Zak signed with his hands to the two soldiers, telling them he was going to crawl to the top of the ridge and that they were to stay there, out of sight, with Colleen. Both men nodded assent.
Before Zak crept to the top of the ridge, Colleen drew him close and whispered softly in his ear. She put one hand behind his head and pulled him next to her so his arm brushed against one of her breasts.
“I wish,” she sighed softly, “you were still holding me down, Zak.”
Zak felt the strength drain from his knees and his stomach fluttered with a thousand flying insects. The musky scent of her assailed his nostrils like coal oil thrown on an open flame. His veins sizzled with excitement and there was a twinge at his loins as the fever of her touch and the urgency of her words seared through him like wildfire.
He drew away from her, slowly, and touched a finger to his lips. She smiled at him, and he felt his insides melt as if she had poured molten honey down his throat. He turned from her and began the slow crawl to a vantage point on the ridgetop where he could watch and listen. He mentally shook off what had happened, needing to focus, to concentrate.
He lay very still, his head resting on his hands between two head-sized rocks. He saw Trask, the man he took to be Ferguson, and the Mexicans congregating around the body of Carmen Delgado. And he saw Ted O’Hara, guarded by one man in particular. O’Hara looked at ease, however, and Zak mentally applauded his courage, his coolness. He saw a man who was more alert than any of the others, a prisoner who refused to allow his chains to weigh him down. Ted O’Hara, he decided, was a good man to ride the river with.
He saw Trask extend his arm toward the east and start to ride up the old road, the others following in his wake. The Mexicans continued to dig a grave for Carmen as Trask and the others moved out of eyesight.
Zak thought for a moment. It was pretty plain where Trask was headed. He had left the stage road and was traveling on the old road, straight into the heart of Apache lands. There was only one thing Ben Trask was interested in, Zak knew—gold. Apache gold. And if his hunch was right, he was using O’Hara to lead him straight to an Apache camp. O’Hara had been dealing with the Apaches and he knew where their strongholds were. Like Jeffords, he most likely had spoken with Cochise and probably knew more than any other man in the territory.
O’Hara was in a bad spot.
And so were they all, for that matter.
Zak didn’t wait for the Mexicans to finish digging the grave for Carmen. Three of them stayed behind, and he knew it would take them some time to finish digging with their knives. If they buried Chama, it would take longer. The longer the better, he thought. But he knew he would have to deal with them sooner or later.
He slowly slid back off the ridgetop and descended to where Colleen and the two soldiers were still waiting. Colleen’s face told him that she was anxious, while the two soldiers seemed restless and ill at ease, perhaps put out because they had been left with nothing to do.
“Have they all gone?” Colleen asked in a whisper.
“Most of them,” Zak said softly. He knew his voice wouldn’t carry over the hill to the other side.
“How many?” asked Scofield.
“More than you two could handle. It’s not safe to leave yet. Some Mexicans are burying the dead woman. But I reckon you all are anxious to get to Tucson.”
“Yes, sir,” Rivers said. “I mean, we have leave, Delbert and me.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to Tucson,” Colleen said, her voice pitched low. “Not while those rascals have my brother. If I have to, I’ll chase them to the ends of the earth.”
Zak gave her a sharp look. “I think you ought to go to Tucson, Miss O’Hara. Under the escort of Scofield and Rivers. It would be the safest thing to do.”
“No. I came this far to find my brother. Well, I’ve found him and I’m going to…”
“To what?” Zak asked.
“Well, I have a gun. A pistol. I can shoot. I’m going to get Ted away from those despicable people.”
“Ben Trask would shoot you dead in your tracks if you even came after him with a pair of scissors, let alone a pistol.”
Colleen huffed in indignation.
Scofield stepped forward. “What you aim to do, Colonel? You can’t go after all them men by yourself.”
“That’s my field problem,” Zak said.
“It don’t need to be.”
“You have no stake in this. You and Rivers are on leave.”
“You got any plan at all, Colonel Cody?”
Zak looked at the two men, measuring their willingness to give up their leave and help him fight a force that outnumbered them.
Buzzards floated in the sky like leaves drifting on the wind.
“Once Trask and his bunch get far enough away, I’ll brace those three Mexicans,” Zak said. “The sound of gunfire will draw Trask right back down on me if I shoot now.”
“You’re going to kill those poor Mexicans?” Colleen whispered, without any sign of enmity in her voice.
“I’ll make them an offer,” Zak said.
“An offer?”
“They can walk away. Go back to town.”
