Andre Norton

“ Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years. ”

“ Drew tried to lift his head, tried to summon words to answer that demand. A sullen kind of pride made him release his hold and stand away from the bay, only to reel back and bring up hard against a rock, grating his arm painfully. He clung there for a moment and got out:
"Nothing a little sleep won't cure." He spoke into the dark outline of Hunt Rennie. "I'm all right."
Drew made a painful effort, pulled himself away from the rock to fumble at the cinches of the bay's saddle, only to be pushed aside. ”

“ Drew frowned. So even this far away from the scene of old battles the war still smoldered; the black bitterness of defeat was made harder by the victor. Drew's hand rubbed across the bulge beneath his shirt. In one pocket of the money belt were his papers, among them the parole written out in Gainesville which could prove he had ridden with General Forrest's command, far removed from any Arizona guerrilla force. But to produce that would change Drew Kirby to Drew Rennie, and that he did not want to do. ”

“ But Drew was unaware of the Texan's outburst, his entire attention for Hunt Rennie. The tall man came over to the table, moved one of the candelabra forward as if to throw more light on Drew.
"That your choice of solutions, boy—to run?"
Drew flushed. The unfairness of that jab pushed him off balance. What did this man want of him anyway? Rennie had said it plain that he did not want Drew and Anse on the Range.
"Running never settled anything." Rennie's fingers traced the spread of the candelabra's arms. "Neither does jumping to conclusions. ”

“ I've known for a long time that Topham, Rennie, and probably a dozen other so-called citizens of that miserable outlaws' roost are backing Kitchell. Now here's a chance to prove it!"
"Not through me, you don't," Drew cut in. "I'm just what I said I was from the beginnin', Captain. And you can't prove anything different."
"I don't have to prove it; you've convicted yourself, Kirby. You can't account for the gold you're carrying. And, if you rode with Forrest, where's your parole? You know you were told to carry it. I can deal with you just as any horse thief is dealt with. ”

“ Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain.
"Captain Bayliss." The words sounded as remote as if the [pg 045] speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—"
"I tell you again: I'm not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!" ”

“ Drew went on to Shiloh's stall. Reese Topham, the Spaniard Don Lorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, and Don Cazar himself were all there before him.
"Here he is now." Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. "This is Mister Kirby, from Texas."
"You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?" Rennie asked.
Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly. ”

“ In 1866, only men uprooted by war had reason to ride into Tubacca, Arizona, a nondescript town as shattered and anonymous as the veterans drifting through it. So when Drew Rennie, newly discharged from Forrest's Confederate scouts, arrived leading everything he owned behind him—his thoroughbred stud Shiloh, a mare about to foal, and a mule—he knew his business would not be questioned. ”

“ León must have read something of Drew's blazing anger in his face, for the Mexican's mouth went a little slack and his hand came up in an involuntary gesture as if to ward off a blow.
"It is a good plan!" His boy's voice was thin in protest against Drew's expression.
"It is a harebrained, dangerous scheme," began Drew; then he switched to a question. "Did Johnny Shannon suggest using Shiloh for bait, or was that your idea?"
"Señor Juanito—he said one must have a good horse, a fighter. But such a horse would not be hurt. We would wait with rifles and shoot the pinto quickly before he attacked. ”

“ What was the use of trying to tell Rennie about his suspicions of Shannon? And if Johnny had destroyed the papers as well he might have, Drew could never make them believe him, anyway.
"Kirby, this is serious!" said Rennie. "You ride in from nowhere with two fine horses wearing a brand you say is your own. You have more money than any drifter ever [pg 161] carries. You claim to be a Texan, and yet now you say all the proof of your identity is in Kentucky. And—you are not Anson Kirby's cousin, are you?" That last question was shot out so suddenly that Drew answered before he thought. ”

“ But the rest of the time it was ride, chew on jerky and cold tortillas, and depend on Teodoro's sense of direction to take them eventually to their goal—the outlaws' gate into Mexico. Drew had long since stopped looking over his shoulder for any thundering advance of cavalry. If Bayliss was hunting the fugitives, he was not pushing the pace too hard.
"Not ahead, no." Teodoro drank from his cupped hand. "We go so...." He sketched a gesture east.
"Why?"
"It is never well to be shot by one's friends." The mustanger achieved a half smile, stretching the skin of his gaunt young face. ”

