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    The Way Station
    The Way Station
    The Way Station
    Ebook124 pages2 hours

    The Way Station

    By Paul Lederer

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    In a dusty, far-off way station, trouble finds a retired gunman

    Virginia fell in love with Cameron Black as a young girl. The sight of a trained killer with guns on his hips set her heart fluttering. But as the years wore on, she drifted away, unable to bear her worry for him. Years later, after Black rescues Virginia from an Indian attack, she makes him an offer: Hang up your guns and I’ll be yours again. Together, they take a job running a lonely stagecoach station in the middle of the open range, hoping to find peace at last. But trouble is not far behind.

    An outlaw arrives, smuggling $50,000 in stolen gold. His companion is Becky Grant, a debutante on the run from her father. Thieves chase the bandit, marshals hunt Becky, and a storm closes in on the way station. Before it passes, Cameron Black will don his pistols once more.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMay 13, 2014
    ISBN9781480487581
    The Way Station
    Author

    Paul Lederer

    Paul Lederer spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Texas. He worked for years in Asia and the Middle East for a military intelligence arm. Under his own name, he is best known for Tecumseh and the Indian Heritage Series, which focuses on American Indian life. He believes that the finest Westerns reflect ordinary people caught in unusual and dangerous circumstances, trying their best to act with honor.

    Read more from Paul Lederer

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    Reviews for The Way Station

