Shadow on the Mountain

Dedicated, with respect, to the North American Indian. 

A tale of captivity and compassion.

Fore-tale

Joe Cartwright wound the reins of his cutting pony around the hitching rail and strode for the house. It was the tail end of a very long, hard day in the saddle. The sun was sliding down the sky towards the mountains in the west, and shadows were lengthening across the yard. Spring was turning rapidly into summer, and Joe had been roping and branding calves since daybreak; he was hot, dirty and tired. His clothes were filthy, clotted with sweat and dirt; his face was so coated with grime that it felt like a mask that would split if he smiled. Right then, Joe didn’t feel much like smiling.

He remembered, but only just in time, to stop and bang the worst of the dust out of his clothing before he slammed inside. Indoors, the house was dimmer and cooler but airless. The large and comfortable living area was neat, tidy and devoid of anyone on whom Joe could vent his temper. Frustrated, he threw his hat down on the sideboard and ran his hand through his dusty curls. He brushed himself off some more while he scanned the familiar room. The furnishings were an odd mixture of sturdy, locally built pieces: the long sideboard and the timber built table before the fireplace, and imported, French elegance. All of it was well used. There were woven rugs on the polished wooden floors, and across the room where the staircase lifted and turned and lifted again to the upper storey, a bright, Indian blanket had been draped over the banister. A tall, ornate clock ticked solemnly, and a pine-log fire burned in the hearth despite the heat of the day.

The room wasn’t entirely deserted. As he turned, Joe caught a movement in the corner of his eye.

"Hi, Joe." Adam Cartwright, Joe’s older brother by some ten or twelve years, strolled out of the office area. He looked cool and casual, with a saucer in one hand and a cup, half raised to his lips, in the other. "Had a good day?"

Irrationally, it irritated Joe that his brother preferred to drink tonsil scorching, unbelievably strong, black coffee even on days when the sun dragged the sweat right out of a man’s skin. What annoyed him even more was Adam’s nonchalant air of calm. His temper hanging by a thin and remarkably fragile thread, Joe rounded on him. "A good day? Shall I tell you what sort of day I’ve had?" Slim and light boned, Joe had to raise his head a little to look his taller, broader and altogether more muscular brother in the face. He was undaunted. "I’ve had one hell of a day!"

"Joseph!" The voice raised in reproach was not Adam’s but that of their father. Ben emerged from behind his leather-topped desk. There was a frown on his face, and his dark eyes were angry. "You’ll mind your language and your manners in this house."

Ben Cartwright was of a height with Adam and was built on a similar, substantial scale. Joe found himself looking up to both of them. The thread on his temper snapped. "He asked me what sort of day I’ve had, and I’m damn well going to tell him!" His voice had risen to a shout; his eyes, hazel brown and flecked liberally with green, were bright with fury. They blazed into his brother’s face.

Again it was Ben and not Adam who responded, and his voice boomed, "I told you to put a curb on your tongue!"

Adam sipped his coffee, savoured it and looked at Joe quizzically. "What’s biting you?"

Joe’s hands went to his hips in a typical Cartwright attitude of defiance. "I’ll tell you what’s biting me! I’ve been workin’ my guts out in the dirt and the heat, ropin’ tyin’ an’ brandin’! I was doin’ it yesterday, an’ I was doin’ it the day before. You were supposed to be comin’ out ta help. So where were you, huh?" Joe was leaning into his brother’s space, shouting.

"Joseph," Ben said again, in a lower tone that brooked no further disagreement or dissension, "I think that’s enough."

Setting his cup down in its saucer, Adam held up a placating hand. "No, Pa." He looked at Joe with a curious expression on his darkly handsome, evenly featured face. "This has been brewing a while. It’s about time it was out in the open; he’s got a devil riding his tail. Let the boy talk."

Joe was a young man, young enough that his Pa still called him ‘boy’ when he got mad. He wouldn’t accept the term gladly from anyone else. And it was the way Adam said it in that educated, eastern accent of his and with that smug, patronizing look on his face that really rattled Joe. With an angry, upward gesture Joe knocked cup, saucer and coffee out of his brother’s hand and sent it flying across the room. Cup and saucer shattered where it landed. Adam looked after it, considering the resultant mess, and then looked back at his brother’s face with that same, questioning expression.

Ben looked from one to the other of them as they faced up to one another. These two were – had always been – about as different from one another as a pair of brothers could be. Descended on his mother’s side from blue-blooded, New England aristocracy, Adam had been, since childhood, the serious, studious one: a product of his hard, early years. He was the one who had insisted on getting himself an education. He had rare abilities of creativity, organization and leadership and the intelligence to make use of them. He was also a stickler for getting a job done, and done properly, for a man pulling his weight and for standing up for what he believed to be right no matter what the cost. Joe, son of a French, New Orleans courtesan, was equally steadfast and hardworking, but he had a lighter and more carefree outlook on life. Often, the two rubbed each other raw, and quarrels were frequent. This level of animosity, however, was rare. Joe would flare quickly to anger while Adam burned long and slow. One thing the two of them did have in common was a particular breed of mule headed stubbornness. He could see it in both of their faces right now.

Adam tucked his hands safely out of the way in his back pants pockets; his brother was obviously spoiling for a fight, and Adam had no intention of obliging him. Not right there and then, anyway. He sat on his temper and pulled a long breath. "Why don’t you just tell me what this is all about, Joe?" The very reasonableness in his voice raised Joe to rage.

"This week it’s the branding. Last week it was bustin’ broom tails for the army, and before that we were chasin’ mavericks out o’ the brush. And where have you been?"

"Your brother has been working here with me," Ben interrupted sternly. "We’ve been working on the supply quotas for the army, the tenders for next year’s timber contracts and our investment portfolio."

Adam glanced at his father; his dark-topaz eyes were troubled, but they held the faintest glimmer of amusement – just enough to raise Joe to new heights of fury. "I don’t think he wants to hear it, Pa."

"You’re damned right I don’t want to hear it!" Anger made Joe’s youthful face ugly. "It seems to me, older brother, that these days you just don’t want to dirty your lily-white hands with the real work around here!"

It was an old argument. Ben had been hearing variations of it for years. "Joseph, you’re not being fair," he said. "You have to understand that the management aspects are just as important to the running of this ranch as the physical work."

Joe flared furiously at his father, "Now you’re starting to sound just like him!" Joe was starting to feel light-headed and a bit sick. His brother was refusing to react with aggression, and Joe’s initial adrenaline rush was wearing off. What made it worse, he knew his father was right.

Adam allowed his gaze to drop. He let his breath out in a sigh and drew another. When he looked up again, the amusement was gone. "I’m sorry I let you down, Joe. I fully intended to come out this afternoon and give you a hand with the branding. The bookwork took longer than we expected. I’ll ride with you tomorrow and help you finish off with the yearlings."

It annoyed Joe that his brother could even apologize gracefully. He heard himself snap back. "I’ve got this far without you! I can finish the job!" He knew he was being petulant and unreasonable and couldn’t help himself.

Ben took a hand in the argument. "I’ve heard enough of this. We all have important work to do."

"That’s just it. It’s all work!" In his anger, Joe reacted before he thought. "Work is all we ever do around here. We never do anything together anymore!" His words were directed right at Adam; he couldn’t stop them tumbling out one after the other. "We never go fishing, or hunting, or swimming up at the lake."

He saw the shadow of pain cross his brother’s face and knew that he had awakened ancient memories. Abruptly, he felt about six years old. He turned away and bit his lip before he made it worse than it already was.

There was an extended silence in the big room while each man wrestled with his own thoughts. They all knew that the last time Joe and Adam had gone hunting together, chasing a renegade wolf into the high country, it had been a disaster for both of them. Joe had got in the way of a bullet intended for the wolf. The ball had lodged deep under his collarbone and had proved difficult to remove. He had almost died of the infection, and it had taken him a long time to recover. For Adam, the accident had been more traumatic still. He had fired the shot that had almost killed his brother. His paroxysm of self-recrimination had all but destroyed him. Only his innate rationality had saved him from the black pit of despair. The legacy of the incident had been a marked reluctance on Adam’s part to be involved in any similar undertaking that threw him together with Joe. Joe had grown to resent it.

Ben said, finally, "I think we should put this aside, boys."

"No, Pa." Adam surprised both his father and his brother by shaking his head. He drew a long breath and worked his jaw. He had fought this battle with himself through the small dark hours of many a night. He had known for a long time how his brother felt, how much he yearned to rekindle that special relationship that a stray bullet had almost destroyed. Perhaps it was time that he confronted his own, personal demon. He risked taking one hand out of his pants pocket to pinch the bridge of his nose. He wanted to explain to his father and brother how it was – how the emotions churned inside him until sometimes he felt sick – but the words wouldn’t untangle themselves into coherent sentences. Instead, he said,

"It was a long hard winter, and the work has just kept coming at us all spring. Perhaps it’s time we took a little break." He lifted his eyes to look at Joe. "How about a little hunting trip, compadre, up in the hills west of Pyramid Lake?"

Joe stared at him. For a moment his brother’s words didn’t quite sink in. Then his anger soaked away like autumn rain down a sink hole in the desert; a smile spread across his face, sunlight after the storm. It was followed by a wave of uncertainty. "Hey, Adam, that would be really great – do you mean it?"

Adam’s amber eyes sparkled. He cracked a reluctant grin of his own and then laughed ruefully. "I mean it Joe. Though the good Lord knows what I’m letting myself in for."

The beaming smile returned to Joe’s face. He stuck out a hand, and Adam shook it. Ben stepped forward and clapped a hand on both men’s shoulders. It was a relief for him to see his sons friends again. "When do you boys figure on leaving?"

Adam looked at his brother. "That depends on just how many of those yearlings there are left to brand. If younger brother here had been working as hard as he claims, we should have all the loose ends tied up inside a week."

Joe aimed a soft, roundhouse punch at his brother’s jaw, and Adam swayed easily out of the way. Ben smiled benevolently at them both. Adam reached out as if to ruffle Joe’s hair. Joe ducked, and Adam laughed. "Let’s go and wash up for supper."

One

High, high above the wooded foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, the eagle soared on outstretched wings. Below her, the whole of her world lay shrouded in velvet darkness. The valleys were filled with Stygian shadows, and the hills loomed against a paling sky. Only the tops of the tallest trees were yet touched with the golden light of day. It was early; the eagle was not yet hunting. The warm, uplifting currents had not started to rise from the land, and it took much effort to stay aloft. The almighty sun god, known variously to the histories of man as Inti, Helios, Mithras and Ra, had barely lifted his bright face above the far horizon. The eagle had no name for her deity, or even one for herself. Still she flew in worship, rising and gliding in glorious celebration of another new day.

Below, on the ground, something caught her eye. Something was moving, slowly and laboriously beneath the canopy of the trees. It was far too large to be prey. The eagle took only rodents and rabbits and an occasional new-born deer. Still, her natural curiosity was piqued. She was alert to everything that lived and moved in her domain, in the heavens or on the earth. She angled her pinions into the wind and altered the sweep of her wings. The fine feathers ruffled across her back as the airflow changed. Looking down, her bright eyes espied more clearly. Crawling slowly against the earth were two of the man things, riding their horses and leading another. Queen of the skies, airborne mistress of all she surveyed from the top of her highest mountain eerie, the eagle was not frightened of men. They were interlopers, passers through; there was nothing for them here. They came, and soon they would be gone, leaving no sign to mark their passing, not even a fading memory in the avian’s mind. Her attention shifted. She lifted her wing and slipped away through the air towards that bare hilltop where the first thermal would form. As the light strengthened and spread the new day grew apace; it was time to seek for her meal.

