Azul came out of the trees at a run. The angles of the slope lent momentum to his charge, only the soft soles of his moccasins allowing him to find a grip where the high heeled boots of the cowboys would have caught and slipped.
Billy heard him coming and started to turn around. But by then the half-breed was charging straight at him, Winchester swinging round in a vicious arc that landed the metal-shod stock hard against the youngster’s belly. The angle of the stock dug deep into the kid’s midriff, just under his belt, in the area of muscle between groin and stomach.
Billy gasped, nausea roiling vomit into his throat as he opened his mouth to scream a warning. He doubled over, all his attention focused on the searing pain exploding through his abdomen.
Azul cannoned into the doubling body, left knee lifting to drive the cap hard against Billy’s descending jaw. The youngster’s teeth snapped together, cutting through his lower lip so that a thin trickle of blood came from the soft flesh and spurted over his chin. His eyes closed on a warm, dark pit, and his mind dived in, sinking beneath the roiling surface to the calm quiet beneath.
Azul let the unconscious cowboy fall, transferring the Winchester to his left hand as he hooked the Bowie knife clear of the sheath.
He slashed through the reins tethering the horses to the trees and slid the knife back in position on his waist. Then he fired the Winchester three times, planting the shots in the ground around the ponies’ hooves. All seven animals panicked, squealing and bucking as they fought for position on the narrow trail, feet squelching great sprays of mud and leaves into the moonlit air as they thundered, wild, in the direction of San Jacinto.
Azul went over the far side of the trail, slithering down the slope in a wild run that ended when he struck a pine and rested there, panting. Above him, he heard someone yell: ‘He got the horses!’ And someone else shout: ‘Billy?’
He began to move back towards the west side of the meadow, moving slowly on the steep incline, anxious to make no sound.
It was difficult: where the stream came out from the meadow, the rock got steep, falling down in a series of narrow terraces that gave way to a high-walled ravine. He had to pick his way carefully over the water, concentrating on holding his balance rather than the movements above. He crossed the stream and clambered up the far side, shirt and pants soaked by the spray. He halted on the west side, just down from the trail, and studied the meadow.
The man called Kelly had got a bandanna fastened around his broken leg and dragged himself halfway back over the meadow. The other three were gone, chasing their panicked horses.
‘Kelly!’ Azul yelled. ’You hear me?’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ The cowboy rolled on his back, right hand fumbling for the pistol holstered on his waist. ‘Don’t kill me! Please, don’t kill me.’
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ called the half-breed. ‘Just give you a message for your boss. Tell him to forget it. Tell him there’s no point to following me, not unless he wants to die, too.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ yelled Kelly. ‘You got my word on that. But he won’t listen.’
His hand came away from the pistol and he reached down to rub at his calf, trying to massage away the pain of the bullet hole.
‘Old Amos ain’t gonna listen to anyone now that his son got killed.’
‘Tell him,’ repeated Azul. ‘He keeps coming after me, I’ll kill him.’
‘Yeah.’ Kelly’s voice was husky with misery. ‘I’ll do that. You want to help me outta here?’
‘No,’ shouted the
half-breed. ‘You got yourself in, get yourself out.’
He eased up to the trail and peered towards the far side of the bowl. It was getting light now, the night-black clarity of the moon becoming faded under the pearly grayness of the early dawn. Mist was starting to rise from the land, and off to the east there was a dim glow in the sky. A bird chittered an early song. There was no sign of Dumfries and his remaining men, so the half-breed began to lope back along the trail.
Two hours later, as the pre-dawn grayness gave way to the first real rays of the sun, he found Cal Backenhauser.
The artist was slumped against a pine tree, sketching the two horses cropping what little grass flanked the trail.
‘I thought you must be killed,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
‘We argued some,’ shrugged the half-breed. ‘I tried to paint Dumfries a picture of what could happen if he follows us.’
‘He like your style?’ asked Backenhauser.
Azul shook his head: ‘No. He wants to paint it all red.’
Chapter Five
IT WAS TWO weeks later that Fritz Baum reached San Jacinto, and that was mostly accidental.
The German bounty hunter had spent close on a month looking for the man called Breed. Or Azul. Or Matthew Gunn. He had passed money to the informants he knew and promised more for sure information. On his own, he had taken the logical step of checking the stage lines linking the territory, and spoken with every driver and guard he could find. The lines mostly converged on Santa Fe, and it was there he got his first lead.
‘Sure,’ said the grizzled old man who ran the Wells Fargo depot, ‘I know Matt Gunn. Kieron’s boy. Me an’ Kieron used to trade together, an’ he brought the kid to see me one time. Blond youngster. Built hisself a name, I heard, after his folks got killed. I ain’t seen him in years, but Charley Gracey said there was talk of someone like him down around San Jacinto.’
‘Who’s Charley Gracey?’ asked Baum. ‘Can I talk to him?’
‘Real butterfly,’ said the old man. ‘Drives coaches when he ain’t doin’ things he shouldn’t. He was on the San Jacinto run up to this week.’
Five dollars changed hands
and the old man said, ‘You’ll find him in the Queen’s Hotel. Two blocks
down.’
Charley Gracey was a small man with lank brown hair and wiry muscles. He wore a pair of faded plaid trousers and a fringed, rawhide jacket. He acted tougher than he was, and mostly carried his big driver’s whip with him: he thought it added an element of romantic menace to his character.
Baum swiftly destroyed the driver’s image of himself. ‘Gracey?’ he asked, abruptly. ‘The stage driver?’
‘That’s me.’ Charley stroked his whip as the big man settled into the chair across the table. ‘What you want?’
‘Information,’ said Baum. ‘I heard you was in San Jacinto. Heard you might know something I want to learn.’
‘That’s right?’ asked Gracey, picking up his whip. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Don’t matter.’ Baum reached across the table to lift the bottle. Then took a glass from a passing waiter and helped himself. ‘And don’t think about using that fly-kicker. Nor a gun. ‘I’ll kill you if you do.’
Charley Gracey believed him: he set his whip down and put both hands on the table beside him. Then he watched Baum drink his liquor and said:
