THOMAS EIDSON

St Agnes’ Stand

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published by Michael Joseph in 1994

Copyright © Thomas E. Eidson 1994

Thomas E. Eidson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007329557

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780007293025

Version: 2016-06-01

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DEDICATION

For my childrenSamantha, Elizabeth and John‘Have I ever told you …?’

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Day One …

Day Two …

Day Three …

Day Four …

Day Five …

Day Six …

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Thomas Eidson

About the Publisher

DAY ONE …

He was hurt and riding cautiously. Thoughts not quite grasped made him uneasy, and he listened for an errant sound in the hot wind. His eyes were narrowed – searching for a broken leaf, a freshly turned rock, anything from which he could make some sense of his vague uneasiness. Nothing. The desert seemed right, but wasn’t somehow. He turned in the saddle and looked behind him. A tumbleweed was bouncing in front of wild assaults from the wind. But the trail was empty. He turned back and sat, listening.

Over six feet and carrying two hundred pounds, Nat Swanson didn’t disturb easy, but this morning he was edgy. His hat brim was pulled low, casting his face in shadow. The intense heat and the wind were playing with the air, making it warp and shimmer over the land. He forced himself to peer through it, knowing he wouldn’t get a second chance if he missed a sheen off sweating skin or the straight line of a gun barrel among branches.

As his mule climbed, he slowly reached his hands back and pulled black shoulder-length hair out of the way behind his head, securing it with a piece of silk ribbon. Caught in this way, the hair revealed the finely shaped features of his weathered profile. His skin was a dark copper colour and sun lines etched deep into the corners of his eyes and mouth gave his face the look of cracked rock when he smiled.

Without much motion, he slipped the leather thong off the hammer of the pistol hanging at his side, easing the weapon halfway up the holster to clear it, then settling it back down again. The sheer cold weight of it felt comforting.

He had been running for a week, and he was light on sleep and heavy on dust and too ready for trouble. He’d killed a man in a West Texas town he’d forgotten the name of – over a woman whose name he’d never known. He hadn’t wanted the woman or the killing. Nor had he wanted the hole in his thigh. What he did want was to get to California, and that’s where he was headed. Buttoned in his shirt pocket was a deed for a Santa Barbara ranch. Perhaps a younger man would have run longer and harder before turning to fight and maybe die; but Nat Swanson was thirty-five years that summer, old for the trail, and he had run as far as he was going to run.

A covey of mearns quail flushed near the ridge top and glided down the bright mountain air, disappearing in a thick stand of manzanita to his left. He reined the mule in and sat watching. The animal stood with its ears tilted back, then switched them forward and listened up the trail. The mule was desert-bred stock, and Swanson knew it sensed the danger as well as he. The uneasy feeling came over him strong again, and he blew out his nostrils to clear them and then breathed in, scenting the wind. Nothing. But there was something. Mearns quail didn’t flush easy in high winds.

It was early morning and he was perched halfway up a hardscrabble New Mexico hillside, following a deer path that stayed comfortably below the crestline where a larger pack trail ran. It was habit with him never to ride main trails or ridge lines even in the best of times, and this morning, with three riders tracking him, he wasn’t about to start breaking the habit.

He ran facts over in his mind. It didn’t figure that the men who had chased him across miles of hot desert on bad water had magically managed to get ahead of him. Even if they could have pushed their animals that hard, which he plain doubted, they couldn’t have guessed which arroyo he would take into the high mountains. No man was that lucky. There was no sense to it, and he was a man who liked things to make sense.

A sound from behind told Swanson the dog had worked its way up through the brush of the mountain. He looked over his shoulder at it sitting on its thin haunches, its eyes and ears fixed on the trail ahead; at least they weren’t coming at his back. He let the dog take a blow. It stood some six hands at the shoulders, deep-chested, maybe ninety pounds, narrow at the hips. Nature had left its tail long for balance, and somebody else had spiked its ears so they couldn’t be torn off in a fight. Great patches of bare skin showed on its haunches and shoulders where its thin hair had been worn off in sleep against the hard desert. It was as formidable a beast as it was ugly; a fierce and violent mongrel, able to take a man down and able to kill.

Five years before, the dog had thrown in with him in Arizona, swinging silently in behind his mule one sundown in a high mountain meadow a hundred miles from anywhere or anyone. That’s all he knew about it, excepting it was clean, didn’t beg, wasn’t friendly and didn’t make noise; those were things he understood and respected. It had bitten him once, and he had thought of shooting it more times than that.

When the dog was rested, he waved it ahead. It trotted past the mule and began to zigzag in the brush on both sides of the trail. Five yards from the hilltop, it froze. Swanson watched it for a few seconds and then swung painfully down, keeping his right hand free. When he reached the ground he pulled a leather pouch from behind the cantle of his saddle and slung it under his arm; then he loosened the straps holding a crossbow in place, listening hard as he worked, and slipped the weapon across his back. He checked the cylinder on his pistol and started up the trail.

Even hurt, he was deceptively light on his feet. He wore soft, mule-eared boots and moved with a grace and power that told of years not spent in a saddle but on foot in mountains like these. His buckskin leggings and his four-button blue flannel shirt were soft and noiseless as he walked. He knew the dog had a scent but the wind kept it confused, and he watched it now turning and sticking its nose up, then turning again. He continued climbing.

The dog was nowhere in sight as Swanson eased over the crest of the trail. The pain was bad in his leg. He lay still for a long time in a patch of dried hopsage and listened to the hills. No sound. The morning sun burned into him. He squinted his eyes and searched for movement. The wind had died. Just heat and dust and gravel. The flies and gnats hadn’t started in yet. The air felt pure and clean and hot. He crawled forward until he was overlooking a wide canyon that fell sharply away from where he lay concealed. At the bottom he could see a rocky flat and a dry river bed; a line of stunted tamarisk trees, parched and almost leafless, bordered the waterless course of the river. Nothing looked alive.

He had not spotted them before he heard the popping of a musket. Seconds later, there was a louder, sharper bark from what sounded like a Hawken. He squinted and searched the canyon until he located the white smoke drifting in the air, and after a few minutes more of searching he saw the Indian who had fired the musket. Ten minutes later, he had marked the positions of thirty Apaches, and seen their prey.

Two freight wagons lay overturned in a V against a cliff at the edge of a narrow road. Swanson pulled a telescope from the leather pouch and scanned them. The remains of a water barrel indicated the standoff would be short, Hawken or not. The wood looked dry. But maybe whoever was behind the wagons still had water. For their sake, he hoped so.

He glassed the road again. It was going to be a game with only one end: the freighters were eventually going to go crazy from the heat, the thirst, the fear … and one night they were going to try and escape. They wouldn’t make it.

He gave them three days, maybe. They were probably Mexicans; two to a wagon and armed with muzzle loaders and single-ball pistols. The Hawken might mean their cargo was valuable. It didn’t matter. No one would come to help them. They knew that. They knew the Apache. Their people had brutalized one another from time out of mind. They were muerto. The best they could hope was not to be taken alive. He couldn’t help them.

He held the telescope on some rocks near one of the wagons. The Indians had started a landslide in an attempt to knock the closest dray off the road, but it had missed. The stones lay in a mass higher than the wagons. The Apaches had seen this and two stood behind the rocks motioning for a third to climb up and take a shot.

