Imagine the usual disclaimers. These people and events have no relation to actual life - any profit made from them is equally imaginary - only the horses are real.

Beta reading and plot correction ably provided by Nancy SSCH.

Warnings: Subtext. Hyperbole. Smarm. And fantasy violence!

Tall Tale

There was a horse in it.

And not just any horse, but the horse of horses - the fastest, the wildest, the most noble of all the mustangs that ever ran free across the American west . . . the White Pacing Stallion of Texas. Wherever vaqueros gathered to roll cigarettes and trade tall tales, they always came around in the end to the White Pacing Stallion. No stallion had ever been so hunted - not Starface or Blue Streak or beautiful Black Kettle of Kansas, whose gunmetal-blue mane and tail had streamed out when he galloped, flying in the wind, so that he seemed to be twenty feet long. None of them could touch the White Pacing Stallion.

The tale of that horse had been nosed about in Texas for fifty years and more. Some said that he was immortal - that when the Spaniards landed in Florida, the first colt foaled in the New World had been to a brown mare brought across in a galleon, a mare which had broken free and run wild with her offspring. And that colt had been cloud-grey, but by seven years of age he had paled to snow-white - a white stallion, tall and fine of head, with jet-black ears. The Spaniards had roped him and tried to break him to the saddle, but no corral could hold the White Pacing Stallion. He had broken their hobbles and leaped their fences and escaped; he was made for freedom. Fleeing from man, he had crossed the Great Plains ahead of the wagon trains. Always, he moved onward, away from civilization. He had existed upon the frontier, a fabulous legend, for the whole history of the Republic of Texas.

Nowadays, his territory lay close to the Cross Timbers, in Red River country, and he had been hunted by a hundred cowboys, easy. They said he could pace faster than the faster horse could run; that no matter how hard he was chased, he never broke the stride of his pace; that he had never learned any other gait. He could pace his mile in two minutes without raising a sweat. From his loins had sprung a thousand caballos de camino, natural pacers prized by every horseman. They said that obsessed Easterners had gone mad hunting him and died, raving and broke, in gutters. They said that racehorses brought west to hunt him had burst their hearts and perished without ever drawing close. They said no horse born had ever matched him.

Oh, there were a thousand legends. He ruled over a manada of mares never less than five hundred in number. Bullets bounced off his hide, reatas broke before encircling his neck. He had rescued a Mexican girl gone astray in a blizzard, taking her plug of a riding-horse in charge and herding it along home. No man had ever come to harm from the White Pacing Stallion.

There had never been another horse like that!

That was in the year 1842, and Duncan MacLeod was working as a mustanger out of Houston, Texas.

It was a few years yet before he would join the Texas Rangers. He was between jobs - having just brought in a manada of mustangs, in good health and with their stallion, to the Blue Fly Bar ranch on the banks of the Cimarron River. Fifteen dollars a head and double that for the stallion, a pure blue grullo mustang the rancher intended for stud use; bonus of fifty dollars for delivering the herd in prime condition. Not bad for three months' work without expenses - even if MacLeod had needed to work for a living.

Spring was barely over and he could fit in another job before summer ended; then it was the easy town life till the snows melted. His name was well known in the region and he could pick and choose his employers. Life was good.

Houston was a thriving city, its pretensions to be the capital of all Texas only recently squashed: a fine rambunctious brawling town, surrounded by cotton plantations, respectably populous to the tune of almost two thousand head of citizens. It had a jail, a theater house, a school, twelve stores, and over twenty taverns. And a fine new church, built after all these other institutions. And it had mud! In the mud of its streets (cowboys swore to it) whole wagons and double hitches of mules could vanish without a trace. Whales, they said, surfaced in the spring rains from beneath the broadwalks of Houston. Chinamen sometimes came up, digging furiously, upside-down. When those same streets dried up at the height of summer, a single passing horse and rider raised so much dust that innocent bystanders choked to death from a hundred yards' distance.

But now it was springtime, and you could skip stones off the surfaces of those streets, as if they were paved with water. It was drizzling. MacLeod sat on the hitching rail outside the doors of the Twin Star Tavern, with his hat pulled low over his eyes and his long brown duster buttoned high. His saddle-horse dozed with its head low, tied up at the rail. Mac had a flask in his pocket, and he was rolling a cigarette.

There came a coach, with six oxen yoked to it, around the corner of Main Street. It was heavily loaded, pulling low in the mud, and the oxen had their heads down and were laboring. Their legs sank belly-deep with every slow step they gained. As this spectacle rounded the corner, a crack like a gunshot split the quiet air of Houston. The coach sagged sideways. The oxen staggered and then sensibly halted. The driver slid down from his perch, snatched off his hat, and started to swear.

Mac jumped off his rail and slogged over to help. A pair of morning drinkers, attracted by the noise, looked through the tavern doors and then strolled across, making jokes. A few other cowboys followed, and soon a small crowd had gathered around the disabled coach - it wasn't quite entertainment, but it was worth a look.

The front left wheel of the coach had split clean off the axle; half its spokes were snapped in two. They all took a good long gander, and then MacLeod pulled out his flask and offered it to the driver.

The driver swigged whiskey, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and sighed long and deep. "Thanks. Guess it's broke. Got to shoot it now."

"The wagon, or the livestock?" someone asked.

"All of 'em!"

"I'll lend you my gun."

"Got a spare wheel?" MacLeod inquired. "We can lever up the side and replace it."

"Sure thing, Hercules. Can't see getting it out of the mud before tomorrow, though - this coach might not look like much, but the back of it's loaded with eight tons of pig iron." The driver moved around to the oxen standing patiently in their harness, and began to unhitch them. "Besides--"

The door of the coach opened and a greenhorn stepped out.

"--besides, I've delivered my passenger and I want to get away from him." The driver chirruped to his oxen and, leading them over to the trough in front of the hotel, set to on the pump. The oxen lowered their noses into the trough and began to slurp and suck. A herd of horses appeared at the far end of Main Street, with a rider driving them along.

The greenhorn stood surveying his surroundings, the thumb of his left hand hooked into a buttonhole on his striped silk vest. His watch-chain and spectacles glittered in the weak light. The cowboys grinned at this finery - which was even now rapidly becoming flecked with mud - and began to point and trade rude jokes. MacLeod was slower to smile. True, this stranger was dressed like one of the dirt-ignorant Easterners who turned up, from time to time, bouncing along on "genuine mustangs": that is, five-dollar wonder horses, resembling the true western mustang about as much as might the offspring of a clothes-horse crossed with a nightmare. But this man's skin was glazed brown, lined with fine white wrinkles from laughter and hard thought and life in the sun. A heavy valise dangled from his right hand. And he carried himself with an air of assurance and self-satisfaction.

He caught MacLeod's eye, as one man of the world to another, and pointed down the street. "Tell me," he drawled. "Would that be one of the famous Texas mustangers, of whom we have heard such marvels?"

MacLeod glanced at the approaching remuda of horses. Fifty or sixty mares and colts, all moving haltingly and badly. A chill ran over his skin. He took another, closer look, and his lips thinned with disgust.

No wonder they moved with such halting action. No wonder they looked half-dead, the sad poor beasts! The colts had been hobbled for easy herding, so they could neither put up a fight nor hope to escape: a rope had been run from the tail of each colt underneath its belly, and tied to a front ankle. They limped along like crippled things, the insides of their thighs and fetlock joints worn bloody by the chafing ropes. And their dams . . . the finest of their dams had been roughly clogged, with forked sticks lashed to their off front ankles; the prongs of the sticks fitted around the ankles of each mare, tied securely on, and the projecting ends trailed back. Any attempt by the mares to move faster than a walk would set the sticks swinging, fouling their pace and tripping them up. They had been in the clogs for a long distance; the raw skinned look of their ankles gave it away.

These were the most valuable of the mares. The others had been treated as was sometimes done with animals fit only for breeding, not meant to be ridden. They had been crippled by kneeing - their knee ligaments severed and the water let out of the joint. They would never run again.

The mustanger driving this brutalized lot toward MacLeod . . . that man was a fellow immortal.

Mac felt his hand groping instinctively toward the sword hidden under his duster. Then he quelled the movement and rested his fist on the handle of his Colt instead. He lifted his head and watched, not speaking a word; the immortal at the fore of the remuda of mares rode slowly past, turning his head to gaze unspeakingly at MacLeod as he passed. The mustangs limped to a standstill, too weary to be frightened of the town around them. The rider hitched his horse in front of the tavern. He wore his own sword openly at his side, and looked rough, tough, big and rowdy. He raked his catch with one sweeping glance (no worry; not one had enough spirit left to escape) and strode toward the coach.

"Antonio Corao," he said curtly.

"Duncan MacLeod," Mac said. They looked at one another. "I have no quarrel with you." He glanced again at the poor hobbling horses. "Yet," he added.

"Nor I with you," said the other immortal. "I'm a peaceable man. Mister--" to the Easterner still at Mac's side "--you're looking at me in a damn funny way. Got a bone to pick with the way I handle dumb animals?"

