He sprinkled water from a canteen on the heavily bandaged head of his comrade.
"What are they doing?" the boy asked, sniffling up a runny nose.
"Baptizing you," Miguel explained. "So you might have a chance in the next life, since you are shit out of luck in this one."
"But I been baptized. As a proper Baptist, too," he protested. "Tell them no. I don't want their stupid heathen god interfering with me."
Miguel shrugged. "Let them be, boy. It is the same God. And believe me, you have bigger problems today."
Without further preamble he smacked the lad's horse sharply on the rear, and it whinnied in distress before bolting away.
"Hey!" the lad yelped, but whatever protest he might have wanted to make was cut short by the snapping thud of the rope. His body added its fresh rhythm to the dying swing of his comrades.
Aronson splashed more canteen water, this time on Adam's head, and repeated the prayer. "Adam Coupland, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you, for and in behalf of this man, we know only as Billy, who is just now dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen."
The last of the road agents, the boss of the crew, drew in a deep breath as Miguel rode over, but he seemed composed enough now that his time had come.
"Will you tell them your name so that they might baptize you properly?" Miguel asked of the man.
The agent seemed to ponder the matter for a few moments. He took a deep breath of cold Texas air through his nose and held it for a few seconds before slowly letting it out. Then he looked Miguel straight in the eye.
"No," he replied, allowing his gaze to drift away from Miguel to the peaceful vista they enjoyed from the gentle rise overlooking the forested hills to the southwest. "No, I really do not think I will give you or anyone else the satisfaction."
"Satisfaction be damned," Miguel said, letting his anger show through. "You have your orders from Fort Hood, do you not? You have your orders, your mission, your blood money, everything from Blackstone."
The agent smiled.
"Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe neither. You've got my life, puta. You can't have my name. And you can't have my country, neither. But rest assured, I will be sure to give your regards to the devil."
And with that, he spurred his own horse out from beneath him and dropped into eternity. "I would not advise staying here long," Miguel said as they walked away from the freshly mounded graves.
"You think there will be more road agents?" D'Age asked.
"Possibly not. From what I hear, they have their own territories. But there are TDF patrols about, and if they were in contact with these men, they will soon notice that they have gone."
The morning was cool despite the late hour. It would be time for lunch soon, but Miguel wondered whether the Mormons would have any appetite after the foul passage of the day so far. At first light they had buried the dead from the gunfight with the help of the three survivors, laying them down in soft ground near a small water hole not far from the football field. Then they had buried the other three in the same place after hanging them. Three of the camp whores had survived their wounds, and Miguel understood that an intense debate was under way within the Mormon ranks over what to do with them. The smart thing would be to silence them, too, but he had no stomach for that, and the Mormons would not hear of the suggestion. Taking them or leaving them seemed to be the only options, and both were beset with problems.
He wiped his sweating brow. A few wispy strands of white cloud stretched across otherwise hard blue skies, and the sounds of cattle mustering drifted over the tree line.
They had buried Peter Atchison, their horse wrangler, who had been killed by an agent's bullet, under a chestnut tree some distance away. The tenor of the small party was subdued, and their leaders were of a mind to move both cattle and people to the far side of town for a few days' rest before breaking trail again.
Sofia, who had been walking a few yards ahead with Adam and Orin and a fully recovered Sally Gray, dropped out of the group of youngsters and stood waiting until Miguel, Aronson, and D'Age caught up with her.
"I need a moment with my daughter," Miguel said.
Aronson and D'Age nodded. "Of course."
Sofia still seemed stiff, cold, constantly searching her surroundings. Miguel remembered a better time when his little princess had taken an intense interest in anything new, always curious. He placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her off to the side. She came along willingly enough, something Miguel did not take for granted these days.
"Are you all right, Sofia?" he asked in Spanish. He did not want anyone to overhear this discussion.
After clearing her initial surprise at the change in language, Sofia responded in kind. "Suppose so."
This morning was not the first time she had seen death, of course, but it was the first time she had seen men killed in a detached and calculated fashion, if one could call the messy execution that.
"I am sorry about what I did last night," Miguel said. "I lost control of myself."
"I understand," she said in a tone that lacked any warmth or emotion.
"Do you?" he asked. "Do you really understand? You are all that is left to me. You are the future to me. But also my past. Every one of us who has ever lived lives on in you. All of our family. You are everything. For that reason, in small measure, but mostly, almost entirely, because I love you more than anyone or anything in the world. How could it be otherwise? Do you understand how important it is to me that you reach safety?"
She cocked her head to the left, another new tic she had picked up. "Where is it truly safe, Papa? Can you answer me that?"
"Kansas City, of course," he said.
"Are you sure, Papa?" Sofia asked. "Are you really sure about that?"
"The federales are there…"
"And what of the Wave, Papa?" Sofia asked. "The Americanos, for all of their power, were wiped off the face of God's earth by the Wave. Where is safe?"
"The Wave will not come again," he said.
"Are you sure of that?" Sofia asked. "How can you be sure of anything, Papa? I am certain of only one thing now-that feeling safe is an illusion. Can you tell me otherwise?"
Miguel shook his head. He had never had this sort of trouble with Sofia before. She had never questioned his authority like this. He felt rage flickering at the edge of his temper again and quickly did his best to defuse it.
"Papa." She reached out and grabbed his arm. Her grip was firm, solid around his bicep. "We must protect each other. We are all that we have left. And whether you like it or not, I will do my best to protect you. Your belt does not frighten me anymore, not now."
He looked Sofia in the eye. He saw that in some respects he had lost her as well. The laughing, happy daughter, la princesa, had passed away just as surely as the rest of his family. In her place was this changeling, this cold, hard…
Woman, he realized.
"Papa." Her voice sounded much as it had years ago when he used to hold her high over his head. "I love you very much, and I could not bear to lose you."
He took her into his arms and held her close, as if it might be the last time. He remembered bringing her those silly little toys out of a McDonald's Happy Meal, how much she had enjoyed them. More so because her papa had brought them for her. He remembered taking the family down to the beach on one of his rare vacations away from the trail, watching the children play in the surf.
Miguel remembered teaching Sofia not to blink when she pulled the trigger, to squeeze the trigger, not yank it, when the ten-point buck came into view. Headstrong even then, Sofia had taken the buck at nearly three hundred yards, which startled everyone to this very day.