Chapter One

It was too far to recognize faces, but I’d seen a horse like that big black about three hours ago.

At the time, he’d been tied up to a hitching rail outside Miss Edna’s Café, and I wondered now if it was the same one. Sorrels, duns, roans were common, but black horses were like whites or paints; not popular, because they stood out against most backgrounds. The contrast made them easy to spot, and a horse like that could get a man killed in this New Mexico Territory of 1866.

I figured this might be the same one I’d seen outside Miss Edna’s, which made me curious and a little bit uneasy. Time to change my plans, I decided; my ranch wasn’t going anywhere, and for a while, neither was I. The huge ponderosa tree I was under was a mite too close to the trail to suit me, so I led Buck through the open forest to the south. I kept my eyes peeled for a better place to wait until the riders passed by.

Finding one took longer than expected and for a moment I thought about going back to the trail and heading the other way, down into the Tularosa Basin. But that would leave tracks, and the reason I’d doubled back was so that they wouldn’t know what I’d done. I remembered what Silent Sam had told me: “Ain’t no reason to rush before the fight starts, but ain’t no reason to waste time after that. I allus say that gettin’ kilt can wait, ain’t that right, Yep?”

“Yep.”

Sam wouldn’t rush things, and he’d lived through a lot during his trapping days. Smart man, Sam.

Half an hour later, I found a thicket of scrubby mountain oak, and after picketing Buck where he could graze on the sparse grass, I settled in to wait. And while I did, I thought about what had happened in Miss Edna’s that morning.

***

It had all started the day before, when I told lawyer Warren Bristol that I was quitting.

He didn’t like it much, but since he had never paid me a salary, just allowed me to study his law books in return for my work, he had no real reason to complain.

I had started out researching the law behind his cases, but after a few weeks doing that, he had me arguing them in court. He said practicing at being a lawyer while he supervised would give me experience, which was more than a lot of territorial lawyers had before hanging out their shingle!

Handling those cases had confirmed what I’d thought before starting: I didn’t want to be a lawyer. But I did want to understand the law, because the fellow who doesn’t always has to watch out for the ones that do. Many a law-abiding rancher or claim-owner has found that out the hard way after he’d ended up broke, with his property in the hands of a speculator. It had happened more than once in Texas, where I’d lived before heading east to join the Federal Army, and the New Mexico Territory had lately become notorious for that kind of shenanigan.

So I was done with learning how to be a lawyer, or at least not one who was willing to work for Bristol. With nothing in Mesilla that needed doing right now, I made up my mind to spend a few days on my ranch. I might even take my son Cliff and foster-son Art there as soon as school was dismissed for the summer.

Mesilla was no New York City—I’d been there during the War—but it was a town, and boys that lived in the Territory needed to spend time out on the range. I figured this was especially true since Cliff would one day inherit my New Mexico ranch, and if I could keep them out of the hands of speculators my Victoria properties in Texas too.

I packed up what I’d need for the trip and got a good night’s sleep, figuring to get an early start the next morning. Spend a while on the ranch, catching up on things I might have missed out on, while getting used to the quiet under the looming shadow of the Sacramento range. Then return to town just long enough to pick up the boys. It felt good having a plan that didn’t depend on Warren Bristol’s needs!

My buckskin gelding was skittish from not having been ridden recently, but I had time to be patient with him. Holding the loops in my left hand, and the lariat’s end in my right, I followed behind him, not hurrying, as he tossed his head and galloped to the far side of the corral. Whenever he slowed down, I moved a step closer and tossed the rope-end in his direction to start him moving again.

We both knew I’d catch him up when I was ready, but for now he was just showing off so I let him work off a little bit of energy. Better that than let him try serious bucking when I mounted! I no longer felt the pain from my war wound in my left hand, but the remaining two fingers and thumb just can’t generate enough grip to keep a horse from bogging his head if he’s a mind to. So I walked a small circle in the middle of the corral and let him gallop wider circles around the outside.

Finally tired of the game, he stood, blowing, as I eased up and put a loop around his neck. He waited patiently as I tied it into a quick headstall, which would hold him in place while I picked his hooves, curried his back, and tacked him up. The upshot of my patience was that he barely crow-hopped a time or two when I mounted up 15 minutes later.

