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Looping the reins around the horse’s neck, Benteen swung into the saddle and turned his mount and packhorse toward the cottonwood-lined banks of the river The taciturn Barnie Moore followed, swaying loosely in rhythait

“Look there” Barnie nodded, the rolled front bri to a cutbank where erosion by water and wind had exposed strata of rock and earth in the slope Close to the surface, a wide seaht “Won’t lack for fuel”

Surrounded by virtually treeless ridges, it was an important scrap of information to be tucked away for future use Benteen made a mental note of it as boththeir horses’ pace

Suish current It ithin the banks carved by springcrystal clear But it ater—life-giving, life-sustaining water

Benteen let the reins sag on the saddlehorn Beside him, Barnie reached into the deep pocket of his vest and fetched out his tobacco sack and paper Certainty eased through Chase Benteen Calder There was no longer any need to search this stark, lonely Montana land

His eyes were filled with the enor plains valley with its shallow river flowing through it, the upthrust of range beyond it—and the high blue sky This range reached from here to forever

And it sang its pro to him, but it was The lowbreeze swept down the slope, playing a rasses and the dry leaves of the cottonwoods and s bordering the river

In his mind’s eye, Benteen could see it all as it would be, herds of cattle growing fat on the native grasses, big barns walled with thick wood bea on that knoll fro, but someday In the meantime, there was plenty of room in these wide-open spaces to think and breathe and dream—and work like hell to make the dream a reality

Benteen knew about work He’d been working all his life for so asidehie and skill would be put to use These trackless plains were going to carry histhat would endure

The conviction that he’d found his hoe swelled in his chest This was his This would be Calder land “I’ on this stretch of river,” he stated as Barnie licked his cigarette together

Every cattle claim to a narrow stretch of the allowed 160-acre hoion—a minimum of ten miles on either side, or as far as a cow could walk to water Elbow room increased it by at least another ten reed that if Benteen found the right rangeland, he’d file on the adjoining stretch and turn it over to him, which was a coive hi room—with more to come

Texas had given Benteen his fill of being hemmed in and crowded He’d been a boy at the close of the Civil War, but he’d seen the changes that had coood There had been toolife Here was the place for new beginnings

“Co up a herd,” Benteen stated in a spare, even tone while Barnie cupped a arette and bent a little toward the flaoes well, I’ll be back before the end of next su on here till then?”

“Reckon,” Barnie drawled He was younger by two years than Benteen “What do you suppose yore pa’ll do?”

Benteen looked into the distance, a net of crow-tracks springing from the outer corners of his eyes “I don’t know” The sun-browned skin becaot hie But he’s a stubborn man”

His father, Seth Calder, was a goodman It was possible he could have been an important man, but he had a blind spot, a fatal flaw He didn’t knohen to let go of a thing that was dead The War Between the States had ended years ago, yet his father continued to argue the South’s cause, insisting Lincoln had thrown a political blanket over the true issue of states’ rights that had prompted secession and turned the war into a question of slavery That position hadn’t made him popular with those in power in a Reconstructed Texas

His support of the South during the war had left hiled to rebuild his modest ranch, only to be wiped out by the Black Friday crash in the Panic of ’73 Judd Boston’s Ten Bar had survived the crash unscathed While Seth Calder had to sell cattle, Judd Boston had purchasedlittle roo the land He was crowded into a sround that could barely support a cattle operation, but he wouldn’t budge

And Seth Calder wouldn’t let go of the idea that his ould come back to hi for a mother who never returned She had chosen his name at birth—Chase Benteen Calder Chase had been her iven name was rarely used by those who knew him Even as a child, he’d been called Benteen

When he was six years old, his mother had run aith a so-called reular allowance by his lish family to stay away from home His father had always claimed that he’d lured her aith his talk of New Orleans, San Francisco, London, and Europe, of fancy gowns and jewels After twenty years, Seth still believed she’d return to her husband and son Benteen didn’t And, unlike his father, he didn’t want her to come back

There were tiht—and other times when he should cut and run Benteen saw that, but he doubted that his father would In Texas, they were outnumbered by memories of the past and a series of present circumstances Tomorroas here in Montana Territory “What about Lorna?” The closeness that had developed between them allowed Barnie to ask the personal question

“We’ll bebefore the herd starts north” There was no ive the hiaze was sure and keen, a little on the reckless side “The next ti to cut all ties, and whatever was left behind … was left behind