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

Act Three

That night, MacLeod dreamed.

He dreamed he was searching through a deserted building - though for what, he didn't know. Room after room, bare as a madhouse and yet somehow as familiar as his own home. Was this some memory of a place in which he had once lived? Long ago, hundreds of years in the past. And now it was as derelict as the empty warehouses where immortals met to fight . . . and the sight could break a man's heart. For it was the antique store, where he had been happy with Tessa.

Here was the industrial workshop where she had made magic with a welding rig; here was their bedroom, the floorboards covered with dust; here was the shell of the glass-brick shower that had shocked and titillated Richie. Years deserted, sold to strangers who didn't know that love and joy had, once, made this place their home. Sold and sold and condemned and sold again. There was graffiti on the walls, now, and a cold draft blew through a broken window. The shop had always been in one of the seedier areas of Seacouver. Richie had dealt with the real-estate agent, and donated the money to charity. Where was Tessa now?

Did mortal women have immortal souls? Where did the quickenings of mortals go, after the mortals died?

But though he had asked and asked, even Darius had never been able to say.

And now in the dark and sorrowful ruins he searched for one perfect treasure left behind. He knew it was beyond value, and yet no one had noticed it when the building was emptied, no one had known how to recognize it or put a price upon it; they had left it lying like garbage, while all the time it was as rare as a living soul. Something hidden. Secret. An antique impossibly old. Duncan walked from room to room, and his sword was in his hand, for he knew that something hunted him even as he hunted for his lost treasure. Other immortals were always hunting him. It was only the Game. But the weight of the sword dragged him down, making him reel and stumble and lose his way . . . heavier than the heaviest claymore, heavy as the whole world.

He swung his head, baffled, seeing the world as if through blinkers. He wore armor, steel plate like a Crusader knight's. Heavy as the world upon his shoulders. Once he walked straight into a wall, and staggered trying clumsily to paw at his helmet, get at least some of the armor off. It was impossible to do. For his chains would not be unlocked without help, and he was alone.

He was hunting for the Prize itself.

He was running, now. Through a world of empty rooms. Through a prison of steel armor. Through endless centuries, alone. "Tessa!" he cried. "Darius! Connor!"

And he swung around, wide-eyed behind the imprisoning visor of his armor, dragging up the crippling weight of the sword two-handed. There, close enough behind him to have breathed down his neck, stood a pale figure slowly lifting its head. It was a ghost in a swirl of windy lines and ectoplasm, bare-handed and utterly defenseless, and it turned and turned and met Duncan's eyes, mouth opening upon a scream - like the doomed wanderer in Munch's most terrible painting - and through the chasm of its wail peered a million shouting faces. It was Methos.

His lips did not move. No sound issued forth. But his voice spoke in Mac's ear: "In the end, there can be only one."

MacLeod plunged forward, falling, and the ghost impaled himself upon the naked sword. He cried out deep in his throat, his hands closing on the blade to slide along its hot length; he cried out harshly, doubling over upon the bloodless wound; he cried out wildly. And dissolved in a rush of quickening that pierced Duncan through and through . . .

. . . Pegasus leaps winged from Medusa's blood . . .

. . . Winged Pegasus ran like wildfire over the hills.

Still tangled in the dream, Mac sank back muttering in the disordered bedsheets. His head tossed from side to side. He reached out fitfully for his sword, and then his hand dropped and he passed into a more restful sleep, forgetting his nightmare. And now he dreamed of winged horses, white horses, running horses . . .

In eighteen forty-two:

Well, there wasn't a mustanger worth the name in all of Houston who could resist the lure of five thousand dollars in gold . . . that very five thousand dollars which were now locked up in a bank vault, guarded day and night by armed men. And it seemed there wasn't a cowboy in Texas who didn't light out for the Red River country, aiming to catch himself the gold-mine on hooves that went by the name of the White Pacing Stallion. Like madmen, they rode out in gangs, whooping and hollering and begging off work, and not planning to come back till the snow flew - why, it was better than a holiday! While all sane folk rolled their eyes, and went back to hoeing cotton.

Samuel Brighton Lash, sleekly satisfied with the ruckus he had raised, sent telegrams home to Florida and gave newspaper interviews. He had a Mexican boy to run his errands, and a twenty-dollar gelding to ride. When Black Tony Corao appeared in Houston, Lash hired him on as a guide. Then he fared out in search of one Duncan MacLeod.

MacLeod, when they found him, was camped in the Cross Meadows. Coyotes sang in the distance like sobbing puppies, owls hooted in the trees. And a million stars blazed down. Mac was eating baked beans and soda bread by firelight. His hat was pushed back on the crown of his head, and his long dark hair streamed over his shoulders.

There was a Remington 12-gauge at his knee, for like all experienced men in those wild frontier days he trusted a shotgun over any revolver - however well Colonel Colt made his wares. As for his sword, it lay concealed in the folds of his duster, ready to his hand. He sat watching the horsemen ride out of the night. But his face relaxed when he saw that Black Tony had brought along witnesses.

With a stick, he lifted a lard bucket out of the hot ashes. "Coffee, Mr Lash?"

They shared the scalding-hot brew, passing the bucket from hand to hand. "Friend MacLeod, this is strong enough to grow hair on a dead man's chest," said Lash. "I trust we find you in good health?"

"Well enough," said MacLeod curtly. "Come along to watch the fun?"

"Why not? Pepe, will you indulge?" Lash tilted out the bucket, pouring a cup for the boy. The boy thanked him in a gruff voice. "A chaser of whiskey." Magically, a silver flask appeared in the Florida showman's hand. He raised it to the heavens. "Gentlemen! 'May the show go on.'"

Corao grabbed for the flask and upended it. "Till the end of time!"

"I thought you were out there along with the rest of the fools, chasing ghosts through the back country," Mac remarked.

