Chapter 2
Unity, Texas
The bright, sunny day was hot and humid. Luckily, there were large gray clouds dotting the sky, and Mark Ellis was hopeful of rain later. Anything that would quell the broiling heat was okay with him.
Sitting atop his horse, he looked out over the wide stretch of grassland that surrounded the town of Unity. Bushes and low trees covered a lot of the ground, giving miscreants ample places to hide.
“One of these days, Michael is going to have to give us the go-ahead to clear all of this away,” Jeff said. He was riding beside Mark with a concerned look on his face.
“We can hope, right?” Mark said. If he had learned one thing from his time in Unity, it was that Michael Wellan seldom agreed to anything he didn’t deem absolutely necessary.
Jeff shrugged. “We can always talk to my brother if it becomes necessary. Andrew has a way of convincing Michael of the importance of things.”
They urged their horses into a slow walk. The whole point of this patrol was to find anything out of the ordinary, and racing along could mean missing a lot.
The ground was hard and dry. It had been days since the last rain, a week at least, and things were beginning to look dry and withered in the hot summer sun. Mark was beginning to feel that way too.
Lifting his broad-brimmed hat, he smoothed down his usually unruly hair. It was mostly plastered to his scalp with sweat.
A cloud passed in front of the brutal sun, and Mark sighed with relief. “Is it hotter this year, or is it me?”
“I think it’s hotter,” Jeff said, wiping his neck with a kerchief from his pocket. “But after that terrible winter storm when we all almost died from the influenza outbreak, I’ll take the heat for a while.”
Mark shuddered. The influenza outbreak had almost broken the little town of Unity a few months earlier.
That and the terrible blizzard that had rolled in, cutting them off from everything, had almost been the death of them all.
Mark never wanted to go through that again.
He silently thanked God yet again for sparing him and the people he loved.
“So, when does your lady love arrive?” Jeff asked, changing the subject.
“Next week,” Mark said with a nervous shrug. “She politely informed me that she was coming and had a ticket booked and everything.”
“Not waiting for the official invitation?” Jeff asked in a teasing tone.
“Ah, no. Apparently, her adoptive parents are moving, and she feels she should make a clean break and go somewhere. It doesn’t make sense to go anywhere else, so …”
“So, she’s coming here. How much did you tell her about what’s going on?” Jeff asked.
This was tricky. Mark hadn’t wanted to scare Heather. She was a sweet girl, and he thought tales of what happened in Unity might scare her right out of wanting to write to him. “I might not have told her too much.”
“Of course. Just enough so that she knows things aren’t all daisies, but not enough to scare her off,” Jeff said.
Mark nodded. “I think tha?—”
Just ahead of them, a figure rose up out of the brush like a leviathan rising from the deep.
Mark and Jeff had no time. The figure burst out of hiding and was running at them full tilt before they could even gather their wits.
“Yah!” Jeff cried, recovering before Mark could. He flicked his reins, and his horse darted off in pursuit.
Mark, feeling foolish for his surprised reaction, urged his horse into a gallop too.
He was new to the sheriff’s department in Unity, having had to earn Sheriff Robert Hayes’s respect first. The last thing he needed was to lose that respect by missing out on a chase.
The figure, whoever it was, was quick on his feet. He ran flat out, jumping over low bushes and the odd cactus, rocks and other things that seemed to jump out of the long grass at Jeff and Mark as they rode.
The horses could have caught him with ease if the terrain he was crossing hadn’t been so full of dangers for them. One false step and the animals would break a leg.
Mark reined in his horse and slid from the saddle. He would make better time on foot.
Jeff had also stopped, but he was aiming his gun at the man’s back.
“Don’t shoot!” Mark yelled. “If we take him alive, we can question him.”
He ran past, hoping Jeff would lower his gun and not take the shot.
Bang!
Mark ducked his head. Seemed Jeff had other ideas.
The man Mark was chasing began to zigzag and then darted to the left. He was heading to a grove of trees not far away. Mark chased after him.
Something grabbed hold of his right ankle, and before Mark could register what that meant, he plowed into the dirt face-first. The wind was knocked out of his lungs, and for a moment, lying on his side, he gasped and spluttered.
Mark hauled himself up. He tasted blood in his mouth. Had he bitten his tongue in the fall?
Jeff was riding fast toward the grove of trees. He was urging his horse on, crouched over the beast’s neck. What had he seen? Where was the man they were chasing?
Mark sat up and found that a creeper had wrapped itself around his foot, and that was what had tripped him up. He tore it loose and got to his feet.
A snorting sound, followed by an odd sensation like hot air flowing down his back, made him turn. His horse had sauntered over and was pressing his nose into the back of Mark’s head.
“Great timing, fella,” Mark said.
His horse gave him a pitying look as if to say, “See what happens when you try to run, Two-Feet?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mark muttered, getting back into the saddle.
They set off, racing after Jeff, who had already disappeared into the trees. With luck, Jeff would have caught the man already, and all they would have to do was accompany him back to the sheriff’s station. Robert would have to be happy with that.
As they approached the trees, Mark reined his horse into a walk.
The trees were oddly silent, with no bird calls or other noises that Mark would usually expect to hear.
As he made his way into the shade of the boughs, his heart began to beat even faster than before.
There was something oppressive about the woods, as though there were eyes everywhere watching him.
