taking the horses through the roughest country he could find, but he never slackened his pace.
As the day grew hotter, she became thirsty, so thirsty that it was painful to remember that she had stood near a creek and hadn't drunk. She could remember the sound the creek made as it ran over the rocks. At moments it haunted her; most of the time she was too tired to remember anything. It seemed to her the horses would die if they just rode all day. They rode at a steady trot. In time she regretted, too, that she had not relieved herself-she had been too scared. Hours passed and they crossed creek after creek, but the man didn't stop again. He just kept riding. The need to relieve herself became an agony-it was mixed with thirst and fatigue, until she didn't know which was worse. Then she realized that her pants were wet and her thighs stinging-she had gone while she was dozing. Soon her thighs felt scalded from the urine and the constant rubbing of the saddle. The pain was minor compared to her thirst. During the afternoon, with the sun beating down so hot that her shirt was as wet from sweat as if she had swum a river in it, she thought she was going to break down, that she would have to beg the man for water. Her lips were cracked and the sweat off her face ran into the cracks and stung her, but she licked at it. At least it was wet and even a second of wetness on her tongue felt good. She had never been so thirsty in her life, and had not imagined it could be such a pain. The most terrible part was when they crossed water-for creeks were numerous. She would look down at the water as they crossed, and she wanted to beg. She leaned over at one of the deeper creeks, trying to get a little water in her hand, but she couldn't reach it, though it splashed beneath the horse's belly. She cried then, tears mingling with the sweat. Her head throbbed from the beating sunlight, and she began to lose hold on life for minutes at a time. She felt she might cross over. What a joke it would be on the man if, when he got her wherever he was taking her, she was dead. He wouldn't get much from her dead.
But she didn't die-she just got thirstier and thirstier. Her tongue began to bother her. It seemed to fill her mouth, and when she licked at the drops of sweat it felt as large as her hand.
Then, as she was dreaming of water, she opened her eyes to find that they were stopped by a sizable stream. Blue Duck was untying her ankles.
'I'd say you wet your pants,' he said.
Lorena didn't care what he said. Her legs wouldn't work, but she wanted the water so bad she crawled to it, getting her pants muddy, and her arms. She couldn't drink fast enough-in gulping the water she got some up her nose. While she was drinking, Blue Duck waded in beside her and pulled her up by her hair.
'Don't drink so fast,' he said. 'You'll founder.'
Then he pushed her head under and held it there. Lorena thought he meant to drown her and tried to grab his legs to pull herself out; but evidently he just wanted to give her a bath, because he soon let go and walked back to the horses. Lorena sat in the water, her clothes soaked, not caring. She drank until she couldn't drink any more. Blue Duck had unsaddled the horses, and they were standing in the river, drinking.
When she waded out of the river, Blue Duck was sitting under a tree, chewing on a piece of dried meat. He fished in his saddlebag and gave her a piece. Lorena didn't feel hungry-but then she remembered she had not felt thirsty that morning, either. She took the piece of jerky.
'We'll rest a spell till it's dark,' he said.
She looked at the sun, which was not high. It wouldn't be much of a rest. She nibbled at the meat, which was so hard her teeth could barely dent it. She went and sat in the shade of a small tree growing by the creek.
Blue Duck hobbled the horses, then came and looked down at her. 'I got a treatment for women that try to run away,' he said casually. 'I cut a little hole in their stomachs and pull out a gut and wrap it around a limb. Then I drag them thirty or forty feet and tie them down. That way they can watch the coyotes come and eat their guts.'
He went back and lay down under a tree, adjusted his saddlebags for a pillow, and was soon asleep.
Lorena was too tired for his threat to scare her much. She wasn't going to run away and give him a reason to cut a hole in her stomach. She did think she was going to die, though. She felt death had her, in the form of the Comanchero. She wouldn't live to be cut or be gnawed by coyotes. She would die if he touched her, she felt. She was too tired to care much. The one thing that crossed her mind was that she should have gone with Xavier. He was a man of his word, and no worse in most respects than other men. And yet she had been determined to go riding off with Jake, who had not even looked after her three weeks. Jake was probably still in Austin, playing cards. She didn't particularly blame him-playing cards beat most things you could do.