“ There is a fall of rocks, a fall of horse, a stampede of cattle, sickness which strikes at a lone traveler out of nowhere. Yet have you not ridden to war, and come now to live on this land? Sí, we have danger—but a man can also die in his bed in the midst of a village with strong walls. And to everyone his own way of life. Now we ride...."
They did indeed ride, following a trail which, as far as Drew could see, existed only in the minds of the mustangers. But the three Mexicans swung along so confidently that he and Anse joined without question or argument. ”

“ Drew fell into the formal speech which seemed natural here. "You see one who has done his own trail cooking too long."
"Ah—el pobrete—poor man! Surely there will be an egg!" She was gone and Drew began covertly to study the other men in the room.
In any western town the cantina, or saloon, was the meeting place for masculine society. Even if Hunt Rennie did not appear bodily in the Four Jacks tonight, Drew could pick up information about his father merely by keeping open ears. ”

“ Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie's—not just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house, the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an attack, with a curbed well in the center. ”

“ Drew pointed out what seemed to him the obvious flaw in the system.
"Apaches, they are not stupid. Guns they could take. But once such a gun is broken, where can they get another? They cannot walk into Tubacca or Tucson to buy what they need. Kitchell's men do, perhaps—it is thought that they do so. Also when he trades at the border it is with men who would meet the Apaches with fire and bullets. Apache war parties are never large. Perhaps in all this part of the country there are not more than half a hundred warriors—and those scattered in small bands. ”

“ And he had had months on the trail from San Antonio to Santa Fe, then on to Tucson, to study up on any small invented details. He was Drew Kirby, Texan, not Drew Rennie of Red Springs, Kentucky.
"For a man just off the trail, Kirby, the Four Jacks does have a few of the delights of civilization. A bath...." One of Topham's dark eyebrows, so in contrast to his silvery hair, slid up inquiringly, and he grinned at Drew's involuntary but emphatic nod. "One of nature's gifts to our fair city is the hot spring. Hamilcar!" ”

“ He must have been sent very close to the edge of unconsciousness for a moment or two.
"That's 'nough, Johnny," said Sergeant Wayne. "Th' Colonel says to keep him ready to move. You battin' him 'round like that don't do no good."
So Topham had been right—Johnny Shannon was Kitchell's man. Not that it mattered now. Even if, by some miracle, Drew could get away from this pack of wolves, he had no idea of where he was or which way to go. One man alone and lost in this country faced death as certain as the bullet Johnny Shannon had already loaded for him. ”

“ Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war [pg 048] is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"
Don Cazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing. ”

“ Bayliss bored in. Even in the lantern's restricted light Drew could see the flush darkening the other's face.
"They are havin' trouble with a wild stud—a killer. Mr. Rennie wants him killed, quick. He sent the two of us out to help—thought with more hands it could be done."
"Kirby!" Bayliss' fists were on his hips, his head pushed forward from his shoulders until his sun-peeled face was [pg 157] only inches away from the bars between them. "Do I look like a stupid man, a man to be fed stories? You ride into town on a blooded stud, with a mare of like breeding, and a belt loaded down with gold. ”

“ The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range. [pg 039]
"Yep, we'll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t' match Oro."
One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear. ”

“ It must be Kitchell on his way through to the border!
A dust haze, rising like smoke. Then the foremost runner of the band appeared in the cut, the whites of its eyes showing, patches of foam sticky on chest and shoulder. Five ... ten ... an even dozen—but not a gray coat among them. One light buckskin had almost startled Drew into rising until he caught a second and clearer look.
The leaders were through and a second wave was coming. Drew counted twenty more horses before the first rider appeared. His face was masked against the dust by a neckerchief drawn up to eye level. ”

“ Why did everyone say Johnny Shannon was a boy? Inside he was older than most of the men Drew had known—as old and [pg 130] cold as the desert rocks in nighttime. Again the Kentuckian was teased by a scrap of memory. Once before he had seen old eyes in a boy's face, when it had meant deadly danger for him.
"When a man has somethin' as belongs to him, he doesn't step aside easy if another makes a play to grab it," he said.
For the first time then he did see a flicker in Shannon's eyes. And his hand tightened so on the reins that some fraction of his reaction must have reached Shiloh. ”