"No cannons."

"You can keep the cannon."

"It's a good thing that old Apache doesn't have any."

"Or the rurales…or this Lazair," Bowers said. "I'm trying to make up my mind who's the worst of the three."

Flynn said quietly, "I don't think there's any doubt."

Bowers thought of the wagon train now, and of the girl and what the old Apache had said about the red stones and the white stones and he knew what Flynn meant. And he said nothing. But after a while, after he had thought of Flynn and the girl and Flynn's never mentioning the girl, he became angry and he thought: He's been fighting Apaches so long he acts like one. No emotions. Just a stoicism-like a rock.

They waited for almost two hours, talking in low tones when they did talk, and now there was little light showing over the brush fringe. Then, "It's about that time," Flynn said matter-of-factly. "Let's get out of here."

Bowers looked at him as the cavalry guide rose and dragged over his saddle and pushed it tight against Bowers. His fingers strained away from the rawhide until he touched Bowers' hand, then the fingers worked at the rawhide slowly because the knots were stiff and he did not have the full strength of his hands to use. But finally the thong loosened and Bowers was free. He untied the guide's hands. They passed through the brush cover and moved off in a general southwest direction toward Soyopa.

But when it was full dark, they stopped. A niche in the rocks would protect them from the wind. There was no fire; and before lying down, Flynn placed a semicircle of loose stones out a few yards from the niche. Then they slept; even with the chill and the wind moaning over the rocks. The Apaches had prevented sleep entirely the night before. And the dead had made it fitful the night before that.

They moved off again with the first light, past the circle of stones that were still in place.

"We're above that draw now," Flynn said. "The Mimbre brought us almost clear around it to the other side." He pointed far off over the trees to the wild country that fell below them. "It's down in there somewhere. If we head about that way we'll cross it…maybe find out what happened."

As they moved on, working their way down, Bowers said suddenly, "You've got the biggest capacity for doing things of any man I know."

"It's a big country. Everything in it's big," Flynn said. "The sun's big, the mountains, the deserts, even the bugs. You got to strain to keep up with it, that's all."

"What are you going to get out of this?" Bowers said.

"Sore feet."

"You know what I mean."

"Four dollars a day."

"What else?"

"What do you want, Red, a medal for everything you do?"

"I want a good reason, that's all!"

"Isn't that colonel reason enough?"

"You haven't answered my question."

Flynn's eyes lifted from Bowers and moved along the wall of rocky slope that rimmed this end of the clearing they had entered minutes before. He glanced off in the other direction, at the flat meadow that offered no cover, then back to the rocks and he saw it again-remaining fixed now, a sliver of light pointing out from a crevice in the rocks-like sun reflecting on a gun barrel.

"Mister, you'll have to ask me some other time," he said. "I think we're walking into something."

11

"Hold it there!"

It came abruptly then to stop them fifty feet from the sloping rock wall. Bowers' eyes went over the slope and Flynn said, "About ten o'clock, just above those two boulders." He saw it now, the gun barrel hanging motionless, pointing down through the crevice. No one showed behind it.

"Throw your guns away!"

Flynn's eyes stayed on the crevice. "We're unarmed!"

"I'll give you five seconds."

"We don't have any!"

A silence followed. Then, "Take off your coats and walk slow with your hands in the air."

They did this and as they reached the slope, the man appeared. He descended part way until he was only a few yards above them. He stopped here, squatting on a shelf, with a double-barreled shotgun pointing down toward them.

"What do you want?"

"We're on our way to Soyopa," Flynn said.

"Just out for a little stroll?"

"You're close."

The man grinned, raising the shotgun. "You better say something that makes sense."

Bowers said impatiently, "We need horses, does that make sense?"

The man nodded, taking his time, "But I want to know what you're doing here."

Flynn said, "Get off that rock and take us to Lazair and quit wasting everybody's time." The man looked at him startled and he knew he had guessed it right.

"How do you know he's here?"

"You going to take us, or d'you want me to start yelling for him?"

The man studied them silently, then shrugged, as if he had carried it as far as he could. He said, "Move on into that pass yonder and follow it up." And as they entered the defile he came down and stayed a few feet behind them until the pass opened up into the pocket high in the rocks.

The camp seemed deserted-no one about the four tents, the cook fire dead and over by the cave the only movement was the tarp awning moving gently with the breeze. The guard mumbled, "Where the hell is everybody…" Then he saw them, seven or eight men off beyond the tents, standing idly before a patch of young aspen. "They're over there," he said, and motioned them to go on.

The men looked toward them as they approached. One of them had his back turned, squatting at the base of an aspen and he looked over his shoulder but did not get up. The man with the shotgun yelled, "Somebody fetch Curt!"

For a moment no one moved and someone said, "What's the matter with you?" Then one of them walked off toward the tarp shelter. The others stood where they were, staring at the newcomers, and the one who had been squatting rose now to study them also. Something was behind him, huddled at the base of the aspen-a shoulder, and an arm bent back to the tree trunk.

The guard said, "You still at it?"

"What does it look like?"

Another one said, "The son of a bitch won't even groan."

He stepped aside to reveal the half-naked figure of a man, a dark man with hair to his shoulders, a breechclout and curl-toed moccasins. His upper body sagged limply from the white bark, head-down, hands bound behind the trunk. And he sat heavily with his legs extended, the left thigh bloody, dried blood and a gaping raw wound. His upper body and head showed bruises and in many places the blood ran down his body.

Flynn leaned closer to him, and as if the Indian could feel his presence he looked up slowly. It was Matagente, his face beaten almost beyond recognition.

Flynn said gently, in Mimbreno, "What do they do to you?" But the head went down and the Apache did not answer.

He heard someone say, "Who are they?" and he looked up to see the guard shrug his shoulders; then, past him, he saw a man standing in the cave entrance, holding the blanket covering aside, watching them. Flynn rose and now saw the blanket hanging smooth again and the man was not there. But in a moment he reappeared and now came from the shelter toward them.

Lazair said nothing, studying them, then glanced toward the guard. "Who's on watch?"

"I am."

"You ain't going to see a hell of a lot from here." He waited until the guard moved off before returning his gaze to Bowers and Flynn. "Well?" he said.

Flynn nodded to Matagente. "What happened to the others?"

"Dead," Lazair said. He eyed them coldly, his face shadowed beneath a willow-root straw. The brim curled, pointed low over his thin nose. He stood in a half-slouch, his shirt open almost to the waist, but the bright red kerchief tight about his throat. He said, "How'd you know there were any more?"