The Bounty Hunters

Maybe they've taken him already. And maybe they haven't. But if he breaks for the street, the one on the corner will get him. This went through his mind quickly as he aimed at the Apache, realizing almost at the same time that there was no choice. He must kill the Apache on the chance Bowers wasn't already taken. "Look around," he whispered to the Apache, "then it will be easier." But the figure remained motionless, his back hunched into a round target, as Fly

9

The wind rose, bringing clouds to dim the moonlight, and the wind moved through the streets with a low hissing sound, bending the brush clumps and splattering invisible sand particles against the adobe. The wind moved over the dead Apache, spreading his hair, fa

As morning approached, Fly

Fly

Where are they, in that house the Mimbre was pointing toward? Probably. With Bowers. Perhaps one has worked his way around and is entering the livery. Fly

Shortly after he thought this, it came.

His eyes were swinging along the ramada fronts when he caught the movement in the corner of his vision. His eyes slid back instantly to the street where the dead Apache lay. Bowers was standing at the corner of the building. His hands were behind his back.

Fly

The cavalryman staggered out from the building suddenly, off balance, and Fly

Moving his head slowly along the building fronts, Bowers yelled out, "They want me to say something!"

You don't have to say it, Fly

"Fly

He moved from the opening back to the ladder and climbed down it wearily. He walked out the wide front door of the stable toward the three figures at the statue. Beyond them, now, he saw two other Apaches standing in the shadow of a wooden awning. The square was dead-still.

The second Apache stepped forward to meet him and he handed the carbine to him, then reached into his coat and drew the pistol and handed this to him.

He said to Bowers, "Well, we tried. What happened?" He saw the bruised cheekbone and the swelling above his right eye.

"I walked into the house where they were butchering a steer," Bowers said. "They were on me before I knew it."

"Red, don't back away from them. Stay calm and we'll get out of this."

Bowers looked at him quickly. It was the first time he had been called that since before the Point. And it had come unexpectedly from Fly

The guide looked at the Apache next to him. He said roughly, in Spanish, "What are you called?"

The Apache eyed him narrowly. "Matagente." Then he said in hesitant, word-spaced Spanish, "I do not know you."

"Nor I, you," Fly

Matagente's expression did not change as he listened. Now he said, "San Carlos is not for the Warm Springs Apache."

"This is something which ones above us have ordered," Fly

"You will see him," Matagente said. He motioned with the carbine, saying no more, directing them toward the house where the others stood. They had carried the dead Apache from the street and now he was under the ramada near the doorway. Matagente looked at him as he prodded the two men into the house, but still he said nothing.

They sat on the packed-dirt floor with their legs crossed and their backs to the wall and waited. For what, they did not know, wondering why they were not taken to the Apaches' rancheria.

Matagente brought them meat, then sat near the doorway with one of the Springfields across his lap. His hand moved over the smooth stock idly. Before this he had used a Burnside.54 which needed percussion caps and powder, and often it misfired.

When they had eaten the meat, Fly

"You will see him," Matagente said, and again lapsed into silence. This new gun was in his mind-this pesh-e-gar-and he was thinking how good it would be to fire it.

Through the doorway Fly

Matagente rose and moved to the doorway as mounted Apaches suddenly appeared in front of the house. These dismounted as others continued to enter the square from the side street, walking their ponies. The sound of this came to Fly

Matagente said, "Now you see Soldado. Tell him your story, American."

Bowers looked at him with open surprise, and now wondered why he had expected this Apache to look different than any other, though he was old for an Apache still active. Wrinkled face and eyes half closed beneath the bright red headband. And ski