For the past ten years and more Fred Hinckley had vowed every morning that he would quit drinking; and every night, he did the same damned stupid thing over again. No use to deny it; he liked the stuff. The trouble was, the damned whiskey didn't like him anymore. It made his eyes bleary and his tongue thick; it took away the taste of food and left an unease in the body which showed each morning in shaking hands and a racking cough. Hinckley kept telling himself that if he didn't give up on the red-eye soon, they were going to take away his license. If they ever did that he might as well cash in his chips. Even this far west nobody wanted to do business with a disbarred dentist.

He shivered. Although it was nominally springtime it was still chill at six in the morning when you were this high. Santa Fé sat on a plateau seven thousand feet above sea-level and there had been a sharp frost overnight. Snow glittered on the peaks of the Sangre de Cristos, the mountains of the blood of Christ. Hinckley lumbered down to the spacious lobby of the Exchange and with a shaking hand poured himself a cup of coffee. Doc, my hands shake all the time, what can I do? You drink a lot? the doc says. No, doc, I spill most of it. He grinned sourly at the silly joke. The smell of frying bacon and biscuits was pleasant, but he had no appetite for either. How in the name of Hades people could eat so much food this early in the day was something he had never been able to comprehend. He saw Pete Colfax, the stagecoach driver, go past the door and called his name.

‘What you want, Doc?’ the big man shouted.

‘Time we leaving, Pete?’

‘Soon’s everybody’s got their asses on that stage!’ was the testy reply. Hinckley muttered a curse. Nobody’s got any goddamned respect for anybody any more, he thought. The whole damned world was going to hell in a bucket. Even the jehus insulted you.

He went out into the courtyard. The big Concord was standing there, the six horses shifting impatiently in the traces. Hinckley surveyed the vehicle sourly. He hoped that none of the other passengers had queasy stomachs. Stagecoaches had the same effect on some that a lurching ship had on others. He didn’t relish riding all the way to Kansas City with his feet in a puddle of vomit.

He leaned against the upright post of the ramada as the Mexicans handed the baggage up to the stagecoach driver and his guard on the roof. There were only five passengers riding the first stretch; thank God for small mercies, Hinckley thought. At least there would be room to stretch out and take a nap. Even as the thought occurred to him, he saw a woman coming out of the Exchange Hotel. His were not the only eyes that turned towards her as she emerged into the chill, grey light of morning. She was strikingly handsome; not a beautiful woman in the conventional sense, but the kind which always stands apart from the crowd, as would a leopard in a herd of ostriches. And I buy the drinks if she hasn’t got hidalgo blood in her, Hinckley thought. You could always tell the real aristocrats. It was the way they walked, the way they held their heads. It was their world and nobody could take it away from them. The Spanish had a phrase to describe women like this one: muy mujer, they said. It meant ‘a lot of woman’, but it also meant a great deal more than just that. This woman was such a one. She was not tall, but she walked as if she was. Her eyes were dark and grave, her lips full. She showed fine white teeth in a smile for the hostler who helped her step up into the coach. The man looked as if an angel had kissed him.

‘Muy mujer,’ Hinckley muttered, almost without realizing he had spoken aloud. The young Mexican directed a sharp, almost jealous glance at him, as if to say, watch that! The Hell with you, sonny, Hinckley thought. A man had the right to admire a good-looking woman, whatever his age. Even lust after her a little, if he had a mind to. He allowed himself a rueful grin. That was about all you were liable to do by the time you got to sixty, anyway. Young women didn’t generally take a man that age too damned seriously, which was probably just as well.

He walked around the rear of the stagecoach and took out his hip flask. I shouldn’t do this, he thought, taking a hefty swig. Well, so much for good resolutions and the Hell with it. A man needed something to take the damned ache out of his bones on a chill day like this. He’d had them fill the flask the night before. It wasn’t particularly good liquor but it took the kinks out of his spine and put warmth in his blood. He coughed violently.

‘You okay, down there, Doc?’ Pete Colfax grinned from the top of the coach. ‘I heered fellers with their throats cut who sounded better’n you do!’

‘Damn your eyes, Colfax, it’s no laughing matter!’ Hinckley wheezed, fighting to control the paroxysm. ‘This goddamned sheep-dip would make a buzzard puke!’

‘Sir, Ah do not like yoah language!’

