Now Ryan could glimpse the river ahead of them, about eighty feet across. Upstream, the water was swollen, dark and deep, tinted crimson by the setting sun. Below the point of the shallow crossing was a long run of menacing rapids, white water over jagged stone.
Behind them, Doc was having increasing trouble in controlling his horse, shouting at it and trying to punch it across the top of the head.
Guiteau turned in his saddle and his grin widened. “That Comanche’s a vicious sun-bucking star-fishing bastard. The old man best watch her across the ford.”
“The mutie and the shotgun?” Dean shouted, leaning half off the back of the horse.
“Oh, it weren’t nothing. When he seen the body of the woman I didn’t mean to, but I was wild then. That night he decked old Gert and grabbed the scattergun. Might’ve been salt, but it nearly took my fucking head right off my shoulders, kid. Hurt like a bastard.”
“You kill him after?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Not after . Killed him right then and there. Broke his neck. Then passed out. Wolfram said it got the biggest cheer he ever heard from an audience. When I got better he wanted to try and work it into a regular sort of act. That was when him and me parted company. Well, here we are at the Antelope. Best make sure that Mistress Marie gets over without her pretty little boots getting splashed.”
Everyone reined in and Guiteau spurred on to the front. Dean nudged his father.
“He seems kind of all right, Dad.”
“Seems to me to be one of the coldest-hearted bastards I ever saw.”
GUTTEAU CAME BACK to rejoin Ryan. “Taken a look and there’s a shitload of water going down the pike right now. I suggested to Mistress Marie that we could go a few miles upstream where there’s an old stone bridge across the Antelope.”
Ryan smiled at the expression on the sergeant’s face. “And she didn’t warm to that idea?”
“You’re all right, Cawdor. No, you could say she didn’t take to the suggestion.”
“So?”
“She ordered Anthony to go first.”
“Who is he? All four of them look like preening pretty boys. Are they”
Guiteau held up his disfigured left hand to silence Ryan. “One thing you’d best learn right here and now, Cawdor. Worst enemy a man can have at Sun Crest is Mistress Marie. Sure, Baron Nathan runs things tighter than a beaver’s ass. But you know where you are with him. Word gets back to her” he jerked a thumb to the woman, who was watching the young man picking his way into the river “that someone spoke wrong or looked wrong, then they’d do well to swallow their Armalite.”
“I get it.”
“No, you don’t, Cawdor. You think that you’ve talked to me and you and me are a lot similar. Sure we are. I can judge a man, and you and me ridden a lot of the same trails. But that don’t mean I’d piss on you if you were burning to death. Understand me? I ride for the baron. And all that means.”
Ryan nodded. “Sure, Guiteau. I understand.”
“Be sure you do.” He rubbed a hand over his cropped scalp. “I know I seen you before. But it’s so long ago. This scar of mine makes folks remember me. Same with that lost eye of yours. How did you lose it?”
“Stupe way. Taking a rabbit from a snare. Wasn’t dead. Kicked back and popped my eye out of its socket as neat as any doctor’s knife.”
Guiteau gave a roar of laughter. “Good one, Cawdor! Nearly as good as my waking up to find my fingers missing. Only good part of that was she didn’t slice off my dick.”
Anthony had finally succeeded in getting his mount across the Antelope, with much splashing and squeakings of alarm. He now sat on the far side of the ford with a complacent grin on his soft, vacant face.
Marie didn’t hesitate for a moment. In went the spurs and the horse shot forward in a clumsy, spread-legged leap. For a moment Ryan thought that the woman had lost it, as she vanished in a welter of brown spray. But it was no surprise to see her emerge, hair dripping wet, breasting the river and emerging alongside Anthony. Her face showed no sign of any emotion, as her eyes locked on Ryan.