They weren't running, just walking at a good pace, trying not to make enough motion to be seen. There would be a time for running, but it wasn't yet. Once you started running, the game was pretty much over.

“Tom,” John said. “You sit on your ass on a horse or a wagon, too.”

“What?”

“You said that them in the trucks just sit on their ass. That's what you do on a horse or in a wagon. I don't see it's that much different.”

“John, did I ask your opinion on that subject?”

“No. I thought on it and needed to say it.”

“Did you think I needed to hear it?”

“No. I didn't think on that part of it.”

“You and the rest of the world. Always in a worry about what you need to say without giving one damned thought to what people might need to hear.”

“How am I supposed to know what other people need to hear?”

“Why don't you think on that for a while and then tell me if you think I need to hear your answer.”

It was hard work, walking as quickly as they could, never really coming to full upright so they could take natural strides. Instead, they did something like a duck walk most of the time, the lactic acid building and burning in the muscles of their thighs. Tom had surrendered the glasses to Sisson, who needed to stop more often than the brothers did. The glasses gave him both an excuse to stop and something of value to do while he caught his breath.

The trucks were still coming, the dust spires looming ever larger. On one stop Sisson saw the bad news that it wasn't three trucks, it was six, and now they were splitting again to cover more territory as they got closer.

They found a small arroyo, and that gave them modest cover from a distance. But it was only about three feet deep, and as the trucks got closer, as they did steadily, it was going to provide less and less cover as the sight lines got better. There were two trucks coming their way now. They had split some minutes back and were steadily moving away from each other. One of them would clearly cross their path behind them. And that was not a great worry.

The other, however, kept veering east, which gave them a little more time to run and hide, but it was going to cross their path ahead of them. As they pushed forward, toward the Chiricahuas, their path was getting inevitably closer to a crossing with the truck.

“Let's slow down,” Tom said. “We keep going at this pace, I'm afraid we're coming too close to that one.” He pointed to the truck to the north and east of them.

“They got us surrounded,” John said. There was no fear or resignation in his voice. He said it as a matter of fact, which it was.