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yours.”  
    Warm night air rushed against his face as Hughes galloped the white stallion south. The crescent moon slipped through the silky sky high overhead on its westward journey, ignoring the thin clouds that strayed across its path.
    *****
    The streets of San Antonio were dark and deserted when Hughes rode into town, few lamps burning in any buildings except for the saloon where the windows never went dark. The piano plinked out a tune. Painted women laughed in bawdy peels of delight, cards slapped the tabletops face up, face down, and sweet tobacco smoke hung thick in the air as serious men puffed fat cigars and tried to out-bluff one another.  
    Tying the horse’s reins around the hitching post in between two large slack-jawed, droopy eared, half asleep nags, Hughes dismounted, muscles aching from his earlier fall and fight. Exhausted, he strode into the saloon, his spurs clinking on the plank floor pockmarked from years of rowel-inflicted wounds.  
    He elbowed his way through the lively crowd, back to the bar that had been carved out of a single slab of live oak wood. The barkeeper maintained the shellacked surface to a high polished gloss, as shiny and reflective as the mirror that hung on the wall behind it.  
    “Double whiskey, on the double, por favor .” Hughes kept a close watch on the mirror, making sure no one snuck up on him from behind. He picked up a burnt matchstick someone had tossed aside and began scraping at the dirt and blood under his nails.
    “By the looks of you, a double won’t scratch the surface. I thought you were headed to Fort Worth to pick up a prisoner,” said Tandy McMurrough, setting a shot glass and the rest of the bottle in front of Hughes with one hand, the other hand buffing out a thin smudge on the bar.
    “Was. I hope he likes his accommodations in Fort Worth. He’ll have to stay put another week or two.”
    Tandy slowed his polishing hand and eyed Hughes with curiosity. “Week or two? I thought he was wanted in Austin.”
    “First, I want to pay a visit home to New Orleans and get one of Mother’s fine thoroughbreds. I miss riding a good horse. A good, fast horse. It’s been way too long since I’ve visited home, and way too long since I’ve had a good, fast horse.”
    “You seem edgy,” said Tandy, leaning across the bar to fill the shot glass.
    “It’s been an edgy kind of night,” said Hughes, slinging back the whiskey.
    “What happened to that brown horse I saw you ride out on this morning?”  
    “He was neither good nor fast. He was just a horse who decided at the wrong time to die.”
    “That was inconvenient of him,” said Tandy, shaking his head.  
    “Have you ever ridden a really good horse, Tandy?” Hughes sipped his whiskey, his eyes lingering on the mirror.
    The bartender pondered this, pushed his glasses up off his thick bulbous nose with one hand, rubbed the rag around on the spotless bar with the other. “Well, let me think about that. I recall one time—”
    “If you have to think about it, then the answer is no, Tandy. You have never ridden a really good horse. A man who has ever ridden a really good horse never forgets that horse, that experience. Compares all other horses to that one . It’s like making love to a beautiful woman, or sipping a fine, expensive wine. The cheap ones never live up to the best of your memories.”
    “Or fantasies,” said Tandy. “You have memories. Men like me have fantasies.”
    “Well, here’s to memorable fantasies,” Hughes said, lifting his shot glass in a toast.
    “I’ll drink to that,” agreed Tandy, pouring himself a whiskey. “Your face and clothes are a bloody mess. What happened?”
    “I’ll spare you the boring details, but I had a run-in with an Indian chief. Quanah Parker himself. I got away with my life and his horse. He looks very inconspicuous out there tied amongst the other rangy mounts.”
    Tandy stopped wiping, his rag motionless. He looked at Hughes with eyes wide,