The voice was thin and venomous. Hinckley looked up, puzzled by the animosity in the words. He saw a cadaverous man in a black suit with a flowered vest beneath it. The man wore a cape around his shoulders and carried a silver-topped cane in his hand. He wore a flat-crowned hat with a narrow brim. His eyes were as empty as a dry well. The thin moustache, the Dixie drawl, the clothes all spelled one thing: tinhorn. Friendly as a trod sidewinder, Hinckley decided, and not quite as handsome.

‘Ah will tell you this but the once,’ the gambler said. ‘There are ladies aboard this vehicle, and Ah will not tolerate bad language in their presence. Do Ah make mahself quit cleah?’

He glared at Hinckley, who nodded. Apparently satisfied, the thin man turned his back on Hinckley to assist a small, dark, dumpy woman in black clothes into the coach. She was Spanish; the handsome woman’s duenna, Hinckley decided. It confirmed what he had guessed earlier, that the lady was hidalgo, of noble Spanish blood. The gambler climbed aboard, raising his hat to the good-looking woman. If she was pleased by his assumption of the role of gallant protector, she was sure as Hell doing a good job of not showing it, Hinckley thought. Somehow this pleased him immensely. He ached to take another pull from the flask, but an old pride, he thought had long disappeared would not let him show his need in front of the gambler.

‘Ladies,’ the tinhorn was saying. ‘Mah name is d’Arly Anderson and Ah am at yoah service.’ Even the accent was phony, Hinckley thought, turning to see another woman coming out of the hotel. This one was about fifty. She had malicious eyes that looked him up and down once, and then dismissed him. Trash, her face said. Her mouth firmly shut, her step determined, her expression was one of dissatisfaction with everyone and everything. Old maid, Hinckley decided.

It was unusual to have three women aboard a stagecoach. Stage journeys were grueling. Whenever possible, women usually tried to find some other way to travel, even if it meant a much longer trip.

‘Git aboard, Doc!’ Colfax shouted down at him. ‘I’m about to git this rig a-rollin’!’ He spat a gobbet of tobacco juice twenty feet to one side, scattering chickens, and slid into the driving seat. His shotgun guard, a thick-set man with wary eyes and a beard that concealed the rest of his features, hitched up his pants and braced his feet against the dashboard. Hinckley got into the coach and one of the hostlers slammed the door shut behind him.

‘Git clear down there!’ he heard Colfax shout. ‘Let ’er roll!’

The coach jerked abruptly into motion and everyone inside grabbed for a handhold. There was room for nine passengers inside a Concord, as long as nobody took up more than fifteen inches of seat. With only five up, and the center bench empty, there was plenty of space on the leather-upholstered seats which faced each other front and rear. The three women sat facing forward. The gambler and Hinckley sat with their backs to the direction of travel.

‘Hi, Buck!’ Colfax shouted. ‘Git up, Bobby!’

He cracked his whip. It sounded like a carbine being fired in an alley. The stage lunged on its fore and aft springs and dust rolled off its wheels like water. People on the street stopped to watch them go by. Children ran alongside, waving, dropping back as the coach picked up speed leaving the scattered jacals on the edge of town behind.

Hinckley folded his hands across his belly and rested his chin on his chest. It was a long haul to the next stop. Might as well catch up on the sleep he’d lost by rising so early. The dun hills slid past outside, their slopes furrowed like the faces of ancient Indians. The Spanish hidalga had an arm hooked over the window-ledge to steady herself. Damned handsome woman, Hinckley thought. Lucky the man who’s waiting for her to come to his bed.

The coach rolled on, a moving speck in a great vastness of land.

Awakening from a fitful sleep Fred Hinckley became aware of the murmur of voices. He opened his eyes warily like a man emerging from a cave, afraid of being dazzled. The sun was already high, the sky brazen. A plume of dust nearly forty feet high trailed behind the stagecoach. Off to the left he could see the tumbling foothills of the Sangre de Cristo. Rattling along, the coach was tilted slightly forward. We’re over the Glorieta, then, he surmised, and into the long, left-hand curve of the trail leading to Gallinas Crossing and on to Las Vegas. He took out his watch. It was one of his favorite possessions, a silver pair-cased lever watch by Morris Tobias of London, hallmarked 1813. A penurious client had settled his bill by offering it to Hinckley if he’d throw in five dollars as boot. He’d accepted with alacrity. The old watch kept perfect time. It pleased him to own it. Quarter of twelve, he told himself; we’ll be stopping soon to noon it.

