Sunrise Lands

"This stuff smells and feels like someone dragged a dead sheep through a field of wilted flowers, and then bottled it," she said.

"Lanolin with lavender extract," Ritva or Mary said. "Believe me, it's better than what the sun and wind out here do to your skin. This is from a shop in Bend."

Bob Brown came trotting over and heard the last re mark. "The Rovers use butter instead," he said, gri

Mathilda shuddered again. Rudi took the jar and began to apply the lotion; he didn't like the feel or the smell either, but it helped. He wasn't quite as blister by lamplight as his redheaded mother, but it was close, despite his blood father, Mike Havel, being a quarter Indian. He didn't tan even as well as the twins, and the drying wind made his skin feel as if it were about to split over his cheekbones.

"Ride a bit with me," Bob said to Rudi.

The two men turned their horses aside; as he did so, Rudi caught Mary's eye-or Ritva's-and let one eyelid droop for an instant. The rancher's son pointed to their right, southward, as they ambled away from the main party. A rocky eminence stood about two thousand feet above the level of the plain.

"That there pimple is Lookout Butte-Buckskin Mountain, some call it."

Then he pointed directly east. "The old Whitehorse Ranch is thataway, less than a day's travel. That's where we're supposed to meet the buyers from Deseret and turn over the herd. There's good water there, wells, but pretty deep and not too much of it. The Rovers use it, but not usually this time of year-more in summer, when things dry up farther out. The Saints probably plan to head back east through Blue Mountain Pass afterwards; that's about another twenty, twenty five miles. Or maybe south over the old Nevada line. I didn't ask and they didn't tell me."

Rudi looked at the older man. "You're expecting trouble?" he said crisply.

"Hope not. But if there is trouble, that's where it'll be. The Rovers would rather steal horses than silver, but they wouldn't mind stealin' horses and silver and the gear from my bunch and the Deseret folks too, right down to our socks, you see what I mean? Not to mention our scalps."

Rudi looked slowly around the circle of the horizon. "They've been tracking us," he said.

" 'Course they have," Bob growled. "Herd this big, I might as well be wavin' a sign says, 'Rob me.' Or 'Kill me and lift my hair and then rob me.' Only that wouldn't be as dangerous as throwin' up a dust trail, on account of the Rovers can't read."

"Thanks for the heads-up," Rudi said. "If it comes to a fight, we'll do our part."

"We ought to scout ahead, but I don't like splittin' my people. We'd be shorthanded if they tried something tricky, like cutting part of the herd out after dark while another bunch made noise. Any of your folks you'd recommend?"

"I figured you'd ask that. Send the twins," Rudi said without hesitation. "For a quiet sneaky skulk, they're the best there is."

"You sure?" Bob said.

Rudi gri

"You can come out now," he said, in a normal conversational tone.

One of them rose from behind a sagebrush that grew on the edge of a shallow gully, one small enough you'd swear it couldn't have hidden a jackrabbit. Rudi could tell she was breathing fast-she'd had to duck into the depression and run crouched over-but she hid it well.

"Shit! Jesus! " Bob said.

Then he swore again as he looked over his shoulder and saw the other twin raise her head over a rock and wiggle her fingers too, with a smug little can't catch me smile.

"Maybe you know what you're talking about, Rudi."

"Maybe. And we should get Ingolf in on this. He's got a lot more experience ru

Bob looked at him. "Not all that many men your age admit they've got anything to learn."

"I'm young," Rudi said, putting on the air of a man making a great concession. "But I'm not stupid… I hope."

"There it is," Mary-or Ritva-said.

Rudi, Ingolf and Bob Brown lay on the ridge, about a hundred feet above the level of the plain. The ruins of Whitehorse Ranch lay a little less than a mile to the east, with steeper heights rising beyond above the clump of dead cottonwoods and maples. Rudi watched, occasionally raising his binoculars, and fought back a sneeze from the pungent desert herbs crushed under their bodies.

There were people there now, using the roofless buildings and their half dozen wagons to make an improvised fortress; a dark ba

"How many of the Rovers?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Around ninety, assuming all the ones we saw this morning are here," one of the twins said.

Bob had a pair of binoculars too. "Make that around eighty-nine," he said. "One of 'em just dropped out of the saddle and they're carryin' him away looking limp. It surely is a war party, right enough-no stock but their remounts, no women or kids or wagons, just some packhorses and a couple of tents."

"That's your buyers forted up?" Rudi asked.

"Yup. See the flag? A golden bee on dark blue-that's New Deseret."

"There can't be many of them," Rudi said regretfully; if there were, the little attack just now would have cost the Rovers more.

"Nope," Brown agreed. "About as many as we got to start with, no more. Less now."

He looked up at the sun; it was about noon. "I'd say the Rovers hit them at dawn, maybe snuck someone up to cut out their horses first. The Mormons're good enough in a tussle from what I hear, but they're farmers and townsmen mostly, and their ranchers 'n' horse sol diers are all out east fightin' the Prophet. This sure isn't a place for a farmer's fight."

Rudi looked over the little battlefield, and the endless rumpled landscape around them. Brown was right, and he felt uneasily self conscious about it. He'd never come so far east… and he'd never been involved in a fight this size, either.

Ingolf squinted at the Rovers. "So there's the nine of us, twenty-one of your men, Rancher, and maybe fifteen or so in the wagons down there-and they don't know we're here."

"But we've got some heavy horse," Rudi pointed out. "We bought Ingolf the gear for it too"-he nodded to the older man-"and you were already fine with a lance. If we could get in range for a charge, we could spatter them."

Bob Brown shook his head. "Hell, I was in the Mount Angel fight in the war," he said. "I remember how the Protector's knights cut us CORA folk up. It was like try ing to outbutt a mean old bull. But that was in the Wil lamette, where we couldn't run far. You try that here, they'll just run-and then when those big horses of yours are tuckered from a-haulin' all that iron around, they'll shoot you full of arrows."

"Like wolves with an elk." Rudi sighed. "So much for that idea."

"Wait a minute," Ingolf said. "Bob's right if they can run away. But back in the Sioux War, there was a time when…"

He went on, giving the details and then pointing out the features below-the hills, the water, the wagons and ruins, how far a horse could run…

"Oh, now that's a lovely plan, sure!" Rudi said, watching it take shape in his mind's eye.