"Are you sure about this, Miguel?" Cooper Aronson asked. "It could add weeks to our traveling time, and I don't need to tell you that every day we're out in the wilderness is another we're at risk."

"I saw them, too, brother," Adam said, speaking with quiet confidence. "They were road agents for a certainty. And a meaner crew than we saw in Crockett. They looked… I don't know… professional."

"He is right," Miguel said. "They were agents, and I suspect they may have been the ones responsible for Palestine. They were close enough for it to fall within their territory if it is true that Crockett was the northern extent of the other gang's turf."

He cast an inquiring eye over at the camp whore called Marsha. Of the women they had taken in after Crockett, she had adapted best to her new role with the Mormons. That did not make her particularly reliable or pleasant company, but she was better than her two sullen friends who sat apart smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and furtively drinking from a hip flask they passed between each other. The Saints did not prevent their drinking-that would have been unfair given that they raised no objection to Miguel taking a sip at the end of the day-but they did not encourage the women to feel comfortable doing so in their presence. Marsha sat well away from the two women but still maintained her distance from everyone else except Miss Jessup, who formed a bridge of sorts between the two groups of women.

"Well, Marsha, do you think it's true?" Trudi asked, in a gentle voice. "From what you knew. Are the men Miguel and Adam saw today likely to be agents claiming the country north of Crockett?"

Marsha glared momentarily at Miguel, who had, after all, blown the head off her man, but she softened under a supportive shoulder pat from Miss Jessup. Sofia rolled her eyes at her father, but he motioned her to be still. There was no sense holding a grudge against this woman for the company she had kept, not when she might be of some use to them.

"Could be," Marsha offered. "The boys didn't like to talk much about that sorta thing. They'd brag all day on a shootin' or some pillage. But old Tom, he cracked down pretty hard on discussin' things like that. You know, turf and politics."

Miguel nodded. "Old Tom was the last man we hanged, yes?"

Marsha glared at him. "He was. And he was a good guy, too!"

Sofia snorted. "He was a murderer and a rapist who got what he deserved."

"I am sure he has gone to his reward," the vaquero intoned in a flat voice before addressing Aronson again. "You know my feelings about the agents. They are Fort Hood men. Perhaps not the lesser rank of them. They would just be thugs for hire, expendable. But the leaders of these gangs, they must answer to Blackstone, and to run their gangs as effectively as they do, they must have some training. The camp today, it was like the army with its discipline. I believe had we delayed long on that ridge, we would have been caught by them. They are not amateurs, and we will have a hard time staying away from them if we pursue our original route. This is why we must divert to the northeast. We cannot go west and into the lands directly controlled by Fort Hood. To them you are federales. Seattle's people. You will not find an easy passage there."

Willem D'Age leaned forward from his perch next to his fiancee Jenny, on the end of an expensive-looking leather couch. He used a small log to open the grille of the wood stove. Tossing in more fuel, he took up the case with Aronson.

"Miguel might be right. We did have trouble with those Texas customs and excise people a few days after we left Corpus Christi. You said at the time it was almost like they were waiting for us. And to tithe us as they did, I still do not believe that to be legal or just."

Miguel folded his arms and nodded. "It is as I said. Out here justice is a bullet. These customs men, they pretended to tax you?"

Aronson snorted.

"No pretending about it, my friend. They took ten percent of our herd and supplies. Said it was a border fee or some such thing. They had papers and issued us with a receipt. It was all very official. Right down to the platoon of Texas Defense Force soldiers standing watch over the transaction. But they also said we would need to pay more tolls if we used the state roads to offset the cost of our protection. That's how we came to ride through the agents' territory. It seemed to us we would have nothing left if we tarried long in Blackstone country."

Miguel stroked the rough beard on his chin and grunted.

"I have heard similar tales of federal ranches similarly taxed despite the exemption from Seattle, although it did not happen to me. Why take something piece by piece when you can have it in one bite, I suppose."

"So do we do as Miguel suggests and ride around these men?" Adam asked, surprising the cowboy and causing Aronson to raise his eyebrows, too. The lad had developed a very mature sort of confidence. Miguel suppressed a smile as he saw young Sally Gray glancing approvingly at the boy, an interlude that his daughter very studiously chose to ignore. She would just have to accept the situation, he thought. The two Mormon youngsters had been spending a great deal of time together when the boy's duties allowed, and although Miguel could see that Adam was drawn to the exotic in Sofia, there was no doubting the attraction of one's own kind in the end.

He did not imagine they would be zipping their sleeping bags together, however. The Mormons maintained a strict propriety regarding such things. Even D'Age and his fiancee still slept apart. For Miguel, who felt Mariela's absence like a suppurating wound, it was an impressive display of abstinence. What he would not give just to lie down with his wife one last time. Just to tell her of the things there had never been time to discuss in the rush of the everyday.

He rubbed at his eyes as they blurred and watered. Nobody noticed the weakness.

"I do not suppose we can hope to stand down this gang if we encounter them," Aronson mused.

Again, before Miguel could answer, Adam spoke up.

"Not a chance," he insisted. "They looked sharp and mean. The best we can hope for is to never see them again. I suggest we move before first light. They will have outriders, and the cattle do raise a dust cloud."

Sally Gray, sitting next to Jenny, nodded vigorously but remained quiet.

"What say you, Willem?" Aronson asked.

"I'm with Brother Adam and Miguel, Cooper. I fear these men might be the perpetrators of that mass murder. And if they are, we will get no quarter from them. Not out here. I think it best if we take ourselves as far away as we can, as fast as possible."

Aronson sat quietly, weighing his responsibilities as their leader. Miguel could see Adam's impatience in every line of the youth's rigid stance. He had placed himself over near the main entry to the large, open lounge area, and unlike the others he was still cradling his carbine as though ready to use it at a moment's notice. Silence fell save for the crackling of the fire and the tinkling of cutlery on plates and bowls as a few of them finished their evening meals-beans and beef stew. Miguel gave Adam a look as if to say calm down, and the boy did visibly relax somewhat. Sofia meanwhile was as quiet and watchful as a cat.

"All right," the Mormon leader said, at last. "I have to agree. We have not the numbers or, frankly, the ability to tangle with men like this and survive the encounter. I suggest that we bed down early tonight and make a start before sunup in the morning. I'll tell Ben and Maive when they return from their patrol."

Miguel nodded in satisfaction as the official meeting started to break up. He had a watch to stand at two in the morning with Adam and hadn't yet eaten, having not long before come back from tending the horses, a role he had taken over after the death of Atchison. He took a ladle of stew from the big pot on top of the potbelly stove and tipped it carefully into a beautifully delicate china bowl, the sort of thing Mariela would have loved to have back at the ranch, something for good company.