Fort Davis

                                                                    Chapter One

                                                 West Texas Plains Near Fort Davis, May 1870

     Captain Easton mounts a brief rise and squints at the burning stagecoach. “Apaches,” barks Sergeant Kennedy, as both survey the vast stretch of gramma, cactus, and yuccas. Overhead a May sun flattens the smoke into a splay of drifting, feathering gray. Mary’s stage? Kennedy loosens his Springfield from its scabbard and leather creaked and the carbine flashed and galloping they soon overtook the smoke. A bullet sings by Easton’s shoulder and he mutters a good luck oath. His horse whinnies—jerks its bit—and its teeth scrape under flared nostrils.