One boy said, “I don’t see how he can. My pa is off in Tennessee someplace, fightin’ the Yankees.”

The other said, “My folks are dead. Worst thing he can do to them would be to knock over their tombstones. He’s a little bit tetched, maybe, but not that crazy.” An eagerness came into his voice. “You reckon we’re liable to run into Indians? I’d sure like a chance at an Indian fight.”

Bad memories stirred like a supper gone sour and rising back up. “Goin’ south, it’s not likely we’ll see any.” For the first time in a couple of days, Rusty felt a dull ache in his leg. “Fightin’ Indians ain’t as much fun as it sounds like.”

He rode out with the two boys to round up as many of the Monahan horses as they could find. After two days of combing the country for miles around, they were still at least a dozen head short by Purdy’s reckoning. “You never can be sure what-all has happened to horses,” Purdy said. “Some stray, and now and then one will die on you. And then there’s the wolves, them with four legs and them with two.”

Rusty said, “Maybe the same wolves that got off with some of Colonel Dawkins’s horses.”

“Dawkins can afford the loss. We can’t.”

Since the war had shut off eastern markets, cattle had become dirt cheap, hardly worth a thief’s efforts. Horses were far more valuable. From reports Rusty had heard, dry weather had set in down on the Colorado, so grazing was likely to be limited. His home place would probably do well just to accommodate the Monahan horses. The cattle would stay behind to shift for themselves.

“If anybody steals them” Purdy declared, “it’ll be his own fault.”

During the course of gathering the horses, Rusty was aware of riders watching from a comfortable distance. He suspected they were Dawkins’s men, though they never came close enough to recognize. Dawkins would know the Monahans were leaving. Their destination would not likely be of great interest to him, so long as he knew they were on their way out. Rusty doubted he would pursue the vendetta to the Colorado River. He might if he thought James was there.

Despite the hard downpour the night of the fire, rainfall had been scarce in recent weeks, and grass showed the effects of deprivation. It would probably benefit the range to remove the horses for a while, regardless of the family’s other problems.

Clemmie stood beside the wagon, her shadow stretching far across the yard in the winter morning’s early sunlight. She stared at the ruins of her home. “It wasn’t nothin’ but a house,” she said tightly. “Just a lot of wood and a little bit of glass. Wasn’t no great effort to burn it down. But it won’t stay down. We’ll be back, and we’ll build it just like it was, only bigger and better. And Caleb Dawkins can burn in hell.”

Rusty supported her as she climbed up onto the seat. Geneva was already there, holding the reins. Vince Purdy sat on the older wagon, ready to leave. The youngest girl sat with him. The other was on a horse alongside the two schoolboys.