It must have been around two in the morning. There was no moon, but Buchanan’s eyes were used to the darkness by now; he had no trouble picking up the movement of six or eight horsemen filing quickly over the pass a mile ahead of him. The horsemen had to cross an open flat of pale rock shale, and that was what gave them away.
Buchanan reined in. Marinda halted beside him; and Johnny Reo, who had been riding guard, caught up and said cheerlessly, “Didn’t take them long to round up them horses. How in hell’d they get out ahead of us?”
“They know the country better than we do,” Buchanan said. “No sense crying about it. At least they haven’t spotted us yet.”
“Yet.”
Marinda said, “What will we do now?”
“One thing for sure,” Buchanan said. “We can’t ride through that pass up there. We’ll have to cut north or south.”
“They’ll expect us to go north,” Reo said. “I vote we head south, try to lose ourselves in the timber. Nothing up north of here but rock mesas and the most Godawful desert you ever saw.”
Buchanan considered it. He offered his canteen to Marinda, who drank gratefully; he said presently, “No. They’ll figure we’re too smart to head north, so they’re more likely to look for us in the trees south of here. That wasn’t any accident, those six Apaches riding big as life through that pass up yonder. They wanted us to see them. They want us to turn south. If we go south, we get farther from home every step we go.”
“So?” Reo said.
“So we go north,” Buchanan said, and put his horse that way.
They rammed through the mountains at a steady gait, sparing the horses but eating up ground. It was an hour or more of hard riding, without talk, until finally the girl pulled her horse close by Buchanan’s and reached out weakly to pluck his sleeve.
“I’m dizzy, I can’t breathe. I’m sorry—can we stop for a little while?”
Buchanan drew rein. “Sure,” he said. “Horses need a rest anyhow.”
When Reo opened his mouth to object, Buchanan shook his head mutely and gave Reo a pointed look. Reo subsided. They dismounted in a foothill boulder field, watered the horses sparingly from their hats, and sat down with rifles across their laps. “Ten or fifteen minutes,” Buchanan said. “It’s all we can spare.”
“Come daylight,” Reo admonished, “they’ll pick up our tracks. We want to be long gone by then.”
“You want to put wings on these horses, Johnny? You go right ahead.”
Reo grumbled something and tugged off one boot to scratch the sole of his foot. “Been itching for two hours now,” he said.
Buchanan said, “Shake out that boot before you put it back on. No telling what might crawl into it.” He gave Reo a deadpan glance.
Marinda said, “Someone told me once that Indians wouldn’t fight at night.”
“Somebody told me that, too,” Buchanan said. “But I reckon nobody told the Indians.”
Reo’s lip twisted. “You want to say something else funny?”
“Simmer down, Johnny. You’re not mad at me. You’re mad because for once in your life you got scared.”
Reo thought about that. “Maybe you’re right.” He shook out his boot and yanked it on. “But you got to admit, a thing like this can ruin your whole day.”
Marinda said, “Do you think they’re following us right now?”
“Not following,” Reo said. “Chasing.” He got to his feet and started away. “I’d better go on up top for a look-see down the back trail.”
Buchanan watched him go. Reo tended to complain a lot, but he had just as much courage as the next man. His constant beefing, you learned after a while, was only a mannerism. Buchanan hadn’t forgotten the calm deliberation with which Reo had outdrawn Cesar Diaz, or the sizzling accuracy of Reo’s rifle marksmanship on that first day when Reo had pitched in against the Warrenrode crew. Buchanan thought of Lance Corporal Ivy, the truculent soldier. It seemed a hell of a long time ago; actually it wasn’t more than a few days.
This country was full of luck. Some found it, some didn’t. So far, Buchanan’s luck was holding. He was still alive.
Sometimes he felt as though he were at war with the inevitable. It was a curious thing how a peaceable man could find himself dead center in a mountain of troubles.
His glance eased around toward the girl. She was leaning back against a rock, eyes almost closed. She’d been through a meat grinder, that was for sure. Abused and bruised by the Apache women, she couldn’t be blamed for exhaustion. He hadn’t yet heard her utter a single whimper.
