“Aren’t we going to bury these two?” Ferguson asked.
“I don’t give a damn,” Trask said. “We’ve already wasted enough time here.” He looked up at the sky. “Them buzzards got to eat, too.”
“I will bury my wife,” Julio said. “And Chama, too.” He crossed himself.
Trask fixed him with a look of contempt. “Do whatever you want, Delgado. We’re ridin’ on. You’d better catch up.”
“I will catch up,” Julio said, biting hard to cut back on his anger.
“I will help Julio,” Renaldo said. “It will not take too long.”
“I, too, will stay and help dig the graves,” Manuel Diego said.
Trask headed straight up the old road, Deets, Ferguson, Cavins, and O’Hara right behind him. The others trailed after them as Julio and Renaldo drew their knives and began cutting into the hard pan of the desert. Julio’s face was streaked with grimy tears and he was shaking as he dug.
“That bastard Trask,” he said, in English.
“Calm yourself, Julio,” Renaldo said in Spanish. “One day, perhaps, we will bury him.”
“That would give me much satisfaction,” Julio said.
He picked up the small pistol lying next to his wife, examined it and stuck it under his belt.
“I wonder where she got this pistol,” he said softly.
Renaldo shrugged.
Trask turned to Ferguson when they had traveled a short distance.
“I know who killed that Chama and Carmen Delgado,” he said.
“You do? How? Who?”
“Cody,” Trask said. “He’s in this, somewhere.”
“How do you know?” Ferguson asked.
“I just know. I know it in my gut, that sonofabitch. I figure Chama made a mistake, or maybe went for his gun. The woman, she may have thrown down on Cody, too. That bastard’s fast. Very fast. He sure as hell could have killed them both. And I know damned well he did.”
“Who are the other riders, then?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but I just don’t know, damn it all.”
He rolled a quirly and stuck it in his mouth. He lit a match and drew the smoke in. Ferguson got very quiet, but kept looking off to his left at the jumble of hills and the long ridge that seemed to be the land brooding down on them.
Over on the ridge there was just the slightest movement as Cody peered down at the old road.
He moved so slowly and held his head so still, he might have been just another rock to anyone glancing up at him. He was hatless, and his face, browned from the sun, was not much different in color than the desert itself.
Chapter 22
Zak clamped a hand over Colleen’s mouth and pushed her down, held her hard against the rocky ground. Her eyes flashed with a wild look as she struggled against him. The two soldiers looked on, uncertain about what they should do.
“Listen, Miss O’Hara,” Zak said, his voice a throaty whisper, “you make one sound and we’ll be captured and killed. Do you understand me?”
She calmed down, but Zak kept up the pressure on her mouth and body.
“I mean it. Those are dangerous men down there and they outnumber us.”
She tried to nod her head. Her eyes flashed her response.
“You’ll behave, then?” he asked.
“Umm-ummm,” she replied.
“I’ll let up on you,” he whispered, “but if you cry out or make noise, I’ll knock you cold. If you have anything to say, you whisper right into my ear as the sound won’t travel. Got it?”
“Mmmm-hmmm.”
Zak slowly lifted his hand from her mouth, but kept it hovering a couple of inches away. He watched her lips like a man watching a burning fuse on a stick of dynamite. He nodded and backed away so she could sit up. She beckoned to him, asking him to come close.
She put her lips right up against his ear.
“That’s Ted down there. My brother,” she hissed in a sizzling whisper.
“Nothing we can do about it now. But we’ll get him free. I promise. Now, just keep that notion in your head and shut up.”
She nodded.
