Horses told you things about their environment through how they responded to novelty. A herd that shied hard from a stranger and took 40 minutes to settle was a herd under baseline stress. These horses watched him with alert attention and went back to their morning movement within 10 minutes, which told him the herd management was good and the baseline anxiety was low. And it told him something about the people who had been handling them. Dawn appeared at the corner post with a set of hide maps folded under her arm.
She spread them on the top rail without preamble. Eaglespine Ridge is here. Her finger on the map, steady and precise. This is the only approach to the camp that Briggs knows about. Her finger moved.
This is the approach he doesn't know about. The east passage through the rock. You have to know exactly where to step and in which order. Three wrong steps in there and you come out facing a 40-foot drop. How many people in camp know that route?
12. 13. Now her finger lifted off the map. Seth studied the topography of the hide, which was handdrawn with an accuracy that suggested the person who made it had walked every feature multiple times. This valley here, south, what is it?
Dawn folded the maps. Dawn, it's a valley, she said. South. He let it sit. You didn't push when pushing was the wrong tool.
He had learned this from horses first and from people second. But the lesson was the same. Pressure at the wrong moment produced resistance, not movement. The horses, Seth said instead. If Briggs comes while I'm gone, the first thing that has to happen is moving them.
How fast can you get 40 horses through a narrow passage in the dark? We've done it before. Not defensive, just factual. 20 milesnutes for the herd. Five more for the stragglers.
You've drilled it. I've drilled everything that matters. A beat. That surprises you. It doesn't surprise me, Seth said.
It tells me something about what you've been expecting. She looked at him for a moment with an expression that was doing more work than it was showing. Then she said, "Dutch is here. He came in this morning before the council. He says he needs to talk to someone, which usually means he needs to talk to me.
She pushed off the fence rail. Come with me. Dutch was approximately 60 years old and looked approximately 80 with the creased sun collapsed face of a man who had spent decades outdoors doing things that were hard on faces. He was a trader. He had been moving between Apache camps and Arizona settlements for 20 years, which meant he occupied that narrow and uncomfortable middle space of being trusted by neither side completely and necessary to both sides regularly.
He sat on a stump outside the camp's main cooking area with a tin cup of something hot and the expression of a man who had been composing what he was about to say for longer than he wanted to admit. Dawn sat across from him. Seth stood at the edge of the conversation, which was where he judged he belonged for this one. "I need to tell you something," Dutch said, his voice at the particular low frequency of confession. "And I need you to know I didn't do it on purpose. " Dawn waited.
"Four weeks back. I was in dry fork at the trading post. Had a few drinks, which I know I know. " Dutch looked at his cup instead of at her. Man came and I didn't know. Asked about the camps east of the ridge.
Normal kind of questions. Seemed like trail conditions and water sources. I talked more than I should have. He stopped. He wore a hat with a black feather in the band.
Black feather, not brown. The silence that followed was the kind that had weight to it. Seth knew what a black feather in a hat brim meant in this part of Arizona. Holt Briggs was known for it the way certain men were known for specific things. A particular piece of clothing that became a signal.
Dawn did not raise her voice. This was almost more alarming than if she had. What did you tell him? I talked about the horses, Dutch said. I didn't name the camp.
I didn't give a location. But I talked about the herd. About the quality. He finally looked up. I said, "They were the finest string I'd seen in 20 years of moving through this country. " And I said, "How many? " 40 horses worth $8,000 to the right buyer.
Worth the planning and the 20 men and the half-day camped at Eaglespine Ridge. Dawn looked at Seth. Seth looked back at her and in the look was everything neither of them needed to say out loud. Briggs hadn't found this camp by accident. He had been looking and now he knew the size of the prize, which meant he had calculated how many men he needed, and he had brought exactly that many.
How much else? Dawn said back to Dutch. The schedule when the riders rotated out. I didn't mean to, but I was talking and he was listening and asking just enough to keep me talking. Dutch set down his cup.
I'm sorry, Dawn. I'm genuinely sorry. I know Dawn said, and she did mean it. Seth could hear that. But she said the next thing anyway, because the apology and the problem were two separate things that had to be addressed in the order they presented themselves.
Go see Elder Mary. Tell her what you told me. She'll know what to do with you. Dutch nodded and left. And Seth and Dawn stood in the space where he had been.
He knows our rotation, Dawn said. Which means every defensive arrangement you have is readable to him. Yes. So we change everything. Seth looked north toward the ridge, which was not visible from inside the camp, but which was present in the air of the camp now, a direction that had acquired weight.
When can you move the main herd to the south valley? She looked at him. The second time he had mentioned the South Valley. Tonight, she said, "Finally, after dark, the passage is safer in the dark. " Oddly, less shadow confusion. Then tonight, everything that matters goes south.
What stays in the main corral will be the oldest aid, the ones who wouldn't bring Briggs much in a sail anyway. Seth turned away from the north and looked at the corral, calculating. What's the black stallion's name? Flint. Is he as fast as he looks?