Читать книгу The Man from Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

SAM WAS OUT BACK of the schoolhouse, splitting wood for the fire, when Terran rolled up at the reins of an ancient buckboard, drawn by two sorry-looking horses, one mud-brown, the other a pink-eyed pinto. Their hooves wanted trimming, he reflected, lodging the ax in the chopping block and dusting his hands together. If he’d had his hasp handy, he’d have undertaken the job right then and there.

Terran, perched on the seat, drew up the team, set the brake lever with a deft motion of one foot, and jumped to the ground. Sam’s copper tub gleamed in the bed of the wagon, catching the last fierce rays of the setting sun.

The boy rounded the buckboard, lowered the tailgate with a creak of hinges, and scrambled in to haul the boxes to the rear, where Sam was waiting to claim them.

“Too bad you ain’t a lady,” Terran remarked, admiring the tub. “You could give Violet Perkins a sudsing.”

Sam hoisted the box containing his coffee, sugar, canned goods and toiletries. “There are worse things,” he observed, “than smelling bad.”

“That depends,” Terran replied, sliding back another box, “on whether or not you’re downwind from her.”

Holding back a smile, Sam set the first crate on the ground and reached for the second. “Is it true that Violet’s father was hanged for a horse thief?”

Terran paused to meet his gaze. “Somebody lynched him, that’s for sure,” he answered solemnly. “Maddie thinks it was the Donagher brothers.”

“I take it there’s no law in this town,” Sam ventured. He’d seen a jailhouse, walking back from the store the day before, but the windows had been shuttered and except for an old yellow dog sunning himself on the wooden sidewalk in front of the door, there had been no sign of habitation.

Terran shrugged, then squared his shoulders to move the copper tub. “Not since Warren Debney was gunned down five years ago,” he said. “He was the town marshal.”

The statement snagged Sam’s attention. It’s been five years, Maddie had said back at the mercantile when he’d offered his condolences on the death of the man she’d planned to marry. He wanted to ask Terran, straight-out, if his guess was right, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it without prying into what amounted to family business.

“How did it happen?” Sam inquired, grasping the tub and lowering it to the ground.

Terran stood, tight-fisted, in the empty wagon bed, staring down at Sam. His expression was flat, giving away nothing of his thoughts. “Warren was walking Maddie home from a social at the church that night,” he recalled, his voice so quiet that Sam had to strain to hear it. “Somebody shot him from the roof of the telegraph office. Maddie had blood all over her dress when they brought her home.”

Sam closed his eyes against the image, though violence of that kind was nothing new to him, and if the boy had been standing on the ground he’d have laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Did they ever run the shootist to ground?” he asked.

Terran shook his head, kept his eyes averted. Sam caught the glint of tears despite that effort. “He’d tangled with Rex Donagher the day before, Warren had, and some folks thought Rex was the one did it, but things never went any further than that.”

“The town never replaced Debney? Got themselves a new lawman?”

Terran gave a bitter snort at that. “If there’s a prisoner—and that ain’t often—old Charlie Wilcox usually stands guard. If he’s sober enough, anyhow.”

Charlie Wilcox, Sam recalled, from his conversation with Bird out in front of the Rattlesnake Saloon that afternoon, was evidently the town drunk. Nothing much to recommend him, it seemed, save that he was the owner of a loyal horse.

Sam pulled a penny from his vest pocket—he’d left his suit coat inside the schoolhouse when he saw the need to chop wood—and extended the coin to Terran. “Thanks,” he said.

Terran blinked. “What’s that for?”

“Delivering my goods,” Sam replied.

Terran’s gaze strayed to the Colt .45 on Sam’s hip, and his eyes widened. He advanced a step to take the penny. “Obliged,” he said, but he was looking at the revolver, not the penny.

“You any good with that gun?” he ventured to ask.

Sam let one corner of his mouth tilt upward. “Just use it for shooting snakes, mostly,” he lied.

Terran closed his hand tightly around the penny. Met Sam’s eyes. “I never knew a schoolmaster to pack a .45 before,” he said. “Mr. Singleton sure didn’t.”

