Review of TERMS OF SURRENDER by LORRIE FARRELLY

LORRIE FARRELLY is the award-winning author of not only westerns but romance, Time Travel, suspense and paranormal books. 

Here’s my four star review of her western romantic fiction novel TERMS OF SURRENDER:

‘Romantic fiction’ isn’t my thing so I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed TERMS OF SURRENDER.

Captain Michael Cantrell is commander of a dwindling band of confederate soldiers, surrounded by his wounded and dying men in the Virginia woods in April 1865.

Confederate soldiers

In a moving opening scene he receives word from Robert E. Lee himself that the war is lost. In defeat, Michael heads west to find himself.

General ROBERT E. LEE

In Wyoming Territory he finds instead a young settler woman, Annie Devlin, and her 10-year old brother Robbie. Annie is being forced off her land by greedy rancher Colonel Randolph and his gang of hired guns – including two particularly villainous ones.

Michael sides with Annie against Randolph, in what looks to be another doomed cause. Violence ensues – fist fights, rape and gunplay - in the course of which Michael and Annie fall in love.

As you might gather TERMS OF SURRENDER is a lot grittier than the description ‘romantic fiction’ would indicate.

Of course it does cover familiar territory – shades of ‘Hondo’ and ‘Shane’ – but often the best western fiction re-works the familiar, while still finding new wrinkles, as Farrelly does here.

Lee Aaker, Geraldine Page, John Wayne and Ward Bond in 'Hondo' (1953)

The child characters in ‘Hondo’ and ‘Shane’ are rather passive and saintly, but Robbie is a lot spunkier. I particularly liked his humorous interplay with Michael.

Alan Ladd and Brandon De Wilde in the  classic western 'Shane' (1953)

Jill Ireland and David Carradine in the TV series version of 'Shane'

Perhaps the best aspect of this excellent novel is how the trio of brother, sister and damaged stranger bond against their enemies, while Farrelly’s writing skills provide the necessary edge. Recommended.'

Other reviews of TERMS OF SURRENDER:

‘Descriptions are evocative and compelling... Readers can expect to find humor, violence, gritty action, and exquisitely-wrought tension throughout… (This) is for readers who seek more depth and layers in their stories.’

‘Another beautifully crafted tale by Lorrie Farrelly… a mixture of passion and nail-biting suspense.’

‘From the first chapter, I was captivated by Ms. Farrelly’s wordsmith skills, as well as the verisimilitude and historical accuracy she brought to the narratives and dialogue about the War, the soldiers and their language.’

‘I remained captivated by superb characterization and narrative.’

Find my review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9310432-terms-of-surrender

And on Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Terms-Surrender-Western-historical-romance-ebook/dp/B003ZDO4SI/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=terms+of+surrender+lorrie+farrelly&qid=1584691830&sr=8-1

You can also find TERMS OF SURRENDER here: https://www.amazon.com/Terms-Surrender-Western-historical-romance-ebook/dp/B003ZDO4SI/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=terms+of+surrender+lorrie+farrelly&qid=1584691683&s=books&sr=1-1

HOW DID DAVY CROCKETT DIE? ONE ACCOUNT

I’ve been fascinated by the story of The Alamo ever since I was a boy – which was a LONG time ago! I’d planned to post this on March 6^th 2020, the 184th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo (March 6th 1836.) However, life got in the way etc. So here it is, belatedly, better four days late than never…

Ruins of the Alamo in 1844

I thought I’d give a brief consideration to one of the enduring mysteries of the Alamo: HOW DID DAVY CROCKETT DIE?

DAVID ('Davy') CROCKETT (1786-1836) in 1834

In Walter Lord's historical account of the siege 'A Time to Stand' there are clues. A Mexican captain, Rafael Soldana, describes a notable Alamo defender: 'A tall man, with flowing hair, was seen firing from the same place... during the entire siege. He wore a buckskin suit and a cap all of a pattern entirely different from those worn by his comrades... he rarely missed his mark... this man I later learned was known as 'Kwockey'.'

