Kane turned toward Calavera. “Mictlanx’s doing?”

  The man swallowed hard, his dark complexion turning the hue of old ashes. “No, señor. Maruja is responsible for this. The bitch even signed her handiwork.”

  Squinting, Kane saw the corpse in the center had a hand-lettered sign apparently nailed to his groin. He couldn’t quite make out the words, since the medium used was blood, but Brigid intoned, “Muerte El Diableros.”

  “Death to the Diableros,” Grant said, releasing the brake.

  The Sandcat continued on, detouring around deep rifts in the ground. More trees filled the terrain, green and tall, with cool shadows stretching in between. The vehicle snapped off saplings and tore through underbrush as it entered the tree line.

  Grant drove into a clearing and stopped, turning off the engine. “Let’s stretch our legs a bit. The engine is getting thirsty, too.” He tapped the fuel gauge. The needle wavered only a hairbreadth above the E.

  The Cerberus warriors disembarked, Kane dragging Calavera out with him. Brigid broke out MREs and bottled water while Grant and Kane removed a jerrican filled with diesel fuel from the rear. The sun was hot, but in the shade the breeze was almost too cool for comfort.

  “Are you hungry?” Brigid asked Calavera.

  “Sí, I am. But—” He shrugged, to indicate his hands pinioned behind his back. “If you could cut me loose just long enough—”

  She smiled coldly. “I’ve been in this business a long time, Tuco. You can either let me feed you or you can go hungry.”

  The man’s black eyes glittered with momentary resentment, and then he nodded in resignation. “Feed me then, señora.”

  “It’s señorita,” she retorted, opening the package.

  “I thought you were the woman of the man Kane.”

  Brigid took out a small piece of dried meat, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “No.”

  “Grant, then?”

  “No. Do you want to eat or ask questions?”

  “I am just curious. It seems unusual for a woman as beauteous as you to be alone.”

  “I’m not paired off,” she said, a hard edge entering her tone. “That doesn’t make me alone. I’m part of a team.”

  Calavera opened his mouth to respond, and Brigid crammed the piece of meat into it, effectively silencing him. He chewed noisily, glaring at her from beneath grizzled brows. She repressed a smile.

  Normally, Brigid shied away from examining the bond she shared with Kane. On the surface, there was no bond, but they seemed linked to each other and had the same destiny. She recalled another name she had for Kane: anam-chara. In the ancient Gaelic tongue it meant “soul friend.”

  From the very first time they met, he was affected by the energy she radiated, a force intangible yet one that triggered a melancholy longing in his soul. That strange, sad longing only deepened after a bout of jump sickness both of them suffered during a mat-trans jump to Russia several years before. The main symptoms of jump sickness were vivid, almost-real hallucinations.

  She and Kane had shared the same hallucination, but both knew on a visceral, primal level it hadn’t been gateway-transit-triggered delirium, but a revelation that they were joined by chains of fate, their destinies linked.

  She concentrated on feeding Calavera and tried hard not to think about the message conveyed from the future Kane of some thirty years hence, regarding their relationship. She was glad she and Kane never discussed the issue at length. For all his fighting prowess—or maybe because of it, Brigid wasn’t sure—Kane thought first with his emotions. That was alien to everything Brigid Baptiste held dear.

  Still, there was no denying she, Grant and Kane had come a very long way in distances that could not be measured in mere miles from the day they had escaped from Cobaltville, some five years before. As veterans of the Magistrate Division, both Kane and Grant were accustomed to danger and hardship, but nothing like they and Brigid had exposed themselves to since their exile.

  Brigid occasionally wondered how Kane’s and Grant’s regimented, ville-bred minds had managed to adapt to all the new, and on the face of it, insane situations they had found themselves in over the past five years. But somehow she and his friends had not only adapted, but learned an entirely new set of superior skills.

  “Careful, Baptiste,” Kane said, walking around the Sandcat. “If he bites you, we don’t have a powerful enough antibiotic to save your hand.”

