Both Don Jaime and Flowers stared at him as if he had grown a hand out of the top of his head.

  “What is this magic? You know a brujo to cast a spell on her?”

  “She’ll stay with the herd as long as he’s riding with you as a vaquero. So Mister Flowers and I go along until you sell your cattle in Mexico. We’ll work. You don’t have to pay us.”

  “So?” Don Jaime frowned, trying to figure Mac’s angle.

  “At that age, passions run high and burn out fast. By the time we get to Mexico, they’ll be tired of each other. There’ll be an argument. They will see someone else who excites them more. I understand there are many pretty señoritas where we’re going.” He had no idea where that was, but assuming there were women there helped his argument.

  “He is not so stupid. He would never turn from my Estella.” Don Jaime smiled broadly after a moment. “But she will see many of the young bucks from wealthy families. They are in favor in the Spanish court, with the king. They appreciate my land grant.”

  Flowers started to say something about forcing Estella to marry the son of a wealthy landowner. Mac elbowed him and got a dark look. Flowers subsided.

  “We look after Desmond, and you do the same for your daughter.” Mac saw Don Jaime come around to his way of thinking. He wondered if Don Jaime cottoned to the idea of Desmond fading away, only to be replaced by another gringo. Mac had never seen a lovelier woman than Estella and knew he offered her more than Desmond ever could, in spite of the youngster being heir to the Circle Arrow.

  “Do not get in my way.” Don Jaime pointed. “And keep him away from her. As much as possible.” With that he stalked off, barking orders to his foreman. Men hurried around as he gave orders to bed down the herd for the night.

  “I don’t know if we came out on top or not, Mac.” Flowers scratched his head. “We got to work for him all the way to market? For nothing?”

  “Not for nothing. Miz Sullivan’s still paying us, only not to be trail boss or cook. She’ll be paying us to watch over her son.”

  “You’re playing some other game, aren’t you, Mac? I can tell. You and Desmond weren’t such good friends that you’d do all this for his sake.”

  “You accused me of wanting to disappear into Mexico before. Let’s take it one day at a time.”

  “We already helped Don Jaime more than he knows, scaring off Wardell’s men the way we did.”

  “There’ll be other problems. Rustlers. Indians. Once we get into Mexico, I have no idea what we’ll face. Have you been in Mexico?”

  “Not for years. There’s nobody left who remembers me, not that this is where I was in Mexico. I crossed the Rio Grande down south of Eagle Pass.”

  “And?” Mac nudged him to tell more. There had to be a good story, one that’d keep the cowboys laughing around the campfire.

  “And nothing. You’re too young to hear. It’d burn your delicate ears.”

  “Show me when we get to Mexico,” Mac said, laughing.

  “We better get mounted and see if Don Jaime wants us to take a turn at night herd.” Flowers stretched. “Been a while since I rode like that.”

  “You’re always up, checking on the cowboys who are on night herd,” Mac said. “I’ve done it a few times, but mostly preparing food is the one thing that keeps me busier than a cat in a mouse factory.”

  Mac stepped up and brought his horse alongside Flowers. They rode slowly until they were away from the main camp and not likely to have anyone overhear what they said.

  “Keep an eye out for rustlers,” Flowers said. “We’ve seen more than enough evidence that this herd is a prime target.” He sniffed. “Prime. Not the beef. The Circle Arrow longhorns are better. Prime Texas beef.”

  Mac slowly drifted away from his trail boss, letting Flowers carry on because the sound of the man’s voice soothed the cattle. On the far side of the herd a vaquero sang in a deep, melodic voice some song Mac did not recognize. He didn’t know if it gentled the cattle, but it made him begin to nod off. Now and then he jerked awake. He had been through too much that day not to be exhausted. His horse walked without stumbling; he wasn’t sure he could do the same.

  As he circled the herd and shooed a few cattle back to the main herd, a clicking sound brought him fully awake. A smooth move pulled his revolver from its holster. Turning from the cattle, he rode due south in the direction the herd would travel the next morning. A sliver of moon poked up in the sky, but the brilliant stars provided most of the light. Eerie shadows danced as he rode, only to stop dead a quarter mile from the herd. The clicking sound was louder here.

