“That’s a shame,” Holden said.

  “Shame for me. Shame on the Army. They missed a top soldier when they turned me loose.”

  “Where’s Foster?” Holden had grown tired of this silly game.

  “He left,” the boy answered matter-of-factly. “But he left me behind to take care of you gents. You are from the fort, ain’t you? I mean”—he hooked his thumbs on the gunbelt and slouched a little—“I’d hate to kill you fellas for nothin’.”

  “I think,” Holden said, “you know who we are.”

  “Well”—the boy grinned—“I’ll tell you what. I want to make this fair and give all three of you a chance. So here’s the way I’m going to do this. I’ll take you all, but one at a time. That way, you got three whole chances to shoot me dead. But I need to warn you, I saw your capt’n, that great Mr. Foster, gun down a top gun just today. Golly. Wow. Land sake’s that happened not long ago at all. It was something to see. That Capt’n Foster, he’s a right fair hand with a six-shooter. He’s almost as good as me.”

  “Three?” Holden had to try not to roll his eyes. “You’re going to challenge us to . . . duels . . . one at a time?”

  The boy’s eyes gleamed. “That’s right.”

  “How many,” Sam Florence asked, “dime novels have you read, youngster?”

  Those young eyes turned still, deadly and serious. The kid stepped back and turned a bit so that he faced Sam Florence more directly.

  “You’re makin’ fun of me.”

  “You’re wastin’ my time, punk,” Florence said.

  The kid stiffened. “Well, I’ll tell you what, old man. You’re a rude sourpuss. That’s what you are. So I’m going to give you first crack at me. You got that. You get to try first.” The boy laughed. “You get to die first.”

  “Sam . . .” Holden started.

  But the old scout shook his head. He kept his eye on the boy. “You’ll give me time to swing down off my pinto?”

  “Of course,” the boy said. “I saw how Capt’n Foster done it. He was a real pro. A gentleman. He gave that old hoss in the gray uniform a fair chance. And sent him to hell with one shot that blew the biggest hole in the man’s middle that I ever did see.”

  “Thanks, son,” Sam Florence said. “You’re a chip off the ol’ block that was Captain Jed Foster.”

  Florence casually dismounted, keeping the horse between him and the punk with the crazy eyes and the holster tied down on his right thigh.

  But when the old scout stepped around the pinto, he had his revolver in his right hand, and the hammer was cocked, and falling.

  The boy with the blond hair screamed, and his hand bolted down toward his holstered Colt, but long before it even neared the ivory handle, the kid was falling back, a bullet in the center of his chest.

  The punk fell onto the street, his eyes staring at the sky, his mouth locked in that eternal scream.

  “Good God, Sam,” Ben Masterson said. “You didn’t give that boy a chance at all.”

  “Hell, no,” Sam Florence said. “I’m too old to be playin’ kid’s games.”

  He did not even look at the dead punk as he strode to The Cantina That Has No Name. He stopped in the doorway, looked inside, and bellowed, “Where’s Soledad?”

  Someone must have answered because Florence turned, whipped off his hat, and slapped it against the hitching rail.

  “Damn,” he snapped. “She’s gone off. To Amonte Negro.”

  “Who?” Holden asked.

  “Soledad Tadeo. The person who can take you two to The Canyon of The Sorrows.”

  Ben Masterson was about to swing down from his horse, but he stopped and shot Grat Holden a curious look.

  Holden looked away from Masterson and across the narrow street at Florence.

  “Sam, did you say . . . she?”

  CHAPTER 58

  Three of Amonte Negro’s men stepped out of the shadows as Soledad Tadeo rode the entrance of the box canyon where the revolutionary hid out. Irritated, she pulled her horse to a stop, and let the men look her over, up and down, and get their eyes full.

  “I am here,” she told them, “to see Negro.”

  “He is busy,” the fat one said.

  Beyond the three sentries, Tadeo could hear the laughter, and by her ears Amonte Negro was howling the loudest and the hardest.

  “Busy?” Tadeo looked at the fat monkey. “Busy doing what?”