I rode him around the corral a couple of times, then sidestepped him over to the corral gate. A rider on a well-trained horse ought to be able to remain mounted while he opens a gate, and closes it too. I was watchful, but he handled it like it was something he did every day! After side-stepping him away, I rubbed his shoulder to let him know he’d done good and gigged him into a slow trot south towards Mesilla town.

After two years of living on the town’s outskirts, I had gotten to know most of the town’s residents. I was also acquainted with a fair number who only came to town when they needed supplies, and was friendly with most except for a couple I’d opposed while arguing one of Bristol’s cases at trial. I’d won more than I’d lost, and in New Mexico Territory there are no good losers, but it was generally known that I didn’t carry a grudge either way. So when I offered to buy a man a drink and shake hands after a trial, the result was that we parted amicably. Which is why I was greeted by some and nodded at by others as I walked my horse through town.

I dismounted at the south end of the street in front of Harvey Miller’s blacksmith shop and looped Buck’s reins around the hitching rail out front. He walked out from the gloomy interior to shake hands, then asked my business.

“Buck’s offside front shoe is loose,” I told him. “I spotted it this morning when I cleaned out his hooves and decided to have you take a look. Time to reshoe him, you think?”

Harvey examined Buck’s hooves, then after looking at that loose shoe allowed that it was better to be safe than sorry. I left Buck with him and walked back into town on the way to Miss Edna’s for a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie while he took care of trimming Buck’s hooves and replacing his shoes.

There were other cafes in Mesilla, but I seldom went to them after Joe Rawson opened his place. He did the cooking, at least in the beginning, while his wife Edna served it to their customers. We had a lot in common, so it wasn’t long before we were friends as well as business partners.

Joe had been a bronc-buster before taking up cooking, and like most it had cost him. Some had wound up crippled, others had gotten rheumatism, but I’d never heard of one that quit healthy. Joe was no different. He was stove-up from his years riding broncs, but he still had a wife to support and was no man to shirk his responsibilities. He started looking around for work he could do, and that’s when I got involved.

I’d gotten to know him and his wife Edna soon after I set up housekeeping on the outskirts of Mesilla, so when Joe mentioned that he intended to open a café in town, I put up the money they needed. Some of it went to expand their adobe house to make room for tables, some was spent on the big cast-iron range Joe used for cooking.

He was friendly, so was Edna, and pretty besides. It didn’t take long before customers started showing up.

When clerking for Warren Bristol got too much for me, I’d often taken a wagon into the Organs now and again and hauled back a load of firewood for Joe and Edna. Joe had always thanked me and offered to help next time, but we both knew that his body wasn’t up to that kind of work anymore. Even so, a man has his pride, so when I parked the wagon out back, I always let him help. I unloaded the cut wood, he stacked it, and neither one of us mentioned how much that took out of him. A proud man, Joe Rawson. I could see the pain in his face, but he never complained.

Joe’s health had gone downhill that winter, with Edna gradually taking on more of the kitchen work as well as waiting on customers. Seemed like when anybody in town caught something, Joe caught it too, and worse. I’d helped when I could and his fellow Masons had too, as much as he would let us, but even that hadn’t been enough. Joe had wasted away, one slow and painful day at a time, until he was just a shell of the man he’d been.

Edna had soldiered on, taking care of Joe while also cooking and serving customers, but Joe got worse, not better, and Edna also started showing the strain. Seemingly overnight, her face grew older. Laugh lines around her eyes faded, wrinkles took their place, and the first gray hairs appeared.

It bothered Joe, as he told me one day when we shared the bottle of whiskey I’d brought him, but we both knew there was nothing to be done. She had her pride too.

I figure Joe was relieved when it was finally over. I helped his friends prepare his body, and I noticed that for the first time in months, the grimace of pain was missing.

I walked behind the wagon holding Joe’s casket, and Edna held onto my arm all the way to the Masonic cemetery and the open grave that waited. I escorted her home after the service, and the next morning when she opened the café for business, I was her first customer.

Nor was that the last time I’d stopped in at Miss Edna’s café over the next few months; she was always friendly to customers as well as pleasant to look at, and for me a mite more than that later on after her grief from losing Joe faded.

I reckon we needed each other, although I didn’t know it at the time. With my wife Cece, I’d known right off that we were meant to be together. After she died, I didn’t expect it to happen again. With Miss Edna, whatever we had kind of sneaked up on me.

***

This morning, Edna brought me my coffee and pie and a cup for herself as well. We talked as old friends will until two men came in, and after that she was busy.

