Bren Early saw it. He said, “Duty at Huachuca.”

“They split up,” Dana Moon told him and Bo Catlett. “It looks to be Loco and the young lady coming ahead. They'll be here by noon, the ones with the herd maybe an hour behind. And some more dust coming out of the west.”

“Federales,” Bo Catlett said.

“Not enough of 'em,” Moon said. “Some other party; maybe eight or ten.”

They brought the spare horses and feed into the middle adobe, three saddled horses into the building closest to the stock-tank end of the yard, and went inside to wait.

Hoofprints out there meant nothing; people came through here all times of the year travelling between Morelos and Bavispe and points beyond, this being the gateway to the Sierra Madres.

Still, when Loco came, leading the second horse and rider they took to be the girl, he hung back 300 yards-the horses straining toward the smell of water-and began to circle as he approached the rancho again, coming around through the pasture now, keeping the wall between him and the adobes.

“We'll have to wing him,” Bren Early said, flat against the wall with his Spencer, next to a front window.

Moon watched through the slit opening in the wooden door. He said to Bo Catlett, “Mount up.”

Bo Catlett did and had to remain hunched over in the McClellan, his derby hat grazing the low roof.

“That one-eyed Indian is a little speck of a target, isn't he?” Bren Early said.

“Tired and thirsty,” Moon said. “I'm going out.” He looked up at Bo Catlett. “He flushes when he sees me, run him down. There won't be any need to shoot.”

Bren Early, dropping the stock of his Spencer to the dirt floor, said, “Shit. And parley awhile.” He didn't like it; then thought of something and squinted out past the window frame again.

“I wonder what that girl looks like,” he said. “I wonder what the one-eyed son of a bitch's been doing to her.”