Chapter 2

McAllister sat very still. He knew he was in trouble.

The sheriff said: ‘I always told Charlie he’d get himself killed the way he went on. Now it’s happened. Poor old Charlie. Well, talkin’ won’t bring him back.’ He got to his feet. ‘We’ll take him down to the undertaker’s. He didn’t live so good, but no reason why we shouldn’t plant him well. Go ahead.’

McAllister rose and walked toward the door. He had barely reached it when he heard the gun cock behind him. He stopped and stayed still.

The sheriff shouted: ‘Carlos.’

There was a pause, then the side door opened and a man walked into the office. The sheriff said: ‘Carlos, don’t get between my gun an’ this man, but take his gun. You think you can do that?’ Carlos must have thought he could. McAllister heard him come close and then the weight of the Remington went from his right side. Suddenly, he felt naked and defenseless without it. The sheriff said: ‘Turn around.’ He turned.

Carlos was a Mexican. He was tall and thin and dressed in Anglo clothes. And he was grinning, showing broken teeth. He carried a Colt’s gun at his hip and the deputy’s badge fitted him just about as well as a halo would have fitted the devil.

‘He killed Charlie Burrows,’ the sheriff said and the grin dropped from the Mexican’s face. Different expressions flitted across it – doubt, fear, anger. ‘We’ll put this feller with the others, then you take Charlie down to the undertaker.’

Carlos reached for a club where it leaned against the wall.

The sheriff came close to McAllister and the muzzle of the gun was shoved into his hard belly.

‘You’ll pay for Charlie,’ the sheriff said. ‘You’ll pay for him good. Hear?’

McAllister said: ‘What am I supposed to do when a man comes at me with a gun? Kiss him?’ McAllister knew talking wouldn’t do him any good. It didn’t. The sheriff hit him in the throat with the edge of his hand. McAllister staggered back, choking. Instinctively, he started toward the man, but Carlos hit him with the club and knocked him across the room.

The sheriff said: ‘Get up and walk through that door.’

McAllister got to his feet, his head feeling as if it had been kicked by a Kentucky mule. The room seemed to whirl around him and his legs felt as if they wanted to fold under him. Carlos opened the door and gestured to him. He walked through the doorway, went down three stone steps and found himself in a large room built of adobe, so large that it could have been called a hall. In the centre of this was a big cage of iron bars. Four sides and a roof, all of iron bars. The light was dim in there, but he could make out some half-dozen figures crouched in the cage. Keys rattled, the sheriff passed him and opened a grated door in the cage. He gestured and McAllister stepped forward. When he stood on the threshold of the cage, Carlos hit him in the back of the neck with the club and he pitched forward. Dimly, he heard the door clang to behind him. Footsteps sounded, died away and a door closed. He heard himself groan and rolled over.

A face looked down at him. A Mexican face.

In Spanish he heard: ‘He is hurt.’

Another voice said: ‘What do you expect after Carlos has dealt with him?’

Soft hands touched him.

‘Pobrecito.’ That was a woman’s voice. A woman in here? He tried to sit up and failed. He opened his eyes and saw her – a young woman of his own age, dark hair falling about her face, shadowing her dark liquid eyes. ‘They have nearly killed him.’ Water trickled into his mouth. He drank thirstily. When at last he sat up he said: ‘Thanks’ and looked around him at them as they stood and knelt around him. Most of them were Mexicans, but one was an Anglo, a fellow a few years older than himself who had the looks of a cattleman.

McAllister said: ‘Howdy, folks. Name’s Rem McAllister.’

The cowhand said: ‘I heard of you. I’m Chalk White. What you here for, if a man can ask?’

McAllister said: ‘The sheriff tells me a man who jumped me an’ I killed was his deputy.’

‘Charlie Burrows?’ White asked and McAllister nodded. The cowhand whistled. A buzz of talk came from the Mexicans. They were stunned and impressed by die information.

