He clenched his jaw, tasting his own blood, and hurried into the bedroom, quickly stuffing spare Levi's and shirts and two pairs of boots into a sports bag. He dug an army surplus arctic-rated sleeping bag out of the bottom of the closet and a thick lamb's wool coat. There would be nights when they would not be able to find shelter, and the chill of the deserts and badlands after dark was enough to finish off the unwary. Although he would doubtless be able to scavenge much of what they needed on the trail, there was no point leaving things to chance at this early stage. The main thing right now was to get the hell away from Blackstone's territory with Sofia, to seek out help wherever he could.

He knew he was alone among his neighbors in believing the road agents to be tools of Jackson Blackstone, but Miguel had invested a good deal of time, before arriving here, consulting much more widely than the "experts" on offers to prospective settlers. He had sought out a number of Mexican sources, vaqueros like himself, some of them settlers, some bandits working the border regions. To them there was no question. The agents did the bidding of Fort Hood.

Miguel was about to leave when his eye fell upon a small silver-framed photograph of Mariela and the children resting on an old mahogany chest in which all the drawers stood open. Hesitating momentarily, he finally picked it up and carefully removed the picture from the frame. His hands were shaking but he allowed himself a few seconds of indulgence, gazing at his family as they had been just a few short hours ago. He struggled with the enormity of it all. That happy time was now as distant and impossible to touch as the surface of a cold star twinkling in the night sky. How could there be so much life in his gnarled brown fingers as they stroked the image of his beautiful wife and children when they were all gone now.

Miguel stuffed the picture into his wallet before his emotions could boil up again and unman him.

He padded softly out of the room with his bag, painfully aware he would never set foot in there again. The vaquero paused outside his daughter's room, listening to her wretched, strangled sobs. He knocked lightly and entered, not waiting for a reply. Sofia lay on her side with her knees drawn up under her chin, shivering violently, crying, and hugging a small stuffed bear she had carried with her from the day she had found it on the Aussie Rules. Aware that every moment's delay put her in danger, he nonetheless approached quietly and cautiously, easing himself down on the mattress beside her. She jerked away from him, her tear-reddened eyes wide with fear. Miguel tried to brush her long hair away from her face, but she flinched.

"Easy, Sofia. Easy. I know it is hard," he said softly, "but we must go. Now. The men who did this will be back, and if they catch us here, I cannot protect you."

She drew in a shallow hitching breath and tried to speak but was unable to form any words at first. Miguel was worried by the violence of the tremors racking her slim body. He glanced briefly out her window, which overlooked the area in front of the house, including the driveway winding up toward the main road. How long would it be before the road agents returned?

"I am sorry, but we must go; we have to get you away from here, Sofia. We have to go now if you are to live."

"I… I d-don't want to l-live," she cried pitiably.

Another glance out the window.

Nothing yet.

He took a moment to lay down beside her and fold her into a hug. She did not resist, although she was shaking so hard, he wondered whether she would have been able to anyway. Miguel tried to speak, but his throat was tight with grief, forcing him to push his feelings down tight. When he knew he could talk without falling apart, he spoke quietly into her ear.

"Crying is good; you must cry for all of them. But we must go, too, Sofia. Your mother, your brother and sister, all of your uncles and aunts, they will haunt me if I do not get you safely away before those men come back. And they will come back, Sofia. Very soon. So we must go."

He kissed her head, which felt hot with fever, and rubbed his callused hands gently on her upper arms as he spoke. Slowly the tremors that shook her body trailed off and the awful, gut-wrenching tenor of her cries became less like the sounds of an animal and more like the bawling of a little girl to whom something bad had happened, something very very bad. When Miguel judged her sufficiently in control of herself again, he eased up, pulling her with him.

"Come on, then, come with Papa," he said softly. "You can bring your bear and a few personal things, small things like photographs, but you must gather them quickly and keep them all in one bag. Pack some clothes for traveling, for trail riding, warm clothes. And be quick, Sofia. Those men will be back for their friends soon, and we will give them nothing. Nothing, do you understand?"

She sniffed and nodded uncertainly.

"Do we have time to bury them? To say prayers?"

He shook his head firmly.

"No. We must be gone, but we will not leave this house to the agents, and we will leave no one to the dogs or the wolves."

She nodded shakily and tottered over to her dresser drawer on stiff unsteady legs. When he judged her sufficiently composed, he left the room and hurried downstairs, where he tossed the bags and heavy jacket onto the kitchen table. He fetched a couple of saddlebags from the utility room at the rear of the house in order to pack them with trail food. Rice, beans, dried meat, sugar, coffee, and a bottle of vitamins. Mariela had baked biscuits that morning, and the rich, malty smell of them was still thick in the kitchen. He found a jar of cookies in the pantry and wrapped a few in an old tea towel. They would do for a quick meal this morning, and he felt it important not to leave them behind.

Finally he unlocked the cupboard under the main staircase and flicked on the bare lightbulb inside. Using a key on a separate ring hanging from his belt, Miguel opened a small gun cabinet he had fixed to the rear wall. He took out his favorite rifle, a Winchester Model 1894 Lever Action 30.30, and his saddle gun, a double-barreled Sicilian-style Lupara. He then grabbed six boxes of ammunition for the long arm and two boxes of shells for the sawed-off shotgun. He threaded a heavy clublike Maglite torch through one of the big steel key rings on his belt. Sofia had already collected her hunting rifle and the ammunition for it. He was not keen on her carrying the Remington on a regular basis, although if she had had it with her this morning…

Stop it, he told himself as he tried to figure out what other weapon to get for his child. Neither of them was a soldier and he didn't want to be loaded down with a lot of useless ironmongery. As it was, they simply couldn't carry enough weapons to fight off more than a very small band of road agents.

He grunted and decided that the Remington would have to do.

Shuttling all the supplies out to the horses required four trips, with Sofia joining him on the last run. He was glad to see she had changed her clothes and carried her personal belongings in a small backpack with the head of her teddy bear sticking out of the top. She remained subdued, and he could tell from the furtive way in which her eyes sometimes darted here and there that she was wondering where he had laid out the bodies. Miguel did not want her dwelling on such things. He gave her a bag of beans to carry out to the horses and told her to transfer the rifle he had ridden out with this morning to her own mount.

"For the next few weeks we must always be armed," he said. "Both of us. Until we get somewhere safe."

"Are we going to Corpus Christi?" she asked in a small voice. "Wouldn't they expect us to go that way?"

The sky had grown dark with gathering storm clouds. Lightning strikes crackled over the hills to the southwest, and a few drops of icy rain splashed Miguel's face as he looked up.