Backenhauser shook his head.
‘Then just follow me,’ said Azul. ‘Hold on hard land. Try to do what I tell you.’
‘Will it be hard?’ asked the artist warily.
‘Only in parts,’ grunted Azul. ‘Now move it.’
Backenhauser yelled as the roan took off at a gallop after the half-breed’s gray.
‘You’re not painting a pretty picture,’ he shouted. ‘It all feels black and blue.’
Chapter Three
FRITZ BAUM CROSSED the border west of El Paso and went north to Deming and then Lordsburg. People in both towns had heard of the man called Breed, and some had even seen him – or so they claimed – but none had seen him lately. Baum moved on, riding a line that took him due west along the division between Mexico and America. He stopped off at Santa Clara and Rio Verde, at Calebras and Tubac; then he went up to Tucson and over to Phoenix, on to Candelabras.
In most of the towns there was someone who had heard of Breed, but no one who could say for sure if the man was in town. Baum drifted on, looking. And thinking about that fragment of advice the man in the coach had given him:
You want to find him, just shoot up a Chiricahua village.
The German wasn’t quite ready for that yet.
He had no compunctions about killing Apaches, but he had heard of
what they did to a man who crossed them. He decided to look around
a while longer.
Azul took Backenhauser clear of San Jacinto and made camp on a spur of the Zuni range that stuck out like a cock’s claw towards the town. By the time they crested the ridge and found a place to stop it was dark, and the artist was complaining of his aches.
The half-breed found a place where the mountains folded into a narrow valley that was banded on both sides by high walls of pine-covered rock, a spring bleeding pure water down into a natural catch-tank. The bottom was filled up with late grass, and there was a shallow canyon off’ to one side that afforded a view of both ends of the valley. He didn’t think anyone would chase them so far that day, but natural caution dictated he protect himself — and his unwelcome guest.
‘What are we eating?’ asked Backenhauser. ‘I didn’t have time to bring anything with me.’
‘I’ll try for some game.’ Azul lifted the saddle from the gray horse’s back and dumped it on the grass. ‘You fetch some wood in. You know how?’
‘I’m not a complete greenhorn,’ protested Backenhauser. ‘I can make a fire.’
‘Keep it low,’ grunted the half-breed. ‘I’ll be back.’
He drifted away up the slope, long legs taking the angle of the ground as easily as his steps were silent. He got in amongst the trees and moved across the flank of the ridge, scanning the ground for sight of trails.
After a while he found a deer path. It headed straight along the flank, so he decided it must be close to its objective and cut up into the timber above. He moved silently along, moving parallel to the narrow trail until it fed out onto a salt lick.
The lick was no more than a shallow bowl amongst the trees, a small depression in the rock face where some natural upheaval of the earth had spilled a cleft through the stone, allowing some subterranean stream to wash out its mineral salts into the catchment of rock that spread like a miniature lake over the tiny plateau.
He bellied down amongst the trees, waiting.
The air was cold, a thin sliver of moon rising out of the east to shed pale light down the length of the valley. A squirrel chattered irritably, then settled into sleep as the man failed to move. An early rising owl drifted overhead, the enormous eyes scanning the prone body and dismissing it, wide white wings spreading out to catch the updraft of air lifting from the lowlands. A thrush trilled a farewell to the day and a warning to intruders.
Azul remained still.
He settled into the stoic silence taught him by Sees-The-Fox. A discipline instilled by long hours of training. The old man had been the finest of the Chiricahua hunters, as adept at trailing and hunting animals as he was at trailing and killing men. From him Azul had learned the virtues of silence; the enforced stillness necessary to hunting.
You must let the animal come to you when the time is right, the old man had told him. There are times you need to chase it down, and times you must be still and silent as the roots in the ground. Not blink or breathe. Become one with the land so that your quarry accepts you as part of the land. You must become as one with all the things that use the land, like a grub that burrows into it and rests silent until it is the right time to come out.
Like the deer that wait for that time of night when it safe. Before the cats prowl, after the men have gone. In the quiet time when a man can kill best.
Azul waited, remembering, scarcely breathing, his body a slumped hulk amongst the trees. He felt a small animal scuttle across his back; watched an insect crawl over his right hand.
And then a deer came down the trail. It was a big buck pronghorn, black-and-white nose testing the air currents, tail flicking in nervous apprehension. Azul waited, his breath easing clear of his lungs in slow, soft gusts that barely disturbed the fallen leaves before his face.
The buck stamped a cloven hoof against the ground of the trail and gusted a faint snicker from his nostrils. Like the dutiful wives they were, five does came out from the trees, followed by three late-born youngsters.
Azul waited until all nine animals were pawing salt from the lick. Until all their attention was concentrated on the mineral-filled hollow.
Then he eased the Bowie knife from its sheath on his belt and got to his feet in a single, fluid movement.
He was up the rise from the animals, the buck standing on the west side of the salt lick, the does spread in order of rank around the rim so that the youngest members of the herd were closest to the east.
The buck squealed a warning as the half-breed came up on his feet, and four does lifted away into the trees. A calf squealed as Azul’s plunging fall fastened an arm round its neck and drove the tip of the Bowie into its throat. Warm blood exploded over the half-breed’s hand as he sliced the heavy blade down through the soft tendons of the pronghorn’s windpipe and turned the blade up to pierce the brain.
The calf squealed once, its life going out through the gap in its throat even before the knife severed the cords of its skull. And the other animals disappeared amongst the trees.
Azul withdrew the blade and let the blood flow away. When the body was empty, he lifted it across his shoulder and carried it back to the fire.
Backenhauser was crouched down, blowing on the smoldering embers of some dry twigs that he was trying to use to ignite the damp branches he had found fallen from the trees upslope. The fire wasn’t very successful.
‘You know how to make a fire?’ Azul asked.
Backenhauser shook his head: ‘No. Not really.’
‘You know how to skin an animal?’
‘No. Sorry.’