  The answer came from within the canyon. A gunshot roared, so loud even from that distance it caused her horse to buck and kick out. She had to pull the reins tight, and the scream that followed, loud enough to pierce her ears, caused the buckskin mare to jump around and kick out twice before she managed to get it back under control.

  She lowered her eyes and glared at the fat man. He shrugged.

  She was about to say something when the second gunshot roared, followed by another agonizing scream, but she was ready for the horse’s reaction, and she kept the mare from bolting. It snorted, shook its head, and stamped one forefoot, but Soledad Tadeo leaned over and rubbed his neck.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered.

  The painful shrieks had faded, and she thought she heard whimpering instead.

  “I am going,” she told the fat man, “to see Amonte Negro.”

  When the middle-sized one started to swing the carbine off his shoulder, she barked at him, “Do not act like the fool you are, Ricardo.”

  The man stopped, and Soledad Tadeo rode easily past them and into the camp of Amonte Negro.

  * * *

  She rode the horse into the center of camp, but she did not dismount. Reining up, she watched in disgust as Amonte Negro fumbled to shove a shiny cartridge into a heavy rifle. The man stopped long enough to wipe sweat off his dirty brow and take a slug from a stoneware jug by his feet. Finally, he managed to close the breech to the big gun and staggered to his feet. He weaved toward a man staked spread-eagled in the center of the camp. The man twisted and turned as much as the leather straps and stakes would let him, writing in agony. Both of his knees were nothing but a horrible, bloody mess.

  Amonte Negro was too drunk to notice Soledad Tadeo. He staggered, having to use the butt of the big rifle to keep from falling down, and eventually made it to the man who was being tortured.

  In Spanish, he called out, “Where do you hide your silver, my friend? Tell poor Amonte Negro this and you will suffer no more.”

  She could not recognize the man, but he was dressed not like a peasant or peon but a man of some means. The barrel of the heavy rifle came down until it rested in the crook of the man’s right arm.

  “You no longer can walk, my friend,” Amonte Negro said. “Do you no longer wish to write, too? Or be able to raise a glass of wine to your lips? Or enjoy the feel of a woman in your arms?”

  The man sobbed. Negro braced the heavy rifle and pulled the trigger.

  The man wailed, and mercifully, passed out.

  “Here.” Negro brought the smoking rifle up and tossed it to one of his men. “You reload this son of a bitch. It is too hard to do.”

  The young revolutionary walked to the fire and began fumbling with the breech of the new weapon.

  Suddenly aware of Soledad Tadeo’s presence, Amonte Negro turned. The sight of the girl on the horse caused him to step back, and he almost tripped over the grievously wounded man behind him. Alas, he did not fall. He was so drunk, Soledad Tadeo had her doubts that he would be able to rise.

  “Blessed be the saints,” Negro said, “it is the loveliest angel of Rancho Los Cielos. Have you traveled all this way to see me?”

  “I thought,” she said, “you might be able to help me. I thought I might be able to help you.”

  He grinned. “You can help me—”

  “Shut your mouth, pig. Or lose your tongue.”

  The bandit—for that was what Amonte Negro was, nothing more—tensed. Anger crossed his face, and his eyes lost much of their drunkenness to reveal those thoughts of revenge, for no one should insult a revolutionary.

  Revolutionary. Patriot. Soledad Tadeo spit. This man was no Juarez. This man was no savior. This man was a louse.

  While the drunk tried to think of something to say or something to do, Tadeo pointed at the man being tortured.

  “You make a man suffer so you can fill your pockets with his money!”

  Negro shook his massive head. “No, no, no. I do this because we need money”—he pointed at the fool trying to reload the big rifle—“for guns . . . for guns. Guns we need to take Mexico City back for the people. Our people. Guns we need—”

  “Guns. Gringo guns stolen by a thief no better than you. We would have followed you with hoes and rakes and spoons. And you would be robbing us. Making us suffer as that poor nobleman.”

