Chapter 7

Sanchez's men were milling around and looking like they didn't know what to do by the time I was able to make my way to the beginning of the pass. I could see that Sanchez was arguing with somebody, I didn't know who, but I was willing to bet that he was an influential member of the gang and he wanted to go anywhere besides through that pass.

Finally, in a fit of passion, Sanchez pulled his revolver and shot the man he was talking to in the chest. That finally woke me up to taking some action, so I took careful aim on Sanchez and let fly. His horse moved just as I fired, so that I did not hit Sanchez with an immediately fatal wound. The bullet appeared to hit him in the side and glance off a rib.

Sanchez reacted in such a way that I knew that I had hit him, but it was not enough to kill him right then. The best I could hope for was a lingering death, which I thought was a good idea, but it was not one I could depend on. Anyway, Sanchez rode away as fast as his horse could run and I could see that he was in considerable pain. His men also left the vicinity as fast as their horses could run as soon as they heard my gunshot.

I was determined to chase Sanchez, but I had to fetch my horse first. That took another hour, so Sanchez had a decent lead on me. The terrain was mostly sand, so I had no doubt that I could track him, but I didn't know how long it would take, and I had to worry about an ambush.

I decided that a few more minutes delay could not hurt anything, so I took time for lunch before I started chasing Sanchez. I was not worried about the other members of the gang. From the looks of their dash from the mouth of the pass, I figured they were going to run for at least 20 miles before they figured they were safe from me. Of course, I would shoot any of them if I ever met them again, but Sanchez was the one I really wanted.

I had no idea as to how clever Sanchez might be, so I decided that my safest bet was to treat the chase after him like I would treat chasing an Apache. The only difference this would make would be that it would take me a little longer to catch Sanchez, but catch him I most certainly would.

I returned to the place where Sanchez had been shot and began to follow his tracks at a moderate lope. I could see that his horse was running like mad, so I figured that it would be at least a little while before Sanchez tried to ambush me. Therefore, it was safe to follow him at a reasonably fast pace.

Besides, if Sanchez was hurting from a bullet wound, I was in no hurry to relieve his pain. The more he hurt and the longer he hurt, the less likely he was to be in a position to ambush me. It would be helpful if I knew more about him and his habits, but the situation was that I didn't, so I had to be very careful.

As I recalled, the wound had been to his left side, so that should not interfere with him using a pistol, though it might make it difficult for him to use a rifle. In any case, I was sure that he could not use a rifle without having a rock or other support to lean the barrel against. It would be just too painful to hold a steady aim without some external support for the rifle.

The chase continued into the afternoon, and I had drained about half of my canteen of water. That brought to mind the question of how much water Sanchez had with him. A wounded man was going to need more water than a man without a wound, so I figured he had to be very low on water by now. Therefore, I could expect him to lead me to a water source sometime before dark. My assumption was that he knew the territory better than I did, so I was going to depend on him to find water for both of us.

The chase dragged on into the afternoon, and his horse had long since slowed to a walk. I had given my horse several breathers, but I could not see that Sanchez had done the same for his horse. Therefore his horse was going to wear out pretty damned quick, well before mine did. It was getting toward 5:00 PM when I saw a dark splotch on the horizon.

Even through my binoculars, it was too far away for me to identify the splotch as being more than just a man on a horse. The horse was moving very slowly, and the man was leaning back as if he was trying to take pressure off his ribs. I was almost dead certain that the men had to be Sanchez, but there was always the possibility that I was wrong.