There was always the possibility that, when Portfield learned of Caley’s misfortune, he would shrug and say that any man who worked for him ought to be able to cope with an ageing cripple. Gregg had known him to make equally unexpected judgements, but he had a suspicion that on this occasion the hammer of Portfield’s anger was going to come down hard, and that he was going to be squarely underneath it. In a way he could not understand, his apprehension was fed and magnified by Morna’s own mysterious fears.
During the meals, while the three of them were seated at the rough wooden table, he was content to have Ruth carry the burden of conversation with Morna. The talk was mainly of domestic matters, on any of which Morna might have been drawn out to reveal something of her own background, but she skirted Ruth’s various traps with easy diplomacy.
Late in the evening Morna began to experience the first contraction pains, and from that point Gregg found himself relegated by Ruth to the status of an inconvenient piece of furniture. He accepted the treatment without rancour, having been long familiar with the subdued hostility that women feel towards men during a confinement, and willingly performed every task given to him. Only an occasional brooding glance from Morna reminded him that between them was a covenant of which Ruth, for all her matronly competence, knew nothing.
The baby was born at noon on Sunday, and—as Morna had predicted—it was a boy.
“Don’t let Morna do too much,” Ruth said on Monday morning, as she seated herself in the gig. “She has no business being up and about so soon after a birth.”
Gregg nodded. “Don’t worry—I’ll take care of all the chores.”
“Do that.” Ruth looked at him with sudden interest. “How are your arms these days?”
“Better. They feel a lot easier.”
“That’s good.” Ruth picked up the reins, but seemed reluctant to drive away. Her gaze strayed towards the house, where Morna was standing with the baby cradled in her arms. “I suppose you can’t wait for me to go and leave you alone with your ready-made family.”
“Now, you know that’s not right, Ruth. You know how much I appreciate all you’ve done here. You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Jealous?” Ruth shook her head, then gave him a level stare. “Morna is a strange girl. She’s not like me, and she’s not like you—but I’ve got a feeling there’s something going on between you two.”
Gregg’s fear of Ruth’s intuitive powers stirred anew. “You know, Ruth, you’re starting to sound like one of those new phonographs.”
“Oh, I don’t mean hanky-panky,” she said quickly, “but you’re up to something. I know you.”
“I’ll be in to settle up my bill in a day or two,” Gregg parried. “Soon as I can change one of those gold bars.”
“Try to do it before Josh Portfield gets back.” Ruth flicked the reins and drove down the hillside.
Gregg took a deep breath and surveyed the distant blue ramparts of the sierras before walking back to the house. Morna was still wearing the flowered dressing gown and, with the shawl-wrapped baby in her arms, she looked much like any other young mother. The single unconformity in her appearance was the gold ornament on her wrist. Even in the brightness of the morning sunlight, its needle of crimson light was harshly brilliant and its pulsations had speeded up to several a second. Gregg had thought a lot about the ornament during his spells of solitude over the previous two days, and he had convinced himself he understood its function, if not its nature. He felt the time had come for some plain talking.
Morna went indoors with him. The birth had been straightforward and easy for her, but her face was pale and drawn, and there was a tentative quality about the smile she gave him as he closed the door.
“It feels strange for us to be alone again,” Morna said quietly.
“Very strange.” Gregg pointed at the flashing bracelet. “But it looks as though we won’t be alone for very long.”
She sat down abruptly and her baby raised one miniature pink hand in protest at the sudden movement. Morna drew the infant closer to her breast. She lowered her face to the baby, touching its forehead with hers, and her hair fell forward, screening it with strands of gold.
“I’m sorry,” Gregg said, “but I need to know who it is that’s coming out of the east. I need to know who I’m going up against.”
“I can’t tell you that, Billy.”
“I see—I’m entitled to get killed maybe, but not to know who does it, or why.”
“Please don’t.” Her voice was muffled. “Please understand … that I can’t tell you anything.”
Gregg felt a pang of guilt. He went to Morna and knelt beside her. “Why don’t we both—the three of us, I mean—get out of here right now? We could load up the buckboard and be gone in ten minutes.”
Morna shook her head without looking up. “It wouldn’t make any difference.”
“It would make a difference to me.”
At that, Morna raised her head and looked at him with anxious, brimming eyes. “This man, Portfield—will he try to kill you?”
“Did Ruth tell you about him?” Gregg clicked his tongue with annoyance. “She shouldn’t have done that. You’ve got enough to …”
“Will he try to kill you?”
Gregg was impelled to tell the unvarnished truth. “It isn’t so much a matter of him trying to kill me, Morna. He rides around in company with seven or eight hard cases, and if they decide to kill somebody they just go right ahead and do it.”
“Oh!” Morna seemed to regain something of her former resolve. “My son can’t travel yet, but I’ll get him ready as soon as I can. I’ll try hard, Billy.”
“That’s fine with me,” Gregg said uncertainly. He had an uneasy feeling that the conversation had got beyond him in some way, but he had lost the initiative and was in no way equipped to deal with a woman’s tears.
“That’s all right, then.” He had got to his feet and looked down at the baby’s absurdly tiny features. “Have you thought of a name for the little fellow yet?”
Morna relaxed momentarily, looking pleased. “It’s too soon. The naming time is still above him.”
“In English,” Gregg gently corrected, “we say that the future is ahead of us, not above us.”
“But that implies linear …” Morna checked her words. “You’re right, of course—I should have said ahead.”
“My mother was a schoolmarm,” he said inconsequentially, once more with an odd sense that communications between them were failing. “I’ve got some work to do outside, but I’ll be close by if you need me.”
Gregg went to the door, and as he was closing it behind him he looked back into the room. He saw that, yet again, Morna was sitting with her forehead pressed to that of her son, something he had never seen other women doing. He dismissed it as the least puzzling of her idiosyncracies. In fact, there was no pressing work to be done outside—but he had a gut feeling the time had come for keeping an eye on all approaches to his house. He walked slowly to the top of the saddleback, threading his way among boulders which resembled grazing sheep, and settled down on the eastern crest. A careful scan with his telescope revealed no activity in the direction of the Portfield ranch or on the trail running south to Copper Cross. Gregg then pointed the little instrument due east towards where the Rio Grande flowed unseen between the northern extremities of the Sierra Madre and the Sacramento Mountains. Visibility was good, and his eye was dazzled with serried vistas of peaks and ranges on a scale too vast for comprehension.