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  He doubted that she’d done him any permanent damage, except maybe to his pride. The trousers were thick enough to protect him from the worst of the kick.

  Emmie-Lou and El Capitan were oblivious to him, locked together in a tangle of pale flesh, barely visible in the darkness of the canyon. Herne could hear them both moaning, and once Emmie-Lou cried out with what sounded like a mixture of shock and pain and desire. Despite the pulque, the bandit seemed able to perform sufficiently well for the drunken woman to derive enjoyment. Tied as he was Herne could neither lie down nor comfortably turn his head to look elsewhere.

  He quite deliberately allowed himself to slip away from the present, letting his mind roam back to the good thoughts of the past. And his dead wife. The men who’d been responsible and the manner of each of their deaths. Almost without his realizing it, sleep came unbidden to Herne the Hunter.

  He woke three or four times during the night, disturbed by a movement among the rocks, or by a log shifting and breaking on one of the fires. He wasn’t sure when the girl and El Capitan left, but the space where they had been was empty well before the moon showed midnight.

  The Mexicans were careful, even in such a secure hideout, keeping at least two sentries alert and on the move throughout the night. The tightness of the ropes meant that Herne’s muscles locked with cramp, and it was hard to try and get enough freedom of movement to ease the pain.

  Dawn brought some relief.

  The naval cap perched on the back of his head, El Capitan came lurching from among the trees, rubbing his face and belching.

  ‘That is too much, my gringo compadre. When a man gets to our age, then it is time to say adios to women or to drink. Both together are bad.’

  ‘How’s Emmie-Lou?’

  ‘Being very sick. She falls sleeping while I am still ready for making love to her. So I show her a new way, and she wake up quick.’

  He laughed, then groaned and held his forehead. ‘I should not be so laughing, Señor Herne. Also that is not good for me.’

  ‘I’ll bet it wasn’t great for her, either,’ said Jed, grimacing as pain from his cramped legs hit him.

  ‘You hurt?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Wait. Jose! Come and untie Señor Herne. But bring Alfredo and both keep guns on him. I think he is man who might bring trouble to us.’

  ‘Not right now,’ said Jed, watching the two bandits approaching him with knives drawn. El Capitan had Herne’s own Colt in his hand, the hammer drawn back. His stubby finger ready on the narrow trigger.

  ‘Do not stand before my gun, Jose, or the hole I shoot might be in your belly. His feet leave tied, but loose. So he walk but not run. That’s good. And his left hand. Behind his back and to his neck. Is very good. Now you come and sit and you eat and write a letter for me. I talk American pretty damned good. No?’

  ‘Yes. Very well.’

  ‘But I not write so good.’ The barrel of the revolver gaped at Herne’s skull. ‘I think good to see what you write and know if you try a trick.’

  ‘You tell me what you want, and by God, you’ll get it. I’m not going to get my head blown apart for that stupid little girl.’

  ‘That’s good. Mucho good! We and I are men of the same…what is word for men like us?’

  ‘Killers?’

  ‘Hey, that’s a…No. Is no good. I mean we are like brothers.’

  ‘Same sort of breed?’

  ‘Si. Like stallions. We are same age and we both live by gun. We not fight over woman. Come here with me, gringo, and I help you walk to fire and food.’

  With the arm of the Mexican supporting him, Herne was able to stagger the few steps to sit heavily by the smoldering remains of one of the night’s fires. There was a heavy metal pan of greasy stew simmering and El Capitan helped him to a bowl, filled to the brim. And a silver spoon, beautifully ornamented. Jed looked at it, and held it up in the air, showing it to the bandit.

  ‘Si. Is very lovely. We get a hundred like it from a big church not far from San Simeon di Compostella. A fat church with fat priests. I ask you, Señor Herne, is it right that such stinkin’ pigs have a hundred of such spoons of silver while we are hungry. Our bellies flap at our backs. So I take the spoons, and they cry out.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘So loud that I stop my ears, but still I hear them like old women whose blankets have been taken.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, Señor Herne, I think that maybe they are so unhappy that they do not want to live with no spoons.’