McAllister looked at the girl. He reckoned being in jail couldn’t be all that bad with a lovely thing like her around. She smiled at him and for a moment he forgot Carlos’ club. She was dressed in a white blouse and a wide Mexican skirt of red worked handsomely with some sort of stitching around the hem. She looked good enough to eat.

The rest, he noticed, were all young men, most of them well-built. Maybe oldsters didn’t commit crimes in Euly. They introduced themselves to him politely, telling their names and their occupations. He noticed another thing now – most of them came from out of town. White was an itinerant rider looking for work. One of the Mexicans said he was there for pulling a knife on a deputy, another for being drunk, but the rest didn’t seem to know what they were there for. They put the fact of their arrest down to the incomprehensible whim of the Americanos. That meant gringo, but they were too polite to say so in front of McAllister and White.

‘Anybody tried getting outa here?’ McAllister asked.

White said: ‘Nobody could get through these bars. We tried diggin’ in the floor with our hands, but the bars go deep.’

‘In that case,’ McAllister said, ‘there ain’t nothin’ for us to do but sleep and wait for somethin’ to turn up.’

Without a word, he lay down on the ground, put his hat under his head, closed his eyes and apparently fell straight into a deep and untroubled sleep.

* * *

He woke to the sound of clanking chains.

He sat up and put his hat on. A man was bawling at the top of his voice: ‘Come on, out of it, you lousy gringoes. Off your butts.’ Somebody ran a stick along the bars of the cage and made a deafening racket. The Mexicans were all on their feet, standing mutely, staring at the burly men standing outside the cage in the lamplight. McAllister got to his feet and looked over the heads of the smaller Mexicans.

The sheriff stood impassively in the lamplight. Carlos stood by with a shotgun in his hands. The shouting came from a big man with a fair beard with a law badge gleaming on his vest. He was aged about thirty and was built big as a house. In his hands he held a club. There was the same stamp on him as there had been on Charlie Burrows. The face was brutal, the eyes savage. The man was of limited intelligence and he was enjoying his power. Such men always triggered off rage in McAllister.

The grille door of the cage swung open and the first Mexican was ordered out. As soon as he was out, the door was clanged to again. McAllister watched interested, wondering why this visit should be made at night. The big fair man picked up something that clinked from the floor. The Mexican was ordered to stand still with his hands and legs wide. The next moment, his ankles were chained. Then his wrists. This puzzled McAllister. Sure, it wasn’t uncommon for men to be chained in Western jails, but it was usually reserved for dangerous criminals or for when men were being taken on a journey.

Another man was brought out of the cage and chained to the first. The big fair man sweated and swore, the sheriff looked on unemotionally. Just once he spoke, ‘Hurry it up, Rich – we don’t have all night.’ Chalk White was taken out. He objected and tried to make a fight of it, but he was clubbed into subjection by the massive Rich and in a moment was as securely in chains as the others, though prone on the ground. The prisoners were taken out till there was only the girl and McAllister left.

The door was opened.

‘You McAllister,’ the sheriff said. ‘Come on out.’

McAllister stepped forward. The sheriff was directly to his left, the prisoners were immediately in front of him with Carlos and the shotgun on the other side of them. The lamp hung above the prisoners. Rich was to his right with the club. McAllister knew that he could be dead in the next ten seconds.

‘Stand here,’ Rich said. ‘Legs apart.’

McAllister walked forward and obediently stood with his legs apart. Rich tucked the club under his left arm and knelt down on one knee.

Now.