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This story of a human dealing with all sorts of alien beings who spend time with him and give him gifts is so wild and wonderfully imaginative. Included is his dealings with fellow Earthlings who live in his neighborhood. I was pleasantly astounded by the quality of this book! No wonder it won a Hugo.
    • 4/5
      This book is Hugo Winner from 1964. I can see why it won - its beautifully written, with a great leading character, and a very interesting premise - Aliens need a way station that gets them to their next stop, and Earth is just one station in this large network. It read a bit like Sand Country Almanac at times, with the lead character pondering over nature and what has changed in the years since he became keeper of the station.however, its not perfect. At times, there is too much niceness. The Government men in this story, for example, actually being reasonable in a situation that I wouldn't consider reasonable. Or the ending of the story, the came out of left field, and solved all the problems, from the Galactic Government breaking up, to the Earth being admitted to the alliance... It came out of nowhere. One last thing, this book doesn't feel dated at all. Outside of a few things (lack of automation, for example), the book feels modern. It even has a modern feel about accepting diversity and not judging on looks.Overall, a very well written book and worthy of the awards won.
    • 4/5
      Enoch is a former farmer and Civil War soldier who now tends a house which has become an indestructible fortress and serves as a connecting point for interstellar travel, even though Earth itself knows nothing of these alien beings and their technolog. As long as he remains in the building, Enoch does not age. He has met and befriended beings from all over the galaxy. But now, 100 years plus after he began this unusual life, unrest in the galactic federation threatens the station. Enoch must decide where his loyalties lie: with his primitive home planet Earth or with the more advanced galactic organization which represents the future. This is a great story, gripping and thought-provoking.
    • 5/5
      Loved it. Simak only writes good books. He has such a comfortable style that allows you to forgive him any miss-steps.
    • 4/5
      Simak at his best.
    • 4/5
      This is a classic sci-fi novel by Simak. When it came out, it won the Hugo award for best novel in 1964. In 1987 it was nominated for all-time best science fiction novel. Simak returns to the Wisconsin farmland of his youth. His main character is Enoch who is picked by Ulysses (his alien benefactor) to staff a waystation in the Wisconsin hills for alien travelers from the stars. For an unexplained reason, a waystation on Earth is needed for aliens who want to travel between the stars. Enoch is a 30 year old Civil War veteran when he is picked. The aliens furnish Enoch a time traveler waystation that has a significant benefit for Enoch. He never ages while in the station. A crisis occurs when the Earth appears headed for nuclear war and when the galactic civilization loses its Talisman which artifact promotes peace and harmony throughout the Galaxy. The crisis also pulls in a deaf mute girl (Lucy) who has extra sensory skills. The novel allows Simak to describe his Wisconsin background and to advocate his gentle philosophy which advocates peace and harmony on Earth. Enoch is the only well-rounded character in the book.
    • 4/5
      I read somewhere that not many readers are aware of sci-fi writer Clifford Simak any more. I hope that's not true. His City, featuring intelligent, peace-loving dogs who've inherited an abandoned planet, was a big deal for me when I was a kid, and he had some wonderful short stories. After Roni identified Way Station as her favorite of his, I got off my duff and finally read it. Although I may not be as starry-eyed now as when I read City, I very much enjoyed this tale of a seemingly ageless Civil War veteran in the 1960s, Enoch, living in rural Wisconsin and involved in mysterious doings that may turn out to be alien-related.He lives in a mysterious farmhouse "so slick and smooth that dust could not cling upon its surface, nor weather stain it". Simak has a tranquil, evocative writing style, and he lovingly describes the woodland area in which Enoch lives and his daily routine, including brewing his coffee in an old metal pot. In that time of Cold War fears, Enoch, in his farmhouse in the Wisconsin woods, may be at the crossroad of humanity destroying itself, or instead joining the Galactic community.The story, which draws in government agents, local rascals, and intriguing offworlders, features a macguffin called the Talisman, and some supernatural elements via a deaf and mute local girl. The story elements of this Hugo award winner may not be at the level of a Dune or Childhood's End, but it is a reader-friendly and vivid tale that felt like I was reading it out in the woods by a crackling fire. Simak's writing ages much better than that of many other sci-fi writers from that time period, and I hope he continues to get the recognition he deserves.
    • 4/5
      Great little read. More about ethical issues with scifi/aliens as background than true sci-fi read by my reckoning, but nevertheless a good read.
    • 3/5
      Way Station has a lot to recommend it: an interesting premise, lots going on, and a mood that is reflective without being slow. The protagonist, a Civil War veteran, is still a middle-aged man in the 1960s, living as a recluse on his long-departed parents' farm, subscribing to scientific journals and newspapers that are delivered by the mailman, one of his few human contacts. Simak doesn't withhold key facts; he sets up several plotlines, ranging from the personal to the national to the galactic, and then lets them unspool and collide.While the story was a pleasure to read, I found the ending unsatisfactory in nearly all respects. Enoch, the protagonist, is cast as an observer rather than a driver of the plot throughout, even when he is forced to decisive action. An early plotline, wound up by before the halfway point of the book, reappears unexpectedly in the denouement, without adding anything to the story. And some of the most interesting conflicts and solutions still lie ahead as the story ends. That said, it is a fast read, and worth it for the warm tone and the nuanced depiction of human-human and human-alien friendships.
    • 4/5
      Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit striding across his untended farmland as he's done for over a century and carrying his Civil War rifle that he carried in that war. What his neighbors must never know is that inside his never-changing house, he hosts unimaginable friends from the farthest stars. More than 100 years early, an alien named Ulysses recruited Enoch as Earth's only intergalactic transfer station.
    • 4/5
      Enoch Wallace was sitting on his porch one day when a traveller approached and offered him a very singular opportunity: Become a caretaker for a new way station for travellers to take their ease as they take respite from their journey's. But these travellers are not your ordinary everyday type of people, indeed many of them are not everyone's idea of people at all. They come from all over the galaxy and Earth is a convenient place for a stop along the route for this part of it. Implicit in his acceptance is that he will not divulge his activities to his fellow man and will care faithfully for those who come and go. In return, he will not age while he is inside of the station only when he sets foot outside will his body clock resume. Almost a hundred years have past since he took up his duties, meeting all sorts of weird and wonderful beings who would often bring gifts for the station-keeper, which he has performed admirably but out on his own world someone has taken notice of a story that seems more like a folk-tale. There is a man living on an isolated farm that doesn't seem to age. Has he discovered the secret of immortality or is there something else afoot? CIA agent Claude Lewis has been tasked to investigate and he might just stir up a hornet's nest by doing so.A simple but intriguing and beguiling tale with few but interesting characters that really suck the reader in. The central character is a masterful creation, at once the loneliest man on Earth but also the only one to feel kinship with many visitors to whom his fellow man remain totally unaware. It's a very moving tale where you feel Enoch's loneliness as well as his anguish over a decision for his and Earth's future which is weighing on his mind. If this is a book about aliens then why does it contain so much humanity?
