The land shimmered under the furnace blaze of the sun. Lakes danced and disappeared, water images rose and fell like falls, evaporated as Zak approached them, emerged farther on, shrank away in shining rivulets, trickled through the rocks and cactus and flowed along flats, puddled among the hillocks and vanished like fairy lights on a desolate moor. He was sweating and Nox’s black coat shone like polished ebony while his tail flicked at flies.
Zak saw the station from afar and it, too, appeared and disappeared like some mirage as the land dipped and rose like some frozen ocean of sand and rock. Wagon tracks streamed toward the dwelling for some distance, but vanished among the low rocky hills that stood between him and the dwelling. Rather than follow the tracks through the hills, he chose to climb each one to afford himself a better view of the land ahead.
And the land he had left behind.
For Zak had the distinct feeling that he was being followed. He had looked over his shoulder more than once, but saw no sign of anyone on his trail. Yet the feeling persisted, and he knew, from long experience, that such feelings were valid. A man stayed alive because he paid attention to his instincts, those gut feelings that something was not quite right. In a room full of people, you could stare at the back of a man’s head for only so long. Sooner or later that man would turn around and return the stare. He had seen this too often to ignore it.
For the past few miles he had felt someone staring at the back of his head. Not literally, of course, but he had a strong hunch that even out there in all that emptiness, he was not alone.
Nox climbed the first hill, paralleling the wagon tracks. Zak fought off the compulsion to turn around when he reached the top. Instead he started down the other side until he was well past the summit. Then he turned Nox and rode back up, spurring the horse to scramble up the slope with some speed. At the top, he scanned his backtrail, his keen eyes searching every square inch of terrain for any sign of movement.
A hawk sailed low over the ground, dragging its rumpled shadow along as it searched for prey. A pair of gray doves cut across the hawk’s course with whistling wings. A yucca swayed gently in the breeze. A lizard sunned itself on a nearby rock, its eyes blinking, its tail switching. He saw no other movement, but something caught his eye and he stared at it for a long time.
Shapes in the desert could fool a man. A shadow next to a yucca could resemble a man sitting next to it, or sprawled alongside. Rocks could become human heads, poking up from shallow depressions in the earth. A dark clump of rocks could appear as a horse standing still.
Zak looked for these illusions and discounted most of them in the space of a few seconds.
But just beyond a yucca and some brush, ocotillo and prickly pear, there was something, and he stared at it for a long time. It looked like the very top of a horse’s head, two ears and a topknot. It did not move, but still it held his steady, piercing gaze.
Could a horse hold still for that long? Zak began counting the seconds. He counted to thirty, and still the odd shape did not move. He looked away for a moment, then slowly turned his head back once more to that same spot.
Whatever had been there was now gone.
Was he imagining things? Did he really see that shape, or was it just another illusion of light and shadow?
The image did not reappear, although Zak stared in that direction for several more seconds. Finally, he turned Nox and rode back over the hillock and down onto the flat. There was a jumble of hills all around him and he threaded his way through them before topping another. At the summit, though, he had less of a view than he’d had on the first hill and he did not linger. As he rode down the other side, movement caught his eye and he reined up, stabbed his hand toward the butt of his pistol.
“Do not shoot. I mean you no harm.” The voice was oddly accented, low and timbrous.
Zak let his hand hover just above the butt of the Walker Colt.
“Show yourself,” he said. He realized that he had seen the shadow of something off to his right, nothing of substance. He saw it again, the top of a yucca, torn off, sticking straight out from behind the hill. As he watched, it shook gently, then fell to the ground. A moment later a horse, a small horse, no more than fourteen hands high, emerged from behind the hillock. It was saddled and shod and carried a small, dark-skinned man dressed in old duck pants, a linsey-woolsey shirt, a blue bandanna around his neck. He wore a sidearm, and the butt of a rifle jutted from a scabbard attached to his worn Santa Fe saddle.
“You have been following me,” Zak said.
“Yes, I have been following you, because I see what you are doing. What you have done.”
“Who are you?” Zak asked.
“I am called Chama. Jimmy Chama.”
“You are not a Mexican.”
“No. I am Apache.”
“Full blood?”
The man rode up close, shook his head. He wore a crumpled felt hat that had seen better days. But it kept the sun out of his eyes, which were dark brown. His hair was coal black, cut short on the sides, streamed down his neck in straight spikes in the back.
“My father was a Mexican,” he said. “My mother was a Mescalero.”
“You’re in Chiricahua country, Jimmy.”
Jimmy smiled. “I know. I have friends here. Not many, but a few.”
“What brings you on my track?”
“I am on the same track. I am an army scout and interpreter. I was sent with Lieutenant O’Hara to look for Chiricahua camps along the San Simon.”
“Were you with him when he was kidnapped?”