  “He does not suffer, my lovely little dancer.” Negro pulled a pistol from his pants, cocked the hammer, turned, and put a bullet into the unconscious man’s forehead. He looked back at Soledad Tadeo and grinned. “He suffers no more.”

  “Your suffering,” she told him, “will begin soon.”

  And she spurred her horse out of the canyon and rode back to Rancho Los Cielos.

  CHAPTER 59

  When she saw the pinto tethered to the hitching rail in front of La Cantina Que No Tiene Nombre, Soledad Tadeo pulled her horse up short. Her left hand let go of a rein, which she draped over the horse’s neck, and brought her hand to her nose and cheek. The bruise smarted. She hated the man who put it there. She hated the man she had once admired even worse. She did not want the old gringo to see her face. Yet he was not in The Cantina That Has No Name. He called out from the shadows behind Mariscos.

  Soledad Tadeo turned the horse. She watched as the Yanqui named Sam Florence stepped into the street and stopped. She nudged the horse toward the old scout and reined in, keeping a good bit of distance between her and Florence, and keeping one side of her face in the darkness, out of his view.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked in Spanish.

  “When I thought of you,” he replied in English. “Did you miss me?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. If I thought of you.”

  He smiled, and his gentle smile made her relax so that she almost forgot about Amonte Negro and a gringo dog named Foster.

  “How is your boy?” he asked. “Your patriot? The man you just visited?”

  She spit. The bartender in The Cantina That Has No Name one day would learn to keep his mouth closed and his tongue from wagging so much. Or one day she would cut out his tongue and sew his mouth shut.

  “Amonte Negro is no patriot,” she hissed in Spanish.

  “I’m glad you finally see him for what he is, which is—”

  “We have never discussed politics, old man,” she warned him. “We should not break that treaty now.”

  He nodded and pointed at the corral, now empty except for dung and tracks.

  “You’ve met the man with the rifles.”

  She shrugged.

  “He’s taking them to El Cañon de Los Dolores. To sell.”

  She just stared.

  “You know the way. I could find it. But . . .” He sighed and spit. “Well, men sometimes find foolish reasons to prevent them from doing their duty. Something about personal honor.”

  Soledad frowned. He made no sense. Had he been drinking the swill the patron served in Mariscos? He did not look drunk.

  “You know the way there.”

  “What makes you think that?” she asked.

  “You told me. Twice.”

  She paused to reflect, and then she laughed. That hurt her nose and her bruised cheek.

  “I have a big mouth.”

  “It’s a pretty mouth.”

  She frowned again. It wasn’t so pretty if the old scout from the United States came much closer.

  “I have come to ask you a favor. A big favor.” He gestured inside the open doorway to Mariscos. “Two men are inside. Yes, they are gringos. But they have come here to stop a bloody war. They have come to get the guns that were there”—he gestured at the empty corral—“and take them back across the border.”

  She had to lean forward and stare, just to make sure the old man was not drunk.

  She asked, “Two . . . men? Two?”

  He held up two fingers. “Dos,” he said, and shrugged. “The soldados norteamericanos have strange reasons.”

  “Two men,” she told him, speaking English, “could not take those rifles away from the gringo called Foster.”

  “I believe you are right,” Florence said. “But two men might be able to destroy those weapons. Keep them out of the hands of... Amonte Negro . . . maybe the Apaches . . . possibly, probably, even the bandit in gray, the man who left after the troubles between the norteamericanos.”

  “What you ask, is for me to lead two gringos to their deaths.” She spit again. “El Cañon de Los Dolores.” She turned to English. “The Canyon of The Sorrows shall live up to its name.”

  His voice turned firmer, stronger. “Understand this, Soledad. All you’re to do is get them to the canyon. Then all you do is get the hell away from there. What happens will be none of your concern.”

  “Why do you not go with these gringos?”

  “I owe Jed Foster,” he said.

  “That much?” she asked.

  The old man did not answer.

  “If I do this,” she said after a long moment to think. “If I take those fool gringos to El Cañon de Los Dolores, and if they manage to destroy the weapons Jed Foster has brought to my country . . . this will hurt the gringo pig?”

