Shannon said, “I’d feel safe too, if I was them. It’d take an army to jump a bunch the size of that.”

Riding at an angle away from the Indian column, the two remained within the cover of the timber to its southern edge. Webb looked back. “We ought to be far enough now.” He set his horse into a long trot, paralleling the Comanches.

Shannon spurred alongside him, glancing warily in one direction, then the other. “They didn’t pick all them doodads and all them horses and mules off of the trees. I’d wager they’ve left a string of dead folks behind them.”

“First we need to look after the ones still alive. I’ll pray for the others when I have the time.”

At the first farm they found a man and his wife working in a garden just south of a log cabin. The farmer listened to their report with suspicion. “A bunch of Indians that size don’t seem likely. You sure you don’t just see them in a bottle?”

The farmer’s wife seemed to believe right off. She brought her hands to her mouth to stifle a cry.

Shannon was not inclined toward patience when calamity bore down. “I been known to sip a little whiskey now and again; but Brother Webb don’t drink, nor is he given to lyin’. Take a look at that dust comin’ yonder. It ain’t no sea breeze, ’y God.”

The urgency in Shannon’s voice began to temper the farmer’s skepticism. “But Comanches, this close to the coast? Must be a bunch of Tonks, or maybe Karankawas.”

“There ain’t that many Karankawas in the whole nation. Wouldn’t make no difference anyway. One’ll kill you as dead as the other. You’ve got to get out of here.”

The farmer at last believed, and with belief he reached a state bordering on panic. “Martha! Get the young’uns ready. I’ll hitch up the team.”

The woman rushed screaming into the cabin. Webb and Shannon helped the farmer harness his mules and saddle his horse. Webb boosted the woman up onto the seat while Shannon lifted three frightened children into the bed of the wagon.

The farmer pointed. “You’ll find the Johnson family over that-away where you see that stand of trees. Old Man Blessing and his boys are a mile or so further on. They’re the last ones I know of in that direction.” He put his horse into a run, trying to catch up to the fast-moving wagon. The woman was applying the whip, and the children clung desperately to the wagon’s sideboards to keep from being bounced out.

The Johnsons required no persuasion. Webb had known the young family at camp meeting, and they accepted his word. Their only question was which direction they should run. They wasted little time gathering up a few possessions and quitting their place.

Shannon watched them with regret. “Ain’t apt to be much left here when they come back.”

“There’ll be the land.”

Abner Blessing was a towering, rawboned farmer whose broad shoulders appeared to sag under their own weight. Webb had once heard him declare that he had “fit Injuns all over hell and half of Georgia” before coming to Texas. He was ready to take these on. The Blessings had built their cabin of stone, befitting a family of great strength. He pointed to his three grown sons, all rough-cut out of raw oak, in his image. “Me and my boys ain’t givin’ up our place. We’ll take our stand behind them stone walls.”