He turned the steeldust in the same direction the other bushwhackers had fled, and gave him the spurs.
Behind him, climbing clumsily into his own saddle, big Hound-Dog Tuttle glanced at Villard. “Think this'll put him in the governor's office, Franco?”
“If it don't get himâand usâkilled.” Villard kneed his grulla into a trot.
“That's âdoesn't,' ” Press Miller corrected. “
Doesn't
get us killed.”
The others laughed and galloped after Flagg.
Flagg and the deputies ran their horses hard, following the bushwhackers' trailâsix shod horses splitting wind for the border. Flagg wouldn't let them make it. He'd be damned if they'd make it.
When they'd ridden for an hour, Flagg could tell from the tracks that the outlaws' horses were tiring. On a ridge, the lawmen spied a long dust trail stretching out across the flat, chaparral-tufted desert below. The falling sun colored the dust orange, the six horses at the head of it, dun brown.
The lawmen heeled their mounts down the ridge.
“They know we're back here,” Flagg said. “A couple keep slowing up and turning their horses to look back.”
“Beware a bushwhack,” said Press Miller. “They're good at it.”
“I'm good at sniffing out a bushwhack, too,” bragged Flagg.
He was. That's why, following the trail between two low, piñon-studded scarps, he halted his steeldust as he stared down the horse's left shoulder.
“What is it?” asked Allidore, following Flagg's gaze.
“There were six horses a moment ago. Now there're only five.”
A rifle barked angrily. Hound-Dog Tuttle's hat flew off his head.
As the shot echoed shrilly around the scarp, Flagg shucked his Winchester and, turning the horse with one hand while jacking a fresh shell with the other, snapped the rifle to his shoulder.
Smoke puffed around a thumb of rock jutting out from the scarp's base. There was the metallic rasp of a rifle being levered, then flames stabbed through the smoke as the shooter fired again.
Flagg cut loose with his carbine, sending lead through the smoke, peppering the scarp. The slugs barked off the rock, whining.
A man screamed, stumbled out from behind the boulder. He dropped his rifle, lost his hat, and danced around, enraged and disoriented. Flagg's bullets, ricocheting off the scarp, had shredded the man like shotgun pellets.
Hound-Dog and Villard both sent more .44 rounds through him, laying him out flat on his back, twitching.
Flagg turned his horse down trail. “Let's go!”
They galloped down a hill. Ahead lay a ravine, a purple gash in the fading light. At the lip of the ravine, sunlight shimmered off a rifle barrel.
“Ambush!” Flagg shouted.
A half second later, a rifle snapped. The slug twanged off a rock to Flagg's left, caused a horse to whinny behind him.
As more shots roared and smoke puffed amidst the brush along the lip of the cut, Flagg turned his mount in a full circle, dodging lead. “Three of you follow me! Three head right! We're gonna get behind 'em and send some blue whistlers up their assholes!”
Flagg turned his horse left, toward the bushwhackers' far left flank. Houston, Miller, and Villard galloped behind him, hunkered low in their saddles, dusters flapping like wings. The other three lawmen raced right, returning fire, their silhouetted figures disappearing behind a billowing veil of gun smoke.
Flagg felt a bullet curl the air behind his neck as his horse plunged into the ravine. The horse's front hooves hit the gravel and tough, brown brush at the bottom, nearly sending Flagg over its head. He grabbed the horn and gave an involuntary grunt as the air whooshed out of his lungs.
Sucking a breath and raising his Winchester, he gigged the horse westward along the draw. After three lunging strides, he saw the shooters lying along the ravine's northern ridge. Three of the five turned toward Flagg, while the other two, hearing the other lawmen driving in from the west, jerked looks in that direction.
“Goddamnit!” one shouted. It was the man who'd carried the Army payroll bagsâa stocky gent in a black vest, with a broad pitted face framed by black muttonchop whiskers.
Flagg jerked back on the reins with his left hand. With his right, he aimed the Winchester, snapped off a shot. The steeldust wasn't stopped, and the jostling nudged the slug into the bank beside the outlaw's right elbow.
The man cursed again and fired at Flagg. A quarter second later, Press Miller's rifle drilled the man through his chin, knocking him back against the bank. He had an amazed look on his face as he clutched his jaw with one hand while holding his rifle with the other.
The other deputies cut into the outlaws, Tuttle's barn blaster roaring amidst the rifle cracks.