McAllister hit him with his balled fist just behind the left ear. Rich fell against the bars with a crash. McAllister moved fast, springing at the lamp and throwing his whole weight through the bunched prisoners, ripping the lamp from its hook and smashing it down on the sheriff who was in the act of drawing his gun. The sheriff yelled in rage and alarm, the light went out and in the general panic and excitement, Carlos fired one barrel of the shotgun. McAllister didn’t stop, but turned toward the door leading to the office. He stumbled over somebody on the floor. It could have been a prisoner or the bearded deputy. Whoever it was got his belly trodden on. McAllister stumbled against the bars of the cage, heaved himself upright and ran as fast as he knew how. The shotgun went off again. Something stung McAllister’s back and he knew that some of the slugs had hit him. He kept on going. Wrenching the door open, he slammed it behind him, saw there was a bar and dropped it into place.

There was a single lamp burning in the office. Quickly his eyes searched the room. A gun lay on the desk. He jumped for it and found that it was his own. Scooping it up, he headed for the street. Somebody hurled themselves against the door to the cell, it shook badly, but the bar didn’t give. McAllister got the door to the street open.

A man stood there, eyes wide.

‘I – ’ he said and McAllister’s shoulder took him in the chest, bowling him from his feet.

A horse stood tied at the hitching rail. The canelo! He had some real luck after all. Ripping the line free of the rail, he vaulted into the saddle and raked home the spurs. The horse whirled, got its feet under it and ran. A gun was fired from the window of the jail building and a shot whistled past him. He bunched down over the horse’s neck and yelled it on. The animal didn’t need any second bidding. It took him out of town fast and he didn’t draw rein till he was out on the flats and he could see the moon riding high in a clear sky over the dark shoulders of the mountains. Then he stopped and listened.

He heard nothing. He sent the canelo on again, let it run at a more sober pace for a mile or more then stopped again to listen. Now he could hear the pursuit, but at that distance he couldn’t make out how many horses were involved. He thought it might be a good idea to stay where he was and bank on them going past him, but he thought he had left too clear a trail in the moonlight to risk that, so he quartered east, searching for the river and fifteen minutes later found it. He rode down into the shallows and allowed the canelo a little water, for the animal had stood drink-less for many hot hours outside the sheriff’s office. He scooped some handfuls of water into his own mouth and turned north, keeping to the shallows of the west side of the stream and trotting his horse at a brisk pace. He went about a quarter mile this way, turned into the stream and started across. In a moment, he was in swimming depth. The canelo swam strongly, breasting the current and soon touched bottom. McAllister didn’t allow it to wade ashore, but once more kept it to the shallows until he found what he was looking for. This was a long gravel beach. Now he left the water and swung down from the saddle. This was something that would have to be done carefully. He led the horse for about twenty yards, found rock and moved across it, leading the horse with supreme caution to see that it left no marks in the damp sand between the rocks. When the rock petered out, he mounted and rode on north-east, angling toward the hills.

In his head he carried a map of the country as drawn for him by Sam Spur and he knew that he was headed roughly in the direction of Sam’s place. Maybe this didn’t seem wise, but he reckoned he would play hell with the sign-readers behind before he was finished. Any road, he was out of supplies and he needed to eat as much as any man. More.

By midnight, he left the poor grassland through which he had been riding and came onto desert. Here the giant cactus reared their ghostly heads in the moonlight. A dozen men could have stood among them unperceived. Luck again was with him and within the hour he hit the malpais that he knew was ahead of him somewhere. He smiled to himself. It would take them a day or more to find where he had left the rock country behind him. As he approached it, lying like a dark flat mass across his line of advance, he angled suddenly right and moved a couple of hundred yards at a shallow angle to the rock. Dismounting, he led the horse onto the rock and left it ground-hitched, praying that it would stand. Taking his blanket from the rear of his saddle, he walked back along his tracks, then, when he reached the spot where he had angled off from his line of travel, he walked backward working over his sign with the blanket. He took his time and did a good job, though he knew an Indian could have followed him with no trouble. However, he thought the light wind that was picking up from the north would add the finishing touches to his work.

When he reached rock, he rolled the blanket, fastened it to the saddle and remounted. Now he angled north again, riding the horse carefully on the treacherous stone, every now and then dismounting to lead it over a particularly bad piece.