  ‘And?’ asked Jed, guessing the answer.

  ‘So I give them what they want and I shoot them all. No more sad priests with no spoons.’

  The Mexican looked miserably at Herne eating the stew, awkwardly balancing the bowl on his knee.

  ‘And I tell you another thing. They get damned dirty too quick those spoons.’

  Emmie-Lou didn’t appear for the best part of an hour, and when she did she looked ten years older. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her skin was sallow, almost green. She walked across and helped herself to a mug of coffee, ignoring both Herne and the Mexicans. El Capitan took no notice of her, carrying on telling Herne a story about the time that he and some of his compadres robbed a village near the border.

  ‘I was not the man I am now, you see. But our chief then was a great man. Calvera. We always took food from this stinkin’ hole and one year we leave them a small piece more. So they use the money and buy guns. How many I do not know but I think maybe seven. Americanos. Killers. We had no chance.’

  ‘I heard something of that,’ said Jed, wondering when he might get a chance to use the heavy knife in his boot.

  ‘They kill many of us. And Calvera. A saint, Señor Herne. Who would give the shirt from his back to help a poor man. So many killed.’

  ‘Heard the village stayed safe after that.’

  El Capitan laughed again, throwing back his head and spilling black coffee on the dry soil. ‘You hear not so good. We leave them two years. Then I and some other amigos visit that place again.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘This time we do not leave them too much. Madre de Dios, but we help them! Each man we give two paces of land. Each house that is old we burn so they can make again. Each woman and girl we give honor of knowing us. All of us. Many times. That place will not again buy guns from north of Rio Grande.’

  Some of the other bandits had been sitting around and they all clapped and shouted at the words of their leader. Herne wondered if it was true. He’d known most of the men who’d gone south to swat away some flies. Nearly gone himself. Chris, and Lee. Vinny. The others. No, El Capitan wouldn’t make it up. It had to be true.

  Still laughing, the chief rose and walked away, leaving three of his men leaning on their rifles to watch Herne and the girl. She still kneeled across the fire from him. He looked at her, and saw that her blouse was torn. Her skirt ripped all the way up one side. Her boots were missing and the soles of her feet were covered in red sand. On her neck there were the marks of burns, and from where he was sitting, Jed could see the livid bruises inside her thighs.

  ‘How you feeling, Mrs. Parsons?’ he asked her quietly.

  Her voice was cold as death. Empty of emotion. Flat and wasted. ‘I’m sorry for what I did to you, last night. I was drunk. I shall never drink again.’

  ‘What about El Capitan? He going to be your knight on a white horse?’

  ‘Don’t Jed. I’ve had enough.’ She lowered her head and he saw that she was crying. The golden ear-rings tinkled softly, almost buried in the mane of tangled hair that hung over her shoulders.

  ‘There’s not a way out. You know that. He gets the money and he kills you. No reason not to. He takes you back to Lishe and maybe he gets killed. No. He’ll take the gold and run right back across the big river.’

  ‘I guess that’s right. But maybe even dying’s better than going home.’

  ‘Maybe it is. For you. Not for me, Mrs. Parsons. I’m a man wh
o wants to live. No matter what. Give up on the idea of living and next thing you know the lid’s being screwed down on top of you.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Wait and watch. Maybe there’ll be a break for us.’

  ‘If we get away from them... Will you still...?’

  ‘Surely. Don’t make no difference to me. Indians or greasy Mex bastards. Just like Hell and high water. If I’m still breathin’, then I’ll take you back. One way or another.’

  The council of the bandits lasted until near mid-day, when they came back and sat around their two captives. El Capitan held out his hand and one of the other Mexicans gave him a piece of paper and a chewed stub of pencil.

  ‘Here. You write we have her, and that we want ten thousand dollars American to let her go.’

  ‘You want me to spread that out a mite?’

  ‘What is "spread out", Señor Herne?’

  ‘You just want that, like you said? Or maybe with a few bits of extra? Like a coat of paint or two?’

  ‘No. Like I say it. And put it is from you. That way he believe it.’

