was tall and slender, her clothes torn, stained with blood; face, hands, and arms purpled with bruises, cuts; her eyes filled with a pain caused by something other than those injuries. He could see her in the kid named Blanche, but this one wasn’t so tough, and her lips were full, round, not the thin, frowning, hard lines of her daughter. Mrs. Wilhelm had fashioned a bandana into a bonnet, and grimaced when she lifted the spoon again.
“I’m…” He stopped. Who could he trust in this camp? The kid had said she and her mother had been taken by Pardo. The kid had saved his life. But…still…
“Call me Mac,” he said. He slid up, and took the spoon from her shaking hand. She seemed grateful, and quickly lowered her arm, pressing it slightly against her side. Ribs, Reilly thought. She had busted a rib or two. He wondered, How long have I been here?
“I can feed myself, ma’am,” he told her.
When he had finished eating, he tried to stand, but needed Mrs. Wilhelm and Blanche to help him to his feet. He leaned against a tree, aware of every eye in camp trained on him.
They were far from the sagebrush and desert, higher, much cooler. He felt the trunk of the tree supporting him, looked up at the giant limbs, and shade. A massive oak. Piñon and sycamores also hemmed them in, stretching toward a blue sky, climbing through boulders and brush, and beyond them, almost blocked out by the trees, rose towering spires of granite.
The Dragoon Mountains, Reilly guessed. No, it wasn’t a guess. He knew. More than a decade ago, the Dragoons had been the stronghold of the great Apache Cochise, and he could see why an Apache, or a man like Jim Pardo, would choose this spot as his hideout. It had to be damned near impregnable, with plenty of shade, and, more important, water. He forced himself to the clear spring in the boulders, heard the rhythmic dripping of the water, squatted with cupped hands, and drank.
It hurt to pull himself up, but he managed, leaned back against the hard rock, and looked at the campfire.
An older woman, thin but mean, worked on a rifle. Reilly blinked. His Evans! She spit into the fire, not giving Reilly a moment’s thought. That would be Ruby Pardo, Jim’s mother. He had read one account, in a newspaper, or maybe it had been in a dime novel, that said Ruby Pardo tied the scalps of the men she had killed on her pants legs, but she didn’t wear pants. She wore a filthy riding skirt that maybe once had been a brilliant red, and, anyway, he didn’t see any scalps.
Away from the fire, a man stood in front of a Sibley tent, half of his face lathered, an ivory-handled razor in his left hand. Shirtless, with black pants, and still wearing a gun while he shaved. Wade Chaucer, Reilly guessed.
The other men’s names he didn’t recollect, but he wouldn’t forget their faces. A sorry-looking bunch, who sat around the fire, trying to focus on the poker game they were playing, but staring at him. One tossed his cards on the deadwood, unsheathed a giant Bowie knife, and began running the blade against a whetstone. He seemed older than the rest.
Reilly remembered the dark-haired woman who smelled of mescal. He didn’t see her, but there were other tents, a cabin halfway built, two lean-tos, and a corral. This had been a camp for quite a while. He went back to the fire. Three men. Plus the man shaving. And Pardo, wherever he was. But there had to be more. Jim Pardo would have at least one man on sentry duty.
When his head started swimming, he decided he’d better head back to his bedroll, before somebody had to carry him there.
For supper, the girl brought in a plate of beans, two burned tortillas, and a cup of coffee. Reilly was sitting up, rubbing his wrists, watching the men and women at the fire. The graybeard was gone, but a swarthy gent had replaced him. Likely trading off guard duty.
“Where’s Pardo?” he asked, taking the plate from the girl’s hand.
“I ain’t his keeper,” she said, kneeling.
“Somebody’s going to slap that smart mouth of yours shut,” Reilly said. “And it might be me.”
Handing him the coffee, she eyed him with a measure of respect.
“He rode off this morning.”
“How many men does he have?”
“Five. That’s all I seen. But I hear them talk that one of them got killed when they wrecked the train, and his brother took him home to get planted. I don’t know when he’ll come back.”
“They wrecked a train?”
“Yeah. Killed my stepfather. Don’t give me that look. He was a louse.”
Reilly tested the coffee. It was terrible, but it was coffee. “You best get back, look after your mother. They don’t want us talking much.”
“Back in the desert, you said you were a real lawman,” she said softly.
“I am.”
“What you plan on doing?”
He didn’t really have an answer. “Try to keep you, your mother, and me alive,” he said as she walked away. A thought struck him, and he called out, “Blanche?”
She turned.
“Where’s my badge?” he whispered.
Her fingers began dribbling the pocket of her pants.
“Bury it,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“See, the boys been betting on when my cussedness would get the better of me, and I’d kill you,” Pardo said. “You’re walking around pretty good now. Amazing what a few days of rest, grub, and good coffee’ll do for a fellow.”
“Good coffee?” the tall man from the prison wagon said, and Pardo cackled, but the mirth ended a second later. Pardo tested the Colt in his holster, just letting this hombre called Mac know that he still might die. Today. In the next minute.
“Where you from?” You didn’t ask a man where he hailed from, didn’t even ask his name, you just let him tell you if he had a mind to, but nobody had ever accused Bloody Jim Pardo of being polite.
“Grew up on a farm in Johnson County,” he answered easily as he lifted the blackened coffeepot off the fire and filled his cup.
Pardo took his hand away from his revolver. “Hell, Mac, we was neighbors.” He found a tin cup on the ground, held it out for the stranger to fill. “I growed up on a Cass County farm myself.”
The man didn’t seem nervous. Just topped Pardo’s cup with miserably bad coffee—making it was never one of Three-Fingers Lacy’s strongest talents—then sat across the fire on a boulder, sipping casually. Like they were in some café in Tucson, talking about the weather or the parson’s sermon last Sunday.
“You fight in the war?” Pardo asked.
He shook his head. “Too young.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Look older. Well, maybe not older, but experienced.”
“I’ve
