But one had to admit that this was better than duty at San Carlos: the endless hunting of tulapai stills and carrying back men of your own people who had jumped the reservation. Here, one had the opportunity to track white men. Salvaje’s father had been a Mimbreño war chief; his mother, a Mexican woman taken in a raid on a Chihuahua pueblo. Salvaje had spent the better part of his life making war against his mother’s people and against white men-the good years of riding with Victorio and Delchay, years that could not be compared with this business of recapturing escaped prisoners.
He waited patiently, one thumb hooked in the cartridge bandoleer that crossed his worn cavalry jacket. He was confident that the signal would come, that it was only a matter of time. What else could an escaped man do but go to Pinaleño?-if he had thought about it at all.
And finally the signal did come-a white-gleaming dot in the pines, then the pinpoint flashes, sunlight reflected on a metal disk and sent to him here, miles away, and what Salvaje had known all along was now confirmed.
It blinked once; then three times in quick succession. The escaped man had left the adobe and was riding to the west. His man in the pines would follow now and signal again if the escaped one changed direction.
Salvaje looked at his men. There were ten trackers here, and now he watched them remove their army-issue shirts and pants, stripping to breech-clouts, then slipping on their cartridge bandoleers again. All of them wore curl-toed Apache moccasins folded and tied just below the knee; and to a man they carried single-shot Springfield carbines.
When they were ready, Salvaje nodded, and they moved off to take the escaped man.
Now the sun was directly overhead. Bowen urged the mare over a cutbank, leaning back in the saddle as the crusted sand gave way and followed them down the slope in a thin dust trail. He entered the cover of trees that grew thickly along both sides of the dry creek bed: cottonwood and sycamore and higher up, farther down the draw, black patches of pine shadowing steep shelfrock. In the dimness it seemed more quiet and he stopped to listen before crossing the creek bed to follow its course through the draw.
He moved carefully, knowing that he was leaving a trail, but more concerned with what might lie ahead than what might be following. Coming this way, he knew, would give the Mimbre trackers time to cut him off. Still, this was wild climbing country, laced with draws and heavy timber to use for cover. South and east from the Pinaleño station were desert flats, and water only if you knew the location of the wells.
Less than two hundred yards farther on, the draw widened and began to rise and here the trees ended. Bowen edged the mare close to the near wall of shelfrock, then moved out into the open and climbed the rise. He stopped then and looked back, down over the green rolling carpet of the treetops.
At first he wasn’t sure. Then there was no mistaking it-a thin wisp of dust hanging motionless over the far end of the draw.
His gaze came back to the long sweep of meadow in front of him. It sloped gradually and narrowed into a trough between two pine-studded hills. He would be in the open for more than a mile. But, he thought, trying to keep himself calm, trying to ignore the uncertainty that was tightening inside of him: You go that way or you don’t go at all.
Then the wind was in his face and the mare was pounding over the thick grama grass, racing for the bottom of the meadow. The trough between the hills, perhaps a hundred yards wide, opened before him as he heeled the mare again and felt her lengthen her stride reaching level ground again.
And suddenly, with the high whining report, with the solid smacking sound of the bullet, the mare went down and Bowen was over her head-rolling, stumbling, coming to his feet as the Mimbre rode out of the pines up on the right slope, then seeing the Mimbre and running hard for the opposite grade, a shot ringing behind him, then another, and he knew he would not reach the trees.
He veered sharply, running now for an outcropping of rocks at the foot of the hill, hearing suddenly the sound of horses rumbling down the far slope. Three shots sang off the rocks as he went down behind them, and abruptly he heard the horses being reined in. Then silence.
Bowen came up slowly. He brought his knees under him, but kept his head low as he separated the brush that was thick between the rocks.
The Mimbreños were off perhaps eighty yards: eleven of them, all armed and sitting their short, close-coupled horses patiently, taking their time now, as much time as they wanted, to study the rocks. Bowen watched them, wondering why they waited.
If you could think like an Apache, Bowen thought now, you’d know why. All right, then think like a white man. What would you do if you were eleven people and you had one man cornered out in the middle of nowhere? I’d march my eleven people over and drag him out. Eleven what look like Springfields are a match for a pair of bare hands any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
If you’re sure they’re bare hands.
They know you’re not armed.
But that’s one of those things you can know and still want to be clearly sure of. So you’d spread out your eleven people and edge in a step at a time and call out things about coming out with your hands up and not trying any funny business.
Only you never in your life heard of an Apache doing anything like that, so you can cross that off and throw it away.
But however they do it, they’ll try to take you alive. Even if they didn’t work for Renda they’d do that. Only-and there’re a lot of onlys-they can take you back in all kinds of states where you’d still be alive, though you’d just as soon be dead.
Give yourself up, he thought. No…let them work a little bit. You never know what can happen…like getting one of their horses.
How do you do that?
How do you do anything! Just shut up and watch!
Not expecting it, he saw one of the Mimbres ride off from the others. His horse went into a canter heading toward the narrowing of the trough between the two hills. Suddenly then, he turned a tight circle, kicking his horse to a gallop, and he came on a dead run directly for the rocks. Bowen went down and the Mimbre passed within ten yards of him firing his Springfield as he went by.
Bowen came up cautiously. He watched the rider circle wide returning to the rest of the band and as he did another Mimbre rode out. This one also pointed off toward the narrowness, giving his horse room to run before coming around, before making his pass at the rocks. He fired as he went by, the shot glancing off rock and whining up into the trees that were high on the slope behind Bowen.
Now, watching the third Mimbre make his circle, Bowen thought: They’re making a game out of it, trying to scare you. They’ve got all the time in the world, so they’ll play with you a while-knowing they can take you any time they feel like it. And each one comes a little closer.
He went down as a Springfield roared five yards in front of him, then came up again to watch the Mimbre rejoin the others.
That’s some game, he thought then. You know who the winner is before you start. But if you had a gun…if you had a gun you could play with them. You could make it a two-sided game. And it occurred to him then: Why didn’t you get a gun from her! Clothes and a horse, but no gun.
The fourth Mimbre started to make his circle and Bowen eased down. Or, he thought, get a gun from one of them.
Just like that. Go out and grab onto a Springfield as it goes by.
You’ve done crazier things. Jumping off that wagon didn’t make sense either…at first.
He thought of breaking off a mesquite branch to use as a club, but he knew he would never get close enough to use it. Not against a mounted man. No, it had to be something to throw. Something light enough to throw, but hard enough to drop a man from a running horse.