Indeed, the Shannons had come near starving a time or two when they first broke out their present farm. But determination and helpful neighbors had allowed them to survive.

Rusty told Blessing, “I don’t worry about pay, but I’d take it kindly if you made me a ranger, even for a few days. So would Daddy Mike, I think.” His foster father had always been proud of the times—some short, some long—he had served in a ranging company.

Blessing administered a brief oath that officially made Rusty a member of his company for whatever time his service might be deemed necessary. He stated that Rusty was obliged to furnish his own firearm and horse and was to be paid a daily allowance from the state treasury should such monies be available. “The state insists on the first part,” Blessing said. “It’s a lot more flexible as to the last. I’m sorry I can’t give you a badge to wear, but I don’t have one myself. Badges wouldn’t impress a Comanche much anyhow.”

From Mike’s stories, Rusty knew the rangers did not stand on ceremony. They had no official uniform, no official badge, not even an official title. They were most often called simply rangers or ranging companies, minutemen, and sometimes spies. Their rules were mostly made up as they went along, based on common sense and the realities of the moment. The main requirement was that they do the job or bust themselves trying. Sometimes they did indeed bust themselves, but more often they did whatever they thought it took to get the job done. If they happened to maim or kill a few more people than was really necessary . . . well, that was just too damned bad. It was ranger logic that such casualties resulted from folks being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they were probably guilty of something anyway.

Blessing did not call a halt until dusk faded into darkness. He stopped where the steep banks of a near-dry creek bed would hide their meager campfire from view should the Indians send scouts to survey their back trail.

The men needed rest, especially Mike and Preacher Webb. Mike rubbed his bad leg and winced with pain when he thought nobody was looking. The minister seemed wrung out like a freshly washed shirt. He gripped his crooked arm as if the miseries had set in deep.

Blessing offered, “Oscar Petrie had the foresight to bring a bottle of whiskey if that would help you, Mike.”

Mike accepted with gratitude. “Oscar Petrie is the smartest man I know.”

Blessing turned to Webb. “How about you, Preacher?”

“After I have made whiskey the subject of a hundred sermons?”

“It has medicinal properties.”

Rusty remembered that Mother Dora had put coffee in the sack of grub she had given him. “I’ll boil you some coffee, Preacher. I never heard you sermonize against that.”

“And you never will. When the Christians drove the Turks from the gates of Vienna, the Turks left their stores of coffee behind. I feel sure that was the Lord’s notion of a proper gift to His faithful.”