For Judy Davis,

Who unselfishly carried my love

To that which remains, and that which lingers...

Authors notation: This is a tortured little story, and some may find certain passages disturbing.

Adam and the Chain Gang

By Jenny Guttridge

A tale of one man’s determination to survive

Part One

One 

Adam Cartwright sat way back in his saddle and pushed his hat to the back of his head. The little group of mustangs he had been following all day was still a couple of hours ahead of him. It didn’t look now, as if he was going to catch up with them before dark. With them was the black stallion that Adam had made up his mind was going home with him, but, of course, it was not the stallion that was leading the herd. He, and his little group of four or five mares, were following a wise old mare that had seen it all, and done it all, before. It was she that Adam had to outwit, and he was under no illusion that it was going to be easy. It looked like it was going to be another night out under the stars for him.

Adam looked forward to the day when his little brother’s horse breeding program started to pay off. It would make this annual hike through the desert hill country looking for suitable saddle stock a thing of the past. They might be free for the taking, but it was getting more and more difficult to find animals young enough, and fit enough, to turn into cow ponies. It could be a case of advancing maturity, but Adam was losing his enthusiasm, both for the chase, and for sleeping out at night on rocky ground.

He squinted up at the sky. There was one hell of a storm brewing up there. The clouds that had been building up steadily all afternoon were taking on angry, violent, colours; deep blue black and purple, and the air was heavy, oppressive and unmoving. Even as he watched, lightening flickered among the clouds a long way off. Seconds later he heard the low rumble of thunder. He hoped it was going to rain. A dry electrical storm out here in the desert was the last thing he wanted to be caught up in. They were always uncomfortable and often dangerous, as the lightening tended to strike down to earth in a purely random manner. It was high time for him to find some sort of shelter.

Adam took a very sparing sip of water from the canteen on his saddle-horn. The water was brackish and flat, but it was all he had, and he knew it would have to last him a good while yet. He settled himself again and gathered the reins. He urged the horse forward with his heels, down the bank and into the draw. At the bottom, there were rounded pebbles in the streambed. It looked as if, from time to time, whenever there were storms in the hills, water might run here in fast, lightening floods. Now the stream was dry, and only dust stirred beneath his horse’s hooves.

Picking its way through the jumble of stones and small rocks, the horse stumbled. Adam stepped down quickly, a powerfully built man, with broad shoulders, narrow horseman’s hips, dark eyes and dark, slightly receding hair. He picked up the reins and led the animal along the streambed to a place where they could climb up the opposite bank. He picked a way past a jumble of rocky formations and through the bushes that grew beyond.

The little group of wild horses had come this way as well, following faithfully the old mare. There were droppings on the path he followed and the recent marks of small, unshod hooves. They were still that same two hours ahead. Adam wasn’t catching up at all, and now, for today at least, he was going to have to give up the pursuit.

He led the horse along, and up. There in the hillside he found, as he had thought he might, a hole. There was a small cave just big enough for one man and his horse to squeeze inside out of the weather.

As if in counterpoint to his thought, the thunder rumbled again, louder this time, and closer. Fat drops of rain began to slap into the ground, darkening the soil but evaporating quickly from the warm rocks. Adam tried to hurry the horse along but the animal was skittish, unnerved by the closeness of the storm. It pulled back, its head high, fighting the bridle. Then it lunged forward, slipping and slithering on the loose rock.

"Easy now, fella. Easy." Adam spoke soft words of reassurance but they were whipped away by a suddenly rising wind. The clouds now covered the entire sky with their bruised, burnished colours. He felt the rain falling on his shoulders, cold at first, soaking through his shirt. Then it warmed against his skin. He pulled his coat free from its rawhide bindings behind his saddle, pushing his arms quickly into the sleeves. There was no time to do up the buttons.

Lightening flashed overhead, dancing in a wild zigzag pattern from cloud to cloud. At once came the inevitable crash of thunder.

The horse laid back its ears, its trust in the man stretched to the utmost. It lunged again, climbing. Adam pulled at the brush that clogged the entrance of the cave, trying to make room for the animal to get inside. The horse balked, pulling back. Adam grabbed for the bridle and swore, softly, but with feeling. He put his face close to animal’s cheek, "Its all right. Come on. Come on."

The horse refused point blank to go any further. It snorted, and dug in its hooves. Wet and exasperated, Adam stepped in front of it. He pulled on the bridle, "Come on!"

The horse flattened its ears and took half a step backwards. Its eyes were rolling. Taken off balance by the sudden jerk on the bridle, Adam slipped on the wet shale; he half fell in the entrance of the cave. He landed heavily on his hip and his elbow. Reflex alone made him hang on to the reins as the horse tried to bolt. Adam swore again. He struggled to get up.

From somewhere in the utterly black recesses of the cave, came a dry, warning rattle.

Adam froze.

For an indeterminate span of moments the universe stopped turning. Time was marked in its passing only by the powerful beat of his own blood, pulsing through his head. The icy cold sweat of fear broke from every pore of Adam’s body. The sudden smell of it was rank in his own nostrils. On his knees with one arm extended, he held his position rigidly, letting the reins slip through his left hand as the frightened horse backed away. Outside the cave, thunder rumbled again. Something rattled against the shale. It might have been hailstones. It might have been the hooves of the horse as it galloped away. Adam, at that moment, neither knew, nor cared. His attention was focussed solely on the darkness in front of him. The pupils of his eyes had dilated until they were wide open. He could see absolutely nothing. The cave was as dark as the deepest pit of hell. The rattle didn’t come again. It didn’t need to.

Adam was starting to tremble with the strain of holding his position. Soon the tremble would become a shudder and then a fearful shaking. He had to move while he still had some control.

He drew a long slow breath, filling up his lungs, and held it. Very, very slowly, and very, very carefully, he started to draw back his extended right hand.

He might have made an inch, or maybe two, before the snake struck.

At first it was nothing but a hard grip clamping around his forearm. Then there was fearful pain as two curved spikes of ivory pierced the cloth of his sleeve and punctured skin, and muscle and sinew, almost to the bone.

Adam cried out aloud, and snatched himself back. It was already far too late. Lightening fast, the snake had done its worst. It had retreated again, unseen, into the darkness.

Adam hurled himself out of the cave, his forearm clasped tight against his body, his other arm wrapped round himself. His breath was coming in huge great sobs. He squeezed his eyes tight shut against sudden tears.

Out here in the open the storm was raging in full force against the desert. Lightening flashed and crackled among the clouds. Rain fell in sheets, washing down Adam’s upraised face like the tears of pain he would have liked to weep for himself, but couldn’t. Armies of hailstones marched across the land, rank upon rank. They clattered on rocks and shale-stone, bounced high into the air and formed drifts of dirty white ice. The light had turned tawny, stained by the setting sun behind the clouds. Adam clasped his arm to him, and cried his agony aloud into the storm.

How long it went on Adam never knew. It was the pain that finally got through to him. It pierced through the curtain of primordial terror in the same way the snake’s fangs had pierced his flesh. It reached the hard core of intellect that cowered inside.

The twin wounds were burning. The fire was spreading like acid in his blood. It was then that Adam’s intelligence; his knowledge, his training and his courage came to his aid. With an abrupt, crystal clarity he knew what had to be done.

He shrugged out of his coat and discarded the garment in a sodden heap on the ground. He tore the shirtsleeve away from his arm. There were two very neat, very deep puncture wounds in his forearm, just about two inches apart. They were not bleeding much. They hurt like the torment of hell. Quelling the panic that was rising up in his gut he plunged his hand deep into his pant’s pockets. He searched first the left, and then, twisting his body awkwardly, the right. He found what he needed, the folding pocketknife that he always carried.

Now he was starting to shake. He didn’t have any time to steady himself. He pulled the blade of the knife out with his teeth, offering up a small prayer of gratitude that he always kept it razor sharp.

Two swift slashes, the tradition was, right across the puncture wounds. Adam gritted his teeth and cut, once, and twice. The pain tore through him. For a moment a black abyss opened up in his mind, inviting him in. Adam didn’t dare pass out. He shoved the knife back into his pocket. He tore the neck-scarf from around his throat, and wrapped it tightly, if crudely ‘round his arm just above the elbow. He tied it with the help of his teeth.

Adam bent his head, clamped his mouth over the oozing slashes and sucked strongly. The hot iron taste of his own blood filled his mouth along with the burn of the poison. He spat forcefully into the storm, then sucked again and yet a third time. Turning his open mouth up into the driving rain, he rinsed and spat repeatedly.

His brain was buzzing and strange lights danced before his eyes. He knew the frontier lore for snakebite. Lie still; don’t move; don’t pump the poison through your heart. But was it better to die of the poison or drown in a flash flood? Not far away, he could hear the water already running in the streambed.

He drew another long, ragged breath and turned his face up again into the rain. He could feel the venom moving in his blood like a living, growing thing. It was spreading up his arm to his shoulder and his neck. He didn’t know what else he could do to stop it. He was starting to lose his grip on reality. His last truly rational thought was to get himself some help, ‘though where he might find it, at night, in a storm, in this desert wilderness was beyond his ability to ponder.

He looked around, vaguely, for his horse. The animal was gone, fled into the storm on the wings of fear. It was probably well on its way home by now.

Adam wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. The full fury of the storm crashed around him. He saw it, and heard it, and felt it deep in the marrow of his bones. It didn’t mean anything to him. He had no thoughts of finding shelter now. He started off down the hill in long lurching strides. He wrapped his arms round himself, one inside the other. His legs didn’t feel as if they belonged to him anymore. Somewhere along the way, his bladder let go. He was beyond noticing. He slipped and slid on the shale, falling more than once. He skinned his elbow and his hand on the rough rock and somewhere, grazed his face.

And then, as the rain finally began to let up, he fell again. This time, he was unable to get up. His legs refused to respond to the commands of his brain. The blood was burning through his veins. He was being consumed from the inside out. Sounds came from his mouth, weird, animal noises of fear without any rational thought behind them. Lightening flared again, afar off, reflecting in eyes that no longer held any clear understanding of what was happening to him. They held only a terror of the unknown and the fear of death.

The lightening was the last thing that he saw. His eyes closed, and he curled up around the agony of his arm. As the storm ceased and night fell, he sank into the welcome darkness of oblivion.

Two

A tiny dot in all the vastness of the desert, the wagon crawled slowly across the landscape like some carapaced beetle on a slow, but inevitable, collision course with destiny. The two mules that pulled it strained into their harnesses. It was obvious that the wagon was heavily laden. A woman drove it. She wore a pale blue dress and a frilled bonnet. Behind it rode a man on a fine bay horse.

The path that they followed was not a road in any true sense or any trail used by animals. It was a route sketched on a map laid down in their own minds. They knew where they were headed, and they knew the way they had to go to get there. If that way was unsigned and unmarked then, for them, it was so much the better. They passed over the land, and they left no trace behind them.

Following, broadly, the contours of the hills, they came at last to a place where they could see the way ahead. The woman tugged on the reins, drawing the mule team to a halt. She sat up straighter on the plank seat and pointed with an out flung arm. She called something out to the man. He rode forward, and they exchanged a few words, conversing quickly, anxiously. Then the man urged his horse forward into a quicker pace. He followed the direction that the woman had indicated.

Something dark, lying against the paler, stone-coloured sand of the desert had attracted their attention - something man sized. It was there that the horseman rode. As he neared, he could see that it was indeed the body of a man. He was dressed all in dark clothing, lying huddled up on the earth.

