Renda nodded to the letters. “That’s where I was going. So I’m saving you a trip.”
“I’d just as soon ride up and leave them myself,” Karla said.
“There’s no sense in that, if you don’t have to.”
She tried to smile. “I don’t have anything to do anyway. Sunday’s a funny day. There’s nothing ever to do.”
“Let me have the mail, Karla.”
“Honestly, it’s no trouble for me to ride to the camp. I want to.”
“I don’t care where you ride,” Renda said. “Long as you give me the mail.”
She was aware of his stare and the cold, threatening tone of his voice and only then did she realize that he wanted the letters for another reason, not simply to save her a trip to the camp. Still, she hesitated.
“Karla, you hand them over else I’ll take them off you.”
“If you’re that anxious,” Karla said, “all right.” She leaned over to hand him the bundle then sat back in the saddle and watched him leaf through the envelopes. He pulled one of them out and looked at the return address on the envelope flap. Then, before Karla could speak, he had ripped open the envelope and was unfolding the letter.
“You can’t read other people’s mail!”
Not looking at her, Renda said, “Keep quiet.”
“That’s against the law!” Karla screamed. Then, more calmly, “Mr. Renda, you’re tampering with the United States mail. You can go to prison for what you just did.”
Renda looked up then. He was smiling and his eyebrows raised as if to show surprise. “I didn’t know it was a personal letter.”
“It wasn’t addressed to you!”
Renda nodded calmly. “It was addressed to Willis. But Willis ain’t at camp. What if it was something had to be tended to right away? Honey, it was my business to open it.” He held up the second letter addressed to Falvey. “This one, too,” he said, and tore it open.
The quirt, thonged to Karla’s wrist, dropped from her hand as she kicked her horse against Renda’s and reached for the letter. “Give me that!”
Renda pushed her and his horse side-stepped away. “Now don’t get excited.” She came at him again and he held her away until he finished reading the letter.
“No,” Renda said. “That one wasn’t business either.” He grinned then. “It seems Willis put in for a transfer, but this”-he glanced down at the return address on the envelope-“Everett C. Allen, of Washington, D.C., thinks Willis ought to stay right here. Says there aren’t any good openings now, but he’ll let him know when one comes along and in the meantime, superintending a”-he looked down at the letter again-“a territorial penal institution was valuable experience and would equip him for a more responsible position when the opportunity presented itself.”
Renda was still smiling. “Karla, did you know Five Shadows was a territorial penal institution?”
“My father’s going to hear about this,” Karla said.
“Your father’s going to hear about it. Now that’s something.”
“You won’t think it’s funny then-opening other people’s mail.”
Renda crumpled both of the letters in his fist. “What mail?”
“Give me those!”
He held Karla away as she came at him again and threw the tight ball of paper over his shoulder. “I don’t have anything, Karla. Just this pack of letters. That what you want?”
For a moment she stared at him, feeling a rage she could do nothing about. She dismounted then, looping her reins about the saddle horn, and walked around Renda’s horse to pick up the crumpled letters.
“I’m giving this to my father,” Karla said. “Just the way it is. You can count on a United States marshal visiting you within two weeks.”
“Why? Because you found a piece of thrown-away paper?”
“You won’t talk like that to a marshal.”
“Whatever you’re holding, I never saw before in my life,” Renda said. “And you and all the United States marshals in the country aren’t going to prove I did.”
“We’ll see,” Karla said.
Renda swung down from the saddle and walked toward her. Watching him Karla began to back away. “What’s the matter with you?” Renda said. “I only want to give your letters back. You’re so anxious to ride them up to the camp, all right. Here.”
As Karla took them, Renda’s hand went to her shoulder. “Karla, there’s no good reason we have to fight.”
“Take your hand off me.”
“Why don’t we just talk awhile. Get all the misunderstanding cleared away.”
“I’m happy the way it is,” Karla said. She shifted the mail to her left hand and her right hand closed around the quirt that hung from her wrist.
“Karla, we could go over and sit in that sycamore shade. Let the horses water-”
“I said take your hand off me!”
Renda grinned. “Like nobody ever touched you before.”
The quirt came up. Before Renda saw it, the rawhide lashed across his face; before he could bring up his hands the whip came back stinging across his eyes, and as he covered his face Karla ran.
Five strides and she was in her saddle, spurring, reining tight to the left, cracking the quirt across the rump of Renda’s mount, then at Renda as he ran to her, as he caught her leg, almost pulling her from the saddle. She swung viciously again and again, the quirt hissing, slashing at his straining upturned face, until suddenly he was no longer there.
As Renda went down, Karla’s horse broke into a gallop. Over her shoulder she saw Renda on the ground, now rising to his feet and pausing to look after her, now running for his horse as it disappeared into the sycamore grove.
It rushed through Karla’s mind that she was heading up canyon. To return home the way she had come, she would have to come about and run past Renda. He would have caught his horse by the time she passed the sycamores and would overtake her easily before she reached the end of the canyon. So there was no choice.
She would go to the camp. There were people there, and even if they worked for Renda it would be better there than being alone. He would follow her; but he would have had time to think of what he had done. Lizann would be there. She would tell Lizann about it and Frank Renda would have something else to think about. She could worry about returning home when the time came.
To her right, the wagon-trail wash came winding down through the talus and Karla reined toward it. Reaching the rim of the canyon she stopped long enough to look back. Far below her Renda, mounted again, was moving unhurriedly up the new stretch of road.
Minutes later, Karla was riding down the slope that stretched to the convict camp. The gate guard recognized her two hundred yards out. He unlocked the chain and swung half of the gate open to let Karla ride in.
“Is Mrs. Falvey home?”
The guard looked over toward the ramada. “That’s her horse. I judge she’s fixing for a ride.”
“I want to deliver her mail,” Karla said.
“Go right ahead, honey.”
Karla dismounted. She glanced at the bundle of letters as if to leaf through them. “Maybe there’s something for you.”
The guard shook his head. “Don’t take the bother to look.”
“If you’re that sure-” Karla said. She looked back as the guard started to swing the gate closed. He hesitated, squinting out into the glare and she knew he had seen the dust line coming down the slope.
“You might as well leave it open,” Karla said.
Now they could make out the form of horse and rider. Still squinting the guard asked, “Who is it?”
“Your boss,” Karla said. She moved away then, leading her horse toward the main adobe. Reaching the end of the building, she entered the shade of the ramada and moved along the edge of it to the support post where Lizann’s horse stood. She half-hitched her reins to the post and walked over to the Falveys’ quarters.
As she stepped into the doorway, Bowen and Lizann turned, moving apart, Lizann’s arms coming down from Bowen’s shoulders. Bowen’s hand pushed into his shirt front, but not quickly enough. Karla had already seen the revolver in his hand.