the reins of the steel-dust and started walking so that the horse could rest. Longarm followed suit with the bay mare.
After a few minutes, Coffin said, “I done told you how come I’m wearin’ this badge, Long. How’d you come to be a lawman?”
“It’s something I sort of just drifted into,” Longarm replied. That wasn’t completely the truth, but it would do. “I came out West after the war and did some cowboying for a while, then figured out that was a good way to wind up old, stove up, and broke.”
A grin spread across Coffin’s bearded face. “So you took up a nice, safe, high-payin’ job like man-huntin’.”
“Yep, and wound up breaking a few bones and wearing out a few saddles anyway. But I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I’ve lived this long anyway.”
“I had no notion I’d ever be a lawman. Hell, if anything, I figured I’d be ridin’ the other side of the trail.” Coffin shrugged his massive shoulders. “But I’m wearin’ the badge now, and I plan to be the best Ranger I can be. I’ve met a bunch of ‘em since I joined up, and they’re good men.”
Longarm thought about Billy Vail and nodded. “Yeah, they are ... most of ‘em.” Coffin let that pass. The two men walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then he asked, “You get any lovin’ from Senorita Guiterrez?” The bluntness of the question made Longarm frown in surprise. He slid a cheroot from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth, then clenched it unlit between his teeth and said, “A gentleman don’t talk about such things, old son.”
Coffin laughed. “I didn’t figure you’d got in her pants. She’s the type that just likes to lead a fella on, get him all hot and bothered, then cut the legs out from under him.” He shook his head. “She gave me all sorts of looks and even said some pretty bold things to me, but when it came time for her to actually do somethin’ about it, she didn’t want no part of it. No, sir, then she was just an innocent again.”
Longarm chewed on the cheroot and didn’t say anything. Coffin seemed as much amused as he was bothered by Sonia’s teasing behavior, but Longarm figured that the Ranger probably wouldn’t want to hear about what had been going on in that alley just before El Aguila’s bunch had raided Del Rio again.
Instead of commenting, Longarm looked around, studying their surroundings. They were still traveling through flat land, but ranges of hills had risen to the east and west of them and appeared to gradually be drawing closer together. There were probably plenty of good hiding places in those hills, but the tracks of El Aguila’s gang didn’t veer off from their continued southerly direction.
Suddenly, as Longarm looked at the hills to the west, movement caught his eye. He turned his head so that he could look directly at the rocky upthrusts, and after a moment he asked casually, “You don’t happen to have a pair of field glasses in those saddlebags of yours, do you, Coffin?”
Without stopping, Longarm nodded toward the hills he had been watching. “Take a look over yonder in those hills. See anything?”
For a long moment, Coffin didn’t say anything as he squinted toward the distant heights. Then he growled, “Son of a bitch. Are those Yaquis?”
“That’d be my guess. I think I caught a flash of color a time or two from those bandannas they wear tied around their heads.”
“Son of a bitch,” Coffin said again. “We best make a run for it.” He turned toward his horse, ready to mount up.
“Hold on,” Longarm said quickly. “They’re still a ways off, and they’re just riding along through the hills, heading south like we are. Maybe they’re not even interested in us.”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Longarm.
“Then you know it ain’t smart to fool around with ‘em. They like killin’ better’n just about anything, and they like killin’ white men best of all. I heard stories about how they caught a party of prospectors who’d come over here and tortured all of ‘em to death.”
Longarm had heard similar stories, and knew that they had a basis in fact. The Yaquis, native to northern Mexico, were a fierce breed of people, and the Mexican government and military had had as much trouble with them over the years as the Americans had had with the Apaches and Comanches. Maybe even more, because as far as Longarm knew, none of the Yaquis were on reservations. They were all still living free in the mountains and foothills.
“Go ahead and mount up,” Longarm told Coffin. “If they’ve been watching us, they’ll know that we were just resting the horses. So it won’t be anything unusual if we start riding again.”
“You don’t want ‘em to know that we’ve seen ‘em,” said Coffin.
“That’s the idea.” Longarm pointed into the distance ahead of them. “I think those two ranges run together somewhere up yonder, and if they do, there might be a place there we could fort up if need be.”
Coffin nodded grimly. “Good idea. Them Yaquis come after us, they’ll think they’ve grabbed aholt of a two- headed rattlesnake.” He sounded almost as if he hoped that would come about.
Longarm certainly didn’t share that opinion. He wasn’t confident that he and Coffin could fight off an attack by the Indians, and if they were killed, that would leave no one to rescue Sonia Guiterrez from El Aguila.
Of course, Sonia might be dead already, he reminded himself bluntly. But they hadn’t found her body anywhere along the trail, nor any fresh graves—as if outlaws like the ones they were pursuing would take the time to bury one of their victims—so Longarm was inclined to think that Sonia was still alive. A little the worse for wear maybe, but alive nonetheless.
He and Coffin swung up into their saddles and put the horses into a trot. There was a part of Longarm that wanted to urge the bay into a gallop, a mad dash for some hoped-for place of safety, but he suppressed that impulse. Better to take it slow and easy and see what happened.
Less than a half hour later, what happened was that the Yaquis rode down out of the hills and started angling toward them. “Shoot!” exclaimed Coffin. “They’re comin’, Long.”
“I see them,” said Longarm. “Remember earlier, Coffin, when you were wanting to ride like hell?”
