She took a pile of clothes and boots and moved toward the rough wool blanket, and slid behind it. Most of the men stared at the blanket. Doc Fowler helped himself to the tequila Fallon was not drinking.

  Quinn took a pair of black leather pants, held them to his waist, studied the length of the legs, and asked the trader, “The Indians . . . they make this?”

  “Most likely they jumped the reservation and took those britches off a Mexican they killed.”

  “They are nice pants.” When he had dressed, in the black pants that he stuck inside his boots, a shirt of red silk, blue bandanna, black vest, and tan hat, he smiled.

  “Now we look like men.”

  The men grumbled as they collected stuff from the pile of clothes.

  “These boots don’t match.”

  “You’re not going to the church social.”

  “Ain’t a hat here that comes close to fitting my head.”

  “At least the bullets fit your gun.”

  “If you didn’t have such a hog head . . . Here. Wrap this bandanna over your noggin.”

  At the bar, Doc Fowler whispered to Fallon. “There was nothing you could do.”

  Fallon turned and stared at the man as he gulped down a shot of the clear liquor, and quickly refilled the glass with more tequila.

  “About Pinky,” the doctor said.

  Fallon said nothing.

  “Likely he drowned by the time he hit bottom. I’m told drowning is a peaceful way to die.”

  “There’s nothing peaceful, Doc, about being handcuffed to fifty pounds of iron and thrown overboard like yesterday’s garbage.”

  “Well. You did your best.” He drank. Refilled again. Killed that shot as well. And tried to pour more tequila into the shot glass but spilled the rest of the liquid on the bar. Sighing, he studied the empty bottle, brought it up to his lips to suck out the last moisture, the last few drops. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “What about you?” Fallon asked.

  The man turned, paling, and dropped the empty bottle that rolled back and forth across the uneven bar. “Me. What could I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Fallon said. “Tell Gruber what was being planned? Let one of the guards you could trust know? Wire the United States marshal or the attorney general? What could you have done?”

  “I did what I do best, Marshal. I drank.”

  Fallon shook his head.

  The outlaws finished dressing.

  To Fallon, they looked like murderers out of their prison uniforms and wearing cheap clothes—except for Monk Quinn’s outfit.

  Then, Gloria Adler stepped from behind what passed for a curtain.

  Her pants were of Mexican denim, and she wore ankle-high moccasins of soft deerskin, decorated with beads of blue, green, white, yellow, black, and lavender. The boiled cotton shirt of yellow was too tight, and it did highlight her breasts. No vest. No bandanna. Just a flat-crowned straw hat secured around her throat by a stampede string.

  “And, my friends”—Monk Quinn removed his hat and bowed at the dark-haired beauty—“here is another reason I dropped Pinky into the wine-dark river.”

  Gloria Adler spit onto the floor. Her eyes glowered with hatred. Quinn frowned, but only briefly, and he returned his hat and said, “The river is but a few yards away. Anyone can join Pinky and feed the fish.”

  Preacher Lang laughed and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Quinn said, “That includes you, Parson, should you start another verse recitation right now.” He clapped his hands. “The horses. Let us see what horses you have.”

  * * *

  “They will carry you a long way,” Diego said.

  Quinn shrugged. “Indian ponies?”

  “What else is there to be found on a federal reservation, amigo? But their blood comes from the Spaniards. They are fast. They are strong. And they know how to survive in the desert.”

  “And the mules?”

  “Percherons. Muy fuerte. Very strong. Very strong.”

  “Saddle the best for me, Diego. Then meet me in your cantina and you shall be paid.” He leaned back his head, laughed, and called to the men, “Choose your horses. There are plenty. Make sure they are game. Saddle them up, put packsaddles on four mules. Pick out a fine horse for la señorita and the man who swims like a fish and does not like me very much, although I do not know why. We do not want them to disappear in the night. And, please, find a good horse for our doctor. If we wait for him to catch up an Indian pony and get it saddled, we will be dead.”

