Lantz was chewing a blade of grass. His little eyes were utterly cold. “When you try, you better make sure. I ain’t so fancy with a hand-gun but I’ll kill you, Jack! I’ll hunt you like I’d hunt a varmint an’ I’ll kill you!”
Jack Sutton strode past him to his horse. The fools! The damned fools! He got into the saddle and rode out of the canyon at breakneck speed.
Hindeman returned. “If he bothers you, Jake, you come to me.”
The old man turned black eyes to Hindeman. He spat, “You better take care o’ him, Ben. Not me.”
Hindeman stared at his big hands. What was this chase doing to them? Tearing the outfit apart, that was what it was doing. And it had been Jack and Mort and their crowd who brought it all on them, stealing those horses. It was just that some men had the killer streak in them that nothing but death could stop.
Those mountains down there, the Sierra de San Luis. That could well be where Jordan was. If he got away across the malpais into the Sierra Madre they must just as well forget him. But they did not dare. Nobody realized more than he how many were the enemies around them. Old Bob had ridden roughshod over people and his nephews had been worse. Moreover, there were people who wanted their range. The slightest evidence of weakness and the SB would be only a memory.
Turning on his heels, be walked back to the house. Maria Cristina’s face was swollen from the heavy blows. It was only barely recognizable. “Will you still cook?” he asked.
She stared into his blocky granite-hard face. “I cook,” she said and turned from him.
Later he saw her walk from the house with her basket and go to the patch of squaw cabbage. He watched her, then let her go. She was in plain sight there and couldn’t get away.
She stooped to pick some bread-root, taking the starchy taproot from the ground. She moved on, then, and stopped for a moment near a dark-leaved plant with white flowers. And then she walked on. Returning to the house, she set about preparing a meal. Several times men came to the door for coffee but she turned them away, saying it was not ready.
Wes Parker had been sent to town. Jack Sutton had not returned. Only Lantz, Buck Bayless and Hindeman were there.
Finally she dished up the food and they ate. She watched them for a while, then poured more coffee. After that she hastily packed sandwiches and other food in an old flour sack and nobody watched her. She was always moving about, always busy.
Frightened now, she listened anxiously for Sutton’s return. Several times she glanced out, seeing cigarettes glowing in the dark. She heard a queer laugh, then a chuckle. Bayless called out to Hindeman but there was no reply. She waited until no cigarettes glowed near the barn, nor was there any sound of voices.
Crossing to the barn, she found them sprawled on the ground, sleeping. She took a Winchester from one of the men, took cartridge belts from two and a box of .44 shells from inside the barn door. At the corner of the barn she untied a horse and, making every move count, led him to the house and loaded food and blankets. Getting into the saddle, she walked the horse away from the house and, when well away, broke into a trot.
All was still… and then Jack Sutton rode out of the darkness. He glanced at the snoring men and then with a chuckle he turned to Maria Cristina’s trail and started off at a walk. Behind him there was silence. The lights from the house shone on the men who slept heavily in their drugged sleep.
Jack Sutton was only to a degree a family man. Many a man who dared not face him with a gun might have shot him down from ambush had he not been backed by the Sutton-Bayless outfit. The family was a protective cloak.
Ben Hindeman, on the other hand, had a fierce loyalty to Old Bob, whose daughter he married, and to the brand. He was wise enough to know that at the first sign of weakness the wolves would close in for the kill.
Jack Button was not thinking of this. He had lately undergone that final and subtle change that came to many gunmen. At first, such a man may suffer when he kills but the second comes easier and by degrees the gunman becomes contemptuous of his victims and kills casually or for the love of it. Yet his own danger increases, for now men wish to kill him. So he becomes a destroyer with a hand ever ready to grasp the gun.
In Maria Cristrna he had found someone he could not frighten, nor could he believe she was innocent of blame during those visits on the shelf. What he wished now was to find Jordan and kill him before her eyes. He wanted to break her spirit and, at the same time, to prove his own superiority. So he was in no hurry to catch up, wanting her only to lead him to Jordan.
It was very hot when the sun came up and the country through which Maria Cristina rode became increasingly dry. Yet by an hour after dawn she was sure she was being followed.
This was dry country and behind her she had seen a plume of dust. It was such a dust cloud as would be left by one rider. And that could only mean that Jack Sutton was behind her.
Twice she varied her direction, choosing a likely route, then an unlikely one. She used every subtefurge she could think of and she deliberately avoided water holes. All that morning she refused herself even a swallow of water, although twice she paused to sponge the mouth of her horse.
She told herself she was going to Trace Jordan for two reasons: because sooner or later she believed she would be killed by Jack Sutton and because she was afraid Jordan would return.
Dust mounted in her nostrils. Dust caked her face and sifted over her clothing. Sweat streaked the dust. The horse plodded wearily on.
Maria Cristina did not believe she could deceive Jacob Lantz for long but she might lose Jack Sutton. His very confidence might defeat him. Yet she must try to outwit Lantz as well and when they reached a long rocky shelf, she decided the time had come. She pulled up and dismounted.
Jacob Lantz was the first to awaken. The sky was gray when he opened his eyes and then, as realization dawned, he sprang up. Swearing bitterly, he ran to the house. The light still burned but a quick search revealed everything.
“Gone!” he shouted. “She got away! Tricked like a lot of tenderfeet!”
Ben Hindeman’s head ached violently but he hurriedly saddled up. There were extra horses in the barn and at the last minute, Joe Sutton returned to join them.
Lantz went to his cup and found the dregs of what he had drunk. He touched his tongue to it, tasting. “Toloache!” he spat viciously and went swiftly to his horse.
“Somethin’ here,” he said a few minutes later. “Jack’s followin’ her.”
Shrewd in the ways of hunted and hunting men, Lantz understood why Jack Sutton hung back. He believed she would lead him to Jordan. Would she do it?
Through the hot still morning he worked out their trails, yet he noticed Jack’s only in passing. It was the girl he must follow.
When her trail finally petered out on the rocky shelf, Jack was already gone. Somewhere back along the route she had tricked him. Lantz worked patiently. He found the tiny white scar made by a hoof on sandstone but it was the last one.
He circled, then circled wider still. Neither heat nor thirst disturbed him. The glare of the sun squinted his eyes but he continued to search. He stopped suddenly … a tiny red thread. He chuckled as he picked it up.
“What’s so funny?” Bayless demanded irritably.
“Gal’s smart. Tied rags around her horse’s hoofs.”
No use to try and follow her now. There would be few marks, maybe miles apart Working out such a trail might take weeks. But it would not be necessary.
Cottonwood Creek was dry at this time of year. So was Cowboy Spring, Somebody had blown out the dam at millsite, so where, then, would she go?
Jordan had been with her before he left. She knew she would be followed so she would try to lead them off the trail. So then, he could figure that the trail was faked. To circle around to a water hole in any other direction would not take a day or two days but a week. Therefore, somewhere in that vast expanse to the south, Trace Jordan had to be waiting for her.