They heard Duro's voice faintly. "Come back another time."

"This will not keep," Hilario called. "Already too much time has passed."

Duro hesitated. Then rested his hands firmly on the railing and looking down now he seemed suddenly more sure of himself, as if the mescal he had drunk was now making his head lighter, his senses keener. He said, "Listen, alcalde, when I want to speak to you, I'll send rurales. You'll come at that time and at no other. Now go home…and take your friends with you." He started to turn.

"Duro!" Flynn called the name sharply and the rurale lieutenant turned back again. "We'd like to speak to you."

Duro looked down at them coldly. To Flynn he said, "I have invited you before to come to my house, thinking you would come as a gentleman…but when you accompany animals, then perhaps you should be treated as one."

Flynn could feel the sudden heat on his face, but he restrained the impulse to raise his voice and he said mildly, "What happened to your manners?"

"There's no need for them since you are neglecting to use your own."

Flynn smiled to himself. Now it comes out: the real Duro. But why the change of face all of a sudden? Maybe Santana scared him into reality. He's so busy thinking what he's going to do next, there's no time for the polite front. He heard Bowers saying, in a low voice, "He doesn't want us to come up there."

Flynn called up, "Hilario Esteban has something to say. He'll do all the talking."

"Then why are you here," Duro returned, "if this doesn't concern you? And if I choose not to speak to him at this time, that doesn't concern you either." Flynn felt his patience ebbing; but he would try it once more. He began, "Lieutenant…" but that was allThe gunfire came suddenly, a scattering of rifle shots off beyond Duro's house. Flynn looked at the others; they were standing still, wondering; then some were moving hurriedly to the head of the street that led to the rurale camp. Now, from the other direction, came faintly screams and shouts and a few people were reaching the square coming from the streets on both sides of the church, some of the people who had been celebrating the fiesta at the cemetery. They were calling something. The sound of horses now from the street siding Duro's house and a half-dozen rurales were galloping into the square. Their cries were shrill, unintelligible with the sharp clatter of the hoofs…then one word was clear…and it was a shriek that hung hot in the air like a knife blade raised in the sunlight-

"APACHES!"

18

It is always the same when you hear it…a feeling you can't describe…and right away you are picturing them, even if you've never seen one, and nine times out of ten the cry comes after they've gone-Apaches!…A dust cloud in the distance if you're quick, if you get there soon after; but usually the sign is cold and the man lying there, the survivor, cannot tell you which way they went…not with the sun scalding fire-red inside of his head because the Apaches have taken his eyelids…and other parts of him. First patrol…and the heavy flat sound of the sergeant's revolving pistol finishing off the buck who had been shot through the legs.

Apaches! Again and again and again…and the instantaneous tight throb that the word brings never changes because it is not something a man gets used to. But the reaction that comes a split second later, that changes. In a short time it changes from natural panic to trying to remember everything you know about the Apache in a few seconds; and after a half dozen years of it, when it's your business, your reaction instantly eliminates what will not help you here and now and you think of the Apache as pertaining only to this particular place, this particular time.

And that's what Flynn was doing-picturing the south side of Soyopa, where the rurale camp was, where the firing was coming from-it was open country for miles, stretching, curving east and west. So the main threat was not here, even though the firing was coming from that direction now. No, the north side, beyond the cemetery, there it was close with brush, uneven country.

And now, running to the head of the street where most of the others were, Flynn glanced across the square and saw more people coming hurriedly along both sides of the church.

Now it's Soldado's turn-it went through Flynn's mind. Something has stirred him up good.

Past the end of the street, beyond a rise a good two hundred yards off, the bleached tops of the tents were visible. There was smoke and scattered gunfire and suddenly, coming up the rise, up into the street, were the rurales, Santana with them, and as they rode into the square Santana was shouting for them to fan out in a circle, on all sides of the pueblo.

"Sergeant Santana!" Hilario ran close in front of the sergeant's horse as he reined in. "What is it?"

"The Anti-Christ! What do you think!"

"But how did they come?"

"Suddenly…as they always do!"

"Did you lose men?"

"Several," Santana answered, swinging down, breathing hard, watching his men disappear down the streets on all sides of the square. "They struck suddenly, riding almost directly through our camp; then they were gone, leaving some of the tents afire, moving out, away, but seeming to circle to the other side of the pueblo."

Flynn said, "You're going after them?"

"After them! Soldado Viejo is here in force. He would like us to come out after him…so he can cut us to pieces. He is here with men! Something has happened to his thinking. Before he would raid perhaps smaller pueblos, but most of the times herders and then with never more than two dozen men. Now he has over a hundred!"

"See that your men are circling the entire village," Hilario told him, looking about anxiously.

"I know my job!"

Bowers was looking across the square toward the church where more people were entering the square. "You hear them? They're yelling Apache. God, they must be close…"

"That's the side," Flynn said. "They can come up close because of the brush…that's where most of them will be. The strike at the rurale camp was to finish them off quick, but it didn't work."

Hilario's head turned about, wide-eyed. "We should go over there, then."

"What about Duro?" Flynn asked, turning, looking up at him. The lieutenant stood holding tight to the railing, looking, staring across the square.

"Ah, Senor Duro," Hilario said. "I remember his own words once…let me see…" And then he called out, "Duro!" The lieutenant's gaze dropped down to Hilario, surprised, as if he had forgotten they were there. "Duro! Stay in your house until we return. There will be a man here. If he sees your head come out of the door, he will shoot it!"

As they passed the church, many of the people were crowding into its wide doorway which the Franciscan padre stood holding open. Flynn saw him wave to them as they passed and then they were hurrying down the side wall shadow of the church and beyond, deserted now, they could see the cemetery-the rows of wooden crosses and mounds of stones and scattered here and there the remains of the fiesta which would not be finished today: mescal bottles, ollas, plates of pottery and on three or four of the crosses hung sombreros. These moved. As the faint breeze came down from the hills it stirred the wide hat brims, turning them lazily, and this was the only movement now in the deserted cemetery.

Beyond, scattered mesquite thickets began their creeping in from the wild country and beyond the brush were pinon and scrub oak, then jackpine as the ground rose to deep-green and brown-green hills and over all of this nothing moved.

He's smart, Flynn thought, thinking of Soldado. If a white man had the upper hand he'd stand out there showing himself, defying you to come out. Soldado's smart. He makes you think he's gone, and when you go out…then he has you.