Comanche Moon

He had an old man who was skilled at flaying; sometimes he would have the old man take all the skin off a man or a woman who had done something he disliked. He stuck people on sharpened trees and let the tree poke up through them. It was pointless to talk about what such a man might like or not like.

"If he doesn't like us he might stick us on a tree," Kicking Wolf said.

Three Birds grew more puzzled. Why was Kicking Wolf telling him all these things that he already knew? Ahumado only did bad things.

Sometimes he hung people in cages and let them starve --or he might throw them into a pit full of scorpions and snakes. But all this was common knowledge among the Comanches, many of whom had died at the hands of the Black Vaquero. Did Kicking Wolf think such talk would scare him? Was he trying to suggest that he run away, like a coward?

"I don't know why you are taking the Buffalo Horse to this man, but if that is what you want to do, then I am going too," Three Birds said.

"It is your choice," Kicking Wolf said.

He was a little ashamed of himself, for trying to scare Three Birds away. Three Birds was a brave warrior, even though he didn't fight very well and was often wandering in the dream time when he should be paying more attention to things.

When he stole the Buffalo Horse he thought he would take him to Ahumado alone. There would be much power flow from such an act. He would take a great horse from the most powerful Texan and sell him to the terrible bandit of the south. No one else had done such a thing. It was a thing that would be sung forever. Even if Ahumado killed him his feat would live in the songs.

He had not meant to share it with anybody. He had thought when they reached the river he would send Three Birds back and go into the Sierra Perdida alone, riding the Buffalo Horse.

He would go to the stronghold of the Black Vaquero and offer him the great horse, in exchange for women. If he took the horse in and lived he would have the power of a great chief. Buffalo Hump and Slow Tree would have to include him in their councils. There would be great singing, because of what he had done.

But Three Birds had come with him and he could not insult him because he was a little prone to wandering in the dream time. Going to the stronghold of Ahumado would be a great test. He could not tell his friend not to come.

"I thought you might want to go home and see your family," Kicking Wolf said. "But if you don't then we had better eat this little antelope and ride through the night." "I don't need to see anyone at home," Three Birds said simply. "I want to go with you. If we ride all night Scull will not catch up." "That's right," Kicking Wolf said, as he cracked off a couple of the little antelope's ribs. "Big Horse Scull will not catch up."

Augustus felt stunned--fora moment he was unable to speak. Once, while he was reluctantly trying his hand at blacksmithing, a horse that he was shoeing caught him with a powerful kick that struck him full in the diaphragm. For ten minutes he could only gasp for breath; he could not have spoken a ^w had his life depended on it.

That was how he felt now, standing in the sunny Austin street with Clara Forsythe, the girl he had raced in to kiss only an hour before, holding his hand. The ^ws Clara had just spoken were the ^ws he had long feared to hear, and their effect on him was as paralyzing as the kick of the horse.

"I know it's hard news," Clara said. "But I've made up my mind and it's not fair to hold it back." After leaving Governor Pease, Augustus had gone straight to a barber, meaning to get shaved and barbered properly before hurrying back to Clara to collect more kisses. She had consented to one more, but then had led him out the back door of the store, so that neither her father nor a casual customer would interrupt them while she was telling Gus the truth she owed him, which was that she had decided to marry Robert f. Allen, the horse trader from Nebraska.

Augustus went white with the news; he was still white. Clara stood close to him and held his hand, letting him take his time, while he absorbed the blow. She knew it was a terrible blow, too. Augustus had courted her ardently from the day he met her, when she had been barely sixteen. She knew that, though much given to whoring, he loved only her and would marry her in an instant if she would consent. Several times she had been tempted to give in, allow him what he wanted, and attempt to make a marriage with him.

Yet some cool part of her, some tendency to think and consider when she was most tempted just to stop thinking and open her arms, had kept her from saying yes.

What stopped her was the feeling that had come over her when he rushed off to see Governor Pease: one kiss and then you're gone. Augustus was a Texas Ranger: at the end of the kissing or what followed it, there'd be an hour when he would be gone; she would have to carry, for days or weeks, a heavy sense of his absence; she would have to cope with all the sad feelings that assailed her when Gus was away. Clara was active: she wanted to live the full life of her emotions every day--she didn't like the feeling that full life would have to wait for the day Augustus returned, if he did return.

Almost every time the ranger troop left Austin there would be a man among them who did not come back. It was a fact Clara couldn't forget; no woman could. And she had seen the anguish and the struggle that was the lot of frontier widows.

"If this is a joke it's a poor one," Augustus said, when he could find breath for speech.

But Clara was looking at him calmly, her honest eyes fixed on his. Of course she loved to tease him, and he would have liked to persuade himself that she was teasing him this time. But her eyes danced when she teased him, and her eyes were not dancing--not now.

"It ain't a joke, Gus," she said. "It's a fact. We're going to be married on Sunday." "But ... you kissed me," Augustus said.

"When I came running in you called me your ranger, just like you always do." "Why, you are my ranger ... you always will be," Clara said. "Of course I kissed you .

I'll always kiss you, when you come to see me. I suppose I have the right to kiss my friends, and I'll never be so married that I won't be a friend." "But I'm a captain now," Gus said. "A captain in the Texas Rangers. Couldn't you have at least waited till I got home with the news?" "Nope," Clara said firmly. "I've spent enough of my life waiting for you to get home from some jaunt. I don't like waiting much. I don't like going weeks not even knowing if you're alive. I don't like wondering if you've found another woman, in some town I've never been to." At the memory of all her anxious waiting, a tear started in her eye.

"I wasn't meant for waiting and wondering, Gus," she said. "It was making me an old woman before my time. Bob Allen's no cavalier. He'll never have your dash--I know that.

But I'll always know where he is--I won't have to be wondering." "Hell, I'll quit the rangers if a stay-at-home is what you're looking for," Gus said, very annoyed. "I'll quit 'em today!" He knew, even as he said the ^ws, that it was a thing he had often offered to do, over the years, when Clara taxed him with his absences. But he never quite got around to quitting. Now he would, though, captain or no captain. What was being a captain, compared to being married to Clara?

To his dismay, Clara shook her head.

"No," she said. "It's too late, Gus.

I gave Bob Allen my promise. Besides, being a captain in the rangers is what you've always wanted. You've talked of it many times." "Well, I was a fool," Gus said. "Being a captain just means making a lot of decisions I ain't smart enough to make. Woodrow, he's always studying--let him make 'em!

"I'm quitting, I mean it!" he said, feeling desperate. He felt he had just as soon die, if he couldn't change Clara's decision.

"Hush that--it's nonsense," Clara said.

"I'm promised now--d you think I'm so light a girl that I'd break my promise just because you quit a job?" Augustus felt a terrible flash of anger.

"No, if you promised, I expect you'll go through with it even if it ruins both our lives and his too!" he said.

"You shut up, Gusffwas Clara said, with a flash to match his. "I've been telling you what I needed for ten years--if you'd wanted me enough to quit the rangers you would have quit long ago. But you didn't--y just kept riding off time after time with Woodrow Call. You could have had me, but you chose him!" "Why, that's foolish--he's just my pard," Gus said.

"It may be foolish but it's how I felt and how I feel," Clara said.

She calmed herself with an effort. She had not called him into the street to fight over the disappointments of a decade--though it had not all been disappointment by any means.

Augustus didn't know what to do. Though it appeared to be a hopeless thing, he didn't know how to simply give up. The hope of someday marrying Clara had been the deepest hope of his life. What would his life be, with that hope lost?

He could not even formulate a guess, though he knew it would be bleak and black.

"When will you be leaving?" he asked finally, in a flat voice.

"Why, Sunday," Clara said. "We're going to New Orleans and take the steamer up the Mississippi and the Missouri. It'll be chilly travelling, I expect--at least the last part of it will." Gus felt such a weight inside him that he didn't know how he was even going to walk away.

"Then it's goodbye, I guess," he said.

"For a while, yes," Clara said. "My hope is that you'll visit, in about ten years." "Visit you once you're married--now why would you want that?" Augustus asked, startled by the remark.

"Because I'd want you to know my children," Clara said. "I'd want them to have your friendship." Augustus was silent for a bit. Clara was looking at him with something in her eyes that he couldn't define. Though she had just broken his heart, she still seemed to want something of him--what, he was not sure.

"You're just saying that now, Clara," he said, though he thought his throat might close up with sadness and leave him unable to speak.

"Bob, he won't be wanting me there, and you won't either, once you've been married awhile," he said finally.

Clara shook her head and put her arms around him.

"I can't claim to know too much about marriage yet, but there is one thing I know for sure--I'll never be so married that I won't need your friendship --don't you forget that," she said.

Then tears started in her eyes again--she turned abruptly and walked quickly back into her store.

Augustus stayed where he was for a bit, looking at the store. Whether staying or returning, looking at that store had long filled him with hope. The sight of the Forsythe store--j a plain frame building--affected him more powerfully than any sight on earth; for the store contained Clara.

There he had met her; there, for years, they had kissed, quarrelled, joked, teased; often they had made plans for a future together, a future they would now never have.

When he walked into the little room in the rough bunkhouse that he shared with Woodrow Call, what he felt in his heart must have showed in his face.

Woodrow was just about to go out, but the sight of Gus stopped him. He had never seen Gus with quite such a strange look on his face.

"Are you sick?" Call asked.

Gus made no reply. He sat down on his cot and took off his hat.

"I have to pay a call, but I'll be back soon," Call said. "The Governor wants to see us again." "Why? We done saw him, the fool," Gus asked.

"We're captains now," Call reminded him. "Did you think we were just going to see him that one time?" "Yes, I had hoped I wouldn't have to look at the jackass again," Gus said.

"I don't know what's the matter," Call said, "but I hope it wears off quick. You needn't be sulky just because the Governor wants to see us." Augustus suddenly drew back his fist and punched the center of the cot he sat on, as hard as he could. The cot, a spindly-legged thing, immediately collapsed.

"Dern it, now you broke your bed," Call said in surprise.

"Don't matter, I won't be sleeping in it anyway," Augustus said. "I wish that damn governor would send us off again today, because I'm ready to go. If I ain't rangering I mean to be out drinking all night, or else reside in a whorehouse." Call had no idea what had come over his friend --bbf he could investigate, Augustus suddenly got up and walked past him out the door.

"I'll be down at the saloon, in case you lose my track," he said.

"I doubt I'll lose your track," Call said, still puzzled. By then Augustus was in the street, and he didn't turn.

Call, about to leave Maggie's, was in a hurry, aware that he was almost late for his appointment with the Governor, and he still had to find Gus and drag him out of whatever saloon he was in. He didn't at first understand what Maggie had just said to him. She had said something about a child, but his mind was on his meeting with the Governor and he hadn't quite taken her comment in.

"What? I guess I need to clean out my ears," he said.

Maggie didn't want to repeat it--she didn't want it to be true, and yet it was true.

"I said I'm going to have a baby," she said.

Call looked at Maggie again and saw that she was about to cry. She had just made him coffee and fed him a tasty beefsteak, the best food he had had in a month. She had a plate in her hand, but the hand that held the plate was not steady. Of course, she usually got upset when he had to leave, even if he was just going to the bunkhouse. Maggie wanted him to live with her, a thing he could not agree to do. The part about the baby hardly registered with him until he saw the look in her eyes. The look in her eyes was desperate.

"The baby's yours, Woodrow," she said.

"I'm hoping you'll help me bring it up." Call took his hand off the doorknob.

"It's mine?" he asked, puzzled.

"Well, it's ours, I mean," Maggie said, watching his face as she said it, to see if there was any hope at all. For three weeks, ever since she was sure that she was pregnant, she had anguished over how to tell Woodrow. Over and over she practiced how she would tell him. Her best hope, her nicest dream, was that Woodrow would want the baby to be his and also, maybe, want to marry her and care for her as his wife.

Sometimes Maggie could imagine such a thing happening, when she thought about Woodrow and the baby, but mostly she had the opposite conviction. He might hate the notion--in fact he probably would hate it. He might walk out the door and never see her again. After all, he was a Texas Ranger captain now, and she was just a whore. He was not obligated to come back to see her, much less to marry her or help her with the child. Every time she thought of telling him, Maggie felt despair--she didn't know what it would mean for their future.

But she .was pregnant, a truth that would soon be apparent.

Now the ^ws were out--Woodrow just seemed puzzled. He had not flinched or looked at her cruelly.

"Well, Maggie," he said, and stopped. He seemed mainly distracted. Maggie had put on her robe but hadn't tied it yet; he was looking at her belly as if he expected to see what she was talking about.

"This is surprising news," he said, rather stiffly, but with no anger in his voice.

The fact was, Call had set his mind on the next task, which was locating Gus and getting on to the Governor's office. He had never been good at getting his mind to consider two facts at once, much less two big facts. Maggie was slim and lovely, no different than she had been the day he had ridden off to Fort Belknap. It occurred to him that she might just be having a fancy of some kind--Gus had told him that Clara often had fancies about babies. Maybe she had just got it into her head that she was having a baby. It might be something like Gus McCrae's conviction that he was going to stumble onto a gold mine, every time they went out on patrol. Gus was always poking into holes and caves, looking for his gold mine. But there wasn't a gold mine in any of the caves and there might not be a baby in Maggie, either.

What he didn't want to do was upset her, just when it was necessary to leave. She had been sweet to him on his return and had fixed him a tasty meal at her expense.

Maggie was a little encouraged by the fact that Woodrow didn't seem angry. He had an appointment with the Governor and was clearly eager to get out the door, which was normal. If he went on with his task, perhaps he would think about the baby and come to like the notion.

"You go on, I know you're in a hurry," she said.

"Why, yes, we can discuss this later," Call said, relieved that no further delay was required.

He tipped his hat to her before going out the door.

The minute he left, Maggie hurried over to the window so she could watch him as he walked down the street. She had always liked the way he walked. He was not a graceful man, particularly. Even when he was relaxed he moved a little stiffly--but his very awkwardness touched her.

He needed someone to take care of him, Woodrow did, and Maggie wanted to be the one to do it. She knew she could take care of him fine, without ever letting him suspect that he needed to be taken care of. She knew, too, that he liked to feel independent.

Maggie just wanted her chance.

Despite herself, watching him walk away, her heart swelled with hope. He hadn't said anything bad, when she told him about the baby. He had not even looked annoyed, and he often looked annoyed if she asked him any question at all, or detained him even for a minute, when he was in a hurry to leave. An appointment with the Governor was important, and yet he had stopped and listened to her.

Maybe, after all, the whoring was over, she thought. Maybe Woodrow Call, the only man she had ever loved, would think about it all and decide to marry her. Maybe he was going to make her dream come true.

Inez Scull, dressed entirely in black, was sitting in Governor Pease's office when Call and Augustus were ushered in. Bingham had come to fetch them and had not said a ^w on the buggy ride. What was more surprising to Call was that Gus had not said a ^w either. In the whole stretch of their friendship Call could not remember an occasion when Gus had been silent for so long--andthe buggy ride only took ten minutes, not a long silence by normal standards.

"Are you sick, or are you so drunk you can't even talk?" Call asked, near the end of the ride.

Augustus continued to stare off into the distance. He did not speak a ^w. In his mind's eye he saw the woman he loved--the woman he would always love--steaming up a broad brown river with Bob Allen, horse trader of Nebraska. His rival had won; that was the bleak fact. He saw no reason to chatter just to please Woodrow Call.

Though Madame Scull was silent, she was a presence they could not ignore. When they stepped in, the Governor was busy with a secretary, so they stood where they were, hats in hand, just inside the door of the broad room. To their embarrassment Madame Scull got up and came and gave them a silent inspection, looking them over from head to foot. She was bold in her looking too, so bold that both men were made distinctly uncomfortable under her silent gaze.

"Here they are, Inez--our two young captains," the Governor said, when the secretary left. "They brought the troop home safe and rescued three captives besides." "I'd say it's beginners' luck," Madame Scull said, in a tone that stung Gus McCrae to the quick.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but we ain't beginners," he said. "Woodrow and me have been Texas Rangers a good ten years already." "Ten years!" Madame Scull said. "Then why haven't you learned to stand at attention properly? Your posture is a disgrace. It's a slouch, not a stance, and it doesn't bode well." "And the other one needs barbering," she added, turning to the Governor. "I'm afraid I must decline to be impressed." "But we ain't soldiers, we're rangers," Gus said, unable to restrain himself in the face of such insults.

"Now, McCrae, you hush," the Governor said. He knew that Inez Scull was capable of high, even cyclonic furies, and he did not want a cyclone to strike his office just then.

"This is Mrs. Scull," he added hastily.

"She's upset that the Captain didn't come home with the troop." "Shut up, Ed," Mrs. Scull said, to the young rangers' great shock. It couldn't be proper for a woman to tell a governor to shut up, even if she was the Captain's wife.

But the Governor immediately shut up.

"I am not so ill bred as to be upset," Inez said. "I'm angry. Do either of you have a notion as to where my husband is?" "Somewhere along the Pecos River, I reckon, ma'am," Call said.

"I hope he drowns in it, then, the stumpy little mongrel," Madame Scull said, turning to the Governor--Governor Pease had retreated a step or two, and looked very out of sorts.

"He is rather a mongrel, you know, Ed," she said to the Governor.

"I don't follow you, Inez--he's a Scull and I believe they're a fine family," Governor Pease replied.

"Yes, but rather bred down, if you want the truth," Madame Scull said. "Inish is the only one left with any fight, and most of that comes from his mother--she was a Polish servant, I believe. Inish's father was Evanswood Scull.

He rose rather high in Mr. Madison's government, but he would have the Polish maid. So Inish is a mongrel and that's that." "Fight's worth more than breeding when you're policing a frontier," the Governor remarked.

"Perhaps, but I did not agree to police any frontiers," Inez replied. "I need my operas and my lapdogs and my fine shops.

Given my shops and a little Italian singing I can get by rather well without that black mongrel of a husband." Augustus wanted to look at Woodrow, to see how he was digesting all this, but Madame Scull stood right in front of them; he didn't dare turn his eyes.

"Did the ugly little brute give you any warning, or did he just sniff the air and walk off?" she asked. "Inish usually leaves at a moment of maximum inconvenience for everyone but himself. Did you wake up expecting him to leave, the morning he took himself away?" "No, ma'am," both said at once.

"He just decided to go try to get his horse back," Call added.

"Bosh ... the horse is just an excuse," Inez said. "Inish doesn't care about horses.

Not even Hector. He'd just as soon eat one as ride one." "But Inez, what other reason would he have to walk off like that?" the puzzled Governor asked, still nervous about the possible cyclone.

"I don't know and neither do these slouchy boys," Madame Scull said.

"We tried to talk him out of walking but he wouldn't listen," Call informed her.

"He was the captain--there wasn't much we could do," Augustus said.

"No, he's a damn restless mongrel--he wanted to walk off and he did walk off, leaving everybody, including me," Madame Scull said. "It's abominable behaviour, I say." "Ma'am, he left with Famous Shoes, who's a fine tracker," Call pointed out.

"Famous Shoes knows the country. I expect he'll bring the Captain out." "You don't know the man," Inez snapped.

"He won't show up unless he's fetched. I expect he'll find his way to the sea, and the next thing I know there'll be a telegram from India, or somewhere, expecting me to pack up and follow.