“Mr. Singleton,” Sam answered, “is a whole different kind of man than I am.”

“We didn’t mean to hurt him,” Terran said.

Sam nodded. “I believe that,” he allowed. “But a prank can go wrong, mighty fast, even when nobody intends for it to happen. And there are ways to do a man injury that don’t leave any marks on his hide.”

Terran’s cheeks blazed, making his freckles stand out in bold relief. He hitched up his pants and then stood with his feet spread and his hands on his hips. “You mean to mete out punishment, Mr. O’Ballivan?”

Sam shook his head. “Not unless it’s called for, Mr. Chancelor,” he replied. He gave a sparing smile. “And I don’t reckon any of you will take a notion to try putting me down the well.”

Terran tried to look solemn, but it was a lost cause. He grinned. “No, sir,” he said, “I don’t reckon we will.”

Sam put out his hand, waited.

The boy hesitated, then took it, and they shook on the bargain.

Terran was the first to speak. “Maddie says you aren’t like any schoolteacher she’s ever seen,” he confided.

Sam chuckled and shut the tailgate. “Is that right?”

Terran hesitated a moment, as if he might say something more, but then he scrambled over the back of the wagon seat to take up the reins again. Looking back at Sam over one scrawny shoulder, he gave another grin. “She don’t appreciate having to take her supper at the Donaghers’s tomorrow night, neither.”

“Why’d she agree to go, then?” Sam asked, honestly puzzled, as the boy cranked the brake lever forward.

“Said she was roped into it,” Terran answered. Then, blithely, he added, “Maddie reckons as how if you’re stupid enough to step right into a scorpions’ nest, she’d better go along and see that you don’t get stung.”

“Kind of her to look out for me,” Sam said dryly.

Terran swung the wagon around in a wide circle in the grass, and when he pulled up alongside Sam, his expression had turned somber. “She looked out for Warren, too,” he said, “and they still killed him.”

Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all.

“See you tomorrow,” Terran told him.

Sam saluted and watched with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt as the boy drove back toward the road. Once Maddie Chancelor’s little brother was out of sight, he went back, took up his ax again and chopped the rest of the wood with more force than the job truly required.

* * *

MUNGO DONAGHER SURVEYED his bride as she dashed from one end of the ranch house kitchen to the other, grabbing down china plates from the cupboard and inspecting them for God-knew-what. She didn’t bother with cooking—they had Anna Deerhorn to do that, along with the cleaning and other household work—but ever since she’d invited the schoolmaster out for a meal, she’d been in a fine dither of preparation.

“If I didn’t know better,” Mungo said sourly, “I’d think you were taken with that O’Ballivan feller.”

Undine stopped her china-studying and turned to look at him, her eyes wide with innocent affront. “What a dreadful thing to say, Mungo Donagher,” she protested, putting one hand to her glossy black hair and pressing the other to her throat. “There’s only one man for me, and that’s you.”

Mungo knew he was being a damned fool, but he went ahead and believed her anyhow. It would have been hard not to, the way she was looking at him with those big purple eyes of hers. Lord, but she was a pretty thing, and lively in private, too.

He put out his arms, and she came to him with just the briefest hesitation and the smallest sigh. He ignored that, and held her close against him, filling his nostrils with the lemony scent of her hair.

Just then the side door swung open and his youngest, Ben, burst through from outside, clutching a speckled pup in both arms.

“Get that dog out of this house,” Mungo commanded, loosening his hold on Undine and pretending he didn’t notice how quickly she drew back.

The boy swallowed. His eyes were red-rimmed, and the way he was breathing, fast and shallow, usually signaled one of his fits. “Garrett and Landry,” he gasped, “they said they was gonna drown him in the crick!”

“It’d be a favor to me if they did,” Mungo growled. “Save me feeding him.”

Ben held the mutt closer. “Please, Pa,” he pleaded, gasping a little as he parceled out his words. “He’s a good dog, and he’s got a name, too. It’s Neptune.”

“Neptune,” Mungo muttered. “That’s a damn sissy name if I ever heard one.”

Undine shifted, so she was standing just back of Ben. “Let him have the pup, Mungo,” she said quietly. “It’s not so much to ask.”

