Andy had seen only a little of what was in the carts, but he assumed it would be the usual trading goods that Indians had come to regard as necessities: blankets, cooking utensils, knives, and such. It would include luxuries to which Indians had become somewhat addicted: sugar, coffee, tobacco. Very possibly it might include rifles and ammunition.

He hoped it would not include whiskey, but he had to accept that possibility. When whiskey entered the picture, the umvritten rules against violence at the trading place had been known to go up in smoke.

Andy had never considered How much slower an ox team traveled than did horses or mules. They plodded along, straining in their heavy wooden yokes. He wondered if anything could excite them. A horse or mule team would occasionally take fright and bolt from something as innocent as a rabbit suddenly jumping up in front of them. The oxen looked half asleep.

For the likes of these, the white man would trade the buffalo. Andy gri-maced at the thought.

He remembered that when he lived with the Indians on the plains, the wind rarely died down completely. It blew now out of the west, warm and dry. It was not unpleasant. The movement of air kept the sun from feeling quite so hot as it otherwise would.

He had time now, as he had last night, to assess the hazards and consider his possible moves. He saw little point in devising detailed plans. He could make only the wildest guess about the situation that might confront him when and if he and the Mexicans found Billy. In the beginning, at least, he would have to let Martinez take the lead. Andy saw few options for himself unless for some reason the whole business fell apart. Then he would play whatever hand luck presented to him.

Martinez gestured for Andy to ride beside him. Martinez was mounted on a long-legged fine-boned brown horse that Andy took to be a Thorough-bred. Martinez seemed proud of him, for he put on a show of turning the animal one direction and then another with almost no pressure on the reins. “I won him in a race at Taos,” he said. “He is of the sangre puro, the pure blood. Where did you get that sorrel?”

“Got him in a trade. Don’t have no idea about his blood. I expect it’s red, same as any other horse.”

“You ever been to New Mexico?”

The Comanches had traveled over wide areas, but they had little knowledge of or interest in boundary lines. “I suppose so. I don’t know where it starts.”

“We come from a place called Anton Chico. A valley between the mountains. We farm, we raise sheep, we trade. A very long time my people have lived in that valley. Maybe longer than the Comanche has been in this country, who can say?”