After a moment it became clear the pedestrian was Pierce Bolan. Dutch stopped and waited with a knowing grin while the Texan trudged forward.

Pierce Bolan was sweaty and limping, and empty-handed; he had his hat, clothes, boots and holstered revolver but that was all.

“Listen, you old Dutchman, you don’t need to look so pleased at a man’s misfortune.”

As always, Dutch had to filter the words through the dictionary of his mind, converting them one at a time into German before he could make sense of them. One time the stoutfrau, in exasperation, had wailed about how he had been in North America for damn near half his life and he still couldn’t speak or understand English worth a damn. Why, she demanded, did she have to go and pick the only man, red or white, on the plains who had absolutely no calling for languages?

“Horse you throw?”

“Naw. I didn’t get pitched off. Stopped to take a squat, forgot I was riding a half-broke Indian mare, left her hitched to a twig, and the next thing I know she’s spooked by a butterfly and half way to the next county. I don’t mind the horse and I don’t even mind the walk home but that was my good Winchester rifle and my second-best double-rig saddle. You come across a spotted blue mare with my rig and rifle on a Mandan saddle blanket, I’ll be obliged for the return of same. Spread the word for me, will you?”

“Yah. That I do,” Dutch agreed, knowing as well as Pierce did what the chances were of having the goods returned in this sort of country. “But come on, Pierce, we can double ride. How long ago horse spook? We catch.”

“Last I saw she was on the dead run for Montana and that was three hours ago. No chance of catching up now, but I’m obliged for the thought.”

It was a few miles from here up a draw to Pierce’s ranch. It would make a pleasant ride in the unusually warm sun. Dutch said, “Come on, then, get up—I you home take.”

Pierce smiled. “Much obliged.” Then something caught his attention past Dutch’s shoulder. The way Pierce froze made Dutch turn and look that way.

They were coming downriver, visible at intervals between clumps of intervening trees; they were half a thousand meters away, riding bunched up in a solid-packed column of threes, about two dozen horsemen cantering forward at a businesslike clip. There wasn’t much dust right along the river where they were riding and even from here Dutch had no trouble seeing the hoods they wore over their heads.

In a calm voice Pierce Bolan said, “Dutch, get the hell out of here.”

“Both of us. Come on—you up climb.”

“I’m respectable, Dutch. They don’t want me. It’s you they’re after. They still think you shot up the Markee’s house—they’ve put the word out on you. Listen, get out of here. I’ll flag them down and palaver, give you a little jump on ’em. Maybe I can talk sense to them. Go on—on the run now.”

The riders had seen them now; they were lifting their horses to a menacing gallop and Dutch didn’t have to do much translating in his head in order to appreciate the wisdom in Pierce’s judgment. Dutch flashed a grin of gratitude at the young Texan, grabbed up the pack horse’s reins, leaped aboard the saddle animal and spurred urgently toward the ford.

He skewed among trees, splashed across, came heaving up out of the river and as he went up into the cottonwoods on the east bank he hipped around in the saddle to look back.

Half the crowd flowed around Pierce Bolan in a closing circle. The rest were coming straight for the ford on the dead run. They had guns up and there was no more time for contemplation: Dutch rammed his horses into the trees, ducked to keep from being decapitated by a low branch and galloped recklessly ahead, bent low over the saddle, dragging the pack animal at full gallop.

He had a good lead when he came out of the trees and ran up the dry creekbed of a tributary coulee; it curled around an acute bend to the northeast and he knew he would be out of sight of the pursuit for at least a little while; the knowledge steadied him enough to allow him to reason ahead. When he had climbed six or seven hundred meters into the coulee with a cresting rib of sloping ground on either side he took the risk of slowing the pace long enough to take a good look down the backtrail.

Gott im Himmel.

They were coming—at least ten of them, thundering up the creekbed.

One of them lifted a rifle one-handed and Dutch saw smoke puff from its muzzle; a moment later he heard the faint crack of the gunshot.

He had no idea where the bullet went but it left no doubt of the hooded horsemen’s intention.

Dutch hauled his two steeds to the right, spurred frantically and yanked on the tow-reins, urging them up over the hump of land that separated this canyon from its neighbor. They went halfsliding over the sloping rim, hoofs scrabbling for purchase against clay and shrubs. He lost his hat and heard more gunfire before he was over the crest; two or three bullets ricochetted off objects close enough to make him flinch from the noise.

Out of their sight-line he fled down into a tangle of shallow gullies where artesian pressure had encouraged the growth of scrubby trees that stood twice as high as a man—a considerable stretch of forest for these parts, and a Godsend to Dutch. The pursuers would expect him to continue eastward for the high ground and try to out-run them across the flats of the high plateau; so he whipped the pack horse savagely away uphill, fired two shots in the air that helped propel the frightened beast on its way toward the crest and turned his own mount sharply downslope—west: back down toward the river.

He trotted through the trees; it was cool in here away from the sun. He chose a meandering aimless-seeming path that would leave tracks like those of a riderless horse that was following its natural inclination to wander toward the smell of fresh water.

And pray to God it would fool the pursuing swine into following the wrong set of tracks.

He continued downhill, reining in his nerves and his horse, forcing himself to keep the pace to a mild haphazard trot. The trees were too thick to permit a view of anything more than a few meters away. He stopped twice to blow the horse and let it graze; he turned his head slowly in every direction in an effort to pick up any telltale sounds against the flats of his eardrums. There were various distant sounds—hoofs clattering on rock, men’s shouts, a spirited whinny—but none of it gave useful evidence whether the pursuit was proceeding east or west.

Dutch pushed his lips tight together and gigged the horse downhill at a faster clip; anyone who followed this far would not give up before catching the “riderless” horse, so there was no point continuing the deception any longer and he lifted the beast to a canter, moving as quickly as he could without raising too much sound.

He was nearly down to the river when he heard the sharp clanging chip of horseshoe on rock—behind him and not far at all. He stopped and listened.

No question those were hoof-falls, approaching steadily. Several horses—three or more.

Dutch spoke a curse in his mind. They must have split up the party to follow both sets of tracks.

He had never killed anybody that he knew of but the extreme circumstances of the moment made him think seriously about lying up by the trail with his rifle and picking them off as they approached.

A cooler second consideration made him think better of it. He might get a good shot or two but he probably wouldn’t be able to knock down all of them, and the noise of shooting would draw the rest of them. Not much future in that.

Not much future in anything right now, he thought, but there was no point quitting before you were caught.

He rode toward the river, draping the reins over the horse’s withers so they wouldn’t trail and trip the poor animal. He slipped his rifle out of the scabbard and clutched it tight in his fist, and when he came past a litter of volcanic boulders he slipped off the wrong side of the horse and teetered on the rocks, slapping the horse with the rifle’s buttstock. It continued to amble downhill toward the river.