They had been like a pack of rabid wolves by the time the evening air hit them. Tate Talbot led his four hired guns from the saloon with his gun already drawn and cocked. He was ready to put his once in a lifetime chance into action. There was no mercy in his heartless soul. Only greed. Within seconds of their crossing the wide street the five heavily armed men were outside the small cantina. Talbot was first to move close to the beaded drape which hung across the open doorway. The aroma of Mexican food filled his nostrils. His followers soon hung over his shoulders in readiness. Then the man with the tin star paused and held his free arm out wide as if to stop the others. This had to be fast and deadly, he had told himself. He had already decided to aim every one of the six bullets in his .45 at the stranger’s head. He wanted there to be no argument that it was Diamond Bob Casey they had slain. The obvious age difference would be obliterated by lead. Hot, uncompromising lead.
But something had stopped the sheriff’s progress. Something was wrong. Something had changed in the five or ten minutes since he had last seen the drifter dismount.
‘What is it, Tate?’ Will Henry had asked.
Talbot looked at the hitching pole and pointed. ‘His horse is gone,’ he replied.
Frank Smith glanced at the weathered wooden rail and then at Talbot. ‘Ya sure there was a horse there?’
Talbot gritted his teeth and went to swing with his gun to smash the insolence off the face of the outlaw. Only Henry’s hands prevented his angry boss from striking out at Smith for the second time in only minutes.
‘Easy, Tate,’ Will Henry implored. ‘Don’t waste no sweat on Frank, ya hear? He ain’t worth it.’
Talbot looked into his top gun’s eyes. He nodded. ‘Yeah, Will. Ain’t worth the effort.’
Liam Davis poked his head around the corner of the doorway and stared through the swaying beads into the busy cantina. He then turned and looked at Talbot.
‘I see a stranger in there, Tate,’ Davis said. ‘Is that Diamond Bob Casey?’
Talbot brushed Smith out of his way and stood against the whitewashed doorway. His eyes narrowed. He looked in hard and long. The stranger whom he had seen ride into town only ten minutes earlier was indeed sitting down at a table with a plate of chilli before him. Talbot eased himself back.
‘That’s him OK,’ Talbot nodded to the others.
Ken Davis shook his head. ‘But what happened to his horse?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I can’t figure. I saw him tie the damn thing up to that stinking pole,’ Talbot insisted.
‘It ain’t here now.’ Smith spat at the ground and sneered. ‘Maybe the nag untied its tethers and went and rented a room in the hotel, Tate.’
Undaunted, Talbot checked his Colt. He then looked at his four men. His eyes told them what they had to do.
‘It don’t matter none. We’re going in and we’re going in shooting.’
Henry sighed. ‘If that’s what ya want, Tate, that’s what we’ll do.’
‘Ya gonna go in first, Tate?’ Smith taunted. ‘Or are ya gonna be like one of them Yankee generals and hang back and take notes?’
‘Damn right I’m going in first, Frank,’ Talbot snarled back. ‘I’m going in first like I’ve always done.’
The cantina was warm. The aroma of cooking filled the entire room. Hal Harper sat with his back to a low wall as the buxom female cook came close and placed a plate of fresh-baked bread down next to his chilli.
‘Did your son take my horse to the livery, ma’am?’ Harper had asked innocently.
‘Sí, señor!’ She smiled, toying with the white lace trim of her bodice. ‘Pepe is a good boy.’
Harper slid a silver dollar to the woman. ‘That’s for him when he gets back.’
‘Gracias, señor,’ she said as she picked up the coin and dropped in between her large breasts. ‘I give to Pepe when he come back.’
Suddenly, as the words left her lips, the sound of raging men rushing through the beaded curtain into the cantina drew their eyes. As promised Tate Talbot was at the head of the five gunmen. His gun was first to unleash its fury and send a deadly bullet at the seated Harper. But as his four followers fanned their hammers, it was the stout cook between them who took the full impact of the venomous volley. She staggered and turned. Blood suddenly trailed from her as one after another lead bullet penetrated into her ample frame. She was being torn apart. She spun on her slippered feet on the tiled floor and started to fall.
Screams echoed all about the cantina. Some were cries of fury, others were shrieks of shocked horror.
A stunned Harper felt the warmth of her blood as it sprayed over him. He dragged his own Colt from its holster, ducked beneath the table and blasted back across the expanse of the room.
White-hot flashes spewed from the gun barrels in both directions in furious engagement. The cantina rocked under the deafening crescendo.
Within a very few seconds the peaceful cantina had filled with the acrid stench of gunfire. Clouds of grey smoke hung in the air.
It was Harper’s only shield.
Harper threw himself to the floor as the stout cook hit the tiles. Again her body shook as more bullets cut into her now lifeless form. The silver coin rolled from her blood-soaked bodice towards him.
