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  Taylor drove the shoulder of his horse into the other man’s pony. The pony went down, pinning the rider. The grey staggered but kept its feet and went on running. Taylor was thrown about in the saddle but stayed aboard. Suddenly he was through them.

  Apaches were yelling right behind him, almost in his ear; their rifles fired at seemingly point-blank range and yet he wasn’t hit. He entered Devil’s Pass at full gallop with he didn’t know how many Apaches on his heels. A glance over his shoulder showed his pursuers maybe 200 yards back.

  The grey started to gasp; its coat was dark with sweat. Foam flew from its mouth and splattered Taylor’s legs. But he couldn’t afford to be merciful. He used spurs ruthlessly. When he glanced back the next time he’d widened the gap over his pursuers.

  He came in view of the wagons fleeing ahead of him. They were driving along the pass at a hard, drumming run. Driving west towards the tanks, where there was still water. And hope, and a place to fort up.

  Then he glimpsed movement beyond the wagon train.

  A line of horsemen was blocking the pass to the west.

  Taylor glimpsed colourful shirts and varicoloured ponies, he heard Apaches yelling as they surged forward. There was a thin crackle of rifle fire.

  The lead wagon – he could tell it was the Cameron wagon – veered to the right. Other wagons angled to follow.

  Taylor saw why.

  There was a break in the wall of mountains on the north side of the pass, the narrow entrance to a canyon. The wagons were turning and disappearing into this canyon.

  One wagon couldn’t make this right turn. It went over to its left, ploughing into rocks and boulders with a terrible rending crash of splintering wood. There was a high, piercing scream. A woman’s scream. Then dust erupted, swallowing the wagon and its occupants, and the first of the oncoming riders streaked through it.

  Taylor followed the wagons into the canyon. Apaches followed him. He’d outdistanced the bunch from the east but now he had another pack on his heels. Men on fresher horses.

  Once through the canyon entrance the walls peeled back and Taylor was riding into a basin cupped by sheer granite walls. A place of white sand and orange cliffs. The wagons ahead were already on the far side of the basin and circling.

  Under him the grey started to cough. Its long, easy stride began to falter. Apaches seemed to be yelling almost in his ear. An arrow whipped by his right shoulder. He risked another backwards glance and saw maybe a dozen Apaches close behind. One man on a paint pony was pulling ahead of his companions, closing on his enemy.

  Then there were wagons ahead of Taylor, corralled into a circle and figures moving behind them. There was a dark burst of powder smoke by one wagon, then another. Bullets keened about him. He was caught in a crossfire. It would be my kind of luck, he thought, to be killed by my own side.

  More fire from the wagons; he glanced behind him and saw his pursuers veering away left and right, ducking low on their ponies’ necks. All save the man on the paint pony, who kept coming, forgetting all fear in his own battle craziness.

  A barricade between wagons was suddenly in front of Taylor. He called on the grey horse one more time and the horse answered. It vaulted the barricade neatly and came down on failing legs.

  Taylor glanced back. To his astonishment he saw the Apache plunge his paint pony over the barricade almost on his heels. Before Taylor could react the Apache flung himself from the saddle. He looped his hands around Taylor’s neck; both men pitched into the dust between their horses. Taylor half-landed on top of his enemy, which broke his fall.

  Both men knelt up. Taylor got his right hand to the knife in his belt sheath, but the Apache was quicker. He swung a stone-headed club and struck Taylor on the left arm, numbing it. In the same instant Taylor drove his knife upwards. The blade went in between the Apache’s ribs, all the way to the guard. The Apache gasped; Taylor twisted the knife.

  For a second the Apache knelt there, his face full of hatred and pain. Then he was dead and toppling. He fell against Taylor, then past him, and lay on his face in the dust.

  Taylor got to his feet. His legs were rubber and shaking, as were his arms. Someone was staring at him in horror. After a time he realized this was Fiona Cameron.

  Slowly he came to understand her staring. There was blood all over his shirt although none of it was his. It came from the man he’d knifed.

