When the preacher descended from the wagon at first light, Hawk was bending low over the freshly mended fire, blowing on the first flickerings of flame.

  ‘May the Lord thank you for your trouble,’ said the preacher, pushing his fingers through his thick unkempt hair.

  Hawk turned towards him: ‘An’ you for yours.’

  For an instant the preacher seemed about to react to the shades of sarcasm in Hawk’s voice, but he turned his back and walked quickly away from sight to relieve himself.

  Hawk went over to the wagon.

  ‘Girl. Girl!’ His voice was urgent but low.

  He saw a hasty movement of white, then of skin; heard a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Girl, you all right?’

  No answer. Hawk could hear the preacher on his way back.

  ‘Girl!’

  ‘Was you in need of something?’ The preacher was fifteen feet away and the early light of the day shone in his eyes; one hand was out of sight within his coat and Hawk guessed that the knife, at least, was there.

  ‘I was askin’ the girl if she was okay. She was sick in the night, or didn’t you know that?’

  ‘Aronia is none of your concern. Now step away from the wagon.’

  ‘Don’t you care …’

  ‘The Lord cares for those who love him and follow his way.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Hawk gestured with his head in the direction of the wagon. ‘I noticed.’

  The preacher ignored Hawk’s remark and went past him, heading towards where the horse and pair of mules were tethered. Hawk went back to the fire. After five minutes the girl appeared and began to make the breakfast. When Hawk moved to help her she shook her head and shrugged him away.

  ‘I only want to …’

  ‘Let woman do woman’s work.’ The preacher stood close by and the knife was now in sight, the haft in the palm of his right hand. ‘It is for man to perform the work of the Lord and for woman to assist him as best she can.’

  Hawk looked at the young-old face, at the barely controlled fear that welled up behind her eyes; he wondered what the work of the Lord might be and exactly what assistance the girl was forced to give so that the preacher could carry it to the people. Certainly, it was more than cooking oatcakes and bacon and brewing coffee.

  Hawk was still thinking as he bit into the food; neither man had spoken for some little time.

  ‘I expect you’ll be moving on now,’ said the preacher finally. ‘Being about your own business.’

  Hawk nodded; ‘That’s right. An’ you? Where you headed?’

  ‘Fort Stockton.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Hawk wiped his hand over his mouth. ‘That’s fine. I can arrange to leave the money for you there.’

  The preacher moved his cup away from his face. ‘What money?’

  ‘The money for the horse an’ gun.’

  The blue eyes took fire. ‘No.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘They’re not for sale and they’re not for loan. They are for me to use in the Lord’s work, not you in the Devil’s.’

  Hawk made to turn his face to the side, his body leaning the same way. Almost at once he lashed back with his right arm, the outside of his hand striking hard into the preacher’s face. There was a crack of knuckles against bone, a muffled cry and the man went backwards, clutching out to break his fall.

  Hawk sprang up and jumped over the fire, his trailing boot sending the pan skittering over the hard ground and making sparks flail the air. He grabbed at the preacher’s arms as he landed, preventing him from freeing the knife from inside his coat.

  The pair of them rolled over and over, while the girl sat where she was, hands pressed down into her lap and eyes staring as if at something she could only dream of.

  The preacher was strong, stronger than Hawk had imagined. He almost succeeded in pinning Hawk down, fingers forcing into the muscles of Hawk’s own arms and his legs fighting to subdue Hawk’s body. The men’s faces were close, so close that it was impossible to focus, one on the other. Sounds of strain came from both mouths; veins bulged at the temples. Hawk levered back, gradually pressing the preacher upwards. Finally he managed to throw him off and scramble to his knees. A boot came in at him so fast that he could only blur the force of the blow. Shoulder singing sharp pain, he went down and let himself roll away. When he righted himself once more, the knife was in the preacher’s hand.

  ‘Now …’ the preacher began, but Hawk had no time for words.

  He dived headlong into the preacher’s stomach, going under the knife so fast that the man’s reflexes didn’t allow him to plunge the blade down.

