots the reins. ‘Hold these loose, through your fingers, like this.’

‘Okay.’ I take them from him. ‘Then what?’

He swings up onto the grey. ‘Then nothing. The horse knows what to do.’

As instructed, I keep the reins loose in my hands, but I don’t really need them. The chestnut walks sedately along behind Duval, his nose an inch from the grey horse’s swishing tail.

We walk for an hour or so. Duval says little and so do I. The questions I have for him are piling up, one on top of the other, but I’ve realized I’m not going to extract any information out of him by force, so, holding all curiosity at bay, I concentrate instead on the scenery.

The horses pick their way over every colour of rock. To the north long thin grass shimmers on the plain. Beyond runs the roller coaster of the Santa Catalinas.