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She moved past the dead men and checked the last room where two cots hugged the walls. Empty. Hunter said to the silence, “Wayne, what have you done?” She started out of the room and saw the front door open.
Someone hissed and then yelled. Hunter looked around, but saw no back door. She went into the back room again, and moved one of the cots to get to a window. The curtains didn’t slide on their rods, so she pushed them aside and pushed up the window. She checked outside first and saw no one, then slipped out and reclosed it. Moving fast, but trying not to attract attention, Hunter put distance between herself and Mora’s.
When there were two buildings between her and the trading post, she stopped by a stunted tree and looked back. There must have been forty people swarming around the building, and more coming. The ground was soft where she climbed out of the window and the streets she crossed were dirt. They’d find her tracks soon enough.
Hunter went deeper into Outlaw Road and made no effort to hide her tracks, then she turned at a right angle and followed a shallow ditch into the desert on the south side of town. She left a trail that looped to the east, toward Ojinaga. She snaked her tracks in awkward patterns, and worked her way to a large outcrop of sandstone. Once on the sandstone, Hunter doubled back and loped toward the west. She went a half mile before turning at a right angle on a half-acre patch of hardpan.
The third time Hunter looked back, she saw them. A group of thirty or forty armed men following her tracks to the east. She picked up her pace and re-entered Outlaw Road. The main street was deserted. Hunter took a deep breath and walked north across the wide main street. Her back felt icy, and any minute she expected to feel a bullet shatter her spine. But none came. She made the safety of the far buildings and stopped in the shade to take several shaky breaths.
The north side was where she would find Wayne’s tracks. Hunter went to the rear of the buildings and trotted toward the opposite end of town. She knew Wayne and followed her hunch on where to find his sign.
The small hills were closer to town there and Hunter moved away from the buildings to work the draws between them in a back-and-forth pattern.
Some tracks entered a long wash, heading in the direction of the Rio Grande. They were Wayne’s. Behind her, Hunter heard the angry yells of frustrated men, but they were much closer than she wanted.
There was nothing Hunter could do about the crowd, so she ignored them. Wayne, she could do something about. Hunter lined up on the footprints and loped after Rockman, moving silently like a deer through the brush and rocks.
***
Anda let Mingo sleep. He had a rough night and was running a fever, so she didn’t want to disturb him. That didn’t keep her from being restless. She felt her abdomen this morning and traced the tiniest swelling there. Her child was growing, and within a few short months, she must be somewhere she could get care and raise her baby, a place with hope for a better life. Not much time. The thought left her feeling agitated, nervous.
Anda left the house and went into the shed, where she found a small ball of stout twine. She couldn’t find a knife, but found a finger-size piece of glass with a sharp edge, and stuck it in her back jean pocket, along with the twine. She walked into the desert, scanning the flats and gullies and small washes that ran like thin spidery fingers across the landscape. There were tiny game trails when one knew how to look. At each trail with fresh sign, Anda would follow until it passed through a narrow area with brush growing on one or both sides. There she rigged snares out of springy branches, twine and forked sticks. By mid-afternoon Anda was a mile and a half from the house. She had set a dozen snares and now climbed a low hill to look around the area.
Outlaw Road was close, she knew, but she was careful and didn’t stand on top of the hill but rather sat among clumps of guajilla and peered over the tops. Outlaw Road was a mile away, and she could see some of the buildings between the low tan hills bordering the town.
What she didn’t expect to see was a tall man moving through the low hills and gullies a half-mile outside the town, heading in the direction of the Border. He wore a western hat and carried what looked like a large duffel bag with a strap that went over his shoulder. It took her a minute to recognize him as the brave Sheriff from yesterday. Anda saw him stop and look toward Outlaw Road and then, seconds later, she heard it. The angry yells of a mob, coming from near the town. The Sheriff increased his pace and Anda watched behind him. In less than a minute she saw another figure emerge from the buildings and move into the desert. The figure moved back and forth, looking for something. Anda watched as the figure stopped, then headed north, moving fast.
Anda’s breath caught in her throat as the figure moved into a flat area and loped along at a ground-eating pace. Hunter Kincaid was tracking the Sheriff. She ignored the angry crowd as it worked itself into a frenzy behind her. Anda scanned the country ahead of the Sheriff, the direction he was heading. In the distance, almost at the edge of the river, a long rock outcrop formed a sixty-foot high barrier across his path, except for a small notch a little to the left of center. The entire area where they were headed, and from her perch to the outcrop, was a thorn-filled mass of washes and gullies, all running in haphazard patterns. Some were inches deep, others were well over her head. The geology forced the cuts into crazy patterns, often curving them away from the Rio Grande, until merging with another draw to drain a zigzag course north again, toward the low area of the river.
The guajilla shielded her as she climbed off the hill. Anda dusted her hands on her pants and started through the desert, taking a direction that would intersect the paths of Hunter and the Sheriff.
***
Hunter could tell by the noises that the crowd found her tracks and were coming. Running drops of sweat tickled her ribs and back under the tee shirt and she stopped to take off the cap to wipe her brow. The combination of heat and humidity near the river was brutal. The ground in front of her held decent imprints and Wayne’s trail was easy to follow, but he took long strides and didn’t stop. She would have to hurry to catch him before the river. Her ponytail was wet when she grabbed the end and slid it through the back of the cap. The soaked headband adjusted to her head when she pulled the brim down, and then she was off, jogging through areas where others would be walking, and trying to save their ankles.
***
Jesse and Johnny Barbosa led the angry group of men. They didn’t want to, but Elvis stood on an old rusted car chassis and told the mob about the tracking prowess of the brothers, detailing their feat in tracking a wild Indian woman through the mountains south of town.
Jesse muttered to Johnny, “We get E alone, I’m gonna to nail his frigging mouth shut.”
Johnny checked the group behind them. Elvis walked beside three other men. Behind them were forty others. Everyone but Elvis and the Barbosas were armed.
Johnny looked at the tracks and said, “They’re covering some ground.”
“Yeah, but the smaller one’s lagging behind. See where his tracks are on top of the big ones? We may catch them, but it’ll be right at the river if we do.”
Johnny glanced behind him again and said, “I think we’d better. These boys are gonna kill somebody today, no matter what.”
Jesse glanced back, “I believe you’re right. Let’s double-time.”
/> ***
Hunter focused on a long ridge of rock a quarter mile ahead, stretching to the left and right for over a mile, with what looked like a small cleft about halfway along it. Something caught her eye and she saw Rockman’s western hat bobbing in the brush between her and the ridge. It was only for a second, then the brush hid the hat, but it was enough. Wayne turned for the cleft.
Hunter heard a chorus of excited yells behind her. She turned and saw several men on a low rise, maybe three hundred yards away. A couple of them raised rifles to their shoulders. They’d seen her all right, and they were coming. “Shit!” Hunter said, and raced after Rockman.
***