Swanson focused the scope on this Indian. He was wearing a red shirt strapped at the waist with a leather belt, a white breechcloth, bare legged with deerskin boots. He looked no more than sixteen, but from the easy way he carried the musket in the crook of his arm, the way he strode confidently up the rocky slope, it was obvious this was their marksman.

Swanson studied him closely: the respect he was being shown by the others, his arrogance, and the comfortable manner in which he handled the weapon said he knew how to shoot. With just yards separating the mound of rocks from the wagons, he was going to give the people behind the wagons jessy; it would be like plunking thirsty horses at a water hole.

Swanson didn’t love Mexicans, but he liked them somewhat better than a stacked deck. Even so, he figured it wasn’t his funeral. He was calculating on pulling back and staying out of the fight, when he saw the Indian in the red shirt, a cock-of-the-walk grin on his poxed face, standing on the road in clear view of the wagons, urinating; daring the trapped Mexicans to do something. He wasn’t twenty feet from the closest wagon. It seemed incredible. Swanson waited for the Hawken to bark; waited for the pissing Apache to fly backwards, his chest blown open. Nothing happened.

He couldn’t figure it; why don’t they just shoot the sonofabitch, he wondered. Like jack rabbits cornered by the dog, they must be frozen with fear. That, or they’d already killed themselves. He had heard of that happening, though he didn’t know whether to believe it or not; it seemed impossible an armed man would shoot himself rather than die fighting. But long ago he had learned there was no figuring fear in man or beast.

Still, this act of pissing at men who were going to die, men cornered and outnumbered and who didn’t have much of a fighting chance left, men who had maybe just a little bit of dignity left inside their pinched up guts, didn’t set well with him. Fact of the matter, while Nat Swanson was slow to anger, this made it for him.

He limped half-crouched down a ridge top to some boulders and squatted behind them, tightening the bloody bandana on his thigh, groaning quietly from the pain. Then he pulled the crossbow off his back, his hands moving over the coffee-coloured wood with familiarity bred over a lifetime. It had been his grandfather’s. Swanson knew the hearth stories – the old man had used it to poach deer and boar off the great English estates around Kent in the late 1700s. It must have been a wonderfully efficient weapon for that purpose: powerful, accurate, silent as soft wind through spring leaves.

He placed the butt on his stomach and, grasping the slack string in both hands, yanked back hard, grunting at the hurt in his leg, bending the short metal wings until the string caught in the trigger lock; then he notched a bolt snugly in place and rose slowly over a waist-high boulder, resting the weapon on the stone. He guessed the range, sighted a fraction high, and pulled his breath in. No wind. The Indian was atop the boulders now, making a show of sighting his musket on the two wagons. Swanson let his breath out, then held it and pulled softly. There was no recoil, no sound to speak of, only a soft twang as the string slammed forward.

For a fleeting moment, he glimpsed the white fletching arcing through the bright morning sunlight, then he lost it in the shadows of the cliff. One second. Two seconds. Suddenly the Apache’s head smashed against the rocks, the body sliding limply to the roadway. It had been a clean kill.

The two Indians who had beckoned the younger brave were crouching against the side of the cliff, searching for who or what had slain their comrade so efficiently, so silently. The heavy one lunged from the wall and yanked up the dead man’s arms, dragging the body quickly down the rocky slope, while the second one scrambled after the precious musket. They had no idea where the bolt had come from and that would keep them from climbing the boulders for another shot, for a time.

When it was safe, Swanson studied the wagons again through the telescope, curious. The Indians were still fanned on the slope, but they looked more alert and less confident. He brought the circular field of the lens to play on the wagons and wondered again if there was anyone still alive behind them. There was no movement, but that didn’t prove anything; a man would be a damn fool to show himself with Apaches watching. But if they were alive, why hadn’t they killed the pissing Apache?

He was moving the circle of glass slowly along the space between the bottom of the wagons and the ground, trying to catch a movement of some kind, when he saw her. He couldn’t believe his eyes. A woman’s face, not pretty, not young, but a woman, nevertheless, stared out directly at him from the gap between the two wagons, staring as if she were looking straight into his eyes. Then she was gone. Swanson searched the area where he had seen her for another hour, but she never reappeared.

It was blisteringly hot where he hid among the rocks; the gnats had retreated but the flies had taken their place and they were driving him crazy, and he was getting a little wild for water because he’d bled a good deal from the wound. It didn’t take much for him to make up his mind to pull out. He just did it. He’d done all he could for the people in the wagons. He had bought them precious time. He was surprised and sorry there was a woman involved, but there wasn’t a single logical thing he could do to save her.

He struggled to his knees and put the telescope on the wagons one last time. She wasn’t to be seen, but he knew she was there; her face seemed oddly burned into his memory somehow. He guessed it was the surprise of seeing her in the first place, which caused her face to keep flashing in his thoughts. Getting her out would be impossible. Only a fool would try. He was no fool.

The mule was where he had left it. When he had finished restrapping the crossbow and the leather pouch to the saddle, he stood a while, listening for danger and sipping from his canteen, figuring his options. His biggest concern now was the three men behind him. Having lost half the day, they had to be close; and they too would take the road to Fort Rucker, since it was the only place in a hundred miles for fresh horses and supplies.

If he were smart, he would strike west along the Gila River into Arizona Territory; with a little luck, he could make it and the Texans weren’t likely to follow him deep into Apacheria. After a week of trying to lose them over hard rock desert and shifting sand that didn’t leave much trail sign, and failing to do so, he knew the three men tracking him weren’t new at this game, and they certainly weren’t fools. They wouldn’t want anything to do with the Apache if they could avoid it; not even to avenge the death of a friend.

The Gila was his best chance and quickest route to California; but as he stood there next to his mule, he knew he couldn’t take it. Not right off, anyhow. First, he would head for Fort Rucker; he owed the woman at the wagons that one chance. He didn’t owe her his life, however, and he promised himself he would turn west the first time his pursuers broke out between him and the fort. Having scouted for the army, he’d take no chance some second-jack cavalry officer would side with the dead man’s friends and turn him over to be hung. His mind made up, he didn’t expect to have his hand forced quite as soon as it was.

The dog had rejoined him on a trail leading down out of the arroyo, and after he had given it water he had looked up and spotted his pursuers crossing a ridge top half a mile ahead. The sun was behind Swanson and there was little chance the men would see any reflection off the glass, so he stood and put the telescope on them.

They were outfitted and looked like typical Texans, lean and tough, strapped with the new Walker Colt pistols that were making their way into the territory and carrying a selection of different rifles under their legs. One rode a big, high-stepping pinto with a broken tail and a nice singlefoot. It was an animal he might have traded the mule for, and he watched it admiringly. The men’s faces were shadowed by large hats, and he couldn’t see them; but the way they rode, letting their horses pick the trail, taking care to lean forward over the necks of their mounts whenever they climbed to go easy on the beasts’ kidneys, he understood them. And, under different circumstances, he would probably get along with these men. But the circumstances weren’t different; he had killed a friend of theirs and now they aimed to kill him, so he waited until they disappeared into a chaparral-filled arroyo, then he mounted and struck west towards the Gila.

The Apaches had won; the woman had lost. It was that simple. There was nothing he could do about it.