"No, no, no, not at all," said the Easterner promptly. But he sounded amused, rather than intimidated. "My apologies, sir. I didn't mean to stare - and if indeed I did stare, it was with awe and admiration rather than disapproval. You, sir, are a Texas mustang hunter?"

"I'm a mestenero, yeah. Round here, they call me Black Tony. If you're looking for a saddle horse, mister, I'm the man for you, cause these prime Texas mares are all for sale - once I gentle them a tad. You interested?"

"I'm looking for a horse, yes. Pray walk along with me - and you also, good gentlemen, if any of you have pretensions to mustanging!" This last was said in a good loud showman's voice; the cowboys, appreciative, flocked over as the Easterner strode across to the broadwalk.

In the midst of a healthy crowd of onlookers, he swung his valise up atop the hitching rail. It landed with a clang and a jingle that made men gasp. Mac looked closely at the Easterner's wrists, his arms and broad shoulders, and he revised his opinion of the man further upward. No soft city secretary had the muscle to carry that sort of burden that carelessly.

Across the side of the leather valise ran lettering in gold script:

P. T. BARNUM - BARNUM AND BAILEY CIRCUS

"THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH"

"Gentlemen, let me introduce myself!" said the Easterner. "Samuel Brighton Lash at your service. Executive assistant, general factotum, and agent plenipotentiary to Mr P. T. Barnum. Good people of Houston, I have a proposition for you!"

With a flourish, he unlocked the valise and threw it open.

Cowboys gasped, bedazzled by the pure light of gold. The immortal Corao crowded closer, the glitter in his eye calculating. The immortal MacLeod, frowning, threw back his shoulders and set both hands on his revolvers. He looked left and right, and men backed hastily away from the Easterner and his glittering treasure. There was a fortune in that valise.

Samuel Brighton Lash ran his fingers caressingly through the gold coins, and the light in his own eyes was diabolical, challenging. The coins chimed like music. One or two cowboys gulped, audibly.

"Five thousand United States dollars, gentlemen," said Samuel Brighton Lash, "for the man who brings me the White Pacing Stallion of Texas."

Act One

The present day:

". . . but I don't see what a national treasure of Japan is doing in Seacouver," said Methos.

Sheer speed whipped tears from his eyes. He sat in the passenger seat of Mac's new Porsche, one elbow thrown over the top of the door, and his big-nosed profile lifted to the wind so that Mac, glancing at him, had to bite back a grin at the sight. They roared down the highway at speeds in excess of a hundred and twenty miles per hour. The Porsche glowed in the sun, gunmetal grey. MacLeod had originally wanted a white model, but Methos preferred grey.

"Clients come to Hiroshi Yoshihara, he doesn't go to them. He can live wherever he wants." Mac shouted above the music of the wind. "Besides, his favorite son lives here. Ben Yoshihara - the best farrier in the whole of Washington State. I've been coming out here every year for the past twelve years."

"And where do you stay, way out here in the backwoods?"

"Oh, usually I pitch a tent on the side of the road and do my laundry in the nearest creek--"

"We're not camping, MacLeod. Tell me we're not camping. Or else, I swear, I'm going to steal your car keys and--"

"Relax. I own a half share in a bed-and-breakfast owned by a nice grandmotherly lady and her best friend. Think of home-cooked cream chicken and dumplings. Think of hot apple pie with hard sauce and yoghurt. Think of fresh-baked bread."

"I can make better yoghurt than any grandmother ever born--"

"Feather mattresses," said MacLeod enticingly. "Chinese silk-filled duvets."

"--besides, twentieth-century bread is boring. It has no chew in it."

"No doubt you found it more thrilling when every bite meant the prospect of breaking a tooth--"

"Yeah, it was more of a gamble in the good old days."

"At least it's not yak butter!" said MacLeod. "And you're missing a bet. There's a stud farm just down the road from Yoshihara-sama's forge. There are bound to be nursing mares boarded on the premises. You could make koumiss."

They zoomed past the spacious frontage of the stud farm, distinctive by virtue of its shining white board fences and expanses of emerald pasturage. Thoroughbred horses grazed sedately there. A long double windbreak, formed by a row of tall poplars planted against a second of short thick green-black spruce, stood against the west perimeter of the furthest field. And then in instants all this was behind them, snatched away by the miracle of modern technology. They passed seven driveways. Then MacLeod was slowing the Porsche and they were swinging around a corner, down a long gravel lane wooded on either side. Cottonwood fluff blew like snow through the air, gathered in airy drifts beneath the trees.

"Here we are."

It was a farm, with buildings right and left: stables, corrals, three grain silos in a row, a gasoline tank on stilts for the working vehicles sheltered in the long quonset garage. A big log house stood high against the top of a slight hill, its windows across the frontage one continuous blaze of reflected light.

Pigeons flew up, mindlessly startled, from the barn roof. White geese, caught grazing along the grass verge before the silos, closed ranks and stared with deep suspicion at the unfamiliar car. A bike and two tricycles and a hockey net littered the yard. MacLeod parked the Porsche in front of an unmarked metal building, in whose doorway a short man wearing a canvas apron had appeared.

Mac stepped out of the Porsche and bowed profoundly, putting his hands together. "Yoshihara-sama."

In silence, the little man vanished back into the depths of his forge. The geese set up a chorus of belligerent honking. Methos climbed out of the car, all elbows and knees. He stretched and yawned and stood gawking around, and then he grinned at Mac and strolled ahead of him into the doorway of the unmarked building.

Within, all was darkness and fire.

The swordsmith's shop was fireproof. Its floor was a dry dirt surface, its walls and ceiling were aluminum and steel. At one end of its interior was the forge, a dark mysterious area where black dust hung like clouds in the air, where burning charcoal smouldered caged in firebrick. There, two apprentices (black from head to foot) scurried around performing enigmatic errands. At the other end of the shop, there was an immaculate and brilliantly-lit finishing area filled with modern industrial equipment: grinding and polishing machines, a casting station with vacuum bubble and kiln and oxygen torch, a jeweler's table with three bays.

One of the apprentices, an Oriental teenager, was busily cutting up charcoal pieces with a pair of shears. The other apprentice, an Occidental teenager, worked at the power hammer next to the forge; he was controlling the speed of the hammer with one foot, while a regular clang clang clang filled the shop. This went on for perhaps a minute, and then suddenly he whisked the length of steel he was shaping off the anvil and over the forge. Meanwhile the swordsmith had reappeared from some dark recess of his shop. He snapped, "Chop that finer, and don't miss any pieces!" as he passed the apprentice with the charcoal; the boy rolled up his eyes and grinned. "And you, Tommy, watch the color of your steel!" And Tommy, who had been ogling MacLeod's long white overcoat and stylish sunglasses, bent quickly back to work.

With measured tread, Yoshihara-sama came toward his visitors. Across his arms he carried a bundle of oilcloth. This he laid down on the jeweler's table under the industrial track lighting. He stood back from it, eying MacLeod in silence. He crossed his arms. He tapped one foot.

MacLeod bowed his head. "Sumimasen, Yoshihara-sama." He reached down and carefully unrolled the cloth.

Within lay a half-finished sword blank.

It was the embryo of the weapon it might one day become: shorter and thicker than an actual blade, the cutting edge very thick and the tang heavy and unbalanced. This was to allow for expansion and lengthening during the final stages of forging, and for the stress put upon the edge during tempering. But the lines of the blank were fine and true - the product of careful hammering, showing no twisting or snaking in the steel.

"Sensei," said MacLeod. He lifted the sword blank. "My most profound apologies for my tardiness. What excuse can I offer?"

"There is no excuse," said the swordsmith. "For two years, this blade has been waiting for your attention. For two years there has been no word from you! Where have you been - in a monastery, perhaps - that you could not even send us email?"

"Events got away with me." MacLeod laid the length of steel gently down. "Yes, I know I missed my annual visit. How are the grandchildren?"

"Growing like weeds. There's a new granddaughter, four months old and already smiling."

"I look forward to holding her. But if you turn me out of your shop, sensei, I will never have this happiness. Am I forgiven?"

"Your lack of time-sense is equaled only by your lack of manners," said Yoshihara crossly. He turned to Methos, who was politely looking elsewhere. "Sir, I was distracted and forgot my own manners. Blame our friend, who drives me mad with his absent-mindedness; if I could get him to live here like a proper apprentice, he could earn his swordsmith's papers in three years. Where are his priorities?"

Methos moved further into the shop, putting his hands together. He said, "Hajimemashite. Doozo yoroshiku, sensei. Pierson-desu--" and continued on, in beautiful fluent Japanese.

MacLeod listened, his eyes sparkling. Methos' Japanese was better than his own. Within moments, Yoshihara's anger was forgotten; he was saying with pleasure, "Hai, hai!" during every slight pause in Methos' conversation, finishing Methos' sentences for him, and in general enjoying himself completely. They bowed to one another. They bowed again, deeply and with mutual affection. Mr Yoshihara blushed scarlet, and uttered little disclaimers and denials after every compliment. Methos finished, with a final bow, and the swordsmith grasped his hand and shook it.

