Echo Burning

us?”
    “He said you’ve been away most days for a month, and some nights, and he figured we’ve been up in a motel in Pecos together having an affair. Now he’s all outraged that you’ve brought me down here, so close to Sloop getting back.”
    “I wish we had been,” she said. “In a motel, having an affair. I wish that was all it was.”
    He said nothing. She paused a beat.
    “Do you wish we had been, too?” she asked.
    He watched her in the saddle. Lithe, slim, hips swaying gently against the patient gait of the horse. The dark honey skin of her arms was bright in the sun. Her hair hung to the middle of her back.
    “I could think of worse things,” he said.

    It was very late in the afternoon when they got back. Josh and Billy were waiting. They were leaning side by side against the wall of the barn, in the harsh shadow below the eaves. Their pick-up was ready for the trip to the feed supplier. It was parked in the yard.
    “It takes all three of you?” Carmen whispered.
    “It’s Bobby,” Reacher said back. “He’s trying to keep me away from you. Trying to spoil the fun we’re supposed to be having.”
    She rolled her eyes.
    “I’ll put the horses away,” she said. “I should brush them first.”
    They dismounted together in front of the barn door. Josh and Billy peeled off the wall, impatience in their body language.
    “You ready?” Billy called.
    “He should have been ready a half hour ago,” Josh said.
    For that, Reacher made them wait. He walked down to the bunkhouse, very slowly, because he wasn’t going to let them hurry him, and because he was stiff from the saddle. He used the bathroom and rinsed dust off his face. Splashed cold water over his shirt. Walked slowly back. The pick-up had turned to face the gate and the engine was running. Carmen was brushing his horse. Thin clouds of dust were coming off its chestnut fur. Hair? Coat? Josh was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat. Billy was standing next to the passenger door.
    “So let’s go,” he called.
    He put Reacher in the middle seat. Josh swung his feet in and slammed his door shut. Billy crowded in on the other side and Josh took off toward the gate. Paused at the road and then made a left, at which point Reacher knew the situation was a lot worse than he had guessed.

7
    He had seen the feed bags in the storeroom. There were plenty of them, maybe forty, in head-high stacks. Big waxed-paper bags, probably thirty pounds to a bag. Altogether twelve hundred pounds of feed. About half a ton. How fast were four horses and a pony going to eat their way through all of that?
    But he had always understood the trip was Bobby’s idea of a diversion. Buying more feed before it was strictly necessary was as good a way as any of getting him out of Carmen’s life for a spell. But they weren’t buying more feed. Because they had turned left. The bags were all printed with a brand name and nutritional boasts and the name and the address of the feed supplier. The feed supplier was in San Angelo. He had seen it repeated forty times, once on each bag, in big clear letters. San Angelo, San Angelo, San Angelo . And San Angelo was north and east of Echo County. Way north and east. Not south and west. They should have turned right.
    So, Bobby was planning to get him out of Carmen’s life permanently . Josh and Billy had been told to get rid of him. And Josh and Billy will do what they’re told, Bobby had said. He smiled at the windshield. Forewarned is forearmed . They didn’t know he’d seen the feed bags, didn’t know he’d read the writing on them, and they didn’t know he’d been looking at maps of Texas for most of the last week. They didn’t know a left turn instead of a right would mean anything to him.
    How would they aim to do it? Carmen had implied her out-of-work teacher friend had been scared off. Scared pretty badly, if he wouldn’t even talk to her later, up in the relative safety of Pecos. So were they going to try to scare him? If so, they really had to be kidding. He felt the aggression building inside. He used it and controlled it like he had learned to. He used the adrenaline flow to ease the stiffness in his legs. He let it pump him up. He flexed his shoulders, leaning on Josh on one side, Billy on the other.
    “How far is it?” he asked innocently.
    “Couple hours,” Billy said.
    They were doing about sixty, heading south on the dead-straight road. The landscape was unchanging. Scrubby dry grassland