“Don’t shoot, damn it! Don’t—” Foster broke off, realizing that wasn’t the worst of it.

  A cacophony of horses sounded like an entire army galloping down the canyon, but that could not be. It just could not be. It was July 3, 1880. Independence Day—the Fourth of July—was not until tomorrow. He had not even sent his guides to lead the Apaches, the greasers, and the Rebs to this place.

  The rider on the Morgan leaped from the saddle and rolled over several times. He dropped the heavy rifle, which clanged against the rocks. Foster held his breath. The man was tumbling right toward the Springfield Armory box that housed not .45-70 new-issue rifles, but four ounces of nitro.

  And the fool kid snapped another shot at the rolling man.

  “Coberly!” Foster bellowed as the man rolled to a stop.

  As the big man rose and jerked a Colt revolver from his sash, Foster recognized him. It was that worthless, recalcitrant sergeant from Fort Bowie—the king of the guard house, everyone called him, because he spent more time serving some sentence than he did in the field.

  Sergeant Ben Masterson, B Troop, the Fighting Mick.

  A bullet rang down from above, followed by another, and both shots bounced off several rocks, whining like women passengers in a stagecoach heading down a steep grade in the White Mountains.

  “No!”

  The Lightning bucked in Sergeant Masterson’s hand. He saw the barrel spitting flame and smoke. He saw Joe Coberly spin around and drop to his knee, his side turning dark with blood, but the gun still in the kid’s hand.

  Sergeant Masterson emptied that revolver, dropped the piece, and reached for the other .38 in his sash. The kid fired again. Men up top poured lead down at Sergeant Masterson, but the bullets whined all around the fighting Irishman. Then, to Foster’s surprise, several more riders poured out of the bottleneck. He recognized the gray uniforms, but he also saw Mexican denim and white cotton, and slowly the reality of all that was happening came to him.

  Bullets whined from the canyon. Horses screamed, fell, rolled over, died. Men were ripped out of their saddles. One of the gray-coated Rebs pulled out a shotgun and sent two barrels of buckshot into Joe Coberly’s chest. He flew five yards in the air and crashed in a bloody heap, rolled over, pushed himself up, and dropped dead on the rocky ground. Foster recognized one of the riders circling around, trying to find a way back through the bottleneck and out of the crazy place, the aptly named The Canyon of The Sorrows.

  That man was the Mexican Emanuel, who’d said his horse had gone lame. He was the traitor Jed Foster had debated killing. That good nature, that kind heart, would be the death of Jed Foster yet. He should have killed the bastard. Foster understood . . . Emanuel was a Judas. He had sold out Foster and the Springfield rifles to—

  Foster turned his pistol at Emanuel and squeezed the trigger in what he thought would be his last act on this earth. The hammer landed on an empty chamber. The Colt was worthless. Yet one of the sharpshooters on the ridge finally got off a decent shot, or maybe it was lucky. Foster would take either.

  Emanuel cried out and dropped from the saddle. He bounded off the rock and lay still, blood pooling beneath his body.

  That was one double-crossing Judas that Jed Foster would not have to kill.

  Colonel Will Muncie eased his horse toward Foster, and slowly, confidently, and even gracefully drew the jeweled, engraved, and etched saber from the metal sheath.

  Foster looked around. The gray coats were closing in around him. The men on the high rocks above had stopped shooting. Somehow, to his amazement and eternal relief, not one bullet had detonated the nitroglycerin. He was still alive, although the colonel of the unreconstructed Rebs had raised his saber as he reined his horse in just feet from Jed Foster.

  CHAPTER 85

  Foster dropped the smoking but empty Colt .45 at his feet. He waited until he thought his voice might show a modicum of steadiness and he grinned at the crazy old colonel who towered above him with that raised saber and that crazed look on his face.

  “If you are ready to surrender, Colonel, I will gladly discuss terms with you, sir.”

  The colonel did not smile. The saber did not lower.

  “Your wit, Captain, will be the death of you.”

  Foster wet his lips. “You have surprised me, Colonel. I believe our date was for tomorrow.”

  “I never do a damned thing on the Fourth of July, Captain. It’s against my religion.”