‘Never liked the place myself!’ the old maid was spying as Hinckley tuned his ears to their conversation. ‘Too close to the border. Full of Me—’ She caught herself in time to avoid the faux pas. ‘Too many unsavory people. Border riff-raff’ Was there a ghost of a smile on the face of the good-looking hidalga? Hinckley would have bet his silver watch there was.

‘My fiancé and I are planning to move to Santa Fé after we are married,’ she said now. Her voice was low-pitched and well-modulated. Everything about her seemed to be just right. Dammit, there ought to be something wrong with her, Hinckley thought irritably. No such thing on God’s green earth as a perfect woman. No such thing.

‘Ah take it he remained in El Paso?’ the gambler asked her. ‘Your fiancé.’ How he did it Hinckley did not know, but with ten words he managed to say that he considered it a damnable outrage for any man to let his woman ride alone in a stagecoach and that if he had the man here, now, he would horsewhip him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He will meet me in St Louis. Then we will travel east together by train to attend to some family business. ‘

‘It’s a long way to go, ma’am,’ Hinckley ventured. ‘If I may make so bold.’

‘I know,’ she said, favoring him with a smile that warmed his belly. ‘But I do so want to see his family’s home.’

‘And might I ask where that is ma’am?’

‘In Virginia. A place called Culpeper.’

There was a little silence. A Spanish woman of noble birth, and a destination in Virginia. It did not sound quite right.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ Hinckley said. ‘Frederick T. Hinckley, originally of Kansas. I now practice in the town of Mesilla.’

‘My name is Maria Gonzales y Cordoba,’ the woman said. ‘Of—’

Hinckley held up a hand in a theatrical gesture. ‘No need to tell me, ma’am,’ he said grandly. ‘It’s a famous name. Wasn’t a General Gonzales y Cordoba Governor of Chihuahua at one time?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He is my father.’ By hell or Russia, Hinckley thought as she smiled, she is one beautiful lady.

‘And have you and your, ah, companion, traveled all the way up here from Chihuahua?’ the old maid asked.

‘No, no,’ Maria Gonzales said. ‘Only from Juarez. We have a country house there.’

‘Really?’ the old maid said. There was surprise in her voice. The people who have country houses! it implied.

‘And how about you, ma’am?’ Hinckley asked her. ‘How far have you come?’

‘I live in Santa Fé,’ she said primly, indicating that she was answering only out of politeness and that it was really none of his business. ‘My name is Felicity Osborn.’

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma’am,’ Hinckley said. ‘How far are you going?’

She gave him a frosty look again. ‘I am going to Kansas City to visit my sister.’ She clutched her reticule more tightly as though she feared he might try to snatch it out of her hand.

‘Befoah you begin cross-questionin’ me, suh, Ah’ll spare you the necessity,’ the saturnine gambler sitting on Hinckley’s right said. ‘Mah name you already know. Where Ah am goin’ to, an’ from whence Ah came, are none of yoah business. You’ll save yoah breath and mah patience if you don’t presume to ask.’

‘As to either, sir, my lack of interest in them is exceeded only by your lack of manners!’ Hinckley bristled, a little surprised at himself. Well, no goddamned tinhorn with a phony Southern accent was going to insult him, devil take the man!

‘Why, Mr. Hinckley,’ Anderson said, with a thin smile that had no humor in it at all. ‘You surprise me! Does this outburst mean you have something in yoah veins besides alcohol?’ ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!’ Maria Gonzales interrupted, before Hinckley could reply. ‘We have a long way to travel together. It will be quite unbearable if you squabble like schoolboys the whole way! ‘ Her voice was imperious; it brooked no argument.

‘Hmph!’ Felicity Osborn said, her face showing that her worst fears had been realized. ‘Only to be expected. The one a gambler and the other a sot. Border riff-raff. They’re everywhere!’

Anderson glared at her, the fire of dislike in his empty eyes. Twin spots of red burned on his pale cheeks but he said nothing more. Silence filled the swaying coach like water. The sun was at its zenith, the air blowing into the coach so hot that it made them gag. Hinckley took a bandanna from his pocket and tied it around his mouth. The Osborn woman wrapped her shawl around the lower part of her face. Anderson used a white silk scarf. Only Maria Gonzales seemed unperturbed by the heat. She lifted a large, leather-bound book out of the carpetbag which she had brought into the coach with her. Hinckley watched her covertly as she turned the pages, her eyes alight with interest. The leather book was an album of some sort; he could see that it had photographs in it. Family album, he decided.

