Pinner stood, arms hanging limply at his sides, thumbs brushing against the muscular thighs in the tight blue trousers. Idly he brushed the scuffed toe of his leather boot through the red sand, gazing intently at it as though he expected the tracks to miraculously talk and tell him who had made them and why.

  ‘Bulmer! I want to get to the bottom of this. Is that clear?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Well. Come on, mister. You aim to get to be captain. What does your captain’s brain make of it?’

  The lieutenant hadn’t an idea. It was the oddest goddamned thing he’d ever seen. A spiral of footmarks that went nowhere.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I’m afraid that I can’t …’

  Pinner turned away in disgust. ‘Well, I’ll just have to get to the bottom of it on my own, won’t I?’

  While Bulmer turned back toward the patrol, still waiting by their horses, Pinner dropped to his knees, bending over to examine the tracks more closely. His head was toward the open desert and his ass toward the lowering mesa, threads of hard rock glittering in the red sun.

  The arrow hissed out of nowhere and hit him plumb in the right cheek of his backside, the barbed tip biting deep into the hard flesh, blood spurting through the breeches. With a scream of pain, Pinner flung himself forward, into a patch of sand well-trodden by horses, hands reaching around to grasp at the wound.

  Bulmer spun around, barking out instant orders for the troop to assume defensive positions. Unable to restrain a grin when he saw exactly where the captain’s wound was, shouting out: ‘Medical orderly! Attend to the captain.’ To himself, and not for the ears of anyone else, he said softly: ‘Sure looks like Pinner’s got to the bottom of it.’

  Although they waited, rifles aimed at the rocks, there were no further arrows. Not the hint of any movement in the deep shadows. The arrow was cut out from the seat of the captain, with a flood of cursing and a great deal of blood. It took several stitches to bind up the wound, and it did nothing for Pinner’s temper.

  Heavily bandaged, he called Bulmer over to him. ‘Just what in hell do you think the fucking bastards did that for? They had us dead to rights. Could have picked us all off, if’n they wanted.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a lone buck, out for a bit of glory by plugging himself an officer.’

  Pinner shook his head. ‘I don’t see it. Could be a loner, but he had the edge on us. Why just one arrow? What’s the son of a bitch up to?’

  The question was soon answered.

  The voice bouncing around off the rocks, making it impossible to even guess where it originated, was loud and harsh. All the troopers searched the cliffs, but there was nothing to disturb the serene ravines. Only the captain reacted violently, leaping to his feet, clutching at his injured anatomy in pain.

  ‘Pinner!’ shouted the voice. ‘White dog, Pinner. Killer of women and children! I am come for you. I am Cuchillo Oro, named after the golden knife. You know me, Pinner.’

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ whispered Bulmer. ‘Isn’t he the one that we had …’

  ‘Shut up!’ snapped Pinner, eyes flicking over the rocks, trying to pick out where his enemy was hiding.

  ‘Pinner. Will you sit your horse well? Cuchillo says that the man who presses his ear to the ground will end up only with hair full of horse-shit.’

  There was a snigger from one of the troopers. Pinner spun around, face as cold as death. ‘Lieutenant! Get me that man’s name, and I will personally flog him when we get back to the fort.’

  Still nothing moved. But the taunting voice floated on, tearing at Pinner’s anger. He seemed fated to cross swords with the young buck from Fort Davidson. Cuchillo would be about twenty now. Outstanding among the Apaches because of his height and build, taller even than Pinner himself.

  ‘Coward dog. Cuchillo says that you are afraid of him. You hide down there. Come up and fight me, man to man, Captain Pinner.’

  Throwing all caution to the winds, Pinner stepped forward, waving his pistol at the mesa. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Cuchillo Oro. I will meet you at any place at any time.’

  ‘Sir!’ The cry burst out from a dozen throats, but Pinner had already seen it for himself. Flattened over his horse’s neck, long black hair streaming after him like a banner of war, an Apache erupted from the mouth of a canyon a scant two hundred yards away and galloped furiously toward the mouth of a wider trail a quarter mile away.

