“Clyde’s a coward.”

“That’s why he’s dangerous. He’ll get you when you’re not lookin’.” He reached up and felt his burning cheek.

Burmeister gave Rusty an anxious study. “You bleed. He hit you?”

“Just splinters. They’ll come out.” Rusty turned to Tanner. “Thanks, Len. If he’d had time for a second shot he’d’ve killed me sure.”

Tanner shrugged, his gaze on Clyde and the deputy, riding away. “That’s what I’m paid so high for.”

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

The horse tracks were easy for Andy to follow. This far up in their plains stronghold, the raiders had no reason to try to cover them. Their direction gave him a strong clue about the destination. He remembered a place where his band had camped several times, a location that offered water enough and trees for shade and shelter from the wind.

To look less like a white man he had shed his hat, shirt, and long under-wear, keeping only his trousers and the moccasins. The rest he tied behind the cantle. He remembered the time soon after he fell back into Texan hands that his uncle, Jim Pickard, had come to have a look at him. The uncle had rejected him because he considered him a savage beyond redemption.

He ought to get a look at me now, Andy thought.

The camp was where he expected it to be. As before, he approached the horse herd first, looking for Billy’s pony or Vince Purdy’s mount. And again he was disappointed.

He rode into camp with all the boldness he could muster, trying not to show any sign of his nagging concern that some of Tonkawa Killer’s friends might be here. He saw a few faces he remembered, though they stared at him without recognition. He had grown, and his features had matured since he had been with the Texans. The camp people met him with both curiosity and suspicion, for they were not prepared to see a white-skinned young man come among them of his own accord.

He spoke in the Comanche tongue, and their suspicions began to fade. To a man he remembered having ridden with Steals the Ponies he said, “Do you not remember me? Steals the Ponies is my brother. I was known as Badger Boy.”

With recognition came a warm welcome. “Come. Come and eat. There is plenty.”

Andy was glad to accept. He had eaten little besides a bit of tough jerky since leaving Martinez. His host plied him with questions about his years among the Texans, about the Texans’ strange lifeways. Andy tailored his answers to what he thought the man would want to hear. “They are a strange people,” he conceded. “But not all their ways are bad.”

When the questions began to lag, he offered his own. “Do you know where I might find Steals the Ponies?”

The Comanche said, “He left here yesterday and went north with his family. They joined some others who came back from a raid against the Texans.”

Andy’s senses sharpened. “A raid?”