A Mexican sergeant Felix Nunez then described a Texan he saw in the final battle, who seems very similar in dress, headgear, appearance and military prowess: 'He was a tall American of rather dark complexion and had on a long buckskin coat and a round cap without any bill, made out of fox skin with the long tail hanging down the back... he never missed a shot. He killed at least 8 of our men, as well as wounding several others. This being observed by a lieutenant who had come in over the wall, he sprang at him and dealt him a deadly blow with his sword, just above the right eye, which felled him to the ground, and in an instant he was pierced by not less than 20 bayonets.' Even if this wasn't Crockett, it's a hero's death worthy of him.

Another Crockett portrait from 1834

Of course, the two Mexican accounts here highlight an individual wearing a coonskin cap.

So did Crockett wear such an item?

Rafts of scholarly research have gone into this issue, and I wouldn’t dream of arguing with experts who’ve spent months, if not years, investigating it. My ‘scholarly research’ took fifteen minutes via Google, so can’t be compared to their efforts. But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I gleaned:

The popular impression of Crockett at the time of his death was that he wore one. Here’s a woodcut of the ‘Davy Crockett Almanac’ from 1837:

But did he?

A couple of statements would suggest he did (I need to credit WILLIAM GRONEMAN 111, as I took some of the following information from his April 24 2010 article in ‘True West Magazine.’)

Crockett’s daughter MATILDA described her father the last time she saw him as he left his Tennessee home for Texas in autumn 1835: ‘He was dressed in his hunting suit, wearing a coonskin cap, and carrying a fine rifle presented to him by friends in Philadelphia.’

JAMES DAVIS, seeing Crockett leaving Memphis for Texas, wrote: ‘He wore that same veritable coon-skin cap and hunting shirt.’

And (admittedly long after 1836) Alamo survivor SUSANNA DICKINSON recalled being led out of the ruins of the Alamo in the immediate aftermath of the battle. She said, ‘I recognized Colonel Crockett lying dead and mutilated between the church and two-story barrack building and even remember seeing his peculiar cap lying by his side.’

SUSANNA DICKINSON

However, I expect arguments to continue to rage…

Robert Onderdonk’s ‘Fall of the Alamo’ 1903

A tribute to KIRK DOUGLAS (1916 – 2020)

In a departure from what I normally blog about, this blog is a tribute to one of my favourite actors, KIRK DOUGLAS.

Some of this information is taken from Kirk’s own autobiography, ‘The Ragman’s Son’ which I would recommend as being both thoughtful and entertaining. What follows is not an exhaustive, comprehensive dissection of Douglas’s long career but a brief summary, alighting on aspects that most interest me. So apologies if your favourite Douglas film doesn’t feature!

Kirk Douglas was born ISSUR DANIELOVITCH on December 9 1916 in Amsterdam in upstate New York, the son of Russian immigrants. He once said, ‘My kids never had the advantage I had. I was born poor.’ A hatred of the grinding poverty he was born into instilled in him a ferocious drive to escape it. He began his acting career by winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and then finding work as a stage actor, changing his name to Kirk Douglas in the process. War service intervened – he was an ensign in the U. S. Navy - and then he returned to stage acting. A drama school friend, LAUREN BACALL, suggested him for a Hollywood movie ‘The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.’ Douglas arrived in Hollywood in 1945 and got the part.

Douglas’s early film roles showed Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with him, as he was cast as weaklings or slimy friends of the hero, as in ‘I Walk Alone’ (1947) siding BURT LANCASTER for the first time, (below)

or the ‘Film Noir’ classic ‘Out of the Past’ (aka ‘Build My Gallows High’) alongside ROBERT MITCHUM.

In what would be a move characteristic of his career he turned down a better paid job in another film to star in what was deemed to be an uncommercial prospect, ‘Champion,’ being produced by a team of relative unknowns. 

Film historian Ray Didinger commented: ‘He saw ‘Champion’ as a greater risk, but also a greater opportunity… Douglas took the part and absolutely nailed it.’ Douglas described the character he played, Midge Kelly, as ‘one of the first anti-heroes.’ An aspiring boxer, in his obsessive desire to succeed Kelly discards or tramples on former friends and lovers, ruthlessly fighting (literally) his way to the top. Douglas showed he was unafraid of portraying a character who is often unlikable, although tremendously charismatic. It was a performance of great force and energy, and influenced many actors and movies that followed, including ‘Raging Bull’ starring ROBERT DE NIRO.