One thing was sure. She was an orchid in a cactus garden. She was a willowy beauty; her eyes could melt a man down into a puddle.
She seemed to feel his attention. She lifted her eyelids and looked at him. “Tell me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you honestly think we have a chance?”
“I reckon,” Buchanan said.
“I’m glad you said that, even if it’s a lie.” She stirred, pressing both hands to her temples and brushing her hair back with her palms. She said, “Your partner—he’s only here for the money my father offered him. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“You’d have to ask Johnny about that.”
“But it wasn’t the money that made you come.”
“What makes you think so?” he asked.
“It’s one of those things a woman can tell. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
“Lady,” he said, “no matter what happens, it’s been worth it to meet you.” He grinned at her.
She said softly, “Lady? Buchanan, I can tell you this—scratch a lady, and you’ll find a woman.”
He considered her gravely after that, but he had no time to compose an answer. The soft scuff of leather on gravel sent him spinning around, palming his gun.
“Easy,” Johnny Reo hissed, and appeared vaguely in the night.
Buchanan said, “I’d better hang a bell on you so I’ll know where you are. I told you once before to make more noise when you come up behind me.”
Reo walked in, and as soon as Buchanan saw his face, he knew something was wrong.
Reo said, “Just pretend like you’re General Custer and old Sentos is Sitting Bull. We got some company comin’ up behind us.”
“How far back?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe. No more.”
Buchanan strode across the ground to catch up the horses. “Let’s go, then.”
Daylight whiplashed his eyes. The morning sun blazed unforgivingly, pouring rivulets of sweat down Buchanan’s body under the thin shirt. The white glare sent fragments of light against his eyes like painful metal slivers.
On laboring horses they lined out across the flats, leaving the foothills behind. Wherever the Apaches were, they hadn’t put in an appearance.
They passed a goat-herding family of Papago Indians, whereupon Reo gave Buchanan a disgusted look; there was no doubt the Papagos would give the Apaches an exact description of the three white riders and the direction they were riding.
But there was nothing to do about that. They prowled forward into the desert, toward a monumental rock spire that measured a good half mile across at its base. It towered several hundred feet in the air; its top was cut off, flat as a table.
Buchanan twisted in the saddle to look back—and found half a dozen horsemen driving forward at a gallop, raising a good deal of dust. There was no mistaking the determined flatness of their run, nor the fact that they were aiming right for Buchanan and his companions.
Plunging spurs into the horses’ flanks, Reo and Buchanan laid themselves low in the saddles and whooped the girl forward, swinging in an arc to bypass the end of the mesa. To escape being trapped against the monument, they would have to beat the advancing riders to the end of the mesa, then get around and beyond it before the Apaches came within rifle range.
They might have done it, too, on fresh horses. The game ponies settled evenly into the low, leg-stretching smoothness of the thundering dead run; but the speed of freshness wasn’t there. Stones and dust flew up behind the drumming hoofs. The ground was uneven, pitted with angry scars and holes. An ocotillo raked Buchanan’s arm, tearing the sleeve away, leaving streaks on his skin like a cat’s claws.
They had to slow the gait to pound through a patch of saddle-sized rocks; and when they cleared it, with four hundred yards yet to run, Buchanan whipped a glance over his shoulder.
The six riders had fanned out wide. They charged down in earnest, close enough for him to see their band-tied hair and rifles lifted at arm’s length. They didn’t waste any breath whooping or shouting. They were running on a tangent with the line of the fugitives’ course, only a quarter-mile away.
Johnny Reo’s curses fell against the laid-back ears of his horse. They swept toward the bend in the cliff, and the nearest Indian’s rifle opened up.
Buchanan did not hear the strike of the bullet anywhere nearby. The sun-battered country glittered, and the horses’ metal shoes made a hard racket over the rocky earth. A foam of sweat burst out on Buchanan’s horse. Rifles cranged behind him; two or three bullets screamed off the cliff, one of them close enough for Buchanan to see the white strip it tore out of the rock. That was uncommon shooting at long distance freehand. When he glanced back, he saw why it was so good. Two of the Indians had halted to take aim. They were too far back to make their shots effective; most of them fell short. But the other four Apaches kept gaining steadily—the angle of their approach made their run shorter than the fugitives’.