The horseman stopped. He looked down at the figure for a long spell of seconds. His eyes, light brown almost to the point of gold, searched for a movement, some sign of life. There seemed to be none. Then he saw the slightest heave of the rib cage as the fallen man drew a breath. The horseman stepped down from the saddle and dropped the reins. He knew that the bay horse would stand. He was a big man of about fifty years, in a grey hat, light coloured tailored shirt, and brown riding britches. He carried a riding whip in his hand.

He prodded the prone body with the toe of a high riding boot. It didn’t move. He bent down and touched the man’s shoulder. He could feel that life was, indeed, still present. Taking a firmer grip he rolled the body over and looked into the face.

It was the face of a dying man, dark with a stubble of beard, pale beneath an enduring tan, and damp with sweat as the sun’s heat leeched the moisture out of him.

The horseman could tell that there was more to it than some stranger being left afoot in the heat of the desert. He straightened up and waved an arm to the woman on the wagon, beckoning her over. She gee’d up the mules, and the wagon began again its slow creaking progress. The horseman crouched down again to make a more thorough examination.

It was easy enough to find the two puncture wounds, slashed through, on the right forearm. The man had known what to do to try to save himself, but from the separation of the punctures, the snake had been a big one, probably a diamond back. The amount of poison that had been delivered must have been huge. A crude tourniquet had slipped loose from around his upper arm and the arm itself was stiff and hugely swollen. On and around the wounds, the blood had caked and dried. From it the horseman could estimate the amount of time that had elapsed since the injury. The man’s clothes were dry on his back, but damp where he had lain on them, evidence that he had been out in last night’s storm. The horseman straightened up as the woman drove up in the wagon, and stood, still looking down, as she climbed down to join him.

She clung to his arm a moment, then started forward. He held her back. "You’re wasting your time, Miss Milly. There’s nothing to be done for him. He’s too far gone."

The woman gave him a hard look, then went forward again. This time the horseman let her go. She knelt down at the fallen man’s side, and, as she started to straighten out his twisted arms and legs, she studied his face.

She saw a strong face, darkly handsome beneath the pallor, of a man somewhere still in the first half of his thirties. He had high, wide cheekbones and well-fleshed cheeks, a firm mouth and chin, and deep-set eyes beneath dark brows. His eyelids, closed now, were fringed with dark lashes. When she lifted one, she could see that his unresponsive eyes were a deep shade of hazel-brown. His hair was as black as a raven’s wing, just beginning to recede at either temple to leave a distinct widow’s peak above a wide brow.

Miss Milly looked up at her companion, "Mister Sinclair, get the canteen from the wagon."

The horseman didn’t move. "He’s not worth wasting the water on, Miss Milly. He’s going to die, and soon."

The woman moved her hands downward over the stranger’s body with a certain possessiveness. She explored the rounded musculature of each arm and leg in turn. She felt the depth of the chest, and the hardness of the belly. Then she returned to the head and placed two fingers against the throat, feeling for the beat of the heart. "Fetch the canteen from the wagon, Mister Sinclair," she said again, and this time, the man did as she asked, albeit with something of a bad grace.

Miss Milly searched through the pockets of the black pants and came up with very little. A few dollars and some small change, a pocketknife with the blade still open, and a scrap of paper. As Sinclair returned with the canteen, she smoothed the paper out against her knee. "It’s a receipt for some harness," she said, reading, "Made out to an Adam Cartwright out of Virginia City." She handed the paper up in exchange for the canteen and un-stopped it. Holding up the unconscious man’s head with a hand around the back of his skull, she tried to pour a very scant amount of water between his lips. Adam Cartwright, if that indeed was his name, made no attempt to swallow. The water ran out of his mouth and into the thirsty sand. Sinclair watched angrily, balling the scrap of paper up in his hand and throwing it away into the desert.

"I told you, you’re wasting your time!"

Miss Milly sat back on her heels and studied Adam Cartwright again, "You may just be right," she said, with a slight frown, "But then ..." Again she put a hand, small and white, on the black clad thigh, and squeezed the muscles there. "He’s one powerful man. Just the sort we always look for. And out here in the desert alone - who’s to tell what happened to him?"

Sinclair considered, then hunkered down again and took Adam’s face between his big hands. He forced his jaws apart. Very carefully, without spilling a drop, Miss Milly poured a tiny amount of precious water in. This time it went down Adam’s throat.

Sebastian Sinclair was himself a very powerful man. He pulled Adam’s unconscious body into a sitting position, and stooping, picked him up across his shoulder. He carried him round to the back of the wagon and dumped him down on the bare boards of the wagon bed. Adam landed in the narrow space between the several huge barrels that formed almost the entirety of the wagon’s cargo. The back of his skull cracked against the rough boards. Sinclair unbuckled the gun belt from around Adam’s waist and pulled it out from under him "He won’t be needing this," he said. He stepped back and let Miss Milly take his place.

She leaned over Adam, and felt again for the beat of his blood in his throat.

"He’s very weak," she said, "The poison hasn’t run its course, and he may yet die." Lightly, her fingers brushed Adam’s chest, his shoulder, and his thigh. The little pointed tip of her tongue touched the edge of her top lip.

Standing behind her, looking over her shoulder, Sinclair scowled, "Live or die, he’ll have to do it on his own. We can’t afford to waste any more time on him." Tapping his riding whip against his thigh, he turned away and walked back to where his horse stood waiting.

Miss Milly touched Adam again, lingeringly, and then left him to walk round to the front of the wagon. She climbed back into the driving seat. In a few moments the wagon began to move again, so very slowly, across the desert landscape.

The desert became hotter. The sun rose higher into the midsummer sky, turning it into a dome of molten gold over the land. It baked out the last vestige of moisture from the stony soil. Within hours, it was as if the storm had never been.

The temperature soared. The small creatures of the desert: the snakes, the lizards and the sand voles, sought out the dark places.

Through it all, into the heat of the day, crept the wagon. The woman drove, and the man, beside her now, rode the tall bay horse. Miss Milly sat and watched the backs of the labouring mules. The thick leather reins were held loosely in her hands. Her elbows rested on her wide spread knees. Her eyes squinted forwards into the fierce glare. She did not look back at the man they had found dying in the desert. Neither did Sebastian Sinclair pay him any attention. The two of them concentrated solely on putting the hot dry miles behind them.

They didn’t talk much, hardly exchanging a word as the desert passed under the groaning wheels and the hours ticked by. They stopped only once, at about noon time, when the sun was at its highest. Each took one small sip of water from the canteen. Neither the animals, nor the man in the back of the wagon, received any such consideration.

The afternoon drew on, and towards evening, the little party moved into a range of low, brown hills. The sun touched the rim of the world and rested there for an instant of time. Sinclair pulled in his reins and drew the bay horse to a stop. He looked around him as if working out exactly where about on his mental map they were. Miss Milly pulled up the wagon and looked at him expectantly.

"We’ll stay here tonight," he said to her, "By tomorrow night we shall be home."

Miss Milly smiled at him, and the smile lit up her little, heart-shaped, face.

Sinclair stepped down from the horse, and, in a business like manner, the two of them set about preparing a small dry camp. Sinclair saw to the animals, doling out to each a small portion of grain and an even smaller measure of water. Miss Milly made a meal for the two of them, of cheese, and cold meat and bread. They lit no fire. As the chill of the desert night started to make itself felt, they draped blankets around their shoulders.

Almost as an afterthought, Sinclair pulled Adam Cartwright’s body from the back of the wagon. He dumped it unceremoniously, and none too gently, on the ground. Miss Milly crouched down, and put her finger to the pulse point in his throat. She felt the faintest flutter. She looked up at Sinclair in surprise. Both of them had expected Cartwright to be dead.

"I think you’d better give him some water." She said.

Sinclair hesitated, then fetched the canteen. "I still say you’re wasting your time." he told her, as together, they forced a few drops of the precious fluid between the unconscious man’s lips. "Even if he survives, you’re never going to get any work out of him."

Miss Milly looked at him across Adam’s body with amusement dancing in her eyes. "May be not," she said, "But you will."

The two of them sat well apart to eat their meagre meal. They finished with one more sip of water, just enough to keep body and soul together. The darkness and the silence of the desert settled all round them like a shroud. Overhead the stars started to shine out.

Sinclair went to make a last check on the animals. Miss Milly went to look at Adam.

The snake’s venom had finally run its course. Adam’s powerful heart, though once it had faltered, still beat. He showed no sign of coming round. His face remained pale, and he breathed only shallowly between parted lips. The pupils of his eyes remained pinpoint tight. Miss Milly pulled away the rags that were what remained of Adam’s shirtsleeve. She looked at the wounds in his arm. They were angry and inflamed.

He was starting to sweat, just a little, as his body began to fight the infection. Miss Milly used the bits of rag to dab at his face. He rolled his head against the ground, the first time she had seen him move of his own volition. She leaned over him, feeling the heat coming off him through his clothes. She savoured the smell of his breath and his sweat.

Returning, Sinclair glared at her but said nothing. He merely lay down on the ground and pulled his blanket tightly about him.

Adam’s fever built up steadily, and Miss Milly continued to pat his face. As the night wore on, she started to hum a little wordless song to him, on and on, into the dark hours. For a while it calmed him, but as midnight approached, and the pale moon showed its face above the hills, he began to toss and turn. He murmured bits of broken sentences through lips that were starting to swell with thirst. He made crude animal sounds of fear at something bestial that stalked his fevered dream. Sometimes he cried out sharply. At those times Miss Milly placed her hand on his brow and spoke to him, not soothingly but with firm authority, ordering him to be silent. Adam turned his face away from her. She pulled his head firmly back by the chin.

One by one, she undid the buttons of his shirt, pulling the cloth apart. Little by little, as she went, she exposed his sweating chest to the night air. He tossed fretfully in his fever. With a light touch, her hands traced round the curve of his ribs. Delicately she explored the depths of his navel and the mysteries of each nipple. Her small white fingers combed through his chest hair, then tightened suddenly in the little dark curls, twisting. In his delirium, Adam groaned aloud at the added pain. Miss Milly’s eyes grew bright.

Lying wrapped in his blanket with his back to them, Sinclair appeared to be sleeping, but his tawny eyes were open. He stared into the night and listened to the noises. In his soul the savage twins of love and envy started to do battle.

Morning dawned grey in the desert, long before the sun rose above the hills. The air was cool, but dry, and already filled with the promise of the heat to come. Sebastian Sinclair got up stiffly after a night spent on the hard ground. He had slept little, his thoughts filled with the sounds and the images that they conjured. He gazed round at the campsite and at the hills beyond. Nothing moved in the barren landscape. The silence was so intense that it made his ears sing with the sound of their own blood. Even the colours were muted, browns, and greys, and dusty green where a tired scrub bush struggled to survive.

Closer, the mules and his horse stood passively, waiting where he had tied them the night before. The man named Cartwright lay flat on his back on the ground. At some time during the night, he’d pushed away the blanket he’d been covered with. His arms and legs were thrown wide. Near him, but not close, Miss Milly also slept, curled, still wrapped in the cocoon of her own blanket. As Sinclair looked at them, his fists curled very slightly, but no measure of expression crossed his face.

Miss Milly stirred, waking gently as was her wont. She lifted herself up on her arms, and then looked round, finding Sinclair with her eyes. She smiled, and the smile was one of satisfaction. Sinclair did not smile back. After a moment of looking at her, he turned and walked away to give the animals their morning ration.

Miss Milly stood, and straightened her dress, and then the wisps of hair around her face. She put her bonnet on her head and fastened the ribbons under her chin. She looked after Sinclair for a moment, but he was working with his back to her, and resolutely refused to turn. She walked across to where Adam lay, and felt for his pulse. It was stronger now, and slower. His face was still bloodless and drawn. There were fine lines of pain round his mouth, but his fever had broken. She thought now that there was every chance that he might live. Content with that, she wiped her hands on her skirts, and walked back to the wagon to prepare a meal for herself and Sinclair.

