It was Higgens who came up with the plan. Which fit, since he was the only one of the three with brains enough.

"The thing is," he explained, "we gotta look like real Indians."

"What kinda Indians?" Stub Marsden asked.

"Hell, I don't know," Higgens said. "We got Comanches, Kiowas, Chickasaws and Apaches. That bunch raidin' over near near Abbotsville a couple months ago was probably Comanches."

"Coulda been," Cole Simmons agreed.

"We gotta carry bows and arrows?" Stub asked. "Don't think I could hit a barn with an arrow."

"Hatchets, maybe," Simmons tossed in. "And rifles."

"Knives is better if we're gonna scalp anybody," Stub argued.

The three scoundrels were sitting at a table near the back of The Broken Rail saloon in Leroy, Texas, a half-empty bottle of whiskey passing from hand to hand. They were: Stub Marsden, a limp-haired dish-water-blond man whose round head rested directly on his shoulders seemingly without benefit of a neck; Cole Simmons, a thin stoop-shouldered cowhand with almost enough hair on his chin to pass for a beard; and Jack Higgens, an army deserter with brown hair framing a long bony face as heavily lined as a piece of paper that had been folded and refolded a hundred times.

For the past year the three had earned their whisky money by small-time cattle rustling. Whenever their thirst got the better of them, they'd ride down to Mexico and drive off a dozen or so cows. These they'd herd across the border to Texas and sell to a broker who dealt with local buyers.

It was no way to get rich. As Higgens said, "A slice here and a slice there don't make no pie."

Higgens tapped the table with his shot glass to turn the attention of the others away from weapons and back to the plan.

"This ridin' back and forth for a handful of cows is time consuming," he said. "What we do is, we steal 'em here. We build up a herd, three hundred to five hundred head. We drive 'em up to Kansas ourselves and make some real money."

"How much?" Cole Simmons wanted to know.

""Cattle prices up in Abilene is about twenty-three dollars a head." Higgens did some fast calculating. Four hundred head would sell for near $9,000."

"Where does the Indian part come in?" Stub asked.

"Dammit, you gotta pay attention," Higgens bristled but explained it all over again. "We dress up like Indians so folks will think its Indians stealin' the cattle. We hit smaller spreads that run maybe twenty-five to a hundred head. We kill the people and burn the ranch, just like Indians do. We stash the cattle in that big grassy plateau above Blue Rock Canyon. They'll graze fine up there."

"If we gotta kill the ranchers, how come we gotta dress up like Indians?" Stub persisted. "They ain't gonna tell nobody."

"We just do," Higgens yelled.

This whole Indian thing was making Stub's head hurt and he could tell he was making Higgens mad. He decided to shut up and just nod when Jack looked at him.

Jack fished a piece of paper and the stub of a well-chewed pencil out of his shirt pocket and started to write. "Now here's what we gotta have," he said.

Cole Simmons had a place on the outskirts of Leroy, a sod bunker with a battered wooden door and no windows. They decided to keep the stuff they needed there: Indian blankets, rope halters, body paint, headbands, feathers, buckskin trousers, rags, moccasins, short throwing-sticks and kerosene. Cole and Stub were put in charge of acquiring everything while Higgens rode off to scout likely victims.

He was back in five days with a bottle of whiskey and what he called, "the perfect set-up."

He explained: "It's a spread over west of Blanton. And what makes it so i-deal is there's been some Indian raids near there and folks is so scared they ain't gonna be shootin' real good. Two brothers name of Larouche run the place. Got an old wood house and a barn. A Mexican kid works for 'em but shouldn't be no problem."

"We been thinkin'," Stub said. "If we're gonna be Comanches, they're sort of a different color. We're all white as cotton and nobody's ever seen no white Indian."

"You're right," Higgens agreed. "What we do is, there ain't no shortage of red dirt in the territory. We make up a kinda paste of it, smear it on and we look as Indian as that Geronimo fella."