Undine had a soft spot when it came to critters. Wanted one of those silly little dogs, small enough to ride in a reticule. She’d seen women carrying them around in the big city and been struck by the fancy ever since. Though just what “big city” that was, she’d never shared.

“Critters don’t belong in the house, Undine,” he said patiently.

She rested a light hand on Ben’s shoulder. “The child’s in a state,” she pointed out, as if Mungo didn’t have eyes in his head to see that for himself.

The boy shuddered. He was fragile, as his mother had been, God rest her soul. Elsie had died having him, and sometimes Mungo still felt a pang of grief when he recollected her. For the most part, though, he was glad to be shut of Elsie, same as he was his first wife. Hildy’d given him three strong sons, but she’d been good for nothing much besides. Tended to weeping spells and fits of sorrow. Always pining for the home folks back in Pennsylvania, that was Hildy. One day, with winter coming on, like it was now, he’d herded Garrett, Landry and Rex to town for boots. Hildy had taken his best hunting rifle, gone around behind the chicken coop, stuck the barrel in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

Blew the whole back of her head off, and he’d found her like that.

The memory made him set his jaw. “I don’t like to encourage weakness in my boys, Undine,” he said firmly. “That dog’s small now, but he’ll be big as a yearling calf before you know it.”

Undine tilted her head to one side and gave him that look, the one she got when she meant to have her way. “Ben can keep him in his room for now. You’ll never even know he’s here.”

By that time, Ben was staring up at Undine, openmouthed, his eyes round with amazement.

“Say it’s all right, Mungo,” Undine crooned.

Ben was breathing easier. He turned his gaze slowly back to his father’s face. “I’ll take Neptune to school with me, come Monday mornin’,” he said on a rush of air. “That way, he won’t be getting underfoot around here all day.”

“A dog’s got no business in a schoolhouse,” Mungo groused, testy because he knew he’d been bested. He’d never have given in to the boy, but Undine had ways of making a man wish he’d done otherwise if he went against her grain.

“I can’t leave him here, Pa,” Ben told him. “They’ll hurt him if I do.”

Mungo cursed. “All right,” he said. “All right! But if I trip over that mutt one time—”

A smile lit Ben’s face. “You won’t, Pa. I promise you won’t.” With that he ran for the back stairs, still squeezing that infernal pup.

“He’ll grow up to be just like that Singleton fella, if this keeps on,” Mungo muttered. He shook his head just to think of one of his sons, with Donagher blood flowing in his veins, mewling over some stray bitch’s get found by the side of the road. It would have been a far better thing, to his mind, if Garrett and Landry had drowned that useless hank of hair and hide and been done with it.

Undine stepped in close, put the cool, smooth palms of her hands to either side of his face. “You’re too hard on him,” she said, breathing the words more than saying them. “He’s barely twelve years old, Mungo.”

“When I was twelve years old,” Mungo rumbled, “I was mining coal in Kentucky. Supporting my ma and two sisters.” It still plagued him sometimes, the memory of those hard and hopeless days—never saw the sunshine, it seemed, or drew in a breath of clean air. One day, he’d just had enough. Laid down his shovel for good and headed west, working as a roustabout for the Army as far as Ohio, then taking whatever job he could to patch together a living.

In time, he’d saved up a good bit of money, and then, when he was twenty-one, he’d struck it lucky in the California gold fields and bought himself the beginnings of the vast cattle ranch he owned today. Still troubled his conscience, now and then, the way he’d left Ma and the girls to look out for themselves, but he reckoned they’d managed. He’d sent them money, when he could, but never got so much as a letter back to say thanks.

It was like his mother to hold a grudge, and mostly likely she was dead by now anyway. He wondered sometimes how his sisters had fared, if they’d married and had children, but he’d long since resigned himself to not knowing.

Undine touched his top shirt button, brought him back from his somber wanderings. “Times are different now,” she said. “Folks live gentler than they used to.”

“You’re in a kindly frame of mind today,” Mungo remarked fondly, resting his forehead against Undine’s.

