Part 17 (2/2)

Tossing his sweaty hair back from his face and swinginghis Winchester behind his shoulder, he stole over to the edge of the roof and crept down a crumbling stone stairway. Avoiding caved-in floors and fallen walls, occasional storage pits and cisterns now home to only snakes, rats, and insects, he made his way down the ruins. Occasionally he used a ladder, testing it first to make sure it would support him.

He was nearly to ground level when he moved across a crumbling ceiling, dropped slowly down a short, inside staircase dank with spring water, and hoisted himself over a stone wall. He dropped his bare feet to the mud-and-gra.s.s ceiling below, testing its weight carefully.

It seemed solid until he began to stride across it. With a lurch and a crack, the floor suddenly disappeared beneath his feet, and he plummeted straight down through darkness. He grunted sharply when his feet hit the ground, then again when his back slammed against the hovel's earthen floor. He lay blinking against the ancient mud and gra.s.s tumbling down around him.

When the rain of debris ceased, he spat grit from his mouth and blinked up at the hole he'd fallen through-a ragged opening about four feet in diameter. He squinted up at it, steeling himself for a complete cave-in.

There were a couple of creaks and groans, and a mud clump fell in a corner with a thump, but the rest of the ceiling held.

Yakima shook the debris off his legs and belly as he turned onto his side. Planting his knees, he was about to rise when a low voice sounded outside.

He froze, listening.

Boots ground gravel and spurs rang softly, growing louder until Yakima could hear the labored breathing of two men approaching from his right. Moving slowly, he grabbed his rifle and crawled to the wall facing the canyon. He hunkered down in a dark corner, opposite the hovel's low, narrow door, and drew his knees to his chest. Hoping that he would blend in with the wall shadows, he held the Yellowboy low, so no light would reflect off the bra.s.s receiver.

He stared at the door, little more than an opal smudge in the darkness, on the other side of the low mound of ceiling rubble. The footsteps approached, the two men now setting their feet down slowly, carefully. Yakima drew a deep breath, held it.

Outside, whispers.

A minute pa.s.sed, and then a shadow moved in the gray doorway, almost indistinguishable from the shadows around it. The shadow stopped. There was the high, soft whistle of air drawn through a nose. The musty air of the hovel mixed with the smell of sweat and fresh gun oil.

Yakima's throat grew dry as stove wood as he stared at the stationary shadow in the shape of a man's head and shoulders. If he had to fire a shot, he'd have the entire gang on him in seconds.

Go on, he silently urged. he silently urged. No one's here. No one's here.

After a few beats, the man in the doorway cleared his throat and turned back out through the door. From a ways off, another man called, ”Anything over there?”

”Looks like another ceiling fell in. We best get back to the strongbox.”

Yakima waited, listening as the footsteps receded. He let his breath out slowly, and rose, hefting his rifle. Wincing at the ache in his lower back and left hip, he crossed to the door and stared out.

A couple of fires fluttered down the hill toward the river. More ruins humped around him in the darkness, in various shades of brown and gray.

Yakima stole down the slope, his bare feet moving silently across the sand and gravel. He held his rifle high, a fresh round seated, the hammer c.o.c.ked. Several times, dropping down the slope toward the river, he stopped, listening, his eyes searching close about, then farther out, then farther still.

The canyon was eerily quiet, the ruins like grave-stones. Occasionally a mouse moved in the brush. Above the canyon, where the clouds had thinned, a meteor arced across the sky, trailing sparks. To his right and left, low fires flickered. He cat-footed down the slope between the fires, then worked his way downstream through the brush.

First he would find Wolf and get the stallion ready to ride. Then he'd look for Anjanette. The gold was a peripheral concern. Once he'd led the desperadoes out of the canyon and into an ambush, Speares and Patchen could come back for the strongbox.

When he'd moved a hundred yards downstream, Yakima stopped suddenly and dropped to one knee behind shrubs. A figure stood twenty yards before him, between a stand of willows and the stream. A young woman in a long skirt and a man's s.h.i.+rt. Long black hair hung down her back. Her arms were crossed on her chest as she stared out over the fog-shrouded water.

Anjanette . . .

