Scully looked at Bailey and trembled. “You’ll tell them it was Pete done it all? You’ll tell them I didn’t do nothin’ to get hanged for?”

“I’ll tell them what I know. I can’t do no better than that.”

Following Pete’s trail was not a heavy challenge. Even the few times Rusty temporarily lost it, James or Sergeant Bailey quickly picked it up again. There was no mistaking Pete’s intention. He was headed for the Red River as directly as the terrain would allow him to travel.

And there was no mistaking James’s intention. He meant to kill Pete on sight. The fierce look in his eyes made a chill run down Rusty’s back.

Rusty said, “There’s no tellin’ what we may run into if we have to follow him over to the other side.” He had become acutely aware that they had left in too much of a hurry to be concerned about supplies. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at him. He suspected Bailey was running a fever, though the sergeant had not complained. But James had a determined look that said he would follow Pete across hell and out the far side if he had to.

Coming upon a freighter camp, they stopped only long enough to wolf down some cold bread and red beans and sample some weak coffee extended with parched grain. The boss freighter wore what was left of a Confederate uniform. He glared at the sergeant, but James’s manner was grim enough to make him swallow whatever negative feelings he might have about black soldiers. His only comment was, “There’s some places you won’t want to go as long as he’s with you.”

James said, “To catch the man we’re after, we’ll go wherever we have to.”

“If you catch him, I hope you ain’t goin’ to let that darky take him in. It’s a damned poor white man who’d do that.”

James’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “When we catch him, he’ll be beggin’ us to let that darky take him in.”

As they left the freighter camp, picking up the trail again, Rusty reminded James, “We promised the lieutenant we’d bring him in.”

“You promised him. I didn’t. If we bring him back alive there’s too many ways he can cheat the hangman. Bring him in dead and there won’t be no appeal, no bond, no parole.”

“Even Pete Dawkins deserves his chance in court.”

“You still talk like a ranger. There ain’t no rangers anymore. You’re just another civilian, same as me.”

Rusty thought back on his former ranger commanders. August Burmeister and later Captain Whitfield. Badly as they might have hated a man like Pete Dawkins, they would have made every reasonable effort to bring him in for a jury’s judgment rather than impose judgment of their own. “I guess I’m still a ranger at heart. If they’re ever reorganized, I’ll be the first in line to join up.”

“Fine, but I’m not burdened with all that righteousness. If I get Pete in my sights, I’ll kill him.”