Once he was satisfied that there was only one woman in the house—MacCorkendale’s wife, he supposed—and only one hand working lazily in the barn, he backtracked himself.

  Far to the north and through binoculars, he watched Slocum and the others working on the fence. He couldn’t see Jorgé—Valdez had been particularly insistent about getting Jorgé—but finally he decided that he would find Jorgé later. He saw MacCorkendale and Slocum and Juan. Three out of four was not bad.

  He did not want to attack when there were so many of them. There were also a couple of other Anglos, probably from MacCorkendale’s ranch, and he had no idea how clever any of them were with a gun. He had been warned about Slocum, however, and Jorgé? Jorgé went without saying. He was not famous for nothing.

  He waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And finally, at long last, they stopped for the day.

  He decided to follow MacCorkendale first. He would be the easiest to pick off from a distance, anyway. He would take care of Slocum and Juan later. Perhaps he could follow them into town and shoot them in their sleep.

  Miguel Cordura was not a pistolero. He was more comfortable shooting from a distance or under the cover of darkness. He did not mind the killing, but let other men revel in the glory. He had known of too many men who had come to a bad end—and much too early in their careers—because they had gained fame with a gun.

  Fools.

  And so he trailed after MacCorkendale at a distance and to the north. He waited until they had gone about three-quarters of a mile before he rode up on a little breast of land, dismounted, and steadied himself and his gun with its telescopic sight on a large, flat rock.

  He took careful aim at MacCorkendale, the only man in a green shirt. He kept bobbing behind one of the other men, and Cordura cursed beneath his breath, wishing for a clean shot.

  And then, at last, he had it.

  He took careful aim, adjusted for wind and distance, and pulled the trigger.

  A moment later, he had the gratification of seeing MacCorkendale fall from the saddle, and his men abruptly go to his aid. MacCorkendale was not moving, so far as he could see.

  I am good, all right, he thought to himself and smiled.

  One down, three to go.

  In the firm knowledge that he was too far from them to be seen without an artificial aid or touched by anything less than his long-distance rifle, he leisurely packed away his gun sight and stand, stepped up on his horse again, and started slowly back the other way toward town.

  You know, he thought as he set out at a walk, so as not the raise any dust, Valdez would have saved himself a great deal of both time and money if he had simply assigned this task to me in the first place.

  He shook his head. Why did employers always think that outside help was better, when they had the best working right there, all along?

  Far to the south, Slocum galloped right past Cordura, neither seeing nor being seen. When he reached MacCorkendale, both Bill and Curly had their guns out and were pointing them in every conceivable direction, mostly his.

  He reined Concho down to a halt, said, “Hold up there, boys,” and stepped down to the ground. Before him lay MacCorkendale, who, at first, Slocum thought was dead. Blood covered his right arm and side, and Slocum went to him immediately.

  He was about to ask the men where he was hit, but it was apparent. A slug had torn into his upper arm and passed through to enter his side. He was losing a lot of blood, and it looked to Slocum as if the slug had penetrated his lung.

  To Bill, he said, “Ride to town. Get the doc. And hurry.”

  Then to Curly, he said, “Help me.”

  While Bill sped off to town, he and Curly managed to get a tourniquet around MacCorkendale arm, pack the wound in his side, and hoist him up and across his saddle. Slocum snugly tied him to the saddle with Curly’s rope.

  Slocum would have vastly preferred a travois, but there was no wood around, other than some scrawny brush here and there. They’d just have to travel slow and easy and try not to do MacCorkendale any more damage than had already been done.

  “Did you see where it came from?” Slocum asked as they started out, MacCorkendale on his horse between them.

  “Out there, somewhere,” answered Curly, pointing to the north. “He was a good ways out. Couldn’t see hide nor hair of the son of a bitch.”

  His tone, while bitter, was full of concern for MacCorkendale, who, in his semiconscious state, was coughing up blood.

  It was not a good sign.

  He looked over at Curly. “That horse Bill was ridin’. It fast?”