He had been riding for half an hour, checking his backtrail periodically, when he came over a bluff and saw the cloth. The sharp colours against the dull taupe hues of the hills seemed to physically slap at his senses. Hundreds of feet of brightly coloured calico cloth were strewn in all directions over the tops of the brush at the bottom of the small valley. Some Apache braves had had fine fun on horseback.

Out the corner of one eye, he saw a thin trail of smoke threading its way into the sky, rising from what appeared to be a third wagon that had broken through the ambush and made it this far. His muscles tensed and a searing pain shot up from the gash in his leg. The dog was standing a few feet in front of the mule, its hair rising in a stiff ridge down the length of its back.

He pulled his pistol and checked the cylinder, then waved the dog into the valley. The air around him was bright and cheerful, filled with the sounds of water and birds. After a quarter hour, the dog returned and flopped down on the trail. He was soaked and satisfied looking and Swanson knew he’d been swimming. He tightened the bandage on his leg and swung down. He had stiffened up, but fortunately the leg had mostly stopped bleeding. Quietly, he worked his way down the slope.

The freight driver had been dead for at least two days and what was left of his head was blackening in a repulsive mass in the heat. Swanson kicked a turkey vulture off the corpse. The bird’s ugly bald head and neck were glistening with grease and blood and it was too heavy to fly. It stood off a few yards, its wings outstretched and its mouth open, hissing at Swanson.

The man had been buried to his neck in the soft sand a few yards from the wagon, but not before his privates had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth. His face had been brutally disfigured; his eyelids, nose and ears cut off, an eye gouged out with a stick. Then he’d been used for target practice with lances and arrows. It had probably been over in half an hour, and made him the lucky one. They had taken longer with the woman. Her white skin looked obscene in the sunlight, and Swanson covered her with a black robe he found in the dirt near the wagon.

He had no time to bury them; the Apaches would be back for the cloth and the other goods in the wagon. After taking a long drink and filling his canteens and a deerskin bag, he soaked his head in the clear pool of water, cleaned his wound, and then let the mule drink his fill.

He rode through half the night, putting good distance between him and the valley. Five hours before dawn, he made a cold camp in thick mesquite. He hobbled the mule and unsaddled it, drying the animal’s back carefully with a cloth; then he turned the blanket over to the dry side and resaddled, half tightening the cinch so that he could still mount if attacked. He cocked the crossbow and slipped a bolt into the firing groove, then he threw a tarp on the ground and lay down in what was still hundred-degree heat and tried to sleep. The feeling of the deed crinkling in his pocket was good.

Sister St Agnes had been praying in the dark for over two hours; she held the crucifix her mother had given her forty-seven years before, on the day she had taken her solemn vows. She had turned twenty that day. The memory flooded in. She could see it vividly: snow had fallen in New York City and her mother and two younger brothers, Matthew and Timothy, had looked so cold and alone standing outside the convent of the Sisters of Charity where she had spent her novitiate, shaking in their winter coats, while she in contrast had felt so warm inside, so at peace. She had known then God was real; He lived. It had been that simple for her. That feeling of peace had never left her; not even now, on this dark, hot night with the shadows of death so near, was she without the peace.

Even so, she was deeply troubled. She rubbed the crucifix gently in her fingers, the way she always did when she needed a special prayer answered. And on this night, in this black and lonely place, hundreds of miles from succour and safety, she needed a very special prayer answered; not for herself, she thought. She was ready to join her Lord. Her prayers, as usual, were simple and were for others. She had two this night and she had been repeating them in different ways over and over again.

The first prayer was for Sister Ruth. She had not made it to safety. Sister St Agnes had watched a group of Indians overtake the fleeing wagon as it rolled down the road; one had shoved Sister Ruth down when she stood up in the back. Sister St Agnes knew instinctively that Sister Ruth was lost. She had not told the others what she had seen; Sister Ruth was their only hope; they had visions of her and the Mexican driver hurrying toward Santa Fe and help. And as long as she did not have to lie, Sister St Agnes would not destroy their hope.

She closed her eyes tighter and prayed fervently for Sister Ruth’s soul; she did not pray for her death. Even though she knew of the things that the Apache did to women captives, her faith would not allow her to pray for death. But she could pray for Sister Ruth to have the strength and the peace of the abiding Almighty, and she did. Then she prayed over and over again for Ruth’s precious soul. When she was done, she felt weak and alone. She asked the Saviour to comfort Sister Ruth in her hour of need, and she began to talk quietly to her, the way she had once talked at night in her heart to her own father when she was a novice in the convent. She had been deeply troubled then as well.

She felt a gentle warmth inside at the thought of her father. Sister Ruth and he were similar in so many ways. They were both possessed of great pride; not evil pride as some have, but rather a sense of rightness in their actions and being. Stubborn, too. Sister St Agnes smiled at the thought and her mind drifted effortlessly to her father, now dead, whom she loved so much. A Baptist minister, he had never spoken to her after she had become a Catholic and entered the convent.

She was silent for a few moments, and then in a soft, mothering tone she said, ‘Sister Ruth, forget where you are now, forget everything, let go of this world. Let Jesus hold you and comfort you. He’s coming for you, Ruth, turn away and run to Him.’ She was sobbing softly now, not in sorrow, not in joy, simply in farewell. She was smiling through her tears.

After she had composed herself, Sister St Agnes began her second prayer. She appeared to straighten her small body somewhat and she squeezed the crucifix tightly between the palms of her hands. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered, her voice intensifying, ‘I have never asked for a miracle. I have never deserved one. I’ve never asked for a thing for myself, though You Yourself, Lord, said: “Ask and it shall be given.” I am willing to die in this place if that is Your will … but …’ Her words failed her. She clutched harder at the cross in her hands, and for the first time in her life, she felt herself sweating beneath her habit. She shuddered as if a hand had touched her, and the desert night felt oddly cold and penetrating. ‘Dear Saviour Jesus, send one who will deliver the others from this evil.’

Sister St Agnes slept.

Nat Swanson sat bolt upright in his sleep, and yelled. The dog came close to him and stared into his face. He reached a trembling hand out toward it and it growled at him and moved away. Swanson was drenched with sweat and he stood up, shaken. He had never yelled like that before in his life and he didn’t like it. He sat down on a rock and tried to piece together what had caused it. He looked at his hands; they were still trembling. It was a beautiful, starry night. The dog came and sat down a distance away and watched him, curious. The moon was three-quarters full and seemed to move among brilliant white clouds.

Swanson knew he had been dreaming. That in itself was strange, since he could not recall having ever dreamed before. But he was certain that he had been dreaming. About what, he didn’t know. Except that he knew it had something to do with the woman at the wagons. He had seen her face again – a face surrounded by utter darkness – and he had yelled a yell that felt like it had been trapped inside of him all his days. Swanson shook slightly. He called the dog but the animal only stared at him, its fur up on its back.

Three hours before dawn, Nat Swanson cinched the mule up tight and started on again. He rode chewing on a piece of jerky; he tried to stay alert to the trail and the surrounding hills, but his mind kept drifting back to the wagons and the woman. An hour later, he stopped and sat thinking. He felt oddly chilled. The dog was watching him closely, giving him a wide berth.