  Hawk’s head went deep into the preacher’s stomach and he staggered back, winded. He struck the ground with a heavy thud and his mouth opened in a gasp of breath.

  Hawk closed it with a short punch that trapped tongue between teeth. Blood spurted from the preacher’s face. Hawk hit him again: again. He dragged him to his feet, the knife still tight in the preacher’s grasp. He took hold of his right arm and twisted, turning his body, taking the arm up high, hand between shoulder blades.

  ‘Drop it!’

  Fingers opened slowly and the knife fell. Hawk pushed the man forwards and grabbed at the hilt of the knife, flashing the blade towards the preacher as he rose.

  The girl’s scream cut the morning.

  The end of the blade stopped less than a foot short of the preacher’s chest. Both men stared at the point as it reflected the sunlight; stared at one another’s eyes; looked away.

  ‘Back off.’

  The preacher hesitated, then did as he was told. Hawk glanced over his shoulder at the girl. ‘The gun. Get it.’

  She stayed where she was until Hawk moved the knife back to within six inches of the preacher, advancing upon him steadily. Then she went to the wagon, her body shaking, almost as it had in the night when she had been sick and vomiting. After a few moments she re-emerged from the wagon with a rifle. A Winchester.

  Hawk held out his hand and took it from her. He pushed the knife down into the side of his belt. He said: ‘You can either be tied up till I leave or you can stay out of the way. Which is it to be?’

  Without hesitation, the preacher turned on his heels and began to walk slowly away. Hawk hurried over to the horse and saddled it, glancing from time to time at the girl. For a moment or two he considered taking her with him, taking her away from the preacher. But even if she agreed to go with him, there was nowhere he could usefully take her; she would only be in the way.

  Hawk pulled himself up on to the animal’s back, the rifle in his hand. The light of the sun was spreading wider and wider from the east, becoming less orange, more diffuse. Hawk moved the horse round and set off, riding away from the sun and in the direction of the hills and the still clouded sky.

  Chapter Eight

  HAWK HAD BEEN right not to trust the weather: Hawk was usually right not to trust anything. The wind got up and savaged the land from the north-east, breaking the surface and whipping a mixture of dust and sand into a man’s face and threatening to blind him. The temperature dropped so that gun metal seemed to burn at a touch and finger ends lost color and feeling. The sun never showed and the clouds were solid and unmoving, despite the wind; they hung over the land like a sullen warning that there was only worse to come.

  Hawk cursed and spat and the spittle threatened to freeze almost before it hit the ground. The horse’s breath sent succeeding clouds into the air which curled upwards and met Hawk’s own breath.

  His young, hard face was set into an implacable mask; in it the eyes seemed to be the only part that was alive, calculating, cold eyes that saw everything. Broken pieces of scrub; a hoof mark scraped on the edge of rock; flattened ground where men and horses had moved close together; ashes of fires, small black coffee grounds, things and hints of things. The eyes saw it all, noted, knew, looked for more—never smiled.

  Hawk’s low-crowned hat was pulled as firmly down on to his head as possible and a dark blue bandanna stretched across his face, sometimes covering mouth and nose and sometimes only the stubble of his chin. His broadcloth coat was buttoned up tight and he rode with both hands as far into his body as he could manage, resting between the saddle horn and his legs.

  He rode carefully, in no hurry. The important thing was that he find them, not when.

  And Hawk felt, instinctively, that he was closing in. The signs became more frequent as the gang became more careless and yet it was more than that. A feeling that told him he was gaining on his prey. His left leg pressed down on the rifle, which he had pushed underneath the girth and stirrup leather. Soon he would be using it: soon.

  Hawk pulled back on the reins and brought the animal to a halt. A quarter of a mile ahead the trail he had been following forked widely, one branch going off to the right, the other veering slightly left and climbing. He was a couple of hundred yards from a thick clump of brush, twice that distance from an outcrop of sandstone rock. Between the rock and the fork in the trail there was more open ground.