‘Haw, there, Bess!’ they heard the driver shout above their heads. ‘Ho, Buck! Whoa, there, you sonsabitches, damn yore stinkin’ hides!’

Anderson’s face changed. He stuck his head out of the window and shouted something up at the driver which Hinckley could not hear. But the tone of Anderson’s voice told him exactly what kind of thing had been said. He let a small grin loose. Telling a stagecoach driver not to cuss was like telling a month-old baby not to cry. He doubted Pete Colfax even knew he’d said anything.

‘Yeeeehaaaaah!’ he heard the driver shout. ‘Haul in there, you mulehead assholes!’ The coach bucked and slowed, slowed some more and then came to a slewing stop. Hinckley felt the thud of boots as Colfax jumped down from the box and jerked open the door of the coach. His face was a white mask of gypsum from which irate eyes glared at Anderson.

‘What the Sam Hill did you yell at me, mister?’ he growled.

‘Ah told you to moderate yoah language!’ Anderson said, with the faintest shade of uncertainty in his voice. ‘There are ladies present, suh!’

Colfax put on a goggle-eyed idiot face. ‘Shee-hit!’ he said. ‘Imagine me not noticin’ that!’ He took off his battered Stetson and made an elaborate bow. ‘Ladies, I humbly kiss yore asses!’

‘Foul-mouthed pig!’ Felicity Osborn snapped, turning away her head in disgust. Anderson’s face was rigid with anger.

‘Out of the way!’ he hissed, pushing Hinckley aside. He got down from the coach and stood facing Colfax, who had a broad grin pasted on his face. His very stance dared the gambler to do something. Colfax was a big man with powerful shoulders. There was a heavy Colt side-hammer pistol in a holster at his right side. Its butt was worn and smooth as if it had seen much use. Hinckley did not fail to notice how Anderson’s eyes flickered towards it and then away. And neither did Colfax.

‘Four-flusher,’ he said conversationally, and turned away to get on with his chores, spitting dispassionately into the dust. d’Arly Anderson’s hand went inside the silk-faced jacket, then froze as a discreet cough broke the silence. Colfax’s guard was climbing down from the box. He held his shotgun casually in his hand and Anderson, seeing that it was fully cocked, stood stock still.

Jesus, Hinckley thought, nobody move! If somebody coughed there’d be a killing. The shotgun guard leaned against the stagecoach, never taking his eyes off Anderson. After what seemed like an eternity Anderson took his hand away from his breast pocket and turned away, pasting contempt on his face. The guard grinned. Anderson had been faced down, and both of them knew it.

Hinckley heaved a sigh of relief, and got out of the coach. He offered his hand to Felicity Osborn, who had stood up. She looked at it as if it were a four-day-old fish, then gingerly took hold of it to step down from the coach. Hinckley then handed down the dumpy duenna.

‘Gracias, señor,’ she said, smiling.

‘De nada,’ Hinckley replied, offering his hand to Maria Gonzales. She had a grin on her face and Hinckley saw she was looking at Anderson.

‘You weren’t offended?’ Hinckley asked as he ambled across to the stage depot at her side.

‘Mr. Hinckley, my father is a soldier,’ she said levelly. He can curse for fifteen minutes and never repeat himself once.’

Pete Colfax heard what she said and guffawed, slapping his thigh.

‘Well, if that don’t beat all!’ he said loudly. ‘Hear that, tinhorn? That’s one up the ass for you!’

The station manager’s fat wife served them tamales and bean soup. There was an olla of water in the middle of the table with a wet cloth over its top.

‘You got any beer, Mama?’ Colfax shouted to the Mexican woman as she bustled back to her kitchen. She shouted something affirmative and came back with a quart jug of beer. Colfax looked at it for a long moment, then picked it up and drained it in one long series of gulps. He put the jug down on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Thanks, Pete,’ the shotgun guard said.

‘Aw, shit, Henry!’ Colfax looked sheepish. ‘Hey, Mama! Mas cervezas, por favor!’

Hinckley eyed the food and then the bar. The station manager was standing behind it and he rubbed his hands as he caught Hinckley’s eye. Hinckley shook his head and took a seat at the table next to Maria Gonzales.

‘Some soup, Mr. Hinckley?’ she asked.

‘Mighty kind of you ma’am,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll stick to the tamales.’ He reached over and put one of the pancakes on his plate. It smelled very strong. He wondered whether it was goat’s meat and decided not to dwell on the thought. Anyway, he was too hungry to care.