He rubbed his eyes; he couldn’t shake the memory of her face. She didn’t look like anyone he had ever known. She wasn’t handsome. She wasn’t marrying age. He could no longer remember what his own mother looked like, so she couldn’t remind him of her. It didn’t make sense. There was a new life waiting for him in California. But now, strangely, it was on the periphery of his thoughts. Try as he would, he couldn’t get his mind off the face at the wagons. He just sat there, the mule grazing, the dog watching him.

When dawn came and he was still sitting there, still thinking about her, he turned the mule around and started back to the canyon.

He stood glassing the arroyos and ridgebacks, looking for a way he could reach the wagons. There was none that wouldn’t get him killed, unless he waited until dark, and by that time, he figured, it would be too late. The Apaches were growing bolder. Nine of them were standing on the road, some behind the rocks, some in plain view of the wagons.

Two young bucks who walked like they had been drinking mescal marched boldly out in front of the wagons, turned and pulled their breechcloths up and then, tauntingly, slapped their buttocks. The Hawken rifle barked again; and, startled, the two darted unceremoniously for cover down the rocky slope, their comrades laughing at them. Swanson shook his head, amazed anyone could miss with a rifle at that distance.

Minutes later, the Apaches were tossing fist-sized rocks over the wagons and yelling taunts. Twice on the wind, he heard their word for whore. This wasn’t going to last much longer; soon a brave would get high enough on peyote or mescal, grab a lance and rush the wagons, others would follow, and it would be over.

Unpleasant as it was to think of the woman dying in this way, it gave him an odd idea, one that just might work. As quickly as caution would allow, he mounted and rode the mule into the shadows of a scrub oak that stood alongside the main ridge trail overlooking the canyon. He held the cocked crossbow in his hands as he searched for the two Indians who had been slapping their buttocks at the wagons. He singled them out because they were the most brazen of the band, most eager to be at the victims behind the wagons.

They were standing behind the boulders on the road now, dancing rhythmically in place, moving their arms in strange gyrations, wildly intoxicated and dangerous. Swanson picked the closest. He guessed the distance at over six hundred feet, very close to the crossbow’s maximum range. The quarrel head would not hit with enough impact to kill, so he slipped a bodkin, stiletto-like, long and slender, razor-honed steel that could sever a spinal cord or cut through four or five inches of muscle and bone, into the firing groove. It was a chance shot and it might give him away, but he needed time.

Swanson aimed a good half inch above the head of the Indian, hoping to catch him through a lung, but the shot was low, taking the brave in the stomach. The man began to flip and writhe on the ground. He would die, but it would be a long, painful death. Swanson took no pleasure in the thought. He kicked the mule into a trot.

Sun, ants and flies had been at the Mexican’s head for three days and it no longer looked human. The fetid stench of both the man and the woman made him sick. The dog would not come close, but the mule was not bothered. To keep from vomiting, Swanson tossed loose dirt on the dead man’s head until it was almost covered; then he tied the dead woman to a travois lashed to the saddle and headed at a trot for the canyon.

It took him half an hour to rope the corpse on to the mule. When he finished, he tied a blanket, cape-like, around the dead woman’s neck and down her back to hide the two sticks of manzanita he had used to prop her upright. She looked grotesque, stiff and bloated, yet oddly militant and alive in her death pose. The effect was exactly what Swanson was aiming for. Strangely, for so warlike a people, the Apaches had a horror of death, and an equal horror of evil spirits. And in death this naked woman, with one breast cut off, the other savagely shredded, her abdomen split from breastbone to where her pubic area had once been, her eyes burned-out holes, looked frighteningly evil.

Once started, the mule would follow the trail to the bottom. Swanson slapped the animal hard on the rump and quickly, shouldering a heavy deerskin pack, moved out in an awkward, limping dogtrot. The pain in his leg was worse, and the wound had begun to bleed again. He stopped midway down the mountain and looked for the mule. It was moving in a careful gait, the dead woman rocking awkwardly on its back, what was left of her red hair blowing in a light breeze.

Swanson crouched in the chaparral until he heard the first frightened yell. The mule was standing at the foot of the slope with the woman still on its back, and panic-stricken Apaches were running away in fear.

He hit the open stretch of rocks between him and the wagons on a dead run, paying no mind to the fire in his thigh. He was past the nearest Apache before the man knew he was there. He ran on, twisting, waiting for the arrow from the warrior’s bow. It never came. Up the slope he went, his legs driving, charging for the gap between the wagons. ‘White man … amigo coming in … don’t shoot,’ he yelled. It did no good. The Hawken boomed out at him. But whoever was handling the weapon was a lousy shot and missed, and he was safe behind the wagons. He sprawled on his belly, breathing hard, pistol drawn waiting for the rush.

‘Get ready … Cuidado,’ he hissed. ‘They may try to rush us now.’ Out of the side of one eye, he saw what appeared to be a blotch of shadow move; he turned his head and looked directly into her face. He was stunned. A Catholic nun, little and worn looking, was on her knees praying, her eyes fixed on the gap between the wagons, the Hawken rifle smoking in her hands. Quickly, he glanced around the small enclosure; there was no one else. Still stunned, he looked back out from the shadows of the wagon into the bright sunlight. The mule and the woman were in plain view not more than fifty yards away. He glanced at the nun and realized she was staring at the dead woman. She was rocking back and forth quietly in her anguish, her lips moving in silent prayer.

‘You okay, ma’am?’ Swanson asked, not turning to look at her. She didn’t answer. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘you need to get yourself ready. We’re getting out of here in a few minutes.’ The nun was deep in prayer and did not answer.

The ruse with the mule had worked better than he had hoped. The Apaches were falling back in panic into the hills. He decided to wait a few more minutes, then take the woman and slip out the north side and head into the high mountains. But it wasn’t to be. The biggest Indian Swanson had ever seen put a stop to the confusion below. He was wearing a blue bandana tied the way slave women did up their hair, a leather vest with silver studs that had probably belonged to one of his Mexican victims, a breech-cloth and white pants tucked in to deerskin boots. He stood a good foot taller than the braves milling nervously behind him. Even at a hundred yards, Swanson could almost feel the man’s rage, like it was a physical thing.

He strode down out of the hills and yanked viciously at the mule’s bridle until the animal reared. But the woman didn’t dislodge and the Indian tore the blanket off the corpse, exposing the manzanita poles that propped her up. He pulled a knife, cut the poles, and then savagely shoved the body out of the saddle. Swanson heard the nun cry out in a gentle, hurt way. The Indian was kicking the corpse now, and the nun was praying out loud. Swanson cocked the crossbow quickly and inserted a quarrel, aiming under the wagon.

‘No,’ the woman said. Somehow the word was not a request, not an order, it was just a statement of what Swanson was going to do. Surprised, he glanced at her. She was still kneeling but now she was looking directly at him. He could tell from the paleness of her wrinkled face that she had spent her life inside a church. The clean neatness of her habit gave her thin, fine features a strange look of calm authority. Her eyes locked on his face with a steady gaze. She looked amazingly crisp and fresh, white against black, amid the dull, hot browns of the desert.

Uncomfortable, Swanson turned back to the Indians. The leader had disappeared, leaving his warriors to kick and slash at the dead woman’s body, their confidence restored. ‘Damn,’ he whispered. Killing the big Apache might have sent the rest of them running. He picked a brave at random and dropped him with a head shot, the others scurried for cover.

Swanson heard the woman suck in her breath when he fired, and now she was praying out loud again. At one place in the prayer he heard her asking forgiveness for him. The thought made him feel awkward.

