McAllister signalled for silence and they all stopped talking and listened. Nobody heard the faint sound that had been caught by McAllister’s sharp ears. Porfirio, the Mexican with the rifle, slipped into the rocks. After a little pause, the others followed suit. McAllister hefted his rifle and stalked forward to meet the oncoming horseman. Within a few minutes, he saw Sam riding toward him.
When Sam stepped down from the saddle, they all gathered around him for his news. McAllister thought he looked overly tired. It was mostly his eyes, the grim line of his mouth and the way he carried his lean body. He had taken a lot of punishment from Rawley and his men and it would be some time before he was over it. But he had a grin for them and he slipped his arm around the girl’s waist.
There were five of them. Sam, the girl, McAllister, Porfirio the Mexican with the rifle and a vaquero named Diaz who claimed he knew how to use the revolver which was his sole armament. The two Mexicans had suffered and they showed it, but McAllister estimated that they were men with some iron in them. How much would show later. But they had showed that they had sand by the way they had stayed. They could have gone off with the others, but they wanted what Rawley owed them – and that was blood not gold.
‘How’d it go?’ McAllister asked.
Sam said: ‘All right. They’ve pulled out. I caught ’em on the narrow trail comin’ up. They couldn’t do a damn thing. I killed one of ’em. A couple of ’em cut around from the other side of the place and I high-tailed outa there. I could of cut ’em both down, but you said to play it safe and that’s what I did.’
McAllister said: ‘It’s a good start.’
‘Yes,’ the Mexicans agreed it was a good start. They looked at Sam with some admiration and they grinned in a pleased sort of way when the girl kissed him.
‘That tracker of Rawley’s is sniffin’ around. I reckon we should pull back a few miles.’
‘All right,’ McAllister said. ‘We’ll leave ’em alone for a day or two. Tomorrow mornin’ we’ll go into the mine and see if they’ve left any supplies for us. If they’re headed for New Mexico, we ain’t too well placed to follow ’em.’
‘Maybe,’ Porfirio said, ‘one of us should go back into town and get some supplies.’
‘Could be it’ll come to that,’ McAllister said, ‘but we’ll see what we find in the mornin’.’
They pulled out south, the two Mexicans walking and kept going until dark when they all thought they were far enough from Rawley and his crew to be safe. They even risked a fire in a concealed spot and cooked themselves a hot meal. The ex-prisoners were thankful for the food and McAllister saw their urgent need to lay in a plentiful supply. None of them except the girl were in any state to be going anywhere and now they had taken on the crazy task of separating Rawley and his men from their gold. Sometimes human beings just plain amazed McAllister and this was one of those times. He looked at the two Mexicans, stuffing food into their half-starved bodies and couldn’t help wondering at the miracle that made these defeated men come back fighting. They looked nothing more than mild men of the peon class – sure, one of them was a vaquero, but after all he was a peon who had learned to nurse cows. They weren’t fighting men, but they had made up their minds to fight. Rawley had done something to them that had made them want their revenge.
McAllister took first watch, for he reckoned that of the men he least needed sleep. At midnight, in spite of the fact that Sam had insisted that he take his turn, McAllister woke the girl and she took over. She was fresh and strong and he knew she wouldn’t fail them. Sam was pretty mad when he woke with the dawn and found that he had slept clean through the night, but Carlita and McAllister didn’t take much notice of him. They ate briefly in the cold light of dawn and got on the move. There was not too much time to waste. They did not want Rawley too far ahead of them. Nor, McAllister decided, did they want Rawley’s men finding them. Even now, Rawley might take it into his mind to track down the men who had hit him so hard. So he mounted the two tired Mexicans on the canelo and told those mounted to go on ahead. He spent the next hour working on the tracks so that, even if a skilled tracker might come up with them later, at least he would be delayed. After he had done his work well, McAllister had to run to catch up. Running wasn’t easy, for he was still sore and stiff, but the running worked some of the stiffness out of him and he caught the little cavalcade just as it was approaching the basin. One of the Mexicans called out to him, asking him if he wanted now to ride the canelo, but he refused. He was feeling pretty good. They went on and dipped down into the basin.
Already the place looked utterly derelict. McAllister’s eyes turned toward the graves on the east side, small mounds of sand that was the only sign that men had lived and died here. They at once headed for the cookhouse and dismounted. McAllister walked inside and inspected it. The place had been almost emptied, but there was some flour and beans that Rawley and his men had thought surplus to their requirements. It was better than nothing, but not enough. They needed more supplies, two horses for the Mexicans and a horse to carry their supplies. It looked for a moment as if they would be forced to return to Euly. Sam raved a bit and said they’d never catch up with that sonovabitch Rawley.