I won't have it, not this time!" There was silence in the room. Madame Scull's last statement left everyone in doubt.

Did she intend to go after the Captain herself? Her black eyes were so filled with anger that when she looked at Augustus he felt like stepping back a step or two, yet she was so forceful that he was afraid to move a muscle, and Woodrow was just as paralyzed. Governor Pease stared out the window, uncomfortable and silent.

"Will you fetch him for me, gentlemen?" she asked, softening her voice even as she raked them with her eyes. "If we don't catch him soon I might have to wait a year for news, and I won't tolerate it!" "Of course you have my permission," the Governor quickly added. "I'd recommend taking a small force, perhaps four men besides yourselves." "The sooner you get started, the better," Inez said.

In Gus's mind was the coming torment of Clara's wedding--he saw Madame Scull's request as a God-sent, hope of escape.

"I'm ready, I can leave in an hour," Augustus said. "Or less, if it's required." Call was very startled by his friend's wild statement. They had scarcely been back a day from a long expedition. The men were tired and the horses gaunt. [ they to set off without rest to find a man who might refuse to come back even if they found him, which was by no means a certain thing?

Before he could speak Mrs. Scull suddenly smiled at Augustus.

"Why, Mr. McCrae, such impetuosity," she said. "I wouldn't think of having you depart quite that soon. No doubt you have arrangements to make --a sweetheart to say goodbye to, perhaps?" "I ain't got a sweetheart and I'm ready to leave as soon as I can clean my guns and catch my horse," Gus said. He didn't think he could endure being in Austin much more than another hour--not with the triumphant Bob Allen taking up all Clara's time, as he would for the rest of her life. If the boys couldn't leave at once, then he meant to leave anyway and camp somewhere along the route, with a bottle of whiskey to keep him company.

Call was astonished, but Gus's peculiar desire to depart at once wasn't the only thing that concerned him.

"What if we find him and he won't come back?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm sure if you tell him Inez is anxious he'll be happy to come back with you," the Governor said. His own main desire was get Inez Scull out of his office before she broke into a fit.

"Inish hates to be checked, particularly when he's running away from his duties," Inez said.

"They may have to arrest him." "Just find him and ask him politely to come back," Governor Pease said, remembering that Inish Scull himself was no slouch when it came to throwing fits. Besides, he was a popular hero, and not loath to act the part. Putting such a popular man under arrest might lead to political catastrophe--he might even lose the governorship, if Inish stood against him. It was too much to risk.

"Ask him politely--what good will that do?" Mrs. Madame Scull said. "Inish ain't polite." "What'll we do then, ma'am, if we find him and he won't come back?" Call inquired.

"How should I know? I ain't a great Texas Ranger, I'm just a wife," she said. "But don't come back without him--I won't have it!

Come along, Mr. McCrae." She started for the door. Augustus wasn't sure he had heard correctly.

"Do what, ma'am?" he asked.

"Come along--are you deaf?" Madame Scull said, turning briefly. "I'd like you to walk me home, if you ain't too busy saying goodbye to your sweethearts." "Ma'am, I just told you, I got no sweethearts to say goodbye to," Gus repeated.

"Capital!" Madame Scull said. "In that case I may ask you to stay for tea. Being abandoned by one's husband does make one so lonely." Then she looked over at Call, with a little smile.

"I would ask you too, Captain Call," she said, "but I expect you're more of a ladies' man than Captain McCrae. I imagine you do have sweethearts who will expect you soon." "Oh no, ma'am--Captain McCrae's the ladies' man," Call said, though Gus glared at him. "I guess I better go see which of the boys is in the mood to ride out again on short notice." "I think I'd locate a barber first, sir, and let him clean you up a little," Mrs. Scull said. "I believe you'd be rather handsome if you were barbered properly." "Thank you," Call said. "I intended to get barbered before I came to see the Governor." "Then why didn't you, sir?" Inez asked.

"You'd have made a far better impression if you'd gone to that little bit of trouble." No wonder the Captain walked off, Call thought. He was not about to tell Madame Scull what he'd done instead of getting barbered and he resented that she had been so impertinent as to ask.

"Where do you think he went, Ed?" Madame Scull asked the Governor, her eyes fixed on Call, even though Augustus had gone to the door and was holding it open.

"Went? I don't know where he went," the Governor said impatiently. "I've just met Captain Call and am not familiar with his habits." "I expect he went to a whore," Inez said, with a little laugh. "He looks like the kind of man who would put whoring before barbering. Don't you agree, Governor?" Governor Pease had had enough--the woman would stay forever, it seemed; and he .was the governor.

"Any man would put whoring before barbering, Inez," he replied. "It would be the normal thing." "That's it! I knew you had starch, Ed Pease," Madame Scull said. "I expect I ought to ask you to my tea party instead of this green ear of corn here, but then you're the governor.

You've got duties." "I've got duties," Governor Pease agreed, as Madame Scull swept out the door.

Call glanced at Augustus, puzzled as to why he would twice say he had no sweetheart to say goodbye to, when Call himself had just seen him holding hands with Clara, outside the general store.

Gus, though, avoided his eye.

"I'll see you at the stables, Woodrow," he said, as he followed Inez Scull out the door.

"It's like eating green persimmons," the Governor remarked darkly, once the door was safely closed.

"What, sir?" Call asked.

"Uncharitable talk, Captain," Governor Pease said, with a sign and a smile. "Every time I talk to Inez I come away feeling like I've eaten a green persimmon--y know how they make your mouth shrink up?" "I wouldn't know, I avoid green fruit!" Call said.

"I've got to send you out, Captain--I gave Inez my promise," the Governor said.

"But it's up to you what to say to Inish, if you catch up with him." "I might just tell him to keep on walking," Call said.

"That's right--let him wander," Governor Pease replied. "Why come back just to be et alive by your wife? If you've got to be et alive, let some cannibal Indian do it." The more the Governor thought about Inez Scull, the more worked up he became.

"Damn rich women anyway," he said.

"Particularly rich women from Birmingham, Alabama." He looked out the window for a bit, gloomily.

"Inez Scull would try the patience of a saint, Captain," he said--and then he paced the room for a few minutes, evidently unable to leave the subject of Inez Scull alone.

"Not just a saint. Jobffwas he exclaimed.

"Inez would even try the patience of Jobffwas "I don't know Job, but she sure tried mine," Call said.

As they walked up the steps of the Scull mansion Augustus began to feel timid and uneasy. Madame Scull had marched along, nearly half a mile, from the Governor's office to the slope where the castle stood, without saying a ^w to him. She had talked constantly while at the Governor's, but now she was mute as a jug.

Earlier in the day, in his vexation over Clara, Gus had kicked a large rock and broken his boot heel. He had been meaning to get it repaired when Woodrow showed up and stuck him in the Governor's buggy.

Now, as he was trying to keep up with the fast-striding Madame Scull, the wobbly boot heel broke off, which caused him to have to walk a little lopsided. His awkward, tilted stride seemed to amuse Madame Scull.

"I believe I embarrassed your friend by accusing him of being a whorer--wd you say I did?" she asked.

"Yes, but it don't take much to embarrass Woodrow Call," he said. "He's still stiff as a poker when it comes to women." "Stiff as a poker--d you mean that anatomically, sir?" Madame Scull asked, with a little laugh.

An old man with a rag was polishing the big brass knocker on the mansion's front door.

The old man looked drunk, but he straightened up promptly when he saw Madame Scull.

"Hello, Ben, this is Captain McCrae, he's going to find Captain Scull and fetch him home," she said. "We'll be having tea in an hour--tell Felice we might appreciate a biscuit as well." Augustus thought that was odd. Why would it take an hour to make tea? Once in the door, though, he forgot about it; he had never supposed he would be in such a grand establishment--everything in the house excited his curiosity. Just inside the door was a great hollowed-out foot of some kind that held umbrellas and parasols and canes and walking sticks.

"I sure wouldn't want to get stomped by a foot this big," he said.

"No, you wouldn't ... it's an elephant's foot," Madame Scull said. "That tusk over the mantel came from the same beast." Sure enough, a gleaming ivory tusk, a little yellowish and taller than a man, was mounted over the mantel. The whole house was full of curious objects and gadgets that he would have liked to look at, but Madame Scull gave him only a moment. In the next room a lovely yellow girl was polishing a long dining table with a cloth.

He smiled at the girl but she didn't acknowledge his smile.

"Don't bring the tea into the bedroom, Felice, just leave it outside my door," Inez said. "And don't rush us, please.

Captain McCrae and I have some serious matters to discuss. Do you take jam with your biscuits, Mr. McCrae?" "Why, yes, I'd approve a little jam, if it's no trouble," he said.

"Why would it be trouble?" Madame Scull said. "Let us have a few dollops of jam, Felice." "Yes, ma'am," the girl said.

Augustus wondered what it would be like to work with a blunt woman such as Madame Scull, but he was allowed no time to do more than nod at the girl.

Madame Scull was ascending the long staircase and she seemed to expect him to follow.

On the second floor there was a long hall with high windows at both ends. A yellow bench stood against one wall. Gus was doing his best to hobble down the hall in his awkward boots when Madame Scull pointed at the bench and ordered him to sit.

"I've had enough of your hobbling, Captain, or may I call you Gus?" she asked.

""Gus"' will do, ma'am," he said, taking the seat she pointed to.

"Let's get those boots off--I can't stand a hobbler," Madame Scull said.

"I can take 'em off, ma'am, but it won't be quick," he said, a little surprised. "They're tight as gloves." "I'll help you, Gus ... stick out your leg," the lady said.

"What, ma'am?" he asked, confused.

"Stick out your leg, sir," Inez demanded; when he obeyed she turned her back to him, straddled his leg, and took his boot in both hands.

"Now push," she demanded. "Push with your other foot." Augustus did nothing of the sort; he was intensely embarrassed. Of course the rangers often helped one another off with recalcitrant boots by using that method--witha little pushing on the helpful ranger's backside, the boot would usually come off.

But Madame Scull wasn't a helpful ranger--she was the wife of Captain Scull.

Besides, she was a female and a lady: he couldn't stick up a dusty boot and push on her backside.

"Ma'am, I can't, I'd be embarrassed," he said.

Inez Scull showed no inclination to relinquish the foot she held between her legs. Her black skirt was bunched up around Gus's ankle.

Gus was so embarrassed he was blushing, but Inez Scull had her back to him and didn't see the blush.

"Push with your other foot and push now!" she demanded. "I'm damned if I'll tolerate any guff from you, Gus. I've helped Inish off with his boots a thousand times in this way. He says I'm better than a bootjack and I expect I am--s push!" Gus wiped his foot a few times on the floor and gingerly set it against Madame Scull's backside. He pushed as commanded, but not very hard, as Madame Scull tugged.

"You're right, they're a close fit, push harder," Inez said.

Gus pushed harder, and Madame Scull tugged. To his relief the boot finally came off. She dropped his foot and he immediately withdrew his leg.

"The other one don't fit as close--I can get it off myself," he said.

Madame Scull was looking at him boldly --he had never had a woman look at him with quite such boldness.

"Give me the other foot and shut up!" she demanded. "Stick your leg out--let's have it!" Again, she straddled his leg. Since he had only a sock on his other foot now, Augustus was not quite so reluctant to push--he thought the best thing to do was finish the business of the boot removal and hope it would soon be time for tea.

He pushed, and Madame Scull quickly got the second boot off and dropped it beside its mate. She didn't release his foot or his leg, though--not this time. Instead she held his foot tightly and began to rub herself against the leg that was now between hers. Augustus couldn't see her face, but, again, he was deeply embarrassed. Why would the woman forget herself in that way?

He didn't say a ^w. He preferred to pretend that his officer's wife wasn't astraddle him, rubbing his bony leg against herself.

It was a predicament so unexpected that he could not think clearly.

Madame Scull continued with her activity for what seemed like several minutes. Gus began to hope, desperately, that a servant would wander upstairs on some chore, in which case surely she would stop her rubbing.

Just when he thought Madame Scull might be ready to stop she suddenly peeled off his sock.

Once she had it off she stroked his bare foot for a minute and then threw the sock across the room.

"That sock's too filthy to wash," she said.

"I'll give you a pair of Inish's, when you leave." "Well, I guess I ought to get along and help Woodrow, pretty soon, ma'am," Gus said. He was beginning to be actively fearful, his suspicion being that Madame Scull was a madwoman--no doubt that was why Captain Scull had decided to leave.

Inez Scull didn't reply. Instead, to his horror, she pulled his bare foot up under her skirt and began to rub it against herself. Then she reached back, grasped his other foot, peeled the sock off, and stuck that foot under her too. She began to sway from side to side, rubbing herself with first one foot and then the other. Gus couldn't see her face, but he could hear her breathing, which was hoarse and raw.

Then Madame Scull dropped his feet and whirled on him. He had been pulled half off the bench by her exertions already. Before he could scoot back Madame Scull grabbed his belt and began to yank at it. She was breathing hoarsely and there was sweat on her forehead and cheeks.

"You said your friend Captain Call was stiff as a poker with the ladies--now let's see about you," she said.

Augustus suddenly realized what Inez Scull had been talking about when she made that remark in the yard. He felt feverish with embarrassment as Madame Scull proceeded to unbutton his pants. What would Clara think, if she knew?

But then, as Madame Scull opened his pants and began to probe in his long johns, Augustus remembered that Clara was getting married. In only two days she would be Clara Allen. What he did with Madame Scull or any woman would not be something she would want to know. The thought filled him with hopelessness, but, hopeless or not, Madame Scull was still there, hoarse and insistent.

When he slipped down to the floor he thought, for a moment, that she might smother him with her skirts. But Clara was gone--gone forever. He had no reason to resist--in any case it was too late.

Madame Scull managed to scoot them over onto a big green rug in front of a closet of some kind.

"This will be better, Gussie," she said. "We won't be bumping our knees on this hardwood floor." "What about ...?" Gus said--he was still nervous about the servants; but he never got farther with his question. Madame Scull overrode it.

"Hush up, Gussie, let's trot!" she said. "Just be my ranger boy, and let's trot!"

Call was at a loss to know what could be detaining Augustus. He had got himself well barbered, haircut and shave, and had a dentist look at a back tooth that had been bothering him from time to time. The dentist wanted to pull the tooth immediately, but Call decided to take his chances and keep it. He waited in Gus's favorite saloon for two hours, hoping Gus would appear and they could decide what men to take on their search for Captain Scull.

Mrs. Scull had said she might require Augustus to have tea with her--but why would it be taking so long to sip tea? He inquired of the old Dutch bartender, Liuprand, how long tea took to make, thinking there might be some ceremony involved, one he didn't understand.

"Tea ... why, five minutes, if it's a big pot," Liuprand said. He was a small man with no skill at fisticuffso--in the course of trying to subdue unruly customers his nose had been broken so many times that it now bore some resemblance to the fat end of a squash.

Call had already decided that he wanted to take the black man, Deets, who had been the most useful member of the company on the recent trip north. Deets could cook and sew and even doctor a little, and had shown himself able to work whatever the weather.

He knew he could not linger over his choosing too much longer. The sun was setting; the men chosen would be expected to leave when it rose at daybreak.

He wanted to ask Long Bill Coleman to go with them--there was no steadier man available than Long Bill Coleman--but he had just been reunited with his wife, Pearl, and might not feel like leaving her again, so abruptly. Even if Long Bill wanted to go, Pearl might not be willing to relinquish him again, so soon.

No more, for that matter, would Maggie want to see him leave again, so quickly. He dreaded having to go inform her of the order. She had brought up the subject of a baby, a problem he would hardly have time to consider, given all he had to do before leaving. In fact, he would have liked to linger with Maggie a few days and let her indulge him and feed him beefsteak. His dread at having to tell her the Governor was sending them off again was so strong that he had three whiskeys, an unusual thing for him. It was not something he would have done had Gus McCrae come promptly.

Call's suspicion was that Augustus was somewhere in the Forsythe store, spooning with Clara.

It was a strong enough suspicion that he went outside and sent Pea Eye Parker across the street to check. Pea Eye had few friends; he was merely sitting in front of the barbershop when Call sent him on the errand. Call liked the tall lanky boy; he thought he might take him with them if Gus had no objection.

Pea Eye was back in the saloon before Call had had much time to even lift his glass.

"Nope, he ain't in the store--I asked the lady," Pea Eye said. "She ain't seen him since the two of you left for the Governor's, that's what she said to tell you." "Now, this is a dern nuisance," Call said.

"I need to pick the men and get them together. How can I make decisions with Captain McCrae if he's disappeared?" Jake Spoon wandered into the saloon about then and heard the discussion.

"Maybe he got kidnapped," he said, mainly in jest.

"He just went to take tea with Madame Scull, I can't imagine what's detaining him." "Oh," Jake said. He got a kind of funny look on his face.

"What's wrong, Jake? You look like you et a bug," Pea Eye said.

Jake was thinking that he knew exactly what Captain McCrae was doing, if he was with Madame Scull. He remembered his own hot actions with her, in the closet, all too well-- the memories of their active lust were a torment to him at night.

"I ain't et no bug--I ain't that green," Jake replied. "I just swallowed wrong." "But you ain't eating nothing," Pea Eye persisted. "What did you swallow, anyway?" "Because I had air in my mouth, you fool," Jake said, irritated by Pea Eye's questioning.

"Captain, if you're going off again, can I go?" Jake asked, boldly. "There ain't much to do in town, with the boys gone." The question took Call unprepared. In fact, the new assignment took him unprepared. The Governor, mainly to placate Madame Scull, had given them a task that seemed more ridiculous the longer he thought about it.

There were thousands of miles to search, and the man they were looking for had the tracker with him. Captain Scull's departure had been wild folly to begin with, and now he and Augustus were being asked to compound the folly.

"I'll discuss it with Captain McCrae, Jake," Call said.

"I'm anxious to go if there's a place," Jake said. He thought it unjust that Pea Eye had got to go on the last expedition, while he had had to stay and run errands for Stove Jones and Lee Hitch, two rangers who had both suffered broken limbs from trying to ride half-broken horses. Though unable to travel, the two men were easily able to come up with twenty or thirty errands a day that they demanded Jake run. Mainly, they themselves stayed in their bunks and drank whiskey.

On occasion they even tried to get him to fetch them whores.

Now there was another expedition forming, and Jake was determined to go; life in Austin had become so boresome that he'd even put his scalp at risk rather than stay. If the captains wouldn't take him, he meant to quit the rangers and try to get on as a cowboy on one of the big ranches down south of San Antonio.

Call grew more and more vexed. He was also a little drunk, thanks to Gus's lagging, and needed to get on with their decision making. He got up and left the barroom, meaning to walk up to Long Bill Coleman's house--or rather, Pearl's. Long Bill never had a cent to his name, but Pearl had been left a good frame house by her father, a merchant who had been ambushed and killed by the Comanches while on a routine trip to San Antonio. Call was on his way to see whether Long Bill had the appetite for more travel when he happened to spot Augustus, coming down the street in the deep dusk. Augustus usually strolled along at a brisk pace, but now he was walking slowly, as if exhausted. Call wondered if his friend had fallen ill suddenly--in the Governor's office he had been somber, but not sick.

"Where have you been? We need to be choosing our men and getting them ready," Call said, three hours of frustration bursting out of him.

"You choose, Woodrow, all I want is a bottle and a pallet," Augustus said.

