“I’m fine,” Whitfield lied. “Just fine.”

Ahead lay the timber that fringed the Colorado River. A dim twin-rutted trail led toward the nearest crossing that a wagon could ford without danger of floating downstream. Rusty had ridden there many times, usually with Daddy Mike, occasionally with Preacher Webb, accompanying the minister on his circuit. It was pleasant to remember when he could keep from dwelling on the sad truth that those times were over and would never come again. Mike Shannon was gone, and age would be overtaking Preacher Webb. Rusty doubted that the minister could hold up to the rigorous pace he had set for himself in earlier times, carrying the gospel to the forks of the creek and beyond. Traveling that once had been a joy for him must now have become an ordeal. Yet Rusty knew Webb persisted, traveling more slowly and paying a price in weariness for every mile.

Rusty began to see mares and colts bearing the Monahan brand. The family had brought their horses down from the old place to Rusty’s because of the certainty that they would quickly be stolen if left behind. No one had an incentive to steal cattle except an occasional one to butcher for beef. War had made horses scarce and valuable even as it resulted in an overabundance of unclaimed cattle.

He noticed several cows with calves bearing his brand. He had not been here to burn it on them, so he credited the Monahans. They had been looking after his interests as well as their own. It was a pity the cattle had no monetary value.

Sight of the fields helped lift his melancholy. They were green with growing corn, with forage for the stock. The Shannons’ old double log cabin came into view. It was easy, seeing the place, to fantasize that Daddy Mike and Mother Dora would be waiting there for him as they had done so long. Rusty was tempted to put Alamo into a lope, but reality intruded. The pleasant dream was quickly gone. Familiar landmarks aroused old memories, one on top of another.

Rusty crossed a creek where he and Daddy Mike once had ridden with a band of local farmers trailing a Comanche raiding party. They had not managed to overtake the Indians; they rarely did. Farther along, Rusty had helped bury a murdered woman. The Comanches had taken the woman’s small son, but no one had ever found a trace of him. He had disappeared like the Indians themselves onto the open plains of Comanchería.

Daddy Mike . . . sometimes it was hard to realize that four years had passed since he died, yet at other times, remembering the uncounted miles Rusty had traveled since, the many rivers he had crossed, it seemed an eternity. The deaths of Daddy Mike and Mother Dora had left him with an acute sense of abandonment, of being alone in the world. That feeling of isolation had brought him to bond with the Monahans. They were not truly his kin, but they and Preacher Webb were the nearest to it that he knew. When he married Geneva he would become a part of their family. He needed that sense of belonging.