Call mounted up, feeling that he had begun to miss Ben Lily, a man he had never liked.

Yet, a time or two in his life, he had even missed enemies: Kicking Bird, the Comanche chief, was one. Missing Gus McCrae, a lifelong friend, was one thing; missing Ben Lily was something else again. It made Call feel that he had outlived his time, something he had never expected to do. Now he had begun to listen for echoes, an unhealthy form of distraction when there were still men in the country who burned people and dogs.

It was an unhappy thought, but soon it might be that the bad men, the Wes Hardins and the Mox Moxes, would be all that was left of the West as it had been. The bad men, in the end, were the ones who wouldn't settle.

A few miles farther on, Famous Shoes showed them the burned dog. It was large--part mastiff, Call reckoned. Its four feet had been tied together, and its mouth wired shut. The fire hadn't been hot enough to consume the animal, but it had been thoroughly seared. Even its teeth were black.

Brookshire looked at the dog, got off his horse, and threw up. Deputy Plunkert took one quick look and rode on by. He stopped fifty yards farther on, but kept his back to the group. Pea Eye looked, and felt more than ever at a loss. He had seen far worse sights than a burned dog, in his days with the Rangers, and he knew men did bad things to other men. That was an old lesson, learned and learned well in the Indian wars.

Pea Eye realized that he was just tired of it, tired of such sights and such memories. He had been feeling tired since he'd had to help pull Captain Call off Sheriff Doniphan.

Pea Eye didn't want to see the Captain beat a person to within an inch of his life, even if the person deserved it, as the sheriff had. He didn't want to see burnt dogs or burnt people, or people with bad gunshot wounds in the belly, or any of that. What he wanted to see was Lorena, his wife, nursing their baby at the breakfast table. He wanted to see his three little boys, and his big girl, Clarie; his big girl, that all the boys were already wanting to court. He wanted to hold his wife in his arms, not bury corpses of people killed by outlaws. It was time for all that to be over. It should have already been over, at least where he was concerned. He had never had the appetite for it, and now he really didn't have the time for it, either. He had different work to do.

Famous Shoes studied the tracks for a while, and Call dismounted and took a look too. The tracks went east--eight men and two extra horses.

"They don't hurry," Famous Shoes remarked.

"No, I guess they wouldn't," Call said.

"If they hurried, they might miss something Mox Mox wants to burn." He felt uncertain as to how to proceed. The killers were within twenty-five miles of them, probably, and there were eight of them. If Mox Mox would take the time to stop and burn Ben Lily's dog, then killing was probably their main object, though no doubt they would rob, too, when the opportunity arose.

Call's instinct was to go after Mox Mox at once. It wasn't the job he had been hired to do, but Mox Mox was between him and the job he had been hired to do. Besides, the eight killers were a danger to anyone they encountered, wherever they were.

If they had the leisure to burn a dog, they were not expecting either resistance or pursuit.

Call was traveling with a largely untried troop, though. Pea Eye would probably fight well enough, when the time came--he always had--but the others might just get in the way. Brookshire had indulged in a good deal of target practice on the trip. He was a fair shot at stationary targets, but of course he had never shot at a living target, much less one that could shoot back at him. Deputy Plunkert was also a question mark.

By his own admission, he had scarcely left Laredo in his whole life. What he would do in a running fight was anybody's guess; get himself killed, probably.

"The manburner has a big man with him," Famous Shoes said. He had found a track that was as deep as any track he had ever seen.

"His horse is tired, from carrying him." "That's good. Big men make easy targets," Call said. "Once we shoot the big one, we'll only have seven to worry about.

We won't be so badly outnumbered." Brookshire felt that the clock of his life had run backward, to the time of the War. The sight of the burned dog did it. In the War, the sight of dead horses, some of them scorched, some with their stomachs burst open or their innards spilled, upset him more than seeing the bodies of men. He didn't know why they upset him more; they just did.

In the time he had traveled with the Captain, Brookshire had thought often about their quarry, Joey Garza. Joey had killed, and in fact, he killed often, but he killed with a bullet. It scared him to think of Joey crouched behind a rock somewhere, looking at him through a telescope sight, ready to end his life with a bullet. Still, it was a bullet; Katie dying of her sickness probably suffered more than he would suffer if Joey Garza did kill him.

But the man who had burned the dog, this Mox Mox, was different. Joey was a killer; Mox Mox must be a maniac. Brookshire had observed Captain Call over a fair stretch of time, and had much confidence in his abilities. The man was a little stiff in the morning, but he kept going. He had no tendency to recklessness, that Brookshire could detect. He consulted Brookshire fully when there were decisions to be made. Brookshire had confidence in the Captain's ability to locate and subdue Joey Garza. He thought Call could do it, and do it handily.

But Mox Mox was a maniac, and he had seven men with him. He wasn't interested in killing with bullets, either. What he was doing went beyond stopped trains, passengers who lost their valuables, and Colonel Terry's profits. The thought of Joey Garza left Brookshire scared, but the thought of Mox Mox left him terrified.

Call knew he had a ticklish decision to make. He could keep the men with him, try to catch up with Mox Mox, and hit him in force, such as the force was. Or, he could go alone, and hope to ambush Mox Mox and the men himself. The fact that he would be one against eight didn't disturb him much. Very few men could fight effectively, and of the eight there might be only one who was formidable. Blue Duck had been formidable, but from what Call could remember of the Goodnight trouble, Mox Mox had merely been mean. No one seemed to think much of his abilities as a killer. He had led Goodnight a merry chase, and had eluded him, but in that instance, he had a week's start. The main problem in attacking Mox Mox and his men alone was to determine which one had the ability. That was the man to kill first.

His only source of information, at the moment, was Famous Shoes. The old tracker had walked off to the east and was squatting on his heels, smoking. Call loped out to where he rested. It was time to decide.

"He's got a giant with him, you said," Call remarked. "Who else has he got?" "Three Mexicans who spur their horses too much," Famous Shoes said. "Their horses jump when they spur them. The manburner himself is small. He makes little tracks when he is burning something." "That's three Mexicans, the giant, and the manburner," Call said. "That's five. What about the other three?" "There's a Cherokee," Famous Shoes said.