She smiled, pulling back to look into his eyes. “Maybe it would be a good thing,” she said, very quietly, “to send Ben away to school. There are some fine places in San Francisco. We could take him there, get him settled, and have ourselves a little honeymoon trip in the bargain.”

Mungo frowned. “That would cost a pretty penny,” he said.

“The boy would be making his own way in no time,” Undine reasoned. Again she smiled, and even though Mungo knew he was being handled like a hog balking at a gate, he didn’t mind. “And you’d never miss the money. You’re the richest man in this part of the Arizona Territory, if not the whole of it. And I would so enjoy being fitted for some fine dresses, instead of ordering ready-mades out of Maddie Chancelor’s silly catalogs.” She sighed and her eyes glistened, wistful and faraway. “Sometimes I get such a loneliness for the city, stuck out here the way we are, it’s like an ache inside me. Makes me just about frantic to get away.”

Her words struck a chill in the depths of Mungo’s crusty soul. Undine was like a brightly plumed bird, a spot of color in a grim landscape. Without her, the days would be a hollow round of hard work, and the nights—well, they’d be unbearable.

“You’re not thinkin’ about leavin’ me, are you?” he asked, his voice so hoarse it felt like rusty barbed wire coming out of his throat. He’d met Undine on a cattle buying trip up toward Phoenix, a year before, wooed her with what geegaws he could find in the shops, and brought her home as his wife. She’d been reluctant, until he’d shown her the size of the herd he and the boys would be driving back down to Haven.

“A lady thinks about all sorts of things,” she admitted. “Please, Mungo. If I have to pass the winter in this place, I might go mad.”

Talk of madness made Mungo profoundly uneasy, deep in his spirit. Undine didn’t know about Hildy and the way she’d given up on living; he’d told her very little about his two previous marriages, other than to say that Garrett, Landry and Rex were by his first wife and Ben by his second.

“The boys can handle the ranch for a few months,” Undine wheedled, looking up at him with imploring, luminous eyes.

Mungo huffed out an exasperated breath. “Leave them in charge,” he said, “and we’d be lucky if we came back to an inch of land and a bale of moldy hay next spring.”

“You’ve got that banker, Mr. James, to ride herd on them,” she replied. He knew by her tone that she was stepping lightly, picking her way from one idea to the next, though she’d long since mapped out the route in her mind. She bit her plump lower lip. “I might just have to go by myself if you won’t come with me.”

Mungo was no fool. He knew that if Undine wanted to go to San Francisco, or anywhere else, she’d find a way to do it, with or without him. He’d never dared to ask how she’d wound up in Phoenix, but he was pretty sure it had to do with some man. “I’ll think about it,” he said in a low voice, but it felt as if the words had been torn out of him, like a stubborn stump wrenched from the ground by a team of mules.

She brightened, pretty as a pansy after a summer rain. “Good,” she whispered. “That’s good.”

* * *

SAM SADDLED the nameless horse an hour after sunset, consulted the written instructions the major had given him before he’d left Stone Creek, even though he knew them by heart. Across the river, on the Mexican side, he was to find a certain cantina, order a drink and wait. He’d be told where to go from there, to meet up with Vierra.

The river was wide, shallow and washed with starlight. He made the crossing without getting his pant legs wet above the knee, though his boots filled to overflowing.

On the far bank, in a copse of whispering cottonwoods, he dismounted, emptied the boots and pulled them back on. He’d have to sleep in them tonight; if he took them off, he’d never get them on again. Best to let them dry to the contours of his feet, the way they had a hundred times before.

Sam swung back up into the saddle, headed slowly for the little cluster of lights where the trees gave way to open ground, and the village of Refugio. Here the buildings were mostly adobe, with a few teetering wooden shacks interspersed, and even though he probably could have hurled a stone back across the border, the two places were as different as Santa Fe and Boston.

He found the cantina easily, drawn by the sound of a guitar, and left the horse standing in the dooryard, among the burros and other mounts already there, nibbling on patches of grass. Two of the horses, he noticed, bore the distinctive Donagher brand, a D with a bar through it. Major Blackstone had sketched it for him, on the margin of his orders.

