His Remington rifle lay across his thighs, his right thumb on the hammer, left palm cupped around the forestock. Dawn was making the strange terrain known to him. He did not expect game. This was lunacy. He should be in New Mexico by now, surveying his new domain, instead of lounging indolently in this strange forest. The Ojo de los Brazos waited to embrace him. Did the arms of May Tremaine? The weight of fifty-six hundred pressed against his lungs, pulled at his shoulders. He felt like a fool right now. He was wasting his time. What if some other investor was snapping up the Ojo de los Brazos at this very moment? When his father found out, he would never hear the end of it. He wished at this moment that he had come west without the damned money. Look how far he had gotten on his wits. The money was only tormenting him, hurrying him through places were he might otherwise linger. “Get the game, or go,” he muttered to himself. This wilderness would decide for him. If he did not have meat on the ground by the time the sun bathed this meadow, he would leave the Church of the Weeping Virgin to fend for itself, and he’d turn south toward his destiny.