  Brigid sighed and placed the rim of a water bottle against Calavera’s lips. He drank greedily, but after three swallows, Kane reached over and pushed the bottle away.

  “Enough,” he said. “We’re not going to be making pit stops every five minutes. Besides, until we find some potable water, we’ll have to ration what we have.”

  “The Río Pánuco is nearby,” Calavera said. “We must cross it to reach our destination. The water is very clean.”

  “That must be because you’ve never bathed in it,” Kane remarked.

  “Can we knock off the asides about his hygiene?” Brigid asked exasperatedly.

  Kane ignored her as he recapped the water bottle. “How many people does this Maruja have working for her?” he asked.

  The Mexican shook his head. “No one really knows. She could work alone for all we know.”

  “One woman didn’t kill and hang those men up to dry,” Brigid said.

  Calavera gave her a searching stare. “You do not know Maruja. Pray you never do.”

  Kane uttered a scornful laugh. “You mean she’s worse than the leader of a gang of slave trackers who wears the cutoff ears of his victims as a fashion statement?”

  “I know little about her,” Calavera said. “I have only seen her a couple of times, and then from a distance.”

  Grant opened up the driver’s door of the Sandcat and announced, “Saddle up. We’re burning daylight.”

  They climbed aboard and continued on, driving deeper into the forest. Branches whipped at the sides of the Sandcat, dragging along the armored hull. The deep growl of the engine replaced the placid silence of the woods with an incessant roar. Birds flapped from their roosts, squawking in outrage.

  Looking between the trees, they saw the surface of the Panuco River winking in the late-afternoon sunlight. The rushing water foamed white around boulders, the current running swiftly southward. From bank to bank, the river spanned a hundred feet.

  Grant paralleled the river, keeping a line of trees between the Sandcat and the bank. When the bridge appeared at the last moment, he slammed on the brakes. The tracks kicked up showers of dirt and leaves. The rear end slewed a few feet to the right.

  The bridge looked to be in no condition to hold the weight of even one of them, much less that of the Sandcat. The main timbers were cracked and splintered, and the planks hung down crookedly, the ends only a few inches above the surface of the river.

  Grant hammered on the wheel in angry frustration with his fist. “Now what?”

  Calavera shifted in his seat. “There is a ford beyond that bend. If you are careful, you can get this machine across. That is where my men and I came over.”

  Grant peered forward toward the bend, then sighed. “All right. We’ll give it a try…not like we have much choice.”

  The Sandcat rolled past the bridge, following the course of the river upstream. After a couple of minutes, Calavera said, “Here, señor.”

  Grant braked and stared across the river. He saw a small strip of sand that followed the water’s edge on their side of the concourse. “I don’t know about this,” he said uncertainly.

  Kane opened the door, saying, “Let me take a look.”

  He walked carefully to the edge, noting that the river, although not particularly deep, flowed exceptionally fast. As Calavera said, he found the ford—a flat rock ledge projecting into the river, extending from bank to bank. He guessed it was the remnant of an old dam, made of concrete and crushed stone.

  As Kane turned to return to the Sandcat, he heard a woman scream.

  Chapter 17

  Kane edged onto the shelf of the rock, looking up and down the river.

  “Hey!” Grant shouted. “What’s going on?”

  “Hold on a second,” Kane called in response. “I heard something.”

  He waited, head cocked, listening, but he could not locate the source of the scream. Then he saw the woman clinging to a half-submerged tree that had toppled from the far bank. It hung down at a forty-five-degree angle in the roiling white water.

  Although she floundered less than two yards from the underwater ledge, she was up to her neck in the quick current. Her features were obscured by the long black hair plastered to her face, but she screamed again, “¡Ayuda! ¡Por favor! ¡Ayuda!”

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, Kane shouted, “Hang on!”

  The woman removed one hand from the tree trunk long enough to rake hair away from her face. She stared at him with big black eyes. Sounding half strangled, she called, “¡Intentaré hacer todo lo posible!”

