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looked like pirates and showed up in flashy ships. After her refusal they disappeared with promises to come back and “persuade” her. There was an attempt to kidnap her foiled by her ranch hands, followed by an attempt to kidnap her son, foiled by her shotgun.
    The latest incident really had her worried. A dozen armed men with a map of the colony and Vaquero ranch circled in red were turned back before they could get off their ship. If Mathis hadn’t been a chronically suspicious old coot and uncharacteristically sober that day, it would have been a very bad day for everyone at Vaquero ranch.
    Penelope tries not to think about all that as she stares at her home. Usually when Penelope looks over the ranch, her mind’s eye looks to the improvements she will make, but just now Penelope remembers the first day she arrived on Ithaca. Her first sight of the Vaquero ranch brought to mind the saying Germans had for Texas: “It’s heaven for men and dogs, but hell on women and oxen.”
    She’d been tired, bruised and bilious, riding from San Antonio on that sorry excuse of a shuttle. To her adult eyes, the ranch looks like success, safety and home. But Penelope came here as an over-privileged eighteen year old with a husband she barely knew, fleeing from a life of privilege. On that day, the Vaquero ranch was a muddy and desolate confirmation that she had made a very bad mistake.
    Penelope shakes her memories from her mind, wondering what set her thinking about the past today. Maybe it was that mysterious old man? But the tasks of the day won’t wait, so she turns to meet them.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    C esar sleeps soundly, lulled by the unfamiliar scent of clean sheets and Lupe’s gentle humming as she enters the room with a big bowl of warm broth. Then he hears a sound he hoped never to hear again. War whoops and gunshots make a kind of music to chill a man’s soul. Cesar springs into a low crouch, ready for battle before he is even really awake.
    Lupe erupts in a stream of virulent Mexican curses as the warm broth sloshes out of the bowl he upset with his flailing. Cesar gropes for his boot knife, only to find it missing. Quickly, he throws the bed over and hauls Lupe behind it.
    “You idiot gringo , what are you doing?” Lupe sputters, smacking him with a spoon. “It’s just Mr. Trevor, back from town. Little hooligan.”
    That makes Cesar sit down. Hard.
    Trevor. My son. My son is out there .
    His hands tremble as he slowly gets to his feet so he curls them into fists. Lupe heaves herself to her feet with great flourish and smacks Cesar with the spoon a few more times. This mercifully takes his mind off the boy in the yard. While Lupe sets about righting the room, he staggers to the door and peers out.
    He watches a teenage boy clamber off a cart pulled by a little mule. The boy is wiry and tall and he moves with that awkward teenage vitality, yanking things off the cart and stumbling to the house with them.
    Cesar hasn’t seen Trevor since he was an infant, nothing but bright brown eyes and drool. The boy pauses to push his unruly hair out of his eyes. It’s the same flaming red that Cesar’s was at that age.
    “Mom! Got this month’s order from the manuvats. Looks right except this tub over here.”
    Cesar smoothes his clothes and beard ineffectually as he steps forward, following the boy’s voice. The boy hands things to his mother on the porch while she lectures him about shooting off his gun.
    “I don’t care if it can’t hurt anybody,” Penelope says sharply. “Gunshots make people nervous. Don’t shoot your gun unless you are in trouble or practicing with targets.”
    “Aw, Mom, come on,” Trevor grouses cheerfully. “You’re always firing off that rock salt in your shotgun. What’s so wrong about a few potshots out of my pistol when there’s nobody around?”
    “Well,” Penelope huffs indignantly. She looks like she’s trying to come up with a snappy comeback and not finding one.
    Finally