Joe Cartwright, still sometimes known affectionately by friends and family as ‘Little Joe’ though he had long since outgrown the name, was about as content as a man could be. Riding his favourite pinto mare in the wake of his brother’s horse, he couldn’t do anything to prevent the grin of pure delight that still stole, from time to time, across his face. His much longed-for hunting trip was finally under way. Although Adam had estimated a week to finish the essential chores at the ranch, it had taken three times that long. That was the way of life on the sprawling vastness of range land and forest that formed the hub of the Cartwright’s ever expanding business empire; one job followed right on the tail of another. It was all vitally important work, and Joe had started to wonder if, despite his brother’s promise, they would ever manage to get away. The grin came again as Joe recollected the moment when Adam had finally brooked no further delays; he had simply stepped into his saddle and ridden away.

That had been a full week ago. Now, they were riding the high hills close to the ill-defined line that separated what was about to become Nevada territory from the State of California. Here in the north it was still early summer. The nights were cold enough to make a man’s breath steam, although the days were comfortably warm. The hills were clothed with spruce and fir, tall trees that fragranced the air with the heady scent of resin. On the lower slopes were birch and larch and dark leafed holly and stands of fire oak in fresh, summer-green. Down in the valleys, where they sometimes found water, grew ash and aspen and alder.

Ahead of him, a vague shape in the early light, Adam sat relaxed in the saddle; his supple body swayed easily with the motion of his big, dark-coloured mare. Here in the virgin forest where there were no paths to speak of, he let her pick her own way up the hill.

It was still night among the trees though the sky was lightening apace. Adam sat at the highest point and waited for his brother to come up alongside. He didn’t need to use words, merely gestured with his hand. The expression on his face said everything. Side by side, the brothers sat and watched the glory of the dawn as it spread light and colour across the landscape. The sky glowed in the east with an orange fire, growing ever brighter even as they watched. Huge and unbearably bright, the edge of the sun arose from behind the rim of the hills. The treetops were touched with gold.

Joe drew a long breath. No matter how many times he saw it, sunrise was a sight that never failed to stir his soul. The shallow valley quickly filled with sunlight and a thousand shades of green. A chorus of birdsong filled the air, and the brand-new day was suddenly alive with sound and shifting shadows. Joe’s breath sighed out.

"Ain’t that the prettiest country you ever seen, Adam?"

Adam smiled his slow smile. He was not immune to a little soul stirring himself, and, caught up in the magic of the moment, he was prepared to agree. "It surely is, Joe. It’s hard to believe the not far north and east of here, these hills run out into desert country."

"Is that a fact?" Joe straightened up and lifted his gaze to the hilltops, seeking for the land that his brother spoke of. "You ever been there?"

"Once or twice." Adam’s face clouded. "It’s real rattle snake and scorpion country. Cold at night, hot in the day, as dry as all-get-out. Hard place even for a jack-rabbit to make a living."

"But we’re not headed that way, are we?"

Adam eased his butt in the saddle, his eyes moving over the contours of the land; he was already planning their route. "I figure to stick to these hills a while longer, then angle across the state line and work our way back down to the Sacramento Valley. I’ve got a real good friend we could visit with a while before we head for home."

"You mean that fella you went to school with? The one with the fancy horse ranch?"

"He does a whole lot more than breed horses, Joe. Some of the schemes he’s got will make your eyes pop!" Adam couldn’t help but sound a little wistful. It was a note that Joe missed entirely, his thoughts being centred on something else.

"I sure could use some breakfast, Adam. How come we had to ride out o’ that place so all-fired early?"

Adam thought back to the bedraggled little collection of log-covered dugouts, lined with stones, dirty and infested with bugs. They were no more than holes in the ground where an extended family scraped out a meagre existence. Nevertheless, they had been offered hospitality, and it would have been churlish to refuse. The men-folk had gone without eating to feed their guests, and even then there had not been much: a thin porridge with vegetables and very little meat. It seemed that game, in this part of the woods, was scarce. The children had been without shoes.

"You saw how little they had, Joe. I didn’t want them obligated to give us breakfast as well." Adam had insisted on riding away while the sky was still dark and spangled with stars – long before anyone else was astir. He had left two silver dollars on the sacking pillow he had been loaned, the most he figured pride would allow their hosts to accept. Nonetheless, he understood his brother’s sentiments. There was a hollow somewhere behind his own belt-buckle that could do with filling, and, he rubbed a hand across his chin, he could do with a shave. "If we ride down into this valley real quiet like, I reckon we might take us a deer. We can boil up some coffee and take a bath in the brook while the liver cooks."

Joe’s face broke into a smile. "You still got any of those onions Hop Sing gave us?"

"I’m sure I have." Adam reached down and loosened the saddle gun in the scabbard under his knee. Hunting had been unexpectedly sparse, and it had been some days since they’d had fresh meat. He winked at his brother and nudged the mare into motion. Hauling on the lead rope of the packhorse, Joe fell into line behind.

In the seven days they had been in the saddle the brothers had just about talked each other out, but the silence they rode in now was more than companionable. They were hungry, and they were hunting in earnest. Eyes and ears were keenly alert. They sat still in their saddles to avoid creaking leather and communicated only with signs.

It took an hour to ride to the valley bottom, following a vague animal trail; by then, the day was well under way. The trees grew closer here, the undergrowth was thicker; leafy bushes and bracken covered the bare earth between the trunks. Surprisingly, they had startled no game out of the cover, and the prospect of fresh liver and onions for breakfast was beginning to look remote. It was as if all the wild things had taken a sudden leave of absence. The valley was curiously devoid of any life except for the birds and the smallest animals. Everything was lying low.

The Cartwrights didn’t understand it. Joe urged his horse up alongside Adam’s and was about to voice his concerns aloud when Adam drew rein and held up his hand in an abrupt gesture for silence. Adam had seen something move among the willow trees ahead. He was expecting a deer to come bounding out into the open, frightened into a desperate dash by the sharp and singular scent of man. He started to reach for his rifle, then froze. It was not a deer than he saw moving down at the water’s edge. Holding a breath he listened and heard men’s voices.

He straightened very slowly, his attention focused ahead. There were three –no, four horsemen among the trees and two more men in the stream, drinking and washing their faces in the icy water. They were olive skinned men on small horses; men dressed in deerskin, men with feathers in their hair.

Joe watched a strange look appear on his brother’s face. It was an expression of shock, of horror and of fear. Joe looked where Adam looked; he saw what Adam had seen: brown horsemen on painted ponies down among the trees. A smile spread across Joe’s face. "Hey, Adam, you don’t have to worry. They’re only Pauite." Joe had a number of friends among the vagrant bands of Pauite Indians that often stopped by the ranch. Once a proud and noble people, they were now mostly broken and cowed - what the white folks called ‘tamed’ - living on handouts and what they could scavenge. Joe liked them and had sympathy for them; certainly he had no fear of them.

Adam’s breath hissed out through his teeth. "Shush! They’re not Pauite, Joe. They’re Shoshoni, and that’s war paint on their ponies. Now back off slow." He kept his voice low, and Joe could hear the tension in his tone. His alarm communicated itself directly to his brother. Pulling back on his reins, Joe made his mare step back and then turned her around. The packhorse, confused, got in his way.

Adam was watching the Indians like a hawk. They hadn’t spotted the brothers yet; they were still busy at the bank of the stream filling their water skins. That wouldn’t last. He knew he had only seconds to spare. His first fear was for his brother. He had to get the boy away from here, out of danger. Only then could he afford to think of himself. His mouth was dry, his belly crawling with fear. He leaned close to Joe’s ear. "When I give you the word, turn the packhorse loose. Ride like the devil out of here. Don’t stop and don’t look back."

His face pale and his eyes wide, Joe reacted with growing alarm. "What about you?"

"Don’t you worry about me, buddy. I’m gonna be right behind you!"

There was no more time for discussion. Joe dropped the rope to the packhorse’s halter. Looking back over his shoulder, he started the pinto mare up the trail at a walk. Adam was struggling to get his horse turned around. She could feel the sudden tension in the grip of his legs, and it frightened her. She balked and tried to sit down. An expert horseman with the added strength of desperation, Adam fought her with the bridle. The packhorse, backing off, snorted loudly.

Down at the stream heads turned, faces came up. A shout arose and then another, a whole confusion of raised voices. The men in the river ran for their horses; those already in the saddle turned his way. Adam yelled at his brother, "Ride, Joe! Ride!"

He saw Joe lash at the pinto mare with the ends of his reins, driving with hands and heels and shouting encouragement into the horse’s ears. Finally, he got his own mount facing the way he wanted to go. The mare threw up her head and rolled her eyes. She squatted down on her haunches. Adam let out the reins and she leapt and lunged, colliding with the loose packhorse and bowling him over with her shoulder. He went down with a squeal. Somewhere behind Adam, someone had got his wits together enough to fire off a couple of shots. Adam never knew where the bullets went. Aware that his back made one hell of a target, he leaned low on the mare’s neck and kicked hard. His only instinct, now, was to get away

The horse fiddled her feet for one second longer and then hit her stride. She climbed the hill in great, leaping bounds with Adam merely clinging to the saddle. He didn’t look back to see if the Indians followed; he knew that they would. Up ahead, Joe had almost reached the sheltering trees. With her longer stride, Adam’s mare was catching up the pinto fast.

There were no more shots, but silent death whipped past his cheek so close that he felt the wind of its passing. The arrow lost itself in the bushes. Another buried itself point first in the ground and stood there, quivering, as they galloped past. Adam yelled at the mare to run faster. A willing beast, she laid back her ears. The sweat already lay in patches on her neck, white where the reins frothed it into foam. Two more arrows whipped past them. Adam didn’t see where they went. Now he was entering the trees himself; the trunks would make shooting difficult. He saw a flash of white up ahead – the pinto mare, still running. He had no idea of how far he was ahead of his pursuers. He doubted it was far enough.

He heard a dull thud, stone into flesh, and felt the mare falter. He knew that she was hit, somewhere in the quarters aft of the saddle. Gamely, she recovered her stride and kept climbing. The trail was steepening now.

Adam had almost caught up with his brother. He could see the white, frightened face looking back. He had no breath left to shout. He didn’t hear the arrow go past him, ‘though it must have passed him in its flight. He saw it suddenly appear, a feathered shaft sprouting from the back of Joe’s right thigh. Joe clutched at his leg; his face twisted in pain. For a moment, the pinto lost all momentum. Joe leaned in the saddle, looking for a moment as if he would fall. Barely, he managed to cling on. He caught the loose, flying rein and got the mare galloping again before she had properly broken her stride. Joe swayed wildly. Great horseman that he was, Adam knew he couldn’t stay on the horse’s back for long.

Adam chanced a glance behind. The trees had closed in on them and for a moment, the pursuit was out of sight. The pinto mare was losing momentum now, as Joe reacted to the shock and the pain.

Ahead, the bushes grew thicker and taller, covering the ground with several levels of green. It was the only place there was to hide. Adam pulled his horse alongside Joe’s as the pinto came to a shuddering stop. Sliding out of the saddle, he ran to his brothers side and pulled him, none too gently, from the horse’s back. Joe yelped and clung to him. Adam dumped him unceremoniously beside the path. He looped the pinto’s reins about the saddle horn and slapped her hard on the rump, then did the same to the bay. The two horses disappeared up the trail. Adam hoped they would keep going long enough to lead the Indians away. He could hear them coming now, their ponies pounding up the hill.