    • 5/5
      Another great one from Simak. Way Station is the first real science fiction book I ever read - and it hooked me for life. Enough said.
    • 3/5
      Audiobook - I enjoyed this SF book - I usually do not enjoy SF but this one was very easy to read and the story was very interesting
    • 5/5
      This book won the Hugo Award in 1964. Written in Simak's unique and recognizable style, it tells of a happening in Rural America...the existence of a Way Station for non-humans passing through Earth on the way to elsewhere, with a human caretaker who took the job on right after the Civil War. Now, 100 years later, he is beginning to get some official attention. Watchers, of a sort. The watchers do something in ignorance (and greed for knowledge) that throws a spanner in the whole works. Their action threatens the caretaker's plans to help Earth become a participant in the galactic federation. How the problem is solved is a bit mystical for a science fiction story, but very typical of Simak's writing. I think it a wonderful book.
    • 5/5
      The UK 1976 Methuen paperback reprint has a cover by Chris Moore which is almost completely wrong in every respect, except that it captures extremely well what the book is about!
    • 4/5
      In the early 1980's I read a lot of Clifford Simak's fiction. He rather quickly established himself as one of my favorite authors. I read most of his works that I could find but found I didn't care all that much for some of his last books, which seemed to veer more towards fantasy than science fiction. A lot of Simak's good science fiction, though, does contain what could be considered as fantasy elements. His writing at times has reminded me a bit like Ray Bradbury's in the storytelling and setting. Waystation was one of my favorites. It was originally written in the early 60's when the United States put focus on the centennial of the American Civil War. It is a story about a civil war veteran, Enoch Wallace, a union soldier, who returns home to the family from four years of fighting. His mother and father soon pass on and he is alone and pondering a new beginning. He lives in a quite rural location and has an unusual visitor who offers him an unlikely way to have that new beginning. The visitor asks Enoch to be the caretaker of a waystation on Earth, a stop off point for galactic travellers. We find Enoch 100 years after having taken on the task having hardly aged in the 100 years because the time he spends in the waystation is out of time for him - he doesn't age - he only ages during the 1 hour or so a day he spends outside on earth. His longevity has drawn some notice, and The story cannot but help having some of the cold war menace about it, but it also is more about Enoch's concern about humanity and how he looks forward to the time when mankind has grown up enough to join the vast galactic civilization that is out there, which he learns and meets little by little over the years as caretaker of the civilization. And yet, in the face of this are the conclusions he draws from his studies and statistical analysis of the world that shows mankind heading straight to another world war and possible destruction.Enoch is a lonely man, since he cannot interact with human society in many ways, and this sort of parallels his thinking of earth being alone with the galactic civilizations out there, yet not being able to interact. This is a thoughtful, rather philosophical novel. Unfortunately some of the philosophical ramblings and the recounting of the supposed fabulous knowledge of various races scattered all over the universe and how they could help mankind came across as a bit of mushy mess. There was also a bit too much of running around in circles within Enoch's mind as he tried to puzzle out one mystery or another.Still, I enjoyed re-reading this story and it held up well for me considering it was written 50 years ago. I think it was perhaps a better book in my memory than it was in re-reading however.
    • 5/5
      My reactions to reading this book in 1991. Spoilers follow.This, like all the Simak I've read, was pleasant and engaging. It's a relatively simple story -- Enoch Wallace runs a teleportation transport station for travellers of a galactic federation and, through a modest set of events, this secret is revealed to Earth and humanity joins this co-fraternity of sentient beings. But the tone is charming. Simak does a wonderful job of conveying alienness yet still gives his aliens a commonality with man. Enoch Wallace is an interesting man dealing with loneliness and the conflict between his home Earth and the world of wonder and friendship he has found with alien beings. Simak, as usual, describes the area around his hometown of Millville, Wisconsin wonderfully. His rural folk, like his friend the mailman, are well portrayed but not whitewashed. Hank Fisher is shown as a brutal troublemaker. Simak's skill as a writer shows in what he gets away with in this book. The book starts out with alternating chapters of Wallace's life and Claude Lewis', CIA agent, investigations of him. This scheme is dropped to show Wallace's day to day life and surrounds, and there are lots of flashback's to Wallace's early life. The book really doesn't have a compelling conflict (unless you count the mystery of who Wallace is and what he's doing which is certainly valid) until more than halfway through the novel when the closing of the station is threatened. Then Simak gives us a whirlwind gloss on intergalactic intrigue and philosophical conflict. He wraps up the novel (as he usually does in the ones I've read) with a bit of deus ex machina in having Lucy Fisher the new custodian for the Talisman. As usual, though he gets away with it. After having found out in Ed Regis Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition Simak was a Catholic, certain story elements take on a new interest. Lucy Fisher with her healing powers and custodianship of the Talisman is a sort of Mary-like figure in her intercessor powers. The Talisman is much like a Catholic icon. The spiritual force mentioned as binding all sentients sounds like the Holy Spirit of the Trinity (or all living in as one in Christ to paraphrase another biblical notion).
    • 5/5
      One of the best stories I have ever read. I have had this copy since I was twelve and re-read it at least twice every year.
    • 4/5
      I like the development of the contemplative Enoch Wallace character, as well as Enoch himself. The plot itself was a bit pulpy for my tastes. But, that is a sign of the times, much like the obligatory threat of nuclear war looming over Enoch's Earth.The pacifist sentiments expressed in the book are very nice. Most disappointing I found the old memes that "there are things in the universe that human minds cannot comprehend" and that there exists a tangible spirit connecting all living beings in the universe. Otherwise, a good book.
    • 3/5
      It's curious this is so popular and so bad. It's the same old reactionary authoritarian world view endemic to most classic science fiction. Set aside the core message and there isn't much left, the writing is stiff, the characters wooden, the plot unmemorable. At best it's comfort food.
    • 5/5
      Oh my. I'm a Simak fan of long standing, and I'd somehow missed this.Way Station is the tale of a galactic empire's outpost on Earth. An American Civil War-era house has been modified to suit the needs of travelers from all parts of the galaxies, complete with tanks of life-supporting solutions in which they refresh themselves on their way elsewhere.The house is manned by Enoch, a forever-young Civil War vet who has been studying the materials and conversations he's had with all his "guests" and recording them for use by a smarter Earth.Earth itself is heading for nuclear disaster on a runaway train unless Enoch and a galactic friend can find the Talisman, an object which summarizes all the knowledge of the worlds and can bring peace to the restive ones.It's not so much a Quest as a riveting philosophical story, with a few twists thrown in.
    • 4/5
      This book was amazing and made a good change of pace from epic, gritty, or intricate science fiction. This is the "bottle show" of the science fiction world. Set on 1960s Earth* (and written on 1960s Earth*) it is about a civil war veteran (not the grizzled type though, or, if he ever was, it has long smoothed over into a man full of wonder and love of life) who mans an interplanetary stopover station. This is the story of the upsetting of his routine.

