Tahzay’s silhouette appeared briefly against the indigo stars along the cliff rim. He did not shout; he simply pointed down toward the narrowest constriction of the wash, where a massive boulder of red sandstone hung suspended over the gorge, undercut by years of water erosion and wedged in place by ancient driftwood logs.
Ethan understood the trap instantly.
"Ayana, take both horses down the right fork," Ethan whispered, thrusting Dutch’s reins into her hand. "Get behind that second buttress. Don't show a light, and don't make a sound."
"Ethan—"
"Go!" he urged, his voice fierce with desperation. "I’m right behind you, but someone has to make sure those bastards walk right under that boulder!"
Ayana looked at him for a single, searing second. She did not argue. She took the reins, turned the horses, and led them silently into the pitch-black shadows of the right fork.
Ethan dropped to one knee behind a mound of dried flood debris, resting the barrel of his Winchester across a weathered cottonwood log. He thumbed the hammer back until it clicked with a cold, mechanical snap. He drew three slow, deep breaths, waiting as the yellow torchlight crept closer along the canyon walls, casting grotesque, elongated shadows of three men onto the white stone.
"I see horse droppings!" a gunman called out from sixty yards away. "Fresh! The redskin bitch and the drifter can't be more than a stone's throw ahead!"
"Take the woman alive if you can!" another voice answered—a deep, grating voice that Ethan recognized with a cold jolt of realization. It was Ben Thorpe, Jason Vance’s chief enforcer, a disgraced former lieutenant of Texas irregulars who was wanted in three states for train robbery and murder. "Vance wants to know where that Apache rat-hole is! As for the cowhand... leave his carcass for the vultures!"
The three men came around the bend, walking abreast with their Winchesters raised. Thorpe was in the center, a hulking man wearing a buffalo-hide vest and a broad leather hat, holding a sputtering pine torch in his left hand.
Ethan squeezed the trigger.
The Winchester roared, its muzzle flash turning the white walls into a blinding sheet of lightning. The .44 caliber lead slug took the torch straight out of Thorpe's hand, shattering the burning wood into a shower of sparks and driving splintered pitch into the enforcer's shoulder.
Thorpe screamed in fury and pain, diving behind a gravel mound as his two companions opened fire blindly into the darkness. Lead tore through the driftwood log above Ethan’s head, showering his hat with splintered wood and dirt.
"Now, Tahzay!" Ethan roared at the top of his lungs, rolling to his right into the safety of the rock cleft. "CUT IT DOWN!"
From the high rim above, two figures threw their combined weight against a long pine lever wedged beneath the undercut boulder.
There was a sickening, grinding shriek of stone scraping against stone, followed by the loud, explosive crack of snapping driftwood.
"Look out!" one of the gunmen shrieked. "The whole damn cliff is coming down!"
With a sound like rolling thunder, the ten-ton sandstone monolith tore free from its perch and crashed down into the narrowest part of the gorge.
The earth shook violently beneath Ethan's boots. A massive wave of red dust and pulverized limestone billowed through the canyon like thick smoke, accompanied by the terrifying roar of tumbling rocks, splintering timber, and the muffled screams of men scrambling frantically to escape the avalanche. When the roar finally subsided, a solid wall of fractured stone, fifteen feet high, completely blocked the defile, sealing off the stage road and burying the torches beneath tons of rubble.
From beyond the barrier, the furious, coughing curses of Ben Thorpe echoed through the dust: "Walker! You hear me, you son of a bitch?! You can run to your redskin whores, but there ain't a rock in Arizona that’ll hide you! When the army rolls next week, I’m gonna skin you alive!"
Ethan did not waste breath on a reply. He levered another cartridge into the chamber of his Winchester, turned on his heel, and ran through the settling dust toward the right fork, where Ayana waited in the starlit sanctuary of the hills.
By the time the four riders crested the secret northern pass into the hidden red sandstone basin, the morning star had faded, replaced by the pale, cold pink of dawn.
The village was not asleep.
Dozens of scouts and lookouts stood along the high rims, their silhouettes dark against the dawn sky. As Ethan, Ayana, Chato, and Tahzay led their lathered, exhausted mounts down the switchback path into the green amphitheater, the entire camp gathered along the creek bank in anxious silence.