Whitfield made no comment.

Rusty said, “They’ll need law to protect them.”

Whitfield shook his head. “I’ve been the law long enough. I just want to go back to whatever’s left of my own place and enjoy some quiet for a while.”

Tanner put in, “Them’s my sentiments, too. We ought to think of our own selves for a change. All the work we done, all the ridin’ we put in, and what’s it got for us?” He held up his left arm. His bony elbow poked out through a long tear in the ragged sleeve. “Ain’t even got a decent shirt.”

So far as Rusty knew, Oscar Pickett had no home to go back to. At his age, his prospects appeared limited. Rusty took it for granted that the captain would see to the old ranger’s welfare, giving him a place to stay in return for whatever work Pickett was able to do. Otherwise Pickett was likely to end up in some demeaning job like swamping out a dramshop just to feed himself and have a roof of something more substantial than leaky canvas to turn aside the rain.

Rusty felt a hollowness inside as he contemplated his own future. He had the farm. He could pick up a handful of its rich soil and know it was something substantial, something that was his. And he was confident that Geneva would stand by his side. But everything else was an unanswered question. Texas, along with the rest of the Confederacy, had lost the war. It was only a matter of time until the Federals moved in troops to take over whatever remained of a government. Where would the defeated Confederates fit in, or would they fit in at all? What punishments might they suffer at the hands of the victors?

Rusty had never taken up arms against the Union, yet in his won way as a ranger for the state of Texas he had been an agent of the Confederacy. Would he be subject to punishment? If so, what would the punishment be? These nagging questions ran through his mind, seeking answers but only stirring up more questions.

He voiced some of his concerns to Whitfield, who lay in the shade of a tree beside the slow-yielding spring. The captain said, “They can’t line us all up and shoot us; there’s way too many. Ain’t enough jails between here and Cape Cod to put us all behind bars. We’ll make do somehow as long as we’re livin’ and breathin’. Even if they burned us out like Sherman did in Georgia, there’s always the land. They can’t burn that up.”

They had unhitched the wagon team and led them to the water. Rusty took them back for a second chance to drink after their rest, then hitched them to the wagon again. “We’d best be gettin’ on. It’s a long ways to the Colorado River.”

He began seeing familiar landmarks he associated with the Monahan farm. They brought memories rushing back. He tried to concentrate on Geneva, but thoughts of her led to the chill of remembered violence. He relived the brutal lynching of Lon and Billy Monahan and a frightening nighttime raid that had culminated in the Monahan house going up in flames.