I didn’t care for the way one of the men watched her, but Edna had that effect on more than one of her male customers. I figured there was nothing to it, but the other one seemed to be paying more attention to me and I couldn’t figure why. Had he been part of the jury in a case I’d argued? Or maybe just a bystander, there for the entertainment? I studied him, trying not to be too obvious about it, and now and then I caught him doing the same to me.

Curious, I thought.

When I stood to go pick up my horse from Harvey’s smithy, they stood too. Edna collected money from them, and I just nodded for her to add my reckoning to the account I paid off at the end of every month, so without intending to I ended up ahead of them as we left. That’s when I noticed a big black horse tied to the hitching rail in front, and standing hipshot by it, a sorrel.

And now, a pair of horses that looked a lot like those two were behind me on the trail that led up to San Augustine Pass. Coincidence?

I decided that was a bet I wasn’t willing to take, but even so there was no knowing their intentions. It was best to let them go their way while I went mine if they would.

Which is how I’d ended up belly-down behind that ponderosa. The trees spreading roots would break up my silhouette, making me harder to spot, but that wouldn’t be good enough after they got closer. The trail bent to avoid another big tree, and while they were out of sight I’d moved to where I was now, behind a thicket of low-growing scrub oak, and with another one behind me that would keep anyone from sneaking up on me. And after that, I’d settled in to watch the trail.

***

I laid up in that thicket for two hours, just waiting. Buck grazed behind me, and when I wasn’t watching the trail I watched him; horses will almost always spot anything new or threatening before the rider will. But I never saw the two riders, and judging from Buck’s behavior he hadn’t even smelled their horses.

Puzzling.

They should have passed, judging by how far behind me they’d been when I spotted them, even if they’d held their horses to a walk. But they hadn’t, so where were they?

I didn’t like the only answer I could come up with, but I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t stay where I was forever, and I had no idea where they’d got to. I made up my mind to move on through the pass, but I’d be watchful for anything and stay off to one side or the other of the trail whenever I could.

The shadows had spread across the dusty trail when I headed out, but I would have spotted anything moving.

Nothing did. I kept most of my attention on the country around us, scanning ahead from right to left while now and again glancing back where we’d come from.

Judging by the tracks that showed up two miles on, they had left the trail before they caught up to me, had made their way up the slope, then rejoined the trail after they’d gone past where I was hid.

Had they spotted me before I moved behind the oak thicket? Or had they been watching for me, and when I didn’t show where they expected me to figured out that I’d taken to the brush?

Not that it mattered, except that they’d been following me and now I was following them.

I watched the country, and also paid attention to the tracks of their horses. As long as they were ahead of me…

But then they weren’t, and when the tracks vanished I took notice. That’s when I got to wondering if they’d done the same thing I had when my tracks had disappeared.

Without seeming to pay attention—no reason to let them know what I had noticed—I eased Buck left until I was about a hundred yards off the trail, then pulled my Winchester from the boot before dismounting behind an ancient juniper tree. Junipers don’t have much foliage, but the thick, gnarled trunk and the twisty branches hid what I was doing.

I listened for several long minutes, trying to be patient, but there was no sound other than Buck’s cropping at the scattered clumps of bunchgrass. That was a good sign, I figured; if they’d been nearby, he would have acted different.

Finally, knowing I couldn’t go on ahead without knowing what those two were up to, I opened the near-side saddlebag and took out a piece of jerky. Miss Edna’s pie was nothing but a memory, so I gnawed on the jerky while I swapped my boots for the Yaqui-made moccasins I had bought in Mesilla. Flora, the Yaqui woman who’d made them, lived with Moses Jennings in Mesilla, and while Moses made and repaired harness she helped the business by making moccasins. More than one man in Mesilla wore moccasins like mine.

Ranchers loved the fancy buckskin shirts she made, I did too, but folks expected a lawyer to dress the part. Which is why I had mostly worn boots and a boiled white shirt when I was working in Bristol’s office, only needing to add a four-in-hand necktie when I went to court.

Not that I had needed the boots in town, but I had decided that eastern style shoes and a derby hat didn’t suit me. Bankers and store clerks could wear ‘em, stovepipe hats too, but not me. I was a cattleman at heart, taking time off to learn about the law, so I wore boots. One day, I might follow the advice given me back in Texas by John Linn, and go into politics. That’s why I’d gone to work for Warren Bristol, figuring that if I ever intended to be part of making laws or enforcing them, I ought to know how the system worked.

