emands, no claims on a
stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his
father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly
away from that open door, the light, the laughter and singing, and walked
back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.

Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake.
In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now
the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small
traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded by _Don_
Cazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being
spread out and hawked.

Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped
to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown
panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware
of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a
horn goblet carved with intricate figures of gods his Anglo eyes did not
recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing
of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon
was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon
siesta, was in tumult.

A fighting cock tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost
in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out
of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals
and people ... the clamor ... the sights....

Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another
world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his
ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the
Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels
about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two
had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts. Dark-brown eyes,
as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians
moved or spoke.

Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun butt.
Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He
could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first
Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas.

"Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"

Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the