      I enjoyed the sense of wonder and the warm, logical mind of the narrator.

      *Put in its perspective, the novel makes sense thematically as well as seeming less naive than if it was written today. For example, there is a deaf-mute girl who plays a central role in the story. The author (or at least the narrator) subscribes to the idea that because she can't communicate with the world, she must have this wondrous and extrasensory inner life. She is treated as more pure than the rest of us and eventually rises to be attain the holiness that is attributed to her from the get-go. It was my least favorite part of the story, but I just kept telling myself that there wasn't a reason why she couldn't be this way given the established rules of this universe.
    • 5/5
      O come on now. I've read this several times; I know I have. And part of the reason I keep rereading it is because my record of doing so gets lost. I'm not writing another review. Just know that this is probably the one that got me hooked on Simak, and it's probably the one that makes his reputation.
    • 5/5
      This is the story of Enoch Wallace, a lonely Civil War veteran who becomes the caretaker of a galactic way station. No one on Earth knows about the way station or the aliens that pass through it. Everyone thinks it is an old farm house and that Enoch is an eccentric loner. Enoch Wallace is a fascinating character. He lives a very unique life. To keep in touch with the outside world he orders books and subscribes to magazines, which are delivered by his only friend; the local postman. He does not age while in the station which makes him practically immortal. The only time he grows older is when he takes his daily hour long walk to the mailbox. Enoch meets many different aliens who give him gifts and talk with him. He learns about other worlds and philosophies and makes friends with these creatures. A practical man, he takes people as they come. This makes him the perfect custodian for the way station. Clifford Simak, along with Ray Bradbury and Jack Finney, are known as pastoral science fiction writers. Their works take place in rural America. This type of setting makes even fantastic stories seem more believable. Who knows what could be going on in that old farm house on the outskirts of town?This novel was a quick and enjoyable read. It's not just a science fiction novel, Simak uses the story to express his belief in the human intellect and spirit. Enoch is a developed individual who is an equal to any alien who comes through the way station. He is proof that Earth belongs with the other civilizations in the galactic federation. That is, once the race matures and outgrows the stupidity of greed and war.
    • 4/5
      It's not often you get to read a SciFi set in your own state--when that state is Wisconsin. He put in a good description of the coulees of the Driftless region but made the residents a bit too much of backwoods hillbillies. Or maybe not; compare to Kenny Salwey's "The Last River Rat."Enoch, the protagonist, is a bit of a gentle, thoughtful soul, his response to the horrors of the Civil War. Now, about eighty years later, he can see earth heading toward another slaughter and wishes he could find some way to stop it. Most of the book is his exploration of what is a human, how can we progress, how can he use his position to help humanity.Not all of the story makes sense. I'm not sure why Simak added in the character of Mary--perhaps he needed to show the Enoch had some normal human yearnings. And for a station required to keep its presence unknown to other humans, there are an awful lot of aliens running around on the last night.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book, although I thought that the ending had some pieces that were not well thought out and appeared suddenly. However, the overall story was great and I enjoyed Enoch. Will see about reading other Simak stories.
    • 4/5



