The Kid tried not to stare. He had known the Rurales had a bad reputation, but he hadn’t expected that an outright criminal was in charge of them in these parts.
The news made the task facing him that much more difficult, he thought. If he couldn’t get Jess and the other women away from the Apaches before they reached Guzman, he would have to try to steal them away from the Rurales, which might be even harder.
“So you think the Apaches are headed for Guzman’s headquarters?” The Kid asked Kelly.
“I’m sure of it.”
“Where is that?”
“The Rurales barracks are in a village called San Remo, in the mountains southwest of here. Mateo thinks the Apache stronghold is in the same direction, only deeper in the mountains. They can stop and make their deal with Guzman on their way home.”
That sounded reasonable and plausible to The Kid.
The scalp hunters stopped from time to time to rest their horses, but not for a meal. They gnawed pieces of jerky while they were in the saddle. Kelly shared some of his with The Kid.
“Least I can do, seeing as how you helped us out back there,” he explained.
The trail continued south, even though Kelly had said it would angle toward the mountains when they got closer. In the middle of the afternoon, the five men came to a broad wash veering to the southwest.
Kelly reined in and pointed along it even though the tracks of the war party continued almost due south. “That’s the route we’ll take. It’s a shortcut to the foothills. With any luck it’ll put us ahead of the Apaches.”
“What if they don’t go the way you think they’re going to?” The Kid asked. “We’ll have to double back, and that’ll just cost us time.”
“You don’t know Kelly,” Valdez said with a sneer. “His plans are never wrong.”
Kelly smiled. “I appreciate that vote of confidence, Lupe. I’m not
The Kid realized he had no choice but to go along with Kelly’s plan. Working with these men, no matter how repugnant he found them, still gave him his best chance of rescuing the prisoners. “Fine. You’re the boss, Kelly.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear,” the Irishman said with a grin. He sent his horse down the wash’s sloping bank. “Come on.”
It didn’t take long for The Kid to realize why the Apaches hadn’t taken that route. The bottom of the wash was littered with rocks and gullies and clumps of brush. The riders had to weave around the obstacles, and it was slow going.
“Are you sure this is going to save us some time?” The Kid finally asked.
“Count on it,” Kelly said. “I know it’s slow, but this way is ten miles shorter. Also, we’re deep enough into Mexico now that the Apaches won’t be in any hurry at all.”
“When those bushwhackers they left behind don’t come back, they may start to worry.”
“Not for another day or two,” Kelly insisted.
Down in the wash, The Kid could no longer see the mountains, so he couldn’t judge their progress. “Are we going to get where we’re going before it gets dark?”
“No, but that’s all right. We’ll reach the foothills sometime tomorrow morning, and the savages probably won’t get there until the middle of the day, maybe later.”
All The Kid could do was hope that Kelly was right.
They traveled until it was too dark to go on through the rugged arroyo, then made camp. Since they were down where flames couldn’t be seen for miles around, Kelly declared it was all right to build a fire so they had a hot meal. The Kid shared the last of his salt pork with his companions.
As they sat around the dying fire drinking coffee, Valdez got a bottle of tequila from his saddlebags. “You can’t have any, gringo,” he said as he poured some of the fiery liquor in his cup. “Because of you, my cojones still ache like the very Devil himself!”
“That’s fine,” The Kid said. “I don’t much cotton to that cactus juice, anyway.”
Kelly laughed. “I prefer Irish whiskey myself. I have a bottle in my saddlebags, Kid, if you’d like a taste.”
“No, thanks. Anytime there’s a chance I might be attacked by a bunch of howling savages, I’d rather have a clear head.”
Kelly waved off that sentiment. “Those Apaches don’t have a clue we’re here!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” The Kid said. “They were careful enough to set up that ambush in the canyon. They’re bound to know about this shortcut. Maybe they split their forces again and sent some men this way just to be sure nobody tries to use it to get ahead of them.”
He was just talking off the top of his head, but as he spoke, he realized that he might have hit upon a real possibility.
He wasn’t the only one who thought that. Chess said, “Morgan might be right, Kelly. Maybe we shouldn’t have built this fire.”
“It’ll be out soon,” Kelly snapped, sounding like he didn’t care for having his thinking challenged. “And setting up that ambush at the canyon was different. The savages are cunning enough to do that. They won’t think about setting a trap in this wash.”
The Kid wasn’t willing to bet his life on Kelly’s opinion. “It still might be a good idea to stand guard.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Kelly said. “We would have, anyway. It never hurts to be careful.”
That allowed Kelly to save face, The Kid thought, and he let it go at that. He didn’t have any wish to challenge Kelly for the leadership of this bloodthirsty gang of scalphunters.
Each of the five men agreed to take a two-hour turn standing watch. Kelly decided the order of the shifts, and again, The Kid didn’t argue. He was given the third shift, the deepest, darkest hours of the night.
Even though he wasn’t a frontiersman by birth, he had spent enough time out there in recent years to develop many of the traits of one. Most of the time he dropped off to sleep easily and quickly when he had the chance, and when he woke up, he was fully alert as soon as he opened his eyes.
Chess had the turn before him. The man knelt beside The Kid and pulled back a hand from touching his shoulder.
“Your turn, Morgan,” Chess whispered.
The Kid sat up and reached for the shell belt coiled beside his bedroll. “Anything?”
“Quiet as it can be,” Chess replied.
That was good. The Kid stood up, buckled on his gunbelt, and picked up his rifle. Chess had already stretched out. The Kid walked over to where the horses were picketed and turned his head to take a look around. Light from the stars and a three-quarter moon was scattered across the wash, but there were a lot of thick shadows.
He searched those shadows for movement and didn’t see any. He frowned as Valdez rolled onto his back and began to snore loudly. That racket would make it harder to hear if anyone was trying to sneak up on the camp.
The Kid was thinking about going over there and prodding Valdez with a boot toe, when a rock rolled down the bank of the wash behind him. He recognized the tiny sound.
As he whirled toward it, something launched off the top of the bank at him, blotting out the stars like a giant bird of prey.
Chapter 20
The Kid’s razor-sharp reflexes saved him. He twisted aside and brought up the rifle in his hands. Metal rang against metal as the Winchester’s barrel deflected the knife aimed at his throat.
The Apache crashed into him, driving him off his feet. The Kid managed to hang on to the rifle as he rolled