Yakima looked around, then rose to a crouch, began to move around the shrubs. The sound of a spur ching froze him. Another figure, taller, materialized in the darkness beyond Anjanette, heading toward her.

Yakima dropped back down behind the shrubs, peering through the branches. The tall man, wearing a low-crowned, silver-trimmed hat and drooping mustache and carrying a Winchester over his right shoulder, sidled up to Anjanette. He wrapped an arm around her, leaned his head close to hers. She shrank away slightly.

He could hear the man's smooth voice, but he couldn't make out the words. Yakima frowned through the shrubs as the man drew Anjanette close, muttered something, then slowly lowered his head and kissed her forehead. She put her hand on his chest and said something too softly, intimately, for Yakima to pick up, then rose up on her toes and kissed the man on the lips. They both chuckled softly, turned together, and walked through the poplars and willows and up the slope toward the fires.

Yakima sat hunkered down behind the shrubs, frowning. Gradually the befuddlement cleared until the picture swam into focus.

Anjanette and Considine.

Anger stabbed him, sharp as a Yaqui spear. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth, ground the Yellowboy's b.u.t.t into the sand. After a time, kneeling there, his head swimming, he chuckled, rose slowly, and continued upstream.

He'd gone fifty more yards when he heard a soft nicker on his left. He climbed a natural levee and walked slowly through cottonwoods toward a patch of manzanita gra.s.s. Before him, seven or eight horses were tied to a picket rope strung between two trees. Moving up to the horses slowly, cooing softly to placate the skittish beasts, Yakima raked his eyes across each.

There was no black in the bunch.

Where was Wolf?

His stomach churned with dread. Having been trained to carry only Yakima, Wolf would have been a contrary mount. Considine or one of the other gang members might have shot him.

Yakima stepped wide of the horses, looking around for both Wolf and a possible guard. He'd taken only a couple more steps when a voice rose on his right, from about ten yards away.

”Hey!”

Yakima turned, froze. A man's hatted silhouette stood between two cottonwoods. He wore an old Confederate greatcoat and hat, and he was crouched over a carbine. Behind him, the foggy river slid by.

The man moved toward him slowly, keeping the rifle leveled on Yakima while s.h.i.+fting his head slowly from right to left and back again. No doubt looking for others.

”One move, and I'll drill you.” He moved closer, still swinging his head. ”Drop that iron.”

Yakima crouched to lean the Yellowboy against a tree bole. The armed man moved up on his right, prodded his side with the carbine's barrel. He was a little shorter than Yakima, thick-bearded, with long hair falling over his shoulders. His coat was open, revealing revolvers on both hips, positioned for the cross draw. He reeked of tequila. He must have left the horses to take a p.i.s.s.

He kept his voice low, pitched with caution. ”You alone, amigo?”

Yakima grinned. ”Only a fool would come alone, amigo.”

”Where's your friends?”

Just then, a horse whinnied somewhere off in the darkness. It was a shrill call, a plea. The man turned his head toward it. Yakima leapt toward him, nudged the rifle wide, and slammed his right fist into the man's jaw-a savage blow that knocked the man straight back, off his feet, with a groan.

He landed on his back, cracking branches. Lifting his head, he brought the rifle back around, but Yakima pinned his arm to the ground with his bare left foot, then bent down and drove his fist into the man's face. When the man's head bounced off the ground, Yakima punched him again, then again, until he'd smashed his face to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp and the man lay limp at the base of a cottonwood.

Wheeling, Yakima grabbed the Henry and dropped to a knee, holding the Henry straight up and down in his hands as he snapped his head around, peering into the darkness, listening. Behind him, the horse snorted and whinnied softly.

Wolf.

Deciding that none of the outlaws were headed this way, Yakima rose and strode back into the darkness. He stopped. Before him stood the black stallion, two ropes looped around his neck, tying him taut to a tree on each side.

”Easy, boy, it's me.” Yakima moved slowly forward, noting the rawhide hobbles on the horse's feet. ”Shh. That's it. Quiet.”

He ran his hand along the horse's back as he walked up beside him. Moving toward his head, he saw the gunnysack draped over Wolf's snout. No holes had been cut for his nostrils. The burlap dimpled as the stallion breathed, sucking air through the tightly woven fabric.

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