It was hot now. They sat around in what shade they could find, drinking the water they had found in a pitcher.
One of the Mexicans said something sharply and pointed. They looked up at the west wall.
A solitary horseman was a small silhouetted dot against the brazen sky.
Sam said: ‘Apache.’
They reached for their rifles and stood up. The Mexican with the revolver, Diaz, looked scared. He had good reason to, for he had had unpleasant experiences with Apaches. Several more horsemen joined the first. McAllister glanced around the basin and saw that there were more to the east.
‘They’ve got us boxed,’ he said.
‘Stay still,’ Sam said.
McAllister gave a hard dry laugh.
‘But not for too long,’ he said. ‘You could be dead.’ The girl went close to Sam and held his arm.
The Indians stayed still themselves for a while, watching the people below them, then one of them lifted an arm and made a sign. Slowly they started to file down the narrow trails from the east and the west.
Sam said: ‘We’re not going to fight our way out of this one. Maybe it’s Gato. If it is, we have a chance. Gato always left me in peace.’
McAllister said: ‘You was one white man. There’s five of us here.’ Once again he wished he’d stayed in E1 Paso where a man could only get himself shot to death.
The minutes ticked by. The Indians didn’t hurry themselves, but rode slowly at a walk, reached the flat and slowly spread out across the flat floor of the basin so that they came at the little party in a line. There was a fellow in the center of the line McAllister reckoned must be the chief, Gato, and he made up his mind that his first shot was going to lift the red sonovabitch over the rump of his paint pony. That could sober the others up a mite.
The dust rose in small wisps from the unshod hoofs of the ponies as they pattered across the hard ground. The cornered party looked along the line of savage faces, stayed still under the pitiless stare of the Indian eyes.
Sam released his arm from Carlita’s hold, put his rifle in the crook of his arm and walked forward. McAllister reckoned old Sam had as much spunk as ever. He took note of a lump of rock off to his right and decided he’d jump for that when the shooting started.
About ten yards from the center of the line, Sam stopped and started using his hands. The fellow McAllister had picked on as Gato, walked his horse forward and halted. The signs went on for a while, then he heard Sam talking. The Indian grunted back his replies.
It seemed to go on for a long time, the Indian horsemen lolling at their ease in their crude saddles, their hair and the horses’ manes fluttering in the light breeze. Animals tossed their heads. McAllister took note of their armament. There were about fifteen warriors there and about seven of them had rifles of one sort or another. The rest were armed with bows and clubs. Here and there a revolver butt showed above the lines of their belts. They wore a motley assortment of clothing, some of it army uniform, the seat of the pants cut out, no doubt. But most of them wore the knee-high Apache moccasin, bright shirts that had been faded by the sun and sweat-cloths around their heads, holding their long ragged hair from their eyes. Here and there was a man wearing a white man’s hat. Maybe they looked odd, but they also looked formidable and McAllister, who knew Indians if he knew nothing else, had never seen a fiercer-looking crew. He hoped like hell Sam could talk them out of this one.
Gato was down off his pony. He and Sam squatted, almost face to face. They were talking animatedly now. McAllister allowed himself to feel a little relieved, but he reckoned he wouldn’t relax until the last copper-colored son of them had disappeared over the hill.
Some of the riders to the east of the line started to drift slowly forward as though to outflank the little white party. McAllister jacked a round into the breech of his rifle and gave a shout. Gato looked up, saw what was going on and raised his voice too. The braves stopped and looked like the cat that had been prevented from reaching the cream.
Another fifteen minutes passed and finally Sam stood up. He and the Indian exchanged signs, then shook hands. They turned and walked back to their own people. McAllister took a hard look at Sam and reckoned he looked like a man should after he has been under hard strain. But he managed a little grin as he joined them.
‘Phew!’ he said. ‘I don’t ever want to live through that again.’
‘What was you palaverin’ about?’ McAllister demanded, not taking his eyes from the Indians and seeing that they had gathered around the chief and were being talked at.
‘That was Gato,’ Sam said, ‘as no doubt you guessed. Like you said, there’s too many of us here and he’d like to roast Diaz and Porfirio over a slow fire.’ The two Mexicans looked a little sick, as well they might. ‘I had to talk fast, but I won him over when I told him we’d all been Rawley’s prisoners. He didn’t believe it at first, but he finally swallowed it. Rawley has killed a good round half-dozen of his men and he’s fit to be tied. I told him we aimed to wipe out Rawley an’ his bunch. Again he didn’t swallow it right off, but I reckoned I talked him into it.’
‘Sam,’ McAllister said, ‘if you did that, you did pretty damn well.’
