cooperate. And he had to admit, Trask was a bear of a man who could easily make most men think twice before bucking him.
“Well, just watch out he don’t trick you, Ben. O’Hara looks to me like a man who puts a card or two up his sleeve when he’s at the table.”
“He won’t double-cross us, Hiram. If he does, he’s a dead man.”
They finished saddling their horses and gathered outside the stables. Cavins brought O’Hara from the office. He was dressed in civilian clothing and he was no longer bound. But Cavins had his pistol out of its holster and leveled on him.
“Ready to ride, Lieutenant?” Trask said, patting his shirt where the map stuck out so O’Hara could see it.
“Yes,” O’Hara said. “Under protest.”
Trask laughed. “Duly noted,” he said in a mocking tone. “Climb aboard that steel-dust gray over there. You’ll stand out like a sore thumb.” With a wave of his arm, Trask indicated all the other horses, which were sorrels and bays.
“Mount up,” Trask ordered the others as O’Hara climbed into the saddle, with Cavins watching his every move. O’Hara was the only one unarmed, and he sighed as he looked at the small army of men surrounding him. He knew that he did not have a friend among them, but his philosophy had always been, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” He just didn’t want to put Colleen in jeopardy. By now he had figured out that Ferguson and Trask both had ties to Fort Bowie. Although they had never mentioned any names, he knew that their influence, or their connections, must reach fairly high.
He didn’t know much about Willoughby, hadn’t seen that much of the major. But he knew, or suspected, that Willoughby’s sympathies might lie with the Apache-haters. It was just a feeling. Nothing he could nail down on a roof of proof.
Ted looked at the bloodred sky of dawn, said to Cavins, “Red sky at morning.”
“What’s that?” Cavins asked.
“Red sky at morning,” Ted said, “sailor take warning.”
“Well, you ain’t no sailor and we ain’t anywhere near the sea.”
“Don’t have to be, Cavins. That sky dominates the earth.”
“Shut up, soldier boy,” Cavins said. “You so much as twitch on this ride and I’ll blow you plumb out of the saddle.”
Ted knew that Cavins wouldn’t shoot him, but he saw no reason to argue the point. He was unarmed and outnumbered, and this was not the place to make a stand. But he also knew that the first duty of a prisoner was to make every attempt to escape. It had been drilled into him at the military academy, and that thought had been uppermost in his mind ever since he was captured in the dead of night.
He looked around. All of the men were looking at the dawn sky. Ted had never seen a more vivid sunrise. The color was extravagant, plush bulges of the reddest red, the color of blood, fresh spilled, after a hot breeze had stiffened it. Yes, it would be hot that day, but he knew that in another day or two all hell would break loose as the sky filled with black bulging clouds and the wind blew dust and sand into their eyes just before the torrential rains hit with a force strong enough to blow a man out of his saddle. He had seen such storms before, blown down out of the mountains and onto the desert. He had seen cattle and men washed away by flash floods and rivers appear in dry creek beds that brought walls of water rushing headlong at better than six or seven feet high and then some.
That sky told Ted that within twenty-four hours they’d be caught up in a gully washer that would have these men scrambling for high ground, their eyes stung by grit and rain, blinded for a time, he hoped, unable to see more than a foot in front of their faces, if that. There would be a chance then for him to ride away from his captors, put distance between him and them as he made his way back to the fort. It was a chance. Perhaps the only chance he’d have. They couldn’t make it to the first marks on his map before they would all be swept up in one hell of a frog-strangler of a storm.
Suddenly, he felt an inner surge of energy as a thought occurred to him. He began to calculate the distance in his mind, the estimated speed of travel with this group of armed killers, and he knew it was possible. Possible to outwit Trask and Ferguson, possible to escape. It was a long shot, to be sure, but he was confident there would be time. Time and opportunity. His nerves would be scraped to a fine razor edge when they reached the place he had in mind, but he could handle that.
All he had to do was wait and bide his time, he thought, as he looked at that rude dawn sky again and smiled inwardly.
“Let’s get this outfit moving,” Trask yelled, as the Mexicans sat their horses, their gazes still fixed on the eastern horizon. Cavins nodded to O’Hara, who turned his horse toward the main bunch of men.
“O’Hara,” Trask said, “you ride with me in front. Cavins, you watch him.”
“My men,” Ferguson said, “you follow behind Cavins.”
“Hiram, come on up. You ride with me, too. We’re going to pick up those men you got on station. That should give us enough guns to do what we have to do.”
“More’n enough,” Hiram said. “Them are all good men. Crack shots.”
There was grumbling among some of the men who had stayed too long at the cantina the night before, but Trask got the column moving, and the griping stopped once the small troop made the commitment. The sun rose above the horizon, drawing off the night dew and releasing the dry smell of the earth. The shadows evaporated and the rocks and plants stood out in stark relief, as if carved out of crystal with a razor. A horse farted and some of the men laughed.
“I want you to take us straight to where old Cochise has his gold, O’Hara, you got that?” Trask said.
“It’s marked on that map in your pocket, Trask. It’s a good two-day ride.”
“We’ll make it in a day and a half.”
O’Hara suppressed a smile. That would be perfect in his estimation.