With scant seconds to spare, he grabbed his brother up and pitched him bodily in among the bushes. He threw himself down alongside him and allowed the greenery to close over them. They didn’t have time to offer a prayer. Adam just hoped that the Indian’s sharp eyes would miss the disturbance he’d left on the ground. The first of the Indian ponies pounded past close enough for the brothers to hear the huff of its breath in its lungs.

The Shoshoni rode silently, urging their ponies with hands and heels. Their dark eyes and their hawk-like faces strained ahead for a sight of the hated white men. They failed, in that moment, at the speed they were riding, to see the faint sign where the horses had stopped, then gone on, unridden.

Adam lay on top of Joe, covering him with his own body for what little good that might do. They kept absolutely still. Their faces were mere inches apart. The breathed each other’s breath and smelled the sour sweat of each other’s fear. Adam’s hand was clamped hard against Joe’s mouth, insurance against any outcry of pain. His teeth were gritted, edge to edge, and his eyes were turned towards the horsemen passing, unseen, only feet away. Silently, he counted them: two and three and four. Then there was quiet. Adam felt Joe move, starting to struggle against the harshness of his grip. The young man’s eyes were fixed on his face, so wide with fright that the whites were showing. Adam’s hand was hurting his mouth, crushing his lips against his teeth. He could barely breathe. Adam gave an infinitesimal shake of the head. Keep still, keep silent; Adam knew he had counted six.

At close range they looked into each other’s eyes, both of them wondering if this was a good day to die. They listened to the silence; the forest was absolutely still. Even the birds had ceased to sing. The sweat grew cold on their skins. Joe was in agony. The whole of his leg, and the right side of his body burned with pain. Adam wouldn’t let him up, wouldn’t let him move. He held him weighted down with his body. Adam knew there were six.

Sure enough, in a minute more two more horsemen came up the path, riding slowly, walking their horses. It was an old trick but an effective one, designed to trap the unwary and the inexperienced. One or two men riding quietly behind the chase, waiting and watching for grounded quarry to poke up their heads. They were hunting men. Adam inched his hand towards the butt of his gun. He was afraid of the upturned leaf, the newly broken sprig still oozing sap, the glimpse of his yellow coat. His mouth was painfully dry.

The Indians didn’t stop. Without speaking, or pausing, they rode on. Adam didn’t move. He maintained his relentless grip on his brother. There was a stone digging into his knee and all his weight was bearing down on it. It hurt like hell, but his pain was nothing compared to Joe’s. By now, the young man’s face was sheet-white, and he was shaking. Adam could see the anguish in his eyes. Even now, Adam wouldn’t let either of them move. It was another old trick to ride silently back over the same trail in case the quarry was still hiding out. He didn’t stir until a thrush in a tree across the way gave a short spurt of birdsong, and something small and unafraid rustled the bracken. Only then did he let out the long breath he’d been holding and eased his grip on his brother’s face.

Adam lifted a cautious head and took a long and careful look ‘round. The woods were empty and peaceful and bright with filtered sunlight. He got up quickly now. He knew that the Shoshoni braves wouldn’t give up easily. As soon as they found they were chasing empty saddles they would be back. Adam didn’t expect to be overlooked a second time. He took a quick glance at Joe’s leg. The shaft of the arrow had snapped off short to leave an ugly and jagged stump. The wound itself was bleeding, but not much. The dark stain was spreading only slowly through the cloth of Joe’s pants.

He looked at Joe’s face, and his eyes were bleak. "We’re gonna have to move out of here and move quickly."

"I can’t walk, Adam! Hell, I can’t even stand up!" Now that the immediate danger had passed, Joe was reacting violently to the shock of his injury. Confused by what had happened, and the speed at which it had happened he was both angry and very close to tears. One moment he had been riding through the forest with nothing more pressing than breakfast in mind - minutes later he was on the ground, bleeding and in pain – in very real danger of his life.

Adam sucked a deep breath. "We don’t have time to argue about it, Joe." Reaching down, he hooked a hand under Joe’s armpit and hoisted him bodily on to his feet. Joe barely stifled a scream by chewing at the inside of his mouth. The tears sprang from his eyes. Anger and fear boiled over into rage, and he found himself struggling against Adam’s grip with a sudden resurgence of strength.

Adam held on to him and shook him hard. He spoke earnestly into his brother’s face. "Listen to me, Joe, and listen good. They were Shoshoni braves, and they were on the warpath. They must be a renegade band raiding out of the desert. They know that we saw them, and they’re going to come back looking for us. When they do, we’d better be somewhere else."

The urgency in Adam’s low tone, if not his actual words, penetrated the curtain of terror and bewilderment that encircled Joe’s mind. He stood swaying on one leg and clinging to Adam’s arms. His face was still bloodless, and he was sweating up a storm, but the burgeoning panic, which had been about to send him reeling and crashing through the trees, was, for the moment, averted. "Where are we gonna go?"

That was a question that Adam’s active mind had been working on for a while. So far, he had not come up with any reasonable solution. He wasn’t about to explain that to Joe. With a nod of the head, he indicated the denser trees further along the valley, away from the path that the Indians had taken. "This way."

It was immediately apparent that Joe had been right when he said that he couldn’t walk. The very first step made him chew at his lip to keep himself from crying out aloud. This pain was razor sharp, the worst he’d ever had - much more severe than the agony of a bullet. Adam’s only thought was to get away from the path, the way the Indians would surely ride back. Adam put Joe’s arm across his shoulder, taking most of his weight. Joe tried another step, and his injured leg folded under him. Both men almost fell.

With urgency as a spur, they made the best speed that they could, but it was slow and laborious progress. The terrain was difficult, steep and uneven, and thickened underbrush hampered every step. Every few yards, Adam threw a long, searching look back over his shoulder. He saw nothing but the bushes and trees, now darkly menacing shapes against the sky, but he knew that didn’t count for anything. He was well aware that a Shoshoni brave could be standing right alongside him, and the chances were, he wouldn’t know a thing about it until a tomahawk parted his hair. They were leaving behind them a trail a blind child might follow, but there and then, he could think of no way to avoid it.

With every staggering step that he took, a fresh grunt of pain was torn from Joe’s lips.

His strength was leaking away with the blood that now flowed more freely from the wound. Before very long, he was hanging, dead weight, from his brother’s shoulders and could hardly move his legs at all.

Anxious to make ground more quickly, Adam scooped Joe up into his arms and carried him as if he were a child.

Though only lightly framed, Joe was still a full a full-grown man and a considerable burden. His weight ensured that Adam could not carry him far. Before very long, the big muscles of his arms were burning, poisoned by fatigue. His back and legs were aching from the strain, and he was staggering as his knees turned into jelly. He found a small grassy patch in amongst a denser clump of trees, a spot where sunlight filtered in dusty shafts through high branches. He lowered Joe to the ground. On one knee, he knelt to catch his breath and gather his wits. His lungs were heaving. In something like three hours they had barely covered two miles from the place where Joe had been hurt. Adam didn’t fool himself: they’d not be going anywhere else for quite some time.

The colour of Joe’s face had changed from pasty-white to doughy-grey as he succumbed further to the shock. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch. He was clinging to consciousness with grim determination, but he wasn’t finding it easy. The pain of his wound had become a bone deep throb of raw agony. His lips and the inside of his mouth were sore and bleeding where he had bitten them. He rolled his head against the ground, seeking his brother’s face.

Adam was studying their back-trail with considerable anxiety. Then he turned and found Joe looking at him. He cleared the concern from his face, but Joe had already seen it, and the worry still lingered on in the depths of his eyes. He touched his brother on the shoulder. "It’s going to be all right, Joe. Just take it easy."

It was a lie and both of them knew it. If he’d had the strength, Joe would have been angry. He ground his teeth together. "What’re we gonna do, Adam?"

Adam took another long look through the trees before he responded. He was expecting unwelcome guests at any moment; he had a feeling deep in the gut that neither he, nor his brother, was going to survive the encounter. He stripped off his coat and bundled it into a rough pillow to put underneath Joe’s head. "The first thing I’m going to do is take a look at that leg."

Joe’s pants were soaked with his blood. Adam pulled the long knife from where it resided in the sheath beneath his shirt, and slit the seam from knee to hip. The wound was an ugly one. The barbed head of the arrow was deeply embedded in the fleshy muscle of Joe’s thigh. A stump of the shaft was still attached and jutted out at an obscene angle. It jerked and moved as Joe struggled against the pain. The flesh was already an angry purple and showing signs of swelling. Joe needed medical attention, and he needed it fast. Even the nearest hedge doctor was fifty miles out of reach. Adam wiped the gritty sweat from his mouth with the back of his hand. The arrowhead had to come out, and he was the only man there to do the job. It was not a prospect that he viewed with relish. He had no water to wash the wound, or even his hands, and the only tool he had was the eight-inch, Bowie knife.

The smooth curve that led to the point of the double-edged tip was honed razor sharp. That, at least was a mercy.

Joe was craning around, trying to get a look at the wound that was causing his so much pain. He was sweating again and starting to shake. Adam pushed him down with the flat of his hand. "Lie down, Joe. This is going to hurt, and you’ll have to hold real’ still while I do it."

Joe’s eyes widened as he grasped his brother’s meaning. "Adam?"

Adam shushed him. He sought about for a bit of broken branch about as thick as his finger. He snapped off a short length and wrapped it in a twist of his handkerchief. He pushed it in to Joe’s mouth before the younger man had too much time to think about what he was going to do. "Bite down hard on this. Don’t yell or you’ll have the red-skins down on our necks."

His teeth clamped tight and his fingers already digging holes in the dirt, Joe’s eyes were fixed on Adam’s face. They were the mirrors of his soul. They reflected his pain and his fear, his bewilderment and his growing anger. Adam wouldn’t look at him. He knew that if he looked into Joe’s eyes, he wouldn’t be able to do what had to be done.

Adam shifted his position, kneeling alongside the wound. There was no point in delaying. Thinking about it would only serve to make matters a whole lot worse for both of them. And Joe was bleeding to death right in front of his eyes. Wedging Joe’s leg into position and holding it there with his own knee, he took a firm grip of the shaft with his left hand and cut deep with the knife in his right.

Joe was expecting pain, but nothing like the continuing wave of agony that rolled through him. It seared his nerves and stole his breath and brought the tears springing to his eyes. The cutting, it seemed, went on forever. He bit down hard on the finger of wood and strangled his scream into a bubbling yelp of pain. Somewhere amidst the fearful agony, his body forgot to breathe. He was still trying not to cry out when he ran out of breath. The black edges of his vision closed in around him and awareness slipped away.

Adam was sincerely thankful when his brother lost consciousness; his body relaxed and stopped fighting him. He’d had to cut deeper and pull harder than he had anticipated; there was more blood than he had ever imagined. There was just so much blood!

The shaft and the arrowhead came out in one piece, which was a blessing Adam was far too busy to count. At least it saved the necessity of further cutting. He leaned down hard on the hole that he’d made and was glad when the blood flow slowed.

The wound needed stitching, but Adam had neither needle, nor gut. Ripping the long tail from his own shirt, he used Joe’s slightly cleaner handkerchief as a pad and wrapped his brother’s leg as tightly as he dared. His breath hissed out through his teeth. He had done all he could. He only hoped it was enough.

