The Spanish Bride

July, 2002

Fore-word

Hot, spring sunlight shone obliquely down from the west. It sent long fingers of midnight-dark shadow pointing towards the eastern horizon and highlighted the cloud of fine, white dust which hung like a pall over the solidly built, high fenced corral, turning it into a shroud of pure gold. Even at this tail end of a blazing hot afternoon, the heat was still intense, stiffing, all but overwhelming. The air was motionless, thick, hot and humid with the promise of an oncoming storm. It stank of wood-smoke from the small, smouldering fires that were scattered here and there and of sweat and fear and pain.

The dust was both the result of, and a mute testimony to, the day’s activity and the long hours of grinding hard labour that had worn the men down to a frazzle. That labour wasn’t all over yet. On a working ranch, even a vast, sprawling operation the size of the Ponderosa, the work started early, before the rise of the sun, and continued until it was dark. Hoss Cartwright, a big man by anyone’s measure, clad in a dirty, sweat-stained shirt, baggy pants and a very tall hat, straightened up from beside the fire and put a hand to his back. He twisted and stretched, gently easing stiffening muscles, and looked towards the corral. A grimace twisted his broad, bluff features and screwed up his powder-blue eyes.

“Hey, Joe, I reckon Adam’s gittin’ ready ta ride that hammer-headed sorrel ag’in. You want ta go see?”

Joseph Cartwright, an altogether smaller and lighter man, and Hoss’s younger brother by just over six years, swallowed the last dregs of his coffee and stood up as well. He came up just to the bigger man’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” His still slightly boyish, handsome face split into a grin, and he jabbed his elbow into his brother’s ribcage somewhere above the broad, leather belt. The two men started walking towards the scene of the action.

The big corral, at the centre of a web-work of fences and feeding chutes and lesser holding-pens, was a hive of purposeful activity. There were, perhaps, thirty hired men milling about in a state of well-ordered confusion. Some few were on horseback inside the corral; most were on foot. Garbed in hard-wearing work-clothes in muted earth colours: mainly dull browns and greys, taupe and henna and dark, forest green with an occasional flash of bright-blue or red, they were all experienced, hand-picked men. Every one of them knew where he should be and what he ought to be doing. Almost all had made sure that his job was done and that he was free to watch the shenanigans inside the corral. They lined the fences, using the thick boards like the rungs of a ladder to raise themselves head and shoulders over the topmost rail. They moved aside to make room for the younger Cartwrights; they were, after all, the sons of the owner.

Joe and Hoss climbed to the top of the fence and sat, each with one leg hooked over, and surveyed the area inside. It was a wide-open expanse, almost empty, roughly square with rounded-off corners. The sturdy, board fencing went all the way ‘round. It was filled with bright golden sunshine and inky shadows that made harsh, geometric patterns on the hard-packed, pale-grey dirt of the floor. Heat-hazes shimmered and played tricks on the eyes.

There were just two mounted men inside the corral; they were sitting at ease on their horses and talking quietly together while they waited for the fun to begin. They were hot, dusty and tired. The horses had dust-caked, sweat-darkened hides and their tails flicked restlessly at the constantly tormenting flies. Hoss jogged Joe with his elbow and indicated that he should look across at the chutes built in to the further wall.

Poised above the tight, wooden box that contained the wild, sorrel horse and silhouetted, just for a moment, against the bronzed bowl of the sky, was the unmistakable, powerful but strangely graceful form of their elder brother. Adam Cartwright was all dressed in black: black leather boots that reached to his knees underneath stout, black woollen pants, a black linen shirt opened almost as far as his belt and a black felt hat wedged firmly down on his head. Heavyweight leather gloves, shotgun-chaps and spurs completed his ensemble. Adam was a big man for a horse-beaker. They tended, generally, to be a small and light framed breed, much like his younger brother. Tall and wide-shouldered with a broad, deep chest, narrow hips and long, lean legs, Adam had a high centre of gravity which made it hard to stay in the saddle of a madly bucking horse. Nevertheless, he wasn’t a man to ask any hired hand to take on a task that he wasn’t prepared to tackle himself. What he might lack in balance because of his size, he made up for with skill, physical strength and pure sticking power.

At that exact moment, his face was lost in the dark shadow cast by his hat as he looked down at the horse. His body was tense, and every slow, measured movement betrayed his intense concentration as he spread his legs wide over the chute and then lowered himself carefully into the saddle. Sweat trickled inside his shirt and ran down his backbone; it glued the dark fabric close against his skin. It was only the heat that caused it. He wasn’t afraid of the horse, and he wasn’t nervous. There wasn’t a thing on four legs that Adam Cartwright was afraid of. He couldn’t afford there to be. Any trace of anxiety would transmit itself directly to the animal via his hands and his seat and his smell. Then the horse would have the upper hand and this battle between man and beast would be over before it was even begun.

A broad, jag-toothed grin split Hoss Cartwright’s face. “Ten’ll get you twenty big brother rides ‘im this time.”

“Not a chance!” Joe’s reaction was spontaneous. “That jug-head’s as mean as they come, and he’s got Adam’s measure. He’s gonna eat dirt!”

Hoss settled himself more firmly on the top of the fence. “We got a bet, then?”

Grinning with sly anticipation, Joe pushed his hat to the back of his head. “We got a bet, ‘though it’s a shame to take your money.”

Across the corral, Adam eased himself into the leather. He felt the big, red-bay gelding shift under him, muscles tensing as he felt the man’s hated weight on his back. This horse had won himself something of a reputation. Not only was he a big bucking-machine of corded muscle, tightly strung sinew and solid bone, there was a resident evil inside his head. He had a wicked and unpredictable whipsawing buck, and he’d learned the trick of dashing his rider’s legs up against the wall of the corral. He also had a penchant for turning on a fallen man with flashing, sharp-edged hooves and attempting to kick his head in. Adam might not be afraid, but he was prepared to treat this brute of an animal with a healthy modicum of respect.

He sat himself deep in the saddle and put his feet in the stirrups – but not too deeply: only his toes. He didn’t intend to be thrown and dragged by the foot. The horse lifted his blindfolded head, and his red nostrils quivered. An intelligent beast, as all dangerous horses were, he knew very well what this was all about, and he was more than ready. A quiver went through his hide. Adam made soft, crooning noises that he didn’t expect to work.

Adam tightened his hand on the reins, not winding them ‘round – that was another trap he wasn’t about to fall into: he had seen a man’s arm torn off with his fingers caught up in the bridle. A muscle ticked in his cheek. He was ready and saw no point in waiting. He nodded curtly to the two men designated to assist him and said a single word, “Outside!”

At that given signal the side of the chute fell open, and the red horse’s blindfold was snatched away. Without pausing for breath, the horse leapt sideways into the corral. A stinking, sweating, red-coated demon straight out of hell, he jumped high in the air, then came down on all four legs at once with all the power of a steam-driven pile driver. The force of the impact transmitted itself through bone and muscle and saddle leather into Adam’s back. The jolt was enough to drive the man’s backbone out through the top of his hat, but Adam was a practised and experienced rider, and he was expecting it. He was sitting loose in the saddle with only his jaw locked tight against the jar that could sever his tongue with his teeth, or knock his teeth out of his head.

Then the red horse arched his short, bony back and started to buck in earnest. He twisted and turned, jack-knifing his powerful, compact body and sending the shock of his landings first through one shoulder and then through the other. With the reins held tight in one hand, Adam threw his other arm wide to balance his body and to dissipate some of the gut-wrenching force that threatened to tear him apart. He sat very close to the leather, not giving the gelding a chance to shake him loose. Even so, the horse’s rapid progress across the corral gave him no chance to plan ahead. As the grey dust started to rise up around him, churned by the horse’s hooves, he could already see which way they were heading, and he knew that he was in trouble.

Apart from the odd, ribald comment, the watching men had been restrained until the chute door opened, discussing quietly among themselves the merits of horse and rider. When the pair emerged with such explosive force into the arena, a concerted roar went up from thirty assembled throats. The men whooped and yelled advice and encouragement to man and mount alike. Out in the centre of the packed-dirt expanse, the words were unintelligible, a rolling wall of sound that meant nothing to either. All Adam’s concentration was centred on the horse, and what the gelding wanted was to be free of this fenced in enclosure with its unaccustomed smells and sights and sounds; he wanted to be free of the saddle and the straps of the bridle that encompassed his head. Most of all, he wanted the clinging man-thing dead.

Adam had pressing problems of his own. As he had expected, the horse was heading, in his inimitable, stiff-legged manner, towards the wooden wall that surrounded the corral. Adam knew exactly what the animal had in mind; the horse’s intentions were perfectly clear: he was aiming to smash the man’s vulnerable knee joint against the unyielding, rock-solid post of the fence and reduce it to splinters of red cartilage and bone.

There was little that Adam could do to deter it. One of his mounted assistants pressed his horse close to the red horse’s flank, trying to turn him, but the wildly bucking sorrel kept right on the way he was going. Adam couldn’t unlock his jaw to yell instructions or even to call out for help. At the very last moment, he kicked free of the stirrup and lifted his leg out of the way, swinging it over the animal’s rump and standing in the other iron with all his weight on one side of the saddle and his hands on the saddle-horn.

The horse crashed the side of the saddle into the fence with enough force to make the earth shake. Adam was heartily glad that his knee wasn’t there. The horse hit the ground hard, spinning end for end. Adam lifted himself back into the saddle but there was no way that he could recapture the wildly flying stirrup iron.

The horse had him now and both of them knew it. It was only a matter of time. The animal started to jump in tight, stiff-legged circles, switching directions with every bound. Discretion being, by far, the better part of valour, Adam decided that it was time to part company with his less than agreeable mount. He kicked his other foot free of the stirrup and, as the big horse came down, half slipped and half fell from the saddle.

Shouts went up around the corral. Most of the men were disappointed although some few were pleased to see a Cartwright brought down. Adam rolled frantically to protect his head as the horse spun ‘round, determined to finish him off with his feet. The two mounted men yelled and waved their hats and drove the creature away. The whole ride had lasted, by Adam’s estimation, something less than twenty seconds.

