He dismounted and led Long Red but motioned for Billy to stay mounted. Billy’s horse was too tall and Billy’s legs too short for him to mount without help. They halted fifty yards from the firelight. Listening intently, Andy discerned that the men were indeed speaking English.

By himself he might have moved on, hungry or not. But the boy had had little to eat all day except a bit of pemmican, which he had forced down. “Billy, we’re goin’ to take a chance. Let me do the talkin’.”

He led the two horses to within twenty yards of the fire. He shouted, “Hello the camp!”

Instantly several men jumped away from the campfire’s reflected light. Someone shouted back, “Who’s out there?”

“Just two of us. We’re white.”

“show yourselves, but come in slow.”

Andy could not see the weapons aimed at him, but he could feel them. He led the horses as near the fire as they would go. He raised both hands.

A voice demanded from the darkness, “Where’s your guns?”

“All I’ve got is a rifle.” He raised it so the speaker could see.

A man emerged from the night, into the flickering light. He carried a pistol aimed at Andy. “You talk white enough, but you both look Indian to me.”

Andy said, “There’s a reason. We got away from a Comanche camp.” He looked toward meat roasting over the fire. “The boy is awful hungry. That’s why we came in.”

The man’s suspicions were not yet satisfied. “You got names?”

“He’s Billy Gifford. Comanches stole him from his folks a little while back. Mine’s Andy Pickard. They took me when I wasn’t no bigger than he is.”

The man lowered the pistol. “Lift the boy down. You-all help yourselves to some buffalo haunch.”

Other men emerged from the darkness. Andy saw six altogether. They were a ragged bunch. If there was a comb or a razor in camp, it must have lain undisturbed for days in the bottom of a saddlebag. One man wore what remained of a Union Army coat. Another wore patched Confederate gray trousers. If nothing else, the outfit appeared to be politically neutral.

The one in gray complained, “Jake, we come to trade with the Comanches. They won’t take it kindly, us helpin’ these runaways.”

Andy said, “They don’t need to know about it. Me and Billy sure ain’t goin’ to tell them.”

The complainer said, “Indians got ways of knowin’ everything. Claim spirits come and whisper the news in their ear.”

Andy started to deny it but could not. Despite his years in the white man’s world and many earnest sermons by Preacher Webb, he had not become convinced that such spirits did not exist. He was almost certain he had felt their presence in certain sacred places.