Concerned as he was for his brother, Adam had other things to worry about as well. Even as he cleaned his hands on the grass, his eyes were searching for movement among the trees. Always a practical man, he didn’t try to fool himself for a moment. He knew that the Shoshoni band would be coming after them; he knew it to the very core of his soul.

The presence of warring Shoshoni in these woods had him more than a little anxious. Like Joe, Adam was well used to the small groups of Pauites that lived in the Comstock Valley and the surrounding hills. They were the remnants of a powerful nation, the pitiful families of once-proud warriors scratching a living in the dirt or begging at the side of the road. Adam had heard that, these days, they were even moving into town.

And then there were the Bannocks. The Bannocks were the truly wild Indians of romantic legend: illusive, unpredictable and sometimes savage. They were solitary and rarely seen. Occasionally he encountered an individual or a group of two or three, passing through as they journeyed from the unknowable here to the unguessable there. Such meetings were increasingly rare. There had been a lot more Bannock about when Adam had been a boy.

The Shoshoni were an altogether different matter. They were a desert dwelling tribe, and these braves were a very long way from home. Their chieftains had reached an agreement with Brigham Young, the once governor of Utah territory. The Mormon had worked hard for years to make friends with the various hostile bands. True to his own ideals, he had tried to induce them to live in peace and, eventually, to convert them to civilized living and his own particular brand of Christianity. Adam didn’t know how much success the old hellfire-and-brimstone preacher man had achieved. He did know that numerous groups of renegade braves had split off from the main tribal groups in defiance of their chiefs.

Hundreds of miles of desert separated these High Sierra hills from the dry lands of eastern Utah and the Great Salt Lake. Adam feared that this little band of Indians might be a part of a much larger war party somewhere out in the badlands, raiding across the border into California, looting and burning and killing. If that were the case, Adam didn’t give much for his chances – or for Joe’s.

Both of them were armed, as always when they travelled. Adam carried his favoured Colt.44 strapped to his hip. He had one exchange cylinder ready loaded and packed with grease in the pocket of his coat. That gave him just ten shots – like most working cowboys, he always carried an empty chamber under the hammer, sensible insurance against a hole in the leg. He figured that Joe would have about the same. Their saddle guns were gone with their horses, and all their other belongings: clothes, food and spare ammunition, were lost when the packhorse went down.

To sum it all up Joe was badly hurt and in desperate need of a doctor; they were hunted like animals and in immediate danger of their lives; afoot and miles from anywhere, they had only the clothes that they stood up in.

Adam made Joe as comfortable as he could, ‘though in truth, there wasn’t a whole lot more that he could do. Joe’s breathing was normal enough, but his lips were pale, and his eyes, beneath the closed lids, had sunken back in their sockets. His eyelashes lay lightly drawn and unmoving against the pale skin of his cheek. At least, while he was insensible, he wasn’t in pain any more.

Adam looked at the sky. Hours had passed; already, the sun had arched overhead. Adam allowed himself a small thread of hope. If they hadn’t been found yet, perhaps the Shoshoni had missed their trail; perhaps they had had ridden on without even looking for them at all. Hungry – he hadn’t eaten since the evening before and then only poorly – he settled himself alongside Joe. If they could keep themselves hidden, keep themselves quiet here, among the trees, it might be that death would yet pass them by. In the morning, if they were still alive, he would think of a way to get them both home.

Adam didn’t mean to sleep, but, perhaps, he did. Suddenly chilled, he woke up with a start. The sun had moved behind the trees, and their grassy place was shadowed and cold. All about them the woods were dark and eerily silent as evening approached on soft-shod feet. Unaware of what had awakened him, Adam looked at Joe. The younger man seemed to be sleeping. At least he was still breathing.

From behind him, Adam detected the faintest whisper of movement in the air. His mouth was abruptly dry. The short-cropped hairs on the back of his neck all stood up on end. His long, lean hand crept slowly towards the butt of his gun. He turned his head. The black maw of a long-gun was inches from his face. Lifting his gaze, he looked directly into the painted face and the savage eyes of a tall, Shoshoni brave.

Two

Joe Cartwright surfaced slowly from a long and frightening nightmare. He had been in fear of his life, running through a forest. All around him, the forest had been ablaze. The flames had been chasing him, and there was something wrong with his legs – his right leg in particular. It wouldn’t work properly, and it hurt like hellfire. Fast as he ran, or tried to run, the fire moved more quickly, leaping from tree to tree, closing in on him from either side, cutting him off from the clear air and the free blue sky ahead. He could feel the fierce breath of it scorching his neck; the fingers of flame snatching at his heels. Joe fell, sprawling, with his face in the dirt. The fire was on him in an instant. Joe was burning, burning! He drew a long breath to scream.

Joe’s yell turned into a loud gasp, and he opened his eyes. He found that he was lying flat on his back looking straight up into the pre-natural light of an early dawn sky. The heavens were silver, and the bright points of the stars were just starting to fade.

The ground underneath him was hard, uncushioned by even a blanket, and it was very cold. He didn’t have the strength to shiver. Something was very wrong. His legs wouldn’t move at all, and his hands were bound together in front of him so tightly that his wrists hurt. He drew breath to cry out a second time, louder than before. The air that filled his lungs was chill and damp – it gave him a coughing fit.

There was movement beside him, someone of bulk stirring, struggling, moving only with hardship and some pain. The figure loomed over him, dark against the sky. "Joe? Joe don’t yell!" The voice was Adam’s, low, urgent and intense. Panting against pain and panic, Joe screwed up his eyes as he tried to make out his brother’s face. It seemed to him that Adam’s familiar, darkly handsome features bore several marks that Joe didn’t recall seeing there before, a selection of cuts and bruises that had no accountable cause. And more than that, Adam was moving only with difficulty, as if his whole body hurt.

Joe let his breath out as no more than a sigh. The terror of his dream was fading even as its details merged into forgetfulness, but oddly, his legs still burned with pain. He tried to sit up to find out what was wrong with them, and discovered that they were bound together as well and attached by a rope to his wrists. For some reason he couldn’t guess at, he was all trussed up like a chicken for Sunday lunch. He looked at Adam again, the panic overwhelming him. Another cry was bubbling into his throat. Adam’s head was turned away as he looked over his shoulder at something behind him. In the slowly strengthening light, Joe saw more traces of violence on his brother’s face. Dark trails of blood had run from a wound by his ear into the collar of his shirt. Adam’s face was tight with tension, pale beneath his tan; it was smeared with blood and dirt and darkened by the stubble of an unshaven beard. Joe caught the gleam of light in his brother’s eye. The expression he wore was one that Joe had seen only rarely on his older brother’s face – it was a look of naked fear. Joe tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry.

Joe couldn’t understand it at all. He didn’t know where he was, how he had come to be there, why he was all tied up, or why he hurt so much. The last thing he could remember was riding into the valley in the tracks of his brother’s horse. They’d had nothing more important than the prospect of breakfast in mind. Now it seemed to be a whole day later, and he was cold and in pain, and Adam was afraid. He managed some sort of gurgling noise, deep inside his throat. Adam turned back to him. "It’s okay, buddy. Just keep quiet." The strain in Adam’s voice and the look on his face told Joe that he lied and that things were very far from all right; and it was years since Adam had called him ‘buddy’.

Adam moved again, awkwardly. He seemed to be shielding Joe’s body with his own from whatever was behind him. It was then that Joe noticed that Adam’s hands and legs were bound as well.

Adam looked at his brother. In the faint light of the early morning, the young man’s face was deathly pale with a livid, pink spot on either cheek. His eyes were wide with alarm and confusion, bright with pain and incipient fear. Adam lifted his hands, tightly tied together at the wrist with strips of rawhide, to feel Joe’s brow. As he had suspected, the skin was already tight and dry and very warm as the inevitable fever started to rage through his body. Adam feared that the wound to Joe’s leg would become infected. The pain, already severe, would increase immeasurably as the limb filled up with poison, and his blood began to sour. Joe needed that doctor, and he needed food and a warm place to lie and half a hundred other things that Adam couldn’t provide. He knew that his brother could die of his injury; he seen it happen before. But, right then, he had serious doubts that either of them would live to see the sun come up.

Behind him, over by the tiny, well-shielded fire that the Indians had built for themselves, the Shoshoni braves were arguing again. Their voices carried to Adam in a series of low pitched and almost guttural grunts. He knew that they spoke an elegant and sophisticated language; he was unable to understand a single word of it. He had no doubt at all that they were discussing their captive’s fate.

"Adam, what’s going on?" Joe rolled his head against the ground. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened to them. "Where are we?"

There was little comfort Adam could offer. He found it easiest to answer the question quite literally. "We’re still in the woods, Joe, but a whole lot closer to the desert."

It was a mercy that Joe had no recollection of the events that had followed their capture. Adam would have much preferred to forget them himself. Beaten and bound, he had been force-marched as gunpoint, several miles across rough country. Joe, still unconscious, had been half carried, half dragged, along the ground behind him. Adam had been unable to help him, or to help himself. It was a miracle, nothing less, that Joe’s leg wound hadn’t broken open again. Adam didn’t know, and he couldn’t guess, why they hadn’t been killed outright. He didn’t like to let his imagination dwell on the possibilities. He had expected to die, at once, on the spot. By now, both he and Joe should be cold and starting to rot. What he feared most of all was that the real horror was only about to begin. He looked over his shoulder again.

At the fireside, the heated discussion was over and the war band was breaking up. The Indians were gathering their few possessions and some of them were already heading towards their horses. Two of them were coming in his direction. In the few seconds that he had, Adam felt the knot of fear tighten in his belly. He wished that there were something he could do to protect his brother and knew, in the same instant, that there was not. He saw his father’s face.

Joe saw the Shoshoni coming. Tall, savage red-men with painted faces, feathers in their hair and blood lust in their eyes. He still had only vague memories of yesterday, but he could see the fear in Adams face and feel his own instinctive terror. He knew that they were in deep, deep trouble. It dawned on him that he was about to die. He got an elbow under him and started to edge away. His bound legs were dead weight, and he had to drag them. He got nowhere at all. The first Shoshoni brave, he with the fearful scar that ran from temple to chin and another that crossed his cheek, stepped past Adam and put the broad blade of his knife against Joe’s jugular vein. It effectively halted Joe’s retreat. He cringed from the razor sharp edge of the steel.

The taller warrior stood over Adam. His black eyes glowed with an implacable hatred. His face was painted in broad, zigzag smears of red, white and black. The paint had run in his sweat and followed the deep creases of his face to create a bizarre mask. His lips rolled back to reveal square teeth that appeared grey in the light. He leaned close and Adam could smell the strength of his breath and the rancid grease in his braids. The brave reached out a massive hand and powerful fingers twisted themselves in Adam’s hair. Relentlessly, Adam’s head was forced up and back, exposing his vulnerable throat to the edge of the Indian’s knife. Adam raised his hands in an unconscious and unavoidable gesture of supplication and gritted his teeth. He was resigned to death; he feared another beating. These Shoshoni knew how to inflict ferocious pain and could keep a man conscious throughout. Adam had already experienced it once, and he didn’t want to go through it again. He felt the sweat burst out of his skin. His mouth was dry with fear.

It was the scar-faced brave with the knife at Joe’s throat that spoke. His eyes were on Adam. Sharply intelligent, he had worked out the relationship between the two men. "My cousin would kill you now, White, for what you have seen and for what you know." He spoke good English in a low, level tone that was tense with dislike, but controlled.

Adam’s breath hissed. He didn’t know why he wasn’t dead already. It was an oversight that he expected to be rectified at any moment. The Indian over him snarled in his face, and Adam smelled his hot, nutty breath again.