The lintel over the cantina door was low and Sam ducked his head as he entered. The clientele was mostly Mexican, as were the bartender and the girl serving drinks, but the cowboys standing at the bar were outsiders, like him. The pair of them turned their heads as Sam took a place at an empty table, their eyes narrowed with interest.

He nodded a greeting, wondering if the men were Mungo Donagher’s sons, or simply rode for his outfit. A spread that size required a lot of range help.

The girl took her time traipsing over to him through the smoky gloom. She wore a white dress, set off her smooth brown shoulders, and her dark hair was wound into a tight knot at the back of her head. She smiled, with a virgin’s shyness, and asked in Spanish what his pleasure would be.

Sam was briefly reminded of Bird, selling herself as well as liquor across the river at Oralee Pringle’s saloon. His stomach soured around the light supper he’d made for himself, but he responded to the smile as best he could. He asked for whiskey, and the girl flounced away to fetch his order.

The pair of riders had turned back to their shared bottle, though Sam suspected they were keeping an eye on him in the long, dingy mirror behind the bar. Both of them wore side arms under their dusty coats, one a right-handed gun, the other a southpaw. He unsnapped the narrow leather strap that kept his own .45 secure in the holster.

The girl came back with his whiskey. Sam paid her and left the drink to sit on the table, untouched. The barmaid lingered, her brown eyes thoughtful and unblinking, and then suddenly plopped herself onto his lap, draping her arms around his neck.

Tentatively, Sam hooked an arm around her slender waist.

She nuzzled his neck, sending shivers through him before nibbling her way up to his ear to whisper, this time in halting English, “Vierra, he will meet you behind the church, beside the grave of Carlos Tiendos, one hour from now. In the meantime—” she tasted his earlobe “—you could come up the stairs with me.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. He’d gone a while without a woman, so the invitation had its appeal, but a particular storekeeper/postmistress had taken up squatter’s rights in the back of his mind, and that ruined everything. Besides, he needed to keep his thoughts on the task ahead of him, meet up with Vierra and work out a plan.

“They are watching you,” the girl persisted. “Those two Americanos at the bar.”

Sam traced the outward curve of one of her breasts with one finger, so they’d have something to look at. He might as well have been running a hand over a wooden Indian outside a cigar store, for all the excitement he felt. Damn that Maddie Chancelor, anyhow. “Who are they?” he whispered back.

She trembled at his caress, though Sam felt as though the blood in his veins had turned to high-country slush. “Donaghers,” she answered, confirming his suspicions. “Garrett and Landry. They don’t take to strangers, so you must be careful.”

Sam nodded almost imperceptibly. If what Terran had told him about the three eldest Donagher brothers was true, he’d have a run-in with them sooner or later, but this night, he didn’t want to be bothered.

“Come upstairs with me,” the girl reiterated. “They will guess that I am passing a message if you don’t.”

Sam forced a lusty chuckle, for the benefit of the Donaghers and anybody else who might be paying attention. “Lead the way,” he said under his breath.

She bounced to her feet, grabbed his hand and hauled him toward a set of three stone steps, around the far end of the bar. He swatted her lightly on the bottom as they passed the Donaghers and she giggled mischievously.

“My name,” she told him, closing the door of a dark room behind them, “is Rosita.”

Sam stood warily, waiting for his eyes to adjust, taking a measure of the place with all his remaining senses. He’d been led into more than one trap in his life, usually by a pretty woman full of promises, and he was absolutely still until he was sure they were alone.

Rosita raised herself onto her toes, slipped her arms around his neck again and kissed him on the mouth. “We might as well make good use of the time,” she teased in her native language.

Sam laid his hands on either side of her waist and set her gently away from him. Thin moonlight seeped into the room, through a single, narrow window, outlining a narrow cot, a washstand and a simple wooden chest with a candlestick on top.

He crossed to the chest, took a match from his shirt pocket and lit the candle. In the flickering light, he noted the crucifix on the wall above the cot, and wondered about Rosita.

“Is this your room?” he asked.

He must have spoken Spanish, because she understood him readily. She tilted her head to one side, her mouth forming a fetching little pout. “Sí,” she said.

