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he was ready to give it up for the night when he picked up the lights of some establishment winking through the forest and he homed in on them, riding into a little village of log buildings that was decidedly un-Mexican in flavor; you thought of all Mexico as being nothing but mud huts and dusty plazas and narrow streets in squalid colors. This was more like something in the Wyoming mountains. But wherever men went they built with the materials at hand and up here the most plentiful things were pine trees.
    Probably a community of trappers and prospectors and those who traded with the mountain Yaquis. There were half a dozen log cabins, cook-smoke rising from the chimneys of three of them, and there was one large building with a galleried porch across the front and a pair of long hitch rails at which Boag counted seven tied horses. All but one had Mexican rigs and there was no packhorse but he hadn’t expected to come upon any of Mr. Pickett’s people this quickly anyway. The one horse that stood out from the rest had a blanketed McClellan rig and when Boag looked closer he saw the U.S. brand on the horse’s flank. An American Cavalry horse, but not a regulation Cavalry saddle. Something to look out for, he judged; he dismounted and loosened the cinches and gave the hard-mouth sorrel a nosebag of grain and climbed the four wooden steps to the porch and walked along the porch to a window to look inside.
    It was a trading post with a saloon bar along one of the walls. He counted six Mexicans standing at the bar eating pinto beans and pork cubes off wooden plates. They were hardcases, their chests crossed with bandoleros of cartridges. The seventh man was a gringo in a fringed buckskin outfit that looked as if it had been made up for a performer in a wild-west show. Boag recognized him mostly by the clothes and by the dirty white Cavalry hat with its crossed brass sabers; it touched Boag with surprise and then made him grin and he walked along the porch to the log door and went in, and the gringo in buckskin looked around with his dour long face—the lugubrious doleful face of a professional mourner— and broke into a painful creasing of wrinkles which passed for a smile. “Well zippity-doo-day if it isn’t the good Sergeant Boag!”
    â€œYour humble servant, Captain,” Boag said.

6
    â€œYou’re a long way from home, Sergeant.”
    Boag said, “I have to be.”
    â€œTequila or mescal or beer?”
    â€œTequila, beer chaser,” Boag said, and Captain Shelby McQuade relayed the order to the man behind the bar.
    â€œYou hungry, Boag? I don’t much recommend the food here, it’s enough to give a buzzard the trots but there’s not a whole lot of competition.”
    â€œI could eat, Captain, my belly feels like my throat’s been cut. What you doing in this town?”
    â€œI thought,” Captain McQuade said, “that question was one that nobody in a town like this ever asked.”
    â€œNo offense.”
    â€œI’m just ribbing you. You’re welcome to ask.”
    â€œThose boys with you, Captain?”
    Captain McQuade looked upon the six armed Mexicans with distaste. Evidently none of them spoke English; they watched Boag with curiosity, reserving hostility. “They’re with me,” the Captain said without pleasure.
    Boag sampled the tequila. “They seem to be putting bigger snakes in these here bottles this season.”
    Captain McQuade’s mouth smiled again while his eyes sized Boag up. “Looks like you’ve got some kind of burden, Sergeant.”
    â€œWell I’m looking to find some people. How long you been in this town, Captain?”
    â€œAbout two hours. I gather that won’t help you.”
    â€œLooking to find three men rode in here maybe four days ago, probably rode right out again.”
    â€œWell you can ask the storekeeper here. These three men some kind of special friends of