Neither of them spoke for a long time; the nun watching him and Swanson watching the rocks and hills. He felt her eyes on him. ‘Lady, we aren’t getting out of here without killing some of them.’

‘God didn’t send you to kill.’ Her voice sounded firm but not angry.

‘Ma’am, God didn’t send me. I just came.’ He squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight and scanned the canyon. ‘And if we don’t kill some, they’re going to kill us. Anyhow,’ he said, confused, ‘you tried to kill me.’

‘He sent you.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. ‘And I only shot into the air.’

That at least explained why none of the shots from the Hawken had done any damage. The nun had been plugging the sky. As for God sending him, Swanson chose not to reply. Let her believe what she would.

‘Do you have water?’

‘In the canteens. But go light, we’re going to be running hard in a few minutes.’

‘The others can’t run,’ she said.

The words seemed to crash down on him. He rolled on his side and looked at the woman as she opened the pack and pulled out one of the canteens. ‘Others?’

She stood without answering and hurried towards the cliff and a large rock. Kneeling, she disappeared into the side of the mountain. Quickly he loaded the Hawken and crawled back to the wagons. There were no Indians in sight, so he aimed at the rocks closest to the wagon and pulled the trigger. The big .54 calibre shell sent rock fragments flying. Figuring that would hold them for a while, he crawled around the rock. There was an opening in the mountain about as wide as a whisky barrel. He had seen these holes before. Twenty years earlier, prospectors had followed the road builders as they cut into the hills, searching for promising colour. When they found some, they would follow it a few feet or yards into the side of the mountain. He looked in but couldn’t see anything in the shadows.

‘Who’s in there?’

After he had waited a few seconds and gotten no answer, he drew his pistol and crawled in. The passage was cut out of sandstone and it was tight for his wide shoulders. He got stuck a couple of times, but after a few yards of crawling the passage widened some and he began to hear voices whispering ahead. Then he was in a larger vault-like cavern, fifteen by fifteen feet wide, and tall enough to stand in. A candle burned on top of a rock near the back, and he could see a black silhouette of a cross dancing against the walls; as his eyes adjusted, he began to see shapes in the room. It was refreshingly cool in the darkness.

‘Who’s in here?’ he asked again.

‘I and Sisters Elizabeth and Martha, and the children,’ the nun said from somewhere in the blackness.

‘Children? How many?’

‘Seven.’

Swanson sat without saying anything for a few minutes, feeling suddenly very tired, and listened to the grateful sounds of the children drinking in the dark. It was obvious from the small animal-like noises they made that they had been dying of thirst.

‘Seven,’ he said.

‘Seven,’ the nun repeated.

He turned and crawled back to the wagons to sort things out in his head. After the cool darkness of the cavern, the air outside felt like a furnace. He sat down against the wall of the cliff, the rocks hot through his shirt, and began to reload the Hawken. The metal of the weapon burned when he touched it. Sweat began to run into his eyes and he tied his bandana around his forehead in the Apache way.

He had come down here to save the woman, he thought, nothing more. And now he had three women and seven children to worry about. Even if he could get all ten of them out without the Apaches knowing, which he doubted, there was no way he could hide that many people, especially kids, in the hills. With just the woman and following the hard rocks, moving back through the Apaches at night instead of running from them, he might have been able to escape. But not with seven kids, crying and making noise, falling behind.

He laid the loaded Hawken down next to him and pulled his pistol. He ran an oiled rag over the weapon, his eyes scanning the space under the wagons as he worked. The Apaches were not likely to charge an armed man in the light of day, but Swanson was not one to be caught off-guard. His head was throbbing. He guessed it was the change in temperature from the cave to the outside, or the wound in his leg, which was beginning to hurt badly again. He let his mind work over the facts a while. Every way he figured it, it came out the same: he was not getting out of here with ten people. For the first time in his life Nat Swanson felt trapped. He could run, but …

What had seemed like a fool’s errand before now seemed like a desperate gamble gone terribly wrong; he could almost hear his mother’s voice warning him against leaning too hard on a broken reed. He ran his hands through his hair, listening for the sound of her in his memory. There was nothing but the wind. She remained, as always, a shadowy presence in his thoughts. Still, there were things he half-remembered, and he felt she would have done the same thing he had; she, too, would have come for the old nun. He felt a little better. But not much.

Swanson heard a noise to his right and whirled, bringing the pistol up cocked and levelled at the old woman’s head. She stared at him for a second and then walked over and returned the canteen to his pack.

‘That’s what guns do,’ she said, the words hanging in the hot air.

When she didn’t continue, Swanson asked, ‘What?’

‘They make you afraid.’ She stood and walked over to him.

Ignoring the remark, he looked up at her and said, ‘You shouldn’t stand; you’ll be killed.’

‘Perhaps,’ she answered, kneeling down beside him, a candle and a small leather purse in her hands, ‘but only if the Lord wants me to die. And I won’t die afraid.’ She smiled at him. ‘Now let me see your leg.’

‘It’s fine. It’s just a hole.’

‘Let me see your leg, please,’ she said firmly, lighting the candle with a match and sticking it in the sand. ‘From the amount of blood on your pants, it’s more than just a hole, and the children need you.’

Swanson looked into the woman’s face for a few seconds and realized she wasn’t going to let him alone; he stretched his leg out so she could see it. The wound was oozing badly. She opened the purse and took out a small knife and heated the blade in the flame of the candle. Swanson watched her thin, delicate hands as she worked. They were old hands, mottled with liver spots but steady, and it was obvious she had dressed wounds before. She was wearing a wedding ring and this surprised him. Laying the small knife down, she took a pair of scissors and cut the buckskin leggings so she could get at the wound. It wasn’t pretty. The entry hole was small enough, but the bullet had hit bone and flattened out and the wound was deep and ugly and seeping clear fluid and blood, and it was dirty. The skin around it was a festering purple colour. The woman began to reheat the blade of the knife.

‘What is your plan?’ she asked.

Swanson sat staring blindly at the bullet hole for a few seconds. ‘I don’t know.’

She seemed a little startled and then went back to heating the knife. He was thinking that if he’d known about the other nuns and the kids he might not have come at all, but he didn’t say it out loud.

She was watching him closely again. ‘You would have,’ she said after a few moments.

Swanson jumped. ‘Would have what?’

‘You were thinking you wouldn’t have helped if you’d known there were so many of us.’ She waited a second, still staring into his face. ‘You still would have.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact.

He looked into her eyes, surprised she had guessed his thoughts. Then he shrugged it off. He had never not had a choice in his entire life, even if the choice had been to die. He still had choices. He pulled his eyes away from hers and shook his head, looking out at the brilliant sunlight and the canyon. Sweat was running down his neck.

‘This will hurt. Before I start, I want to thank you for saving the children. They were dying.’

‘How long had they been without water?’

‘Two days. But it wasn’t only the water. It was the fear.’

Swanson didn’t understand. He waited for her to explain, but she was bending over the wound. ‘So what’s changed?’

‘They know God sent you to save them.’ She smiled at him.

The words seemed to slap at his face. She began to run the knife hard around the edge of the wound, leaving a thin trail of blood welting behind the sharp blade.

‘Listen, lady –’ Swanson started to say, before the pain slammed him upside of his head and he went unconscious.