"You hear me, White?" the knife-man demanded.

Adam managed a nod ‘though it yanked at the roots of his hair. "I hear you. What do you want me to say?"

The scarred face jerked in a parody of a grin. It pulled the thick lips of the mouth sideways. "You are foolish not to be afraid."

"It takes a brave warrior to cut a bound man’s throat." Adam said it with a snarl and looked the Indian full in the face. He pulled a long breath that shook in his lungs. "If your cousin wants me dead, why doesn’t he kill me?" He was pushing his luck, but he knew that he had nothing to lose. He wasn’t about to let these red-men see how deeply afraid he was; he had a feeling that they would delight in his terror, and that would only make matters worse.

Again came that jerk of the face. "I do not share in my brother’s thought. It may be that you would serve us better alive. And my cousin’s brother named me chief."

The eyes so close to Adam’s face glittered with rage. "I take it," said Adam, carefully, "That it wasn’t a popular decision." Both savage faces worked. He knew he had touched on a sore spot. Even in the face of imminent death his agile mind was working on a way to turn dissent between cousins into a tool for his advantage, a way to save Joe’s life, if he could.

Scar-face tightened his grip on his knife. The edge slipped out of sight below the line of Joe’s jaw. "My cousin’s brother will decide your fate, if you survive the desert. You will come with us, or you die now. Chose now, White. Chose for both." The blade pressed hard against Joe’s neck.

Adam knew what it was that he was being offered; between inhale and exhale he had to decide. Many of the tribes took captives, usually women and small children as slaves to help with the soul-destroying work of subsisting in a harsh and unforgiving environment. It was rare for men to be taken alive. The experience wasn’t likely to be a pleasant one, and there would be little or no opportunity for escape.

He could see the terror written plainly on Joe’s face. His eyes were open so wide that the whites were showing all the way ‘round. His body was starting to shake. Adam felt the grip of fear in his own gut: a hard, balled up fist of dread. It was the fear of the unknown, the fear of pain, the primordial terror of death. He touched his lips with the point of his tongue. He hoped that Joe would forgive him for the decision he had to make. "I chose life."

The face above him smiled a thin, cruel smile. Adam felt the edge of the steel, cold and keen against his neck.

The scar-face said, "You know you make a bargain, white-man?"

"I know it." Adam’s breathing was shallow. The blood buzzed in his head.

The painted Shoshoni tightened his grip in Adam’s hair. He hissed into Adam’s face. "I would see the colour of your blood, white man." The knife moved, and fresh blood flowed from the wound below Adam’s ear.

The Shoshoni moved quickly and they travelled light. They carried barely more than their weapons and the clothes they stood up in. As the edge of the sun broke the eastern skyline, they were already crossing the strip of sparse grassland that separated the last of the woods from the place where the desert began. They had put Joe up on a horse – Adam was grateful for that – and they tied him securely to the pony’s back. His hands still bound before him, at the end of a rope, Adam was made to walk. He knew that being on foot, as a helpless captive while others rode, was designed to humiliate him and, eventually, to weaken him. In Adam’s mind there was no doubt that it would accomplish both.

Somewhere along the way, he had lost his coat and his hat. He knew that before the next day dawned, he would have serious need of them. At least he had been left his clothes and, most important of all, his boots.

Before the sun had fully risen, the war band was heading into dry country. Aminotek was war chief. He led the way, riding out in front on his painted, grey pony. He wore no paint on his face; he bore his hideous scarring as a badge of his courage. He headed due east, into the dawn, and he went at a steady pace.

Immediately behind him on a big, black, mean-mannered gelding rode his cousin, Kalikasi, medicine chief, he of the painted and deeply folded face – the man who wanted Adam dead. He had taken the lead rope to Adam’s hands himself, and he made sure that he kept it tight. After them, in single file, rode the other Shoshoni braves. One of them led Joe’s pony by the rein and another the two spare horses the party possessed.

They rode, not together in a bunch, but widely spread across the landscape, each man following his own path. It made their trail obscure and hard to follow and their numbers difficult to count.

Dawn, in the desert, was a beautiful thing to behold. The sky was banded with green and gold and apricot shades as the high, silver clouds reflected the God-given light. The brush-land, still cold, was grey and green, clothed knee-high to a horse in mist. Visibly creeping, as the sun climbed higher, the shadows of single, sentinel trees, the last guardians against the encroaching wilderness, fell over the land. They pointed and beckoned, the dark fingers of fate.

The air was cool and damp with the mist. It smelled of peppery dust, and it tickled the nose. As the morning drew on, that self-same air would become searing hot, scorching the throat and the lungs and pulling the last drop of moisture from the pores of a man’s skin. Above all, the desert was silent: nothing moved, no birds called, not even a cricket buzzed to break the stillness. The Indians rode quietly, each man alone. Even the ponies moved without sound; there was no jingle of harness or clink of iron shod hooves on the stony ground. The figures drifted like ghosts into the brightening, morning light.

Adam stumbled and tripped. Not for the first time, he fell, landing heavily on elbows and knees that were already raw and bleeding from repeated contact with the unforgiving earth. The impact drew an involuntary grunt of pain that was quickly stifled. His pride wouldn’t let them see that he was hurt. He knew that was what they wanted most. This time, he stayed on his knees for a while to recover his breath. He had learned that he got no reward for getting right back up on his feet.

Kalikasi stopped the black horse and waited for him without looking at him. He considered the white man beneath his contempt and would not lower himself to show his impatience.

Taking a moment to look about him, Adam searched for Joe. All the other riders had disappeared into the desolation. He began to understand how they could come and go like wraiths on the wind, no one seeing them, no one knowing that they were even there. They merged so perfectly with their environment that it was impossible to locate them. He could only hope that Joe was all right.

Because he knew that he had to, he climbed back to his feet. He was thirsty, and his back and legs were aching. It was difficult to walk with his hands fastened in front of him, and his feet were hurting. High-heeled riding boots were not designed for long treks in harsh country. Kalikasi moved off at once, jerking on the rope and making Adam stumble again.

Gradually, the dry range gave way to saw grass and scrub and the soil to sand and stone.

Still facing east, Adam was walking right in to the sun. The glare hurt his eyes, and the details of the landscape were lost in the dazzle. As the morning wore on, the temperature climbed steadily. He felt as if the gates of hell had opened before him and he had walked right in. Unbelievably dry and soaked in his own sweat, his head was starting to spin. He was becoming confused and disorientated, lurching from side to side on legs that no longer obeyed the dictates of his mind. Now, the rope was pulling him along. Every step was a renewal of agony. He staggered and stumbled repeatedly against the ground.

Inevitably, he fell again. Kalikasi allowed his horse to walk on several paces, dragging Adam behind. This time, it took him a whole lot longer to get up. It was a warning, and Adam heeded it. His face cut and scraped, he had learned not to fall over.

The water hole was little more than a mud-patch at the very edge of the desert. Surrounded by rocks and vegetation no less sparse than the surrounding wilderness, it was sunk low down in the ground and did little to advertize its presence. From every direction it was invisible. The Shoshoni knew where it was and found it unerringly. There was only one way down into the basin, a narrow path that switched back and forth between frost-shattered boulders. The nights out here were ferociously cold.

Driven by desperate need, Adam would have used the last of his strength in a frantic dash for the water. Kalikasi held him back, snubbed tight against the side of his horse by the rope on his hands. Adam’s tongue had swollen to fill his mouth; his dry lips had split and bled and dried again. The salt of his sweat stung in his wounds. Breathless, panting in the merciless heat, Adam looked into the medicine chief’s painted face. In Kalikasi’s deep-set eyes he saw implacable hatred and contempt for his weakness.

The Shoshoni had water bags on their horses, the still-hairy skins of small animals tied off at the neck. They were not thirsty. They were content to hang back, waiting and watching, as silent and still as the land that contained them. It was as if they expected a trap. Allowed to stand still, just for that moment, and to rest his weight against the horse, Adam’s head began to clear.

Bit by bit, he puzzled it out. He figured his first guess had been about right. The Shoshoni had spare ponies with them that must once have had riders. This group had to be part of a larger war-band that had dispersed into the hills and the desert. Without doubt they were being pursued. It was the brother’s bad luck that they had ridden right into them. It occurred to Adam again, how slender the thread was by which their lives hung.

It was more than an hour before the Shoshoni braves were content that they were alone in the landscape. To Adam, it was a fair slice of eternity. At a given signal that he didn’t see, they emerged all at once from the sun-bright wilderness. By then, Adam was on the point of collapse. He was barely clinging to awareness. Spots danced in front of his eyes, and his legs had turned into jelly.

Kalikasi grunted and jerked cruelly on the rope, but he allowed Adam to lean on the horse as they went down the rocky path. At the bottom he pushed him away with his foot and sent him sprawling headlong onto the hot earth. Adam crawled to the water on his knees and his elbows. It was muddy and warm and thick with scum. He plunged in his face and drank like an animal. It was the sweetest of nectars, and he never wanted to stop.

Aminotek stood over him, legs astride, and twisted his hands in his hair. He yanked him up and away from the water. Adam fought him insanely with his bound hands, trying to get back to drink some more. Aminotek knocked him down and hit him hard alongside the head with the end of the rope. "Fool of a white man," he snarled in to Adam’s face. "Would you drown in your own blood?"

Adam came slowly to his senses. He remembered what he had forgotten: that a man starved of water mustn’t drink too much all at once. At best he would make himself sick; at worst he’d burst his gut and die a lingering death. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth.

"I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. What about my brother? He needs water as well."

Aminotek looked across at Joe, still tied to the back of the horse. White-faced, the young man was slumped forward against the animal’s neck. He might have been unconscious – or dead. The black-eyed gaze switched back to Adam’s face. The white man still had the light of madness in his eyes. Aminotek looped Adam’s tether twice around a rock. It would be enough to keep him away from the water. "Your brother will have what he needs," he said curtly, and he stepped over Adam’s legs and walked away.

Adam watched him go. His breathing was steadying and he was starting to think more clearly. He looked around him. The Indians, who had been watching him with varying degrees of scorn, and some small amusement, had returned to their tasks, filling their water-skins and allowing their ponies to drink, generally preparing themselves for a long hard trek. One of them, on Aminotek’s instruction, had gone to Joe and lifted his head by the hair. He was pouring small amounts of water into the young man’s mouth. Adam was, apparently, being ignored.

Left to his own devices, Adam contemplated escape. The black horse stood not far away, its reins trailing on the ground. It wore no saddle, only a faded blanket and daubs of red paint on its sweating hide.

The animal turned its head towards Adam and snorted as if it could read his mind. Adam thought about it some more. If he could get his sore and bruised body as far as the horse and get himself on to its back, there was just a chance that he could get out of here, dodging the arrows and whatever bullets the Indians had. Riding hell for leather across the desert he might just be able to find some help – and to get it back here in time…

The black horse shook its head in negation, and Adam had to agree. It might be his last chance of freedom, but he would have to go without Joe. The Shoshoni could travel much faster without captives; if he made good an escape, or died in the attempt, his brother wouldn’t live out the hour. He turned his head and found Aminotek’s eyes on him. The war-chief’s face was inscrutable, but Adam had the feeling his mind had been read. He had been allowed to think exactly what he had thought and to reach the conclusion that he had reached. Adam couldn’t run away, hell, he couldn’t even walk! And he couldn’t leave Joe behind.