Three

For Adam, the return to awareness was a long swim through dark waters. The intrinsic spark of his intelligence re-ignited somewhere in the bottom of a pit in Hades.

At first he was not in pain. In fact, he felt nothing. He heard nothing. He saw nothing. He was receiving no sensory input from his body at all. It was if he floated in the ultimate limbo. He thought he must be dead and that this must be some lightless anti-room of the hereafter, but in the very thinking of it, he realized that could not be so. The very acknowledgement of thought was, in itself, proof that he still lived.

The first sensations that came to him were a feeling of overwhelming weakness that made him know he’d been ill, and a strange sense of motion. Then the pain began to make itself felt. It insinuated itself into the very fibres of his being. He ached deep down in every bone and every sinew. There was pounding pain in his head. His arm seared in fire. His lips parted and he felt them crack. The air that filled his lungs, and lifted his chest, was hot and dry, painful to breathe. He expelled it in a low groan, the first purposeful sound he had made in a long time.

His head rolled against an unyielding surface. His whole body lay on its back on something rough, and hard - and moving. The feeling of motion over rough ground was unmistakable.

Adam opened his eyes - and closed them again instantly against the pain of light that was too bright to be borne. He was laying on his back, with his face to the open sky, and the sun already high. After images burned in his brain as he tried to make sense of where he was and what was happening to him.

The wagon wheel climbed a rock and dropped with a jolt. The sudden jar brought Adam finally up out of that dark well. He tried to roll onto his side to get the sun out of his face, but his weakness betrayed him. He was trapped on his back like a turtle in its shell. All he could do was thrash helplessly with his arms and legs.

Adam tried to get his thinking processes back into gear. He had a distinct memory of the snakebite, but almost no recollection of anything that came afterwards. It was apparent that, against the probabilities, someone had found him in time and was now transporting him to a place of safety.

His mouth was so dry it was painful, and his tongue had swollen. Although he felt the need to call out to someone, the best he could manage was a croak. There was nothing he could do except wait, while the burning sun beat down on him. After a time he lapsed again into unconsciousness.

It was the uneven rocking of the wagon’s motion that lulled him. It was the cessation of movement that woke him again, to the real world.

He recognized the lurch of the wagon as someone got out of the driving seat. Then he heard voices. Adam opened his eyes and squinted up at the sky, listening hard, but the murmur was too low for him to distinguish the words. Then he felt movement closer to him. A face moved into his field of vision.

It was the face of a woman, neither old, nor young, pale complexioned, beneath a bonnet belonging to a bygone age. She had sharp, high cheekbones, and a pointed chin, and a pair of the bluest, brightest, eyes Adam had ever seen. He stared for a moment, entranced. And then the woman smiled. There was something strange that happened to her face when she smiled, and particularly to her eyes, that made Adam feel chilled despite the heat of the sun.

"Why, Mister Cartwright," her voice was a curious admixture of homely and sweet, slightly throaty. "It’s so nice to have you rejoin us."

Adam tried to speak, but could only gasp between parched membranes. He begged her with his eyes for the relief of water on his lips.

She leaned over him, still smiling, and her face filled the whole of his world. "Don’t you worry none," she said, crooning, "You’ve had a snakebite, and the fevers, but now you’re on the mend. You’re going to be just fine." With small white hands she touched his face and then brushed his hair back from his forehead.

She smelled the stale sweat of fever on him and the fresher sweat of fear. She saw the look in his eyes, puzzlement and concern. It excited her.

Adam found himself wanting to get away from this woman. Her touch, her attention, felt somehow, unclean. He was held in place by his own weakness. Her face loomed large; her bright eyes half closing.

The voice that came from somewhere outside Adam’s field of vision was a man’s voice, modulated, educated, clipped. "Miss Milly,"

The woman drew back, her smile fading. The man spoke again,

"We have to be moving on."

Miss Milly vanished from Adam’s view, to be replaced a few moments later by Sinclair.

Sebastian Sinclair hitched a buttock over the end of the wagon and sat close to Adam’s head. He didn’t look at Adam, but instead poured a small measure of water from a canteen into the screw cap. He sipped it slowly, gazing out over the desert with far-focussed eyes.

Adam rolled his head against the wooden boards of the wagon bed. He watched with fevered longing as Sinclair slowly drank his water down. He could almost taste the water on his tongue, feel it in his throat.

Finally, when he had finished his drink, Sinclair screwed the top back on the canteen. He turned his face towards Adam. His eyes were the colour of a tawny owl’s eyes, a strange yellowish brown, and they held amusement, contempt and dislike.

"So, Cartwright," he said, with a sneer in his voice, "You’ve decided to live after all? That may be a decision you come to regret." He laughed, and it was a sharp, barking laugh that was not nice to hear.

Adam drew a breath, and said, carefully, "Water."

The word came out as a croak, but Sinclair understood the meaning well enough. A mean smile spread across his tanned face. "You want a drink?" He asked, "Something you’ll have to learn is that water is a scarce commodity where we’re going. You have to earn it."

He looked for the understanding in Adam’s eyes and saw it dawn. "That’s right," he said

softly, "I own you, now, Cartwright, body and soul. You’ll do what I say, and you’ll do it when I say. You’ll live if I let you, and you’ll die when I decide you die." He watched Adam’s face carefully.

Adam was just beginning to understand something of what he had gotten in to. He had heard about men like this, white slavers of the worst kind. They operated to the South, in Mexico, Arizona and Southern California. They made their livings by snatching men and women from in the midst of their lives, and selling them on as property, or working them to death in factories, or mines, or onboard ship. Few who were taken were ever seen again.

Their bones were hidden away and left to rot in some unknown place. Without conscious consideration, Adam made the decision that he was not going to be one of them.

Sebastian Sinclair saw that Adam had thought it through, and he saw the determination forming in his eyes and in the set his of his jaw.

"You never know," he said, with a smile that verged on the genuine, "You might come to enjoy it. Stranger things have been known." He looked at the canteen in his hand, and his smile spread, "Of course, as I’m a generous man, I’ll let you have some on account." He unscrewed the top of the canteen, and holding it where Adam could watch, he poured a tiny amount of water into the lid. He held Adam’s head by the hair, and poured the water into his mouth and onto his tongue - just one drop.

The little party started to move again, Sinclair riding beside the wagon on his horse. From where he lay in the bed of the wagon, Adam could see his face from time to time, between the tops of the barrels. It was a hard, flat-planed face beneath the grey hat, with a straight mouth and square chin. A cruel face.

Adam knew that if he was going to get himself out of this, he had to start functioning again as a human being. He concentrated on getting some feeling back into his arms and legs. He had to regain some measure of control over a nervous system shot all to hell by the alkaline poison of the snake venom. In an hour he could clench and unclench his fists, ‘though his right hand was still stiff. Inside two hours, he could drag himself up into a semi-sitting position with his back up against one of the iron bound casks. All the power that he was used to having in his big body, and his control over it, was missing. His limbs trembled as the powerful poison crippled his nervous system to the point of an imminent breakdown. He shivered and sweated, ‘though he could ill afford the fluids. He was very much afraid.

Adam was well aware that Sinclair was watching him from the saddle but refused steadfastly to meet the tawny eyes. He knew that what he’d find there would be cynical amusement and contempt. Adam was content, for the moment, merely to get the sun out of his face.

He tried to work out where they were and where they were going. The wagon was moving slowly, further into the range of brown hills. There was very little vegetation and no animal life to be seen. Only a lone kite drifted with widely spread wings on the rising thermals. The rock formations were rounded and tumbled, unlike those of the Sierras. Adam guessed that they were travelling steadily into the deserts west of the Excelsior Mountains and the Gillis Range, somewhere west of Mount Grant.

They didn’t stop again. Miss Milly kept the mules pulling steadily all through the heat of the long afternoon and well into the evening. She and Sinclair didn’t talk much. Both of them seemed to know where they heading in this desolate, unmarked country. Neither of them spoke to Adam.

The hills became higher, and, if possible, more barren. The vales between were deeper, but no less dry.

The orb of the sun was dipping down between two of the hills, falling into the west, when Adam sensed that they approached their destination. The sky began to redden as they rolled over the shoulder of one last hill and toiled down the final slope. It was in a light that had become the colour of blood, that Adam first beheld his new home.

Four

There was a depression in the land where three hillsides came down together, which had, at some time, been leveled out.

Adam could see a couple of lean-to shacks, without doors and not too much in the way of walls. They looked to be constructed of bits of board and scraps of cloth, and were more or less open to the elements. They stood some distance apart. Separated from both of them, on the other side of the encampment entirely, was another, larger structure of black canvas. This had some sort of crude awning stuck up on poles outside. Other than that, there was nothing of any kind to indicate a human habitation, excepting, perhaps, for a number of unnatural looking heaps of rock and earthy rubble piled about, apparently at random.

The wagon creaked to a final halt.

Sinclair stepped out of his saddle, and, for the first time, played every inch the gentleman. He handed Miss Milly down from the driving seat. Then he walked round to the rear of the wagon.

Adam knew what was expected and didn’t wait to be told. He eased his legs over the backboard and lowered himself down.

His knees betrayed him instantly, refusing to support his weight for a single second. He fell forward and landed unceremoniously on his hands, and face, in the dirt. Sinclair stood over him, and laughed.

"Not so clever as you thought, are you, Cartwright?"

Adam stayed right where he was for a time. All he could see was an expanse of stony soil and Sinclair’s riding boots, once highly polished, now coated thickly with the brown dust of the desert. He was acutely aware that both of them were looking at him, Sinclair with contempt, amusement, and dislike, Miss Milly, with something deeper and darker, and not so easy to understand in her face. Adam was finding it difficult to cope with that something.

Sinclair’s voice came again, coldly mocking, "Come on, Cartwright. Let’s see how good you really are. Up on your feet!"

It was a command that Adam would have liked to obey. He would far rather have confronted his tormentor face to face, in an upright position, than as he was, almost prone on the ground. But where the spirit might have been willing, the flesh was unable to comply. He walked himself backward on his hands as far as to his knees, and knelt there, swaying.

Sinclair gave another sort, sharp bark of savage laughter. He hooked one hand under Adam’s armpit and hauled him up onto his feet as easily as if he had been a rag doll. He slammed him hard into the back of the wagon. Adam clung on to the boards, desperate not to fall over again.

He saw Miss Milly standing off to one side, her head on one side, smiling. Adam still had a full measure of Cartwright pride. He hauled himself into a straighter position and lifted his head.

Sinclair looked from one to the other of them, something odd glowing in his curiously coloured eyes. He tapped his riding crop against his leg, and then he barked another of his short laughs, "Come on then. This way," he indicated direction with his riding crop.

Adam took a staggering step, and then his knees started to fold again. Try as he might it was impossible for him to walk anywhere. For a moment he thought Sinclair was going to make him crawl.

Sinclair looked across at Miss Milly and something passed between them over Adam’s bowed head.

Sinclair took Adam’s arm forcefully across his shoulder and lifted him. He half marched, half dragged, him away from the wagon. He took him to the smallest and meanest of the lean-to arrangements. There he let go of him, letting him sprawl full length onto the rough tattered blanket that was all that formed a floor over the stony ground.

Adam got his hands under himself and managed to turn himself over onto his back. He didn’t trust himself to try to speak, but instead, concentrated on keeping his breathing steady. He let his eyes do his talking for him. In the gathering gloom they burned in their dark depths with an intense and feral hatred that the other man couldn’t fail to recognize.

Sinclair sneered at him, "I can see you’re an intelligent man, Cartwright. Use your intelligence. It might just keep you alive."

