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the bushy red beard. “Auld Kirk is his name. Scottish for Old Church, meanin’ the Church of Scotland.”
    “Hedging your bets?”
    “Couldna hurt, lad, couldna hurt.”
    The road they traveled rose toward the south. He’d ridden it before, last year when he’d first come to see about the ranch. About ten or so miles south of Pueblo it crossed the St. Charles River, with its scattering of cottonwoods and willows. Off to the west, looking closer than they actually were, sat the Sierra Mojada, the Wet Mountains, with a gathering of gray clouds trapped by their peaks.
    He’d been there, too, the Wet Mountains, just about this same time of year. He’d gone there looking for something. Peace, maybe, or maybe he’d just been trying to find some small piece of himself. The tall pines had been startlingly green against the oak and scrub oak just starting to bud. Higher up the oaks thinned and aspen, slower to leaf out than the oaks, replaced them, spruce overtook pines, and patches of snow hid in the shade.
    Valleys and meadows, from tiny spots to acres and acres wide, dotted the mountain slopes, as did the occasional outcropping of bare rock. There were huge flat slabs of granite, along with giant chunks worn smooth by time, and others still jagged from where they’d broken off from the mountain above or been thrust up from the earth beneath.
    The soil in the mountains ranged from rich loam to barren sand to red clay.
    And there were streams. The Spaniards weren’t joking when they’d named them the Wets. Clear, rushing streams in every depression of land, icy cold from snowmelt.
    One day, he remembered, he’d been lost up there in the clouds. Another he’d been surprised to run across a deserted cabin. He’d wondered about the type of man who would choose to live in so isolated a place. According to his father, Innes MacDougall was just such a man.
    Someday, when he had the ranch in order, Carson would go back there.
    East of the trail they now traveled, the plains stretched clear to tomorrow’s sunrise and flat as milk on a saucer. Overhead the sky was a pale spring blue.
    The trail dipped into gullies and washes, crested small rises that didn’t deserve the word “hills,” and skirted outcroppings of rocks. By the time the sun had started its descent both girls were nodding drowsily. Ahead the track disappeared around yet another outcropping of tall, tumbled rocks. The team rounded the bend, and for a moment Innes and his packhorse were out of sight behind them.
    That’s when it happened. One minute the only sounds were the creek and rattle of the wagon, the soft clomp of hooves on dusty ground, the jingle of the harness. The next, the air was rent with the shrill cries of attack from a half dozen mounted Indians with tattoos on their chests and paint on their faces.
    There was no time to think or plan. With rifles pointed at him and one warrior moving to grab the harness and halt the team, Carson shouted a hoarse, “Get down!” at the girls and cracked the reins sharply against the horses’ backs. “Giddup!”
    The wagon team bolted.
    The Indians fired. Carson felt a sting along the outside of his left shoulder as one shot came too close.
    Behind the wagon and coming on fast, Innes bellowed in outrage.
    The wagon hit a rock, jolting it severely. Bess lost her grip on the seat and, with a high scream of terror, sailed over the side.
    Carson’s heart stopped. Bess! Bracing his foot against the brake with all his weight, he pulled back as hard as he could on the traces to halt the team. Down on the floor board, next to his leg where she’d fallen when he had first shouted at the girls to get down, Megan screamed and screamed and screamed. There was no time to comfort her, no words with which to do the job if there had been time.
    Damn his hide. What the hell had he been thinking to bring two innocent young girls into this wild land? They would die now, because of him, because of his need to get away from