‘How long do we stop, Pete?’ he asked the driver.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ Colfax said, around a great mouthful of pancake. The Mexican woman brought two more pitchers of beer.

‘Ees coffee layder,’ she said, shuffling out.

‘Did I hear them call you “Doc”, Mr. Hinckley?’ Maria Gonzales asked, surprising him.

‘I’m not a medical doctor, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’m a dentist.’

‘How long have you practiced in New Mexico?’

‘Came out here in ’fifty-eight,’ he told her. ‘Remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday. Damned fool that I was, beggin’ your pardon, ladies. I had a good practice up in Atchison, Kansas. Nice little upstairs office with a young lawyer down below. Nice young fellow, name of McShane.’ He shook his head. ‘Funny ain’t it, the names you remember and the ones you forget? Anyways, I joined up with a party heading out to Colorado. Spent every penny we had putting together an outfit to go diggin’ for gold. “Pike’s Peak or Bust”! we painted on the wagon, and busted’s what we was.’ He shook his head again, fondly recollecting youthful folly. ‘I hung out my shingle in Denver awhile, but I never got to like the place overmuch. So I come down to New Mex and set up in Mesilla. Been there ever since. ‘

‘All through the war, suh?’ Anderson asked. The question was loaded; Mesilla had been in Confederate hands for the first year of the war. Anderson’s question was tantamount to asking Hinckley what his sympathies were. Out here, the Civil War had been over since ’sixty-two, although it was still raging in the East. Feelings still ran high, all the same. You cheered the Federal victories, the fall of Atlanta and Savannah, only if you were sure of the company you were in. You rejoiced in the continuing defense of Petersburg only if you knew, for sure, that you were among like-minded secessionists.

‘I was, sir,’ Hinckley said, his chin coming up. ‘I did my best for any man who came to me. Bad teeth owe allegiance to no flag—’

‘Your practice can’t be very large, Mr. Hinckley,’ Maria Gonzales said. ‘There can’t be more than a few hundred Anglos in Mesilla now.’

‘I keep busy enough,’ Hinckley told her. ‘And you know, ma’am, once they get through taming the Apache and the Navajos, the settlers will start to come out here. It’s a good country and there’s plenty of room to grow.’

‘That’s what Jed says,’ she replied, and there was a glow in her eyes that left no doubt about who Jed was.

‘That your fiancé’s name, Jed?’

‘Jedediah Strong,’ she replied.

Felicity Osborn sniffed and drew herself up. It was plain to see that her worst fears had been confirmed. A Mexican marrying a white! No wonder things were going to rack and ruin!

‘You said he’s from Virginia?’ Anderson said. ‘That is also my home.’

In a pig’s ear, Hinckley thought, as Maria nodded confirmation.

‘What line of business is he in, your fiancé?’ the gambler asked.

Hinckley thought she hesitated momentarily before answering, and he wondered why. ‘My fiancé was a soldier,’ she said.

‘After we are married, he plans to study law.’

‘In the East?’ Hinckley asked.

‘I think not,’ she replied. ‘We intend to live in Santa Fé.’

Felicity Osborn sniffed again. You’ll just have to move out, lady, Hinckley thought, grinning to himself. The place will just go to hell if the Mexes start marrying white folks.

‘Ah’ve been livin’ in San Antone,’ Anderson said abruptly. Hinckley caught the alarm in Maria Gonzales’ eyes as the gambler spoke. Now what’s wrong there? he wondered.

‘Seems to me Ah’ve heard yoah fiancé’s name before somewhere,’ Anderson went on. ‘Ma’am.’ He said the word a different way and now Hinckley saw color mantle Maria Gonzales’ cheeks. Guilt? he thought. Anger? Shame?

‘Ah,’ she said, softly. ‘I see.’

Anderson let a thin smile touch his face. I’ve got you now, it said. Felicity Osborn was listening intently and trying to look as if she was not. Maria Gonzales gave an almost infinitesimal shrug.

‘My fiancé killed some men in San Antonio,’ she said. ‘That is what this man is alluding to.’

‘No.’ Anderson said, smiling his viper smile. ‘That isn’t it at all. Ma’am.’ He used the word in the same way he had before, like a drunk bargaining with a whore. ‘That ain’t what Ah heard.’

‘And what,’ she asked icily, ‘did you hear?’

‘Ah heard he was a bounty hunter,’ Anderson said. ‘A man who hunts down other men and kills them. For money. Now isn’t that more like the truth of it – ma’am?’