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Chapter Five

FRANK USHER WAITED as Billy-Jack stooped next to Mims. He saw Billy- Jack look up, nodding his head.

“Get rid of him,” Usher said, watching now as Billy-Jack dragged Mims’s body through the trees to the slope and there let go of it. The lifeless body slid down the grade, raising dust, until it disappeared into the brush far below.

Frank Usher turned and walked back to the hut.

Brennan stepped aside as he reached the low doorway. Usher saw the woman on the floor, her face buried in the crook of her arm resting on one of the saddles, her shoulders moving convulsively as she sobbed.

“What’s the matter with her?” he asked.

Brennan said nothing.

“I thought we were doing her a favor,” Usher said. He walked over to her, his hand covering the butt of his revolver, and touched her arm with his booted toe. “Woman, don’t you realize what you just got out of?”

“She didn’t know he did it,” Brennan said quietly.

Usher looked at him, momentarily surprised. “No, I don’t guess she would, come to think of it.” He looked down at Doretta Mims and nudged her again with his boot. “Didn’t you know that boy was selling you? This whole idea was his, to save his own skin.” Usher paused. “He was ready to leave you again just now… when I got awful sick of him way down deep inside.”

Doretta Mims was not sobbing now, but still she did not raise her head.

Usher stared down at her. “That was some boy you were married to, would do a thing like that.”

Looking from the woman to Frank Usher, Brennan said, almost angrily, “What he did was wrong, but going along with it and then shooting him was all right?”

Usher glanced sharply at Brennan. “If you can’t see a difference, I’m not going to explain it to you.” He turned and walked out.

Brennan stood looking down at the woman for a few moments, then went over to the door and sat down on the floor just inside it. After a while he could hear Doretta Mims crying again. And for a long time he sat listening to her muffled sobs as he looked out at the sunlit clearing, now and again seeing one of the three outlaws.

He judged it to be about noon when Frank Usher and Billy-Jack rode out, walking their horses across the clearing, then into the trees, with Chink standing looking after them.

They’re getting restless, Brennan thought. If they’re going to stay here until tomorrow, they’ve got to be sure nobody’s followed their sign. But it would take the best San Carlos tracker to pick up what little sign we made from Sasabe.

He saw Chink walking leisurely back to the lean-to. Chink looked toward the hut and stopped. He stood hip-cocked, with his thumbs in his crossed gun belts.

“How many did that make?” Brennan asked.

“What?” Chink straightened slightly.

Brennan nodded to where Mims had been shot. “This morning.”

“That was the seventh,” Chink said.

“Were they all like that?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“In the back.”

“I’ll tell you this: Yours will be from the front.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow before we leave. You can count on it.”

“If your boss gives you the word.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Chink said. Then, “You could make a run for it right now. It wouldn’t be like just standing up gettin’ it.”

“I’ll wait till tomorrow,” Brennan said.

Chink shrugged and walked away.

After a few minutes Brennan realized that the hut was quiet. He turned to look at Doretta Mims. She was sitting up, staring at the opposite wall with a dazed expression.

Brennan moved to her side and sat down again. “Mrs. Mims, I’m sorry—”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was his plan?”

“It wouldn’t have helped anything.”

She looked at Brennan now pleadingly. “He could have been doing it for all of us.”

Brennan nodded. “Sure he could.”

“But you don’t believe that, do you?”

Brennan looked at her closely, at her eyes puffed from crying. “Mrs. Mims, you know your husband better than I did.”

Her eyes lowered and she said quietly, “I feel very foolish sitting here. Terrible things have happened in these two days, yet all I can think of is myself. All I can do is look at myself and feel very foolish.” Her eyes