"You were raised in Nippon," he said. "Are you an ambassador's son? Surely you were raised in Nippon!"

"I am a student of the world," said Methos sweetly. "Master, such a shop as this brings back to us the whole history of the Japanese sword. MacLeod tells me you rank mukansa among swordsmiths - a fifteen-times winner of the annual Nihon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai contest? This is an honor beyond belief."

"You know modern swords?"

"A mutual interest in swords of every sort brought me into contact with Mac. Please, show me your shop."

Afterward, they had tea up at the main house - tea prepared for them by Mr Yoshihara with his own hands. A line of doll-like grandchildren was ushered into their presence, and bowed with perfect old-world manners; then with perfect new-world manners they demanded to be played with and given tea in tiny doll-cups. Methos did sleight-of-hand for the children, making such a hit that on the way out, MacLeod remarked, "They love you. They'll adopt you. Want to be Yoshihara-sama's newest apprentice?"

They had just taken an affectionate farewell of their host (and their host's grandchildren) and were standing beside the Porsche. Methos said, "Show some respect for your elders, kid. How long did you say you've been coming here?"

"One month a year for twelve years now. I couldn't miss the chance to learn sword-making from a living master. I've almost reached the stage where I can attempt to harden a blade."

"I don't see much point in it. Pardon the pun. It would be more useful to apprentice to a polisher - I mean, it's good to learn how to care professionally for your sword - and then there's scabbard-making--"

"One thing at a time!"

"When you complete your blade, what will you do with it?"

"Apprentice to a master polisher, if one will have me." Mac made a rueful face. "Yoshihara-sama has promised me letters of introduction. I know who I want to learn from - Kazuyuki Miyajima of Tokyo - but he's already over seventy years old, and if I don't master the skill of hardening in time . . ."

"That's what you get for running off to a monastery in, what was it, Burma? Pardon me - Myanmar. And after that, a habaki maker, huh?"

"And after that, a scabbard maker."

"Well, that at least is a useful skill for one of us. Did I hear Yoshihara inviting us back this evening?"

"Yes. He has a blade ready for final hardening. He plans to do it as soon as night falls."

"Okay. Been a while since I've seen yaki-ire. As for those kids, I seem to remember little Yuki clambering all over you and putting her fingers in your ear--"

"Yeah, well." MacLeod felt his cheeks redden. To disguise the sudden pang of longing he felt, he turned away and fiddled with the car's door.

Methos leaned, arms folded, against the side of the car. "You were made to be a father, Mac."

"Well, that's not going to happen, is it now?"

"Oh, stranger things have--"

They both froze.

Hooves sounded, drumming, along the curve of the lane. A tall bay stallion swept into sight, ridden at a hand-gallop by a rider half-hidden by whipping mane; the horse's mane and tail were unclipped and sailed gaily in the wind. The rider was an immortal - a young, strong immortal woman - an immortal woman who, catching sight of MacLeod, screamed suddenly and swerved her mount. The stallion plunged straight toward Mac. As it reached him, its rider brought it around in a turn neat as a polo-pony's, and she left the saddle in a swan-dive, shouting. She hit Mac amidships, and as the stud cantered off flirting excitedly with its tail, the two of them landed in the long grass with an impact that whoofed all the breath out of Mac's lungs. And there he lay, burrs in his hair, laughing and gasping while the girl leaned upon his chest and tickled his nose with the whisk-end of her long, long braids.

She said, "Mister MacLeod!" and kissed him, long and hard.

MacLeod said slowly, "Milagra? Milagra Innocente Annuncion Pelipe?"

"You remember me!" She sat up, grinning in delight, and drummed her heels along his sides - rocking, as if she was riding a horse. She didn't weigh ninety pounds. Her hair was very long, braided Indian-style in two braids lashed together at the ends with a red rubber band. Her face was as it had been: the freckled face of a Texas girl, less than fifteen years old . . . as it had been, a hundred and fifty years ago.

She was now looking hard at Methos, who stood on the other side of the car. Her mount came trotting back and snaked its head down toward the pocket of her jacket; distracted, she thumped it on the nose, saying, "Whoa, Tall Tail! . . . Hey, Mac! Who's this guy with the cute nose?"

Methos came closer, bit by bit. The two of them gazed at one another. "'Cute nose,'" repeated Methos. "I like a woman with good taste. Introduce me to Tall Tail."

Her smile lit up her face; she scrambled up, giving Mac a healthy tug to help him climb back to his feet, and then she shook hands with Methos, vigorously. The horse nudged her in the back, and she hooked an arm around its neck and throttled it lovingly. "That's 'Galaxy Genghis the Conqueror' to you, mister," she said. "By Galactic Conqueror the Third, out of Kubla Khan's Xanadu. But his stable name is Tall Tail . . . I guess you heard Mac mention my name. I'm working at the Sunrise Stud."

"Adam Pierson. At your service."

She whistled in appreciation. "Love that accent, love that voice. I'm one of the stallion grooms at the Sunrise. They only hire girls for stallion grooms, cause the studs get along best with young women - one girl, one stallion. We exercise them, muck 'em out, bed 'em down, coddle them and just generally love them along. It's a dream of a job. Tall Tail here is my boy. Isn't he a beauty?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued. Methos, who had opened his mouth, shut it. "Anyway, I rode over to watch Yoshi at work. He has a special blade on order, he was going to harden the cutting edge tonight, he invited me to come and watch the show. I've never seen a real Japanese swordsmith at work, thought they were all dead or something. I carry a modern Olympic fencing sabre, light-weight, you see--" Methos opened his mouth, and again shut it as she took a hasty breath, and went on: "--cause I'm not very big. I rode over to confirm the time with him. An' old Tall Tail likes to play with the geese. You going to be here tonight too?"

Methos opened his mouth, and shut it.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," said MacLeod solemnly.

Night fell.

By ten-thirty it was as black as pitch outside. It was time to begin the work of yaki-ire: hardening the edge.

Traditionally, this was always done after dark, in the unlit forge, thus allowing the master swordsmith to judge his blade's readiness by color alone. Earlier, Yoshihara-sama had mixed a fine clay slurry, adding pulverized sandstone and charcoal in proportions whose secret had been handed down through nine generations to him. He painted this clay in an extremely thin layer along the entire cutting edge of the blade, which was still as forged - unsharpened, almost a quarter of an inch thick. A thicker layer of clay protected the upper portion and back of the blade. Where the clay was thin, the cutting edge of the blade would harden and crystalize; the rest of the sword would remain relatively soft, flexible, yielding rather than shattering no matter how heavy the blow. This treatment created the hamon: the pattern of light, beautiful and practical at once, that danced along the length of every true Japanese katana.

Yoshihara-sama had then dipped a thin plastic card in the clay slurry and, with the edge of this, marked the sword's edge perpendicular to its length with a series of extremely fine lines in a delicate linear pattern. These lines would serve as tiny insulators, creating ashi: narrow channels of softer steel embedded in the hardened cutting edge. The manner in which these ashi lines were laid down affected the supreme decorative elements of the hamon. Tonight, Yoshihara-sama had painted a clove-blossom hamon. Finishing, he had let the blade dry for an hour. Then he was ready to begin.

A silent audience stood along the walls of the workshop, in which the only light was the glow of charcoals banked, burning, in the forge. The grand-children perched, as good as gold, along the top of the jeweler's bench. The apprentices, MacLeod, and Methos were allowed to come closer. Milagra Pelipe was absent. Possibly she had forgotten, or was having trouble with her horse?

But deep down, MacLeod was disappointed. She had grown into such a stunning woman - his mestenera girl from the Old West.

Now the gnomelike figure of the swordsmith, in his old-fashioned white shirt and wide trousers, approached the forge. The charcoal was exactly right - every piece the precise size of a sugar cube. In his hand he held the clay-painted blade. A rag-wrapped steel bar with a U-flange on one end was gripped in his other hand. He wedged the tang of the blade into this bar, using the bar as a handle. He would not touch the blade, for even the tiniest smear of oil from his fingers could wreck the hardening process. And then for a long moment or two he stood over the forge, weighing this double implement in his hands.

He knelt. His left hand fell upon the bellows and began to pump. His right hand drew the blade slowly, slowly, slowly through the glowing coals. As the blade heated, it began to glow. Without warning, Yoshihara-sama lifted it, turned it over, returned it to the forge; all this while his left hand never paused, pumping steady as a machine upon the bellows. Pass after pass through the coals went the glowing blade. With each pass, the color along its length became more uniform. The back shone red to bright red. The edge shone hotter, for it was thinner: bright red to brilliant orange.

It was ready.

When Yoshihara-sama plunged it suddenly into the trough of water at his elbow, the workshop filled with clouds of steam.

