CHAPTER NINE

Laura Bean had been right about the frisky roan barb she’d helped Stringer saddle, and her father had been all too right about it being late in the day to chase Belle Rogers and her hands across the desert. The trail they’d left across the crusty alkali desert pavement kept getting harder to follow as the sun kept shining in his eyes at an ever-increasing angle. The only edge he had on Belle’s party was that their hoof prints read they’d been searching for cow sign as they rode at a thoughtful lope. He was able to push his barb faster, loping up rises and running his mount downslope. But as the western sky flamed ruby red and the sun winked adios to him ahead, he failed to make out any movement along the lacy black horizon of the cactus-haunted open range. He pressed on, reading sign as best he could by the ever-fading light. Then, just as he figured he’d lost them, his pony spooked at a dark blur ahead. Stringer calmed it, dismounted by a clump of prickly pear, and tethered it to move in afoot for a look-see.

It was a dead cow. There was just enough sky glow left to make out its brand. B Bar Lazy Six. Hoofprints circled all about told how Belle and her riders had reacted upon coming across a head of her missing stock in such dismal shape.

He circled on foot, staring down until, sure enough, he saw where Belle and her hands had cut the north-south trail of cow tracks. He wasn’t surprised to see she and her boys had followed the other trail south instead of north. He went back to his own pony and mounted up. “They’re chasing cows to Mexico, sure enough,” he said aloud to his horse. “Just bear with me until moonrise, pard. I don’t see how we can miss a whole river in this light, tricky as it is.”

They didn’t get entirely lost, trending south. They just lost track of the trail for a spell. Then, as the full moon rose at last to shed some light on the subject, Stringer spotted water glittering in the moonlight dead ahead and patted his pony. “I figured the Rio Grande had to be around here someplace.”

He reined in before they reached the tangle of brush and taller trees along the banks and rode upstream, staring down. At last his pony nickered nervously again. “I see it,” he muttered. “Sure seems an odd place for another cow to drop from thirst. But I reckon they thought a posted sign might be too obvious.” He swung his mount southwest to ford the Rio Grande, running a mite high but still only stirrup deep this late in the spring. “Welcome to Chihuahua,” he muttered in a disgusted tone, “next ambush just ahead, you damn-fool gal.”

With the moon rising behind him, Stringer savvied at once what seemed to be spooking his pony again, for fireflies hardly ever flew in pairs like that. He patted his pony’s neck. “Coyotes. They’re staring at us with as much concern because the two of us are too big a boo for coyotes to mess with. Let’s see what they’ve found over yonder.”

The roan didn’t like it much. But as Stringer had expected, the glowing coyote eyes retreated as Stringer rode toward them. When he spotted a third cow stretched out in the moonlight, he circled wide to spare his pony’s feelings. He picked up the trail left by both the cow thieves and the pursuing Belle Rogers. Then he hauled out the Winchester .44-40 Laura Bean had lent him, and levered a round in its chamber, muttering, “Jesus, some folk sure sucker easy. Let’s move it, pard. There’s open season on both gringo genders, south of that water we just crossed. You’d think a gal raised in these parts would know that.”

He rode on as the moon rose higher, exposing pear flats all about as he followed the clear trail between them. Stringer didn’t like the look of those cactus jungles on either side. He knew that next to getting lost in, there was nothing that had a pear flat beat as a hideout. Nobody with the brains of a gnat would ride blind into a twisty maze of twelve-foot cactus, if they expected to meet anyone in there or not.

But the cow thieves hadn’t taken advantage of the handy cover, as their trail lead ever deeper into Chihuahua. Maybe they really had some destination in the higher country to the southwest. They sure hadn’t worried about covering their trail.

Stringer came to a wide-open playa, with sign leading off across the moonlit crust string-straight. He spurred his pony to a flat run to make up the time Belle and her party had to be out ahead of him. So he was going lickety-split toward the cactus and chaparral ahead when a shot rang out and a female voice called out in a no-nonsense tone. “Jalto! Quien es?”

Stringer slid his pony to a dusty halt, as demanded. “Hold your damned fire, Miss Belle,” he called back. “It’s Stringer MacKail, and didn’t anyone ever warn you about discharging firearms this far south of the infernal border?”