  Jed nodded and took the pencil, smoothing the paper, over his knee, and finding he couldn’t cope with the breeze with his left hand tied. He looked at El Capitan, who shook his head.

  ‘No, amigo. Not that much for Herne the Hunter. Maybe with one leap you will be free of us. The Señora hold the paper and you write. Then you read it to me. Then I look at it to see no trick.’

  Emmie-Lou kneeled down silently, keeping the paper from fluttering away, while Jed laboriously wrote out the letter, his tongue between his teeth with the effort of spelling. While the couple of dozen Mexicans watched him, he scrabbled away, sweating with the effort.

  ‘There.’

  ‘Read.’

  ‘Mister Parsons. I regret to inform you that I have got your wife from the Apaches, only for us both to fall into the hands of some Mexicans, and their chief El Capitan and they are holding your wife for money. They want ten thousand dollars in American money. I am sorry but I cannot do anything to aid. Your humble and obedient servant, Jedediah Travis Herne.’

  ‘Is good. Is very good. I send Manuel and Alfredo to the house with it. They back here by night. With money, then you can go free.’

  ‘Both of us?’

  The Mexican beckoned Herne to stand and follow him a few paces away from the rest. Hobbled as he was, Jed found it hard to walk, but he managed it, ignoring a desperate look from the woman. El Capitan laid a hand on his shoulder and breathed fumes of bad teeth and spiced food in his face.

  ‘We are men of the word. Is right way?’

  ‘Men of the world.’

  ‘Si. World. How can I let her free? To do that will put guns after me and my men. She will bring the Rangers to us. Maybe the federales also.’

  ‘I’ll take her. Instead of you and your men. Let me add to the letter saying that. Then, you get the gold, and then I ride along to the spread with her.’

  ‘That way you live also, Señor Herne. Maybe get your gold also from Señor Parsons.’

  At the mention of the name of Lishe, El Capitan spat noisily in the sand. Herne grinned. ‘Might at that. That way I live and you live and the girl lives. Seems to me that’s the only way we all get what we want.’

  The Mexican walked a few paces away, stroking the side of his face with one hand. Keeping his eyes turned away from Jed. Speaking to the grove of trees, and the red canyon walls beyond.

  ‘Is good idea you have, and I think that maybe I do that. I do not want to hurt Señora Parsons, but I do not like her man. Him I would hurt if I can. So maybe we do what you say. Now I send Alfredo and Manuel to get money. You put the bit more and that make him sure we do not try any trick on him? Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Herne, feeling that he would trust an angry rattler further than he’d trust El Capitan.

  It had been six hours since the two bandits had ridden away. The guard on the mouth of the ravine suddenly waved a land over his head. All of the others stood and watched for the signal. One hand open. Then a closed fist. Nothing more.

  El Capitan turned to Emmie-Lou, his face slick with anger.

  ‘You better start to pray, Señora. He say that one man rides back here. And a dead man with him. You better pray one damned lot.’

  It was Alfredo hanging dead over the saddle of his horse, led in by Manuel. Alfredo had been flogged to death. With a snakeskin whip that had taken the skin off his body in long curling strips. Off his back. Stomach. Chest. Face.

  Manuel had not been beaten.

  But Parsons had personally taken a butcher’s knife, and while his men held the screaming man still, he had hacked all of the fingers off his left hand.

  ‘He say he leave me a hand to ride with. And he leave me tongue to speak his words.’

  The Mexican chief stood calm and still, and Herne felt a pang of cold fear, sensing that the wings of death fluttered low over him.

  ‘What were those words, mi compadre, that he did not hear what our good Americano, Señor Herne the Hunter put for us?’

  He turned to look at Jed, and his eyes were flat and expressionless as shaded pools. Black and still like the eyes of a dead snake.

  ‘He say he do not believe we have his woman, and that Señor Herne lies to him.’

  El Capitan nodded. ‘I see that. He wishes to have…what is word, mi amigo?’

  Herne looked at him. ‘He wants proof.’

  ‘Si. Señor Parsons wants proof. Then we will give him some proof. Señora Parsons, come here.’