Mark was beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be prudent to head back out of the wood and come around the outside of it. Maybe he would be able to see some sign of where his partner was then.
Just then there was a cry, the boom of a gunshot, and the thudding of hooves.
Mark had no idea which direction to ride, but he chose one anyway and hoped it was right. The sounds had been odd, damped down by the trees and underbrush, maybe. He strained his eyes to see anything moving in the trees.
Then he saw a deer come racing toward him, eyes wide in terror. It saw him at the last moment and leaped gracefully to the side.
Hares and other small critters darted past, and Mark’s horse stomped the ground. Come on, Jeff, where are you?
Mark pulled his gun from the holster on his hip. He held it ready as his horse picked his way between the trees, heading in the direction the deer and other animals had come from.
He heard a shout then, and suddenly a rider on horseback was charging toward him.
“Mark! Did you see him? Did he come past you?” Jeff asked. His eyes were bright, and he had sweat on his brow. His hat was off his head, hanging down his back on its cords.
“I didn’t see anything but a deer and some rabbits,” Mark said.
Jeff swore. “I almost had him. Then he disappeared behind a tree and … I don’t know how he did it. One second he was there, and then he was gone.”
“So, we don’t have him,” Mark said, disappointed but not surprised.
“No, we don’t,” Jeff said. “Better head back.”
It took them a couple of minutes to ride back to the place where the man had jumped up from in the first place. They both dismounted to inspect the site.
“Well, that’s clever,” Mark said. He lifted what looked like a braided grass mat. It had tufts of the hard, coarse grass that was so common in the area sticking out of it.
“Yeah, coupled with this ditch he must have dug in the ground here, he was all but invisible to us from the top of the fence,” Jeff said.
The ditch was well placed. If Mark looked over his left shoulder, he could see all the way to the bottom gate, and over his right he could see the top one.
This was a great spot to spy on the town’s comings and goings.
“We should bring Robert out here,” Mark said. “Let him see what we found.”
“Yes,” Jeff agreed. “If there’s one, there could be others.”
Sheriff Robert Hayes was sitting in a chair at the barber shop, having his hair cut. He looked at Mark and Jeff with mild interest.
“And you let this person get away?” he asked.
“He disappeared between the trees,” Jeff explained. “We couldn’t catch him.”
“Mmm,” Robert said, sounding contemplative. “Take the others and make a full sweep around the fence. Let’s see what else you turn up.”
Mark was happy to do that. He didn’t like that they hadn’t caught the man.
Maybe Jeff would have shot him and then at least the man wouldn’t be able to rush back to his friends with news.
As things stood, the little weasel would have plenty of time for that.
He could be at one of El Aguila’s bandits’ many camps right that moment, telling them everything that happened and how ineffectual the Unity defense was. It grated on Mark’s nerves.
After tracking Ben, Duncan, and Ross down, they went out of the large metal gates that kept the town safe for the second time that day.
This time, Mark and Jeff went the other way around the fence, keeping their eyes wide open. They didn’t talk much as they rode along, not wanting to be distracted.
They came around to the back of the ridge and found Duncan and Ben inspecting a hastily deserted camp. Hidden behind some boulders, the camp would be hard to spot, if not invisible from the top of the ridge looking down.
“These bushes here and that stunted tree would block the view from the ridge perfectly,” Ben said, looking back up at the rock wall that separated the town from the grassland. “I’ll give these sneaking worms their due; they certainly know how to hide.”
“Can you imagine how long they’ve been watching us come and go?” Jeff asked. “No wonder El Aguila knew what we were up to.”
“I don’t know if that’s really the case,” Ross said, approaching them from the right. “I don’t see any means of conveying the information. Short of leaving his post, the spy would be on his own. There’s no sign that he could let anyone know what was going on.”
Mark gave that some thought. How would he do it? Homing pigeon? Passing notes on to others as shifts changed? But that could mean hours where things could happen, and El Aguila’s bandits wouldn’t know about it. There had to be a way for them to send a message if it was urgent.
He took another look at the things left lying in the camp, hastily abandoned as it had been. Probably because of their chasing the other spy.
Mark lifted a bedroll and held up a lantern. “They could have used this,” he said. “It’s a smuggler’s lantern. See, the sides close, which makes it impossible to see unless you’re looking in the right direction at night. During the day, they could have used mirrors to catch the sunlight.”
“I think you’re right,” Ben agreed with a nod of his big head. The large man stood a head and shoulders taller than Mark. When he thumped Mark on the shoulder genially, Mark’s knees almost buckled.
“We should tell Robert,” Ross said, looking around. “I doubt we’ll find anything more.”
They spent a few more minutes moving around the camp. There was evidence of a small campfire, most likely only lit in daylight to cook on. If they used dry wood, it would be hard to see.
A few cigarillo butts and the ash from a pipe were found next to a couple of sawn-off logs that were most likely used as seats, and that was it. The whole camp was sparse and bare.
Only the essentials. Nothing more.
With their meager information, the deputies made their way back to town. Mark couldn’t help but feel a little let down by it all. After the excitement of the chase, he had hoped to come back with something solid that they could use against El Aguila.
“Well, you didn’t expect to find a detailed plan and signed confession of all his crimes, did you?” Jeff asked him as they rode back to the gate.
“No,” Mark said. “I had hoped for more though.”
Jeff sighed. “Me too.”