It was not a long wait. Lorenz had sat hunkered down on his heels, figuring that if he sat cross legged he would need more space to unlimber his rifle. He had chased all worry about his mother and Martin out of his mind. He was intent on listening and he heard the two horses long before the men walked in shortly after six o'clock. He had used mindsearch to see if these two were the ones Chalky had told about. What he found made it easy to want to pull the trigger. He had to figure out some way to keep Chalky from going home.
The two men didn't bother to knock. They ignored the “Closed” sign propped in the door and walked in. One of them bellowed, “Anyone up. We need to buy some supplies.”
Lorenz heard the door close behind them and he stood, his back against the wall, and brought his rif
