“Their own damned fault for startin’ the war.” Pete had no high-flown notions about the glory of the Confederacy. He and Scully had not joined the fight out of loyalty and patriotism. Pete’s father, Old Colonel Caleb Dawkins, had given them no real choice after they were caught with stolen horses, some of them his own.

The memory still rankled Pete, still roused him to occasional fits of anger when he let himself dwell upon the old man’s grim ultimatum. As an alternative to prison, Caleb Dawkins had sent Pete and Scully to become targets for Yankee guns.

“Redeem yourselves,” he had declared. “Expiate your guilt by serving your country.”

Pete had developed an elemental survival strategy. Any time the guns sounded, he fell into a ditch or crawled up against protective trees or a stone wall. He would remain there, his head down, until the firing stopped. Be damned if he intended to die for someone else’s grand cause. His only loyalty, his only obligation, was to Pete Dawkins.

After resting awhile, the two men resumed their weary westward march. Pete was not sure just where they were, but the wagon road showed every sign of being well used. Surely it must lead to someplace where opportunity awaited a man keen enough to recognize it.

Scully wiped sweat from his face onto his tattered sleeve. “Reckon we’ll live to reach your daddy’s farm?”

“Weil get there.”

“If he’s still down on us like the last time we seen him, we may wish we’d gone someplace else.”

“I worked like a nigger on that farm when I was a boy. The old man owes me for that. And he owes us both for packin’ us off to the army over nothin’ more than a few broomtails we borried from him. I figure to collect, then move on west.”

“Collect what? If he’s like everybody else we’ve seen, he’s got the seat hangin’ out of his britches. Probably couldn’t buy us a pint of whiskey if it was ten cents a gallon.”

“I know better. Bad as he hated the Union, I know he buried a bucket of Yankee gold and silver under the woodpile back of the house. Seen him myself when he didn’t think anybody was lookin’. That’ll spend right handy when me and you get to California.”

“You think he’ll just stand there and let you take it? He’s got the ternper of a sore-footed badger. We was with him when he hanged them Mona-hans, remember? A meaner-eyed son of a bitch I never seen, even if he is your daddy. I think he might be just a little bit crazy.”