Hearing slugs whistling around him, plunking into the ground before and behind him, Flagg triggered his Winchester, levered, and triggered again. His steeldust was well trained, but not even a well-trained mount would keep its hooves planted amidst this much gunfire.
Still, at least as many slugs found targets as flew wild.
Less than a minute after the deputies had stormed into the ravine, all the outlaws lay stretched out along the bank, dead.
The rotten-egg smell of cordite filled the ravine. The smoke hung like fog. Blood spurted from a dead outlaw's neck, making a wet sound like water squirting from a highpressure spring.
While the deputies sat their horses, staring sullenly at the dead men flung every which way upon the bank, Flagg gigged the steeldust forward. The horse climbed the bank and stopped beside the dark-haired hard case.
Leaning out from his saddle, Flagg scooped up the saddlebags with his rifle barrel and draped them across his bedroll.
He rode back down to the bottom of the wash, waved powder smoke away from his face, and turned back to regard the corpses.
“We made short work of these bastards,” said Tuttle, chuckling and reloading his shotgun. “Hawk should be a turkey shoot.”
Flagg looked at him. “You think so, do you?”
Tuttle shrugged.
Flagg laughed, reined his horse around, and rode off down the wash.
9.
SECRET PLACE
S
ITTING under pines along the needle-strewn creek bank, Gideon Hawk watched the cartridge casing bob along a riffle in the gently flowing stream.
Hawk had filled the casing with paraffin to help it float upright, and drilled a hole through it. After stringing fishing line through the holes and attaching the line's other end to the homemade pole he'd crudely fashioned from a willow branch, he'd skewered a cricket to the hook.
Flashing in the sunlight angling through the pines, the cartridge bobbed between two mossy stones, nudged a yellow cottonwood leaf, and dropped into a placid hole on the other side of the stream.
The cartridge jerked suddenly into a small cavern made by an old pine root overhanging the river, and disappeared beneath the dark water.
Somewhere in the depths of Hawk's memory, a phantom called. “Pa, I think I got one!”
Jubal Hawk stood on the far side of Wolf Creek, not far from their house in Crossroads, Nebraska Territory, the boy's cane pole bent out over the rushing water. Six-year-old Jubalâstocky and dark-haired with eyes the same blue as his mother'sâran along the creek while staring hang-jawed at the droplet-beaded line angling into a deep hole on the downstream side of a beaver dam.
Hawk laughed. “Give your pole a tug straight up, and pull him in!”
The boy gave the pole a tug and stretched a happy, terrified grin at his father fishing on the opposite side of the stream. “The hook's set, but it's really big. It's a hog!
Gotta
be!”
Hawk propped his own pole against the log he was sitting on, then rose and leapt onto the beaver dam. As he threw his arms out for balance, he made his way to the far side of the stream. The water, still icy this early in the spring, slid across his boots, riffling against his trouser cuffs.
Jubal exclaimed with boyish glee as he tugged on the pole and backed away from the water, a suspender falling off a shoulder. One foot slipped in a patch of star moss, and he fell on his backside, his floppy-brimmed hat tumbling off his head. “Dang!”
“Hold on to the pole, Jubal!”
The pole had slipped out of the boy's hands, but now as Hawk leapt from the beaver dam and onto the boy's side of the stream, Jubal grabbed the pole and pushed up on his knees.
“It's gonna break,” he cried, lifting the pole's end and peering into the stream.
“It's all right,” Hawk said, staring into the water along the bank, choking back a laugh. “Give it another tug and you've got him.”
Hawk stepped back, wet boots squishing, as Jubal planted a hand on one knee and pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. When the pudgy boy got his other foot under him, he took a deep breath, balling his flushed cheeks, and tugged on the pole hard with both hands.
There was a light, frantic splash as the fish shot out of the water and landed on the bank.
“Oh, boy!” Jubal ran over to where the huge fish lay on a cottonwood root.
Only, the fish wasn't as huge as it had first appeared shooting out of the stream. In fact, it wasn't much of a fish at allâjust a little half-pound bullhead swaddled in moss, spruce-green watercress, and a soggy tree branch.
The boy looked down at it, crestfallen. He kicked the tree root. “Darn! I thought it was a lunker!”
Hawk laughed and tousled the boy's hair. When he'd unhooked the gasping fish and returned it to the stream, he leapt onto the beaver dam, throwing his arms out for balance. “Back to work, son. Nothin' comes easy, you know!”
“But Pa, I really wanted it to be a lunker to show Ma!”
