“It were raaght rough the first couple o’ years ’ere too; fuckin’ Calgary and Edmonton near dragged us down wi’ ’em an’ buggered t’lot o’ us. Would’ve, if hadn’t been so fuckin’ cold, that got most who walked out. Then we got things sorted out, laak. Ah’ve got a wife an’ kids and a bit o’ a farm goin’ a ways north o’ ’ere now. Till Ah got called oop fer this lot, any road.”

“We need some ’orses, Geoff. Quiet loik, away from pryin’ eyes. Paperwork’ll all be done roit later.”

“Ah think sommat can be dun,” the little man grinned. “If that there redcoat lends an ’and.”

“Good. ’Ave a sandwich, mate,” he added, taking one out of the basket in each hand and starting his own with an enormous bite. “S’goof,” he added through a mouthful.

“My picnic!” Ian said . . . but quietly.

“You Rangers can move,” Ian Kovalevsky said a week later. “Even by the standards of the Force.”

“They sold us good horses back at the Anchor Bar Seven,” Ritva said; they both had the habit of talking without looking at each other as they rode, which was useful—her eyes were moving ceaselessly and so were his. This was potentially hostile country. “And we have well-callused backsides.”

Ian grinned. “After the way you got wounded bringing the alarm about the Cutters and your brother Artos saved everyone’s bacon by showing up in the nick of time it’s not surprising. You guys could have had the horses for free, if you’d asked. With me thrown in.”

The Rangers—plus one member of the Force sent on special detached service by an amused and agreeable captain—were riding under a bright cloudless summer sky. Around them lay bunchgrass and bluestem turning from green to gold, whispering in long ripples to the end of sight and standing high on the horses’ fetlocks. Land crept by to the steady walk-trot-canter-walk pace, changing from flat grassland to occasional steep wooded hills, or cut by deep ravines and then subsiding to open level ground again. This high plateau that had been known as the Eye of Idaho once; white-topped mountains showed west and east, with the deceptive look of the big-sky country that fooled you into thinking something three days’ ride away was only a few hours’ distance.

The air was warm with summer, but not hot; they were four or five thousand feet up here. Small blue flowers starred the tawny-green grass in swales where the dark basalt soil was damper, and insects burst out of it before their hooves, or now and then grouse or partridge. Ahead, the party’s spare two-score remounts—the remuda, which despite the sound was a Spanish word, not Sindarin—grouped together in a well-trained knot, requiring only an occasional canter by the pair assigned to rearguard to keep them bunched. She was glad of that; leading reins were a trial, especially when you had three or four horses each. A big remuda was the way to travel fast, though. With enough remounts you could make a hundred miles a day or more in summertime, especially if there was good grazing or feed available along the way.