At the narrow mouth of the gorge, Ryan eyed the dark plain. In the distance, at least half a mile away, was a flickering spear point of firelight. It was the camp of the Red Cadre.
“T’ain’t gettin’ it, Mr. Cawdor,” Hasslich said, looking up at the overhanging ledges. “I don’ fancy bein’ hemmed up in here by prairie pirates.”
Ryan didn’t respond, and Hasslich said no more. He moved away to rejoin the guards. The only sounds were the faint hum of a breeze and the infrequent chirp of a night bird. Very distantly, almost at the edge of Ryan’s hearing, a wolfs howl wafted through the darkness and a chill crawled up his backbone.
Doc sidled up to him and said in a low voice, “Has it occurred to you that we six could easily appropriate mounts from the corral and ride into the night? The Crimson Fraternity may follow us and leave Amicus unmolested.”
“It’s occurred to me,” Ryan admitted. “But I doubt Hatcher would bypass Amicus to get on our trail. He’d suspect they helped us to escape. He owes Amicus a serious bloodletting, anyway.”
“Then I submit a variation to that same scenario we simply ride into the night, leaving Amicus and Hatcher to settle their scores their own way.”
Ryan leaned against an outcropping and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I remember one time Trader found a stockpile of nerve gas on an old military base. Nasty stuff, still potent. A whole lot of it, too, since it didn’t get used during the nuking. Trader had customers for it, serious jack, but he disguised the site so no one, not even him, could make a profit from it.”
“The point being?” Doc inquired.
“Trader accepted the responsibility. He took the responsibility for uncovering it and he took the responsibility for covering it up again. There were some things that even he felt were too fucking foul to set loose on the world again, no matter how much jack he could put in his pockets.”
“And you feel we should take responsibility for leading the Cadre to Amicus.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Oh, no. I entirely agree. I was just interested in hearing you say it, since you are normally so taciturn when your emotions are involved.”
From the gloom came music, rising and falling notes, mournful and angry at the same time. The bugler of the Red Cadre played a tune that carried a relentless savagery in it, stirring, repetitious and a little nerve-racking.
“What’re they doing?” Ryan asked. “Serenading us?”
Doc’s lean body tensed. “No, they’re sending us a message. That’s the ‘Deguello.’ ”
“The what?”
“The ‘Deguello,’ the throat-cutting song,” Doc replied, “a perennial of Mexican army regimental bands a few hundred years ago. Very old, dating back to the bloody wars between Spain and the Moors. When Generalissimo Santa Anna had the Texans boxed up within the Alamo, his bands played it on the night and morning preceding the final assault.”
Ryan nodded in comprehension. “No quarter. No mercy for the loser.”
Suddenly Felicity ran swiftly toward them. “Rider coming in. Looks like Eli.”
Hasslich and the guards joined them at the edge of the pass. A rider was coming across the plain, but the horse was walking.
“What’s wrong with the fool?” one of the guards demanded. “Why’s he meanderin’ like that?”
The guards raised their voices in irritated mutterings at the horseman’s leisurely pace. As he drew nearer, they could see it was indeed Eli. “Perhaps he’s hurt,” Doc ventured. “Or drunk,” Hasslich growled. Ryan drew his blaster and, bidding a guard and Hasslich to follow him, sprinted out of the gorge. All of them stopped dead in their tracks when they came to within twenty feet of the mounted man. They walked the remaining distance. There was no need to hurry.
Eli was bound to his saddle by a wooden A-frame that held him upright. His face, drained of all color, save for a smear of blood, was twisted in a rictus of terror and pain. The blood had streamed from the top of his head where his scalp had been before it had been shorn away. His chest bore a narrow, gaping wound that had obviously been made by the blade of a broad-headed hatchet.
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