“There is a black mare who will have a colt this spring,” Yellow Man said.
They all nodded. The black mare was to belong to Yellow Man, that was understood. Now they waited for him to go on.
“Tomorrow we will run the band. There will be horses for all. The big one who leads may have to be shot. I will take the rifle. The big one is strong and will fight.” Yellow Man’s eyes returned to the fire.
The others nodded and began eagerly planning the drive. Through the long winter they had kept busy with sings and chants, meeting with other families in religious dances and ceremonies. This would be the first hunt of the season.
To the north, behind the high gray walls of the state prison Sam knew when spring came. Through a high, barred window he could see a square of sunlight on the stone wall. Across the upper corner of the square drooped the branches of a cottonwood tree. Sam watched the buds swell and burst into pale-green leaves.
The warden and the guards shook their heads when they walked past his cell. Eight years. The old fellow would be lucky to finish two of them. He refused to work outside, he hated even to exercise in the closed-in yard. He wanted to be left alone, to sit and stare out the little window. But Sam did not share their belief that he would never leave the gray walls. He was sure he would return to the high mesa. He wasn’t going to die cooped up in a gloomy cell; when he died it would be out in the open with his boots on, under a mountain sky.
He did not brood over his trial. His attorney had been irritated to the point of anger when Sam refused to tell where he had been and what he was doing during the three weeks of absence from his cabin. That was his business; he’d need his cache when he got out. Nobody was going to find out about it. His stubbornness had convinced the jury of his guilt. Sam had paid the attorney well though the judge had offered to let the state pay the fee. He didn’t think much about those things, he just sat and stared at the cottonwood branch.
Tex, Major Howard’s foreman, had talked to him. Tex understood better than any of the others, but Sam wasn’t trusting anybody. He had learned from years of battling for gold that the yellow metal was poison to friendship and trust. Tex was a right fine feller, but there was no call to push him too far.