"Ah, the field got too crowded for my taste. Gimme the coffee, lad." Corao swigged out of the cup, and winked at Pepe. "What's the news, MacLeod?"

"Well, there seem to be a fair number of white mustangs roaming these hills. Some of them might even be stallions." MacLeod smiled in the firelight. "Some must already have been wrangled home to Houston. Didn't you get to see them?"

"I did view some spavined nags," Lash drawled, "true western mustangs, as the saying goes - as puny a lot of mule-headed, cat-hammed, rabbit-eared, ram-nosed chimerae as any circus man could desire. And not a Pegasus among them. There was one fine animal with jet-black ears, until we washed him and the dye came off. Alas, the disillusionment that comes of dealing with one's fellow men."

"So the real cayuse's still on the loose," said Corao.

"And where in your estimation, Mr MacLeod, is the true White Pacing Stallion?"

MacLeod looked into his battered bucket, and threw the dregs of the coffee into the fire. "A gang of cowboys from the Three Zs sighted his manada day before yesterday. They planned to chase him in stages, wear him down and lasso him. Last I heard, they were still going west."

"Then I ought to ride west, to find them," mused Lash.

But Black Tony guffawed, and even the Mexican boy looked down at his hands and smiled.

"Don't waste your time," said MacLeod. "A chased stallion always eventually circles back to his home territory. Once he loses the pursuit, he'll be back."

"So that's why you're still here!"

"Aye."

Lash stood, slapping his kidskin gloves against the palm of his hand. He said briskly, "A word in your ear, Mr MacLeod?"

They walked away from the campfire, out of earshot.

"A little bird whispered," said Lash, "your name to me. All the cognoscenti of fair Houston name you as a mestenero par excellence. They say there is no better wrangler to be found in all this fair state. That you can think the thoughts of horses, that you know their manners and habits?"

"Sounds as if you mean to offer me a job in your circus, Mr Lash."

"Why, have you experience under the big top, Mr MacLeod?"

"A friend of mine worked as a lady aerialist for one of your competitors," murmured MacLeod. "She's now touring the capitals of Europe, I believe. From time to time we take a knife-throwing act on the road. Perhaps you know her stage name: the Astounding Amanda?"

"Why, yes! Miss Amanda Dareiux. A veritable bird of paradise, both talented and lovely. Mr MacLeod, you are a man of a myriad - ahem - accomplishments. And now you are here, beating the bush for the White Pacing Stallion."

But Mac shook his head. "How could I be - with a thousand other cowboys hunting the same quarry? But I fear for the stallion, Mr Lash. You've set half the white men of Texas on his trail, and some are experienced horsemen but some are raw fools. They're as likely to kill him as to catch him. And then Mr Barnum can display to the public a white hide, stuffed with straw. It's a bloody shame, that's what it is."

Lash spoke softly. "But you have a plan . . . ?"

Mac was silent, judging the man beside him. And Lash waited.

Finally, MacLeod nodded his head and spoke. "I do. While all the other mustangers have lit out after the stallion, I've been riding up and down the country here. I have a fair ability to track, you see. I've seen where the White Stallion runs. I've found his favorite trails and his dung-hills where he marks to warn off other stallions, I know where his manada grazes, and where they go to water. Within two or three days the horse will be back for his mares, and by then I'll have a blind built over his favorite watering hole. When he brings his manada down to drink, I plan to lasso him."

"And will it work?"

"Maybe. If luck smiles on us. If not, at least I'll have had a glimpse of a legend."

"And I want to be with you, when you sight the stallion." Lash slapped one glove into the other, decisively. "I've never been an advocate of buying expensive goods on faith. Let me stand at your back, friend MacLeod. I have the funds to pay you well - though I think, by the indifference on your face, that money means little to you? Ah, well. Some can be bought; those who cannot are the true men among us. And perhaps they're right who claim that White Stallion will never be taken alive. But here we are almost within reach of a mythological beast, a true tall tale of the Americas. As a showman, I've spent my life learning how to value such marvels. Allow me the privilege of gazing upon one more while I can."

"I will, for I think you speak honestly," said MacLeod simply. "But one thing. Why is Tony Corao dogging your heels?"

"Who knows?" Lash paused. "That's a man better worth having before you than behind; why else did I employ him? As for why he sought my employment - ah, that's the mystery. But perhaps he thinks I have some valuable secreted about my person."

"Keep him under control, and we have a bargain."

"I pledge my wits to it. Shall we shake, Mr MacLeod?"

They shook on it.

"'A glimpse of a legend,'" Lash repeated. "Truer words were never spoken. What more does any mortal man crave - save a glimpse of a living legend?"

"To be a living legend is so much less comfortable," agreed MacLeod, his face inscrutable.

It took the four of them less than a day to build their blind, for Mac had had the foresight to bring along an axe, a hammer, and a ten-cent keg of nails. Lash turned to the work with vim and vigor, despite his citified ways; indeed, he was of more use than Corao - who hustled and bustled and bragged a good brag, without ever breaking a sweat. Near the end of the day, Mac took the other immortal aside. "Corao, I want no rash moves from you, if we sight the horse. I want your word of honor on it."

"And if I don't?" Corao grinned sidelong at MacLeod, there where they stood under the big cottonwood which housed their blind. "I'm an independent mustanger, and five thousand dollars gold make a pretty powerful inducement to action. And I'm not in your army here, Highlander."

"Then back you go to Houston. Or are you picking a quarrel with me?"

Corao stood tall, putting a hand to the butt of his six-shooter. "Maybe I am. You cross me, MacLeod - you cross me. Cross me once too often, and it may come to weapons between us."

