There was more shuffling of feet, scratching of heads, uncertain colloquy. One man muttered, "By God, here we are halfway to Prescott! We can't turn back now!"
"Certainly not!" the red-haired female insisted.
Valentine puffed at the cigar. "How do the rest of you feel?"
There were conferences. Finally the man in the plug hat said, "This Territory don't need no dead legislators! Anyway, I doubt half the representatives reach there by the first of the month, anyway, with Agustín running wild!"
"That's right!" said the man who had reloaded his revolver. "It ain't so much for me, but I got a Mexican wife and six kids back in Tubac. I wasn't elected just to leave Carmencita a widow and the kids orphans!"
Coogan spat a rich gout. "All right with me." He shrugged. "Stage company pays me either way." He pointed toward the shimmering playa. "Dassn't go back through Centinela Canyon, that's for sure. But we c'n cross the river and head back along the old County Road. It's longer, and rockier 'n hell—beg your pardon, ladies—but we ain't so likely to get bushwhacked."
"That makes sense," the man in the plug hat agreed. "And we might just run into George Dunaway and his men—telegraph said they was over this way. Maybe George can give us an escort and we can try to get through to Prescott again."
Valentine seemed to be the recognized leader of the group, the one they all deferred to. "All right," he sighed. "Common sense, I guess." He turned to John Drumm. "How about you, sir, and your man? We can make room for you in the coach if you'd like to go to Phoenix."
Drumm shook his head. "We're bound for Prescott and are late already. We mean to take the new Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Bear Spring and reach New York in time to catch a fast packet, before the winter storms. No, I think we'll stay here and chance it. We are well armed, and will give Agustín a rousing welcome if he attempts to attack us again. Besides, we are hoping Lieutenant Dunaway can soon 'put the cork in the bottle and ram it home,' as he says. Then we can take the next stage and resume our journey."
The red-haired young lady was indignant. "All this gab about fleeing back to Phoenix!" she cried. "What are you—men or milksops? I am not afraid to go on!"
"That's the God's truth!" her gray-haired companion agreed, brandishing the parasol. "I ain't either!"
Valentine's tone was politic as he said, "Miss Larkin, we couldn't really risk harm to you and Mrs. Glore. The ambush in the canyon was a near thing; if we try to go on, we risk much more." He smiled. "I would never forgive myself if anything untoward happened to that glorious titian hair!"
Miss Larkin's milk-white skin flushed. Her blue eyes darkened.
"Then you won't go on?"
"I am afraid we cannot."
She looked about her. Her bosom heaved, and she clenched her fists tightly.
"Then Beulah and I will just stay here!"
"You can't do that!" Valentine protested.
She looked at Jack Drumm. "Beulah and I will stay here, with this gentleman, till another stage comes north and we can board it."
Drumm, who had been silently listening to the argument, could scarcely find his voice. "You—you can't be serious!" he stammered. "You can see our situation is serious here! There is no way to tell when the Apaches may mount another attack on us!"
"That's right," Coogan agreed. "Not meanin' to interfere, ma'am, but you got to come back to Phoenix with us! Maybe later—"
"We just had an uncomfortable experience in Phoenix," Miss Larkin insisted, "and I don't mean to repeat it! No, we will stay here!"
"But we have practically no food!" Drumm protested, annoyed with the arrogant female. "Most of our supplies were destroyed, and my man and I have been reduced to eating Indian corn!"
Mrs. Glore held up her bulging reticule. "Since Phoebe and I come West," she remarked, "I've found that food is an uncertain commodity. So I've got bacon in here, and eggs—a wheel of cheese —some tortugas or whatever they call 'em—"
"Tortillas," the man from Tubac muttered.
"Well, whatever. We'll get along all right."
"I forbid it!" Drumm insisted.
Phoebe Larkin looked at him with a hard blue eye. "You can't forbid us anything! This is part of the United States, which is a free country. A lady has a perfect right to stop and visit wherever she's a mind to." She turned to the driver. "If you will just pass down our valises—"
Coogan looked at Jack Drumm. "Short of hog-tieing her—"
"You lay a hand on her and I'll turn you inside out and stomp your giblets!" Mrs. Glore promised, holding the parasol like a weapon.
"Be quiet, Beulah," Miss Larkin instructed. "I can take care of myself. Always have, and always will." She picked up a valise. "Beulah and I will take shelter in that little shack over there until someone is brave enough to see us to Prescott!"
"Now wait a minute!" Drumm insisted, seeing the two females head toward Eggleston's reed hut. "You can't—"
Disappearing among the reeds, they paid him no attention. The company watched them go. Sam Valentine muttered, "Well, she's a strong-minded young lady, that's sure! Any Apache would be unlucky to cut her trail!"
There was nothing more to be done. Valentine shook hands, the legislators climbed back into the stage. Coogan spat again from his inexhaustible supply of amber juice and mounted the high seat beside the driver, long rifle across his lap. "Meant to tell you," he called down. "This is Agustín's old stamping grounds, along the river here; kind of a sacred place. His gods hang out here! Keep a sharp eye out, Mr. Drumm, for him and his coffee-colored bastards!"
Before Drumm could acknowledge the warning, the driver cracked his long whip; quickly the stage disappeared into the reeds, wheels churning in the mossy mud. A moment later it reappeared on the far side of the Agua Fria, heading toward the distant County Road, and Phoenix.
"This," Jack Drumm muttered, "is a deucedly peculiar situation, Eggie!"
The valet looked toward the two females, who were waiting impatiently, as if for a tardy innkeeper.
"That is true, sir," Eggleston agreed, rubbing his battered nose and wincing.
Jack Drumm stood in the middle of the now-deserted Prescott Road. He felt frustrated and ineffectual, a feeling new to him. In sharp contrast to his gloomy mood, the setting sun painted the scene in a manner almost pastoral; a landscape by Constable, perhaps, or Joseph Turner. Eggleston's rude cabin sat on a rise surrounded by verdure, like a ruined crofter's cottage, while the solitary mule grazed along the stream. To Drumm's ear came the sound of the Agua Fria, tributary of the Salt, plashing into mossy pools, gurgling through the matted soil of the river bottom. Even the dark clouds hovering about the peaks of the distant Mazatzals were shot with gold, and a hazy mellow light enveloped all.
"Homeward the plowman wends his weary way…" he murmured, not remembering the exact words of Thomas Gray's Elegy, "and leaves the world to darkness and to me." Thinking of the annoying turn events had taken, his own mood was as dark as the coming darkness of the world.
Chapter Three
In the growing dusk they ate supper, supplied for the most part from Mrs. Glore's reticule—slices of cheese wrapped in tortillas, and an apple apiece along with ears of boiled Indian corn. They washed down the scanty fare with river water that Eggleston had poured into a pan to allow mud and ooze to settle. Miss Larkin wanted a fire to make tea, but Drumm forbade it.
"We are in Apache country, ma'am," he said curtly. "I am not about to draw their further attentions with a flame that can be seen for several miles." Inwardly he reproached himself for his coolness; Miss Larkin was a female of some status, apparently, judging from her expensive clothes, and he was hardly acting the gentleman. Still, it was unladylike of her to press herself on them, commandeer Eggleston's reed hut, and place herself and her companion under his protection without so much as a by-your-leave. But Miss Larkin was also a beautiful female. Jack Drumm was conscious of his wrecked mustache, of the ugly blood-caked scar along his cheek, of torn and dirty clothing and a need for a bath, while she smelled of clean flesh and Paris perfume.