They hobbled the horses far apart. The horses didn't like the separation and neighed back and forth to each other. The separation was going to make remounting more difficult and slow, but three horses hobbled together were sure to attract attention. Opportunity was built on calculated risks. They took their saddles and packs with them and walked to the other side of the ridge. By first light, John's eye looked better, and Tom's looked worse. There was another streak of scab down John's cheek, but it was old and looked like the last blood had come hours ago. His eye had gone completely blue, but the swelling did not seem so bad. Tom's eye was also going blue and swollen now.

Sisson went through the packs and brought up a loose paper package. It was corn bread he had cooked. When? Not last night but the night before, when they were settled in the cabin and had thought about nothing except their aches and the need to get back into the mine the next morning. When he unwrapped the package, the corn bread had disintegrated into loose crumbs, some bits of it big, most of it just cooked meal. He took a chunk and passed it to John. They kept passing the package around, taking what chunks there were, then scooping crumbs together and pressing them into bite-sized pieces.

“Is this all the food we got?” John asked.

“There's some cans—meat and peaches and tomatoes. But we ain't got much. We'll forage as best we can.”

“I'm really hungry.”

“Get used to it,” Tom said.

“You should have packed more food,” John told Sisson.

“Yeah, and we should have brought a mule train, too, to tote our stuff. The stove would have been a good thing to bring, and the cots, too.”

“Shut up, Tom. I'm just saying. We can have a fire. We ought to have something to cook on it.”

“No fire,” Sisson said.

“Why not? It's going on daylight. No one's going to see a fire out here.”

“Look at what's around us,” Tom said, indicating the grass and chaparral of the valley. “You see anything that's going to burn without sending up a column of smoke? This shit here's just smoke that ain't been lit yet.”

“When we get to the mountains,” Sisson said, “we can have a fire then. The trees will bust up the smoke so it won't be so plain. We're going to need it more then, too. We got a box of matches. That's it.”

“Fucking Indian scout,” John said.

“That fucking Indian scout is going to keep us alive. Don't you ever forget who's after us. And don't forget Thems wants us dead. Thems don't care nothing about law. The law's only an inconvenience to Thems. Thems thinks Thems're above the law, and Thems may be right. Thems catch us, ain't no law going to save us.”