King Sutton kicked a stone and sent it skittering into a gully. They had lost the trail. Sutton had sent four men, two on each side of the original track, to look for signs. So far three of the four had reported back. They had found nothing.
The fourth man rode in from the south.
“No luck, colonel,” he said to Sutton. They had started calling him “colonel” when they elected him their leader. As though the title gave them more confidence in him.
Jed pointed toward three horsemen approaching up a long slope, a blue-coated army officer in the lead. As the men drew near, Sutton saw that the officer was a lieutenant. He was about thirty with a short black beard and a campaign hat shading his eyes.
When Sutton rode to meet him, the officer reined in and the other two men stopped a short distance behind him.
“Lieutenant Sherman,” the officer said, “at your service, sir. We rode out from Coloma to offer our help.”
“We’ve lost their trail,” Sutton admitted. “Followed the tracks of their horses up from Hangtown to a mesa a ways back, then lost them here on the rocks.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the lieutenant said. He rode to where the rest of Button’s party waited. There were five of them, the slave Jed, Danny O’Lee, Doc Braithewaite and two others. Rhynne was back in Hangtown coordinating the search.
“I’ve done a bit of tracking in my time,” Sherman said. “What do you know of these bandits? The reports reaching Coloma were sketchy.”
Sutton repeated Rhynne’s description of the early morning raid.
“I can tell you’re a southerner, sir,” Sherman said when Sutton had finished.
“I’m proud to say I hail from Georgia.”
“A fine state, Georgia. I hope to have the opportunity to go there someday.”
“You’ll be made most welcome, lieutenant. I only trust you’ll be able to come in time of peace, not war. I’d hate like hell to have to fight you.”
The lieutenant nodded. “My sentiments exactly, sir.”
They joined the others and Sutton led them back to the last trace they had found of the fleeing horsemen. Sherman dismounted, knelt beside the trail and studied the hoof print while Sutton watched.
“I was taught the little I know of reading sign by an Arapaho,” Sherman told him. “I never completely mastered the art, but I can tell whether a horse is shod or barefoot, whether he ran or walked, and whether he’s ridden or wandering loose. I try to recognize the difference in tracks. The worn heel of a boot, the size and cut of a moccasin, the curve to a horseshoe.”
“What do you see here?”
“If I’m not mistaken the horse is a stallion or gelding from a rancho near Monterey, probably ridden by a woman who passed this way an hour ago.”
Sherman stood and faced the men waiting on their horses. “By your leave, colonel,” he said to Sutton. He had heard the men use the title and hadn’t questioned it.
“Of course, lieutenant,” Sutton said.
“Dismount and form a line,” Sherman told them. “We’ll spread out like a skirmish line and sweep to the east with no man more than twenty feet from his neighbor. Look for droppings, snapped twigs, disarranged branches, bent grass.” He turned to Sutton. “You and I will hew to the middle,” he said, “with the men on either side of us. If that meets with your approval, sir.”
Sutton nodded.
As the men formed a ragged line, the lieutenant said to Sutton, “The Indian who taught me to read sign could tell from an indication as small as a single blade of grass the direction a man or animal was headed and the time, within an hour, when he had passed. I’ve heard of Indians studying the insect markings in a track to judge how old the track was. I’ve never credited that story myself.” He looked to right and left, then raised his arm and signaled the men forward. They tramped past the spot where Sutton had waited for his outriders, dipped into a ravine and up the far side, and crossed a series of rain-washed gullies.
As Sutton walked, his eyes to the ground, he rubbed his cheek where Selena’s nails had raked his face, remembering the young girl’s passion on the day Esperanza killed herself. Excitement rose in him. He desired Selena more than he had ever desired a woman before. He wanted to conquer her, to tame her, to make her his alone.
Hanging was too good for those three Mexicans. The bastards. If he had his way, and he meant to, he’d strip them to the waist and give them thirty-nine lashes each and when they thought their pain was ended he’d give them thirty-nine more. Only then would he hang them. Not with the quick clean jerk that breaks a man’s neck. No, he’d haul them slowly off the ground and let them dangle until they strangled to death. Even that lingering death was too good for them.
