He tried to get up again, and this time he got his right leg up high enough that he was able to get some weight on his right foot. His heart was pounding, and it sounded indescribably loud in his ears.

“John. You goddamned nitwit. Stop shooting.”

And then he was down again, face into the dirt, wrapped and smothered. “John. John. Calm down. It's all right. It's Sisson, John. I got you. We're all right, John.” Sisson was whispering into his ear, the way you would to a child or to a horse you were trying to gentle. “It's all right. All right. We're safe. Safe now.”

And then it was over. “Sisson?”

“Sisson,” Sisson said. “It's Poke. He's going to help us. Come on. Get up.”

“Poke,” John said. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shot.”

“You didn't hit no one,” Poke said. “It's all right. But we got to get going. The others will be on us directly. Climb into the back of the truck with the boys. Don't do nothing. Don't say nothing. Let me take care of this.”

John recognized the boys as hands from the ranch. Poke's boys. They were mostly Mexicans, and none of them had a stake in what was going on. When John and Tom and Sisson scrambled into the back of the truck, the boys pulled them in and moved around them so they were hidden in the middle of the bunch.

“Damn,” Poke said. “Here they come.”

Tom scooted around the front of the truck and into the door that Poke had opened and crouched on the floor in front of the seat.

“Don't move. Don't say a word. This is going to be close.”

Tom said nothing but pushed his head down farther into his arms. Poke pushed a blanket and some trash over him. He listened as Poke opened and then shut the door of the truck. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Poke had exited the truck. He heard another truck approach, stop, and cut its engine.

“They was here,” Poke said.

Another voice mumbled words that Tom couldn't make out.

“No guarantee it was them, but who the hell else could it be? Found a blanket over there. Bootprints all over the place. No sign of horses, though.”

“We heard shots.”

“Coyote. Missed. You see any signs?”

“We got their horses.”

“You got their horses? When was that?”

“A day ago.”

“Can't be that far,” Poke said, “if they're on foot.”

Tom couldn't make out the response.

“Where do you think they're headed?”

Tom heard “Mexico” and “Chiricahuas.”

“It was me, I would go straight to Mexico,” Poke said. “I wouldn't want to be up in those mountains in February. Of course, I ain't a Power. I do things the reasonable, easy way. And that ain't the Power way.”