No one breathed. Everyone, even the children, knew that three times out of ten even a master swordsmith failed to achieve yaki-ire to his satisfaction. If Yoshihara-sama was not pleased with the final effect, he would reheat the blade to soften it, and try again; a well-forged sword-blank could be put through the yaki-ire process three times without lasting harm. But sometimes there were weak spots in the blade, or flattened bubbles caused by failed welds during the folding of the steel. Sometimes a blade's edge cracked during yaki-ire. Sometimes, sword blanks shattered in half.

One of the apprentices hastened to turn on the overhead lights. No one breathed.

Then the swordsmith lifted his blade out of the trough, and broke into a wide grin. The clay covering was gone. Along the cutting edge, the gleam of a lovely hamon rippled and ran, distinctly visible even through the marks of file and hammer. Its clove-blossom pattern was already obvious. Yoshihara stroked the steel, lovingly. He enfolded it in a cloth, wiping the water away.

The curve of the sword had changed, altered by the forge's heat into its final, perfect shape. The blade could be tempered now. Indeed, it was all but complete, lacking only the final filing and perhaps a touch of decorative carving cut into the forte. The master's name would be chiseled along the tang.

Then it would be sent to the specialists who would give it its final polishing, and make its habaki and scabbard.

No one noticed when Methos and MacLeod suddenly jerked to attention, looking toward the workshop door. MacLeod relaxed almost at once. He began to smile, expecting Milagra.

But a gigantic figure appeared in the doorway - a man in a flapping duster, his shoulders like mountains. The children screamed and scrambled down to run wildly outside as this monstrous intruder advanced into the workshop. The apprentices retreated, MacLeod reached for his katana. Methos had effaced himself like magic. But, except for a glance thrown under beetling brows at MacLeod, the interloper paid no attention to them. His voice boomed out: "Old man! I've come for my sword."

Yoshihara lifted the hardened blade, as if offering it up for the appreciation of Heaven. "As you see. It has achieved yaki-ire."

"You took long enough." The stranger reached greedily for the blade.

"You wanted a masterpiece. This will be all you dreamed of. As soon as I complete the final few steps--"

"It's finished now. I see the hamon in it. Let me have it, old man!"

MacLeod put himself between the stranger and the swordsmith. "Tony Corao," he said. "Well, it's been a long time, hasn't it?"

Corao barely looked in his direction. His eyes were all for the gleaming sword-blade. "MacLeod. This isn't your business. I paid in advance for a sword by the greatest living master in the world. I waited while he put me off, paid him more money when he demanded. And here it is. I'm taking it now."

"But," Yoshihara-sama protested politely, "Corao-san, the final tempering - the filing of the edge - these things have yet to be done--"

"Shut up and give me the sword!"

He grabbed the blade, wrenching it rudely out of its maker's hands. The aged swordsmith cried out and almost fell. Corao let out a howl of triumph, raising the incomplete sword above his head and slicing it down so the air whistled. "This is your masterpiece! It will be the last sword you ever make--"

MacLeod's katana rang like a bell as he struck the new-made sword aside with it. He said between his teeth, "Show a proper respect for the master, man. You have your purchase. Take it and get you out of this place."

Slowly, Corao retreated. He lowered the blade he held: untempered and unsharpened, its grip still only the bare steel of the tang, it was no match for any finished sword. He fondled the blade possessively and stowed it away under his coat. "Later, Highlander . . . we'll finish this later. Been too long stewing between us - ever since Texas."

He swung around and strode through the door.

MacLeod breathed out, sighing. The apprentices were goggling at him, and Yoshihara was wringing his hands in distress. But he shut his eyes on them, and sheathed his katana . . . and let the tides of memory sweep him back a hundred and fifty years.

Eighteen-forty-two:

In those days, Texas ran wild with horses . . . as did the whole of the Americas. In South America, the Indians of the pampas shampooed their hair in mare's blood, and burned the bones and grease of wild horses for fuel. In Mexico, peasants were oiling the wheels of their wagons with horse grease; in California, there were so many horses that any man desiring to travel roped one where he stood, and having ridden it to his destination, turned it free and forgot it. In Texas, wild horses were pests.

Few fences barred their way. They bred as animals do, when introduced to new country without predators: like rabbits, like mice. And as from the deserts of Arabia sprang a breed of horses with parallel, so the harsh American wilderness nurtured legendary horses. They thrived upon cactus and cottonwood boughs. The mountains and the prairies teemed with them. Spooked, they ran across the plains of Texas in stampedes thousands strong.

And they were a thunder and a lightning upon the world: manada after manada of mares fleeing across the plain, hooves drumming, while their stallions drove them mercilessly onward. Until from horizon to horizon MacLeod beheld nothing but running horses, and he halted the coyote dun he himself rode, and recited aloud: "'. . . hacks with cropped tails of the horses from Berbera, each of us on one lean as a wolf of the Nefud, fast pacing with the sweat pouring down from his flanks, one that when urged ahead paces with a sway to and fro . . .'"

Black Tony Corao drew up beside him, on a little hilltop in the shade of a gallows tree. "You're an educated man."

"I didn't learn to read until I had lived almost a mortal lifetime," MacLeod admitted.

"Pah!" He spat chewing tobacco. "It's a sword, not a book, that's an immortal's best friend!"

MacLeod shook his head. "A great man said: 'There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always defeated by the mind.'"

"Sounds like a yellow-bellied rabbit t' me," drawled Corao. "Who was he? Some Eastern schoolmaster?"

"It was Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Yeah? And what gunfights was he in?"

Across the plains, out of the horizon a manada of mustangs galloped tossing their tails up. It was a sight seldom seen: a whole herd of cat-brindled Texas duns, lovely as an autumn tree in a dozen shades of the same gold. There were saffron duns and orange duns and smoke-dun mares, and a few were like the coyote dun Mac rode - black-maned, black-tailed, black-hoofed, striped down the back, and with a transverse stripe across their powerful shoulders. The stallion charged behind them, switching from side to side of his harem as he drove them with snaking head and snapping teeth; he was a Mexican yellow, with great coarse mustaches upon his upper lip.

Two riders - mestenaros, mustang-hunters for sure - rode breakneck after this manada. One was a strapping Mexican youth on a rawboned black gelding; but the other, bent so low over her palomino's neck that she was all but lost in its mane, was only a slip of a girl. Above, the two immortals leaned forward, exchanging glances as they followed the herd's flight. The youth was falling behind. His horse was unable to sustain the pace of the stampede; no ridden horse could, matched against unburdened mustangs. But the palomino horse, with its rider who weighed less than a feather . . . the palomino horse was drawing even with the herd-stallion.

At a dead run, the girl swung her mount in, crowding close to the fleeing mustangs. And now she was riding with her knee brushing the claybank stallion's flank. MacLeod, squinting, caught the moment of glory. The girl poised herself, released her mount's rein. She reached out and tangled her hand in the herd-stallion's mane. The horses thundered along. She slipped her further foot out of its stirrup, balanced, and sprang. And in an instant she had crossed from one horse to another - she was astride the stallion!

The riderless palomino dropped behind almost at once, puffing. The youth on the black gelding caught it easily, and drew both horses to a halt - standing up in the stirrups, with one hand shading his eyes, gazing away after the wild mustangs. As did the two men watching from above.

"Look!" Black Tony threw out a hand, suddenly. "Gawd, there's a girl with rare bottom! - she's got a reata out now!"

It was all the equipment she needed: a Mexican lariat about twelve feet long. Without pausing, the mestenera girl flung a loop over her catch's head, yanked it tight, and then threw two half-hitches round his nose - and he wore a bridle with a neat nose-band, as good as anything a man could buy for cash. Possibly he was not even aware of what had happened. She was letting him run himself out, but at the same time she was already guiding him in a wide loop away from his mares. After he was well winded, she would steer him home without bit or bridle . . . though he was a horse that had never before felt the touch of a human hand.

And Black Tony said with honest admiration: "Damn! Now, that's a woman!"

Her name meant miracle: Milagra Innocente Annuncion Pelipe. She lived with the family of Mexican farmers who had found her, fourteen years before, in the wreckage of a wagon train destroyed by Indians. They had found her in a dead woman's arms, lying quiet as an angel; they had raised her as their own. And yet she stood out among her brothers and sisters with their coarse black hair - like a little white bird hopping along with the crows. Her tiny face was freckled from side to side, her long braids were pale as Texas straw. She was the ideal mestenara - lighter than a pocket handkerchief.

And now her hospitable family bustled around their campsite, offering coffee, salt pork and beans to their guests. MacLeod and Corao smiled at the plump, pretty mortal woman who was their hostess, Milagra's foster-mother, while a trio of big-eyed girl children ogled the tall cowboys. The little girls were too young yet to catch mustangs, but they were dying to try some day. The older brothers had been mestenaros before Milagra, but were now too big and heavy. But she could bring in three horses a day - more than enough to earn the family's keep in the world.