It was now crimson.
The youngster rolled back towards a massive cooking range and then found a small whitewashed wall to give him cover. He pushed himself up against it as more bullets tore across the room. Plaster exploded everywhere and covered Harper. He cocked his gun hammer again.
Harper looked around the side of the low wall and blasted his Colt again.
Another volley of lead smashed into the iron cooking-range behind him. Harper ducked as shrapnel bounced off the walls and cascaded over him.
Then, dusting the debris off his screwed-up eyes, he saw the open window to his left. His mind raced. He had no idea why the five gunmen had opened up on him and yet they had. The piteous body of the female was evidence of that. He knew he had to escape or he would join her.
Scrambling on to his knees the young man inhaled deeply. He then rose up from his hidingplace. Only the thick smoke masked his movement from the eyes of his attackers. He sprang and leapt like a puma through the gap in the white wall.
Harper hit the sand outside the window, rolled over and then began to run into the unlit alleys. How long it would take them to discover his flight he could not know, but Harper did not waste a second thought on the subject. Their bullets had not even grazed him and he wanted to keep it that way. He did not stop running until he arrived at the livery stable and found his horse again.
No man had ever saddled a horse as speedily as Harper had done that dark night. Within minutes he had mounted and spurred and ridden away from Senora.
Had he known that the five men behind him would continue to chase him for the next two days into a merciless desert, Harper might have chosen to remain in Senora and fight.
But he had spurred instead.
Foresight was a gift he, like so many others, had never been blessed with.
*
Like the ticking of a clock the sound grew more and more annoying to the man lying helplessly on his back. Harper battled with the nightmares which taunted him until he eventually won and opened his eyes. For a moment he just stared upward. The day had ended and had been replaced by a million stars twinkling like jewels on a black velvet cloth. Harper wondered how long he had been asleep.
Then the sound which had dogged and taunted him for so long before he had at last fallen unconscious became obvious. His eyes darted to his right and he saw it.
His eyes focused upon the wheel atop an upturned wagon. As the sand beneath the weathered framework of the ancient prairie schooner shifted, the wheel moved. With no grease remaining between hub and axle the noise continued.
An ear-splitting noise.
Suddenly Harper realized that his throat was no longer dry. He raised a hand and touched his face. It had been washed free of the sand that had stung like a nest of loco hornets for so long, and had been covered in some sort of salve.
Harper raised himself up on an elbow. The sight which met him reminded him of the moments just before he had lost his fight with the blackness which had overwhelmed him.
It made no difference. They were still there.
Six Indians sat close to him. Their colourful ponies were tied up close by and his own horse’s reins were secured to the tailgate of the wagon.
‘You helped me,’ Harper said with more than a hint of surprise in his voice. ‘How come?’
Five of the braves remained seated like carved statues. The sixth rose and crawled to the side of the weak Harper.
‘They no have your tongue,’ the brave said. ‘I only one who speak your tongue. You sick like lost dog. We help.’
Harper stared at the man beside him. Although he had never met an Indian before he had seen many photographic images of various tribes. This man and his companions did not seem to fit into any likeness that he could recall.
‘Are you an Apache?’
The man shook his head angrily. ‘No Apache! We have no name. We come from the place where the eagle soars high and we live higher in the face of the golden mountain.’
Harper sat upright. ‘I don’t understand.’
The brave pointed south. ‘There is our land. We live there all time since Great Spirit made us.’
Harper still did not understand. He looked around him. The dunes surrounded them on three sides. Suddenly he recalled the five riders who had been after him for two days. He grabbed the hand of the brave.
‘Have you seen the other men?’ He held up his own hand and pointed to his fingers. ‘Five bad men!’
The Indian nodded. ‘They sleep.’
Harper heaved a big sigh. ‘Good.’
‘Why they hunt you?’
‘I don’t know, friend,’ Harper replied honestly. ‘They want me dead though, and no mistake.’
The Indian nodded. ‘Apache hunt and kill my people. We know not why.’
Harper was anxious. He rubbed his neck. ‘I have to get away from here but I’m plumb lost.’
‘You fit to travel, White Eyes?’ The voice was low and concerned. ‘You want we take you to better place?’
‘I reckon so.’
‘We travel by stars.’ The warrior stood and then helped Harper up on to his feet. ‘We give you and pony water when you sick. Desert cannot kill if you have water.’
‘I thank you.’ Harper ran a hand along the horse he had thought would be buzzard bait by now. The creature looked fresh and able to continue their journey. Harper looked at the Indian brave again. ‘Where did you get water in this desert?’
The Indian smiled. ‘Water all over if you know where to look for it.’
‘All I see is sand,’ Harper confessed. ‘I must be pretty dumb.’
The Indian nodded in agreement. ‘We ride now.’