“Advance and be recognized,” she called back. “We’re right on the trail of my missing cows, and I don’t have time to tarry.”

He rode in, the Winchester held politely across his thighs as he made out Belle and her riders gathered around yet another damned dead cow. As they recognized him and relaxed, Stringer said, “Judge Bean wants you to come home now, Miss Belle. You and these boys have been suckered.”

“The hell you say,” she replied. “They’ve been driving my poor stock hard enough to drop more than one. But no cow born can out-distance horses, so—”

“So I just said you’ve been suckered,” Stringer cut in. “I know a dead cow when I see one too. Your stock looks too well-fed and watered to keep leaving such a handy paper chase. But mayhaps they were worried about you losing their trail after dark, despite their efforts to stay on open alkali crust all the way.”

She asked what he was talking about, adding, “Of course we’ve managed to trail my beef. That’s what me and the boys set out to do.”

“You mean that’s what some slickers want you to keep doing till you ride into their ambush, outside the jurisdiction of Judge Bean or the Texas Rangers. Can’t you see it yet? Old Roy Bean just told me you have a disputed claim to the water rights your grandfather left you.”

“Pooh,” she said, “that was settled years ago.”

“You mean it was settled that nobody can lay claim to those valuable springs your grandfather found as long as you’re around to defend your rights to them. You’re an only child, as well as a childless widow. Add it up.”

She did and murmured, pensively, “I do have some distant kin, back east. But they haven’t been pestering me of late.”

“Judge Bean and their own lawyers told them it was a waste of time and money to dispute you in court, Miss Belle. But gaze about and tell me if this looks like a court of law to you right now.”

She didn’t answer. “By Jimmies,” one of her riders said, “the man could be right, boss-lady. I told you, starting out, that fifty head wouldn’t be worth it, did we run into Rurales or bandits down this way.”

There was a murmur of agreement from among her other hands. She rose on the one stirrup of her sidesaddle to stare thoughtfully off to the unknown south for a time before she sank back down. “Well, my water’s worth more than any fifty cows, even if there was still fifty left,” she admitted grudgingly. “But who could be treating me and my cows so sneaky, Stringer?”

“I can’t say. I’m just guessing when I say it’s possible they had old Roy Bean beat up and left for dead lest he recall some names. I doubt even he could keep distant kin from claiming your spread and springs, with you dead down here in Chihuahua, bushwacked by persons unknown or at least not named by your heirs.”

The same sensible hand who’d spoken up before said, “We’d best get you home, Miss Belle. Even if he’s wrong about your kith and kin, he’s got a mighty good point about Mexico!”

“All right,” she sighed. “It makes more sense to guard what’s mine back home, and let the Rangers worry about petty cow thieves or whatever.”

There was a collective sigh of relief as she swung her palomino’s head north and led off with a gentle lick of her quirt. Stringer fell in at her left. “I’m pleased to see you’re not as stubborn as Roy Bean said you might be, Miss Belle.”

“Uncle Roy would have me in a pinafore and pigtails, did I pay him any heed,” she replied with a weary laugh. “He can’t get it through his own mule head that I’m a woman grown. He still tries to treat me like the bitty granddaughter of an old sidekick. Mayhaps it makes him feel older, admitting how much time’s run under the bridge since I needed protecting.”

Stringer wasn’t up to arguing with a lady, packing her own gun, that they could all use some protecting this far south of the Rio Grande. Lord willing, if nobody had heard that shot she’d fired back there, they’d be back on the safer side well before sunrise. They were heading home slower than they’d ridden this deep into Chihuahua, but it wasn’t for him to set the pace. So he didn’t try. As long as it stayed dark, it made more sense to travel quiet, anyway.

Or so he thought. They’d recrossed the playa and were back on the trail through the pear flats when all hell busted loose.

