At Hundred-and-ten-mile Creek two men got aboard.

Major Nelson and his jolly wife had left the stage at Fort Lamed, and, apart from a couple of soldiers who rode with them as far as Fort Zarah, there had been no new passengers. The newcomers were both tall, dour-looking men wearing long duster coats, who introduced themselves as Mr. Woodson and Mr. Franklin and made no effort to strike up further conversation.

Ever since that awful night at the home station above Willow Bar, Maria had sat beside ‘Doc’ Hinckley, making sure that the vile Anderson never came anywhere near her, either on board the coach, at nooning, or when they stopped for the night. For his part, the gambler did not so much as speak to her, favoring her from time to time with looks of utter contempt. His efforts to strike up a conversation with Felicity Osborn met with a complete lack of success. She remained silent, staring out of the open window at the endless run of the prairie.

‘By the time we get to Independence,’ Hinckley said, ‘seems to me I’ll know as much about the Strong family as you do, Maria.’

She had been looking through her album. He had expressed interest, and it had gone on from there. She told him the stories Jedediah had told her, about young Davy Strong, the exile boy from England who rose high in the service of George Washington’s army, and established the great horse-breeding farm near Culpeper. That first great line of thoroughbreds had been cruelly destroyed in the terrible spring of 1825 by hoof and mouth disease.

Jedediah had told her, and she told Hinckley, how Old David, seventy then, learned that the disease had been caused by contaminated oats bought from a shady dealer by one of his overseers, Jonas Fletcher. Fletcher had been pocketing the difference and fiddling the books.

Old David had found him in a tavern on the Orange Turnpike and slapped the man out into the road. Although he was an old man, Davy’s cold anger had terrified the overseer, who lay whimpering in the dusty ruts of the road, begging mercy. Davy Strong regarded him with searing contempt.

‘I’ll not kill you, Fletcher,’ he told the cringing overseer.

‘Though God and these witnesses know I have the right. But you had better leave this country and never come back to it, for if I see your face ever again, I will shoot you like the crawling dog you are!’

‘Quite a family,’ Hinckley said. ‘That was your man’s grandfather, then?’

‘Great-grandfather,’ she said. ‘This is Jed’s grandfather. He was named after him.’

The picture was a photograph of a painting; a sturdy-looking man, wearing buckskins and fur hat. There was nothing striking about him, except the eyes. Yet he had gone across the country with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark more than sixty years ago, when nobody in the whole world knew what lay between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

And she told him of all the others, Jedediah’s two sons and the daughter who ran away with a medicine show. The Jedediah who had gone with Lewis and Clark had been called Big Jed in the family. Maria’s fiancé was known as Little Jed until his grandfather’s death, in 1859.

He looked at the pictures and thought of what it might be like to be a member of such a clan, with all its jealousies and hates, its failures, its successes. David Strong, who had brought the bloodstock line, for which Washington Farm was once renowned, into being again. Sam Strong, inventor and manufacturer of the Carver carbine, one of the best repeating rifles ever made.

‘You related to that gunmakin’ feller, lady?’ the tall man named Woodson asked Maria, overhearing the conversation. ‘The one that makes the Carver carbine?’

‘He is my fiancé’s uncle,’ Maria said, surprised by the interruption. Woodson and Franklin had maintained a taciturn silence ever since they joined the stagecoach.

‘Lot o’ nonsense,’ Woodson said. ‘Ain’t that right, Mike?’

‘Gun’s a gun,’ Franklin said. ‘Bullet goes wherever you point it. Point it in the right place, it’s the only one you need.’ Woodson nodded, as if that ended all discussion on the subject of guns. They were swinging up into a wooded gully, between high, frowning bluffs. They could hear the driver cursing to encourage the horses. Colfax had left them long ago. The name of this one was Ramon. The coach slowed, stopped.

‘Ever’body out!’ the driver shouted. ‘Hill ahead!’

They got out of the stage. The sun hit them like a flat hand. The wind siffled through the defile, too warm to bring relief.