Dawn found him at the northern extremity of the malpais. Here a mass of stone reared its jagged head to the clear blue sky. He ground-hitched the canelo and climbed to the peak with his glasses in his hand, giving the country a careful inspection, taking his time. Dust stirred to the south, but after a long and careful look, he decided it was most likely broomtails. Half-satisfied, he climbed down and mounted the canelo.

Man and beast were tired now and he hoped that soon he would come on water.

There was a stretch of sand ahead of them now, on the further side of which was a jumble of rocks. This he crossed on horseback. Then he left the horse again and patiently wiped out his sign. That done, he remounted and rode across the rock into the foothills. The sun was mounting the heavens fast and it was growing hot. The sweat was starting to run down his big body.

The foothills hereabouts were a wild jumble of boulders, little brush and no trees. They started to climb, came through scattered brush and timber and then, suddenly, the canelo got busy with his ears.

McAllister halted, at once wary and distrustful. But the horse wanted to go forward and he let it. The canelo took him to water unerringly, whinnying with pleasure. It was an ojo, literally an eye of water among the rocks thrusting itself crystal pure up through a bed of gravel. Horse and man drank thankfully together. McAllister drank all he could hold, but he didn’t allow the horse the dangerous luxury. He batted the reluctant animal’s head away and filled his canteen. Mounting, he went on.

The country grew more pleasant as they climbed, the air was cooler and here and there was grass. McAllister halted, off-saddled and gave the canelo an hour on the grass. He stretched his legs, knowing that he needed sleep, but not allowing it to himself. It was while he was strolling that he found the sign. He came on a steep narrow trail and it was marked with fresh horse-droppings. He saw at once that several animals had passed that way and at first thought he might have come on the tracks of some mustangs, but on climbing a little he found a spot where they had halted. Here were the tracks of men wearing moccasins. The horse sign was a jumble of marks, but he thought that more than a half-dozen riders had passed that way no more than a couple of hours ago.

He admitted to himself that he felt alarmed. It would have been foolish to feel anything different. He knew that he was on the edge of Gato’s country and that the chances were that the Indians had belonged to his band. These most likely were the Indians who were mentioned in Sam Spur’s letter.

Gato was a veteran Apache of unknown origin. Some tales had it that he was a Mescalero broken away from his people; others that he was a Chiricahua who had gone bronco and gathered around him outcasts from other tribes. It didn’t matter which was true. All that mattered was that Gato came and went as he wished between the United States and Mexico, taking what he took a fancy to, whether it was cattle, sheep or women and children. For years now he had defied the efforts of the army to bring him to subjection and each year of his freedom had seen his strength increase. He had raided deep into Mexico and had killed men on the outskirts of Tucson itself. No ranch was safe from him and many men had left their range to escape his ferocity. He was the terror of all but the strongest parties of gold and silver miners in the hills and many a lone prospector had lost his life under an Apache blade.

So when McAllister thought of Gato, he thought of cut throats, of being emasculated and being burned upside down over a slow fire. The man had a macabre sense of humor and he didn’t like white men. After he had passed that way, white men had been found with their testicles in their mouths and their eyes gouged out. To fall into Gato’s hands was something one wouldn’t wish on one’s worst enemy.

The surprising fact about the renegade chief was that although he was so widely feared he had very few warriors at his command. It was said by the few men who had actually set eyes on the band that there were more women and children in it than fighting men.

McAllister made his way back to his horse, saddled up and moved out. He at once left the trail followed by the Indians, knowing that they would be watching their back-trail and feeling that he was too young to die yet. He drifted north-east, doubly watchful now, his rifle across his saddlebow.

A short while after, he was surprised to see smoke. He made his way toward it and came to a pleasant spot – green sward of grass cut by the clear waters of a stream, shaded by quaking aspens, a veritable little paradise. And there, nestling among the green, was a small cabin.