"Okay," Simmons said. "Other thing is, Indians yell a lot. What kinda yellin' do we do?"

Higgens scowled at him. "Ya just yell. Ya whoop and go ki-yi-ki-yi, real shrill."

Cole and Stub nodded.

"Last thing," Higgens said. "To be sure people think it was Comanches, just this once we oughta not kill everybody. We oughta wound the Mexican kid real bad but make sure he's alive to tell it was Indians did it."

Cole and Stub nodded again and Cole reached for the bottle.

The Larouche ranch lay a day's ride to the west and they rode undisguised. Higgens had discovered a dry arroyo rimmed with scrub oak and brush a mile south of the spread and they spent the night there. Before dawn they mixed red Oklahoma dirt with water from their canteens and smeared themselves with the thin slurry. They painted their faces and used ashes and boot polish to darken Stub's blond hair. Rags soaked in kerosene overnight were wrapped around the ends of the throwing sticks to make torches.

When all was ready, Higgens issued some last minute orders. "We come at the place from back of the barn. We set fire to it. That might draw 'em out in the open. Any case, we start yellin' and ride at the house tryin' to hit the roof with a torch. We keep circlin' and shootin' 'til we can move in and scalp 'em."

"'Cept the Mexican kid, right?" Cole reminded him.

"Right. Just wound him good."

The first part of the plan worked as Higgens said. The sun was just beginning to brighten the eastern sky when they led their ponies on foot to the back of the Larouche's barn and set it ablaze. Once it got going well enough to send smoke into the still morning sky, one of the brothers spotted the fire. There were yells from inside the ranch house and a man dashed out toward the barn only to be driven back by the attacking "Indians."

Howling like wolves the three attacked the house, trying to get close enough to hit it with a torch but the men inside immediately broke out the windows and returned fire. If they were too nervous and scared of Indians to shoot straight, their aim didn't show it and bullets whizzed past the attackers, coming perilously close.

Higgens, Stub and Cole kept circling, yelling and shooting trying to get close but to no avail. In desperation, Cole rode straight at an open window and threw a torch at it. The blazing stick bounced off the side of the house and Cole was hit twice, knocked off his horse as if he'd been hit by a charging buffalo. At the same time Higgens saw Stub grab his left arm and make a run for it, back toward the arroyo.

The whole thing was going to hell faster than a drunken politician. Furious, Higgens made the mistake of pulling up to get a better shot at the broken window. He was hit immediately in the side and right shoulder, the jolt of the bullet making him drop his rifle. A third round grazed his head, stunning him. Desperately, he wheeled his mount in an attempt to follow Stub but in his confusion set off in the opposite direction.

He got away without being hit again. The Larouche's and their hired hand were too busy trying to put out the barn fire and save their horses to follow him. Nearly unconscious, Higgens lay across his horse's back, clinging to its mane to keep from falling. He had no sense of where he was or how to get back to the shelter of the arroyo. For nearly an hour he fought to stay awake but finally he passed out and fell to the ground.

He had no idea how long he lay there. One hour, three or a day. What brought him awake was someone poking him. Higgens managed to open an eye not crusted with blood. The sun beat down on him and he was thirsty and nearly delirious. His vision was blurred but he made out the form of a man squatting next to him holding a rifle across his lap.

"Stub?" he groaned.

The man jumped back as if a scorpion had made a swipe at his hand then inched closer again. He reached out and wiped his hand across the caked red dirt on Higgens's chest and looked at it. He turned and held up his hand and said something and men started to laugh. Higgens managed to raise his head and peer in the direction of the laughter. Just behind the squatting man six Indians sat on their ponies, watching him.

The squatting man held up his red-dirt-stained hand again and said, "White man."

Still laughing, two of the Indians slipped from their ponies carrying rifles, walked to Higgens and stood looking down at him.

Indians, Higgens thought. Real goddam Indians. He wondered if they were Comanches just before they shot him.