‘Champion’ (1949) proved to be surprise critical and commercial hit, establishing Douglas as a star. His rags-to-riches journey was complete.

Throughout the 50s and 60s Douglas continued to be a major box office draw. In 1951 he made his first western, ‘Along the Great Divide’ – more on those later.

Of his notable, non-western roles:

In the early 50s he scored with a trio of roles where he again played the ‘anti-hero’:

In 1951’s bitter, caustic ‘Ace in the Hole,’ (below) directed by BILLY WILDER, Douglas gives an unflinching portrait of an unscrupulous newspaperman who seeks to profit from a tragic situation. One onlooker says of his character: ‘I’ve met some hard boiled eggs, but you – you’re twenty minutes!’

In ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ (1952) he’s a film producer who’ll go to any lengths to succeed.

In ‘Detective Story’ (1952) he plays a police detective gradually becoming more and more unhinged in the course of the movie.

By 1956 Douglas was regarded as a prime example of the virile, ‘alpha-male’ leading man. Thus it was very brave of him to cast himself against type as VINCENT VAN GOGH in ‘Lust for Life.’ Douglas’s sensitive, intense performance as the tormented artist won him an Oscar nomination, as had his performance in ‘Champion.’ In both cases, IMHO, he should have won!

He was definitely back in ‘alpha-male’ mode for the roistering epic ‘The Vikings’ (1958.) Douglas was very comfortable as a Viking warrior in one of the few Hollywood epics to portrait the pre-industrial world realistically, e.g.  not disguising its brutality. He even holds his own playing scenes with ERNEST BORGNINE, who, in a tremendously enjoyable performance, pretty much steals the movie.

Incidentally, Borgnine, who played Douglas’s father, was actually two years younger than him!

By this time Douglas had emphasised his independent streak by setting up his own production company – named Bryna after his mother, so she could see her name up in lights. As he had with ‘Champion’ he decided to star in an uncommercial project to be directed by a young, relatively unknown film-maker, STANLEY KUBRICK. The project was ‘Paths of Glory’ (1957) a bleak and harrowing account of military folly in World War One, widely regarded as one of the greatest anti-war films ever made. The film has two particularly striking sequences – the one-tracking-shot battle scene; and the touching ending where a captured German girl sings to amuse her gloating enemies and, by her simple humanity, wins them over. In this film Douglas gives an uncharacteristically – but appropriately – subdued performance.

Douglas had a sometimes difficult relationship with Kubrick, (who he described as ‘brilliant but cold.’) However he used him again to direct what might be Douglas’s most famous movie, the outstanding epic ‘Spartacus’ (1960.) Douglas once described the characters he played as men – whether they be good men or bad men – who ‘wouldn’t bend.’ That’s certainly true of Spartacus, a slave and gladiator who leads a revolt of slaves and gladiators against the might of the Roman Empire.

Perhaps Douglas’s last top-notch film was the gripping 1964 political thriller ‘Seven Days in May.’

From the late 60s onwards his career seemed to lose direction, and his choice of roles was often unsatisfactory. Perhaps he should have followed the example of his friend and frequent collaborator Burt Lancaster, who moved away from leading men roles in his later years and became a distinguished character actor.

In 1991 Douglas finally gained the Oscar he should have picked up 40 years earlier, a Lifetimes Achievement Award.

Kirk Douglas passed on February 5^th 2020 at the grand old age of 103.

Not much time to mention his many other accomplishments, as philanthropist, activist, or novelist, or how he helped bring black-listed artists like DALTON TRUMBO back into the fold. Let’s just say it was a long life well lived!

Back to his westerns…

Douglas doesn’t seem quite comfortable in his first excursion into the genre, ‘Along the Great Divide’ in 1951, perhaps partly because he didn’t get on with the director, RAOUL WALSH. By the time he made ‘Man without a Star’ in 1955 however, he seems completely at home out west. The film may be routine, although enjoyable, but his dynamic performance, leavened with plenty of self-deprecating humour, elevates it.

