In the other arm Hyde cradled a Sharps rifle. His squinting features were obscure beneath the hat tilted close to his eyes. Sun, wind, and a week's beard gave his face a puffy, raw appearance that was wild, but at the same time soft and hazy. There was about him a look of sluggishness that contrasted with the leanness of Angsman.
Billy Guay stood indolently with his thumbs hooked in his gun belts.
He took a few steps in Angsman's direction and pushed his hat to the back of his head, though the sun was beating full in his face. He was half Ed Hyde's age, a few years or so out of his teens, but there was a hardness about the eyes that contrasted with his soft features. Features that were all the more youthful, and even feminine, because of the long blond hair that covered the tops of his ears and hung unkempt over his shirt collar. Watching Angsman, his mouth was tight as if daring him to say something that he would not agree with.
Angsman walked past him to Ed Hyde. He was about to say something, but stopped when Billy Guay turned and grabbed his arm.
'The dust cloud was buffalo like I said, wasn't it?' Billy Guay asked, but there was more statement of fact than question in his loud voice.
Angsman's serious face turned to the boy, but looked back to Ed Hyde when he said, 'There're two Indian women out there cleaning up after a hunting party. The dust cloud was the warriors going home. I suspect they're the last ones. Stragglers. Everyone else out of sight already.'
Billy Guay pushed in close to the two men. 'Dammit, the cloud could have still been buffalo,' he said. 'Who says you know so damn much!'
Ed Hyde looked from one to the other like an unbiased spectator. He dropped the long buffalo rifle stock down in front of him. His worn black serge coat strained tight at the armpits as he lifted his hands to pat his coat pockets. From the right one he drew a half-chewed tobacco plug.
For a moment Angsman just stared at Billy Guay. Finally he said, 'Look, boy, for a good many years it's been my business to know so damn much. Now, you'll take my word that the dust cloud was an Indian hunting party and act on it like I see fit, or else we turn around and go back.'
Ed Hyde's grizzled head jerked up suddenly. He said, 'You're dead right, Angsman. There ain't been buffalo this far south for ten years.'
He looked at the boy and spoke easier. 'Take my word for it, Billy.' He smiled. 'If anybody knows it, I do. Those Indians most likely ran down a deer herd. But hell, deer, buffalo, what's the difference? We're not out here for game. You just follow along with what Angsman here says and we all go home rich men. Take things slow, Billy, and you breathe easier.'
'I just want to know why's he got to give all the orders,' Billy Guay said, and his voice was rising. 'It's us that own the map, not him.
Where'd he be without us!'
Angsman's voice was the same, unhurried, unexcited, when he said, 'I'll tell you. I'd still be back at Bowie guiding for cavalry who ride with their eyes open and know how to keep their mouths shut in Apache country.' He didn't wait for a reply, but turned and walked toward the dun-colored mare. 'Ygenio,' he called to the Mexican still sitting crosslegged on the ground, 'hold the mules a good fifty yards behind us and keep your eyes on me.'
EIGHT DAYS OUT of Willcox and the strain was beginning to tell. It had been bad from the first day. Now they were in the foothills of the Mogollons and it was no better. Angsman had thought that as soon as they climbed from the dust of the plains the tension would ease and the boy would be easier to handle, but Billy Guay continued to grumble with his thumbs in his gun belts and disagree with everything that was said. And Ed Hyde continued to say nothing unless turning back was mentioned. Since early morning their trail had followed this pine-covered crest that angled irregularly between the massive rock peaks to the south and east and the white-gold plain to the west. Most of the ways the trail had held to the shoulder, turning, twisting, and falling with the contour of the hillcrest. And from the west the openness of the plains continued to cling in glaring monotony. Most of the time Angsman's eyes scanned the openness, and the small black specks continued to crawl along in his vision.