"A pallet? Are you sick?" Call asked.

"It's not even good dark." "Yes, sick of Austin," Gus said. "I wish we were leaving right this minute." Call was puzzled by the change in his old friend.

All energy and spirit seemed to have drained out of him-- and Gus McCrae was a man who could always be counted on for energy and spirit.

"You didn't say where you'd been," Call said.

Augustus turned and pointed up the hill, toward the Scull castle, its turrets just visible in the darkening sky.

"Up there--t's where I've been," Augustus said.

"Gus, it's been three hours--y must have drunk a fine lot of tea," Call remarked.

"Nope, we never got around to the tea," Augustus said. "Not the tea and not the biscuits, either. And while we're on the subject I don't think we ought to bring the Captain back." "Why not?" Call asked. "That's the only reason we're going, to bring him back. Of course, we've got to find him first." "You don't know Madame Scull, Woodrow," Gus said. "I'd say running off might be the Captain's only chance." "I don't know what you're talking about," Call said. "I've no doubt they squabble, but they've been married nearly twenty-five years --the Captain told me that himself." "He's a better man than me, then," Augustus said. "I wouldn't last no twenty-five years. Twenty-five days would put me under." Then, without more comment, he walked off toward the bunkhouse, leaving Woodrow Call more puzzled than he had been before.

When Call came in with his saddlebags over his shoulder, Maggie's spirits sank. She was too disappointed to speak. Woodrow only brought his saddlebag into her rooms when he was leaving early --he was meticulous about checking his gear and would spend an hour or more at his task whenever he had to leave.

"You've only been here a day," she said sadly. "We haven't even talked about the baby." "Well, you ain't having it tomorrow, and this may be a short trip," he said, not unkindly. "I expect we can discuss it when I come back." What if you don't come back? she thought, but she didn't say it. If she spoke it would only anger him and she would risk losing the little sweet time they might have. Austin was full of widows whose husbands had ridden off one morning, like Pearl Coleman's father, and never come back.

What Maggie felt was the fear any woman felt when her man had to venture beyond the settled frontier, and even the settled frontier was far from being really safe. Every year, still, settlers were killed and women and children stolen from their cabins, almost within sight of Austin. There was not much safety in town, but there was no safety where Woodrow had to go.

Worry about him sank deep in Maggie's gut, where it mixed with another grave worry: the question of what she would do if Woodrow refused to marry her, or accept her child as his. A woman with a child born out of wedlock had no hope of rising, not in Austin. If she wanted to raise the child properly she would have to move to another town and try to pass herself off as a widow. It would be hard, so hard that Maggie feared to think about it.

Unless Woodrow helped her she would be as good as lost, and the child as well.

But Maggie swallowed her questions and her doubts, as she had many times before. After all, Woodrow was there; he had come to her on his return and now again, on the eve of his departure.

He was there, not somewhere else; she did her best to push aside her worries and make the best of their time. The depth of her love for Woodrow Call gave him a power over her that was too great --and he didn't even know he had it.

"All right, I'll make you a meal--there's still two beefsteaks, if you want Gus to come," she said. It made Maggie happy if Woodrow brought Augustus home to eat with them: it was as if he were bringing his best friend home to eat his wife's cooking. She wasn't really his wife yet, but they were jolly on those occasions. Sometimes she and Gus could even tempt Woodrow into playing cards, or joining them in a singsong. He was a poor cardplayer and not much of a singer, but such times were still jolly.

"Gus went off to Madame Scull's and stayed three hours--t's why I'm late," Call said. "He just went to drink tea with her--I don't know why it took three hours.

Now he's too tired to eat. I don't think I've ever seen Gus too tired to eat before." Maggie smiled--everyone knew that Madame Scull took young men as lovers, the younger the better. She had taken Jake Spoon for a while; everyone knew that too. Lately Jake had come mooning around, wanting to make up to Maggie for his bad behaviour. He had offered to carry her groceries twice, and had generally tried to make himself useful; but Maggie remained cool. She knew his kind all too well.

Jake would be nice until he had what he wanted, and then, if she denied him a favor, he would pull her hair or slap her again. There was no changing men--not much, anyway; mainly men stayed the way they were, no matter what women did. Woodrow Call was not all she wanted him to be, but he had never raised a hand to her and would not think of pulling her hair. Jake could offer to carry her groceries if he wanted but she would not forget what he did.

Call noticed her smile, when he mentioned Gus's fatigue.

"What's that grin for? What do you know?" he asked.

"It's just a smile, Woodrow--I'm happy because you're here," Maggie said.

"No, it was something else--something about Gus," he said. "If you've a notion of why he stayed at Madame Scull's so long I'd like to know it." Maggie knew she was treading on dangerous ground. Woodrow had strict notions of what was right and what was wrong. But she was a little riled, too: riled because he was going away so soon, riled because he wouldn't talk about the baby, riled because she had to keep swallowing down the way she felt and the things she needed to say. If he wouldn't think about her baby, at least she could get his goat a little about their friend.

"I know why he's tired, that's all," she said, pounding the beefsteak.

"Why, then, tell me," Call asked.

"Because Madame Scull took his pants down --if you'd gone she would have tried to take yours down too," Maggie said.

Call flinched as if he had been slapped, or jabbed with a pin.

"Now, that's wrong!" he said loudly, but without much confidence in his own conclusion. "How could you know that?" "Because that's what she does with any man who goes home with her, when the Captain's away," Maggie said. "It's the talk of all the barrooms and not just the barrooms--she don't care who knows." "Well, she ought to care," Call said. "I expect the Captain would take the hide off her if he knew she was stirring up talk like that." "Woodrow, it's not just talk," Maggie said.

"I seen her kissing a boy myself, over behind some horses. One of the horses moved and I saw it." "What boy?" Call said. "Maybe they were cousins." "No, it was Jurgen, that German boy the Captain hung for stealing horses," Maggie insisted. "He couldn't even speak English." "They could still have been cousins," Call said--but then he gave up arguing. No wonder Gus had come down the hill looking as he sometimes looked when he had spent a day in a whorehouse.

"If it's true I just hope the Captain don't find out," Call said.

"Don't you think he knows?" Maggie asked.

Sometimes Woodrow seemed so young to her, not young outside but young inside, that it made her fearful for him; it made her even more determined to marry him and take care of him. If she didn't, some woman like Mrs. Scull would figure out how young he was and do him bad harm.

"How could he know if she only does it when he's gone?" Call asked.

"You don't have to be with somebody every minute to know things about them," Maggie told him. "I'm not with you every minute, but I know you're a good man. If you was a bad man I wouldn't have to be with you every minute to know that, either." Her voice quavered a little, when she said she knew he was a good man. It made Call feel a touch of guilt. He was always leaving Maggie just when she had her hopes up that he'd stay. Of course he left because it was his duty, but he recognized that that didn't really make things any easier for Maggie.

"Now you're risking your life because she wants somebody to go look for her husband, and she ain't even true to him," Maggie said bitterly.

When she thought of Madame Scull's dreadful behaviour--kissing and fondling young men right in the street--she got incensed. No decent whore would behave as badly as Madame Scull, and yet she enjoyed high position and went to all the fanciest balls. More than that, she could send men into danger at her whim as she was doing with Woodrow and the boys.

"I guess if it's true and Clara finds out about it, it'll be the end of her and Gus," Call said. "I expect she'll take an axe handle to him and run him out of town." Maggie was silent. She knew something else that Woodrow didn't know--she had happened to be in the Forsythe store one day when Clara was trying on some of her wedding clothes, just the gloves and the shoes. But Clara had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she was marrying the tall man from Nebraska. The wedding was going to be in the church at the end of the street. Now that Augustus was back, surely Clara had told him; but evidently he hadn't got around to informing Woodrow. Perhaps Gus wasn't able. Perhaps talking about it made him too sad.

Maggie knew it wasn't her business to tell Woodrow this, and yet concealing things from him made her deeply uncomfortable. She knew he trusted her to tell him everything that might be important to the rangers, and the fact that Gus had lost Clara seemed pretty important to her.

"Woodrow, Gus ain't none of Clara's business anymore," she said nervously.

"Why isn't he?" Call asked, surprised. "He's been her business as long as I've knowed him, and that's years." "She's marrying that horse trader," Maggie said. "The wedding's on Sunday." Woodrow Call was stunned. The news about Madame Scull's faithless behaviour was shocking and repulsive, but the news about Clara Forsythe hit him so hard that he almost lost his appetite for the juicy beefsteak Maggie had cooked him. He knew now why Augustus wanted to leave town so quickly: he wanted to be out of town when the wedding took place.

"I never expected her to marry anybody but Gus," he said. "This is a bad surprise.

I doubt Gus expected her to marry anybody but him, either. I think he hoped his promotion would win her over." To Maggie, his stunned comment was just more evidence that Woodrow was young inside. He wouldn't realize that Clara Forsythe wouldn't care a fig for Gus's promotion; nor did he realize that it didn't take a woman ten years to say yes to a man she meant to marry. She herself would have said yes to Woodrow in a matter of days, had he asked her. The fact that Clara had kept Gus waiting so long just meant that she didn't trust him.

To Maggie it seemed that simple, and she knew that Clara was right. Gus McCrae could be plenty of fun, but trusting him would be the wrong thing to do.

Instead of saying those things to Woodrow she fed him some apple tarts she had saved up to buy from the bakery. They were such delicious apple tarts that he ate four of them, and, after a time, went to sleep. Maggie held him in her arms a long time. She knew there was much she could say to him, and perhaps should say to him, about the ways of women; but she only had one night and decided she had just rather hold him in her arms.

The troop did not make an auspicious appearance when they gathered in the lots at dawn and began to saddle their horses and tie on their gear.

Call had decided to take the two boys, Pea Eye and Jake Spoon, plus Deets to do the cooking, Long Bill in case there was a desperate fight, andof course himself and Augustus --the latter had not appeared.

Long Bill was there, at least, dark circles under his eyes and a haggard look on his face.

"Didn't you sleep, Bill?" Call asked.

"No, Pearl cried all night--she ain't up to being consoled," Long Bill said.

"Women will just cry when the menfolk leave," Call said. His own shirt was wet from Maggie's tears.

"Did you hear about Clara? It's got me upset," Long Bill said. "I was looking forward to eating her cooking, once Gus married her, but I guess that prospect's gone." "Have you seen him?" Call asked.

"No, but I heard he fought two Germans in a whorehouse last," Long Bill said.

"I don't know what the fight was about." The two youngsters, Pea Eye and Jake, were nervous, Call saw. They kept walking around and around their horses, checking and rechecking their gear.

"Gus is late," Call observed.

"Maybe he didn't win the fight." "I imagine he won it," Long Bill said.

"I suppose Gus could handle two Germans, even if he was heartbroken." Call kept expecting to see Augustus ride up at any minute, but he didn't. They were all saddled up and ready. It was vexing to wait.

"His horse ain't here, Captain," Long Bill said. "Maybe he left without us." "I can't get used to you calling me "Captainea"' Bill," Call said. It was as an honest dilemma. He and Long Bill had been equal as rangers for years, and, in not a few instances, Long Bill, who was five years older than Call, had shown himself to be more than equal in judgment and skill. He was better with skittish horses than Call was, to name only one skill at which he excelled. Yet, through the whim of Captain Scull, he and Gus had been elevated, while Long Bill was still a common ranger. It was a troubling consideration that wouldn't leave his mind.

Long Bill, though he appreciated the comment, had no trouble with the shift in status. He was a humble man and considered himself happy in the love of his wife and the friendship of his comrades in arms.

"No, that's the way it ought to be," he said.

"You're in this for the long haul, Woodrow, andwith me it's just temporary." "Temporary? You've been at it as long as I have, Bill," Call said.

"Yes, but Pearl and me are having a baby," Long Bill confided. "I expect that's one reason she was so upset. She made me promise this would be my last trip with you and the boys --t's a promise I have to keep. Rangering is mostly for bachelors. Married fellows oughtn't to be taking these risks." "Bill, I didn't know," Call said, startled by the similarity of their circumstances.

Long Bill had fathered a child and now Maggie was claiming he had done the same.

"You're welcome to stay if you feel you need to," he told Long Bill. "You've done your share of rangering. You did it long ago." "Why, no, Captain. I'm here and I'll go," Long Bill said. "I mean to have one last jaunt before I settle down." Just then they saw Augustus McCrae come around the corner by the saloon. Gus was walking slowly, leading his horse. Call saw that he was heading across the street toward the Forsythe store, which was not yet open, it being barely dawn. Call wondered if the matter of Clara's marriage was really as settled a thing as everyone seemed to think.

"There he is, headed for Clara's," Long Bill said. "Shall we wait for him?" Call saw Gus turn his face toward where they sat, already mounted. Gus didn't wave, but he did see them. Though anxious to get started, Call hated to ride out without his friend.

"I guess he'll catch up with us--he knows which way we're headed," Jake Spoon said.

He was anxious to get started before he grew any more apprehensive.

"If he lives he might," Long Bill said, looking at the man walking slowly across the street, leading his horse.

"Well, why wouldn't he live?" Jake asked.

Long Bill did not reply. What he knew was that Gus McCrae was mighty fond of Clara Forsythe, and now she was gone for good. He was not stepping high or jaunty, and Gus was usually a high-stepper, in the mornings. Of course Bill didn't feel like explaining it to a green boy such as Jake.

Call too saw the dejection in Gus's walk.

"I expect he's just going to say goodbye," Call said. "We better wait. He might appreciate the company."

Augustus felt queasy in his stomach and achy in his head from a long night of drinking, but he wanted one last ^w with Clara, even though he didn't expect it to improve his spirits much. But, since the day he had met her, every time he rode out of Austin on patrol he had stopped by to say goodbye to Clara. She wasn't quite a married woman yet--one more goodbye wouldn't be improper.

Clara was expecting him. When she saw him come round to the back of the store she went out barefoot to meet him. A wind whistled through the street, ruffling the feathers of some chickens that were pecking away on the little slope behind the store.

"It's cold, you'll get goose bumps," Gus said, when he saw that she was barefoot.

Clara shrugged. She saw that one of his eyes was puffyou.

"Who'd you fight?" she asked.

"Didn't get their names," Gus said. "But they were rude. I won't tolerate rude behaviour." To his surprise he saw tears shining on Clara's cheeks.

"Why, now, what's the matter?" he asked, concerned. "I ain't hurt. It wasn't much of a fight." "I'm not crying about the fight," Clara said.

"Then why are you crying?" he asked. He hitched his horse and sat down by her for a moment on the step. He cautiously put his arm around her, not knowing if that was still proper--Clara not only accepted it, she moved closer and clasped his hand, tight.

"It's hard to say goodbye to old boyfriends-- especially you," she said. "That's why." "If it's so dern hard, then why are you?" Gus asked her. "Where's the sense?" Clara shrugged again, as he had when he told her she had goose bumps.

Then she put her head in her arms and cried harder, for a minute or two. Gus didn't know what to think, or what to say.

When Clara finished crying she wiped her eyes on her skirt and turned to him once more.

"Give me a kiss, now, Gus," she said.

"Well, that's always been easy to manage," he said. When they kissed he felt a salty wetness, from the tears on her cheeks.

As soon as the kiss was over, Clara stood up.

"Go along now," she said. "I hope to see you in Nebraska in about ten years." "You will see me," Gus said. He looked up at her again. He had never seen her look lovelier. He had never loved her more. Unable to manage his feelings, he jumped on his horse, waved once, and trotted away. He looked back but didn't wave.

Clara stood up and dried her cheeks-- despite herself, tears kept spilling out. Her father and mother would be up soon, she knew, but she didn't feel like facing them, just yet. She walked slowly around the store to the street in front of it. The six departing rangers were just passing. Call and Gus, both silent, were in the lead. Clara stood back in the shadows--she didn't want them to see her, and they didn't.

Along the street, also hidden in the shadow of buildings, two other women watched the rangers leave: Maggie Tilton and Pearl Coleman.

Maggie, like Clara, had tears on her cheeks; but Pearl Coleman was entirely convulsed with grief. Before the rangers were even well out of town she began to wail aloud.

Maggie and Clara both heard Pearl's loud wailing and knew what caused it. Maggie knew Pearl from the old days, when she had been married to a bartender named Dan Leary, the victim of a random gunshot that killed him stone dead one night when he stepped outside to empty an overflowing spittoon. Some cowboys had been shooting off guns outside a bordello--one of the bullets evidently fell from the sky and killed Dan Leary instantly.

Clara too knew Pearl--she was a frequent customer at the store. She started up the street, meaning to try and comfort her, and was almost there when Maggie came out of the alley, bent on the same errand.

"Why, hello," Clara said. "I guess Pearl's mighty sad, because Bill's run off again, so soon." "I expect so," Maggie said. She started to stop and leave the comforting to Clara, but Clara motioned for her to come along.

"Don't you be hanging back," Clara said.

"This job is big enough for both of us." Maggie, ever aware of her position, glanced down the street but saw only one man, an old farmer who was urinating beside a small wagon.

When they reached Pearl she was so upset she couldn't talk. She was a large woman wearing an old blue nightdress; her back shook, as she cried, and her ample bosom heaved.

"He's gone and he won't be back," Pearl said. "He's gone and this baby inside me will never have a father--I know it!" "Now you shush, Pearl, that ain't true," Maggie said. "This trip they're taking is just a short trip. They'll all be back." She said it, but in her own mind were fears for her own child, whose father also might never return.

Clara put her arm around Pearl Coleman, but didn't speak. People were always leaving, men mostly. The cold wind burned her wet cheeks.

Soon she herself would be leaving with Bob Allen, her chosen husband, to start the great adventure of marriage. She was excited by the thought. She expected to be happy. Soon she would be living away from her parents, and Gus McCrae would not be riding in, dusty, every few weeks, to kiss her. A part of her life was gone. And there stood Maggie, crying for Call, and Pearl Coleman, wailing, bereft at the departure of her Bill.

For a moment Clara wondered whether life was a happier affair with men, or without them.

Pearl, who had calmed a little, was walking back and forth, looking down the road where the rangers had gone. Her face was the shape of a moon and now looked like a moon that had been rained on.

"My baby's a boy, I know it," she said.

"He's going to need a pa." In a few more minutes the sun came up and the women parted. Pearl, somewhat relieved, went back to her house. Two or three wagons were in the street now--Maggie Tilton discreetly went home through an alley, and Clara Forsythe, soon to be Clara Allen, walked slowly back to her parents' store, wondering if, before the summer came, a child would be growing in her too.

ook II

For three days Buffalo Hump and his warriors rode south in a mass, singing and chanting during the day and dancing at night around their campfires. They were excited to be going to war behind their leader. Worm, the medicine man, made spells at night, spells that would bring destruction and death to the Texans. They flushed abundant game and ate venison and antelope when they rested. At night, when the half-moon shone, the warriors talked of killing, raiding, burning, taking captives, stealing horses. They were still well north of the line of settlements and forts --they were lords of the land they rode on and confident in their power. The young warriors, some of whom had never been in battle, did not sleep at night, from excitement. They knew their chance for glory lay at hand.

On the fourth morning Buffalo Hump stayed long at the campfire, watching some of the young men practice with their weapons. He was not pleased by what he saw. Many of the young warriors, his own son included, were not good with the bow. After he had watched for a while he called all the warriors together and issued an order that took everyone by surprise, even Worm, who knew what Buffalo Hump felt about the proper modes of warfare.