      I've been reading this book on and off for several years (first time I read it in Portuguese...). Once in a while I get the urge to pick it up again. It happened again... lol

      Storytelling, movie making, painting are all art forms. There is no right or wrong way to make art. There's no inherently proper or improper, no right or wrong, no appropriate or inappropriate way to craft artistic expression. Simak had his way. Heinlein had his way. Bach had his way. Eça de Queiroz had his way. Nick Ray had his way (Johnny Guitar...).

      One of the things that still makes me uncomfortable is its naked appeal to raw emotion. As a culture we've become very postmodern and ironically self-aware.

      This novels proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that great writing isn't just about writing tastefully and avoiding bloopers in current literary fashion. It's about striking a responsive chord in the reader and in that respect this book works perfectly.

      Clifford D. Simak was a great writer, and had the awareness of nature and environment that lent a depth and reality to his settings and characters."
    • 5/5
      This is not a space opera. There are no space ships or laser guns or daring space flights. This is a simple, quiet sci-fi novel, with a deep well of thought and meaning. The end question is - do humans deserve the chance to find our own way or are we too dangerous to be left to our own ways? Enoch, with his gentle manner and striking intelligence, seeks to find a way to convince his employers (not humans) that Earth deserves the change to live.Woven into this is Enoch’s own journey – to let go of the past, to embrace the future, and to accept what may come. In the end, it is the way being a Station Master has changed his own perceptions that allow him to find the answer. There is a deep philosophical bent to this story.That isn’t to say there isn’t action. The plot is brisk, with constant changes. Simak prose is heavy with imagery, the kind that makes the story alive in your mind.It is easy to see why this book won the Hugo. A well-deserved award for a fantastic science fiction story.
    • 5/5

      Enoch Wallace returned to his family's farm after the Civil War, and farmed it with his father until a freak accident left him alone on it. Then, after some grieving and meditation on what the future might hold, he receives a most unusual visitor--a traveler from further away than he could have imagined.

      Ulysses--the name Enoch gives him, suitable to the human tongue--is an emissary from Galactic Central, here to recruit Enoch to operate a way station for galactic travelers. A century later, he's still running it, and hasn't aged a day.

      People are starting to notice.

      And stresses are appearing in galactic civilization, even as Earth appears to be sliding toward a third and more terrible world war.