In ‘Gunfight at the Ok Corral’ (1957) he was once again paired with Burt Lancaster. Douglas clearly has fun as tormented ‘anti-hero’ Doc Holliday and gives a superb performance. Lancaster has the harder task of making a ‘straight bat’ hero, Wyatt Earp, interesting.

In ‘The Last Sunset’ (1961) ROCK HUDSON gets top billing, but in reality Douglas has much more screen time, plays a much more interesting character (nearly tempted into incest) and dominates the movie. He often had strong chemistry with his leading ladies and here he works very well with DOROTHY MALONE.

1967’s ‘The War Wagon’ has Douglas pairing up with JOHN WAYNE in a light-hearted caper that owes as much to the then-current craze of ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ as to the traditional westerns Wayne was most famous for. Again the script may be unremarkable, but the playing of the leads – and the chemistry between them – elevates the film.

In an interview Douglas told a story about working with Wayne. He mentioned that in the movie they’d come up with the idea of Douglas always vaulting onto his horse when he mounted up. They achieved this effect by having Douglas spring on board his horse via a trampoline, (which gives you an idea of the seriousness of the movie.) When a journalist asked Wayne if Douglas would soon rival him as a western icon, Wayne snorted derisively and replied, 'He can’t even get on a horse without using a trampoline!' Of Wayne Douglas said, 'He was a character, but I liked him.'

Douglas turned his hand to directing late in his career and did a good job, IMHO, with his 1975 western ‘Posse.’ He showed his generosity in employing JAMES STACY, former star of the TV Western series ‘Lancer.’ Stacy had found getting work difficult after being cruelly disabled in a road accident. In 'Posse' Douglas helped create an unusual and intelligent western.

With JAMES STACY in 'Posse'

My favourite Douglas film was also his favourite. It fully merits the description ‘modern western.’ ‘Lonely are the Brave’ (1962) tells of the last of the cowboys, a drifter who wants to live as an individual, free of restraint – be they laws or fences – as he might have in the Nineteenth Century. But he soon falls foul of the law and he and his horse Whisky are pursued across stunningly photographed New Mexico landscapes by jeeps and helicopters, hemmed in by fences and freeways, under a sky barred with aeroplane trails.

‘Lonely are the Brave’ features an early score by the great JERRY GOLDSMITH that is one of the finest he ever composed. The supporting cast are first rate, from WALTER MATTHAU as the sheriff reluctantly leading the pursuit to WILLIAM SCHALLERT as his deputy and comic foil.

Again Douglas shows strong chemistry with his leading lady, GENA ROWLANDS, superb in the role. Their few scenes together are particularly rewarding. And Douglas gives a performance of quiet, tragic intensity. A beautiful film!

Read CHAPTER ONE of COYOTE’S PEOPLE by ANDREW McBRIDE

I’m very happy to announce my seventh novel – and seventh western novel – COYOTE’S PEOPLE has been published by prestigious, award-winning publishers Five Star Publishing.

The cover (designed by Kathy Heming) reflects the novel’s setting – southern Arizona.

UPDATE!

COYOTE’S PEOPLE IS NOW ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN E.BOOK!

As of April 2022, COYOTE’S PEOPLE, previously only available as a hardback and in hardback large print, is now also available as an e.book. The kindle version has been published by Andride Press.

The cover photograph is by YUKO U. SMITH. The cover design is by RICHARD HEARN.

COYOTE’S PEOPLE is a sort of companion piece to my acclaimed western novel THE PEACEMAKER. 

However, it is a stand-alone novel and you don’t need to have read any other Andrew McBride books to appreciate and enjoy COYOTE’S PEOPLE.

TAG LINE:

The Apache chief seeking peace in a time of  war... and the 17-year-old white boy caught in the middle.