"Then maybe it will!" said MacLeod. "For I've one more warning for ye. I've seen you eying Pepe. Stay away from--"

"--the kid?" They both looked up. Fifteen feet above, the Mexican boy was clambering to and fro, knocking in the nails that finished their crude blind of hewn poles. Corao sniggered and raised an insolent finger in that direction. "What, you think I'm that hard up? You wound me, MacLeod!"

His voice was recklessly loud. MacLeod saw the silhouette of the boy grow still, eavesdropping. Pepe craned out over the edge of the blind: an oversized coat, a ten-gallon hat, a hammer clutched in a hand lost in the folds of cuff and sleeve. He made an exaggerated face down at Mac, mouthed a word or two.

"Leave the child be," Mac growled.

"I'll do as I please!" Corao blustered. "It's none of your damn business, anyway. Hell, it's a free country--" And he slapped at the hilt of his sword.

MacLeod caught his arm, tightening and twisting his hold until the other mustanger gasped and broke off, beads of sweat springing out on his forehead. "Enough of that. Or do you want to settle this once and for all? If it's the latter, tomorrow dawn is a good time."

"Shut your clap, man - we have witnesses here--"

"So you're not willing to fight."

Corao wrenched his arm away. "If it does come to a fight between us - then watch yourself, MacLeod. For when I take your head, the quickening will be heard from Indian Territory to the California coast - thunder will quake and shake the earth, lightning will stab to Heaven's pearly gates. Women will weep and strong cowboys turn pale. So walk soft around me, 'lessen you like to see your fine neck lopped, and that handsome head bounce so far it'll be mistook for an eagle in a thundery sky--"

"Ah, put a sock in it," said MacLeod in disgust. And he let Corao swagger away, whistling and wagging his head.

Birds sang in the streamside. Mac stood still, looking up. The Mexican boy above was still making faces, brandishing his fist - just like every other cocksure boy in the history of America. Thinking he was up to every adventure. MacLeod put his hands to his mouth, shouted up at the face looking down: "You fool, I'm doing this for your own good!" The boy shouted a defiant word back, and a nail fell and bounced off Mac's shoulder; Mac threw up his hands in exasperation, and turned away to roll a cigarette. Then Pepe dropped the hammer on his head.

They spent a night in the blind, napping by turns, and saw nothing.

The second night was more boring than the first.

By the wee hours of the third night, Samuel Lash was sleeping silently in his corner of the small blind; Corao had climbed higher into the huge cottonwood, perhaps to get away from his fellow immortal - but perhaps also, MacLeod suspected, for a clearer field of view. Mac had seen Black Tony fingering his revolvers more than once, and knew he was dreaming of a creasing shot - as all reckless mustangers did, for to crease a horse with a single bullet and stun it for easy capture was a romantic notion all right. Such a lucky shot that could make a man's reputation for life among mustangers . . . and no wonder, for nine times out of ten, the creasing shot missed, or crippled, or killed. And now Corao sat slouched in the crown of the tree, gazing out across the forested hills.

MacLeod himself had loaded his shotgun with buckshot, and laid it across his knee. He held a coiled reata at readiness, and alternated between looking down and looking up. Pepe sat beside him, quiet as a mouse and just about as big - a huddle of motionless cloth. But the night was not silent, for bullfrogs chorused and the brook chuckled, and somewhere a wolf howled a lonely howl to the full moon. Pepe said, without warning, "Senor MacLeod? You mess in my business. And I don't need your help."

"Everyone needs help now and then." MacLeod spoke gently in Mexican - like the boy, too softly either to wake Lash or to be overheard by the man above them. "Corao's intentions are not honorable."

"I can take care of myself!"

Mac turned and laid a big hand upon the boy's shoulder. "Child, he knows who you are."

Pepe stiffened all over. "What do you mean?"

"Milagra, that dirt on your face is no disguise." Gently, Mac knocked the over-large hat off and pushed back the collar of the boy's big coat. The boy turned girl shrank back, her eyes huge. "I know, Corao knows, I'm sure Lash knows - no, don't fear. No harm will come to you at our hands. Does your family know where you are?"

"I left a message with my little sister," Milagra whispered. "Already I caught them more mestengos than all last summer, I - I - you can't send me back now. Send me away, and I'll just come back on my own!" She grabbed his sleeve, speaking in a heated whisper. "Don't send me away, I want to see the White Stallion!"

"Is that why you came, Milagra?"

"Yes, yes! I must see him, ever since I heard of him I can't rest, I have to-- I want my chance to catch him too! I need it so bad, Senor MacLeod, like I need to sleep and dream. Just to try." There was a shake in her voice now. "Even if it's just so I'll know, ever after, I have seen him. Or just touched him with my hand, like a Comanche who counts coup and says it's as good as killing. Even that would be enough."

"Would it?"

". . . but I must try. What is life for - even if, if, if you live to be a hundred - if you don't go after the best - the very best of all?" Then she sighed. "As for Senor Corao, I know all about men of his kind. I'm not afraid of him."

Mac drew in his breath. But then he turned his head sharply. He sat up straight; one hand closed on his shotgun, the other on the coiled reata. Milagra beside him was suddenly quivering with excitement, clutching her own lasso. The pre-dawn had brought a coiling white mist, high as a man's waist among the trees and along the stream's steep bank . . . and mares like ghosts were walking through the wood.

They were not particularly quiet, for horses moving through brush do not walk silently like deer, but the sound of their hoofbeats came muffled and they seemed to float in the mist. Pale mares and grey mares and dark mares and midnight mares, mustang mares of every shade that darkness lends went by - none taller than fourteen hands, but with long silky manes, and eyes that gleamed liquid in the moonlight. Because horses cannot scent what lies above their heads, none of them noticed the blind; one in passing turned her head and reached out to tear a long strip of bark off the cottonwood's trunk, chewing it languidly as she moseyed by. A halter hung around her neck, and there was a brand on her rump.

Behind his harem, as a good herd stallion should, came the White Pacing Stallion.

