A night wind came alive, snuffling along the ground and in between the two dead horses. The air around Ben became heavy with the stink of the bodies. In the sky, dark clouds reached for the nimbus of the quarter moon. Ben judged it would rain before morning.
"Evan, wake up, it's about time to move out," Ben said in a low voice.
Evan opened his eyes to darkness. He hadn't expected that. He had slept the day away. His sleep had been cruel for he had dreamed that Ben and he had failed to free Rachel and Maude. They had fought their way into the hacienda of the Valdes rancho only to find the girls gone.
"What time is it?" Evan asked his voice clogged with worry. He looked about them where the moon laid an icy crust of light on the dry grass of the plain.
"Near midnight."
"Midnight?" Evan said sitting up. "Why didn't you wake me sooner so you could rest?"
"You needed it more than me. And I catnapped a little while it was still daylight."
Evan saw the black clouds covering more than half the sky. Off to the west, lightning flashed. The rumble of thunder reached them.
"Storm brewing," Evan said.
" 'Pears so, and coming our way." Ben was looking up at the sky. "The moon will be gone in a little while and then we should be leaving."
"If it's going to rain, why not wait for it and then go?" Evan said.
"Any rain that falls might miss us. And we sure don't want to be here when daylight comes."
"So which way do you think is best?"
"Since we don't know where Carlos has his men stationed, why not just continue on south?"
"Sounds right to me." East of the hurrying clouds, cold stars hung in the sky. They could be used to guide them.
"Carlos has had enough time to get more men to replace those he lost," Ben said as he watched and listened into the deepening darkness. "So there'll be a lot of them out there and it's going to be a ticklish job slipping through them."
Evan watched the speeding clouds conquer the moon, and the last of the moonlight left them and ran off to the east. He spoke. "I'm ready to move. If we stay low, the grass will half hide us so maybe we can crawl past them without being seen."
"We take only our guns and shells. And best we go single file. I'll go first, if that's all right with you."
"Lead on."
"I judge Carlos and his men will be out there about a hundred yards or so and ringing us in. We got to see them before they see us."
Ben lay down on his stomach. Cradling his rifle, he crawled off hugging the ground. Evan lay down and snaked his way along behind Ben. A low rasping sound came as they slid through the grass.
They moved the first few yards, and then Ben halted them for a time and both probed the thick darkness, trying to see something that meant danger. Detecting nothing, they went on at a snail's pace, merely inching forward and pressed down into the short grass. The wind increased and the dry grass began to rustle. Good, thought Ben, the sound would help to cover the noise Evan and he were making.
Ben stopped and stared hard into the blackness around them. He saw nothing but the impenetrable murk of the night. Still, he felt the presence of someone or something in front of him. Try as hard as he might, he could not make out a form. Trusting his instincts, he angled off to the side, choosing to go right.
They had gone not more than a few yards when Ben heard a man's voice. He halted instantly and froze. Looking in the direction of the voice, he faintly made out the forms of two men standing on the plain not a long pebble flip distant.
Evan's head bumped into his feet before he too stopped. Ben silently willed Evan not to speak and give them away. Evan remained quiet.
Studying the two men carefully, Ben decided they were facing in the direction from which Evan and he had come. Crawling even more slowly, he led on.
When the men were directly off Ben's left side, one of them spoke. "Fire the grass and give the signal."
Ben recognized Carlos Valdes's voice. The man who had tried to kill him three times was within easy pistol range. Since Carlos had spoken in English, the second man would be Tattersall, or one of his men. Ben felt the hot urge to shoot both men. However, that would give him away to Carlos's men. Maude and Rachel were more important than killing Carlos right now. There would be another time for that, if Evan and he could get away without being spotted.
One of the men bent down and struck a match and lit the grass. Flames leapt, throwing a light over Ben and Evan, penning them with its brightness. They were exposed to their foes should they but only look.
Carlos gave the order for Tattersall to fire the grass as the storm clouds swept across the sky. The clouds held rain and it appeared they would drop it here. Falling rain could provide Hawkins and his comrade with the cover they needed to slip out of the net Carlos had thrown around them. Hawkins must be taken before that.
The crackling sound of the flames consuming the dry grass drew Carlos's eyes back to the earth. The grass burned readily, sending two-foot-high yellow flames flaring brightly in the darkness. A point of fire had appeared nearby on the plain. Another one sprang to life farther off.
As Carlos watched, a dozen more fires showed in the night. Within half a minute, more of the plain had come alive with thirty pools of light from burning grass. The fires were spaced in a circle some three hundred yards in diameter, with Hawkins in the center. Everything was progressing as Carlos had planned.
The plan was simple. Illuminate Hawkins and his comrade with fire so that they could be shot. At the same time keep his own men in darkness and thus protected from the deadly rifles of the Americans.
"Help me put out the fire on the back side," Carlos said to Tattersall.
The men began to stomp the flaming grass, the task easily done for the burning of the fine reeds created mostly light and little heat.
* * *
Ben saw the two men begin to extinguish fire on the side opposite to where Evan and he had lain with the horses. With the men's attention on the fire and their boots thudding on the ground, Ben knew it was time to go, and go quickly. He crawled hurriedly off. Evan followed close behind.
Several yards later, Ben whispered to Evan, "I smell horses."
"Yeah, me too," Evan whispered back.
"Let's go get some. We'll come in from the side opposite the fires. There may be a guard, so watch out."
The two men crawled on, pressed as close to the ground as possible. The scent of the horses grew stronger. The sound of a horse moving came to them.
A couple of body lengths farther along, Ben halted and lay, trying to see into the night. Where was the guard?
* * *
Carlos and Tattersall controlled the spread of the fire they had set, trampling it out as needed to force it to advance in the direction they wanted. The fire left only short-lived coals behind, and within but a minute the area was cool.
Carlos looked out over the plain. The other fires had grown, broadened. The outlines of the fires were no longer circular in shape; rather, each was a bright yellow crescent of advancing flames. His men were performing their task properly, extinguishing half the circumference of the fire they had started.
The fire Carlos and Tattersall tended joined with the fire of his man on the right. Then the fire on the left merged with theirs. In but a handful of minutes, all the fires on the plain had joined together in one huge ring of bright flames.
Carlos looked at the point where he knew Hawkins and the other man were barricaded. The fire front was marching inexorably upon the men's location from all directions. Carlos's pistoleros, hidden in the darkness behind the fire, would be moving in prepared to shoot the moment Hawkins became a visible target.
"Let's go help them kill Hawkins and his friend," Carlos said.
"Once we catch them in the light, it'll be like shooting fish in a barrel," Tattersall said. Hawkins had killed one of his men and wounded another. It was time to make him pay for that.
They moved off in the black ashes left by the quick-burning grass. They held back half a hundred yards to be out of the light of the leaping flames.