Chavasse helped himself to more coffee. “It would take us two days to catch up with him now.”
“Not if we go over the mountains.” Nachita pointed to the great peak that towered above them. “Agua Verde is on the other side. Perhaps twenty miles.”
Dillinger looked up at Nachita, shading his eyes. “Can it be done?”
“As a young man, I rode with Geronimo over the same trail to escape from the horse-soldiers who chased us across the Rio Grande.”
“A long time ago.”
“It was a great ride.” Nachita turned and looked up at the mountain again. “There is a place near the peak where we could spend the night. It is even possible that we could reach Agua Verde before Ortiz.”
Dillinger looked at Villa. “What do you think?”
Villa nodded. “The well at Agua Verde is inside the chapel. By the time Ortiz and his men arrive they will need water badly.”
“Perhaps even enough to bargain for my child,” Rivera said.
“If we are going, we must go now,” Nachita said. “We have perhaps four hours left until sunset.”
Dillinger nodded. “There’s no way I can get the Chevrolet over there.”
“I show you.” Nachita took a stick and drew in the sand. “Ortiz comes from the west. We go straight over and cut across his path in front of him, if we are lucky. You, my friend, take your automobile out into the desert to the north, skirting the base of the mountain. The long way round. A hundred miles at least, but in the cool of the night.” He shrugged. “And your automobile can travel faster than the wind, is it not so?”
“And what if it breaks down out there in the desert?” Rose said. “The sun in the heat of the day can fry a man’s brains. Or a woman’s.”
“A horse could break a leg going over the mountain,” Nachita said. “Or a man. This way, we have two chances of reaching Aqua Verde before Ortiz.”
“That settles it,” Dillinger said. “Anyone want to chaperone Rose and me?”
“I will come, senor,” Villa said. “I know this country, you don’t.”
Dillinger said to the girl, “Rose? You want to take Villa’s horse and go with the others?”
She glanced at her uncle. “I will come with you.”
“Okay, let’s get moving.”
He and Villa put the top up on the convertible. Dillinger got behind the wheel and pressed the starter as Villa scrambled into the rear seat. “Lead my horse,” he shouted to Chavasse.
Dillinger waved. “See you at Agua Verde,” he called, and drove down into the vast desert.
Nachita led them up the slope of the mountain without hesitation, zigzagging between the mesquite and cacti. After an hour they went over a ridge and faced a shelving bank of shale and thin soil held together by a few shrubs.
Rivera, who had been bringing up the rear, now joined them, his face lined with fatigue. “Why have we stopped?”
Nachita had ridden to a point where the ledge turned the corner of the bluff, and now he came back and dismounted. “From here it will be necessary to blindfold the horses. Use strips from your blankets.”
Nachita went first, and the rest followed at spaced intervals. When the ledge turned the corner, Chevasse sucked in his breath. At this point the trail narrowed to a width of perhaps five or six feet. On his right hand there was nothing, only clear air to the valley floor below.
The ledge lifted steeply, following the curve of the wall, and he climbed after Nachita, holding his horse as close to the wall as possible.
And then the ledge narrowed until there hardly seemed room for man and animal together. Chevasse pushed forward frantically and came out on a small plateau. He led his mount up and over the edge of a gentle slope thinly scattered with pine trees to where Nachita waited.
Rivera came over the edge after them, and the Frenchman leaned against his mount, wiping sweat from his face. “Something to remember till my dying day.” He turned to Nachita. “Can we rest here?”
The old man shook his head. “From now on it is easy, and we can ride. There is a good campsite in the forest on the far side of the summit.”