They stood up as the Negro began the tune again; As they passed the bar, the keeper smiled at the half-breed.

‘You like the way Sam plays?’

Azul shook his head. ‘I wish Sam’d quit playing that tune again.’

Chapter Seven

THE LORDSBURG STAGE came in half a day ahead of schedule, and Backenhauser got ready to climb on board. He had spent his time in Placeras sketching the town, taking care that Azul was nearby whenever he chose a human subject. He had also devoted hours to sketching the half-breed, explaining that when he found himself a studio he would turn the drawings into a full-size painting. Azul was amused and vaguely flattered: the only time his likeness had been drawn before was on a wanted poster.

He accompanied Backenhauser to the depot, watching as the artist’s baggage was stowed in the concord’s tarpaulin-covered boot. Then the manager clapped his hands and yelled for silence.

‘Sumthin’ I gotta tell you folks,’ He coughed, raising his voice. ‘I got word from the Army there’s a bunch o’ bronco Apaches runnin’ loose in the Paradise Valley. Army says they got patrols out, but they’re warnin’ folks that the broncos been hittin’ the coaches. You best decide if you want to take this one, or wait over.’

A man in a drummer’s suit, clutching a portmanteau to his chest, gulped and said, ‘Oh my God!’

Backenhauser laughed and murmured, ‘Sounds like I’m jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.’

‘You got a choice,’ grunted Azul. ‘You can stay here an’ hope Dumfries don’t catch up or take the stage an’ hope the broncos don’t hit it.’

‘What is a bronco?’ asked Backenhauser. ‘I thought that was one of your words for a horse.’

‘It is,’ said the half-breed. ‘But it also means a wild Apache. Usually, it’s a bunch of young men decided to go out fighting against the council of the elders.’

‘What’s the Army doing?’ asked a woman with a hawkish nose shadowed by her poke bonnet. ‘Ain’t they sendin’ an escort?’

‘Don’t have the men,’ replied the depot manager, shrugging. ‘I guess they’re hopin’ the patrols will keep the broncos away. Could be you’ll pick up a patrol in the valley, but I can’t make no promises.’

‘How many guards are you providing?’ demanded a thin man in a black frock coat. ‘Can’t you hire outriders?’ The manager shrugged again. ‘You just paid fer a seat on the coach, mister. Not a guard of honor. You’ll have a driver an’ a shotgun rider, that’s all.’

The thin man brushed his pencil mustache. ‘It seems that you might well extend your services beyond the simple realms of providing travel facilities sir. In troubled times one expects some guarantee of safety from the mentors of the transport system.’

‘I ain’t sure I understood all o’ that.’ The manager’s face creased up in a frown. ‘But if I did, then I’m sayin’ no. Sorry, but I can’t.’

He mopped his face with a dirty handkerchief, then: ‘You got three choices, folks. You can take the stage, an’ we’ll do our damnedest to get you through safe to Lordsburg. Or you can wait over an’ take another coach when the Army says things have quieted down. Or I can refund yore money an’ you make your own arrangements.’

Backenhauser turned to Azul. ‘What do you think I should do?’

‘Take the stage.’ Azul shrugged. ‘Hell! I guess Lordsburg’s as good a place as any. I’ll ride herd on you some more.’ The Englishman grinned and stepped towards the depot manager, holding up his ticket.

‘I’ll chance it.’

‘Fine.’ The manager stamped the ticket and looked around the room. ‘Anyone else?’

Only two people followed the artist’s example. The frock coated man and the drummer; the remaining passengers sidled away.

‘Don’t tell no one I’ll be trailing you,’ murmured Azul. ‘That way Dumfries won’t know which of us to follow.’

Backenhauser nodded and climbed into the concord. He shook hands with Azul and bade the half-breed a noisy farewell. Azul fetched his horse from the stable and rode away to the south.

Two miles clear of Placeras he turned the gray’s head to the west and heeled the big pony up to a fast canter that headed them along a line that would bisect the concord’s route.

Mike Stotter took his team out at a fast lick. It had long been his theory that a show of speed at the beginning of a run impressed the passengers. It also got them swiftly accustomed to the rolling gait of the stage and allayed any complaints about time wasting.

Stotter had been driving the Lordsburg run since he was twenty. He had been a teamster during the Civil War, emerging from the conflict at the age of nineteen with two commendations for bravery in the face of the enemy and the proud memory of a handshake from Ulysses S. Grant himself. He had never gone back home to Kansas, drifting instead to the Southwest where, as the stage routes opened up again after the war, he found employment as a driver. He had a wife in Lordsburg and a Mexican girl in Placeras. And along the way, there was a lady in Gilman who dropped everything when she heard the coach coming in.