The driver shouted at the horses and they lurched forward. The seven passengers trudged uphill in its wake, dust from its passage coating their clothes. As the coach got to the top of the rise, Ramon pulled it to a halt. All at once there was a shot. They saw the shotgun guard rise to his feet, as if to protest, then pitch forward and fall like a sack of stones on the ground. The driver stood up, his hands above his head, as two men came out from behind the rocks, carbines in their hands.

Hinckley cursed aloud, and started up the hill, pulling a gun out of his coat pocket. He had gone about five paces when a dry voice stopped him in his tracks.

‘Hold her right there, old man!’

He turned, astonished. Woodson and Franklin, who had been bringing up the rear, both had sawn-off shotguns in their hands. The others turned, facing them. The smaller of the two, Woodson, gestured with the gun.

‘Just keep walkin’,’ he said. ‘Up to the top.’

‘Young man!’ Felicity Osborn said, her mouth a thin line. ‘What is the meaning of this outrage?’

‘You’re bein’ held up, lady,’ Franklin said, as one would explain a simple thing to a child. ‘This here is a gun. That there is a held-up stagecoach.’ He gestured with the gun, the way Woodson had. ‘Walk!’

‘I will do no such thing!’ Felicity Osborn shrilled. ‘I demand—’‘

The one called Woodson tutted impatiently and shot her through the head. Felicity Osborn was blown off her feet and crashed into the scrub beside the rutted road. It was unbelievable, brutal, shocking. They looked at the still body of the dead woman, the smoking gun in Woodson’s hand. His face had no expression on it; he might have done no more than swat a fly which was pestering him.

‘I said, walk!’ Franklin repeated.

They hurried up the hill towards the coach, Hinckley, Maria and her duenna in front, Anderson behind them, Woodson and Franklin at the back.

‘Listen,’ Anderson said. ‘Mister, listen to me.’

‘Walk!’ Franklin snapped.

‘I’m walking, I’m walking!’ Anderson said. ‘Only listen, listen! You know who she is, the Spanish one? You know who she’s going to marry?’

‘She can marry a goddamn jackass for all I care,’ was the callous reply. ‘Now shut your damned face!’

‘Listen to me, you don’t understand!’ Anderson babbled. ‘She’s been talking about this family she’s going to marry into. They’re rich, you hear me? They’re filthy rich Easterners!’

‘So?’

‘Well, don’t you see?’ Anderson panted, trotting alongside the dark, frowning Woodson. ‘Don’t you see what we’ve got here?’

All trace of the Southern accent was gone. Hinckley threw a look of tired contempt over his shoulder. The gambler’s guts had turned to water when the hold-up men shot Felicity Osborn. They asked him to kiss their boots, likely he’d do it, Hinckley thought. He looked at Maria Gonzales. Her head was held high. She had heard what Anderson was saying and he guessed she had a pretty good idea what he was up to. She looked a long way from frightened. Muy mujer, he thought, I knew it.

They got to the top of the hill. The other two men were younger, unshaven, sly-looking. One of them came across and frisked the two men, taking Hinckley’s pocket pistol, and two Derringers from Anderson.

‘Listen, Woodson, Franklin, listen to me,’ he said, as the thin-faced youth stepped away from him. ‘We can ransom the woman. They’ll pay a fortune to get her back safe!’

‘We ain’t in the ransom business, tinhorn!’ Woodson said. He turned to the thin-faced one who had taken the guns. ‘You got the strongbox?’

‘Got it, Jesse,’ the youth said.

‘Well,’ Woodson said, looking at the knot of passengers speculatively. Anderson took a step forward. The guns came up and he cringed, holding out his hands, entreatingly.

‘Look, you’re passing up a fortune!’ he said. ‘The Strong family owns land, bloodstock horses! They’ll pay anything we ask them! Listen, cut me in on it! I’ll be the intermediary if you like. I’ll go to them, tell them what we want. Fifty thousand dollars, eh? Maybe we can get more. Seventy-five, a hundred thousand even! What do you think? Woodson, Franklin, I can make you rich, listen to me!’

