Page 54 of Remmen

He shook his horns.

The engine sound was wrong for a supply run, too steady, no rattle of crates in the bed. I stayed on my bench and waited. No point getting up for trouble that hadn’t arrived yet.

The truck came around the last bend in the track and pulled to a stop in front of the house. Dust settled around it. The door opened and Korfas climbed out, slow, setting his boots down like he didn’t trust the ground. He straightened to his full height and stood there looking around the yard.

I narrowed my eyes. Korfas was steady, always had been, even back when steady got you killed. But he wasn’t the visiting kind.

It was never good when the law made a trip out this far.

In the weeks since Mestyn abducted Anne, things had calmed down. I kept the men on the farm as much as possible, or out in the surrounding countryside. We didn’t need to go into town and upset the fragile balance.

But the peace wouldn’t last for long. Mestyn and Hesk weren’t the only assholes among us, and the call of chaos would chime soon enough.

Korfas shut the truck door behind him and took his time looking the place over. He scanned the outbuildings, the fence line, the big barn at the back. His gaze hung on the barn a beat too long. He rolled his shoulders and turned to survey the yard again. If he’d had a blade on his hip, his hand would have been on the grip.

I pushed myself off my bench and ambled over to the man. I didn’t need him causing any trouble while we were being well behaved.

“Afternoon.” I nodded my horns at him. “What brings you out here?”

Korfas squared up to face me. His weight shifted back half a step, not retreat, just enough room to move if this turned ugly. His jaw was set and his eyes had gone flat and careful.

“Remmen wanted me to come check on things,” Korfas finally said. “He hasn’t seen anyone from out here in a while.”

“We’ve been keeping ourselves busy,” I replied.

Korfas’s eyes narrowed and he looked over toward the big barn. “Keeping busy, or causing trouble?”

“If we stay out of town, I can’t see how that’s trouble.”

The air between us had that particular weight to it. I’d spent enough years in the sand to know the difference between a man who wanted to swing and a man who was bracing for it. Korfas was bracing.

I caught movement at the edge of my sight. Nakhil had parked himself in the shadow of the tool shed, arms folded. Two more had drifted out, Drev leaning against the water trough and a younger one whose name I couldn’t remember standing in the barn doorway. All three had their eyes on me, not Korfas.

Waiting to see what I did.

And it hit me, stupid and obvious and unwelcome, that I’d been running this farm since the day they put Mestyn on the transport. I’d been the one deciding who worked what field and who stayed inside when tempers ran hot. The men came to me when there was a dispute over rations, came to me when one of the younger ones got too rough at the woodpile. I’d been doing it without thinking about it. But these three weren’t watching to see if a fight broke out. They were watching to see how their leader handled it.

Fuck. That was the last thing I needed. Couldn’t these bulls handle themselves? Why did they need a leader?

“Remmen wanted me to talk to you about something,” Korfas said as he finally looked back at me. “He thought we could use a bit more communication between folks outside town and those in it.”

I turned that over. Communication. Between the farm and the town. Between the men nobody wanted to look at and the settlement that locked its doors when we walked down the street.

He wanted a go-between. Somebody who could keep the peace from this end while Remmen kept it from his. Somebody who’d answer when the mayor came calling and make sure the rest of them answered too.

He wanted me to be his man out here.

“I lived under a whip long enough. I’m not going to swing one for anyone else.” I scowled.

“That’s not what he’s asking.” Korfas bristled at the implication.

“Then he can get his hide out here and ask me himself. Or you can tell him simple: I’m not interested.”

We stood there. Korfas was built like a doorway and I wasn’t much smaller, and neither of us had ever been the type to look away first. The wind picked up dust between us and carried it off toward the barn.

“Is that all, deputy?” I asked.

Korfas turned around and stalked back to his truck.