“Daddy Mike was a fighter.”

“So are you. And the toughest fight you face may be against yourself.”

He brooded all the way home, arriving at dusk. He turned Alamo loose and walked into the kitchen, where Geneva was almost done preparing the family’s meager supper. She smiled in relief. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get back in time to eat with everybody else.”

“I could smell your good cookin’ for the last two miles. I wasn’t goin’ to miss it.”

He tried to smile, but he could not quite make it convincing.

She sensed his uneasiness. “What’s wrong?”

“I’d figured on stayin’ a few days, but I can’t. First thing in the mornin’ I’m startin’ back.”

She stared at him, holding a skillet until the handle’s heat forced her to set it down quickly. “But why?”

“If I stay here I’m liable to kill a man.”

“That fellow York?”

“I saw him today.”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“Not this time. But next time I might. It’s best I don’t take the chance.”

She made a step toward him. “I was hopin’ . . .” She broke off as her two younger sisters entered the kitchen. They left when they saw that supper was not quite ready. “What you need is time.”

“I’ve been gone more than a year. Thought I’d put the worst of it behind me. But I saw him, and it all came back strong as ever.”

“This is your home. You can’t stay away forever.”

“If I killed him, I’d have to. This way I’m just leavin’ a few days quicker than I figured on. A few days don’t make a lot of difference.”

He saw a tear in her eye before she blinked it away. She said, “Everything is so uncertain in these times. A few days might be all we have.”

She came into his arms. Old Vince Purdy walked in, stopped in surprise, then quietly withdrew.

Embarrassed, Geneva asked, “What do you suppose he’s thinkin’?”

“The same as I am, I reckon. That it’s high time I get myself back to Belknap.”

He expected a stern lecture from Captain Whitfield about his having stayed away longer than planned, but the officer seemed glad to see him. He mentioned that he had lost a couple more men who decided to join the Confederate army, and only one replacement had as yet shown up.

“How we’re expected to hold this line, I don’t know,” Whitfield said. “If the Comanches and Kiowas ever take it in their heads to come across in numbers like on the Linnville raid, there’s no tellin’ how far they might go. There have been rumors about Kansas Jayhawkers up in the territory, agitatin’ for them to do just that.”

Rusty had been hearing rumors about Jayhawkers and union activists ever since the war had started, and nothing of the kind had ever come to pass. The people who started such rumors were doing about as much to demoralize the frontier as the Comanches could.