Rusty demurred. “There’s been too many funerals already. The wrong folks got buried.” He rode out to the dead mule and drew the loop of a rawhide reata tight around the animal’s hind feet. He dragged the mule off a couple of hundred yards, out of sight from the burned cabin. There he found Shanty’s milk cow, killed as the mule had been.

Shanty’s dog Rough would probably have been shot too, had Shanty not tied him to a post at Rusty’s place. The dog had kept trying to run off back to the home it knew.

The raiders had flung a few torches over into Shanty’s garden, but the plants had been too green to burn.

Rusty rode back to where the others waited. He said, “You-all go on home. I’ve got to make a visit.”

Tanner said, “You fixin’ to call on Fowler Gaskin? This has got his ear-marks all over it.”

“Fowler can wait. There’s somebody else who might listen to reason. I’ll give him a try.”

Like most farms in the Colorado River country, Jeremiah Brackett’s had suffered hard times. Some of the old rail fencing that enclosed his main field had been replaced, but long stretches threatened to collapse, supported by temporary bracing that was makeshift at best. Recovery from the war had been slow and painful and was far from complete.

Rusty’s acquaintanceship with the man was limited. Brackett apparently had brought some money with him when he settled on this land several years before the war. He had built a home larger than most in the area and had plowed a lot of grassland into fields. Fortune’s warm smile had turned cold during the war, however. Becoming an officer himself, he had urged his sons to join the Confederate service. His wife had bitterly blamed him after two of them died in battle. The third son, Farley, had been so badly warped by the war that he rebelled against all authority. Toward the end he had deserted the army and taken up with fugitive brush men hiding beyond the western settlements. Now he rode precariously along the hazy-edged line that divided law and outlaw.

Brackett had paid heavily for his allegiance to the Confederacy. Rusty could respect that; the same had happened to many of his friends. But some, like the Monahans, had paid an even heavier price for their opposition.

Passing a field, he noticed a young black man guiding a moldboard plow drawn by a pair of mules. Rusty lifted one hand in a modest show of friendliness, receiving a nod and a white-toothed smile in return.

Evidently Brackett did not hate all blacks. Or, if he did, his hatred did not prevent his using them.