A rider behind Stringer shouted, “Ambush!” just as he was hit by one of the shots coming at them from every damned direction at once. “Wrong way!” Stringer shouted as Belle’s palomino started to bolt straight at the flashing guns ahead. Then, as he overtook her, Belle’s light-colored pony, drawing more fire than his roan, staggered and went ass-over-teakettle in a cloud of dust. Belle didn’t go down with it because Stringer hauled her off her sidesaddle just in time with his free arm. It cost him the Winchester, and she lost her hat. Then he’d swung her up behind him, pillion, and they were running broadside to what seemed a whole damned army throwing lead their way. It made them a harder target than if they’d been riding directly toward or away from the guns, of course. But the roan was still hit, more than once, before they made it to cover.

“Hang on, we’re spilling!” Stringer yelled, and let go the reins to turn and grab Belle with both arms as the roan fell. They landed with him on the bottom as they hit, then her on the bottom as they finished rolling. He leaped to his feet, his left hand around her wrist and his right hand gripping his six-gun. “Come on,” he grunted.

“This is no time to laze about in the God damned open!” She didn’t argue until they’d bulled their way through enough cactus to tear hell out of their duds and scratch their hides as well. “Where on earth are you dragging me, damn it?” she panted.

“Keep your voice down,” he said. “We’re in a mess of cactus, of course. Did you like it better back there in the open?”

“Not hardly,” she answered. “But slow down. It’s more fun to let them guess than to leave ‘em a clear trail of busted-up pads.”

He stopped, panting for breath as he tried to get his bearings. He saw they were in a clear patch, surrounded by tall pear on all sides. “I think we can make her this way without getting punctured to death,” he said. “I doubt anyone can trail us over such shadowy sand, this side of sunrise.”

She asked what happened after sunrise, and he said, “We’ll worry about that when it comes. We still have the better part of the night to work with. The shooting’s already died away back there. If enough of your boys to matter got away, they might chase after them instead of us, see?”

She gulped and tried not to sob. “I know they got old Slim and Windy Bill. Lord knows if anyone else got hit back there. Who do you reckon we run into, Stringer?”

“Hard to say,” he said. “Either bandits or Rurales could have been drawn by that shot you fired a while back. On the other hand, someone could have been watching you all the time and circled to cut us off when they saw you were turning back. The who isn’t half as important right now as getting away from them alive is.”

He found another natural lane through the pear jungle and led her down it a twisty way until it opened up into a modest natural clearing and just ended there. “Well, we’re boxed in a blind alley,” he said. “But we’ve got two guns between us and, with luck, nobody knows we’re here. Our best bet is to hunker down and fort up. Unless you can come up with something better.”

Belle sank to the soft sand. “I’d say the next move is up to them. We’ve lost our canteens and... right, we can’t die of thirst surrounded by cactus pads. I can think of worse places on this desert to be stuck. I wish it was a mite warmer, though. It’s already chilly, and it’ll surely get colder before sunrise.”

He flopped down beside her. “Don’t worry. Once the sun comes up, it’ll be hot as hell in here.”

She laughed bitterly. “You mean, if we live that long, don’t you?”

Then she gasped and rolled against him, burying her face in his chest as they both heard another fusillade of gunfire in the distance. He put a comforting arm around her, and as the last shots faded away, said, “Hang tough, honey. I made ‘em at least a mile away. That means at least some of your hands busted clear. Or they did until just now, at least.”

“Hold me tighter,” she said. “My hide’s all goose-bumped and my innards are all butterflied. I can’t tell if I’m getting scared or horny. It’s been a spell since I’ve felt either.”

He kissed her. She kissed back, then pulled away and chided, “Hold on, now. It’s just as likely I’m scared. I surely have more reason to be scared than horny. For even if my boys get away, I can’t see ‘em coming back for us without an army, and I doubt the state of Texas would go to war with Mexico again over just the two of us.”

“Any survivors are more likely to report us dead,” he said. “So I fear it’s up to us to rescue our own hides. That may not be easy, but—”

“Oh, Lord!” she cut in. “We’re both afoot, miles south of the border, with every man’s hand against us, and you say we got to make it on our own?”

He patted her shoulder. “I just said it might not be easy,” he replied.

By the time the moon was directly overhead, the two of them had told each other the story of their lives. Then, despite the chill in the late night desert air, they got to sweat bullets while they waited for the treacherous moonbeams to start slanting the other way instead of straight down at the betraying footprints they’d left in the sand between the cactus walls of their maze. At last inky shadows began to fall across the sand again. “Bueno,” Stringer said. “If anyone meant to search through here before morning they’d have done it by now.”

