Wesley Torrance dumped the remains from his tin coffee pot on the fire and leaned back comfortably in the cradle of his saddle. Breathing in the steam from his last mug-full of the harsh brew, he sighed happily and gazed up at the night sky through the pine branches over his campsite. The ride to Danby and back had taken almost two and one half weeks and now he was only a day and a half from home. Wesley couldn't wait to see the look on Gwen's face when he showed her the officially registered deed for their ninety eight-acre section of the Golden Sky Valley. He and Mark could begin clearing the trees and start building their house, just as they planned. With luck and hard work, they would have most of it ready before the first snow. Wesley sipped the boiled coffee, eagerly envisioning the development of their newly acquired property. In the spring, they would ride down to Buffalo Stump and purchase the first of the livestock; Gwen could pick up all the things she would need to outfit their home. He drained the mug and set it on the ground beside his bedroll, settling down for a well-earned sleep and rest before the long ride the next day.

*****

Ethan Bragg slouched back in the creaking armchair, one boot heel just catching the corner of his battered office desk. He stared absently at the old Thompson, 'wag-on-the-wall' clock that resided in the coffin shaped case Hector Field, the undertaker, had made for him. The ornate brass hands indicated twenty past two, which meant that he had been sitting and reading the notice he had received, on the Duffield noon stage, for over an hour. Ethan Bragg was a rough-hewn, surly of manner, fifty-six year old bachelor who, for the past fifteen years, held the post of sheriff in the frontier town of Buffalo Stump. At six foot six, in his shiny black boots, always worn with the trousers tucked in, he was an intimidating sight when striding down the muddy main street, steel grey eyes staring straight ahead and his long moustache fluttering against his gaunt cheeks.

Ethan gave another cursory glance at the notice and dropped it on the desk with a sigh. He had seen his share of trouble over the years; drunken ranchers beating up the girls in the local bordello when it came time to pay. Hard-nosed drifters and wild cowboys at the end of a long drive, fighting and shooting up the town. Plenty of times he had, had to shoot back, even killing some, but this news, he fingered the notice again, tugging at the end of his moustache. He dropped his leg to the floor and hauled himself wearily out of the chair, stomping across the office to the door.

A small boy, dashing by, in mud splattered britches, stumbled to a halt as Ethan grabbed him by the suspenders and swung him around. "Where's the fire then, young Daniel?"

The boy straightened his shirt and stood with his thumbs hooked in his pants, looking up at the dark features of the giant in front of him. "No fire Sheriff Bragg. I'as jest play pretendin'."

"Well now you can do something for real— for me." He patted the youngster on his thin shoulder and leaned down to speak. "I want you to find my deputy, Horace, and tell him to get over to the jail pronto. Got that?"

"You betcha Sheriff. Git Horace to the jail pronto." His little chest puffed slightly with the Sheriff's bestowal of responsibility.

"Here's somethin' for doin' this important work Daniel." Ethan pressed a five-cent piece in to the tiny, moist hand. "Now off you go, and don't forget. Pronto." He watched with an amused smile as the lad bolted along the wooden porch and jumped down into the rutted, muddy street, eyes wide with determination and little legs pumping for all they were worth.

Ethan Bragg offered the street a lazy glance and stepped back inside the office. The coffin clock bonged two-thirty, mournfully, causing him to give it a regretful frown. The yellowed, framed newspaper article hanging next to it, caught his attention, and he strolled over, reaching out and touching the glass with his fingertips.

RANGE WAR HEROICS BRINGS PEACE TO SETTLERS!

He read the headline and snorted. Some heroics, he thought, a bunch of crazy cowboys too lazy to hold down proper jobs and just itchin' for a scrap. Ethan wandered over to his desk and slumped down, thinking back to the days when he was a fuzz-chinned kid, five years on his own and the world by the tail.

