“Ain't died so far. I guess I don't plan on it.”

“And speaking of plans, it wasn't hard to just walk around that chunk of rock you went over.”

“It wasn't that hard to go over, either.”

Tom smiled and tossed John his canteen. “Wash your face.”

They kept a small fire. They were far enough up that there was some tree cover to break up the smoke as it rose rather than leaving a single column of smoke that could be seen from miles away. It was a small area, big enough for a fire and room for the three of them to sleep, though they never slept at the same time. The only way in was the way they had come, and they took turns guarding that entrance. It was barely necessary. Only a fool would come up into the Stronghold after them. It was the most strategically defensible site in southern Arizona. Still, they kept a watch. There is never a shortage of fools.

Sisson didn't keep his eye on the opening in the brush where any possible pursuers would have to come. If you kept your eye on one spot long enough, it would entrance you and, finally, put you to sleep. Instead, he picked up a good-sized chunk of Douglas fir and began stripping the bark from it in preparation for carving it into something he hadn't yet decided on.

Escaping and hiding were new experiences for Sisson. He was used to being the pursuer, not the evader. Still, he had learned a lot in his years of scouting Indians for the army. There were two basic strategies in pursuit. In the first, you kept pressure on the prey and kept them from finding shelter, and you kept that pressure on until they faltered and you caught them. In the second, you pressured them to go to ground where you wanted them—some location that gave you good access or trapped them in such a way they would have to come at you fighting or die of hunger and thirst.

This seemed uncomfortably like the second. They had food and water and could forage for a good deal more of it, but their only real way out was the way they had come in. A good hunter would just wait them out. But this bunch, these bunches, for he couldn't tell how many there were, didn't seem so good. They were amateurs who knew something of hunting deer or javelina, even bear, but not men. They were outraged citizens, determined to administer justice as they saw it. They were on the side of right, and, in their world, right was always destined to prevail, despite evidence to the contrary.