The chimney stood like a tall tombstone above the charred remnants. By contrast, the shed was only moderately damaged. Though it had been set afire, the flames had flickered out. Chickens pecked in the dirt, oblivious of the carnage about them. The shed had been their roosting place.

Len pointed. “Yonder lays Shanty’s plow mule.”

He gave vent to his anger as he rode up to the dead animal. It had been shot and left to die slowly, for the ground was torn up where it had lain and kicked in agony while its blood drained away. “Any man who would do this ought to be gut shot and left to fight off the buzzards.”

Rusty nodded solemnly. “They didn’t find Shanty. They had to take it out on somethin’.”

He shivered, picturing Shanty lying here instead of the mule. On reflection, he figured they would more likely have shot Shanty at the cabin and burned him with it.

He signaled for Shanty and Andy to come in. Shanty stopped to study the cabin ruins, then came out and looked down at the dead mule. “Poor ol’ Solomon. He wasn’t black like me, he was brown.”

Rusty said, “But he belonged to you.”

“I ought to’ve been here. They wouldn’t have done this to him.”

“They’d have done it to you.”

Andy clenched his fists, his face reddened. “Ought to be somethin’ we can do about this.”

Shanty said, “The Lord keeps a tally. Come Judgment Day, He’ll call on transgressors to settle their due.”

Tanner added, “He’ll send them to hell.”

Andy demanded, “Why wait on the Lord? Why don’t we give Him some help and do it ourselves?”

Despite lectures on the subject from Preacher Webb, Andy had never quite grasped the white man’s concept of a fiery hell. The vision of eternal damnation was not part of Comanche tradition. The Comanche preferred immediate punishment, duly witnessed. He said, “I’ve heard of the Kiowas tyin’ a man to a wagon wheel and burnin’ him alive. I can believe in that kind of hell.”

Shanty dismounted and stood in anguish where the cabin door had been. “Me and Mr. Isaac, we built this with our own two hands.” He raised his palms and looked at them. “Wasn’t nobody else, just us. He’d be mighty grieved to see this.”

Rusty thought Shanty was too old to be raising a cabin anymore, at least by himself. “We’ll help you build it back, but we’d best wait awhile. They’d just burn it again.”

Tanner said, “What this country needs is for Preacher Webb to do the honors at a few good funerals.”