  Mac lifted his pistol in that direction. A small shadow became a larger one as a rider appeared. The rider stopped. Mac kept his pistol aimed in the rider’s direction. The rider lit a quirley and puffed on it. The sudden flare of the lucifer gave Mac an instant to see the man’s face. He had a serape slung over his shoulder and wore a broad-brimmed sombrero. He took his time with the smoke, then tossed the stub away. It trailed embers all the way to the ground where it vanished. With a shrug, the rider pulled the serape around, turned his horse, and walked off. Again came the clicking sound of steel horseshoes against rock. He listened until only the soft wind disturbed the desert silence.

  Going after the rider gained him nothing. Mac returned to the herd, completed his circuit and two hours on duty. In camp, he found himself a place to spread his bedroll, forcing himself to stay away from the chuckwagon. He felt out of place having the stars overhead as he stretched out, rather than looking up at the chuckwagon’s bottom. In a short time he had developed habits that proved hard to break.

  He slept fitfully, waking before dawn. To be sure he was ready to ride, he gathered his gear, tended his horse, and called out when he saw Don Jaime.

  “I wanted to tell you what I saw last night.”

  “Do I care?” The ranch owner’s foul mood almost made Mac hold his tongue.

  “You should.” He described the rider and how the man had watched the herd, as if judging the number of vaqueros in preparation for an attempt to rustle as many head as possible.

  “We are close to the border. He rode from the south?”

  “Yes, sir, he did. I didn’t see anyone with him, but his confidence tells me he’s not alone.”

  “You did well to tell me. The Rurales are in cahoots with many bandidos. We must avoid them as well as any lone rider thinking to lure us into an ambush.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Don Jaime’s eyes narrowed as he studied Mac, hunting for any trace of sarcasm. There wasn’t any, but he still thought less of what Mac told him than if one of his own vaqueros had.

  “Get breakfast. We hit the trail in an hour.” Don Jaime went about his business, rousting his men and bellowing for chores to be done.

  Mac made his way to the chuckwagon and watched Felipe work. The cook prepared food differently, in an order that made Mac want to help. Somehow, in spite of what had to be a poor use of time and food, the cook had everything ready for the men. Mac missed his own biscuits, but the freshly fried tortillas made up for the lack of them. He used bits of the last tortilla, as he would a biscuit, to sop up whatever remained on his plate.

  Felipe took his tin plate without a word. His reluctance to acknowledge Mac carried over to the rest of the vaqueros. As he mounted, Mac saw one exception. Estella Abragon had no trouble chatting brightly with Desmond. The two of them rode side by side until Don Jaime trotted up and sent Desmond out to the front of the herd. Mac had to smile. Assigning Desmond the responsibility of keeping to the trail showed Don Jaime had grown some respect for the cowboy.

  Or was there something else going on?

  He caught up with Flowers to share his concern.

  “He sent Desmond ahead, and there might be trouble brewing.”

  “I know,” Flowers said. “Last night I went scouting after I finished night herd and saw a campfire a few miles ahead of us. From the size of the fire, there were a dozen men there.”

  “Rustlers,” Mac said. “That’s what I think.”

  “And Desmond will be the one who springs the trap. Don Jaime is using him as bait.”

  “There,” Mac said, “is a path leading off the main trail. We take it and come up from the side at about the place where Desmond calls a halt for Felipe to set up the chuckwagon.”

  “The chuckwagon,” Flowers said. “I knew I’d missed something. The chuckwagon is behind the herd, not in front of it.” He looked around hastily. He saw the path Mac had mentioned. He pulled out his rifle and checked it.

  “Let’s ride,” Mac said. He had already made certain his weapons were ready for a fight.

  They set off at a gallop. Slowing to a canter let their horses regain their wind, then they galloped for another two miles before reaching a small canyon opening out into a wider plain. Desert plants dotted the sandy ground. Waiting behind half a dozen mesquite trees were bandidos, bandanas pulled up over their faces and their pistols drawn.

  “That’s half of them. The rest are over yonder.” Flowers pointed.

