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past.
    “Joel’s in a bad way,” Jamie said. “Real bad. Ate his dinner, went into the parlor, sat down to read the Bible and never got up. Not by himself, anyway.”
    “He’s dead?”
    “Not yet, but I reckon he’s good as.”
    I thanked him for all the news and moved toward the door, half ashamed for not telling him about the dead Mexican boy. Jamie’s intentions would have been the best, but I didn’t want anyone poking about in my life.
    “Mark my words,” he called after me. “This will be the Confederate Territory of Arizona.”
    I took my leave, beginning to hope he was right. But that was Jamie. He could make you want the rope at your own hanging.
    Fanny lowered her nose and watched me approach. Turning her toward the ranch, I let her have her head as soon as we were out of town. A gust of wind whipped at my face and tore the leather thong from my hair, which was now the color of rabbit grass after a rain—a red that’s almost brown. I still troubled to care for it, had brushed it properly and braided it that morning; but it would be full of knots by the time I got home.
    Racing into the wind, I didn’t have to hide my thoughts. Surely there would be no fighting west of the Mississippi. But suppose there was. My heart leapt in my chest. I might be able to go home. Really home. To St. Louis.
    I was still muttering to myself when the ranch hove in sight. The sunset was painting the organ peaks crimson. It was easy to see how the mountains had got their name; they resembled nothing so much as the massive pipes of a cathedral organ. The sight quite made my breath catch.
    Fanny was anxious to get to her feed. I swung down from the saddle and followed her. She was barely inside the dim barn before she made a sharp sound and tried to turn back.
    I was putting a puzzled hand on her flank to calm her when something hard slammed across my shoulders. Another blow rammed the back of my head and I sank like a stone.
    Chapter Four
    I opened my eyes slowly. Fanny stood above me, her breath hot on my neck. A faint ugly smell crept up my nostrils. Confounded that I must have been sleeping in the barn, I lifted my head, picked a strand of straw from my cheek. A white pain erupted behind my eyes.
    The lump on my head was the size of a jay’s egg. Someone had coshed me from behind. Who? How long had I been lying there?
    Steeling myself against the pounding in my skull, I dragged my aching body upright and hobbled to the door. The sun was still high. A saw rasped at wood somewhere nearby but nothing untoward seemed to be stirring. Who had hit me? Was he still lurking in the barn?
    I twisted my neck to look back across the barn, and a wave of dizziness lapped at my senses. Something dark swam into focus, something lying on the hay like a strewn heap of dirty laundry. It was a moment before my dazed mind recollected the dead Mexican boy. Had his killer come back for me?
    The odor was ripening, and I almost retched. Then a chill pricked across my scalp. The body’s chin was in the hay. I could see the blood-matted hair on the back of the head where the bullet had rammed through. But I had turned him over, hoping he somehow still lived. Nacho would not have touched him. Nor the hands. And most assuredly the boy had not turned himself back prone again. My breath seemed like a dead thing in my throat.
    Why had he been carrying a map of my land? And why in a pouch tied round his neck, as if it were especially dear? A rancid fog of panic wrapped itself about my soul. I could not live like this. No lady could. I squeezed my eyes hard shut, and a salty tear drizzled down my cheek to my lips.
    I steadied myself against the barn door, drew my wits about me as best I could, raised my chin and stepped outside.
    Nacho and the hands had finished the coffin. They had seen no stranger hanging about. Nor had Herlinda. All were dumbfounded that someone had struck me down in the barn.
    My head still pounding, I tried to puzzle it out; but my