  “Yeah,” came Curly’s answer. “He won the last founder’s day race up in Bisbee, ol’ Flash did.”

  “Good.” Slocum stared at MacCorkendale. “Hope you’re right.”

  20

  Maria’s worst fears were confirmed when she saw Bill Thibedoux thunder past the cantina, leap off his horse, and pound on the doctor’s door. She knew he and Curly Ryan were to be out working with Slocum today.

  She threw down the dish towel in her hands and raced out through the crowded cantina and into the street. “Bill!” she called as she ran toward the doctor’s office. “Bill, what has happened?”

  By the time she reached him, Dr. Oaty had already answered the door and been filled in, and was just leaving to fetch his buggy.

  “Doc! Bill! Who is hurt? Is it Slocum?”

  Bill wheeled toward her, and she nearly ran into him. “It’s Mr. MacCorkendale, Maria. Somebody shot him, bad.”

  “And Slocum?”

  “He’s with Mr. MacCorkendale. Him and Curly are takin’ him back to the ranch.”

  “Bill, you must take a message to Slocum for me,” Maria began, and briefly described the man who had been in the cantina earlier, and who had finally left after he grew tired of her stalling.

  “Aw, shit!” Bill said, then quickly added, “Sorry, Miss Maria. But from what you say, I’ll bet anythin’ that that was Cordura. Miguel Cordura. He works for Valdez. He was an awful bad man in his day, and men that bad don’t change their stripes. Plus, Mr. MacCorkendale was shot from far off. That was Cordura’s speciality.”

  “And Señor Valdez would probably be angry enough to send him?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I reckon he would.”

  Just then Doc Oaty came flying around the corner in his buggy and hollered, “You comin’ or not, Bill?”

  Without a further word to Maria, Bill vaulted onto his gelding’s back and kicked him into a gallop, leaving her alone and standing in a billow of slowly drifting dust.

  Juan, trailing a string of horses, rode into town about a half hour later, and after depositing them at the livery, decided to go not to Conchita, and not to see Jorgé—who would probably be doing something with that crazy lady, Samantha—but to go to the cantina. Maria, he thought, should know why Slocum was delayed.

  And besides, he was thirsty.

  “Cerveza,” he announced to Diego, who was working the bar.

  Maria immediately came out from the kitchen, hurried down the length of the bar, and threw her arms around him.

  Startled, he hopped back and said, “Maria!”

  “Thank the Blessed Virgin you live, Juan!” she cried, and clasped her hands before her.

  “I am fine, Maria,” he said, still a little goggle-eyed. “It is someone from the MacCorkendale’s ranch that is not so well. That is what I have come to tell you.”

  She nodded quickly. “I talked to Bill. He came for the doctor. It is Señor MacCorkendale himself who is wounded. It is bad, Bill said.”

  “Madre de Dios,” Juan muttered, looking at the floor. “I am very sorry to hear this news. Señor MacCorkendale can be bullheaded, but he is a fine fence stringer.” He looked up and seemed to remember himself. “Slocum, Maria. That is what I have come to say. Slocum rode back when we heard the shot. I do not know where he is.”

  “Bill told me that he and Curly took Señor MacCorkendale back to his rancho.”

  “And no word of the pistolero who shot Señor MacCorkendale?”

  Maria filled him in with what details she knew—which weren’t many—and Juan nodded sagely. “I know of this Miguel Cordura. He is very bad, and a crack shot. At least, he still must be. I have not heard anything of him for many years now. Perhaps he has been hiding in the employ of Señor Valdez under a different name.”

  “Perhaps.” Maria excused herself and wandered back to the kitchen. She had a full house tonight, and the place was packed with diners and drinkers. But as she opened the kitchen door, she could hot help but worry about Slocum.

  Where had the pistolero, Miguel Cordura, gone? Was he, at this very moment, closing in on Slocum? What a coward he was, to shoot from so far!

