Clarence could feel the dry air parching his throat and sucking the moisture from his eyes under the sun's relentless heat. With no sign of life (besides the occasional horn toad), the terrain stretched out endlessly before them without altering its appearance. The prairie grasses had long since been traded for desert wilderness. Here every rock and boulder and knoll and cactus looked the same as the last.
Gasping, drenched with sweat and bleary-eyed, he and Kate rode ever onward, both of them seemingly in a trance. Every patch of skin that had been bared in the heat now lay sunburned. Their ponies, reduced to a staggering trot, carried them ever south, but it was doubtful they would make it much farther without water. Undoubtedly the natives were hot on their trail by now, but neither Clarence nor Kate could muster enough energy to care.
"We need...water," Clarence choked out, his throat grainy.
Kate didn't respond. She seemed to be concentrating on remaining astride her pony and staying conscious. She hadn't said much for the past hour or so, and Clarence assumed she was either conserving energy or she was too thirsty to speak. Either way, it surprised him when she finally broke the silence.
"I want to say—" She swallowed with a pained grimace. "I'm sorry for comin' onto you the way I did when we first met. I…didn't know what a fine young man you are."
Clarence turned to face her. "Thank you," he managed, attempting a smile. "But why tell me this now?"
She shrugged weakly. "If them Indians get to us before we find water, we could die out here." Again she tried to swallow, apparently to no avail. "And I just wanted you...to know."
He blinked, stirred by her words. Maybe it was the heat getting to him, but he confessed, "I'm glad you told me—it pleases me to know." He nodded, smiling broadly at her. "I've never had much luck with girls, I'm afraid. If ever I dared to make my interest known...they would never have me."
"Why?"
"Oh..." He tried to sound indifferent, the words thick in his mouth. "Too dull, they'd say. A gentleman with prospects...of little interest." He sniffed and stared straight ahead.
Kate was quiet for a moment. "They're fools, Clarence. I'd have you." Before he could respond, she caught herself and said, "I mean, if I was younger of course and if I wasn't…what I am." She dropped her gaze. "Never mind. The heat's gettin' to me. Forget I said anything."
Their ponies had slowed to a halt, now side by side. Clarence sat upright and reached over to touch her shoulder, resting his hand on her scarlet skin. She was hesitant to meet his gaze, but when she did, he smiled at her, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
"Shall we be friends, Kate?"
She didn't seem to know what to say. Or maybe it was the heat, affecting her reaction time. She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
"Yes, Clarence," she said at length, touching his hand. "I'd sure like that."
"Palefaces go southeast," the brave observed, kneeling down for a closer view of the tracks.
Behind him, astride their retrieved ponies, the other Zuni braves and their chief waited, each with red and black paint smeared across his cheeks and a loaded Winchester rifle in his grip. Leaving the elders and the rest of the tribe to break camp and head back to the home place, this band of courageous warriors had ridden out into the desert for over an hour. Beneath the blistering sun, with the hot, dry breeze baking the dust onto their skin, they rode mile after mile. Where their chief led, these braves followed, whether it be to glory or death. They were willing to give their lives for their fearless leader.
And it appeared they might have to do so. They had ridden their ponies hard, almost to the point of expiration, having wanted to make up for the lead the pale-faced pair had on them, and now the fastest they could get them to move was a brisk trot. Their chief was out for revenge, and he was not to be trifled with. No one had yet dared to bring up the condition of the frothing, gasping ponies.
"Southeast?" Big Chief Thunderclap boomed. "They must be smarter than they look. They're headed back to their village!"
"If they return, we will not be able to—"
"I gave you no permission to speak, Stubbed Toe!" The chief turned sharply on the prince. "You keep your mouth shut until I tell you otherwise!" Big Chief Thunderclap gave his sulking son a withering look before facing the barren stretch of land that lay before them. "We will catch those two pale-faced devils if it is the last thing we do—"
"It very well could be," Stubbed Toe muttered, rubbing the neck of his worn-out pony.
Thunderclap heard his son's quiet remark. For a moment, it seemed that he would let it pass, as he often did. Some comments were better left ignored, after all. But then he turned. His brawny arm shot out, slamming a ham-sized fist into the prince's broad chest and toppling him over backward. With a short cry of surprise, Stubbed Toe dropped headfirst from his pony and hit the ground hard, stubbing more than just his toe.
"Let that be a lesson to you!" The chief waved a thick finger down at his shamed son as the youth slowly rose to his feet.
"Yes, Father." Stubbed Toe sullenly leapt astride his pony and stared ahead with a stone-cold gaze, avoiding the smirking looks from the other braves.
Thunderclap belched. "Where was I? Oh, right: —if it is the last thing we do." He cleared his throat. "They must lead us to Buckeye Daniels, for we have a bone to pick with him. And if it so happens that Buckeye Daniels is in their village—" He turned toward his son. "We'll sneak in under cloak of darkness and NAB THE SUCKER!"
Startled by their chief's sudden roar and wild-eyed grimace, the braves jerked to attention and grunted their approval.
"We will not give up! No matter what hardships we may face. We will catch those palefaces!" Thunderclap threw up his arms, and the braves cheered, each in his own way. "We will find Buckeye Daniels." Another cheer. "He is ours. His scalp is ours!" They went wild, and the chief grinned broadly, patting with sudden reverence the X of the Confederate flag that crossed his massive chest and belly. "Let us not forget the chilling words of the immortal Robert E. Lee, and I quote—" He faced the heavens as he proclaimed, "I have not yet begun to fight!"
Awed by their chief's knowledge of paleface history, the braves looked on in muted wonder. All except Stubbed Toe, who turned aside and coughed something into his fist that ended with John Paul Jones.
"AAAAIIIEEEEE!!"