He passed by on the far side of the clearing, well out of lariat reach - but their eyes drank him in. There was no doubt of his identity, for he was flawless from the tips of his alert black ears to the high-carried flag of his tail. By some miracle of blood he was an almost perfect throwback to the true high-bred kehilans MacLeod had seen in Arabia - the hot-blooded desert horses compared to which, the Bedouin said, all other breeds were mongrels. He had the thin skin and long milk-smooth body of the Arabian horse, and his head was marvelous: broad across the forehead, short in proportion to the nose, unbelievably dished from the large gazelle eye down to a muzzle that could fit in the palm of a man's hand. The expression in his eye was just as it should be, soft as a fallow deer's yet glittering into brilliant excitement, sparkling and blazing with spirit. In just one aspect, he missed the true Arab type, for the horses of the Arabian desert are stunted and he was large, much taller than his mares: seventeen hands high or more.

And his gait was as smooth as revolving wheels as he paced swiftly toward the water.

Lash was now beside Mac and Milagra, mouthing a soundless exclamation of wonder. MacLeod tore his eyes away from the stallion, and looked upward. He heard a rustle of leaves, and saw movement against the zenith sky. Then he swung his shotgun straight up, and pulled the trigger.

Milagra screamed, Lash shouted. The bellow and the crash and the bumps and bangs that followed were lost as, on every side, the mustangs snorted up a fusillade and exploded into action. Milagra cried into Mac's ear, "Look!" and MacLeod looked.

He saw the white stallion plunging toward the stream. The mares followed by instinct, pounding through the undergrowth and uttering snorts of alarm louder than gunfire. On the brim of the steep clay bank, the stallion took off like a bird. Luminous white, he seemed for an instant to hang above the world - deep-chested, high-crested, and with the tip of his tail flinging up to flick the moon! Then he landed scrambling for purchase, his noble head going down between his forelegs. All around him, his mares went leaping short, crashing down into the stream-bed, blundering against each other; some fell and thrashed and kicked their way back up. The white stallion clawed his way up the further bank and sprang again, clearing a tangle of brush. He wheeled, bugled, charged away. His manada climbed the bank, and followed in a torrent.

The last deafening alarm-snort, the last hoofbeat died away.

In the ringing aftersilence, a soft pattering sound carried clearly - spent buckshot, falling like rain upon the leaves. Then beneath their noble old cottonwood tree, a hopping-mad immortal sprang upright and clapped both hands to the seat of his pants.

Black Tony Corao opened his mouth and out came a roar of outrage. The tattered tail of his duster flapped, showing moonlight through what seemed a hundred holes, as he danced at the foot of the tree.

Duncan MacLeod waved down at him and called cheerfully in English, "Buck up, man. You'd never have made the shot. And it's only a few wee lead balls up your arse."

Corao raised both fists to heaven. "By God and the Devil," he swore, "it's you and me tomorrow, MacLeod!"

The present day:

"Dead," said MacLeod mournfully. He held in his hands a towing bill and a repair garage's post-mortem. "My brand-new Porsche, with barely a hundred miles on it. Dead."

Mrs Bunch's "Welcome Home" Bed and Breakfast was furnished with rustic decour throughout: every lamp was topped with cedar shakes, and the doorway against which Milagra Pelipe now lounged was framed with raw wood splits. There were calico curtains and chintz walls, and it was a setting which suited her well. "Hey," she said perkily, "it's not like you can't afford another, I'm sure."

"And this time it had better be white," muttered MacLeod. He cast a dark glance at Methos.

Methos only sniggered. "Look at this." He unfolded the newspaper he held, and stabbed a finger down on a banner headline. It read:

CAVEMAN OF SEACOUVER?

BIZARRE EVIDENCE FOUND AT CRIME SCENE

"We're notorious!" said Methos.

"Give me that!" Mac snatched it away and read the opening sentences of the story: ". . . local property-owner discovers body after car accident on winding road . . . evidently a gang fight, ending in ritual murder . . . execution-style beheadings increasingly common in Seacouver, say city police - but detectives admit themselves stymied by the discovery at the scene of death of what one source calls, 'A perfect stone-age knife chipped from local flint' . . . See editorial, Page 7."

He flipped to page seven, took a look, and said, "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes!" said Methos. "They suspect sasquatches."

"Lemme see," demanded Milagra. Wordlessly, Mac held out the paper. She skimmed through the editorial, and began to giggle. "I didn't know there were mammoths in these parts!"

"No, no, that's only a story and anyway, those tracks were sighted over a hundred years ago-- I've been called twinkle-toes by some. But never Bigfoot before!"

"Oh, I don't know. Where were you, a hundred years ago?"

"Look, my feet are just not that big. I've never been mistaken for any sort of elephant!"

"Calm down, the pair of you," MacLeod ordered. "This is serious." He took the paper back from Milagra, and reread the editorial. "They know where I am. Why haven't the police paid us another visit?"

"Maybe they believe the story I told them. Maybe they don't believe in Bigfoot," Methos suggested. "Unlike the people who wrote this trash. Mammoths of the Rockies! Cavemen of Seacouver!" Milagra doubled over, snorting. "Doesn't everyone knows the real cavemen all live in Cascade?"

"Anyway, who drew their attention to the hand-axe?"

"I did," said Milagra, indistinctly.

"And why would they-- You did?"

"Sure did. Why not?"

"You've put us all in serious danger! I can't believe you'd do that."

"Oh, lighten up and stop behaving like it's the end of the world. We got all the swords hidden before the police arrived, and our cover story fooled them blind. But those flint thingies," said Milagra, "were just neat, real neat." She looked MacLeod in the eye. "Who taught you to knap flint, anyway?"

"An archeologist named Landry," said Mac without an instant's pause. "We met in Paris."