      That description may make it seem strange that this is a very gentle book, quietly moving rather than brimming with action and excitement. Enoch, Ulysses, and Enoch's few human friends, the mailman Winslowe, the deaf-mute neighbor girl Lucy Fisher, and a new arrival in his life, CIA agent Claude Lewis, have some very knotty problems to work through in very little time.

      This is a story about good people taking on literally world-changing problems, in a quiet, pastoral setting.

      And it works.

      Get to know these people. You won't regret it.

      Highly recommended.

      I bought this audiobook.
    • 3/5
      It's hard to review the substance without spoilers, so I will just say it is part of the sub-genre projecting hope of pan-galaxy comity, despite the factions on and off Earth.The spoiler tag conceals one particular plot detail, as a matter of craft. The episode of burying the alien, despite the extreme care they take to conceal themselves from Earth, is jarring and unbelievable, even in the context of impossible events.

    Book preview

    The Way Station - Paul Lederer

    ONE

    In the coolness of early dawn Cameron Black stepped outside of the way station and studied the long land, the garishly colored desert sky. It was a primitive place to make your last stand, but that was what he and Virginia had chosen to do. Finish up their long, troubled careers in the virtual isolation of the desert. A few doves had already taken to wing, flying toward water holes hidden among the stone-flanked hills. A coyote glanced at Cameron and slunk away furtively. A tangle of fifteen-foot high ocotillo plants, now flowering at their tips, cut dark, thorny silhouettes against the sky which had gone from gray to crimson to gold-limned blue and soon would become a white vault above them.

    Whitey Carroll, who had arrived three months before from parts unknown, was already at work cutting wood for the kitchen stove which had to be kept burning so that six meals a day could be prepared – for the westbound stagecoach, for the passengers on the eastbound and, of course for the station crew. There was no way around that although during the summer the kitchen was a furnace. But then by noon on an August day, Borrego Springs was a furnace outdoors as well as in. Lucia, the young cook would already be up, muttering small Spanish curses as she banged iron kettles and copper pots around, a lot of the action unnecessary as Cameron knew. The woman had to protest her condition in some way. Cameron tried to keep his visits to Lucia’s sanctum to a minimum. If there were any problems, Virginia would see to them. Her manner was more soothing.

    Passing the corral, Cameron looked over the coach horses. They were still frisky at this time of the day; later a slow torpor would settle over them, only the twitching of their tails to chase away the horseflies indicating that they were alert in any way – and a part of that was probably reflex. They had plenty of hay and enough water – Cameron would have to tell Whitey to fill up the trough again when he was finished with his wood cutting.

    The kid never objected to any job he was assigned, although he moved with painful slowness. Cameron could never tell if the young man was sun-struck or simply none too bright. Nevertheless, Whitey did all that was required of him and he would not be easy to replace out here on the empty land.

    Cameron entered the dry shade of the barn. In the loft Archie Tate would still be sleeping until the heat awakened him later in the day. Tate was the hostler, and the wiry, bearded man seemed to have an internal clock which awakened him fully when it was time for an incoming stage. Then he was quick with his movements, unharnessing, hitching a fresh team with rapid skill. The rest of the time he lazed the days away in whatever shade he could find. He, too, did all that was required of him, and he, too, would not be easy to replace out on the desert. Both men were trustworthy in their own ways, and Cameron seldom interfered with their ideas of what their jobs entailed.

    Having made his brief tour of the yard, Cameron returned to the way station’s office where Virginia was already going over their tally books, making up a list of supplies they were running low on to send to the head office in Santa Fe. She looked sleepy to him, but not tired, really. Her gray-streaked dark hair was tied back loosely. She had a cup of coffee at her elbow.

    ‘Hello, Scopes,’ Cameron Black said, entering the room which was still cool thanks to its thick adobe walls. Virginia smiled.

    It was an old joke, greeting her that way. Her name now, of course was Virginia Black, but when Cameron had first known her it had been Virginia Scopes. And when he had grown angry with her for small crimes, instead of calling her ‘Ginnie’ as he had when they were both much younger, he had taken to calling her Scopes.

    If Borrego Springs might seem to be a kind of a hellish life to others, they had already been through several kinds of hell along life’s trail, and this wilderness living was a kind of comfortable solitude to them at this point in their lives.

