CHAPTER ONE
With a hollow feeling growing in his gut, Mike Donohue hurried his horse on and rounded the outcrop at a gallop. And sure enough, ahead stood an abandoned stage, horseless and incongruous on the otherwise deserted plains.
Mike slowed, running his gaze across every rock and gully as he searched for the attackers, but the only movement came from the buzzards and the drifting shadows of these messengers of death.
Closer to, Mike saw the bodies.
One man lay on the seat of the stage, his head thrown back, gunfire having converted his chest to a bloodied wasteland. A second body dangled upside down from the seat, the arms swaying in the breeze as an entangled leg trapped the body in this undignified position. And from the bullets that had mashed his face to an unrecognizable pulp, Mike reckoned that whoever had raided this stage had fired into this man for long after he'd died.
These two men had been the lucky ones.
When Mike pulled open the doors, frozen grimaces of anguish beyond bearing confronted him, confirming that the man and woman inside had provided the raiders with lengthy and ugly entertainment before they died.
'Galen Benitez,' Mike whispered to himself, uttering the name of the only man who was cruel enough to have perpetrated this senseless atrocity.
One last time, Mike strode round the stage, ensuring he missed no details. The flies had found these bodies, but the buzzards had yet to start feasting and that meant he was just hours behind his quarry, perhaps less — the closest he'd been in two years.
With his stride assured, he headed for his horse. But then he heard a noise — the barest shifting of pebbles, the sound almost lost in the wind.
He tensed but avoided looking towards the direction of the sound and instead, turned to face the stage. He rubbed his chin and cocked his head to one side, feigning an interest in something in the stage, then paced around it again. But when he reached the other side, he slipped his gun from its holster, then threw himself to the ground.
On his belly, he fast-crawled beneath the stage, then lay flat. Behind a wheel, he thrust his gun out as he stared at the tangle of rocks from behind which the sound had come.
Long minutes passed with the sound not repeating itself.
With Galen getting further away with every heartbeat, Mike was considering whether he'd been mistaken when he saw a flash of a red shirt as a man glanced up from behind the rocks.
In the man's brief appearance, Mike saw that this person was shaking, but he still stayed on his belly beneath the stage.
'You over there,' he shouted, 'show yourself.'
Mike listened to the breeze rustle by and, when a minute had passed and still no answer had come, he spoke again.
'I'm guessing you're one of the survivors. But you got ten seconds to come out or I'll assume you're with Benitez's raiders. What's it to be?'
'I ain't no raider,' a wavering voice shouted. 'I ain't. I ain't.'
'Then stand up and prove it.'
The man that stood was young, perhaps eighteen and, from his hunched posture and shaking limbs, Mike judged that he represented no danger. So, Mike rolled out from under the stage and gestured for him to approach.
The young man opened his jacket and turned on the spot to show that he didn't carry a gun then, in a tentative voice, volunteered that he was Patrick Hancock.
Mike shared his name then gestured back at the dead men. Patrick followed his gaze, winced, then lowered his head.
'All dead?' he whispered.
'Except you.' Mike lowered his voice. 'And I ask myself why.'
Patrick shuffled from foot to foot. 'I ain't proud of myself, but I ran when the shooting started.'
'And you're telling me that Galen Benitez didn't come after you?'
'I am.' Patrick shrugged. 'I figured he was enjoying himself with the woman and...' Patrick snuffled. 'I wanted to help, but I reckoned there wasn't much of anything I could do.'
Patrick looked up, his beseeching eyes imploring Mike to speak and perhaps provide absolution for his cowardice, but Mike sneered.
'There was. You could have died.'
Mike paced sideways to his horse, ensuring he still watched Patrick.
'And what do I do now?'
'Don't care.'
'But you got to get me to safety.'
'I got to do nothing. Green Springs is eighty miles that-a-way.' Mike rolled into the saddle then pointed down the trail. 'It'll be one hell of a journey, but on the way, you might work out what you did wrong back here.'
Patrick looked down the trail, then in the direction towards which Mike was turning his horse.
'You're not heading to Green Springs. That mean you're going after those raiders?'
'Sure am,' Mike grunted, then glanced at the jagged peaks to his side that surrounded an area known as the Cauldron and towards which Galen had been heading.
Patrick stood tall, a flash of fire in his eyes.
'Then take me with you. The raiders only ran off the horses and we can round one up. This Galen Benitez couldn't have gone far and—'
'And I ain't taking you with me. I don't need no...'
Mike looked away, deciding that despite the contempt he felt for Patrick's failure to even try to take on Galen, this young man didn't need to hear that contempt. He shook the reins and hurried his horse on.
'You got to,' Patrick shouted after him, 'because I know where Galen has gone and it ain't where you're heading.'
Mike yanked back on the reins and leapt down from this horse. With his fists clenched, he advanced on Patrick.
'Where?' he grunted.
'I...' Patrick murmured, backing away. 'I won't tell you unless—'
'You will tell me,' Mike roared, breaking into a run. He pounded the last few paces and threw out a hand to grab Patrick's collar then pulled him up tight to his face. 'Or I'll make what Galen did to those people in the stage seem like a night in paradise. Now, tell me!'
'I can't,' Patrick screeched. 'I got to—'
Mike slapped Patrick's cheek, rocking his head one way, then slapped his face the other way. But then anger got the better of him and he slugged his jaw, sending Patrick reeling.
'One more chance,' Mike snapped, looming over Patrick. 'Or I'll tear your apart with my bare hands.'
Patrick's looked up, fingering his jaw. A blaze of defiance consumed his eyes.
'I can tell you, but the directions are lengthy. You might—'
'Why you...' Mike grunted while advancing on Patrick with his fists raised ready to pummel his years of frustration out on this man.
Patrick back-crawled away, but just as Mike loomed over him, the realization hit Mike that Galen was getting further away with every second he wasted here. He lowered his fists.
Patrick gulped as he considered Mike's less belligerent stance, then rolled to his knees.
'I will help you,' he murmured. 'But I just want a way out of here.'
'All right. I guess we'd better round you up a horse.' Mike signified that Patrick should get to his feet, but then glanced at his fist. 'But if you don't get me to Galen by sundown, I will tear you apart.'