On the Washback Flats, near the northern border of Arizona, a train of settlers had staked out some land for farming; the unfortunate choice raised the ire of local ranchers, and soon the area was awash in a bitter fight. Ethan and two of his friends learned they could make some good money by siding with the settlers, and happily joined with a gang of farmers, outlaws and assorted other ruffians. When the ranchers decided that they were outgunned, they massed their herds of horses together and drove them across the Flats in a dust swirling, thunderous pack, almost a mile wide. Crops were trampled to mulch, livestock scattered, rough-built shelters, bulled over and smashed, and several people killed and injured.

Ethan closed his eyes and replayed the event that prompted the newspaper headline. He and several other riders had been stationed on a farm, set against a small rise on the bend of a river. They were supposed to try to divert the herd out into the open flats, but when they saw the wall of dust sweeping down on them, they knew it would be hopeless, and began clearing everyone off the land. One young woman, who had made a last minute trip to the river for water, found herself trapped in the path of the wild running horses. Ethan shook his head, remembering the man in his group that unlashed his lariat and galloped madly across the front of the pounding herd. A few seconds later he was gone from sight, and except for the short arc of his lariat, sailing above the massed horses, was lost in the tumult of the stampede. When the driven herd had finally passed, Ethan was astonished to see the man loping casually across the ruined crops with the woman hanging on behind him. It turned out the woman was the daughter of one of the ranchers, who opposed her father's ambitions and had visited the farm to offer her help. When the father learned what happened, he called off the war and made peace with the settlers. Hartman, the rider who had performed the rescue, received immense notoriety, and by association, so did the rest of Ethan's group. He opened his eyes and sighed aloud, "So long ago," gazing again at the framed clipping.

*****

Bentonville prison was carved out of a rock promontory about two hundred feet above the Ram Horn River. A narrow, two-rut road was the only approach to its entrance, winding with agonizing deliberation through a dense pine forest from the wide valley below. For five hundred feet around the front of the structure, every tree and shrub had been cut down, leaving the once fertile earth baked to a solid, dust covered plain. Two open-air stone towers with flat wooden roofs flanked the fifteen-foot log gates at the entrance. When opened, they exposed a sharply inclined ramp, which led down into the bowl shaped interior of the prison yard. Along the back of the yard, following the curve of the solid rock walls, was a low, flat roofed wooden barrack where the prisoners slept and ate. Below the gates and beside the ramp, stood a sturdy log building that housed the warden and the guards.

There were no cells in Bentonville, unless you counted the punishment pit in the middle of the yard. The inmates were free to roam the interior of the bowl; their fantasies of escape quelled by its smooth, solid sides, rising nearly forty feet above the yard. Over its seventeen-year history, the prison population stayed at about three hundred inmates. New arrivals pretty much balancing the annual death rate, whether by old age, disease or violence. These were the worst of the worst. Men convicted and sent to Bentonville were never released, and no one ever escaped . . . until now.

Major Zane Warren Stiffton, the first and only warden of Bentonville stared down from his second floor quarters with venom at the milling crowd of grey clad prisoners. A copy of his distasteful and personally embarrassing report, which had been sent to the governor in Danby, sat on his desk as a taunting reminder of his first failure in the job. Cabel Royce, an inmate with an unspeakable record of murder and mayhem, six years into his sentence, had managed the impossible. The prison wagon from Bentonville was discovered in the forest below, on its side, wrecked. The bodies of the driver and two guards were retrieved from around the site in pieces, a result of scavenging wildlife, attracted by the scent of blood. All the clothing, weapons and horses were gone.

Bentonville was not just a storehouse for society's worst inhabitants, it was also a place of exile for rank and file underachievers and go nowhere military cast-offs. Major Stiffton had arrived too late for the glory of combat with the army, spending his service guarding reservations and livestock, well behind the lines instead. The rank of Major was imposed as a sop to induce co-operation in his appointment as warden of Bentonville; the alternative being a discharge back into civilian life, a choice his wounded ego would not permit. Now, after seventeen years of virtual anonymity, his name was on all the members of the government in Danby— as a failure.

*****