That meant digging a well and putting up a windmill, and that was a significant outlay of cash, especially for what had been free for as long as anyone could remember. While Jeff had more money than he had ever had before, the expense was going to be a heavy one, and he reasoned that McCrory ought to bear some of the burden of the new equipment. One afternoon he rode with Will and cut ten unbranded yearlings from McCrory's herd. That, he figured, ought to be just about right to make up for his new expenses. He spliced the fence back together at the post, doing a neat job so that it couldn't be seen unless you were right up on it. He branded the yearlings, went to town, hired two men, and set out to dig his well.

Next door, shots were fired. No one was killed, but McCrory's men, finding the yearlings missing and, later, the fence cut, took shots at Walters's men, and Walters's men shot back. As long as they were shooting at each other but not killing each other, Jeff thought things were going as well as could be expected, given that ranching was hard work.

But McCrory's foreman took a bullet to the hip, which crippled him. The law was called, and there was an inquest into the shooting and the rustling of the cattle. No one ever rode out to check his herd without a gun now. There was a lot of shooting going on, and Jeff, afraid to cut more cattle out of other herds, was seeing his prospects wither.

One day, in Silver City for supplies, Jeff overheard two men he didn't know talking about the difficulties of what was now being called “The Duck Creek War.” He reasoned that the two strangers were hired men brought in to increase someone's odds as the shooting intensified. As the two threw names around, indicating who might or might not need their service, or might need to be “serviced,” Jeff heard the name Power. He thought the old animosities would keep suspicion off him, but here, it seemed, it was. But maybe not. He didn't want to find out the hard way. Jeff thought it was time to leave Duck Creek. He had heard that there was good money to be made in lumber over at Cliff, New Mexico. He knew that cattlemen talked to cattlemen, and, sooner or later, no matter where he went, news of his sudden departure from the Silver City area would catch up to him, and he would not be able to get the stink of it off him.

CHAPTER FIVE

1918

Anyone else might not have noticed that the sky had lightened at all. But Sisson motioned to a thin ridge and tree line just ahead, and they rode for it, knowing dawn was just ahead of them and that they needed to be hidden before it broke full.