He moved carefully, knowing that he was leaving a trail, but more concerned with what might lie ahead than what might be following. Coming this way, he knew, would give the Mimbre trackers time to cut him off. Still, this was wild climbing country, laced with draws and heavy timber to use for cover. South and east from the Pinaleño station were desert flats, and water only if you knew the location of the wells.

Less than two hundred yards farther on, the draw widened and began to rise and here the trees ended. Bowen edged the mare close to the near wall of shelfrock, then moved out into the open and climbed the rise. He stopped then and looked back, down over the green rolling carpet of the treetops.

At first he wasn’t sure. Then there was no mistaking it-a thin wisp of dust hanging motionless over the far end of the draw.

His gaze came back to the long sweep of meadow in front of him. It sloped gradually and narrowed into a trough between two pine-studded hills. He would be in the open for more than a mile. But, he thought, trying to keep himself calm, trying to ignore the uncertainty that was tightening inside of him: You go that way or you don’t go at all.

Then the wind was in his face and the mare was pounding over the thick grama grass, racing for the bottom of the meadow. The trough between the hills, perhaps a hundred yards wide, opened before him as he heeled the mare again and felt her lengthen her stride reaching level ground again.

And suddenly, with the high whining report, with the solid smacking sound of the bullet, the mare went down and Bowen was over her head-rolling, stumbling, coming to his feet as the Mimbre rode out of the pines up on the right slope, then seeing the Mimbre and running hard for the opposite grade, a shot ringing behind him, then another, and he knew he would not reach the trees.