Adam moved his head against the ground, lifting his chin, defying him. Sinclair’s smile faded away. He pointed with the riding crop, "It’s going to be sheer pleasure, breaking you."

As Sinclair stepped away, Adam saw the woman standing not far behind him, watching, and waiting her turn. Adam would rather, by far, have avoided the attentions of either of them at just that moment. It seemed he had no choice.

Miss Milly glanced after Sinclair’s retreating back and then came forward. She knelt beside Adam and touched him with her hands. Adam did his best to escape her and failed.

"Now, now, Mister Cartwright," She crooned, stroking, "It’s going to be all right. You’ll find that everything will be all right."

Adam summoned enough moisture into his mouth so that he could speak, "Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!"

Miss Milly drew back, and it seemed that a shiver went through her. She looked up as Sinclair returned, carrying something heavy, which he dropped, on to the ground beside Adam’s feet. She got up quickly and backed away.

Sinclair looked down with the smirk back on his square, handsome features, "Just a little thing to make sure you stay nailed down, Cartwright," he said, "Can’t have you running off into the desert and getting all lost, now can we? No way of telling what could happen to a man out there."

Crouching down he pulled out a pocket-knife and slit Adam’s pants leg to the knee.

Adam could see what was coming. Sudden panic dredged deeply in some hidden resource. With all the strength he had left, he hurled himself upwards at Sinclair, reaching for him, determined at all costs to stop him and, if possible, to break his damned neck. Sinclair flat-handed him hard in the chest, sending him sprawling back.

Adam tried to toss himself away, arching his back. Sinclair merely laughed.

Sinclair glanced up at Miss Milly, who was standing against the back wall of the lean-to with one hand pressed, white knuckled, against her mouth. The other hand was twisted tightly into the skirt of her dress. Her eyes were wide and bright.

Deftly, Sinclair clamped a close-fitting shackle of black iron around Adam’s shin, just above the top of his boot. He locked it closed with a square, black padlock. To the shackle was attached a short, but weighty, chain and to that, by a ring, a large, squared off, block of iron.

Adam rolled his head against the ground in mental anguish. For the moment, all thoughts of possible escape had been completely banished. Nothing remained to him but a yawning black pit of despair.

As the darkness of the desert night settled around them, Miss Milly brought him water in a small tin cup - there was no more than an eggcup full. Adam reached for it greedily, but she held it well away from him, out of his reach.

"No, no, Mister Cartwright," she said, smiling her strange smile. She had exchanged her deep bonnet for a little black satin cap, tied under her chin with a huge bow. Around it wisps of her hair peaked out, fair, fading to grey.

She knelt down beside him and lifted his head against her knee, "Slowly. Slowly," she crooned. She fed the water to him, one drop at a time. Between sips she stroked his face, his cheeks, his chin, his ears and his eyelids.

When the water was gone, she set the cup aside, and allowed her fingers to wander further. Her hands found their way inside his open shirt, slowly tracking downwards. They traced the edge of his belt.

He tried to push her hands away, but his right arm was still all but useless, and at this exact moment, she was stronger than he was. Her eyes glittered in the darkness.

One of her hands smoothed its way across the front of his pants, applying pressure. Shamefully, his body betrayed him. She felt his manhood swell and rise. Miss Milly smiled. She undid the buttons. Her hands were warm and dextrous and she was persistent. Adam cried out and writhed, trying to escape both the woman’s hands and something else that touched him to the very core of his soul. Her own breathing quickened.

She stayed with him, caressing him, talking to him, until he was spent.

She stroked his face as if to soothe him. He rolled his head away from her, precious moisture leaking from his eyes in tears of shame. She licked the salty drops from his cheek with her little pointed tongue.

Not far away in the darkness, Sinclair stood listening and watching, tapping his riding crop rhythmically against his leg. There was a hard, bright look in his yellow eyes.

Following a dominated childhood and a violent, loveless marriage, Miss Milly was the only woman he would ever, could ever, love, and then only at a respectful, adoring distance. He would never approach her or she him. To hear her take her pleasure with another man, even one weakened by illness and in chains, was more than he could bear.

Even though he suffered, he stood there until the sounds ceased. When it was over, he moved silently away into the night.

Later, when it was quite dark and he was finally alone, Adam lay on his back, and watched, as the silver stars wheeled in silent majesty above the broken roof of the lean-to shelter.

His feelings towards Miss Milly were ambiguous. She was a woman, and Adam respected women. He loathed what she had done to him, and even more, he despised his body’s unwitting response. He had heard of such women, in bar room talk and innuendo, had read about them in literature. He had never encountered one before. While Adam was not averse to playing rough on occasion, he liked to take the lead himself, with an amenable partner of his own choosing. Miss Milly and her small, white hands repulsed him.

He thought about what he had come to. Already his past life was beginning to seem like something out of a dream. The places he had known, the voices, even the faces, of those he had loved, were fading from his memory. It was as if he had awakened suddenly from some somnolent fantasy, and they were figments dissolving away into the daylight.

For Adam Cartwright, this, the nightmare, had become the reality.

Sometime after midnight he slipped into a fitful, fretful sleep that was filled with nightmares. He was afoot, dying of exhaustion and thirst, lost and alone in the desert - and something huge and dark stalked him, through the sunlight, and into the shadows of his mind.

Five

In the cool grey light of the desert dawn, Adam woke up to find that he was not alone in the little lean-to hovel. There were two other men. They were half sitting, half sprawled, in positions that indicated that they too, had just awakened. They were watching Adam with wary, but not unfriendly, eyes.

Adam tried to get up and found, if he moved with care, he could attain a sitting position. The pain, and the incapacity that had been the legacy of the snake’s venom, had mostly gone. It had left a variety of vague aches in his joints and muscles and an abiding weakness. His head, finally, was clear.

His arm was hurting.

He took a long look at it. It was still swollen and discoloured, bruised looking. The puncture wounds, and the twin slashes he had inflicted himself, were dry and healing. They still showed signs of inflammation. He knew that the cuts should have been stitched. They were going to leave more ugly scars to add to a growing collection.

He slid a hand down his leg. The shackle, and its attachments, were still there, a part of the on-going nightmare. It fit tightly. Even if he stripped off boot and sock, there was no hope of forcing the padlocked band of iron over the heel of his foot. Reluctantly, he resigned himself to the fact that, for the moment at least he wasn’t going anywhere.

From behind him, the big man said, "The last man that wore that shackle, died in it.".

Adam turned, and revised his initial impression. He had been a big man, once, of something approaching Hoss’s height and stature. Now he was a small man, stretched out on a big man’s frame. The barrel chest showed a stark rib cage through the open, button-less front of a tattered shirt. Corded muscles and tendons stood out plainly beneath the sun-darkened skin of his neck and arms. The greying hair was ragged, and just growing too over-long. "He was a pig headed, stubborn, fool of a man. Stood up to Sinclair once too often. Sinclair killed him," The eyes that looked Adam over so appraisingly, were the same brown as the desert soil, and almost as dull, "So, you’re Miss Milly’s new favourite." the rough voice was loaded with meaning.

Adam felt his face darken with blood, and he lowered his eyes.

"Don’t you worry none about that," The big man shrugged philosophically, "It ain’t your fault, what she done. She’s got a real talent with a man, an’ what with you bein’ sick an’ all... ‘Course, she don’t bother me and William none. I guess she likes to go for the pretty ones. I’m Gillium Hobart." He held out a dirty and callused hand, "My friends always call me Gill."

Adam took the offered hand in his own, "Adam Cartwright."

"An’ this here’s William."

William was a black man. His skin was as dark and as shiny as polished ebony and his eyes were as black as night. Lean to begin with, now he was emaciated. He had a sunken belly below his rib cage and jutting bones at shoulders and cheeks.

"William," Adam held out his hand.

The Negro eyed it as if it were a snake about to strike. He wiped the palms of his hands against his thighs. His gaze flicked to Adam’s face, "I ain’t never shook no hand with no white man," he said.

Adam found abruptly that all the principles by which he lived were put on trial there and then. His hand held steady, "Well, shake one now," he said evenly. "William?"

"Just William. I ain’t got no other name."

William put out his hand tentatively, and Adam took it in his own firm grip. The two men shook hands gravely. After a moment, a slow smile spread across William’s face, "I sure am pleased ta meet ya, Masta Adam."

"I’m not your master," Adam said, "Just call me Adam. It’s my name."

William gazed at him with eyes grown huge, "I ain’t never called no white man by his given name ‘afore!"

Adam smiled, "Then, I guess, this is a day of firsts."

Hobart and William wore the ruins of clothing that hung from them in rags and tatters. Hobart had a pair of boots. William had just his big, black, bare feet. Both of them were shackled by the ankle, as Adam was, to huge, misshapen blocks of iron.

"I was a wagoner," Hobart told Adam, "Just doin’ my job. Mindin’ my own business. Sinclair comes ridin’ out o’ the desert one day, on that fancy red horse o’ his. Reckon I was a damn fool ta let him get around behind me. Next thing I knew, I was wakin’ up here. I had a wife an’ a kid back home. A little boy. Don’t suppose I shall ever get ta see them ag’in.

"As fer William, reckon Sinclair bought him off’n his master someplace out in Californy."

Adam understood. Although President Abe. Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on the first day of eighteen sixty-three, effectively freeing all slaves, there were still men who bought and sold human souls, black and white alike.

"What about you, Adam?"

"I work for my Pa, mostly. He runs a ranch out by Lake Tahoe."

"He gonna miss ya?"

Adam’s lips twitched in a humourless smile, "He’ll miss me."

The crunch of boots against stony ground alerted them all to Sinclair’s approach. He wore the same clothes as before, the tight tailored shirt and riding breeches, but, despite a stubble of beard, he looked clean and dapper compared to the three who eyed him with varying degrees of apprehension and resentment.

He looked round at them, an amiable enough expression on his block-like features. His eyes were as hard as yellow amber, "I see you’ve already introduced yourselves," He said, in his short clipped manner. His gaze flicked from face to face, reading the expressions in each man’s eyes. A wary and growing hatred in Adam Cartwright’s, bitter resignation in Hobart’s, terror in William’s.

He shifted his position, and it was then that Adam noticed, as Sinclair had fully intended that he should, the one change in his costume. He had exchanged his English-style riding crop for the long, thin, black tail of a stingray. It was a whip more suited to a man than a horse. He tapped it lightly against his booted leg, watching Adam’s face, as he made his assessment, with amusement.

"As you’re all such good friends already," He went on, "I’ll leave it to you, Hobart, to show Cartwright around and tell him the rules." He smiled a thin, wolf-like smile. "We wouldn’t want him to make any mistakes, now would we? He might just get himself hurt." He tapped the whip against his leg again, suggestively, aware that they all understood his meaning perfectly.

Adam said, levelly, "You’re not going to get away with this." He looked up at Sinclair and his dark eyes were bitter.

"Indeed? And just who do you think is going to stop me, Cartwright?" Sinclair’s eyes glittered with hard amusement.

Adam drew a careful breath, "For a start there’s the law..."

"The law!" Sinclair mimicked, and scoffed, "D’you think the law will ever find out what happened to you?"

"I have friends and family. They’ll come looking for me."

"You think so?" Sinclair contemplated a moment. Then, "If they look for you at all, they’ll think you died in that desert, your bones scattered to the Four Corners by animals. They might search for a while, but they won’t find anything. Eventually, they’ll stop looking." He smiled, thinly, "Of course, if it helps to keep on hoping..." He concluded with an abrupt shrug.

Sinclair included them all in his look "Ten minutes, gentlemen, at the water wagon. Don’t be late." With a sharp, mean bark of laughter he turned on his heel and marched back towards the other shack.