With one watchful eye on the horse, still bucking frantically as he tried to free himself of the saddle, the flying reins and the stirrups that banged against his sweating sides, Adam picked himself up from the ground and banged off some of the dust. That horse had spirit and lots of potential, but he had one mean streak of temper, and Adam was starting to wonder if he could ever be broken. With one hand to the brand new, and still spreading bruise on his hip, Adam turned and followed his long, pointed shadow to that portion of the fence where he could see the unmistakable forms of Hoss and Joe – two extremes of the human design, perched on the topmost rail. Nothing much was hurt except for his dignity, but fatigue and the pain of the day’s accumulated lumps and bumps turned his lame-hipped walk into a positive limp. His spurs rang in an uneven rhythm on the hard ground as he went.

With a rueful expression, Hoss slipped a smug Little Joe the twenty dollars he owed him. Adam saw the money change hands, and a scowl creased his dusty, sweat-stained but still darkly handsome face. It was a fine thing, he thought with disgust, when a man’s own family took wagers against him. In one fluid motion he mounted the fence and settled himself astride the top rail. He pushed back his hat and favoured both brothers with a flash of his white-toothed smile. “I guess you two boys enjoyed the ride,” he suggested mildly with only a trace of sardonic humour to season the effect.

Hoss, at least, had the grace to colour hotly, but Joe still had a gleam of mischief lighting his hazel eyes. “Adam, when you stepped out of that saddle, I sure thought that horse was gonna toss you clean over that fence!”  Now that Adam was out of danger, he could see the funny side of his big, bold brother being dumped in the dirt by a horse.

Adam didn’t see it in quite the same way. His eyes glowed a deep, tawny gold. “Is that a fact, little brother? I suppose you think maybe you could do better?”

The emphasis on that one word was enough to wipe the grin from Joe’s face. Bristling, his leaned forward and stabbed a forefinger into Adam’s broad chest. “Just maybe I can…”

“Well, I wouldn’t stand in your way.” For Adam, the affair of the bet still rankled; he wanted a way to get his own back.

Hoss looked from one to the other with a frown on his face. “Hey, fellas, that ain’t such a good idea.”

Hard faced, Adam applied smooth logic to the argument. “Why not? He thinks that he can ride the horse when I can’t; let him go and prove it.”

“Why don’t I just do that?” Joe responded hotly. He started to climb down from the fence.

Hoss, positioned in the middle between his two brothers, made a futile grab for his arm. “Don’t be a dad-burned fool, Joe! You’re tired. You’ve already ridden a dozen broncs today.”

Joe slipped free of him, and his eyes flashed in Adam’s direction. “No – no, that’s okay. Big-brother here wants a lesson on how to break in a saddle pony, and I’m about to oblige him!” He jumped to the ground and stalked away, shouting to the men to load the big sorrel horse back into the chute.

Hoss yelled after him, “Joe...!”

Still angry himself, Adam ground his teeth. “No, let him go. It’s time I had some entertainment.” Hoss threw him a look of exasperation. “Adam, you sure don’t mean that.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.” Adam began to regret his display of temper, but it was already too late. The horse had been manoeuvred back into position, and Joe was getting ready to ride. He couldn’t withdraw his challenge or ask his brother not to ride with the men all looking on. To avoid losing face, both of them had to go through with it.

Joe Cartwright eased himself into the saddle and took the reins in his hand. The big horse was trembling under him, and his red hide was darkened with sweat. Joe could feel the animal’s ribs heaving under the saddle leathers. It was just possible that big brother Adam had taken the edge off the horse. If that was so, and the sorrel could be ridden to a standstill, he thought with satisfaction, then Adam would really eat crow. Joe was just in the mood to do it. He used his free hand to wedge his hat firmly down on his dusty, brown curls and nodded to the wrangler. “Out!” he said shortly.

If the horse was weary or in any way the worse for wear from his previous outing, he gave no sign of it. With his head tucked in between his front feet, he erupted sideways into the corral in a long series of stiff legged leaps. The impacts jarred Joe’s teeth together and bounced him clear out of the saddle so that the sunlight shone under his rear before he landed back in the leather.

The horse tried his usual well-practised trick and progressed in a mixture of twisting jumps and jolting turns towards the high, wooden fence. It was a ploy that has proved successful before in dislodging a man-thing, and his equine mind saw no reason why it should not work again.

Joe, long the acknowledged bronc-busting expert in the Cartwright family, thought differently. He sawed hard on the reins. The horse didn’t like it and bucked even harder, fighting the bridle for all he was worth. Joe raked his sides with his spurs, just to teach him a lesson. The horse squealed with rage, but Joe had managed to pull his head around and had turned him away from the fence. Now he was bucking in circles, spinning end for end just as fast as he could in a cartwheeling motion that made Joe feel sick.

Joe waved his arm wildly for the sake of his balance and tried to sit tight in the saddle. His previous workload was taking its toll. His thigh muscles ached as he tried to clasp the big horse’s barrel; his back burned with agony, and every jolt from the horse’s feet shot right up his spine to his skull. Joe was giddy, and his senses started to scatter. The fresh sweat of fear broke out of his skin as the world all about him shatter into disjointed fragments of darkness and light. The roar of the men’s voices started to fade, and he was left all alone with the bucking horse under him and the grim determination to stay on his back.

Devil inspired, the big, red horse had yet more wicked tricks to play: in mid-leap he reversed his direction, falling away from the saddle and dropping down on his rump. Then, as Joe settled, the horse lunged upwards, putting his head in between his knees and kicking his back legs high in the air. Despite his years of experience, Joe was taken by surprise. He felt himself leave the saddle and kicked free of the stirrups as he started to fly. The next thing he knew, he hit the ground hard. Flat on his back with his face to the sky, he saw the horse turn to come back at him. He knew he should turn to protect face and his head but his limbs moved all too slowly. The horse was still bucking; Joe felt the vibrations as his hooves hit the ground. His last conscious thought as the red beast loomed over him was that his big brother would have the satisfaction of seeing him fail.

Adam had seen Joe start to sway, and he’d seen him lift out of the saddle. The sorrel gelding turned on a dime, and he was a great deal closer to Joe’s sprawled body than either of the two mounted hustlers. Adam leapt from the fence and hit the ground running, yelling and waving his arms. Running flat out, as fast as he could, it took half of forever to cross the corral. In some sort of slowed down motion, he saw the horse bucking with the reins and stirrup irons flying and his big hooves slicing the air. He saw Joe’s arms move weakly as he tried to roll out of the way. He yelled all the harder and tried to run faster; he yelled ‘til his throat was raw. He saw the hooves come down and Joe’s body tossed up like a child’s broken doll.

Then the hustlers moved in and chased the big horse away in the very same instant that Adam arrived at Joe’s side. Hoss was just one step behind him. “Joe!” Adam dropped to his knees and reached out to touch his brother. Joe’s lungs were working, but he didn’t move. The flesh of his face was warm and pliable but totally bloodless and unresponsive. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t answer when Adam called out his name. Sucking in breath, Adam sat back on his heels and looked at him critically, trying to think, trying to analyse what had happened, trying to bludgeon a brain numbed with shock into making decisions. He had seen where the horse’s feet had struck home: in the side of the body but missing the head. He had seen the dust puff up from Joe’s shirt. Joe’s right arm lay at a very strange angle, and his breathing was rough. He couldn’t see any blood.

Adam looked up and met Hoss’s pale, anxious eyes, a million miles away on the other side of Joe’s prone body. Hoss was white, shocked and bewildered. Adam didn’t feel any better himself. ‘Though his mind was spinning in helpless confusion, it was up to Adam to get something done. He struggled to gather some wits. “Hoss, carry Joe back to the house; gently – gently. Don’t shake him about.”

Hoss gathered Joe into his arms, cradling him like a baby. Adam rose with him, carefully supporting the broken arm, and laid it across the young man’s chest. His face a fine study of concentration, Hoss set out for the ranch house. Adam grabbed the nearest cowboy by the front of the shirt. “Find Jody. Put him up on the fastest horse we’ve got and send him to town for the doctor. Tell him to hurry.” Without waiting for any response, he strode out after Hoss.

*******

Despite the furious heat of the day, the great room of the ranch house with its double thick, caulked timber walls was cold. A great, pine log fire had been built on the hearthstone, and hungry flames licked at the grey-stone chimney. The chill atmosphere was tainted by the sharp smell of burning resin. Thin tendrils of heat crept out from the fireplace, but the high beamed ceiling encompassed a vast volume of air and there was little gain made. Hoss stood with his back to the fire, warming the seat of his pants, and watched his big brother pace.

Only two of the lamps had been lit: the one with the globular shade that stood on the long, polished dresser in the dining area, and the sturdy, wide based affair that rested on the coffee table and gave out enough light to read by. Adam strode relentlessly from one patch of light to the other, then turned on his heel in one, quick movement and paced his way back. He was still limping, favouring his hip. His dark features were compressed by a scowl. Adam was furious. He was mad at Joe, and he was mad at the horse, and he was mad at the circumstances that had brought the two together. Most of all, he was mad at himself for losing his temper in the first place and goading Joe into riding the rouge red gelding. He blamed himself for seeing things going wrong and not being quick enough on his feet to do anything about it; had the damn hip slowed him down?  He was the eldest, and he was in charge, and he held himself ultimately responsible. He was using his anger to mask his concern.

Outside in the night, the dry storm had finally broken; thunder and lightening flashed and roared, lighting up the landscape and rattling the glass panes in the windows. The shutters had not yet been closed, and the lightening flashed into the room. The harsh, blue radiance challenged and defeated the pale yellow lamplight. It lit Adam’s face - all flat planes and angles - as he looked anxiously towards the staircase. Hoss empathised. He knew how his brother was feeling; he felt much the same way himself. Paul Martin had been upstairs with Joe for more than an hour and they were still waiting for news.

The French long-case clock alongside the door chimed out the hour, and more thunder rumbled over the house. Adam started another circuit, and Hoss heaved a heartfelt sigh. “Adam, why don’t you just settle down? You ain’t gonna do yourself no good, nor Joe neither, iffen you work yourself up into a state.”

Adam flashed him an angry glare and turned his fury on the obvious target. “I should have that damned horse shot!”

Hoss let out a breath. At least his brother was finally talking. Adam had the habit of storing things up inside himself until he had to explode. “Why don’t you leave that ‘til mornin?” Hoss suggested, wisely not adding that Adam needed to cool down before he made that sort of decision. Right there and then, Adam Cartwright wasn’t thinking too straight.

