CHAPTER 18

NEWT’S MIND had begun to dwell on the north for long stretches. Particularly at night, when he had nothing to do but

ride slowly around and around the herd, listening to the small noises the bedded cattle made, or the sad singing of the

Irishmen, he thought of the north, trying to imagine what it must be like. He had grown up with the sun shining, with

mesquite and chaparral, armadillos and coyotes, Mexicans and the shallow Rio Grande. Only once had he been to a city:

San Antonio. Deets had taken him on one of his banking trips, and Newt had been in a daze from all there was to see.

Once, too, he had gone with Deets and Pea to deliver a small bunch of horses to Matagorda Bay, and had seen the great

gray ocean. Then, too, he had felt dazed, staring at the world of water.

But even the sight of the ocean had not stirred him so much as the thought of the north. All his life he had heard talk of

the plains that had no end, and of Indian