She shuddered against him. “How do we know they won’t move in on us at dawn?”

“Dawn won’t come for a good five or six hours,” he said soothingly.

“Bullshit,” she protested. “I figure four, since it’s after midnight.”

“Either way,” he said, “you’d best try to catch some shut-eye. I’ll keep watch as you nap a spell. Even as little as an hour’s sleep can do wonders for your legs if you have to run a mite.”

She sighed. “I know. I’ve worked many a roundup on occasionsome catnaps. But I’m too wound up to sleep right now.”

“Try,” he insisted. “It may be the only chance you get between here and the border. We’re as safe in this hidey-hole as Mexico ever gets, and I’ll be watching over you.”

She said that sure was nice of him and comforting to her. But after she’d snuggled quietly against him for a time, she sighed and said, “It’s no use. You never should have kissed me or called me honey.”

He chuckled fondly. “Relax. I won’t trifle with you in your sleep, honey.”

“There you go again,” she said. “I ain’t worried about you taking advantage of me in my sleep. I’d likely shock you outten your boots if I had the gall to tell you what’s been going through my dumb head.”

“Try me,” he said. “I don’t shock easy.”

So, after a long hesitation, Belle began to toy absently with the collar of his loose jacket as she softly murmured, ‘I can usually manage to fall off after a hard day, sleeping by myself. But I was married-up for a while, married happy, and it just don’t feel natural to go direct to sleep in the arms of a good-looking man. It might not bother me as much if you was old and ugly, or if I knew for sure this wasn’t the last night on this earth I’d get to spend with any sort of man.”

He said the same thoughts had occurred to him, rolled her on her back, and kissed her some more until they were both breathing funny and his free hand had somehow found its way up under her voluminous whipcord skirts. She stiffened and moaned, “No, wait,” as his questing fingers discovered she was wearing nothing under the long skirts. Then, as he began to pet her, she tried to cross her thighs, twisted her lips from his, and sobbed, “Lord have mercy, I was only speculating, damn it! You’re taking unfair advantage of a poor, helpless, horny widow woman!” But then, as he stopped, she asked, “Are you trying to tease me, you cruel thing?” So, to prove he wasn’t trying to be cruel, he had to do it to her right.

It wasn’t easy, even once they got their gun belts and some duds out of the way. But they managed, and once he’d entered her, she marveled, “Oh, Lord, I’ve never done it all dressed up like this before. It makes me feel even more naked betwixt the legs, and you feel so naked where it counts too!”

But after they’d gone crazy on the firm sand a while and he’d brought her to climax twice, Belle sighed and said, “That was lovely. But all things considered, I think it would have been even nicer with our duds off, pard. What do you think?”

‘I think you’re right,” he said. “But this is hardly the time or place. I’d sure hate to get caught with my pants down, literally, so I’d best haul ‘em back up and put my gun back on. Do you reckon you could fall asleep now?”

“I surely feel more relaxed and, somehow, safer,” she said. “I knew you was strong when you hauled me off that dying pony, but I didn’t know you was that strong until just now. Do you reckon we could do it one more time, if I promise to be a good little gal and take my nap afterward?”

He said that sounded reasonable, and she was good to him indeed, now that they’d gotten over the first awkwardness and their flesh had learned to mesh to the same beat. The unexpected lovemaking, on top of all the other surprises she’d been subjected to of late, just knocked the stuffings out of poor Belle. She’d no sooner got her skirts back down before she was sound asleep in his arms. He felt sort of tuckered too. But he had to stay awake. So the rest of the night dragged on for what felt like a million years.

He didn’t recall dozing off. He knew he must have, and cursed himself for a fool when he suddenly became aware how light it had become all of a sudden. He was mildly surprised to see the girl still sleeping in his arms had auburn hair, now that it had come unbound to spread across the sand. He’d taken her for brunette with her hair pinned up under that Spanish hat. But he didn’t think he’d snapped to full alertness just to admire Belle. He drew his .38 with his free hand. The movement awoke Belle from her own light sleep.