  Foster nodded. “I see you joined up with Negro’s bunch. Where is the great Amonte Negro, Mexico’s next Diaz and Juarez?”

  “I have not the foggiest idea. Dead. If we and the world should be so lucky.”

  Foster wet his lips again.

  “Well, I guess you’ll want to hear that the Apaches have sided with me. So that makes us even.”

  “Don’t mock me, suh,” Muncie said. “The Apaches would join up with you about the same time I would. When hell was freezing over.”

  “Then”—Foster forced a smile—“you’re saying the Apaches aren’t with you, either, Colonel?”

  “I’d trust a damned Yankee before I’d trust a red heathen savage, suh.”

  “I’m honored, Colonel.”

  The colonel glared. Foster was pushing his luck. He knew that. But, well, Jed Foster was always pushing his luck.

  “We’ll be taking our rifles now, Capt’n,” the colonel said. “I would ask for your permission, you damned Yankee son of a bitch, but I do not think I need it.”

  Foster shrugged.

  He caught his breath when one of the Rebs—a wiry man the colonel had just addressed as Lieutenant Fountain—swung out of his horse and raced toward one of the Springfield crates.

  “Wait!” Foster screamed, cringed, and almost ducked in fear as the man flung off the top of the box. The wooden lid bounced on the rocks. The box did not disintegrate and wipe out Sergeant Ben Masterson, who stood with his hands raised next to the wooden crate, nor send the Rebel officer named Fountain to glory—in about a million pieces.

  Foster’s heart beat again. He picked himself off the floor while Fountain turned around and shouted, “There’s no guns in this box, Colonel. Just—” He looked down. “I don’t know. A little bottle wrapped up like it was a newborn babe.”

  “Check the other boxes, men!” Colonel Muncie ordered.

  “No!” Foster screamed. “Listen to me. The rifles are—”

  He sucked in a deep breath as another lid was flung off.

  “This one’s empty, too, Colonel,” a man wearing the stars of a captain said.

  “For God’s sake, Colonel, stop it. Stop it. I’ll get you your damned guns, but just stop it. Stop it before you kill us all!”

  To his surprise, the colonel lowered his saber.

  “Where,” he asked, his voice turning husky, “are those damned rifles, you fiend?”

  Foster was still alive. His luck, somehow, was holding. He had to figure out how he could get out of there before the skies began raining rocks and boulders and the nitro began sending death and destruction everywhere.

  His eyes stopped on Sergeant Ben Masterson.

  What the hell was that hard-fighting, never-stop-drinking noncom doing here? He frowned and whispered, “Grat Holden.”

  “What’s that, Billy Yank?” Colonel Muncie said.

  Foster raised his hand and pointed at Masterson. “That man. That’s the man. He’s the one. Colonel, as God as my witness, that man has betrayed us all. That man stole the rifles . . . from you . . . from me . . . kill him. Kill that cur dog now!”

  At least he had Colonel Muncie, even the lieutenant named Fountain, and most of the men in gray and the Mexicans who had joined with the Rebs staring at Ben Masterson. Foster inched a bit away from Muncie.

  “He’s double-crossed the both of us,” Foster said again as he looked at the bottleneck. Would Grat Holden be out there? He remembered the horses. The Irish hardcase had been riding one, pulling another. But there were two other horses. That meant four. And suddenly he remembered where he had seen those mounts.

  The mare had been in the corral at Rancho Los Cielos. Foster almost chuckled when he remembered the lush little wench. She had been riding that one. That little mare belonged to that hotheaded Mexican, Soledad Tadeo. And the pinto? He could see its rider tagging along with Sergeant Masterson more than Tadeo. Sam Florence, the old scout from Fort Bowie. The last horse he did not recognize but his gut told him that one had been ridden by Lieutenant Grat Holden.

  His luck, Foster feared, was turning. But he had managed his way from a few bad hands, some silly bets at poker and blackjack tables and faro layouts or roulette wheels. He still had a chance . . . if he could get to that chimney without getting blown to bits.

  “Get,” Foster said, “that mick away from that rifle box, Colonel. Don’t touch that box. And stay the hell away from that—” He cringed. “God have mercy, don’t you understand what I’m telling you? If you keep that up, you’ll kill us all. There won’t be a bloody thing left here but our memories.”

