The segundo had scouted the timber and the canyon beyond, studying the canyon and the narrow defile at the end of it, and known at once Valdez was coming here. Where else? This man knew the ground and the water sinks and fought like an Apache. Sure Valdez was coming here: to escape through the defile or to stand in it and shoot them one at a time as they came for him.
Dont let him get in the canyon, the segundo had thought. Dont take a chance with him. Wait for him at the canyon mouth and shoot him as he enters. But Valdez would be coming through the cover of the trees and maybe his nose or his ears would tell him something, warn him, and he would run off another way. You have to think of him as you would a mountain lion, the segundo thought. Trap him in the open, away from cover.
So the segundo had gone back through the timber to the edge overlooking the slope and had told his two men very carefully what they would do: how they would watch for him, then study his angle of approach from the cover of the trees, and be waiting for him to walk into it, waiting until he was close to the trees but still in the open, and kill him before he saw them.
But now Valdez was already in the timber. The segundo had told his men to be quiet and keep their horses quiet and listen.
One of them said, You know hes going for the canyon.
He reached it, thats all, the other one said. Once he gets in the hole aint nobody going in after him.
Not this child, the first man said. Tanner can go in himself he wants him so bad.
Christ Jesus, the segundo said to himself. Will you be quiet!
They listened.
I dont hear him, one of them said. I dont hear a sound.
The segundo drew the two men closer to him, listening, and they listened with him. Do you know why? he said. Because hes not moving, hes listening. He knows were in here with him.
He didnt see us.
When are you going to know him? the segundo said. He doesnt have to see you.
Hes got to move sometime, one of them said.
The segundo
nodded. Before Tanner and the others come up. All right, we separate, spread out a little. But all of us move toward the canyon. His voice dropped to a hushed tone. Very quietly.
There were open patches where sunlight streaked through the pine branches a hundred feet above, and there were thickets of scrub oak and dense brush. There was an occasional sound close to them, a small scurrying sound in the brush, and there were the shrill faraway cries of unseen birds in the treetops. The birds would stop and in the shadowed forest, high in the Santa Ritas, a silence would settle.
They moved deep into the trees from the open slope before Valdez brought them up to listen. And as he listened he thought, You should have kept going and taken the chance. You dont have time to wait.
He heard the sound through the trees, a twig snapping, then silence. In a moment he heard it again and the sound of movement in dead leaves.
He was right, some of them were already in the trees. But it did no good to be right this time. They should have kept going and not stopped. They werent going to sneak through and keep running, and now he wondered if the woman should go first or follow him. Follow him through the trees and in the open, if they reached the canyon, then first into the defile while he held them off. He couldnt remember the distance to the canyon. Perhaps fifty yards, a little more. He was certain of the general direction, the way they would point and keep going.
He said to the woman, The last time we run. Are you ready?
She nodded once, up and down. Both of her hands were on her saddle horn, but she didnt seem tense or to be holding on.
I go first, Valdez said. He nodded in the direction. That way. You come behind me. Dont go another way around the trees, keep behind me. If you see them in front of us, stay close to me, as close as you can. At the end of the canyon youll see the opening. You go in first. Dont get off, ride in its wide enough and Ill come in after you.
She nodded again. All right.
He smiled at her. Just a little ride, its over.
She nodded again and tried to smile and now he saw she was afraid.
Valdez dismounted. He untied the sorrel, moving it aside, holding the bridle under the horses muzzle. As soon as Tanners men entered the trees he would send the sorrel galloping off and hope they would take off after its sound. He waited, telling Tanners men to hurry so he would hear them soon; and when it came, moments later, the sound of their horses rushing into the timber, he hissed into the sorrels ear, yanking the bridle and slapping the Remington hard across the horses rump as it jumped to a start and ran off through the trees.
Now, Valdez said.
They were moving, running through the shafts of sunlight and darkness with the beating, breathing sound of the horses and the tree branches cutting at their faces, running through the brush, through the wall of leaves and snapping branches and through a clearing into trees again, now hearing Tanners men calling out somewhere behind and somewhere off in the timber. Valdez could see the canyon ahead through the foliage, the open mouth of the meadow, the rock escarpment slanting to the sky.