  ‘Shoot him down!’ yelled Pinner, knowing the futility of the shout, but unable to bear the thought that his enemy was going to escape him yet again.

  Several of the men opened fire, the cracks of the guns flung back at them by the rocks. There was a cheer when the horse seemed to stumble, but the rider kept going and vanished up the trail into the hills.

  ‘I think I got him, sir,’ shouted a corporal.

  ‘I saw it, soldier. If you did, then I’ll see you get your reward. Mount up, Mr. Bulmer. We’ll be after the devil in quick time.’

  Bulmer looked at his superior officer in dismay. ‘Sir?’

  Already trying to climb into the saddle and finding it hard and painful work, despite the padding over the wound, Pinner glanced back. ‘What in hell is it now, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Our orders, sir. To patrol and not to go up into the Sierra Mogollon. In case of a trap. The reports of large numbers of Red Lance’s men?’

  ‘Fuck the orders. And fuck Red Lance. And come to that, fuck you too, Mr. Bulmer. That man is Cuchillo Oro, one of the most deadly Apaches in the whole damned nation. Worse than Cochise or Geronimo or any of that crew.’

  ‘Then he might have hundreds of men up there, just waiting for us.’

  Secure at last in the saddle, Pinner snarled down at the younger man. ‘Mr. Bulmer. Cuchillo Oro does not ride with huge war parties. I will give you two seconds to get your ass on that horse, and then I have you arrested and sent back to the fort charged with insubordination and with cowardice in the face of the enemy.’

  Face white with anger, Bulmer marched to where a trooper held his horse and mounted it. Ignoring him, Pinner called one of the scouts forward and asked him where the trail led to that had swallowed Cuchillo. The man replied in a gabble of part English and part Apache. Pinner banged his leg with irritation. ‘I cannot understand these damned renegades. Mr. Bulmer, what did he say?’

  ‘He said that the trail leads to an old town where once the white man dug for silver. He says no man lives there but the spirits of the dead.’

  ‘What’s the name of this place?’

  ‘He says that it’s called Three Asses, sir.’

  By the time the patrol reached the mouth of the arroyo, there was no trace of Cuchillo. Not even dust. Reason reasserted itself for a moment, and it was obvious that Cyrus Pinner was having second thoughts about his rash plan to go rushing off into the mountains after one man. But then one of the scouts shouted and hopped from his horse, rubbing at something in the sand with his fingers, running over to show his hand to the officers.

  ‘Blood, by God! Bulmer, blood! We wounded him, or his horse. Must have. Chances are it’s serious. The mount’ll die under him within the mile. Come on!’

  With a wave of the hand, he galloped off at a furious pace, the platoon trailing after him, the pennant blazing yellow in the morning sun.

  A half mile further up the track, Cuchillo smiled his rare smile and turned his horse’s head back toward the ghost town. From the noise of the cavalry mounts on the bare rock, he knew that his ruse had worked. He patted his pony on the flank, carefully avoiding the superficial cut he had made on its hindquarters with his own knife to provide the bright splash of blood at the mouth of the trail.

  So far, Cuchillo’s plan had worked. He’d met the patrol, and he’d induced them to follow him. But now what? The Apaches would still be spotting the hills around Three Asses thicker than fleas on a hound’s back. They would have scouts out, and the approach of the patrol in broad daylight would hardly pass unnoticed. They would see them so far away that there would be time to rush the township, kill everyone there, and still be away before Pinner appeared on the nearest hill.

  There had to be another diversion. Cuchillo needed to keep the patrol after him by playing cat and mouse with them, until it was near dark, not letting them get close enough to be seen by Red Lance’s men. Then, he would have to try to create a diversion that would turn the eyes of the Apaches from the trail.

  He glanced up at the sky, judging how much more time he’d need. It was still several hours to evening. His shadow was short, barely crawling out from under the belly of the pony. With no water left, Cuchillo was beginning to feel the first new pangs of thirst. For some time he’d been aware of the noise of the pursuing cavalry, and the stopping of that noise made him look up.

