It had been one-sided adoration, though, for Gus considered Bob one of the dullest men alive, and often said so. "Why are you marrying that dullard?" he asked her often.

"He suits me," she said. "Two racehorses like us would never get along. I'd want to be in the lead, and so would you."

"I never thought you'd marry a man with nothing to say," he said.

"Talk ain't everything," she said-words she had often remembered with rue during years when Bob scarcely seemed to utter two words a month.

Now Gus was back, and had instantly captured her girls-that was clear. Betsey and Sally were fascinated, if embarrassed, that this whitehaired man had ridden up and kissed their mother.

"Where's Robert?" Augustus asked, to be polite.

"Upstairs, sick," Clara said. "A horse kicked him in the head. It's a bad wound."

For a second, remembering the silent man upstairs, she thought how unfair life was. Bob was slipping away, and yet that knowledge couldn't quell her happiness at the sight of Gus and his friends. It was a lovely summer day, too-a fine day for a social occasion.

"You girls go catch three pullets," she said. "I imagine Miss Wood is tired of eating beefsteak. It's such a fair day, we might want to picnic a little later."

"Oh, Ma, let's do," Sally said. She loved picnics.

Clara would have liked a few words with Augustus alone, but that would have to wait until things settled down a little, she saw. Miss Wood mostly kept her eyes down and said nothing, but when she raised them it was always to look at Gus. Clara took them into the kitchen and left them a moment, for she heard the baby.

"Now, see, all your worrying was for nothing," Augustus whispered to Lorena. "She's got a young child."

Lorena held her peace. The woman seemed kind-she had even offered her a bath-but she still felt frightened. What she wanted was to be on the trail again with Gus. Her mind kept looking ahead to when the visit would be over and she would have Gus alone again. Then she would feel less frightened.

Clara soon came down, a baby in her arms.

"It's July's son," she said, handing the baby to Gus as if it were a package.

"Well, what do I want with it?" Augustus asked. He had seldom held a baby in his arms and was somewhat discommoded.

"Just hold him or give him to Miss Wood," Clara said. "I can't hold him and cook too."

Call, July and Cholo had walked off to the lots, for Call wanted to buy a few horses and anyway didn't care to sit in a kitchen and try to make conversation.

It amused Lorena that Gus had got stuck with the baby. Somehow it made things more relaxed that the woman would just hand him to Gus that way. She stopped feeling quite so nervous, and she watched the baby chew on his fat little fist.

"If this is Sheriff Johnson's child, whereabouts is his wife?" Augustus asked.

"Dead," Clara said. "She stopped here with two buffalo hunters, had the child and left. July showed up two weeks later, half dead from Worry."

"So you adopted them both," Augustus said. "You was always one to grab."

"Listen to him," Clara said. "Hasn't seen me in sixteen years, and he feels free to criticize.

"It's mainly Martin that I wanted," she continued. "As life goes on I got less and less use for grown men."

Lorena smiled in spite of herself. There was something amusing about the sassy way Clara talked. It was no wonder Gus admired her, for he liked to talk a lot himself.

"Let me hold him," she said, reaching for the baby. Augustus was glad to hand the baby over. He had been watching Clara and didn't enjoy having to divert his attention to a wiggly baby. It was the same old Clara, so far as spirit went, though her body had changed. She was fuller in the bosom, thinner in the face. The real change was in her hands. As a girl she had had delicate hands, with long fingers and tiny wrists. Now it was her hands that drew his eyes: the work she had done had swollen and strengthened them; they seemed as large at the joints as a man's. She was peeling potatoes with them and handled a knife as deftly as a trapper. Her hands were no longer as beautiful, but they were arresting: the hands of a formidable woman, perhaps too formidable.

Though he had only glanced at her hands, Clara picked up the glance, displaying her old habit of being able to read his mind.

"That's right, Gus," she said. "I've coarsened a little, but this country will take your bloom."

"It didn't take your bloom," he said, wanting her to know how glad he was that she was in so many ways her old self, the self he remembered with such pleasure.

Clara smiled and paused a minute to tickle the baby. She smiled, too, at Newt, who blushed, not used to ladies' smiles. The girls kept looking at him.

"You'll have to pardon us, Miss Wood," she said. "Gus and I were old sweethearts. It's a miracle both of us are still alive, considering the lives we've led. We've got to make up for a lot of lost time, if you'll excuse us."

Lorena found she didn't mind, not nearly so much as she had thought she would even a few minutes earlier. It was pleasant to sit in the kitchen and hold the baby. Even hearing Clara josh with Gus was pleasant.

"So what happened to Mr. Johnson's wife, once she left?" Augustus asked.

"She was looking for an old boyfriend," Clara said. "He was a killer who got hung while she was recovering from having the baby. July went and saw her but she wouldn't have anything to do with him. She and one of the buffalo hunters traveled on, and the Sioux killed her. You watch close, or they'll get you too," she added.

"I guess no Indian would dare bother you," Augustus said. "They know they wouldn't stand a chance."

"We kept some of them alive the last few winters, once the buffalo were gone," Clara said. "Bob gives them old horses. Horse meat's better than nothing."

She put a little milk in the baby's bottle and showed Lorena how to feed him. The baby stared up solemnly at Lorena as he drank.

"He's taken with you, Miss Wood," Clara said. "He's never seen a blonde, I guess."

The baby took a sneezing fit and Lorena was afraid she had done something wrong, but Clara merely laughed at her anxiety and the child soon settled down.

A little later, while Clara was frying the chicken, Call came up from the lots. He wanted to buy some horses and had found some to his liking, but neither Cholo nor July would make the deal. They had shown him the horses readily enough, but informed him that Clara made all the deals. It seemed irregular to him: two grown men right there, and yet he was forced to do business with a woman.

"I was told you're the horse trader," he said.

"Yes," Clara said. "I'm the horse trader. You girls finish this chicken and I'll see what Captain Call has picked out."

She looked again at the boy who had blushed when she smiled at him. He was saying something to Sally and didn't notice her look. To her eye he was the spitting image of Captain Call, built the same way, and with the same movements. So why is your name Dobbs? she wondered.

On their way to the lots Call tried to think of something to say, but he was at a loss. "You have a pretty ranch," he said finally. "I hope we do as well in Montana."

"I just hope you get there alive," Clara said. "You ought to settle around here and wait five years. I imagine Montana will be safer by then. It ain't safe now."

"We're set on being the first there," Call said. "It can't be no rougher than Texas used to be."

Clara set such a stiff price for her horses that Call was tempted to balk. He felt sure he would have done better with her husband, if he had been up and about. There was something uncompromising in Clara's look when she named the prices. It was as if she dared him to bargain. He had bargained over many a horse in his day, but never with a woman. He felt shy. Worse, he felt she didn't like him, though so far as he could remember he had never given her any reason to take offense. He studied the situation in silence for several minutes-so long that Clara grew impatient.