"Oh, yeah? Landry, Landry, Landry . . . Wait, didn't he write all those books on the power of mythology? And classical history. So he studied paleontology too. Busy guy."

There was a pause.

"Doesn't matter," said Milagra brightly. "I came over to invite you boys out for a trail ride. I know all the best trails! We can have a picnic, if you like. And I know a pretty nice place where we can go skinny-dipping."

MacLeod glanced at Methos. "No - we have to go to Yoshihara-sama's. The dark of the moon won't last forever. I have to harden that sword."

"Well, that's fine actually, cause I really meant just Adam and me. I mean, we can go riding, and meet up with you later!" Her face shone like a new penny. "It'll be fun! I can borrow a hack for Adam from the Sunrise, they'll let me do it, and Tall Tail always needs exercise - there is the best swimming hole way back halfway up the mountain, with a waterfall and everything, nobody knows about it but we stallion girls and the rest of them have all gone into the city to shop and catch a movie, anyway they only take their boyfriends up there after dark and I promise no one will be lying in wait with a camera. And if they do, they'll only think they've seen Bigfoot!"

"That would be Mac, with his shirt off," said Methos. He picked up the television remote, aimed and clicked. "Hey! Golf."

"Awww. You'll take TV over me?" Her eyes narrowed. She walked across the room, hips swinging, and stood confronting him - her nose level with his sternum. "I'm over the age of consent, cross my heart. Or is it cause I'm that kind of a girl?"

"I'm leaving," said MacLeod, to their backs.

He walked out to Mrs Bunch's kitchen, and pulled a six-pack of beer from her fridge. As he did so, Milagra came storming past. She cast him one fiery glance as she sailed by, and Mac lobbed her a can of Miller's; then she was gone, with the door slamming behind her and the beer-tab flying up at the ceiling. Thoughtfully, Mac put out a hand and caught the tab as it fell. He squeezed it in his fist, put all but two cans of beer away, and walked slowly back to his bedroom.

Methos lay across the bed, watching golf. He turned his face upward when Mac said, "Well?" and rolled his eyes, expressively. He said, "Give me one of those . . . I hate turning down women."

"You're paranoid." Mac dangled the beer just out of reach, but Methos merely rolled over and sighed.

"It's not paranoia if everyone really is after you," he said mournfully. "Sit down and help me watch the European Open." He gestured with the remote control. "Look at those guys. I want to be one of them. They're celebrities, but do they get chased by bloody-minded assassins with swords? No! I want to be chased by paparazzi . . . Cheer me up. I need cheering up. I'm prone to melancholy."

"You're prone, all right."

"And I liked her, too - Milagra. If only she wasn't immortal! I swear half the people out there think they're my own personal Captain Ahab--"

"Must be your venerable white hair." Mac stood over him, looking down with a twinkle in his eye. Methos immediately flung out his arms, sprawling wide - as boneless and flat-chested as a teenage boy. With his shirt riding up over his stomach. And his eyes shut.

"Cheer me up," he repeated.

It was the work of an instant to set a can of beer down where it counted. "Here you go, Moby Dick!"

The world's oldest immortal sat bolt upright, yelling, as MacLeod sprinted for the door. Beer cascaded across the bed. A single despairing cry rose: "Why can't I be Greg Norman instead!?"

Later, after watching the two of them drive off to visit Yoshihara, Milagra climbed down from her latest treetop, and stowed her binoculars away in her backpack. The bed and breakfast was deserted, for Mrs Bunch had gone to do the week's shopping and Mrs Miller was staying with a sick sister. As for Milagra, she had caught a ride up from town with a friend, as was her habit, and was without transportation. She intended to throw herself on the mercy of her two fellow immortals later; such was her evil plan. Or if she ended up taking a head tonight, she could just call a taxi.

Ah, if only Adam had agreed to go skinny-dipping. For there was one absolutely sure way to spot a powerful immortal: take the head, and find out.

Milagra walked around the back of the Bunch house, reconnoitering. Then she shinnied up a drainpipe and pried open one of the upstairs windows.

This was the problem: how to know Methos when she met him? Old immortals were foxier than the Devil, quick with their tongues, as cool as icebergs when it came to a crisis. Milagra had met thousand-year-olds and even two-thousand-year-olds, and knew that you could never catch them napping. Just too much experience behind their facades. And yet from time to time, you caught a glimpse of something they couldn't hide . . . something like the quality of fine Japanese steel carefully hardened and tempered; something like the ripple of light along a flawlessly sharpened blade; something too good to be true. It was the mark of the very old ones. Some of them grew to be like perfect angels, and others like perfect devils.

MacLeod's room held nothing of interest to her. He had tucked a quartz flake away in his suitcase; Milagra turned it over, touched by the gesture. Everything was neat and tidy. The room next to his was altogether messier, and the clothes tossed down across the foot of the bed were old and shabby. She lifted a good set of fingerprints off a beer can left on the television, and collected hair from the pillow. Then she ransacked the luggage and drawers.

Passport, passport, passport . . . Eureka. Passports, and passports, and passports.

There were four pairs of jeans in the bedroom drawers, and sewn into each one was an emergency bundle sealed with laminated plastic. Credentials in several names, from as many countries - for doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. It was an amazing collection. Each bundle contained a passport with matching financial documents: money network cards, credit cards. And two five-hundred-dollar bills and eight one hundreds and exactly five fifties; she opened a package, counted them to be sure. Presumably every pair of pants Pierson wore carried just such a package. Milagra examined these things with fascination. She found no bankbooks with any numbers she could use, alas. There was a small black notebook, jotted full with writing, in a hidden pocket of one suitcase. But it was written in no language or even alphabet that Milagra recognized.

This was all very interesting, but not conclusive. Sure he was organized, sure he was an old immortal - but there lots of older immortals running around. So how now to trick Adam into admitting his identity?

