Chapter 6

After Caleb had forted up, his days were busy finishing tasks that he had been putting off for way too long. Usually, he did the heaviest labor in the morning when the temperature was low. This was followed by a siesta that generally took most of the afternoon. Then, when the shadows from the ridge fell on his campsite, he would take care of any housekeeping chores that needed to be done.

His two heavy tasks were to keep building on his cabin, mostly with rock and adobe bricks. The other was a vegetable garden. With a ready source of water, plenty of game animals are attracted to the stream for meat. Caleb had grown tired of foraging for vegetables, herbs, and spices and had decided a garden was the answer.

The only breaks he took from these projects were in the early morning, just after sunrise, and in the evening for about an hour before sundown. At those times, he would climb to his lookout post and start watching his surroundings.

On his second day in the canyon, he saw that there was a group of men combing the canyonlands. There were four of them. At first, he thought it might be the group he had seen earlier. He remembered that one of the searchers had also been riding an Appaloosa. But that group had six members.

Usually, the only humans in the badlands were whites. The Indian tribes considered the hoodoos as haunted. That lost spirits wandered the canyons looking for a way to the great beyond. If the living had to enter the badlands, they made every effort to leave before sundown.

Among the whites, hunters and ranchers were the most likely to stay for any length of time. The hunters would be looking for game, and as soon as they had what they wanted, they would leave. Ranchers always traveled in large groups and spent all their time rounding up mavericks and herding them into temporary corrals. When they had a large enough herd, but not so big that they couldn’t handle the herd, they would leave.

Farmers always traveled in large, loud, and noisy groups. They were also the only groups that would bring women and children with them. They would usually turn around and leave when it became apparent that there wasn’t any farmland and little water available.

The final groups were bandits and the posse chasing them. A bandit group that was running from a posse would find a place to hide and disappear for as long as the posse was looking. They wouldn’t waste time looking around like ranchers or farmers. A posse, once they got into the badlands, would slow down while their trackers looked for signs. But, assisting law enforcement for low or no pay, they would quickly decide that returning to their farms and stores was in their best interest.

That was what bothered Caleb about this group. They were acting like a posse, but Caleb knew that there were no other groups in the area, so who could they be looking for? The front rider was obviously the tracker. He would frequently dismount and closely check the ground. Because of his clothes and the fact that he was riding an appaloosa, Caleb assumed he was a Navajo, possibly a discharged army scout. Behind him rode a well-dressed man, at least as well dressed as a week or more in the saddle allowed. Third in the group was a big man. Tall and heavily built, but not fat. At first, Caleb had thought he might have been the leader, but he changed his mind when he watched the well-dressed dude loudly yelling at the fourth member of the group. This guy was smaller and appeared much younger than the others.