“Want me to give him this, Jimmy?” the woman asked.
“Leave it,” Pardo told her, his eyes boring into Reilly. “All right, Mac. What were three deputy marshals in Arizona taking you to Texas for?”
Reilly looked at the bowl the stringy woman had left at his side. His stomach pleaded for the broth. He had never known broth could smell so good. He looked back at Pardo. Pardo. The name, the face. Bloody Jim Pardo. Everybody in Arizona Territory knew about Jim Pardo. So did the people in Texas. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried lying about Texas, but it was too late now.
“Fort McKavett,” Reilly said.
“Where’s that?”
“Texas.” His pal Talley had been stationed there before being transferred west to Bowie. “San Saba country.”
“What about it?”
Reilly tried to grin. “Soldiers there don’t like me much.”
Explosively, Pardo laughed. “They don’t like Jim Pardo, neither.” He lowered the hammer on the revolver, and shoved the Colt into his holster, reached over, and lifted the bowl and spoon. The spoon moved in Pardo’s hand to Reilly’s mouth. Reilly’s lips parted. The broth went in, warming him as it made its way down his throat. Pardo brought the spoon back to the bowl, filled it, and moved it back to Reilly’s mouth.
“What do you think, son?” Ruby Pardo spit into the fire, the tobacco juice sizzling against a stone.
He shrugged. If Mac had told him they were taking him to Yuma, he would have killed him then and there. ’Course, they could have been headed to Yuma, could have turned the wagon around when they were ambushed, could have turned back because of some other problem, but Texas made sense. Extradition, Wade Chaucer had mentioned. Some big word like that.
“If he robbed the Yankees at McKavett or killed one of them, he might be all right,” Pardo said.
“You trust him, then?” His mother put a screwdriver to the Evans.
Reilly filled a cup with black coffee. “You know me better than that, Ma. Man still has some questions to answer. Like how come he wasn’t killed? Like who ambushed them? Like what exactly is he wanted for in Texas?”
“Maybe Apaches done it,” Ruby said.
“No, Ma. Apaches wouldn’t have left him to bake to death in that wagon. They would have had their fun with him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait. I’ll see the major before long. Major Ritcher would know something about this guy.”
Ruby set the rifle and screwdriver aside. “That’s smart, son. Real smart. Don’t trust nobody, and keep your eye on that Wade Chaucer.”
“I always do, Ma.”
“Smart. You’re smart, and brave. You pa’s proud of you, Jim. Real proud.”
Pardo rubbed his nose and frowned. Pa. If only his father could tell him that, to his face, but he had been shot down like a mangy dog during the war. Kansas redlegs had burned down his home, turned Pardo and his ma into outlaws. Well, a lot of bluecoats had paid for what they’d done to his family, and Pardo hadn’t finished collecting.
“I’m proud of you, too, Jim,” his mother said. That meant more to Pardo than anything. He sat a little straighter.
“And what about the woman and her kid?” Ruby asked. “The woman’s fit as a fiddle now.”
“We’ll see about them, too.” The coffee tasted as bitter as his mother’s voice had turned when she spoke of Dagmar Wilhelm.
The girl’s face had changed. A slim hand lifted a spoon, but pulled away.
“You are staring at me,” she said. A trace of a German accent.
Reilly tested his voice. “Either I’ve slept as long as Rip Van Winkle…”
She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. Tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them down. “I’m Blanche’s mother,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Wilhelm.”
She was tall and slender, her clothes torn, stained with blood; face, hands, and arms purpled with bruises, cuts; her eyes filled with a pain caused by something other than those injuries. He could see her in the kid named Blanche, but this one wasn’t so tough, and her lips were full, round, not the thin, frowning, hard lines of her daughter. Mrs. Wilhelm had fashioned a bandana into a bonnet, and grimaced when she lifted the spoon again.
“I’m…” He stopped. Who could he trust in this camp? The kid had said she and her mother had been taken by Pardo. The kid had saved his life. But…still…
“Call me Mac,” he said. He slid up, and took the spoon from her shaking hand. She seemed grateful, and quickly lowered her arm, pressing it slightly against her side. Ribs, Reilly thought. She had busted a rib or two. He wondered, How long have I been here?
“I can feed myself, ma’am,” he told her.
When he had finished eating, he tried to stand, but needed Mrs. Wilhelm and Blanche to help him to his feet. He leaned against a tree, aware of every eye in camp trained on him.
They were far from the sagebrush and desert, higher, much cooler. He felt the trunk of the tree supporting him, looked up at the giant limbs, and shade. A massive oak. Piñon and sycamores also hemmed them in, stretching toward a blue sky, climbing through boulders and brush, and beyond them, almost blocked out by the trees, rose towering spires of granite.
The Dragoon Mountains, Reilly guessed. No, it wasn’t a guess. He knew. More than a decade ago, the Dragoons had been the stronghold of the great Apache Cochise, and he could see why an Apache, or a man like Jim Pardo, would choose this spot as his hideout. It had to be damned near impregnable, with plenty of shade, and, more important, water. He forced himself to the clear spring in the boulders, heard the rhythmic dripping of the water, squatted with cupped hands, and drank.
It hurt to pull himself up, but he managed, leaned back against the hard rock, and looked at the campfire.
An older woman, thin but mean, worked on a rifle. Reilly blinked. His Evans! She spit into the fire, not giving Reilly a moment’s thought. That would be Ruby Pardo, Jim’s mother. He had read one account, in a newspaper, or maybe it had been in a dime novel, that said Ruby Pardo tied the scalps of the men she had killed on her pants legs, but she didn’t wear pants. She wore a filthy riding skirt that maybe once had been a brilliant red, and, anyway, he didn’t see any scalps.
Away from the fire, a man stood in front of a Sibley tent, half of his face lathered, an ivory-handled razor in his left hand. Shirtless, with black pants, and still wearing a gun while he shaved. Wade Chaucer, Reilly guessed.
The other men’s names he didn’t recollect, but he wouldn’t forget their faces. A sorry-looking bunch, who sat around the fire, trying to focus on the poker game they were playing, but staring at him. One tossed his cards on the deadwood, unsheathed a giant Bowie knife, and began running the blade against a whetstone. He seemed older than the rest.
Reilly remembered the dark-haired woman who smelled of mescal. He didn’t see her, but there were other tents, a cabin halfway built, two lean-tos, and a corral. This had been a camp for quite a while. He went back to the fire. Three men. Plus the man shaving. And Pardo, wherever he was. But there had to be more. Jim Pardo would have at least one man on sentry duty.
When his head started swimming, he decided he’d better head back to his bedroll, before somebody had to carry him there.
For supper, the girl brought in a plate of beans, two burned tortillas, and a cup of coffee. Reilly was sitting up, rubbing his wrists, watching the men and women at the fire. The graybeard was gone, but a swarthy gent had replaced him. Likely trading off guard duty.
“Where’s Pardo?” he asked, taking the plate