Getting caught in the open was better than being swept off their horses in a gully-washer. They pushed their mounts up the side of the wash, clambering up onto the ridge. They could see across the country, which was an advantage even if they weren’t following Concho Jimmy directly.
The day had gone suddenly dark, but against the slate color of both mountains and sky Nightingale thought he saw a scurry of movement. He looked again and it was gone, maybe a trick of the light. It was anyway a couple of miles off and could have been only the quick shape-shifting of shadows as the storm bore down on them.
It came in a rush, the wind fretting the manes and tails of the horses and a drumming noise across the barren ground like running feet or the beating of wings. The mare was getting skittish. Placido Geist quickly dismounted and covered her head with his jacket, tying the sleeves underneath her jaw, to calm her down and protect her eyes.
Nightingale followed suit. They pulled the horses around, backs to the wind, and hunkered under their bellies. Hailstones the size of kidney beans rattled down, stinging their shoulders like birdshot, and the horses chivvied and tugged at the reins, spooked and uncertain.
Placido Geist spoke carefully to the mare, holding her head close to his, and Nightingale imagined the old bounty hunter spoke in Spanish. The mare steadied.
It was just as abruptly over, the cloud curtain passing in a veil, and the light leaking back. It was only late afternoon. The boiling cumulus trailed off in streaks of violet cirrus, pushing north.
Nightingale raised his head. The sun came through the canopy in bars, like bolts of cloth unrolled across the hard ground. The light masked the distance, the play of cloud shadow tricking the retina. He uncovered the buckskin’s eyes and climbed back into the saddle, standing in the stirrups to search the landscape in front of him.
Placido Geist was slower to mount, the claybank still shifting her feet nervously, tossing her head and sniffing at the wind as it changed direction.
Nightingale’s horse staggered as if he’d stepped in a prairie dog hole and slowly collapsed beneath him before he even registered the report of the gunshot. He tried to keep his seat as the buckskin went down so he could kick his legs clear of the falling horse and not be caught underneath it, but he realized too late he should have thrown himself to the ground. Upright he was still a target, and the second shot slammed him low in the back of the ribs, pitching him forward over the withers.
Placido Geist dragged him off the wounded horse even as the animal lurched off balance and fell over, shuddering, its limbs splayed out bonelessly. The claybank was rolling her eyes in panic, sawing at the bit and trying to jerk free. A third shot was low, whining off a rock in fragments. Placido Geist managed to haul the mare’s head around and pulled her unwillingly after him off the crest of the ridge, dragging Nightingale along behind him down the stony slope to cover. He knew he was handling the man roughly, but there was no help for it. Nightingale seemed to have lost the use of his legs if not his wits.
Once they were out of sight behind the shallow cutbank of the dry wash, there was no more gunfire. Placido Geist tried to make Nightingale comfortable, but he could see the constable was badly hurt, probably beyond repair. They were too far into the back country, with only one horse between them. Placido Geist made an effort to stem the bleeding but without much success. Nightingale coughed weakly, flinching with the pain. His breathing was labored, and rust-colored saliva bubbled up to his lips. The splintered ribs had punctured a lung.
Geist lifted his head and gave him some water and sat back on his heels.
“God-a-mighty, but I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring you all this way just to get you killed.”
“You needed a witness,” Nightingale whispered hoarsely.
“I fear I’ve lived to regret that.”
“My only regret is that I won’t live to see that varmint hang for this,” Nightingale said.
“I’ll see that he does,” Placido Geist said.
Nightingale shivered slightly as if with a chill.
Placido Geist rose to get a blanket from behind the saddle, but when he knelt down again, Nightingale was dead.
Given to self-examination but not vanity, Placido Geist reflected that he probably wasn’t at fault. On the other hand, the young constable would have lived longer had he stayed behind, and Placido Geist hadn’t discouraged his company. The old bounty hunter felt a rising anger in spite of himself. He’d led the boy into a trap.
The light was beginning to soften as the afternoon wore on. He dug a shallow grave a little way up the slope and buried Nightingale, hunting up enough stones of decent size to cover the body and keep it from being disturbed by scavengers, at least for the next few days. He put the personal effects in his saddlebags and led the mare back up the wash the way they’d come earlier.
He swung in a wide circle to the west before turning south again and stayed below the skyline until dusk, when the shadows grew long and purple. He meant to make up some lost time by traveling after dark and figured to cut sign at daybreak. He wasn’t going to let the sun set on Concho Jimmy Pringle again, not in this lifetime.
Concho Jimmy had slipped away well before the light faded. He counted himself lucky to have hit the horse, let alone the rider, at that range. It was too bad he hadn’t gotten both men, but if the other man kept coming, he’d have a chance to bushwhack him farther along.
After sundown he made a cold camp. A fire would only give him away. In this waste it might be seen for miles. He had no idea who was after him, but it made no difference. He knew he had enemies, and of course any one of Ketchum’s gang might have split on him in the shadow of the rope. The point was that somebody was dogging his trail, waiting for him to lead them to the promise of money. Concho Jimmy hadn’t spent twenty years of his life in prison to let that same promise slip through his fingers. He was too close now.
He studied on the problem. The way he saw it, there was a hard way and an easy one. The harder way was to go wide and backtrack, coming up behind the man on the ugly claybank horse and kill him if he could take him by surprise again. The reward was absolute, the outcome uncertain. The easy way was to let the pursuer come to him in the place of his own choosing. Jimmy thought that was better. And he knew such a place. With an early start he’d be there ahead of time.
He’d bedded down after moonrise, and when he woke at first light and shook the snake out of his boot, he’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep. Mounted again, he worked the kinks out of his back as he rode, quartering back and forth across country until he made out recent tracks. He pulled the horse up and got down. The hoofprints were widely spaced as if the rider were in a hurry. They led off south by southwest. Placido Geist climbed back on his horse and followed them, but taking it at a slower pace, wary of ambush.
Later that morning he came in sight of the cottonwoods. A sure sign of water in that arid country, the lonely stand of trees marked the edge of a creek coming down out of the mountains. The mare could already smell the water and shook her head impatiently. He dismounted and let the reins trail on the ground, patting the horse on the shoulder as he pulled his saddle gun and squatted down. The mare took a few steps and then stopped, unsure of herself. She wasn’t hobbled, she knew, but she expected at least to be led, if not ridden. She bobbed her head, the reins swinging. The only creature dumber than a cow was a horse in Placido Geist’s opinion, and a cow was some dumber than most. He felt around on the ground for a stone to chip at her, but the claybank seemed to realize his intention. She was willing enough to venture to water alone and she trotted forward tamely, if still puzzled by his behavior.