On Sutton’s right, Danny O’Lee plodded doggedly ahead, his lips moving slightly as he walked. He was praying. Asking God to save Selena, to let her be found unharmed. Danny had made a rich strike. In Hangtown they’d hailed him as a brave man after he saved Pamela and Rhynne from the burning cabin. Yet, without Selena, the money and the praise were as ashes in his mouth.
Should he offer to say the rosary twice over every night for as long as he lived if Selena was returned safely? Danny decided not to make the offer. “You don’t make deals with the Almighty,” his father had once told him. Sherman held up his hand. The party halted, hands on guns, waiting while the lieutenant angled off to the right. He was back in a moment.
“Only some Digger squaws,” he said. “No use questioning them, they’ll tell us nothing.”
As they went on, Sutton saw a number of Indian women in a nearby meadow. They had work baskets suspended from their backs, held on by thongs of leather across their foreheads.
“Gathering plant seeds,” Sherman said. “They mix the seeds with pounded acorns and grasshoppers for bread.”
Sutton grimaced but noted that the younger squaws were quite attractive with their firm bare breasts and slender legs.
“Ho, lieutenant. Look here.” It was Doc Braithewaite.
“Stay where you are, all of you,” the lieutenant shouted when two of the men started to veer on toward the doctor. “I’ll take a look first.”
Sherman knelt beside Braithewaite to study the horse droppings. Farther on he discovered a single hoof print.
“The same shoe as before,” he said to Braithewaite. He signaled the men in. “We’re back on their trail,” he told them.
They returned to their horses and, as they mounted, Sutton saw a rider coming from the direction of Hangtown.
“It’s Jack Smith of Howard,” Braithewaite said when the man drew nearer.
“Any luck?” Sutton asked Smith as the rider reined to a halt.
“None.” Smith spoke more to the lieutenant than to Sutton. “I rode through the diggings to the east. They haven’t seen hide nor hair of them. I even went by Varner’s place. Nobody there ‘cept him and his dog.”
Sutton nodded. “We lost their trail but now we’re onto it again,” he said. “Thanks to Lieutenant . . .” He turned to the army officer. “What did you say your name was, sir?” he asked.
“Sherman. William Tecumseh Sherman.”
Rosita and Ramon rode slowly up a creek into a ravine where crags rose on both sides of the trail and an occasional stunted pine grew among the rocks. They stopped near a freshet, watered their horses, then hobbled and muzzled them. Following Joaquin’s orders, they had thrown off their pursuers on the mesa. Now they prepared to wait for his return, their flanks and rear protected by the high hills on both sides of their camp.
After they ate, Rosita splashed through the creek and began climbing the bank on the far side. Ramon took his rifle and zigzagged his way up the near slope. When he reached an uptilted shelf of rock he lay prone with his body concealed behind a jumble of boulders.
Below Ramon, the valley narrowed like a funnel as it entered the ravine. He was in a good spot. He looked along the sights of his rifle to the creek bed directly beneath him, then slowly swung the gun up past the scattered boulders in the ravine to a pine grove at its entrance. Far beyond the pines lay Hangtown.
He waited. He saw Rosita scanning the trail from her hiding place among the rocks fifty yards across from him. Suddenly she tensed. When he followed her gaze back along the trail he saw a wisp of dust in the distance. The dust grew to a cloud.
Not Joaquin then. From the size of the dust cloud he knew there must be at least eight riders. He smiled to himself. He and Rosita could hold this position against a hundred, at least till dark. And then they would slip away.
He watched the riders approach at a lope and, as they drew closer, recognized the blue U.S. army uniform of the lead horseman. Ramon felt his heart pound in his chest. His brother, Jorge, had been one of los ninos killed fighting the Americans at Chapultepec. Jorge had been sixteen.
How had their pursuers found them? Ramon wondered. He had clouded their trail well. He frowned. Joaquin, when he came, would be angry. Ramon shrugged. Time for that later.
The riders, centered in his sights, were too far away for him to risk a shot. He must wait till they reached the defile below him.