They encouraged him to relieve himself in the rocks well away from the water – they wouldn’t be stopping again before nightfall – and before they set out they allowed him to drink again, but sparingly. This time they put him up on a horse, which was as well because his legs had failed and he couldn’t walk any more. They tied his wrists to the pony’s neck and passed a loop under its belly to secure his legs. By mid-afternoon the little party of horses and men were moving out into the blazing heat of the desert.

Still thirsty and hungry and exposed to the heat, Adam’s suffering could only increase. An expert horseman for twenty years he had no trouble staying on the horse’s back, even without the help of a saddle. The appaloosa was a gelding and relatively well behaved. He also had a backbone like a saw-blade’s edge and a slightly erratic gait. These two, combined with the rough terrain, threatened to cut Adam in half.

The Indians rode as before, widely spread across the country. One of the braves led Adam’s pony, and another, Joe’s. Kalikasi rode alone. The desert was desolation incarnate, a hellish expanse of naked stone. The rocks heaved and swelled like the waves of an ocean, frozen in time. Heat waves shimmered and dust devils danced on the flats. The sky was an unturned, burning bronze bowl, and the air held the breath of hell.

One by one the riders faded away into the shivering distance, lost in the haze of sand and sun like wraiths on a misty night. On the rocks where they passed, there was no sign at all, nothing to show that they had ever been…

Three

Hat in hand, Hoss Cartwright took the two steps down from the stoop into the yard. A huge and powerful man, he drew a long breath that filled his lungs to capacity. His mighty chest swelled until the fine, white linen of his shirt strained against the buttons that held it together. Self effacing and modest to a fault, Hoss hated wearing his best, Sunday go-to-meeting suit and the tight fitting, highly polished brown-leather boots that went with it, with a heart-felt sincerity. On this particular afternoon of early summer he wasn’t minding it one bit. He no longer noticed the black ribbon at his throat that had cost half an hour of painstaking effort to manipulate into an elaborate bow, or the constriction of the caramel-coloured broadcloth across his shoulders, or the pinch of the boots. He might have been walking on air.

He took the time to savour the moment. He knew that this was going to be one of those pivotal moments that he would carry with him, in memory, for the rest of his life.

The afternoon was sliding slowly and surely into evening. The dome of the sky was a deep, true blue with the sunlight slanting steeply down from the west. It lit the little farmstead with a soft, golden light.

The Fletchers had worked long and hard to resurrect the ramshackle property from the wilderness it had become when Nathan Boxer and his sons had been running the place. Hoss and his brothers had helped out whenever they could. Now, at last, it was beginning to show some return for all their efforts. Fletcher had built a brand new house on the site of the old, sway-backed shack, and his wife had planted roses to climb over the porch to the roof. Already the plants were showing new growth – a promise of continued prosperity to come.

The previous autumn, before the first snows, the Cartwrights had raised a new barn – a gift from family to family – and Adam, Hoss’s elder brother, had designed one of those fancy bath-houses he was so all-fired fond of all of a sudden, and that was to be built this year.

Beyond the barn there was a new corral and a long row of fence posts that followed the curve of the road to the belt of cottonwood trees that marked the edge of the farm. The fields were planted with long rows of corn, softly green and yellow and white in the afternoon light. A dozen head of cattle grazed in the meadow beside the stream. Two milk cows and four horses occupied the corral, and a whole clutch of golden-brown chickens scratched about in the yard. Altogether, it was an achievement of which the family could be justly proud.

Hoss let the breath out in a long and satisfied sigh. Life was good. Everything he had hoped for had come about, and he was a happy man. Right across the yard from where he stood, a diminutive figure waited beside the corral fence. A small, faired-haired woman in her blue, best dress, she was gazing out across the fields towards the trees beyond. Hoss recalled, abruptly, why he was here, all dressed up like a turkey at a Thanksgiving feast, and what he was going to do. A big smile spread over his broad, bluff face. As far as he was concerned, the worst part of his ordeal was already over; now, he just had to ask Mary Fletcher one simple question, and he was already pretty sure of the answer.

All his senses were pre-naturally sharp as he crossed the short distance between them. In a flutter of bronzed feathers, the chickens scattered in front of his feet. He both heard and felt the crunch of earth beneath the soles of his boots. Crickets buzzed in the uncut grass beside the well. A cow flicked her tail and tossed her head, bothered by a long-tailed fly. Somewhere over the meadow a red-breasted thrush lifted its voice in an evening song. In a final glimmer of glory, the sun set behind the shoulder of the mountain, and the sky in the east grew dark.

In the fast fading warmth of the afternoon, Hoss felt the cool brush of the mountain’s breath in the breeze against his cheek. The air smelled of summer grass and distant pine.

The light fell softly on Mary Fletcher’s face. Her skin was delicate, flawless, almost white. The pale column of her neck rose to a jaw-line a trifle sharp. Her nose was narrow and finely tipped; her mouth seemed to Hoss to be ever on the verge of a smile. He loved the sound of her ready, bubbling laughter. Pale, golden hair swept back from her face into a loose bun at the back of her head. A thick tendril had artfully escaped the pins and coiled itself against her cheek. Hoss found the urge to take that curl of hair and coil it ‘round his thick fingers all but impossible to resist. Mary’s cornflower-blue eyes, just two shades darker than the dress she wore, were wistful as she looked towards the meadow where the mists were starting to gather in profusion down by the stream.

She sensed Hoss standing behind her, felt something of the heat radiating from his big body. A tender smile touched her lips. "Isn’t it beautiful, Hoss?"

Hoss lifted his eyes from the woman he loved to look at the darkening landscape. He had to agree. "It sure is, Miss Mary." He reached out and placed a hand on the top rail of the fence, half encompassing her in his arms. "I don’t reckon as I ever seen anythin’ half so pretty in my whole life." He wasn’t referring to the scenery and Mary Fletcher knew it. A flush of colour rose into her throat.

Suddenly, she stiffened. "Oh, look Hoss! Look! A shooting star!"

Just in time, Hoss looked east to see the single streak of brilliance fade across the darkest third of the sky.

"Hoss, do you think it’s an omen, just for us?" Mary wrapped her arms ‘round herself. Her eyes were aglow. "I’d like to think it’s a sign sent by God especially for us. A sign that no one else in the whole wide world can see."

Hoss was a little uncertain of how to handle this romantic sort of talk. "Well, Ma’am, iffen that’s what you want ta think, then that’s what we’ll say it was: a sign ‘specially for us."

Mary laughed lightly, but the sound was a trifle forced. She was feeling just as anxious as he was. She turned to face him, her big, gentle giant of a man. Hoss stepped back to give her space. Bashfully he turned the rim of his high-crowned hat ‘round and ‘round in his hands. He was a nervous as a schoolboy on recital day. His belly was all filled with ladybug wings, and his legs belonged to somebody else. He found it hard to look into the lady’s face.

"Mary, I bin a-talkin’ ta yore Pa." The words came out all in a rush, and Hoss clamped his jaws tight shut to stop the rest of them tumbling right on out behind them. He’d had hours of patient coaching on how to do this from his brothers: firstly from Joe and later, more usefully, from Adam. Adam had taught him to breathe. Hoss pulled a deep breath.

Mary prompted gently. "And what did my Pa have to say?"

The big smile started to creep back onto Hoss’s face. "Your Pa say’s it’s just fine by him iffen I ask you, only I gotta ask you." Hoss frowned. He wasn’t at all sure that he understood all the convoluted proprieties of this, even though Adam and his Pa had explained it quite carefully, several times. He remembered what Adam had said and breathed.

Somewhat uncertainly, he began again. "Mary, I know I ain’t nothin’ special ta look at, but I’m big, an’ I’m strong, an’ I sure know how ta work hard."

Mary reached out to touch his face. "Hoss, you’re kind and generous and as handsome a man as any woman could ever want to meet."

"Heck, Mary, I sure ain’t no oil paintin’." Hoss’s cheeks flared pink.

Mary watched his face. It was plain that the big man was having difficulty. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

Hoss gazed at her. All the fancy words and phrases that Adam had carefully taught him had flown clean out of his head. He guessed that he would just have to get it said in his own way after all. He flushed furiously. Bashful, he looked at his boots, then lifted his eyes to her face again. They were the palest blue, bright and hopeful. "Mary," Hoss drew a breath. He’d remembered that much at least. "I’d kinda like fer you ta be my wife."

"Oh, Hoss!" Mary was so relieved; she had thought he would never pluck up the courage. "Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!"

His hands went round her instinctively as she moved in close against his chest. She closed her eyes as he lowered his face, and felt the first touch of his lips.

Hoss was bouncing home in the wagon in the very last of the light. He figured that he was about as happy as a man had any right to be this side of that Paradise place his Pa was always talking about. Little Mary Fletcher had said yes!

Hoss had big plans. He was going to build a fine house up in the high country. He had a spot already picked out in his mind: a place where the view of the lake was truly superb, a place where there was fresh, running water, unspoiled stands of magnificent timber and pastureland with good grazing. He and Mary would raise pedigree bulls and fine horses and a whole big passel of kids. He couldn’t wait to tell his Pa all about it and to see the look of his brother’s faces just as soon as they got home from their trip.

The Ponderosa, on a summer’s evening, was a beautiful place to be. The grasslands, devoid of animals now that that the cattle had been moved to high grazing, lay empty under the wide, open sky. The tussocky grass that had fed the winter herds was starting to re-grow; the scent of its growing was a heady aroma on the cooling evening air. The hills beyond were already in darkness, and the sky was changing from silver to velvet black.

Hoss let the cantering horses run through the ford of the stream without even slowing them down. Water sprayed out in great fans from the wheels, and Hoss laughed aloud with the sheer joy of being alive.

He was almost home and anticipating supper: hot coffee and a great slab of fresh apple pie, when he caught sight of the horses. They were grazing alongside the road quite close to the house, where no one’s horses had any right to be. A slight frown clouding his generous features, Hoss hauled on the thick, strap reins and brought the running team to a halt.

Sitting quiet and motionless on the high seat of the wagon, he listened and searched the trees with his eyes. Except for the fidget of the horses and the jingle of harness, the night was utterly silent and still. Hoss would have sworn there was no one about.

Hoss set the brake and wound the reins around the lever. He climbed down over the wheel. The nearest horse, a large, dark coloured mare, eyed him warily as he approached. Hoss held out a hand. The mare threw up her head and danced away from him. He saw her eye gleam in the light of the rising moon. He caught up the trailing rein.

"Easy now girl, easy." Hoss spoke gently and unselfconsciously to the horse and after a few, calming words she gradually quieted. Hoss stroked her nose and breathed into her nostrils. He felt her hide quiver. "What you doin’ out here all be yore-self, huh?"

By way of an answer, the mare snorted and nuzzled his hand. Although she was skittish, she was missing human company, her stall in the barn and a generous measure of oats. Hoss looked ‘round suspiciously at the nearby patch of woodland. There was still no one about. With the skill of an accomplished expert, he checked the horse over. Apart from a few scuff marks and a missing shoe, she appeared to be undamaged. She shivered and snorted, shaking her head. Hoss spoke to her again: soft, soothing words. He looked at the saddle on her back.

The scowl that had settled onto his face deepened. No one had ridden the mare for a very long time. The leather seat of the saddle was dirty and bits of the harness were broken. Hoss went over it bit by bit, moving more and more slowly, until he came to the stock of the long saddle gun. His lips set into a thin, tight line as he pulled the rifle out from under the saddle skirts. The gun was achingly familiar; there was no doubt at all that it belonged to his elder brother. Hoss looked at the other horse, now standing in the full light of the moon. It was Joe Cartwright’s pinto mare.

