To those who saw
him, soldiers and civilians alike, it was evident that this
stranger had business, and no one felt called upon to question its
nature. There are men who carry an air more potent than a
bodyguard, and Dave Law was one of these. Before the village had
thoroughly awakened to his coming he was gone, without a glance to
the right or left, without a word to anyone.
When Romero was at his back he rode for a mile or two through a
region of tiny scattered farms and neglected garden patches, after
which he came out into the mesquite. For all the signs he saw, he
might then have been in the heart of a foreign country. Mexico had
swallowed him.
As the afternoon heat subsided, Montrosa let herself out into a
freer gait and began to cover the distance rapidly, heading due
west through a land of cactus and dagger, of thorn and barb and
bramble.
The roads were unfenced, the meadows desolate; the huts were
frequently untenanted. Ahead the sky burned splendidly, and the
sunset grew more brilliant, more dazzling, until it glorified the
whole mean, thirsty, cruel countryside.
Dave's eyes were set upon that riot of blazing colors, but for the
time it failed to thrill him.
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