Ramon watched the horsemen follow the trail into the stand of pines. At first he could see the riders through the trees, for there was little undergrowth, but then the grove thickened until the men were hidden from his sight. Ramon judged their pace, fixing his eyes on the spot where he knew they must emerge. They’ll come out when I count to three, he told himself.
Una . . . dos ... he held his count for an instant . . . tres. The horsemen did not appear. Ramon hunched his shoulders and shifted his legs, which were splayed on the rock. Still he saw no one. He glanced at Rosita on the other side of the creek before looking back to the pines. Squinting, he tried to penetrate the late afternoon darkness. He held his gaze. There. A man, only his face visible, standing beside one of the nearer pines.
Ramon lay still, his breathing quick and loud. From behind him the creek splashed downhill toward the trail. A hawk wheeled overhead. Ramon looked from the bird back to the shadows under the pines. The man was gone.
Ramon waited. He drew in a long breath as two men rode from under the trees, their horses at a walk. The Army officer was in the lead. He scanned Ramon’s side of the slope, a rifle under his arm, the other horseman following twenty feet behind with his eyes on the opposite slope. The two of them came on past clumps of brush and into a jumble of boulders. They’re in range, Ramon thought. Barely, but in range.
The lead rider stopped and raised his hand, his gaze fixed on Ramon’s hiding place. Without warning Ramon’s side cramped, and though he felt a knot of pain he did not move. Slowly the cramp eased. The two men below him, their eyes still on the slope, appeared to talk. Ramon sighted on the officer, then raised his rifle to adjust for the distance. He felt the wind blowing steadily from behind him.
The officer pulled his horse around and headed for the shelter of the pines. Had they seen him? The man’s companion swung about and followed. Both were going back.
Ramon fired. For Jorge, he told himself.
Sherman’s horse lurched forward, throwing him against the saddle horn. He grasped for the horn as the horse stumbled and fell sideways. Sherman leaped clear. He hit the ground rolling, coming to rest flat on his stomach. He reached for his rifle a few feet away. Dirt puffed next to him—he hadn’t heard the shot. Crouched over, rifle in hand, he ran for a cluster of boulders just as another shot cracked from the hillside.
He sprawled behind the protecting rock. He glanced over his shoulder but couldn’t see Sutton. His wounded horse whinnied, struggled to stand, but could not because its right rear leg had been shattered. A bullet ricocheted from the rock above Sherman’s head.
A minute passed, two minutes, three. Sherman looked around the outcropping and saw a blur of movement on the hill. He sighted, pressed off a shot. The shot was answered at once from high on the ravine’s near side. At least two of them then.
“Come back,” Sutton called to him from the pines. “I’ll cover you.”
“Wait.” Sherman aimed and fired. His horse stiffened, head dropping to the ground. One leg pawed the air, then fell back. For a moment Sherman stared at the dead horse. He sighed and looked away.
“Now,” he called to Sutton.
At the first shot from the pines, Sherman thrust himself off the ground, running low and flat out. He stumbled in a gopher hole, almost fell, kept his feet, saw branches above him. He flung himself onto the pine needles beside Sutton, his chest heaving, the sharp odors of pine and gun-smoke mingling in his nostrils.
“There’s two or three of them,” Sutton said. “One high on the right, the other halfway up on the left. Might be a third. I can’t be sure ‘cause the one on the right’s been moving around so much.”
Sherman looked along the line of men positioned behind the screen of pines. “Anybody know this country?” he asked.
“I’ve done some prospecting hereabouts,” Jack Smith of Howard said.
“How long a ride to get around these cliffs? So we can take them from the rear.”
“Couple of hours anyway. You’d have to go back five miles or more and then swing to the east. It’s even farther the other way.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Sherman said. “Two men can loop around behind to come at them from the rear, two more can get above them on the north by climbing the slope, two on the south. The rest of us will stay here and keep them pinned down. We’ll have to hurry. We’ve only a few hours till dark.”
“They could be to hell and gone in two hours,” Sutton said. “What’s to stop them from riding right out of the upper end of that ravine?”
“Probably nothing,” Sherman said. “That’s the risk we’ll be taking.”
“Could we overtake them if they rode out?” Surprised, they turned to look at Danny O’Lee. “Could we?” Danny asked again.
