Chapter One

Sonora, Mexico, 1883.

     Far across the valley, set between low brown hills to the east and distant blue mountains to the west, the village lay hot and uneventful beneath the westering June sun.  A surge of expectation made him whisper, "Home."

     He craved rest.  Solitude.  A drink from his spring.

     The black gelding flinched as he reined in and the horses trailing on a lead crowded into it.  Dust drifted up from their hooves, floated away on a little breeze.

     From here, his casita on the near point of the ridge stood above the chaparral-choked slope that had provided cover for Panadero's killers.  No need to clear it now; Don Luis was dead. The reward would not be paid again.

     Memories faded, stopped hurting, in time.  How long, before he could think of the horse he rode as his own, before he slept free of malos suenos, bad dreams.
1     He flicked the gelding with his heels.

     The planks and wood shingles were losing their raw look, weathering, blending into the background of earth and rocks, shadowed by a gnarled mesquite.  Tomorrow, or the next day, if this drought broke, he'd replant the corn and beans and squash that had gone neglected in his absence.  He would examine the booths in the market, buy the healing herbs which Manuelo favored, and grow them.  He looked forward to long evenings spent relaxing in a cane-bottom chair shaded by the priest's brush ramada, drinking unconsecrated wine.

     Patting a handful of masa into a tortilla, Juanita leaned to place it on the hot griddle.  Through the broken north window she glimpsed movement, a rider on the plain, and watched him draw near.  The low-crowned sombrero and dark clothing suggested a mestizo of the middle class.  He led two horses, and rode in the relaxed manner of a landowner.  The old rock-walled casa grande down the street had been deserted for many years, or he might be going home to it.  In the month she had lived here, she'd avoided meeting the families in the better neighborhood.  Pride was too great and shame too fresh, to face the curiosity of strangers.  Only the kindness of the priest had kept her from running into the barren hills to die.