  * * *

  The bar was made of kegs stacked atop one another and lined in what wasn’t close to a straight line. Diego stood behind it and poured a glass for Monk Quinn. Captain Allan stood on Quinn’s left. Gloria Adler, Doc Fowler, and Fallon stood at the corner closest to the wall and the curtain that separated Diego’s sleeping quarters. It was also on the opposite side of the door.

  “Did the captain explain the financial arrangements?” Quinn asked the grinning man with the tequila bottle.

  “A bar of gold bullion.”

  Quinn clinked his glass against Diego’s. “That is true.”

  “Then the tequila is on the house.” He splashed more liquid into the dirty cups held by Allan and Quinn.

  “But we must get the gold first.”

  The bottle stopped pouring. The Mexican slammed it on the top of an empty keg. “This was not explained to me.”

  “We would like you to come with us.”

  “Into Apache country? Into Mexico where the Rurales want to put my head on a spike and parade it around the village?”

  “But that’s where the gold is.”

  “I do not allow credit. You pay. You pay me handsomely.”

  “A bar of gold bullion for a few horses, some mules, and clothes and ammunition would look handsome to me.”

  “It would look handsome to me, as well, if it were here.”

  “Two bars,” Quinn said, and drained his tequila. “If you come with us. A bonus.”

  Diego shook his head. “No. My life would be worthless in Mexico.”

  “Do you know how much two bars of gold bullion are worth, my friend?”

  “They are worth nothing to me if I am dead.”

  Quinn thought, sipped some tequila, and said, “Well, there must be something we can arrange.” He looked at the centipede crawling up the wall behind the Mexican, and his face beamed with pleasure. “I have it!” he said, and spilled tequila on his hand. He cursed his clumsiness, lowered his hand, wiping it across his vest and onto his pants of black leather. His hand came up with a revolver in it. The gun roared. The white cotton of Diego’s shirt burst into flames as he was slammed into more kegs behind him that served as the saloon’s back bar. He stood there, his face in shock, blood seeping from the left corner of his face, a yellow stain emerging on the front of his trousers.

  Beside Monk Quinn, Captain Allan looked as stunned as the gut-shot Diego. He blinked rapidly, and cried out, “You shouldn’t have shot him, Quinn. There are Indians all around here at night!”

  Quinn cocked the hammer and shot Diego again. This bullet caught him in the chest, and he was too far away for his clothes to catch fire from this powder flash. The bullet turned him around, and before he fell on his belly, putting out the fire in his shirt, Quinn stepped away from the bar and out of the white smoke from his .44. He flashed a grin at Allan and said, “How about that shot, Cap’n? Think the Injuns heard it? Or maybe this one!”

  He cocked the pistol again, and took careful aim. He shot the centipede, and turned, leaning back against the bar.

  And as calmly as if he were at a Thanksgiving turkey shoot in Gads Hill, Missouri, Monk Quinn shucked the empty cartridges from his smoking weapon, filled the chambers with fresh rounds, and waited for the men to come rushing in to learn what had happened.

  Doc Fowler clucked his tongue.

  The killer turned away from the door and studied the drunkard, and the man and the woman standing next to Fowler.

  Fowler raised his glass and shook his head. “That was not very original,” the doctor said, and sipped the tequila. “An anchor and handcuffs for poor Pinky. But just a couple of bullets for this man.”

  Quinn shrugged. “He was a greaser. He deserved nothing more. But you did not think my killing the centipede was original?” The insane murderer of men and insects looked back as Morgan Maynard and Yaqui Mendoza came through the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  When the horses and the pack mules were saddled and waiting out front of the hovel, the escaped convicts helped themselves to whatever liquor bottles or jugs they could find, tobacco, the makings for cigarettes, and the stale tortillas. They ransacked the building, leaving it looking pretty much as it had when they had first entered. Percy Marshall and Yaqui Mendoza went through the pockets of the stiffening body of Diego. They found no extra ammunition, but Mendoza pulled the pistol shoved in the back waistband. Grinning, he showed the old cap-and-ball Manhattan. 36 to Quinn and said, “In case, amigo, my machete loses its razor-sharp edge.” He pushed the gun into the deep pockets of his pants.

  “Do I need to remind you boys, and girl, that we still remain in the United States?” Monk Quinn said. “Or that Mexico is a fairly short ride away?”