He halted when he saw the sign in the grass that told him that horses had been this way recently. He followed the sign to the water’s edge and saw that the ponies were unshod. Which could mean that the Indians he had nearly come on earlier had been this way. He inspected the cabin. There was no sign of Indians now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t somewhere around.

As he watched, a man walked out of the cabin, spotted him and raised a hand in salute. Wary and sharp-eyed, McAllister rode slowly toward him.

The man was in his early fifties, beard shot with gray, face and body honed down to muscle and bone. His gaze was untroubled and direct. He was unarmed.

McAllister halted the canelo and the man’s eyes went admiringly to the animal.

‘Howdy,’ he said.

‘Howdy,’ McAllister said, ‘name’s Rem McAllister.’

‘Pete Jenkins, ’light.’

McAllister said: ‘You had visitors a while back. They gone?’

The man smiled: ‘You don’t miss much. Sure, they went and they won’t be back for a while.’

McAllister stepped down and they shook.

‘You et?’ Jenkins asked.

‘No.’

‘Come on in.’

McAllister said: ‘I’ll tend to my horse an’ be right in.’ He unsaddled the canelo and let it roll. When he went inside the cabin, the horse was contentedly cropping the grass.

The smell of the frying steak hit him as soon as he entered and it made the juices of his stomach go crazy. The cabin was sparsely furnished – a bunk, a table, two chairs, a stove and not much else except for some rough shelves and some hooks in the wall.

Jenkins was at the stove, busy with the steaks.

McAllister asked the question uppermost in his mind.

‘Ain’t you afraid of Indians?’

The man turned to him with a little smile.

‘I’d be crazy to say I wasn’t afraid of Indians. They scare the hell outa me. You mean am I scared of Gato?’ McAllister nodded. ‘Sure. But I like it here. An’ Gato leaves me alone. We both mind our own business. I’ve been here a long time. Before Gato came. We get along. I set his son’s leg when it was broke once. He ain’t forgotten that. Funny thing, his people don’t even steal from me. The old bastard can’t be all bad.’

‘You seen Gato?’

‘Never. Can a man ask what you’re doin’ in this neck of the woods?’

‘Lookin’ for a man called Spur. Sam Spur.’

The man raised his eyebrows, smiled and nodded.

‘Old Sam … say, now I know where I heard your name. Sam. He talked about you one night when we was havin’ a pow-wow. Sure, you’re old Chad McAllister’s boy. Never knew Chad, but I heard tell of him plenty.’ Jenkins talked on, pleased to have a fellow white man to talk to, telling about himself. He lived simply, wanting for little, panning a little gold in the hills, shooting for the pot. He said that Sam’s place was some five miles into the hills. The trail down to it was no more than a few minutes’ ride from the cabin. McAllister couldn’t miss it.

‘You seen Sam?’ McAllister asked.

‘Sure. A month – two month. Time don’t mean much up here. It was just after the snow. He come in here with some deer meat for me. Mighty civil of him. He’s like that, Sam.’

The man talked on, enjoying the sound of his voice and McAllister wondered what he would do if he knew McAllister was a fugitive from justice. Maybe nothing. Most folk didn’t have a great deal of sympathy with the law. Men liked to make their own law. After a while McAllister rose and said he had to be going. Jenkins came outside with him and watched while he caught up the canelo and saddled it. They shook, McAllister mounted, raised a hand in farewell and rode slowly away. How much would Jenkins tell the sheriff when he came hunting this way? He must ask Sam that.

He found the trail Jenkins had mentioned and headed down it. It was through pleasant country, but he didn’t let that modify his wariness. He wondered if Sam had the same understanding with the Indians as Jenkins had. But that surely couldn’t be possible, for Sam had mentioned their trying to run off his horses. He’d soon know.

