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final entry, written the day before Molly had died, had been a message to John and Anna Tremayne:
    I am truly sorry. Sorry for what I have done, and sorry to so burden you. The child is to be told nothing.
    Approaching her time, Molly Tremayne had been deathly ill, screaming as she awakened from her sleep, and troubled with premonitions of her own death. John and Anna had fulfilled her wishes, telling the boy not even the little they knew or suspected. Now, more than ever, Anna Tremayne regretted having lived a lie, for she feared the bitterness she could see in the cold blue eyes of young John Wesley Tremayne.

Fort Elliott, Texas May 28, 1877
    â€œWhile we’re here at Fort Elliott,” said Vivian, “I want you to buy me a pistol and a supply of shells. If I’m going to be shot at, I intend to shoot back.”
    â€œYou should have told me before we left Dodge,” Nathan said. “The .31-caliber Colt pocket pistol is a mite easier to handle, but the sutler’s store may not have them.”
    Nathan had returned the stolen horse to the livery in Mobeetie, and the horse that Lieutenant Bruxton had loaned him to the quartermaster’s corral. Vivian led her horse as they walked back to the orderly room and the post commander’s office. Sergeant Willard grinned at them as they entered the orderly room.
    â€œCaptain Selman’s expecting you,” said the sergeant.
    Nathan opened the door to Selman’s office, and he and Vivian stepped inside. Except for more gray in his hair, Selman had changed little. He stood up to greet them.
    â€œLieutenant Bruxton told me you had stopped long enough to borrow a fresh horse and had gone on your way,” Selman said. “I trust your mission was successful.”
    â€œIt was,” said Nathan. “I’ve returned your horse, along with the one stolen from the livery in Mobeetie. Do I owe anything for the loan of the horse?”
    â€œWe’ll call it even,” Selman replied, “since you recovered the horse taken from Ike’s livery. With the army bein’ the only law in these parts, he’d have never let us forget we had fallen down on the job. Will you folks be staying the night?”
    â€œIf you can put us up,” said Nathan. “My dog didn’t make it any farther than the mess hall.”
    Captain Selman laughed. “The cooks haven’t forgotten him. They never have anything to throw out while he’s here.”
    â€œI’ve been away from the newspapers and the telegraph for a while,” Nathan said. “Is there anything of importance happening?”
    â€œCongress finally got together long enough to agree on one sensible bill,” said Selman. “Reconstruction is over, and the people are again in control of their local governments.”
    â€œThank God,” said Nathan. “It’s been hard times.”
    â€œIt’s been hard on the military, too,” Selman said. “We’ve had to enforce an unpopular law that most of us thought harsh and vindictive. I doubt we’ll ever live it down.”
    â€œI think you will, Captain,” said Nathan. “Most folks are coming to realize that many of their problems originate in Congress. I came west right after the war and I’ve always been treated fairly by the military.”
    â€œIt’s kind of you to adopt that attitude,” Selman replied, “but it seems we no sooner put out one fire than Congress starts another. According to the telegraph, there are small ranchers in Wyoming calling for soldiers to prevent a range war.”
    â€œWhy, hell,” said Nathan. “Wyoming’s still a territory.”
    â€œOf course it is,” Selman said, “but there are petitions for statehood cropping up all over the frontier, and it’s only a matter of time until those territories become part of the Union. Supposedly, that’s why the Congress passed the Desert Land Act back in