Closer, and she could see that the archers were women, and the man with the shete was a hard-worn thirty and with only two fingers on his mutilated left hand. That could have been an accident in half a dozen trades, but she would bet on a sword-cut. He rode close and checked her over, noting the rolled pup tent, duffel bag and camping gear on her spare horse.

“Your name?” he said, sheathing the blade.

“Jane Cross,” she said, falling into a ranch-country rasp.

It was actually the accent of the Bend country just across the Cascades from the Willamette and Mithrilwood, but it would pass anywhere in the interior in a casual conversation with people expecting a stranger. Local ways of speech had diverged widely in the last generation now that twenty miles was a good day’s journey again and everyone from farther than that a de facto foreigner.

“What’re you doing in these parts?”

“Lookin’ for respectable work and a bunk, before summer’s past, sir. Maybe some place to settle.”

“You don’t look hungry.”

A shrug. “Rabbits ain’t hard to come by, but . . .”

He nodded understanding. Anyone with the right tools and skills could feed themselves for a while in the wilds in the warm season, though even then it was risky to travel alone. A simple sprain or fall could kill you with nobody there to help. Winter would be deadly. Plus even if there was much empty game-rich land between settlements all of it anywhere near civilization was claimed by somebody, who’d eventually run off a vagrant hanging around the fringes. You had to; neglecting that was how bandit gangs got started.

“How come you’re wanderin’ loose?”

“My Rancher up in the Panhandle country had to let some hands go, what with the war and the taxes. Got no kin there now, my folks is dead and they were from Spokane way back. Don’t know how they’ll manage without us, but—”

She shrugged. The man nodded, a little sympathy softening his hard scarred face.

“You’re not the only one on the road. The good Sisters do what they can, but times is hard hereabouts too. All the younger menfolk gone with the call-up, and fewer hands to do the work and taxes higher than ever so the Ranchers have trouble payin’ the ones they do have.”

She looked at the wounded hand; it was healed, but the mutilation must have been fairly recent from the purple flush still around it. He shrugged. “Damn Protectorate shellbacks got me at Pendleton last year, the knightboys. Anyway, tell ’em up at the convent that Seven-Finger Jack passed you through.”

She nodded respectfully, and walked her horse forward as he reined aside.