BLURB:

‘Arizona Territory, the 1870s. Savage war rages between the white man and the Apache. And three people are caught in the middle: COYOTE, an Apache chief seeking peace, trying to find a refuge for his small band of wanderers; LIEUTENANT AUSTIN HAMILTON, commander of remote Camp Walsh, a man sympathetic to the Indians' plight; and CALVIN TAYLOR (nicknamed CHOCTAW), a 17-year old white boy. Choctaw has been taught to hate Apaches, something reinforced by his own bloody experiences. But his loyalties are torn when he unexpectedly falls in love with an Apache girl. Each finds himself at the center of this bitter conflict, enmeshed in treachery and violence, with their own lives, and the peace they're striving for, threatened by enemies on all sides…’

ISBN number: 978-1432867256 

TO BUY:

You can BUY a hardback of COYOTE’S PEOPLE from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Barnes & Noble. The sites below may not be showing very much at the moment, but watch these spaces! You can buy from here: https://www.amazon.com/Coyotes-People-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B09XBJJDCB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
and here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coyotes-People-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B09XBJJDCB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

REVIEWS of COYOTE'S PEOPLE:

COYOTE’S PEOPLE has been piling up reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads – ALL FIVE STAR! I’m flattered and humbled that my novel has been getting such a positive response. 

Here’s a quick sample:

LUCIA ROBSON: (Winner of the Owen Wister and Spur awards and ‘New York Times’ best-selling author)

‘An outstanding novel!’

ROBERT VAUGHAN: (Winner of the Spur Award and Pulitzer-Prize nominated author)

‘McBride’s wonderful book’

KATHLEEN MORRIS: (winner of the 2020 Peacemaker Award for best first Western novel)

'McBride does a masterful job of... illustrating that justice and truth make uneasy bedfellows with blind hatred, blood lust and revenge...Very well done.'

RICHARD PROSCH: (Winner of the Spur Award) 


'Five stars. Highly recommended!'

WAYNE D. DUNDEE: (Peacemaker Award-winning novelist)

‘Western fiction at its best!’

W. MICHAEL FARMER: (Winner of Will Rogers Medallion Awards, the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award and Best New Mexico Book Award)

'Coyote’s People is a page-turner, entertaining and insightful, filled with the truth only fiction can provide.'

OTHER REVIEWERS:

‘A stunning book… We're clearly in the hands of a master… I would go so far as to say that if Andrew had written this book fifty or sixty years ago in the heyday of western fiction it would be an acknowledged classic. And hopefully, if there's any justice in the world, it will still achieve that status.’

‘A breath-taking, page-turning, wrenchingly heart-breaking tale.’ 

'A superb western adventure'

I’ve created a blog as an ongoing scrapbook of my reviews as they accumulate. You can read THE FULL REVIEWS here: https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2020/05/reviews-of-coyotes-people.html

To give you a flavour of the novel, CHAPTER ONE follows.

COYOTE’S PEOPLE

Chapter One

Around him men stood with rifles raised. They stared into the darkness at the Apaches that might be there, waiting to attack.

Choctaw swallowed a rock-sized lump of fear in his throat. His arms trembled slightly, and his hands ached, holding his Spencer carbine up to his shoulder. He looked along the barrel past the front sight. Beyond was the gray gloom of the Gila River Canyon.

A few minutes ago, all had been peaceful. The freight outfit was camped just south of the river, wagons coiled into a defensive circle. The crew, thirteen bullwhackers, had finished their evening meal. Pipes were being smoked and dusk was deepening when the stock became nervous, and the teamsters also.

They had reason to be, here in southern Arizona Territory. They were deep in Apacheria, where the White Mountain and the Chiricahua Apache country overlapped. Six Murphy wagons full of goods, the guns, ammunition, and gear of the outfit, the coffee, bacon, and tobacco in the mess wagon, would tempt any sizable war party. Apaches weren't said to be keen on beef, but they would want the mules inside the corral.

The men found cover, behind wagons and elsewhere, and stood to arms, watching the skyline. Above, a full moon hung like a dollar of blue ice cut out of the night, turning the ground before them into a checkerboard of black and silver. One of the teamsters called, “Who's out there?”

Choctaw couldn’t see who the speaker was, but he recognized the voice of the wagon master, John Shadler.

