They were passing Citgo now, and she was glad for Will Dearborn’s presence, even if his silence was a little irritating. She had always found the oilpatch, with its skeletal forest of gantries, a little spooky. Most of those steel towers had stopped pumping long since, and there was neither the parts, the need, nor the understanding to repair them. And those which did still labor along—nineteen out of about two hundred—could not be stopped. They just pumped and pumped, the supplies of oil beneath them seemingly inexhaustible. A little was still used, but a very little—most simply ran back down into the wells beneath the dead pumping stations. The world had moved on, and this place reminded her of a strange mechanical graveyard where some of the corpses hadn’t quite—

Something cold and smooth nuzzled the small of her back, and she wasn’t quite able to stifle a little shriek. Will Dearborn wheeled toward her, his hands dropping toward his belt. Then he relaxed and smiled.

“Rusher’s way of saying he feels ignored. I’m sorry, Miss Delgado.”

She looked at the horse. Rusher looked back mildly, then dipped his head as if to say he was also sorry for having startled her.

Foolishness, girl, she thought, hearing the hearty, no-nonsense voice of her father. He wants to know why you’re being so stand-offy, that’s all. And so do I. ’Tisn’t like you, so it’s not.

“Mr. Dearborn, I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I’d like to ride.”

3

He turned his back and stood looking out at Citgo with his hands in his pockets while Susan first laid the poncho over the cantle of the saddle (the plain black saddle of a working cowboy, without a Barony brand or even a ranch brand to mark it), and then mounted into the stirrup. She lifted her skirt and glanced around sharply, sure he would be stealing a peek, but his back was still to her. He seemed fascinated with the rusty oil derricks.

What’s so interesting about them, cully? she thought, a trifle crossly—it was the lateness of the hour and the residue of her stirred-up emotions, she supposed. Filthy old things have been there six centuries and more, and I’ve been smelling their stink my whole life.

“Stand easy now, my boy,” she said once she had her foot fixed in the stirrup. One hand held the top of the saddle’s pommel, the other the reins. Rusher, meanwhile, flicked his ears as if to say he would stand easy all night, were that what she required.

She swung up, one long bare thigh flashing in the starlight, and felt the exhilaration of being horsed that she always felt... only tonight it seemed a little stronger, a little sweeter, a little sharper. Perhaps because the horse was such a beauty, perhaps because the horse was a stranger...