Not that Bristol was a good example; that man might not know much about what was legal, but he was expert in bending the law to suit his own aims!

I knew I wasn’t suited to be a lawyer and I didn’t know if I could handle what I’d seen of politics, but I had grown up on a ranch. I knew the good, like helping a cow with a difficult birth and being the first human to see that quivery-legged calf struggle to stand up. I knew the bad too, like working all day to pull stupid critters out of a mudhole only to see them head right back for it. I knew about shaky markets and bad weather and heel flies and rustlers, but they were things a man could face up to.

Politics was different. John Linn had done it and seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn’t sure if I could do what he did. I didn’t have his patience, but even so I might decide to try it one day. I might succeed at it, I might not, but owning my own spread and running it would always be a part of my life. If for no other better reason than knowing that a man was allowed to shoot rustlers and horse thieves same as he would coyotes raiding the hen-house! But if he shot a few politicians, and knowing them and how I felt about some I just might, folks would likely frown on that.

I picketed my horse where he could graze and focused on what I had to do, find out what those two riders had in mind. I loosened the safety strap holding my Colt’s pistol in the holster—a man only needs it when he’s on horseback—and settled it comfortably the way I always wore it now, holstered on my left with the butt forward and with the barrel slanted backwards. That way, if I needed it in a hurry, it came out slick as you please. I had worked at it until drawing the pistol with my right hand and cocking it with the heel of my left was as close to automatic as such things ever get. No need to even think about it anymore, just draw, cock, point, and shoot.

Apaches aren’t known to wait around during an ambush; generally, a man barely sees one coming at him before a spear or arrow gets there. A long gun is better, which is why I was carrying my rifle, but at close range there’s no time to pull it from the saddle boot. That’s when a man needs a pistol. The distracting thoughts kept trying to intrude, but I pushed them aside and leaned forward as I crept along.

I was trying to watch out for anything on me that might make a noise, and at the same time I was examining every bit of cover ahead of me that might hide a man. Not two; they might have split apart if they intended to bushwhack me, which was what I was thinking.

Of course, I could be wrong. They might be innocent travelers who had decided to make camp early. But up near the top of the pass, where I was, there would be no springs and not much grass for their animals.

After a mile or so of slowly sneaking along from one bit of cover to the next, I spotted the horses. There was no sign of the two riders; it was just the big black and the sorrel, their reins tied to branches of an ancient juniper tree and standing hipshot while they drowsed.

I’d left Buck’s tie loose enough for him to graze, but the two I was looking for hadn’t done that. Likely they figured to not be where they were for long.

I squatted low behind a small boulder and thought about things. I could try sneaking up closer, but right now the breeze was blowing mostly in my direction. Not directly toward me, more from off to my left, but not blowing toward their horses.

The bush a few yards in front of the boulder I was behind offered concealment, but no cover if it came to a fight. I figured it would, so I kept looking. I didn’t know where the riders were, but I knew where they’d be as soon as they got tired of waiting. They’d come here to get their horses.

There was a cluster of larger rocks off to the right that should offer a more open view of the horses, so I decided to move. I was more than a little concerned…not afraid, just concerned…as I snuck across, and I took care not to surprise a rattler that might like those rocks as much as I did. But there was no snake, and no sign of the missing riders as I slid into the welcoming cover of the rocks.

And went back to waiting.

A big deerfly found me after a while, and buzzed closer to my right ear than I wanted him to. I wanted to swat him in the second-worst way, but I could tolerate a fly-bite better than a bullet hole so I didn’t. Instead, I slowly tipped my head to the right to discourage him. It worked; the hat brim between him and my ear not being to his liking, he buzzed around a time or two and went looking for an easier meal.

That was when the two horses I’d been watching woke up. Their heads went up and swung left so they were looking toward the trail. Moments later, I heard the grating sound of rocks rubbing together.

Not Indians, then, something to always watch out for in the mountains; they wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.

I heard the shhh sound as one brushed past a limb, then low voices. Not close, maybe twenty or thirty yards away I figured. Still too far to make out words, just the low murmuring. The voices stopped as they moved in to untie their mounts and tighten the cinches before mounting and I got ready.

