“I like mountains, as you do,” Moon said. “I was born here, up on Oak Creek. I want to stay here, the same as you do. But there's a difference. They say, ‘Put Loco and his people on the train to Fort Sill.’ I can say, ‘Put him on yourself, I won't do it.’ And somebody puts you on the train. It's too bad, but what can I do about it?”

“Jesus Christ,” Bren Early said, listening to them talking so seriously and understanding the drift but not the essence of what they were saying and feeling.

Moon raised his eyes. “We're looking at the situation.”

Bren Early made a gun out of his right index finger, aimed it at the back of Loco's head and said, “Pow. That's how you solve it. You two're chatting-last week he shot four people dead. So we send him to Oklahoma for a vacation.”

“It's the high part of his life to raid and steal horses, since the first Spaniard came up this valley,” Moon said. “What else does he know? What's right and what's wrong on his side of the fence?”

“My life is to meet the hostile enemy and destroy him,” Bren said. “That's what I know.”

“Listen to yourself,” Moon said. “You want a war, go find one.” He began gathering Spanish words again and said to Loco, “When your men arrive, tell them to get all of your people here in the mountains and bring them back to San Carlos. You go with us. It's the way it has to be for right now.”

“Maybe it won't be so easy,” Loco said. “There are others coming too.”

Yes, the dust from the west, eight or ten riders. “Who are they?” Moon asked.

Loco touched the dirty red pirate bandana covering his head. “The ones who take hair.”

“You're sure of it?”

“If they're not of you, or not the soldiers of Mexico, who are they?” the Apache said.