Quincy got up and went to the door and opened it. A rim of pale light still rested round the horizon, and above it, a single glimmering star hung straight over the canyon. All else was blue-black. The silence was enormous, as if the vastness of the uninhabited mountains expanded after dark.

Asked in that honest way, it sounded like such a small thing…to be a little lonesome. Rosa Jean would have given a good deal not to answer the question, but she did not feel like being rude this morning—not to someone who had treated her better than most.

There was no answer, and [Charlie] slid his elbows off the fence and moved closer—edging round outside a certain radius from the door, however, for he had met a pan of dishwater in the face before, and he could not be entirely certain it had been by accident.

As they neared the herd one or two mares’ heads went up, nostrils flaring to snuff suspiciously—one of them stamped a hoof, but still they did not move. Then suddenly a trumpeting whinny rang from the canyon walls and a dark streak of a stallion plunged from the brush where he had been keeping lookout, diving between the mustangers and the herd.

Quincy turned and looked down at him, and somehow the sharp blue slice of his glance robbed Charlie of any further desire to be facetious. “Mind your own business,” he said.