Neither did he appear to be listening. He continued to pace, and his face was still set in that furious frown. He had no idea how closely he resembled his father on other occasions, on other, similar nights. Lightening flared, and the thunder grumbled but further away this time; the storm appeared to be moving off, but Hoss knew better. Once thunderstorms got trapped in the valleys between the high hills they tended to go around in circles until they eventually ran out of steam and drifted out over the desert. A log fell in the fire and set the sparks dancing high in the chimney. Hoss tried again; “There ain’t no point in you blamin’ yourself over this.”

Adam threw out his hands in a despairing gesture. “Who the hell else am I going to blame?”

Hoss jammed his hands deeper into his front pants pockets, and his face became pugnacious. “You weren’t ta know he was gonna fall off.”

“I knew he was tired, and I knew that horse was a killer. I should never have let him ride it.”

Hoss chewed on his lip. What Adam had said was essentially true, although no one but himself would hold him to blame. It was just one of those things that sometimes happened. Adam, still pacing, was thinking along broadly similar lines, and he came to a different conclusion. He suddenly stopped walking, and his face became anguished. He clenched his teeth together. “What in hell am I gonna tell Pa?”

Hoss simply stared at him. He knew exactly what his brother was saying, and he didn’t know what comfort to give. Their father was away in Salt Lake City on a combined business and pleasure trip; he wouldn’t be back for several more weeks. Neither of them relished the prospect of telling old Ben Cartwright what had happened to Little Joe. It was Adam who put it into words. He looked at Hoss, and his face was stricken.

“You know how Pa feels about Joe.”

Hoss knew. To give him his due, Ben had always tried to be even handed, to treat his sons all alike, but, for a long time, Joe had been the youngest. Adam and Hoss were both well aware that Ben still tended to be particularly protective; how he might react to Joe’s injuries was unpredictable at best.

Hoss shifted uncomfortably as thunder groaned afar off; his butt was starting to burn. “Joe’s gonna be all right, Adam. You gotta believe that.”

Adam gave him a look of contempt, but before he could come back with a crushing rejoinder, a door opened and then closed in the upper part of the house, and Paul Martin’ measured footsteps sounded clearly in the carpeted hallway. Both Cartwright men moved to the foot of the stairs.

Paul Martin was the family physician, a middle-aged man in a grey woollen suit and carrying his black, leather bag. He looked tired. It was nothing unusual. Neither Adam nor Hoss could remember a time in the last twenty years when Paul hadn’t looked tired. He was a man who carried the weight of the world’s sick and wounded on his own shoulders. As he came down the stairs his blue-grey eyes switched from one anxious Cartwright face to the other. “It’s all right, boys,” he assured them. “Joe is going to be fine.”

Hoss let out a mighty sigh of relief,  but Adam wasn’t so easily reassured; he had been the one who had gently eased Joe out of his clothes. He had seen the state of Joe’s arm, clearly broken in two, separate places, he had seen the spreading bruises along the side of Joe’s ribcage where the big horse’s hooves had driven home, and he had heard his brother’s laboured, raspy breathing. “Tell it to me straight, Paul.”

“I’m telling you straight, Adam.” Paul bristled a little as he put his bag down on the table, then relented as he saw the strain and the near-frantic expression on Adam’s face. “Your brother’s going to be all right, but it’s going to take time. I’ve set his arm and put it in splints, and I’ve wrapped up his chest. Looks like he’s got three broken ribs, maybe four. He’s not going to be moving ‘round much for a while, and he’s going to be in some pain, but you Cartwrights are tough. He has the constitution of a haulier’s mule. He’s going to get over it.”

The relief on Adam’s face was almost comical. It was Hoss who remembered his manners. “Hey, doc, can I offer you coffee? A bed for the night?”

Paul cocked his head on one side, listening to the vagrant, elemental rumblings from outside.  “I don’t think so Hoss.  I reckon I’ll try to get back into town before that storm comes around again.”  He picked up his bag and his hat and nodded to the two Cartwright men. “I’ll try to get out in a day or two to check how Joe’s doing.  In the meantime, you won’t have much trouble keeping him quiet. I’ll see myself out.”

Once Paul was gone, driving fast in his one-horse buggy to stay ahead of the storm, Hoss stood and fingered the little brown bottle of laudanum that Paul had left to help with Joe’s pain.  Adam stood in front of the fire, one hand on the mantle, staring into the flames.  His face was still set into ridged lines of self-recrimination. The muscles were knotted at the hinge of his jaw, and his eyes, dark brown in this, different light, were grim and determined.

“So, what are we gonna do now?” asked Hoss, finally.

Adam turned his head to look at him, the firelight falling on just one side of his face. “Do?”

“You forgot that Joe was due ta set out for Don Esteban’s at the end of this week? It’s taken all year ta set up that deal, an’ we sure need that breeding stock. Now Joe can’t go, either you or me ‘re gonna have ta take that trip down to Mexico an’ pick out those horses.”

Adam leaned his forehead against the back of his hand and, for a moment, allowed his tired eyes to close. His breath hissed through his teeth. It was true. With all the confusion and anxiety that had followed Joe’s accident, he had completely forgotten the impending trip to the Mexican border-lands and beyond to the impressive rancho and hacienda of his father’s old friend and business acquaintance, Don Estaban Padro. It was one more thing that he had to worry about.

The heat from the fire rose into his face. He felt its scorch on his chin, his lips, his unshaven cheek and on his lightly closed eyelids.  His head was heavy.  His body ached.  He was exhausted, physically worn by the day’s hard work and drained by emotion, so tired that he couldn’t think.  But he was in charge, he was responsible, and, now that he was sure that Joe was going to recover, he would have to come up with some answers.  He was aware that Hoss was watching him, waiting for him to speak; he could feel the big man’s eyes like a pressure against his back.  Adam made his weary brain work.

The arduous journey had been a long time in the planning, and the tickets were already purchased: first the stage to Sacramento and then a riverboat to San Francisco and a ship down the Californian coast to San Diego. There, it would be necessary for a man to purchase horses and supplies then backtrack along the Gila trail to Yuma in Arizona where the Colorado River drops down to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. From there he would turn south across the badlands and the desert into Mexico proper. It was not a trip to be envied, or to be undertaken lightly.

It’s a long trip,” he said, finally. “At least eight weeks to get there, more coming back with the horses, and then there’s the time spent at Don Esteban’s. He’s a grandee of the old fashioned kind. He regards the social side of a business deal as important as the hard talking. It won’t be a cut and run visit. Whichever one of us goes will be gone long into the autumn – way past fall round up. Whoever stays will have to take charge of the drive to the railhead.”

The two men gazed at each other in the dim, yellow light of the oil lamps: each watching the other’s face for a sign of expression, each trying to figure out what the other was thinking. Outside the window, the sky lit with lightening and the thunder rolled. The dry storm was drifting closer again. They both knew that this trip had to be made by a Cartwright; nobody else would do. Joe had been the obvious selection. Now that he was out of the equation, someone else would have to go.

It was Hoss who broke the long silence first, “I think you ought ta go, Adam. You’ve already met Don Estaban. He knows you. ‘Sides, I was kind o’ hopin’ ta go on the big drive this year.”

“Why’s that?” Adam’s tone was sharper than he had intended. He felt instant regret.

Hoss looked sort of sheepish. “Mary was plannin’ ta meet me in Sacramento this fall. She wants ta pick out some fancy do-dads fer the weddin’, an’ she wants me ta be there ta help her.” He looked at Adam out of huge, imploring eyes. “I sure didn’t want ta disappoint her.”

Adam’s expression softened. His brother’s wedding had already been put off twice; he couldn’t make himself responsible for another delay. “Then it looks like I’m going to Mexico,” he said with a grimace that almost resembled a smile. Another log fell in the fireplace, and outside, the thunder and lightening merged into one as the dry storm passed over the house in a gesture of benediction.

One

  Adam pulled his horses over to the side of the path into the solid block of shadow offered by a huge, overhanging rock. It was the only patch of shade anywhere around large enough to accommodate both horses and man, and, at that precise moment, Adam felt a pressing need to get out of the sun. From where he sat, close to the spot where the trail tipped over the shoulder of the rounded hill and began its winding descent into the next, shallow valley, he had an eagle’s-eye view of all the country that he had traversed that day. It was a harsh and unforgiving land of shattered white rock and crystalline sand, of relentless sunlight and dense, stark shadows, of dust and heat and steadily rising thermals. This world was painted in shades of yellow and ochre, of sepia and cream with bright, white highlights that dazzled the eye and tricky perspectives that could make a man wonder if what he was seeing could really be. Adam had long ago found himself longing for the sight of something green to ease the monotony.

If spring had been hot in Nevada, then early summer in these border badlands closely resembled the interior of a blast furnace or the outer reaches of hell. Heat shimmered off the broken rock; it beat down on a man’s head without mercy and blasted up into his face from the ground. It sucked the moisture out of his skin and left him constantly thirsty. The air smelled of heat and dust and dryness; it hadn’t rained here for two years or longer. The landscape was blasted and desolate. In another week or so it would become impassable: a blazing inferno where nothing could live, a veritable death trap for man and beast alike.

Motionless, he sat and listened to the stillness. He heard the hiss of his breath and the sigh of his blood. One of his horses flicked its tail at an imaginary fly. A stone rattled loudly as it tumbled away from the horse’s hoof. From further away came the sound of rock creaking as it expanded in the gathering heat. The heat hazes shivered but nothing else moved; no breath of air stirred, and not even the dust devils danced. Adam wasn’t unduly surprised; he hadn’t expected differently. Other than himself and his horses, he hadn’t seen anything living in more than three days. Already the lizards and the snakes and the scorpions had abandoned this godforsaken place.

Nevertheless, something was out there, something living and breathing. Adam was being followed; he was sure of it. The burning itch that centred squarely between his shoulder blades told him as much, and he had never known it be wrong.

At first, he had though it was Indians, perhaps just one or two braves intent on stealing his guns and his horses and, perhaps, relieving him of his hide in the process, just for amusement. Thinking about it, that didn’t seem likely. Although these hills crawled with renegade Apache, they usually travelled in bands. A group of them wouldn’t bother trailing him, wearing him down; the first he would have known of their presence was when he found himself rather abruptly dead.

The second possibility, and one he feared even more, was that bandits had spotted him passing and latched on to his tail. The local outlaw population, a mixture of Mexicans, white men and outcast Indians, were know to be harder and crueller by far than any noble savage, and they were at least as persistent when it came to dogging a man’s trail. The bank draft he carried, made out for an astonishing amount of American dollars by the Cartwrights’ San Francisco bank and sealed inside a waxed paper packet, burned against the small of his back.

