Rusty heard cattle bawling. The sound told him they were being gathered or driven in a place where he would not expect that to happen. Landmarks indicated he was yet north of the Monahan farm. This was still buffalo range on those occasions when migration drifted the grunting herds across it. They grazed the grass short, their sharp cloven hooves crushing its remnants into the ground, to be revived when the rains came again. It was home to deer in the brushy draws and antelope on the open prairie. Now and then a band of wild horses passed through, led by a blood-bay stallion, ranging free. It also provided forage for scatterings of cattle lost or abandoned during the war years, the offspring unbranded and subject to claim by anyone willing to gather them.

Up to now, few settlers had risked their lives by staking claims this far beyond white neighbors. That would invite a visit by war-painted horse-men from the plains. But more people would be coming soon, Rusty thought. Thousands uprooted by war were seeking new homes and a new beginning. After four years of agonizing conflict between North and South, the frontier would seem a lesser hazard.

Dust swirled over three riders pushing sixty or seventy cattle toward a line of brush that marked the course of a sometime creek. Rusty first thought the men might be cattle thieves, but reflection dispelled that notion. Cattle were not worth stealing these days. They had multiplied to a point of becoming more nuisance than asset, difficult to sell because few people had money to pay even if they wanted them. They were plentiful enough that anyone needing beef and willing to risk exposure to occasional Indian raiding parties could venture out and get it at no cost beyond the effort expended in the chase.

At sight of Rusty and the boy the riders quickly pulled together in a defensive stance. They eased as the two approaching horsemen drew near enough for recognition. James Monahan rode forward while the other two held the herd together. He was of about Rusty’s age, a little to one side or the other of thirty. Like Rusty he could have been taken for forty. The harshness and toil of frontier farm life, compounded by war, had left his face deeply lined, his eyes haunted. He sat soldier-straight in the saddle, however, in an attitude that could be taken for either pride or defiance. Knowing James, Rusty considered it an even mixture.

Rusty was not disappointed by James’s noncommittal nod. Their relationship at times had been strained by differing attitudes toward the law. James said, “About decided the Comanches had put you under.” His gaze shifted to the boy. “Thought you was takin’ Andy back to his Indians.”

Rusty rubbed his beard. It had begun to itch. He needed a bath and a shave. “Things came unraveled. Looked for a while like neither one of us was goin’ to make it out.”