They were within three hundred yards when Buchanan leaned to the left and swept around the sharp cliff edge, herding Marinda and Reo ahead of him. The Indians massed their fire as he made the turn; he was the target of a vicious fusillade before the horse carried him out of their view behind the jut of the cliff.
The slope on the backside was broken here and there by loose talus slides; they had to run around them to avoid fouling the horses’ feet. All of it glared painfully in the hot sun. Marinda’s horse seemed to be lagging; and a glance that way made Buchanan’s jaw clamp tight. The horse was bleeding from a bullet slice across the flank. It was not a serious wound, but it would defeat them in any cross-country chase.
He looked back. It wouldn’t be more than a few seconds before the Apaches would whip into sight.
Buchanan yelled at Reo, got his attention, and held up his arm. Reo’s face instantly creased into a frown, and he said, “No, goddamn it. What the hell for?” His voice carried over the thunder of hoof beats. But Buchanan shouted at him and guided his running horse in close to the toe of a sprawled shale slide. Before the horse could stop, Buchanan leaped from the saddle. He wheeled toward Marinda, lifted her bodily off her horse and placed her on his own.
“Work your way up the slope, both of you. Find some cover. Try to find some rocks that don’t look too much like tombstones.”
Marinda said, “But what about you?”
“Just get going,” he shouted.
Reo held still long enough to say, “Hope we ain’t got our powder wet, amigo.”
“Keep close to her.”
“Yeah. Well, console yourself with this, amigo—the closer they come, the harder they are to miss.”
“Get out of here,” Buchanan roared.
Reo went ramming after the girl. Buchanan jogged the rifle in the circle of his fist, slapped the girl’s injured horse, and watched it hump away from the mesa. With a little luck, the horse’s dust cloud would conceal the fact that it didn’t have a rider. It might draw the Apaches in pursuit.
Buchanan scrambled behind the hump of the talus slide, dropping flat on painfully sharp rock slivers just as four Apaches raced into sight.
He jacked a shell into the chamber and braced the rifle against his cheek.
One of the Apaches wheeled after the riderless horse; but the others came ramming close along the base of the cliff, straight toward Buchanan.
He squinted against the glare and squeezed off a shot. Without waiting to see its effect, he swung to bear on a second rider and his steady pressure on the trigger made the gun go off. It caught him almost by surprise.
The first Indian pitched from his horse and rolled to a limp hunched stop. The second threw up his arms but kept his seat, lurching in the saddle. Buchanan took unhurried aim and dropped that man with a shot that recoiled heavily against his shoulder.
Reo’s rifle was banging away from the rocks some distance upslope. He was concentrating his fire on the lone Indian who had gone after the riderless horse. That one was almost out of range when one of Reo’s bullets knocked him off his horse.
Buchanan got to one knee, lifting the rifle with him. One Indian was circling, out of range, and it was about time for those other two to come running past the end of the cliff.
They didn’t.
Buchanan nodded. He reloaded the rifle and turned, starting to make his way up toward the rocks where Reo and the girl had taken cover—and a bullet smashed into the talus, making a racket like a pebble crashing around inside a metal drum. It drove Buchanan to cover, flat against the ground. His mind automatically analyzed the high, flat report of the rifle. Long-range stuff. Maybe a .38-56, a small slug backed by a lot of gunpowder.
He inched his head up to spot the rifleman’s position. There wasn’t any more shooting. That lone Indian out on the flats was circling beyond rifle range; it was hard to tell what he had in mind. Buchanan felt the dryness of his lips and wished he had his canteen. The sun was a brass fist that slugged the back of his shirt.
A bullet whined off the rocks. Just to let us know he’s still there, Buchanan thought.
A new thought grenaded into his mind: it was stalemate right now, but if the Indians kept them pinned here very long, Sentos’ reinforcements would come up.
Echoing that thought, Johnny Reo’s call came echoing down the slope: “We got to get out of here, Buchanan.”