"Those of you who have guns, throw them down," Buffalo Hump said. "Put them here in a pile, in front of me." More than two hundred warriors had firearms of some sort--old pistols or muskets, in most cases, but, in some instances, good, well-functioning repeating rifles. They prized their firearms and were reluctant to give them up.

There were a few moments of silence and hesitation, but Buffalo Hump had planted himself before them and he did not look to be in a mood to compromise.

Even Blue Duck, who far preferred the rifle to the bow, did not say anything. He did not want to risk being chastised by his father in front of so many warriors.

Buffalo Hump had not expected all the warriors to be happy with his order. He was prepared to have it challenged. Many of the warriors were from bands who scarcely knew him, over whom he held no authority--except the authority of his presence. But he had thought much about the great raid they had embarked on. He knew it might be his last chance to beat back the white man, to cleanse the land of them and make it possible for the Comanche people to live as they had always lived, masters of the llano and all the prairies where they had always hunted. He wanted the warriors who rode with him to fight as Comanches had always fought, with the bow and the lance--and there were reasons for his decision other than his devotion to the old weapons.

After he had faced the warriors for a time, Buffalo Hump explained himself.

"We do not need these guns," he said. "They make too much noise. They scare away game that we might need to eat. Their sound carries so far the bluecoat soldiers might hear it. There are bluecoat soldiers in all the forts but we do not want to fight them yet. We will spread out soon. We will slip between the forts and kill the settlers before the soldiers know we are there. We must slip down on the settlers and go among them as quietly as the fog. We want to kill them before they can run and get the bluecoats. Kill them with your arrows. Kill them with your lances and your knives. Kill them quietly and we can ride on south and kill many more. We will go all the way to the Great Water, killing Texans." He stopped, so the warriors could think over what he had said. He had spoken slowly, trying to bring all his power into the ^ws. His fear was that some of the young warriors would defy him and split off.

They might make their own raid, shouting and raping, in the way of young warriors. But if such a thing occurred there could be no great raid into the large towns of the whites. There were many forts now, all along the Brazos and the Trinity. Unless they could get below the forts, into the country where white settlers were thick as sage, the soldiers would pour out of the forts and come after them. Then the Comanches would have to defend themselves, rather than bringing war to the settlements. It was not what he wanted, not what he had prayed for.

The half-moon was still visible in the morning sky. Buffalo Hump pointed to it.

"Tomorrow we will break into small parties," he said. "We will fan out, as far as the headwaters of the Brazos. Go quietly between the forts and kill all the settlers you find. When the moon is full we will come back through the hills to the Colorado and strike Austin, and then San Antonio. When we have killed as many Texans as we can, we will go on to the Great Water. If the bluecoats come after us we can go into Mexico." The warriors listened silently. There was no sound in the camp except the stamping and snorting of horses. No one, though, had stepped forward to lay down his gun. Buffalo Hump feared, for a moment, that he was not going to be obeyed. The warriors were too greedy and too lazy to surrender a gun, even a poor gun. With guns they didn't have to hunt so hard and carefully. Too many of them had ceased to depend on their bows, or to practice with them. He decided he had better keep speaking to them.

"Now is the time to fight as the old ones fought," he said. "The old ones had no trouble killing Texans with our own weapons. It was only when we first tried to use guns that we lost battles to the Texans. The old ones believed in the power of their weapons. They fought so hard that they made the Texans run back down the rivers. We took their women and made their children captives. The Mexicans feared us worse than they feared their own deaths. Leave your guns here and let us make war like the old ones made it." At that point old Yellow Foot pushed through the crowd and put his musket on the ground. The musket looked even older than Yellow Foot, one of the oldest warriors to come on the raid. He had wrapped buffalo sinew around the gun so that the barrel would not jump off the stock when he shot at something. It was such a bad gun that no one wanted to stand near Yellow Foot when he shot it, for fear that it might do more damage to them than to whatever Yellow Foot was shooting at.

Nevertheless, Yellow Foot was very proud of his gun and wasted many bullets shooting at game that was too far away to hit. Twice he had killed young horses because his vision was poor and he mistook them for deer. Buffalo Hump was pleased when he saw the old warrior come forward.

Though a little crazy, Yellow Foot was much respected in the tribe because he had had over a dozen wives in his life and was known to be an expert on how to give women such extreme pleasure that they would remain jolly for weeks and not complain as other women did.

"I am leaving my gun," Yellow Foot said. "I don't want to smell all that gun grease anymore." All the older warriors soon followed Yellow Foot's example and put their guns in a pile. Buffalo Hump said no more, but he did not move or look away, either. He looked from warrior to warrior, making them face and accept his command or else reject it in front of everybody. In the end only one warrior, a small, irritable man named Red Cat, refused to put his weapon on what had become a great pile. Though Blue Duck was almost the last man to lay his gun on the pile, he did finally put it there. Red Cat, who was indifferent to what any chief thought, kept his rifle.

Buffalo Hump did not want to make too big an issue of one gun.

"If you are going to keep that smelly gun, then raid far to the west, where the Brazos starts," he asked. "If there are any Texans out that way, you can shoot them. I don't think there are any bluecoats out there to hear you." Red Cat made no answer, but he thought it was stupid of old Buffalo Hump to leave behind so many guns. He meant, when he had time, to slip back to where the guns were and pick out a new rifle for himself.

When Famous Shoes saw that the tracks of the Buffalo Horse were going straight into the Sierra Perdida, he sat down on a rock to think about it. Scull was studying a small cactus, for reasons Famous Shoes could not fathom. Very often Scull would notice a plant he was not familiar withand would stop and study it for many minutes, sometimes even sketching it in a small notebook he carried. Sometimes he would ask Famous Shoes about the plant, but often it would be a plant Famous Shoes had no use forand knew little about. Some plants were useful and many were very useful, yielding up medicines or food or, as in the case of some cactus buds, yielding up important visions. But, as with people, some plants were completely useless. When Scull stopped for a long stretch to examine some fossil in the rocks or some useless plant, Famous Shoes grew impatient.

Now he was very impatient. The little cactus Scull was studying was of no interest at all--all anyone needed to know about it was that its thorns were painful if they stuck you. Now the situation they faced was apt to be far more painful than the thorns of any cactus. They were near the country of Ahumado, the Black Vaquero, a man who had wounded Scull once and who would do worse than wound him if he took him prisoner. Scull needed to recognize that their situation was perilous. Under such circumstances, studying a cactus was not the proper behaviour for a captain.

When Scull finally came over to where he sat, Famous Shoes pointed at the mountains.

"Kicking Wolf has taken your horse into the Sierra," he said. "Three Birds is still with him, but Three Birds does not want to go into the Sierra very much." "I doubt that he does, but how can you tell that from a track?" Scull asked.

"I can't tell it from the tracks," Famous Shoes said. "I can tell it because I know Three Birds and he is not crazy. Only a crazy man would ride into the country of Ahumado." "That qualifies me for the asylum, then, I guess," Scull said. "I went there once and got shot for my trouble and now I'm going again." "Some of the mexicanos think Ahumado has lived forever," Famous Shoes said.

"Well, they're a superstitious people," Scull said. "I expect they have too many gods to worry about. The good thing about the Christian religion, if you subscribe to it, is that you only have to worry about the wrath of one God." Famous Shoes didn't respond. Often he could only understand a small fraction of what Scull was talking about, and that fraction was of little interest. What he had just said made him seem a fool. No intelligent man would walk the earth long without realizing that there were many gods to fear.

There was a god in the sun and in the floor, a god in the ice and in the lightning, not to mention the many gods who took their nature from animals: the bear god, the lizard god, and so on. The old ones believed that when eagles screamed they were calling out the name of the eagle god.

He thought that Scull would do well not to criticize Ahumado's gods, either--even if the Black Vaquero hadn't lived forever, he had certainly lived a long time. Men did not live to a great age in dangerous country without cleverness in placating the various gods they had to deal with.

"We are in Ahumado's country now," Famous Shoes said. "He may show up tomorrow. I don't know." "Well, Kicking Wolf's ahead of us with my horse," Scull said. "If he does show up he'll have to take care of Kicking Wolf first." "Ahumado is always behind you," Famous Shoes said. "That is his way. These mountains are his home. He knows trails that even the rabbit and the cougar have forgotten. If we go into his country he will be behind us." Inish Scull thought the matter over for a moment.

The mountains were blue in the distance, dotted with shadows. The way into them was narrow and craggy, he remembered that from his first assault. He picked up a small stick and began to draw figures in the dirt, geometric figures. He drew squares and rectangles, with now and then a triangle.

Famous Shoes watched him draw the figures. He wondered if they were symbols having to do with the angry Christian God. In Austin Scull sometimes preached sermons--he preached from the platform of the gallows that stood behind the jail. Many people gathered to hear Scull preach-- white people, Indians, mexicanos. Many of them could not understand Scull's ^ws, but they listened anyway. Scull would roar and stomp when he preached; he behaved like a powerful medicine man.

The listeners were afraid to leave while he was preaching, for fear he would put a bad spell on them.

"I think you ought to find this man Three Birds and take him home," Scull said, when he had finished drawing the little shapes in the dirt. "He ain't crazy and you ain't either. What's left to do had best be done by crazy folks, which means myself and Mr. Kicking Wolf.

"If I was perfectly sane I'd be on a cotton plantation in Alabama, letting my wife's ugly relatives support me in high style," he added.

Famous Shoes thought he knew why Kicking Wolf was taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado, but it was a subtle thing, and he did not want to discuss it with the white man. It was not wise to talk to white men about certain things, and one of them was power: the power a warrior needed to gain respect for himself. He himself, as a young man, had been sickly; it was only since he had begun to walk all the time that his health had been good. Earlier in his life he had done many foolish things in order to convince himself that he was not worthless. Once in the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua, he had even crawled into the den of a grizzly bear. The bear had not yet awakened from its winter sleep, but spring was coming and the bear was restless. At any time the bear might have awakened and killed Famous Shoes. But he had stayed in the den of the restless bear for three days, and when he came out the power of the bear was with him as he walked.

Without risk there was no power, not for a grown man.

That was why Kicking Wolf was taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado--if he went into Ahumado's stronghold and survived he could sing his power all the way home; he could sing it to Buffalo Hump and sit with him as an equal-- for he would have challenged the Black Vaquero and lived, something no Comanche had ever done.

There was nothing crazy in such behaviour. There was only courage in it, the courage of a great warrior who goes where his pride leads him. When he was younger Buffalo Hump had often done such things, going alone into the country of his worst enemies and killing their best warriors. From such daring actions he gained power--great power. Now Kicking Wolf wanted great power too.

"You brought me where I asked you to bring me and you taught me to track," Scull said. "If I were you I'd turn back now. Kicking Wolf and me, we're involved in a test, but it's our test. You don't need to come with me. If you meet my rangers on your way home, just give them the news." Famous Shoes did not quite understand the last remark.

"What is the news?" he asked.

"The news is that I'm off to the Sierra Perdida, if anyone cares to know," Scull said.

Then he walked away, following the tracks of his big horse, toward the blue mountains ahead.

They had removed the young caballero's clothes and were tying him to the skinning post outside the big cave when Tudwal came loping into camp with news he thought Ahumado would want to hear.

Ahumado sat on a blanket outside the cave, watching old Goyeto sharpening his skinning knives. The blades of the old man's knives were thin as razors. He only used them when Ahumado wanted him to take the skin off a man. The young caballero had let a cougar slip into the horses and kill a foal. Though Ahumado never rode, himself--he preferred to walk--he was annoyed with the young man for letting a fine colt get eaten by the cougar.

Ahumado also preferred sun to shade. Even on the hottest days he seldom went into the big cave, or any of the caves that dotted the Yellow Cliffs. He put his blanket where the sun would shine on it all day, and, all day, he sat on it. He never covered himself from the sun--he let it make him blacker and blacker.

Tudwal dismounted well back from the skinning post and waited respectfully for Ahumado to summon him and hear his news. Sometimes Ahumado summoned him quickly, but at other times the wait was long. When the old man was meting out punishment, as he was about to do, it was unwise to interrupt him, no matter how urgent the news.

Ahumado was deliberate about everything, but he was particularly deliberate about punishment. He didn't punish casually; he made a ceremony of it, and he expected everyone in camp to stop whatever they were doing and attend to what was being done to the one receiveg the punishment.

When the young caballero, stripped and trembling with fear, had been securely tied to the skinning post, Ahumado motioned for old Goyeto to come with him. The two men were about the same age and about the same height, but of different complexions.

Goyeto was a milky brown, Ahumado like an old black rock. Goyeto had seven knives, which he wore on a narrow belt, each in a soft deerskin sheath. He was bent almost double with age, and only had one eye, but he had been skinning men for Ahumado for many years and was a master with the knives. He carried with him a little pot of blue dye to mark the places that Ahumado wanted skinned. The last man whose skin he had removed entirely was a German who had tried to make away with some rocks he had taken from one of Ahumado's caves. Ahumado did not like his caves disturbed, not by a German or anybody.

It was rare, though, for him to order a whole man skinned--often Goyeto would only skin an arm or a leg or a backside, or even an intimate part. Tudwal didn't expect him to be that hard on the young vaquero, who had only made a small, understandable mistake.

It soon developed that he was right. Ahumado took the little pot of dye and drew a line from the nape of the caballero's neck straight down to his heel. The line was not even an inch wide.

Ahumado lifted the boy's foot, drew the line across the sole of his foot, and stepped around him to the other side. Then he carefully continued the line all the way up to the boy's chin.

Ahumado pulled the boy's face around so he could look right in his eye.

"I do not raise horses for cougars to eat," he said. "I am going to have Goyeto take an inch of your skin. Goyeto is so good with the knives that you may not feel it. But if you do feel it please don't yell too much. If you disturb me with too much yelling I may have him skin your cojones or maybe one of your eyeballs." Then he walked back to his blanket and sat down. He could see that Tudwal was anxious to tell him something. Usually, while a torture was being performed, he made his couriers wait--it was hard to take in the news accurately when a man was screaming only a few feet away. But Tudwal had been sent north, toward the border, and it was never wise to ignore news from the border country.

He motioned to Tudwal, who came hurrying over. Just as he got there old Goyeto made a few cuts and began to peel the little strip of skin down the nape of the young caballero's neck. The boy, not understanding that he was being given only a light punishment, began to scream as loudly as he could. As Goyeto pulled and cut, pulling the strip below the boy's shoulder blades, the boy screamed so loudly that it was impossible to hear Tudwal's news. Before the strip of skin was pulled away past his hips the boy fainted, and Goyeto stopped and squatted on his heels.

Ahumado did not approve of him skinning unconscious men.

"Two Comanches are coming," Tudwal said quickly. "They are almost to the Yellow Canyon now." Ahumado was disappointed by the quality of news from the north. Two Comanches were worthless. He had been hoping that Tudwal might have spotted a party of rich travellers, or perhaps a small troop of federales. The rich people might have money and jewels with them; the soldiers they could torture.

He motioned for Goyeto to get on with things, so Goyeto pricked the caballero's cojones with the knives until he woke up. Soon he was screaming again, though not so loudly.

Of course Tudwal had known that Ahumado would not be excited to hear about the two Comanches; he decided to spring the news that he had been holding back.

"One of the Comanches is riding the Buffalo Horse," he said. "Scull's horse." Ahumado had been watching the practiced way Goyeto twisted the boy's foot up and held it between his knees as he continued to peel the strip of skin across the sole. Goyeto's expert knife work was a pleasure to watch. It took a moment for Tudwal's information to register with him. The boy was screaming more loudly again.

"Scull's horse?" Ahumado asked.

"Scull's horse," Tudwal said. "I have more news too." "You are a braggart," Ahumado informed him.

"You are no better than a crow." The old man's face was thin. His eyes were as flint when he was displeased, and he was often displeased.

"But I am the Crow Who Sees," Tudwal said. "I have seen the two Comanches and I have seen Scull. He is following the Comanches on foot, and he is alone." "Scull wants to kill me," Ahumado mentioned. "If he is alone, why didn't you catch him?" "I am only a crow," Tudwal said. "How can I be expected to catch such a fierce man?" "I think Scull wants his horse back," Ahumado said. "There is no other horse like the Buffalo Horse." "Maybe he wants his horse back, I don't know," Tudwal said. "Maybe he just wants to visit you." Ahumado watched as Goyeto worked the strip of skin up the boy's leg. He worked with such delicacy that the wound hardly bled.

Nonetheless, when the peel reached his hip, the young caballero fouled himself. Then, for the second time, he fainted.

"I am going to sell this boy as a slave, when he wakes up," Ahumado said. "He is too cowardly to work for me. If the federales caught him and squeezed his cojones he might betray me." Tudwal agreed. Only a little skinning had reduced the young caballero to a sorry state.

"What do you think those Comanches want?" Ahumado asked. "I am asking you because you are the Crow Who Sees." Tudwal knew he had better be careful.

When Ahumado was disappointed in one of his men, his disappointment could turn into fury, but a cold fury. The old man kept his eyes hidden and spoke in soft tones, so that the man he was angry with could not see, until it was too late, that his eyes were like those of a striking snake. Someone would be struck, usually to the death, when Ahumado began to question things.

"One of the Comanches is a man called Kicking Wolf," Tudwal ventured. "He took the Buffalo Horse. Maybe he means to sell him to you." The old man, the Black Vaquero, said nothing. Tudwal was scared, and when he was scared, he spoke nonsense. Ahumado did not buy horses from the Comanches, or do anything else with them except kill them. The best any Comanche could expect from him was a quick death. The Comanche who was bringing him the Buffalo Horse was doing a foolish thing, or else he was playing a trick.

The man could well be a trickster of some sort, allied with a witch. If he was just a plain man with horse trading on his mind, he was making a foolish mistake.

"Go eat," he told Tudwal. "Goyeto has to finish his work." Relieved, Tudwal left at once.

Goyeto peeled the strip of skin up the unconscious caballero's chest and up his neck to his chin. Then he cut it off and walked away with the thin, light strip. He meant to peg it out, salt it a little, and hang it in the big cave, with all the other human skins he had taken for Ahumado. On little pegs in the cave were more than fifty skins, a collection any skinner could be proud of. From time to time Ahumado would come into the big cave for a few minutes, take down the skins one by one, and admire them. He and old Goyeto would reminisce about the behaviour of this captive or that. Some men, like the German who had tried to steal the rocks, behaved very bravely, but others, weak like the young caballero, were disappointing to work on. They broke down, fouled themselves, and bawled like babies.

Outside on his blanket, with the winter sun reflecting off the yellow walls of the canyon, Ahumado sat, thinking about the three men who were coming from the north--Big Horse Scull and the two Comanches. The notion that they had come for a visit was amusing. No one visited him in the canyon of the Yellow Cliffs.

When the time came for a visit, he would visit them.

"What will you say to the Black Vaquero when he catches us?" Three Birds asked.

They were camped in a long canyon with high walls, a place Three Birds didn't like.

He had lived his life on the open prairie and didn't like sleeping beneath a cliff of rocks.

Someone with the power to shake the earth could make one of the cliffso fall on them and bury them, a thing that could never happen on the plains. In his dream he had seen a great cliff falling and had awakened in a sweat.