He squinted up at the sky. He had been in the saddle for hours, since the first light of dawn had lit up the sky, but it was only mid-morning. In this hot and arid country a man travelled early and late. In the middle of the day he rested himself and his animals in whatever patch of shade he could find.

Still studying his back-trail with intense concentration, he lifted his hand to scratch at the spiky dark stubble that clothed his cheek. It was a while since he’d had enough water to spare to moisten the edge of his razor, and the stubble was starting to itch. The beads of perspiration that gathered on his forehead he left undisturbed; although not especially pleasant, the tickling evaporation of sweat from his skin was necessary to keep him cool.

Thoughts of water and coolness made him think about drinking. He might be thirsty but it wasn’t time for that yet. Although he had water for several more days, a man had to ration himself and his horses if he wanted to stay alive. There were no bones littered among these white rocks - the elements and the unseen scavengers had made sure of that, but animals had died in these uncharted tracts – and so had men. He resisted the urge to lick his dry lips; they would split and bleed if he did. The membranes inside his mouth were already painful; his tongue was swollen and sore. He saw no point in adding further to his own discomfort.

And it wasn’t only a matter of drinking water. Two weeks unwashed, he knew that he stank. His dark clothes were stiff with sweat and dirt. A coyote would smell him a mile downwind – an Apache, twice that far. The bandits he wasn’t so sure about; some of them were breeds, of Apache or Commanche stock, and they had noses as keen as dogs’.

There was still no sign of life in the landscape below him. Whoever had him in their sights wasn’t about to show themselves, and there was no point in waiting any longer. Reaching out a hand, he gave the horse a pat on the sweat-darkened neck and clicked with his tongue. The horse’s hide quivered, and he moved off with a will. He was a big, rangy animal, dark bay in colour. He had a broad, comfortable back and easy paces and an intelligent eye. They were the qualities that had made Adam pick him from among a dozen likely animals, and he had fully justified that judgement, proving reliable and enduring. The packhorse that followed behind on a lead-rope was a sturdy, uncomplaining buckskin, not built for speed but all that Adam required. He wasn’t expecting to outrun trouble. The man and his horses were silhouetted only briefly against the skyline as they came to the top of the trail and started down the other side.

Adam found water in a place where he wasn’t expecting it: in a place where he had been told that it couldn’t exist, A wide, shallow river flowed quick and cool over an even, white-pebble bed. It was mid-day. The sky was a burnished pewter plate with the sun directly overhead. The heat devils danced, and the whole desert shivered under its onslaught. Adam’s shirt was soaked with his sweat. He should have stopped and slept through the heat of the day, but he didn’t trust his unseen pursuers to let him wake up again.

There were more of them now. The original watcher had been joined by another, perhaps by two or three more. They were closer now; he could feel it. Perhaps they were moving in for the kill. Adam hadn’t seen them yet, not hide nor hair, but he knew they were there.

The bay horse snorted, and Adam felt muscles jerk under the saddle. He tightened the reins and placed a settling hand on the animal’s neck. “You feel it too, eh, boy?” He scanned the hills all around him and saw nothing but rocks, sand and dust. He could feel the eyes watching him, burning into his back, but he couldn’t locate the watchers. They were driving him like demons, riding his tail, herding him to some unknown destination that was not of his choosing. Adam didn’t like it. It was, he figured, time to do something about it. It was time for a man to take charge of proceedings. The bay horse flicked a black-tasselled ear as if in unspoken agreement.

Adam sat in the saddle, alert and ready to ride, while his horses drank their fill. Then he rode across to the other side and stepped down onto the bank. With his horse’s reins held firmly in one hand so that the animal wouldn’t run off if startled, he filled his canteens, then hitched them back on the saddle. Only then did he crouch down to slake his own thirst.

Lifting the water from river to mouth in the cup of his hand, he drank slowly, filling his belly with care so as not to make himself sick. Then he washed his face and neck and let the cold water run down his body, until his shirt was soaking wet. All the while he kept a watch on the opposite riverbank, the one he’d just left. He was well aware that the faceless watchers, whoever they might be, could already have crossed the river, upstream or down, and be in the rocks behind him with rifle sights trained on his back. It wasn’t a thought he was easy with, but that illusive, seventh sense that he trusted told him that they were still on the far side of the water.

Straightening, he dried his hand on the leg of his pants. Then he walked a few yards to stretch the kinks out of his back before he swung back into the saddle. The broken pack-trail that he’s been following turned to run a mile alongside the river before curving again to cross the next hill. Adam rode it a while, then doubled back, heading his horses up into the rocks and climbing steadily until he had a high vantage point and could look down on the trail and the river crossing.

He loosened his Colt .44 in his holster, merely as a precaution, and sat quietly on the bay horse’s back, just below the skyline. He chewed on his lip while he considered the possibilities. He could run, although he didn’t give much for his chances. A chase across the desert with a packhorse in tow, or even without, was a risk that was more than perilous. And, whether redskin or bandit, his stalkers were bound to know this shattered country a whole lot better than he did. They could cut corners, and no doubt they would get ahead of him, ‘cutting him off at the pass’ in the time-honoured manner, and deliver some unwelcome surprises. Alternatively, he could stand and fight from up here in the rocks. He had a good view of all the approaches and plenty of ammunition among his supplies. For a moment he was tempted, but he had no real idea of how many he might be facing. It was always possible that they could use their superior knowledge of the environment and get ‘round behind him, coming from all sides at once. It was not a prospect he relished.

Or there was a chance that he could lie low among the rocks, with his horses tied down and muzzled, and hope that the hunters might pass him by. If the truth were told, he didn’t much care for that idea either. His only other option, and the one that he favoured, was to turn the tables on the men that pursued him, to turn the attack onto the attackers and make the hunters the hunted.

Nothing moved in the sun-soaked valley while the last of the hour ticked by. Obviously the watchers had some idea where he was and weren’t yet anxious to press their advantage, probably planning to come on him after dark while he slept or sat as his campfire. Adam wasn’t prepared to wait any longer. Moving off at a slow, steady pace, he allowed his horses to pick their own way. Feeling fresh sweat trickle inside his shirt, he lost himself in the arroyos and gullies, the brightness and shadows of the sunlit afternoon.

It was late in the day when Adam returned to the river. The sun had fallen below the western horizon, filling the sky with glowing echoes of orange and red. In the east, the light was already fading. He came on foot, having left his horses a long way behind him, tethered among the rocks. Carrying his rifle, but not expecting to use it, he moved on soft, soundless feet, padding silently from shadow to lengthening shadow. Adam had spent time with the Pauite and the Shoshoni, and he had learned their ways. No stone turned under his foot; nothing about his person rattled. He could drift like an unseen, noiseless ghost through the grey, evening light. He had taken great care to rub his body well with dry earth to kill the scent of his sweat so that not even his smell would give him away. Invisible, unheard and spreading no scent, he all but retraced his steps and returned to his vantage point above the trail.

With the last of the sunset reflected in the depths of his tawny eyes, he settled himself in amongst the rocks. From there, he could easily see the wide, river crossing and the banks on either side. There were two men in the river, sitting astride their horses. One was a big man, wide in the shoulders and powerfully built. The last of the sunlight sparkled on the edge of his cuffs. The other man was leaner, possibly taller, in a bolero and a full-sleeved shirt. The horses they rode were tall and broad backed with fancy bridles and silver decked saddles. Adam couldn’t see the men’s faces; wide brimmed Mexican hats concealed them from above. They were not Indians then but Mexican types and, perhaps, the bandits that Adam had feared. He had no doubt at all that the two of them had spent all afternoon searching the road and the surrounding desert and had returned to the crossing place to try to pick up his trail. He didn’t think that they’d done it out of concern for his health.

Carried clearly on the evening air, he could hear their voices as they called to each other back and forth across the water. He couldn’t make out the words, but he thought they were speaking Spanish. He wondered if he should try to get closer, to hear what was being said. The last of the glow slid out of the sky, and the desert began to breathe. He felt the movement of air against his cheek, rising up from the water. The broken stone was still warm, slowly exuding the accumulated heat of the day. Beneath a clear night sky, the desert would start to grow cold.

Adam leaned farther out, then sucked in his breath as he spotted movement on the trail below him. An animal snorted and kicked the ground with its foot. There was a dark-coloured horse half hidden in the gathering gloom. He had almost overlooked it with possibly fatal results. A stripped blanket was thrown over the saddle; the rider would be an Indian or some sort of breed - the worst possible combination. Whoever he was, he was somewhere in amongst these very same rocks, probably searching for sign. If he looked in the right spot he was going to find it.

Adam sat back on his heels to consider. The odds were not good, and, if there were more men concealed in the darkness, they could get rapidly worse. He couldn’t attack them from ambush – morally, that would make him no better than they were – and he still had no actual evidence that they intended him harm. He still had the choice to return to his horses and make his escape over the desert, riding by starlight and hoping his horse didn’t fall. He heard the two voices again, still calling but fainter now and further away as the men moved off, walking their horses downstream with the current. In the east the stars were starting to shine. 

Adam’s sharp ear caught a whisper of sound: not so much as a footfall or even the rub of cloth against stone. It was more the soft brush of air moving on skin in the silence, the gentlest exhalation of breath. Someone was there with him in the gathering darkness and quite close at hand. Adam subsided into the deepest shadow, not holding his breath but keeping his heart rate steady. He hooded his eyes so that the whites didn’t show and withdrew everything that made who he was into a quiet central core, melded with the rock close beside him. He waited.

Long minutes passed before the sound came again, and then it was fainter, but nearer still. Someone moved on the hillside below him, a man’s dark bulk among the broken boulders. For an instant, Adam glimpsed a sharp profile etched against the paler sky like a cut-out silhouette from a book his stepmother used to own. The man had Indian blood; there could be no doubt of it. The face was all flat planes and hard, sharp angles with a vast hooked nose beneath a hat with an eagle’s feather stuck in the band. He wasn’t looking in Adam’s direction; he had no idea he was there. He was looking towards the river and the two horsemen riding away. Like Adam, he wore dark clothes and carried a long gun cradled against his body.