  For the first time he was conscious of a sharp stabbing pain in his back and remembered he might have been shot there. He glanced over his left shoulder and to his alarm saw the tri-feathered shaft of an arrow rising from his back. Taylor grabbed the arrow and found it was caught in the folds of his serape. The wickedly chipped quartz head hadn’t even touched his flesh. He turned the missile in his hands, making a small sound of admiration for this simple, deadly thing. Then he dropped it to the earth. Whatever back wound he’d suffered, it couldn’t be serious, he was still functioning.

  There was gunfire. People in the wagon corral were firing out at Apaches, who swarmed just at the edge of range.

  Major Cameron was at the barricade. He took careful aim at a distant enemy, fired and said, ‘Missed.’ Then he glanced back over his shoulder at Taylor. ‘Glad you could join us, Taylor. You might regret it though.’

  Taylor felt numb and dizzy and too confused to think. Confused most of all by Cameron’s grim humour.

  The major said, ‘Those Indians are plenty smart. This is a box canyon.’ He looked again along the barrel of his rifle. ‘They’ve herded us into a trap here.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Taylor realized he was in some kind of a daze. But that wouldn’t do, he’d have to snap out of it. He’d failed these people once and let them be ambushed. He couldn’t afford to fail them again.

  He moved over to Cameron. Buck Evans was there too. Evans declared: ‘We’re out in the open here, major! If we was nearer those bluffs—’

  Cameron interrupted him. ‘If we were nearer those bluffs Apaches could sniper down on us. Maybe even roll rocks down on us.’

  Taylor told Evans, ‘At least here you’ve got a field of fire on all sides.’

  ‘But stuck in the centre of this basin – there’s no shade.’

  Taylor nodded grimly. ‘That’s the trade-off. There’s no shade.’

  Horsemen were dim shapes in the glare of the white plain beyond the wagons. A few of them shouted words he couldn’t make out. The occasional rifle cracked.

  Taylor turned and looked about him. The wagons were in a loose circle, forming a compound. Mules and oxen had been unyoked and herded into this compound, alongside all the saddle horses that were left. Señora Sanchez sat against a wagon wheel. Her right arm was bloody. Fiona Cameron knelt by her, bandaging her arm, whilst Ramon stood by. A man lay under a wagon, his shirt front all bloody, whilst women crouched by him.

  Cameron told Taylor, ‘That’s Jake Harrison. Hit in the chest.’

  Then he’s as good as dead, Taylor thought.

  There were seven wagons. Taylor asked: ‘Who did we lose, Major?’

  ‘The Williams. Three of ’em anyway. The Veidts. Their wagon overturned getting into this canyon. And the McShanes.’

  Evans worked moisture in his jaw, not finding enough to spit. ‘I saw that. They got poor old McShane right off. Shot one of his mules so he couldn’t move, then they was all over his wagon. I heard his kids … screaming.’

  Cameron’s face was bleak. ‘All the wagons with children.’ He swallowed. ‘I led all those young, innocent people to their deaths.’

  Señora Sanchez lifted her anguished face towards them. ‘All those poor children.’

  Taylor said, ‘They might not be dead. Apaches don’t kill kids normally, mostly they keep ’em to raise.’

  Evans lifted an eyebrow. ‘Raise?’

  ‘As Apaches.’

  ‘That’s worse than being dead.’

  ‘No it isn’t. Sometimes they spare women too, to keep as slaves.’ He doubted that was Frau Veidt’s fat
e; he remembered the terrible smashing impact as the Veidt wagon overturned, a woman’s high, nerve-shredding scream….

  Señora Sanchez looked at him beseechingly. ‘But Mr Veidt … Mr McShane….’

  Taylor didn’t answer and Señora Sanchez began to wail. Other women joined in. They made a fiendish high keening, an inhuman sound. And yet, Taylor supposed, it was the most human of sounds.

  Taylor did a quick inventory of what was left, people, stock, supplies, food and water, weapons and ammunition. They were down five men, two women and eight children. Twenty-two remained: eight women and fourteen men, including Taylor, Ramon Sanchez and Jake Harrison, lying under his wagon with a fist-sized hole in his chest. Taylor took a look at his own back injury and found an angry red bullet crease that had bled plenty but was still only a graze. He also saw to his horse.