  Hawk scanned it all again: brush, rock, trail break. There was nothing unusual, no sign of anything that might in itself present danger. And yet …

  And yet something had stopped him … had scooped at his stomach and brought feeling back to the short hairs at the rear of his neck.

  He flicked at the reins, steering the horse to the left, wide of the trail. He dismounted and hobbled the animal with the rope that had been hanging from the saddle pommel. Rifle in his right hand, he began to walk in a wide arc that was meant to take him around and behind the clump of brush and the sandstone and towards the higher of the trails farther westwards.

  Hawk watched the way ahead, checking the ground in front of him at frequent intervals, not wanting to stumble or step on anything which would betray his movements.

  Twice he stopped silently and waited for several minutes, checking for other sounds or signs of life. Nothing stirred except the wind.

  He was almost within reach of the trail fork when he knew that his instincts had been right. A patch of green that was not natural green. He crouched low and waited for it to move. Three, five, eight minutes and then it did. Only marginally, but the movement was unmistakable.

  Hawk allowed himself the briefest of smiles.

  The terrain pressed ruggedly upwards farther left and Hawk ducked his head lower and went in that direction, taking his time now more than ever, now that he was certain of his objective. A stone rolled out from underneath the heel of his boot and he held his breath; an animal—too well-camouflaged and too quick for him to see which—sprang away at his approach and he stopped again and waited.

  When he had gained higher ground the patch of green was still there; only now it was larger and he was looking down at it, the angle changed. It was the green, neither too bright nor too dark yet unnatural, of a woolen coat. Hawk remembered it from one of the riflemen who had appeared so suddenly back at the canyon. And this time he would be the one in for a surprise.

  The man was lying on the ground, mostly screened by brush and an edge of rock. His rifle was close within reach, but the man’s hands were not upon it. Beside the stock was a box of shells. Hawk wondered who the man was expecting apart from himself and what he intended to do. Perhaps he was merely taking no chances of getting caught without ammunition.

  Hawk smiled.

  The man the gang had left behind as guard was clearly a prudent man. Careful. Not careful or prudent enough. Not when choosing the color of his coat.

  Hawk raised the rifle towards his shoulder. Before the rounded end of the stock had settled into place, he lowered it again. If he could take the man without making his presence known to anyone else so much the better. Although he could see no sign of where the others might be, it was likely that they were within earshot of gunfire.

  He surveyed his chances of getting closer without the guard turning round and reckoned he could make another seventy-five yards. In the event he covered almost a hundred before the man’s head jerked sideways.

  The rifle was up in a second.

  ‘Hold it!’

  The man continued to move and Hawk repeated the warning.

  The man stopped moving, the top half of his body three parts of the way round.

  ‘Shift to the left. Away from the gun. Make a false move and you’ll get your head blown away.’

  Hawk watched him hesitate, sensing that he was going through the same process as Hawk had when the positions had been reversed. He came to the same decision. Slowly, ignoring the rifle, he went on hands and knees to the left. Five, six, seven yards.

  ‘Right.’

  The guard stopped, his buttocks pushed up into the air, ridiculous.

  ‘Now lay flat, arms stretched past your head. Do it, do it!’

  Hawk walked easily forwards, the rifle held between shoulder and waist. He carried on until he was standing over the man, looking down. A Colt .45 sat snug in a holster tied to the man’s leg. Hawk bent down, rifle end pressing for a moment into the man’s back, and took the pistol.

  ‘Anything else?’

  Slowly, the man lifted his head high enough from the ground to shake it.

  ‘No knife? Second gun?’

  Again, the negative shake of the head.

  ‘Okay, roll over nice an’ slow. And just remember where this rifle is.’

  The guard did as Hawk ordered, eyes wide and staring at the barrel of the Winchester, then at the lean face behind it. He said: ‘I knew it. Knew sure as damnation Quinlan was makin’ a mistake not killin’ you.’

  Hawk grinned and nodded. ‘Where are they?’