Adam watched him all the way. "My family won’t stop looking." He said, with quiet assurance. His gaze switched to Hobart’s face, "What d’you know about Sinclair?"

"Not much." Hobart shrugged, "From somewhere back east, I think. Got himself all twisted up in the war."

Adam picked up the chain in his fist, "And why this?"

Gillium Hobart sighed and shook his head, "I heard ‘em talkin’ once, Sinclair an’ Miss Milly. They got some sort of deal with a fella called Gillit. ‘ Runs manufacturing and mining interests way up north, from what I heard. Ever’ so often he comes on down an’ picks up whatever men Sinclair has for him. Pay’s a good price I reckon."

"What does he do with the men?"

Hobart shrugged, "I di’n’t hear tell. Don’t suppose none of ‘em ever find their way home."

Adam digested that, "And the woman?"

"Miss Milly? She’s a weird one."

Adam’s lips quirked. He’d noticed that for himself.

Hobart grinned mirthlessly and went on, "Sinclair’s besotted with her. He treats her just like she’s his sister. You’ll have to watch out, Adam. She’s taken quite a shine to you, and Sinclair will do everything he can to make your life purgatory."

Adam rubbed his leg where the shackle already chaffed him and reflected that for an active, civilized human being, he was well on his way there already.

Adam emerged, blinking, from the lean-to into the steadily brightening light of the desert morning and took a long hard look at his surroundings. Set in a shallow valley between the desolate brown hills, the encampment was very simply set up. The three captives, Adam, Hobart and William, shared the primitive lean-to. The other shack, larger, but equally mean and ramshackle, was Sinclair’s. Miss Milly inhabited the black tent alone, and that was strictly off limits.

There was no outhouse. Privy arrangements were of the crudest imaginable - a few bits of board across a hole in the ground. The stench was enough to turn a strong man’s stomach. Whenever Miss Milly headed out that way, the men sought other things to look at.

Further along the flat valley, half concealed by the slow, but steadily drifting brown dirt, were the sorry remains of several old-style, Conestoga wagons. All that was left were the boat-like wagon beds, lop-sided and filled to the brims with rubble, home only to a few wisps of colourless desert grass. The ancient timbers, once painted blue below and bright red above, had been blasted by years of wind-borne debris, and were now much the same colour as the surrounding hills. Two or three of the hoops that had once supported the distinctive canvas covers still protruded from the ground in mute testimony to the endurance of the construction material. A shattered wheel lay against the hillside, and another, missing only one spoke, lay flat in the centre of the valley.

When he looked more closely, Adam could see that a lot of the white objects lying here and there, in drifts, amongst the rocks and rubble, were the bleached bones of the oxen that had once hauled the sad little wagon train out of the east. The earth was gradually claiming them. He paused to wonder what might have become of the men and the women whose hopes and aspirations had ended right here, in this remote and desolate place where even God seemed to have turned his face away. There was no sign of any human burial.

Scraped into the side of the hill was a semi-circular depression. An excavation had been begun here at some time, though for what purpose, Adam was at a loss to understand. It had long been abandoned and all but reclaimed by the slowly shifting landscape. Now, in a haphazard and desultory way, it was being reworked.

Adam found moving about difficult. The block of black iron chained to his leg weighed as much as he would normally be able to lift. In his weakened state, the best he could do was drag it behind him. Every step, he could feel Sinclair’s eyes on him, and sensed his animosity and his satisfaction. It was one more point on the tally sheet that Adam was subconsciously beginning to keep. He was more uncomfortably aware of Miss Milly. In her blue dress and deep bonnet, she had emerged from the tent and watched with brilliant eyes the little procession of men as they made their slow and laboured way towards the wagon.

The barrels in the wagon, with which Adam had become so intimately familiar during his ride across the desert, were full of water. Sinclair was very strict about doling out of the precious liquid. No one was permitted anywhere near it unless he was there, and, in truth, he and Miss Milly allowed themselves scarcely more than they did their captives. Sinclair gave each man a small drink in the morning, one at noon, when the sun was at its highest, and one in the evening. There were no extra rations.

On that first morning, Adam held the tin cup between hands that shook and resisted the urge to drink it all down in a single swallow. Instead, he sipped it very slowly, giving his body a chance to absorb all the moisture without making himself sick.

Sinclair watched with cynical amusement. "Come on, Cartwright," he jeered, "Drink up. It’s pay-back time. Time for you to start doing something for me!"

Inside Adam’s mind it was as if a switch that had been left open, suddenly closed. The last of his debility fell from him. A thin veil lifted from in front of his eyes. He realized that he had been in danger of falling into an age-old trap, that of slave and master dependency, the reliance of the long-term sick upon their nursemaid. Adam Cartwright was no longer sick and neither was he a slave. He had no intention whatever of becoming one. He Recognized that Sinclair was an arrogant bully - a cruel man - and a ruthless one, but there was more to it than that. There was a glitter in the man’s yellow eyes that spoke of madness. Adam knew he would have to be careful, but there had to be a way out of this, and he was damned well going to find it!

Adam swilled the last of the water ration round inside his mouth and swallowed it. Slowly and deliberately, he put the tin cup down.

Sinclair saw the change in his body language, the slight straightening of his spine and the tightening of the muscles in his jaw, and he knew what it meant. The mocking amusement in his eyes died. Cartwright was a big man. He was as solidly built as Sinclair himself, and younger, toughened by a lifetime of hard work. He was recovering swiftly now from effects of the snakebite. Sinclair resisted the urge to take a step backwards.

Adam lifted his head to look at him, and his eyes were very dark and very dangerous. He stepped away from where William cowered in terror, and Hobart watched with wary eyes. "I have no intention of doing anything for you," he said, with quiet, controlled precision, "Not here. Not now. Not ever."

Sinclair’s face worked furiously. His yellowish eyes blazed, and a damp sheen of sweat broke out on his neck, "You’ll work for me!" He snarled, You’ve taken my hospitality, and my water, and now, I guarantee, you’ll work!" Agitated, he slapped the length of the whiplash against his trousered leg.

Adam did not deign to look down at it. Very slightly, without taking his hard, defiant gaze from Sinclair’s face, he shook his head, "No," he said, simply.

Sinclair’s mouth twitched violently. He made an inarticulate sound of rage. His hand jerked in a reflexive movement. The thin, black whip lashed out.

Adam’s eyes flared abruptly with pain. He turned his head to look at his upper arm where a wet line of red showed where he had been cut. Then he looked back at Sinclair, and there was a new expression in his eyes. It was an expression that would have frightened anyone who knew him. He said, "The answer’s still, no, Sinclair."

Sinclair lashed out again, this time aiming higher - aiming for Adam’s face.

Adam was faster. Left-handed, he snatched the lash out off the air. It cut his into his hand but at that moment, he scarcely noticed and didn’t care. He stepped forward, and, with his right hand, grabbed Sinclair by the shirtfront. The two men stood toe to toe. Adam’s grip tightened, twisting. He was the taller, and Sinclair’s feet started to come off the ground.

Adam shook him, just a little, and had the satisfaction of hearing teeth rattle, "You get the keys," he hissed, "And you get these leg irons off!"

What Sinclair did then, to Adam’s surprise, was to laugh.

It started as a sort of shrilling, high up in his chest and turned quickly into high-pitched wheezing and gurgling. The rage in Adam’s eyes faded, to be replaced, partly, by puzzlement. He let Sinclair down far enough to take the weight back on his feet. The laugh became more normal, but was still very strange. Disarmed and disgusted, Adam pushed him away, sending him stumbling backwards into the side of the water wagon.

Sinclair continued to laugh, "The joke’s on you, Cartwright! Don’t you see?"

Adam moved in close again, threatening violence by his very posture, "What are you talking about?"

"I can’t set you lose," Still laughing, Sinclair held up his hands as if to fend Adam off, "Even if I wanted to. I don’t have the keys. Miss Milly has them, and she isn’t ever going to let you go!"

Adam drew back, his expression growing blacker, and more furious, as he absorbed what he’d heard. He eyed Sinclair with open disgust and contempt. The man was an anathema to every principle that Adam adhered to. The emotions that Adam felt transcended mere hatred. Adam detested and despised him, his attitudes and his actions, and he made no attempt to conceal it. The fact that Sinclair was mad did nothing to obviate his feelings

Then he lifted his gaze to seek out the woman.

She was not far away. She stood watching with the backs of her white fingers pressed hard against her mouth. Her bright blue eyes glittered with ferocious amusement. Adam knew then that what Sinclair said was true. Despite Sinclair’s violence and his mania, it was the woman who was his real enemy.

Still chuckling, Sinclair walked past Adam and retrieved his fishtail switch. He started herding Hobart and William away from the water wagon, towards the scattered earth-works. Aware that he’d come off the worse in the encounter, Adam glared darkly at the woman, and hauled the iron weight labouriously back to the lean-to.

Adam sat in the only patch of shade provided by the broken roof and fingered the despised chain. He watched from beneath lowered brows as Sinclair doled out meagre rations of water to his horse and the two mules. His mind was filled with dark and angry thoughts. There were not that many men that Adam Cartwright wished dead. The name of Sebastian Sinclair was rapidly rising towards the top of a short and select list. Not far below it, despite the fact that he’d been brought to manhood respecting and revering women, was that of Miss Milly.

Finished with the animals, Sinclair followed Adam to the lean-to. He kept carefully out of the range of Adam’s powerful hands and sat down on the ground. He wrapped his arms ‘round his knees. The bright madness had left his eyes to be replaced with caution, and, perhaps, just a trace of grudging respect.

Adam glowered at him, "What do you want, Sinclair?"

"To talk," Sinclair shrugged and fiddled with the handle of his whiplash, "It may be that we can come to some sort of arrangement, you and I."

Adam didn’t try to keep the snarl, or the disdain, out of his voice, "I can’t think of any sort of arrangement that I would ever want to enter into with you."

Sinclair smirked, seemingly unaffected by Adam’s tone, "You’re obviously an educated man. I could do with your help to keep my little enterprise here on track."

Adam eyed him suspiciously. He was wondering just how much of his personal integrity he was going to have to lay on the line to extract himself from Sinclair’s clutches, "I want no part in the enslaving of other human beings," He said, levelly. His dislike was apparent in his attitude and his expression.

Sinclair chuckled, "How very noble of you, Cartwright," he sneered, "There’s a great demand for strong men in certain mines and factories of the north. And a great deal of money to be made trading in them."

"And that’s your justification for this?" Adam thrust a fistful of chain towards him.

Sinclair waved that aside, "That’s not what I have in mind. You’ve seen what happened here," He gestured in the general direction of the wagons, "Some sort of minor tragedy, you’d assume?"

"Not so minor for the poor devils who died."

Sinclair dismissed that remark as well. "Legend has it that these wagons were carrying a fortune in gold, and jewels, when they drove into this desert. They never came out again. No one ever knew what happened to them until I discovered them, here."

Adam was scornful, "And you think their gold is here?"

"Where else? This was as far as they got. Who knows what happened to them? Perhaps their animals died, or they got sick. Whatever it was, they started digging into that hillside. Why would they do that, if not to bury their gold?"

Adam gazed towards the skeletal remains of the wagons. Sinclair’s suggestion was preposterous. It was more likely by far, that the wagons had never carried any gold, that the excavation was some other, older relic, perhaps of the peoples who had inhabited these deserts long before the coming of the white man. It looked ancient enough.

"I’m prepared to make you an offer," Sinclair glanced round theatrically, as if ensuring confidentiality, "A strong man like your self is worth a lot of money to me. But if you help me find that gold, I’ll see that you get to walk out of this desert."

"And what about Gill Hobart, and William?"