They went out every summer, in a little wagon drawn by a burro. In their brushwood corral, already twenty mustangs milled around, neighing. The brothers and their father broke and gentled them over the course of the summer, and sold them for eight dollars a head. Come autumn, when the family returned to their farmstead in the mountains, they would carry home a worthwhile poke of money.

"Say, have you folks heard of the horse hunt?" It was Corao who brought up the subject. "Five thousand dollars in gold, the reward is - a fine windfall for anyone!"

"We heard." Milagra's mother poured out coffee. "But you are hunting this White Pacing Stallion yourselves? You too are mestenaros."

Black Tony expanded his chest. "Sure are. Half the cowboys in Houston are out hunting that damned horse - pardon my French, ma'am. But Black Tony Corao's not afraid of a little competition to spice the pot. Know who I am? I'm the man who killed the Black Devil of San Saba!"

Everyone sat up and shifted a little nearer, sensing a fine story in the offing. MacLeod tented his hands over his tin cup, and kept his face straight. He had heard the tale of the black devil stallion of San Saba more than once before, and every man who told it claimed to be the killer.

"Tell us about it, senor," said Milagra Pelipe softly, and Corao launched into his story.

"Now for a year or more I had hunted mustangs in the Godforsaken San Saba hills, hard by the wild Brazos River. Wasn't a grown man in all of Texas who would spend a night in those hills. Even the Shoshones had moved out of the area. And why? Because of the renegade stallion. The stallion they called Black Devil.

"The story goes that Black Devil was raised in captivity, spoiled by a master more evil than Simon Legree . . . until the day the horse turned upon his owner. After that day, no man could come near Black Devil! Or maybe he was just born ornery - some stallions have an imp in their hearts, we all know that, and some are so plumb wild that when mustangers corner 'em they'll take their entire manadas with them off cliffs, sailing into ravines, leaping to certain death just to avoid capture . . . But the Shoshones say that Black Devil horse was Ol' Nick himself galloping across the haunted hills, hunting for souls to eat.

"They say Black Devil would challenge any man for a mare, be she never so poor. They say that stallion could whop any number of cowboys. Once the boldest brave in all the Shoshone tribe went out hunting him, and never came back; next day the other braves of the tribe followed the tracks to a waste country on the shores of a dried-out lake, where Black Devil's manada of four hundred mares grazed, fearless of mankind. And there they found the demon stallion standing over the half-devoured body of their brother . . ."

The little girls shrieked like mad things, and snuggled rapturously closer to their mother. But Milagra herself carried the coffee pot over, and poured out more for Corao.

"Senor, tell us how you killed him," she purred.

"Me and my partners had built a corral and a snug little dugout house in those parts. Hunting was good, the mustangs were plentiful and we had our pick of them. We were taking the best mares and fillies and penning 'em, cause we had our own fine blood stallion - a dapple-gray Arab racehorse from Ireland, no less - and we wanted to put him to these mares, breed us up a race of champions. Well, at midnight one night . . . on a moonless night when the coyotes howled on the hilltops like souls in torment . . . we were waked by the shrieks of the damned. We rushed out drawing our six-shooters, and there he was, in our pen, among our catch of mares - Black Devil himself!

"Well, little Rory McIntosh from Bristol - the man who had put up that Arab stallion as his stake in our business - he took one look at that Black Devil killing his prize horse, and he would have plugged him through the heart then and there. But as for the rest of us, our only thought was to crease and rope him. What a horse he was! Twenty hands high if he was an inch, with eyes red as fire and puffs of smoke snorting out of his nose. Just as we wrestled Rory to the ground and got the gun out of his hand, we saw the Black Devil get our blood horse down and rip out his throat with a single bite. Then round and round the corral he ran, screaming his triumph and driving our mares headlong before him.

"We crept so close, with our guns in one hand and our lariats in the other, that we was almost trampled under the hooves of the mares . . . when that demon horse caught our scent. Well, you should have seen him then! His ears flattened back, his eyes rolled in his head, and foam and blood dripping from his champing jaws, he charged us like we were pumas. He was mad to kill. And he knew just what to do with cowboys - chased us so our shots went wild, scrambling from side to side of the corral, and jumping up the high rock walls like we was fleas in a circus.

"Only a mad shot that creased his shoulder slowed him enough so we could escape. We went over those walls like the Old Scratch was on our heels. Pardon my French again, ma'am. Then as we looked over our shoulders and whewed out a gasp of relief, we saw a sight I'll never forget, never - not if I live to be a thousand years old!"

He looked deliberately at MacLeod then, and winked. MacLeod raised his cup in an ironic toast to him, for one thing was sure: Black Tony Corao could tell a story.

"I saw," whispered Corao, slowly and impressively, "that black stallion come over the twelve-foot fence in a leap no horse has ever made the like of, before or since. No horse that hadn't sold his soul to the devil, that is. He had puffed up to twice normal size, his mane bristled straight out and his hoofs struck sparks big as forest fires as he landed. We ran like madmen for the house, and Black Devil took off again, crossing thirty feet in a single bound, and straight through the door of the dugout he came - smashing the door to smithereens, he came - and he came crashing downward into the narrow entrance passage, with his hindquarters catching between the wooden uprights.

"Now that ol' dugout was barely bigger than your little wagon that a single burro can pull, folks. Well he kicked and he raged and he plunged and he snorted, but there was nothing he could do, he was caught right and tight. Then it was that I saw what would have to be done. As he raged pinned, I drew my Bowie knife - this here very knife, this was the one--" and he drew out a gigantic knife with a flick of the wrist and brandished it in the firelight "--and I ran in under the nose of Black Devil, and I cut his throat there and square."

Everyone sighed.

"That was the way Black Devil died - the cursed demon horse of the San Sabas. And we had to butcher him in pieces before we could clear the doorway."

Black Tony made the firelight flicker up the blade of his knife, which was almost big enough to count as a sword. And his gaze was upon the mestenera girl as she sat there pretty as a picture - his eyes as soft as the eyes of a stag that beholds a ready doe in her season.

"It's experiences like that and many more, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "that make me the man who's going to catch the White Pacing Stallion."

Act Two

The present day:

". . . and that's how we first met Milagra Pelipe," Mac said.

Methos was listening, seated tailor-fashion upon the bed. He had a mug of tea close at hand, a big box of Rodger's chocolates - famous throughout the 'Couver area - open upon the pillow. Newspapers protected the patchwork quilt which Mrs. Bunch's daughter had pieced together. There were bits of picked-out thread everywhere. He had taken apart the hem of his coat, popping out the scabbard sewn into the lining, and now he had sprung the sides of the scabbard apart and was busy cleaning the separate halves.

He said, "The Wild West, huh? And hunting Pegasus."

"Pegasus?" MacLeod started. "But I haven't told you - oh, that was just a figure of speech."

"Yeah, you've got to have heard the legend? Pegasus - the winged white horse that sprang from Medusa's blood, when Perseus killed her by taking her head. I've always wondered whether that came of some mortals witnessing a quickening . . . And you were a professional mustanger."

"It was a living. What were you doing at the time?"

"Me? Let me think. Oh, yeah - I was piloting steamboats along the Mississippi around then, under the name of Horace Bixby."

"Horace Bixby? Wait, wasn't that the name of the man who taught Mark Twain how to . . ."

"And your point is?" said Methos.

Mac shrugged. He felt very suddenly happy. "You realize the possibilities for blackmail inherent in this? Why, Joe Dawson would give his spare leg to add that little piece of trivia to the Methos Chronicle--"

"Kids these days, got no respect." Methos made a cut-throat gesture, said out of the corner of his mouth, "Blow the whistle on me, sonny, and you're history."

Mac stole one of his chocolates. With a critical eye he noted that Methos had a scabbard of proper Japanese style to suit his big Western sword - a scabbard made from a single plank of soft ho (the very best kind of wood for the job) which had been sawn in half and then chiseled and planed meticulously to a perfect custom fit. It was lightweight and smooth and could be taken apart easily for cleaning - and put back together just as easily. The sword would sit in the sheath without rattling, so closely fitted that only the extreme forte and hilt touched the wood.

"Don't gawk," said Methos, rubbing over the inside with a soft cloth. "Hand me my rice, will you?"

"So that's why you wanted the leftovers," MacLeod remarked.

"Yep, nothing like old rice for gluing up scabbards . . . Yeah, give it to me, I'm ready for it." Methos put a dollop of rice on a saucer, and set about working it with the back of a spoon. From time to time he added a drop of water. When this mixture had formed a sufficiently glutinous paste, he began to trail a thin line of it along the join of the scabbard pieces. "Where were you at breakfast-time? I couldn't find you."

"Out looking round the neighborhood. No sign of Corao."

"Ah, he's probably long gone." Methos looked up sideways, under his eyelids. He added, "Trouble-seeker."

"I did meet Milagra . . . She asked after you."

"Whoopee," said Methos.

"She likes you, you know. More than she likes me."