  Coming up behind him, Brigid translated, “She said she’ll try her best.”

  Kane unleathered his pistol and handed it to Brigid. “Cover me, Baptiste.”

  She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “You think there’s something suspicious here?”

  “I don’t know.” Kane gave the opposite bank a swift visual appraisal. He saw nothing unusual in the dark green woods, but that could have been the main reason this spot was chosen for an ambush. “But let’s take no chances.”

  Kane stepped into the river, balancing himself on the stone ridge. The icy water drew a surprised curse from him. Almost immediately his feet, protected as they were by high jump boots, went numb. The current tugged at him, an invisible force working to dislodge his boot soles from the rock. The woman uttered a choked cry as her fingers slipped on the bark on the tree. Her black hair streamed around her shoulders. The face she turned toward him was full of despair.

  “Hang on!” he shouted.

  “¡Me temo que si! I can’t!”

  He realized that she replied first in Spanish, then in English. He said, “I’m going to reach out to you! Grab my hand.”

  Reaching a point directly opposite her, Kane planted his feet firmly and leaned forward as far as he dared, stretching out his left arm. The fingertips lacked only a few inches of touching the tree trunk. Spitting out water, the woman removed her right hand from the tree and lunged desperately for his hand. She missed.

  The woman lost her grip and screamed only once before the white current swept her away. Kane dived in after her, no longer considering the possibility of a trap. The chill current slammed him downstream in tumbled confusion. Blinking the water from his eyes, he saw the woman’s head bobbing in the foam.

  Stroking toward her, Kane managed to catch her hand, felt her fingers slip through his and caught at her again, grasping her wrist. This time her arms slid around him tightly, given strength by terror and panic.

  Her body pressed against his and they both went under, propelled in a headlong rush downriver. The current carried them around a bend, where the waterway narrowed. He felt their bodies whipped forward, pushed faster and faster. The current bumped and banged them against the irregularities of the bottom, rolling them over and over.

  He fought his way to the surface, coughing. Through water-occluded eyes, he glimpsed foam glistening white in the sunlight. He and the woman shot toward a stretch of white-water rapids, the river swirling and pouring around half-submerged boulders.

  Holding the woman tightly, Kane twisted his body to one side, kicking and flailing. Sputtering, he tried to check their catapult toward the rocks. The current pushed them against the opposite bank where the shallow water provided him with footholds. Tree limbs, like gnarled fingers, reached down toward the river. He pulled the woman up with him, hauling her bodily toward the tree. Using the branch and roots as handholds, they clambered their way up the muddy bank until they reached the top. They both sat down, gasping for breath.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, breathing hard.

  “Sí, I think so.” The woman hugged herself, shuddering violently. “Gracias. I did not think there was another person around for many miles.”

  A cool breeze bit clammily through his wet clothing, and Kane shivered. “What were you doing here?”

  “Trying to ford the river.” Her teeth chattered. Her English, although heavily accented, was understandable and melodious to the ear. “Foolish to try it alone, with the current running so fast.”

  Before he could ask her more, Brigid and Grant yelled at them from upstream.

  Kane stood up, shouting, “Over here!”

  Grant trotted into view, followed closely by Brigid. She paused and stared, hands on her hips, expression inscrutable. One of Grant’s rare grins showed white teeth beneath his mustache. “What is it with you anyway?”

  Kane ignored the query, assuming it was an oblique reference to the many times he ended up in the company of comely young women, regardless of the circumstances and setting. “Bring the Cat.”

  “Who is she?” Brigid asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Kane replied. He helped the shivering woman to her feet. “You’ll be all right in a minute. Who are you?”

  The woman dragged a tangle of wet hair away from her face. “My name is Maruja.”

  EVEN AS DISHEVELED as she was, Maruja was one of the loveliest women Kane had ever seen. Standing several inches over five feet tall, she had the blue-black hair, matte-tan complexion and deep brown eyes of a pureblooded Latina. Her brows were thick and naturally arched. Her white blouse hung half off her shoulders, and beneath it a dark green skirt, her body was long limbed, high waisted, full breasted and lithe. Her voice was throaty, her mouth seductive and full lipped. Silver-and-turquoise jewelry glittered at her wrists, fingers and throat.

