O ye brave knights, that boast this Ladies love,

where be ye now, when she is nigh defild

of filthy wretch?

~Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III, viii, 27


A screaming rose in the center of Sharpeville an hour before dawn.

It was a high-pitched sound, redolent of outrage and fear. Even though it came from a street away or more, Chris sat up out of the straw in which he'd been deeply asleep, nearly banged his head on the corner of a beam.

"What in hell?"

Buck, head down somewhere near Chris's feet, cracked an eye but didn't move.

Vin's blanket came off and disappeared over the edge of the platform where they'd camped out above the horses. Chris heard both his hands clap round the rifle even as he was reaching for his own boots. Vin slid to the edge, levered himself over and dropped to the ground one-handed, quick and agile. Chris followed him down, taking a bruising route via a ladder, most of which he didn't think he touched even though he was trying.

The ruckus hadn't disturbed the great and good of Sharpeville. The only life to be seen on the street was a small group outside the lit Marshal's office. There were three women, half-dressed and wrapped in shawls, and a suited man who evidently wasn't the Marshal.

As Chris and Vin drew near they could see Josiah striding towards them down the dismal street from the direction of the hotel.

"Took one of my girls!" the suited man bellowed at nobody in particular. "One of my girls!" He glared at Chris as he came within clear view. "One of my customers too, one of my goddamn customers!" Every word was shouted, causing a sash window to bang up across the street and an answering yell of, "Keep ya goddamn noise down, folks tryin' to sleep here!"

"Who took 'em?" Chris's voice was measured, didn't carry any farther than the two men nearest.

"That dirty Mexican dog and his goddamn dirty bandits. Came right in and snatched one of my girls!"

Buck had made it now, still bleary and with straw in his hair. He roved a keen glance at the women, gave the suited man a narrow look.

"Good to know your girls are well-protected."

The man scowled at him furiously. "You try protecting business 'gainst Camino and Bracken."

"They'll kill her, Mr. Wyles!" one of the women said in a choked voice. "You know it … they'll kill Doreen and lord she's only a baby."

"What the hell they take 'em for?"

Wyles, the suited man, sent Vin a withering glance, spoke with some scorn. "'Cause he's got money and they don't want to pay?"

"I get why they took Doreen." Buck was picking at his hair, yawning. "But why the john? Why not just take his money?"

"They're dogs," Wyles said simply, and he spat to emphasize the point. "Wild dogs. Knowing them, they want him same reason they want her."

"Hell." Buck slapped his hat against his leg, jammed it on his head. "Mattie Bracken'll take what he can get. I heard that."

"Was Bracken here?"

At Chris's question, Wyles swung round on another of the women who was scrubbing the back of her hand across her nose, shivering with the early cold.

"Rose?"

"It was Camino that came into Doreen's, I heard his voice." The woman shrugged. "A couple of the others, dunno which ones. I didn't see Bracken."

"Been to the Marshal?"

The woman Rose rolled her eyes to the dark sky above but let her employer answer.

"Marshal's out at Mrs. Carter's place, on business." Wyles sucked in his cheeks, looked at the ground. "Personal business."

"How far?"

"Mile or so."

Chris frowned. This was not their problem.

"And this water-mill?"

"Hour maybe."

"How many of 'em?"

"Twelve when they're all together. And they got plenty of guns."

Well, damn. There were always plenty of guns.

"Chris?" Buck sounded uneasy, clearly didn't like what was coming.

"Go roust out the others, get on out to this mill." Chris squared his shoulders, looked into Buck's expectant face. "I didn't say take 'em on, all right? Just go set up a watch, see what we're up against." He flicked his gaze at Vin and Josiah. "We'll ride for the Marshal." Before he moved, Chris laid a gripping hand on Buck's forearm. "And I damn well mean it about not takin' 'em on."

"What if they take us on?"

"You're not gonna get that close. And you're gonna wait for us. We're not the law around here, Marshal is. You make sure JD understands that."

