All right.
His trigger hand tightened, squeezed closed. The shot rang, ripping thin air, echoing down canyon. The first horse was down. The man was on the ground. But now he was up, running. The second rider made a tight circle and leaned to help him up as the third one streaked away. He swung up behind the cantle and they were moving down the draw as Flynn fired again. The man went back, rolling off the horse's rump.
He threw open the breech and shoved in the third cartridge and fired as he lowered his head. The second horse went down. The rider hit and rolled and scrambled for cover. The third rider was out of range now.
Flynn looked back to the man he had hit. He was lying facedown. The other one was crawling toward him now. He knelt next to him and stayed there and Flynn thought: He must be alive.
Flynn had inserted another cartridge. He lowered his head, looking down the barrel at the man's back; then looked up again. He's got enough troubles now, Flynn thought, and backed away from the rocks.
They moved on through what was left of the morning, riding double now, running the horse when they would reach level stretches; but most of the time their travel was slow, following the maze of canyons and sweeping climbing draws that gouged the foothills, lacing in all directions. They bore a general direction west toward Soyopa, keeping the looming gray mass of the Sierra Madre behind them, the Mother Mountain that towered into the overcast sky losing her crested shapes gray against gray.
It was after noon, shortly after, when they stopped again, having come down into a ravine thick with aspen to a stream that was running with yesterday's rain.
When she had finished drinking, Nita Esteban sat on the grassy bank watching Flynn water the horse.
"We might reach Soyopa by nightfall," he said, looking toward her. Flynn spoke in Spanish. She had leaned back, resting on her arm. "You're tired, aren't you?"
"Knowing that we are going home takes much of the tiredness out of this."
She smiled then and Flynn thought, watching her: Now she's a girl again. This is the first time she's smiled. Before she was a woman. In her eyes the worn look of a woman who has seen an entire lifetime turn rotten. But now she's a girl again because she can look forward to something. Home.
"But from now on we'll have to use more caution."
She looked at him with surprise. "Those others are far behind."
"Two of them are. Perhaps all three, but we have no assurance of that. The third one is still mounted. He might have remained with his companions. He could be following us…or he might have circled to cut us off." He added gently, "I tell you this so you won't relax your guard entirely."
They moved on and it stayed in Flynn's mind now and he hoped the girl was thinking about it, being ready. The Springfield was across his lap and his gaze edged inching up over the brush on both sides of the ravine. The sides were steep and high up were pines. But being ready didn't lessen the shock when it came.
The shot broke the stillness, coming from nowhere. It ricocheted off rock above their heads, whining into the air. The second shot hit lower, but they were off the horse then, Flynn pushing the girl, running crouched, jerking the horse after them. Two shots followed them to cover and then stillness again.
Why didn't he wait, Flynn thought. Maybe he's jumpy. Or else that was his best shot and he took it. If it was he couldn't be closer than a hundred yards. He leaned close to Nita.
"He fired from the left slope, high up."
She waited for him to say more, her eyes wide, the pupils dilated an intense black.
"He has us…until we find him." He said then, "Do you know how to fire this?" handing her the Springfield.
"Once I did, but it was long ago."
He pointed it out in front of her and cocked it. "All you do is pull the trigger now. But don't fire unless he is close…if he should come. Keep it low; then if he should come onto you, wait until he is from here to there"-he pointed out just beyond the rocks-"then fire."
He moved quickly then, surprising the girl; up over the rocks, through the brush into the open; the sound of his running across the ravine, then a bullet spanged kicking dust behind him; his head was up watching for it and there it was, the almost transparent dissolving puff of powder smoke high up, farther down. Then he was into the brush going up the slope.
Now you know, Flynn told himself. But so does he.
At the top he kept to the pines, making a wide circle to where the scalp hunter would be. Three times he stopped to listen, but there was no sound. He went on, inching into the rocks. There was his horse! Then it would be close, right ahead, he thought, looking up beyond and back along the ravine. He moved closer, cautiously, with the pistol in front of him. ThereThree cigarette stubs. Boot scuff marks in the sand. But he's goneFlynn was over the rocks, scrambling down the brush slope, sliding with the shale that crumbled under his boots; at the bottom he crouched, hesitated, then started back to where Nita was, quickly, keeping to cover. And he saw the man before he was halfway.
The scalp hunter was moving in a crouch, half crawling up the ravine. Now he straightened, bringing up a Winchester, and walked slowly toward the rocks where Nita was hidden.
Flynn raised the pistol, aiming-two hundred feet at least, that's too far-then beyond the man's shoulder something else, a movement. It was Nita. He could see her head, now her shoulders, and suddenly the scalp hunter was running toward her. He was almost to the rocks, almost to Nita, when he stopped in his stride and hung there as a thin report flattened and died. He fell then, rolling on his back.
Nita still held the Springfield, looking at the man she had shot.
"It's over now," Flynn said gently, taking the carbine from her. He looked at the scalp hunter, recognizing him as the one Lazair had called Sid. The red-bearded one who had had his pistol. Sid stared back at him with the whites of his eyes and his jaw hung open in astonishment, though he had died the moment the bullet struck his chest.
They did not halt at dusk to make camp but went on, making better time now that both were mounted. Still, it was after midnight when they passed the cemetery and rode into the deep shadow of Santo Tomas.
A much smaller shadow glided out from the steps of the church as they came in the square. A woman. The face of La Mosca looked up at them from the blackness of the shawl covering her head.
"Man, it is as I said. You have returned. And now commences The Day of the Dead-"
14
Mescal, like tequila, is a juice of the maguey. As colorless as water unless orange peelings or pieces of raw chicken are dropped in while it's standing. When you see mescal a rich yellow, you'll know that's what it is, chicken or orange peels.
Who told him that? A straining, groaning authoritative voice in a stagecoach trying to out-shout axles that hadn't taken grease in forty miles of alkali…coming into somewhere.
Lieutenant Regis Duane Bowers poured himself another drink.
He drank well, because he had a good stomach; though he would have tried to drink as much if he didn't have a stomach, because it was part of being a cavalryman. You can tell a cavalryman by his walk and the way he wears his kepi and by the amount of whisky he can drink like a gentleman. These as much a part of being cavalry as a saber.
Now he was sitting. He wore neither kepi nor saber. And he was drinking mescal. It doesn't matter. It's something inside. Those things help: a slanted kepi and a saber, but they are only badges; you are a cavalryman because you think like one and feel like one and then you know you're one. That's all. Just one of those things you know…and don't let anybody say different.
One of the Mexican girls was looking at him now, a smile softening her mouth as he glanced at her. She was at the table with the four Americans.