“Good morning, brother,” John said, as he had said every morning of their lives. They sat at the rebuilt fire, melting snow in their tin cups, waiting until the water began to steam before they drank it.

John walked the rest of that day, not seeming any worse for the spell of fever and delusion he had gone through. The snow had picked up, and above the tree line, the rock got more and more treacherous. Both Tom and John had worn holes in their shoes—boots, in John's case—and Sisson had lost the heel of one of his shoes. He had tried to nail it back on with a farrier's nail, only to have it stick into the bottom of the shoe. He pried the heel off, threw it away, and walked the rest of the way limping heavily on his right side. The pieces of canvas they had tied on were already shredded and tattered. By late morning Sisson's knee and hip were stiff and painful from the odd gait.

But they kept walking, moving nearly due east, and, as they neared the end of the Chiricahuas, the danger grew again. As unlikely as it was that any of the posses would pursue them through the winter mountains, it was just as likely that they would be camped and waiting for them at the eastern side of the Chiricahuas.

It was nearing dark of the fifth day in the mountains when Sisson stopped suddenly, holding his hand up as a signal for them to stop, too. He put his hand flat to his mouth, pointed into the canyon below, and then pointed to his ear. They stopped breathing then, listening hard to the silence. And it was only silence until the wind shifted a little and they heard a man's disembodied voice.

“Fourteen mile, maybe more.”

Tom was wide-eyed with the desire to run, but he held his ground. Sisson listened, trying to pinpoint the location. John stared ahead, impassive. Sisson held up two fingers, waited, then held up three. After a few minutes, four. They waited. Sisson nodded and put up four fingers again.

Four of them. If it came to a fight, they could probably take the four simply by surprise. But there was no good reason for a fight. They had water, and they could wait out the four below. They crouched, waiting, not moving or talking.