Roland handed it to him and then went back to looking out at the Drop. It wasn’t until he saw the very real desolation in his friend’s eyes that Cuthbert fully realized how far into Roland’s life—and hence into all their lives—Susan Delgado had come.

Alain handed him the note. It was only a single line, two sentences:

It’s best we don’t meet. I’m sorry.

Cuthbert read it twice, as if rereading might change it, then handed it back to Roland. Roland put the note back into the corvette, tied the lace, and then tucked the little purse into his own shirt.

Cuthbert hated silence worse than danger (it was danger, to his mind), but every conversational opening he tried in his mind seemed callow and unfeeling, given the look on his friend’s face. It was as if Roland had been poisoned. Cuthbert was disgusted at the thought of that lovely young girl bumping hips with the long and bony Mayor of Hambry, but the look on Roland’s face now called up stronger emotions. For that he could hate her.

At last Alain spoke up, almost timidly. “And now, Roland? Shall we have a hunt out there at the oilpatch without her?”

Cuthbert admired that. Upon first meeting him, many people dismissed Alain Johns as something of a dullard. That was very far from the truth. Now, in a diplomatic way Cuthbert could never have matched, he had pointed out that Roland’s unhappy first experience with love did not change their responsibilities.

And Roland responded, raising himself off the saddle-horn and sitting up straight. The strong golden light of that summer’s afternoon lit his face in harsh contrasts, and for a moment that face was haunted by the ghost of the man he would become. Cuthbert saw that ghost and shivered—not knowing what he saw, only knowing that it was awful.

“The Big Coffin Hunters,” he said. “Did you see them in town?”

“Jonas and Reynolds,” Cuthbert answered. “Still no sign of Depape. I think Jonas must have choked him and thrown him over the sea cliffs in a fit of pique after that night in the bar.”

Roland shook his head. “Jonas needs the men he trusts too much to waste them—he’s as far out on thin ice as we are. No, Depape’s just been sent off for awhile.”

“Sent where?” Alain asked.

“Where he’ll have to shit in the bushes and sleep in the rain if the weather’s bad.” Roland laughed shortly, without much humor. “Jonas has got Depape running our backtrail, more likely than not.”

Alain grunted softly, in surprise that wasn’t really surprise. Roland sat easily astride Rusher, looking out over the dreamy depths of land, at the grazing horses. With one hand he unconsciously rubbed the corvette he had tucked into his shirt. At last he looked around at them again.