Sinclair’s face worked, "You drive a hard bargain, Cartwright. I have obligations to meet, a quota to fill."

Adam leaned forward until his face was so close to Sinclair’s that he could smell his breath, "That’s my price. Otherwise, I won’t dirty my hands with your nasty little enterprise."

Sinclair’s face went red and then stark white beneath his tan. For a moment, Adam thought he was going to have some sort of seizure. Then he drew a breath and steadied himself, "All right," he snarled, "have it your way," He stood up and flexed the whiplash between his hands, "Freedom for the three of you, in exchange for the gold."

Adam rose slowly, gracefully, to his feet. The power in his big body was returning, and he had seen fear in Sinclair’s eyes. He said, carefully, "You’d better show me what you have."

Sinclair’s excavation, even in the privacy of his own mind, Adam refused to grace it with the term ‘mine’, was, in the first place, little more than a scraped working in the side of the hill. Bushels of the brown, sandy soil, shale and lose rock had been removed to the new spoil heaps. A half-moon shaped depression had been cleared all the way down to the bedrock. William and Hobart were labouring, on hands and knees, to extend the workings around and beyond a huge white boulder half buried in the hillside.

Adam looked around at the steeply sloping sides. The rock was composed of thinly banded, brown, horizontal strata. There were numerous white rounded rocks included in the matrix. They came in every size, from fist-sized pebbles to huge boulders like the one that was causing the obstruction. Adam picked up a shard of the brown rock. It was friable and crumbled quite easily under the pressure of his powerful fingers.

The thing that struck fear right into Adam’s heart, was the total inadequacy of the shoring. What there was, consisted mainly of lumber salvaged from the wagon train. He saw half a cracked and dried out tree-trunk, some bits of old packing case still bearing stencilled lettering, and a miscellany of other, unidentifiable pieces of plank and boarding holding up the various parts of the workings. There was nothing that looked like it might be even marginally effective in the event of a landslide.

He turned to face Sinclair, well aware that outrage and horror were written plainly on his face, and not bothering to conceal them. He said, tightly, "That’s a death trap in there."

Sinclair smirked, "It’s not as bad as all that."

Adam dismissed the excuse with a short, sharp shake of the head. He was getting angry again. He took a long step away from the workings, concerned that the sound of his voice would bring about the very catastrophe that he feared, "I thought you wanted men to sell, Sinclair. All you’re going to end up with here are dead ones! I’m an engineer, and I’m telling you, one wrong move, the smallest earth-tremor, even a raised voice, would be enough to have that whole, Goddamned hillside come sliding right down onto those men’s backs!"

Sinclair sobered, "Then it’s down to you, Cartwright, as an engineer, to make it safe."

"That’s impossible!" Despite his fears, Adam’s voice was starting to rise, "Even if you had the materials, it couldn’t be done! You need paneled, reinforced shoring to stop those faces caving in, and proper pit props to hold it in place!

Sinclair put his hands on his hips and smiled a thin smile, "Then I suggest, Mister Cartwright, that you improvise!"

Adam’s temper flared, "You don’t have the materials, and you don’t have the manpower! And the likelihood of finding gold buried in that hole is nil!"

Sinclair’s face became bleak, "The gold’s there," he said, evenly, "And I mean to have it. Or I shall have the money out of your hide."

It was then that Adam realized that not only was Sinclair totally depraved and barbarous, but he was also utterly insane.

Six

Miss Milly and Sebastian Sinclair sat beneath the canvas awning outside her tent. She wore her neat, black bonnet with the large black satin bow tied beneath her chin. He still sported the tailored shirt and riding breeches, soiled and sweat-stained now, and his face was shadowed with ragged stubble. They sat more than a respectable distance apart. They didn’t touch. There was no physical contact between them. Between them, was a small folding table. On the table was a storm lantern, its fitful light throwing vagrant shadows onto their faces, and two small tin cups. Each cup held a little more than a thimbleful of water, and they sipped it very slowly.

The two of them had known each other a very long time and their friendship followed a deep, if devious, course. It was only after a half-hour or so of companionable silence, and several forays into polite small talk, that Sinclair finally voiced what was on his mind,

"I think, Miss Milly, that it would be best if you stayed away from Adam Cartwright."

Miss Milly’s eyes twinkled at him, "Indeed, Mister Sinclair? And why ever would that be?"

Sinclair gazed off into the darkness of the desert night, his square features set like granite, "He’s a difficult man to control," he said, after a long pause for thought, "He’s dangerous. If Gillit doesn’t come soon, I shall have to kill him."

Miss Milly smiled a small smile and, in the light of the storm lamp, her bright eyes glittered, "We’ll just have to hope it doesn’t come to that," she said, "Mister Cartwright is a very valuable piece of property. It would be a shame not to realize his full value."

Sinclair looked at her, then. There was no expression at all on his block-like features, but his yellow eyes, dark in the night, held a kind of wistful longing, "You must be careful of him."

"Mister Sinclair," she said, lightly, "You should know by now, that I’m always very, very careful."

Sinclair looked at her for a long moment, and then turned his eyes away to look again into the silent night. The thing that was dark, and serpentine, and twisted tightly about his soul tightened its glistening coils just another fraction. His abiding affection for his woman, unspoken, inexpressible, ran deeply, if strangely. He would do anything, dare anything, for the sake only of her companionship. The money that these men would bring, together with the little nest egg already accumulated from similar transactions, would buy her the house in Boston that she had always wanted, and the carriage, and the fine black horses to pull it. And if he could only find the gold that the wagon train had carried, then he would lay the whole world at her feet, all the riches of England, Europe and China. That was his dream, and nothing was going to stop him attaining it.

Adam lay on his back in the lean-to, watching the slow wheel of the stars through the broken roof. He wondered if, at that moment, any of his family were looking at those same stars, and if they were wondering in turn, what had become of him. The horse would certainly have found his way home before now. Adam could imagine the consternation that its arrival, rider-less, would have created. His father would have immediately abandoned all work on the ranch. Ben Cartwright, together with his other sons, Adam’s brothers, and all the hired help, would have been searching the countryside for him.

He knew the anguish his disappearance would have caused. Despite the frequent, heated disagreements, they were a close-knit family, each of them fiercely protective of the others. Too much loss already weighed heavily on his father’s shoulders. In his lifetime he had suffered more grief that any man should rightly have to bear. Adam had seen it on occasion, in his dark eyes, and hated to add anything to the burden.

His younger brother, Hoss, the expert tracker in the family, would have been able to backtrack the horse as far as the desert. Adam knew that the rainstorm that night would have washed out any tracks left before that morning. It was just possible that they could have found his hat, or even his coat, where he had dropped it outside the cave. Then he remembered, with a pang, that the sleeve of his coat would have the unmistakable holes where the fangs of the rattlesnake had penetrated. His family would be justified in assuming that he had wandered off into the desert in his delirium, and died out there. He knew in his heart that Sinclair had been right. At a certain point, it would be only fair and reasonable, even for those who cared for him, to give him up for dead. It was no use waiting for a rescue that wasn’t going to come.

He had no illusions concerning his dubious agreement with Sinclair. There was no hope of finding gold in that hillside. And no matter what he said, Sinclair had no intention of ever letting him go. If he was going to get out of the situation he was in, he was going to have to take action himself.

His body had adjusted to being short of water. He barely sweated at all now, and his urine had become dark and pungent. He had a full belly. Late that afternoon, Miss Milly had cooked up a thick mess of oatmeal. There had been salt in it, for which Adam had been grateful, and some sort of pale, stringy meat. Adam had a feeling that it had been snake. Surprisingly, the men had been permitted to eat as much of the stodgy concoction as they could. He was as fit now as he was ever going to be. If he waited, his strength, and then his health, would start to fail.

The way he saw it, he had two clear choices. He could tackle Sinclair, who had his whip, and Adam’s gun, and some sort of long barreled sporting pistol of his own. Sinclair had the advantage of the weapons, and of maneuverability. There was every chance that Adam would stop a bullet before Sinclair could be overcome. Alternatively, he could simply walk away.

He had been unable to persuade Sinclair to remove the shackle. His tormentor had maintained that Miss Milly had the keys, and that she would not relinquish them. If Adam were going to leave, he would have to take the chunk of iron with him. The trouble with that idea was that he didn’t expect to get very far.

There was nothing but desolation to the west. Adam knew that. He had ridden all through it in the back of the water wagon. To the south and east was more desert and, beyond, mountain ranges. The only chance, and he knew it was a slim one, was to go north in the hope that he could find one of the desert settlements west of Lake Walker, or perhaps get picked up by a wandering band of Paiute. He might even run into a stray Shoshone - they were known to wander these deserts. He didn’t try to fool himself. Unarmed, even without the fetter, his chances of surviving an encounter of that kind were remote.

Adam watched Sinclair come back from Miss Milly’s tent. The two of them had been over there for hours, sitting outside the tent, not doing anything besides talking. Now she had gone inside, and the bobbing lantern marked Sinclair’s progress through the darkness back to his own shelter.

Adam’s eyes gleamed ferally. If he hadn’t been shackled, it would have been so easy to waylay Sinclair and to throttle the life out of him. His hands curled into futile fists at the thought. He had been in this same position once before, confronted by a mad man, and that incident had nearly destroyed his own sanity. He was determined that wasn’t going to happen again.

Sinclair went inside the lean-to and seemed to rummage about for a while. Then the lantern was turned out.

Adam sat up, carefully. At the other end of the shelter William and Gillium Hobart were sleeping the sleep of exhausted men. That was more proof, if Adam needed more, that he had to make his own chance now, before his body became too weakened to serve him.

He waited, he guessed, a good hour. The moon had risen early, and was already setting behind the hill. The rest of the night was going to be utterly dark. Silently, Adam got to his feet.

The temptation was still there, he acknowledged, to go over and drop the weight right onto Sinclair’s face. To kill him as he slept, and have done with it.

It would have been murder, and Adam knew that if he did it, he would have to spend the rest of his life justifying it, if only to himself. Instead, he picked the weight up and started to trudge northwards into the night.

The going was much harder than he had ever imagined. The ground underfoot, even on the level, was treacherous, and soon it began to climb towards the shoulder of the first hill. The block of iron threw him off balance, and the chain shackled to his leg made walking difficult.

Even the darkness of the night worked against him. Once the moon had set, there was not enough light to see where he was going, and the loose hillside gave him uncertain footing.

Adam soon began to appreciate that he had made a serious, and dangerous, mistake. Encumbered as he was, it was going to be impossible, before morning, to put enough distance between himself and Sinclair to prevent the madman from finding him.

In an effort to make better speed, Adam tripped and fell over the chain. He sprawled headlong and tumbled a distance down the hill. The chunk of iron rolled on a-ways, wrenching at his leg. It dawned on him how easy it would be to break a bone, and that, one way or another, was bound to be fatal. If Sinclair didn’t find him and shoot him, he would die in the desert. He wasn’t sure which he would prefer.

At one point, as he stopped and sat on the ground to catch his breath, it occurred to him to go back. It could be that another, better, opportunity to escape would present itself. It was then that he realized that he wasn’t even sure which way ‘back’ was. He had lost track of time and the stars had moved through an unknown arc in the sky. He would never be able to find the dark little encampment in the middle of the dark hills. He had no choice now but to go on following his chosen course of action.

He had made, he estimated, about three miles in more or less a straight line, before the first grey light of dawn glimmered into the sky above the eastern hills. He knew that it was not nearly enough. He was exhausted. He could no longer even lift the weight chained to his leg. Numerous falls had taken their toll. His hands, arms and legs were bruised and cut by frequent tumbles on the rocky ground. His face was scratched, and there was a ring of blood around his calf where the constant friction of the shackle had torn away his skin.