  Mac couldn’t see them but believed the older man. Flowers had been on enough trail drives to have an instinct for such things. Mac felt a tension that showed he was developing a similar nature.

  “There’s Desmond,” Mac said quietly as he spotted the young man ambling along a couple of hundred yards to the right. “They’ll let him ride in and then what? Reckon the herd will come on because he didn’t warn the vaqueros?” Mac stood in the stirrups and shaded his eyes. “There’s a second rider, one joining Desmond.” His stomach tightened into a knot.

  Both he and Flowers exclaimed at the same time, “Estella!”

  Their outcry ruined any hope they had of a surprise ambush on the rustlers. The one closest spun, shouted a warning in Spanish, and opened fire. He used a six-gun and was out of range, but others had rifles and turned them on Mac and Flowers.

  “Desmond, run! Get Estella out of here!” Mac shouted, then had to duck as the air around him filled with lead. He swung his rifle up and fired, but his horse started crow hopping and ruined his aim.

  Flowers had better luck. His first shot winged the bandido nearest them. Then he, too, was forced to break off and try to reach safety.

  Desmond and Estella had wheeled their horses and were galloping away from the canyon. Mac saw Estella’s horse go down suddenly. It had stepped in a prairie dog hole or somehow else failed her. She hit the ground and rolled. Desmond didn’t seem to have noticed what had happened.

  “Keep down!” His shouted warning was drowned out by a rising thunder of gunfire. He bent forward, head pressed low by his horse’s neck as he raced toward Estella. The hail of bullets diminished thanks to Flowers and his accurate return fire. He had pulled up and was spraying lead among the bandidos.

  By the time Mac got to Estella, she was sitting up, dazed. He reached down to help her up behind him. His horse balked, then screamed, reared, and keeled over. One of the rustlers had finally found the range and shot the horse out from under him. Mac had to kick his feet free of the stirrups and dive from the saddle to keep the horse from falling on him. He crashed to the ground, shook off the fall, and rolled onto his belly. Somehow he had held on to his rifle.

  A flash of sunlight off a rifle’s front sight presented a decent target. Mac got his first killing shot in, saw the bandido throw up his arms and topple from his horse. This did nothing to slow the rate of firing.

  “Desmond!” the young woman cried out, and reached up.

  Mac saw Desmond galloping toward them. He hit the ground running and dropped beside Estella, holding her. She clung to him and buried her face in his shoulder.

  For a brief second, the shooting stopped. In that pause, Mac saw he had no chance with Estella, not with Desmond around.

  “Get down, both of you.” Mac broke the lull in the fight in an attempt to get both Desmond and Estella to safety.

  He jerked as two bullets hit him at the same instant. One ripped away part of his duster and left a crease in his left side. The other slug jerked him around as it tore at his scalp. His left temple felt as if it would explode. He fell facedown and lay stunned. Through the ground he felt vibration.

  At first he thought it was Flowers’s galloping horse. He pushed himself up and saw Flowers a dozen yards away astride his mount. Not moving. Flowers kept his horse steady with his knees as he fired methodically. The vibration didn’t come from his horse’s hooves. Twisting his head around despite the thunderous pain inside his skull, he saw the real cause of the earthquake.

  Don Jaime’s herd was stampeding directly toward him. He forced himself to his feet, wobbled, and found it impossible to keep upright. Mac crashed back to the ground in the path of the frightened cattle.

  CHAPTER 27

  How many times could one man get trapped in the path of a stampede and survive? Mac didn’t know, but he had a hunch the odds had just caught up to him.

  He hoped he would die quick. Being maimed and hanging on to a thread of life for days or weeks wasn’t for him. Mac worried even more about being so crippled for life he couldn’t get around. Fumbling, he tried to lift his rifle and shoot himself rather than be stomped on by the cattle. His fingers had turned into sausages, big and greasy and not working.

  Then he felt light and floating.

  “Walk, damn you,” a voice said urgently in his ear. “Help me.”

  “What?” He turned his head and almost lost his balance again. “Desmond?”

  “Walk. Run, if you can. Get over there with Estella. It’s not far.”