The boy's voice was drowned out by another. Someone was squeezing Hawk's arm and calling his name. Hawk turned his head to find Juliana staring at him, her brown eyes showing concern, both hands wrapped around his forearm.
She knelt beside him, her bare legs and feet curled beneath her, her soft, white skirt pulled up above her knees. Her hair hung in flowing waves across her shoulders, framing her tan, heart-shaped face.
She glanced at the stream, the bridge of her nose deep-lined with excitement as she sprang up and down on her thighs. “Gideon, you've got one! You caught a fish! Pull it up!”
Hawk turned to the stream. But instead of the tea-brown, sun-dappled water churning over the rocks, what he saw was a large cottonwood tree standing atop a steep hill. The tree was silhouetted against a stormy sky, its branches thrashed by pounding rain.
Thunder rumbled. Lightning stabbed witches' fingers across the gauzy darkness.
Hanging from a stout branch of the tree was a pudgy young boy, turning this way and that in the wind . . .
“Jubal . . .” Hawk muttered.
His heart tumbled in his chest. He choked back a sob, squeezed his eyes closed, and gave his head a hard shake.
When he opened his eyes again, the tree was gone. The stream appeared before him, the alpine air smelling like pines, mushrooms, and damp soil. Sun-dappled water churned over the rocks, washing a branch into a small trough and sweeping it downstream.
Hawk felt a wetness on his cheeks. His throat was still tight.
He glanced again at Juliana. She stared into his face, her own features flushed with worry. She squeezed his forearm and caressed his cheek with her other hand, thumbing away a tearâa soft, sweet caress.
Her voice was barely audible above the stream. “Are you all right, Gideon?”
For a half second, Jubal's hanging corpse flashed again before his eyes. He blinked, and it was gone. There was only Juliana beside him, smelling like rose hips, the wind blowing her hair and buffeting her low-cut blouse. Before him was the stream in the deep, pine-studded canyon north of the hacienda . . . and the mesquite pole in his hands, jerking ever so slightly as a fish fought at the other end of the line.
On the other side of the river, where the cartridge had sunk, water rippled, splashed by a small, silver tail.
Hawk stood and raised the pole above the stream. The fish rose from the water and tail-danced across the surface as Hawk swung it toward him and grabbed it out of the air.
He turned a smile toward Juliana. “A brooky. Just like the ones I used to catch with myâ” He cut himself off, stared at the slippery body writhing in his hand.
Standing beside him, Juliana regarded him soberly. “Your son?”
Hawk removed the fish from the hook, dropped it in a wicker basket lined with mint.
“And the braid that fell out of the saddlebag last night. That belonged to your wife.”
Hunkered down beside the basket, Hawk turned to her. “How? . . .”
“I overheard men talking in the cantina while you were gone. You are the vigilante lawman from the north.”
Hawk dropped his gaze. He hadn't thought anyone in the village had heard of him, much less recognized him. News traveled fast, even to the remotest places on the frontier, it seemed. Traveling, he often used the alias George Hollis. He hadn't thought he'd have had to use it here.
“They said your son was murdered. Hanged. And your wife hanged herself out of grief.”
“From a tree in our backyard.” Hawk looked at her. “Why didn't you tell me you knew?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me.” She stared at him for a time, the sunlight glittering in her eyes. Then she dropped down beside him, threw her arms around his neck. “Gideon, I am sorry! You can find peace here . . . with me. You can forget!”
Hawk wiped the fish slime from his hand, pulled her toward him. He held her tightly for a while, savoring the warmth of her supple body against his, brushing away spruce needles that had caught in her hair as they'd led a burro down the southern ridge.
“Come on,” he said pushing her away and kissing her cheek. “We're gonna need more fish than that for lunch. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry.”
He rose and baited his hook with another cricket and tossed the line into the stream. She watched him for a time, eyes dark and pensive, then stood, retrieved her own pole, and tossed the line into the creek.
Behind her, the burro chewed leaves from a willow branch. The crunching sound mingled with the stream's rush and the forlorn cry of a hawk circling high above the crenellated canyon walls.
Later, as Hawk dropped his third small brook trout into the wicker basket, he turned to Juliana. She sat along the stream, her back against a boulder, the pole in her hands, long, tan legs stretched toward the water. Her face was tipped up to the sun.
“I'll fetch wood for a fire.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, eyes brightening. “No, wait. I know a better place for a picnic.” She rose and retrieved her line, then slid her pole under a strap on the burro's back. When she'd untied the animal, she began leading him upstream, beckoning to Hawk as she made her way barefoot along the rock slabs sloping toward the creek.