For the last five years Stotter had ridden with a shotgun guard called Dave Weisskopf.

Weisskopf was a natural partner, his talent with shotgun or rifle complementing Stotter’s skill as a driver. He was from Illinois, his parents second generation immigrants from Austria, and like Stotter, he had served honorably in the Civil War. He was taller than his friend, with wavy hair where Stotter’s was curly; quiet where Stotter was a talker, with the phlegmatic calm of purpose inherent in his Austrian background. Mainly, he was the best shotgun rider Stotter had known.

‘Think we’ll hit trouble?’ Stotter eased the six-horse team down a bit, wary of letting the horses blow themselves too early when he might need a turn of speed later. ‘How you rate them Army rumors?’

‘Ain’t seen no broncos yet,’ grunted Weisskopf. ‘Most o’ the bands are gone down into Mexico fer the winter. Could be the Army actin’ up. Wantin’ credit fer holdin’ off hostiles.’

‘Could be,’ agreed Stotter. But he noticed that his partner was holding a thumb over the hammer of the Winchester rifle he carried. And that he had filled his pockets with shotgun cartridges.

Inside the coach, Cal Backenhauser watched his two fellow travelers.

For the first few miles the Englishman had kept up a flow of conversation designed to elicit information from the two men. He had become used to the swaying gait of the concord after a short while and brought out his sketch pad. Though neither would admit it, both the drummer and the man in the black frock coat were flattered that he was drawing them.

It was odd, Backenhauser reflected, how people loosened up when he drew them. Wanted to talk about themselves; would tell him things they would seldom mention to another casual acquaintance. Even Azul had revealed aspects of his past that the Englishman was sure he didn’t tell many people.

And now he knew that the drummer was called Del Brown, and had to get to Lordsburg to fix a deal for medical supplies with the local doctor, who also tended the Army detachment stationed there. Brown came from New Jersey; he was unmarried at thirty years of age, and frightened enough of his bosses that he preferred to risk the Apaches rather than chance losing the order.

The artist sketched in a short, fair-haired man, noting that he was going bald on top, with a dark gray suit, complete with vest and watch-chain, and button-sided boots.

For the other traveler he drew a gaunt outline, shrouded almost menacingly in black: black hat tilted forwards over black hair, shadowing a black mustache. Black suit – the only point of light the silver watch-chain spread across the black vest – with the cloth of pants and coat and vest matching the shinier black of the boots.

Black gun belt. Even the buckles scrubbed dull and not polished, so that they gave off no shine.

His name was Jonas Cardeen, and he was a gambler. Backenhauser didn’t know enough about guns to decide what he was wearing, but he got the feeling that Cardeen knew how to use the pistol.

Cardeen was forty-two, heading for Lordsburg because he had heard the town held more money that was easier for the taking than the last few settlements he had passed through.

Backenhauser didn’t like him, but he was glad the gambler was along.

Where the Placeras to Lordsburg stage route came down off the hills into the wide breadth of Paradise Valley, running for close on thirty miles over open, mesa-ringed country, Knife-With-Two-Sides waited.

The Mimbreño Apache had got his name from the first time he attacked a pinda-lick-oyi. He had been sixteen years old then, and anxious to prove his manhood. He had stalked a copper miner prospecting along the Gila River and attacked the white man armed only with a knife. The miner had blasted three shots towards the Apache and then felt the weight of the blade slice into his throat. Before he died, he had shoved the knife against the young warrior’s face, his own hand cut through to the bone before he forced the blade against the Mimbreño’s mouth, and left a permanent scar. The blade had cut through the Apache’s lip on the left side, slicing off part of the nostril and threatening to pierce his eye.

The young Apache had killed the white man and gone back to his rancheria with a bleeding face. The cut had left a wide, white scar that ran down from the bridge of his nose to below his lips. It healed, puckering the left eye into a downwards twist, and running livid across his cheek to where his mouth was twisted forever out of line.

Since then he had concentrated on fighting whites whenever he could, and when the winter cold began his cut nostril ran heavily with mucus that dripped over the scar of his mouth and reminded him of the original wound.

Now he had seven warriors with him. Seven good men, not yet ready to concede the lands of Apacheria to the pinda-lick-oyi. Not yet ready to go south; not while they could still strike against the whites.

Moon Dancer and Funda were placed in the hollow where the stage would dip down over the long salt wash; Jaunito and Hondo were positioned on the farther rim; Knife-With-Two-Sides was waiting, mounted, with Violento, Eagle Chaser and Sabadillo.

‘This is foolish,’ said Sabadillo. ‘If we attack this coach, we shall only bring the patrols on us, like dogs coming down on a lobo wolf’s neck.’