“Keep still,” he whispered as her eyes opened. “I think I heard something just now.”

They both stiffened when, as if to prove him right, a voice called out in English, “Hey, Miss Belle? You in there in all that prickle pear?”

She started to sit up, murmuring, “They’ve come back for us!”

But he shook her to shush her. “Maybe,” he whispered. “Did you recognize that voice?”

It called again, “Come on out, Miss Belle. We know you’re around here somewhere, and we spotted Rurales just a short spell back, see?”

She frowned up at Stringer. “That’s nobody on my payroll. Maybe a Ranger sent to rescue us?”

Stringer shook his head. “If Rangers made a habit of invading Mexico, that plot to vanish you down here would have made less sense. I can’t be sure. But I suspect I know that voice. I had words with it one time.”

It called out again. “Bronco North!” she gasped. “I was there when you two was talking surly. He only sounds like that when he feels tense, I reckon. But that’s all right, it stands to reason the Double W would back my boys if they mounted a rescue party, right?”

He reached for his hat and put it on. “We’ll see,” he murmured. “Give me to the count of one hundred and then, next time he calls, call back to him.”

Before she could demand an explanation, Stringer had rolled to his feet and started walking, backward. Belle caught on, nodded, and reached for her own gun as Stringer backed out of sight among the walls of cactus. He was counting, too, as he stepped mostly in his own boot prints, searching for a side fork in the maze.

He found one, took a deep breath, and leaped as far through thin air as he could before landing off to the side of the all-too-clear trail he and Belle had left through the maze. It was closer to the count of a hundred fifty before Bronco called out again and Belle called back, “Over here. I’m losted in this infernal pear.”

Bronco’s voice was nearer, now, as it replied, “We’ve picked up your hoofprints, honey. Who’s in there with you?”

Stringer swore under his breath. Then Belle, bless her, called back, “One of the boys, I reckon. I’ve lost his trail back here. He must have been hit and just staggered on. I haven’t been able to get no answer, no matter how I yell.”

“Just stay put,” Bronco called back. “We’ll find our way to you directly.” Then his voice got harder to follow as he seemed to be jawing with somebody else.

Stringer waited, gun in hand, until he heard another voice sort of jeering, “Here pussy pussy. Where the hell’s she at, Bronco?” to which the man in the lead replied, low and more serious, “Cut that pussy pussy shit out, Sunny Jim. We could spook her, and Lord knows she’s already deep enough in this green shit.”

They were close enough for Stringer to follow their conversation clearly now. He could even hear the crunch of their boots as Sunny Jim muttered, “Do we have to gun her right off? I’ve always wanted me a slice of that proud ass of her’n.” Bronco replied, “We ain’t got time, damn it. It’s broad-ass day, and Los Rurales could be along any damn minute.” Then he said, “Hold it, there’s a fork ahead and— Right, she followed that gent’s boot heels to the right. Wonder who he was.”

Then Bronco stepped into Stringer’s line of view, with a shotgun held at port arms and a bandage around his hatless head. “Wonder no more and freeze,” Stringer said, “you son of a bitch!”

He fired as Bronco spun his way instead. The shotgun went off with a roar, blasting a cactus pad above Stringer’s head to green hash as Bronco staggered backward, got hung up in more cactus pads, and just sort of stood there, knees buckled and eyes staring at nothing after Stringer put a second round into him.

Then Stringer was in motion, chasing the gutless Sunny Jim through the maze by the sound of running boot heels in the gritty sand. As Stringer burst out of the pear, he spied Sunny Jim trying to untether one of the two ponies tied up there. Sunny Jim saw Stringer, too, whimpered, and caught a .38 slug with his left eye before he could train his own six-gun on his thoroughly pissed-off pursuer. As Sunny Jim’s hat fluttered down to land in the dust near his sprawled body, Stringer took time to make sure both ponies were securely tethered before he spun on one heel to dash back into the maze. “It’s over for now. Belle,” he called out. “Get your pretty ass out here before we have us more company!”

