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cedars… this was the melody. But if the rhythm broke… the birds were his sentinels.
    He had eaten and fed Jamie the broth. Now he heated water and wet the poultices. When he took the old bandages from around Jamie, the big hole in his chest was blotched with blue flesh turning black. “Proud” flesh speckled the wound in puffy whiteness. The boy kept his eyes from the mangled chest, looking steadily up to Josey’s face.
    “It ain’t bad, is it, Josey?” he asked quietly.
    Josey was cleaning the wound with hot rags “It’s bad,” he said evenly.
    “Josey?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Back there, on the Grand… thet was the fastest shootin’ I ever seed. I never shaded ye. Na’ar bit.”
    Josey didn’t answer as he placed the poultices and wrapped the bandages around the boy.
    “Iff’n I don’t make it, Josey,” Jamie hesitated, “I want ye to know I’m prouder’n a game rooster to have rid with ye.”
    “Ye are a game rooster, son,” Josey said roughly, “now shet up.”
    Jamie grinned. He closed his eyes, and the shadows quickly softened the hollowed cheeks. In sleep he was a little boy.
    Josey felt the heavy drag of exhaustion. In three days he had slept only in brief dozes in the saddle. His eyes had begun to play tricks on him, seeing the “gray wolves” that weren’t there… and hearing the sounds that couldn’t be. Time to hole up. He knew the feeling well. As he rolled into his blankets, back in the brush, away from Jamie and the horses, he thought of the boy… and his mind wandered back to his own boyhood in the Tennessee mountains.
    There was Pa, lean and mountain-learned, settin’ on a stump. “Them as won’t fight fer their own kind, ain’t worth their sweat salt,” he had said.
    “I reckin,” the little boy Josey had nodded.
    And there was Pa, layin’ a hand on his shoulder when he was a stripling… and Pa wa’ant give to show feelin’s. He had stood up to the McCabes down at the settlement… and them with the sheriff on their side. Pa had looked at him, close and proud.
    “Gittin’ on to be a man,” Pa had said, “Always re’clect to be proud of yer friends … but fight fer sich as ye kin be prouder of yer enemies.” Proud, by God.
    Well, Josey thought drowsily … the enemies was damn shore the right kind, and the friend … the boy … all sand grit and cucklebur. He slept.
    A brief splatter of rain wakened him. There was the ghostly light of predawn made dimmer by dark clouds that rushed ahead of the wind. Light fog trapped in the ravine added to the ghostly air. It was colder. Josey could feel the chill through his blanket. Overhead the wind whined and beat the treetops. Josey rolled from his blanket. The horses were watering at the spring. He grained them and coaxed a flame alive in the fire hole. Kneeling beside Jamie with hot jerky broth, he shook the boy awake. But when his eyes opened, there was no recognition in them.
    “I told Pa,” the boy said weakly, “that yaller heifer would make the best milker in Arkansas. Four gallon if she gives a drop.” He paused, listening intently … then, a chuckle of laughter. “Reckin that red bon’s a cheater, Pa … done left the pack and jumped that ol’ fox’s trail.”
    Suddenly he sat up wildly, his eyes frightened. Josey placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Pa said it was Jennison, Ma. Jennison! A hunnert men!” Just as suddenly he collapsed back onto the blankets. Sobs racked him, and great tears ran down his cheeks. “Ma,” he said brokenly, “Ma.” And he was still … his eyes closed.
    Josey looked down at the boy. He knew Jamie had come from Arkansas, but he had never discussed his reasons for joining the guerrillas. Nobody did. Doc Jennison! Josey knew he had carried his Redleg raids into Arkansas where he had looted and burned so many farmhouses that the lonely chimneys left standing became known as “Jennison Monuments.” The hatred rose again inside him.
    As he raised Jamie’s head to