Buck nodded mutely.

"Ya might need this," Vin said to him. He reached into the deep pocket at the hem of his buckskin jacket, extracted his brass spyglass. Buck held out his hand and caught the little cylinder when Vin tossed it. He looked at it in his hand, made a face. They all knew that when Vin Tanner's spyglass was doing the rounds, there was real trouble afoot.

Chris wanted to repeat the warning but he decided not to.

"Tell me I'm doin' the right thing," he muttered to Vin and Josiah when Buck had begun a rangy sprint back towards the hotel.

"They'll be fine." Josiah's answer, an early-morning rumble, was hard to interpret. Not exactly confident. But not exactly the opposite either.

"Wing and a goddamn prayer." Chris could never help doubting his comrades' willingness to blindly follow his orders. Who the hell was he to oblige them, after all?

Vin made a face, shook his head. "Ain't it always?" he said. "Hell an' it's even worse than that. This shit you're gettin' us into is a wing and a goddamn prayer without coffee."

"This town?" Chris said as the three of them reached the Livery. "I hate it."


Buck found the hotel clerk peering through the shutters downstairs. Whatever the trouble was, the man wasn't about to let anyone leave without paying.

"They did what?" Ezra asked sluggishly when he was poked awake.

"JD's friends from last night. Seems like they stole one of the girls from the Row. Took her john too. We're ridin' out after 'em."

"They did what?" Ezra repeated, nevertheless tipping himself from the side of the bed which was bouncing furiously as JD sat on it to haul on his boots. He stood blinking in the center of the room like he was trying to imagine himself anywhere but in a strange hotel room in his long-johns.

"Just git a move on, Ezra, 'stead of standing there lookin' like the goddamn cat ate ya canary."

Nathan, disturbed by Josiah, was set to leave already.

"I thought they weren't our problem."

Buck picked up Ezra's conversion in its holster and threw it at him, surprised when it was caught smartly.

"Chris just made it our problem. Marshal's being fetched but we gotta go on ahead, see what's going on."

"How delightful," said Ezra, slipping a semi-clean shirt off a hanger and studying it like he was inwardly praying for its continued survival. "Reconnaissance before breakfast, my favorite kind."

"Yeah," JD added, throwing Buck a dirty look. "And they're not my friends."

The others were already gone when they reached the Livery. They found an escort of Wyles and a group of his girls, pale-faced and anxious, waiting to direct them out of town. Buck led them into the evaporating dark, JD at his side, the other two just behind. Now they were on the move, had a focus, there were no more complaints.

From the outskirts of Sharpeville, heading due north, it took less than an hour to reach a sight of the water-mill in the first light of day.

The place was nothing more than a heap of abandoned buildings piled in a dusty valley, overlooked by a tree-lined ridge on one side and a rocky trail on the other. A fair enough spot to settle when things were going well, perhaps. Past the small settlement crawled a wide, shallow river that was clearly flowing too slowly and too low to be worth harnessing anymore. At least just here. The water picked up speed as it traveled further down past the trail. Even at a distance it could be heard gurgling over rocks. Some work would have salvaged the mill, Buck guessed, but Sharpeville wasn't the kind of place to find the motivation.

On his command, the four of them circled around the head of the valley, found a high observation point and dismounted to set up watch. Below them there was little movement. Aside from the listing mill-wheel itself, there were several broken-down outhouses, a shack with half a roof, a big barn-like structure and a small corral with a jumbled perimeter fashioned out of whatever bits of timber the gang had managed to break up. The horses were tethered in groups - Buck counted eight of them - and there was one figure on the ground in the middle of the yard.

Buck sprawled on his belly, aimed Vin's spyglass. He felt JD kick the back of his boot.

"What can you see, Buck? You even got that thing the right way round?"

"One man down," Buck grunted. "He's movin'. Reckon that's Doreen's john. Can't see her. And I count five of Camino's men."