She met him where he was kneeling at the feet of the still erect but very dead Bronco North. He picked up the shotgun and showed her the fistful of twelve-gauge rounds he’d found on the body. “This was meant for you. It still made a lot of noise, just blasting pear. Let’s get out of here, poco tiempo!”

She followed at a run. Out in the open again she stared about in horror. “Oh, Lord, there’s my poor palomino, and four other ponies as dead…and is that Windy Bill across the way by that other pear?”

“Stay here, with these live mounts,” Stringer said, “and don’t worry about that skirt if you have to light out sudden.”

Then he ran out across the torn-up desert pavement to where Belle’s dead pony lay. He felt exposed as an earthworm caught at dawn by sunlight on a mighty wide walk. But he toughed it through until he’d uncinched Belle’s sidesaddle, hauled it off the dead palomino, and ran back toward her with the shotgun in one fist and her saddle in the other. Spotting the Winchester he or someone else had dropped, he tossed the shotgun away and scooped up the rifle instead. As he joined her by the living horseflesh, Belle protested, “I could have used that twelve-gauge, pard.”

“Do we let either bandits or rurales get within shotgun range of us, it’ll hardly matter,” he told her. Then he handed her the Winchester, dropped the sidesaddle, and proceeded to uncinch the stock saddle of the bay one of the killers had come in on. As he replaced the sidesaddle for the lady, Belle asked how he knew the bay would be better for her than the pinto, since the pinto stood a hand shorter.

“You had that palomino shot from under you because it’s instinctive to shoot at unusual targets first,” he said.

“Don’t that mean your pinto figures to get shot at first?” she asked.

“I just said that,” he replied. “There you go, your saddle’s cinched, so climb aboard and let’s get out of here!”

They did. Belle knew better than to ask why he was risking a daylight run across bandit-and-Rurale-infested desert. But as she followed him a spell, she had to point out, “We’re heading east instead of north. How come?”

“Someone could be expecting us to cross the Rio the same way we crossed her last night,” he said. “I know where I’m taking us. The border trends east-southeast between that other crossing and where we want to cross, closer to Langtry.”

“I know, but not nearly this far south,” she protested, “this side of the Pecos junction.”

“It’s patrolled all along the south bank too,” he replied. “We dasn’t swing north until we’re a heap farther east, honey. You may not have noticed, but this damned desert is sort of open. A man on horseback can see for many an open mile, and between us we’ve fired many a gunshot in recent memory. Lord knows why Los Rurales haven’t already showed up. But count our blessings. They may be strung out along the border, over yonder, the lazy bastards. We’ll work our way just south of Langtry, hole up until it gets dark again, and see if we can make her up through that oxbow the wetbacks have been so lucky with.”

“Oh, hell, I’m already hungry,” she said. “But you do make sense, even with your pants up. Why do you reckon it seems safer to cross there? You’d think if we knew about it, the Rurales would.”

“I can’t answer that,” he said. “I’ve never been a wetback, before now, I mean. Mayhaps there’s a gap between Rurale posts. I’ve never been a Rurale either.”

They rode on a spell in silence, swinging south of any pear flats they passed to keep as much cover as possible between them and the border, whether patrolled or not. After a while Belle said, “I’ve been studying on the odd way them two Double W riders acted back there. Yesterday, before you sort of split Bronco’s scalp, him and Sunny Jim were leading us after Mex cow thieves, or so they said.”

“It was just an act,” Stringer replied, “to get you and your more honest hands to consider searching along the border. They’d have no doubt found some other excuse to drop out, had not I given ‘em one. They knew there was no sign down across the tracks in shantytown. It was one of those ‘you ride thataway and we’ll ride this-away’ situations they aimed to set up, knowing you’d find a dotted line of dead stock that they or their confederates left for you, way upstream. How many riders does the Double W have on its payroll, all told?”

“About two dozen,” she said. “Does that make any big difference?”

“Yep. Bronco was their ramrod and Sunny Jim his segundo. I made it six or eight guns firing at us from ambush last night. So it’s safe to assume at least half the outfit may not be in on it.”

“In on what?” she asked.

“I’m still working on that. Your land and water, added to another good-sized spread, would make a tempting prize indeed. How well do you know the owners of the Double W, and more important, what claim could they have on your land and water rights if you say got lost in Mexico forever more?”