The half-breed straightened and continued to cross the hillside. He paused as if sensing – something – so close to the place where Adam was hidden that Adam could smell his sweat and the rancid grease that dressed his hair, and the faint aroma of something herbal: possibly something chewed. Then, apparently reassured by the silence and the deathly stillness, he moved on. Adam had a decision to make; there was no doubt at all that his trail would be picked up in the morning, just as soon as there was enough light to see tracks. He had to live with these men riding his tail or use the hours of darkness to do something about it. There wasn’t really an option; he was sick of the itch in his back.

He waited until the two men were out of sight, the sounds of their voices fading away into the silence; then he stood up, rising slowly and turned. Gravel crunched under his heel and starlight glinted on steel. It was more than enough to catch the half-breed’s attention. The man didn’t call out to his companions. As Adam had rightly surmised, he wanted this white man’s scalp for himself.

Employing all the guile of his Indian brothers, Adam used the old but still often successful trick of following his man from in front. He made just enough noise and disturbance to keep the man coming, always aware of just where he was and exactly what he was doing. Dark on dark, they stalked each other through the stone desert.

Adam led him where he wanted him to go, to the small encampment that he had carefully arranged among a grouping of larger boulders. He had lit no fire, but some of his belongings were carefully spread about and his horses tethered nearby. There, he stepped to the side, concealing himself behind a large, rounded rock. The ‘breed walked right by him, silent on moccasined feet.

Adam had left his blanket rolled ‘round some rocks to make it look like he might be in it. The half-breed hesitated on the fringe of the camp, a frown on his half-seen face as if he were wondering how a man tracking through the desert one minute could be sound asleep the next. Somehow, he didn’t quite believe it. This man was nobody’s fool. He stepped forward in silence, his weight on the balls of his feet. Something glinted in his free hand: the broad, flat blade of a small hatchet - enough of a weapon to make a nasty mess of a sleeping man’s skull.

Leaving his rifle among the rocks, Adam slipped his Bowie knife from it sheath under his shirt and stepped out silently behind his stalker. It would have been easy to slide the razor sharp blade between the ribs, angled upwards into the heart: all too easy. But Adam wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. At the last moment the half-breed sensed he was there; he stiffened, dropping into a crouch as he started to turn. Adam reversed the knife and smacked the man firmly behind the ear with the lead-weighted butt. The force of the blow was perfectly judged. The man dropped like a stone. Adam caught him under the armpits and lowered him with scarcely a sound.

Now very much the predator rather than prey, Adam crouched over the unconscious body and lifted his face into the wind. His listened to the quiet of the desert and sniffed at the cooling air. At first all he could hear was the half-breed’s snuffling breathing and the harsher rasp of his own. Then, from further away across the desert he heard men calling. Close by the river the Mexicans were seeking their friend. He looked at the sky. More than an hour had slipped away; a silver sliver of moon had emerged from behind the hills and cast the shattered landscape into stark relief.

Apart from the shoes, the man wore a westerner’s clothes: shirt, vest and pants. Adam pulled the man’s belt away from his trousers and used it to bind his hands tightly behind his back. The grimy neckerchief from around the man’s neck made an effective gag, and Adam made sure it was tightly tied. By now the half-breed was coming around. His face twitched and contorted, and then his eyes opened: deep, dark wells of hatred and pain. There was a huge lump swelling on the side of his skull, right about where Adam had hit him. Adam tightened the last knot and gave him a cheerful grin that didn’t quite reach as far as his eyes. “So you thought you’d help yourself to my hair, did you, amigo?”

The half-breed snarled at him through the filthy rag, and the hard eyes blazed with loathing, reflecting the silver sky. He had lost the feathered hat in his fall, and, for the first time, Adam got a good look at his face. Adam guessed him to be three-quarters Apache. He had razor-sharp cheekbones and a long, pointed chin. His skin was the colour of well-weathered teak, coarse and heavily pored and shiny with perspiration despite the increasing chill of the night. His uncut black hair was tightly braided into two long plaits, tied with leather cords and smeared with something greasy and highly aromatic. The smell of his sweat was sharp and acidic. The breath snorted out of his nostrils. Adam, who had very much the upper hand, afforded a chuckle. “That’s not a very friendly welcome to give a man when he comes visitin’,” he continued, undaunted by the other man’s fury. “But then, you don’t look to be the friendly sort.”

If the man hadn’t been gagged, he would have been incoherent. Adam fetched a short length of rope and proceeded to lash the man’s ankles together. He didn’t want him wandering off into the desert and getting himself lost. The half-breed stopped struggling and lay very quietly. His eyes still burned with implacable hate in the dark-coloured face. Just to annoy him, Adam spoke to him as he might to a recalcitrant child, “You lie here nice and quiet, and, come morning, I might just decide not to kill you.”

Adam had no compunction at all about leaving the half-breed to lie on the cold, stony ground where he had fallen, no fear that he might come to harm in the chilly desert night. Even on such a brief acquaintance he had decided that the fellow had few endearing qualities, and he contained a white hot well of fury burning deep down inside that was more than enough to keep him warm and alive. Adam retrieved his rifle and backed his saddle horse out of the rocky corner that served as a stall. As a parting gesture of goodwill, he tossed the man’s rifle and the little hatchet as far as he could into the desert. They landed with a distant clatter, lost somewhere out in the darkness. Adam gave the half-breed a grin. Leaving the black-backed packhorse to keep the man company, he stepped into the big bay’s saddle and turned the horse’s head towards the river. He still had the two Mexicans to deal with, but, with the half-breed out of the equation, the odds were more in his favour.

The men had stopped calling, and the desert was quiet. Adam had no idea where they might be, only the general direction from which he’d last heard their voices. The river ran swiftly and silently between its low banks, fluid and quicksilver bright. Adam’s saddle leather creaked in the silence, and the bay’s iron shod hooves made hard, sharp sounds on the shale.

By now, Adam’s keen eyes were well adjusted to the gloom. He spotted the Mexicans in the exact same moment that they lifted their eyes and saw him. They were four hundred yards up river, still riding their horses in the midst of the shallow stream. The starlight shone on the crowns of their light-coloured hats and made Adam’s face a pale, glowing oval. They all stared at each other. The larger lifted his arm and pointed in Adam’s direction. His shout carried clearly. Both men kicked their horses to a faster pace. Spray flew from the hooves in all directions and hung for a moment, high in the air. Adam hauled the bay round and dug in his heels. He had no intention of fighting out here in the open. He needed the shadow and the concealment of the night shrouded hills if he were to gain an advantage. This time, he’d be the stalker, and he’d choose the stalking ground. He let out the reins and kicked the horse into a run.

Several shots sounded behind him, explosions that shattered the quiet. Adam wasn’t concerned. A handgun barely had the range, and the chances of men on running horses hitting a moving target were rather less than none. Nevertheless, he didn’t want them to come any closer. He urged the bay into a gallop, praying he wouldn’t stumble, and leaned down close to his neck.

There were more yells behind him and more random shots, and then, all of a sudden, he was no longer being pursued. The curses and shouts of anger had turned into cries of alarm. He pulled up the bay and looked behind him. Adam had kept close to the curve of the river, riding up on the bank. The Mexicans, still in the water, had cut across the corner. It was a clever manoeuvre that would have halved the distance between them and given them a much surer shot. They had hit a pocket of quicksand and both horses had foundered, pitching their riders over their heads and into the sucking mud.

Adam thought about it but not for very long. The Mexicans might have wanted him dead, but he wasn’t the type of man to reciprocate, even though it might have been wiser. He turned the horse around and rode back along the bank. He didn’t know how extensive the quicksand might be and didn’t relish tangling with it himself. The larger Mexican was nearer the bank. He was struggling hard and rapidly going under. The water was already up to his chest. He saw Adam ride up, and a dazzling smile split his broad-featured face. He spread his hands in a wide gesture of supplication.  “You throw me the rope, Señor? You get your fine horse to pull me out of this mud-hole, eh?”

Adam eased himself in the saddle and studied the stars while he considered it. The Dipper sat down low on the horizon, and the Great Bear was right overhead.  “You give me one good reason why I should.”

The Mexican laughed and shrugged. The water crept half an inch higher. Adam had to admire the big man’s courage. “Because I ask it, perhaps?”

“You would have shot me in the back,” Adam reminded him amiably. In a perverse sort of manner, he was enjoying himself.

Another shrug. Up to his armpits in the river, the Mexican contrived to look sheepish. “I am the sort of man that I am, just as you are. We cannot help being what we are born to be - either one of us. You are a good man. Why else would you have come back if not to save me?”

Adam let out his breath in a long slow sigh. There was no disputing the big man’s logic. Adam had an uncomfortable feeling that, already, this man knew him as well as he knew himself. “I guess you could be right about that.” He made an elaborate show of stretching himself while the water rose to the Mexican’s shoulders. Then, in a leisurely fashion, he unhitched the rope from his saddle horn. He tossed the man a lazy loop just as the water crept over his chin.

Laughing and spitting out mouthfuls of river, the Mexican snatched at the lifeline and wrapped it ‘round his hands. Adam took a hitch around his saddle horn and backed up the horse. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed, the quicksand gave up its grip; the Mexican was dragged from the river. He coughed and spluttered, and his shoulders shook with laughter as he crawled up the bank on his hands and knees. Adam reflected that it didn’t take much to amuse this man.

Adam recovered his rope and turned to rescue the second man. He was in time only to see the crown of the man’s hat disappear under the water and a long trail of bubbles drift away downstream. Both of the horses were already gone, drowned in the river. The water flowed on undisturbed.

The Mexican got to his feet and brushed foul-smelling mud and river water out of his fancy clothes. He, too, looked out at the river. The night was loud with the rasp of his breathing; gradually, it slowed and settled. As Adam had already observed, he was a very big man, broad and solidly built if running a little to fat. Aged somewhere between forty and forty-five, he was typically Hispanic in appearance with dark eyes that constantly danced in a rounded, olive skinned face. A thin, black moustache adorned his wide upper lip. His mouth was full and fleshy, a little loose, and a double chin bulged over his collar. His dress consisted of a well-tailored suit cut in the Mexican style and now very much the worse for wear after its dunking in the river. Elaborately tooled, high leather boots and the wide brimmed hat that hung from a cord ‘round his neck completed the outfit. Dripping, he made an elegant bow towards the river. “Alas, poor Pancho,” he said with a noticeable lack of feeling. “He never did learn to keep his head above water.”

Adam looped the loose coils of rope over his saddle horn. “I thought he was a friend of yours.” Although he regretted the other man’s death, Adam didn’t experience any real sense of grief. It seemed that he wasn’t alone.