It was late evening when Swanson awoke. The hurt in his leg was awful. His vision was fuzzy and he couldn’t focus on the white bandage made from a woman’s undergarment, but he didn’t need to see it to know the leg beneath the wrapping hurt as if she’d driven a wooden stake into his thigh. When his eyes finally focused, he saw a younger nun with a pudgy, cherub-like face kneeling in front of him looking concerned. She was maybe twenty. She smiled a gentle smile that filled something up inside him.

‘I’m Sister Martha. Would you like some water?’ He didn’t want any. She turned her head and called softly, ‘Sister St Agnes, he’s awake.’

The old nun came and stood over him. ‘Good. God would have never forgiven me if you’d died.’ Her eyes were laughing good-naturedly.

‘What did you do to my leg?’ He was fighting back a moan struggling out of the depth of him.

‘It was dirty. I cut the flesh away and opened it up inside and took the bullet out.’ She was walking back towards a small campfire of burning mesquite in the centre of the enclosed ground. ‘It will heal now.’

It took Swanson a few minutes to regain his bearings and to remember where he was. The younger nun continued to watch him until he returned her stare, then she averted her eyes shyly. His thoughts were on the old nun; this woman who moaned and prayed over the deaths of savages – savages who were out to kill them – but who cut his leg to pieces as casually as if she were cleaning chickens. She didn’t figure so easy. He watched the flickering light from the campfire for a few minutes, thinking about her, before he realized what was bothering him. He jumped.

‘Lady, put that out!’ he yelled, rolling toward the fire.

The two nuns caught him gently by the shoulders. He felt weak. ‘Don’t,’ the old one said, ‘you’ll hurt yourself and you’ll scare the children.’

‘Scare the children, hell.’ His voice was rising. ‘You’re going to get yourself and them killed with that fire.’

‘I insist you do not swear in front of the children,’ she said, turning back to the fire. ‘They have to eat. As soon as the meal is finished, I’ll put the fire out. Thank you for your concern.’

Swanson was holding himself up with one arm, staring at the back of the woman’s black robes as she worked over the campfire. He couldn’t believe her, she was crazy. He realized that the younger nun, Sister Martha, was still supporting his shoulder. As he started to pull away, pain tore through his leg and he caught himself.

‘Are you all right?’ the young nun asked.

‘I’m okay,’ he mumbled, crawling back to the wagons. He picked up the Hawken and scanned the darkening shadows of the canyon. His leg was driving him crazy with pain but he forced himself to think about the Apaches. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but he knew that meant nothing. The Mimbres were desert mountain people. They could lie in ambush a yard from a man in barren sand and not be discovered until it was too late. The only chance he had of spotting one was to study the road and the canyon until he had committed every bush, every rock, every patch of colour to memory, and then to wait for some small change. His thoughts were distracted by the sounds of cooking.

‘Hurry up, lady,’ he hissed.

‘In God’s own time,’ she responded.

Swanson heard soft scuffling noises behind him and he turned his head to see the last of the children crawl out of the hole in the mountain. It was almost completely dark now and they were small darker shapes squatting forlornly against the mountainside. There was a larger shadow at the end of the line. Swanson watched it suspiciously for a few seconds until he realized it was the third nun.

‘Ahhh, Sister Elizabeth, children, there you are,’ the old nun said. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to be out in the night air.’ Her voice was as light and breezy as if they were on a summer picnic. ‘Children, I’d like you to meet the man who has come to take you out of here.’

Swanson shot her an angry glance, but she wasn’t looking at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said loudly, leaning over a large pot, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t know your name, sir.’

Swanson waited a few seconds and then said, ‘Nat Swanson.’ He turned his head towards the night and the canyon sounds.

‘Nat Swanson,’ she said gaily. ‘What a strong-sounding name. Children, come for your dinner and say hello to Mr Swanson. Jessica, you first.’

‘Hello, Mr Swanson,’ the small voice said.

Swanson watched the darkness for a few seconds longer, but the innocence of the voice tugged at him and he turned, instantly bothered by what he saw. Jessica was small, maybe nine, thin and dirty looking in a rag dress; her tiny face seemed far too old.

‘Hello, Jessica,’ he said, glancing at the nun. She was smiling approvingly.

There were twins, Betty and Nan, perhaps ten or eleven, but it was difficult to be certain because of their starved condition. Next came a gangly girl of about thirteen wearing a filthy calico dress and swollen with child.

‘Tell Mr Swanson your name, child,’ the older nun said softly. The girl didn’t speak. She stood holding her stomach awkwardly as if she wanted to set it down and watched the flames of the fire. ‘Well, that’s okay,’ the nun said pleasantly. ‘Mr Swanson, we don’t know this lovely child’s name yet, but we have christened her Millie until we do.’

Then two little girls, Bonnie and Anna, six or seven years old, came into the light of the campfire. They were holding hands as if they were lost and they were as dirty and poorly clothed as the others. The last child would not leave the shadows until the third nun brought him forward.

‘And this, Mr Swanson,’ the old nun said proudly, ‘is the man of our party, Matthew.’

The boy was in the worst shape of all of them. He was perhaps eight. His face had been disfigured by fire. Swanson had seen those kinds of scars before. They had been done on purpose. He was almost naked, and he limped badly on a leg that had been broken and not set.

‘Nice to meet you, Matthew.’ The boy stared at the ground. He looked ashamed to speak. The third nun was holding him gently by the shoulders. Swanson glanced at her. She was tall and thin, in her thirties, and had a very pleasant face. He remembered her name was Sister Elizabeth. She was proper, proud and pretty, and he watched her for longer than he felt comfortable. She was a handsome woman. She was staring at the top of the little boy’s head.

After the last child had been served, the old nun put dirt on the fire and seemingly total darkness fell on the party. Swanson sat by the wagons, listening to the night, amazed the Indians had not fired on the campfire light. It was still and hot. Somewhere off in the distance a hunting owl sounded, once, then twice more. He focused on the sound and decided it was the real thing, not an Indian imitator. Sister Martha brought him a plate of beans and half a cup of water. He ate, thinking about the children and the old nun. Then, with his plate half full and without realizing it, he fell asleep.

The cave had the faint odour of burned incense and a snug feel about it. The three nuns and seven children fitted nicely into it, and there was a clean starkness that reminded the three sisters of a monastery, and this gave them great comfort. The children were asleep in a long row on the soft, sandy floor. They lay peacefully on the blankets spread for them, and for the first night none were crying, none shaking. The heels of Sister Martha’s plain black shoes thumped softly against the large rock she was sitting on. Her face was beaming and she was leaning forward with both of her hands on her knees, the heavy cloth of her habit spread over the rock. Sister Elizabeth was kneeling nearby, rubbing a pan that had been used for supper with clean sand. A large candle burned on a smaller rock near the back wall of the cave casting a warm glow over the children’s faces, softening the gauntness and sadness somewhat. In the deeper shadows sat Sister St Agnes, her thin back propped against the sandstone wall, her eyes closed.

Sister Martha looked lovingly over the faces of the children. ‘Wasn’t he wonderful to come?’ she whispered. ‘He’s a sainted man to risk his life for theirs.’

Sister Elizabeth poured the sand from the pan and set it aside, reaching for a plate. ‘I don’t think we should enroll him among the saints.’ Her voice was low and carrying a practical edge to it. ‘We don’t know why he came.’ She scrubbed hard at the plate.