He rolled off his elbows, passed the spyglass to Nathan who'd shimmied in next to him. Ezra had clearly decided he wasn't about to wallow in the dust and he stood back by the horses, checking his guns.

"Two more in the barn," Nathan said after a while.

Camino's men were moving about, in and out of the buildings.

"Still only seven."

"The guy hurt?" JD asked. "Shouldn't we go help him?"

"You heard the orders, JD. Chris said not to take 'em on."

"I know he did, Buck, but ..."

"Think he's been roughed up," Nathan interrupted. "He ain't shot far as I can see."

"Where the hell is Doreen?"

"Maybe they took her someplace else. There's five of 'em missing I reckon."

"What are we doing again?" Ezra demanded. "Elementary calculus? You realize no-one's going to pay us for hanging around here counting thieves?"

"Reckon we'll do something when Chris gets here with the Marshal."

Buck nodded at that. "Whether he gets a fire lit under the Marshal or not, reckon on them being here 'fore the hour's out."

"Not too long to sit on your desire for mayhem, JD."

JD turned to answer Ezra's observation with a frown. "I don't have no desire. Just don't want anyone gettin' hurt that don't deserve it."

"Those men," Ezra said, peering into the barrel of his Remington. "They've done plenty to deserve it."

Buck twisted round at the tone in Ezra's voice. "Don't you start. Two of ya, just keep calm and sit tight."

"I don't have no desire for mayhem, Buck." JD was a little plaintive, probably because he was tired. Buck wondered how he'd slept following the encounter in the saloon.

"None of us do, kid. Pay him no mind, Ezra's fulla shit."

Ezra gave his Remington a sardonic wave. Before he could say anything else, Nathan's head jerked back.

"Damn," he said, at the same moment they heard the sound of a woman's voice wailing.

"Nathan?"

"They're bringing her out. Don't look good."

Buck crawled to his feet, hand in the middle of Nathan's back. "Least she's alive."

Another wail sounded, bouncing up and off the surrounding rocks. With the naked eye they could see the figure on the ground stir, trying to get up. A scream and then a shot rent the air.

"Oh shit ..." Nathan scrambled up, slapped the spyglass back in Buck's hand.

"They kill someone?"

"Think they're in the mood for it."

"Damn this," Ezra muttered and turned to his horse.

"Yeah," Buck agreed, right beside him. He stowed the spyglass hastily, knowing it was more than his life was worth to allow it to be lost or damaged. "I'm calling off the watch."

Larabee himself couldn't have stopped them.

The men holed up at the mill scattered for cover the second they heard the shots. Whatever they were planning fell apart as soon as approaching horses burst out of the trees at the foot of the rise. By the time Larabee's four were down in the valley and exposed, riding full tilt and firing for distraction rather than effect, the whole situation had changed.

Buck aimed a shot towards two men holding down Doreen where she lay sprawled in the dust with her dress sliced up to the waist. The bullet skimmed the ground inches from their feet. The men immediately released the girl, scrabbled their way into an untidy dive behind a water-trough.

Ezra and Nathan leaped to the ground, slapping away their horses and running for an abandoned buggy overturned outside the barn, shooting as they went. They gave Buck enough cover to get to Doreen, who squealed when he reached her. She had a black eye and her hair was loose and full of dirt. Buck could swear she was no more than sixteen years old. The man who'd paid eight bits to visit her was bent double on his side, hand clutching a wound on his thigh which was bleeding fast.

Buck pulled the girl off the ground with one arm. It was easy. She was too cold and stiff to help much, but she was light, a bag of bones. He threw her on to his horse, snatching his rifle from the saddle-boot soon as she was up. His grab at the swinging reins made the animal wheel and whinny, kick up earth.

"Keep your head down!" Buck urged. "Get the hell away from here now, darlin'. Marshal's right behind us."