The man on the far side swung his leg over the cantle first and settled in, boot feeling for the offside stirrup, while the one closest to me put his left boot in the stirrup and his right hand on the saddle horn as he prepared to mount.

That’s when I stood up.

No thinking required; I understood that I wouldn’t get a better chance. I cocked my Winchester as soon as it was clear of the rocks in front and yelled, “Freeze right there! Don’t turn your head!”

They did, surprised, but I didn’t expect it to last.

“Mister…” the one closest to me said, but I shut him up in a hurry! “I didn’t give you leave to speak! You just stand there and think about what you had in mind while I decide what to do with you!”

While I was talking to the one holding onto his saddle horn, I had that Winchester aimed at the one who was already mounted. The close one wasn’t going anywhere for the moment, being off-balance the way he was and with both hands busy holding on to that nervous black horse. This time, riding the bigger horse was no advantage!

While I’d been talking, the sorrel had started moving. Its head up was up and moving back, so that the rider could get a better view in my direction, and I could no longer see his right hand. But I knew where it was. Fair enough, I decided, and squeezed the trigger.

I barely had time to see the dust puff from his shirt before I levered another shell in and shot the one who was now trying to get astride that big black. The bullet hit him just above his cartridge belt and he fell, and as he did that big horse reared. Its rider had been holding the reins and when he fell, they pulled the horse’s head around so that it twisted as it came down. The near-side forefoot hit the rider in the head and I heard the bone crack, a loud snapping sound.

Both horses crow-hopped to the side, then stopped, avoiding the jerk that would come when they stepped on the trailing reins. For a moment there was no other sound, only the fading echo of my shot and the shuffling and snorting of two alarmed horses. I watched the two men on the ground as the one that had been stepped on tried to breathe, then gave up. There was only a kind of rattling in his throat, a long sigh, and he was done.

The smoke from my shots drifted away, the smell acrid in my nose before it vanished in the light breeze, and then I saw the other one move as he tried to get up. I took two shells from my belt loops and reloaded the Winchester’s tube, then reseated it and eased the hammer down.

Judging by the short panting breaths, he wasn’t going to last long. I walked over and stood just back of him, where he couldn’t get a clear view, and watched the blood pump out of the hole halfway down his left side. Lung-shot or a kidney, I figured, and it didn’t matter which. “You got anything you want to say?” I asked.

For a moment I thought he wouldn’t speak, but then he gasped out, “My brother?”

“Dead,” I said. “I shot him, but getting stepped on by his horse finished him off.”

He might have heard my answer, but there was no way to tell. The blood pulses slowed to a bare ooze, then stopped.

I left them lay where they’d fallen and while speaking slowly and softly, I walked up to their horses, picked up the reins, and led them away. As soon as I was sure they wouldn’t be able to smell the blood, I tied the reins to a tree branch and walked back to where the bodies lay. One last look to make sure they weren’t going anywhere, and I knew weren’t; the one who’d asked about his brother had died with his eyes open, and a fly had already landed right at the edge of the eyeball. I don’t know how they sense death, but they do.

I picked up my rifle from where I’d laid it and headed back to fetch my horse. Two brothers, dead. I tried to remember any incident that might have put them on my trail, but while there was something about the way that one had looked at me in Miss Edna’s café, I couldn’t quite recall what it was.

Did I even want to involve the law in what had happened, such law as there was?

Too far from Mesilla for the town marshal to have jurisdiction, and I wasn’t sure which sheriff might be interested. No, I decided; better to just let what had happened be forgotten, except that I would likely dream about it.

Bare seconds, that fight had lasted, and two men who’d been alive were no more. They’d meant to kill me, but even so I would not forget. I still dreamed about what had happened during the war, so the new dream would just have to take turns with the others.

***

The two had set their ambush near the highest point of the trail, meaning that the flat area wasn’t particularly large. From back the way I’d come and looking ahead to the east, the ground sloped away in both directions. It was cut here and there by arroyos, most of them small, but some were already large enough to become canyons farther along.

I didn’t plan to notify a lawman about what had happened, but neither did I want these two found. As long as there were no bodies for somebody to find, there was nothing to tie me to what had happened. Somebody might eventually wonder what had become of them, but wondering wasn’t the same as knowing.

