In the gathering shadows, she clucked sidemouth to Felicia and turned for home.

4

The next day was Sanday, the traditional cowboys’ day of rest. Roland’s little band took this day off as well. “It’s fair enough that we should,” Cuthbert said, “since we don’t know what the hell we’re doing in the first place.”

On this particular Sanday—their sixth since coming to Hambry—Cuthbert was in the upper market (lower market was cheaper, by and large, but too fishy-smelling for his liking), looking at brightly colored serapes and trying not to cry. For his mother had a serape, it was a great favorite of hers, and thinking of how she would ride out sometimes with it flowing back from her shoulders had filled him with homesickness so strong it was savage. “Arthur Heath,” Roland’s ka-mai, missing his mama so badly his eyes were wet! It was a joke worthy of... well, worthy of Cuthbert Allgood.

As he stood so, looking at the serapes and a hanging rack of dolina blankets with his hands clasped behind his back like a patron in an art gallery (and blinking back tears all the while), there came a light tap on his shoulder. He turned, and there was the girl with the blonde hair.

Cuthbert wasn’t surprised that Roland was smitten with her. She was nothing short of breathtaking, even dressed in jeans and a farmshirt. Her hair was tied back with a series of rough rawhide hanks, and she had eyes of the brightest gray Cuthbert had ever seen. Cuthbert thought it was a wonder that Roland had been able to continue with any other aspect of his life at all, even down to the washing of his teeth. Certainly she came with a cure for Cuthbert; sentimental thoughts of his mother disappeared in an instant.

“Sai,” he said. It was all he could manage, at least to start with.

She nodded and held out what the folk of Mejis called a corvette—“little packet” was the literal definition; “little purse” was the practical one. These small leather accessories, big enough for a few coins but not much more, were more often carried by ladies than gentlemen, although that was not a hard-and-fast rule of fashion.

“Ye dropped this, cully,” she said.

“Nay, thankee-sai.” This one well might have been the property of a man—plain black leather, and unadorned by foofraws—but he had never seen it before. Never carried a corvette, for that matter.