She thought hard, before she replied. “That won’t work. You said last night in our love nest that Judge Bean explained the counterclaim my distant kin made long ago. That was thro wed out of court, thanks to Uncle Roy. I ain’t even distantly related to the owners of the Double W. Haven’t even seen ‘em for many a year. Bronco was managing the spread for ‘em. They live out in California now.”

He asked how come, and she explained, “The older couple who started the Double W both died of the same fever a few years back. They left the spread to their only child, Mary-Ann Austin. I mean that was her maiden name. I never knew her all that well, but she acted decent when she was home from some fine finishing school back east. I was still a teenager, and you know how it is when a neighbor gal’s five or six years older and more used to boys.”

He smiled. “She must have struck you as an old crone.”

“More like a glamoursome lady of fashion to a kid in pigtails,” Belle said. “My grandfather could be a real pain about female notions, as he called ‘em. Anyway, Mary-Ann came home from finishing school just long enough to get the Double W running right under hired management. Then she married up with some gent, and the last we heard she was out on the west coast. I think her man is in the real estate business. They say there’s a real boom on city lots out yonder.”

“There must be,” Stringer said. “Even old Wyatt Earp’s been at that game. Nobody ever thought much of him as a card shark. What might be the name of this Mary-Ann Austin’s husband? I might be able to check him out by wire.”

Belle thought and shrugged. “I forget. I never paid much mind. You see, Mary-Ann’s personal life was less important to me than my own at the time. Her folk died just before my poor grandfather did. So I had all that fuss Judge Bean told you about. I was young, and confused as hell with all them slick lawyers out to do me dirty. I wouldn’t have paid much attention had old Mary-Ann eloped with a two-headed Comanche. The point is that I’ve yet to have cross words with the true owners of the Double W, about my water or anything else. That means Bronco must have been up to something sneaky on his own.”

“Or someone even sneakier,” Stringer replied. “Tell me more about your long-lost eastern kin.”

She shrugged. “Ain’t much to tell. They’re damn-yankees. You see, years afore the War Between the States, Gramp worked in Penn State a spell. He married up with this old gal who died in childbirth, and for some reason her folk seemed to think it was his fault. Anyway, they kept the girl-child and riz her damnyankee too. They used to write back and forth until the war broke out. By then she was growed up enough to hate southerns too. So Gramp never heard from her no more. Meanwhile he’d remarried, to father my own poor father, who died young, right after my poor mama. I reckon Gramp thought I sort of made up for the little girl-child he’d never got to raise, even though she must have been a grown woman with kids of her own by the time I come along. We never heard spit about the kids my sort of half-aunt had back east until Gramp died. Then they suddenly got sentimentilated as all hell about their long-lost Texas grandfather and his considerable property, and you know the rest.”

“No I don’t,” Stringer said. “I don’t know their damned names.”

She thought and said, “I think it’s Penderson. Something like that. You don’t suspicion that’s who could be behind the mean tricks Bronco North tried to play on me, do you?”

He grimaced. “Lawyers cost more than hired guns. It would have to be a dirty bird that would crap in its own nest to begin with. Having set out to rob kin, the Penderson branch of your clan could be sore losers. I was sort of raised on tales of clan battles back in Lochaber, and it does seem relations can work up more hate for one another than more casual enemies. But like the old song says, ‘Farther along we’ll know more about it.’ We’d best get you back to the U.S. of A. safe and sound before we put any carts before any horses.”

She agreed, and reached behind her for the water bag lashed to her saddle skirts. As she did so she gasped, “Oh, no!”

He turned to stare the same way before he cursed and muttered, “Oh, yes. That’s a Rurale column sure as hell! Don’t bolt. They may not have spotted us. Just keep your pony walking till I say it’s time to raise some dust.”

“How much time do you mean to give ‘em?” she asked. “Can’t you see they’re swinging this way?”

He sighed. “You’re right. You take the lead, and don’t you worry about raising dust, honey. Head straight for the border, and to hell with ceremony. Those sons of bitches are coming at us at a lope now. Our only chance is to outrun ‘em!”

She didn’t answer. It was hard to talk at a full gallop.