  Foster felt his resolve break. He saw the Rebels, their rifles lowered as they had dismounted and were moving in on Sergeant Ben Masterson. He saw Colonel Will Muncie turn to study that Irish fighting man.

  Foster saw a path that led to the chimney. He cried out and ran, ran like one of Custer’s boys at Little Bighorn when the fighting got totally out of hand. He cried out and leaped over the body of Joe Coberly.

  And he saw Ben Masterson out of the corner of his eye, drawing his remaining Colt .38 from the sash. Ben Masterson had figured it all out, too. He jerked the weapon but did not aim it at the men coming to kill him. He aimed at the Springfield Armory box.

  The .38 bucked in his hand.

  The roar had to be a million times louder than the report of any pistol.

  CHAPTER 86

  Jed Foster ran. He did not pray. He did not think about luck. Death, smoke, flames, rocks, dirt, and the parts of men and horses rained all around him.

  He saw Colonel Will Muncie stand up, leaning on his saber, his gray coat smoldering. The old man looked lost. His eyes seemed to focus on Foster. The next moment, Will Muncie had disappeared. It looked like half the side of The Canyon of The Sorrows had fallen on top of the diehard Confederate.

  Foster veered course. A rock whistled by him. More explosions almost rocked him off his feet.

  Vaguely, he understood what had happened. Sergeant Ben Masterson had sacrificed himself, detonating one small bottle of nitroglycerin. The explosion and devastating destruction triggered the other bottles to erupt. He had been warned how volatile that stuff was. He just had never imagined it could be that catastrophic.

  Foster staggered into a Mexican bandit whose arm had been ripped off. He leaped over one of his own men who had fallen from the top of the canyon. A rock sailed over his head. A twisted, smoking, ruined Springfield 1880 almost tripped him as it slammed into the earth. The nitro must have sent that wrecked weapon sailing like a boomerang.

  He remembered one other thing George Custer had told him. Know your limits. Know your branch of service. If you’re in the infantry, follow infantry tactics. If you’re a horse soldier, don’t try to be an artillery commander. And vice versa.

  Well, Foster was a cavalry officer who had experimented with nitroglycerin. He wasn’t an explosives expert, a munitions guy, an artillery commander. He should have stuck with horses and hit-slash-run. Run.

  Just run, Foster told himself.

  If you die, you die.

  Just don’t stop running.

  He moved through dust so thick it blinded him and mingled with so much smoke, it choked him. His eyes burned.

  Suddenly, he was out of the smoke and dust and he could see the escape route the ancient Indians had made. If he could just reach that little half-chimney, he might have a chance.

  If . . . his luck . . . could hold out . . . for one more . . . hand . . .

  CHAPTER 87

  Grat Holden, Sam Florence, and Soledad Tadeo were moving cautiously toward the bottleneck’s opening. They could hear the muffled shouts of voices, the prancing of ponies, and even an occasional shot.

  They guessed that the trade was being made a day early. They couldn’t figure anything out for sure, but—

  Suddenly, the noise was deafening. The blast of heat and fire that roared out of the hole knocked them onto their backs. Flames singed their faces and hands. Their ears rang. Rocks pounded on them, and the avalanche that followed left them choking dust, coughing, almost suffocating.

  Holden did not know how he had done it. He didn’t even remember doing it, but among the smoke, and heat, and rocks, he realized he was shoving Soledad Tadeo ahead of him, and dragging the screaming Sam Florence behind him. His clothes were smoking from heat and flames. His eyelids had been burned off. His face felt as though he had been staked out in the Arizona desert for fifteen days.

  When he could breathe again, when he saw more than smoke and just the dark, frightening trail that led to The Canyon of The Sorrows, he stopped, and turned to face the man he had just released.

  Sam Florence rolled over in agony and clutched his leg. “Damned rock. Damned rock. That lousy rock.”

  “Is it busted?” Holden heard himself ask.

  “Hell, yeah, it’s busted.” Florence lowered his head and spit out blood and curses.

  Then Soledad Tadeo knelt by him and slapped his face. “Padre, cállate. Muéstrame que eres un hombre.”

  The old scout studied her. “Shut up?” he asked, and chuckled. “Show you that I’m a man? Is that how you treat your daddy?” He dropped his head to the ground and writhed in agony.

