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For a long moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry, held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips again to suck the gathered moisture. Water slicked the surface of the ledge, and Travis pushed her back against the wall of the cliff.
Now and then he paused beside Kaydessa and spoke, his uneasiness plain to Travis although he could not understand the words. Travis had settled down in the shade, half dozing, yet alert to every movement of the three Tatars. He tried not to think of what might be happening in the rancheria by switching his mind to that misty valley of the towers.
The shaman's hand went up, silencing both of them. "You are who?" Like Kaydessa, Menlik spoke a heavily accented English. "I am Travis Fox, of the Apaches." "The Apaches," the shaman repeated. "You are of the West, the American West, then." "You know much, man of spirit talk." "One remembers. At times one remembers," Menlik answered almost absently.
But just then Kaydessa came up, towing Hulagur by a firm hold on his sash-belt. "I have told this one," she reported to Travis, "how it is between us and that you also are enemy to those who hunt us. It is well that you sit together beside a fire and talk of these things." Again that boom-boom broke her speech, coming from farther out in the open land. "You will do this?"
"We get the girl," the other elaborated, "let her escape, then hunt her to where they'll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to begin with." Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck's choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures.
They followed the ledge road to a section where a landslide of an earlier season had choked it. Travis worked a careful way across the debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn.
"Naginlta " The coyote sped back into the dark again. "The Reds have taken the bait, a party of at least four with Kaydessa are moving into the foothills, heading south." But the enemy party was not the only one on the move. In the light of day a sentry's mirror from a point in the peaks sent another warning down to their camp.
And the next day when he did move on he had only the report that Kaydessa had sheltered beside a pool for the night and was doggedly moving back across the mountains. Three days later Travis, Jil-Lee, and Buck came into the tower valley. Kaydessa was in the northern foothills, twice turned back from the west and the freedom of the outlaws by the Apache scouts.
Whatever called Kaydessa into such mindless and will-less answer did not touch the animals. And neither Apache felt it. So perhaps only Kaydessa's people were subject to it, as she had thought. How far away was that machine? Not too near, for otherwise the coyotes would have traced the man or men operating it.
Travis kicked fruitlessly, trying to regain his feet as the horse reared, and fought against the control of his shouting rider. All through the melee the Apache heard Kaydessa shrilly screaming words he did not understand. Travis was on his knees, coughing in the dust, exerting the muscles in his chest and shoulders to loosen the lariat.
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