He woke sometime in the night with the hut in almost total darkness and the hermit bent over him and all but in his bed.
What do you want? he said. But the hermit crawled away and in the morning when he woke the hut was empty and he got his things and left.
All that day he watched to the north a thin line of dust. It seemed not to move at all and it was late evening before he could see that it was headed his way. He passed through a forest of live oak and he watered at a stream and moved on in the dusk and made a fireless camp. Birds woke him where he lay in a dry and dusty wood.
By noon he was on the prairie again and the dust to the north was stretched out along the edge of the earth. By evening the first of a drove of cattle came into view. Rangy vicious beasts with enormous hornspreads. That night he sat in the herders' camp and ate beans and pilotbread and heard of life on the trail.
They were coming down from Abilene, forty days out, headed for the markets in Louisiana. Followed by packs of wolves, coyotes, indians. Cattle groaned about them for miles in the dark.
They asked him no questions, a ragged lot themselves. Crossbreeds some, free niggers, an indian or two.
I had my outfit stole, he said.
They nodded in the firelight.
They got everthing I had. I aint even got a knife.
You might could sign on with us. We lost two men. Turned back to go to Californy.
I'm headed yon way.
I guess you might be goin to Californy ye own self.
I might. I aint decided.
Them boys was with us fell in with a bunch from Arkansas. They was headed down for Bexar. Goin to pull for Mexico and the west.
I'll bet them old boys is in Bexar drinkin they brains out.
I'll bet old Lonnie's done topped ever whore in town.
How far is it to Bexar?
It's about two days.