But Tom hadn’t gone a dozen steps before he suddenly stopped and crouched.
“Benny!” he hissed, and Benny ran over to see what Tom had found. On the blacktop, drying in the hot sun, was a small puddle of water. It was no larger than a dinner plate, but it was clear from the faded edges that it had been bigger and was shrinking in the heat. Tom touched it, sniffed his fingers.
“It’s not rainwater. Last night’s rain had a bit of a saltwater smell. This doesn’t smell at all. I think this is filtered drinking water.”
Benny could see it now—someone stopping in the sweltering afternoon to gulp down some water, letting the cold liquid splash on his throat and chest and fall to the ground. Tom stood and held his own canteen out at about six feet, tilted it, and let a little fall. The splash pattern was just about the same, even to how far the rebounding drops fell from the main impact point.
“Tall man. Charlie or the Hammer,” said Tom. “The Mekong brothers are both short.”
Benny was impressed, and he looked around for other evidence and immediately saw something that snapped wide his eyes. “Tom!”
On the ground ten feet away, there was half of a wet footprint, drying quickly under the sun’s glare. Not a man’s foot. This print was made by a small, delicate foot that wore no shoe.
“Nix,” Benny said.
“Has to be,” Tom confirmed, but he looked uneasily from the print back to the puddle.
“What’s wrong?”
“Distance is too far. If she stepped in the water, there should be a print closer to the puddle.” He quickly paced it off, shortening his stride to approximate that of a girl who stood barely five-two. “This is wrong. Even if she stepped in the puddle with only one foot, the distance is too far. The wet print should be here.” He tapped a spot on the blacktop with his toe.
“What’s that mean?”
Tom suddenly grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him back into the shadows of the overturned truck.
“No one else but Charlie and his crew comes out this way, so I think it means that they somehow managed to get ahead of us. Charlie knows these hills better than me. He must have a pass or route that I don’t know about.”
“You mean … we missed them?”
“We have to get the horses through these cars. We’re falling behind again, and I don’t know how many more breaks we’re going to get.”
“Breaks? What breaks have we gotten so far?”
“Stay here,” Tom ordered, and he ran out in a low crouch, moving fast along the line of cars until he disappeared around some wreckage. He was gone for almost three minutes, during which Benny was ready to drag Apache and Chief up and over the vehicles. Tom returned but said nothing, and took off running in the opposite direction, heading down the line of cars. Benny watched him run, saw him stop every few hundred feet and use his arms to measure a gap, saw his shoulders sag a little more each time the gap wasn’t wide enough to allow a horse to squeeze through. He went almost half a mile, then turned in defeat and ran back. His face was set, jaw clamped hard around his disappointment.
“Nothing?”
“No. We’re going to have to do this the hard way. Rig towlines and use the horses to pull one of the cars enough to make a gap. Horses are half dead as it is.” He swore under his breath.