During my time working for Bristol, I’d watched more than one clever lawyer twist things around to the point that more than one bad man had got off free, and I figured that sometimes the decision had gone the other way. Easiest way to make sure it wouldn’t happen to me, drag the bodies over to an arroyo and dump them. Then scrape rocks and dirt over them, as much as I could manage.

I took off their pistol belts and searched their pockets before I tied the lariat around their feet. One had more than forty dollars in gold in his pocket, while the other had thirty dollars and some loose change. I took the money, because they wouldn’t need it and I might. I also took their guns.

The money was just about what a cowhand would have after being paid off for a month’s work. Not broke, and therefore not a simple robbery. Put together with the way that hombre had looked at me in Miss Edna’s and I knew they had intended murder. I would remember, and one day there might be an accounting. I mounted up and dragged the bodies over to an arroyo, loosened my rope, and flopped them in.

The rifles and pistols were ordinary weapons. There were no marks, no names or initials scratched into the grips or stocks, just what working cowhands might be expected to own. Some of my men likely needed better weapons than what they had, and they’d be glad to get these. As for their horses, sorrels were common but that big black would be remembered. It would be safer to put both down, and I briefly considered it, but realized I couldn’t do it. They’d done me no harm, and anyway I would need a pack horse to carry the weapons.

But not that big black; he was a gelding and likely a fine riding horse, but people would pay attention. I led him to the arroyo where the bodies were, removed the saddle and headstall, and slapped him on his rump. He trotted away as I dumped the tack in, just uphill from the bodies.

Burying the whole shebang took more than an hour, but I got it done. Finally ready, I loaded the spare weapons onto the sorrel, tied them securely so they wouldn't rattle, and headed east, glad to leave that part of the mountain behind.

 

Chapter Two

I pushed on, wanting to get out of the mountains before stopping for the night.

I kept my eyes peeled during the journey north along the flank of the Saint Augustin range, stopping now and again to look around and not relaxing until after I was well down into the flats. The Apaches would have heard the shots, and while they might have come to investigate, they prefer not to fight at night. Still, there could be one or two trying to cross the difficult divide into manhood. If they spotted me, there was no telling what they would do, so I rode loose in the saddle and kept my Winchester ready.

Twilight turned to night as I left the hills and headed out into the desert. Two hours later, with Buck weary from the long day of riding, I decided to switch horses. The sorrel was far from fresh, but he was still in better shape than Buck. I shared out what water I had between them, taking only a sip from what was left in the canteen for myself, then let them graze on the sparse grass while I swapped the guns from the sorrel to Buck.

Off to the north, the white sands shimmered with reflected moonlight. I needed rest too, but it would have to wait. I led off on foot, leading both horses and letting them recover slightly. An hour later, I mounted the sorrel and gigged him into a walk.

The Tularosa Basin is hard on people and harder on horses. Mine needed rest, but I wouldn’t be able to relax until I got to my ranch. I let the sorrel have his head for the most part, only using my spurs as a gentle reminder when he wanted to stop. I understood that if I allowed either one to do that, they might not be able to keep going.

But I knew better than to ride up to the ranch house during the night; people get shot doing that, but likely nobody would be at the line shack we’d built. It was near a small spring located near the edge of my land, and near the base of a rocky outcrop. It wasn’t much, that spring, little more than a seep, but in the desert water is a precious thing. There would be enough for my horses and maybe some for me after they’d had a drink. The line shack was primitive, nothing but a roof and unchinked log walls over a dirt floor, but it was good enough to shelter the hands working that part of my range, and it would suit me for the remainder of the night.

Hopefully, there would be hay in the corral for the horses, but I would have to wait. My jerky was gone, and my backbone and belly-button were closer friends than they’d been for quite a while.

As expected, Buck smelled the water first. He’d been plodding along behind the sorrel, head down, but as soon as he smelled the water his head came up. I swapped horses again and let him have his head, and as I’d hoped he took us right to the spring.

After watering the animals, a process that took close to an hour, I rubbed them down with a fistful of hay and turned them into the corral. Enough water had accumulated by that time for me to drink my fill. Not food, but better than nothing.

The danger from Apaches was worse up in the mountains, but down in the flats where I was a man might run into white men that were at least as bad. And to be fair, a few women too. The Basin is a hard land where only hard people can endure, and I wasn't the only recent arrival that had come here from Texas.

The war had ended two years ago, but there was no real peace over there. Men still straggled in from the eastern battlefields, some arriving now because they’d only recovered from sickness or wounds. Others had been on the losing side of one of the east Texas feuds, and some were two short jumps ahead of a rope necktie. It didn’t do to take chances when meeting a stranger.

