“You could do worse. Hangtree’s a big county with lots of room to get lost in. The Yanks are quartered forty miles northwest at Fort Pardee in the Breaks. They don’t come to Hangtown much, and when they do they’s just passing through. They got their hands full chasing Indians.”
“They catch any?”
Luke laughed. “From what I hear, they got to look sharp to keep the Indians from catching them.”
“Good, that’ll keep ’em out of my hair.”
“What’re your plans, Johnny?”
“One thing I know is horses. Mustangs still running at Wild Horse Gulch?”
“More now than ever, since nobody was rounding ’em up during the war.”
“Figured I’d collect a string and sell ’em. Folks always need horses, even in hard times. Maybe I’ll sell ’em to those bluebellies at the fort.”
Luke was shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“Gold’s gold and the Yanks are the ones that got it nowadays,” said Johnny Cross.
Something in the air made him look back. A dust cloud showed in the distance east on the road, a brown smudge on the lip of the blue bowl of sky. Johnny reined in, turning the horse to face back the way they came. “Company’s coming,” he said.
“Generally that means trouble in these parts,” Luke said.
“Ain’t necessarily so, but that’s the way to bet it,” he added.
Johnny Cross unfastened the catch of the saddlebag on his right-hand side, reaching in and pulling out a revolver. A big .44 front-loading cap-and-ball six-gun like the ones worn on his hips: new, clean and potent.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to Luke. “Take it,” he said when the other hesitated.
Luke took it. The gun had a satisfying heft and balance in his hand. “A six-gun! One of them repeating revolvers,” Luke marveled.
“Know how to use it?” Johnny asked.
“After four years with Hood’s Brigade?” Luke said in disbelief.
“In that case I’d better show you how it works, then. I wouldn’t want you shooting me or yourself by accident,” Johnny said, straight-faced.
Luke’s scowl broke into a twisted grin. “Shucks, you’re joshing me,” he said.
“I am? That’s news to me.”
“You’re still doing it, dang you.”
Johnny Cross flashed him a quick grin, strong white teeth gleaming, laugh-lines curling up around the corners of his hazel eyes. A boyish grin, likable somehow, with nothing mean in it.
Sure, Johnny was funning Luke. Hood’s Brigade of Texans was one of the hardest-fighting outfits of the Confederacy, whose army had been distinguished by a host of fierce and valiant fighters.
Johnny turned the horse’s head, pointing it west, urging it forward into a fast walk.
Luke stuck the pistol into the top of his waistband on his left side, butt-out. “It’s good to have something to fill the hand with. Been feeling half-nekkid without one,” he said.
“With what’s left of that uniform, you are half-nekkid,” Johnny said.
“How many more of them ventilators you got tucked in them saddlebags?”
“Never enough.”
“You must have been traveling in some fast company, Johnny. I heard Quantrill’s men rode into battle with a half-dozen guns or more. That true?”
“And more. Reloading takes time. A fellow wants a gun to hand when he wants it.”
Luke was enthusiastic. “Man, what we couldn’t have done with a brace of these for every man in the old outfit!”
“If only,” Johnny said flatly. His eyes were hard, cold.
A couple of hundred yards farther west, a stand of timber grew on the left side of the road. A grove of cottonwood trees.
East, the brown dust cloud grew. “Fair amount of riders from the dust they’re kicking up. Coming pretty fast, too,” said Luke, looking back.
“Wouldn’t it be something if it was that bunch who cleaned you out?”
“It sure would. Any chance it’s somebody on your trail, Johnny?”
“I ain’t been back long enough.”
Luke laughed. “Don’t feel bad about it, hoss,” he said. “It’s early yet.”
Johnny Cross turned the horse left, off the dirt road into the cottonwood grove. The shade felt good, thin though it was. The Texas sun was plenty fierce, even at the start of spring. Sunlight shining through spaces in the canopy of trees dappled the ground with a mosaic of light and shade. A wild hare started, springing across the glade for the cover of tall grass.
