James felt the sting of Andrew’s implied rebuke. With a touch of resentment he said, “I’ll bet Michael would’ve shot to kill.”

“For somethin’ important, maybe. Not for a pig.”

James said, “Maybe we’d better hope it was just the Blackwoods. The world could stand a few less of them, anyway.”

IX

THOUGH HE and Andrew tried to make light of the matter, James could tell by the women’s expressions that they were not fooled, especially Petra. Despite the men’s casual recounting of the incident, which betrayed no concern, she shuddered. She could remember back to another time when Spanish soldiers had been the terror of the countryside, taking whatever they wanted, arbitrarily killing those their officers suspected might be sympathetic to the native Mexican movement against Spanish rule. They offered no trial, heard no evidence. They had murdered her father, who was one of their countrymen, just as they had murdered Mordecai Lewis, who was not.

She said, “Better, I think, if we gave them the pig—if we gave them all the pigs.”

Andrew agreed with her, but James replied stiffly, “You can’t give in to a thief. The more he gets away with, the more he’ll come back. That’s how it was with the Blackwoods back home. We never did let them get away with anything.”

Andrew put his arms around Petra and tried to hug the worry out of her. “Even if it was soldiers, chances are James didn’t hit one of them. It was too dark to see good.”

James declared, “I hope I did, so they’ll take roundance on this place from here out. They’ll know there’s light sleepers around here.”

But it was not to be that way. Early the next morning, seven soldiers rode up to the farm, the rising sun at their backs. Andrew and James were tending to the livestock before they went into the field to harvest corn. Michael, Frank, and the boys had not arrived to help.

James saw the dark foreboding in Andrew’s face and said, “I got my rifle over against the shed. I’d better fetch it.”

“No,” Andrew said sharply. “Worst thing we could do would be to show them a weapon. Stand quiet and let me handle it.”

James knew little about rank in the Mexican army, but one of the soldiers wore a bit more tattered finery than the others, so he figured him for an officer or something. To James, he looked no better than the men around him. It was hard to see much of his face because of a huge and menacing black moustache that seemed to cover almost everything except his dark eyes and the point of his chin. As to the hard-eyed men with him, James doubted their own mothers would claim them. Whoever had opened the prison gates and turned them loose upon the public had made a grievous mistake.

Andrew said the man in the lead was a sergeant, the same rank as the one named Díaz who had caused the immigrant Lewises so much trouble west of the Sabine River. James did not take the rank as any recommendation. Unlike Díaz, this one did not speak English, or at least gave no sign that he did. It was left to Andrew to do the talking in Spanish. James listened, trying in vain to catch a word here and there. Whatever Andrew told the sergeant, the men around him answered with loud and angry denials. The sergeant’s expression was accusatory, and so was his tone of voice.