He glanced at the crucifix again. “You bring men here?”

She nodded, took another step toward him.

He held up a hand, halting her progress.

Rosita looked as though he’d slapped her. “I am not pretty to you?” she asked softly, this time in English.

“It isn’t that,” Sam said, and thrust a hand through his hair. He’d left his hat at the table, with his glass of whiskey.

“You do not like women?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m right fond of women,” he said.

She tugged at one side of her ruffly bodice, about to pull her dress down.

“Stop,” Sam told her. Then, at her injured expression, he drew a five dollar gold piece from his vest pocket and extended it.

Rosita was clearly confused, and her dark eyes rounded at the gleaming coin resting in his palm, then climbed, questioning, to his face.

“That’s for keeping your clothes on,” he told her gruffly.

She darted forward, snatched the gold piece from his hand and took a couple of hasty steps back, dropping it down the front of her dress. “Nobody ever pay me to keep clothes on,” she marveled. Then, watching him closely, she blinked. “Downstairs...they think we—” Rosita flushed and fell silent.

“Let them think it,” Sam said. Then he leaned down, put one hand on the cot, with its thin, lumpy mattress, and gave it a few quick pushes, so the metal springs creaked. The sound was loud enough to raise speculation downstairs, even over the melancholy strum of the guitar.

Rosita put one hand over her mouth and giggled.

Sam pulled part of his shirttail out and rumpled his hair.

“You have folks around here?” he asked, watching her face. He’d have bet his last pound of coffee beans that she hadn’t seen her sixteenth birthday yet. “Someplace you could go?”

She shook her head.

“How about the padre, over at the church? Maybe he could help.”

“Help?” Rosita echoed, obviously puzzled.

Sam sighed. “Never mind,” he said. He consulted his watch. He was supposed to meet Vierra in twenty minutes. “This church you told me about—where is it?”

Rosita went to the window to point the place out, and Sam stood behind her. The adobe bell tower was clearly visible, even in the starlight. He could get there on foot, in plenty of time.

He was turning to go when Rosita caught hold of his arm. “Vierra,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Do not trust him too much.”

Sam cupped Rosita’s small, earnest face with one hand. “Thanks,” he told her, and headed for the door.

She followed him down the stone steps and he made a point of tucking his shirttail back in as soon as he was visible to the patrons of the cantina. He smoothed his hair, crossed to the table and reclaimed his hat. As an afterthought, he downed the whiskey, and it burned its way to his stomach.

He knew the Donaghers would follow, and as soon as he got outside, he ducked around the corner of the cantina, into the deep shadows, instead of heading for his horse.

Sure enough, Mungo’s sons came outside a moment later.

“Where’d he go?” one of them asked the other.

“Maybe the outhouse,” the other replied.

Sam waited. If they bothered his horse, he’d have to deal with them, but they were either drunk or just plain stupid, maybe both, and headed for the privy at the far side of the dooryard.

He watched as one of them slammed at the outhouse wall with the butt of his gun and bellowed, “You in there, mister?”

The second brother tried the door, pulling on the wire hook outside, and it swung open with a squeal of rusted hinges.

“Hey!” the first brother yelled, putting his head through the opening.

Sam eased out of his hiding place.

Both the Donaghers stepped into the outhouse.

Sam shut the door on them and fastened the sturdy wire hook around the twisted nail so they’d be a while getting out again.

A roar sounded from inside and the whole privy rocked on the hard-packed dirt. Sam grinned, mounted his horse and rode for the church to meet Vierra.

He could still hear the Donagher brothers yelling when he got where he was going. The graveyard was enclosed behind a high rock wall, and there was no gate in evidence, so he stood in the saddle and vaulted over, landing on his feet.

He took a moment to assess his surroundings, as he had in Rosita’s room over the cantina, and spotted the red glow of Vierra’s cheroot about a hundred yards away, beneath a towering cottonwood.

He approached, one hand resting on the handle of his Colt, just in case.

Vierra’s grin flashed white and he solidified from a shadow to a man, ground out the cheroot with the toe of one boot. “There is some trouble at the cantina?” he asked, inclining his head in that direction. The sound of splintering wood, mingled with bellowed curses, swelled in the otherwise peaceful night.