His scowl ever deepening, Hoss worked his way backwards over the mare’s dark hide. When he got near her rump she flinched away from him and tried to step on his foot.

"Easy girl. Easy." The big man murmured soft endearments. "It’s gonna be all right. Ol’ Hoss is gonna take real good care o’ you."

A long way behind the saddle, in the fleshiest part of the muscle, he found an ugly wound all clotted up with blood and dirt. Out of the festering mess stuck the broken-off stump of an arrow. Hoss ground his teeth together. There was no surer sign that his brothers were in all sorts of trouble.

Ben Cartwright rode home that night with a smile on his handsome, if ageing, face. Altogether, it had been a successful day. It had started before first light with a new foal born in the barn: a fine dark colt with all of Monarch’s good looks and the promise of speed from his mother’s side. Often as he had seen it over the years, that miracle of birth always left him amazed and rejoicing. And then, in the morning light, he had taken the long ride up to John Parkinson’s holding, up beyond Painter’s Ridge

Parkinson had been a neighbour and a cordial, if not close, acquaintance for a good long time. Now, the years had taken their toll, and old John and his wife Helen had decided to sell up and move away to spend their retirement years somewhere out by the ocean. It had taken a whole day’s wrangling on Ben's part – Parkinson was ever the man to drive a hard bargain – but he had bought the place, lock, stock and barrel, for a fair and reasonable price. The Parkinson place lay in a valley deep in a fold in the hills. It had timber and water and some pretty fine pasture. The house was well built and plenty large enough for a small family, and there was space alongside to expand. On his way home, Ben had got to thinking that the little ranch would make a handsome wedding gift for a marrying son.

The trail topped the rise and he stopped to let his horse blow. From where he sat he could see the home ranges laid out before him like a darkling map in the moonlight. The pine forests were black, and the lake, a silver mirror that reflected the sky. Set in amongst its surrounding barns and outhouses and the web-work of fences that formed the corrals, the big house was all lit up like a beacon. It was blazing light into the night at an hour long after everyone should have been safely in bed. It was then that Ben felt the very first inklings of concern. He kicked his horse into a weary canter and rode swiftly down the road that led home.

This time, for once, Paul Martin’s distinctive buggy was not parked in front of the house. Ben heaved a massive sigh of relief as he stepped down from the saddle. The family doctor was also a personal friend, but in recent months he had been required to make all too many professional calls on the Cartwrights for Ben’s peace of mind. All through the house, the lamps still burned. Perhaps Hoss was simply too excited to sleep; perhaps a small celebration was already in progress. The smile returned to Ben’s face as he approached his own front door.

Hoss had been pacing the floor for hours, wearing a path in the floor in front of the hearth. He had the unmistakable feeling that he ought to be doing something, but right there and then in the middle of the night, he wasn’t at all sure what. He was never so glad as when he heard his Pa’s horse pull up in the yard outside.

Ben came in through the door in a rush. The big smile and the ready words of congratulation died unspoken on his lips. One long look at the expression on Hoss’s face was enough to tell him that something, somewhere, had gone seriously awry. His first thought was that Mary Fletcher had turned his big son down. Instinct alone told him that this wasn’t the case; the two were perfectly suited and very much in love. Ben dumped hat and gloves on the sideboard and strode across the room. He took that long, last moment of not knowing to pull a steadying breath.

"What is it, son?"

Hoss gave him an unhappy look. "It’s Joe an’ Adam, Pa. I reckon somethin’ awful bad’s happened to them out there in the hills."

Ben let the breath out carefully, suppressing the sudden feeling of dread. Time enough for that later when he had discovered all the facts. "What makes you think that?"

In short, terse sentences, Hoss told him. "I found their horses on the road home tonight, grazing in the north quarter. Critters hadn’t been ridden in quite a long stretch. No sign of Adam or Joe, but all their gear was still on their saddles."

Ben’s mouth was suddenly dry. All thoughts of celebrations and weddings were dashed out of his head. He searched desperately for a plausible explanation. "Did you check the horses over? Was there any sign that there had been a fight?"

Hoss’s face took on a look Ben had seen only once before – that day long ago when he had come down the staircase to tell his father that Adam had been shot in the belly. "There weren’t no blood on the saddles, Pa, but you know that don’t mean nothin’. Adam’s horse had an arrow stuck in her butt. It’s been in there one hell of a time, an’ them critters have come through some pretty rough country all by themselves. Their legs is all cut, and they sure were hungry."

Ben stared at his son, and Hoss saw the dawning horror in his father’s dark eyes. He knew very well the effect this news was having, and it was news that he hated to give.

Ben swallowed hard. There was great lump in his throat that wouldn’t go down and a hard knot of dread in his belly. "I been hearing about Indians raiding up North and across the line into California, but nowhere near where Adam and Joe were going."

Hoss stood in front of the fire with his back to the flames. His shoulders were hunched, and his hands were thrust deep into his front pants pockets. His broad features were creased up into that deeply perplexed expression that he wore when he was struggling with problems inside his head. "They sure as heck run into Indian trouble, Pa. Look’s like they were runnin’, didn’t get no chance ta fight back. Their saddle guns were still on their horses, an’ all their other gear as well."

Ben insisted on going over to the barn and, with painstaking care, looking over both of the horses himself. As Hoss had said, there were no injuries on Joe’s horse – just the signs that she had been living rough for some time as she made her way home. Adam’s horse was a whole different story. Hoss had cut out the arrowhead and done what he could to clean up the wound, but there was a massive infection and the animal was seriously lame. Ben wondered if it wouldn’t be kindest to put her down, but he just couldn’t do it; somehow she was a last link with Adam, and Hoss seemed convinced that he could get her walking again. He decided to give her a chance to recover.

The conclusion he came to was inevitable. Whichever way he looked at it, resourceful as they might be, two of his sons were in serious need of help. He looked at Hoss across the back of Adam’s horse.

"We won’t be able to do any backtracking. The trail’s too old, and it’s been raining up in the hills. But we know which way Adam was planning to go, north through the hills as far as Pyramid Lake and then a long swing west and south, stopping off to visit with that friend of his in the Sacramento Valley."

"That’s one awful big country out there, Pa, even if Adam didn’t change his mind along the way and go someplace else. You reckon we got a cat’s chance o’ findin’ them?" Hoss was unhappily dubious of their chance of success, and he had to add, reluctantly, "Even if they are still alive."

Ben’s dark eyebrows clashed together. "What do you mean, still alive?"

Hoss was increasingly uncomfortable. He found it more and more difficult to look his father in the face. "Pa, I reckon you just gotta face it. Adam an’ Joe have run into some pretty serious trouble out there. Somethin’ – something awful might o’ happened to ‘em."

Angrily, Ben’s voice started to rise. "What would you have me do? Sit at home by the fire and wait and see if your brothers ever manage to find their way back home?"

Hoss sighed heavily. "You know I didn’t mean nothin’ like that, Pa. It’s just there’s an awful lot o’ places they could be. We’re gonna be a long time a-lookin’."

"Then we’ll look ‘til we find them!" Ben wasn’t prepared, right there and then, to admit to any more sinister possibilities than that his sons were lost and afoot in the hills.

"Yes, Sir." Hoss scuffed his boots in the dirt. He looked about as miserable as Ben had ever seen him, and he felt much that way as well. He gazed at the horrid wound on the horse’s rump. It was indisputable evidence that his brothers had run into more than a little trouble. He guessed his Pa just wasn’t going to be able to see it that way for quite some time. Hoss feared the worst, and he hoped to heaven that he was wrong.

Ben’s anger abated as rapidly as it had come. He came out of the mare’s stall, running a hand over her rump as he passed. He felt empty, drained, and sick to his stomach. He put his hand on Hoss’s shoulder. "Let’s go and get some rest. We’ll start out first thing in the morning – follow the route they would have taken and see what we can find out."

Side by side, walking close together for comfort and companionship, the two men made their way back across the yard to the house. They put out most of the lamps, leaving a solitary light burning on the porch over the door, and, eventually, they retired to their beds. There was little sleep to be had for either of them that night.

*******

The heat leeched quickly from the barren lands as the solar orb slid into the west. The days were hot in the desert, with the sun beating down without mercy and little water to be had. The nights were bright and starlit and bitingly cold. There had been no fires lit and no hot food prepared. The little party of Shoshoni warriors and their two, bound captives had existed solely on stale-tasting water, dried meat and little cakes of hard, gritty bread.

For days uncounted, they had been riding steadily north and then west into these dry, brown hills. They rode, for the most part, silently, one behind the other. The unshod hooves of the ponies made little noise on the stony path, and each horse stepped, almost exactly, into the tracks of the one in front. For Adam Cartwright, the razor-backed appaloosa pony had become his own, personal instrument of torture. With his head hung down almost to his knees, the animal followed the horse in front on a long, loose lead line. He walked lazily and often stumbled, which added to Adam’s agony.

Adam had begun to despair. He had been separated from his own kind, removed from any semblance of civilization, mistreated and abused. What made it worse, he couldn’t see any way back. Physical pain had become a way of life. Every evening, Adam had provided the Indians with their principle source of entertainment. He couldn’t count the beatings he’d taken, and his body was covered in bruises and blood. It was a tribute to the skill of his abusers that no bones were broken, and he still had all his teeth.

Adam was hungry and thirsty, and he couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been so. He hurt in more places than he could begin to think about. Added to his anguish was his concern for Joe. Several horses behind him, his brother lay slumped across his pony’s neck like a man already dead. Any attempt to look for him earned Adam another blow.

Evening was fast approaching when the path, barely discernible as it switched back and forth among the rocks, took a final turn and delivered them into the heart of the Shoshoni encampment. The settlement was so well concealed among the surrounding rocks and scrub that it would be all but unnoticeable unless a man stumbled right into it. Their arrival did not come as an unannounced surprise. Far-flung watchers had seen them approaching, and word had been carried ahead. There was no rapturous welcome, merely a quiet acceptance of their coming.

With a single slash of a sharp-edged blade, Adam was cut free from the horse. His hands still bound, he allowed himself to slide gratefully from its back. He felt as if its saw edged spine had all but cut him in half. The relief of not having to sit astride was an exquisite agony all of its own. His legs were all of a tremble, and he couldn’t stand unaided. He stood clinging to the animal’s neck with his fingers entangled in its stringy mane. Without breaking his stride, Kalikasi walked past and cuffed him along-side the head.

Adam went down hard and stayed down. He had learned the long way ‘round that getting right back onto his feet was an open invitation to anyone with the inclination to knock him down again, and his audacity could earn him another beating. From his vantage point, close to the ground, he took the opportunity to look around.

Upon close examination, the settlement proved to be a village of considerable sophistication. As an engineer, Adam was impressed. The shelters were large and well constructed, each one providing living space for several people. Built out of materials gleaned from the surrounding area, and incorporating the natural rocks into their structure, they all but disappeared into the background. Animal hides were draped across doorways and window openings, and the roofs were thickly thatched with scrub and bundles of desert grasses. The whole place had an air of semi-permanence, and Adam got the impression it had been here, hidden among the hills, for some time.

Outside each shelter, a small cooking fire burned, but little smoke escaped into the still sky of evening. Adam smelled the wood-smoke and the aroma of cooking food. His pinched and empty stomach clenched with hunger, and thick fluids flooded his mouth.