"Too bad for her I don't date other immortals. Hey. Where's my rope? I know I had a bit of rope somewhere--"

MacLeod discovered the rope under the bed, and passed it over. Methos grinned at him, and then put the two halves of the scabbard together and clamped the whole thing in the most primitive manner: by biting down hard upon one end of the rope, bracing it as he wrapped the scabbard tightly round and round. MacLeod sat down on the end of the bed to watch him. He remarked, "You were a scabbard-maker?"

"Aren't all of us?"

"Maybe I should have apprenticed myself to you instead of Yashihara-sama."

"No," said Methos, curtly. "Don't tell me you didn't teach Richie how to make a scabbard?"

"I did. He put it inside his motorcycle tank. Got gasoline all over his sword." MacLeod shut his eyes; it still stung, to speak of Richie. Maybe it would always hurt. "His sword stank of it, and he said it was better for the blade than oil. I couldn't persuade him to change it."

"Kids these days!" said Methos again.

"--got no respect," Mac finished for him.

"You got it." He inspected the wrapped scabbard and put it down, to let the glue set. "I went looking for you, by the way, because Yoshihara-sama phoned. He says for you to be at his place this afternoon, bright and early. Tonight you're going to make your first attempt at yaki-ire."

"What?"

"Tonight, you're going to make your first attempt at yaki-ire. Wonder what's on television this morning? Got the remote, got the guide . . ." He flipped through the pages. "There's an old Burt Reynolds movie just started. Something called Deliverance?"

They looked at one another and said, in chorus: "No!"

Meanwhile Milagra Pelipe perched in the crown of a tree, looking through a pair of binoculars.

The object of her attention was several hundred yards away, well out of range to sense her. She had come out armed anyway, with a sword and an antique Western dueling gun that had been in her possession for just ages, and with a nice little modern Glock. Milagra didn't believe in taking chances. She had been trailing Tony Corao all day long . . . and for the previous four years, too.

Now she leaned back against the slim tree-trunk, and popped a smoke out of her cigarette-holder. Her little gold lighter was in the shape of a bucking bronco. Before leaving the ranch, she had pinned her long, long hair atop her head in an unruly crown; wisps of this were now coming down, all gummed up with cobwebs and pine sap. Her hair was as fine and as glossy as pale silk floss. She blew a smoke ring, and kept her eyes on the door of Yoshihara's work-shop.

Yep. There he was - her old buddy, Black Tony himself! With his hat in his hand, and now lacking the long wrapped bundle he had brought back to the swordsmith. So he had calmed down and sat thinking a mite, and come to the conclusion that an unfinished sword was worse than no sword at all. And come back, swallowing his pride.

She had run across his name while investigating the intricacies of the Swiss banking system, searching for a completely different quarry. But there were distinctive hallmarks to those bank accounts which belonged to immortals. Always they were the long-term, cautious, low-interest deposits, and they were maintained over the centuries . . . but dipped into regularly. And when they were transferred as part of an inheritance, the new owners were always of the same age and physique as the old owners. Sons, or grandsons, or cousins. Her sporting instincts drove her after male immortals only. Rough and tough and deadly. The bigger the better.

It had been that way for her since her first quickening. The thrill of the chase, the rush of winning against overwhelming odds - those were all she had ever wanted, those were her drug. She was like one of those hunters who dared go, armed only with a longbow, up against an African elephant. Were she mortal, she would be conquering Everest. Or competing for an astronaut's position aboard the space shuttles. Or hiking across ice floes upon the Arctic Ocean, to make it to the Pole.

The hunt was what stirred her. She hunted the most elusive immortals, the most challenging quarry only. Those like MacLeod, who lived openly, she disdained. And once she had tracked down her targets, she laid an ambush and bushwhacked them good - and they died without ever knowing who had come for them. Milagra believed in overwhelming force. How else was a pint-sized filly to face off against all these big strong men with swords? And she'd seen too many smaller, younger immortals like her set out to play the Game fairly, and perish trying.

At first, she had been content with her old stomping grounds of Texas. But bit by bit she had begun to search further for new challenges, across Mexico and New Mexico and as far south as the Argentinian pampas. Then the Old World. The great cities of Europe were teeming with immortals. And after she learned how to employ industrial spies to break into banking information and supply her with the results - why, then there was no stopping her.

Milagra stubbed out her cigarette and tucked the filter-end away in a pocket. Four years of patient stalking were about to come to fruition: she could sense it, like a shiver of anticipation across her skin. There went Black Tony, roaring away in his monster T-bird. Mr Yoshihara and his whole family were gathered in the entrance of the work-shop, holding an excited meeting. She knew they were charging Corao through the nose - and the big lunk deserved it, too. It was through the sums transferred to Yoshihara's account that she had known just where to lay in wait for her prize. For sooner or later, she had known he would come for the sword he had commissioned.

In her whole career as a huntress, only one immortal had ever eluded her.

"I can shoe a horse, you know," she said, twelve hours later.

Methos looked upon her with a certain wary interest. "Can you?" he prompted.

"All four hooves in fifteen minutes flat. I can make the horseshoes, too. I once entered the shoeing competition at the Calgary Stampede, but they disqualified me because I wasn't a man. So I won the barrel-racing instead. I would have been an outrider on the winning chuckwagon team too, but the other cowboys were afraid to let me ride, because if the judges had found out . . ."

She rolled her eyes, expressively.

"What year was that?" Methos inquired. Neither Yoshihara nor his apprentices were listening.

"Nineteen thirty-five. I can do any kind of farrier work. And there isn't a horse alive that I can't ride. Do you like horses, mister?"

"Not particularly," said Methos. "But you can call me Adam."

She beamed at him.

It was after ten o'clock. MacLeod was walking nervously up and down the floor of the workshop, swinging his arms. Milagra sat perched upon a stool at the polishing bench; Methos lounged beside her, watching with a sardonic eye. While Yoshihara knelt placidly at the power hammer, holding a dagger blade under the striking area, and the two apprentices busied themselves with fake errands . . . for they had no intention of letting anyone shoo them out. They bustled to and fro, their faces carefully kept straight. Waiting with bated breath for the floor show.

They were all waiting for the last light to fade out of the western sky. It must be completely dark before the attempt at yaki-ire was made. Mac glanced surreptitiously at Methos' grinning face, and experienced an impulse to kill his audience. Then he closed his eyes and summoned everything that four hundred years had taught him about going with the Zen nature of the present moment.

Every muscle in his body ached. Upon his arrival early that afternoon, Yoshihara had seemed perturbed about something; nevertheless, he had made Mac chop the charcoal with his own hands, standing over him and inspecting every piece. Then Mac had mixed his clay and painted the waiting sword blank . . . and wiped it off and repainted it; and wiped it off, and repainted it. Three attempts at the demanding camellia-petal pattern, while his teacher watched. Once the blade was coated and set aside to dry, Yoshihara had found some error with the charcoal and made Mac chop it all over again. And then he had sat Mac down and made him talk through every step of the yaki-ire process, until he had it word-perfect.

But now, the moment had come.

MacLeod rubbed his hands together, rolled back his shirtsleeves. The forge was ready, its color and heat approved by the master himself. And now Yoshihara switched off the lights, and the workshop was plunged into darkness. The swordsmith approached, holding out to Mac the clay-painted sword blank, and once Mac accepted the blank Yoshihara-sama squatted down on the far side of the forge and began to speak in Japanese. "Duncan-san, always remember to watch for the color in the steel. I have shown you what to look for, and you have hardened knife-blades for me. This is the same work upon a larger scale. Once you begin, go without hesitation through to the end, and if you are true to your skills, you need fear nothing." He steepled his fingers, and bowed. "Begin!"

MacLeod worked the bellows, drawing the hot blade through the forge. Over and over, watching like a hawk for the exact color in the steel. He let the coals die down, examining the blank keenly, and pumped them up again. The bright red-orange glowed along the lowermost edge, the edge closet to the heat, and he turned the blank - drew it through the fire - lifted and turned it minutely, frowning over it - was the color even enough? Did the glow extend through the full length of the long sword blank? Was the thinner edge slightly more orange than the back? Was this the moment? Was it?

It was. He was sure it was.

But even as he plunged the hot steel into the trough, he knew he was wrong.

He crouched there, leaning over the water-trough. Like a wave crashing down, cramps of pain twisted his back, his thighs, his shoulders and arms; worse than that was the bitterness of defeat that wracked his heart. Slowly, MacLeod lifted the sword blank from the trough. Baked clay cracked off and fell in shards, splashing like tears in the water. The lights were on. Yoshihara took the blank out of his hands, and smoothed a fingertip along it, his normally placid face intent as he looked down. At last he sighed and shook his head.

"The blade will survive three hardenings. Tonight, review your errors. We will try again tomorrow."

"Yes, sensei." Mac bowed his head in humility. "Tomorrow."

And he felt every day of four hundred years old.