The trail led him up, he came clear of timber and he could see out over the whole sun-blasted country, right out over the malpais he had crossed during the night; he moved slowly over the titanic landscape, as small as a creeping ant. Within an hour, he came to a saddle between two hills, crossed it feeling exposed to hidden eyes and came down into a surprising country that was lush with good grass and well watered. Here he came on several cattle scattered out and he saw that they bore Sam’s brand of a spur. Not long after, he sighted the house, sat the canelo looking the land over carefully before he went down toward the house.

Sam had picked himself a good spot; well-sheltered from the wind; grass, water, everything a man with cattle could want.

Sam had built well, using the timber available; he had constructed a fine chimney and actually cut shingles for the roof. The walls were massively constructed of notched logs, shaped and fitted neatly together and it seemed incredible to McAllister that a man had done so much work on his lonesome. There was a stoop on which a man could sit on lazy days sheltered from the sun. Off to one side was a corral, the gate open, empty.

The door of the cabin was open. No smoke came from the chimney. Separately such facts could mean nothing, added together they could make something. There was an air of long desertion about the place that McAllister didn’t like.

Then he came on the sign and he knew that he had come up with the warriors he had so narrowly missed back on the Indian trail.

He stopped the canelo and jacked a round into the breech of the Henry.

Is Sam dead in there? he asked himself.

The Indian sign led right up to the house, it scattered around all over. He didn’t doubt that the savages had emptied Sam’s corral of horses for him. Judging by the sign, he doubted that they were long gone. But he hadn’t heard any shooting back in the hills. Queer. He didn’t like it. Were there Indians hiding in the cabin waiting for him to come within easy gun- or arrow-shot? He had to find out, for Sam could be lying wounded in there.

He sat thinking for a while, then made up his mind. If he had to go in there, he’d go in fast. That way he would stand less chance of being hit.

Getting the horse on the move, he trotted the animal over to the left of the cabin on the blind side, turned it and stopped. He put the Henry away, drew the Remington and plied the horse with spurs. The canelo jumped forward, hit a hard run and he swerved it around to the front of the house, throwing his right leg over the cantle. As he came opposite the door, he dropped to the ground, hit running and went across the stoop like a bullet out of a gun, through the doorway into the house, eyes turning this way and that, nerves taut for danger.

Nothing.

The place was empty. They had been there; he could smell Indian on the close air. The place had been searched – flour was strewn over the floor, drawers in the bureau were open, pots from the shelves lay around, but he did not think that there had been a fight here. Where then was Sam? Had he gone with them? As a prisoner?

He went to the door and looked out on the beautiful clearing, thinking.

Walking to the horse that had wandered back to the house, he pulled the Henry from leather and slowly started to circle the cabin, reading all he could from the sign he found there, seeing where the Indians had circled the building on their horses, seeing where they rushed in, picturing the scene to himself. Circling wider, he found where the Indians had ridden away, going almost in single file, heading into the north. He continued to walk around the cabin, widening the circle still more till he stopped and looked at the ground with some wonder.

A shod horse had been ridden away, going north-west. The droppings he found were a week or more old. He could not tell for certain. The rider had taken a pack horse with him. Had that been Sam going on a fairly long journey, expecting to be away from home for some time? Maybe the tracks had been made much earlier. He searched further, looking for sign returning to the cabin, but he found none. He searched the Indian sign with enormous care, knowing that it might have obliterated Sam’s returning sign. But he found nothing, but some much older tracks. At a wild guess Sam had spent several days at the cabin, not moving away from it and then, about a week back, had ridden off and had not returned. The Apache had raided an empty house. He couldn’t tell for sure.

He mounted the canelo and headed north-west following Sam’s sign. He wondered when a man had been in a worse predicament – if that damned sheriff and his posse didn’t get him, the Indians would. Just the same, he had to find Sam. He followed the sign all day, reading what he could from the sign. One thing he was pretty certain of was that Sam had a fairly good idea where he was headed and he was keeping to the high country for fear of Indians. He wished Sam had waited for him. Whatever the man was up against, two would have been better than one. Then he got the cold feeling that Sam was dead. He didn’t care for that much and tried to get his mind off the idea, but found he couldn’t. He started to wonder what he would find at the end of the trail.