‘I did more’n that, Sam told him. ‘I talked him into lettin’ us have horses.’
Diaz said with great astonishment: ‘This I have to see, por Dios.’
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘he’ll bring us all the horses we need. That suits us fine. Rawley’s moving slowly. We’ll catch him easy.’
McAllister said: ‘What does he want in return?’
Sam said: ‘Nothin’.’
‘Now I heard everythin’.’
Porfirio clapped his hands together in surprised delight. ‘An Apache gives horses to a Christian. This is a miracle. Sam, you have a golden tongue.’
‘He ain’t just a pretty face after all,’ McAllister said. The Indians were riding around the basin now, dismounting to inspect odds and ends left behind by the late owners. Cries of pleasure came from them as they found something they valued. The iron and steel of the mills interested them greatly and they gathered around them like flies around a jam-pot. Several rode up to the cookhouse, ignoring the five nerve-wrecked people there and moments later came out triumphantly with pots and pans. These gave them enormous delight and suddenly instead of fearsome warriors they were innocent children. Carlita with her traditional Mexican fear of ‘the barbarians’, fled to Sam’s arms for protection. Porfirio and Diaz looked like men who would have to sell their lives dearly any second and McAllister himself kept his finger through the trigger-guard of his rifle. But beyond shouting at them a time or two, the Indians took no notice of them and swaggered to their ponies and rode away. Not long after they rode out of the basin, streaming away in single file up the western trail and disappearing in a small cloud of dust.
Only now did the five people in the basin breathe more easily. Carlita looked as if she would collapse, such an effect did Apaches have on even a woman with guts as she had.
McAllister said: ‘One of us up on the rimrock, just to be sure none of Rawley’s boys come back. Carlita, we’ll build a fire for you and you cook us the best meal we’ve ever eaten.’
The release of their tension made everybody suddenly gay. The Mexicans were all smiles and Diaz told them how he had been prepared to sell his life dearly to los Indios salvajes. He admitted that the barbarians scared the living daylights out of him, but a Christian had of necessity to be valiant and brave before such barbarian animals. Porfirio volunteered to go up on the rim of the basin and watch. They thanked him and he set off on foot, telling them that if they came in force he would fire a shot, but if only one came, then he would sign to them. There was a pile of firewood still outside the cook-shack and the men carried this inside for Carlita. McAllister and Diaz saw to the horses, throwing them into the corral and watering them. There was still some bait left around and the hungry animals fell on it with a will. When they returned to the cookhouse, they were welcomed by a delicious smell of cooking. Not long after, they were all eating bacon and beans and McAllister thought he had never tasted a finer meal in his life. They had to wash it down with nothing better than tepid water, but they were all well-satisfied. After the meal, Sam went off to relieve Porfirio and McAllister saddled the canelo to go and search out Rawley’s sign and decided exactly where he was heading. Diaz decided that he would like to go with him, for he knew the country pretty well and might be of some help.
They rode east till noon and during that time, the Mexican showed McAllister that he not only knew the country well, but that he could interpret sign with the best. He was, he boasted modestly to McAllister, a true hombre del campo. His father before him had had great knowledge of the wild places and had taught all he knew to his son. The old man had at one time been a prisoner of the Apache. He had been with them for two-three years and in that time he had learned much. It had been many years ago and he had been little more than a boy, McAllister must understand, but he had learned many Indian tricks. The Apache liked to take Mexican children, boys in particular. Diaz never rightly understood that. The Indians, while being despised as savages by the Mexicans, also despised the Mexicans, yet they would steal their sons to make warriors of them. Some of their fiercest warriors, Diaz maintained, were either Mexicans or had Mexican blood in their veins. He crossed himself piously as he said he thought it a terrible thing that a Christian should lose his immortal soul by becoming an Indian.
He discussed the sign they followed with all the seriousness of an expert, noting with pride how a mule had cast a shoe here, hew that horse had a peculiarly characteristic shuffle of its off forefoot. It was his opinion that all the animals were in good condition and were going strongly, but Rawley showed signs that he wanted to be out of this country fast and was pushing the animals to their limit now. McAllister agreed, Diaz was right in everything he said. He was taking a liking to the tough little vaquero and was beginning to think that he might get by if it came to a fight.
At noon, they stopped and consulted. They had been steadily climbing for the past two hours and were in good green country. It was still hot, but there was a welcome breeze up there.
‘You know where he’s headed now, Diaz?’
‘A man cannot know for certain, amigo. But it is my guess that he is heading for the river. He will cross the river and then head north-east for the saddle. That is his quickest way through into New Mexico.’
McAllister said: ‘Good, let’s turn back.’