Methos drove them back. MacLeod leaned back in the passenger seat, with tiny Milagra sitting on his knee. Three swords, wrapped in two coats, were wedged against his feet. Only Methos' aversion to being parted from his weapon - even by no more than a yard's distance - had prevented Mac from locking the whole lot up in the Porsche's minuscule trunk. Now he sat brooding, and his shoulders ached. Milagra was gazing into his face with sympathy, and once or twice she lifted a finger as if about to speak, but each time she changed her mind.

"You shouldn't have tried the camellia-petal pattern," Methos remarked finally. He had slowed the car to take a steep curve, and barely had to raise his voice. "They're an unlucky flower for immortals."

"How's that?" asked Milagra.

"When they wilt, the entire flower flops over. They symbolize death by beheading."

"Ouch!" she said. "Next time, go for a dozen roses."

Methos laid his forearm along the top of the steering wheel, guiding the Porsche with it while he turned toward Milagra. "So are you one of those girls who goes for roses?"

Her eyes widened. "I believe my biography says I love horseback riding, moonlit evenings, and bouquets of perfect red roses bound up with diamond rings. I'm an old-fashioned girl."

"Old-fashioned girls are good. I like bookshops, historians, jazz music and cool beer. D'you drink beer?"

She leaned across MacLeod, lips parting, saying, "Yes, and I like men who like bookstores, too." The Porsche rocketed around a curve. Mac grabbed hold of the steering wheel, hastily.

"Do you? I like girls who like men who like--"

MacLeod snapped, "Will you pay attention to the road?!"

The Porsche took another snaking curve in the road. Two other vehicles had appeared as a glare of yellow headlights behind them, coming up fast and then blaring on their horns as the foremost car bumper-rode the Porsche; Milagra said, "Now, that's rude--!" Methos leaned on the gas pedal. The other cars fell behind.

"Bloody American drivers. Milagra, where do you live?" Methos inquired. "We can drop you off there, or at the stud ranch if you like."

"Actually," said Milagra, "I thought maybe you could drop Mac here off at the bed-and-breakfast, and then come to my place."

He turned toward her, an expression of bemused reluctance crossing his face, and started to speak; Mac grabbed at the wheel again as the car swerved. And the other two cars screamed at them out of the night.

Methos hit the horn, Milagra hit the floorboards. One car struck the Porsche's back bumper, knocking the small vehicle briefly off its back wheels. The second car swerved and was rocketing along beside the Porsche, careening down the wrong side of the narrow country road. MacLeod swore and held onto the door-frame for dear life. Another bang and rattle shook them as, again, the Porsche was struck from behind. Mac shouted at the top of his lungs. "Floor the pedal!"

"On this road? Are you nuts!"

They rounded a curve, on two wheels. Every curve was marked by a line of guard-posts, which were a smear of reflective warning lights against a black void. Beyond every line of guard-posts was a twenty-foot sheer drop.

"Are these jokers anyone you know?" screamed Milagra from the region of Mac's knees. "I have a pistol in my purse--"

"We left your purse two turns back!"

They rounded a curve. The car beside them crowded in, sideswiping the Porsche. And the Porsche hit the rail, climbed it, and went out of control.

It flipped and was flying through the starry sky. Mac thought he heard Milagra shout out a laugh - merrily mad as a child on a roller-coaster. The Porsche revolved in the air, and plunged nose-down to its doom.

It hit and went crump, and Mac was flung forward against the seat-belt and his mind went momentarily blank. But he revived when the entire car swayed and began to topple forward. His Porsche. His brand-new Porsche. He clawed at the buckle of the seat-belt, and then Milagra was suddenly climbing up the frame of the car; a jack-knife flashed in her hand, and the seat-belt was severed. Methos had already slithered out of his own seat-belt and was sliding to safety. He turned a pale face upward, shouting something at MacLeod. His neck was streaked with black blood. Mac jumped free, and the poor Porsche fell over and lay belly-up like a stranded turtle, beginning to burn.

Above them, the beams of headlights cut through the sky. Already the dark figures of men were moving beyond what remained of the guard rails. Mac heard their voices calling back and forth.

Methos shouted again: "Get the bloody swords!"

Then the stuttering growl of a machine-pistol opened up above them.

Milagra and Methos and MacLeod ran.

They fell together into the shelter of a grove of thick spruce trees, well away from the light. Behind them, they heard shouts, the roar of a car's engine, more gunfire. The Porsche was now burning merrily, like a bonfire with wheels. MacLeod felt something hard and metallic under his hand, and groped to identify it. It was a bent hubcap.

Milagra was gabbling in his ear. ". . . got my jack-knife, got a garotte, got a can of pepper spray that was in my jacket pocket . . . what else have we got?"

"Those were mortals in the cars," said Methos. "So we wouldn't suspect an attack. Cute." He spat out the word. "Think it's Corao?"

"Of course it's Corao! Only question is, where is he?"

"I'm sure he'll be along just as soon as they get him on the phone . . . They have flashlights, but no dogs. Corao will send them to drive us out of cover. When we do make a break for it, he'll be waiting."

They all got up, with one accord, and began to walk silently away into the back woods.

"Adam," said Milagra, after a moment, "I thought I could cover ground quietly, but you take the cake. You raised by Indians, or what?"

"Ninja training. Has anyone got a phone on them?" No one did. "Great! And our swords are back at the car," said Methos.

Milagra stopped short. "Hey! They'll all burn up!"

"No, they fell free when we spun over the edge. We can go back and get them afterward--"

"If we still have our heads," said MacLeod, furiously. "I have a poniard, and nothing else. M-- Adam, I hope you brought along all your spare weapons."

"Have you been knocked on the head?" inquired Methos. His tone was acid. "You know what weapons I brought out. I thought if anyone attacked, you'd rescue us."

Milagra turned her foot on something in the darkness, almost fell down, and said an unladylike word with a cowgirl's forthright curtness. "Great! We're reduced to throwing rocks." Then she squatted down and began to grope along the ground. "You know, that gives me an idea . . . Lots of rock around here, I've ridden out here in daylight and seen it. I bet I can make a bolo."

"What kind of rock is it?" asked Methos.

"What does that matter? It's just quartzite and obsidian, but it's been river-tumbled and a lot of it is good and round." She was now shrugging out of her denim jacket. With her little jackknife, she hacked at the cloth; then there came a loud ripping noise as she tore the jacket's back straight across. She threw away the top half of the jacket, and Methos picked it up. Swiftly, she reduced her strip of denim to a pair of crude rectangles. "Anybody got a length of cord? Aw, damn."

MacLeod took charge by instinct. "All right. We have ten or fifteen minutes to get ready, no longer. When Corao comes, he'll send the men ahead and circle around, hoping that they drive us into his trap. I doubt he wants them to stand witness to the proceedings. Milagra, you're the smallest and you're the only one who's wearing dark clothes. Circle back and when the time is right, try to take them out from behind."

"I'll do it. Corao has my mark on him." She made a rude noise in the dark. "He's my bull and I'm gonna be his toreadora if I can get him alone . . . Bye, now."

She melted away like a shadow.

"We need weapons," said MacLeod.

"I'm on it. Give me your poniard for a second." Methos felt the blade of the weapon. "Nice point, but no edge to it. Wait here." He crouched down and, like Milagra, began to feel around. "I'm going to cut a couple of sticks and make a lance. How's your aim?"

MacLeod smiled grimly to himself. "Good enough, when I have an incentive. I should have killed Corao a hundred years back, when he was only brutalizing horses and hadn't graduated to hiring thugs with machine pistols--"

"Yeah, hindsight is twenty-twenty." Methos was busy with something; a series of small unfamiliar sounds followed, regular and almost musical. Like pebbles clinking together. MacLeod couldn't identify the noise.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I haven't done for, oh, a few thousand years. It's nice to know I still haven't lost the knack-- Here we are." He stood up and put something into Mac's hand. "I'm going to keep your poniard for a lance-point. But this is for you."

It was a blade of worked stone, soap-smooth along the sides as if faceted, but barely five inches long. Its cutting edge was utterly unlike that of a metal weapon: irregular, almost wavy - and extremely sharp.

"Pad the palm of your hand with this piece of denim," said Methos. "We don't have enough time or light to make a haft. And I have a few finger-blades for myself, and a fairly big piece with a cutting edge. Let me just cut a couple of sticks, and we can make your lance."

MacLeod stood turning the stone knife over and over, feeling the sharpness of the edge. He murmured, "Flint knapping. Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind just how old you really are. But five thousand years ago, bronze swords were just coming into use?"

"You got it! And I've made you a throwing stick as well."

"I want you to teach me how you do this," Mac remarked. He heard Methos move away sharply, and could guess at his expression, though the older immortal's face was invisible; once or twice before, he had seen that startled look, like that of a wild animal caught in the open. For whatever reason, Methos hated the idea of being anyone's teacher. Only in moments of extreme sentiment would he even address Mac as a student.

"Maybe later," he said now, in a low voice. "Look, when Corao comes, I'll decoy him out of cover and then you--"

"Methos! Don't go away." MacLeod followed him, laying a hand on his shoulder and gripping hard to keep him close; he said, "Don't run. Methos, if there's one thing I've learned in four hundred years, it's that it doesn't pay to push your friends away. Don't run from me . . . or from Milagra, if you enjoy her company. You can't live this way forever--"

"What do you know about the way I live?!"

