13/02/2026 12:41

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I got here last week and decided there wasn't no sense in riding south. He looked around at the parched country, the naked ridges where the earth had split from drought. Jim left immediately--so immediately that he forgot to stoop and bumped his head on the door frame. Neither even commented on the storm.

He drank, bathed, and soaked his dirty clothes, spreading them out on the grass to dry. He had never understood the whole business, but he knew mothers took care of babies, just as husbands took care of wives. Where would a horsethief come from, and where would one go? Still, a fact was a fact: the horses were gone. I'll take that back.