The cedar was damp and wouldn't light. A coyote yapped somewhere in the arroyo, the cackle of a madman or some minor devil. The vaqueros had been riding hard for three days and spoke not a word to one another. There was no food. The old man pulled a worn bible from his saddlebag. It consoled them some just to see it. Dios would protect them, surely. Dios who had done them no favors for three days and who seemed not just to have forsaken them but to have taken an active hand against them, surely He would show them a little consideration. The old man opened the book and pulled from it a folded letter. He opened the letter carefully and, as though he were in an office somewhere sitting at a desk and not squatting in a dry riverbed, he examined the letter. It was too dark to read the words but that was no matter. He'd memorized them years as too go. "Esposo" she began.