The boy resumed the sign talk. The only part Rusty understood was when he pointed southeastward and indicated that to be their chosen direction. The Kiowas quarreled among themselves. Rusty could tell that a couple of the youngest favored freeing the boy but killing his white brother. Fortunately the older warriors prevailed.

Andy said, “No look back.” He set his pony to moving in a walk to demonstrate that he had no fear.

Rusty forced himself to stare ahead and not turn in the saddle. He wished he could be certain the two hotheads were not following. After a couple of hundred yards Andy let his pony move into an easy trot. Rusty sneaked a quick glance. He was relieved to see that the Kiowas were riding westward, all of them.

He wiped his sleeve across his face to take up the cold sweat that stung his eyes. “You sure pulled our bacon out of the fire that time.”

“Bacon? We got no bacon.” Andy’s puzzled look showed that he did not understand. Many expressions went over his head. He had only lately begun hearing the English language again after years of exposure only to Comanche.

Rusty said, “We’ve still got a ways to go before we can take an easy breath. We’d better ride into the night as far as these horses can travel.”

Andy looked back over his shoulder toward the broad prairie and everything he was leaving behind. He appeared about to weep.

Gently Rusty said, “I know it’s hard. Go ahead and cry. Ain’t nobody around to hear you but me.”

Andy squared his shoulders. “I would hear.”

The Red River was behind them, but caution prevailed upon Rusty to stop occasionally and survey their back trail. The boy asked, “You think they follow so far?”

Rusty saw no sign of pursuit, yet experience had taught him not to place too much trust in appearances.

“Depends on how bad they want you.”

Another long look to the north showed him nothing to arouse anxiety, at least no more than he had carried in the pit of his stomach during the days since he and Andy had hurriedly left the Comanche encampment. They had been two solitary figures on the open plains. The Llano Estacado was a haven to the horseback tribes but remained a forbidding mystery to white Americans, a blank space on their maps. It was a vast country of few landmarks and few tracks. It could swallow up a stranger, lose him in its immensity, and doom him to slow starvation. But for several years it had been the only home Andy Pickard could remember. He kept looking behind him.

“Back there . . . I belong.”

Rusty understood the boy’s painful dilemma. “Them Comanches would kill you in a minute.”

The thin voice quavered. “Most are friends.”