Kitt Peak (10 page)

The eagle rose over Leaping Deer and his daughter, and dropped upon them.

"No!" Leaping Deer said again.

But already the eagle's claws were upon the two of them, and the night was filled with their cries.

As Thomas had expected, he and Lincoln were met with animosity at the Ranger Copper Mine. The company was a veritable little town, with more provisions than the Tohono O'otam reservation they had visited. There was a sea of tents, made of tall strong canvas, staked in precise rows. A larger tent looked like a portable mess hall. There were semi-permanent structures, wooden buildings on stilts that looked as though they had been brought in, then set down. Horse-drawn wagons were everywhere; there was a railroad track down the center of the encampment with a small steamer engine pulling ore cars toward the mouth of the mine, at the foot of the mountain in the near distance. Thomas heard other mechanical sounds, and was surprised to see a horseless carriage chug by, its loudly tapping engine amazingly pulling a light cart.

Lincoln stared at the horseless carriage in amazement, then shook his head. "I've read about those, Lieutenant, but I've got to say, after seeing one, I don't think it'll come to much."

"Oh? Why not, Trooper?"

Reeves pointed. "Just look at it! Can hardly pull its own weight!"

"You couldn't be more wrong," Thomas said. "In a few years, that horse under your hind end will be used for nothing but recreation. What you're seeing is just the start of a new age."

"Well, I don't know" Reeves began. "You
boys
want something?" a harsh voice said behind them.

They stopped their horse, reined around to face a large, hard-looking man with a clipboard in one hand, and a hat pushed back on his head.

"We're looking for the foreman," Thomas said.

"You can talk to me."

"Are you the foreman?" Thomas asked mildly.

The man's face reddened, and he took a step forward. "I'm not used to being talked to that way by a nig— "

"That's enough, Frawley," another voice said. The new man approached, smiling. Like Frawley, he was cleanly dressed and had a hat pushed back on his head. But he was small, thin, with wire-rimmed glasses.

He looked up at Thomas and Lincoln, studying them. The smile stayed, but looked as though it might dissolve at any time. "I'm Mates. You come about a job?"

"No," Thomas said. He handed down his letter of introduction from Marshal Murphy.

The thin foreman studied the note for a moment, then frowned. He handed the piece of paper back up to Thomas.

"So?" he said. His smile had evaporated, leaving a bland look behind.

"Like to ask you about a man who worked for you, named Tahini."

"Tahini's dead," Frawley growled.

Thomas continued to look and speak mildly. "I know that." He addressed Mates. "What I'd like to know is if Tahini had access to any chemicals here."

Mates looked perplexed, and turned to Frawley for an answer. "Did he, Joe?"

Frawley snapped, "No."

"Did — " Thomas said, but Frawley turned and stalked away.

"You use arsenic here, don't you?" Thomas asked Mates.

Mates nodded, looking after Frawley. "Yes, we do. It's used to refine the lead that comes out of the reverberatory furnace as a waste product, after the copper is purified."

"Would Tahini have access to it?"

Mates turned his attention to Thomas, giving him a long look. "I don't think so. We don't let our" he paused, smiled "let's just say very few people have access to those chemicals. They're kept in locked drums in one of the trailer houses. Only myself and Frawley here can get at them."

"No one else?"

Mates gave Thomas another long look. "I don't think I'll discuss this anymore with you, Mr. Mullin. If Marshal Murphy wants to come out here himself, I'd be happy to talk with him. I know he's got his hands full with President Roosevelt coming on out to Tucson, so unless he can get away, I'm afraid that's all I have to say."

"Mr. Mates," Thomas said.

Mates turned to Frawley. "Get rid of them."

Frawley smiled. "Be a pleasure, Mr. Mates."

But Thomas and Lincoln had already reined their horses around, and were heading out of the encampment.

They were at the fringes of the encampment when a familiar voice rang out behind them.

"Glory in hell! If it ain't the darkie brothers!"

Thomas turned in his saddle.

"That's right," Samuel Forsen said. "It's me." He glared up at Thomas, his white, craggy face older, more crevassed. "Your old army friend. Remember that beating you gave me back at Fort Davis years ago?"

"When you were Captain Seavers' toady?" Thomas said.

Forsen said angrily, "That's right, darkie. You know they drummed me out after Seavers got booted back to Washington?"

"That wasn't my doing," Thomas said.

"Might as well have been," Forsen continued angrily. "Grierson knew about the fight, and did nothing about it."

"You had it coming."

Anger flared on Forsen's face, then he brought it under control with a malicious smile. "Hear your friend Adams went over the falls. Hear his daughter went Injun, too."

Thomas was silent.

"Too bad about Adams," Forsen continued. "Though I bet you wouldn't have thought as highly of him if you'd known what he was involved in. Not such a saint after all, eh?"

"What do you mean by that?" Thomas asked.

Forsen shrugged, his wicked smile widening. "Guess there's a lot you don't know, darkie. And I'd watch your back while you're around here. Could get something sharp planted in it. Can't say I'd cry at your funeral."

Forsen laughed, turned, walked away.

"Lieutenant, he can't talk to you like that," Lincoln said, starting to get down off his horse. Thomas reached over, restraining him.

"Let him go," he said.

But as Forsen sauntered away, Thomas stared after him, a pensive look on his face.

Thomas made their camp a mile away from the Ranger Copper Mine, just over a short range of hills out of sight of the company encampment. After tying the horses out of the sun, he set himself up in a hollow of rocks overlooking the mine and sat looking.

"What are you waiting for, sir?" Lincoln asked.

"Patience, Trooper," Thomas said. "I'm waiting for a reaction."

"Sir?"

"Patience," Thomas repeated.