  The men started to file through the narrow opening. Fallon let Doc Fowler and Gloria Adler go out before him, and when he stepped into the opening, Monk Quinn, who leaned against the whiskey and beer kegs that formed what had been a bar, called out, “You did not find yourself a revolver or any bullets, my friend?”

  Fallon looked back at the killer.

  “So that you could take them off me?”

  Quinn laughed, gave a mocking salute, and Fallon stepped into the night.

  The clouds had moved west to east, and now the stars glowed with intensity. Fallon could make out the vastness and the misty white trail of the Milky Way and the sliver of moonlight. It was beautiful, this view, in the still, crisp, and cool desert evening. He had not seen night skies like this since riding across the Indian Nations, and even then it had never seen so vast, so wonderful. In that territory, forests and tree-dotted hills—which some people called mountains—blocked the view. In the desert, the hills seemed distant, and the big sky dwarfed the land.

  Yet, Fallon thought with apprehension, something did not feel right.

  He could see the reflection of the stars and the moon in the Colorado River. He could smell the residue of gunshots and the death from inside Diego’s trading post. There was a stillness on this night. A foreboding. The sky above was beautiful. The river that he could hear sounded so peaceful. What was it that made him apprehensive?

  He realized that when he stepped into the saddle of the bay mare he had been given.

  He could hear the river. The Colorado was a hundred yards away. Certainly, sound carried far in the desert. How many times had he heard that saying? But it was too quiet.

  The reins were in his hands, his feet had found the stirrups, and Monk Quinn was smoking his cigarette, stepping out of the door to Diego’s post when something whistled past Fallon’s left ear. He heard the thud against the wall. His horse danced to the left. Another whistle thudded into the luggage strapped behind Doctor Fowler’s saddle. His horse bucked. Fowler flew out of the saddle after only one jump and he landed hard on his left shoulder, as Gloria Adler leaped out of the saddle, calling out Fowler’s first name.

  At the doorway, his body silhouetted by the light from inside the jacal, Monk Quinn dropped to a knee. He spit out the cigarette and drew his .44.

  Captain Allan leaped out of his saddle, wrapping the reins tightly around his left hand and working the lever of the Winchester with his right, the stock of the rifle braced against his thigh.

  “I warned you, Quinn!” Allan bellowed in the darkness. “Told you Injuns were all around this place!”

  The rifle roared, spitting out flame and smoke, and causing Allan’s horse to rear and pull away. Allan was jerked to his knees, but did not fall. Swearing, he pulled hard on the reins and somehow managed to lever another shell into the chamber of the Winchester. An arrow whistled over his head. He fired again.

  “Hold your fire till you can see something to shoot at!” Quinn barked.

  The captain of the guards sent another bullet into the dark.

  Arrows slapped into the sand, the building. One splintered the hitching rail as Fallon wrapped his bay’s reins tightly and short around the juniper post. He wasn’t sure if this would hold the horse, if that bay could just pull down the creaky, dried-out rail or merely snap the reins off and gallop. But Fallon wasn’t going to make himself a target and fight a frightened horse and hostile Indians from the Fort Yuma Reservation the way Captain Allan was.

  Let Allan get himself killed.

  But it wasn’t Allan who caught the first arrow.

  Fallon was trying to make his way toward Gloria Adler and Doctor Fowler, both of whom he could just make out several yards ahead. The drunken doctor cowered behind a barrel set out to catch rain on the rare times rain actually fell here. Gloria Adler was on her knees, holding the reins to both her horse and Fowler’s. The horses were dragging her knees in the dust, rocks, and cactus, about to jerk her facedown, but she refused to release her hold. Those animals might even drag her off to wherever the Indians were hiding.

  That was going on to Fallon’s left. To his right, he heard Yaqui Mendoza shout, “You fool Indians, we have left you plenty of tequila inside!” He switched to Spanish, probably shouting the same thing, Fallon guessed, or maybe just cursing the Indians.