There was a small sound, like a faint musical note, and a blackness showed against the gray and came nearer and stepped into moonlight and became a man walking towards them.

Shadler called, “Hold it.”

The approaching man halted.

The wagon boss asked, “Who are you?”

The newcomer said, “Prospectors.” His English was accented, maybe Mexican. This fit with what Choctaw could see of him in the uncertain light: the shape and wide brim of his hat, and what he was wearing, maybe a serape. Although he was bigger than most Mexicans Choctaw had seen.

Shadler’s voice came again. “How many of you out there?”

“Four.”

“Okay. Come ahead.”

The stranger strode forward and Choctaw saw he was indeed wearing a battered sombrero and serape. And big-roweled spurs making that slight music. This man carried a Henry rifle. Something flashed on his right cheek. A thin scar, like a blue weal, across the bone. There was a rustle of movement, a rattle of hooves, and three more men filed from the darkness, leading four horses and a pack mule.

Around him, Choctaw heard teamsters sigh out their relief. Weapons were lowered.

The four men halted in a group just short of the wagons. They all appeared to be Mexicans. Shadler walked over to them, his rifle hanging in his right hand. He told them, “We can’t do much talking. And we’ve got to keep our voices down. We got a lot of oxen here, and they get spooky at night. Stampede real easy.”

The scar-faced man seemed to be the Mexicans’ spokesman. He said, “I understand.”

“Where you headed?”

“Tucson. Mexico. We been prospecting upriver a ways. Up the Gila Canyon. No luck, so we decide to go back to Mexico.”

“Prospecting, huh? Where's your pack animals? How come you only got one mule?”

“We sold 'em to get horses. Better for to go quick through Indian country.”

“See any Apaches?”

The big Mexican shook his head.

“Any signal smoke?”

“No.”

“All right. Throw your horses in the corral. You can camp over there,” Shadler indicated. “And I’d appreciate it if you keep the noise and talk to a minimum. Like I said—”

Scar-face smiled faintly. “I know. The oxen.”

*****

Choctaw was one of the two youngest members of this outfit, alongside a boy named Finn. Both were seventeen. Their main job was looking after the mules. But this evening they were given an additional task, night herding.

So, whilst the other teamsters slept, Choctaw and Finn patrolled the calf yard and corrals and made sure no thieves made off with the livestock. Then it was daybreak and the outfit rose from their blankets and began their daily routine. They skipped breakfast and got moving, whilst the night herders and night guards slept in the wagons. Round about ten, after covering maybe eight miles, the freighters halted. The stock needed a few hours’ rest if they were going to haul through the afternoon.

The teamsters started on their morning meal. Finn and Choctaw had learned the hard way that if they slept in and missed breakfast, they wouldn’t eat again until dusk. So both were awake as the cookfires were lit.

Choctaw sat under the lead wagon. He hadn't been in Arizona long but had already realized shade was precious out here. You grabbed it whenever you could.

A lesson Finn didn’t seem to have learned. He straddled the tongue of the same wagon, shaping a cigarette.  Which showed he was crazy, in Choctaw’s opinion. It was only midmorning, it was February, and yet the sun was already fierce. And Finn, being so fair-skinned, was peeling badly. He was a lanky, straw-haired boy with a pleasant face you’d have trouble remembering.

Choctaw was luckier, as he was more dark-complexioned. His skin had tanned almost as brown as an Indian's in sun and wind. But his features had nothing Indian about them. As far as he knew, he didn’t have a drop of Indian blood in his veins. But being born at Fort Towson, in the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory, where his father had been an army contractor and sometime storekeeper, had landed him with his nickname. He was white, his parents were white, his hair was dark brown not black, tousled not straight, and his eyes were as blue as a Swede’s. He was working on his first mustache and trail beard. For all that, he was still “Choctaw” to everyone in this outfit.

His real name was Calvin Taylor but he couldn’t remember the last time anybody had called him that. Sometimes he almost forgot it himself.

He was gangling, as his weight had not kept pace with his latest spurt of growth, taking him to six feet. He was still a virgin, although how he was mystified him. He’d come close to losing that burden a number of times. Some girls and women involved on those occasions had told him he was handsome.

