A scimitar moon sliced through lingering clouds against the flat star-studded Arizona sky. The night was warm and ripe for autumn. Leaves, crisp and sere, curled into the rusty earth.
Not a bad night for hunting.
Unless you were the hunted.
A brace of leashed bloodhounds yapped and strained with the scent strong in their flared black nostrils.
On the other end of the leash was a uniformed prison guard, and on his heels a flock of other guards, winded and weary, carrying rifles and shotguns on a chase that had covered more miles and hours than any of the pursuers could ever remember.
Somewhere ahead—the pursued. Two prisoners. Two prisoners, still in striped convict clothes torn and wet with sweat; two men trying to do what had never been done before—escape from the Arizona Territorial Prison.
In the lead by more than a dozen yards was an ex-sailor, Convict 2732, named Dawson—a man with abundant muscle, a frying pan face, one blue eye and a puckered shell where the other eye used to be. Dawson heaved for air and was losing the battle with each uneven stride. His face was turning blue, his tongue thick and dry, the pupil of his eye tilted upward.
Behind him, Colorados, an Indian, Convict 2888, tall, lean and hard, breathed and ran smooth and even as the sounds of the dogs yapping grew closer and louder.
It appeared that the two convicts would end up the same as the rest of the prisoners who had tried to escape—either dead and buried or captured and returned to serve the remainder of their time in hell. Which of the two fates was worse was an undetermined matter of opinion.
But suddenly Colorados surged past Dawson, broke sharply to the right and burst forth in a new fury of speed.
Colorados had paced himself. He knew the river was ahead. The rocks were cooler near the river. The earth damper. The crickets louder.
Above the yelping of the dogs a guard’s voice roared.
“Over there!”
A fusillade of gunfire shattered the night. Something fell.
Half a dozen guards rushed to the fallen form of one of the convicts.
“Dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Colorados?”
“No. It’s Dawson.”
From a distance, the voice of the guard with the dogs.
“There’s blood here. The Indian’s been hit . . . and from the looks of it, bad.”
“He won’t make it.”
“Even if he does, he won’t live long.”
“Nothin’ human could.”
“Yeah . . . but Colorados is only part human.”
“Part human . . . part panther . . . and all sonofa-bitch.”
“Took more punishment than I ever . . .”
“You ever what?”
“Never mind.”
“It’s gonna be a lot more peaceable without him.”
“A-men, brother.”
In the distance, out of sight and sound of the prison guards, the Apache chief, Colorados, bleeding and barely able to stand, dove into the reddish-brown waters of the Colorado River and vanished beneath the flowing surface.