16
BLACK BEN
They were riding north. The sun was out and the snow was melting. Ben had taken the blanket off and draped it across his saddle. He was riding between Lyle and John Buffalo. John Buffalo had yet to say a word, but Ben didn’t care for the way he kept looking at him.
“Aw, don’t mind John," Lyle said. "He’s slow to warm up to strangers is all. It took him a long time to warm up to me. Wasn’t until I did for a couple of Yankee soldiers rousting him in a saloon one night that he saw it in his heart to think of me as not being like the rest of the white men he’d met before. But enough about us. What’s your story, Ben? What brings you out to the Llano completely unarmed with no food and no winter coat?”
“Not much to tell, really,” Ben said.
“That a fact? Well now, how are we goi
