The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller Page B

his hiding place.
    Both the Donaghers stepped into the outhouse.
    Sam shut the door on them and fastened the sturdy wire hook around the twisted nail so they’d be a while getting out again.
    A roar sounded from inside and the whole privy rocked on the hard-packed dirt. Sam grinned, mounted his horse and rode for the church to meet Vierra.
    He could still hear the Donagher brothers yelling when he got where he was going. The graveyard was enclosed behind a high rock wall, and there was no gate in evidence, so he stood in the saddle and vaulted over, landing on his feet.
    He took a moment to assess his surroundings, as he had in Rosita’s room over the cantina, and spotted the red glow of Vierra’s cheroot about a hundred yards away, beneath a towering cottonwood.
    He approached, one hand resting on the handle of his Colt, just in case.
    Vierra’s grin flashed white and he solidified from a shadow to a man, ground out the cheroot with the toe of one boot. “There is some trouble at the cantina?” he asked, inclining his head in that direction. The sound of splintering wood, mingled with bellowed curses, swelled in the otherwise peaceful night.
    Good thing I didn’t leave my horse behind, Sam thought. They might have shot him out of pure spite.
    He shrugged. “Just a couple of cowpokes breaking out of the privy,” he said. “I reckon they would either have jumped me or followed me here, if I hadn’t corralled them for a few minutes.”
    Vierra laughed. “The Donaghers,” he said.
    Sam nodded, took another look around. It was a typical cemetery, full of stone monuments and crude wooden crosses. He recalled the crucifix on Rosita’s wall, and it sobered him. “What do you have to tell me here that you couldn’t have said last night in Haven?” he asked.
    Vierra reached into his vest and produced a thick fold of papers. “These are the places where the banditos have struck on this side of the border.” He crouched, spreading a large hand-drawn map on the ground, and Sam joined him to have a look. “Here, at Rancho Los Cruces, “Vierra said, placing a gloved fingertip on the spot, “they stole some two hundred head of cattle and left four vaqueros dead. Here, in the canyon, they robbed a train.”
    Sam listened intently, committing the map to memory, just in case Vierra wasn’t inclined to part with it.
    â€œThey used dynamite to cause an avalanche,” Vierra explained, lingering at the place marked as Reoso Canyon. “The train, of course, was forced to stop. They took a shipment of gold, and the wife and young daughter of a patron were captured, as well. The wife was found later—” Vierra stopped, and his throat worked. “She had been raped and dragged to death behind a horse. There has been no word of the girl.”
    â€œChrist,” Sam rasped, closing his eyes for a moment.
    Vierra was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was flat. “I was told that you would give me a map corresponding to this one. Showing all the places this gang has struck on your side of the border.”
    Sam nodded, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and handed over a careful copy of the drawing the major had given him. “Except for the woman and the girl,” he said as Vierra unfolded the paper to examine it in a shaft of moonlight, “it’s a version of what you just showed me. Rustling. Train robberies. They cleaned out a couple of banks, too, and killed a freight wagon driver.”
    â€œOur superiors,” Vierra observed, his gaze fixed on Sam’s map, “they believe we are dealing with the same band of men. Do you know why?”
    Sam knew it wasn’t a question. It was a prompt. “Yes,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “They leave a mark.”
    Vierra folded Sam’s map carefully and tucked it away inside his vest. “A stake, driven into the ground,