  The man in the green coat blinked. ‘You’ll find ’em. You found me.’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to do that. They die—any of ’em—an’ I’ve got to live with it.’

  ‘Better’n dyin’ now.’

  The man shook his head slowly. ‘No, it ain’t. Not if livin’ means havin’ their lives owin’ to me.’

  ‘You’d rather take a bullet yourself than have that on your conscience? That what you’re sayin’?’

  ‘They’re friends. We rode together for more’n two years.’

  ‘That didn’t seem to stop Brady an’ the black from wadin’ into Murray some.’

  The man’s eyes blinked and he made a face like he’d just swallowed something sour. ‘Murray! That rat deserves whatever he gets. An’ more.’

  Hawk took a pace backwards and rested the rifle against his hip. ‘Tell me about that,’ he said, ‘tell me about Murray.’

  The man licked at his lips and moved his hands to rub them together but a quick movement of the Winchester stopped him. ‘Say, you ain’t got a flask or anythin’ have you? Whisky or somethin’ to keep back the cold.’

  Hawk sneered. ‘You know damn well I ain’t. Everythin’ I had you bastards stole from me.’

  The man leaned his head to one side. ‘When we rode out you didn’t have horse or gun. You got ’em now.’

  ‘Just get on with it.’ He prodded the rifle barrel forwards. ‘Murray.’

  ‘Yeah, well, him an’ Quinlan was runnin’ the bunch. They come up from the border a few years back an’ rounded up some men. They went back into Mexico till things got too hot an’ the Federales were chasin’ all over for ’em. After that they went up to Kansas for a spell. That was where me an’ Brady got to ride in the bunch.’ He stopped to clear his throat, spitting down at the red outcrop of rock. The wind caught at it and sent it spraying back against him. He wiped his leg with the edge of his open hand before continuing.

  ‘On the way back down to Texas we took the bank in Amarillo. Went fine but we got separated afterwards. Posses chasin’ us all over. Had to stay low for two, three weeks. Murray an’ this feller name of Drake had most of the money with them. When we met up with Murray again he told us Drake had turned on him, knocked him senseless and ridden off with the haul. We didn’t like it too much. Brady said right out he didn’t believe him, but with Murray an’ Quinlan bein’ such good buddies, we let it lay. Till a couple of weeks back.’

  He shifted his head to spit again, but thought better of it, swallowing instead.

  ‘We got news Drake had been found in Presidio, north of the Rio Grande. He was colder’n a hog’s ass in snow an’ hadn’t eaten for around three, four days. Tried to hold up a store for food an’ got himself gutshot. While he was lyin’ there bleedin’ his belly out all over the flour an’ sawdust he told ’bout bein’ beaten up by this feller he’d been ridin’ with up near Amarillo. So’s the other feller could take all the bank haul they were carry in’.’

  The man looked up at Hawk. ‘He said that real plain an’ then he died. That’s the way we heard it.’

  Hawk nodded: ‘Uh-huh. But that don’t say he was tellin’ the truth.’

  ‘Dyin’ like that? I reckon that’s when a man don’t lie.’

  ‘Maybe. What did Murray say?’

  ‘He denied it but this time even Quinlan was gettin’ mighty suspicious. Murray knew his time was close an’ sooner or later Quinlan’d make him tell where the money was stashed.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘An’ that’s when Murray said we should take the bank in Langtry. He rode in the day before an’ checked it out. Said it was like pissin’ down the wind.’

  ‘An’ you reckon he pissed all over you instead?’

  The man scowled. ‘That’s the only way it could’ve been. How else was that marshal an’ his deputy waitin’ in that alley? Why would another feller be across the street with a rifle? An’ why the hell didn’t Murray go for his gun?’

  ‘He said the marshal had the drop on him.’

  The man laughed: ‘Huh! You ever see Murray slap leather? If you had, you’d know he’s faster’n any small town marshal. No, he’d done a deal. Only it went wrong. Quinlan and Brady and most of the rest of us got clear.’

 

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