Everything looked normal enough. In particular there was no ominous quietness; in fact everyone was dashing around with the normal quotient of quarreling and laughing and the odd drunk snoozing in corners. As they watched, an active one was ejected by three of the staff, one on each arm and one holding his legs. They gave a concerted heave-ho, and he landed in a trough with a tremendous splash and a volley of screamed curses. A nearby Natpol trooper in leather armor and green uniform laughed and strolled over. His crossbow was slung over one shoulder, and his dagger and short sword at his waist, but he had a yard of nightstick in his hand, made from dark heavy iron-hard mountain mahogany. He twirled it around by the thong above the handle, then stood tapping the business end into his left palm as the inn’s staff led out a saddled horse and followed it with a hide sack that probably contained the drunk’s worldly goods.

The drunk sobered rapidly, between the cold water and the grinning policeman; he swung into the saddle with a wet slap of soaked denim against leather and walked his horse into the traffic.

“You save me a lot of trouble, Charlie,” the Natpol said to the man who’d been on the legs. “Sometimes I think I should split my pay with you, damned if I don’t.”

“Damn cowpokes get sand in their throats and think they can wash it out with whiskey,” Charlie grumbled. Then he nodded to Ritva and Ian: “Help you?”

“We just got in and dropped off a flock from Hasty Creek ranch up in the Camas prairie country, with an army contractor name of Wadley,” Ritva said. “My brother and I need the usual for a couple of days. Got some business to do before we head back.”

“Hasty Creek?” Charlie said; he was in his late thirties, a heavyset man with glossy brown muttonchop whiskers, light eyes and muscle under fat, and a white apron over his clothes. “Your credit’s good, then. Settle up the day before you leave, but just to be sure you pay for a full day if you’re not out by noon that day.”

“That’s fine.”

The Natpol was about Charlie’s age, but trimmer; he walked with a slight limp, probably from his army service. She remembered from her last time here that the police were a reserved occupation for veterans, with those who had non-disabling injuries getting special preference. Lawrence Thurston had always taken good care of his followers, though Ritva disliked the whole concept of a single police force.