Captain Whitfield stepped from his tent, a well-fed middle-aged stranger beside him. The stranger wore a Confederate uniform, nicely tailored though begrimed from travel.

Rusty caught a sharp breath and held it. “Too late. That’d be one of the conscript officers, I suppose.”

Two steps behind that officer came another man wearing a badly weathered Confederate coat with sergeant’s stripes. The left leg of his civilian trousers was folded and a wooden leg strapped into place at the knee.

Tanner looked as if he had contracted colic. “Head man, walkin’ with the captain, calls hisself Lieutenant Billings. Acts like he owns the world. Sergeant’s name is Forrest. Been to war and got his leg shot off.”

Despite the wooden leg, Forrest’s back was straight and unyielding as if he had been a soldier all his life. Rusty summoned up his defenses, for stern military types always made him ill at ease. Like Captain Whitfield, he had never understood or seen good reason for strict military discipline.

He feared he was going to dislike the sergeant.

Captain Whitfield’s eyes revealed misgivings as he approached Rusty. “Back from patrol a little early, aren’t you?”

Whitfield knew very well that Rusty had left with no intention of returning. Covering up for me, Rusty thought gratefully. “I came across a Comanche war party last night. They camped better than half a day’s ride west of here.”

“How many?”

“I counted eight, but it was dark. I’m guessin’ twelve or fifteen.”

Whitfield turned to the army officer, frowning. “This is what I’ve been tryin’ to tell you, Lieutenant. Time you take most of my men, I won’t have enough to face a small war party, much less a real invasion.”

“I have my orders. The army doesn’t ask for opinions. It says ‘jump,’ and all we can do is ask ‘how high?’ “

Bitterly Whitfield said, “I’d like to put that Richmond bunch out here on the picket line and let them fight off Indians for a while. They’d see for themselves that Yankees aren’t the worst thing we’ve got to worry about.”

The recruiting officer stared at Rusty, his eyes probing so hard that Rusty felt the man was reading his mind. “You said you saw the Indians more than half a day’s ride from here. Isn’t that a long way to be scouting by yourself?”

Stiffening, Rusty fished for a good answer. “We’re short-handed.” He suspected the officer sensed the truth and was trying to coax an admission of desertion. The day that happened, hell would have six inches of frost on the ground and the fires would be out.

Captain Whitfield put in, “Better one man than no men at all. And that’s what it’s gettin’ down to.”

Sergeant Forrest spoke for the first time. “How do we know these are hostile Indians?”

Whitfield replied, “Since they were removed from the Texas reservations, any Indians found inside the state’s boundaries are considered hostile.”

“They might just be hunting buffalo.”

“This time of the year they’d go out onto the plains. They wouldn’t come down this way to hunt. . . not for buffalo.”