Maybe they've taken him already. And maybe they haven't. But if he breaks for the street, the one on the corner will get him. This went through his mind quickly as he aimed at the Apache, realizing almost at the same time that there was no choice. He must kill the Apache on the chance Bowers wasn't already taken. "Look around," he whispered to the Apache, "then it will be easier." But the figure remained motionless, his back hunched into a round target, as Flynn inhaled slowly, stopped, squeezed the trigger, felt the shock jab against his shoulder, smelled the powder and heard the report echo through the deserted streets. He saw that the Apache had turned as he was hit and was facing him now, lying on his back.

9

The wind rose, bringing clouds to dim the moonlight, and the wind moved through the streets with a low hissing sound, bending the brush clumps and splattering invisible sand particles against the adobe. The wind moved over the dead Apache, spreading his hair, fanning it into a halo about his head. But this was all, only the wind.

As morning approached, Flynn could see the Apache more plainly. The sun came up behind the stable and a shaft of cold light filtering between the stable and the next building fell directly across the Apache. The shirt would move gently as the breeze stirred, but the curled moccasin toes which pointed to the sky, and the extended arms, palms up, did not move.

Flynn thought: Your friends are probably looking at you at this same moment. One of them saying, "Poor…"-something that ends in i-n or y-a and has a guttural sound to it. Or else something the Mexicans named you. Juan Ladron. Joselito. Or a name like Geronimo which a few years ago was Gokliya. And now they are begging U-sen not to make you walk in eternal darkness, because it wasn't your fault, Flynn continued to think. I'm sorry I killed you at night. It was not the way a warrior should die. But you would have killed me. That's the way it goes. I wish I could light a cigarette.

Where are they, in that house the Mimbre was pointing toward? Probably. With Bowers. Perhaps one has worked his way around and is entering the livery. Flynn rolled to his side and looked back toward the ladder, then to the loft opening again. Just don't start imagining things, he told himself. They'll show sooner or later. It's their move now.

Shortly after he thought this, it came.

His eyes were swinging along the ramada fronts when he caught the movement in the corner of his vision. His eyes slid back instantly to the street where the dead Apache lay. Bowers was standing at the corner of the building. His hands were behind his back.

Flynn watched him, surprised. He had not admitted it, but now he realized that he had supposed Bowers dead.

The cavalryman staggered out from the building suddenly, off balance, and Flynn saw the two Apaches then. One of them pushed Bowers again, staying close behind him, urging him on until they reached the middle of the square and stopped next to the statue. The other Apache followed and now the three of them looked up at the livery stable first, then to the buildings on either side. The Apache behind Bowers jabbed him with his carbine barrel.

Moving his head slowly along the building fronts, Bowers yelled out, "They want me to say something!"

You don't have to say it, Flynn thought. He watched one of the Apaches point the carbine at Bowers' head and pull back the hammer. Give up, or they'll kill him. That doesn't need words. But how do they know I'm still here? And that I'm alone? He thought of their horses then, picketed on the hill. They found the horses. They move fast and they're very thorough, and they know a man wouldn't run off without his horse. Not in this country.

"Flynn…don't come out!"

He moved from the opening back to the ladder and climbed down it wearily. He walked out the wide front door of the stable toward the three figures at the statue. Beyond them, now, he saw two other Apaches standing in the shadow of a wooden awning. The square was dead-still.

The second Apache stepped forward to meet him and he handed the carbine to him, then reached into his coat and drew the pistol and handed this to him.

He said to Bowers, "Well, we tried. What happened?" He saw the bruised cheekbone and the swelling above his right eye.

"I walked into the house where they were butchering a steer," Bowers said. "They were on me before I knew it."

"Red, don't back away from them. Stay calm and we'll get out of this."

Bowers looked at him quickly. It was the first time he had been called that since before the Point. And it had come unexpectedly from Flynn.

The guide looked at the Apache next to him. He said roughly, in Spanish, "What are you called?"

The Apache eyed him narrowly. "Matagente." Then he said in hesitant, word-spaced Spanish, "I do not know you."

"Nor I, you," Flynn said. "But I know you are Mimbreno-and at this time very far from the land of the Warm Springs. But you will come to know us very well. At San Carlos you will see us often."

Matagente's expression did not change as he listened. Now he said, "San Carlos is not for the Warm Springs Apache."

"This is something which ones above us have ordered," Flynn said. "There is no profit in talking about it with you. Where is Soldado? Our words are for him."

"You will see him," Matagente said. He motioned with the carbine, saying no more, directing them toward the house where the others stood. They had carried the dead Apache from the street and now he was under the ramada near the doorway. Matagente looked at him as he prodded the two men into the house, but still he said nothing.

They sat on the packed-dirt floor with their legs crossed and their backs to the wall and waited. For what, they did not know, wondering why they were not taken to the Apaches' rancheria.

Matagente brought them meat, then sat near the doorway with one of the Springfields across his lap. His hand moved over the smooth stock idly. Before this he had used a Burnside.54 which needed percussion caps and powder, and often it misfired.

When they had eaten the meat, Flynn said, "Take us to Soldado now."

"You will see him," Matagente said, and again lapsed into silence. This new gun was in his mind-this pesh-e-gar-and he was thinking how good it would be to fire it.

Through the doorway Flynn could see the other Apaches standing in front of the house, talking to each other in low tones he could not hear. Then he saw them look up. One of them moved off and the others watched after him. In a moment he was back and he called in to Matagente, in the Mimbreno dialect. "They are here."

Matagente rose and moved to the doorway as mounted Apaches suddenly appeared in front of the house. These dismounted as others continued to enter the square from the side street, walking their ponies. The sound of this came to Flynn, but he could see nothing until Matagente stepped back from the doorway. He saw the Apaches now, at least twenty, probably more, milling in front of the house, then his view was blocked again as a figure moved into the doorway.

Matagente said, "Now you see Soldado. Tell him your story, American."

Bowers looked at him with open surprise, and now wondered why he had expected this Apache to look different than any other, though he was old for an Apache still active. Wrinkled face and eyes half closed beneath the bright red headband. And skinny-filthy clothes, ill-fitting to make him seem smaller. A buttonless cavalry jacket, a bandoleer crossing his chest holding the jacket only partly closed, and cotton trousers stuffed into curl-toed moccasins that reached to his knees where they folded and tied. He rested one hand on the butt of a cap-and-ball dragoon pistol in his waistband. But the hand only rested there; it was not a threat.