Buchanan gave the desert a regretful look; and finally he tossed his head back and answered Reo. “You two go on. I’ll try to hold them up here.”
Faintly he could hear the girl’s immediate protest. Reo argued with her. Buchanan couldn’t make out the words, but he had already thought of all the arguments. There were three of them and only two horses; there was a chance for two to escape but not for all three. There were a dozen arguments. They all came back to the same thing. Two horses, three riders. Those Indian ponies were too far away to catch.
Reo’s voice rocketed down: “All right, amigo. Give us some cover if you can.”
“I’ll see you on the Pitchfork,” Buchanan answered. “Good luck.”
“Yeah. So long, you big bastard!”
Marinda’s voice came down, less loud but just as strong. “Vaya con Dios, Buchanan.”
“Here we go!” Reo roared.
Buchanan didn’t watch them. He kept his attention on the end of the cliff. He heard the two horses go clattering down toward the desert. When a rifle started talking down at the end of the cliff, Buchanan opened up with a savage fire, blasting into the Indian’s telltale puff of gunsmoke, raking the rocks with a fury of bullets. It shut the Indian off. Buchanan levered and fired, levered and fired. When his ammunition ran dry, he yanked out his pistol and emptied that as well.
Quickly thumbing cartridges into his guns, he snapped a glance across the desert. Reo and Marinda were well out on the flats, riding hell for leather. The lone Indian out there was galloping toward them. Reo’s horse sat back on its haunches, throwing a spume of dust forward; Reo’s gun barked three or four times, and the Indian slumped on his horse. Then Reo and the girl went on.
Guns were blasting in harsh signals again, but Reo and Marinda were beyond bullet range. Buchanan drove another bullet into the rocks down there. There were at least two Apaches there, if more hadn’t come up.
Then the silence settled down. The close heat made his skin crawl with sweat. The metal lock plate of the rifle began to sear his palm. Time slowed, and he felt as lonely as he’d ever been. Out on the flats a buzzard circled low over the dead Indians. Thirst built up in Buchanan’s throat, and to keep the saliva going he popped a pebble in his mouth and worked it around with his tongue. Coated with dirt and sweat, he lay in the direct rays of the desert sun. His lids were gritty; his eyes turned raw. He watched the buzzard’s slow, evasive descent. Four other birds joined it in the air. Gradually they settled on one of the dead men, fighting among themselves for the prime delicacy, the eyes. There was a beating of black wings and a brief, squawking dispute. One of the buzzards flapped over to the nearby corpse. Their ugly necks bent down.
A rifle shot splashed against the talus slide. Buchanan leaned back, resigned and fatalistic. The shot startled the buzzards into the air, but they settled down again slowly to their meal.
Buchanan’s ears picked up the faint thudding of hoof beats, moving at a trot. They faded quickly, leaving silence.
It could mean any number of things. There was only one way to find out for sure. Buchanan put his hat on his rifle and lifted it slowly in the air. When that drew no fire, he pulled the hat down and put it on, and stood up slowly, rifle ready.
Nothing stirred. Buchanan took a firmer grip on the rifle and stepped boldly into the open.
No reaction. Well, then, maybe they’d decided to surprise him by circling around the other side of the mesa. That would take them a little time. Time enough, maybe, for Buchanan to get out onto the flats far enough to hold them at bay with his rifle. It was for certain he’d have a better chance out there than trapped here in the rocks. He’d be moving all the time toward safety—maybe twenty miles of desert to cross before he hit the Pitchfork line, but a man could do that. He was one rifleman against God-knew-how-many Indians, but out on the open desert they’d make fine targets if they came within range. And it wasn’t for nothing that it had been said of Tom Buchanan, You can tell what Buchanan aims at by what he hits.
Anyhow, it was the best gamble he had. Anything was better than roasting immobile in these bake-oven rocks. At least there was freedom in being in motion, and to Buchanan that kind of freedom was the sweetest taste of all.
He started walking briskly toward the northwest, toward Pitchfork.