  Then he rejoined Cameron and Evans at their barricade.

  Evans said, ‘What I don’t figure is – why didn’t they just swarm all over us? They’d’ve finished us easy. There was a big bunch on our tails, then most of ’em broke off. Why?’ He glared at Taylor. ‘Well, Mister Indian scout?’

  ‘When Apaches go raiding, it’s mostly for plunder. So those three wagons we lost bought the rest of us time. Lots of Apaches went after them, to see what they could loot.’ He started to build a cigarette with fingers that only trembled slightly. ‘And they seem low on modern weapons. Bows and arrows, old muskets, but not many repeaters. If they’d been well-armed none of us would have made it into this canyon.’

  Evans scowled. ‘Our situation’s still pitiful. There must be sixty, seventy of them at least. We’ve got what – fourteen men? No, thirteen, if you take out poor old Harrison there. Twelve you take out that ’breed kid. We can’t even make a proper wagon circle. They could wipe us out in one charge.’

  Taylor lit his cigarette. ‘But they’d lose men doing it. Apaches are guerrilla fighters. They don’t take heavy casualties if they can help it.’

  ‘A coward’s way to fight.’

  ‘Maybe. Some might say they’re being smart.’

  Evans mouth twisted with anger. ‘You got to defend them, don’t you? Even after this. Even after what they done to the Williamses, and McShane—’

  Cameron made an impatient sound. ‘We can argue this another time. Point is, Taylor, you don’t think they’ll try a straight attack?’

  ‘Unlikely. Why should they? They’ll just let the sun work on us through tomorrow. That way they get what they’re after – our guns and ammunition and supplies – intact.’

  ‘You figure they’ll just hunker down to a siege? I didn’t think Indians had that kind of patience.’

  ‘Major, they don’t know what time is. So they’re not always running against it.’

  Cameron wiped sweat from his face with his hand. ‘We’re not finished yet. In half an hour the sun’ll be down. And it’s lucky we filled up with water this morning. That should hold us a couple days, we spread it between us and the stock.’

  Taylor thought of his grey horse, standing trembling, fear, pain and bewilderment in its eyes. How brutally he’d used the animal today. How he’d nearly ridden it to death. That put an edge of temper in his voice. ‘The hell with the stock! We don’t know how long we could be penned in here. We need the water, not them.’

  ‘Without water the animals’ll die. That’s damn cruel—’

  Taylor let his temper rip. ‘This is cruel country, Major. I warned you! I told you it was crazy to make this trip, but hell no, you wouldn’t listen! You had to find your paradise.’

  Cameron’s face flushed with anger but it was Evans who answered. ‘You’re a big talker, Taylor! The great Indian scout! It was your job to stop us getting ambushed! So how come the Indians got round you?’

  Taylor started to reply, then decided he didn’t have an answer to that.

  Evans glared some more. After a time he stalked off.

  Taylor and Cameron stood in awkward silence. Eventually Cameron said, ‘So – what can we do? Are there military in this neighbourhood?’

  ‘Soldiers are pretty thin on the ground out here. There’s the Morrison ranch maybe fifty miles north. Big spread. They’re a tough outfit. They have to be, ranching in Apache country. If we could get a rider to them …’

  ‘Apaches’ll have the mouth of the canyon all stoppered up. Think anyone can get through?’

  ‘We can try.’

  Cameron thought a moment. He nodded. ‘Tonight then. I suggest the boy, Ramon. He can ride, he’s light in the saddle. More to the point,’ he added grimly, ‘he’s the youngest of us.’

  Ramon Sanchez asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  Taylor crouched down at the feet of Ramon’s roan horse. He said, ‘Chiricahua Apache trick. They shoe their horses in deerskin boots – which I’ve got a spare pair of, here. Muffles sound.’

  Taylor stood. His Hamilton watch told him it was just gone 10 p.m. There was an amber, nearly full moon but no stars, which meant the night around them was dark enough: deep blue-black sky above sable-black canyon walls. He told Ramon: ‘You want to lead your horse until you’re in the mouth of the canyon. Walk right through ’em.’