Finn lit his quirley. “I see them Mexicans is still with us.”

“Huh?”

“I figured they’d have ridden off by now.”

“Maybe they’re going to stay with us all the way to Tucson.”

Choctaw felt thirsty. Reluctantly, he got out from under the wagon. He walked a few yards over to a clump of prickly pear and nicked some pads off with his clasp knife. He rubbed the pads against the sand, wiping off the vicious fur of spines. Choctaw wounded the pad with his knife and sucked.

And tasted dust. The flavor of a bullwhacker's life. After a while, food, drink, and cigarettes all tasted of dust.

Still . . . it was better than going home. He’d take dust, thirst, and heat any day, rather than return to his pa. He felt a free man here. Dirty, tired, and frightened sometimes, but free.

That was an illusion, of course. He was no longer a prisoner of his father but of Schmitt and Gottlieb, freighters of Prescott. They shackled him with five dollars and ninety cents a week and two greasy meals a day, and for that he night herded their oxen and took care of Evil Jenny, his mule, and the other just-as-evil mules, and labored to get the wagons across the Ninety Mile Desert and make eighteen miles a day doing it, so that Schmitt and Gottlieb showed a profit.

Finn asked him, “You figure them Mexicans is what they say they is? Prospectors?”

“Why shouldn’t they be?”

“My pa says you can never believe a greaser.”

“What about Luis?”

Luis was the assistant wagon master, and hailed from Sonora. An agreeable, humorous man, though he’d give you hell if you fell down on your job.

Finn filtered smoke down his nostrils. “I don’t mean Luis. I never think of him as a Mex. He’s more like a white man. No, I mean these new fellers.”

“What do you think they are?”

Finn shrugged. “They could be bandidos or something.”

Choctaw shaped his own quirley. “Maybe somebody should drift over to where they are and listen in on ’em.”

“You mean spy on ’em?”

It was Choctaw’s turn to shrug.

Finn gave him an alarmed look. “I wouldn’t do that, Choc. Might be risky.”

“Why?”

“You might end up with a knife in your back. My pa says them spics are terrible knife people.”

Choctaw sneered at the fear in the other boy’s face. “I ain’t scared of no Mexican.”

Choctaw walked off. He didn’t actually know where he was going, although he was heading in the general direction of the Mexicans’ campfire. But he wasn’t really planning to spy on them. That was just big talk . . .

He glimpsed a bosky of mesquite trees on a low hill nearby. His belly was starting to ache for breakfast. Choctaw strode over and plucked some beans off a tree, chewing a few, taking the edge off his hunger. He gazed at the land around him.

A landscape unlike any he’d ever seen, or imagined. Along all horizons were a run of purplish mountains. Strange bare mountains without trees, their edges sharp as knife cuts against a hot blue sky. Below the mountains lay the desert, rusty earth streaked with the green of mesquite, and studded with cactus. That included the ones Mexicans called saguaro, standing like bullet-headed giants, arms raised in surrender.

Choctaw heard voices.

Lower and softer than Anglo voices, and talking in Spanish. Choctaw moved into the grove of mesquites. He stared through the screen of branches and slowly made out, at the base of the slope before him, the Mexicans sitting around their campfire. Or at least three of them. Then one got to his feet and strode about.

This man was something to look at. He wore a large felt sombrero, bell-bottomed leather chaps with buttons all down the sides, and a short, winged, olive jacket. True, his clothing was scuffed and faded, but he was still a charro, one of those Mexican cowboys.

Choctaw heard a small noise behind him, stones rustling underfoot. He turned.

The fourth Mexican stood facing him.

Choctaw recalled Finn saying, about these newcomers, “They could be bandidos.” Easy to think that about this man. He was clean-shaven and very hard looking, with high, powerful cheekbones pushing forward, his nose flattened against his broad cheeks. His face might have been formed out of sun-darkened rock.

Something else Finn had said: “Spics are terrible knife people.” Choctaw remembered that too. Because the Mexican stepped forward and, sure enough, there was a knife in his hand.