They returned the way they had come and reached the basin shortly before nightfall. They kept to an easy pace so that the horses would not be put to any strain at all. They had a lot going against them – physical weakness, paucity of numbers and lack of food – so McAllister did not mean them also to suffer from rundown horses. However, when they reached the basin, they found that Gato had been generous far beyond their expectations. He had brought not three horses, for which Sam had asked, but four. He had also brought fresh meat. By the time McAllister and Diaz arrived, the Apaches had lost themselves once more in the vastness of the hills. The two men were greeted by the smell of cooking deer meat. So frantic did the smell make them that they could scarcely find time to unsaddle and throw their mounts into the corral. They all ate royally that night and it was a merry party that sat at the rough table in the cook-shack and wolfed down the venison that Carlita served. McAllister looked at his companions with some appreciation. Nobody would have guessed the hardships that they had lately suffered, nor could they have any idea of the dangers they faced in the near future. McAllister was only too well aware of the fact and, as was his habit when he had time to think, he cursed himself for being damned fool enough to have gotten himself into this crazy business.
When they were through eating, McAllister took a look at the animals the Apache had brought in. He couldn’t help smiling when he found that the first was a strong and heavily made mule with an army brand on its shoulder. He hoped they didn’t come upon any army patrols before they were able to get rid of the animal or they would have some smart talking to do. Two others were particolored Indian ponies which had been run hard for a long time and didn’t look as though there were many more miles in them. There was an old saying that when a white man had given a horse up as completely bushed, an Apache would mount him and get another twenty fast miles out of him. Maybe an Apache could have got some action from these two pieces of crowbait, but no white man ever would. The other horse was a tall Spanish horse, a sorrel, and it had not had a good meal in many a day. It had also been run down to skin and bone. But it was still a lot of horse and had a wicked eye. McAllister felt sorry for the man who chose to run it.
Having finished his inspection of the stock and noted that they were all now eating their heads off, which was a good thing, he walked back for a talk with Sam and the others. It would be smart, he opined, to move a good distance away from the basin before they made camp for the night. They all agreed with that. Diaz suggested further that they take advantage of the cool and travel by night for at least a few hours. They were surely pretty safe from Rawley for a while and most of them would sleep little in the night cold of the hills with no blankets. He and McAllister knew the trail taken by the quarry and he, Diaz, knew the way like the back of his hand. They all thought this a good idea and decided that they should travel by night until around midnight and would halt when they came to good grass and water for the stock. They caught up their horses and saddled by starlight right away. Diaz, claiming boldly that he could ride anything on four legs, decided that he would ride the Spanish sorrel. As he had no saddle and nothing more than a rope hackamore, the task was at first a little too much for him and amid general laughter the animal dumped him three times before the Mexican did indeed prove himself the master. He rode him twice around the basin, showing the animal that he meant business, and there appeared to be a working understanding between them. They packed all the food for themselves and the animals that they could carry on the two Indian ponies, neither of which took kindly to the arrangement, and mounted Carlita on a home-made saddle of McAllister’s blanket on the mule. They then moved out, going up the eastern trail from the basin and walking the animals steadily into the night. McAllister was pleased to get away from the mine, for he feared not so much a return of Rawley’s men, but a change of mind on the part of Gato and his Apaches. He would rather have to face Rawley and his little army than Gato and his handful of braves any day.
They reached good grass just before midnight with a mountain freshet tumbling nearby and decided to halt. They had made about twenty miles and, though they had not gained on Rawley, at least they were further forward than they would have been if they had stayed back at the mine.
They found themselves a rocky position which could be defended, hobbled the animals and settled down to sleep as best they could without protection against the chill of the night. McAllister stood first watch, Porfirio took over from him and allowed him a sound sleep till dawn. First light saw them on their way, stepping up the pace a little and with McAllister out in front to make sure Rawley didn’t have a man watching his back trail.
It was while riding advanced guard that McAllister came on Rawley’s first camp site. He dismounted and took a good look around and found it curious that the party that had camped around the fire was a good deal smaller than the one that had been on the trail. This discovery led him to investigate further and, circling, he found that Rawley had scattered more than half his force around a central point. This dividing of his forces puzzled McAllister at first, but after a while he thought he could see what Rawley had in mind. The man was remembering what had happened back at the mine, the time McAllister had gotten right down among his men and created havoc. Rawley plainly thought this might happen again, hoping that his enemy would work his way to the main camp and then find his retreat cut-off by the scattered men. It looked to McAllister as if Rawley thought that he was being harassed by one man, or two at the most. He grinned wolfishly to himself and decided that he was going to give Rawley an awful surprise. Rawley was too strong to be hit head-on, but there were ways of whittling a superior force down. And McAllister meant to start as soon as possible.