But - thinking of her chat with the two men that morning - maybe Adam wasn't the one she needed to trick.

Milagra couldn't reseal the opened emergency package, but she sewed it and the others all back into his pants and then tidied up, feeling very clever. Until he did his laundry, he wouldn't notice his room had been searched. An hour later, having hiked cross-country to Mr Yoshihara's place, she was sitting atop one of the workshop benches and watching MacLeod paint his sword-blank.

The apprentices bustled around, cleaning the forge area. Mac had already annealed the blade, resoftening it in the forge, and was now painting the surface with clay and laying ashi strips across the edge. He was using a new pattern: straight strips paired in vees, almost as if he was decorating the sword with fangs for Hallowe'en. "The steel," Milagra remarked. "You know, it's a funny color, isn't it?"

"You mean, it's not bright and shiny."

"Yep - almost like grey velvet, really. Is that a good thing?"

"It's the sign of handsmelted steel. Factory steel shines. The very best old Japanese katanas - the Kamakura period blades - are all like this, dark grey."

"And you're using a different design, too."

"This is gunome - here, like rows of teeth. Where the ashi lines extend, the steel stays soft and malleable. Because the gunome design goes right to the edge of the blade, any chipping along the edge won't extend further than the distance between two ashi."

"Neat," said Milagra. "Where's Adam?"

MacLeod shrugged. "Probably watching golf."

Milagra knew this wasn't true, but she said nothing. "He's a good guy. But kinda supercautious, huh?"

"You like him, don't you?"

"Sure do! But don't worry about me. I'm like a bloodhound . . . once I have my nose to the scent, nothing gets in my way. Take me a lifetime, but I never give up and I never go away. You remember?"

"I remember you when we were chasing the White Stallion," MacLeod agreed.

"Those were the days! Funny thing - anybody who had caught that stallion would have ridden him proudly to the end of his days. Never mind that a pacer's action discombobbles every bone from your tail right to up your neck! Lord almighty, but there's no other gait that jolts a rider so."

"Beautiful, though - wasn't he?"

"He sure was . . . Darius, now - he wouldn't have approved of catching that stallion. He would have said that free things are a miracle on the earth, and legends too scarce to waste." She sighed. "But when you see a treasure dangling in front of your nose, you can't help but grab at it, can you?"

He had finished his ashi. Yoshihara came and looked over his shoulder, and clapped him on the back in approval. Milagra smiled at the little Japanese swordsmith as he darted her a quick glance of warning; she said, "Now don't you worry, Mr Yoshi. I'm just giving Mac a little background noise to listen to." And as he turned away, she wondered just how fond Adam was of his friends - and whether he could be swayed by threats to them.

The thought of using hostages as bait stuck in her craw; a good hunter ought to stick to fair methods. Why, she'd never considered such a thing before! But with the oldest immortal in the offing--

What did fair play count, against a chance at the head of Methos?

MacLeod stood and stretched, sighing. "The White Pacing Stallion. What a chase that was!" he said.

Milagra shook her head, dismissing her reverie. "Yeah. Remember Tony then? You sure put paid to him! - like a hero, on a white horse. You know, I liked those days best. Wrangling horses. Bar fights. Gunfights."

"It was a simpler time then."

"And more fun," said Milagra.

Texas, eighteen forty-two:

It was the era of the gunfighter.

A thousand times in the blood-drenched writing of sensational reporters, the scene had been played out: the moment when two brave men faced death, guns blazing and hearts black. MacLeod and Corao, playing their parts well, made a fine show of bravado as they walked out of camp. It was the chill hour of dawn, and Milagra bit back sniffles of fear, eyes shiny, as she fried breakfast at the campfire . . . making only enough for three. Lash had shaken hands with both immortals and wished them both luck; but he had pressed MacLeod's hand between his own, and mouthed an extra prayer for his safety.

"We're agreed, then," said Corao, when he and MacLeod were out of sight. "With guns only, no swords, and the loser leaves Texas and vanishes?"

"We'll keep close enough they can hear our gunshots," agreed Mac with a scornful curl of his lip. "They're sure to come running at the sound. The winner will have no time to take the head."

"You should be glad I'm a peaceable man," Corao blustered. "As it is, I'm giving you a fifty-fifty chance at the stallion. With either one of us out of the way, the other's sure to take the prize."

"And if you lose, you also steer clear of Milagra. And one more thing." Mac stabbed a finger at Corao. "You'll also give up the mustanging trade."

"Okay, okay. Whatever."

"Your word on it," Mac insisted.

"Whatever you want - winner takes all! Ready to fight, Highlander?"

"Always," said Duncan MacLeod.

Watching each other warily, they left their swords on a flat boulder well away from the scene of the action. This was a meadow, broad and smooth, cropped like a lawn by deer and horses both. The two immortals faced off at a distance of thirty yards, flexing their fingers.

MacLeod stood easy, his shoulders relaxed. Both he and Corao packed Colt six-shooters, single-action revolvers which had to be cocked with every shot. He had practiced with his, as he did with every weapon which fell into his hands, and he knew that any shot which made its mark would do so by luck more than skill. From Corao's bragging, his opponent fancied himself a shootist - a killer of men, quick on the draw as greased lightning. But Mac also knew that a cool hand counted more than speed in this game.

Moment stretched into moment. Even the birds had fallen silent. And then Mac saw the calculating roll of Corao's eyes toward the waiting swords, the sly half-smile on the big immortal's mouth . . . and knew that if he lost this fight, his head would roll.

His enemy slapped leather, cleared the holsters like wildfire - and shot.