The trail dipped abruptly into a dry creek basin that slanted down from between rocky humps looming close to the right. Angsman reined his mount diagonally down the bank, then at the bottom kicked hard to send the mare into a fast start up the opposite bank. The gravel loosened and fell away as hooves dug through the dry crust to clink against the sandy rock. Momentarily the horse began to fall back, but Angsman spurred again and grunted something close to her ear to make the mare heave and kick up over the bank.
He rode on a few yards before turning to wait for the others.
Billy Guay reached the creek bank and yelled across, without hesitating, 'Hey, Angsman, you tryin' to pick the roughest damn trail you can find?'
The scout winced as the voice slammed against the towering rock walls and drifted over the flats, vibrating and repeating far off in the distance. He threw off and ran to the creek bank. Billy Guay began to laugh as the echo came back to him. 'Damn, Ed. You hear that!' His voice carried clear and loud across the arroyo. Angsman put a finger to his mouth and shook his head repeatedly when he saw Ed Hyde looking his way. Then Hyde leaned close and said something to the boy. He heard Billy Guay swear, but not so loud, and then there was silence.
Now, ten days from the time the message had brought him to the hotel in Willcox, he wasn't so sure it was worth it.
In the hotel room Hyde had come to the point immediately. Anxiety showed on his face, but he smiled when he asked the point-blank question 'How'd you like to be worth half a hundred thousand dollars?' With that he waved the piece of dirty paper in front of Angsman's face. 'It's right here. Find us the picture of a Spanish sombrero and we're rich.' That simply.
Angsman had all the time in the world. He smoked a cigarette and thought. Then he asked, 'Why me? There're a lot of prospectors around here.'
Hyde did something with his eye that resembled a wink. 'You're well recommended here in Willcox. They say you know the country better than most. And the Apaches better than anybody,' Hyde said with a hint of self-pride for knowing so much about the scout. 'Billy here and I'll give you an equal share of everything we find if you can guide us to one little X on a piece of paper.'
Billy Guay had said little that first meeting. He half-sat on the small window ledge trying to stare Angsman down when the scout looked at him. And Angsman smiled when he noticed the boy's two low-slung pistols, thinking a man must be a pretty poor shot with one pistol that he'd have to carry another. And when Billy Guay tried to stare him down, he stared back with the half smile and it made the boy all the madder; so mad that often, then, he interrupted Hyde to let somebody know that he had something to say about the business at hand.
Ed Hyde told a story of a lost mine and a prospector who had found the mine, but was unable to take any gold out because of Indians, and who was lucky to get out with just his skin. He referred to the prospector always as 'my friend,' and finally it turned out that 'my friend' was buffalo hunting out of Tascosa in the Panhandle, along with Ed Hyde, raising a stake to try the mine again, when he 'took sick and died.' The two of them were out on a hunt when it happened and he left the map to Hyde, 'since I saw him through his sickness.' Ed Hyde remained silent for a considerable length of time after telling of the death of his friend.
Then he added, 'I met Billy here later on and took to him 'cause he's got the nerve for this kind of business.' He looked at Billy Guay as a man looks at a younger man and sees his own youth. 'Just one thing more, mister,' he added. 'If you say yes and look at the map, you don't leave our sight.'
In the Southwest, lost-mine stories are common. Angsman had heard many, and knew even more prospectors who chased the legends.
He had seen a few become rich. But it wasn't so much the desire for gold that finally prompted him to go along. Cochise had promised peace and Geronimo had scurried south to the Sierra Madres. All was quiet in his territory. Too quiet. He had told himself he would go merely as an escape from boredom. Still, it was hard to keep the wealth aspect from cropping into the thought. Angsman saw the years slipping by with nothing to show for them but a scarred Spanish saddle and an old-model Winchester. All he had to do was lead them to a canyon and a rock formation that looked like a Spanish hat. Two days to collect the equipment and round up a mozo who wasn't afraid to drive mules into that part of Apacheria where there was no peace. For cigarettes and a full belly Ygenio Baca would drive his mules to the gates of hell.
IT WAS ALMOST a mile past the arroyo crossing that Angsman noticed his black specks had disappeared