The horse took flight amidst a hail of gunfire echoing from either side of the yard. It wasn't aimed at Buck's mount else Doreen would have died in the saddle. She showed enough presence of mind to understand that the unknown flurry of gunmen who had appeared from nowhere were holding down Camino's bastard pack of hounds at her back. Somehow she had the strength to dig her knees into the horseflesh beneath her, sent the animal kicking into the trees towards the rise.

JD heard shots from behind, had his own mount taken right from under him in a skid of hooves as five riders came in on their flank. He rolled away from the panicking animal, kept rolling, heard the distinctive sound of Buck's Colt, knew it had a good chance of keeping him safe, for a few seconds at least. Then incoming fire increased. A voice hollered at him to keep still. JD froze where he was, halfway to the buggy. His horse had righted itself, was charging for open ground.

Several rounds cannoned off the buggy, made it rock. Much more of that and it would be torn to pieces.

"Give it up!" an accented voice shouted across the gunfire. "Give it up and drop your weapons."

JD was blinded by a shaft of sunlight and his own fuddled senses.

"Well look who it is!" The long shadow of Matt Bracken blocked the sun for a second before he slid from his horse, pointed his gun at JD supine in the dust. "Our fine young feller and his keepers."

"Drop your weapons," repeated the first voice. Camino rode up front of the incoming group.

Buck glanced quickly left and right. There were guns trained on them every which way. They were outnumbered three to one. On seeing JD stranded, Nathan and Ezra had stood up slowly behind the buggy.

"He said drop your weapons." Bracken sounded exasperated. "We ain't jokin'."

Buck realized the others were taking their cues from him. He let his side-arm dangle on one finger, fall to the ground, nodded unwillingly.

In a moment more they were all standing, disarmed, hands raised. Although there had been occasions when Ezra's multiple hardware had given them the upper hand, this was not one of those times. Camino himself had spotted the shoulder holster. The olive jacket was peeled from Ezra's arms and the conversion and rig were removed, none too politely. They made him take off the torn brocade vest too, liking the look of the pin in one lapel. Camino took charge of it, tearing off the pin and then scrunching the stiff material of the vest in his fingers before holding the item towards his men and dropping it.

"Didn't know Chris Larabee rode with a fuckin' tailor's dummy," he said, to a wave of snickering.

Buck and Nathan exchanged the most fleeting of glances. There had been no sign last night that Camino or any of his gang had recognized Larabee. Buck couldn't decide if the recognition was likely to help or not. He guessed not.

Ezra seemed on the verge of opening his mouth. Buck hoped he wasn't going to make some comment along the lines of if they weren't interested in his clothes, this tailor's dummy would like them back thank you very much. Evidently something in Camino's expression stopped him making any comment at all. He just looked at the discarded vest and jacket rather sorrowfully.

A few feet away from them, the man on the ground rolled his head and groaned. Nathan made a half move to get to him and then backed off as a shotgun swung in his direction.

"Awww," Bracken said. "They came to the rescue."

"Where's Larabee?" Camino asked, face to face with Buck.

"Town."

"Oh yes?"

"Oh yes."

"You're lying."

Buck just stared at him.

"They thought they could take us!" Bracken was walking around them, gun waving dangerously. "Cowpunch with half a brain, a snot-nosed kid, a goddamn darkie and a Southern boy too pretty for his own face. Ain't that just too much?"

"Crowded round here, Mattie," Camino said.

"Hell yeah." Bracken span, cocked his gun and then fired at the man on the ground. A casual, close-range shot, let loose without a second thought.

The man's body jerked until the echo died away, and then went still. Both Nathan and JD flinched. Ezra and Buck were unmoving, although not unmoved. They'd been expecting it.

"You let her get away!" Camino scolded the other men, as if nothing had happened. "Before we'd even gotten started? Pendejos ... what the hell you drag her out here for? Look what you brought."

"Ain't so bad, Nando." Bracken was still on the move, patrolling around the prisoners with renewed interest. "They could be useful."

"Useful how? Bringing that gunslinger down on us?"

"I can think of something."