With that bloodcurdling shriek, Big Chief Thunderclap kicked the flanks of his tired pony and led his high-spirited braves onward in pursuit of their quarry.
"It's Thunderclap, alright. I'd know that get-up anywhere."
The lynch mob from Santa Fe, as they were collectively known, had drawn rein at the edge of a bluff and now sat mounted, side by side. Before them stretched the barren wilderness, bounded by hills on all sides and baked by the scorching rays of the afternoon sun. The featureless terrain went on for miles in all directions, broken only by knolls and dry gulches here and there. No sign of water. It was rumored that this area would soon be getting the name "The Badlands" on official maps; but, then again, that was only a rumor. Apparently, other parts of the country were in contention for the moniker.
"They're headin' this way, towards town." MacQuaid held his field glasses to his eyes and gazed north at the cloud of dust they'd spotted earlier.
"Towards town, you say?" the leader with the fresh rope gruffly ascertained. "How many of 'em?"
MacQuaid whistled with appreciation, peering intently through the glasses. "I'd say close to three dozen."
"Armed?"
MacQuaid cursed and grinned. "To the teeth."
The leader of the pack rubbed his unshaven jaw. "Brazen devils." He was thinking deeply, and it looked to be something he hadn't done in quite a while.
"Hell, it's miles to town," Reynolds piped up. "There's a mess o' places they could be headed. Maybe they're just hunting deer or somethin'."
"Didn't know we had an Injun-lover with us, boys." MacQuaid lowered his field glasses to sneer at Reynolds. "Why're you speakin' up for these redskins? You been sleepin' around with their squaws? Probably the only women who would take in a dog like you."
The men fell silent, expecting Reynolds to blow up and try something stupid like drawing on MacQuaid. Instead, Reynolds' eyes narrowed to slits and he spoke in a quiet voice.
"You wanna die, gunslinger?" His jaw muscle twitched as he slid his hand toward his holster.
MacQuaid held his horse's reins with one hand and the glasses with the other, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see Reynolds' hand moving. "It's a long way down from here. I'd just hate to see your back break on one of those rocks below." He frowned with mock concern and clucked his tongue. "Such a sad sight you'd be, lyin' there waitin' for the buzzards to show up and pick through the mess, your head smashed open like an overripe melon."
MacQuaid hadn't let go of the reins or the glasses, and Reynolds had already slipped his fingers around the grip of his gun, the look in his eyes steady and cold as death.
Knowing these two were fetching to have it out, right here and now, and that there was no more holding them back, the leader signaled the others to back up their mounts, out of the line of fire.
"You sure would look mighty pathetic, Reynolds. I'd almost feel sorry for you," MacQuaid said.
"Don't you worry about me," Reynolds said deliberately. "Worry about yourself!" He snatched his gun from its holster—
But not before MacQuaid had dropped the reins and grabbed his own shooter with a speed so fast his movements were nothing but a blur. Both men fired. MacQuaid snarled as the bullet dug into his arm, throwing him back in the saddle, but Reynolds screamed as the bullet hit him dead center. The force of it threw him from his saddle, and he fell off the cliff with a hoarse shriek lasting the whole way down. He hit the bottom, and his body was dashed by the jagged rocks below. It was a gruesome sight to behold, just as his rival had foretold.
"Now that was too easy." MacQuaid sighed with disapproval. "I thought better of him."
"You-you killed 'im!" one of the others gasped, staring at Reynolds' riderless horse as it snorted and stomped nervously. "You just killed 'im!"
The gunslinger clucked his tongue again as he surveyed his bleeding arm. "I'll have to be more careful next time." It wasn't his shooting arm, and he knew any doctor would be able to dig out the slug. But for now, he tied it up with his bandana.
"I'll be no party to murder!" the same man cried, clutching his horse's reins. "You'll pay for this, MacQuaid!" With a shout, he jerked the horse around and spurred it into a gallop.
MacQuaid shook his head, glancing up to see the man ride away. Then with a shrug, MacQuaid raised his shooting arm and pulled the trigger in a single motion.
"AAAWW!" The bullet hit the man between the shoulder blades and drove him to the ground. He rolled over twice, then lay still as his horse raced away.
"Never thought killin' could be so easy, did you boys?" MacQuaid smirked at the startled expressions on the three men who remained. "What? You never seen a gunfight before? C'mon, speak up!"
The way the gunslinger waved his six-gun around had muted the other men. They knew better than to say anything—no one knew what might set him off. So instead, they waited for him to cool down, or to at least lower that smoking barrel.
But the leader of the pack had other ideas.
"You're loco, MacQuaid," he said without reservation.
"Me?" the gunslinger raised his eyebrows, feigning astonishment. Then his sharp features hardened as he narrowed his gaze. "I've been waitin' for this moment since I joined your merry little band, biding my time until the herd thinned out a bit." He hoped the look in his eyes and the way he aimed the gun made his meaning abundantly clear.
"A hundred bucks ain't worth killin' for, MacQuaid," the leader said evenly.
"You know what? You're right." The gunslinger chuckled at their confused expressions. "But that black stallion sure is. I reckon he'll bring me quite a bundle down at the Albuquerque auction."
The leader glared at him and squeezed the fresh coil of rope slung across his saddle. "Why you dirty—!" he growled.
"Now, now, no need for that. There are ladies present." MacQuaid pulled back the hammer with his thumb and aimed the six-gun straight at him. "Don't you worry. This'll all be over in a minute."
"You ain't gonna kill us?" one of the younger men yelped in disbelief.
"You're catchin' on."
"You can't gun down all of us," the leader warned. "One of us will getcha!"
"Oh, I doubt that." MacQuaid yawned. "I'm really not one for long goodbyes, so..." He winked. "See you boys in Hell."