Thomas lay down with his head in the shade of a rock overhang, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes.

"Patience and sleep are the same things to me, sir," he said.

Thomas didn't look at him, but continued to study the mining camp.

What seemed like a long time later, Lincoln was being roused from sleep. When he opened his eyes, he saw that indeed it was night. He could barely see Lieutenant Mullin's face hanging over his own.

"Get up," Thomas whispered urgently, "and be
quiet."

Lincoln rose.

Their horses were ready to ride, and Lincoln followed Thomas's lead, and climbed into his saddle. They made their way soundlessly down the path to the plain below.

Lincoln was awake now. Straining his eyes, he saw nothing in the half-moon lit landscape below them. The Ranger Copper Mine was behind them, to their left.

They rode slowly, unspeaking, for two hours, passing between two low peaks. Still, Lincoln saw nothing ahead.

Then, an hour later, as they broke out onto a flat plain heading up between two more peaks, Lincoln spotted a lone figure riding in front of them. It was about a mile ahead, dressed in dark clothing, slouched down in the saddle.

Lincoln whispered, "Is that?" Thomas motioned urgently for him to be quiet.

They rode on.

A half hour later found them within a half-mile of the riding man.

Suddenly the figure sat up alertly in the saddle, looked back, and kicked his horse into a gallop. They heard a shout of "Go, dammit!" Thomas sat up and shouted, "Come on, Trooper!"

Lincoln kicked into his own horse and whooped, "Aren't you going to say, `The game's afoot, sir?' "

"Ha!" Thomas shouted, as they bore down on the riding figure.

What followed was a wild midnight chase. The rider knew the low peaks and valleys, and tore through them with abandon, riding close to rock walls and stands of brush. They could hear the rider shouting, "Come on! Come on!" to his mount, which responded with speed in the darkness.

Thomas and Lincoln kept up as best they could. Lincoln began to be frightened by Thomas's headlong flight. The Lieutenant's eyes were wild with the chase, his attention riveted on the riding figure in front of them.

They broke out onto a flat plain, and Thomas and Lincoln began to gain. They could hear the horse in front of them straining, its rider exhorting it, slapping it. But the horse was tired and began to lose speed.

"We've got him!" Thomas cried, exultantly.

But suddenly they brushed a low hill, and the rider in front veered left around its curve. Thomas and Lincoln blindly followed.

Before they knew it, they found themselves in a field of saguaro cactus, the massive tall arms reaching out at them in the dark. . . .

As Thomas ducked under a curving arm, he heard Lincoln cry out just behind him and turned to see the Trooper go down, his horse rearing as Reeves was knocked off.

In front of him, the rider wove back and forth, and now broke out of the field, climbed a short rise, and was gone.

"Damn!" Thomas cried.

In the lengthening distance he heard the escaping rider whoop a laugh.

Thomas turned his mount and went back to Lincoln, who lay moaning on the ground, holding his leg.

The young man looked up sheepishly, restraining a groan.

"Sorry, sir."

Thomas dismounted. Lincoln was momentarily frightened by the anger on the older man's face, fearing it was directed at him.

"Sir, I'm sor— "

"Be quiet, Trooper," Thomas snapped. "He would have gotten away, anyway. I'm mad at myself for following him in here." He stared angrily in the direction the rider had gone. Turning back to help Lincoln up, he balled his fists. The anger hadn't left his face.

"That man, whoever he is, knows everything."

Barty Smith was doing what he liked to do best. He was in his favorite part of Arizona, with a pack full of traded goods from Mexico, a fully belly, a moon overhead to read his paper by, and all the alone he wanted.

The paper was nearly new, only three weeks old. The wily old Mexican, Romulez, had thrown it into the deal at the last minute, hoping to sweeten the pot. Barty had nearly snapped at the bait, but his dealer's instinct had held him back, making him yawn.

"Papers from th' East don't do much for me no more, Romulez," he'd said.

Romulez had pretended to look crestfallen. "But my friend, I brought it back just for you from Kansas City. It has all the news of
Washington
in it. Haven't you always bragged about how you were born in Washington, the cradle of democracy, as you call it? Haven't you always been hungry for news of this town? Look," Romulez said, holding the newspaper under Barty's nose. "It is the
New York Times!"

Barty yawned again. "Maybe you can use it to wallpaper your hacienda, Romulez...."

They had played their game for another ten minutes, until Barty had finally closed the deal at a few pennies more, which was all Romulez was after. They both went away happy. And now Barty, born Bartholomew Carson Smith, to a rich banker in Washington, D.C., indeed could indulge in his favorite thing, which was to read up on the news of his long-lost and little-lamented first home, the nation's capital.

He saw that Theodore Roosevelt himself was on his campaign swing west and would stop in Arizona, Tucson, of all places, to make a speech.

A night noise, louder than it should be, startled Barty out of lowering his newspaper away from the firelight.

"What the hell —

There, sitting tall above him, was something that must be an illusion, an Apache in the saddle, bare-breasted, rifle in hand.

"Hey, chief," Barty laughed, "anyone tell you the Indian Wars ended years ago?"

Behind the solemn rider were five more Apaches, similarly painted.

The brave asked curtly, "Are you an Army scout?"

Barty, not liking the Indian's tone, said abruptly, "Ain't no Army for three hundred miles of here. Now, chief," Barty said, starting to get up. "I don't know what your game is, but the reservation is that-a-way —

As he rose, holding the paper in front of him, the Apache brave fired his rifle, blowing a hole in the front page of
The New York Times
and through Barty.

Barty shouted, disbelieving.

Another rifle shot sounded, and a third, and Barty lay silent on his back, mouth open in dying incomprehension.