Apache Canyon

Tonio spat. Brady smiled gently. ' Take it easy, lad. At least you're getting plenty of food and shelter.

"I wish to hunt my own food-to be with my own people."

"You may get your wish pretty quick now. Just

don't try to bust out again."

"If I do, you will not catch me aUve."

Brady nodded. "Maybe that's what you learned the other day. Well, keep on learning, kid, and one day you'll be a chief. I'd like to see that happen."

Tonio met his glance proudly; Tonio believed him and that was good. Brady turned from the door, patting his pockets, frowning. He said to the sentry, "Got the makings on you, soldier?"

"Sure." The trooper handed over paper and to Brady rolled a smoke and handed the materials back.

That was when he heard the faint sound of scuffling. His head lifted, listening to the sounds of scratching and thudding. Presently he walked around the end of the guardhouse. Behind the building he came upon the sight of two men mixing in savage battle, silent and vicious. Harris and Sutherland.

The two officers stopped abruptly, startled. Both looked at Brady. Sutherland's lip was cut and his cheek showed a bruise; Harris bled from his ear. And from his awkward bent stance, Brady guessed that Harris had been hit more than a few times in the belly.

"Howdy,'' Brady said with a straight face. "Can I hold somebody's coat?"

The sounds of the two men's breathing filled the air for a moment. Then Sutherland spoke: "Get out of here, Brady, and forget you saw anything."

"How are you going to explain your face?"

"Shut up, Will," said Harris, "and go along."

"No," Brady said. "I reckon not. You're fighting the wrong man, Captain Sutherland."

Sutherland's brows knitted into a frown. His moon face was flushed and showed the tracks of sweat and punishment.

Brady said, "You two look pretty fu

Harris said wearily: "Get out of here, Will."

"No," Sutherland said. "Wait. What did you mean —I'm fighting the wrong man?"

"Just what I said. Captain Harris never took after your wife."

Sutherland moved forward a pace, braced. "How do you know?"

"I get around. Captain, maybe before you jimip to a conclusion, you ought to take a look and see how far the jump is."

Puzzled, Sutherland's round face turned toward Harris. "Is that true?"

"I told you before, George—I don't want anything from your wife and I never did."

Sutherland stood awkwardly poised. The round fleshiness of his cheeks made him look soft, but he was not. He remained unconvinced; he frowned past lowered brows at Harris. "Smoke means fire," he said stubbornly.

Harris straightened, shrugging. "You take my word or you don t. Listen, George—this loose talk has hurt me as much as it's hurt you. My own girl's suspicious of me now."

Brady tried to hold back a grin, but was not altogether successful.

Harris, glancing at him, waggled a finger. "You shut up. Will."

Brady's brows went up. "I didn't say a word." He fought down the impulse to laugh.

Sutherland stood fast, frowning at Harris. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?" "Did you ask me?"

"Aagh," Sutherland said. Abruptly he wheeled, brushed past Brady and was gone around the side of the guardhouse.

Harris came forward wearing a troubled look. "Maybe it would have been better if we'd finished the fight. George and I have been rubbing each other the wrong way a long time."

"Sorry, Justin," Brady murmured. "I'd have minded my own carrot patch, only I figmed I had a stake in this one."

"What stake?"

Brady shook his head. "Not now," he said. He was turning away when Harris's voice caught him.

"You—you and Eleanor. I should have figured it before."

"Don't rush into a wrong guess," Brady said, turning.

"Hell," Harris said. "I didn't think you were that kind, Will."

Brady, full of contradictions and no longer sure of himself, turned and went tramping through the dust.

Harris caught up to him in a few long strides. "Hold on. Will. I didn't mean any offense. It took me by surprise, that's all."

"Sure," Brady said, glancing at him bleakly. They were walking alongside the guardhouse wall. Suddenly he stopped and confronted Harris. "Damn it, Justin, I had it all figured out. Why'd you have to go and tear it apart?"

"Why?" Harris said. "What did I do?"

Brady searched his eyes for a moment, and cursed. "Damn it, do you have to keep standing there looking like an officer and a gentleman?"

"Wait a minute," Harris said. "I'm just begi

"Is it?" Brady's eyes flashed up, hot with an anger directed against no one in particular. "Well, then, maybe it is. It'll take a wiser man than me to put it all together, Justin. But I'll thank you to quit get-ting in my way with your iron-bound codes of honor. I've got grief enough without that."

"It's not me that's getting in your way," Harris answered. "Don't get things mixed up, Will."

"How else can I get them, Justin?" Brady retorted. "Neither your damned codes nor anything else is going to set things right."

Harris nodded. "I see," he said gently. "Then you're in love with her?"

Brady swung away, putting his back to Harris. "Well," he said, half in anger, "what if I am?"

When he turned back, Harris was shaking his head. "You've got trouble then," was all Hanis said. He stood regarding Brady with a worried glance.

Brady cursed.

Harris showed a wan smile. "Want some advice, Will?''

"No."

"I'll give it to you, anyway. Get clear of this post —get clear of that woman. Find yourself a saloon and drink yourself to death. Anyhow, ride over the hill and don't ever look back."

"It wouldn't work," Brady said.

Harris took a pace forward and gripped Brady's shoulders. "She belongs to somebody else, Will."

Brady let out a long breath. "Yeah." He turned on his heel and walked away.

Hanis let him go alone.

Brady, measuring neither time nor distance, rode a far way out onto the desert plain. Catclaw and palo-verde and manzanita scrubs dotted the yellow-brown land, and the dust-filled heat was bitter and bright. His horse covered miles of ground; and now and then, out of habit, his eyes flicked the surrounding hillocks.

And finally he saw before him the gently winding comse of the Smoke, bordered by its marching green cottonwoods. He rode down to the river and let his horse drink its fill from the shallow flow.

Now drought lay hard and bleak across the land. He had known times when the Smoke flowed sixty or a hundred feet wide along its desert course; today it was scarcely ten feet wide.

He considered his cavalry boots. A Christmas gift from Justin Harris, not too many months ago. He cursed, led the horse back on the grass, loosened the cinch, and left it with reins trailing. He walked back to the shaded bole of a thick cottonwood, settled with his back to the tree. Legs stretched, his hat tilted across his brows, he glanced upstream and down, and closed his eyes.

But rest was impossible. Presently he stood up and tore a foot-long twig from a low-hanging branch. He proceeded to break the twig into the smallest possible bits, and tossed them one by one onto the surface of the meandering river. In a short while there was a tiny fleet of them, floating downstream.