Of course, he was in Mexico, whose conquest Hickling Prescott had chronicled so vividly. Cort@es and his few men had captured a country and broken a civilization.

When Scull had gone to the old man's house on the eve of his departure for the war, he had meant to probe a little, to get the old man's thoughts on events which he probably understood as well as any living man. But the old man had been indifferent, opaque; what he knew was in his book and he did not see the point in repeating it to the young man.

"I ain't a professor, they've got some of them at Harvard," he had said.

"Whip 'em and get home, sir," he advised, showing Inish to the door. That he had actually risen from his chair and walked Inish to the door was, Inish knew, a great compliment--there was, after all, a butler to show visitors in and out. The compliment, no doubt, was inspired by the historian's fond memories of his mother.

"I'd leave that Oglethorpe girl down in Georgia, if I were you," the old man said, as he stood in the door, looking out on the Boston he could not see. "She won't do much harm if she's in Georgia--the Oglethorpe smell don't carry that far." But it was a meaty smell, not the memory of the old, crabbed historian, that had awakened Inish Scull from his chilly sleep in the Yellow Canyon. What he smelled was meat cooking.

He didn't take in the smell with every breath, but, intermittently, every few minutes, when there would be a certain shift in the wind, then came the smell.

Scull cautiously looked around. The land was broken and humpy. Perhaps someone else was camped behind one of the humps, cooking a deer or a pig.

And yet, a fire would have meant smoke, and he saw no smoke.

It's dream meat, he told himself. I'm dreaming of venison and pork because I'm rumbling hungry. I'm so hungry I'm dreaming smells.

His only food the day before had been three doves--he had crept up on them in the early morning dimness and knocked them off their roost with a stick. He had seared the fat birds over a small fire and had eaten them before full daylight came. He knew he was in the domain of the old killer, Ahumado, and didn't want to be shooting his gun, not for a few days. Nor, ordinarily, did Inish Scull mind fasting.

He had seen men killed in battle because fear and dread caused them to lose control of their stomachs or their bowels. In the time of battle a fighting man needed to stay empty, in his view; there would be time enough for feasting once the battle had been fought.

Still, he was human, and could not be fully immune to the smell of cooking meat. Then he saw movement to the west. In a moment a coyote came in sight, its ears pricked up, going toward the ridges to the south. The coyote was moving purposely; perhaps it smelled the cooking meat too. Perhaps, after all, it was a not a dream smell that had brought him awake in the Yellow Canyon.

Scull decided he might as well follow the coyote--it had a better nose than he did and would lead him to the meat, if there was meat.

He walked for two hours, keeping the coyote just in sight. For long stretches he lost the meat smell entirely, but then, faintly, if the wind shifted to the south, he would smell it again. Between one gray ridge and the next he lost the coyote completely. The country rose slightly; he was crossing a mesa, or tableland, almost bare of vegetation.

From being intermittent, the smell became constant, so constant that Scull could say with conviction that it was not a deer or a pig that was being cooked: it was a horse. He had eaten horse often in his trekking in the West and didn't think he could be mistaken. Somewhere nearby horsemeat was cooking--but why would the smell carry nearly a dozen miles, to the canyon where he had slept?

Then Scull began to notice tracks, many tracks. He was crossing the route of a considerable migration--there were a few horse tracks, but most of the migrating people were on foot. Some were barefoot, some wore moccasins. There were even dog tracks --x was as if a village had decided to move itself across the empty tableland.

Then Scull saw the smoke, which seemed to be rising out of the ground, a mile or more ahead. The smoke rose as if from a hidden fire. He didn't know what to make of it, but he did know that he had begun to feel exposed. He was in plain sight on a bare mesa where a hundred people or more had just passed. Scull looked around quickly, hoping for a ridge, a hump of dirt, or patch of sage--anything that could conceal him, even a hole he could hide in until darkness fell, but there was nothing. Besides, he was marching in stout boots and his tread would stand out like a road sign to anyone with an eye for tracks.

Scull turned and hurried back toward the last cover, doing his best to erase or at least blur his track as he went. Suddenly he felt more exposed than he ever had, in all his years of soldiering; a kind of panic seized him, an overwhelming need to hide until dark came. Then he could come back and unravel the mystery of the smoke and the smell of cooking meat.

Scull hurried back, scrubbing out his tracks as best he could, as he walked--the last ridge had been rocky; he felt sure he could dig under one of them and stay safely hid until dark.

Then he saw the old man, coming toward him along his own track. The minute he saw him he remembered something Famous Shoes had said.

"Ahumado is always behind you," Famous Shoes had told him. "Don't look for him in front.

When he wants you he will appear, and he will be behind you." The memory came too late. The Black Vaquero was following the plain track left by his boots. The old man seemed to be alone, but Scull knew his men had to be somewhere nearby.

The old man had not lived to a great age by being a fool.

Scull decided he would just keep walking, with his head down, pretending he hadn't seen Ahumado, until he was in rifle range.

He shot best from a prone position. When the distance was narrowed sufficiently he would just drop to the ground and fire. With one well-placed shot he could eliminate the Black Vaquero, the old bandit who had harassed the settlers of the border as ferociously as Buffalo Hump had the settlers along the northern rivers.

Of course, the pistoleros would probably run him down and kill him, but then it was not the Scull way to die at home. His brother had been yanked off a whaling ship in the Hebrides and drowned. His Uncle Fortescue had drunk poisoned kvass in Circassia, and his father had been attempting to ice-skate on the frozen Minnesota River when he was overwhelmed by a band of Cree Indians. The Sculls died vividly, but never at home.

Scull had only a hundred yards to walk before he was in rifle range of Ahumado. He didn't mean to risk a long shot, either. The one hundred yards might take him three minutes; then he would have to decide between certain martyrdom and very uncertain diplomacy. If he chose to risk the diplomacy he would have to live until Ahumado chose to let him die, which might be after days of torture. It was a choice his forebears had not had to make. His brother hadn't meant to get jerked out of the whaleboat, his Uncle Fortescue had no idea the kvass was poisoned, and his father had merely been skating when the Cree hacked him down.