Good thing I didn’t leave my horse behind, Sam thought. They might have shot him out of pure spite.

He shrugged. “Just a couple of cowpokes breaking out of the privy,” he said. “I reckon they would either have jumped me or followed me here, if I hadn’t corralled them for a few minutes.”

Vierra laughed. “The Donaghers,” he said.

Sam nodded, took another look around. It was a typical cemetery, full of stone monuments and crude wooden crosses. He recalled the crucifix on Rosita’s wall, and it sobered him. “What do you have to tell me here that you couldn’t have said last night in Haven?” he asked.

Vierra reached into his vest and produced a thick fold of papers. “These are the places where the banditos have struck on this side of the border.” He crouched, spreading a large hand-drawn map on the ground, and Sam joined him to have a look. “Here, at Rancho Los Cruces, “ Vierra said, placing a gloved fingertip on the spot, “they stole some two hundred head of cattle and left four vaqueros dead. Here, in the canyon, they robbed a train.”

Sam listened intently, committing the map to memory, just in case Vierra wasn’t inclined to part with it.

“They used dynamite to cause an avalanche,” Vierra explained, lingering at the place marked as Reoso Canyon. “The train, of course, was forced to stop. They took a shipment of gold, and the wife and young daughter of a patron were captured, as well. The wife was found later—” Vierra stopped, and his throat worked. “She had been raped and dragged to death behind a horse. There has been no word of the girl.”

“Christ,” Sam rasped, closing his eyes for a moment.

Vierra was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was flat. “I was told that you would give me a map corresponding to this one. Showing all the places this gang has struck on your side of the border.”

Sam nodded, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and handed over a careful copy of the drawing the major had given him. “Except for the woman and the girl,” he said as Vierra unfolded the paper to examine it in a shaft of moonlight, “it’s a version of what you just showed me. Rustling. Train robberies. They cleaned out a couple of banks, too, and killed a freight wagon driver.”

“Our superiors,” Vierra observed, his gaze fixed on Sam’s map, “they believe we are dealing with the same band of men. Do you know why?”

Sam knew it wasn’t a question. It was a prompt. “Yes,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “They leave a mark.”

Vierra folded Sam’s map carefully and tucked it away inside his vest. “A stake, driven into the ground, always with a bit of blood-soaked cloth attached.”

Bile rose in the back of Sam’s throat. He’d seen the signature several times, and just the recollection of it turned his stomach. He nodded, took another moment before he spoke. “I suppose you’ve considered that it might be the Donaghers,” he said. That was Major Blackstone’s theory, and, since his conversation with Terran Chancelor that afternoon, regarding the Debney shooting, the possibility had stuck in his mind like a burr.

A muscle bunched in Vierra’s jaw. “Sí,” he said. “But there is no proof.”

Sam waited.

“The patrons who hired me, they want the right men. No mistakes,” Vierra went on. “And I do not have the option, as you do, of shooting them through the heart and bringing them in draped over their saddles. The patrons want them alive. The streets of a certain village, a day or two south of here, will run with their blood.”

A chill trickled down Sam’s spine. He had no love for these murdering bastards, and would just as soon draw on them as take his next breath, but the law was the law. Unless one or more of them forced his hand, they would stand trial, in an American court, their fate decided by a judge and jury. He didn’t give a damn what happened to them after that, but by God, he’d get them that far, whether Vierra got in his way or not. “I guess it all depends on who catches up to them first,” he said moderately.

Both men rose to their feet. Vierra surrendered the map he’d brought with him. “There is a train making its way north in ten days,” he said. “I have told a few people that there will be a fortune in oro federale aboard. We will see if the rumor reaches the right ears.”

Federal gold, Sam reflected. Cheese in a mousetrap.

“And you’ve got a pretty good idea where they’ll try to intercept the train,” he ventured, recalling Vierra’s map in perfect detail. “That railroad trestle downriver from here.”

Vierra smiled. “I am impressed,” he said. “The new schoolmaster has paid attention to the lesson.”