He had regarded secession from the Union four years ago as a grave mistake though fellow Texans had voted in its favor. He saw the war as folly on both sides, North and South. If a man did not want to take part in it, the authorities should leave him the hell alone. Officialdom did not share his view, of course. Remaining with the rangers on the frontier kept him out of the military’s sight.

Freckle-faced Len Tanner had swung a long and lanky leg across the cantle, dismounting to study the tracks. “Conscript dodgers, you think?”

That was a possibility, but instinct told Rusty the trail had been made by Comanches or possibly Kiowas. Perhaps both, for they often joined forces to venture south from their prairie and mountain strongholds. The Indians were well aware that white men of the North had been at war with white men of the South for most of four years. They did not understand the reasons, or care. What mattered was that the fighting’s heavy drain upon manpower left the frontier vulnerable. In places it had withdrawn eastward fifty to a hundred miles, leaving homes abandoned, strayed livestock running wild. Settlers who dared remain lived in jeopardy.

After sending one man back to company headquarters near Fort Belknap to report to Captain Oran Whitfield, Rusty had set out to follow the trail. Len Tanner rode beside him. Rusty had never decided whether Tanner’s legs were too long or his horse too short, for his stirrups dangled halfway between the mount’s belly and the ground. Eyes eager, Tanner said, “Tracks are freshenin’. We ought to catch up with them pretty soon.”

“Catchin’ them is what we’re paid for.”

“Who’s been paid?”

“The Texas state government was notorious for being perpetually broke, unable to meet obligations. Wages for its employees were near the bottom of the priority list, especially for those men in homespun cloth and buckskin who rode the frontier picket line far away from those who wrote the laws and appropriated the money.

Darkness had forced Rusty to halt the patrol and wait for daylight lest they lose the trail. He had slept little, frustrated that the raiders might be gaining time. Night had been no hindrance to the Indians if they chose to keep traveling.

Now he saw a half-burned cabin, a man and two boys carrying water in buckets from a nearby creek and throwing it on the smoking walls. He remembered the place. It belonged to a farmer named Haines. Hearing the horses, the man grabbed a rifle. He lowered it when he saw that the riders were not Indians. He focused resentful attention on Rusty.

“Minutemen, ain’t you?”

Ranger was not an official term. The public often referred to the rangers as minutemen, among other things.

Looking upon two blanket-covered forms on the ground, Rusty felt a chill. The blankets were charred along the edges. “Yes sir, Mr. Haines.”

“How come you always show up when it’s too late?”