Van sat atop his mount, watching the bustle of activity with squinted eyes. With old Fort Lyon behind them, they entered the Zuni Mountains. The land sprawled out before him, the broad scrubland covered in sage and rabbitbrush. Broken mesas rose from the valley floor veiled in shades of blue and violet with distance, dotted by pygmy cedars. The stink of cattle and the fine canyon dust filled his throat and nostrils, even through his red bandana. He squeezed his nose and adjusted the cloth higher on his bridge. His black gloves caked a gray orange.

“Still thinking about the Gasento family?” Teven trotted his lathered horse around Van.

Van smiled. Not that Teven could see it. “These are former Gasento lands.”

His horse reined, Teven freed his canteen and drank deeply.

Van did likewise, the water absorbed into the back of his parched throat. A pleasant, sensation of relief shivered through his torso. “Juan Semos hired brush poppers to ferret out the beeves. We've seen no brands for the past week now.”

Teven nodded. “That they'd be dumb enough to steal Gasento, or other branded Mexican or Texan cattle?” He shrugged. “I'm thinking of the slavery.”

Van took another draught from his canteen.

The British abolished slavery before Van's birth. The Spanish too, yet here in the United States, and the unknown fastness of the frontier, human decency remained illusive.

Van and Teven watched the vaqueros guide the longhorns, as Juan Semos directed the drovers. Nathan sat nearby, within the Chuck wagon, splitting his time over the past several days between scouting and cooking.

“I commissioned these from the blacksmith.” Van opened the leather tool roll and showed Teven the four cattle brands. He gestured over the clouds of dust obscuring the cattle and herders. “Once we've gathered the rouge cattle, we'll brand each before starting the drive north out of Santa Fe.”

Numerous herds of free-roaming Spanish cattle, the old colonial Criollo breed, wandered the fastness of the New Mexico territory. The wild cattle, mainly brown with a light stripe down their backs and long, slim blue horns, proved anything but docile.

The Longhorn did not have many enemies. The tribes preferred the meat of the tamer and easier to kill buffalo, finding more uses for buffalo hides and bones than for Longhorn leather. Wolves that followed the migrating buffalo herds remained shy and wary of the mean, and often deadly, Longhorn cattle.

Teven hefted one of the branding irons. “Lot of work.”

Van replaced his bandana over his nose as he let his canteen hang on its saddle strap. “Nathan says the Semos cousins and their fellows will manage just fine.”

“Care to test your roping skills against them?” Teven said.

“I’m better with a whip than a lariat.”

Teven shrugged. “Days of it then, but if the herd scatters on account of the matter, it'll be a whole lot longer. One longhorn causes a panic? And who's to say any rustlers or tribes what thieve will care what brand we put on them?”

Van shifted in his saddle and touched his temple. “I'm more concerned about the Comanche. They're more likely to take us than care for the herd.”

*

Christian sat atop his gelding as Sende tended to the spare horses within their temporary corral of stakes and rope. Far from the gathered herd, the dust clung low to the ground, yet not so low as to escape it atop a mount. The mixed remuda of pinto and sorrel, with typical bay among them, stood easy enough, removed as they were from the confusion of the herd and drovers.

Christian dismounted. “What are you running from?”

Sende turned, her surprise contained, yet with a frown creasing her brow and her head cast about with caution. “Running?”

“We know you were a servant to the Gasento family, but why’d you run now?”

Sende cut her eyes at Christian.

Christian raised a gloved hand. “I don't mean to offend.”

A young vaquero arrived from the herd atop a lathered mount.

Christian turned on the man. “Damn it son, that there ride is dragged out. Don't work the next one so damned long, twig?”

The drover, older than Christian, glanced at Sende, nodded, and dismounted.

Sende eyed a bay gelding and approached it from behind and to its side. With a quick but gentle overhand throw she brought the loop of her lariat over the animal's head, settling it down around the neck. The bay protested until Sende lay her free hand along its muzzle. The horse turned to face her and she led it to the young vaquero as his new mount.

She glanced at Christian. “We are riding through Gasento land.” She gestured around them with her free arm. “My family worked with the Gasentos. They herded sheep and cattle, but I was very much a slave. Not a servant to Galtero Gasento.”

Christian removed the saddle and gear from the tired workhorse as the vaquero took the fresh mount from Sende.

“Your brother and Señor Van are rancheros?”

Christian looked up from the piled gear. “Those two? We all grew up together. Van’s as much my brother as Teven, but they've seen things, horrid things. That's why we all came over here. From England. To get away from the shadows of the old world. Ancient horrors from the other side of the Veil.”

Sende turned away from Christian, her lariat dangled from her right hand. “That is what I am running from also.”

*

Three miles ahead of the herd, Nathan stooped over the night's future fire pit when a noise from inside the chuck wagon drew his attention. He jogged around to the back of the wagon and found Day Long’s rear-end. The Black Seminole was bent over the covered wagon’s rear sideboard as he rummaged through the foodstuffs.

“What are you doing?”

A muffled snicker rose from within the wagon among the cluttered noise of shifted sacks and crates.

“Somethings never change.” Nathan said, pulling Day Long by the boots. “Get down from there.”

Day Long spun and landed in a casual hop, his arms full of packs of sour dough and biscuits. He also had several packets of Abajo corn paste mixed with honey and dried berries.

The two men stared at each other.

“Maybe that Katz fella was right.”

Nathan frowned. “Pardon?”

“You could be my wife, you look purty in that apron, but it's the hair—dem silver gold locks.”

Nathan snatched at the supplies. “Always fillin’ your belly!”

Day Long danced around him. “I ain't banded, hunger don't rule me.”

“Since when?” Nathan said. “You're always gnawing on something.”