The still-functioning, carefully calculating part of his mind observed the people. He counted thirty or so Shoshoni braves and, perhaps, a dozen women. They moved quietly and effectively about their business, taking no notice at all of a lowly, beaten-down captive. They were all adults, young or in early middle age. He saw no old people and very few children, and, listening, he could not hear the pipe of children’s voices. More and more he became convinced that this was a splinter group, split off from the main tribes across the desert, used to moving fast when they had to and melting away into the landscape. His fear re-established itself.

Their clothes were of leather, mostly well worn, and were the all the shades of the earth. Here and there was a flash of brighter colours, of blue and of red, a blanket, a necklace, a bit of bright quill-work woven into a shirt. He saw fringed skirts on a woman, a rabbit-skin cloak on a man. There were hides stretched out on wooden frames to dry and elaborate baskets, beautifully made, some only half complete.

A brave shouted something incomprehensible at him and made an angry gesture. Adam knew it was time to get up, unless he fancied taking another kicking. He got his feet under him, but his knees buckled as he straightened up, dumping him unceremoniously back in the dirt. It hurt, but Adam wouldn’t let the pain show. He gritted his teeth. He made another try, and, this time, he got as far as his knees. The brave yelled at him again, full in the face, and grabbed him by the elbow. Another pair of hands on the other side helped haul him up onto unwilling legs. Adam staggered. As he was led unsteadily away, he caught a fleeting glimpse of his brother. Two of the Shoshoni half lifted, half carried him into one of the shelters. It seemed that he must still be alive.

Adam wasn’t given the chance to look back. He was marched and, when he stumbled, dragged, to a shelter at the end of the village where a larger fire burned within a circle of smooth, rounded stones. Adam was thrown, or, more nearly, dropped, on the ground. He landed with enough force to break open the dried-up cuts of his knees. He choked off the gasp of pain before it reached his lips. Through a blur of tears he saw a kaleidoscope of faces turn slowly about him. He saw Kalikasi’s deeply creased features, now all but devoid of paint, and Aminotek’s deep-scarred cheeks. Adam saw nothing noble about the savage faces; he saw naked hatred in some, impassiveness in others.

His senses wavered. He had been many days in the sun without his hat, and he was afraid that the heat of the desert might just have cooked his brain. Still on his knees, he straightened his back and filled up his lungs. He clung desperately to his awareness. He couldn’t afford to pass out now. Instinctively, he knew that whatever fate he had been riding towards was about to confront him. If he was to survive, he was going to need his wits about him.

The spotted hide that covered the doorway of the shelter lifted, and another Indian stepped out of the dimness within. A tall man of immense strength and stature, he stood tall and straight against the sky. Adam, still gasping for his breath, had to lean back on his heels to look up at him.

Like the others, he wore a deerskin shirt, tough hide trousers with a breechcloth over the front, and loose fitting leather boots. Around his neck were several necklaces of seashells and assorted beads and, at his belt, a broad bladed knife in an elaborate sheath.

He was the oldest of the Shoshoni that Adam had yet seen, although his hair, worn long and loose, with only a plain band of rawhide around his forehead to keep it in place, was still a glossy raven-black. His deeply bronzed face was smooth skinned and severely handsome with wide features and a narrow nose; his eyelids had a slight epicanthic fold, and his mouth was a thin, straight line. He looked at Adam out of black eyes that burned; it was as if he could see through into his very soul. Adam met his gaze squarely, refusing to flinch.

It was not Adam to whom the Indian addressed himself – it was to the surrounding crowd which must, by then, have included every Shoshoni in the camp. He spoke a few words, short and sharp, and a furious conversation erupted over Adams head. Held entirely in their own language, it was beyond Adam’s comprehension, but he was in no doubt at all that it concerned his life.

Many braves spoke; each seemed to have the right. Each man stepped into the circle of stones to express his opinion and was allowed to speak for as long as he wished. The evening grew long, and Adam’s senses began to swim again. The principle argument was between Aminotek and Kalikasi, as it had been all along. One saw a use for Adam’s life; the other wanted him dead. Both had his say in the circle of stones, and the handsome Shoshoni listened carefully to both sides. Adam reasoned that this had to be Kalikasi’s brother, the leader of the band and the man who had the final say of life and death. He tried to think of some way to sway the ultimate decision - and came up empty.

Eventually, the discussion became circular. The chieftain called a halt to it. He said one sharp word, and the argument ceased. The chief spoke several short, clipped sentences. Kalikasi dissented angrily. The chief spoke again, and his brother fell silent, glowering; his face was furious and dark with blood.

The tall chieftain gazed round at the gathering, his dark eyes challenging. It had grown dark while the men had talked, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Adam, who had been broiling in his own sweat all day, was now shivery cold. The sea of bronze faces glowed gold in the firelight; the flickering light of the flames danced on their skins. No one else offered opposition to his will.

The chieftain loomed over Adam. His expression was remote, aloof, his physical presence imposing. "I am Washatak, chief of these people" The voice was stern, the words spoken in perfect, cultured English. "You are now my captive, white man, the property of the niwini, the people, and less than a man. Do you understand me?"

Adam met the chief’s gaze squarely. He pulled a breath. "I understand that I have been taken from my people and brought here against my will." He held out his bound hands to prove his point. "My brother and I have done nothing to harm the niwini, nothing to deserve this." He allowed his anger and his defiance to show in his eyes; in truth, there was little he could do to hide them.

Kalikasi snarled at him angrily. "Are you not a white man? Was it not the white man who drove our peoples out of the east, across the mountains and into the desert?" He encompassed the whole of the surrounding, arid hills with a sweep of the arm.

"Am I responsible for the doing of all my people?" Adam retorted. "Can one man stand against the wind what blows from the desert?"

Washatak said something in his own language, and Kalikasi subsided again, ‘though his eyes still burned with rage. Washatak reached out and took a brand from the fire. He held the burning end close to Adam’s face. Adam smelled the smell of singeing hair and knew it was his own. He felt the heat of the flame on his cheek and feared for his eye, but he would not cringe or move away. Washatak held out his other hand, open, palm up. Adam saw the deeply etched lifeline, forked and broken twice. He looked into the Indians eyes.

"Know that I hold your life in my hand, white man. Remember that you are mine." Washatak closed the hand into a fist. Adam felt the strong fingers about his heart. The flame moved closer, a tiny fraction. Still, he would not flinch.

"If I free you," Washatak said, "do you give me you word you will not run away?"

"The word of a white man!" Kalikasi spat and turned his face away. Washatak ignored him. He watched Adam’s face.

"Do you make a bargain, white man?"

Adam gazed directly into the obsidian-dark eyes. The flame burning so close to his face reflected in their depths. He saw cruelty there, hard and bright, and courage, and something else – something akin to curiosity. His lips were dry. He touched them with his tongue. "I would not leave without my brother at my side."

The eyes narrowed just a fraction. Adam held them evenly with his own. The burning brand held steady. Without speaking further, two men from different worlds reached some glimmer of understanding.

Washatak tossed the brand back into the fire and made a sharp gesture to one of the watching warriors. Impassive, the brave stepped forward with a sharp edged blade and, with two swift strokes, sliced away the leather throngs that bound Adam’s wrists.

Adam’s hands had been bound so tightly, and for so long, that they were useless. Still on his knees, he tucked them under his armpits. Gently, he rocked back and forth, trying to ease the pain as the blood flowed freely through his fingers once more. He was careful not to let the anguish show on his face.

Kalikasi stepped into the circle of stones and confronted his brother. "You do not listen to my warnings, Washatak, but I will tell you, as I told Aminotek, if this one stays alive, the blood of our people will run red into the sand. I am medicine chief. I have seen it written in the clouds of the morning; I have heard it whispered by the wind in the night." He spoke proudly and with the authority of his office. The movements of his body betrayed the emotions he felt. There was no doubt at all that he meant every word that he said. There was an edge to his voice, barely concealed within his anger. Adam wondered what it might be.

Washatak gazed at Kalikasi, a bleak expression on his high boned face. "I hear your words, brother."

Kalikasi snarled, "But you do not listen!"

The chieftain held up his hand for peace. Kalikasi stiffened, still fuming with anger, and stepped out of the circle. Washatak looked down at Adam. The firelight danced across his high-boned features, touching his inscrutable face with gold. "Remember your promise, white man. We have a bargain."

Adam lifted his head and spoke boldly; having lived this long, he figured he had nothing to lose. "Washatak, my brother is dying."

The Shoshoni chief had already dismissed him from mind and turned away. Now, he turned back; for a moment, Adam had his attention. "If my brother dies, our bargain dies with him." Adam held the chief’s dark gaze, and his tone was uncompromising.

Washatak’s eyes burned; an angry muscle twitched in his cheek. He gave Adam a long, hard look. Then he barked a command and made a swift gesture with his hand before he walked away.

A burly brave seized Adam by either elbow and lifted him onto his feet. They marched him forcibly back through the village. His legs were still unresponsive, and he found it difficult to walk. He supposed he was fortunate that they didn’t make him crawl. For a moment resisting his captors, he looked back over his shoulder; the chieftain and the council fire were already out of sight.

The moonless night was velvet black, the small cook-fires bright pools of light in the darkness. Dark eyes in fire-gilded faces turned to watch him pass. Adam’s thoughts were becoming confused. He fought his way through a pain filled nightmare and couldn’t wake himself up.

Before he reached his destination, his legs collapsed completely, and he was dragged the last few yards. They lifted up the flap of a shelter and dumped him unceremoniously inside.

Adam found himself on his face on a hard earth floor. He concentrated, first of all, purely on breathing, in and out, His lungs hurt; every last inch of him hurt. He was hungry, thirsty, and he was in pain. His wrists were raw where the rawhide had bitten into his flesh; his face smarted where the flame had seared his cheek. His ribs hurt where he had been kicked, and his back hurt from the beatings. Adam didn’t know why he was still alive. He doubted it was through any altruistic feeling on the Shoshoni’s part. They had some use for him that he hadn’t yet fathomed. He knew that it was a state of affairs that could be reversed at any time. At last he got his hands under him and pushed himself onto his knees.

He listened to the darkness. Far off he could hear men talking – the low rumble of his captor’s voices as they sat outside by the fires. Inside the shelter was the sound of breathing: his own, harsh and rasping as his body struggled for some measure of recovery, slowing, steadying as it was achieved. But not all the breathing was his. There was someone else breathing, lighter and faster, like an animal.

The shelter was not entirely dark. The flap at the entrance had not fallen completely into place, and the light of the fire outside filtered in through the gap. As Adam’s eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom, he took a long took ‘round. He discovered that he was in the same shelter as Little Joe. His brother lay flat on his back on a woven rug on the ground. A rough blanket covered his legs. It looked as if he thrown it off in his fever. On hands and knees, Adam crawled to his side.

"Joe, Joe!" Adam’s voice was harsh from lack of water and from the hardships he had endured. "Joe, can you hear me?" He put a hand on Joe’s arm and felt the heat of his fevered flesh burning through his shirt. Joe didn’t respond to his voice, didn’t seem to hear him. This skin of his face was hot, tight and dry. It was a marvel to Adam that, after all he had been through, Joe was alive at all.

Adam looked towards the doorway. He was frantic for help, on the verge of panic, but he knew very well that if he stuck his head outside neither he nor Joe would live to see morning. He had no doubt at all that his brother was dying, and there was nothing he could think of to do to prevent it. Adam closed his eyes, just for a moment, then climbed unsteadily to his feet. He had to do something – get someone – no matter what it cost him. Hands clenched, he turned to the door.

Four <