“Maybe we can go back and ask the law,” Tom said. “No, wait. They're dead. No use in asking.”

“No. You. You explain,” John demanded. He had a rugged perseverance that saw him through things, including arguments with his younger brother.

“Do I look like law to you?”

“No. But I think you know what they was doing there this morning.”

“Must have been that draft business. They said they was coming for us.”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know what?” Tom asked.

“That draft stuff. That don't seem worth it.”

“No, it doesn't. But that's law for you. Thems got their own way of looking at things.”

“Kane Wootan was there. Why was he there?”

“Because he's a deputy sheriff?”

John snorted. They rode on a bit more. The snow had let up to just occasional flakes. “You know. You know that you know. You know a lot more about this than you're saying.”

“I know a lot about a lot of stuff that I ain't saying. And I ain't going to say it, so leave it be.”

“Where are we going?” John asked.

Tom sighed. The world would be a better place if you didn't have to spend so much of your life explaining it to the dumb ones who figured they needed to know things instead of just following along in silence. “Mexico.”

“I know, Mexico. Where in Mexico?”

“We ain't even out of the canyon yet. Can't go nowhere until we're out of this canyon. Right now it's out of the canyon or be killed. Let's do this first.”

“It's a long way to Mexico.”

“It's a long way to anywhere with you running your yap all the way. When we get down out of the canyon, we're going to need better horses. I think I can do that at Carlink ranch. Then just down the river's a big mesquite bosque where we can get some rest.”

“Posse ain't going to rest.”

“That's because there's a bunch of them. There's only the three of us. We rest. When we ain't resting, we outthink them. You needn't be a part of that.”

They came out of the canyon in the afternoon. The trail had become steadily more treacherous as they descended toward the floor of the San Pedro River Valley. Stones from boulder size to small enough to fit a man's hand littered the opening of the canyon. Worse were tons of scree that had come down the streambed carried by the spring thaw. The horses and one mule picked their way delicately through the obstacles, skittering now and then as a stone or deposit of scree gave way under their hooves.