Trask set a pace that brought more grumbling from the men. The Mexicans kept up, as if to show up the gringos, and the muttering stopped once again.
A half hour later, when the smoke of Tucson was no longer visible behind them, Hiram stood up in the stirrups, peering ahead. He uttered an exclamation that there was no equivalent of in any language.
Trask followed his gaze. Small puffs of dust speared on the horizon, golden in the morning light, almost invisible against the desert hue.
“He’s wearin’ out saddle leather,” Trask said.
“Yeah. He’s in a mighty hurry, and ridin’ the old trail to them ranches where I’ve got my men on station.”
“One of yours?”
“I don’t know yet. He’s too far away.”
“Well, we’ll shorten his distance some,” Trask said. “Let’s keep up the pace,” he called out to the men behind him.
The oncoming rider closed the distance. He loomed up, madly whipping his horse with his reins, the brim of his hat brushed back by the force of the breeze at his face.
“Damned if that ain’t Danny Grubb,” Hiram said. “And looky at his horse, all lathered up like a barbershop customer.”
Flecks of foam flew off Grubb’s horse. Hiram held up his hand as if to stop him before the animal floundered.
Grubb reined in when he was a few yards away, hauling hard on the reins to stop the horse. The horse stiffened its forelegs and pulled up a few feet away, its rubbery nostrils distended, blowing out spray and foam. It heaved its chest in an effort to breathe, then hung its head, tossing its mane.
“Danny, you ’bout to kill that horse,” Hiram said. “What in hell’s the all-fired rush and where the devil are you bound so early in the mornin’?”
“Boss, he done shot Tolliver. Larry’s plumb dead. He didn’t have a chance.”
“Whoa up, Danny. Take it slow. Who shot Larry?”
“Let me get my breath,” Grubb said, wheezing. The rails in his throat rattled like a stand of wind-blown cane.
“Just tell me who killed Tolliver and we’ll get him,” Hiram said.
“C-Cody,” Grubb stammered. “Calls hisself Zak Cody. The Shadow Rider.”
Trask’s blood seemed to stand still in his veins, then turned cold as ice.
“Cody?” Trask said. “Are you sure?”
“Damned sure.” Grubb was breathing hard, but he was more anxious to get his story off his chest than to breathe in more air. “I lit out, then circled back a ways to see where he went.”
By then the other riders had crowded around Grubb and encircled him, all listening intently.
He looked over at Julio Delgado.
“He took Carmen, Julio. Seen ’em ridin’ off, and there’s another feller with him now, I reckon. Don’t know him. But he burned down most ever’ one of them ’dobes and I know he kilt Cunningham and Newton. It was dark as hell, but I seen that ’dobe burnin’ and I crossed nobody’s trail gettin’ this far. That man Cody’s a pure devil. And he’s headed this way, near as I can figure.”
O’Hara listened to this account and was barely breathing as he mulled it over.
He had been watching Trask the whole time and he had now found another one of the man’s weaknesses. Besides a lust for gold, Trask was afraid. Afraid of one man—Zak Cody.
The Shadow Rider.
It was something to keep in mind, and Cody just might turn out to be another ace in the hole.
The eastern sky was a ruddy daub on the horizon. The sun lifted above the earth and the clouds began to fade to a soft salmon color. But the warning was still there. A storm was coming that would turn the hard desert floor to mud.
Trask turned around and looked straight at O’Hara as if he had read his thoughts.
Ted O’Hara smiled, and he saw a sudden flash of anger in Trask’s eyes.
Well, Ted thought, now we know each other, don’t we, Ben Trask?
Trask turned away, and the moment passed. But now Ted felt that he had the upper hand and Trask had no control over the future. Some of the men Trask had counted on were dead. Julio’s wife was a prisoner, and ahead lay a bigger unknown than the location of Cochise’s rumored hoard of gold.
There was tension among the men now, and Ted knew that this was only the beginning. He was glad he was alive so he could see how it all turned out.
“What are you smirking about?” Cavins asked when he looked at O’Hara.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”
“Well, don’t think, soldier boy. It might get you dead.”