“I’d put our chances at less than one in three,” Sherman told him. “Considering the poor horses we’ve got. Of course, having to take the girl along should slow them.”
“I say we don’t wait,” Sutton said. “I say we go in after them right now.” “I’m with the colonel,” Danny said. Several of the other men nodded.
Sherman shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. We’d be attacking what amounts to a fortified position.”
“I’m going to get Selena out of there now,” Sutton told him. “How many of your men are with me?”
“I am.” Danny stepped to Sutton’s side. One by one the others joined him.
“I can see I’m a minority of one,” Sherman said. “We’ll attack.”
“Jed and I will go up the left slope,” Sutton said.
“I’ll take the right,” Danny told him.
“I’ll go with him.” It was Jack Smith of Howard.
“I’ll still send two riders around to invest their rear in case we get pinned down here.” Sherman pointed to the two men who had accompanied him from Coloma. “Maguire? Biggs?” They nodded.
Sutton went to his horse and returned with a rifle. He handed it to Jed who stood weighing it in his hand before grinning at Sutton.
The two men set off through the trees. When Sutton reached the last of the pines he paused, looked at Jed. “I’ll go first,” he told him.
When he heard the first covering shot from the pines, Sutton dashed ahead, throwing himself behind the first of the boulders at the base of the hill. He looked back to see Jed sprint from cover. A single shot rang out from the crest of the opposite slope. Jed stumbled and fell full-length in the dirt. A third rifleman. Sutton glimpsed him, a figure in black. He squeezed off a wild shot. Behind Sutton, Jed lay groaning. The black man raised himself to his hands and knees and began crawling toward him. Sutton put down his rifle and ran to him, grasped him under the shoulders and pulled him behind the shield of boulders. Ripping away Jed’s shirt, he exposed a bullet wound in his upper right chest. Jed’s breathing was ragged and shallow.
Sutton heard a scrambling and looked behind him to see Braithewaite running toward him. The doctor knelt at his side. “I’ll see to him,” he said.
Sutton turned, picked up his rifle, and sprinted up the slope to the next group of boulders. An occasional shot came from the pines behind him but there were none from above. He ran from boulder to boulder, heedless of the danger. Yet he drew no fire. Just below the spot where the gunman had waited when he and Sherman first approached the ravine, he sprawled on the ground, breathing hard. There were no sounds from either above or below.
Sutton eased himself out from behind the boulder. Deep in the ravine ahead of him he heard a horse whinny and then the thud of receding hoof-beats. He pushed himself to his feet and ran to the ledge from which the gunman had fired on them. No one was there. Sutton stood, half expecting to draw a shot. The ravine remained silent.
Sutton looked back to the pines and, after waving Sherman forward, ran ahead to the top of an outcropping of rock. He saw three horsemen galloping away with a fourth riderless horse behind them. Selena. Where was Selena? Sutton raised his rifle. Too late. They were around a bend in the ravine and out of sight before he could fire.
Sutton swore. He climbed down the hill, reaching the trail beside the creek just as Sherman and two others rode up. Danny O’Lee and Smith were already on their way down the other side of the ravine.
“There’s three of them,” Sutton said, “riding up out of the ravine.”
“What about the girl?” Sherman asked.
“Selena wasn’t with them.”
“Could we be on the trail of the wrong men?”
“I don’t know. They looked like the three Rhynne described. Californios. I can’t be sure.”
“They sure act guilty as hell,” Jack Smith said.
“They might have killed Selena,” one of the men said.
“Or left her somewhere.” Sherman looked up the ravine. “The only way we’ll find out is by going after them.”
“Wait.” They saw Doc Braithewaite climbing down the slope.
“How’s Jed?” Sutton asked him.
“I bandaged his wound. If we get him back to town he might pull through. The bullet seems to have missed his lung.”
“Thank God.” Sherman started to turn away.
“Wait,” Doc Braithewaite said again. “I left Jed because I just remembered something.”
They all looked at him.
“Something about Harry Varner,” Braithewaite said. “I remembered that Harry Varner hates dogs. Never could stand one anywhere near him.”