“All anybody knows,” Maggie said, “is they fade into the Indian Nations after a job. They only come out to ply their wicked trade, like they did here in Magdalena last Christmas.”

“Why the Nations? Ain’t they afraid of the Apache?”

“Not Major Dalton Stiles,” Maggie scoffed. “He’s protected by superstition. The Apache, and every other tribe in the territories, believe Stiles is a cursed god and his men are demons. The Indians consider him very bad medicine. They steer clear of him and his gang.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he and his men take the scalps of their own tribe. They rape and torture their own people. To the Apache, who might be viewed as savages by civilized white society, such behavior is considered barbaric and unholy.”

“If you don’t mind me sayin’ so,” Franchard said, “things look a bit lean around here.”

“What did you expect?” Maggie said. “The mine’s shut down, if you hadn’t noticed on your way in. We have no money or livestock, and all we’ve been living on to get us through the winter is our stores of fruit and vegetable preserves, and what little grain we have left. We can’t even leave. Even if we wanted to pack up and pull out of Magdalena, which we don’t, we don’t have any horses left that are fit to pull a wagon. How long do you think a couple of hundred women and children would survive, marching across the territory, on foot?”

“Not very long,” he conceded.

“We’d have about the same chance as you and your Rangers,” she said, “of finding Major Dalton Stiles in the Nations. Or of staying alive after you do.”

“She’s right,” Pritchard said, keeping his voice low so no one but Franchard and Maggie could hear him. “Stiles and his men are experienced horseback guerrillas, and they know this territory much better than we do. Skilled as we are, Captain, we could spend twenty years wandering the Nations and never find ’em.”

“Even if we did find ’em,” Franchard said, “it would only be because Stiles wanted us to. And it would be at a place and time of his choosing. He’d cut us to pieces.”

“When I saw only twenty-four of you ride in,” Maggie said, “I knew you didn’t have a prayer. He has more than fifty men, and each one is a merciless killer. You go after Major Dalton Stiles, Captain Franchard, you’ll end up the same as my husband—dead and buried. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you and your Rangers are outmatched and outgunned.”

“Call me Tom,” Franchard said to Maggie as he opened his saddlebags and revealed the stacks of gold coins inside. “And who said anything about going after Major Dalton Stiles?”

Chapter 41

Chapter 41