Kicking Wolf had killed a small pig with spiky hair, a javelina, and was too busy roasting its bones to respond to Three Birds.

Then Three Birds remembered another bad story he had heard about the Black Vaquero, this one having to do with snakes. It was said that the old man had such power that he had persuaded the rattlesnake people to give up their rattles. It was said that Ahumado had many snakes with no rattles, who could crawl among his enemies and bite them without making a sound. Though Three Birds normally didn't fear the snake people, he didn't like the thought of rattlesnakes that made no sound. The pig they were eating was tasty, but not tasty enough to make him forget that the Black Vaquero had a number of evil ways.

"Have you heard about the snakes without rattles?" Three Birds asked. "There might be a few of them living in this canyon right here." "If you are going to talk all night I wish you would go home," Kicking Wolf said. "I don't want to sleep tonight--I want to stay up and sing. If you want to sleep you had better go somewhere else." "No, I will sing too," Three Birds said, and he did sing, far into the night. He had the feeling that they would be dead very soon and he wanted to sing as much as possible before death closed his throat.

The two Comanches sang all night and in the morning took pains to paint themselves correctly.

They wanted to look like proud Comanche warriors when they rode into the camp amid the Yellow Cliffso, the camp of the hundred caves, where Ahumado had his stronghold.

Kicking Wolf was just about to mount the Buffalo Horse when he felt a change come. The sun had not yet struck the cliffso to the south; they were still filled with blue light. Three Birds had just finished painting himself when he felt the change.

Sometimes, hours before a storm, the air would begin to change, though there was no sign of anything to fear.

That was how the air changed in the long canyon.

"I think he is here," Kicking Wolf said, coming over to Three Birds.

Just then Three Birds saw a rattlesnake without rattles going under a rock near where they had their blankets. He knew then that Ahumado must be near. He wondered if Ahumado's powers were such that he could turn himself into a snake and come near to spy on them. It might even have been Ahumado who crawled under the rock near where the blankets were. He didn't mention his suspicion to Kicking Wolf, though--Kicking Wolf didn't believe that people could turn themselves into animals, or vice versa, though he admitted that such things might have been possible in the old days, when the spirits of people had been more friendly with those of animals.

Then the Buffalo Horse snorted, and swung his head. He looked around the canyon, but didn't move.

"I don't want to camp in any more canyons," Three Birds observed--he was about to outline his objections when he turned and saw an old man sitting on a high rock a little distance behind them. The rock and the man were in shadow still; it was hard to see them clearly. He sat cross-legged on the rock, a rifle across his lap.

When the light improved a little they saw that he was as dark as an old plum.

Kicking Wolf knew that he was in great danger, but he also felt great pride. The old man on the rock was Ahumado, the Black Vaquero. Whatever his own fate might be, he had completed his quest. He had stolen the Buffalo Horse and brought him to the great bandit of the south; he had done it merely for the daring of doing it. If a hundred pistoleros rose up in the rocks and killed him, he would die happy in his courage and pride.

"I have brought you the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf said, walking closer to the rock where the old man sat.

"I see him," Ahumado said. "Is he a gift?" "Yes, a gift," Kicking Wolf said.

"He is a big horse," Ahumado said.

"I shot him once but the bullet only scratched him. Why did you bring him to me?" Kicking Wolf made no answer--there was no answer that could easily be put into ^ws. He knew that at home, around the campfires, the young men would sing for years about his theft of the Buffalo Horse and his inexplicable decision to take him to Ahumado. Few would understand it--perh none would understand it. It was a thing he had done for no reason, andfor all reasons andfor no reason. He stood on his dignity as a Comanche warrior.

He would not try to explain himself to an old bandit who was black as a plum.

"I will take this horse and the other one too," Ahumado said. "You can go home but you will have to walk until you get to Texas. Then you can steal another horse." Kicking Wolf picked up his weapons. He and Three Birds started to walk out of the canyon past where Ahumado sat. But when Three Birds moved Ahumado made a motion with his rifle, pointing it directly at Three Birds.

"Not you," he said. "Your friend can go but you must stay and be my guest." Three Birds didn't argue. What had happened was exactly what he had expected would happen. He had come to Mexico expecting to die, and now he was going to die. He was not upset; it was a moment he had been waiting for since the shitting sickness killed his wife and his three children. He had wanted to die then, with his family, but his stubborn body had not wanted to go. But some of his spirit had gone with his wife and his little ones and he had not been able to attend much to the things of the world, since then. Now he had had a good journey with his friend Kicking Wolf--they had travelled together to Mexico. He did not want the evil old man to do bad things to him, but, as to his death, that he was at ease with. He immediately stretched up his arms and began to sing his death song.

Though Three Birds wasn't upset, Kicking Wolf was. He did not like the disrespectful tone the old man had used when he addressed Three Birds. Even less did he like it that Ahumado meant to keep Three Birds a captive.

"This man helped me to bring you the Buffalo Horse," he said. "He has come a long way to bring you this gift." Ahumado kept his rifle pointed at Three Birds. It was clear that he had no interest in what Kicking Wolf had just said.

Kicking Wolf was very angry. He had half expected to die when he had decided to bring the Buffalo Horse to Mexico. He knew that Ahumado was a very dangerous man who killed on whim, that death might be waiting for him in the canyon of the Yellow Cliffs. Besides, Three Birds had talked of little else on the trip except his conviction that Ahumado would kill them.

What he had not expected was that he would be spared and Three Birds taken. It angered him so that he had a notion to put an arrow through the old bandit immediately. Did he think a Comanche warrior would simply surrender his friend to torture and death? By that one stroke Ahumado made him seem a fool, the very thing Three Birds had been telling him he was, all the way south.

To make matters worse, Three Birds accepted the decision. He was already singing his death song and his eyes were looking far away.

As Kicking Wolf was about to draw his bow he saw three pistoleros to his left--they rose out of the rocks with their rifles pointed at him. Three more rose behind Ahumado.

"In my country rocks grow men," Ahumado said.

Kicking Wolf dropped his weapons and made a gesture of surrender. He could not simply walk out of the canyon and leave Three Birds to his death. If it was to be death for one, it would be death for both. But Ahumado made a gesture with his hand and several horsemen rode out of the rocks swinging horsehide ropes. Kicking Wolf tried to run but before he could escape three lassos caught him. The horsemen began to drag him over the rough ground, out of the canyon. He could not see Three Birds for the dust his own body raised as the men spurred their horses and pulled him faster. They pulled him through a field of big rocks. Then his head hit one of the big rocks, which sent him into a black sleep. But, even as he sank into the darkness he thought he heard someone singing a death song.

When Buffalo Hump came into the big store in Austin, some of the warriors had found an old woman upstairs and had pulled her and had thrown her down the steps. Now they were dragging her through some white flour. They had killed the old man who owned the store with one of his own axes and had used the axe to chop open a couple of barrels of white flour. Some of the young warriors had never seen white flour and took delight in throwing it in the air and covering themselves with it. They also liked dragging the old woman through it while she shrieked.

Two of the young warriors outraged her while Buffalo Hump picked out a few hatchets and put them in a sack. Then he came over and waited for the warrior who was outraging the old woman to finish. The woman's husband was lying dead only a few feet away, while, outside, his warriors were setting buildings afire and killing people as they tried to escape the flames. Some warriors rode their horses into white people's houses and looted everything they could carry. Six Texans were shot down in the street and scalped where they fell. The people of Austin ran like chickens and the Comanches pursued them like wolves, killing them as they ran with lances, or arrows, or tomahawks.

The raid had begun just at dawn but now the sun was well up. Buffalo Hump knew it was time to leave. The young men would have to throw away much of the loot they carried; they would not be able to carry it if there was a fast pursuit. They had killed four rangers in one little house but had seen no soldiers.

When the warrior got off the old, flour-splotched woman Buffalo Hump stood over her and shot three arrows into her chest. He shot them with all the force of his bow, so that the arrows went through the woman and nailed her to the floor. The woman died immediately, but Buffalo Hump didn't scalp her. She was just an old woman whose thin hair was worthless.

He let his men take what baubles they wanted from the store, but told them to hurry. When he came outside he saw that some of his warriors had caught a blacksmith and were burning him to death on his own forge. One of them pumped the bellows and made the flames leap while the blacksmith screamed. The high flames set the man's hair on fire.

In the street a young man with no trousers was running, pursued by three warriors. They had stolen ropes from the big store and were trying to rope him, as a vaquero would rope a cow. But they were warriors, not ropers, and they kept missing.

Finally, unable to rope the young man, the warriors began to whip him with their ropes.

Then Red Cat joined the fun. He had stolen an axe with a long handle from the store. While the young man was fleeing, Red Cat swung the axe and tried to cut the young man's head off. The blow killed him but his head was still on his neck. The warriors dragged him around for a while, to make sure he was dead. Then Red Cat finished cutting his head off and they threw his body in a wagon, along with some other bodies.

Buffalo Hump saw an old man rolling around in the street--he was dying but not quite dead. He rode over and did what he had done with the old woman with flour on her: he shot three arrows into the old man so hard that they went through him and pinned him to the ground.

Buffalo Hump meant to do the same thing again, as they went south. At every farm or ranch he would put arrows through some Texan. He would leave them nailed to the floor, or to the ground.

It would be a thing the Texans would notice--a thing they would remember him by.

When Maggie was awakened in the first gray light by the high, wild cries of the Comanche warriors, racing into Austin, she didn't even wait to look out the window. Their war cries had been in her nightmares for years. She grabbed a little pistol Woodrow had left her for her own defense and raced barefoot down the stairs. The house she boarded in was on the main street--she knew they would catch her if she stayed in it but she thought she might be able to squeeze under the smokehouse behind it. An old sow had rooted under the smokehouse so persistently that she had dug out a shallow wallow under the back corner of the shack.

Maggie raced down the steps and, moments later, was squeezing herself under the smokehouse. There was room, too: the black sow was larger than she was. She clutched the pistol and cocked it to be ready. Woodrow had long ago taught her where to shoot herself, to spare herself torture and outrage.

Once Maggie had squeezed herself as far back under the house as she could get, she heard, from behind her somewhere, the buzz of a rattlesnake, at which point she stopped and remained motionless. The snake didn't seem close, but she didn't want to do anything to irritate it further.

She didn't want to kill herself, either. It would mean the end not only for herself but for the child inside her too. She knew what happened to women the Comanches took, though. Only yesterday she had seen poor Maudy Clark, sitting on a chair behind the church, looking blank. The preacher was letting her sleep in a little room in the church until they located a sister in Georgia who might take her in. Her husband, William, had come one day in a wagon, taken the children, and left without speaking a ^w to Maudy. He had simply ridden away, as if his wife had ceased to exist: and his attitude was what most men's would be. Once fouled by a Comanche or a Kiowa or any Indian, a woman might as well be dead, for she would be considered so by respectable society.

Maggie didn't know that she could be befouled much worse by an Indian than she had been by some of the rough men who had used her; but, then, there were the tortures: she didn't think she could stand them.

She clutched her pistol but otherwise didn't move. The snake's rattling slowly quieted-- probably the rattler had crawled off into a corner. Slowly, very deliberately, Maggie squeezed herself a few more inches back. Then she put her face down; Woodrow had told her Comanches were quick to spot even the smallest flash of white skin.

Outside, the war cries came closer. She heard horses go right by the smokehouse. Three Indians went into the smokehouse, just above her-- she heard them knocking over crocks and carrying off some of the meat that hung there. Something that smelled like vinegar dripped onto her through a fine crack in the floor.

But the Comanches didn't find her. Two braves stood not far from the hog wallow for a moment, but then mounted and loped off, probably to seek more victims. They didn't fire the smokehouse but they fired the rooming house. She could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames. She was afraid the rooming house might fall onto the smokehouse and set it on fire, but didn't dare come out. The Comanches were still there-- she could hear their victims screaming. Horses dashed by and several more Comanches came into the smokehouse. Maggie kept her face down and waited; she was determined to hide all day if need be.

Then she heard a scream she recognized: it was Pearl Coleman screaming. Pearl screamed and screamed. The sound made Maggie want to stop her ears, and turn off her mind. She didn't want to think about what might be happening to Pearl, out in the street. At least Clara Forsythe was safe--married and gone to Galveston only five days before.

Maggie concentrated on keeping her head down; and she waited. Woodrow had warned her specifically not to be too quick to come out, in the event of a raid. Some of the Comanches would hold back after the main party left, hoping to snatch women or children who were brought out of hiding.

Maggie waited. One more Indian did come into the smokehouse, perhaps to snatch a ham or something, but he was there only moments. Maggie peeked briefly and saw the warrior's horse spill out turds, right in front of her.

The warrior left and Maggie waited for a long time. When she finally began to inch out, she thought it must be noon, at least. When she finally did come out, so did the snake that had buzzed at her earlier. The snake glided through a crack in the lower board and was soon under a bush.

Many of the buildings along the main street were burning; the saloon had burned to the ground.

Maggie inched around the building, but soon decided there were no Indians still in the town.

Several men lay dead in the street, scalped, castrated, split open. She heard sobbing from up the street and saw Pearl Coleman, completely naked andwith four arrows sticking out of her, walking around in circles, sobbing.

Maggie hurried to her and tried to get her to stop weaving around, but Pearl was beyond listening. Her large body was streaked with blood from the four arrows.

"Oh, Mag," Pearl said. "They got me down before I could run. They got me down. My Bill, he won't want me now ... if he gets back alive he'll be ashamed of me and put me out." "No, Pearl, that ain't true," Maggie said. "Bill won't put you out." She said it to cheer Pearl up a little, but in fact there was no predicting what Long Bill would do when he heard of his wife's defilement.

She liked Long Bill Coleman but there was no knowing how a man would react to such news.

At that moment, through the drifting smoke, they saw three men with rifles coming cautiously up the street. The sight of them brought home to Pearl the fact that she was unclothed.

"Oh Lord, I'm naked, Maggie .

what'll I do?" Pearl asked, trying to cover herself with her bloody hands. It it was only when she saw the blood on her own hands that she noticed an arrow in her hip. She put her hand on the arrow, which was only hanging by its tip, and, to her surprise, it came out.

"You got three more in your back, Pearl," Maggie said. "I'll get them out once I get you inside." "Why, I'm stuck like a pincushion," Pearl said, trying to cover herself with her hands.

"Just turn around ... those men don't see us yet," Maggie said. "I'll run in the Forsythe store and borrow a blanket for you to cover with." Pearl turned around and hunched over, trying to make herself as small as possible.

Maggie ran across the street but slowed a little as she came up the steps to the Forsythe store. The windows had all been smashed--a barrel of nails had been heaved through one of them. The barrel had burst when it hit, scattering nails everywhere.

Maggie, barefoot, had to pick her way carefully through the nails.

As soon as she stepped into the store she felt something sticky on one foot and assumed she must have cut herself on a nail; but when she looked down she saw that the blood on her foot was not hers. There was a large puddle of it just inside the door of the store. The display cases had all been smashed and flour was everywhere.

Horse blankets, harness, ladies' hats, men's shoes had been thrown everywhere. The brown Pennsylvania crockery that Clara had been so proud of had been smashed to shards.

Maggie knew she had stepped in a puddle of blood, but it was dim in the store. She didn't know whose blood it was until she picked her way through the smashed crockery and scattered merchandise and then suddenly saw Mr. Forsythe, dead on the floor, his head split open as if it had been a cantaloupe.

Beyond him a few steps lay Mrs. Forsythe, naked and half covered with the white flour that had spilled out of the barrels. Three arrows had been driven into her chest, so hard that they had gone through her, pinning her to the floor.

Maggie felt such a shock at the sight that she grew weak. She had to steady herself against the counter.

For a moment she thought her stomach might come up.

Seeing the naked, spraddled woman with the arrows in her chest made her realize how lucky she was; and how lucky Pearl was, and Clara herself, and all the women who were still alive.

She herself wasn't even injured--she had to help those who were. It was no time to be weak.

Maggie picked her way back to where the blankets were--instead of taking one blanket she took three. One she carefully put over Mrs. Forsythe--the three arrows stuck up, but there was nothing she could do about that. The blanket didn't cover her well--it left the poor old woman's thin legs exposed, which seemed wrong.

She went back, took another blanket, and used it to cover Mrs. Forsythe's legs. The men would have to deal with the arrows when they came to remove the bodies.

Then she put a nice blanket over Mr.

Forsythe's split head and went outside to help her friend. One of the men with rifles was standing on the porch when she came out.

"How about the Forsythes?" he asked, peering in one of the smashed windows.

"They're both dead," Maggie told him.

"She's got three arrows shot clear through her." Then she opened the other blanket, picked her way through the nails, and wrapped the blanket around Pearl, who was still hunched down in the street. The three arrows were still in her back, but at least she was covered decently as Maggie walked her home.

As soon as Inish Scull saw the horse in the distance he hid under a little shelf of rock and waited. The horse, still a long way off, seemed to be alone. Scull took out his binoculars and waited for the horse to come round a little closer, for the animal did not seem to be moving or grazing naturally. It moved slowly, and looked back over its shoulder frequently, odd behaviour for a lone horse in empty country.

More than an hour passed before the horse was close enough for Scull to see that it was dragging a man behind it, an unconscious man and an Indian, securely tied at wrists and ankles and attached to the horse by a rawhide rope.

There was nothing to see on the vast spare desert except the one horse, walking slowly, dragging the man. Somebody had obviously wanted the horse to drag the man to death; that somebody, in Scull's view, was probably Ahumado.

Famous Shoes had talked much about Ahumado's cruelty to captives. Being dragged to death by a horse was about as mild a punishment as Ahumado allowed anyone, if Famous Shoes was to be believed.

When the horse was only one hundred yards away, Scull crept down to take a closer look. As he came near he saw that the tied man's body was just a mass of scrapes, with very little skin left on it.

Scull watched the southern horizon closely, to be sure there were no clouds of dust in the air, such as riders would make; he also watched the bound man closely, to see if he was merely feigning unconsciousness. It seemed unlikely that a man so skinned and torn could be capable of threatening him; but many a fallen Indian fighter had been fatally lulled by just such reasonable considerations.

Once satisfied that it was safe to approach, Scull stopped the horse--he soon saw that the bound man was breathing. There were no bullet holes in him that Scull could see. On his back was a small quiver, with no arrows in it.

There was a deep gash in his forehead. The beadwork on the little quiver was Comanche, Scull thought. The thongs at his wrists and ankles had been pulled so tight that his flesh had swollen around the cords.

From a swift examination of the horse tracks Scull determined that the horse was one he had just been following for hundreds of miles. It was Three Birds' horse, but Scull didn't think it was Three Birds who was tied to it.

Three Birds was skinny, Famous Shoes had told him, but the bound man was short and stocky.

"Kicking Wolf," Scull said aloud. He thought the sound of his name might wake the man up, but of course Kicking Wolf was only his English name; what his Comanche name was, Scull did not know. Scull would have dearly liked to know what had happened to Three Birds, and whether Ahumado was in the vicinity, but he could not expect to get such information from an unconscious man whose language he didn't speak.

Now that he was in the country of the Black Vaquero, Scull had taken to travelling mostly by night, letting the stars be his map. He knew that the canyon where Ahumado had his stronghold was crevassed and cut with many small caves, some of them no more than pockmarks in the rock but some deep enough to shelter a man nicely.

