"We'll go after Palma," Tesno said. "You find trail?"
"Damn right," Charlie said.
Eating beans as he rode, Charlie found the trail a few minutes later. It wound down one gulch and up another, over the spur of a mountain and back through still another gulch.
"Where's he headed, Charlie," Tesno asked finally.
"No place. Him know country. Work into mountains. Maybe by and by go back to tenas house, get food."
A little later the tracks led into a shallow creek and disappeared. After several minutes of scouting, Charlie announced that Palma had gone upstream.
"Him know we follow," he said. "Maybe wait, shoot you."
Tesno nodded. There were a dozen places for an ambush every way you looked. He grinned. "Maybe miss me. Hit Charlie."
For the first time since Tesno had known him, Charlie grinned. "Cultus he-he," he said, reining upstream along the bank. "Bad joke."
Tesno laughed and followed, grateful for the luck that had provided his guide. Here in this brutal and majestic wilderness the ten thousand years between white civilization and savagery had no meaning. He and Charlie were just two hunters, friends now, following a trail. It was going to be a rough one, but Muckamuck Charlie would do to ride it with.