A thick pall of dark grey smoke rolled over the green meadow. Corao shot again, wildly, stepping blind out of the cloud. With every fresh shot, a new puff of smoke rose, and he blazed away recklessly through it, growling like a beast as he advanced. By the time he had come six yards, he had emptied the chambers of one revolver and switched to the other. MacLeod, walking slowly toward him with one gun drawn, had still not fired. Fifteen yards separated them. Twelve, and Black Tony had fired eight rounds with nary a single hit. Ten yards. The chill of fear bit into Corao's heart. Eight. Mac raised his Colt, cocked and fired.

Corao screamed in pain and his ninth bullet fluttered leaves on a tree far to one side. MacLeod had halted, and was now watching him calmly. Black Tony felt hot blood soak across the front of his white cotton shirt; it was getting hard to breath; red froth blew out between his lips, and he knew that he was lungshot. Mac let the puff of heavy smoke disperse, allowed Corao stagger one or two steps closer and loose a final wild bullet . . . and then MacLeod fired his second shot.

The dying man hit the ground with a thud that shook squirrels out of trees at twenty paces and might have startled the White Stallion himself, wherever that noble beast grazed. Duncan MacLeod crouched down in the smoke, rolled his opponent over, prodded him and sighed. Lash and Milagra would be along in a moment.

"You've tormented your last Texas mustang, Black Tony!" he said.

Hours later, the dead man clawed his way out of a shallow grave. As a final insult, MacLeod had buried all his weapons with him. Cussing a blue streak, the defeated immortal slunk away vowing vengeance - but he was a man of honor after his own way, and besides he knew when to swallow a licking. He left Texas without a backward glance, and gave up horse-hunting forever.

And he never learned the end of the story.

The present day:

It was eleven p. m, and the hour found Milagra lounging on the grass verge in front of Yoshihara-sama's workshop, relaxing. She had just been inside watching Adam make green tea, Japanese style, with powdered tea and a whisk like something you'd clean bottles with. But all her attempts to make a date with him had been rebuffed, and even her most powerful hints had been met with nothing but bemusement on his part. So now she was sipping tea, nibbling a cookie. And thinking about bank numbers, passports, and MacLeod - MacLeod when she had played dumb and asked him about flint knapping. And he had grabbed the chance to shield his friend.

MacLeod was pacing across the yard, stewing. Milagra grabbed his hand when he went by, and tugged until he relented and sat down. "Look, Duncan. You got to relax, or else that sword's gonna blow up in your hands. Trust me on this. Here, have a cup of nice hot tea."

But he merely stood up again, the teacup cradled in his hands, looking distractedly toward Pierson. "I ought to go inside, the forge is almost hot enough - they're waiting for me - if I don't manage yaki-ire this time--"

"C'mon, c'mon, stop stewing."

"I can't. It's the last night of the dark of the moon, the third night - the conditions tomorrow won't be the same as tonight. I have to do it tonight!"

"Duncan-san." It was Adam who spoke; Milagra listened with deep interest. "You need to remember your Zen studies. Ichigo ichie: one time, one meeting - approach this moment with serenity, for it will never come again. Kokoro ire: concentrate your entire being upon creating this perfect moment. What is the place of practice of Zen?"

Mac's head swung sideways, and a light appeared in his eyes. He murmured, voice dropping to a hamonious whisper: "'The place of practice of Zen lies in the pure and honest spirit, where there is no false vanity.' Are you speaking now as a teacher, or as a friend?"

"In this school, we are fellow students," Adam replied.

"We are," said MacLeod.

And he turned and walked into the workshop, his face serene.

Milagra, fascinated, trailed after him and watched as he strode to the forge, dropped to his knees, picked up the waiting sword. Yoshihara-sama took one look at his expression and shooed his apprentices out of the forge area, staying with them near the workbenches and polishing machinery. Adam was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the night: darkness against darkness. The only light in all eternity was the red heart of the forge, spraying sparkles and embers. Lighting MacLeod's intent face.

Painted with firelight and shadow, his face was as beautiful as an angel's: the large dark eyes with their heavy lids, the full lips slightly parted, and the curving lines of masculine strength in cheeks and jaw and high brow. The thin white shirt he wore rippled over his shoulders, clinging damp over powerfully defined muscle, as he drew the sword-blank through the forge again and again. He moved as if hypnotized by the act of yaki-ire - as if he had forgotten everything save the fire, and the sword. No one spoke. The swordsmith Yoshihara was pacing up and down along the demarcation between forge and polishing area, watching Mac like a hawk. Milagra sidled up to the forge and dropped to her knees by it, out of the way.

"That's hard work," she said quietly, in her old-fashioned Mexican. "I will tell you a story to while away the time. It is an old ghost story, one I heard soon after becoming immortal; remembering Darius reminded me of it. Am I disturbing you, Mac? No? Good, keep working . . . No, no, Mr Yoshihara," she said to the swordsmith, in English, "it's all right, it's only background noise again."

The sword-blade went through the forge, glowing red as a dragon's heart. MacLeod lifted it in a trail of fiery afterimages, turned it over, returned it to the heat. And Milagra began her story.

"Once there was an immortal," she said, "older than all others."

The blade passed through the fire, passed through the fire, passed through the fire . . .

"Older than anyone. Longer-lived than the sequoias, wiser than the hills. Smarter than coyote or puma or raven. Like the Wandering Jew who was sentenced to live forever, longer than anybody had any hope of living - so old he was a myth even among his own kind. The invisible man."

The blade sliced the fire. The metal was all light: orange light, dull red light, yellow light blazing with the long vee-lines of the clay ashi strips. And she watched Mac's face intently, never blinking. Waiting for the moment of betrayal.

"And he lived on because he was sly, Mac, sly as the fox, and he knew a million tricks, a million ways to hide his trail, a million ways to run. Wasn't a single hiding-hole in the whole wide world he didn't know by heart. But do you know what? As time went by, he hunted and was hunted, and he took a billion heads, till all those souls and quickenings seemed to fill him brimfull of ghosts . . . and he became like a thousand different men. And the weight of all those unquiet ghosts bent his shoulders and left him weary as the grave. Old, old. Waiting to die."

