Raven’s shaking hands and unsteady stance. There was kindling. He started a fire before putting on coffee. “You stink.”

He eyed Raven while it boiled, watching him pushed his thick black hair out of his face. It fell long over his eyes and down to his neck. Raven never let his own grow past his shoulders. He was a half blood, Mexican, and Sioux.

“How’d you find me?” Raven glanced around for a pail he could pack snow in and melt it to bathe. He did that by stepping outside. The snow was piled high against the cabin.

“It took some doing,” Hawk admitted. “I been all over the country. This was the last place you worked, so I figured with winter on, you’d be somewhere in the mountains. How come you got no horse?”

“Sold it.” Raven shrugged, peeling his soiled clothing down to his dusky skin.

“For whiskey?” Hawk figured.

“Yep.” Raven stood nude in the mean little structure. He had dropped pounds from his once muscular frame yet couldn’t quite shed the honed sinew thirty years had carved. Still drinking nothing except whiskey, not eating much, was shaving too much off an already lean frame.

Hawk watched him take soap and rub it with snow. Raven cursed and then walked outside buck-naked. He could hear him shouting curses loud enough to cause an avalanche. When he came in, his dark skin was red and blanked with goose bumps. He’d made an attempt to wash his hair.

He set another snow-packed pail on the stove and watched it melt. “Why you looking for me anyway?” Raven asked

“I got a job for you.”

Raven’s black eyes met tawny brown ones. “I don’t need you finding work for me.”

“Who says I went looking?” Hawk snorted. “I was offered a job in Kansas that I need a few men for.”

Raven eyed him sharply. Hawk was half Cheyenne, a hired gun, taller than his own six foot by four inches. He had lighter coppery skin, and favored buckskins and moccasins.

“I got a good aim, but I’m no gunslinger. Since when do you share the hire with others? I never seen you work with anybody.”

“When you’re sober, we’ll talk.” Hawk shrugged and dug into the pack that he had seen Raven carry for years. He pulled out leather breeches, socks and a black wool shirt, and found Raven’s hand-tooled leather boots in the corner, and handed the items to him.

Raven’s other water was ready. He went out and poured it over his head, then found a soft brush to attend his teeth. He was chewing wild mint and rinsing his mouth when he came in.

“Coffee’s done.”

Raven dressed and spit out the mint, then pulled a comb through his hair while Hawk poured coffee. They drank the bitter brew, before Hawk saw those clearing up.

“There’s a ranch in Kansas that needs cattle brought up from Texas. I’ve been hired to guard the herd. Two other attempts have failed, because of rustlers, enemies of the rancher. They’ve purchased a thousand head, and it will take a good crew to deliver every one. You’re the best I know with cattle. You can pick the right hands for the drive.”

Raven swallowed a mouthful of coffee, eyeing Hawk. “Why do I have the feeling you’re not through talking?”

Hawk smiled again. “This ranch has a bad history. There’s a lot riding on the delivery. We don’t get paid if the cattle don’t make it.”

“Shit.”

“That’s not all.”

“Figured not.”

“The ranch has only 2 bulls and a couple of cows. They sold most of the stock to pay off debt, except the bank is still holding notes. The bank wants the rancher to fail, because the banker happens to be brother-in-law to the man wanting to buy the place.”

“The rancher told you all this?”

“No,” Hawk admitted. “I never go into a job blind. A man can make you think it’s a simple war you’re fighting, and you find out, he’s got you killing off the people you shouldn’t.”

“You think because of my own background I’ll feel sorry for some rancher?” Raven sneered. “I don’t. These days the brand means nothing to me. I need a few dollars, I hire on. I do my job and nothing over. I’m a cowhand, same as any other.”

“I’m only as loyal as I’m paid to be too, my friend,” Hawk said softly. “Still I thought you might need something more challenging than you been up to. You’re going to kill yourself between jobs, with this stinking whiskey.”

“That’s my business.”

“How about the fact I’m asking then. I’m hiring you? I’ve been told to pick a good foreman and crew. I know only one I’d trust to get the job done.”

“Guarding is not your profession, Hawk. It’s not what you’re best at.”