    ‘Could you ask Lucia how we’re doing with beans and rice? How many sacks we need for next month?’ Virginia asked, turning her young-old eyes toward her husband.

    ‘You want me to enter her kitchen?’ Cameron asked with mock horror which caused Virginia’s mouth to twitch into a smile.

    ‘You can’t be that afraid of her,’ Virginia coaxed. ‘A grown-up man like you?’

    ‘She’s already banging pots and pans around and the sun’s barely risen.’

    ‘I’m not asking you to move in with her,’ Virginia said. ‘Just ask her how we’re doing with beans and rice.’

    ‘If I have to,’ Cameron replied and Virginia’s smile deepened. He kissed his recent bride and started toward the kitchen. Virginia watched him go: once one of the most feared gunmen in the territory afraid of a tiny Spanish cook! She knew he was mostly kidding with her, but also that he felt uneasy about confronting any of their employees. Things were just fine the way they were; he didn’t want to disturb anyone, step on any toes.

    She had met Cam so long ago that it did not seem possible that so many years had passed. As a girl she had admired the young gunfighter, cocky and sure of himself, his two guns worn low, his shoulders heavy with muscle, his dark curly hair always uncombed. She had seen Cameron take out two members of the Carson Plenty gang with a total of three shots. Her heart had fluttered with fear and pride at once.

    Later the guns became too much for her. Cameron accepted all sorts of jobs, which he approached recklessly, returning to her only when he was exhausted or wounded. It was too much for a girl of her age to bear. Going to sleep at night, wondering where he was; waking in the morning wondering if he were dead. One morning when she felt that she could take no more, she had simply packed her bags and left.

    He had drifted; she had drifted. Virginia had begun working in a dancehall and eventually turned to more profitable and dubious enterprises. When she had again met Cameron Black, twenty years on, she was besieged in an army outpost surrounded by Indians with her caravan of three camp-follower girls. That was when he had started calling her ‘Scopes.’ Debilitated so that he could no longer even draw his left-hand pistol, Cameron Black had nevertheless pulled them all out of a very dangerous situation.*

    They had had a long ride to Santa Fe to discuss their past and their future. Neither was sure there could be another chance for them or where to even try it. They could not get past their mutual feelings of abandonment and blame, but they decided to go on with life. Cameron had landed a job with the stage company – one which no one else wanted – managing the way station at Borrego Springs and here they had landed, a tired former whore and an ex-gunfighter. They still had not worked out all of their problems, but they had married and come to Borrego, sure of one thing – their troubled past could not follow them there.

    At least that was their constant hope. The long desert, barren and blank, was their final refuge, their final home. Virginia sighed and got back to the books.

    Cameron found himself hesitating at the kitchen door as another pan clattered to the floor. Lucia was in a mood today. He grinned, reminding himself of the times he had not flinched at stepping into a room to face half a dozen gunmen … all those years ago … and swung the door open to find Lucia, frozen in motion with another pot held high over her head. Her dark eyes sparked, her full lips twitched, but she said nothing and slowly lowered the pot.

    Lucia was young still, slender, usually friendly, but mercurial.

    ‘What’s the trouble, Lucia?’ Cam asked.

    ‘Always the same trouble!’ she spat. ‘Where is Renaldo? He does not come for me. He left to go off to make money for us so that I could be his wife and not a cook-slave.’ Her eyes suddenly moistened, and she sagged onto a straight-backed wooden chair, bowing her head. ‘I am stuck here,’ she murmured, ‘and he is off riding, I do not know where.’

    ‘I understand, Lucia,’ Cameron Black said. Whether the girl believed him or not, he really did. ‘All you can do is be patient. Remember, Renaldo misses you as much as you miss him. He will return.’

    Lucia dabbed at her eyes with her apron and nodded her head. ‘Thank you, Señor Black,’ she snuffled.

    Cameron was briefly embarrassed by the gratitude in her eyes. ‘Talk to Virginia after a while. She can probably give you better advice than I can. For now, will you check the larder and tell me how many more sacks of beans and rice you need for next month? Virginia says the list has to be sent to Santa Fe today on the eastbound

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