Twisted Hills by Ralph Cotton Page B

man who gave you water,” Gomez said. “You have made a good day.”
    â€œI know,” said Luka. “But I can never kill enough white men to fill me.” He stood gazing off in the direction toward the wagon.
    â€œI know that hunger all too well,” Gomez said. “Only in the long passing of time have I been able to step back from killing them.”
    â€œI will call him out onto the desert floor,” said Luka. “If he comes out, I will kill him.”
    â€œA test, eh?” said Gomez.
    â€œYes, I will test him,” said Luka. He looked down at the cigar glowing softly in his hand. “I’ll let the night decide if this man’s courage will get him killed, or if his wisdom will keep him alive.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    The Ranger only allowed himself to doze a few minutes at a time. At some point, when he felt he was going too far, he managed to catch himself and pull himself back from the deeper edge of sleep before getting too close. With the wagon horse on one side and the dun on the other, he liked to think he was borrowing their keener senses. Under these circumstances he could think of nothing on two legs or four that was going to catch him unaware. Yet, while he lay leaning back against the wagon wheel, it was he rather than the animals who spotted the glow of the cigars moving across the desert floor toward him in the night.
    His first impulse was to call out, quietly but firmly, and tell the scalp hunters to stub out the cigars. But something stopped him. Instead he raised himself into a crouch and sat huddled between the horses, his Winchester up, ready to press it to his shoulder and take aim if need be. And he froze in place, silent, watching, as he saw the cigars stop in the night. The two fiery red glows stood there, suspended in the dark night air, as if searching for him—wanting him to see them? They wanted him to call out to them—to rise from his spot beside the wagon and come to them . . . ?
    Not a chance. . . .
    But why?
he asked himself. What sort of trick did the scalp hunters have planned for him? He had expected them to make a move on him at any moment. Was this it? If it was, he had news for them. He wasn’t falling for it. Silently he lowered himself onto his belly and lay prone on his blanket, staring at the glowing cigars down his rifle sights. He would stay right here—keep them in his sights until dawn if need be.
    But he didn’t have to wait long. Before the Winchester grew heavy in his poised grip, he lowered the rifle in front of him and kept it resting on the ground, near his shoulder. After only a moment the cigars went black in the night.
    What now?
he asked himself.
    On either side of him the horses stood sleeping. He lay in complete silence, waiting out the remainder of the night until the purple veil of darkness turned silvery and a mantle of sunlight seeped up over the eastern horizon.
    Soon he heard the woman’s footsteps in the wagon behind him; then a thin sliver of lantern light spread out flat from a crack along the edge of a shuttered window. Sam moved out of the sliver of light and stood up beside the dun, whose eyes were open and who inched away in order to give him room.
    Sam patted the dun’s rump and walked to the rear door of the wagon. With a soft knock, he stood waiting, looking back over his shoulder across the changing darkness of the desert floor until the woman raised the iron bolt and opened the door quietly from inside.
    He slipped into the soft light and closed the door behind him. The woman stood staring at him, holding a kindling hatchet down her side, pressed against her thigh in the folds of her cotton nightgown.
    â€œThe hunters have been gone most of the night,” he said, barely above a whisper.
    â€œMaybe they’ve left, on their own?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
    â€œMaybe,” Sam said, doubting it. “But I