Once his eyes seemed to catch a flicker of movement on the steep canyon slide across the way. After watching for a long time he decided he was mistaken.
He lay watching the canyon until the night was wholly dark, unaware that on the opposite slope Lantz was also watching. Feeling a faint chill, he crawled back to his blankets. He lay a long time, sick and exhausted by his efforts, before he could muster the strength to eat a tortilla and a small bit of jerky. He took his time, savoring the food and chewing a long time to make it last.
The girl was taking a great risk and he had no right to permit it, yet he had little choice. Obviously the Suttons believed him in the vicinity or the chase would long ago have gone on. And how long would this hiding place remain unfound? Suppose from the cliff opposite someone glimpsed a darkness where his shelter was? Or detected some chance movement of his?
Maria Cristina was pitting her wits against the cunning of Jacob Lantz and it was unfair.
Given an even chance, his brick-dust horse would outrun anything in the country but the canyon was undoubtedly watched and his own strength was not up to a hard ride. He could not stand the pounding of a hard ride over these trails and he had still to find the killers of Johnny Hendrix and to take from them, if possible, the price of his stolen horses.
He was awake with the sun. He ate, then drank deep at the spring. He flexed his muscles, tightening and relaxing them, working his fingers to keep them supple. When the sun came up he moved from the overhang to lie in the warmth and sunlight. Later he started to crawl to the cliff-edge but gave it up. He was too weak.
The big red horse fed on the rich grass at the back part of the ledge. He was invisible unless he got to the edge of the brush along the rim.
The day drew on slowly …
Whatever Maria Cristina had used in that poultice, it had taken the inflammation from his wound. When he examined it before bathing, he saw it looked much better, although still an ugly gash.
From his saddlebags he got his glasses. They were a strong pair of binoculars purchased at an army post, handy in hunting stray cattle or wild horses. He studied the terrain to know it better, trying to learn the trend of the canyons … it was well along in the morning when his eyes caught a momentary reflection on the cliff opposite.
Well below his own position, it was high above the sheep. When he had watched the place for a long time he decided his eyes had been mistaken or it had been sunlight reflected from a bit of shale dislodged by some scurrying rabbit or pack rat. There was nothing there . . . and then he saw it again.
It was a scant movement that alerted him. He swung his glasses back over ground previously examined.
The spot seemed to offer no concealment, yet there might be some shallow place in the ground where a man might lie. A man who would be invisible until he moved. And then he saw him, a lean old man with sharp hatchet features, a man who could only be Jacob Lantz. He lowered his glasses, knowing the danger of looking too directly at a man. Such men had a sharp awareness that warned them when they were watched. Maria Cristina was with the sheep. The boy was off gathering sticks for the bundle they would take home behind the saddle at night. Did she know Lantz was on the cliff? Trace tried to think of some way to warn her without at the same time revealing his own presence and it was impossible. He would only wait and trust to the girl’s innate good sense.
He tried to judge the distance to where Lantz lay. Four hundred yards? It was across the canyon and down toward the Chavero home … no, closer to six or seven hundred.
He got his rifle and checked the chamber to see if a shell was ready, then put it aside. He sighted down the rifle barrel first, trying to estimate the drop of the bullet. Shooting downhill could be deceptive. That might come but it must be as a last resort.
Twice Maria Cristina got to her feet. Each time she walked purposefully and each time Lantz moved swiftly along the cliff to keep her in sight. Once she gathered wood, another time it was squaw cabbage for an evening meal. Returning to the shade, she sat there a few minutes, then got up and walked directly to a place under the cliff where Lantz stood but where she would be invisible to the old tracker.
Puzzled, Jordan tried to imagine her purpose. It came to him suddenly. Maria Cristina knew Lantz was watching and was deliberately tormenting him!
There was now no possible way in which he could see what she was doing and to a man of Lantz’s mind there could be nothing worse. She might actually be with the hunted man, she might be sending him a signal, she might be hiding food for him.
On the hillside Lantz was restless but the girl sat quietly sewing under the cliff. Yet she had been there only a few minutes when the young man on the paint pony rode up. This, although Jordan did not know, was Vicente.
Vicente drew rein near where Maria Cristina sat and waited for her to speak. When she said nothing, Vicente said, “They are still here.”
She made no reply. Maria Cristina loved her brother but his weakness angered her.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Who? Of whom do you speak?”
“The man they seek. This Jordan.”
“What do I know? Until now I did not even know his name.”
Vicente stared uneasily at his sister. She was simple like Rosa, his Navajo wife. He understood Rosa, he also understood his mother. This one was different. Perhaps it was because she had married that gringo and gone away to live in cities … but no, she had always been a strange one.
She would walk out with no man, yet when she went to town she swished her skirts at them. This was not good. Sometime he would have to kill somebody over her. Why did she not take a man like other women? A woman without a man was nobody.
And she knew something about the man they hunted. The knowledge frightened him. If Jack Sutton or Ben Hindeman found they had been helping the wounded man, they would kill all of them, every one. Or they would kill Maria Cristina.
If they tried that, he, Vicente, must fight. And he did not want to fight. He was only one man and there were many of the others.
Maria Cristina knew what her brother was thinking. She even knew what Jacob Lantz was thinking and she had known since early morning that he was on the hillside. She had known he would be there and, knowing all this canyon, she soon knew exactly where he was. It was not a problem yet. The man up there had food and there was water. If necessary he could manage at least two days alone.
When she had first come upon him she believed him dead. Had she left him alone then, he would now be dead and no problem at all. And he was a gringo.
This stranger was nothing to her. She had no liking for any North American. Only her husband … he had been kind, even when drunk. Always a gentleman, too. Even now, remembering all his weakness, she had a queer respect for him.
That one up there … he was not weak. Nor was he soft. She remembered his guns. They were cared for. His jeans were polished where the holster chafed … this was a man who had lived with a gun.
She turned her thoughts from him. He would be all right, that one. When his strength returned he could ride. That would be an end of him … and good riddance.
Vicente was restless. He sat the worn saddle and rolled a cigarette. He liked the sunlight on his back. He did not know they were watched but knew they must be. He drew deep on the cigarette and Maria Cristina looked up at him. There was only that to be said for him. The way he sat a horse and wore a gun. “I think you too much frighten, Vicente. You … who are good with a gun. I think you better than Jack Sutton.”
Vicente was so astonished that he rode away. It was the first time Maria Cristina had said one word of praise to him. But better than Jack Sutton? No … no, it could not be. Yet the thought remained. She believed he could do it.