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crazy" he said aloud. "If he left her alone, he'd be alive."
"She's a curse," Buck Bayless said resentfully. "Shell be the death of us
all. Let her go, I say, and good riddance."
Ben Hindeman was angrily impatient "We can let her go," he said, "but we
can't let him go. If one man can wipe his feet on the Sutton-Bayless outfit,
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we won't last out the year. We kill him or we all go."
He swung a wide arm at the country. "There's fifty outfits in Arizona and New
Mexico who want our graze. There's two or three mighty near strong enough to
do it. Like John Slaughter... that's why I kept Jack and Mort from going that
way."
They were still there when Mort Bayless came in with four men. These were the
tough ones, the men with a reason to want Trace Jordan dead. Mort Bayless had
used an argument they could understand. "We got him runnin'," he said. "You
think he'll let up if we quit? Not by a damn sightl
"He'll bide his time an' he'll come back. Folks will talk; he'll know who got
his horses. He'll hunt down every man-jack of us, you'll see!"
He knew men-fears because he knew his own. This was a danger they understood.
Jordan was a tough man and they had been fools to listen to Jack Sutton.
Beside the fire they hunkered down and made war talk.
"Where'll they go?" Hindeman asked Lantz.
The old man spat into the fire. "No tellin'. With the Mex gal we could figure
some but Jordan's taken the lead now an' he knows where he's goin'. This here
desert is out of my knowin'. Might be a sight of places around if a body knew
'em."
He took a pull at the coffee. "You been thinkin', Ben? This here's Apache
country. We get caught down here an' we're in genuine trouble."
"No matter. We'll find him."
"Worse'n huntin' a needle in a haystack," Buck Bayless complained. "We'd have
to hunt up every canyon. Take us ten year."
"Hadn't better," Ben Hindeman replied dryly. "Your wife will forget you in
that time."
Wes Parker lifted himself to an elbow. "I'm goin' back. I'm catchin' me that
Mex kid. If that gal knows a hideout down here, that kid should know."
Ben Hindeman considered that. He did not like to have anyone abused but the
situation was getting out of hand. They were losing time and the ranch needed
them. All had work that needed doing. Moreover, for the first time he was
finding an element of doubt. The increased caution of Lantz was part of it.
"All right, Wes. Take Buck with you. Maybe he'll be better huntin'a Mex than
a man."
"Aw, Ben!" Buck protested plaintively. "That ain't no "
"Shut up!" Ben was exasperated. "Jake, you do something about where they
might go. Meanwhile we'll get some sleep."
Lantz spat out his chewing. "Better set guards " he said, "them broncho
Apaches might want to collect some horses."
Buck Bayless retired to his blankets vastly satisfied. What he wanted was
less alkali and more beer. To hell with Jordan!
Before daybreak Trace Jordan crawled from his blankets into the pre-dawn
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chill. He slung his gun belts across his hips, then pulled on his boots. The
fire had died to thin gray ashes, so he gathered a few dried leaves from under
the trees and some dried-out branches of the curl-leaf, which makes no smoke.
Maria Cristina lay huddled in her blankets where he had last seen her, so he
broke sticks quietly and fed them into the flames. He dipped water from the
lake and placed the coffee pot on a stone by the fire to grow hot.
This place was well hidden. It was surrounded by a Jungle of cholla,
sometimes called jumping cactus, one of the most vicious of all the desert's
plants. There were cat-claw, organ pipe and a few barrel cacti.
Finding a way through the maze would not be easy. He had stumbled upon it
himself and even that trail had been difficult to follow.
When breakfast was ready he went to her and bent over to awaken her, yet even
as he stooped, her eyes opened suddenly, dark and beautiful, ringed with black
lashes. Her expression was, at that moment, unreadable. He started to reach
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