‘What do you think, Mike?’ Woodson said, turning to the taller man.

‘I think he talks too much,’ Franklin said.

‘Me, too,’ Woodson said and shot Anderson in the leg. The gambler went down, mewling with pain, scrabbling in the dirt with his hands clutching the wound in his thigh.

Then Franklin looked at Maria and something kindled in his eyes. He leaned over and whispered something into Woodson’s ear. Woodson grinned, too, but it was the grin of a hunting wolf ‘Well, maybe we can’t get a ransom for you, sweetheart,’ he said, stepping across towards Maria. ‘But that don’t mean we can’t get somethin’ for our trouble.’

He leered at Maria and to Hinckley’s surprise she smiled back at the man. Woodson hitched at his pants and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘You’re a good-lookin’ piece, ain’t ya, sweetheart?’ he said.

The duenna said something very rapidly in Spanish, shouting at Maria. Maria silenced her in two words and then smiled up at the dark-eyed Woodson.

‘Don’t mind her,’ she said throatily. ‘She’s only jealous.’ Woodson grinned and put his hand on her breast, squeezing. As he did, Maria slid Anderson’s stiletto between Woodson’s second and third ribs. His eyes bulged and he went up on his toes. As he started to fall, dead on his feet, Maria calmly took the shotgun out of his nerveless hands, and blew Franklin fourteen feet backwards into the thicket of brush alongside the road. The two youths, transfixed by the suddenness of what had happened, stared terrified and goggle-eyed at the tattered body of their leader. As they did, Hinckley snaked the pistol from the holster on Woodson’s belt and threw down on them.

Jesus, mister, don’t!’ one of them screeched, throwing his gun away in a wide arc. The other one dropped his carbine at his feet, and skittered back from it, raising his arms high.

‘All right,’ Hinckley said. ‘Where are your horses?’

‘Behind the rocks,’ the thin-faced one said. ‘Over there.’

‘Ramon, go get them!’ Hinckley said. He looked at Maria.

‘What do we do with them?’

‘They don’t look very healthy to me,’ she said. T think they could do with a nice long walk.’

‘Funny you should say that,’ Hinckley said with a grin. ‘I was thinking much the same thing. And him?’ He jerked his chin at Anderson, who lay moaning in the ditch.

‘I don’t see anyone,’ Maria said.

He nodded. Ramon came up with the four horses. He tied them to the back of the coach and raised his eyebrows.

‘We’ll send someone out for the bodies,’ Hinckley said. ‘All right, you two, start walking. That way.’ He pointed down the hill. The two youths looked at each other and then at the gun. The thin-faced one shrugged and they trudged off down the hill.

‘Allow me, ladies,’ Hinckley said, opening the door with a flourish. He felt foolishly male, gallantly successful. By Hell or Russia, he thought, there’s life in the old goat yet!

‘Hey!’ Anderson shouted as Hinckley slammed the door. His voice was shrill with alarm. ‘You ain’t leavin’ me here to die?’

‘Snakes do not die in the desert,’ Maria said coldly. ‘Ramon, let’s go! I don’t want to be late! My Jedediah is waiting for me in St Louis!’

The coach jerked into movement, the jangle of harness and hoofs drowning the screaming tirade of curses hurled after them by the wounded gambler.

‘You reckon he’ll live?’ Hinckley asked Maria.

‘There are guns there,’ she said. ‘He will manage. Unless those other two kill him.’

‘Always a possibility,’ Hinckley said.

‘What a loss it would be to the world,’ Maria said and her smile was quite infectious. Hinckley regarded her with wonderment. No such thing as a perfect woman, eh Hinckley? He asked himself. Well, you got to admit, you met one that comes damned close.

‘Maria Gonzales y Cordoba,’ he said. ‘You are one Hell of a woman.’

‘Yes,’ Maria said. ‘I know.’