‘Over to the far side.’
Azul climbed to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’
They went on foot, leading the horses along the rock until they were forced to descend on to the grass. Then Azul led the way up the far edge of the bowl and took them through the soaking trees to a hollow where a network of roots afforded temporary shelter.
He spread a blanket over the roots, fashioning a kind of tent in which he settled Backenhauser. Then he gathered wood and got a fire started. It was a sad, sorry kind of fire, giving off as much smoke as it gave heat, but it was the best he could do with damp wood, and most of the smoke got lost amongst the trees and the darkness.
He heated some more meat in the flames and watched the moon come up over the receding wall of storm clouds. A nightjar stuttered its song, and from higher up the slope a coyote yowled an answer. Azul chewed on the venison, waiting.
When it was full dark he picked up his rifle and moved on foot down the slope.
He got back to the bowl and crossed over, moccasins sloshing through the soaking grass. He forded the stream and came out on the far side, then clambered down the northern edge until he reached a point where a flank of solid stone shafted upwards to the trail. He climbed it, using the overhang to keep himself clear of the path, leaving no prints behind, and found a vantage point higher up the mountain.
There was probably no point to taking so many precautions, but instinctive Apache-bred training prompted him to leave no marks behind him when there was the possibility of pursuit.
And pursuit was coming.
There were fires burning in the valley below, tiny pinpricks of flame that were spread out in a line along the lower slopes. There was a brighter, closer glow on the ridge behind, and along the trail there moved a line of torches. They flickered dim through the trees, but the very fact of their presence attested to the determination of Dumfries’s men, for they were no more than a mile behind, barely discernible.
Azul turned and ran back to the camp, holding to the high ground so that he descended on Backenhauser from the slope above.
‘God!’ The artist started from a fitful sleep. ‘You scared the hell out of me.’
‘Men coming that’ll take more than that,’ grunted Azul. ‘We’re moving on.’
‘Oh, Jesus! No!’ Backenhauser climbed wearily to his feet. ‘I’m cold and tired and aching. I’m hungry and wet, and I think I’m getting pneumonia.’
‘You wanted to see the real West, didn’t you?’ Azul murmured. ‘This is it.’
‘Christ!’ grunted the artist. ‘I don’t even get a chance to paint it.’
Azul folded their bedrolls and saddled the horses. Both animals were tired now, not ready to run even if the soggy ground had allowed them. He hitched the roan to the gray and passed the stallion’s reins to Backenhauser.
‘Take them down the trail. Keep walking for a mile or so, then find somewhere to wait. Stay there until dawn. If I’m not back by then, move on. I’ll catch you up.’
‘What if you don’t?’ asked the Englishman, ‘What then?’
‘Go west,’ said Azul. ‘Follow the ridge along until it ends, then go down, There’ll be towns there.’
Without waiting for a reply, he faded into
the night, moving fast back along the way he had come.
Across from the sheltered bowl the trail followed on in a straight line, spanning the rim of the ridge like a rail track: single-minded in its insensate direction. It entered the bowl on one side, got lost in the water-logged meadow and then emerged, direct as an arrow, on the far side. To the east, on the entry point, the rim was flanked by trees. Pines and aspens, the branches affording a degree of shelter. To the west, bushes shrouded the trail, mingling with the timber to provide a degree of ground cover.
Azul bellied down under a thicket of blackthorn, grateful for the thick intermeshing of the branches above: the ground was relatively dry.
He took off his Stetson and settled the hat
on the earth beneath his chin, then fastened back his hair with the
thin leather strip that was customarily worn by Apaches on the war
trail. He levered the action of the Winchester, feeding a bullet
into the chamber. Lowered the hammer and set the action of the
rifle on the brim of his hat, where the material would protect it
from any damp.
It was a long wait.
The torch-lit procession moving along the ridge was coming slowly, making up for its flame-born announcement with the cautious nature of its approach. By the time the riders reached the bowl the storm was long gone into the east, the air getting the healthy chill of November, the moon shining bright from the now-clear sky.
There were seven men, led by a tall rider in a black oilskin. Three of them carried Winchester carbines, the other four held handguns. They halted at the edge of the bowl, swinging out of line to form a group that paused nervously at the edge of the depression.
Azul triggered the Winchester, planting a shot between the feet of the leader’s horse. The stallion squealed as the mud splashed up against its belly, rearing back on its hindquarters so that the man was forced to fight for his seat.
‘We got them!’ he shouted. ‘By God! we got them.’
Azul fired three more times, aiming at the lower rim of the bowl.
‘Go back,’ he yelled. ‘You can’t cross. Not without dying.’
‘Kill the bastard,’ ordered the leader. ‘Shoot him out.’
A barrage of fire answered his command, the flames outlining the men spread along the curve of the depression. Azul backed out from the thicket as slugs began to splatter like heavy lead raindrops into the trees. He moved back on his belly, then lifted to a crouching run up the slope, using his left hand to clutch at the exposed roots and drag his body higher.
Until he was on the rim.
On the rock above the stream.
He reloaded the Winchester as the cowboys went on blasting shots into the foliage.
Then there came a moment of silence. A queer stillness that was broken by a voice with a lazy, Southern drawl.
‘You reckon we got him, Mr. Dumfries?’
‘No way to tell.’ The answer came from the barrel chest of the man in the black oilskin. ‘Go find out, Kelly.’
Kelly was down the slope and running hard for the stream before Azul shot him. The bullet was placed carefully, aimed to injure and slow rather than to kill. Planted in the man’s left leg, just below the knee.
It tore in through the soft material of his pants, ripping through the flesh to shatter the fibula and score a groove along the tibia before exiting through the muscle of the calf.
