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hunting the legendary Laton Duke and his band of brigands. It did not matter that Duke was feared as the most deadly pistoleer this side of the Plague Lands, for the hunter was Nestor Garrity, lethal and fast, the bane of warmakers everywhere, adored by women, respected and admired by men.
    Adored by women …
    Nestor paused in his fantasy, wondering what it would be like to be adored by women. He had walked out once with Ezra Feard’s daughter, Mary, taken her to the summer dance. She had led him outside into the moonlight and flirted with him.
    Should have kissed her, he thought. Should have done some damn thing! He blushed at the memory. The dance had turned into a nightmare when she had walked off with Samuel Klares. They had kissed. Nestor had seen them down by the creek. Now she was married to him and had just delivered her first child.
    The old mare almost stumbled on the scree slope. Jerked from his thoughts, Nestor steered her down the incline.
    The fantasies loomed back into his mind. He was no longer Nestor Garrity, the fearless Crusader, but Jon Shannow, the famed Jerusalem Man, seeking the fabled city and with no time for women, much as they adored him. Nestor narrowed his eyes and lifted his hat from where it hung at his back. Settling it into place, he turned up the collar of his coat and sat straighter in the saddle.
    Jon Shannow would never slouch. He pictured two brigands riding from behind the boulders. In his mind’s eye he could see the fear on their faces. They went for their guns. Nestor’s hand snapped down. The pistol sight caught on the tip of his holster, twisting the weapon from his hands. It fell to the scree. Carefully Nestor dismounted and retrieved the weapon.
    The mare, pleased to be relieved of the boy’s weight, walked on. “Hey, wait!” called Nestor, scrambling toward her. But she ambled on, and the dejected youngster followed her all the way to the bottom, where she stopped to crop the dry grass. Then Nestor remounted.
    One day I’ll be a Crusader, he thought. I’ll serve the Deacon and the Lord. He rode on.
    Where was the Preacher? It should not take this long to find him. The tracks were easy to follow to the Gap. But where was he going? Why did he ride out in the first place? Nestor liked the Preacher. He was a quiet man and throughout Nestor’s youth he had treated him with kindness and understanding. Especially when Nestor’s parents had been killed that summer ten years earlier, drowned in a flash flood. Nestor shivered at the memory. Seven years old—and an orphan. Frey McAdam had come to him then, the Preacher with her. He had sat at the bedside and taken Nestor’s hand.
    “Why did they die?” the bewildered child had asked. “Why did they leave me?”
    “I guess it was their time, only they didn’t know it.”
    “I want to be dead, too,” the seven-year-old had wailed.
    The Preacher had sat with him then, quietly talking about the boy’s parents, of their goodness and their lives. Just for a while the anguish and the numbing sense of loneliness had left Nestor, and he had fallen asleep.
    The previous night the Preacher had escaped from the church despite the flames and the bullets. And he had run away to hide. Nestor would find him, tell him that everything was all right now and it was safe to come home.
    Then he saw the bodies, the flies buzzing around the terrible wounds. Nestor forced himself to dismount and approachthem. Sweat broke out on his face, and the desert breeze felt cold on his skin. He could not look directly at them, so he studied the ground for tracks.
    One horse had headed back toward Pilgrim’s Valley, then had turned and walked out into the wild lands. Nestor risked a swift, stomach-churning glance at the dead men. He knew none of them. More important, none of them was the Preacher.
    Remounting, he set off after the lone horseman.
    People were moving on the main street of Pilgrim’s Valley as Nestor Garrity rode in, leading the black