“Friends come and friends go,” the Mexican sighed. He turned and looked up at Adam. The smile was back on his face. It displayed large, square teeth that shone dazzlingly bright in the starlight; Adam caught a whiff of his breath: spice and tobacco and something alcoholic. “One loses one friend, and one finds another.” The smile widened a little bit more.

Adam didn’t know what to make of this man. He did know that he didn’t trust him: not one bit, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to name him a friend. At least, for the moment, he didn’t present much of a danger. His holster was empty, his pistol claimed by the river and lost in the mud. “I think you’d better start walkin’, Mister,” he suggested mildly, backing the horse to give the Mexican room. “That way – up the hill.” A nod of the head indicated the direction.

“The exercise will keep me warm, eh?” Still smiling, but not quite so broadly, the Mexican shook off more water and started to climb. Walking the big, bay horse at a respectful distance, Adam fell in behind him.

*******

The mingled aromas of coffee, crisply fried bacon and beans pervaded the small campsite and drifted downwind on the cold, night air. Adam was a connoisseur of good food. He had enjoyed fine meals in the grandest restaurants of San Francisco, St. Louis and Chicago. He had also become a pretty fair hand as a trail cook over the years and could produce a substantial and satisfying meal from the most basic ingredients.

The Mexican sat on a stone and watched him. The light of the small, brisk cook fire reflected in his ever-laughing eyes and threw flickering patterns of light and shade onto his face. He had taken off his jacket and set it to dry, but his elegant suit was all but ruined. The pants had shrunk considerably following their immersion in the river, and the colours had run from the elaborate embroidery and left ugly stains. Both the man and his clothing exuded the stench of the mud. The big man sat in his shirtsleeves with Adam’s warm, blue blanket wrapped ‘round his shoulders. He suppressed a bone deep shiver.

“It is very cold tonight, Señor,” he ventured by way of conversation.

From Adam’s observation every night in this stony wilderness was cold, just as every day was as hot as hell’s hallway. He squatted beside the fire and poured coffee, thick, black and steaming-hot, into a metal cup. “Get yourself around the outside of this; it’ll warm you up some.”

The Mexican wrapped his hands round the cup, sipped and smacked his lips with appreciation. “You make very fine coffee, my friend. You are most generous, kind and forgiving. Truly, you are a good man.”

Warming his hands on the outside of his own cup, Adam felt his face crease into a deep-folded frown. There was faint note of mockery in the Mexican’s tone: one he didn’t much care for.

The Mexican noticed the scowl and chuckled. “We should not be enemies, you and I.” He stuck out his hand. “I am Embule Torak, rider of the ways and the byways, Master of the Mountains, Lord of the Skies.”

From his side of the fire, Adam inspected the hand with considerable scepticism. He chose to ignore it. He said, in his most precise, clipped manner so that there could be no misunderstanding, “I think you’re an outlaw, a thief and a brigand.”

Slowly, Torak withdrew his hand. He inspected the palm and thoughtfully dragged it down the front of his shirt as if it were somehow unclean. “I see your point,” he said. “But you might at least tell me your name. You did save me from the sucking sands of the river, eh? And you have shared your very good coffee.”

Adam finished his coffee and put down his cup. What Torak had said was true, as far as it went. “I’m Adam Cartwright,” he said shortly. It was an admission that hurt.  He found that he resented sharing any part of himself with this man; it made him feel soiled. He found he liked Torak less and less as the minutes went by. He wouldn’t be the least bit sorry when the two of them parted company for good.

Not bothering to keep the dislike from his face, he divided the bacon and beans into two and handed Torak a plate. The silence deepened as they ate. With the flickering flames lighting their faces, they eyed each other warily and summed one another up.

Torak looked from Adam’s face to the food on the plate. Deliberately, he forked up beans and put them into his mouth, chewing slowly. Both of them knew the old custom: if a man ate bread and salt in another man’s camp, he could not, in honour, kill him until they had parted a while and then met up again. Adam didn’t know if this man would adhere to the tradition - and Torak wasn’t telling.

Torak swallowed the mouthful of food and made a gesture with his fork that Adam’s eyes didn’t bother to follow. His gaze remained fixed on the Mexican’s face.

“What about my poor companion, Sorronoso? You have him all trussed up like the gallina, eh? Like a chicken? You might let me untie him.”

Still chewing, Adam shook his head and gave him a lop-sided grin. “I like him best just the way he is.” He didn’t trouble to look at the half-breed, who still lay on his side on the ground, bound hand and foot with the filthy scarf stuffed into his mouth. Above the cloth, his dark eyes gleamed with an implacable loathing. He was only biding his time.

“That’s not the way a man treats his friends,” Torak reproached him.

Adam stopped chewing and looked about him. He thought that he’s heard – or perhaps he’d felt – something moving in the darkness around him, but the silvered night was silent again. Hungry, he returned his attention to his food. “I think he’s more you friend than mine. He tried to part my hair with a hatchet.” Adam had allowed the half-breed to share the heat from the fire; as far as he was concerned, that was as much of a concession as he was prepared to make. He poured himself more coffee to wash the food down.

Laughter gleamed in Torak’s dark eyes. He gave Adam his expressive, trademark shrug. “I think you could be about to change your mind about that, Señor Adam Cartwright.”

The hair on Adam’s neck prickled. This time there could be no doubt about it. There was movement in the rocks ‘round about him. Putting his cup down, he straightened slowly. His hand slid towards the butt of his Colt but it was far too little and already much too late. There were a dozen men in a rough circle around him; their guns were trained on his chest. Theirs was a mixed batch of faces: Mexican, Indian, white, brown and black. Several were laughing. Adam didn’t doubt for a moment that their amusement was at his sole expense. Further back in the darkness, there were more men with horses milling about. He was more than outnumbered. He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless submission. There was little else he could do.

Chuckling hugely at the joke, Torak poured the last of the coffee into his own cup. “Console yourself that at least you were right.” He lifted the metal mug in salutation. “I am an outlaw, a thief and a bandido, just as you said, and these are my men.” He gestured about him by way of a general introduction. “This is Señor Adam Cartwright: a very good man!” One or two men sniggered. Adam gritted his teeth. Torak continued, “We have been trailing you all day to rob you of your guns and your horses, perhaps to kill you, who knows? Or, perhaps, we would just have left you to die in the desert, eh? Maybe without your clothes.”

They searched Adam thoroughly and certainly none too gently. He bit on his lip to keep silent. They took away the Colt and the Bowie knife that he wore in sheath, underneath his shirt, and the small bag of gold coin he carried for travelling expenses. They didn’t discover the waxed package inside his pants, and Adam chose not to tell them about it.

Someone untied the half-breed. The man came up off the ground with all the fury of an unleashed tiger, snarling and clawing for Adam’s face. Adam stepped back before the onslaught. Someone grabbed hold of his arms and held him. Torak stuck out a foot and the half-breed went crashing, sprawled on his face in the dirt. He barely missed landing in the fire. A scatter of gravel flew into the embers and made the flames leap.

The half-breed was livid with rage. Torak grinned down at him, but his voice held steel, “Sorronoso, this is my new amigo, Adam Cartwright. You don’t touch him, eh? Not ‘til I tell you, you understand?” The words were spoken lightly enough, but there was an underlying threat that went not unnoticed by Adam or by the half-breed.

Sorronoso glared at Torak and said something savage and Spanish. He scrambled back to his feet and started for Adam again, his clawed hands reaching. He had gotten a knife from somewhere, perhaps from the man who had freed him, and he waved it under Adam’s nose, so close that he felt the breeze from its passing. Still held from behind, he was unable to back up any further. Torak pushed the half-breed hard in the chest. Sorronoso swore at him and came on again. The two men shouted at one another, a brief but angry exchange of views that went too quickly for Adam to follow. Sorronoso spat at Adam, and the burning eyes glared. The gob missed – just – but the look struck home: a look that promised long hours of pain before death. Adam met the stare evenly with a clean dislike of his own. Sorronoso sneered at him, gestured obscenely and shuffled off into the darkness.

Torak gazed after him, the firelight dancing in his eyes. For the first time since Adam had met him, there was a trace of concern on his face. “I think you have made a dangerous enemy, Adam Cartwright: a very, very bad friend.”

Adam shrugged off the hands that held him, his eyes still fixed on the half-breed’s retreating back. “I guess that’s something that I can live with.”

“It may well be something that you have to die with, my friend.” Torak’s smile was missing. “Sit down, Señor. Sit down.” With a wave of the hand he gestured Adam back to his seat at the fireside.

Knowing that he hadn’t much choice, Adam did as he was bidden and sat, perching his butt on the edge of a rock. All around them, the bandits were setting up camp. They had brought food with them: chunks of meat that they set to roasting over a dozen small fires. They made batches of trail bread that baked quickly in enamelled ovens buried in the embers of the fires, and they produced any numbers of bottles. With this many men on his back-trail, Adam wondered that the skin hadn’t burned clean off his back from the itch.

Torak turned Adam’s Colt over in his hand. He tested its weight and its balance, rolled the cylinder out between his fingers and inspected the load. His big teeth showed in a smile. “An empty chamber under the hammer,” he commented. “That sort of caution can get a man killed.”

“When I need six, I load six,” Adam said warily. “I’d rather not blow a hole in my leg.”

Torak slid the cylinder back into place. He levelled the Colt at Adam’s belly and pulled back the hammer. “A hole in the stomach would be much more deadly,” he said. The firelight flowed over his face. The slack mouth was compressed, the easy smile gone. “I could hold you to blame for poor Pancho’s death.”

Adam gazed into the maw of his own, deadly gun and then at the face of the man who held it. He pulled a slow breath. “You were both trying to kill me, and I didn’t know the quicksand was there.”

“Quite so.” Torak’s smile returned. He lowered the hammer and rested the Colt against his knee. “Oh, I don’t hold it against you, and you did save my life, eh?” I owe you something for that.” He hefted the small purse of gold in his hand, then worked open the drawstring mouth with his finger and held it up to his eye to squint inside. “Besides,” he added, “you are hardly worth killing. What sort of a fortune is this?”

It was Adam’s turn to shrug his shoulders. “A small one. It’s all I happen to have at the moment.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He figured the bank draft didn’t count.

Suddenly serious, Torak gazed at him through narrowed eyes. “And yet, you do not strike me as a poor man, Adam Cartwright. The guns that you carry, the clothes that you wear, your fine horses – all these things are the trappings of wealth and prosperity.”

