“You’ve been a good officer. I’m proud I got to serve with you.”

“Get you some grub out of the mess tent. You can’t travel far hungry.”

“Just a little salt, a little flour. I can probably scare up enough game to keep me in meat.”

“I wish I could trade you out of that good black horse, but you’ll need him worse than I do.” Whitfield extended a large, rough hand.

Rusty went to the tent he shared with Tanner and several others. He rolled his bedding and his few clothes—a woolen coat, an extra shirt no less patched than the one he wore, a pair of trousers with one knee out. His small war bag held his razor and a few incidentals.

When he had first come to Belknap from the Shannon farm down on the Colorado River, he had brought considerably more with him. He had led a pack mule named Chapultepec, which his foster father, Daddy Mike Shannon, had brought home from the Mexican War. The mule was old now, but not too old to suit a deserter named Lancer, who had ridden away on him a couple of months ago.

This was one of the few times Rusty had ever seen Len Tanner looking solemn. “Where do you figure on goin’, Rusty?”

“Ain’t had time to figure. I just want to be gone before the conscription outfit shows up.” He was reluctant to part with his longtime friend. He had few friends anymore and no family at all. “I’d be right pleased if you went with me.”

Tanner considered. “I’ve thought about lightin’ out, but like as not I’d either run into the conscript officers or the Comanches. The army might not be so bad. Maybe they’ll feed better, and pay us to boot.”

“I wouldn’t bet a wore-out pocketknife on that.”

“You can’t cross the Red River onto the Indian reservation. They’d give you a Comanche haircut before your horse dried off. Some folks have run away to Mexico, but that’s a far piece from here.”

“I’d be a lost child in Mexico. All the Spanish I know is a few cuss-words Daddy Mike brought home from the Mexican War. Reckon I’ll just drift west and hope nobody is interested enough to trail me.”

“You’re liable to come up against some of them brush men hidin’ out in the thickets. They’d as soon kill a ranger as look at him. Instead, why don’t you slip down to that farm of yours on the Colorado River and marry that Monahan girl?”

Rusty warmed to the thought of Geneva Monahan. The truth was that he had already considered that possibility, but he chose not to tell Tanner. He did not want to cause his friend a conflicted conscience should the authorities press him with questions. He reached out his hand. “Be careful, Len. Don’t let some Comanche lift your hair or some Yankee sharpshooter bring you down.”

“Nobody’s ever killed me yet.”

He built a small fire in the bottom of a dry buffalo wallow, hoping it could not be seen from a distance. He did not need it for warmth but only for