“Naw, this is for me an’ the tail riders.” He laughed at his own pun. “We ain't gonna be eatin’ but dung and dust every day followin’ the herd. Gonna be candlelight soon, what's your say?”

Nathan sighed, stepping aside with an arm raised toward Day Long’s nearby mount. The Black Seminole grinned and walked to his steel blue grulla. He packed the supplies into his saddle bags and mounted the horse.

“Kinda scout are you, couldn't hear me ride up on you?” Day Long laughed and spurred the grulla into a canter.

“Done snuck up on me like the scout you are!” Nathan called after him, throwing his hand in a dismissive gesture behind him as he returned to preparing the evening meal.

*

Teven stretched his back and shifted in the saddle after another long day on the trail. Ahead, the sky grew dulled with the approach of twilight. Behind, the herd stretched back two miles. It would all begin again tomorrow. The steers left to graze each morning and led down the trail to familiarize the cattle to the drive.

They'd found the dominant steer early. Every drive gained its dominant steer, which by instinct claimed its place at the front of the herd to lead the way. Its name already chosen, “Red”, would not be sold; he would be brought home to St. Maria to lead the other herds north in future seasons. This morning, the cattle began to follow Red, led by the point riders. In addition to the two point riders beside Red, the swing and flank riders rode on each side of the herd. The swing riders about one-third of the way back. The flank riders two-thirds. Finally, Day Long and the tail riders rode behind the herd in the cloud of dust and stench that followed.

Van trotted up beside Teven on a black gelding. “There's a watering hole and a goodly stretch of grasses ahead. Nathan's already set camp.”

Teven bobbed his bowler hat and ran a hand through his coarse brown hair. “Seems all we do. Not much different to seaboard life. Routine, endless horizon, wide open skies.”

Van took up his canteen. “I'd do with a salty sea breeze about now, but you're right, we spent more time below decks then upon the rigs.”

Teven shrugged. “That business at Red Clay has you thinking about Azov?”

Van took a swig from his canteen. Swallowed. Licked his lips.

Teven raised an eyebrow. “Not what you thought it would be?”

Van balanced the canteen on the saddle, his hands crossed over it and shrugged. “Of all of us, not counting the Semos family, Aleya is best suited for this.”

“She was raised out here?”

Van nodded. “Just about. Came out here with her parents. Schooling back east, but she loves it.”

Teven frowned. “Don't you? This was all your idea.”

“Of course. Still, we seem to have finished one war only to find another here.”

Teven shook his head. “That's back East.”

“I want a fresh start for all of us. I don't expect it to be easy. Out here, away from the empires and cities, there's hope, at least during our lives, to live as we see fit.”

“Farming wasn't enough? I understand you wanting to settle as far into the frontier as possible, but this is a big change from home.”

“A big change from Wales, but overseeing a copper business is only another form of empire. My father does that well enough.” Van straightened. “You've yet to say. Are you all in? The plan is sound, we establish the ranch, build the herd to two, maybe three, thousand strong each year. If we drive these longhorns north, to Denver, and the rest clear round and back to St. Maria…”

The boys followed a circle route from the Grand Valley of Colorado, west into Utah and south through the lands of the Abajo, into the New Mexico territory and northern Texas to gather cattle. Skirting the lands of the Comancheria, they'd drive most of the herd to Denver, then further north through the plains and fatten the remaining cattle for the mountain journey west through Wyoming, south, back to Utah, and east into the Grand Valley.

Teven raised his hand. “I've no doubt we can, but my concern is Jessica. Does she truly want to leave Boston? Agree to uproot her life?”

Van shook his head, pointed his finger. “She chose you. Jessica will go anywhere with you. She's a newswoman. Living here beyond the frontier? The potential for unique stories? It's her bread and butter.”

Teven smiled. “Christian said much the same.”

“He's right.” Van shrugged. “That's how you and Jess’ met, writing her stories about the Crimea.” He paused, waving his hand around. “Reporting the stories of the good fight. Cossacks against our fine Royal Navy boys. The Golden Fox taken, our gunship overrun. We brash lads taking command, driving the battle to the Krasnodar Cossacks. Storming the Russian batteries, fighting life and limb…” He grew silent, the supernatural horrors the Krasnodar unleashed during the Sea of Azov campaign of the Crimean War forever etched into their minds.

Van breathed in and exhaled. “The old smith in Red Clay talked about war, and how the end of every war creates three armies. An army of the wounded, an army of the bereaved, and an army of thieves.”

Teven nodded and smiled as he raised his finger. “He forgot one, the fourth army. An army of newborns, and hope for the future.”

Van shook his head. Teven, ever an optimist.

*

The thick dust from the rear of the herd all but obscured the twilight skies to the east. The bedding down for the night coming soon enough, where Day Long left Nathan and the chuck.

The heat of the massed herd radiated upon Day Long’s drag riders at the rear, western edge, of the cattle.

Day Long and the rear vaqueros ensured no cattle strayed and no one followed the herd. While point, swing, and flank riders fulfilled similar duties around the longhorns, all wary of the beasts they led and protected.

Slowing his grulla, he turned to rustle through his saddlebags, and saw it, a flicker of movement on the expense of sparse grasslands behind. Through the thinning dust cloud and setting sun beyond. The grulla trotted on and Day Long lowered his wide, flat-brimmed, sombrero. There it was again, quick and low to the ground. Nothing but sagebrush provided any sort of cover. He turned the grulla to the right. A coyote maybe? Likely. The grulla stopped at a pull on the reins. Day Long lifted his canteen, pulled his bandana away from his face and drank deep. The sun grew fat against the mountains to the west. The land remained still, but something lurked out there.