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nodded, Ki went on, “Those gangs work in a pattern, remember. The chances are they’ll hit us or the Lazy G next.”
    â€œAfter what you told me about your run-in this afternoon, the Lazy G’s going to be shorthanded,” Jessie frowned.
    â€œThey’d be an easy target. I suppose we would too, unless we put out night herders. But the Lazy G’s a syndicate ranch, and they’d have the resources to tide them over. We could recover too, if we lost a herd. Not that I’d want to.”
    â€œI’ll talk to Ed tomorrow,” Ki said. “Charley Smith might be luckier here than he was at the Box B.”
    Jessie was still pursuing her original train of thought. She went on, “Brad didn’t say so outright, Ki, but I got the idea that losing his market herd could just about wipe him out. And he’s been a good friend since my father’s time.”
    â€œYou’ll help him, of course?”
    â€œOf course. Maybe a loan from one of the Starbuck banks to tide him over while he’s rebuilding his herds. He wouldn’t let us help him directly, I know, but he wouldn’t realize we’d have anything to do with a loan from a bank.”
    â€œWe’ll see how he feels after supper,” Ki said. “And it’s time for me to get cleaned up. I’ll be down in time to eat.”
    Rested and refreshed by a good dinner, Close was better able to give a complete account of what had happened when he set out to trail his stolen cattle as he, Jessie, and Ki sat in the big main room of the ranch house after they’d eaten.
    â€œI didn’t waste no time,” the old rancher said. “Took out after ‘em before the trail got any colder.”
    â€œAlone?” Ki asked.
    â€œSure. Hell, Ki, I wasn’t looking for a fight. I was out to find out where my steers was. If I’d been lucky enough to run that bunch to their hideout, I‘d’ve got a bunch together to give them rustlers a real bellyful. There’s always men with guns for hire south of the river.”
    â€œBut you didn’t find the hideout?” Jessie asked.
    â€œNope. Oh, it was easy enough to trail the herd from the Box B to the river, and I found where they crossed, and followed the trail partway into Mexico.”
    â€œOnly partway? You’re not the kind of man to give up on a trail like that, Brad,” Jessie observed, frowning. “What happened?”
    â€œWhat happened was that whoever was bossing them rustlers had sense enough to leave four or five men as a rear guard. I had to dodge that bunch over half of Coahuila before I shook ‘em off my trail.”
    â€œAnd the main bunch got away with your cattle, of course?”
    â€œYou bet they did! You know what the country’s like on the other side of the Rio Grande, south of the Big Bend.”
    â€œYes. Pretty much what it’s like on this side. Baked earth that doesn’t hold tracks well, rough desert mile after mile, and no real landmarks to go by.”
    Close nodded. “You’ve named it, Jessica. Oh, I never did get what you’d call lost. After I shook off the rustlers’ rear guards, I swung north by way of San Pedro, and stopped to talk to the rurales that’s headquartered there. But all I got from ‘em was what the little boy shot at.”
    â€œMeaning nothing?” Ki asked.
    â€œMeaning nothing,” Brad agreed. “They wasn’t about to put theirselves out for a gringo. Well, I could understand that, so after I got back on this side of the Rio Grande, I angled up to Fort Chaplin to tell our own soldiers what was going on.”
    Jessie took advantage of the pause to ask, “They weren’t any more help than the rurales had been?”
    â€œMaybe not even as much.”
    â€œI can’t understand that,” she said. “Captain Stanford has always tried to do what he could to help the ranchers when bandits from the