  Sam Florence cocked his head and those keen eyes locked on Soledad. She turned her head to make sure the scout could not see the features on that side of her face.

  “It’ll hurt him,” he said. “Badly.”

  She swung out of the saddle. “I will speak to the two gringos,” she said, but she pointed at the scout. “But I will speak to them . . . alone.”

  CHAPTER 60

  The woman had a wicked bruise across one cheekbone, her lips were swollen, and there were traces of blood in both nostrils. That said, Grat Holden could not think of a woman more beautiful than the one who marched into Mariscos like she owned the place, barked at the bartender in rapid-fire Spanish until he was high-tailing it through the front door.

  She stared long and hard at Holden, studied Ben Masterson just as thoroughly, and then walked behind the bar, where she found a bottle of tequila and a clean glass. These she set on the bar. She poured a drink, smelled it, tasted it, then downed it without a cough. After refilling the glass, she looked up at the two men.

  “My name,” she said in English, “is Soledad Tadeo.”

  “Grat Holden, ma’am.” The handsome one tipped his hat.

  “Ben Masterson,” said the other, who raised his glass as though toasting her.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  They looked at each other briefly, the two gringos, and then the one named Holden, the younger of the two, the best looking, cleared his throat and said, “Sam Florence says you could get us to a place known as The Canyon of The Sorrows. We would like you to take us there.”

  “There is nothing to be found in El Cañon de Los Dolores except death. Do you wish to die?”

  “Not particularly.” Ben Masterson laughed.

  He drank too much, Tadeo decided. Maybe not as much as that fool and blowhard named Amonte Negro, and maybe not even as much as the gringo called Jed Foster, but she decided that she would not like this man. She did not like the way he looked. She did not like the way he spoke. She did not like Ben Masterson at all.

  “I will ask you again,” she said, keeping her eyes on the young man named Holden. “Why are you here?”

  Holden watched her for a moment as though searching for an answer. He must have found one because he said, “A traitor to the uniform he once wore stole two hundred and fifty rifles from the United States Army. He brought them here. We’ve seen the tracks. We know he wants to take them to this canyon, this canyon of sorrows, and there he plans to put the stolen rifles up for sale. We believe that a bandit named Amonte Negro will make a play for those guns. We know this. Some of his men tried to kill us today.”

  She stopped him by raising her right hand.

  “They are dead?”

  He nodded. “Five of them.”

  “Bueno.” She leaned back in her chair.

  “We also think what we call in our country an unreconstructed Rebel, an enemy to our country during the war we fought to preserve our union, will try to buy the rifles from the man who stole them.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Why would that concern me?”

  “Maybe it won’t,” Holden said. “His war is with men who wear the uniform I do, and that Sergeant Masterson here once did, and maybe will again. But we do believe that this Colonel Will Muncie has been robbing your people, too.”

  “If he takes the guns,” she said, “he might leave my country. And torment yours. Should that concern me?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” Holden said, “but one thing I do know. The Apache warrior named Crooked Nose will try to buy these rifles. If the bandit Negro gets the rifles, that’s bad for your people. Very bad from what I’ve heard about the cutthroat.”

  “And,” she whispered, “from what I have seen.”

  “If Muncie, the old Confederate, gets the rifles,” Holden continued, “that would be bad, very bad, for my people. But if the Apaches get their hands on two hundred and fifty Springfield rifles, that will mean much bloodshed. For your people. For my people. For you. For me. For the entire Southwest.” He sat back in his chair and kept his eyes on her.

  She studied him. “So I will ask you one more time, and this time you will tell me the truth and you will not think of me as a fool. What has brought you here? Why do you come to me? Why do you come to my village? Why are you in my country?”

  A long silence filled the room. She felt the man searching her eyes again, but she did not blink, she just looked at him. Eventually, he shot a glance at his companion, the man named Ben Masterson, who shrugged in confusion. Holden looked at her again, and finally he leaned forward.