North of the Red River, a satisfied Buffalo Caller sat on his horse at the edge of a stand of timber and watched the straggling column making its way toward a new homeland the federal government had staked out. This was what he had hoped for, why he had made false trails into the reserve. He felt no pity for the distress he saw among the evacuees. They had aided the teibos against the Comanches. They deserved whatever misfortune the dark spirits might visit upon them.

Now perhaps they would understand what the Comanches had known all along, that the whites were a treacherous and grasping lot, stealing everything they saw. Given their way, they would drive the Indian to the edge of the Mother Earth and push him over into the great emptiness.

Up to now the reserve tribes had regarded the Comanches as their enemy. Perhaps this would show them who their true enemy was.

CHAPTER

SIX

COLORADO RIVER, EARLY 1861

Rusty watched with misgivings as Mike Shannon threw his saddle up over his horse’s back and buckled the girth. “Don’t you think I ought to go with you?”

Mike adjusted his coat, for the wind carried a chill. “Ain’t no need. I’m just goin’ to the settlement to have a drink or two and visit what friends I’ve still got left.”

Lately there had been much less talk about Indians than about a proposed Texas referendum on secession from the Union. Most people along the river seemed to favor joining the new Confederacy. Mike vigorously opposed it, so longtime friends had been falling away from him.

Rusty said, “At least, don’t be talkin’ politics. It’ll just get you into another fight.”

“Why shouldn’t a man say what he thinks when he knows he’s right? Them boys’ve got no idea what they’re talkin’ about. Wantin’ to take Texas out of the Union . . . they’ve forgot how hard we fought to get in”

“It won’t make a particle of difference what you or anybody else says in a little cotton-gin settlement most people never heard of. It’ll be decided in places like Austin and San Antonio. That’s where the big votes are.”

“Just the same, if a man don’t exercise his right to say what he thinks, pretty soon they won’t let him say anything.”

“Even Tom Blessing has given up on the Union, and he used to be as strong for it as anybody. He says a little bunch of Yankees up north are tryin’ to boss everybody. Says it’s time to rise up and tell them to go to hell before we lose all our rights.”