Well, the hell with them! He hadn’t invited them here.

As the men rode away, the sergeant turned and shouted at James and shook his fist. James wished he had a little Spanish of the right kind so he could make a proper reply. All he could do in the way of communication was to raise his rifle over his head and shake it.

Three men, and he had run them off. He wondered if Michael had ever done better than that. Trouble was, they might not stay run off. That sergeant looked like the kind of man who would keep bringing more soldiers until he got the job done, no matter how many of them got hurt in the process.

This might be a good time to go hunting for a few days.

They wouldn’t be back for a little while, at least. He had two or three more trees felled out in the edge of the wood. Be damned if he would let a few soldiers stop him from getting a day’s work done. He dragged those in before he mounted the horse and rode eastward to let Andrew know what had happened.

Andrew already had an inkling, because he rode out to meet James, his thin face dark with worry. He gave James a quick look up and down before demanding, “Are you all right?”

James nodded. “Didn’t nothin’ happen to me. It all happened to them.”

Andrew’s voice was strained. “The soldiers rode by the field, two of them on one horse and one of them lookin’ like he was bad hurt. I tried to ask them what happened, but all I got was a cussin’ out by that sergeant. I was afraid I’d find you layin’ up here dead someplace. You oughtn’t to’ve shot a soldier.”

“I didn’t. That soldier fell on his own damned sword. Bled like a stuck hog. Goin’ to be a while before he gives anybody much trouble.”

“There’s aplenty more where he came from. What happened?”

James told him. “They just come at me out of the woods without so much as a howdy-do. It’s their good luck that I didn’t kill one of them.”

“And yours. But it’s bad enough. You’ll have to get away from here.”

“I figured on that. I’ll go huntin’ for a few days.”

“A few days?” Andrew’s eyes narrowed with exasperation. “You’ll have to be gone a lot longer than that. They won’t be forgettin’ about you, and if they find you they’ll chop you up into little pieces.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ except defend myself. I didn’t go chargin’ into their camp.”

“This isn’t Tennessee. You’ve got to put some country behind you, and the sooner the better.”

James thought about the logs piled up for his cabin. He had hoped to move into it before winter’s cold and stop depending so much upon Andrew and Petra. “But what about my farm? I don’t want to give it up.”

“You want to be buried on it?”