‘I should’ve stayed in San Jacinto,’ shouted the artist. ‘Hanging can’t be worse than this.’
Azul bent his head down against his chest so that the black Stetson took the worst force of the rain and urged the gray stallion forwards. The rope drew tight and there was a faint whinnied protest from the roan, then the easing of the tension as the gelding followed the larger animal into the teeth of the storm.
It seemed that the trees bent over them, lashed down by the fury of the wind and the driving force of the rain. It became impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, reducing their passage to a slow walk, the plodding of the horses lost under the howling of the wind and the crackle of thunder above them. A tree erupted into flame on the northern slope, the bole shattered by lightning, splitting and burning as it toppled stately-slow over the incline. In seconds the flames were gone, doused by the water, and the wind brought the odor of scorched wood like a threat to their nostrils.
Azul pushed on, recognizing the danger of staying inside the timber while the storm remained overhead. Backenhauser slumped in his saddle, just holding on as he allowed the half-breed to pick their path and drag the roan behind.
And after a while they came to a clear place where a stream cut down through the trees, flanked on both sides by shallow walls of grass. The stream was swollen, spilling out over the banks so that the meadow was partially waterlogged. Azul halted, recognizing the danger of attempting to cross the flooded watercourse, and peering round in search of shelter.
The ground on either side of the trail was steep, the soil reduced to sticky mud that was almost fluid on the angles of the incline. Roots were exposed like black memories, forming tangled webs that could trip a horse and spill it back down the slope. Shards of exposed stone stuck out like grave markers, washed white by the rain and splashed with roiling mud. A thin tongue of lightning exploded into a tree downslope, cleaving the pine as neatly as a butcher’s knife so that it fell over without even creaking: just went down, the fire instantly doused by the rain, the branches shattering as they struck the declivity and followed the main trunk in a headlong, sliding passage down the north face of the mountain.
Dimly, like a vision seen in a dream, Azul thought he saw the opening of the stream. It was not possible to be sure, but he got a picture of a rocky wall, curved over like the roof of a porch, spreading above the sodden grass.
He turned the gray horse south, moving up the slope with the roan dragging behind.
It was slippery going, for the banks of the bowl were slick with water, the grass more like a grease-filled pan than a mountain meadow. The gray threatened to lose its footing twice, and three times the roan began to slide, caught only by the dragline holding it to the stronger animal.
Then they reached the southward rim and Azul’s vision was confirmed. The southernmost rim of the bowl spread in a semicircle, directly off the crest of the ridge. The stream burst out from a cleft in the rock face, tumbling over a series of shallow steps before hitting the central meadow. Where it came out from the rock, the stone was cut in, a wide overhang jutting above a shelf of cold, bare stone. It curved round far enough that the western side was sheltered from the storm, only the eastern curve taking water.
Azul led the horses over the narrowest part of the stream, dismounting to step across the slippery rock and urge the gray part-Arab behind him. Then he took the roan over and led both animals into the shelter of the overhanging cliff.
Backenhauser climbed gratefully from the saddle, sneezing and shivering as the half-breed rubbed down both horses and draped blankets over their backs.
‘Now what?’ he asked. ‘We’ll freeze if we stay here.’
‘You’ll drown if we go on,’ grunted Azul, ‘and get shot if we go back. What you choose?’
‘I’ll stay here,’ said the artist. ‘And die of the cold.’
‘Here.’ Azul unbuttoned his coat and passed it to Backenhauser. ‘Put that on. I’ll get us some food.’
The Englishman dropped his sodden blanket and shucked the coat over his shoulders. He hunkered down against the rock and buttoned the garment tight, turning up the collar and folding his arms across his chest, hands thrust inside the sleeves.
‘What time is it?’ he asked. ‘I can’t tell anymore.’
‘Late afternoon, I reckon,’ said Azul ‘The storm’ll pass over soon.’
‘I might be dead by then,’ grumbled Backenhauser. ‘I’m cold and soaked and hungry. I wish I’d never come here.’
‘Eat,’ said Azul, passing him a strip of cold venison. ‘You’ll feel better after.’
He took a strip for himself and slumped against the rock, chewing slowly. The rain went on falling, but the lightning was dancing away to the east and the worst of the wind had stopped blowing. He thought that the storm would pass by in a few hours, leaving them free to make up the remaining hours of day’s light to gain distance on the pursuers.
If he wanted to do that.
If he wanted to keep running.
‘What you thinking about?’ asked Backenhauser. ‘You look worried.’
‘Dumfries,’ said Azul. ‘He had about five men in each group. I reckon he sent one lot along the bottom and one up here. They might have joined together; but either way, we got five men after us.’
‘I thought you said the storm would lose them,’ queried the artist. ‘How can they find us?’
‘Same way I would,’ grunted the half-breed. ‘They’ll lose our tracks, but they gotta know we’re following the trail … there isn’t any other way to go.’
‘But we’re still ahead,’ said Backenhauser. ‘They must be a long way behind us.’
‘Yeah,’ Azul remembered something old Sees-The-Fox had told him, some advice backed by his father.
A man can run, the Chiricahua hunter had said, and maybe lose his enemies. He can make false trails; double back; lose them in country he knows. But if they are determined enough, they will follow him. And that leaves him only one choice: to kill them.
His father had said much the same thing: There’ll be times when a feller comes after you. You get some kinda disagreement, an’ that sparks him off so as he figgers he got a score to settle. It’s best to settle it fast. You leave him behind you an’ you’re gonna be lookin’ over yore shoulder the rest of yore life. Wondering where he is, an’ what he’s gonna do. Best to settle it quick.
Get it done, boy. That’s the best way.
‘We’ll wait,’ he said. ‘I want to know if they’re coming.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Backenhauser. ‘Why don’t we run?’
‘Like you said earlier,’ rasped the half-breed. ‘I study the characters. Now I want to know if I’m right.’
Chapter Four
THE STORM DRIFTED away to the east, driven on by the wind, running hard over the rim of the mountain to fade like some dark memory into the aftermath of the sun. For a while the clouds got boiled over with red, the edges of the roiling heads shading into fantastic variations of crimson and scarlet, shining a clear gold along the lower parts while the upper reaches reflected a dull red glow against the pale luminescence of the rising moon.
The stream went on spilling its banks, fed with water from the upper slopes, but the main flow got slowed down and the grass began to dry.
‘We moving on now?’ asked Backenhauser. ‘Or what?’