The buzzards circled resentfully into the air as his path brought him close to them. They hovered only a few feet overhead, wings beating, unblinking. When he passed, they descended to finish. He didn’t glance at the dead Indians. He didn’t want to see their vacant eye sockets and torn flesh. His boots stirred little whorls of dust; his spurs dragged the ground.
He covered a hundred yards, then two hundred; and a gunshot cracked across the desert.
He wheeled, searching, bringing up the rifle. A shot came again; he felt it fan by his cheek. He saw the little puff of rising smoke at the far end of the great rock monument.
He dropped belly-flat to make a smaller target and laid his cheek along the hot rifle stock. An Indian rode out into the open, maybe four hundred yards from where Buchanan lay; and a second Indian’s rifle fired steadily from the rocks, beating up the dust, making spouts and creases in the earth all around Buchanan.
The nearest cover was a clump of catclaw fifty feet away, not big enough to conceal a gopher. But he had to act. You couldn’t just lie there and wait for a chance bullet to finish you.
A bullet thumped into the earth near enough to shake it. Buchanan flinched.
The horseback Indian shook his fisted rifle overhead and kneed his horse forward at a canter. Across the silent air Buchanan faintly heard his whoops.
The Apache was attacking to count coup for his fallen comrades.
Buchanan breeched a shell and laid his eyes to the sights, holding his breath back in his chest. The Apache was firing as he rode, but there was only chance danger from those one-handed shots; and now the Indian was in his companion’s line-of-fire, and there was no more shooting from the rocks.
Buchanan’s finger curled around the trigger, and he felt the pound of his heart in his chest. He lay sprawled in the open, every minute a better target for the charging rider. The Apache was laid flat down on his horse with only one leg and arm showing—good horsemanship for an Apache. His one-handed shooting was even more erratic as he took cover with his face half-buried in the withers. Buchanan lowered his eye to the rear tang sight. If he didn’t get a better shot soon, he would have to down the horse and shoot the Indian falling free—if the Indian didn’t drop behind the horse for cover.
He recognized the Apache then by his size. It was the brute Matesa. We will fight soon, Matesa had said. To fight Matesa is to die.
That was why Matesa was coming at him in the open. It was a personal thing, man to man.
It was then, ready to fire, when Buchanan felt a hot, stinging flash in the face and found himself instantly blinded. Reaction closed his hand; the rifle went off, charging his shoulder.
One of Matesa’s wild bullets had spewed sand in his eyes.
Buchanan clawed at his face. The grit was like fire in his eyes, and he could see nothing but a blood-red haze. He heard the ram of hoofs and Matesa’s excited cry of triumph, the slam of the rifle, the slap of the bullet into the ground near enough to spray his cheek.
Buchanan rolled over violently, blinking, feeling the tears wet his cheeks. His pulse pounded louder than the on-rushing hoofs. He scraped fingers across his eyes, hazy vision returned slowly to his right eye. He held it open long enough to see painfully through the cloud.
Matesa was almost on top of him.
There was no time to aim. Buchanan rammed the butt stock against the ground, barrel pointing upward, and pulled trigger with one hand, his other hand shoving the ground to roll him aside from the trampling, pointed hoofs.
His rifle roared. Buchanan rolled over on his back, blinking fast. He saw the horse rush past a foot away, a gray blur of movement; he saw the slug drive Matesa back, punching a great hole in his face, and saw Matesa’s head rock back, the rifle flying from dead fingers to skitter across the desert.
Matesa fell off the back of the running horse with a crunch of sound and slid along the ground. He came to rest in an awkward, crushed position.
Buchanan rubbed his eyes, squinted, blinked, and made faces. The horse wheeled wearily and came to a stand, as it must have been trained to do.
Back in the rocks the last Apache’s rifle opened up in a fury. Buchanan dug sand out of his eyes, uttered a curse, and fired not very accurately at the rocks. It shut the Indian up for a moment. Buchanan sprinted toward the standing horse. It dodged away from him suspiciously. He spoke soothing words and got a flying grip on the single trailing rein. The horse almost yanked it out of his fist. He still couldn’t see as well as he would have wanted. He hauled the horse’s head down and clambered asaddle. The Indian in the rocks started shooting again. Buchanan wheeled the Indian pony around, laid himself low, and spurred it to a gallop. Within half a minute he was beyond the effect of the Apache’s distant rifle.
