Colonel Leslie Groves shook his head as he read it. “Chugwater?” he echoed. “Wonder why they call it that.” Captain Rance Auerbach read the other half of the sign.” ‘Population 286,’” he said. “Sounds like Jerkwater’d be a better name for it.” Groves looked ahead. The cavalry officer had a point. It didn’t look like much of a town. But cattle roamed the fields around it. This late in winter, they were on the scrawny side, but they were still out there grazing. That meant Chugwater had enough to eat, anyhow. People came out to look at the spectacle of a cavalry company going through town, but they didn’t act as impressed as townsfolk had in Montana and farther north in Wyoming. One boy in ragged blue jeans said to a man in overalls who looked just like him, “I liked the parade a couple of weeks ago better, Dad.” “You had a parade through here a couple of weeks ago?”
