“And you know this how?” Vanmeter asked.
“At dusk, the crows were cawing, the swallows stayed close to the ground, and the hawks weren’t soaring as high as usual.”
“So, it’s like some Apache insight into the natural world, right?” Vanmeter said.
Clayton laughed. “Actually, I learned it in a wilderness survival class I took years ago.” He turned to Kerney. “Let’s go. We’re a good five hours behind Larson, and I want to close the gap before the rain comes.”
“Lead on, Chief,” Kerney replied as he waved a good-bye to Vanmeter.
Clayton shot him a look over his shoulder. “I hope you mean that in the nicest possible way.”
“I do,” Kerney replied as he fell in behind Clayton. “I’m sure you know it was the gringos who came up with the idea of calling the leaders of the Apache bands chiefs. They couldn’t grasp the concept of a warrior society without one person holding absolute authority.”
“And it’s still true today,” Clayton replied. “Have you been studying Apache history?”
“I figured with an Apache son, I’d better learn something about it,” Kerney said.
After a pause, Clayton said, “I think my mother was wise to choose you to mate with.”
“Now that’s a compliment I bet a father rarely hears,” Kerney replied with a laugh.
The two men fell silent as they followed Larson’s trail west across the rolling rangeland. In the deepest part of the night, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped, and the short prairie grasses swirled in cross breezes that whipped through the plains. Soon, lightning flashes were cutting the night sky, illuminating the mountaintops as cascading rolls of thunder roared down the slopes.
Massive, boiling clouds that had been hidden from view came over the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Clayton and Kerney broke their horses into a fast trot.
“We’re going to have to take shelter before this storm comes in,” Kerney said as he came up alongside Clayton.
“We can hole up in Miami,” Clayton said, “but we’re gonna get wet along the way.”
Damp but safe under shelter in an empty barn on the outskirts of Miami, they shook the rain off their ponchos, hung them over the door to a stall, and watched the deluge start. Lightning strikes lit up the sky and wind-driven rain battered the cottonwood trees that bordered the road through the settlement.
“This weather sure doesn’t help us any,” Kerney said as he wiped down his horse with an old towel he’d found in a rag bin. When he finished, he got more dry rags and moved on to the pack animals.
“It shouldn’t delay us that much,” Clayton said as he dried his mount. “If Larson hasn’t found shelter, he’s been slowed way down on making tracks. When it clears, we’ll circle the village, cut his trail, and follow his tracks. After this storm, fresh hoofprints won’t be hard to find.”
“Plus,” Kerney added, “Larson didn’t do a good job of loading his packhorse. The animal’s left rear hoofprint is deeper than the others.”
“You noticed that, did you?”
“I grew up on a ranch, remember, so I’m not a complete novice when it comes to tracking livestock,” Kerney said as he spread a blanket on a bed of straw and stretched out on it. Some distance away on the open prairie a big lightning bolt struck. “Wake me when it’s time to move.”
“How can you sleep through this?” Clayton asked.
Kerney closed his eyes. “Watch me.”
Drenched and cold to the bone, Craig Larson dug his heels into the flanks of his frightened horse and pushed on. He tugged at the reins of the reluctant packhorse and it grudgingly raised its head and picked up the pace. When he crested a small rise, he stopped and listened. Although he couldn’t see it through the sheets of rain, close by he could hear the roar of the usually dry creek that wandered along the foot of Coyote Mesa.
Larson dismounted and slowly walked the horses to the edge of the creek. Four feet below him, brown, foaming water filled the creek, rising fast, carrying with it tree branches, plastic bottles bobbing up and down, and other debris. He’d have to find a better place to cross. He got back on the horse and rode away from the mesa, toward the grassland where he knew the creek forked and ran between shallow banks. Once there, he dismounted and walked the skittish horses through the knee-deep, swiftly moving water safely to the other side. If he’d arrived five minutes later, he might not have made it across and would have been stuck waiting for the water to recede.
Born and raised in the Big Empty, Larson knew better than to be out in bad weather with lightning strikes hitting all around. But there wasn’t anyplace close by where he could stop and hunker down. Going into the town of Cimarron would surely get him caught or killed, and it was way too risky to head for the ranch headquarters where his brother’s bosses lived. By now the cops probably had all the area ranchers on alert looking for him.
Under a piece of canvas he had fashioned into a make-do rain slick, Larson slogged on, knowing that with the creeks rising fast, the Cimarron River up ahead would be running full and angry. Although it wasn’t a broad river, he could be stranded on the bank waiting for the water to drop. If the skies cleared by daybreak and he was still there, he would be easy to spot from the air.
He looked up, searching for a break in the cover, a hint of predawn light, but it was far too early and the storm was parked low overhead. If it stopped raining but stayed heavily overcast well into the morning, he might still be able to reach the mouth of Dawson Canyon undetected.
Beyond the Cimarron River, he’d have two highways and another river to cross in order to get there. That’s if he made it through the storm and across the plains in one piece.
A lightning bolt seared through the cloud cover and hit the ground half a mile away. The horses shied at the thunderclap that followed, but Larson kept his seat and held fast to the reins of the packhorse.
He hadn’t sat a horse in years, and his butt was sore and his legs ached. Rain ran down the brim of the cowboy hat he’d taken off the coatrack in Kerry’s front room, and then it splattered against his face. Behind him the packhorse slogged through the mud of the rutted ranch road with its head lowered. This was a doozy of a storm that would have every rancher on the plains thanking the dear lord for the moisture come Sunday morning at worship.
In spite of the piss-poor weather, his sore butt, and the obstacles he faced up ahead, Larson felt exhilarated. This was life the way the old-timers had lived it. They fought the elements and anything or anybody that got in their way, including the law. So with gumption and a little luck he just might avoid being bush-whacked, or shot by a sniper from an airplane, or surrounded by a posse of cops. And if he made it to the high country, he could do some payback shooting of his own.
A sudden tension on the packhorse’s reins made him look over his shoulder. The load the animal was carrying had shifted precariously. Larson cursed, dismounted, and with cold hands tried to undo some of the knots he’d tied so he could adjust the load. But the soggy ropes were swollen shut. He tried forcing a knot to give with the tip of a hunting knife, but all he managed to do was cut through it. He tried repositioning and tightening the pack frame, but it was cinched as far as it would go. Fumbling with the loose ends of the cut rope, he managed to retie it, got back on his horse, and cursed again. He’d have to slow down his pace even more or risk seeing his provisions, weapons, and equipment strewn along the ground.
He moved on through the storm with a little less enthusiasm than before. It seemed like ever since he’d stabbed that corrections officer in the eye with a stick and made his getaway, stupid little glitches had come along to fuck things up for him.
Lightning cracked, loud and close enough above him to send a shiver of electricity down his spine. His gelding did a dizzying three-sixty twirl, and the pack animal reared, pulled the reins free from his hand, and galloped off into the gray night. He clamped his legs tight and fought to stay in the saddle as his horse spun again. The horse planted both front hoofs, bucked hard, stomped its forelegs, shook its head, and made another full circle before coming to a shaky, snorting stop.
Larson took a deep breath. With an unsteady hand he turned his gelding in the direction where he’d seen the packhorse disappear into the night, and started after it in a slow trot.
Some time after the downpour had diminished to a steady drizzle, Clayton shook Kerney awake. He sat up and looked out the open barn door. Darkness and a blanket of fog made it impossible to see more than two
