"If they catch me here, I will shoot them until my magazine is empty, and then I will take their scalps with my grandmother’s knife," she cut him off, her voice vibrating with a fierce, ancient hatred that stopped Maverick in his tracks.
She stepped closer to him, her eyes searching his face without a shred of fear. "You told me this afternoon that you wanted an acre of ground where no man could tell you to move on. Did you mean those words, Maverick Cole? Or were they only the pretty talk of a white drifter who leaves when the weather turns foul?"
Maverick stared down at her. In the dim light, with the wind whipping loose strands of hair across her scarred temple, she looked taller, fiercer, and more magnificent than any woman he had ever seen in the ballrooms or border towns of the Southwest.
A slow, grim smile touched the corner of Maverick's mouth. "All right. We make our stand at the spires. But you listen to me: when the shooting starts, you don't play the martyr. You shoot from behind granite, and you keep your head down."
He turned to the two Mexican riders. "You two take your horses and head downriver to the village. Tell Lobo Negro that Maverick Cole is holding the gate until the sun comes up. If he wants this valley to stay green, tell him to bring his wolves before Silas Vance brings his cannons."
The older vaquero nodded gravely, hoisted himself back into the saddle, and wheeled his mount around. "God go with you, compadre. Silas Vance has killed thirty men between the Brazos and the Rio Grande. He doesn't take prisoners."
"Neither do I," Maverick said, and turned toward the dark shadow of the canyon.
The eastern gap was a terrifying piece of country by night.
The two sandstone spires rose nearly four hundred feet above the valley floor, sheer monoliths of fractured red rock that leaned toward each other like two old men whispering secrets over a grave. Between them, the river carved a deep, black trough through a field of car-sized boulders that had tumbled from the cliffs over ten thousand years of frost and rain.
The wind here blew constantly, moaning through the crevices like a wounded animal and carrying the sharp, alkaline smell of the dry basins beyond.
Maverick and Hesper reached the mouth of the gap thirty minutes before midnight. They left their horses tied in a deep willow draw two hundred yards to the rear, out of range of stray lead and hidden from sight.
Maverick climbed twenty feet up the southern spire, finding a natural shelf of rock protected by a breastwork of weathered basalt. From this perch, he had a clear, plunging fire across the only trail that wound through the river boulders.
Hesper took a position sixty yards across the gap, wedged into a narrow crevice at the base of the northern tower. From there, her fire would cross his at a right angle, creating an interlocking zone where no man could take cover behind a rock without exposing his flank to the other rifle.
Maverick settled his Henry rifle onto a smooth ledge, laid his Colt revolver beside his right hand, and emptied two boxes of .44-40 cartridges into his hat, arranging the brass rounds in neat rows so he could reload by touch in the dark.
Across the black chasm, he saw the faint, pale outline of Hesper’s face. She had laid her carbine across a flat slab of shale and was testing the action with smooth, silent strokes.
"Hesper," he called across the wind, keeping his voice down to a harsh whisper.
She lifted her head. "I am here."
"The first two riders through that notch will be the scouts," Maverick said. "They’ll be watching the ground for tracks. Let them pass the big white boulder in the middle of the wash. When the main body enters the choke-point, I take the leader. You take the rear rider to pin them inside the box. After that, pick your targets and don't double up."
"I am not a child with a sling, Maverick," she answered, the wind carrying her words across the rocks. "My uncle taught me to shoot before my breasts began to grow. Look to your own sights."
Silence settled over the gorge again.
Minutes dragged like hours. The air grew colder, biting through Maverick’s canvas jacket and stiffening his fingers. He blew on his knuckles, flexing them one by one to keep the blood moving. High above, the stars were cold chips of ice scattered across the black dome of the desert sky.
Then came the sound.
It was not a hoof striking stone; a trained scout knew how to wrap a horse’s hooves in raw hide to muffle the sound. It was the faint, rhythmic creak of oiled leather, the dry clicking of a bit chain, and the soft, gravelly slide of earth shifting under weight.
Down in the black throat of the gorge, two figures materialized from the shadows.