  “Not far.” The words echoed in Mac’s head. His dizziness passed, just a little, and he saw Estella Abragon hunkered down behind a mesquite perched on the edge of a deep arroyo. Everything clicked in his head. If he could get there, the steep bank would protect him. The cattle would blunder into the thorny bush and veer away, no matter how frightened they were.

  His feet worked a little better as Desmond’s arm around his shoulders supported him. Then he ran—stumbled. He fell forward and hit the bottom of the arroyo with enough force to send pain jabbing into his head. And side. And everywhere in his body. Hands pulled him upright, so he pressed his back against the tall, crumbling, sunbaked arroyo wall. In the distance he heard gunfire and pounding hooves and shouts.

  Closing his eyes helped him regain his senses. Then he forced himself to look around. Desmond held Estella, cradling her, and turned so any steer coming over the edge of the arroyo would hit him first.

  “The herd’s not stampeding anymore,” Mac croaked out. He pressed his fingers into the side of his head. They came away sticky with blood. He straightened and examined his side. His duster was shredded and stained with blood seeping from the shallow wound in his side. Moving around, he gingerly examined the wound. He wasn’t so bad off, after all.

  “They turned the herd,” Desmond said.

  Mac looked at him. Estella hung on him, her arms circling him as if she were drowning and he was her lifeline.

  “Thanks,” Mac said. “You pulled my fat from the fire.”

  “You saved me,” Desmond said. Then he wasn’t talking. Estella kissed him.

  Mac turned away. This wasn’t any of his business. Then he saw Flowers riding down the arroyo. He waved, but Flowers had already spotted him—them.

  “Well, isn’t this a fine reunion,” the trail boss said. “Everybody still have all their parts attached to their bodies?”

  “Mostly,” Mac said. He grabbed an exposed root and pulled himself to his feet. “What’s happened to the bandidos?”

  “The ones that weren’t stomped to death mounted up and galloped away. Don Jaime says we’re already over the border and in Mexico, so there’s no reason for the cavalry to go after them.”

  “What about the Rurales?” Mac took a few hesitant steps. The dizziness passed, and he was sure he was going to be all right. But he needed a horse if he intended to get very far. Hoofing it in this desert, he wouldn’t get half a mile before he keeled over.

  “They don’t risk their necks unless they’re paid,” Flowers said. “Might be some of the rustlers were Rurales. I thought I saw a couple of them wearing uniforms. Might be they took them, might be they threw in with the rustlers.”

  “How far do we have to go?”

  “Not more than three days,” Estella said. “I went to Don Pedro’s rancho a few times when I was younger. He owns land stretching for many miles along the border and then down into Mexico.”

  “He sounds like a prosperous rancher,” Flowers said.

  “He is. He is also a terrible man. But muy rico.”

  “Let’s get back to work,” Flowers said. “You need a ride?” He reached down to help Mac up behind him. The trail boss chuckled. “I’d rather have her riding behind me, but Desmond beat me to it.”

  “He’d fight you off,” Mac said. Estella had already settled behind Desmond on his horse as they made their way up the brittle slope. He kept it to himself how Desmond had saved his life. In spite of the way he had started out, Desmond was turning into a decent man. There hadn’t been any call for him to come to Mac’s aid. He could have stayed with Estella and protected her. He’d saved her, and he’d saved Mac.

  Seeing the two on horseback made Mac wonder what Flowers would do when Desmond refused to return to the Circle Arrow. He fell into the rhythm of Flowers’s horse, almost going to sleep by the time they caught up with Don Jaime and the herd.

  * * *

  “He won’t let me use any of his horses,” Mac said to Felipe. The cook shrugged. “I can’t ride herd, so I’m stuck here with you.”

  Felipe glared at him as he peeled potatoes. He glared even more when Mac sat next to the sack of potatoes, hefted a spud, and pulled out his cooking knife. The blade flashed four times and the potato skin surrendered. The naked potato went into the pot and another joined it a few seconds later.

  “I do not need help.”

  “Then teach me.” Mac’s simple statement made Don Jaime’s cook jerk around and stare at him.