  Or perhaps he had come into town again, to prey upon Juan and Jorgé. A shiver ran through her, and when Diego came back to fetch dinner plates, she whispered, “Tell Juan to be extra careful tonight. Tell him that Cordura may be in town.”

  And as Diego left, burdened by plates, she added, “And tell him to warn Jorgé and his woman, as well!”

  Jorgé, who couldn’t do much more than watch out the window, had seen Juan come into town. Alone.

  And he was getting more than a little nervous about it.

  “A problem, my love?” asked Samantha, looking up from her magazine.

  “Why?”

  “You growled.” She smiled at him.

  “Ah. Perhaps I did. For now, it is nothing, my dove. Do not worry your pretty head about it.”

  She gave a little shrug and said, “All right, honey.”

  If the truth were told, aside from her physical charms—which were great, indeed—what attracted Jorgé to her the most was, well, her stupidity.

  He valued that in a woman. He liked them silly and dense and self-absorbed and not at all in tune with the true ways of the world.

  And Samantha was that.

  He found her quite charming, although he knew that Slocum disagreed with him. Slocum liked smart women. Well, in that way, Jorgé thought that Slocum was a fool. Women should know nothing of men’s business. They should be content to cook and clean and spread their dimpled knees, and be happy about it.

  “Honey?” she asked.

  “What, my dove?”

  “You want I should go across the street and ask them to send over some supper?” She set aside her magazine. “Or do you feel like walkin’ over there?”

  “Yes,” he said. “To the first. Have them send us some supper, and have them send champagne, too. We will dine in luxury tonight.”

  Samantha giggled and came to him, her hand out for money. She asked, “You want your regular?”

  Miguel Cordura had been in town for several hours. He knew which room Jorgé was in, and that he was with a woman. He’d watched Juan’s entrance into Jaguar Hole, as well, and his journey to the cantina.

  Two prairie fowl, ripe for the plucking.

  He had tethered his horse in a patch of shade behind him, out back of the mercantile, and currently sat in the shadowy mouth of an alley, just two doors down from Cantina Lopez. Juan had walked right past him.

  But Cordura was thinking, not shooting, for the time being. If he could find a way to get the two of them together—Juan and Jorgé—it would make things much simpler. Simpler targets, simpler escape.

  There would be no time between shootings for the town to get itself aroused and riled up, for overly brave shop-keepers to arm themselves and make more people for him to shoot.

  Not that he minded, but he was only being paid for Slocum, MacCorkendale, Juan, and Jorgé. And ammunition was expensive.

  It felt good to kill again, to do what he was born to do. He had been retired—against his will—for almost ten years, now, ten years he had spent in the employ of Señor Valdez. He did not know why Valdez had not just sent him out after MacCorkendale in the first place, unless Valdez, who knew of his past, was trying to protect him.

  No, it would not be that, he decided. That was too thoughtful to expect from a man like Valdez.

  It was probably because Valdez did not trust his skills, thought Cordura had grown lazy or rusty or lost his gift of marksmanship.

  Despite himself, he smiled, there in the shadows. To think that a man such as he would ever lose his skills with a rifle or a gun! Just because a man might go for years without riding a horse, did that make him a beginner once he was mounted again?

  Of course not!

  Jorgé’s gringa woman came out of the hotel, and Cordura watched as she crossed the street. The great Jorgé Rodriguez would be alone, now. Cordura could shoot him now, through his window.

  But that still left the problem of Juan. He thought for a moment, decided to take his chances with a town massacre, and stepped out into the street.

  But not far. He leapt back, for Juan had exited the cantina and was going across to the hotel!

  Cordura sat down again. It would be wonderful luck if he went to visit Jorgé, would it not?

  He watched carefully as Juan entered the building, and then he switched his line of vision up to Jorgé’s window. He would wait and see.

  Jorgé looked up at the sound of a knock on the door. “Samantha?” he called. “Back so soon?”

  But the voice from outside was definitely not Samantha’s.

  “Jorgé, we must talk!”

  “Come in then, Juan.”

  When Juan shut the door behind him, Jorgé saw fear on his face. “What is it, amigo?”