  Major Cameron said, ‘Once you’re there, mount up and ride like hell. Understand? We’re all depending on you, Ramon!’

  Ramon swallowed, his fear clearly showing. ‘When do I start?’

  Taylor said, ‘Soon as you hear guns.’

  ‘Guns?’

  ‘We’re going to create a diversion. Up the other end of the canyon. Skirmish ’em a little.’

  ‘You’re going out there? You’re crazy!’

  Taylor smiled grimly. ‘No doubt about that.’ He reached out and shook the boy’s hand. ‘Good luck, Ramon.’

  Taylor’s smile, the optimism he put into his voice, told a lie. There was a cold weight of dread in his belly, the near-certainty that this boy was going to his death….

  Taylor’s skirmishers slithered out of the wagon compound on their bellies, snaking along for a few hundred yards. Taylor’s shot was their signal to fire away at nothing, as if they had a limitless supply of ammunition. A few minutes of that and they began to draw return fire. At which point Taylor yelled for them to fall back. They all made it back to the wagons without injury.

  Cameron said, ‘You kicked up a good diversion, Taylor. Ramon managed to sneak out. I think maybe he made it.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  Taylor walked to the edge of the compound and gazed out. It was a cold night and he had forbidden fires (which gave light for snipers to shoot into the camp) so most of the party huddled miserably in their wagons under extra layers of blankets. Taylor, who hated cold, pulled his serape tighter about him and flexed his chilled fingers on the grip of his rifle.

  He turned at a soft footfall. Fiona Cameron approached. She asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  He nodded. ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m like my father.’ A trace of a smile showed on her lips. ‘I’m tough.’

  ‘I guess you are.’

  She surprised him then; she reached out and touched his arm.

  Before he could react to that she turned and walked away. Taylor stared after her, not for the first time mystified by the doings of women. And he’d thought she was Buck Evans’s girl!

  Thinking of her hand on his arm, a smile worked at his lips, just about the first smile he’d managed today. Then a coyote yarred in the dark beyond the wagons. Coyote or Apache? That hair-raising keening snatched away pleasant thoughts and reminded him of where he was.

  He was grateful she hadn’t asked him, just now, what their chances were. He didn’t think he could lie to her. His every instinct told him this was a dead man’s hand, that the Apaches held all the cards and there was no way out. He doubted Ramon could make it through to the Morrison ranch, or this wagon party could fight off even one serious attack. If the Indians decided to shoot fire arrows into these wagons, for example, they could wipe out the Cameron party in
minutes. He supposed the only reason they didn’t do that was because they wanted the wagons and material intact. So the migrants survived only on Apache sufferance.

  And if they were overrun, what would happen to Fiona Cameron? She might be killed. Or they might spare her. She’d be raped, of course, then dragged off to a life as little more than a pack animal in some mountain rancheria. Or maybe they’d take her to Mexico and sell her into slavery.

  It had been quiet as dusk fell, although Taylor had heard distant music and singing at the mouth of the canyon. He guessed the Apaches had been celebrating their partial victory with a sing and maybe a feast. Now he glimpsed pitch-pine torches glimmering and moving in the darkness on the cliffs above, as Apaches climbed up there. The Indians were clearly in no hurry about finishing the job they’d started. Meanwhile they slowly tightened the noose around the wagons….

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before first light the next morning Taylor stood at the barricade, his Winchester laid across his arm. He got the other men on first watch up too, amongst them the Evans brothers. They came cursing and grumbling from their blankets.

  Taylor didn’t expect the Mescaleros would attack yet. More likely they’d let the sun work on the white eyes today and then swarm all over the wagons at first light tomorrow. But you couldn’t lay down rules when it came to Apaches and dawn was always the most dangerous time, their favoured time of attack.

  In the dark beyond the wagons a coyote yipped and a turkey gobbled. Taylor smiled bitterly. Apaches could normally impersonate these creatures so well they’d fool turkeys and coyotes. But this morning they weren’t trying. They couldn’t hide the mockery and contempt in their voices.

  Cameron came and joined Taylor. He thrust a cup of coffee into the younger man’s hand.

  Taylor said, ‘Well, I’ve got your people into a fine state of affairs here.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for all this.’