But Jeff sent Tom and Ola May to school some three miles from Klondyke, an hour's walk each day. Then Jeff divided up the cattle. He sent Will Morgan up into Redfield Canyon with his herd and moved his own herd into Rattlesnake Canyon. It seemed better, more agreeable, that way. He liked to say that he had faith in his fellow man except when it came to money, land, love, sex, whiskey, and anything else you could think of. There would be no arguing over whose cattle were whose. The two herds had the rugged peaks of the Galiuros, frequently large basalt boulders, delicately and beautifully balanced, one on top of another, to separate them.

Most of the cowboying was done by Charlie, now twenty and a full-grown man. He was capable. There was no problem with sending Charlie out with the herd for weeks. He could take care of himself and preferred his own company over anyone else's. Jeff never had to tell Charlie what to do. Charlie did what he liked, and what he liked was keeping things safe and orderly.

As summer wore on and Rattlesnake Creek began to dry up at the bottom, the cattle moved to higher ground where the creek still ran. Charlie followed. As summer heat built, air pressure dropped and pulled moisture up from the Gulf of California. The heavy, wet clouds moved north until they encountered mountains, and then they rained, and they rained hard. Ranchers needed to be careful that their cattle did not get trapped in small canyons where a quickly rising stream could drown them. So Charlie kept moving them farther up the canyon. As he kept moving, he ran into Pete Spence.

Pete Spence owned a section of land along Rattlesnake Creek at an elevation of 5,600 feet, close to the top of Rattlesnake Canyon, some four miles south of where the canyon ran into Kielberg Canyon. On a wide cienega, where the creek flattened and spread before heading back into the rocks and downward, under the shadow of Topout Peak, Spence was herding goats.

Spence met Charlie with a double-barreled shotgun broken across his folded arms, barrels down. “These your cows?”

“They are. That your shotgun? You plan to keep it broken, then?”

Spence smiled. “At least until I load it.”

“Sorry about the cows, then.”

“No real harm done. I was a little afraid they'd gone through the fence and got after the garden. The damned goats just jump the fence, but I don't have to mend it after.”

“Looks like you could use a taller fence.”

“Damn. Why didn't I ever think of that?”

“I beg your pardon,” Charlie said. “That was unmannerly of me.”

“Nah. A taller fence would require another trip to town. I been keeping those to a minimum.”

Charlie dismounted and extended his hand. “Charles Power. Charlie.”

“I heard there was someone running cows down the creek. I figured I would run into you one of these days. Pete Spence.”