The band of grey in the sky widened, and Adam realized that the desert dawn was cold. He hadn’t the energy left even to shiver. He looked around him in the hope of finding somewhere, anywhere, to conceal himself. The desert, in the first light of morning, was uncompromising. There was not even a large enough rock to hide behind. Defeated, Adam sat down on the ground and awaited the inevitable.

He didn’t have to wait long, only the time it took for the sun to clear the hill and turn the desert light from grey into gold.

Sinclair came over the hill on his tall horse. He was riding slowly. He was in no hurry at all, and there was a smile on his face. Adam knew he must have left a trail behind him that a two-year-old child might have followed.

Adam got back onto his feet. He wanted to face whatever was coming to him standing up. Sinclair didn’t give him that opportunity. With a grim smile, he kicked his horse into a faster pace and rode right at him. Adam tried to dodge out of the way, but the chain hindered him. The horse’s shoulder struck him full in the chest and knocked him back to the ground.

Winded, Adam struggled to regain his feet. Sinclair stepped down from the saddle and knocked him down again with his fist. Then, he kicked him hard between the legs.

Adam curled up around the blaze of bright agony. Sinclair kicked him in the kidney. Adam screamed and arched his back. Sinclair kicked him again in the belly, and the pain drove Adam to the brink of unconsciousness.

Sinclair stood over him, and his smile widened, "So," He sneered, "You still think you’re so clever, don’t you?"

Adam couldn’t get the breath to answer him even if he’d had anything to say. Right then, he wasn’t feeling at all clever. He retched dryly, and wished that he could be properly sick.

"Just be grateful, Cartwright," Sinclair said, "That I don’t make a mule out of you, here and now." He sat down on a rock and watched a while as Adam suffered.

It was some time before the pain began to ease up.

Sinclair shook head, "Where in all of God’s creation did you think you were going? There’s nothing out here but dirt and rocks."

Adam was able to get some breath into his lungs and unwound, just a little, "Anywhere, Sinclair," he gasped, teeth clenched, "Anywhere at all. Just so long as it was away from you!"

Sinclair’s smile spread wider and lost some if its cynicism, "There’s only one way out for you," he said, with cruel satisfaction, "And I've already told you; I decide when you die."

Adam snarled at him, "You’re mad!"

Sinclair got up and flat handed him hard across the face, "So you think I’m mad?" A twisted smile came back to his face, "Watch your mouth, Cartwright, it just might get you killed."

Adam gritted his teeth and got to his knees, his hands still clasped tightly together where he hurt, "I thought I was worth money to you."

"That’s as may be. You’ve had as much rope as you’re going to get." Sinclair reached for his reins and climbed back into the saddle. Silhouetted against the brightening sky, he sneered down at Adam. "Mister Gillit’ll tame you, soon enough, even if I can’t. Come on, now. Start walking. It’s a long way back."

For Adam it was a very long, and very painful, walk back, all through the growing heat of the desert morning. He had to carry the weight in his arms every foot of the way. He stumbled and fell often, causing more damage to his hands and knees, breaking open cuts that had dried. Sinclair rode close behind him, and every so often he would nudge the horse into Adam’s back and send him sprawling onto his face.

There was a moment when Adam wondered if it really was worth getting up again. It was stubborn determination and Cartwright pride that wouldn’t let him stay down. He gathered himself, and laboriously got up again. Sinclair sat and watched him out of tawny eyes that glowed with amusement. Adam picked up the weight and cradled it close to his chest. In agony, he staggered on.

The shabby little lean-to was as welcoming as a home hearth when Adam finally dropped to his knees on its roughly blanketed floor. He rested his hands on his thighs, and let his head hang. His breath was coming in dry, ragged gasps, and spots of colour danced wildly at the edge of his field of vision. He fought a hard battle with unconsciousness.

With a final bark of laughter, Sinclair turned his horse and rode off towards the water wagon.

Adam eased himself down until he was lying flat out on his belly. He rested his head on his arm while he waited for the furious pounding of his heart to quieten. Then he pushed himself over onto his back and lay with his eyes closed, his face turned to the sky. His attempt to escape had failed dismally, and he knew in his soul, that he would not have the strength to make another. Utter despair was a black pit into which he could feel himself sliding. He put his arm across his eyes to shield them against the sunlight, and, exhausted, he slept.

At some point his sleep deepened into a light delirium. Sinclair came, and looked at him, and went away again. Adam never knew it.

Eventually, it was Miss Milly that disturbed him. From the position of the sun, it was well towards the end of the afternoon when she came. Arranging her skirts around her, she settled herself down beside him. Startled from a fevered sleep, Adam cried out. Miss Milly’s small white hands reached out to offer comfort, "Now, Mister Cartwright, there’s no need for that," she said, firmly, "It’s time for dinner."

Half mad with fever, Adam thrust himself away from her. His skin crawled at the touch of her thin, pale fingers. He crawled crab-wise to the back of the lean-to, "You stay away from me," he rasped in a voice that creaked in his parched throat, "I won’t take anything from you!"

"Now don’t be so silly, Mister Cartwright. You have to eat," Miss Milly came towards him. She smiled encouragement, and it was the sort of smile that made Adam cringe inside. In her hand she had a bowl containing more of the thick porridge mixture with its dubious meaty content. She held out a spoonful towards his lips. With a sudden, violent, gesture Adam dashed it away, and with it the bowl and the woman’s hand. He retreated as far as he could. The very thought of her coming anywhere near him made him feel sick.

Miss Milly drew back. For a moment her eyes glittered dangerously. Then she smiled a cold smile. She reached out to touch him again, her hands seeming to glow in the shadow of the lean-to. She put her hand on his knee, sliding it upwards. Adam heard her breath hiss between her teeth. He pushed her away from him, but she returned, crawling on hands and knees. "You don’t really have all that much choice," she said softly, and her hand reached for the buckle of his belt.

Seven

"Hey, come on now, Adam. It’s time for a drink."

Adam Cartwright moved his head away from the fingers that touched him, his breath coming out in a little gasped, "No!"

Gillium Hobart put a hand firmly round the back of Adam’s head to steady it, and, with the other, pressed the rim of the tin cup to his lips, "You have ta get some water inside ya, or you’re gonna die."

Adam reacted abruptly with surprising strength. With both hands he thrust Hobart away. "Get away from me!" There was a mad look in his eyes that faded only slowly when he saw who was holding him.

Hobart only just managed to save the water from spilling "Adam! Adam, come on and drink!"

Adam had not had any water for a full twenty-four hours. He was seriously dehydrated. His lips had split and bled when he opened his mouth. His tongue was so dry that the first sip of water was like liquid fire in his mouth. He gagged, and choked, and had to do battle with himself to avoid spitting the precious fluid out. Then he snatched reflexively at the cup.

"Easy, now. Easy," Hobart fed him the water one drop at a time until his eyes regained something of their sanity.

Adam straightened up and took the cup for himself, holding it carefully in both hands so that his tremor wouldn’t upset it. He wanted to drink it all down in a single gulp, but knew his stomach would reject it instantly. Instead, he sipped at it, very slowly.

"Thanks, Gill." He said, simply.

Hobart sat down on the ground, "Sinclair wasn’t about ta give ya none. He was all set ta let you die ‘till Miss Milly spoke up for ya."

Adam took another slow sip, relishing the texture of the water in his parched mouth. He had no idea why the woman would have spoken up for him, unless she had further designs of her own. If she did, Adam wasn’t sure that he wanted to know anything about them, "Where’s Sinclair now?"

"He’s over there with Miss Milly," Hobart indicated the black tent with a tilt of his head, "They sit over there together for hours, ‘most every night."

Looking towards the tent, Adam could just make out the glimmer of the storm lantern starting to shine out in the gathering gloom, "And that’s all they do? Just sit?"

"That’s it. Like I told you, brother an’ sister." Hobart looked at Adam with concern clouding his etched face, "You ain’t plannin’ ta take off again, are ya?"

"No, Gill," Adam shook his head ruefully, "I’ve learned my lesson. There isn’t anywhere out there to run to."

"I guess I’m sure glad you got that through your fool head," Hobart sighed, "You gonna knuckle under an’ help with the diggin’ now?"

Adam’s eyes hardened, "I've already told Sinclair, I won’t work for him."

"Then he’ll sell ya ta that fella Gillit fer sure," Hobart said, with simple resignation, "He has this thing about digging up that damned hillside. If you ain’t willin’ ta help him do it, He’ll sell ya, or he’ll kill ya"

Adam’s expression became bleak, "It won’t be long before this Gillit comes down from up north. Sinclair’ll sell all of us for whatever he can get." Adam sipped slowly at the last of his water. He was regaining his equilibrium now.

"I figured as much," Hobart shrugged, "Reckon he’s just plum loco."

Adam thought of the sophisticated medical terms he might have applied: pathological; psychotic - obsessed. "I reckon plum loco about sums it up, Gill." Adam swallowed the final mouthful of water down and hoped his stomach would be able to hang on to it. He glanced at William, who sat close by listening to the exchange. All that could be seen of him was his lean black shape, and the bright gleam of his eyes.

Adam leaned forward, "If the three of us worked together," he said, in a low tone, "We could overpower Sinclair and take away his guns, and that damned whip."

"No, Sir!" Hobart shook his head decisively, "I ain’t goin’ up ag’in Sinclair, Adam. I guess he’s just plain got me whipped."

"He couldn’t fight all three of us," Adam said with growing impatience, "If you both help me, we can all walk out of this damned desert!"

"Don’t reckon I could do that, Masta Adam, Suh," William said, from the darker recesses of the lean-to, "I couldn’t lift up my hand ag’in no white man."

Adam scrubbed a hand across the heavy stubble that darkened his chin, "If you’ll just distract him enough for me to get round behind him..."

Hobart shook his head again, "He ain’t gonna turn his back on none o’ us Adam. He ain’t that loco!"

Adam looked from one to the other of them with an increasing measure of exasperation. If he could just get a little co-operation out of these men... But they were too cowed, too worn down with subjection. "He has to sleep some time," he said.

"Does he?" Hobart looked at him, and his eyes shone dully in the new darkness, "I wonder about that. He knew you were gone the moment you walked out o’ here last night. He knew you weren’t goin’ no place, so he just stood there an’ let you go.’ Knew you’d half kill yourself out there, an’ he could just fetch ya back any time he pleased."

Adam let his head drop. That was something he hadn’t known. "There has to be something we can do."

"I reckon," Hobart said, "The three of us get ta dig up that hillside looking for his danged gold."

Adam couldn’t find it in himself to blame William. The black man had been born a slave and had known nothing but slavery his entire life. Hobart was another matter. Adam had expected the man to have some backbone left and a little pride. As it was, the man was totally beaten down and defeated by Sinclair’s domination. Adam felt contempt for him and a little pity besides.

Adam lay back on the hard ground and put his arm across his eyes.

The ordeal of the day finally over, Adam lay awake for a long time, staring into the night sky and watching the stars. He could feel the pain in his body gradually receding as natural, healing processes went to work, but afraid of the nightmare’s return, he dared not sleep. It was almost dawn before he slipped into a fitful doze, and the dream was right there, waiting for him.

When he woke in the grey morning light he felt much better than he had any right to expect. He was groggy from lack of proper rest, but his much-abused body had rallied its considerable resources. He sat up without stiffness and only a little pain. He was able to hobble from the shelter to the water wagon for the morning ration. Even Sinclair seemed to have regained some of his mercurial good humour, and as he herded the three of them towards the workings, he seemed almost jovial.

Adam was never sure whether it was Hobart, or William, who told Sinclair of their conversation of the night before. The first he knew if it, Sinclair was stalking towards him, his yellow eyes bulging and burning like twin suns in the sockets of his skull. His face was white, and tight with rage.