‘He came to save the children,’ Sister Martha said. Her words were gentle, but slightly worried sounding.

‘Perhaps, but perhaps not.’

Sister Martha was sitting up straight now, her hands clasped together in her lap as if they ached. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered louder. ‘Why else would he come?’

‘I don’t know why. I just suspect he’s not a saint,’ Sister Elizabeth insisted. ‘Sister says he killed one man. And I don’t believe in my heart he’ll stay and save the children. God wouldn’t send a man like that.’ She worked over the plate longer than it took to clean it.

Neither woman spoke after that. Sister Martha did not know what to say, and Sister Elizabeth felt she had said too much and was sorry for it.

‘He was sent to save the children,’ Sister St Agnes said from the shadows, her voice gentle but firm. ‘We must not question God’s gifts.’

Out of respect, Sister Elizabeth did not say anything else, but in her heart she did not believe that Sister St Agnes was correct.

A full hunter’s moon had crested the far mountain, splashing the canyon with a gentle light, by the time Swanson awoke. He moved his hand down slowly until he felt the comforting chill of the revolver’s handle. His leg felt somewhat better. He lay peering out at the grey shapes of the rocks, probing the familiar sounds of the night. A second later, he realized someone was sitting near him and he tensed.

‘The moon’s beautiful tonight,’ the old nun said softly.

His leg began to throb and he pulled himself slowly into a sitting position and studied the wagons and the shadows on the road. He watched her from the side of his eye.

‘Tell me about the children,’ he said.

‘There’s not much to tell, Mr Swanson.’ She was looking up at the stars overhead. ‘We learned six months ago a Mexican town had ransomed ten American children from a band of Comanche Indians in Sonora and wanted more money than they had paid for their release or they would sell them as slaves. Unfortunately, no one could come up with the names of their next of kin or the money, so our church raised it and Sisters Martha, Ruth and Elizabeth and I came for them.’

‘Where are the other three?’

‘They died before we could get to them,’ she said quietly.

He didn’t speak for a while, thinking about the children huddled in the dark of the cave. Then he thought of the sisters, Martha and Elizabeth, and felt better. ‘I’m sorry they died.’

‘I’m certain heaven is a wonderful place to grow up in, Mr Swanson.’

He looked at her profile in the dark. ‘Do you believe all that stuff you say, ma’am?’

‘Do you?’

He should have known she wouldn’t defend herself. That wasn’t her way. He sat thinking for a while and then he said, ‘Yes.’

‘Good, so do I.’

Swanson thought about her answer for a long time. Later, after the moon had risen to full height, he spoke again. ‘Why won’t the boy talk?’

He felt her shift on the sand beside him. She waited a few seconds as she resettled her cloak before answering. ‘He can’t very well. The Mexicans who bought him told us the Indians had cut his tongue out because he wouldn’t stop crying for his parents. And now I guess he’s ashamed or afraid to try.’

Swanson heard a rock fall somewhere out in the darkness. And, a little later, another. They were small sounds, but neither was a natural occurrence. He twisted his body slightly and slipped the pistol out of the holster. The nun was sitting on the other side of him, a few feet away, and he was certain she hadn’t noticed. He turned his head slowly, back and forth, to pick up any sounds in the hot air, and he moved his eyes away from the direction of the noise, looking that way from the side so he could see better.

‘It’s near the wagon,’ the nun said softly. ‘Mr Swanson, don’t shoot.’

‘Shhh,’ he whispered. He could see it now. A piece of shadow had seemed to grow from nothing at the far end of the wagon. It didn’t move for a long time, then he realized it was closer, and moving closer still. He raised the pistol. As he was aiming down the revolver’s long barrel, he felt her hand on his arm.

‘Don’t,’ she said.

He hesitated and then he saw the shadow rise and trot into the open. The dog sat a few yards away from them, staring out in the direction of Santa Fe, staring as if he could see all the way there. He looked rested and fit, and while Swanson was glad to see him, he was angry about the scare.

‘Ma’am, tell the children not to touch that animal, he’ll tear an arm off. He flat can’t be trusted.’ The dog continued to peer out into the dark distance, ignoring them both.

‘What’s its name?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘What do you call it?’

‘Dog.’

‘Well then, I guess that’s its name.’

Swanson and the old nun sat together in silence for a while longer. With the dog in the enclosure, he felt less tense and he spread his saddle blanket and lay back on the sand. He watched the stars for a time and then said, ‘What’s your name, ma’am?’

‘Sister St Agnes,’ her voice sounding as if she had been far away in her thoughts.

‘How do you get to be a saint?’

‘I’m not one.’ She chuckled. ‘That’s the name I took at the convent.’

She had a young laugh, and it seemed odd in a woman of her years. In fact, much about her and what had happened to him over the past twenty-four hours seemed odd. He couldn’t figure it. She didn’t scare easy, he’d give her that much.

‘There were two Saint Agneses,’ she said, absently.

‘Two?’

‘Yes. One very famous. Agnes of Montepulciano. She was born in Tuscany in 1268 AD.’

‘I’ve never heard of Tuscany.’

‘It’s in Italy. Anyway, I’m not named after her. She established a nunnery in Montepulciano and had a lot of visions. And a great many miracles and other remarkable occurrences are attributed to her.’

‘But you’re not named after her.’

‘No. She was too grand a saint for me to be named after.’ She smiled. ‘I’m named after the little Saint Agnes.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She was martyred in Rome in 304 AD at the age of thirteen.’

‘Why?’

‘She refused to marry and instead she consecrated her maidenhood to God. And when the Roman persecution of the Christians began, she offered herself in martyrdom. She was executed by being stabbed in the throat by a centurion’s sword.’

‘At thirteen, because she wouldn’t marry?’

‘No. At thirteen because she wouldn’t deny God.’

‘Why did you take her name?’

‘I guess I identified with her. I was seventeen when I entered the convent. And when my father, who didn’t like the idea, told me that someday I would want to marry and have children, I told him that I had already married God.’

‘He didn’t like that?’

‘He didn’t like that at all,’ she said. ‘And your name? Where does it come from?’

Swanson continued to look at the stars without saying anything. Then he sat up and shrugged his shoulders.

‘From my parents.’

She said, ‘Well, I guessed that much. Were you named after your father … your grandfather?’

‘My dad’s name was John. I had a grandfather name of Richard.’

Sister St Agnes watched his face for a few minutes and then leaned back on her hands and looked up at the sky and the black silhouettes of the canyon walls.

‘It’s a lovely night.’

They didn’t talk for a long time then. When Swanson finally spoke he was running a strip of fresh rawhide through the holster of his pistol.

‘Your church in New Mexico or Texas?’

‘Pennsylvania.’

Swanson turned his head and looked at the dark, thin shape of the old nun sitting beside him. ‘That’s a piece. How did you get here?’

‘By train, stagecoach, wagon, horse and foot.’

Swanson stared at the holster for a long while, then said, ‘Why would you come all the way down here to a place like this, a place you don’t know?’

She didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, ‘Faith.’ She looked at the side of his face. ‘Does that make any sense to you?’

‘Not much.’

‘We came because of Jesus Christ, Mr Swanson. The children were suffering and alone. We came to give them God’s love.’

‘No matter what the price?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Even if it costs you and the sisters your lives?’

