My time with the Buffalo Soldiers was coming to an end, and Starr County hastened my departure. There had been rumours that the government planned to move the 9th away from Texas to New Mexico, but we tried to ignore them. We had been on the frontier for so long we felt like a permanent presence. Many men joined the regiment, served all their time on the Rio Grande and left without knowing anywhere else. I was a corporal and did not expect to reach any higher rank, a grizzled veteran of about 28, bitter-eyed and cynical about everything under the harsh Texan sun.
I was leading a small patrol of ten men around the outlying ranches, investigating reports of Mexican raiders, fully aware that their cousins and friends in Starr would never give them up. We rounded up a herd of stolen horses an