“It’s the same thing, running off rustlers and sodbusters or ferreting out a man’s enemies. I got some suspicions about this deal, Raven. It don’t sit right with me that two attempts to deliver cattle have failed for the same rancher. Particularly, where there are enemies involved.”

“So, the rancher should hire dozen or so men to guard the herd. Why hire someone like you. I ain’t saying you couldn’t do the job. I’m saying, your reputation ain’t in that area. How’d the rancher figure one man could guard a thousand head of cattle on a trip over hundreds of miles?”

“Like I say, I was told to hire the right men. When a man like me is told that, it’s a given I’ll hire more than typical cowboys.”

“I’m not risking my life on any job. Especially one I might not get paid for.”

“That’s the challenge, ain’t it?” Hawk kept eyeing him steady. “We make sure we do get paid.”

“With what? Two bulls and some cows?” Raven got up to pour another coffee. He remained standing, looking out the dirty window.

“What’s you plan then, Raven? To spend the winter drinking whiskey and maybe freeze to death up here?”

“Yeah, that was the plan.”

Hawk stared at his back. “I never took you for a coward.”

Yeah, well—”

“This is bullshit,” Hawk snarled. “At least when you were angry and bitter, you had balls.”

Raven turned to meet his eyes. “I had it all, Hawk. I worked, busted my guts for it. I had a wife, a ranch. I didn’t have to slave for any dirty sonofabitch—” Raven’s free hand balled into a fist, he clamped down on his fury.

Raven wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. The man had a rage against fate, and there was no justice for him. His little spread was a prime piece of land that bigger ranchers had wanted. Raven saved and worked for the ailing owner. He’d bought that spread, wed the woman he loved; those neighbors had destroyed him, burned his house, and slaughtered his herd. Raven’s wife had miscarried and died of blood loss. He’d sought revenge, and was rewarded with five long, hard years in a hellhole prison.

Hawk had meet Raven when he had hired him. He’d not charged so high a price then, because he’d been young too, only twenty-three. He’d come too late though. Raven hadn’t killed anyone, there were too many of them, he’d gone crazy and done damage, broke bones. By time Hawk got there, Raven was on trial.

Over the years Hawk had worked with Raven. It was mostly accidental. Hawk would get hired on for his gun and discover that Raven was working as a hand on the spread too. Yet in between those times, Hawk had watched him sink deeper into the bottle.

Raven had hate in him. Hawk understood that. He knew the man had been tossed away like trash. A mixed breed wasn’t accepted in the world. Hawk was aware of this personally. Raven had cleaned bathhouses, scrubbed floors, working for abusive people who had put most of the scars on his body before the age of fifteen. He’d saved his money though, and he’d taken more in silence than god ever intended a human to suffer at the hands of others all for his dream, that had turned into his worst nightmare.

Hawk’s own experiences weren’t much better. He’d been raised by a missionary, a fanatic, obsessed with getting the Indian out of Hawk any way he could, twisting the Bible, fluctuating from violence to sobbing. Hawk was glad when he’d sent him east to the boarding schools, where other Indians were being purged of their culture. Far as he knew, his father was French blood. His mother had been a Cheyenne woman who’d learned enough to teach the white language. She’d given Hawk to the missionary, thinking he’d be better off. Hawk had run away from the school, desperate to find his mother’s people, and had realized no place for himself in that world either.

He’d gotten one lucky break in all the rotten years, stumbling upon an outlaw camp in the middle of nowhere Arizona, tolerating their mean tempers and ignorant bigotry to learn their way. He’d left the men in time, looking for scouting and guard work, or anyone who wanted to hire his gun.

Hawk had dressed white at first and kept his hair hidden. Eventually he had a reputation, and could look however he wanted, because men respected his skill. That didn’t mean they respected him. He had no illusions. Indians were grouped into one category and whites in the other; anyone mixed was lumped by appearance. He didn’t ask for anything. He needed it, he got it himself. When he had met Raven, they had simply known the parallels in their experience.

Raven was a darker man, with skin more brown than copper, his hair thicker than Hawk’s straight long mane. His jaw was strong, cheekbones broader, and eyes black. He was usually carrying more bulk than Hawk’s taller, long, muscled frame. He had scars on his back and legs —that only his wife and Hawk had seen. There were burn marks, switch, and whip marks that one had to see him in daylight to notice.