“You know prosperity.” Adam gave him an easy smile. “She’s a fickle woman. She loves a man and leaves him; she didn’t hang about too long this time around. As for wealth, it comes and it goes.”

“Indeed it does.” Torak eyed him with speculation. “So, what brings an Americano to our southern deserts at this time of years? Not the desire for our company, surely? And not for business or pleasure. There’s not enough gold here to finance either.” He jiggled the purse in his hand.

Adam’s mouth was dry and he felt rather sick. He resisted the urge to wipe his sweating palms along the seams of his pants. The barrel of the Colt was still aligned directly with his navel. He was in fear of his life and had to do some quick thinking. He met the bandit’s dark eyes with his own steady gaze. “Let’s just say I’m looking for work.”

Torak started to laugh, but the laughter was ugly and held no amusement. “A gringo, eh? In this poor country? What sort of work would you do?”

Adam touched his lips with his tongue. He had to play this bluff out. “I deal in horses,” he intoned, lending the words a whole wealth of meaning. “I move them around some and try to find them new homes.”

Torak stared at him with stunned appreciation, and then he started to laugh. “Ah, Señor, you are a bandido yourself, eh? A horse-thief! A man of my own flesh and bone!”

Adam, in the circumstances, chose not to disillusion him. He merely smiled and nodded in all the right places. Let Torak think what he liked if it meant staying alive until morning. Torak shouted to one of his men in Spanish and waved his arms about. A young Mexican with a small cigar clenched between his teeth brought a bottle over, and Torak splashed generous measured into both their cups. He lifted his in a toast. “Drink up, Adam Cartwright!  Drink to our mutual occupation. We are brothers under the skin, you and I. May business always be good!”

Adam raised the cup to his lips and swallowed a mouthful down. The stuff was pure firewater, an original brand. It scorched across his tongue and burned down his throat and seethed like a cauldron of fire in his belly. The fumes brought tears to his eyes. He contrived not to choke, but he knew he’d gone red in the face. Torak swallowed his down in a single draft and poured out some more. Adam held up his hand in self-defence. His eyes were already bleary, and, above all, he needed to keep his wits about him. Whatever this stuff was distilled from, it could steal a man’s senses away.

Torak hefted the Colt again and then passed it, and the knife, reluctantly, so Adam thought, over the remains of the fire. “I give you back your life, amigo, and I give you back your fortune.” He tossed Adam the small bag of coins. “Tomorrow, we will ride south together!”

Adam holstered the pistol and slipped the money into the pocket under his belt. He was under no false illusions - he wasn’t out of this yet. But, it seemed he might live ‘til morning if his luck held. He celebrated that small triumph with another small sip of liquid fire.

Adam didn’t sleep that night – just dozed a little towards morning. Wrapped in his blanket with his feet to the fire, he lay on the ground close beside his horses and watched the slow wheel of the stars. The deep bowl of the sky was velvet dark, brushed over lightly with silver. It was lit with points of light so sharp and bright he felt he could reach out his hand and run them through his fingers like the fine grains of sand glowing on some celestial beach. His eyes picked out his favourite places: the red spot that was Mars and golden Antaries and, further north, the brilliant cluster of the Pliades. More northerly still, beyond the northern horizon, the Pole Star was clear out of sight.

The night had grown cold. The chill breath of the desert moved against Adam’s cheek. It carried with it the sharp smell of wood smoke, the odour of horses and the sound of men’s voices lowered in quiet, nocturnal conversation; the earlier laughter and song brought on by the drinking had faded into the silence. It all reminded Adam, quite forcefully, that he wasn’t alone. Inevitably, he started thinking thoughts of escape. The river provided the obvious highway; it flowed south and east, more or less in the direction in which he was headed, and cut an even path through the rough terrain. For a moment, in the eye of his mind, he could see himself galloping, hell for leather, downstream, the spray flying in arcs from the hoofs of his horses, turning into rainbows by the rays of the sun. Then he remembered abruptly that the swift, shallow water concealed fatal traps for the unwary and for those in a hurry: quicksand and sinkholes and quagmires of mud. The banks were littered with tumbled rock. With a hoard of angry bandits riding full tilt behind him, it was not a road to be taken at speed.

The other escape-route lay due east, straight out across the desert. That way, lay goodness knows what: a hellish inferno of sun, sand and stone with nowhere to run to and no chance of help. Before he could even attempt it, there was a more immediate problem in his way. All about him, men snuffled and snored, but he knew very well that many were not really as drunk as they might pretend, and not all were asleep. His chances of getting out of here with his horses, or even alone and on foot, were non-existent. It seemed that he would have to live with his lie, his spur-of-the-moment invented persona, until he could contrive to get away.

Dawn in the desert was a beautiful thing to behold. The sky above the low, eastern hills turned into silver and then changed to shades of peach and apricot, orange and gold. The edge of the sun dazzled as it inched above the horizon. The desert became a fretwork of sunlight and slow-creeping shadow. Adam rubbed the grit of sleeplessness from his eyes and set about tending his horses.

He didn’t feel good. He didn’t know what he’d been drinking last night, but his mouth had all the flavour and texture of an old saddle blanket, and his stomach sympathised. He had already turned down the offer of bread and cheese for his breakfast along with a drink of what looked like mare’s urine and had the smell of very flat beer. Instead, he’d moistened his dry membranes with a mouthful of water from his own canteen and eaten a small piece of bread. Even that wasn’t settling too well; he was alert for an internal rebellion.

He lifted his saddle onto the back of the bay. As he reached underneath for the cinch, he caught the whiff of cigar smoke.

“You have a very fine horse there, gringo.” The voice was light, faintly mocking, and it came from behind him.

Adam bit his lip at the insult and turned very slowly. Both his hands were still on the saddle and well away from the Colt at his hip. The man behind him was younger by four or five years: the same young Mexican who had provided the bottle the night before. Adam recognised the sharp, pointed teeth around the cigar. Standing a whole head shorter than Adam, he had a round, Mexican face with a thin, glossy moustache and cynical dark eyes. The quick smile he gave was less than friendly, more a smirk of mocking scorn. The small cheroot that appeared to be a permanent fixture in his face exuded a powerful aroma that did little to stabilise Adam’s dubious inner equilibrium.

“Of course,” the Mexican continued in that same, mocking tone, “a man in your line of work should know good horseflesh when he sees it and mount himself well.” Still smiling thinly, and still with the cheroot clenched firmly in his teeth, he stepped past Adam and ran his hand over the bay’s muscular quarters. His pale finger-pads traced the brands that were burned there: ‘Lazy S,’ ‘Bar Seven’ and ‘Diamond Three’. He gave Adam a slanted, sideways look that was almost sly. “I also know a thing about horses – perhaps as much as any man alive.”

Adam ran his hand down his horse’s smooth neck and gave the shoulder a pat. He kept his voice level, “Just what are you saying?”

The mouth worked around the cigar, producing words without the use of the jaw. “I’m saying that this horse comes from the west, not from the north as you would have us believe.”

Adam pursed his lips and sucked in his breath. He allowed amusement and annoyance in equal measure to show in his eyes. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Drawing on his cheroot, the Mexican considered. “I will tell you what I am thinking, gringo. I am thinking you are taking us all as fools. I am thinking that you are not really a horse thief at all. I am thinking that you are exactly what you appear to be: an honest man.”

Adam looked him straight in the eye. “Is that what you’ve told Torak?”

A foot brushed against stone close behind him. Adam felt eyes on his back. Both he and the Mexican turned. It was the half-breed, Sorronoso, padding softly by on his moccasined feet. He was a good deal closer than Adam liked: close enough for Adam to smell the grease on his glossy black hair, close enough for him to have overheard the conversation. The Indian-eyes gave no indication that he had heard anything, but they gazed at him with smouldering fury. Adam and the Mexican stared back with equal dislike.

The half-breed had spent the hour since dawn searching amongst the rocks for his hatchet. He had it now, tucked into his belt along with a business like, broad bladed skinning knife. The rifle he carried was totally ruined: the stock had been smashed. His lean, brown hand slid towards the hilt of the knife.

The Mexican stepped between him and Adam, his fingertips brushing the butt of his gun. “You heard what Torak told you, Sorronoso. You stay away from the Americano. His hide stays intact.”

Sorronoso snarled; spittle flew from his lips. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with Hispanic accent and heavy with hate. “Torak promised me this gringo’s blood. I intend to have it – spilled out on the dirt.” He pressed forward into the Mexican’s space, but his gaze remained fixed firmly on Adam’s face. “You going to stop me?”

His thin smile in place, the Mexican placed a spread-fingered hand on the half-breed’s chest and pushed. “I’m thinking that I might just fight you for the privilege.”

The two men bristled at one another. Adam could sense their hackles rising. It was a standoff, neither one of them was prepared to give way to the other. Adam stepped back and watched them square up. It was quite clear that neither had any liking for the other; this was simply one more dispute in a long-running argument. They reminded him of two angry dogs facing one another down over a bowl of scraps, and he was the bone in the middle. It was almost amusing.

It was the half-breed who backed away first. He glared at Adam over the Mexican’s head, and then he hefted the broken rifle as some sort of a threat and silently stalked away. The Mexican watched him go, a light aglow in his eyes, then he turned back to Adam and answered his question as if he had never been interrupted, “For the moment I keep my council. For the moment El Torak likes you; you saved his life, and he feels grateful. I am thinking that will change.” He ran his hand over the horse’s rump again. “When it does, I will be ready. I am Equantor Sebron.  Remember my name. I am the man who will kill you.”

Adam looked down from his greater height and thought about it. “It’ll be interesting to see who ends up killing whom,” he said, genially. “You might be unpleasantly surprised.”

Sebron stared at him, sucking so hard on his cheroot that the ash on the end glowed gold. Adam out-stared him. Finally, Sebron’s lips twitched in the ghost of a grin. He turned on his heel and gave Adam a good view of his swagger as he walked away.

Mentally, Adam marked up one for himself, but he didn’t do himself any favours. He knew he was in a very dangerous situation. Now there were two men hell-bent on his murder, and he didn’t discount Torak’s promise to leave him, naked, to the desert’s dubious mercies should he find out his deception. It would not be an especially nice way to die. Steadying himself, he turned back to his horse and finished fitting the bridle.

