He done the wrong thing and he's
got to learn."
No more was said about David, and after breakfast they waited doing the
odd tasks that accumulated for their few periods of rest. Susan sat
sewing where the wagon cast a cooling slant of shade. Daddy John was
beyond her in the sun, his sere old body, from which time had stripped
the flesh, leaving only a tenuous bark of muscle, was impervious to the
heat. In the growing glare he worked over a broken saddle, the
whitening reaches stretching out beyond him to where the mountains
waved in a clear blue line as if laid on with one wash of a saturated
paint brush. Courant was near him in the shadow of his horse, cleaning
a gun, sharp clicks of metal now and then breaking into the stillness.
As the hours passed the shadow of the wagon shrunk and the girl moved
with it till her back was pressed against the wheel. She was making a
calico jacket, and as she moved it the crisp material emitted low
cracklings. Each rustle was subdued and stealthy, dying quickly away
as if it were in conspiracy with the silence and did not want to
disturb it. Courant's back was toward her.
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