He found where Sam had stopped and waited for a good while. A little later, he found out why. Down in the valley below there was Indian sign. Sam had let a party of some ten Indians go past him. He could see Sam, his nerves taut, holding his horses’ muzzles to stop them giving his presence away, then going cautiously on. Something mighty powerful must have propelled Sam to make him head through this country. Something powerful must have compelled him to stay around here at all. Gold or silver seemed the answer to that question.

McAllister skirted the valley as Sam had done before night overtook him. He found water, he and the horse drank and then he moved a quarter mile from the sound of water and camped dry, the canelo saddled ready for a quickmove, his rifle in his hands. Dawn found him in the saddle and on his way again, as cautious as ever, eyes searching the country under the brim of his hat, watching his back-trail, never stopping his vigilance.

Around noon, his blood went cold.

There was Indian sign right there in front of him, the same age as Sam’s sign. He knew then that Sam had been spotted and followed. He dismounted and took a close look, reckoning there must have been about five of them, all on unshod ponies. He found a tatter of red rag hanging from some brush where they had passed.

He went on, looking for white bones, looking for what was left of Sam.

The canelo slid down a slope of loose shale, came down into a wide canyon that split the hills asunder, a dead dried-out place; boulders, rocks and dry-brush were strewn untidily. An awesome landscape that one would expect to find on the face of a long dead planet.

The Indian sign stopped. The warriors had halted here, bunching their horses, holding them still. Sam’s sign went on. Suddenly, McAllister’s hope rose a little. He walked the canelo along the tracks of Sam’s two horses, switching his gaze from the sign to the rocks and heights above and around him; he followed them a mile down the canyon, reading the sign easily in the dust.

Then it stopped. Dead.

McAllister halted and gazed at it unbelievingly for a moment. He dismounted and sniffed around like a searching hound, but found nothing. He examined the nearest wall of the canyon and found nothing. Puzzled, he went back to the horse and mounted, rode on north and suddenly there in front of him was the twohorse sign again. Why the hell, he asked himself, should somebody want to wipe out tracks only partially? He examined the tracks more closely and read something of an explanation.

Sam’s saddle-horse was now riderless.

Several possibilities entered McAllister’s head. Sam could have been killed back there and his animals could have run on leaving him there. The sign up to the obliterated point showed that Sam had been walking the horses. Here they had been running. That made some sense.

McAllister lifted the canelo to a trot. The tracks led him through a jumble of rocks, out of the canyon and up a rising trail. He reckoned even a frightened horse would not have run much further and sure enough when he came to some sparse grass he saw where the animals had stopped to graze. After that the sign led him to water higher up the mountainside. The animals had drunk and then drifted slowly on deeper into the hills. Nobody had followed them. A little later, he found the remains of the pack. It looked to him as if it had come loose on the pack-animal’s back and then the animal had rolled to free himself of it. McAllister was not sorry to find the supplies or what was left of them. There was a sack of flour miraculously untouched, some cans and the remains of some bacon that had been gnawed by some animal. Gratefully, he collected the cans and stuffed them into his saddle-pockets. Maybe they would keep him going for a few days if necessary. Late in the afternoon, he came on the two horses: a bay and a gray. The saddle was still on the bay. They looked startled at the sight of him and tried to run, but their lines dragged and hampered them and he had little trouble in roping them. When he had them both tied, he stepped down and examined them closely. Along the rump of the gray he found the crease mark of a bullet.

So Sam had been attacked most likely. But by whom? Had it been the Indians?

He found water for the horses and grass, then he found as safe a spot as he could and camped dry and cold. He picketed the horses on grass and slept with one eye open. The following dawn, he headed back to the spot where Sam’s tracks disappeared.

It was then he ran into trouble.