She smiled. ‘You make us sound so important. We are only three small instruments in God’s hand.’ She was smiling broadly now, her two large front teeth plainly visible. ‘You don’t smile enough, Mr Swanson. God loves a cheerful giver.’

‘You aren’t from these parts,’ he said quickly. ‘You don’t know the Apache.’

‘They’re God’s children, same as you or I.’

‘And the lady, the Mexican, the boy and the others?’ He was still watching her.

‘Ignorance and evil.’ She stood up as if the conversation had suddenly pushed her away, dusted her robes and then moved from him toward the far side of the enclosure.

‘Where did the Mexicans go who were driving your wagons?’ he called softly after her.

She stopped and looked back at him. ‘They ran off the first night.’

‘Do you think they made it?’

He watched her. She was smaller than he had first thought but she stood straight and proud, her frail shoulders squared against the massive canyons. He was surprised he had asked her the question. There was no way she could answer it. He knew that.

‘I’ve prayed for it.’ She turned away again.

‘How often do your prayers work?’

She turned quickly, looking down at him, the first hint of annoyance flickering at the wrinkled corner of her mouth. Then she smiled. ‘They brought me you,’ she said, turning and walking to where the dog sat. The animal got up and moved away a few yards and then lay down and watched her.

He couldn’t see her very well in the dark, but he knew she was praying. He heard his name once and the awkward feeling came over him again. He figured the chances of the two Mexicans couldn’t have been good. The Apaches would have expected just such a move and would have been waiting. Nevertheless, there was a chance one of the two might have got through, and if he knew anything about staying alive in the desert, he could make it to Sonora in seven or eight days. Swanson didn’t hang on the chance, but he tucked it away in his head as a possible way out. There weren’t many.

Sister St Agnes sat studying the dark silhouette of the man sitting a few yards away. He was one of God’s mysteries. He was plainly handsome enough to be an angel of God, she thought, perhaps the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life. But his looks seemed the only thing even partly angelic about him. She had seen enough wounds to know that the thin scar that ran the length of his jaw had been made by a knife, and the hole in his leg had been made by a bullet. And he had already killed one man in front of her and was ready to kill more. And he had used poor Sister Ruth’s torn body as a decoy, debasing it as much as the savages had. He swore a great deal. He showed no sign of religious feelings.

She couldn’t answer the questions pounding in her head. She tipped her chin forward on to her breast. ‘Dear God,’ she whispered, ‘I have never questioned Your wisdom or Your authority … I’m not questioning them now. I only wonder … wonder why You sent this man to save the children. And how I should deal with him. I thank You for Your blessings and Your guidance.’ She stared at her hands, knowing that she had received no answers.

DAY TWO …

The horned toad had wiggled itself down into the sand leaving only the spikes on its back and the longer horns on its blunt-snouted head exposed. He guessed it was hunting flies. Swanson was leaning against a large rock in the shade watching the lizard hunt. The Hawken lay across his lap. It was close to noon and Sisters Elizabeth and Martha had just finished feeding the children their dinner. Sister St Agnes was in the cave, probably praying, he figured. The dog was sleeping on its back in the shade of the wagon, its long legs helter-skelter in the air. The lizard dropped what seemed like a clear shade over its eye, then it disappeared. Lying half buried in the sand, it looked like a newspaper drawing he had once seen of something called a dinosaur.

The heat was brutal.

Swanson scanned the road and then looked to his right at the children. They were sitting quietly in a band of shade next to the cliff. They were tired and listless and hot. Their faces were burned and he knew that their throats were as parched as his own. He searched the sand around him and began to pick up and examine small pebbles. Some he kept. Some he tossed away. Then with a movement so quick it was hard to see, he grabbed the squat little lizard out of the sand.

The twins were closest to him. ‘Come take a look.’ He had pulled his sombrero off and laid it over the hand holding the horned toad.

The girls stood slowly and helped the little ones, Bonnie and Anna, to their feet. Jessica came too. Only Millie and the boy, Matthew, stayed where they were. The five girls formed a half circle around him.

‘What you got?’ Anna asked.

Sister Elizabeth had wandered over and was standing looking out at the canyon, listening. He knew she didn’t approve of him.

‘I’ve got a Texas devil under my hat,’ he said.

‘Go on!’

‘I do.’

‘Naw,’ said Jessica, ‘there ain’t no such thing as a Texas devil.’

‘There must be because I caught him. He’s under my hat. Go ahead and take a peek.’

Jessica reached a hand out slowly towards his sombrero and then jerked it back and ran in place on the tips of her toes for a few seconds. The others shrieked with the thrill of it.

‘If you’ve got him, what’s he look like?’

‘Well, he’s got horns on his head … and spikes on his tail and when he gets mad he spits blood.’

The children screamed and laughed.

Sister Elizabeth had turned and she was staring angrily at him, her arms akimbo. He paid her no mind.

‘I’ve got him sure enough. But before I show him to you, I want you each to take a pebble out of my hand and put it under your tongue and keep it there.’

‘Why?’ It was Anna. She was small and lightly built, but she was smart and bright-eyed.

‘Because it will make you feel better. These are magic pebbles.’

He held his hand flat and let each select a pebble. They put them in their mouths.

‘Good. Now let me count to five … one, two, three, four … and five. There, Feel better?’

They all nodded. He knew they would. The small stones would help them fight the thirst by drawing saliva into their mouths which they could swallow.

‘Good. Now who wants to be the first to see the Texas devil?’

‘I will.’ It was Betty, the eleven-year-old. She looked scared but she reached a hand and grabbed the crown of the sombrero and yanked it off. As she did, Swanson shoved the lizard at her and growled. She jumped up and backward and the other children yelled and ran for the pure joy of it.

‘Really, Mr Swanson. You should be ashamed of yourself scaring the children and telling them you have the devil in your hand. What kind of nonsense do you want to put in their heads?’

Swanson stroked the lizard’s belly gently with his finger. He didn’t look up at Sister Elizabeth. ‘I was just trying to give them some fun. They don’t look like they’ve had much lately.’

They came back giggling and ready to run.

‘Let us see him.’

Swanson held the horned toad out for them and one by one they touched his spiny backside. Sister Elizabeth was walking toward the cave.

‘You said he could spit blood.’

Swanson glanced across the enclosure to make sure the nun wasn’t watching him. ‘And he can. Stand back.’

When they had cleared a pathway in front of him, Swanson teased the lizard with his finger for a moment, then pointed its head toward the open area and squeezed his stomach some. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but the pressure made him nervous that he was about to be eaten and the little dinosaur let go. A bright red stream of blood spurted out of one of his eyes a full five feet across the sand. The children’s eyes got wide. Anna stooped and touched her finger to the red trail on the sand.

‘It’s really blood!’ she screamed. ‘He is the Texas devil!’

The children ran away again.

A few minutes later, Jessica came back and asked for the Texas devil. Swanson gave it to her with the promise she wouldn’t pester it. She took the little creature to the other children and they spent an hour or so playing with it and laughing. He felt better.

Later, when it was close to evening and the strip of shadow near the rocks had reached halfway across the enclosure, when the Gambel’s quail had started calling each other for the night roost, Anna came and stood in front of Swanson, holding something behind her back. Her face was thin and smudged with dirt. She looked happy.

‘I have something for you, Mr Swanson.’

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