Coffin leaned over in the saddle and spat. “It damn sure is. I’d’ve done most anything for her back there in Del Rio if she’d wanted to play a little slap an’ tickle with me. But it’s funny how some folks don’t look near as appealin’ once you get to know ‘em better.”
Her face twisted with a snarl, Sonia said, “I would sooner lay with a snake than with you, gringo.”
“The feelin’s mutual, ma’am.” Coffin lifted a big hand in farewell as he turned the horse he was riding and the buckskin toward the edge of the rocks.
Longarm rode on for more than a mile before he and Sonia left the rocky ground behind them and headed almost due north again. The outlaws would have to search a while before they found the place where Coffin had left the rocks, and when they saw the tracks of only two horses, they would be faced with a dilemma. They would have to either split up their own party or waste more time looking for the tracks Longarm and Sonia were leaving. Either way had its advantages for the fugitives.
The odds were still against Longarm and Coffin, though. The outlaw stronghold must have had another exit, Longarm figured, just as Walt Scott had thought. They couldn’t have cleared away the avalanche quickly enough to be this close behind.
Longarm began to push the horses harder now. The sun was lowering in the western sky, and he wanted to reach those twin hills before time for the rendezvous with Coffin. Splitting up temporarily had been a necessary evil, but if it came down to a fight, they would stand a better chance together than apart. Sonia rode in silence now, too tired to even complain.
The light in the sky became a harsher shade, almost like that of blood, as the sun neared the horizon. A wind whipped up from the west, and things in the distance began to blur as dust filled the air. Longarm’s eyes stung from the grit. When he looked back to the south, he could no longer see the dust cloud being raised by their pursuers. The air was too full of blowing sand.
Sonia roused from her half-stupor and said bitterly, “I cannot go on!
We must find a place to wait out this storm.”
“I said we’d meet Coffin at those double hills,” replied Longarm. “That’s what we’re going to do.” He reined in, pausing long enough to lean over in the saddle and tear a wide strip from the bottom of Sonia’s skirt. As he tied it around her head so that it covered her nose and mouth, he said, “This’ll help a little.”
He tied his own bandanna around his head and hunched forward in the saddle as he resumed riding. It would have been better if he could have dipped the bandanna and the piece he’d torn from Sonia’s skirt in some water, so that they would more effectively block the blowing sand, but that wasn’t an option. Neither was stopping or turning back.
He just hoped he was still heading in the right direction. The double hills that were his destination had vanished into the sandstorm. He could see only a few feet in front of him now. To the west, the sun was a glowing orange disc that barely touched the horizon.
Even when the ground began to slope up beneath the hooves of the horses, Longarm wasn’t sure they had reached the goal. He brought his mount to a stop and looked around, feeling his heart thud a little faster as he realized that he could vaguely see the outline of two small hills looming over them. Instinct had guided him and brought him to the right place. The question remained whether or not Coffin had reached this spot too.
“Coffin!” shouted Longarm. “You here, Coffin?” He had to bellow at the top of his lungs just to hope that he might be heard over the howling of the wind. He didn’t hear any answer, but that didn’t really mean much. Coffin might be yelling for him, but the sound was being snatched away by the fierce, sand-laden gusts.
Despite what he had told Coffin, there was no hope of going on tonight, not until the wind died down anyway. Longarm swung down from the saddle and found a sturdy little mesquite tree where he could tie the reins. He tied Sonia’s horse to the same tree and lowered her from the back of the animal. Both horses turned their rumps to the wind and ducked their heads.
Longarm led a stumbling Sonia into the narrow valley between the hills. The hill to the west acted as a windbreak of sorts, though it Was too small to completely block the raging demon that the storm had become. Longarm found some rocks and sat down among them, putting his back against the largest of the boulders. That helped even more. He held Sonia close beside him, wrapped in his arms—though he made sure she couldn’t reach the gun he had stuck behind his belt. Of course, by now that pistol was probably so clogged with grit that it wouldn’t even fire, but Longarm didn’t plan to take any chances. Even in the middle of a hellacious sandstorm, he didn’t trust Sonia even a little bit.
The situation could have been worse, Longarm told himself. Wherever they were, those outlaws who had been chasing them were experiencing the same choking, blinding fury of the storm. It would stop them in their tracks, just as it had stopped Longarm and Sonia. And even though Longarm and Coffin had gone to the trouble of trying to throw the pursuers off their trail, the storm would do a much more effective job of wiping out any telltale signs of their flight. This was really just about the best thing that could have happened, Longarm thought.
Provided, of course, that he didn’t choke to death or wind up buried in sand before the storm finally passed ...
Chapter 17
“Well, if this ain’t a purty sight, I don’t know what is.”
Longarm sat up sharply at the sound of the mocking voice, his hand going automatically to the butt of the gun at his waist. He wasn’t going to need the weapon, however. He realized almost right away that the voice belonged to Lazarus Coffin, who was standing nearby, his shaggy hair and beard even more tangled than usual by the wind.
Only there was no wind now. Not only that, but the sky overhead was clear, filled with bright stars and a huge, glowing moon. The silvery light washed down over the hills where Longarm and Sonia had taken refuge from the storm.
Longarm glanced to the east and saw a thin strip of light along the horizon. Dawn was an hour or so away, he estimated. The sandstorm was finally over, but while it had still been raging, Longarm had fallen asleep and dozed through most of the night.
Beside him, Sonia was stirring around. Both she and Longarm had a thick layer of dust on their clothes, and around them were little piles of sand that had settled out of the air and formed snow-like drifts. Stiffly, Longarm