"I only mean, you can't live forever, hiding from love. Or fighting shy of trust."

Methos moved closer toward him, and seemed about to say something. Then he turned his head sharply. "Look out! Here they come!"

There were six men, hired in the seedier district of Seacouver. They were thugs with stubbled faces and the bandy legs of habitual drug users, and they came in a pack - swift and confident as dogs that are hot upon a blood spoor. Each one carried a powerful flashlight and a machine-pistol. They ran through the wolf-willows and the stubby wild roses, and they shouted jokes to one another as they came. But the last in the pack was jerked backward as a slight figure swung down upon him like an acrobat, her legs hooked over the branch of a spruce tree, and caught him under the chin with a crude lariat. The rope she used was one of her own long braids, cut off with a jack-knife. She knocked his head backward into the tree-trunk, and watching him slump down unconscious.

Now they were five. From behind and to one side, Duncan MacLeod stepped out of concealment and swung his arm. A bent hubcap flew through the air like a discus. It hit the fifth man, and the fifth man fell.

Now, they were four. They took fright and closed together, back to back, opening fire in all directions; but Milagra and Duncan were long gone. For long moments they wasted their ammunition, and then their wild firing faltered and stopped. They had no target to aim for. The feeling of power that came with the machine-pistols was fading fast. They whispered to one another, and then one of them broke and ran back toward the cars. Someone barely larger than a child paced him through the undergrowth. She carried a hefty stone in her hand. As the man reached the open space at the verge of the road, Milagra hurled her rock - throwing like a boy with a baseball. She watched her target stagger and fall, and then spun around, readying the weapon which had been wrapped around her slim waist: it was her other braid, but to each end was tied a rock wrapped in a denim patch, forming an improvised bolo. The shorn ends of her hair gleamed in the beam of a flashlight dropped into the dust. She had two other weapons left, and one was a can of pepper spray. The other was a razor-wire garotte.

And then they were three. But a tall pale-faced shadow ghosted up behind the hindmost of the three, wrapped an arm around his neck and thrust the toe of a boot under his heel. He went over backwards, and Methos bent and chopped once with the side of his hand. By the time the other two had turned and brought their guns to bear, Methos was running noisily away - invisible, but clearly heard. They were fools. They charged after him.

Two men. MacLeod lay in their path - almost under their feet, flat beneath the blind of a bush. As they ran past him, he exploded up. He held a stick in either fist, blunt ends presented forward. One stick went thwack; one man toppled over. The last man shouted and tried to hit him with the machine-pistol, wielding it like a club. Then the second stick went thwack.

Anthony Corao, meanwhile, was circling through the spruce wood. In his huge fists were gripped a turned-off flashlight and a powerful Spanish cutlass. He heard the gunshots and the shouting, and he smiled grimly to himself . . . for he had been wise enough not to pay his hired guns in advance.

There was a clearing ahead of him. On the far side of this little meadow, knee-deep in soft grass, another immortal stood waiting: a dim shape composed of a white blur of shirt, a white blur of face and hands. Corao felt his lips peel back from his teeth. The other immortal turned slightly, dropping into the stance of a fencer going on guard. Corao thumbed on the light, shooting the blinding beam right at his opponent's eyes. He lunged, swinging his sword.

For an instant he glimpsed the face lifted toward him: bone-white, narrow-eyed, its expression savage with concentration. Something hit his left shoulder in a burst of white-hot pain. The flashlight went spinning; he was knocked half around - to face Duncan MacLeod, who now stood at the edge of the meadow. Grunting, Corao raised his cutlass. His free hand went to his holster, fumbling to draw his antique six-shooter. And he saw MacLeod take two running steps forward and swing his arm.

A crude spear made of a poniard bound to a short length of wood struck Corao's already abused left shoulder, passing straight through like a javelin. Corao moaned; his fingers lost their grip; the gun left his hand. He fell to his knees, pressing the fist that still gripped the sword against his wounded shoulder.

Without hurry, MacLeod walked toward him. Corao was able to see that the man held a blade of some sort in his hand.

A spasm of fear made his head spin. He said weakly, "Man, the fight's over," and let his sword drop to the ground. "You wouldn't behead an unarmed man, would you now?"

MacLeod halted.

Inwardly, Corao smiled. He said, "Mercy!" and came to his feet. While - concealed in his left hand - he held his six-shooter, which he had picked up from the grass.

All this happened very quickly. From one side, Methos shouted, "Mac!" From the other side, a crude bolo whirled out of the dark. The bolo wrapped itself around Corao's arm and waist, and an instant later Milagra hit him, landing upon his back. The impact doubled him over. She rode him like a cowgirl on a bucking bronco, legs wrapped around his belly, and she thrust a fist close to his face and fired off a burst of pepper spray.

Corao roared. Milagra dropped the tiny spray-can. She whipped her garotte around his throat and sawed hard, putting her whole weight into it.

And as she dropped off the beheaded man's back and readied herself to receive his quickening, she tossed back her shorn head and laughed to herself. For there was no thrill in the world like the end of a good chase.

She came back to that spot the very next day.

Though the cars were gone and the wreck of the Porsche had been towed away, it was easy to find the curve with the smashed guard-rails. Milagra went down into the wood and walked over the ground for a long time. It was difficult, because the mortals had run to and fro and muddied up all the spoor, but she said to herself, "Perseverence is a virtue, and you'd better aim to be virtuous or you won't get to Heaven, gal," and went on patiently searching. Corao's footprints were easy to find, and here were her own and MacLeod's. But MacLeod's friend the cute Englishman had left virtually no tracks.

He might as well have been a ghost for all the noise he had made in the dark. That was what had first made her suspicious.

Presently she came back to one particular spot, and began turning over chips of loose rock. Granite scree, and flakes of quartzite. Some of the stone was disturbed, and there were strewn chips which, if you had a trained eye, glittered oddly. Milagra collected these, fingering them. It was the newly-split surfaces of the pebbles which glittered. They had been flaked apart as if by recent impact - but in a strange regular fashion, each chip of stone almost the same. She found a single footprint here, and then moved across and examined a nearby tree, from which two boughs had been cut. There were a few whittled wood scraps there, which had been pressed into the ground by the impression of a shoe's sole. It was Pierson's shoe; Milagra recognized it. Then she walked back to the scene of the fight, and searched it.

Here was the rock with which Pierson had hit Corao. Here also was the shaft of MacLeod's short spear, discarded upon the ground. She cast around and found the odd stick with the smooth knobbed end, with which Mac had flung the spear. There were also more quartz flakes, somewhat longer than the rejected scraps from the scree slope.

She had seen such things in southern Africa, where a few native people still lived isolated from modern tools . . . and she had seen the same objects, millennia old, in archeological digs. This was a stone-age throwing stick. These chips were microliths - miniature flaked blades. The missile was a prehistoric hand-axe.

Pierson had made these things. Milagra wondered how old an immortal had to be, to remember how to do something like that.

But what stuck most in her mind was the way he had been caught in the flashlight's beam, and for just an instant his face had been different. Why, the first time she had clapped eyes upon him, she had known him in a second for a Englishman! - but just then, he hadn't looked English at all. Maybe it had been something in the angle of his bones, the length and shape of his eyes. Milagra was no police sketch artist, but she knew what she saw when she saw it. He had turned his face into the light, and shown her a young mask upon an ancient soul.

And her heart had turned over within her.

. . . For over a century, she had been hunting one legendary immortal. At first disbelieving that he even existed anymore, she had been gradually drawn by account after account, until at last she was obsessed and she had traveled all over the world, searching for him. He wasn't a myth. He did exist. She had met people who had seen him. She had arrived in cities where he had lived, always too late. She had questioned older immortals, and gathered scraps of clues.

He was impossibly cautious. He moved without warning, never staying in one place longer than a few months. When spotted by other immortals, he vanished like smoke. There was no telling how many languages he spoke like a native . . . Everywhere he went, he adopted a different face and voice, blending seamlessly into the background. He was young, he was old; he was European, Asian, Semitic. Milagra had a dozen complete descriptions of him, and every one contradicted the others. She had found what must be his bank accounts - dozens of them extending throughout the world banking system in a labyrinthine confusion of dead ends - and money came and went from them, but try though she might she had never traced any transfer to a destination. How did he do it?

She wanted him, wanted him bad.

He was the ultimate quarry, the most elusive of all their kind. The granddaddy of all survivors. The one who had lived longer than anybody. Her personal Everest.

Methos.

"Bonanza!" she said aloud. She hefted the hand-axe, and smiled to herself. If Pierson was what she suspected he was, his ass was hers. For one thing was as sure as shooting . . .

A Texas cowgirl always got her man.

CONTINUED IN ACTS THREE AND FOUR . . .

Return to Table of Contents