Undoubtedly Ahumado would post guards, but Scull had been a commander too long to believe that any arrangement that required men to stay awake long hours in the night was foolproof. If he could sneak in at night and tuck himself into one of the hundred caves, he might, with patience, get a clean shot at Ahumado. Famous Shoes had told him that the old man did not like shade. He spent his days on a blanket and slept outside, by a small campfire, at night. The trick would be to get in a cave within rifle range. Of course, if he shot Ahumado, the pistoleros might swarm into his cave like hornets and kill him, but maybe not. Ahumado was said to be as cruel and unyielding to his men as he was to captives. Most of the pistoleros might only be staying with him out of fear. With the old man dead they might just leave.

It was a gamble, but Scull didn't mind-- indeed, he had walked into Mexico in order to take just such a gamble. But first he had to get into the Yellow Canyon and find a well-situated cave. Famous Shoes had warned him particularly about a man named Tudwal, a scout whose job it was to roam the perimeters of Ahumado's country and warn him of intruders.

"Tudwal will know you are there before you know it yourself," Famous Shoes assured him.

"No, that's too cryptic, what do you mean?" Scull asked, but Famous Shoes would not say more. He had given Scull a warning, but would not elaborate, other than to say that Tudwal rode a paint horse and carried two rifles.

Scull put the man's reticence down to professional jealousy. Famous Shoes missed no track, and, evidently, Tudwal didn't either.

Meanwhile, dusk was turning into night and Scull had a horse and an unconscious man to decide what to do about. The Comanche very likely was the man Kicking Wolf, the thief who had stolen Hector. In other circumstances Kicking Wolf was a man he would immediately kill, or try to kill. But now the man was unconscious, bound, helpless. With or without Scull he might not live. With one swipe of his knife Scull knew that he could cut the man's throat and rid the frontier of a notable scourge, but when he did take out his knife it was merely to sever the rawhide rope that attached the man to the horse.

Then he quickly walked on toward the mountains, leaving the unconscious man tied but not dead.

"Tit for tat ... Bible and sword," he said aloud, as he walked. Kicking Wolf; daring theft had freed him of a command he was tired of, presenting him with a fine opportunity for pure adventure--solitary adventure, the kind he liked best. He could match his skill against an unforgiving country and an even more unforgiving foe.

That was why he had come west in the first place: adventure. The task of harassing the last savages until they were exterminated was adventure diluted with policy and duty.

The man who had been tied to the horse was a mystery, and Scull preferred to leave him a mystery. He didn't want to nurse him, nor did he want to kill him. He might be Kicking Wolf or just some wandering Indian old Ahumado had caught. By cutting the rope Scull had secured the man a chance.

If he came to he could chew his way free and try to make it to water.

But Inish Scull didn't intend to waste any of the night worrying the issue. The man could go if he was able. He himself had ten hours of fast walking to do and he wanted to be at it. The thought of what was ahead stirred his blood and quickened his stride. He had only himself to consider, only himself to depend on, which was exactly how he liked things to be. By morning, if he kept moving, he should be in the canyon of the Yellow Cliffs. Then he could lie under a rock and wait for the sun to complete its short winter arc. Perhaps when night fell again, if he made good progress, he could crawl through Ahumado's guard and work his way into the cliffso, where he might find a cave deep enough to shelter him for a day. If he could find a suitable cave he would then need to be sure that his rifle was in good order--he had walked a long distance with the rifle over his shoulder. The sights might well need adjusting. Ahumado was said to be quick, despite his age. Certainly he had been quick the first time Scull went after him. It was not likely that the old man would linger long in plain view, once Scull started shooting at him.

He needed to cripple him, at least, with the first shot--killing him outright would be better still.

A brisk, nipping north wind rose during the night, but Scull scarcely noticed it. He walked rapidly, rarely slowing for longer than it took him to make water, for ten hours. Twice he startled small herds of javelina and once almost stumbled over a sleeping mule deer.

Normally he would have shot the deer or one of the pigs for meat, but this time he refrained, remembering Tudwal, the scout who would know he was there even before he knew it himself. It would not do to go shooting off guns with such a man on patrol.

Toward dawn, Scull stopped. The closer he got to danger, the keener he felt. For a moment, pissing, he remembered his wife, Inez --the woman thought she could hold him with her hot lusts, but she had failed. He was alone in Mexico, in the vicinity of a merciless enemy, and yet he found it possible to doubt that there was a happier man alive.

At the entrance to the camp in the Yellow Cliffso was a pile of human heads. Three Birds would have liked to stop and look through the heads for a while to see if any friends of his were represented in the pile. Ahumado had killed many Comanches, some of them his friends. Probably a few of their heads were in the pile. Many of the heads still had the hair on them, from what he could see.

Three Birds was curious. He had never seen a pile of heads before and would have liked to know how many heads were in the pile, but it didn't seem a polite thing to ask.

"Those are just some heads he has cut off people," Tudwal said, in a friendly voice.

Three Birds didn't comment. His view was that Tudwal wasn't really as friendly as he sounded.

He might be the man who skinned people. Three Birds didn't want to banter idly about cut-off heads with a man who might skin him.

"He won't take your head though," Tudwal said. "For you it will be the pit or else the cliff." Three Birds soon observed that the camp they were coming to was poor. Two men had just killed a brown dog and were skinning it so that it could be put in the cook pot. A few women who looked very tired were grinding corn. An old man with several knives strung around his belt came out of a cave and looked at him.

"Is he the one who skins people?" Three Birds asked.

"We all skin people," Tudwal said. "But Goyeto is old, like Ahumado. Goyeto has had the most practice." Three Birds thought it all seemed very odd.

Ahumado was supposed to have stolen much treasure, in his robberies, but he didn't seem rich. He just seemed like an old, dark man who was cruel to people. It was all puzzling. Three Birds broke into his death song while puzzling about it.

He wondered if Kicking Wolf would die from being pulled behind the horse they had tied him to.

Three Birds was soon taken off the horse and allowed to sit by one of the campfires, but nobody offered him food. Around him were the Yellow Cliffso, pocked with caves. Eagles soared high above the cliffso, eagles and buzzards as well. Three Birds was startled to see so many great birds, high above the cliffso. On the plains where he lived he seldom saw many eagles.

He had expected to be tortured as soon as he was brought into the camp, but no one seemed in any hurry to torture him. Tudwal went into a cave with a young woman and was gone for a long time. The great force of pistoleros that Ahumado was said to command were nowhere in evidence. There were only five or six men there. Ahumado walked over and sat on a blanket. Three Birds stopped singing his death song. It seemed foolish to sing it when no one was paying any attention to him at all. Two old women were making tortillas, which gave off a good smell. In the Comanche camp prisoners were always fed, even if they were to be promptly killed or tortured, but that did not seem to be the custom in the camp of Ahumado. No one brought him tortillas, or anything else.

When the day was almost passed Tudwal came and sat with him. A peculiar thing about the man, who was white but very dirty, was that his left eye blinked all the time, a trait that Three Birds found disconcerting.

"I have been with six women today," Tudwal said. "The women are Ahumado's but he lets me have them. He is too old for women himself. His only pleasure is killing." Three Birds kept quiet. It was in his mind that they might start his torture at any time.

If that happened he would need all his courage.

He did not want to weaken his courage by chatting with a braggart like Tudwal. He wondered how Kicking Wolf was faring. If the horse was still dragging him he was probably thoroughly skinned up.

Finally Ahumado stood up and motioned for Tudwal to bring the prisoner. Tudwal cut the throngs that bound Three Birds' ankles and helped him to his feet. Ahumado led them to the base of one of the high cliffso, where there was a big pit. Tudwal led Three Birds to the edge of the pit and pointed down. In the bottom Three Birds could see several rattlesnakes and also a rat or two.

"You can't see the scorpions and spiders but there are many down there," Tudwal said. "Every day the women go out and turn over rocks, to find more scorpions and spiders for the pit." Without a ^w Ahumado turned toward the cliff and began to climb up a narrow trail of steps cut into the rock. The trail led higher and higher, toward the top of the cliff.

Ahumado climbed the trail quite easily, but Three Birds, because his hands were bound, had some trouble. He could not use the handholds Ahumado used, and Tudwal. Because of his difficulty with the steps Tudwal began to insult him.

"You are not much of a climber," he said.

"Ahumado is old but he is already almost to the top of the cliff." That was true. Ahumado had already disappeared above them. Three Birds tried to ignore Tudwal. He concentrated on making his feet go up the trail. He had never been so high before.

In his country, the beautiful country of the plains, even birds did not fly as high as he was being asked to climb. It seemed to him he was as high as the clouds--only it was a clear evening, with no clouds. Behind him Tudwal grew impatient with Three Birds' slow climbing. He began to poke him with a knife. Three Birds tried to ignore the knife, though soon both his legs were bloody. Finally he reached the top of the cliff.

The Black Vaquero was standing there, waiting. The climb had taken so long that the sky was red with sunset. When Three Birds reached the top he found that his lungs were hurting. There didn't seem to be much air atop the old man's Yellow Cliffs.

Around him there was distance, though--a great distance, with the peaks of the Sierra Perdida, reddened by sunset, stretching as far away as he could see.

Three Birds was so high he wasn't quite sure he was still on the earth. It seemed to him he had climbed into the country of the birds--the birds for which he was named. He was in the country of the eagles--it was no wonder he could hardly find air to breathe.

Near the edge of the cliff, not far away, there were four posts stuck in the ground, with ropes going from the posts over the edge of the cliff. Nearby four men, as dark as Ahumado, were squatting by a little fire. Ahumado made a motion and the dark men went to the first post and began to pull on the rope.

Suddenly, as the dark men pulled, Three Birds heard a loud beating of wings and several great vultures swirled up over the edge of the cliff, almost into their faces. One of the vultures, with a red strip of meat in its mouth, flapped so close to Three Birds that he could have touched it.

Three Birds was wondering why the strange old man and his skinny pistolero had brought him so high on the cliff, but he did not have to wonder long, for the dark men pulled a cage made of mesquite branches tightly lashed together onto the top of the cliff. It was not a large cage. The dead man in it had not much room, while he was alive, but the vultures could easily get their heads through and eat the dead man, little by little. The man's bones were still together but a lot of him was eaten. There was not much left of the man, who had been small, like the dark men who raised the cage. As soon as the cage was on solid ground the dark men opened it and quickly pitched what was left of the stinking corpse over the cliff.

Now Three Birds knew why they had brought him to the top of the cliff. They were going to put him in a cage and hang him off the cliff. He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There were three more cages, dangling below him.

"There is a vaquero down there who is still alive," Tudwal said. "We only put him in two weeks ago. A strong man, if he is quick, can stay alive a month, in the cages." "Why does he need to be quick, if he is in a cage?" Three Birds asked.

"Quick, or he don't eat," Tudwal said.

"Pigeons light on the cages. If the man inside is quick he can catch birds to eat. We had a card sharp once who lasted nearly two months--he was quick with his hands." Old Ahumado walked over then. He did not smile.

"The cage or the pit?" he asked. "The snakes or the birds?" "If I were you I would take the pit," Tudwal said. "It's warmer down there. There's some big rats you could eat, if they don't eat you first. Or you could eat a snake." Three Birds was watching the dusk fill up the canyons to the south. He felt he was in the sky, where the spirits lived. Perhaps the spirits of his wife and children were not far away, or the spirits of his parents and grandparents, all dead from the shitting sickness. They were all in the high air somewhere, where he was. It might even be that Kicking Wolf was dead, in which case his spirit would be near.

"Choose," Ahumado said. "It is almost dark. It is a long way back down to the pit, if you want the pit." "Don't you have a better cage to put me in?" Three Birds asked. "This is a filthy cage. It has parts of that dead man sticking to it.

I don't think I will be comfortable in such a filthy cage." Tudwal was astonished. He gave a nervous laugh.

"It is the only cage we have," he said.

"Maybe it will rain and wash away some of that blood." "It isn't the only cage you have," Three Birds pointed out, in a calm reasonable voice. "There are three more cages down there. You showed them to me." "They are full," Tudwal said. "There's that vaquero who's still alive, and two dead men." "You could throw the dead men out," Three Birds pointed out. "Maybe one of those cages would be cleaner." There was silence on the cliff. Tudwal was disconcerted. What did this Comanche think he was doing? It was crazy to bargain with Ahumado--it would only cause him to think up something worse to do to the prisoner.

"He doesn't like our cage," Ahumado said. "Take him back down. We'll let Goyeto skin him." Before Tudwal could reach him Three Birds took two quick steps, to the very edge of the cliff.

In only a second he could put himself beyond the reach of the old torturer and his blinking henchman.

He only had to step backwards and he would be gone forever, into the fine air where the spirits lived.

For a while he would fly, like the birds he was named after; then he would be where the spirits were, without having wasted any time in the dirty pit or the filthy cage. Three Birds had always been a clean man; he was glad they had brought him to a high place, where the air was clean. In a moment he would go backward, into his final home in the air, but he wanted to speak to Ahumado and his henchman before he left them.

"You are stupid men," he said. "A child could fool you. Now Big Horse Scull is coming, and he is not a child. I imagine he will kill you both, and then you will not be skinning people and putting them in cages." Three Birds saw, out of the corner of his eye, one of the dark men sneaking toward him along the cliff edge. The man was short, so short he must have thought no one could see him. But Three Birds saw him and decided he had lectured the two bandits long enough--somewhere behind him in the air, the spirits hovered, like doves. He began to cry out his death song and stepped backward off the cliff.

When Kicking Wolf came to he was almost too weak to move. The tight bonds made his limbs numb and his eyes were strange. Not far away he saw a horse that appeared to be two horses and a cactus bush that seemed to be two cactus bushes. The horse was Three Birds' horse, the one he had been tied to. It was only one horse, and yet, when Kicking Wolf looked at it, it became two, and the one bush became two.

Some witch had distorted his vision so that he saw two things when there was only one. It must have been Ahumado or someone who worked for him.

Then he saw that the rope that had bound him to the horse had been cut. To his surprise, near his head, he saw Scull's footprint, a footprint he had often seen while he was following the rangers, before he stole the Buffalo Horse. Scull must have been the one who cut him loose, another puzzling thing.

Kicking Wolf's tongue was thick with thirst.

When he sat up the world turned around. Three Birds' horse was still two horses, but the two horses were not far away. Kicking Wolf knew that if he could free himself he could catch the horse and ride it to water. There must be water nearby, else the horse would not have stayed.

Because of his thick tongue it took him a long time to chew through the bonds on his wrists. It was dark when the rawhide finally parted.

The vaqueros who had roped him had not taken his quiver--there were no arrows in it, so they had left it. But in the bottom of the quiver was a small flint arrowhead that had broken off one of his arrows.

With the arrowhead he was able to cut quickly through the rawhide that bound his ankles. Flies were stinging him all over his body, where the skin had been taken off in the dragging. All he could do about the flies was throw sand on himself to cover the skinned areas. He found he could not hold his head up straight, either. Something had made his neck so sore that he had to keep his head tipped to one side or else a violent pain shot through him.

When it became dark Kicking Wolf felt a little less confused. In the dark he could not see two of everything. He made his way slowly to where the two horses that were one horse had been grazing and when he got there one of the horses melted into the other. As soon as he mounted, the horse went trotting north. Kicking Wolf found that the riding made him sick--it also made violent pains shoot through his head, but he did not stop and attempt to recover a little. He was still in the country of the Black Vaquero--in his weakness he would be easy to catch if Ahumado sent his men back after him. He remembered Three Birds, who had gallantly come with him to Mexico, although he had no business there. Probably Three Birds was being tortured, but Kicking Wolf knew there was nothing he could do about it. The pains shooting through his own head were as violent as torture. He had to slow the horse to a walk or he would have passed out. In such condition he could not go back to the Yellow Canyon and try to save his friend. Perhaps, later, he could go back with many warriors and avenge him--even Buffalo Hump might join such a war party. He would not like it that the old man had tortured Three Birds to death.

He might want to ride to the Yellow Cliffso and do some torturing himself.

Near morning the horse found water, a little trickling spring high in some rocks. The pool was only a few feet across but it was good water.

Kicking Wolf let the horse drink and then tethered him securely. Then he lay down in the water and let it wash his wounds. It stung but it cleaned him. He drank a little, and then drank more, until his tongue became the right size again.

He wanted to sleep by the little pool, but was afraid to. Ahumado's men would know of the water hole. They might catch him there. He rested an hour, let the horse drink, and then rode on through the day. It was sunny; he began, again, to see two things that were one. He saw a deer running and the deer became two deer. Kicking Wolf knew a bad witch must have made his eyes untrustworthy.

The pain in his neck and head was still violent, but he kept riding. He wanted to get back across the Rio Grande. Besides the pain in his head there was also a sadness in his heart. He had had too much pride and because of it Three Birds was lost. Everyone had told him that his plan was folly; even a foolish man such as Slipping Weasel, who did stupid things every day, had been wise enough to warn him against taking the Buffalo Horse to Mexico. But he had done it, for his pride--but his pride had cost his friend's life and he would have to go home humbled and shamed. Ahumado had taken the Buffalo Horse, the great horse of the Texans, as if he had been given a donkey. He had not acknowledged Kicking Wolf's courage, or anything else. Even courage, the courage of a great warrior, didn't matter to the Black Vaquero.

It occurred to Kicking Wolf, as he rode north, that the problem with his eyes might not be the work of a bad witch; it might be the work of his own medicine man, Worm. The old spirits might have spoken to Worm and told him that Kicking Wolf had shamed the tribe by his insistence on taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado. The old spirits would know what happened to Three Birds--the old spirits knew such things. They might have come to Worm in a vision and insisted that he work a spell to punish this haughty man, Kicking Wolf. Because he had had too much pride, Worm might have made a spell to change his eyes so that they could never see accurately again. Always he might see two where there was one.

Kicking Wolf didn't know. His head hurt, his friend was lost, and he had many days of riding before he got home. When he got home--if he did--no one would sing for him, either.

Even so, Kicking Wolf wanted to be home.

He wanted to see Worm. Maybe he was wrong about the old spirits. Maybe it was one of Ahumado's witches who had made the trouble in his eyes. Maybe Worm could cure him so that, once again, he would only see what was there.

When Scull awoke Hickling Prescott was on his mind and the smell of cooking meat was in his nostrils. His mother, a Ticknor, had been a childhood friend of the great historian, whose house stood only a block down the hill from the great Georgian town house where Inish Scull had grown up. The world knew the man as William Hickling Prescott, of course, but Scull's mother had always called him "Hickling." As Inish Scull was leaving for the Mexican War he had gone by to pay his respects to the old man, then blind and mostly deaf. It was well to know your history when going off to battle, Scull believed, and certainly his mother's friend, Hickling Prescott, knew as much about the history of Mexico as anyone in Boston--or in America, for that matter. To Hickling Prescott, of course, Boston .was America --z much of it, at least, as he cared to acknowledge.

Twice before, during the few weeks he had spent in Boston, Scull had made the mistake of taking Inez along when visiting the old man. But Hickling Prescott didn't approve of Inez. Although he couldn't see or hear and wasn't expected to feel, somehow Inez's determined carnality had impressed itself on the historian, who was not charmed. He didn't believe the sons of Boston should marry women from the South--and yet, to his annoyance, not a few sons of Boston did just that.

