'Those are Mescaleros. You're old enough to know how they behave when they're up.'
'No, I don't. Not the way I know what would happen if you people had guns. Buz and I would turn our backs once--'
'All right,' Corsen said. 'Then give back all the money you took.'
'Tell them I was just kiddin', eh?'
'I'm thinking about two women being here,'
Corsen said, 'and a hundred Mescaleros out there.
Make up your mind one way or the other--but do it before it's too late.'
The sound came to them gradually. It came faintly, growing out of the darkness, at first a muffled sound, now the unmistakable clop of a horse moving at a slow walk. A chair scraped in the room. Fisher's voice rasped, 'Quiet!'
In the stillness Fisher cocked his head, listening, then whispered close to Corsen's cheek, 'It's stopped.'
Corsen waited. 'At the gate,' he said.
'It's a trick.' Fisher was talking to himself. 'A damn Apache trick.'
'Maybe it is.' Corsen paused. 'And maybe it isn't, Ed,' he said quietly. 'If I was to go out there, would you hold your gun that way?'
'You're crazy.'
'Let's find out.' Corsen pushed through the screen door without a sound and was moving across the yard. He walked unhurriedly, because if Bonito was behind the wall, running would not make a difference; the yard was open, and gray with moonlight. He reached the gate and stood with his hand on the heavy latch.
Fisher watched him tensely. He felt someone close to him and glanced to see the girl. Billy Teachout was behind her. They looked at Fisher, then out toward the gate, and they did not speak. In the darkness someone said, 'What is it?' excitedly. At a window Ernie Ball's voice hissed. 'Shhhhh!' They watched Corsen lift the iron latch. Then the shadowy figure pushed against the gate and the squeak of the hinges was a mournful screech with no other sounds in the night. Corsen went through the opening, and for the moment he was out of sight Katie held her breath. Then the gate swung wide and he was there again, leading the larger, darker shadow of a horse. A rider was atop the horse, head down, swaying gently with the movement of the horse's shoulders and flanks. Corsen closed the gate and came on, holding the horse close under the muzzle by a hackamore.
'Who is it?' from inside the doorway.
Fisher was in the yard now. He looked at Corsen, then toward the rider, questioningly.
Corsen went to the rider, raised his arms, and said gently, 'Come, viejo. ' The small figure toppled hesitantly, stiffly, into Corsen's arms. He heard someone behind him say, 'Delgado--'
They carried him inside to a bedroom and eased him down onto the bed. And when the lamp was lighted next to the bed, no one recognized Delgado.
'Mary, Virgin and Mother,' Ygenia said, close to Delgado's cheek, kneeling on the floor and stroking her hand gently over his head. When Katie came in with a basin of water, she mopped his face, washing the blood away. She moved the cloth over his eyes very gently and when she took it away she gasped and uttered the name of the Mother of God again. Delgado's face was knife scarred, small marks crisscrossing his cheeks. His nose was broken, that was evident, and his right eye was no longer in the socket.
His head came off the blanket, then fell back as the thin lines of his face tightened. He said, almost inaudibly, 'Ross.'
'I'm here,' Corsen said close to his cheek.
'Don't talk now. Say it in the morning.'
Delgado breathed. 'Bonito did this to me. There were others who beat at me and stuck me with their knives, but it was Bonito who did this.' His hand waved close to his face.
'As I gathered the fresh team, one of them broke away and I went after it afoot because this one was a friend and would come if I approached with gentleness. But this time he went a greater distance. When he was near the pinon he stopped and let me approach, and at that moment the barbarians came from out of the pines. Almost as if this friend had lured me to them--'
Corsen said gently, 'Tell this in the morning.'
Delgado turned his head, opening his left eye. 'If you are here to listen.' He waved his hand again.
'Bonito did this to me. He impressed upon me that when he comes he will take the remainder of my sight. I would not like that to happen. He said that you had failed him. Now he will enter this house with the coming of the sun. . . .'
Silence then. Corsen rose as Ygenia began to stroke Delgado's head. Fisher appeared in the doorway.
'Your guns are on the table,' he said quietly.
Chapter Five
Corsen pushed his gun belt lower on his hips and picked up the Winchester leaning against the support post. He heard the screen door close softly and peered into the darkness around the coach which they had pushed into the stable shed. A figure was moving along the front of the house toward him. It was Fisher. 'There better be two of us out here. The east side of the house is a blind spot. And when the shootin' starts,' he added, 'I don't hanker to be in the same room with that thievin' government man. He could swing his barrel two feet and let go, easy as not.' He looked at Corsen's carbine and holstered pistol. 'You had them out here?'
'With the saddle,' Corsen said.
'Where's your horse? It was here.'
'I took it around to the corral. I'd rather have it run off than hit.'
They rolled straw bales from the back wall of the shed to the front and piled them three high for some protection. There were no doors on the stable shed. It was built out from the station house four wagons wide. Ernie's coach was in the first stall nearest the house. Corsen went to the small window at the far end of the shed and Fisher stopped near him, looking out into the night.
'Might they come before dawn?'
'I've never heard of it,' Corsen answered. 'But don't put that down in your book as a rule. Bonito might have told Delgado dawn to put us off guard.'
'That was something, what he did to him.'
Corsen said quietly, 'Delgado was lucky. Bonito's showing off. He wants us to think he's got full control of the situation. Even to letting a prisoner go, knowing he'll get him back again.' 'He could convince me.'
'I'm not so sure he has.' Corsen paused. 'If I could talk to Bil-Clin--I don't see how he could help but resent this renegade's coming up and taking over. If we could get Bil-Clin alone. . . .'
Fisher said nothing.
Sometimes when you wait, the time goes slow, Corsen thought, but now it is going fast, so fast it isn't time anymore, but something else. That was a month ago that I told Katie I would come and get her. And Billy was surprised because he hadn't known what was going on. It seems like a month, but it was yesterday afternoon. Now he pictured himself with Katie at night, her face in soft shadows. She was in the room with Ygenia and Delgado, and a pistol. The door was bolted. If they broke through the door, then she would fire the pistol until it was empty. Then, in a timeless time she would pray. Pray that it would not take long for Ygenia and for herself. She would not use the gun on herself to make it quick. Even if he had asked her to, she would not. She doesn't even show this. There may be a little of it in her eyes, but it isn't in her voice. You're lucky, Ross. But how can you be lucky and unlucky at the same time?
But now more time had passed and there was an orange streak in the east and the sky was no longer full dark, and suddenly shadows were coming over the wall. Shadows that were the shapes of men, but without sound and without the gleam of weapons. They dropped and clung close to the wall. Now some were coming forward!