  “Someone shot Señor MacCorkendale. From far off. Slocum has gone to help take him to his rancho, and I think maybe the one who did it is Miguel Cordura. And I would get back from that window if I were you, Señor Rodriguez.”

  Jorgé immediately scooted away from the open window. “When did all this happen, Juan?”

  “Just now. In the last hour, maybe, more or less.”

  “Where’d Cordura come from? I thought he died years ago!”

  Juan shook his head. “No, no, Señor Rodriguez! He has worked for Señor Valdez for many years, now. You do not remember Miguelito, from the rancho?”

  Jorgé did remember him. That lazy oaf, always finding somewhere else to be when there was hard work to be done, that had been Miguel Cordura? He had never met the man before, only heard his reputation. They said that in his day, he could shoot the eyes from a fly at two hundred yards.

  He had owned a fabled rifle, especially built for him, with a telescopic sight and a metal stand to hold it steady. Jorgé had seen Miguelito with a rifle, but never one that special. Perhaps it came apart, the stand and the telescope, to just leave the rifle? He did not know. He knew only that this meant trouble.

  Valdez would not be stopped.

  “Juan, why, when Señor Valdez had Miguel Cordura working for him all along, would he bother himself to find me?”

  Juan shook his head. “Maybe he thinks Cordura is no good anymore?”

  “Maybe,” said Juan.

  Cordura would have to be in his late fifties or early sixties. Most men lost their taste for killing before that age.

  Either that, or they, themselves, were killed.

  Jorgé leaned forward to get his crutch. And in that split second, the window exploded and the force of a slug pushed him sideways, sprawling, chair and all, onto the floor.

  Almost before he had time to register that he had been hit, Juan came scurrying toward him, and he heard himself shout, “Get down!” even as another shot rang out. Juan stood for a second, frozen in shock, and then toppled to the floor.

  Jorgé reached for him with his good arm, fingers creeping across the floor to the man’s shoulder. “Juan!” he hissed. “Juanito!”

  Juan did not move.

  Jorgé heard the pounding of hoofbeats galloping away, fading into the distance, and knew there was nothing that could be done to catch the shooter. Not now, anyway. And then he heard Samantha down on the street, crying, “Jorgé!” and the sound of her little shoes running toward the hotel from across the way.

  Moments later she pushed open the door, took one look inside the room, and began to scream.

  21

  Slocum and Helga sat stiffly in the parlor while Dr. Oaty worked upstairs on Ralph MacCorkendale.

  MacCorkendale had come to about ten minutes out from the house and had hollered so much that he made himself pass out again. It was just as well, Slocum figured. Now was a real good time for him to be unconscious.

  He didn’t know exactly what the doc was doing to Ralph, but he was certain that it had to hurt like hell. Ralph had been busted up pretty bad, and the doc said he was going to have to set his arm and dig a slug out of his lung.

  Everybody Slocum had known before who had suffered a shot to the lung had died.

  He didn’t mention this to Helga, though. She sat on the opposite side of the room like a statue, her head turned from him. Still, he could see the silent tears falling slowly down her cheeks.

  She did care for Ralph, after all, he realized with some surprise. Then what the hell had been going on with that kiss the other morning?

  Now wasn’t the time to ask, though. And truth be told, he’d rather not know. So he just sat there.

  Until he and Helga both jerked toward the sounds of something metal hitting the floor above, and then Ralph’s curses.

  Slocum started to stand up while the battle upstairs escalated, but Helga motioned him down again and quickly hurried from the room and up the steps. Slocum quietly followed her but stopped in the foyer and watched her go along the open upstairs hall to the master bedroom.

  The hollering stopped the moment she opened the door. Which probably left Doc Oaty fairly relieved, as just prior to that, MacCorkendale had been threatening to castrate him with a rusty pocket knife.

  Or at least, that’s what it sounded like to Slocum. It was a little hard to tell with all the intermingled curses and yelps of pain, and the barking “Shut up, Ralph!”s from the doc.