She dozed for what seemed like a minute and woke to find Blue Duck shaking her. It was dusk, the sun just down.
'Let's git,' he said. 'We don't want to miss the cool of the evening.'
Once again they rode all night. Lorena slept in the saddle and would have fallen off if she hadn't been tied in the stirrups. At dawn he let her down again, by another creek, and this time she did as he did-peed and drank. They rode all day again through empty country, never seeing a horseman, a town, even an animal. The only thing she noticed was that there were fewer trees. She grew so tired of riding that she would have been glad to die, if only because it meant being stopped. She wanted sleep more than she had ever wanted anything. The sun blazed all day. When she dozed, sweat stood on her eyelids and wet her face when she awoke.
Blue Duck took so little interest in her that she couldn't understand why he had stolen her. He scarcely looked back all day. He untied her when they stopped, tied her again when they mounted. Once, drinking at a creek that was barely a trickle, the hand she was bracing herself with slipped and she got mud on her nose. The sight seemed to amuse him slightly.
'Monkey John will like that yellow hair,' he said. 'He'll 'bout have to marry you when he sees that.'
Later, as he was tying her back on her horse, he mentioned her hair again.
'It's too bad the tribes played out,' he said. 'A few years back all I would have had to do was scalp you. I could have got a bunch for a scalp like yours.'
He reached up and idly fingered her hair. 'I hope that goddamn old Ranger hurries along,' he said. 'I owe him a few.'
'Gus?' she said. 'Gus won't come. I ain't his.'
'He's coming,' Blue Duck said. 'I don't know if it's for you or for me, but he's coming. I oughta just gut you and leave you here and let him bury whatever the buzzards and the varmints don't eat.'
Lorena didn't look at him, for fear that if she looked he'd do it.
'Only I told the boys I'd bring them a woman,' he said. 'I doubt they thought I'd find the likes of you. They'll probably give me most of their money and all their hides when they see you.'
That day her mare played out. She had been stumbling more and more, as she tired. In the heat of the afternoon she stopped and stood with her head down.
'I guess who ever picked this one was just planning to ride to church,' Blue Duck said. He untied Lorena and put her on the packhorse. They rode off and left the mare. The packhorse lasted only a day, and when he stopped, Blue Duck made her get up behind him on the big sorrel. If it bothered the horse to carry two riders, he didn't show it. Lorena held to the saddle strings and tried not to touch Blue Duck, although he paid her no mind.
Riding at his back, she noticed something she had not seen before: a white necklace of some kind. It was a bone necklace, and after looking at it for a time she realized it was made of fingers-human fingers.
That evening, when they stopped to rest, Blue Duck saw her glance at the necklace. He grinned in the way that made her think of death.
'Easiest way to get the rings off,' he said. 'Just take the fingers. It's no harder than breaking off a little stick if you know how.'
That night he tied her hand and foot and rode off. Lorena didn't speak, didn't question him. Maybe he was leaving her for the buzzards, but she felt she would rather die than say something that might anger him. She didn't try to get untied either, for fear he was watching, waiting for her to make some attempt to escape. She slept, and she awoke as he was cutting her bounds. Another horse was standing there.
'It ain't much of a horse, but it's only got to last about a day,' he said.
There was no saddle-he had not bothered to take the saddle off the dying packhorse. He passed a cord under the horse's belly and tied her ankles.
She had thought the riding hard even when she had a saddle but quickly realized how easy that had been. She slipped from side to side and had to cling to the horse's mane to stay on. Blue Duck rode as before, seldom looking back. It was night and she was tired, but there was no dozing. Despite her grip on the mane, she almost slid off several times. With her feet tied, if she fell she would just roll under the horse's belly and be kicked to death. The horse was narrow-backed and not very smooth-gaited; she could find no way to sit that didn't jar her, and long
