“I wish you turn back now.”

“Just a little farther, Andy.”

It was fully a mile to where the buzzards floated about. Two dark gray wolves skulked away as the horsemen approached. The wind carried an unmistakable smell of rotting flesh.

Scattered over a couple of hundred yards of ground were the leavings of a buffalo kill, heads, horns, intestines strung out by scavengers. Straight lines marked where travois had been used to haul the meat and hides. Rusty slapped at flies that buzzed around his face. “Let’s get away from here.”

They circled around upwind, away from the flies and the stench. “Looks like we’ve found your people. Or at least where they’ve been.”

“I find them easy now. Better you go.”

Rusty felt a catch in his throat as he faced Andy “This is a lot harder than I figured.” He offered his hand. “If you ever decide you want to change, you know where I live.”

Andy accepted his hand, then pointed southeastward where scrub timber lined a small creek. “You go to trees, hide ‘til dark.”

Rusty’s eyes burned as he turned away and touched spurs gently to Alamo’s hide. When he had first found Andy, he had no thought that he would ever become so attached to the boy. He had assumed that relatives would soon come and fetch Andy away, and that would be the end of it. Rusty was, after all, a bachelor lacking in experience helpful in raising a youngster beyond what he could remember of his own raising by Daddy Mike and Mother Dora. He tried not to look back, but he could not help it.

What he saw made his heart leap. Andy was racing toward him. Behind Andy, Comanche warriors were running their horses hard.

Andy was shouting at him, but the wind tore the words away. The message was plain enough: run for the timber. Rusty put Alamo into a lope as Andy drew abreast of him. He said, “Didn’t your spirits tell you about them?”

“Don’t talk. Run.”

“But they’re your people. What’re you runnin’ for?”

“For you. We get to trees, I turn back and talk to them. Out here, they kill you first, then they talk.”

The timber was thin, for the creek was narrow and barely running. Rusty slid Alamo to a halt, jumped to the ground, and grabbed his rifle.

Andy looked with disfavor at the weapon. “You don’t shoot. They kill you sure.”

Rusty knew it would be futile to fight. He might knock down two or three, but they would have him in a minute. Still, he wanted them to know he could. He wanted each warrior to contemplate the possibility that he might be one of the unlucky two or three.

The Indians stopped short of the timber and spread out in a ragged line. Andy said again, “You don’t shoot. I go talk.”

“You better talk real good.”

Rusty could feel the pulse pounding in his neck. Dust choked him. He had to struggle for breath as he watched Andy ride out toward the Indians, one hand held high. The line contracted as the warriors drew back together to receive him. It soon became obvious that most recognized him. They greeted him as one lost and returned from the dead.