It still hurt, but less intensively now. He felt as though his upper body was encased in a tight barrel, or he was stuck in a hollow log. It was a poor solution to the problem but better than no solution at all. He found himself exhausted by the effort and lay flat on his back for a while, looking up at the heavy canopy that blocked out most of the sunlight. He let his mind run back over the events of the afternoon. He gave in to alternate bouts of regret and anger: regret that he had been forced to leave his new home, his brothers and their families, even Annie; anger over a mistaken government policy that sent convict soldiers to police honest people. It was like sending a wolf to guard the lambs.

One frustrating conclusion kept coming to him, that there was not a damned thing he could do about it. He had done too much already. Right and wrong were no longer the immediate concern. Survival was.

He rested as long as he dared, ate cold venison and bread from the sack Petra had given him, then remounted and set Walker in an easterly direction. Each time the trees thinned and he seemed to be coming to the edge of the woods, he drew in again. After dark he would break out into the open and try for speed, to put this place as far behind him as he could before daylight. Right now, concealment was his first concern.

He came unexpectedly upon a clearing and a cabin. Caution told him to pull back into the timber and keep riding, but the wound had produced the beginnings of fever. His mouth was parched. He saw a stone-walled well ten paces from the cabin. Seeing no sign of Mexican soldiers, he pushed Walker toward the well. He dismounted unsteadily, leaning against the circular stone wall for support. He began cranking the creaky windlass, bringing up the bucket from the bottom.

He sensed uneasily that he was being watched. He saw a boy peering with curiosity around the corner of the cabin. As they made eye contact, the boy quickly disappeared. James could hear his voice calling, “Papa! Papa!” and the creaking of a wooden door dragging its way across a threshold.

As the bucket came to the top, James swung it out to rest on the flat top of the wall and eagerly dipped a drinking gourd that hung from one of the posts supporting the windlass. The water was cool and sweet and brought a sense of relief as he gulped down all the gourd could hold.

A rough voice said, “Stranger, that’s a private well.”

James had trouble bringing his eyes to focus on the face. He rubbed an arm across them and saw two men, both black-bearded. The fatter of the two had but one arm. He carried a rifle in the other, cradling it across the stump. Dismay nearly took James’s feet from under him as he realized he had done just what Isaac Blackwood had warned him against: He had blundered onto the Blackwood place.