“Come. I will show you a secret place!” She walked a few more steps, then turned another glance toward him, her eyes bright with conspiracy. “But you have to promise not to tell another soul!”
Hawk chuffed and threw the basket over his shoulder. Hitching his gun belt on his hips, he grabbed his Henry rifle and began following the girl along the canyon's stony floor. They traced a bend, forded the stream, and meandered along a side canyon cloaked in cool shadows and cut down the middle by a meandering freshet. The girl walked along the base of the canyon's right ridgeâa sheer slab of andosite shooting straight up toward the sky, the wall pocked here and there with swallows' nests.
A golden eagle swooped through the canyon, so close to Hawk's left shoulder that he could see the keen, copper eyes, see the wind rippling the dun feathers, and feel the whoosh of wind as it passed.
Juliana stopped, tethered the burro to an ironwood shrub, and slung a burlap pouch around her neck. She glanced at Hawk coming up behind her, then crouched down beside an oval cleft low in the canyon wall. She met his gaze, smiled beguilingly, then dropped to her knees and scuttled into the cave.
Hawk frowned, concern stabbing him. Clefts in canyon walls were favorite haunts of mountain lions, even bears. “Hey, where you going?”
“Follow me!” Her voice was muffled by rock, and he realized the cleft must be deeper than he'd thought.
Hawk glanced at the burro. The burro regarded him dully, twitched its ears, then chewed some leaves off the ironwood bush.
Hawk adjusted the basket's strap on his shoulder, knelt down, and, leaning on his Henry's butt, peered into the cleft. It smelled stony, not as musty as he'd imagined, as if somehow it was vented from within. He couldn't see much. What he assumed was the girl's shadow shuffled back in the gauzy purple depths.
Hawk looked around, his innate wariness of enclosed places pricking the hair under his collar. Reasonably sure that he and the girl were alone in the canyon, he dropped to all fours and slid into the cavern.
He crawled under a low ceiling for ten feet before it suddenly rose and he was able to stand. The passage here was a good seven feet high.
“This way!” The girl's voice sounded sepulchral, echoing faintly off the rock walls.
Hawk peered straight into the mountain. Juliana stood sideways, peering back at him. She was silhouetted by the natural light beyond her.
As Hawk started forward, she turned and continued moving through the narrow corridor. He kept her slender figure in sight as he moved between the pitted, jutting walls, stepping over rocks and cracks, hearing his boots squishing slightly on the damp, uneven floor.
As if from far away, water trickled tinnily.
“Hurry!” Ahead, Juliana had stopped in what appeared to be a broadening of the corridor. Natural light fell down around her, glistening in her long black hair. “It's going good today!”
“What's going good?” Hawk muttered, continuing forward and running his hand along the wall, noting the flecks of fool's gold etched into the andosite, the smell of bat guano tainting the otherwise fresh, damp air pushing against his face.
His boots and spurs began echoing more loudly as he approached the opening. The sound of tumbling water grew louder, as well, the humidity rising. Juliana had drifted from sight. The soft, blue daylight before him was etched by a fine mist.
The walls on both sides pulled away as he strode into a large oval room. Thirty feet above the floor, the ceiling slanted at a forty-five-degree angle, a good half of it missing, as if a lid had been opened onto the blue desert sky.
The room's floor was strewn with the rubble that had once been the ceiling. On the room's right side, water tumbled into the opening from the mountain slope above. It splashed over the strewn rubble and flowed down into a crack it had carved deep into the floor, the black, bubbling water churning out of sight somewhere below.
Hawk didn't look at the underground river for long.
Juliana herself had captured his attention, standing as she wasâglistening wet and nakedâon a pile of black rocks at the base of the waterfall.
Hawk's heart quickened as he watched her turning this way and that in the tumbling water, her dark hair pasted against her head and back. Her heavy breasts jutted proudly, swaying as she moved and laughed, turning to show him her slender curving back and round, pale buttocks over which the water slid then tumbled about her feet.
She turned a complete circle, faced him again, ran her hands under her breasts, cupping them and lifting them and throwing her head back and opening her mouth to the waterâa beautiful, bewitching desert sprite.
He ran his eyes from her navel to her breasts and then to her face. She stared at him, her broad smile filled with girlish charm. “This is my secret place. I found it long ago, when I was just a kid. You won't tell anyone?”