  Her eyes searched Kane’s. “Is something wrong?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You seemed to recognize my name.”

  “No, it’s a lovely name,” he said inanely.

  Maruja smiled at him uncertainly. “I am grateful to you for saving my life. What are you called?”

  “Kane.”

  She nodded toward Grant and Brigid, who were returning to the Sandcat. “And your friends?”

  “Grant and Baptiste.”

  “There are not many norteamericanos in this region. I recognize all the others around here.”

  “How many are there here?”

  Maruja veiled her eyes with long, sweeping lashes. “Is that important?”

  Kane shrugged. “You never can tell.”

  “And why are you here?” She took a half step away from him. “Do you intend to join your countrymen?”

  “Do you know where I can find them?”

  Maruja hesitated before saying, “Perhaps. There are a few in El Rey.”

  “What were you doing out here by yourself?”

  “Collecting herbs—roots and such. I am a healer, a brujix. Do you know what that is?”

  Before Kane could craft a response, he heard the roar of the Sandcat’s engine upstream. “Why don’t we go to the ford. We can get dry, and you can have something warm to eat or drink.”

  The invitation won out over Maruja’s apprehension. They walked along the river’s edge. She shivered in the breeze and pushed aside a thick strand of black hair blowing across her cheek.

  “You’ll need to get out of those wet clothes,” Kane commented.

  She cast him a suspicious glance. “And what will I wear?”

  “I think Baptiste has a change of clothes you can borrow. If not, there are blankets.”

  “I have business to attend to in El Rey. I can’t travel through the forest and mountain passes in a blanket.”

  “You’ll have to until your clothes dry, unless you care to take your chances with pneumonia. If you get sick, we can’t take care of you.”

  Maruja’s eyes flashed with anger, but she made no reply. By the time they reached the ford, the breeze had strengthened, cold and raw, biting through Kane’s wet clothing so he shivered as much as Maruja.

  Crossing her arms over her breasts and vigorously rubbing her arms, Maruja said, “I will take you up on your offer, Señor Kane.”

  The aristocratic note in her voice made Maruja seem as if she granted him a favor. She lifted her skirt when she stepped over a log. She wore a pair of rope sandals on her feet. Her legs were long and firm. Her right had a slender-bladed dagger about six inches long strapped to the calf.

  He repressed a smile. Her attitude somewhat reminded him of the women of Sky Dog’s Lakota band who were the Cerberus redoubt’s nearest neighbors and most steadfast allies. He found himself liking Maruja already, partly because she seemed part of the same natural world as Sky Dog’s tribe.

  Reaching the ford, they waited until Grant drove the Sandcat across the river, the prow cleaving a path through the water. He steered the FAV up the bank, the treads finding secure purchase on the rocky ground.

  “So,” Maruja said. “It is just you and Grant and the woman you call Baptiste who travel inside that beast?”

  “Them,” Kane answered, “and our guide.”

  “Guide?”

  Offhandedly, Kane replied, “Just somebody we picked up about sixty miles back.”

  Maruja eyed him skeptically. “There’s not much to find sixty miles back—except an abandoned village.”

  Grant parked the Sandcat and turned off the engine. He and Brigid disembarked. “You both look miserable,” Brigid observed as she walked around the vehicle and opened up the rear hatch.

  From a metal chest in the cargo compartment, she took a thermal blanket, a khaki shirt and jeans. Maruja peered into the vehicle at the back of Tuco Calavera’s head, but if she recognized him, she gave no sign.

  Grant and Kane considerately turned their backs and waited while Maruja stripped out of her clothes and draped herself in the blanket. She and Brigid spoke in low tones. While the woman quickly donned the garments Brigid had offered, Grant asked quietly, “Did she give you a name?”