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will order them not to shoot,” Josiah said.
    The Comanche laughed, then drew his eyes and mouth tight. “There’s enough innocent Comanche blood in this ground for us to hate them until the moon falls from the sky for the last time.”
    â€œYou have no say in that matter, Ranger Wolfe.” The short one finally spoke. The one Josiah had decided to call Little Shirt since they were not going to tell him their names.
    Little Shirt’s voice was gravelly and held a strong, nononsense tone—a direct contradiction to his size. Maybe Josiah had been wrong, he thought. Maybe Little Shirt was in charge. Not that it mattered. He, too, would kill both Indians at the first chance to be free of the situation he found himself in.
    Killing didn’t come easy to him like it did some men, but he would fight to the death, there was no question about that.
    â€œO’Reilly has nothing against them,” Josiah said. He wanted to keep the Comanche talking as long as possible. It seemed to be working so far.
    â€œYou think you know what the Badger holds as currency to kill a man, Ranger? If a man has no red hair or lacks that melancholy Irish lilt in his voice, then Liam O’Reilly would just as soon see him dead. Flayed open is more like it, his guts burned to a crisp so nothing can gain satisfaction or sustenance from his flesh. Feels that way about Comanche, too. His hate knows no boundaries. His spite is a source of pride. But you should know all of this—you gave him more power once you marched Charlie Langdon to his hangman’s noose. How does it feel to know you gave power to an evil man?”
    Josiah could not challenge the statement, though he didn’t know much about Liam O’Reilly, just recent actions, since the spring, since running down Charlie Langdon—before then, he’d never heard of this Liam O’Reilly, this man the Comanche referred to as the Badger. “Is O’Reilly your friend or not?”
    â€œYou should hold your lips together, Ranger Wolfe, or you will lose your tongue,” the tall one said. He would be called Big Shirt if the short one was Little Shirt. “And the ability to assume, as well, that we are only doing O’Reilly’s bidding.”
    They pushed on, walking beyond Scrap and Red, without further incident. Josiah was relieved, but far from certain of Scrap and Red’s fate. Or his own, for that matter.
    Their horses, including Josiah’s Appaloosa, Clipper, were tied to trees near the barren creek fifty yards off to their left.
    Josiah had to restrain himself from violently protesting at the thought of leaving Clipper behind, but decided to heed Big Shirt’s warning. He had no guns, no knives, no power . . . and nobody covering his back. As hard as it was, though, as long as they were walking away from Scrap and Red, then he was just going to go along and not make waves until the right opportunity presented itself.
    The Indians’ plans seemed even more certain, and since they had the upper hand and had not killed all three of them in one fell swoop, their action propelled Josiah to believe even more that something was afoot that he did not understand.
    What lay ahead of him was well within the grasp of his imagination, though.
    He had seen firsthand what a swarm of Comanche or Kiowa warriors could—and would—do to a defenseless man. Their savagery was firmly planted within the locality of his nightmares, even worse than any of the hauntings he had brought back to Texas from the War Between the States.
    And leaving Clipper behind was like leaving family. Other than his two-year-old son, Lyle, who was his only living flesh and blood, back in Austin, the horse was almost all he had to care about in this world.
    Big Shirt said something to Little Shirt in Comanche, in a knowing, and hard, whisper.
    There was no way to translate the language; the words were a jumble of nasally grunts and sounds that