"Why, the South's just that riffraff John Smith brought over, Mr. Scull," the old man said. "Your wife smells like a Spanish harlot. I sat next to her at dinner at Quincy Adams's and I smelled her. Our Boston women don't smell--at least they smell very rarely. The Oglethorpes were low bred, you know, quite low bred." "Well, sir, Inez is not an Oglethorpe, but I admit she can produce an odor once in a while," Inish said.

"There are several appealing misses right here in Boston," Hickling Prescott informed him crisply. "I hardly think you needed to root around in that Oglethorpe bunch just to find a wife." He sighed. "But it's done, I suppose," he said.

"It's done, Mr. Prescott," Inish admitted. "And now I'm off to Mexico, to the fight." "Have you read my book?" the old man asked.

"Every ^w," Inish assured him. "I intend to reread it on the boat." "The Oglethorpes produced many fine whores," old Prescott said. "But, as I said, it's done. Now I'm working on Peru, and that isn't done." "I'm sure it will be masterly, when it comes," Inish said.

""Magisterial,"' I would have said," old Prescott corrected, sipping a little cold tea. "I don't expect we'll have to fight Peru, at least not in my time, and I have no advice to offer if we do." "It's Mexico we're fighting, sir," Inish reminded him.

There was a silence in the great dim room, whose windows were hung with black drapes. Inish realized he had misspoken. William Hickling Prescott no doubt knew who the nation was about to go to war with.

"It was reading your great book that made me want to join this war," Inish told him, anxious to make up for his slip. "If I might say so, your narrative stirs great chords in a man.

Heroism--strife--the city of Mexico.

Victory despite great odds. The few against the many. Death, glory, sacrifice." The historian was silent for a moment.

"Yes, there was that," he said dryly. "But this one won't be that way, Mr. Scull. All you'll find is dust and beans. I do wish you hadn't married that Southern woman. What was her name, now?" "Dolly," Inish reminded him. "And I believe her people came over with Mr. Penn." "Oh, that hypocrite," the historian said.

"It must have been a great sorrow to your mother--yr marriage, that is. I miss your mother. She was my childhood friend, though the Ticknors in general are rather a distressing lot. Your ma got all the shine in that family, Mr. Scull." "That she did," Inish agreed.

There were no black drapes in the stony canyon where Scull had awakened, thinking of Hickling Prescott. The walls of the canyon were pale yellow, like the winter sunlight. Scull had slept without a fire and awoke stiff and shivering. On such a morning a little of Inez's unapologetic carnality would not have been unwelcome.

Of course, he was in Mexico, whose conquest Hickling Prescott had chronicled so vividly. Cort@es and his few men had captured a country and broken a civilization.

When Scull had gone to the old man's house on the eve of his departure for the war, he had meant to probe a little, to get the old man's thoughts on events which he probably understood as well as any living man. But the old man had been indifferent, opaque; what he knew was in his book and he did not see the point in repeating it to the young man.

"I ain't a professor, they've got some of them at Harvard," he had said.

"Whip 'em and get home, sir," he advised, showing Inish to the door. That he had actually risen from his chair and walked Inish to the door was, Inish knew, a great compliment--there was, after all, a butler to show visitors in and out. The compliment, no doubt, was inspired by the historian's fond memories of his mother.

"I'd leave that Oglethorpe girl down in Georgia, if I were you," the old man said, as he stood in the door, looking out on the Boston he could not see. "She won't do much harm if she's in Georgia--the Oglethorpe smell don't carry that far." But it was a meaty smell, not the memory of the old, crabbed historian, that had awakened Inish Scull from his chilly sleep in the Yellow Canyon. What he smelled was meat cooking.

He didn't take in the smell with every breath, but, intermittently, every few minutes, when there would be a certain shift in the wind, then came the smell.

Scull cautiously looked around. The land was broken and humpy. Perhaps someone else was camped behind one of the humps, cooking a deer or a pig.

And yet, a fire would have meant smoke, and he saw no smoke.

It's dream meat, he told himself. I'm dreaming of venison and pork because I'm rumbling hungry. I'm so hungry I'm dreaming smells.

His only food the day before had been three doves--he had crept up on them in the early morning dimness and knocked them off their roost with a stick. He had seared the fat birds over a small fire and had eaten them before full daylight came. He knew he was in the domain of the old killer, Ahumado, and didn't want to be shooting his gun, not for a few days. Nor, ordinarily, did Inish Scull mind fasting.

He had seen men killed in battle because fear and dread caused them to lose control of their stomachs or their bowels. In the time of battle a fighting man needed to stay empty, in his view; there would be time enough for feasting once the battle had been fought.

Still, he was human, and could not be fully immune to the smell of cooking meat. Then he saw movement to the west. In a moment a coyote came in sight, its ears pricked up, going toward the ridges to the south. The coyote was moving purposely; perhaps it smelled the cooking meat too. Perhaps, after all, it was a not a dream smell that had brought him awake in the Yellow Canyon.

Scull decided he might as well follow the coyote--it had a better nose than he did and would lead him to the meat, if there was meat.

He walked for two hours, keeping the coyote just in sight. For long stretches he lost the meat smell entirely, but then, faintly, if the wind shifted to the south, he would smell it again. Between one gray ridge and the next he lost the coyote completely. The country rose slightly; he was crossing a mesa, or tableland, almost bare of vegetation.

From being intermittent, the smell became constant, so constant that Scull could say with conviction that it was not a deer or a pig that was being cooked: it was a horse. He had eaten horse often in his trekking in the West and didn't think he could be mistaken. Somewhere nearby horsemeat was cooking--but why would the smell carry nearly a dozen miles, to the canyon where he had slept?

Then Scull began to notice tracks, many tracks. He was crossing the route of a considerable migration--there were a few horse tracks, but most of the migrating people were on foot. Some were barefoot, some wore moccasins. There were even dog tracks --x was as if a village had decided to move itself across the empty tableland.

Then Scull saw the smoke, which seemed to be rising out of the ground, a mile or more ahead. The smoke rose as if from a hidden fire. He didn't know what to make of it, but he did know that he had begun to feel exposed. He was in plain sight on a bare mesa where a hundred people or more had just passed. Scull looked around quickly, hoping for a ridge, a hump of dirt, or patch of sage--anything that could conceal him, even a hole he could hide in until darkness fell, but there was nothing. Besides, he was marching in stout boots and his tread would stand out like a road sign to anyone with an eye for tracks.

Scull turned and hurried back toward the last cover, doing his best to erase or at least blur his track as he went. Suddenly he felt more exposed than he ever had, in all his years of soldiering; a kind of panic seized him, an overwhelming need to hide until dark came. Then he could come back and unravel the mystery of the smoke and the smell of cooking meat.

Scull hurried back, scrubbing out his tracks as best he could, as he walked--the last ridge had been rocky; he felt sure he could dig under one of them and stay safely hid until dark.

Then he saw the old man, coming toward him along his own track. The minute he saw him he remembered something Famous Shoes had said.

"Ahumado is always behind you," Famous Shoes had told him. "Don't look for him in front.

When he wants you he will appear, and he will be behind you." The memory came too late. The Black Vaquero was following the plain track left by his boots. The old man seemed to be alone, but Scull knew his men had to be somewhere nearby.

The old man had not lived to a great age by being a fool.

Scull decided he would just keep walking, with his head down, pretending he hadn't seen Ahumado, until he was in rifle range.

He shot best from a prone position. When the distance was narrowed sufficiently he would just drop to the ground and fire. With one well-placed shot he could eliminate the Black Vaquero, the old bandit who had harassed the settlers of the border as ferociously as Buffalo Hump had the settlers along the northern rivers.

Of course, the pistoleros would probably run him down and kill him, but then it was not the Scull way to die at home. His brother had been yanked off a whaling ship in the Hebrides and drowned. His Uncle Fortescue had drunk poisoned kvass in Circassia, and his father had been attempting to ice-skate on the frozen Minnesota River when he was overwhelmed by a band of Cree Indians. The Sculls died vividly, but never at home.

Scull had only a hundred yards to walk before he was in rifle range of Ahumado. He didn't mean to risk a long shot, either. The one hundred yards might take him three minutes; then he would have to decide between certain martyrdom and very uncertain diplomacy. If he chose to risk the diplomacy he would have to live until Ahumado chose to let him die, which might be after days of torture. It was a choice his forebears had not had to make. His brother hadn't meant to get jerked out of the whaleboat, his Uncle Fortescue had no idea the kvass was poisoned, and his father had merely been skating when the Cree hacked him down.

Scull walked on; Ahumado came in range; Scull didn't shoot.

Too curious about that smoke, he told himself.

Maybe he'll consider me such a fine catch that he'll ask me to dinner.

Then he saw, to Ahumado's right, four small dark men. To his left a tall man on a paint horse had appeared. The Black Vaquero, indeed, had not been alone.

For a moment, Scull wavered. Only six men opposed him. Ahumado carried no weapon--the only gunman was the skinny man on the paint horse; he could shoot him, grab the horse, and run. His fighting spirit rose. He was about to level his rifle when he glanced over his shoulder and saw, to his amazement, that four more of the dark men were just behind him, within thirty yards. They had risen as if from the earth and they carried bolos, the short rawhide thongs with rocks at each end that Mexicans threw at the legs of cattle or deer, to entwine them and bring them down.

Scull did not level his rifle; he knew he had waited too long. Now it would have to be diplomacy. The fact that the dark men had simply appeared was disturbing. He had looked the terrain over carefully and seen no one; but there they were and the die was cast.

Ahumado came to within ten feet of Scull before he stopped.

"Well, hello from Harvard," Scull said.

"I'm Captain Scull." "You have come just in time, Captain," the old man said.

The man on the paint horse rode up behind him. He had a blinking eye. The dark men stood back, silent as rocks.

"Just in time for what, sir?" Scull asked.

"To help us eat your horse," Ahumado informed him. "That's what we are cooking, over there in our pit." "Hector?" Scull said. "Bible and sword, you must have a big pit." "Yes, we have a big pit," Ahumado said.

"We have been cooking him for three days. I think he is about cooked. If you will hand this man your rifle we can go eat him." The tall pistolero rode close.

Scull handed him the rifle. With the dark men walking behind him, Inish Scull followed Ahumado toward the rising smoke.

Scull stood on the edge of the crater, astonished first by the crater itself and then by what he saw in it. From rim to rim the crater must be a mile across, he judged. Below him, at the bottom of it, were the hundred or more people whose tracks he had seen--men and women, young and old.

They were all waiting. The smoke rose from a pit in the center of the crater, Hector, whose head was missing, had been cooked standing up, in his skin.

The old man, Ahumado, had scarcely looked at Scull since his surrender. His eyelids drooped so low that it was hard to see his eyes. Men had shovelled away the bed of coals that had covered the pit for three days. The coals were scattered in heaps around the pit--many of them still glowed red.

"We have never cooked a horse this big," Ahumado remarked.

"He appears to be thoroughly charred," Scull observed. "You might as well let the feast begin." He felt chagrined. The old man treated his arrival as casually as if he had received a letter announcing the date and arrival time. He had walked into Mexico, convinced that he was proceeding with extreme stealth, and yet Ahumado had read his approach so precisely that he had finished cooking Hector in time for Scull to say grace, if he wanted to.

Now the need he had always had to be as far as he could get from Boston--not just Boston the place but Boston as way of being--had landed him in a crater in Mexico, where a hundred dark people were waiting to eat his horse.

Ahumado made a gesture and the squatting, waiting people rose like a swarm and crowded into the pit around the smoking horse. Knives flashed, many knives. Strips of skin were ripped off, exposing the dark flesh, which soon dripped blood from a hundred cuts. Some who had no knives tore at the meat with their fingers.

"They are hungry but your horse will fill them up," Ahumado said. "We will go down now. I have saved the best part for you, Captain Scull." "This is a big crater," Scull said, as they were walking down. "I wonder what made it?" "A great rock--Jaguar threw it from the sky," Ahumado said. "He threw it long ago, before there were people." "I expect we'd call it a meteor, up at Harvard College," Scull said.

Then he saw four men shovelling coals out of another, smaller pit. This pit was modest, only a few scoops of coals in it. When the coals were scattered the men lifted something out of it on two long sticks, something that steamed and smoked, although wrapped in heavy sacking. They carried their burden over to a large flat rock and sat it down. Ahumado took out a knife, walked over, and began to cut the sacking away.

"Now this is a treat, Captain," Tudwal said. "You'd do best to eat hearty before we put you in the cage." "I will, sir, I've never lacked appetite," Scull assured him. "I ate my own pig, as a boy, and now I expect I'll eat my horse." He did not inquire about the cage he was going to be put in.

Ahumado cut away the last of the sacking: Hector's steaming head stared at him from the flat rock. Smoke came from his eyes. The top of his skull had been neatly removed, so that his brains would cook.

"Now there's a noble head, if I ever saw one," Scull said, as he approached.

"Hector and I harried many a foe. I had expected to ride him back north, when the great war comes, but it's not to be. You were his Achilles, Se@nor Ahumado." Now the dark men carried machetes. Ahumado gestured for them to move back a few steps.

Scull glanced back at the larger pit.

Hector was rapidly being consumed. The dark people in the pit looked as if they had been in a rain of blood.

So it must have been when the cavemen ate the mastodons, Scull thought.

Then he turned back, pulled out his knife, and began to cut bites of meat from the cheeks of his great horse.

Once Inish Scull was securely shut in the cage of mesquite branches, Tudwal reached in and offered to cut the thongs that bound his hands and feet. Scull had been stripped naked too.

Both the binding and the stripping were indignities he didn't appreciate, though he maintained a cheerful demeanor throughout.

"Stick your feet over near the bars and I'll cut you loose," Tudwal offered. "Then I'll do your hands. You won't be able to catch no pigeons with your hands tied like that. You'd starve in ten days, which ain't what he has in mind. When he hangs a man in a cage he expects him to last awhile." "I have never cared much for squab," Scull said. "I suppose I can learn to like it, if there's nothing else." "A Mexican we hung off this cliff caught an eagle once," Tudwal said. "But the eagle got the best of him--pecked out one of his eyes." "I notice you blink, sir--what happened?" Scull said. "A sparrow get you?" "Nothing. I was just born ablinking," Tudwal said.

The insult, as Scull had feared, didn't register.

"But you weren't born in Mexico," Scull said. "You sound to me like a man who was probably born in Cincinnati or thereabouts." Tudwal was startled. How did the man know that?

He had, in fact, been born on the Kentucky River, not far from Cincinnati.

"You're right, Captain--but how'd you know that?" Tudwal asked.

"I suppose it's your mellow tone," Scull said. He smiled at the man, hoping to lull him into a moment of inattention. The cliff they were about to lower him over seemed to fall away for a mile. Once they lowered him his fate would be sealed. He would hang there in space, with half of Mexico to look at, until he froze or starved. He didn't relish hanging there for days or weeks, surviving on the occasional bird he could yank through the bars. Ahumado, an old Mayan come north to prey on ignorant people, white and brown, had not proved susceptible to Harvard charm; but Tudwal, the blinking man, did not seem overly intelligent. If he kept talking he might yet fool him into making a mistake. He had obediently held his feet near the bars and Tudwal had freed his ankles.

His wrists came next, and there lay the opportunity.

Tudwal looked puzzled when Scull mentioned the mellow tone. Actually, the man had a nasal voice with little mellowness in it.

"Yes sir, I've been sung to often by Ohio maidens--some of them may not quite have been maidens at the time. The whores in the fine town of Cincinnati have lullabied me to sleep many times.

Have you heard this old tune, sir?" He struck up the old ballad of Barbara Allen:

In London town where I was born There was a fair maid dwelling ...

Tudwal nodded. Someone far back in his life had once sung that song, a grandmother or an aunt, he was not sure. He forgot, for a moment, that Captain Scull was about to be dangled to his death. The song took him away, into memory, into thoughts of his mother and his sister, when he had led a gentler life.

As Scull sang he held his hands close to the bars so that Tudwal could cut the rawhide thongs. He sang softly, so that Tudwal would lean forward as he cut. The moment the bonds parted Scull grabbed Tudwal's wrist and whacked it so hard against the mesquite bars that he broke it.

The knife fell into the cage: he had one weapon. Then he caught Tudwal by the throat and pulled him close enough to the cage that he could reach with the other hand and yank the man's Colt pistol out of its holster. Now he had two weapons. He would have preferred to conserve bullets by strangling Tudwal, but the man was too strong. Before Scull could get his other hand on Tudwal's throat he twisted away, forcing Scull to shoot him dead, the sound echoing through the Yellow Canyon.

The four dark men who had been waiting to lower the cage immediately took their machetes and trotted away. Ahumado was still back at the crater, where the feast was being held, waiting on his blanket; he would have heard the shot.

"There, you Cincinnati fool, I warbled you to death," Scull said.

His situation had improved dramatically. He had a knife and a gun, and five bullets. On the other hand he was in a flimsy cage, on top of a five-hundred-foot cliff, and he was naked.

The bindings that held the mesquite cage together were hardened rawhide. Scull began to hack at them but the knife was dull and the rawhide hard as iron. Tudwal's horse stood near. If he could cut himself free he might have a chance, but the rawhide was so resistant and the knife so dull that it might take an hour to free himself--and he didn't have an hour.

"You goddamned fool, why didn't you sharpen your knife?" Scull said. "Not only did you have a Cincinnati voice, you had a goddamned weak Kentucky brain." It annoyed him. He had worked a miracle, killed his captor, and yet he wasn't free.

Then, with a moment to breathe, he remembered another of Papa Franklin's fine sayings: "Haste makes waste." He looked more closely at the jointure of the wrappings. He didn't need to hack the cage apart--if he could just break the wrappings at one corner of the cage he could squeeze out and run. He still had five bullets; it seemed good policy to sacrifice one or two of them to free himself. He immediately tested the decision and was well pleased with the result: two bullets and the wrappings blew apart, and he squeezed through and stood up.

His fighting spirit rose; by God, he was out! He squatted briefly over the body of Tudwal, but found only two more bullets, in a pocket of the man's dirty tunic. But the man at least wore clothes; Scull hastily stripped him and pulled on his filthy pants and tunic. They were too large, but they were clothes!

The paint horse stood not thirty feet away. Its ears were up--it looked at Scull nervously. Steady the yardarm, light on the throttle, Scull told himself. Haste makes waste. He had to approach calmly and slowly; he could not afford to spook the skittish animal. Without the horse the dark men would soon run him to earth.

The fact that he wore Tudwal's clothes was an advantage. The man's smell lingered in the filthy garments; he could plainly smell it, and no doubt the horse could too.

"Bible and sword, that's good of you, boy," he said, walking slowly toward the horse. "Be a good nag now, be a good nag. You're an ugly nag but I'll overlook that if you'll just carry me to Texas." The horse pawed the ground once, but did not retreat. Scull came on, steadily, and soon had the bridle rein in his hand. In another moment he had Tudwal's rifle out of its scabbard and was in the saddle. Then, to his intense annoyance, the horse began to crow-hop. Scull had no skill with broncos, as the Texans called bucking horses. He had to grab the horse's mane, to keep from being thrown, and in the process, to his intense vexation, dropped the rifle.