  Wheeling his horse, he pushed back along the trail, suddenly anxious that they might have given up the chase. Cuchillo needn’t have worried. One of the horses had slipped and broken a leg, and they had been forced to stop and transfer food and baggage from one of the packhorses. They were now close enough for the sound of a shot to carry to an Apache scout above Three Asses, and Cuchillo watched anxiously from high above to see what they’d do with the injured animal.

  Whatever sort of a man Pinner was, he was not a complete idiot when it came to fighting Indians. He was sane enough to realize that there was a chance that Cuchillo was leading them into a trap. As the Apache looked down, he saw a trooper draw his saber, the shining blade gleaming golden in the sun, and thrust it through the animal’s heart. There was a whinny, muffled by two other men clamping the wretched beast’s jaws together. Its hooves flailed, sparks flying from the shoes, until it was still.

  Cuchillo saw that the other officer had ridden alongside Pinner and was in conversation with him. In case he was trying to persuade the captain to give up what seemed a fruitless chase, he decided to give them a little more encouragement to keep on. Tethering his pony to a boulder by its rope bridle, he crawled forward until he could see the troop less than a half mile below him.

  ‘Hey, there! Pony soldiers! Are your horses sick that they cannot follow me? Pinner, is there no heart in you for a fight with me? I have your knife, Pinner. My knife. With its gold. Do you not want it again? Then come! Let us stop this riding like a sickly squaw and ride like men.’

  A crackle of rifle fire greeted him, some of the shots kicking up splinters of rock around his ears. Pinner must have trained his men better than the average cavalrymen. The Apache knew well enough what bad practice the army men usually made. It was enough to set him running for his pony, leaping into the saddle, dragging the bridle free of the stones as he did. He heard the noise of the patrol, closing fast.

  He kicked his heels into the pony, sending it leaping off again in a flurry of action, though he felt the slight sluggishness of the response. A dangerous warning that it was tiring. The trail to Three Asses led to the right at the next fork.

  Making sure that the soldiers saw him, Cuchillo turned his horse’s head to the left. Higher into the mountains.

  ‘Time’s running short, Indian lover! Hope you ready to part with a few pounds of your flesh for us.’

  John Hedges stared calmly at the red face of Mrs. O’Leary, grinning at him from the doorway of the storeroom. Seeing him look at her, she waved a carving knife she’d taken from Burgh’s wagon. ‘Fine edge on this, teacher. Slit you up real pretty.’

  ‘Prepare to cut off the flesh. Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more than thy pound of flesh.’

  The woman looked at him as though he’d suddenly spoken to her in Chinese. ‘I figure you’re losing your senses, teacher. Talkin’ of only a pound of meat. I’d reckon you got enough to keep us all going for a week.’

  Reagan appeared in the doorway, smacking her affectionately on her skinny behind. ‘Get out and leave the fellow alone. I want to talk to him.’ The widow pouted and swung out, Reagan shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Soon be dark, teacher. If’n he ain’t back here by sunup tomorrow, then it’s you for the chop. Trouble is, not even that saltin’ seems to keep meat in this heat. So we done finished all the other stuff up. I been hard put to stop them coming in here and doing for you before the period was up.’

  ‘What stopped you, Reagan? Wouldn’t be that you were just a little scared of Cuchillo coming back and finding me dead? Would it?’

  He saw at once that that was it. Despite his bluster, Reagan couldn’t hide it. ‘When I give my word, I keep it. But the moment that sun tips over those hills to the east there, then I slit your throat into an iron basin.’

  ‘Reagan. There is one thing I don’t understand. No, two things.’

  ‘Ask away, teacher. The one thing I got plenty of is time.’

  ‘Why are they not frightened of death? If Cuchillo does not return, then everyone will die. It doesn’t matter much if it’s sooner or later.’

  Reagan eased his trouser, hitching his belt in another notch. Wrong. You take a mob like this crowd of Bible-punchin’ settlers. Put them in a trap like this one. Tell them they’re all goin’ to die in an hour. They fall apart. Tell them that some’ll die tomorrow, and the rest might live for another couple of weeks. You see them trample on their mother’s faces to stay alive that mite longer.’

