Meech started to decline, then checked himself. "I don't mind a little wine with supper," he said. "Good for the digestion, I hear. It's the strong stuff that's ruined many a good man. 'In vino demitasse.' That means 'even a half a glass can start you down the road to ruin.'"
The guest had washed in the basin Eggleston furnished and combed a few strands of gray hair across his head. Attacking the ragout, he finished before Drumm had taken more than a few spoonfuls. In response to a nod from his master, the valet served Meech again.
"Being out on a job always gives me a keen appetite," Meech admitted, wiping his plate clean with a biscuit the valet had baked in a tin reflector oven. Eggleston brought brandy and more cigars and the two sat finally in folding camp chairs, boots cocked on a convenient rock, watching the mantle of night suddenly prickle with stars. Swallows darted about, chasing insects, and along the river sounded a cacophony of yelps.
"What's that?" Meech asked, starting.
"Coyotes," Jack Drumm explained. "Canis latrans."
"I heard 'em before," Meech said, "but wasn't certain what they was."
Drumm poured him more brandy. "I say," he said, "you haven't been out here very long, have you? I mean—coyotes are all around this part of the country."
"No," Meech admitted. "I'm a city man—Philadelphia—and unaccustomed to the wilds. To tell you the truth, I figure I cut a ridiculous figure on a horse, but a man's got to go wherever his job takes him."
Drumm scratched his chin. In the morning he would require the attentions of Eggleston with basin and razor before they resumed their journey to Prescott—and home.
"My man and I," he explained, "are in the final stages of a trip around the world. Italy, Turkey, ancient Egypt, the Arab kingdoms—India, Singapore, Japan, and across the Pacific to your San Francisco, with a small side trip into the Arizona Territory, which I now regret. But you, sir, spoke of a job that requires you to visit this inhospitable place. I don't mean to pry, but—"
Meech spilled some brandy and cursed under his breath. Squinting, he attempted to focus on the lamplit countenance of his host. "Yes, I am indeed out on a job. No harm, I guess, in speaking in general terms to a pleasant gentleman like you, Mr. Drumm, though the exash—the exact nature of my mission is confidential." He winked heavily, a maneuver of such magnitude that his eye almost disappeared under the thatch of eyebrow. "I'm a Pinkerton."
"Pinkerton?"
Meech put a finger to his lips.
"Not so loud!"
Jack Drumm started to pour himself another brandy but the bottle was empty.
"It's just that I didn't know what a Pinkerton was—or is," he apologized.
Meech sprawled in his chair and lit a fresh puro. "I'm a private detective—trusted employee of the famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency. You've heard of them!"
"Can't say as I have—no."
"Catch faithless husbands 'in fragrant delicto,' nab embezzlers, put the cuffs on white slavers and dope fiends—anything that comes to hand."
"But whatever are you doing out here?"
Meech leered. "No, you don't!"
"Don't what, pray?"
"Don't get me to reveal no secrets! All I can tell you is that I'm on the track of a dangerous crin—crin—criminal. A miscreant that'd just as soon shoot you as look at you!"
"But surely there are police of some sort out here! I mean—in England we have Scotland Yard and local constables and—"
"No law out here—no law at all, except maybe the Army, and they don't concern themselves with civilian offenses! Thash—that's probably why the accused fled to the Territory. But they didn't take me into account! No, sir—Alonzo Meech don't never give up the trail!" The detective got to his feet and attempted a bow. "I got to thank you, Mr. Drumm, for your hosh—your hosh—" He abandoned the word, saying instead, "Good grub! Good company!"
Teetering, Meech walked toward his bedroll and fell soggily into a reed-bordered pool. Eggleston helped him to his feet and wiped him off. A moment later the detective was snoring an obbligato to the melodies of frogs half buried in the mud of the river.
"Thank you, Eggie." Drumm smiled. "Very good of you."
The valet finished washing the last of the dishes and pans and dried his hands.
"I've laid out your nightshirt and slippers, sir. Will there be anything else?"
Drumm yawned. "Nothing, Eggie. Turn in yourself, get a good night's sleep. It's a long way to Prescott."
Chapter Two
In spite of his growing annoyance with the Arizona Territory, Jack Drumm drowsed easily off, sleeping the sleep of the righteous Englishman. Sometime near dawn, to judge from the pallor of the eastern sky, he awoke. For a time he lay on his cot, listening to night sounds; the canvas of the tent rustling in a breeze, far-off clamor of coyotes on the hunt, an occasional ker-chonk from a frog in the ooze of the almost-vanished Agua Fria. To judge from their snores, Eggleston and the detective slept well in their blanket rolls on open ground. The mules, however, seemed restless. They snuffled, broke wind, moved about against the restraint of the ropes holding them to the picket line.
Yawning and scratching, Drumm padded to the door in slippers and nightshirt. A setting moon swam low in scattered clouds. The coolness of the air was laced with a faint perfume, probably from some desert plant. He was pondering this, trying to remember what the Traveler's Guide said about aromatic desert flora, when one of the mules, ghostly in the dawn, gave a strange whickering sound and pulled hard to the end of its rope. The rest quickly took up the odd behavior. Suddenly one burst into a chilling bray.
At first he felt, rather than saw, the intruders. Then, as his gaze sharpened, he saw the Indians slipping about the camp. One cut the picket line with a knife that flashed like quicksilver in the waning moonlight. Another rummaged through the piled packs. A third crouched over Alonzo Meech's recumbent form. Meech rose on an elbow, reaching for the Colt's revolver that lay beside him, but the Indian stepped on his wrist and brandished a hatchet.
"Stop!" Drumm called. "Halt! Eggie, where are you? Halloo the camp!"
He snatched up the fowling piece, providentially just inside the tent door, and fired as the hatchet started to descend. Howling, the savage sprang into the air, clutching an arm. Meech quickly rolled from his blankets, catching his assailant about the ankles, and caromed with him into the embers of the fire.
Though the light was not good, Drumm could see at least a dozen of the bowlegged little men dashing purposefully about the camp. Two had attacked Eggleston; one pinioned the valet from behind while the other raised a ribboned lance. Drumm fired a quick shot from the other barrel. The man with the lance dropped to his knees, holding his stomach. Just as Drumm squeezed off the shot, arms clasped him from behind; a blow on his wrist knocked the fowling piece to the ground.
Wresting free from his remaining captor, Eggleston managed to draw a pistol and discharge it into the man's face, pulling the trigger so rapidly that the several shots sounded almost as one.
"I'm coming, Mr. Jack!" he shouted. "Hold on!"
Drumm had a few wrestling tricks, learned on his passage through Persia; the Persians were great wrestlers. Dropping to his knees, he reached back to catch his assailant's ankles, and pulled hard. The Indian went over backward, breath whooshing out of him in a gasp as he landed on his back. Alonzo Meech, clothes laced with sparks from the fire he had rolled into, struck Drumm's captor over the head with the butt of his revolver. The blow glanced off; the Indian ran away toward the mules.