  Fallon rolled and ducked under the hooves of a rearing horse. An arrow slapped the ground between his left forefinger and thumb, spitting dirt into his mouth and bouncing off the ground, the feathered shaft popping him in the nose. He heard something else, like someone gargling, and a heavy thud. The horse that had been so close to him turned and galloped north.

  Fallon saw Percy Marshall lying faceup, his mouth moving but no words coming out of it—just blood. He could see the arrow, the bloody barb protruding from his neck, the feathered shaft on the other side. The gunman lay there shivering, and, Fallon knew, dying.

  He wasn’t going to let that happen to Gloria Adler.

  Fallon came up quickly. He ran in the dark, feeling another arrow part his hair. When he reached the girl, he grabbed the reins to both horses, ripping the leather from Adler’s hands. She fell to the ground, stopping her fall with her forearms. She looked up as the horses pulled Fallon a few feet before he managed to stop their momentum.

  Turning, he saw Gloria Adler come to her knees. “Get back!” he yelled. “Back. To the doc!”

  Another arrow sliced the untucked end of his shirt. He started back, pulling the horses with him. They seemed to accept his dominance, or, perhaps, thought he was leading them out of the carnage.

  “They’re not shooting the horses!” Morgan Maynard called out from the darkness to Fallon’s right.

  “Of course not,” Preacher Lang said. “They’re heathen Indians! They want the horses for themselves. Or for supper.”

  Adler tumbled behind the water barrel. Another arrow thudded into the front of the big keg of oak. Fallon brought the horses over to the rail where his own horse remained tied. He wrapped the reins around the post tightly, and ducked beneath the animals just long enough to catch his breath.

  “The army’s going to be here soon!” Captain Allan called out. His Winchester spoke again with three rapid, loud reports.

  “And if not the soldier boys, then more Injuns!” Preacher Lang yelled.

  Fallon came into a crouch, and exploded forward, running low toward Percy Marshall, who lay spread-eagled, fingers twitching, his pale head like an island in a sea of dark, sticky blood that the desert sand was sucking up.

  He glanced at the gunman’s eyes, saw them beginning to glaze over, and quickly Fallon went to work. He did not bother trying to remove the arrow or stop the pouring blood. He reached for the Colt Lightning and jerked it out of the holster. There was no time to check the cylinder. Another arrow slammed into the dying killer’s groin. Fallon slipped the revolver into his waistband and snatched off the killer’s hat. Another arrow quivered as it sank into Marshall’s thigh. The lips kept moving. The eyes kept losing their focus.

  “I hope you’re praying, Marshall,” Fallon whispered. He ran toward the rain barrel. Fallon was doing a little bit of praying himself.

  He slid between Doc Fowler and Gloria, wiped the sweat off his brow, and tried to catch his breath.

  Fowler saw the double-action Colt in Fallon’s right hand. “If they rush us, sir,” he said softly, “you will shoot me, I hope. And Miss Adler too. To save us from . . .”

  “Shut up!” That came from Gloria Adler.

  Fallon opened the cylinder. Six beans in the wheel. He couldn’t have asked for more.

  “No gunbelt?” Adler asked.

  A quick shake of his head was Fallon’s reply. He was busy now, removing the latigo string from Marshall’s hat.

  The Lightning had a barrel length of four and three-quarter inches, and it had a lanyard swivel attached to the bottom of the walnut grips. Fallon sent the rawhide string he had removed from Marshall’s hat through the swivel and quickly retied a knot at the end of the loop. He stuck the small revolver inside his shirt, and dropped the latigo over his neck.

  “You’re hiding the gun?” Fowler blinked. “Confound it, man, why aren’t you protecting us?”

  “Shut up, Doc.” This time Fallon spoke.

  “Monk!” Fallon yelled. “Marshall’s dead. And the rest of us will be joining him if we don’t get out of here. Now!”

  Fallon saw an orange ball coming at him through the night. It flew to his left and into the opening of the dead Mexican’s trading post. Another followed. And then two more.

  “Flaming arrows,” Gloria Adler said.

  Fallon smelled smoke. He pulled the late Percy Marshall’s hat on his head. The bloodstains smeared Fallon’s fingers, and the hat was tight on his head even when pushed back. But it would do. For now.