There was no law in Texas but what the Army provided, or so I’d heard, not that Texans weren’t prepared to administer informal law themselves. Some of the small settlements in the Panhandle were like that, which was why some of the worst kept heading west to the New Mexico Territory.

To get there, they had to cross the treacherous Pecos River, notorious for steep banks, undercut bluffs, and quicksand. The easiest and safest way was to follow one of the trails to Pope’s crossing, and after that, if they kept south of the Sacramento Mountains and kept going west, they ended up on JJ’s place or mine.

Now and again, one showed up riding the grub line. Some were looking for a job, others were pushing on to the mining districts over by Socorro. My foreman fed them even if we didn’t have work for them, because it kept the cow thieves mostly honest. A man who was low-down enough to steal from folks that had fed him deserved hanging, and some found that out the hard way. Simple possession of a running iron was evidence of intent, and when the possessor wound up at the end of a short rope after a long drop, nobody asked questions.

I unrolled my bedroll in the line shack, barred the door, laid my Winchester close by, and was asleep as soon as I stretched out.

***

The horses were stiff and cranky the next morning, but they were also thirsty. I led them to the spring, watered them, then saddled up and headed for the Sacramentos that loomed ahead.

The horses soon warmed up and after an hour, I stopped to let them graze. As a result, they displayed new energy when I remounted and pushed on. Ranch horses are like that; they’ll work hard, but just like their riders they need time to rest.

Captain Jack, the noted scout, had made a famous ride where he’d pushed his horses to the limit. The story I’d heard said that one had died and the other was never any use afterwards. I wasn’t out to set records, and Buck was too good a horse to mistreat like that. The sorrel had also stood up well, but I would have to decide what to do with it. Keeping it was simply too dangerous, because someone might tie me to its missing rider.

I rode up to the ranch house a little after midday and dismounted. There was a trickle of water running into the corral’s trough, which was something new. There might even be water in the kitchen by now! But a pot of coffee would have to wait while I took care of the horses.

I curried them, forked hay from the shed next to the corral into the pole feeder, and headed for the barn to see if there were oats. Both animals had earned a bait, oats if we had any, corn if not.

One of the barn cats hissed at me—hanging around the grain bin was probably good hunting territory—but I ignored him and went about my business. After distributing the grain to the bucket feeders, I stored the tack and weapons I’d taken from the ambushers in the barn. Ramón would pass them on later to whoever needed them.

That was one of the differences between my people and the peons that some ranchers in the Territory kept; I had armed mine, for some the first weapons they’d ever owned, and as soon as I got better ones I replaced what we’d started with.

Lincoln had freed the slaves, but those old ranchers swore their peons were different.

Likely some of the people who’d come to work for me had been peons, but that was no skin off my nose. Sheriff Candelaria likely knew, but he hadn’t said, and until someone showed up claiming one of my men owed him money it wasn’t a problem. There would be trouble over the peons one day. I didn’t know what would happen or when, but I was sure it would.

On the way up to the house, I looked over the other buildings. The tan-colored torreon upslope from the house looked imposing enough to keep the Apaches at bay all by itself, and beyond it was the village that had grown more-or-less by accident.

That’s where I finally saw movement; one of the women came out with a basket that looked to contain laundry and she spotted me. Moments later, after a couple of shrieks and what I guessed were swear words, half a dozen women and kids headed toward me!

In less time than you might think, I was sitting out on the veranda with a cup of strong coffee in my hand while the women bustled around in the kitchen. I surely needed that cup of coffee; without it, and despite my hunger, I would probably have fallen asleep before my lunch of tamales, beans, hot peppers, and tortillas arrived. But it did, and after a lot of smiles—a body might think they were glad to see me!—I was finally able to relax on the veranda and doze off. They might have let me sleep all night, but I woke up at dusk and was drinking another cup of coffee when JJ, John Linn Junior, rode in.

He spotted me on the veranda and after caring for his horse, walked over. “Glad to see you, Ed! The big city get to be too much for you?”

“Nope,” I said, “but I finally got a belly full of clerking for Warren Bristol! If you ever need a crooked lawyer, he’s your man, but make sure he’s working for you and not himself!” I let a little bit of the disgust I felt for that man color my words.