Camino bit the end of his cheroot hard. Spat. "Tie 'em up and let 'em stew. Reef!" He snapped his head sideways to a man with a few yellow teeth gnawing his lower lip. "Go find the kid's horse. And before we clear out we need ... shit, we need a fuckin' drink."

Buck couldn't help thinking his words were a shorthand for something else.

Bracken grinned. "Boys are kinda pissed their fun just rode away, bossman."

"Well they hafta fuckin' deal with it." Camino slapped a man in a duster and gloves on the side of the arm. "You and Tom, any sign of heroes riding down, you fill this bunch of madres full of lead." He spoke directly to Buck on his way into the shack. "I'll do it anyhow, Americano, unless Mattie gives me a good reason not to."

As Camino walked away, Bracken smiled after him as if he were the most pleasant man he'd ever met. Buck had never liked people who smiled all damn day long. Most of them deserved to have the smile slapped right off their faces, far as he could tell. Bracken, though, he was something else. He crackled with self-assurance, made Buck wonder why he wasn't in charge and Nando Camino was. There were a few stains on the tobacco frock-coat but none of the splashes of food and filth that adorned the others. Bracken seemed to like his debauchery well controlled. His hair looked combed, was neatly restrained in a black ribbon whose ends flapped as he walked around.

He oversaw operations with the big bear of a man they'd heard called Link Chain. Chain was hellish powerful, stank of nicotine and stale sweat.

"She got away," JD muttered to Buck as they were herded into the barn.

It was some kind of justification for why they'd ridden into this mess in the first place.

Shit. Five lives for one percentage girl.

When he was on his knees with his hands tied up tight behind his back, Buck's eyes strayed to what he could see of the trees on the rise through the open barn doors. Could be that everything would turn out right, that they'd still have the safe way home they'd drunk to last night. Could be that the others were real close. That Vin and Chris would think things through real logical, know enough not to come galloping in at the wrong time and get them all shot.

Could be.

He looked up at the men guarding them. Both wore dusters, held sawn-offs and had cold eyes half hidden under the rim of their hats. They were tense. Just looking for an excuse. Buck nudged JD who was next to him.

"Take it easy."

"I am taking it easy, Buck. I can't do anything the hell else 'cept take it easy."

"Keep ya goddamn trap shut!" one of the men snapped.

Nathan, on the other side of JD, nudged him too. He didn't say anything.

Buck strained his ears to hear what was going on in the shack. He had a pretty good idea. There were voices floating out across the yard. Voices pitched on the wild scale. He had a crawling feeling in his stomach which overlaid the gnawing hunger he'd been thinking about five minutes ago.

Camino and his men were drinking, that was plain enough. Had the constitutions for early-morning liquor. But there was more than that. There was something else going on with them, taking the edge off any inhibitions that might be left. Were they smoking something along with the raw hooch they all reeked of? Sniffing the kind of noxious fumes that blurred boundaries?

Whatever it was, Buck figured they had nothing left to lose. Figured they'd kill the four of them all right, just not straight away.

Well, hell.

This depressing notion seemed to fit in with everything he already knew.

Matthew Bracken was a natural born killer, that was clear. He'd trashed his moral compass, supposing he'd ever had one, years ago. Went awol from the 2nd California, skipped out of Fort Grant one night bold as brass, had been living on the twilit fringes ever since. He was bankrolled from somewhere unknown, had to be. Straight criminality didn't interest him, although he'd spent time behind bars for it. He preferred to hound people and dabble in depravity. Had a reputation for living on little but brain-rotting liquors and tainted tobacco. And now he'd found others, fresh from jail or riding to escape it, who'd do the same because they likely had nothing to live for.

Butchery, sodomy, assault.

That was what Chris had said.

The memory of Bracken's proximity to JD last night in the saloon made Buck's heart thump painfully in his throat. He shifted his knees, had a meandering thought about how far behind the others might be.

Now would be a good time, boys.