  As she walked slowly towards him, like someone locked in a nightmare, the Mexican reached at his belt and drew out a long knife.

  Chapter Twelve

  Emmie-Lou bled a lot when they cut off her right ear.

  Herne watched with a dispassionate interest as El Capitan ordered two of his men to hold her while he performed the operation himself. She screamed and fought, kicking out with bare feet, but the men were too strong for her. The knife sliced through neatly and quickly, one of the Mexicans tying a wad of rag to the side of her head to check the bleeding. Not that she was aware of that. At the first touch of the cold steel her eyes rolled up into her skull and she passed out.

  ‘She will not look too bad,’ said El Capitan, handing the shell of pink gristle to one of his men, the distinctive golden ear-ring gleaming. ‘Maybe she grow her hair to hide it. I think it not make her husband not like her. What she said last night he don’t like her too much. Is right, eh gringo?’

  Herne sniffed. ‘I guess an ear or two either way won’t make a Hell of a lot of difference to their loving man and wife union.’

  ‘Now I send it to Señor Parsons, so that he know that El Capitan is not a man who says he has what he does not have. And this time it will be twenty thousand dollars. You tell him that, Señor Herne.’

  The letter was longer, and tasked Jed’s spelling even more. The chief wanted detailed plans for what was to happen and how the money was to be delivered.

  ‘Put in that if he shoots or anything to my men who bring this letter, then I send him next the lovely eyes of his wife, and then she will not be so lovely. I am ended with playing at this napping.’

  ‘Kidnapping, it’s called.’

  ‘Sure. Is good he knows this. He sends gold to where I say in two days’ time. I send all my men but maybe three or four to meet him. Make sure all is good. They come back with half gold, and then ride to meet Parsons and his vaqueros with his wife. Is good plan?’

  ‘He’ll never pay that. You’re crazy to think that he will.’

  Like a flash of lightning from a clear sky, El Capitan’s mood changed. The point of the knife, still streaked with the pale, silvery threads of Emmie-Lou’s blood, pricked at Herne’s throat, and he could feel the Mexican’s tension quivering through the blade.

  ‘You…don’t…say…El Capitan…is crazy! You better know that, mi amigo.’

  Herne felt his mouth fill with saliva, but he didn’t dare to swallow, s
o hard was the knife pressing at his throat. Barely moving his lips, he said: ‘Kill me and no letter. No letter no plan. No plan and no gold.’

  The pain eased and the Mexican sat back, first wiping the knife on Herne’s shirt. ‘You much like me. Not scared of any man. I like you, compadre. Like you. And when El Capitan likes a man, then he helps him. After you do letter for me, then I talk again. You like what I say.’

  He rose to his feet and left Herne alone.

  A half hour drifted by and Emmie-Lou Parsons came over and sat beside him. The rag was still tied to her head, making her look like a refugee from a war. Dried blood was crusted brown on the bandage, trickling down her cheek and vanishing into the neck of her blouse. She was still barefooted.

  ‘What’s goin’ to happen to me, Jed? I just seem to have reached the bottom and I can’t see no way back.’

  Herne had a good idea what was going to happen. El Capitan was playing it clever. By asking so much more, but by making it clear he intended to take only half for openers, he would make Parsons ready to double-cross him. Probably ambushing him and his men when they brought back the girl, thus saving at least half the ransom and maybe all.

  But Jed had a high opinion of the animal cunning of the Mexican chief. His thinking ran on slightly different lines. Unless Herne missed his guess, the wily bandit intended to risk the loss of most of his band, reckoning that the rancher would try treachery. El Capitan would find some excuse, with two or three of his most trusted comrades, to remain behind with the girl.

  When the first half of the gold arrived, they would kill Emmie-Lou and ride away having gotten ten thousand dollars American for nothing. Parsons would be left with the body of his wife and probably a raging gun-battle with the remaining bandits when it was clear the girl wasn’t going to be produced.

  It was so crazy that it would probably work. If it meant the girl dying, then Jed would be sorry. But if it came to a choice between himself and Emmie-Lou, then he’d be ready to pull the trigger on her himself. Ultimately, there was only that one law: