"I like that," Stuart said. "It's true both literally and metaphorically. We are going to have to build a line through to the Pacific just as fast as we can scrape together the capital. Until we have one, and the feeder lines down to the city of Chihuahua and to Hermosillo, we aren't going to be able to control these provinces.. . Territories… states… whatever we finally call them."

"That's true, sir." Major Sellers nodded. "I expect we'll end up with a Pacific Squadron in the Navy, too, and we'll also need the railroad to keep that supplied." He chuckled. "The damnyankees will love having us for neighbors, too; you can just bet on it."

"One of the reasons they fought this war was to keep our frontier from touching the Pacific; no doubt about that," Stuart said. "But they lost, and now they'll have to make the best of it."

"Serves them right for starting the fight in the first place," Sellers said. "You ask me, sir, President Longstreet ought to squeeze an indemnity out of them that would make their eyes pop. Paying for a railroad would be a lot easier then."

"Old Pete knows what he's doing-you can doubt a lot of things, Major, but you'd better think twice before you doubt that," Stuart said. "My guess is, he reckons the United States hate us plenty now that we've licked them twice. Piling on an indemnity would be adding insult to injury: that's how he'd see it, I think."

Before Major Sellers could reply, a commotion to the rear made him and Stuart both look over their shoulders. Stuart soon heard men calling out his name. He waved his hat and shouted to show where he was.

A grimy, sweaty rider on a lathered horse came pounding up to him. "General Stuart, sir," the Confederate trooper gasped, "everything's gone to hell back in Cananea, sir."

"Oh, Lord." Stuart did not look at his aide-de-camp. Horatio Sellers had been sure nothing good would come of cooperating with the Apaches, and maybe he'd turned out to be right after all. "I left a troop of cavalry behind there to make sure the Mexicans and the Indians didn't go at each other."

"Yes, sir," the trooper said. "Wasn't enough, sir. You remember that Yahnozha who ran away with the Mexican gal, and she says he drug her off and he says she was beggin' for more?"

"Oh, yes. I remember," Stuart said, a sinking feeling in his mid-section. "What about him? Did he steal another woman?"

"No, sir," the soldier answered. "The gal's father and her brother, they was layin' for him, and one of 'em put about three bullets in his belly, and the other one, he put two, three more in his head. Then they cut off his privates, sir, and left 'cm sittin' by the carcass for the Indians to find. That started the fightin', and it's been a regular war ever since-you'd best believe it has."

"Christ," Stuart said, an exclamation that had nothing to do with the approach of the holiday season. "What the devil have you men been doing to put the lid back on the place?"

The look the trooper sent his way reminded him how insubordinate so many Confederate soldiers had been during the War of Secession. They were men accustomed to speaking their minds regardless of the niceties of rank. This cavalryman was stamped from the same mold. He said, "What we've been doing, sir, is trying to keep from gcttin' ourselves killed. Hell of a lot more Apaches down by Cananea than we-uns, an' every one of 'em totes a Tredegar just like the ones we've got. Hell of a lot more Mexicans than we-uns, too. They got every damn kind of rifle you ever did see. We try and get between the greasers and the redskins, only means we get shot at from both sides at once."

"Who's winning?" Major Sellers asked. His voice was exuberant, almost gleeful. "Whoever gets killed off, long as it isn't our own soldiers, we're well shut of 'em." Stuart glared at him. He stared right back, not so noisily insubordinate as the man who'd ridden in from Cananea, but not backing away from his opinion by even an inch, either.

"Well, sir, that's right hard to say," the Confederate trooper answered. "The Mexicans, they don't get to go out of their houses a whole lot, but they've got plenty of vittles, and any Injun sticks his head up inside of rifle range, he's liable to end up with his brains rearranged, you know what I mean? Every now and again, some of the greasers, the ones with the best guns and the most balls, they'll sneak out of a night and shoot at the Apaches' camp."

"We can't have that," Stuart said. "We can't have any of that sort of nonsense. If we let it go on there, it'll go on all over these two provinces." He heaved a deep, regretful sigh. "So much for Christmas on the edge of civilization. Bugler!"

"Yes, sir!" The trooper produced his polished brass horn.

"Blow Halt," Stuart said. He sighed again. "Then blow About-face. We're going to have to go back there and stamp out that foolishness."

"The whole army, sir?" Major Sellers sounded appalled. He'd been looking forward to Christmas in Texas, too, perhaps even to taking leave and traveling back to Virginia for Christmas with his family.

But Stuart answered, "Yes, the whole army. The Apaches and the Cananeans arc going to think they were strolling along the railroad tracks when a train ran over them. If we smash both sides now, it will save the Confederate States a lot of trouble for years and years to come."

"All right, sir; we'll do that, then." Sellers' laugh held a gravelly rumble of doom. "I've been saying all along that we ought to clean out those Indians. The faster and harder we do it, the better off these provinces will be."

"I knew you'd say, 'I told you so,' Major," Stuart said, and his aide-de-camp grinned, altogether unabashed. The commander of the Department of the Trans-Mississippi stroked his beard, working through the orders he would have to give to make the army reverse its course. "First thing we need to do is send a wire to El Paso, letting people know what's happened. Next thing-" He glowered his discontent at the desert all around. "We're already the other side of Janos, better than two days away from Cananea no matter how hard we push." He shook his head, annoyed at his wits for working slower than they should have. "No, most of us arc better than two days away from Cananea. Colonel Ruggles!"

"Sir!" At that shout, the commanding officer of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry rode up on his camel. Stuart's horse snorted at the other beast's stink and tried to rear. He didn't let it. Calhoun Ruggles went on, "What can I-what can we-do for you, sir?"

Briefly, Stuart explained what had gone wrong in Cananea. He finished, "I want the Fifth Camelry to ride out ahead of the rest of the army and hit the Indians and the Mexicans before either side expects you. If you can, smash 'em up by yourselves. If you can't manage that, do everything you can. You know we won't be far behind you."

"All right, sir, we'll handle it," Colonel Ruggles said. "And if the redskins light out for the mountains, I reckon we'll chase 'em down before they can get there. They say they can go faster on foot than troopers can on horseback. I'd like to see 'em try and outrun my critters." He leaned forward in his peculiar saddle and set an affectionate hand on the side of his mount's neck. The camel twisted and tried to bite. Ruggles laughed as if he'd expected nothing else.

As Stuart had seen for himself, the Camelry was not in the habit of wasting time. Aboard their moaning, snorting, hideously homely mounts, Ruggles' troopers soon headed west. Stuart would have sworn his horse let out a sigh of relief when the camels trotted away.

Major Horatio Sellers gave Stuart a sly look. "I notice you're not riding with the Fifth this time, sir," he said.

"That's right, I'm not, and I'll give you two good reasons why," Stuart answered. "The first one is that anybody who gets on a camel more than once proves to the world he's a damned fool." He waited for his aide-de-camp to grunt laughter, then went on, "And the second one is that Colonel Ruggles and his regiment are perfectly able to handle the size of the trouble they've got in Cananea without me, and I don't want them thinking that I think they can't."