Hawk's own scars were internal. He figured though, if he could live this long and keep facing life, Raven could too. In one area Raven would always be respected no matter what his blood—ranching. The man had a knack with cows and horseflesh that had somewhere been bred into him.

They were both thirty-years-old, and neither belonged to any culture, tribe, person or place. For Hawk, there had never been anything personal worth fighting for but survival, and that was instinctive, not something he thought about. A lifetime absent of any other purpose besides this instinct had molded and defined the man he was today. It was the reason he could exchange life for money. It was never personal.

For Raven, he’d reached the end of dreaming at a young age, sheer brutality and cold fate had left him with nothing except pain.

Hawk thought of this, sitting with his friend in that crude cabin, the winter snows bringing a peculiar stillness and isolation. His tawny gaze went from the poorly chinked walls, to the years of filth on the floor, the smoky stove, and debris covered in dirt.

“I’ll pay your part myself, in advance.”

“Go to hell.” Raven didn’t even glance at him.

Hawk hid a smile. “There’s one more challenge to this job that neither of us has faced before.”

Raven stared at him, his brow raised only slightly.

“The rancher is a female.”

There was a long silence. Snow on the roof was cracking, sliding off from the weight. A piece of kindling popped in the stove.

“That’s supposed to sway me?”

Hawk grunted. “Nah, I knew you’d never worked for one. Neither have I. Not that it matters, in my experience men have a better chance at a fair fight than women. They’re at a disadvantage.”

“And I should care?”

“Not particularly, no. Just thought, aside from the personal aspect of wantin’ her to win against the banker and her other enemies, there’s the thing about someone whose not supposed to win, according to the odds, beating those that always do.”

“How many enemies can a woman have?”

“The offer was signed J Brodie. Rumor, even distant, is that the old man who died left her the ranch, made the enemies. What talk I could pick up, was that he was a mean sonofabitch who bribed, threatened, or cheated men out of what he wanted. After he died, the hands all quit and the vultures moved in.”

“And this woman?”

“No one believed he’d leave it to her. I was interested only to a point. We’ll get our money. She seems determined to clear the debts and start over.”

“Providing the cattle make it.”

“Yeah, that’s where you come in. The man’s been paid for the stock. She’s going to need a crew not only to drive them, also to stick at the ranch until her enemies know clearly she’s serious.”

“You weren’t curious enough to go meet her?”

Hawk shrugged. “No. I got the information.”

“So how's this Texas rancher going to know we’re legit?”

“Soon as you accept and get the crew together, I contact her and we meet. She gives you the bill of sale and whatever proof is needed. We leave for Texas.”

Raven considered aloud, “I don’t know. Half the men I’d pick would need to be outfitted. They move around with the work. I’ve only met a handful over the years that could drive a herd through hazardous conditions, for hundreds of miles, and handle rustlers too.”

“Like I said, it’s a challenge. You're the only man I know who might be associated with more than the ordinary cowhand.”

This time Raven smiled slightly. “Outcasts sometimes keep running into each other. That’s not the same as knowing them. I trust them to do the best job. They don’t take no shit, and will walk when the line between hired and used gets blurred. The brand means only so much. The job itself is where the challenge is for them.”

“The rancher implied I’d be reimbursed for expenses. Outfitting hands falls into that.”

“Sounds to me as if she’s broke.”

“But resourceful. I’ve got a feeling about this.”

“Knowing you, it’s been too long between jobs, and you’ve worn out your welcome in the cantinas, and all those little holes you seem to have scattered across the country.”

“I just finished a job for Wells Fargo. I did two months before that on a ranch in Wyoming. It’s been nearly two years since I had off time.”

So, it was restlessness. Raven figured looking at him. The demons were chasing him, as they did Raven when life got too calm.

“I’ll have a crew together in a few weeks.”

Hawk smiled and nodded. “I’ll meet you in Dodge City.”

They spent the night working out details. They hunted and cooked a meal, and then the next morning parted, going in opposite directions.