Cody looked around.
Nobody met his eyes.
The old man continued.
"There are at least ten armed men. Maybe more."
Cody's hand rested lightly on Sombra's saddle.
"Where did they go?"
The old man stared at him.
"Are you crazy?"
"I asked where."
"West."
The old man pointed toward a distant line of red mountains.
"They went toward the Red Mountains."
Several men exchanged nervous glances.
Nobody spoke.
The old man lowered his voice.
"No one returns from there alive."
Cody looked toward the mountains.
The peaks were already darkening beneath the afternoon sun.
He remembered his father.
A man is not measured by what he has, but by what he does when no one else wants to do it.
Cody tightened Sombra's reins.
"There's always a first time."
He mounted.
The large man laughed.
"You're riding into the Red Mountains alone?"
Cody looked down at him.
"No."
The man grinned.
"Who's going with you?"
Cody nodded toward Sombra.
"My horse."
The laughter died.
Cody turned west.
Behind him, Red Creek slowly disappeared into dust.
Ahead waited ten armed men, two hundred stolen horses, and a mountain range filled with secrets.
Cody had no idea that before the sun rose again, he would discover why those bandits had stolen the horses.
And he would learn that the danger was much greater than a simple horse theft.
The Trail of Two Hundred Horses
Sombra carried Cody west until the town was nothing more than a faint brown smudge behind them.
The trail was easy to follow.
Two hundred horses left a trail that even a blind man could see.
Broken grass.
Deep hoofprints.
Dung scattered across the dry earth.
Cody followed until sunset.
He dismounted beside a dry creek bed and studied the ground.
The bandits had traveled quickly.
Too quickly.
Cody crouched.
There were boot prints mixed among the horse tracks.
Ten men, perhaps twelve.
But something bothered him.
The horses had not been driven hard.
If the thieves had been trying to escape quickly, they would have forced the animals forward.
Instead, the horses had been allowed to walk.
That meant the bandits were not afraid of pursuit.
Cody looked toward the western horizon.
"They want someone to follow them."
Sombra snorted.
"That's what I think too."
Cody made a small camp beneath a rock overhang.
He ate beans from a tin cup and drank carefully from his canteen.
The desert became cold after dark.
He wrapped himself in his blanket and kept his rifle within reach.
For years, Cody had learned how to sleep lightly.
That night he barely slept at all.
Just before dawn, he heard something.
A horse.
Cody opened his eyes.
Sombra was standing.
The Mustang's ears pointed toward the darkness.
Cody reached for his rifle.
A shape moved beyond the rocks.
Then another.
He waited.
Nothing.
Finally, a coyote stepped into the moonlight.
Cody lowered the rifle.
But the animal was not alone.
Behind it, hidden in the darkness, Cody saw something else.
A small strip of red cloth tied to a bush.
He walked over.
It was not cloth.
It was a piece of a woman's shawl.
Cody recognized the pattern.
Apache.
He looked down.
Beside the bush were footprints.
Small ones.
Someone had been following the bandits.
Someone who was not part of their group.
Cody picked up the cloth.
"Who are you?"
The desert gave him no answer.
He put the cloth inside his coat.
At sunrise, he continued west.
By noon, the mountains were closer.
By evening, Cody saw smoke.
He stopped Sombra behind a ridge.
Below him lay a narrow valley.
And in that valley were hundreds of horses.