  “Take care of him, Soledad.” Holden rose and hurried into the smoke and dust and raining debris. A few minutes later, he was back and kneeling by the scout with the broken leg and his lovely Spanish daughter. “There might be a way through that rubble, but I can’t chance it. I’m going back up top.”

  “Without a horse,” the scout said through clenched teeth. “It’ll take you a week to get around this maze and up top.”

  “No,” Soledad Tadeo said. “If you can climb, there is a way. There.” She pointed. “I saw it six years ago. When I was here. An Apache was taking it when we rode out of this Canyon of The Sorrows.” She shrugged. “He might have fallen to his death. I cannot say.”

  Holden leaned over and kissed her luscious lips. “I won’t fall,” he said softly. He winked. “To my death.”

  * * *

  This must be, Grat Holden thought, what Santa Claus felt climbing up and down all those lousy chimneys. His legs were bent, his arms were cramped, and he kept inching his way, bracing his back against the smooth granite, keeping his feet against the wall in front of him, and reaching, gripping, pulling himself up toward the rim of The Canyon of The Sorrows.

  He refused to look down.

  The entire canyon, and maybe the whole Mother Earth, seemed to shake as another detonation rocked the world. Sometimes the entire ridge shook so violently, and boulders crashed below or dirt and pebbles peppered him like hail, that he thought he would just fall the hundred or two hundred or however far it was he had made it off the floor.

  Somehow, he remained moving, climbing, inching his way to the top.

  Then he was there. He lifted a throbbing, burning arm, grabbed hold of the trunk of a juniper on the top, and pulled his upper body over the canyon’s rim. He lay there with his chest heaving until he caught his breath. He pulled with all his might and felt his legs scraping on the rocks. His right sock ripped and granite scraped his big toe. He had lost his boot. He didn’t remember when.

  But he was up on the top, rolling over, and sucking in precious air. Around him he felt and heard nothing but chaos. Below him lay . . . hell.

  Hooves thundered past, the clanging of metal hooves on the hard rock pounding his ears like a corps of drummers. He rolled onto his stomach, pushed himself up on hands and knees and somehow, maybe a thousand years later, he was standing, leaning against the juniper, and watching the last of the men Jed Foster had hired flee. Galloping hell-bent-for-leather across the ridge.

  Holden turned and stared. The riders, so panicked by the massive detonations—caused by nitroglycerin, he guessed—had left the Springfield rifles. Some lay in piles on blankets. Others had been dropped near shooting sticks. One had a long brass telescopic sight affixed to it, and its owner lay dead. When Holden reached him, he saw no bullet hole. To have been shot by someone on the canyon floor would have been remarkable, practically impossible. Based on the blueness of the man’s lips and the look of pain on his face, Holden figured the poor son of a bitch had died of a heart attack.

  That was completely understandable. Holden looked at the carnage below.

  Rocks and boulders and half the side of the canyon covered the ground. Buried beneath the rubble was Sergeant Ben Masterson. The crazed Colonel Will Muncie. And who knew how many others. Most likely, Jed Foster was down there, too.

  If Holden was lucky, Soledad Tadeo and Sam Florence were down on the other side of the bottleneck. With God’s grace and about eighteen thousand favors called in from the Man Upstairs, Grat Holden might be able to get them home. Maybe. With a lot of prayers and good luck.

  He understood that he was horseless. In the middle of the desert in Mexico. He was out of uniform. He was pretty much alone. And there were hundreds of Springfield Model 1880 rifles lying before him. Holden walked to one and picked it up. Sighing, he tossed it over the side.

  Colonel Smythe would blow a gasket when he heard Holden’s report.

  The lieutenant picked up another rifle, and pitched it into the carnage and destruction below.

  * * *

  Holden had no idea how long he had been dropping rifles over the side, nor how many. Sometimes he did it by handfuls. Sometimes he dragged the blankets and pushed the entire load over the rim. Sometimes he dropped them over the edge one at a time. He pushed boxes of ammunition, and heard them crash on the rocks below. When his arms burned from pain, he would lay on his back and push them with his feet, one boot still on, the other holding a threadbare sock full of splinters and pebbles and cactus spines.