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110 Tamale Ridge by: Chuck Cusimano

and followers. He had been friendly with Francisco Guerra and promised to leave his place

alone. He had kept his word.

Ramon saddled up and went out to the horse herd. There was something not quite right but

at first he couldn’t figure out what it was. After he got the remuda bunched and started them

toward the flat where he would put his rope corral, he started realizing that a couple of horses

were missing. Ramon felt ashamed that he wasn’t doing a good enough job and he couldn’t

stand to slip back into the place he had been before he had become one of the men. He wanted

no one to know that a couple of horses had drifted away from the herd. He started the main

herd toward the flat and went back to find and track the two missing horses. It was full daylight

by the time he thought he might be on the tracks but there were more tracks than just two horses

would make. There were three horses leaving a trail. He rode ahead and thought that he must

have miscounted. He was short three horses instead of two.

Lost in time, he figured he had only been trailing the ponies for an hour or less but in truth he

had been away for a little more than two hours. It took a while for him to realize that he was a

long way from the camp and the other vaqueros. He came to a high bluff and while he sat there

resting his horse, he spotted a slender wisp of smoke maybe half a mile away. The tracks were

leading straight toward that direction. He rode on and decided instead of riding right into the

camp of someone unknown, he would get off his horse and slip up to the edge of a sandy hill,

and peer over into the camp. He recognized one of the men immediately. It was his friend,

Miguel and another man he did not know. He started to rise up from his hidden position and go

into the camp. He wanted to tell Miguel thanks for rounding up the two stray horses but

something told him to just be quiet and try to see what was going on.

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