"Insurrection and rebellion, is it, Cartwright?" He screamed into Adam’s face. He gave Adam a shove in the shoulder that sent him stumbling backwards.

Adam stood up to him, "What d’you expect, Sinclair?" he yelled back, "For me to stand here and take this?" His furious gesture included the chain and the spoil heaps.

"Twice I’ve hauled your butt out of that damned desert! Twice I’ve saved your damn life! I’d expect a little appreciation!"

"Appreciation?" Adam’s own temper was all fired up now. The two big men stood chest to chest spitting sparks at each other, "You’re insane, Sinclair! Absolutely and totally insane!"

"Insane?" The fire in Sinclair’s eyes flared even hotter. His mouth spasmed in a rictus of fury, "Insane am I?"

Adam should have seen it coming, but he didn’t - not until it was a moment too late. By the time he had read and understood the intention in Sinclair’s eyes, the vicious whiplash had already struck out. Adam took the first cut on his bare upper arm. Instinctively, he turned to protect his face. Sinclair hit him again across the shoulder.

"We’ll see who’s insane!" Sinclair shrieked.

Something inside Adam snapped. He lunged for Sinclair, reaching for him with hands so corded with sinew and muscle that they resembled the talons of some beast.

Sinclair had the presence of mind remaining to step back out of Adam’s reach. That saved him, for if Adam had gotten his hands on him, he would have killed him, there and then. Adam was pulled up short by the chain and fell forward, catching himself on his hands. Sinclair delivered several more telling blows across Adam’s back before he stood back. The fishtail cut deeply and it came away red and wet.

Sinclair drew a deep breath and steadied himself, taken aback, perhaps, by the degree of rage and hatred on Adam’s face.

"I don’t give a damn how much you’re worth, Cartwright," he snarled, "Any more trouble out of you, and I’ll take you out into the desert and put your damned eyes out!" He meant it, and by the glitter in his golden eyes, Adam knew that he meant it.

From that moment, Sinclair started to wear his gun in a buttoned, flap-topped holster on his pants belt, and he stayed well out of Adam’s reach.

Eight

Adam Cartwright was a man built on a massive scale. He was solid, powerful, educated and highly intelligent. He stood six feet two in his bare feet. He had wide, open shoulders and a broad, deep, chest. His belly was flat and iron hard and his butt muscular from the long hours and sometimes days that he had spent on a horse. His body was a smooth and efficient machine finely honed by the hard outdoor work on his father’s ranch. Normally, thanks to the abundance of his father’s table, his big frame carried just a few ounces of surplus flesh - enough to soften the hard angles and fill out his cheeks.

The privation Sinclair imposed quickly melted that surplus away. The contours of his fine body changed as the weight fell from him. He became a sculpture of flat planes and bulging muscle, of tight sinew and prominent ligatures. In the relentless sunlight his tanned skin darkened to the colour of teak. Like Hobart, and Sinclair himself, he wore a mat of beard. His eyes, haunted and driven, sunk deeper into his head. He was aware that he stank. Always a fastidious man, now his clothes were stiff with dirt and sweat. He could detect the stink of his own, long unwashed, body. His only comfort was that, as yet, he had no body lice to plague him.

He was always thirsty. Sinclair provided just enough water to keep him alive, but no more. He craved for water. His lips split and bled and he licked the blood into his mouth. His tongue and his throat swelled. Three times each day, he did battle with himself to sip slowly at the rationed water, to resist his body’s demand that he swallow it down in a single gulp.

At night, when eventually he slept, his dream was of the wagon train toiling out of the sunrise, of the oxen straining at their yolks, and of and the men and women walking beside them in the dust. What made them stop, finally, here, Adam would never know. He was sure that their bones lay somewhere, unburied, in this desert,

Daily, Sinclair drove Hobart and William, with the sharp edge of his tongue, and with his whip, to the excavation in the hillside. They laboured at shifting the dry, brown soil and the crumbling rock out of the ancient workings to the spoil heaps. From time to time they toiled futilely at shifting the huge white boulder.

To Sinclair, the men were saleable items for which he already had a market. They were valuable and would bring a good price in gold when Gillit arrived. Sinclair regarded them with the same concern as he did his horse and mules. Keeping them hard at work in the pit kept them occupied and it kept them fit. And every bushel of spoil they hauled out brought him closer to his gold. Sinclair was utterly, if insanely, convinced that the secret of the wagon train’s missing gold was concealed behind that rock.

The man Cartwright was another matter entirely. He stood tall, and proud, and he refused to bow his head or his back. Gillit would certainly break one or the other before he was through.

Sinclair allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction at the thought.

For reasons he couldn’t fully account for, even to himself, Adam acquainted Sinclair’s hole in the ground with those deeper pits of hell of which he had heard his father speak. He would have nothing to do with it, and not all Sinclair’s goading, nor the cutting edge of his whip, could change his mind.

Adam spent his days in the lean-to, brooding, biding his time. His anger simmered.

He thought often, longingly, of home. He thought of the mountains, and of the lakes, and of the majestic, towering pine trees for which his father had named the land. In his memory, the pastures and the meadowlands were cool and inviting, and the rivers ran deep, and he was free to come and go as he pleased. His mind peopled his imaginings with the faces of the people he loved. He dreamed of his younger brothers, big, jovial Hoss, with a smile as wide as the world and a heart to match, and Joe, his youngest sibling, still full of rakish charm and sometimes irritatingly childish pranks. And, of course, he thought of his father. Ben was a man as strong as the mountains themselves, and he had roots that ran as deep. He was a man with whom Adam’s debates had run long and hard, his arguments furious and sometimes bitter, a man he admired and respected and loved.

Adam was a well-read man. He found that his remarkable mind could summon from memory vast tracts of prose and reams of poetry. They were about all that kept him sane. At night, he rarely slept. When he did sleep, the nightmares returned as something dark stalked in the shadows of his mind.

Regularly, William was dispatched into the desert. When he returned, limping, he brought a bag containing snakes, or sometimes, a lizard, which formed the basis of their meals. If the bag was empty, there was no meat in the pot that afternoon.

Miss Milly spent her time beneath the black awning of her tent. She sat on a little, folding, wickerwork-chair at an easel, and she painted pictures of the desert. She always wore the blue dress and the big floppy bonnet to keep the sun away from her pale skin and out of her bright blue eyes. Each afternoon she used bits of the broken wagons to light a small fire and cooked up a pot of the thick porridge stew. Each evening, she exchanged the bonnet for the black satin cap with the big bow and sat and exchanged pleasantries with Sinclair late into the desert evening - or merely shared companionable silences.

The day came when Sinclair opened the last barrel of water.

He looked around at the three men who watched him, reading the expressions in their eyes. His own expression was one of amusement. By now he knew them all very well indeed, and he knew what each one of them was thinking, "So, gentlemen, it’s time for another trip to the river. This time, I shall be taking one of you with me."

Adam savoured his mouthful of water before swallowing it down. He met Sinclair’s eyes with a look of wary speculation, "I’ll come with you Sinclair." It was an offer he didn’t expect to be taken up, and he wasn’t disappointed.

"Oh, no, Cartwright," Sinclair looked him up and down, and smiled a slow, appraising smile, "I’m not fool enough to ride out into the desert with you beside me."

"I’m the strongest. I’d be the most use to you."

"And only one of us would survive the first day. I’ve told you before, you’re worth money to me. You’ll stay here, where you can’t cause me any trouble."

Early the next morning, when the dawn was no more than a suggestion of grey above the hills, Sinclair rode away on his bright bay horse. Beside him, Gillium Hobart, still chained to his block of black iron, sat in the driving seat of the wagon.

Sinclair had made absolutely certain, in his own inimical manner, that Adam knew he had taken all the guns, including Adam’s own Colt, with him.

Adam sat on the ground in the lean-to shack, idly rubbing his shoulder where some of his cuts were festering, and watched the pair vanish over the hill. He waited, by his count, exactly ten minutes, and then he hauled himself up onto his feet and dusted his hands off against his butt.

William stared up at him, his eyes huge in his shiny black face, "Where’re you goin’ Masta Adam, suh?"

Adam looked down at him and then round at the little encampment in the steadily growing light. There was no sign of Miss Milly. Having said her farewells to Sinclair she had retreated inside the black tent and had not emerged again. Adam drew a long breath, "First of all, I’m going find something to get us out of these leg irons."

"That Masta Sinclair ain’t gonna like that, suh."

Adam glared in the direction of the departed horseman, "I don’t give a monkey’s chance in hell what Sinclair likes!"

Dragging the block of iron, Adam made his way laboriously to Sinclair’s shack. He paused in the gap in the wall that served as a doorway and let his eyes adjust to the gloom inside. The place smelled of Sinclair. It contained nothing other than some threadbare blankets on a thin straw mattress, some piles of old clothes that were little more than rags and wrapped carefully inside a woollen cloth, a well-worn Bible. Adam wondered at that for a while, and then carefully put the Book back. In the furthermost corner, half buried in the rubbish, he uncovered a long, flat box.

At the sight of the box, Adam felt a knot form up in his stomach. He was both drawn to it and repelled by it. He recognized it at once from a time, not so very long ago, when he and his father had been blasting some old tree stumps out of a hillside, prior to replanting with his brother’s carefully nurtured seedlings. He didn’t need to see the words stenciled on the top of the box to know what was inside, but the lid was loose and he lifted it anyway. The box was three parts empty. In the bottom two dozen of the greased, brown paper-wrapped sticks, ready bound into bundles of six, and fitted with caps and short fuses.

As an engineer, it was one of the cruder tools of Adam’s trade. He recalled his father explaining to his younger brothers how careful they had to be with this stuff, how dangerous it could be, even when treated with the proper respect. And Adam knew very well that to remain safe, it had to be stored in the correct, quite exacting, conditions. Those requirements did not encompass a hot, airless shack in the middle of a desert summer.

The dynamite was sweating badly. The paper wrappings had a wet sheen on them that Adam knew was a slick coating of nitro-glycerine.

Wiping his suddenly damp palms against his pants legs, Adam slowly and carefully lowered the lid of the box back into place. He picked up the lump of iron and, equally carefully, backed out of the shack.

Adam sat in the scanty shade of the lean-to and fingered the heavy links of the chain. He tapped them one against the other to make a small chinking noise. It was an annoying habit that he had developed only recently, and one that betrayed his inner frustration.

There had been no tools of any kind in Sinclair’s shack, nothing that he could use as a crude hammer to smash the lock apart, or as a lever to pry it open. He had pounded at it with the rounded white rocks until his hands bled, without making any perceptible impression. He had come, eventually, to the inevitable conclusion. He would never be able to free himself - not without the key.

More and more often, his eyes, and his dark thoughts turned towards the black tent and the woman in the blue dress. Sinclair had said that she had the keys to the shackle, and Adam had no reason to doubt that he had been telling the truth.

Adam Cartwright was the product of a Christian upbringing and he adhered to the strict moral values his father had taught him. He wouldn’t consider offering violence to a woman if his life depended on it. There had to be another way of getting the key from her. Sitting there, thinking, his agile mind began to see a way of turning the woman’s own weapons against her.

Sinclair had divided the last of the water and taken the larger share with him for himself, Hobart and the animals. He had left just enough behind in the barrel to keep the three of them alive until his return, if they rationed it carefully. Adam bided his time.

Each afternoon, Miss Milly crossed the little compound and lit a fire outside Sinclair’s hut. On it, she cooked the porridge that formed the staple of their diet, and was in fact, their only food.

Knowing that she would come, Adam stationed himself by the water barrel and waited for her. He sipped slowly from a tin cup, his