Embule Torak’s moods proved changeable and illusive. His good humour of the previous evening had disappeared with the shadows of night. In the harsh light of the morning he looked ridiculous in his shrunken suit, and that did little to improve his disposition. The embroidered cuffs of his sleeves had retreated along his forearms towards his elbows, and the pants looked painfully tight. Adam noticed that nobody laughed. The bandit leader had found himself new armament; a fancy, bone-handled pistol filled the holster high on his belt, and he had gotten himself another horse: a flashy, dappled grey gelding in black leather trappings. Mounted, he sat in the centre of ordered confusion and bellowed orders in Spanish and English while the bandits broke camp around him. Before the sun was fully above the hills, everything was packed onto the horses, and twenty men were on the move. They left scarcely a trace behind them.

The outlaw band didn’t ride as a group. Instead, they travelled Indian fashion, spread out across the landscape in ones and twos, each small group barely in sight of another. Every man followed his own chosen path. The few tracks they left on the hard, stony ground were diffuse and confusing.

Steadily, but sparing the horses, they rode through the rising heat of the morning, then rested through the hottest part of the day. In the afternoon, beneath the polished brass bowl of the sky, they went on again. They followed the line of the pack-trail that Adam had used, travelling more or less south. Torak seemed to enjoy the friction between his lieutenants and was prepared to incite it further by having Adam ride alongside him.

Torak talked constantly in his slightly halting English; he seemed to like the sound of his voice. He revealed rather more of the bandit’s trade than Adam really wanted to know, talking lightly of deception, theft and murder. Sometimes he laughed as he talked of the crimes he’d committed. Sometimes he spoke with anger, expounding on real and perceived injustice. Sometimes, in Adam’s opinion, he was just plain wrong. Always the words followed the mercurial flow of his temper. His dark eyes were everywhere, watching his men, the horses and the country they rode through. Mostly, he watched Adam’s face. And he asked questions. Adam had to keep his wits about him to stay one step ahead of the game. More than once, he wished he had Joe’s fanciful imagination; his little brother could be relied upon to spin a good yarn at the drop of a hat. Then he remembered what his father had told him often enough: that what a liar needed most was a damn good memory. Mostly, he tried to remain non-committal. Adam was very aware of all the eyes that burned on his back. The sweat that broke from his skin and ran so freely under his shirt was not entirely caused by the heat of the sun.

In the early evening light, they came to a halt on a ridge of rock overlooking yet another shallow valley. This one was dry. The trail lipped over the edge and twisted down to the valley floor. There it divided, splitting into two, distinctly separate roads. One path led on to the south into the seemingly endless expanse of stone desert. The other angled more to the east, towards the low, dusty hills. Torak lifted himself in his saddle and stood in his stirrups, taking the weight off his butt. His eyes swept the valley. Then he looked across at Adam. “This is the parting of the ways, my amigo. You will go your way, and we will go ours, eh? South, where the Señoritas are pretty and the wine is cool.

Adam was looking over his shoulder. Sorronoso and Sebron were riding up behind them, emerging from the dust and the heat haze like the twin angels of death. Adam didn’t like either one at his back. Now, he looked sharply at Torak. He didn’t believe what he’d heard. Surely the bandit leader was playing some cruel game. He wasn’t simply going to let him go. There had to be more to it than that. Torak was watching him narrowly, watching the play of expression across his face. All of a sudden, Adam got the impression that the dark, laughing eyes could see right into his soul. Somehow, despite his precautions, he had given himself away.

The jingle of harness and the strong smell of cigar smoke warned him that Sebron had ridden up alongside him. He found himself sandwiched between the two Mexicans, with Sorronoso astride his sturdy black gelding on Torak’s far side. He saw the glitter of hatred deep in the half-breed’s eyes. Without doubt, this was a man who knew how to nurture a grudge and keep it alive. Sebron, who had been close enough to hear what Torak had said, wasn’t any too pleased at the decision and he was prepared to show it openly. Angrily, he glared past Adam at Torak. “You are going to let this Gringo go?”

Torak ignored the glare. He squinted off into the distance, his eyes searching the next horizon, the next rocky ridge. Now, his face held no hint of amusement. “We are going south as I planned it,” he said. “To the east are the ranchos where they breed the finest horses in all Mexico. You would not keep an honest horse thief from his business, eh?” A flash of his eyes warned Adam to silence.

So angry that he spat out his half-smoked cheroot, Sebron made a furious gesture. “He has seen our faces! He knows who we are. I do not trust him. I say silence him now.”

From Torak’s other flank, Sorronoso grunted in savage agreement. The half-breed muttered something obscene in barely audible Spanish. A man of few words, his eyes were aglow, and his hand had already slid to the hilt of his knife. Adam was grateful that these two hated each other too much to ever form an alliance – he knew he’d be dead if they did.

Torak looked from one man to the other, his gaze filled with speculation. “It is my place to decide this, unless either of you thinks differently?” His words and his eyes threw down a challenge. Each of the other men was bold enough to consider it. Tension crackled between them, charging the air. Then Sorronoso let his eyes slide away, and Sebron turned his fury on Adam. “I know you are not what you pretend to be, gringo…!”

“Enough of this!” Torak’s head snapped around. “Both of you, ride on ahead! Scout out a camping ground beyond the next ridge.”

Both men hesitated, still angry, still on the verge of violence. Sensing his rider’s tension, Sebron’s gelding danced on the stones. Sebron sneered into Adam’s face. “This is not over, gringo. I made you a promise. We’ll meet again, and then, I’m thinking, I’ll kill you.” With a clatter of hooves on bare rock, he rode down into the valley. Sorronoso spurred the black and went after him, following a different path.

Adam sat back in his saddle and squinted after them. Quietly he said, “One of these days, they’re not going to back down.”

Torak’s teeth showed in a grin, bright white in the shade of his hat. “Then you see why I cannot have you in camp another night, Adam Cartwright? One of them would surely find a reason to cut your throat, and then I would have to kill him, eh?” The look on his face told clearly whose lives he considered most valuable. Adam didn’t pretend to himself. Whatever Torak’s reasons for letting him go, they were bound to have more to do with internal discipline than friendship or gratitude or even tradition. Somehow, thanks seemed inappropriate.

Adam gathered his reins and glanced at the western sky. He figured he had three hours of daylight before he was forced to stop for the night. He wanted to put as many miles between himself and the outlaw band as he could. He nodded to Torak, pulled on the packhorse’s lead rope and kicked the bay hard in the ribs.

Two

The village had been named, somewhat imaginatively,  ‘Spritos Christos el Monte Invisibales’: ‘Christ’s Spirit of the Invisible Mountain’. Certainly, there was no mountain anywhere in sight, only dust and desert and low, rounded hills in all the muted colours of the bone-dry earth. Perhaps, Adam decided upon reflection, that was precisely the point. Although it was an old and long established place of habitation, the fact of its existence had not unduly troubled the cartographers. It did not appear on any map. Nestled comfortably in amongst thorny acacia, fire palm, fig trees, Mexican lime and creosote trees, it lay in a fold in the land where, he assumed, water ran close to the surface.

As he approached, the dust kicking up in a plume from the heels of his horses, the tiny oasis emerged from the heat haze like a shimmering jewel. The trees were twenty different shades of green, the easement a man’s hungry eyes craved after all those days in the desert; the walls were the white of sun-baked adobe, the roofs, brown and grey. It was only as he drew nearer that bright details became apparent. A row of clean washing in rainbow hues hung from a line; the fiery red of geraniums flowered in pots beside doorsteps; the rich terracotta of tile trimmed the walls. A tethered milk cow groaned from a lean-to shed, calling a greeting to his horses as he rode by. An old man slept in the shade of an awning. Two black cats dozed in the sun.

Adam smelled the place even before he arrived; a heady mix of rich odours seasoned the wind. First, the sharp smell of wood smoke tickled his nose and the acid odour of fresh dropped manure. He smelled coal and hot iron from a nearby forge, the stench of hot tar and the fragrance of flowers and, as always, the peppery tang of the dust. He found he was right about the water. In the exact centre of the village was an open square, and in the square was a wide, low walled well. The stones in that wall were ancient beyond telling, weathered down until they were no more than shapeless, flaking boulders. The letters of the more recent Christian dedication inscribed below the rim were all but worn away. The well provided water for the entire population, beasts and people alike. Piled on the ground were several loosely coiled ropes and a collection of wooden-staved buckets. Several woman in headscarves and long heavy skirts, with shawls about their shoulders in spite of the heat, held animated conversations as they hauled water out of the well and filled up their pots. Alongside the well was a long, carved stone horse trough, filled to the brim. Adam decided to make that his first stop in order to water his horses.

He slowed his horse to a walk as the passed the blacksmith’s shop, feeling the inevitable blast of furnace-like heat as he passed the open doors. The steady pulse beat of hammer on anvil came from inside. As he rode, his eyes scanned swiftly over the rest of the buildings. At the top of the street, facing the square, a typical, slab sided church presided over the community. Built of the local materials, it was the pale yellow colour of well-mellowed cheese with small, unglazed windows like dark, blinded eyes and a stumpy square tower with a bell. A slight figure in a belted, brown robe was diligently brushing the steps: an elderly, white-haired priest with a broom and a world-weary face.

Facing the church across the square was a General Store and Trading Post with a half-loaded wagon parked outside in the sun. A swarm of large stinging flies pestered the horses. Across the street, on the opposite corner, stood a large cantina, single storied and built low to the ground. It was gaudily painted in bright red and green and boasted large, glass windows looking out on the street and trimmed with brightly checked curtains. Several horses and fly-spotted mules stood tied to the rails outside.

At not quite midday, life in the tiny village proceeded at a leisurely pace. Men and boys in simple, loose fitting, light coloured clothes and wide, shady hats strolled back and forth or lounged in the shadows. Their eyes moved to watch the big, dishevelled Americano on his fine horse as he passed. Adam would swear that their eyes were all that moved. Several women, dressed in many layers of darker cloth, stood on a corner and talked. Their heads too, turned to look at the stranger. Adam got the impression that newcomers were rare in town.

Two men stepped out of the store and loaded grain sacks into the wagon – but slowly – and then disappeared back inside. A group of young boys played five-stones in the dirt of the street. An elderly donkey leaned on the post of someone’s veranda; his eyes drowsed in sleep. Two brown and white dogs sniffed after a bitch in an alley. Red chickens scratched in the dirt. Smoke rose lazily from several stone chimn