Finally the crow-hopping stopped but by then Scull was not sure where the rifle was--he saw a line of men on the horizon and knew that he had no time to search for the gun. He sawed the reins until he had the paint pointed north, and then urged him into a dead run. I'm gone, he thought--I'm gone.

But then he heard the whirl of bolas as the dark men rose up from behind a low ridge. The running horse went down hard--Scull flew a good distance and lit on his shoulder. As he rose, more bolas were flying at him. One wrapped around his legs. He quickly shot two of the dark men but a third dashed in and hit him on the head with the flat side of a machete. The sky swirled above him as it might if he were on a fast carousel.

This time Ahumado supervised the caging.

The three other cages were pulled up and the pecked-at corpses in them flung over the cliff. Scull was put in the strongest cage.

He was dazed from the blow to his head and made no resistance. Ahumado let him keep the clothes he had taken from Tudwal.

"I have no one to put in these cages," the old man said. "You will be alone on the cliff." "It's a fine honor, I'm sure," Scull said. His head rang so that it was a chore to talk.

"It is no honor--but it means that many birds will come to you. If you are quick you can catch these birds. You might live a long time." "I'll be quick but you ain't smart, se@nor," Scull said. "If you were smart you'd ransom me. I'm a big jefe. The Texans might give you a thousand cattle if you'd send me back.

"Your people could live a good spell on a thousand cattle," he added.

Ahumado stepped close to the cage and looked at him with a look of such contempt that it startled Inish Scull. The look was like the slice of a machete.

"Those are not my people, they are my slaves," Ahumado said. "Those cattle in Texas are mine already. They wandered there from Jaguar's land, and Parrot's. When I want cattle I go to Texas and get them." He stopped, and stepped back. The force of his contempt was so great that Scull could not look away.

"You had better try to catch those fat pigeons when they come to roost," the old man said.

Then he gestured to the dark men, and turned away.

The dark men put their shoulders against the cage and nudged it outward, over the lip of the great cliff.

Slowly the men who stood at the post began to lower it into the Yellow Canyon. The cage twisted a little, as it was lowered; it twisted and swayed. Inish Scull held tightly to the mesquite bars. The height made him dizzy. He wondered if the rope would hold.

Far below him, great black vultures soared and sank. One or two rose toward him, as the cage was lowered, but most of them pecked at the remains of the corpses that had just been thrown off the cliff.

Augustus McCrae, brokenhearted because of Clara's marriage, resorted much to the bottle or jug as the six rangers proceeded west in search of Captain Inish Scull. It was vexing to Call--damn vexing. He was convinced they were on a wild goose chase anyway, trying to find one man in an area as large as west Texas, and a man, besides, who might not appreciate being found even if they did find him.

"It's two men, Woodrow," Augustus reminded him. "Famous Shoes is with him." "Was with him--t was a while ago," Call said. "Are you too drunk to notice that time's passing?" They were riding through the sparsely grassed country near the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, well beyond the rim of settlement. They had not even come upon a farm for over a week. All they saw ahead of them was deep sky and brown land.

"I ain't drunk at all, though I would be if there was whiskey to be had in this country," Gus said. "I doubt if there's a jug of whiskey within two hundred miles of here." "That's fine," Call said. "You were drunk enough to last you while it .was available." "No, Woodrow--it didn't last," Gus said. "Maybe Clara didn't really marry.

She likes to joke, you know. She might have just been joking, to see what I'd do." Call didn't answer. The conjecture was too foolish to dignify. Augustus had lost his girl, and that was that.

The other rangers were jolly, though--all except Long Bill, who had not expected to leave his Pearl so soon. Imagining domestic delights that he was not at home to experience put Long Bill in a low mood.

Young Jake Spoon, though, was so jolly that he was apt to be irritating. The mere fact that he had survived two weeks in the wilderness without being scalped or tortured convinced him that rangering was easy and himself immortal. He was apt to babble on endlessly about the most normal occurrence, such as killing an antelope or a cougar.

The weather had been warm, which particularly pleased Pea Eye; he did most of the camp chores with will and skill, whereas young Jake had adequate will but little skill. The third morning out he girthed Gus's young horse too tightly.

Gus was too hung over to notice; he mounted and was promptly bucked off, a circumstance that didn't please him. He cussed young Jake thoroughly, plunging the young man into a state of deep embarrassment.

Deets, the black man, was the happiest and least troublesome member of the troop. Deets liked being a scout far better than he liked being in town, the reason being, Call suspected, was because in town there were always men who might abuse him because of his color.

"Why are you so dern hard to convince, Woodrow?" Gus asked. "I've known you forever and I've never been able to convince you of a single thing." "No, you've convinced me of one thing for sure," Call said, "and that's that you're foolish about women.

"I expect Clara turned you down because she knew you were too fond of whores," he added.

"Not a bit of it!" Gus retorted. "She knew I'd give up whores in a minute if she'd marry me." Nonetheless, the thought that what Call said might be true made Augustus so unhappy that he wanted to get down and beat his head against a rock.

They had only been in Austin two days: what happened with Clara happened so fast that, when he thought back on it, it was more like a visit in a dream than something real. He wanted to believe that when they returned to Austin again, things would be as they had always been, with Clara in her father's store, unmarried, waiting for him to rush in and kiss her.

Long Bill Coleman rode up to the two captains in hopes of getting some things clarified. He had quickly come to regret his gallantry in allowing himself to be conscripted for the new expedition. Adjusting to the racket of domestic life was hard for him, after a long trip; it might have been a little quieter had Pearl not insisted on keeping her chickens in the kitchen, but Pearl couldn't stand to be parted from her chickens; so there was the racket to contend with, on top of which Pearl was a fervent woman who liked to make up his absences by lots of fervor--an overwhelming amount of fervor at times, in fact.

Thus Long Bill was subjected to conflicting feelings: part of him wanted Pearl and her fervor, while another part longed for the peace of the prairies.

For the moment he seemed to have the peace of the prairies, though there was no guarantee that the peace would hold. Several times, moving west along the rivers and creeks, they had struck Indian sign--enough Indian sign to make Long Bill nervous. His opinion of the matter, now that he was too far west to do much about it, was that he ought to have stayed with his wife. The chickens, after all, could be tolerated; better chickens than Comanches.

"Shut up, Bill--I don't know where we are and neither does Woodrow," Gus said, when he saw Long Bill riding up, an interrogative look on his face.

"I never asked a question," Long Bill pointed out.

"No, but you were about to--I seen it in the way you was holding your mouth," Gus said.

"I just wanted to know when we give up on finding the Captain," Long Bill said. "I got chores to do at home." "You're a ranger and that comes first," Gus said tartly. "Your wife's big and stout. She can do the confounded chores." "Well, but she's got a baby in her--t will slow some women down," Long Bill said.

"Rather than arguing, we need to be paying attention to the trail," Call said. With Augustus in such an uncertain temper he wanted to cool things before the argument became a fistfight.

"What trail?" Gus said. "There's no trail. We're just following our noses and our noses are pointed west." "That's what it looks like to me," Long Bill said. "Captain Scull's got clean away.

When do we go back?" "I guess we'll go back when we've gone far enough," Call said, aware that it was no answer.

"Well, but what's far enough?" Jake Spoon asked, thrusting himself into the conversation--and not for the first time, either. Pea Eye Parker would never have intruded when his elders were talking. Pea Eye offered an opinion only when asked for one, which was seldom. He tried to determine correct procedure by watching his elders. Jake Spoon didn't think in terms of elders or superiors.

It never occurred to him that there were times when the two captains might not want to be bothered with a youngster.

Jake just barged in and asked his question.

"We're not to the Pecos yet," Call said.

"If we don't strike his trail between here and the Pecos, I expect we ought to go back." "I think we ought to look in Mexico, myself," Augustus said.

"Why?" Call said. "We had no orders to look in Mexico." "No, but there's whores and tequila in Mexico," Gus said. "Bill and me, we could drown our sorrows." "I ain't going all the way to Mexico just so you two can drown your sorrows," Call said.

"Woodrow always changes the subject when the talk turns to women," Augustus said.

"I didn't know the talk was even about women," Call said. "I thought we were talking about when to give up on the Captain and go back home." Long Bill Coleman, to his own surprise and Call's, suddenly burst out with an opinion that he had been holding in for months.

"A man ought to marry, Captain," Long Bill said. "It's a lonely life not having no woman to hold on to when you bunk down at night." Call was so startled by the remark that he hardly knew what to say.

"I'm usually working at night, Bill--I don't spend much time in a bunk," he replied, finally.

Long Bill's Adam's apple was quivering and his face was red. Call had seen him fight several fierce engagements with the Comanches and exhibit less emotion.

"I don't know that little Maggie Tilton too well, but I do know she wasn't meant to be no whore," Long Bill said. "She was meant to be a wife and she'd make a fine one." Then, embarrassed by what he had said, he abruptly shut up and rode away.

"Amen," Gus said. "Now you see, Woodrow --the sooner you marry Maggie, the happier the rest of us will be." Call was amazed--here they were in the middle of the wilderness, on a dangerous assignment, and Long Bill Coleman, the solidest man in the troop, had seen fit to deliver a public lecture, urging him to get married! Surely the decision to marry was a private matter that need only be discussed between the couple who were thinking of marrying.

Worrying about it while patrolling the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos struck him as highly inappropriate. It would only distract them from the business at hand, which was rangering. While on patrol he liked to give his full attention to the landscape, the men, the horses, tracks, sign, the behaviour of the birds and animals they spotted, anything that might help keep a troop of men alive in a country where a Comanche raiding party could swoop down on them at any moment. It was no time to be clouding the mind with issues of marriage or lustful thoughts--andthe mention of slim Maggie Tilton did lead to lustful thoughts. Many a night, on guard, he had been distracted by the thought of Maggie. It was just good luck that he hadn't come under sudden attack at such a moment.

Long Bill, embarrassed by his own impertinence, avoided Call for the rest of the day.

Augustus, as surprised by Long Bill's statement as Call had been, thought it best to avoid the subject of marriage for the rest of the day.

That evening, as soon as he'd had coffee and his bite, Call walked away from the campfire and sat by himself all night.

"I doubt he'll marry her, Gus," Long Bill whispered to Gus McCrae.

"I doubt it too," Gus said. "He ought to, though. You're right about that, Bill."

In the middle of the next afternoon they heard the crack of gunshots from some low, rocky hills to the north. Then a dog bayed, a hound of some kind. They had just watered their horses at a thin trickle of creek, with a few wild plum bushes scattered along it. While the horses were taking in water and the men relieving themselves of it, Deets hurried up and down the little creek, looking at the plum bushes. Of course it was too early in the year for plums yet, but he liked to make note of such things in case they passed that way in June, when the sweet plums would be mature.

When the shots rang out, Deets came hurrying back. There were two shots and then silence, except for the hound.

Since the party was so small, Call and Augustus decided they had best stay together. They could not afford to send one man to scout--he might be surrounded and cut down.

"That ain't a real hound," Augustus ventured. "It's a damn Comanche, imitating a hound. They can imitate anything, you know-- Indians can." All during his years as a ranger, Augustus had been prone to anxiety because of the Indians' well-known ability to perfectly mimic birdsongs and animal sounds. He had never actually caught an Indian imitating a bird, but he knew they could.

Long Bill Coleman shared this particular anxiety.

"That's Indians for sure, Captain," he said. "They're trying to make us think there's a hound over in those rocks." Call didn't share the anxiety. Deets himself could mimic several animals and most birds --he could perfectly imitate the snuff an armadillo makes when startled, and Deets wasn't an Indian. Besides, there was an abundance of wildlife, birds and animals, that did an excellent job of making their own sounds.

The ridge of shaley rock where the shots had come from looked uninviting, though. The ridge wrinkled the prairie for miles and could easily shelter an ambushing war party.

"They're there, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"They're just waiting till we get closer.

Look to your weapons, boys." Young Jake Spoon was so terrified that he felt frozen. He put his hand on his pistol but was too scared to pull it out. If an Indian did come running at him Jake felt the fright alone would kill him. He realized he had been wrong not to stay in town. He felt as good as dead and just hoped the termination would be as quick and painless as possible.

"Well, if that's a Comanche, he not only sounds like a dog, he looks like a dog," Call said--a large gray hound had just appeared, trotting back and forth amid the rocks.

Long Bill felt immediate relief.

"Why, I know that dog," he said. "That's old Howler, Ben Lily's dog. Ben probably shot a bear. That's all he does, shoot bears." "I doubt there's many bears out in this country," Gus said.

"There's one less now--Ben Lily, he's deadly on bears." The sight of the large gray dog dispelled the general apprehension. As they drew closer to the rocky ridge the hound started howling again, a dismal sound, Pea Eye thought. He had never been overly fond of the canine breeds.

Sure enough, when they clattered over the rocks that covered the ridge, they came upon a large, stooped man in buckskin clothes, skinning a young brown bear. The man's thick hair and long beard were evidently strangers to the comb or the brush. He favored them with a quick glance and then went on with his work.

"Howdy, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

"What are you doing out here on the baldies?" He had intended the remark to be jocular, but Ben Lily took it literally.

"Skinning a bear," he said.

"That bear's not much bigger than a cub," Augustus said. "If his ma's around here I expect she'll be wanting to eat us." "Shot her yesterday," Ben Lily said.

"Took us a day to catch up with the cub. Howler and me, that's us." Call thought the man looked daft. What use was a dead bear, in a place so remote? Of course he could eat some of the meat, but why take the skin, which was heavy and awkward to transport? Where would he take it, anyway? Yet the man seemed content at his task. He even began to whistle as he skinned, and he clearly had no interest in the rangers.

"Well, if you shot his ma, where's her skin?" Augustus asked. He too was puzzled by the skinning. How many bearskins could a man use?

"Buried," Ben Lily said, a little testily.

"I bury skins. Then if I get caught in a blizzard I can dig up one of my skins and wrap up." "You best be worrying about Indians, not blizzards, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

"If Buffalo Hump was to catch you I expect he'd throw you on a campfire and cook you." Ben Lily disregarded that remark completely.

He finished with his skinning and sat down on a rock. He plunged his hunting knife into the ground to cleanse it, then took out a whetstone and began to sharpen the knife. The fact that his task was concluded seemed to put him in a sociable mood.

"You can have this bear meat," he informed them. "I don't eat much bear." Deets had been hoping for such an offer. He immediately got down and began to inspect the carcass, meaning to secure the tenderest cuts. But what was tender, on a bear?

"We've been sent to look for Captain Inish Scull," Call said. "He was last seen going south with one scout. Have you seen or heard of him?" The name "Scull" seemed to excite the man-- he looked at the group with interest for the first time.

"I know Scull," Ben Lily said. "Took on a hunt once, over east. He wanted to shoot bear and we shot 'em. One bear got into the canebrakes and Scull crawled in after him and shot him. He was a small fellow. He went right into that cane and shot that quick little bear." "That's him, he's a hunter," Augustus said. "We need to find him if we can." Ben Lily was carefully folding the bloody bearskin.

"Ain't seen Scull since that hunt over east," he said. "I'd know him if I seen him, but I ain't seen him. I expect they took him in the big raid." All the rangers were startled by the remark.

"Big raid? What big raid?" Gus asked.

Ben Lily looked at them with genuine astonishment.

"The big raid," he repeated. "Ain't you seen any dead? I buried six dead just yesterday, back up this creek. Six dead-- trying to farm where they oughtn't to farm. Took me all morning to bury them. I'd have caught this cub sooner if I hadn't had to do that burying." "We've been on the trail for two weeks," Call said. "We don't know anything about a raid. Was it Comanches?" "It was Buffalo Hump," Ben Lily said.

"He came down off the plains with a passel of warriors--a thousand or more." "A thousand braves--I doubt it," Call said. "People always think there's more Indians than there are, when the Comanches attack." Ben Lily hoisted his bearskin onto one shoulder, and picked up his gun. Then he whistled for his dog.

"Go east," he told them. "See how many dead you find. There's dead along ever creek. I don't know how many men he came with but he struck Austin and nearly burned it down. This wasn't just a few scalp snatchers. Buffalo Hump came for war, and he made it." All the rangers were stunned by his last statement.

"Struck Austin, are you sure?" Long Bill said.

"Struck it and burned most of it," Ben Lily repeated. "Kilt everybody he saw-- that's what I heard." Then, without waiting for further comment or discussion, he took his gun and his bearskin and walked away. He took no more interest in the troop of rangers.

"Do you believe him, Woodrow?" Long Bill asked. "My wife's in Austin--my Pearl." "I don't know why he'd lie to us," Call said.

"Clara," Gus said. "My Lord. I wonder if she was gone when they struck." I wonder if Maggie hid where I told her to, Call thought.

"Woodrow, we have to go back," Augustus said. "If they burned Austin, Clara might be dead." Long Bill remembered the captive they had rescued, Maudy Clark, now demented. What if the Comanches caught Pearl and left her in the same state?

"Captain, let's go back," he said.

Augustus looked across the emptiness they had just crossed--now they would have to recross it, riding for days and days in great anxiety.

"Lord, I wish I was a bird," Gus said.

"I wish I could just fly home." "You ain't a bird, Gus," Call said.

All the rangers, even Deets, seemed stunned by Ben Lily's news. An Indian force large enough to strike Austin and burn most of it was a calamity greater than they could immediately comprehend.

Call felt stunned, too. The first time he and Augustus had gone into the Pecos country, with a small surveying troop, nine Comanches led by Buffalo Hump had attacked them, killed three men, and captured their ammunition. None of the nine Comanches had been so much as grazed by a ranger bullet. If a thousand warriors had indeed come into the settlements, there might be little to defend, by the time they reached Austin.

"You ain't a bird," he said, again, to Gus.

"We can't fly it--we'll have to ride it, and we don't want to wear out these horses, because horses won't be easy to find, on the way back.

Buffalo Hump's probably run off most of the horses from the ranches out this way." "I don't care about the dern horses, I just hope he ain't took my wife," Long Bill said. "Took her or kilt her. I don't think I can do without my Pearl. I should never have left her, not to come on no silly chase like this." Augustus, though heartsick himself, saw the anguish on Long Bill's face and thought if he joshed him a little it might help.

"Now, Billy, don't worry," he said.

"Pearl's too bossy to steal. She'd argue those Comanches to a frazzle. I expect she'll be there ready to boss you, when we get back." The witticism had no effect. Long Bill looked no less anguished. The rangers sat in silence while Deets finished taking what he hoped was tender cuts of the bear meat.

"I guess Captain Scull will have to find his own way back," Call said, looking south.

Then he turned his horse and the little troop began the long ride home, every man wondering what they would find when they got there.

Buffalo Hump took only one man with him when he went on to the Great Water. He took Worm, the medicine man. The glory of the great raid was over; the Comanches had harassed and murdered the Texans in town after town, and had even defeated a company of bluecoat soldiers who charged at them foolishly, not realizing how many warriors they faced. By then the Comanches were driving more than a thousand stolen horses; the bluecoats managed to separate off a few of the horses but then they had to leave them and flee for their lives. One soldier whose horse went lame fell behind--when his gun misfired Blue Duck killed him with a lance, a thing that would have made Buffalo Hump proud had Blue Duck not spoiled his coup by bragging about it excessively around the campfire that night. It was no great feat to kill a white soldier whose horse was lame and whose gun wouldn't shoot. Blue Duck also bragged excessively about his rapes.