  Hedges looked steadily at the trail boss. ‘I believe that you speak the truth.’

  ‘You better believe it, teacher. That’s one question. What’s the other?’

  The ropes around his wrists were tight, tied behind him, secured to an old stanchion against the wall. Hedges shuffled up a little, trying to get less uncomfortable. ‘It’s you, Reagan. What’s your plans? You haven’t given in to it, like the others. You must have a plan?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Reagan laughed. ‘California, teacher. That’s for me. Headin’ west to the gold. I’m told the gals are real pretty and friendly out there. That’s what I’m told. I see some of the women elsewhere, I wish they all could be California gals.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Easy. I got the whole place all fired up and ready to blow with the Dutchman’s oil. One match, and it’s flames and smoke like this place was Hell itself.’

  ‘In some ways, it already is,’ commented the little schoolmaster.

  ‘Yeah. Anyway, with all that, I figure that old Red Lance and his men are goin’ to be kind of confused. I slip away, get a horse, and I’m in California in a week or so. Easy as that.’

  Hedges coughed, feeling the soreness in his throat from the lack of water and the terrible clinging dust of the ghost town. Although he’d not been ill-treated, he had been given little of the water, and had steadfastly refused the meat. The conditions were still taking their toll, and he had learned that there was now only one child alive, and that the other woman had also died. Their stripped skeletons lay outside with the rest of the human shambles.

  ‘That’s all an act, Reagan. The way you pretend that you care at all for these people. The only person you care anything for is yourself. You aim to live, at any cost, don’t you, Reagan?’

  The trail boss smiled, picking at a rough nail with the blade of the golden cinquedea. ‘Could say that, teacher. But they won’t know nothin’ about that over in California.’

  ‘A phony! A despicable actor. Reagan, I just hope that California knows what it’s getting in you.’

  Outside, the shadows were growing longer.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘SOON BE SUNDOWN, sir.’

  ‘Mr. Bulmer, I can see where the sun is as well as you can.’ The young officer persisted, despite the risk he ran in crossing Pinner. The temper of the captain was the talk of the Southwest.

  ‘Sir? If I may mention it, sir, but we do not seem any closer to catching the Apache, and we have been riding around these hills all day.’

  Without a word, Cyrus Pinner pulled in his big stallion and turned his eyes on his junior. Bulmer felt his bowels chill at the stare, but he still carried on. ‘And we have lost two men. One to a shot from Cuchillo and one when the mule skittered on that pass and took Trooper Tanner with it.’

  ‘Very well, Lieutenant.’ The voice was as mild as sugared milk. ‘I take note of what you say. And I’ll endeavor to recall it when it comes to time to send in my report on this patrol. Lieutenant Bulmer consistently attempted to have the mission aborted and interfered with my command. He showed no enthusiasm for the pursuit of a leading hostile, looking at all times to undermine my command with suggestions that we should abandon the chase and return to the fort. It is my considered opinion that Lieutenant Bulmer is not fit for the demands of higher rank and should be posted forthwith to some wooden shithouse in the back of beyond.’ He raised an eyebrow at Bulmer. ‘Clear, mister? One more squeak outta you and that’s what goes in, and that’s the end of your chances of ever getting those two gold stripes on your cuffs. Is that clear?’

  Bulmer nodded, not daring to trust himself to speak in the face of the stinging and public rebuke.

  ‘I asked you if that was clear, Mr. Bulmer. I did not hear your answer.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Yes, that is very clear indeed, sir.’

  ‘Good. Then we can again proceed. Sergeant, I want to ride on after dark if necessary. Pass the word back to the men. It is my intention to hound Cuchillo Oro to the ends of the earth if I have to. And even beyond.’

  At last the sun was slipping down to rest. Cuchillo had timed his ride well, never getting too far ahead to make the soldiers lose interest in the chase. Never getting close enough for them to have a clean shot at him. There had been a time when he thought they were going to give up, and he had shot one of the troopers clean from the saddle to keep their anger fueled. Now it was time to be turning toward Three Asses, before they decided to camp for the night too far away.

 

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