"It's just a nuisance," Call said, when Lorena asked whether he was well. She could see the strain in his face.

"We should have bought some liniment, when we had the chance," Lorena said. "Pea Eye's always getting sore in his back. He can't lift hay like he once could." Call could not rid himself of the conviction that they were being followed. He had no evidence, but he could not relax. Every time he turned his head to scan the horizon behind them, the pain shot up his neck.

On the evening of the third day, they met a small horse herd being driven north by two cowboys. One of the cowboys, a tall fellow named Roy Malone, had a drooping mustache that reminded Call of Dish Boggett, the excellent Hat Creek cowboy who was now selling hardware in Lincoln, New Mexico.

By coincidence, the horse herd was bound for the Chisum Ranch, not far from Lincoln.

"You're welcome to stop the night with us," Call told Roy Malone, but the cowboy shook his head.

"You don't stop for the whole night, if you work for Mr. Chisum," Roy said. "He likes things to happen prompt, if not a little sooner." Call would have been relieved to have some help.

As it was, he stood watch himself most of the night.

Lorena proved a competent traveling companion. They had bacon and coffee, acquired in Fort Stockton, and she had coffee made and bacon fried not long after they made camp. In the morning, she cooked them a bite of breakfast before first light.

"That cowboy reminded me an awful lot of Dish," Call said, as they ate. "I'd like to see Dish sometime. I never expected him to go in the hardware business." "I wonder if he married?" Lorena said. Dish had been in love with her once; he had stayed in love for several years.

It was a love she couldn't return, though--she just couldn't. Some traveler told her that Dish had taken a sledgehammer and used it to smash a heavy barrel of horseshoe nails, in his surprise and disappointment, when the news reached him that she had married Pea Eye. The traveler said that people in Lincoln were worried that Dish would lose his mind from disappointment, even though by that time, she hadn't so much as seen him in over three years.

Lorena didn't know what had kept her so stiff with Dish. She had just got stiff. For a time in Nebraska, he had brought her flowers and given her little presents, but it hadn't changed anything.

Then she fell in love with Pea Eye, who would never have ventured to choose a present for her, or pick her a flower, either.

"I guess I should have left Pea Eye at home," Call said, after they ate. "Then you wouldn't have had to make this long trip." "It won't matter, once I get him back," Lorena said.

The way she said it made Call wish they could hurry along a little faster, or that Pea Eye would get wind that his wife was coming and ride to meet them. He felt he had run a miserable expedition so far; it was the most ineffective of his life. Three families had been inconvenienced, with as yet no progress at all in the matter of Joey Garza. Rumor in Fort Stockton had it that Joey had gone back to Coahuila, but no one really had the details, and Call didn't know how much credit to give the rumor. Now he regretted that he had taken Brookshire with him, or Deputy Plunkert, either. Colonel Terry would rightly be incensed at the long wait and the absence of results.

Brookshire had lost his wife while on the trip, and Pea Eye had lost time from his farming.

Lorena had to take leave from her schoolteaching.

When they got to Presidio, he meant to send everyone home. From that point on, he would hunt Joey Garza alone.

Call wished his neck would ease up. He had rarely felt a pain more intense than the fire that shot up his neck if he moved his head a little too quickly. He also wished the cold would abate.

In the morning, his hands were so swollen that he had increasing trouble doing the packing. Lorena saddled her mount and was ready to go before he could complete his chores.

When they got ready to start, Call noticed two horses standing a fair distance to the northwest of their camp.

"I wonder if those cowboys lost some horses," he said. "If they did, there'll be trouble when they get to John Chisum's. He's the kind of man who counts his horses, and he expects a full count." He finished his coffee. Lorena was about done with her packing. Their breaths made clouds of steam; it was hard to see the knots they had to tie to secure their duffle.

"I think I'll just ride out and check the brands on those horses," Call said. "I don't know why those men would let those horses stray. They seemed like competent men." He put his horse into a short lope. Before going a quarter of a mile, he surprised two mule deer, a doe with a fawn. They had been bedded down, but jumped up and scampered off. In the clear air he had misjudged the distance to the horses a bit; they were farther from camp than he thought. While Call was watching the mule deer, his horse shied at a badger that waddled out from behind a sage bush, practically at the horse's feet.

The horse crow-hopped a time or two, just enough to cause Call to lose a stirrup.

He had the horse almost calmed down and was searching for the stirrup with his foot when the first bullet struck him, low in the chest. Careless, he thought; too careless, and now I'm shot. He whirled his mount and yanked his rifle from the saddle scabbard, but his hands were so stiff with cold that he dropped the weapon. Just as he did, a second bullet smashed his knee and evidently went through and wounded his horse, for the horse squealed and began to buck. A third shot hit his arm. Call was trying to hang on; he couldn't afford to be thrown, not with the bullets coming so fast and so, accurately.

They seemed to him to be coming from under one of the stray horses. Careless, he thought again. He's shooting from under the horse, and I rode right out to him. Then he lost his seat and was thrown hard, in the direction of the rifle he had dropped. Fortunately, he was able to reach the rifle. He had to work the lever with one hand, but as soon as he could sit up he began to fire in the direction of the horses.

One of them raced away, but the other stood exactly where it had been, hobbled, probably, so the rifleman could shoot from underneath it, hidden by the sage.

There was a final shot--it brought down Call's horse.

All he could do then was wait, in the hope that the killer would be foolhardy enough to come and try and finish him off. After the shot that killed his horse, there was not a sound from the northwest. Call knew he would have to try and staunch his bleeding soon. He had been hit three times, and the bullets were heavy caliber. His left arm and right leg were smashed for good; the arm was practically shot off. When he looked at his knee, he saw bone fragments through the hole in his pants. The first wound, the one in the chest, was bleeding more than it should. If he didn't staunch it soon he might faint, and if he fainted, he was lost, and probably Lorena, too.