Impatiently James declared, “You ain’t got time to ask questions, and I ain’t got time to answer any. Git while the gittin’s good.”

Reluctantly Rusty had to acknowledge the wisdom in James’s advice.

He was bursting with questions about Geneva, but they would have to wait.

“All right, let’s go, Len. But I’m takin’ Daddy Mike’s old mule.”

James jerked his head toward the place where the two rangers’ horses were tied. “Take him and be damned. But whatever you do, do it quick.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

At first the ranger camp appeared deserted. Captain Whitfield’s tent was still standing. The others had been struck, the canvas folded and stacked on the ground. Wooden stakes lay in a pile.

Riding in, Rusty saw only a few ranger horses grazing free. He gave a quick, happy shout as he recognized Alamo among them. The horse nickered at Chapultepec. Rusty slipped the loop of a rawhide reata around Alamo’s neck and petted the black horse before leading him into camp with the mule. “Old friend, I was afraid somebody with light fingers might’ve taken a fancy to you.” To Rusty, a thief was a thief, whether he decorated his head with a hat or a feather.

Tanner grunted. “Place looks like everybody died.”

“Bound to be somebody around.”

“We might’ve come for nothin’. But at least you got your horse back.”

That in itself was justification enough for returning, Rusty thought. “Maybe the captain’s still here.”

He found Whitfield taking his rest on a cot inside the stained old canvas tent. It struck Rusty that he had never seen the captain idle in the daytime. But he had never seen Whitfield take an arrow in the hip before, either.

Whitfield arose slowly, wincing in pain from the wound. He seemed drawn, his eyes dull as he shook Rusty’s hand, then Tanner’s. “I thought you boys took off for the tall timber.”

Rusty said, “We heard about the surrender. What’s happened to the company?”

Whitfield made a sweeping motion with his hand. “You can see about all that’s left. Billings and the sergeant took most of them away before word came about the war. The others didn’t see much point in stayin’ around after we got the news. If you-all came back with any hope of gettin’ paid, forget it. Even if they gave it to you, a barrelful of Confederate money wouldn’t buy you a plug of tobacco.”

Rusty said, “We gave up on pay a long time ago. We just thought you might need us.”

“If somebody was to commit cold-blooded murder on the street in Fort Belknap, we couldn’t do anything about it. We’ve got no authority.”

“We could still turn back Indians if any tried a raid. We wouldn’t need anybody’s authority for that.”