“Go ahead and mount up,” Longarm told Coffin. “If they’ve been watching us, they’ll know that we were just resting the horses. So it won’t be anything unusual if we start riding again.”
“You don’t want ‘em to know that we’ve seen ‘em,” said Coffin.
“That’s the idea.” Longarm pointed into the distance ahead of them. “I think those two ranges run together somewhere up yonder, and if they do, there might be a place there we could fort up if need be.”
Coffin nodded grimly. “Good idea. Them Yaquis come after us, they’ll think they’ve grabbed aholt of a two-headed rattlesnake.” He sounded almost as if he hoped that would come about.
Longarm certainly didn’t share that opinion. He wasn’t confident that he and Coffin could fight off an attack by the Indians, and if they were killed, that would leave no one to rescue Sonia Guiterrez from El Aguila.
Of course, Sonia might be dead already, he reminded himself bluntly. But they hadn’t found her body anywhere along the trail, nor any fresh graves—as if outlaws like the ones they were pursuing would take the time to bury one of their victims—so Longarm was inclined to think that Sonia was still alive. A little the worse for wear maybe, but alive nonetheless.
He and Coffin swung up into their saddles and put the horses into a trot. There was a part of Longarm that wanted to urge the bay into a gallop, a mad dash for some hoped-for place of safety, but he suppressed that impulse. Better to take it slow and easy and see what happened.
Less than a half hour later, what happened was that the Yaquis rode down out of the hills and started angling toward them. “Shoot!” exclaimed Coffin. “They’re comin’, Long.”
“I see them,” said Longarm. “Remember earlier, Coffin, when you were wanting to ride like hell?”“Yeah?”“Do it now!”
Longarm jabbed his heels into the bay’s flanks and sent the mare leaping forward. There was no longer any point in trying to make the Yaquis think they hadn’t been spotted. If Longarm and Coffin had any hope for survival, it lay in the speed of their horses—and pure luck.
Both men leaned over the necks of their mounts and urged them on. Longarm kept a close eye on the ground in front of him, watching for anything that might cause a misstep or a stumble by the mare. A fall would be disastrous right now. But he was unable to keep from glancing to the west, where the Yaquis were also riding hard now, trying to intercept the two lawmen. The Indian ponies, bred for riding in the mountains, were surefooted, but they were also short-legged and not overly blessed with speed. That was another cause for hope. A slim hope, to be sure, but any was better than none.
Gradually, Longarm’s horse drew ahead of Coffin’s. Neither man was a lightweight, but Coffin was bigger and heavier. Longarm glanced back, and saw the grim expression on the Ranger’s face.
If it came down to brass tacks, Longarm wondered, would he leave Coffin behind? Even if only one of them survived, Sonia Guiterrez would still have a chance. But could Longarm abandon a fellow lawman?
He hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to make that choice.
A glance to the right and left showed him that the hills were definitely closer on both sides now. He had no idea what the terrain would be like where the two ranges came together. The hills might even form a box canyon, in which case Longarm and Coffin were riding into a trap from which there would be no escape. But out here on the flat there was no place that could be defended from the Yaquis, so they didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
Longarm saw a dark line on the horizon ahead of him. That had to be where the hills joined, he thought. But it was still a couple of miles away, and the Yaquis were only a few hundred yards off to the right and closing quickly.
“Run, damn it, run!” Coffin bellowed at the steel-dust as he lashed at the horse with the reins. The steel-dust responded, drawing almost even with Longarm’s bay once more.
Longarm checked the position of the Yaquis, then shouted over the thunder of the hoofbeats, “They can’t cut us off! They’re going to have to run us down from behind!”
“I can see the hills!” Coffin called back, lifting an arm to point.
Longarm just nodded and didn’t waste any more breath on talk.
Those two miles seemed to take forever to cover. As Longarm had predicted, he and Coffin swept out ahead of the Yaquis, who fell in behind them. Longarm thought he heard the distant cracking of rifles, but he didn’t look back. It was almost impossible to hit anything by shooting from the back of a running horse. If one of the bullets fired by the Yaquis found him or Coffin, then the hand of Fate would be guiding it, and there was no use arguing with Fate.
None of the bullets came close enough for the two lawmen to hear their passage through the air. Longarm kept his gaze fastened on the line of hills in front of them, which he could plainly see now. As they drew closer still, he began to be able to make out a cluster of boulders scattered along the line where the hills rose from the plain. Longarm’s heart thudded a little more heavily. He and Coffin could fort up in those rocks and hold off the Yaquis until their ammunition ran out. With any luck, the Indians would give up before then.
“Head for those rocks!” Coffin shouted unnecessarily at him. Longarm was already riding as hard as he could toward the boulders.
He looked back again. The Yaquis were still a couple of hundred yards behind. The stubby ponies hadn’t been able to close the gap any more than that.
“Come on, come on,” Longarm said under his breath to the bay, and the mare gave it her all. Hooves thudding against the hard ground, she ran between two of the big rocks, followed closely by the steel-dust carrying Coffin.
Longarm reined in, bringing the bay to a sliding halt. He was out of the saddle instantly, pulling the Winchester from its saddle boot with him. A few yards away, Coffin was flinging himself off the steel-dust, and his Winchester was in his hands too. Without taking the time to tie the horses to any of the scrubby brush that grew between the boulders, Longarm and Coffin crouched behind the rocks and leveled their rifles at the Yaquis. Both Winchesters cracked almost simultaneously.
A couple of the Indians went spinning off the colorful blankets they used instead of saddles. As the echoes of the shots died away, Longarm heard outraged cries from the other Yaquis. The war party abruptly split up, some of the riders veering to the right, some to the left, and the rest coming straight on.
“Damn and blast,” muttered Coffin. “Somebody’s been teachin’ those redskins army tactics.”
“They knew ‘em before the army ever did,” said Longarm as he levered another shell into the firing chamber of the Winchester. “The Comanches were the best light cavalrymen that ever sat a horse, and these Yaquis ain’t bad either, though they do most of their fighting on foot whenever they can. Best get ready on your side, Coffin, they’re going to try to flank us!”
“I know it, I know it,” Coffin said as he turned to his left to cover the slopes of the hills in that direction. “But what about those ol’ boys in the middle?”
That was the problem, all right, Longarm thought. Maybe he and Coffin could prevent any of the Yaquis from getting behind them—maybe. But if they did that, they would be overrun by the ones coming straight toward them. On the other hand, if they concentrated their fire on the Yaquis charging straight ahead, the flanking parties would sweep around them and catch them in a deadly cross fire. Two men couldn’t fight off an attack coming from three directions—it was as simple as that. If they’d only had a third man ... “Who the hell’s that?”
Longarm glanced at Coffin, and saw that the Ranger was staring back in the direction they had come from. Longarm looked that way too, and as he did, he heard the crackle of gunfire. Peering past the attacking Yaquis, Longarm suddenly spotted a tall figure on a black horse. The stranger was racing up behind the Yaquis, taking them by surprise, and guiding his mount with his knees as he filled his hands with a pair of revolvers and opened fire. Lead slashed into the Yaquis from this unexpected direction, dropping several of them and making the others cry out in rage and frustration.