He rode past the Indian Johnny Reo had shot and glanced down as he whipped by. Shock registered on Buchanan’s face. The dead warrior was Cuchillo, Sentos’ only remaining son. When Sentos discovered that, he’d tear all Arizona apart to find Buchanan and Reo.
Buchanan glanced back. Gunshot echoes carried a long way across this kind of country, and he half expected to see the huge dust cloud of an advancing war party back toward the hills from which he had come during the night. But Sentos and the main bunch had probably guessed Buchanan would go south during the night. It would take a little while for the Apaches to come north.
A little while; not very long. That lone Indian back there was already making dust, back toward the hills to round up Sentos and the others.
Buchanan turned forward and gigged the horse up. Red-eyed and saddle-weary, he rode toward Pitchfork under the blazing sun, and thought vaguely of the dreams of peaceful fishing that had brought him into this country only a few days ago. Somehow it all seemed a little unfair. A man couldn’t even find a little peace and quiet.
A rider was galloping toward him from up ahead. Buchanan kept up his pace, but brought his rifle around. His eyes were still not altogether clear; it was some time before he recognized the horseman.
It was Johnny Reo. Reo rode up with a broad grin of relief. He lied cheerfully, “I knew you wouldn’t have no trouble at all. Hell, there wasn’t more than six Indians to fight.”
“Where’s Marinda?”
“I left her up ahead. Figured I’d better come back and see if you needed burying or anything.”
Reo’s irreverent grin was a white slash across his weather-burned face. He swept off his hat to wipe his face in the crook of his sleeve. The bright red hair stood up like a defiant guidon.
Buchanan said, “I told you a long time ago you were a better man than you gave yourself credit for.”
“Naw,” said Reo. “I only came back to see if you’d left any Indians for me to kill.”
They rode north together. Inside fifteen minutes they picked up Marinda along the trail; she fell in with them, showing Buchanan her happy smile. Her nose wrinkled when she laughed; it was clear how glad she was to see him alive.
In an hour they were still south of the Pitchfork boundary, but a crowd of Pitchfork riders were drumming toward them. Johnny Reo grinned. “Sizable welcoming committee there. Can’t say I ain’t glad to see them, either.”
“They may not be too glad to see us once they find out what’s after us,” Buchanan observed. He had no idea how accurate the first half of his statement was; but he found out soon enough.
Throwing up a stinging pall of dust, the Pitchfork crew skidded to a halt, milling around the three riders. There was a lot of calling back and forth. Race Koenig jumped off his horse, lifted Marinda down in his arms, and held her close to him, crooning to her in a voice that mixed disbelief with joy. Buchanan watched them and thought that the bespectacled foreman was one very lucky man indeed. In fact, Buchanan thought...
He didn’t have time to finish the thought. Half a dozen men ringed him, and he suddenly realized they all had their guns drawn.
“Now what?” he said to himself. He spoke to the nearest man in an amiable voice: “Say, now, friend, what’s the gun for?”
“Sit back and breathe through your nose, pilgrim,” the cowhand snarled.
“Now, wait a minute,” Buchanan said. “I can take a joke as well as the next man, but right now I’m kind of tired and beat up and I don’t know as I—”
“Shut up,” the cowhand snapped.
Race Koenig looked up from his embrace with the girl. He placed her gently to one side and spoke in a flat voice; his eyes had gone cold and hard.
“Bringing Marinda back won’t buy you a pardon, Buchanan. If I had my way, I’d chip you down an inch at a time, but the boys decided we’d better turn you over to the law. You’re gonna get your neck stretched nice and legal.”
Johnny Reo snapped at a rider drifting around, “Can’t you hold that damn horse still?” Reo turned his angry attention to Koenig. “What’s this all about, mister?”
“Your friend here shot Mike Warrenrode dead last night,” said Koenig.
Buchanan felt the cold pressure of a gun in his ribs.