The driver, Earl Manring, drew in on the reins as the wagon reached the willow trees that lined the creek bank. He stood up, kneeling one knee on the seat, and looked back at Renda. “We better water first. Right?”
Renda neck-reined his mare closer to the wagon. “All right.” He looked at Bowen and Ike Pryde sitting on the end gate. “Get a drink,” he told them, then rode over to the willow shade where Brazil was dismounting.
Brazil drank first, then Renda; and now, as they watered their horses, both of them watched the three men kneeling at the creek a few feet from the wagon team.
Manring cupped the water in his hands and raised it to his mouth. He drank the water, but his hands remained at his face and he said to Bowen, “There’ll be a better time than today. Today’s not right for it.”
Bowen said nothing. He was lying on his stomach now with his elbows propped under him, staring at the sandy creek bed.
“If I know it,” Manring said, “then Renda knows it.”
Not looking at him, Bowen said, “You don’t know anything.”
“Listen. It’s written on you like a sign. You don’t talk and you keep watching Renda…thinking he don’t know it.”
Ike Pryde, the convict wearing number 17, half turned. He was in his late thirties, older than Bowen and Manring by not more than ten years; though he looked old enough to be their father. He had taken off his hat and in the sunlight his skull showed white through his thin, close-cropped hair. His face was hard-lined and rarely changed its expression; but age showed in his eyes and in the stoop-shouldered way he moved. Six years at Yuma before the road gang. Six years that had added sixteen to his life. His eyes raised to Earl Manring as he turned.
“Leave him alone,” he muttered.
“If he’d think for a minute,” Manring said, “he’d change his mind.”
Bowen leaned closer to the bank to scoop water. “I’ll say it once more. You don’t know anything.”
“I know somewhere between here and camp you’re going into the woods.”
“You think what you want,” Bowen said.
Manring’s jaw was clenched. “This isn’t the way to do it! You got no horse. You got nothing!”
“Earl”-Pryde’s lips barely moved-“you’re going to get your jaw broke.”
Renda and Brazil came out of the willow shade. Bowen rose and moved to the end of the wagon, then looked forward to the team again as he saw Pryde staring in that direction. Manring stood by one of the horses adjusting the harness and Renda was leaning over his saddle horn, saying something to him.
They forded the creek. On the other side, they followed wagon tracks that formed a long, slow-sweeping curve up to the jackpines along the crest, then skirted the shoulder of the hill before sloping down again and after this the trail kept to deep, rock-rimmed draws that twisted through the hills.
Renda rode in the lead now, turning in his saddle every few minutes to look back at the wagon. Behind the supply load, he could not see the two men on the end gate. They were Brazil’s concern. Brazil and his Winchester brought up the rear, keeping not more than twenty feet behind the wagon.
The two men on the end gate had not spoken since leaving the creek. Now, unexpectedly, Pryde said, “In another mile we reach the steep part.”
They sat with their legs hanging, their shoulders hunched forward and their eyes on the trail falling away beneath their feet.
Bowen said nothing.
“It’s steep enough,” Pryde mumbled, “that we’ll have to get off and lean on a wheel.”
“I know that,” Bowen said.
“How? This is your first trip.”
“I was told.”
“What else were you told?”
“That was enough.”
Pryde’s eyes raised momentarily to Brazil following them. “That boy’s dying to use his Winchester.”
“If you want to talk,” Bowen said, “tell me something I don’t know.”
Pryde’s jaw tightened, then relaxed slowly. “You’re tough, huh?”
Bowen didn’t answer.
“It takes more than being tough,” Pryde said. He was silent for a moment. “You’re thinking when we reach the grade and have to get off, that’s the time to go. Then or never.” Pryde paused again. “I’ll tell you one time. Don’t do it today.”
Bowen said, “You and Manring.”
“Manring has his own reason. I don’t know what that was, but I’m telling you what I feel.”
“You didn’t say anything at the creek.”
“It wasn’t the same then. If you wanted to jump, that was your business. Now there’s something wrong. That man with the Winchester knows what’s about.”
Bowen’s eyes raised. “He looks the same as always.”
“You don’t see a difference,” Pryde growled. “You feel it.”
“Well, I don’t feel it.”
“You haven’t been locked up long enough.”
“I’d say long enough,” Bowen answered.
Pryde waited. “After six years you know things. Things you didn’t know before. I don’t know how, but you do.”
Bowen glanced up, then looked down at the wagon ruts again. “When you were at Yuma…did you ever try to run?”
“Twice.”
“How long before they caught you?”
“A day one time. Four the next. They paid the Pimas fifty dollars to bring you back.”
“When you broke out…did it feel like it was the right time?”
Pryde hesitated. “I don’t remember.”
“But you’re telling me one time’s wrong and another time isn’t.”
Pryde said, “Go to hell then.” But he added, “Even if you get clear, Renda’s got better than Pimas. You know that.”
“So it’s a chance all the way.”
“You don’t outrun the trackers he’s got. They been reading sign since they were little kids.”
“That’s not something to worry about now.”
“But that Winchester is,” Pryde said.
The trail began to rise again. Bowen could feel the wagon slanting upward and his hand gripped the end gate chain close to his right leg to steady himself.
Another twenty minutes, Bowen thought. He pictured the ride in earlier that morning, coming down the steep grade and studying the country carefully as they did, then reaching this section that clung to the hill shoulder and dropped off steeply on the right side.
No, he thought, may be only ten minutes to the grade. But it doesn’t make any difference how long. When you reach it, they’ll pull you off the wagon and you’ll know.
He thought of what Pryde had told him about them being ready and expecting him to break.
That was foolishness. You don’t feel things. Even if you do, you don’t bet on a feeling. You don’t stake something big on it.
They’re always ready, he thought. It’s just a question of moving when they’re least ready.
A convict on the road gang named Chick Miller had described the trail between the camp and Pinaleño. Every foot of it that he could remember. He had told Bowen, “Going there isn’t the time. But when you’re coming back, Renda rides in front. If he was to stay behind, then the load would be between him and the driver and some places the trail is only as wide as the wagon. That means only one man’s in back to watch you. Now I’d say a man’s best time would be when you reach the high grade and have to get off. Now you’re on the ground, getting the feel of it under your shoes…and your rear guard is worrying whether the wagon’s going to come sliding back at him.”
He remembered Chick winking and saying, “That’s the time, Corey. Right then.”
And when he asked Chick why he had never tried it, the answer was that he was along in years and his legs wouldn’t bear up under running. “Boy…you’ll run till they drop off.”
Bowen had waited, every day thinking about it, picturing himself doing it…and finally this morning he was picked for the Pinaleño trip and the time had come.
Maybe Chick told Manring, Bowen thought. That’s how he knows. And Pryde picked it up from Manring.
His eyes raised to Brazil again. The Winchester was across his lap. Of course they’re ready, he thought again; but you catch them when they’re least-