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shrug.
    â€œYou should have told him the gun wasn’t loaded, Micah.”
    â€œHe would have hit me again, for talking back. Once his hackles are up, he can’t hear nothing. I’m never so good as he thinks I should be, but I’m never so bad as he thinks I am.”
    â€œAll the more reason. If you help him see the good in you, maybe he will soften.”
    But Micah’s eyes hardened, his upper lip curving into a sneer as he barked orders and snapped the reins, urging the horses up a little grade.
    â€œLet him think what he will. The son he thinks he has is the one he deserves.”

Chapter 8
    O n the long drive home Caleb constantly scanned the lengthening shadows of rocks and trees for signs of an ambush. But they were only shadows, devoid of threat. Perhaps El Pantera was, after all, a man who kept his word. The log-laden wagons encountered no more trouble on the return trip, arriving at the farm well after dark. Exhausted by a long day of hard work and a tense ride home, Caleb slept that night as one dead.
    The next morning the men gathered at the saw pit. By the time the sun had climbed enough to take away the night chill the older sons had already shed their coats and sweated through their shirts as they drew the two-man ripsaw rhythmically up and down, up and down, slicing logs into lumber.
    As Caleb and John put their shoulders into cant hooks and rolled a fresh log onto the trestle, Ira walked up. He leaned his forearms on the edge of the wagon.
    â€œCaleb, we need to talk,” he said. “We got to do something about these bandits before somebody gets killed or, Gott forbid, they do harm to our daughters.”
    Caleb climbed down from the wagon and John followed, lighting his pipe.
    â€œI’m not sure what we can do,” Caleb said. “I’m as fearful of these men as you are, Ira. They are hard men, without conscience, but would you become as they are? In the end I think we must do everything we can to avoid provoking them. We must not become their enemies.”
    There were gray circles under Ira’s eyes. He had not slept well, and even now his red face was clouded with worry. “That kind of thinking may be fine for most of these vermin, Caleb, but this El Pantera fills me with dread. What kind of country is this, where evil men do as they please without anyone to stop them?”
    â€œI will stop them,” Domingo’s voice said. He had come up behind Ira and overheard most of the conversation. “I will stop them if I can, but you must understand a few things, Herr Shrock. Most of the people you will meet are ordinary hardworking farmers like you, but there has been a war. Now that it is over, these northern hills are full of Pancho Villa’s rabble, men from the border towns who were swindlers and thieves before they were soldiers. El Pantera’s men fought with Villa during the Revolution, and it was there that they learned to storm a hacienda, to slaughter and rape and take what they want. It is not easy for some men to unlearn such things.”
    Ira stared hard at the young native as he took off his hat and poncho and laid them under the wagon seat.
    â€œThis is what comes of war,” Ira said. “It kills a man’s conscience and makes him capable of all manner of abominations. This El Pantera is such a man, and what is to stop him from coming here?”
    Domingo pulled his hair back and tied a bandanna around his head. “I have told you, he will not come here, because he was Pancho Villa’s man, and Villa has never allowed his men to attack El Prado. As long as Villa lives, El Pantera will not come to Paradise Valley.”
    John Hershberger drew on his pipe and said thoughtfully, “But there must be others who do not belong to Villa’s army. Surely the new government will protect its people from such men.”
    â€œJah, but the federales are spread thin. There are policemen in the cities and towns, but