The sweep of the blade hesitated, faltered, found again its perfect rhythm.

"And transparent as fine old glass," said Milagra gently. "My, I seem to have caught something from old Black Tony. The tale-telling bug. Should I stop bothering you, Mac?"

His eyes slide sideways toward her, a quick flick of attention. Yoshihara was hovering watchfully in the background, ready to intervene. "No," said MacLeod almost soundlessly.

"And he stepped out of the shadows, into the light of day. Betrayed 'cause he fell in love, I think it was. And someone else found him, found the world's oldest immortal . . ."

The blade was ready: brilliant red to orange along the edge, red to brilliant red along the back. MacLeod lifted it from the forge, and it trailed like a comet through the air of the darkened forge. For just an instant his gaze flicked back to Milagra - his concentration splintered.

"Penetrated his disguises. Pierced his heart. Took his head."

The blade plunged into the water trough. Clouds of steam rose hissing between the two of them; through these, MacLeod demanded hoarsely, "And--?"

"Well, I hear poor Darius was never the same again - but you know more about that than me." Milagra widened her eyes and stood, brushing off her knees. "How's the sword?"

But Yoshihara was already beside them, taking the wet sword-blank from Mac's loosening grip and clucking mournfully over it, turning it over and over to examine it. His gaze met MacLeod's; MacLeod shivered all over and looked suddenly away at the floor of the forge, his shoulders hunching and his head down. "Be patient," the swordsmith chided him. "The blank will stand a third attempt at yaki-ire. After that, perhaps we can use it for filing practice."

Milagra tutted her tongue and turned away. To behold "Adam Pierson" right behind her, narrow-eyed and suspicious. And it was only by using every bit of acting ability she owned that she kept the look of triumph off her face.

But it wasn't till she got home that the full measure of her mistake penetrated.

She was renting a cabin in a nice back lot full of tall skinny spruce trees: a one-room place so tiny that most of its interior was taken up by the bed - seated upon which, she could cook her dinner and eat it, and even wash her dishes. Paying off the taxi-driver, she unlocked her door and stepped over the threshold, whistling. Then she stopped dead, for her laptop stood open upon the tiny counter, a screen-saver of a running horse circling endlessly around its screen; the bedclothes were rucked, and her stout steel trunk with its faux-leather exterior, which had housed all her weaponry, lay burgled and empty. Across the floorboards, a line of tracks had been printed in white flour . . . the print of flat, broad, bare feet fourteen inches long. While she had been out searching Adam's room, her place had been ransacked by Bigfoot. And then she began to suspect she hadn't been as clever as she imagined.

". . . but I like her!" Methos was saying to MacLeod, back at Yoshihara's.

And MacLeod said grimly, "Methos, she knows who you are."

Act Four

Milagra moved quickly. With the press of a few keys, she had erased the memory of her computer; then she smashed the hard drive, destroying it utterly. All her information was backed up on discs stored elsewhere, and she couldn't risk mortals prying into her files. Her emergency ID, bank and Visa cards - along with a gun and a Bowie knife - were under the floorboards. Another set was in a parcel she had mailed to herself from Seacouver, still waiting at the local post office to be picked up.

The cache under the floorboards was empty. The parcel of cash she had taped to the inside of the cistern was gone. He had hit all her hiding places, neat as a professional burglar. Milagra made a swift search for incriminating papers, and was out of the cabin door and running down the walk. There was her truck! She slammed the door back and tumbled in the wrong side, falling across the seat and grabbing for the wheel. And froze, with her hand outstretched.

There was a bunch of red balloons tied to the steering wheel. They bobbed gaily, tugging at their strings, which were fastened to the leather wheel-cover with a bright red happy-face sticker.

Milagra inched away from them by degrees, scarcely daring to hurry. At last, sweating, she eased herself out of the truck. Nothing had blown up. Nothing had happened. She stood gazing in at the merry balloons for a long moment, and then she turned and ran back into the cabin. Her phone, forgotten on the night table that morning. She'd use her phone. She'd call another taxi, get to a bar, some well-lit public place-- There was her phone!

She snatched it up, snapped it open.

Plastered across the mouthpiece was a yellow happy-face sticker.

With infinite slow caution, Milagra laid down the cell phone. The details of a thousand possible traps streamed through her mind. She knew how to rig them all. To die in an ambush like the ambushes she had laid for other immortals would be a terrifying poetic justice.

She backed out of the cabin, swinging her head from side to side, and her face was impassive as she searched for more smiling happy-faces.

There was a police car turning in at the end of her driveway.

She took one look. They wouldn't have seen her yet. Then - carrying nothing but what was on her - Milagra beat it for the bush. She was long gone by the time the highway patrolmen - who had received an anonymous tip about a Bigfoot sighting, and were only investigating because it was a slow night and they needed a laugh - looked in through the open cabin door, and went to call backup. By daybreak the police would have connected the name of Millie Phelps, groom at the Sunrise Stables, with the witnesses who had stumbled across the gang-war casualty - and the hunt for her would be on. But for now, she was loose in the forest.

That night, MacLeod dreamed.

He dreamed he was searching through a maze of empty rooms - searching for a treasure long lost, something as ancient and priceless as a king's tomb buried beneath in the desert sands. His sword was in his hand, for some terrible adversary pursued him; he could feel the other immortal's presence, a spine-tingling song in his heart and mind. Like the roar of a chimera rising from the waves. Like a warning of the final Gathering.

These were the bare rooms of an apartment which has been emptied overnight. Stark white walls surrounded Mac, with higher ceilings that you saw in the New World, and old-fashioned white-painted radiators standing against the molding. Some mural - was it the Garden of Eden? - had been plastered along one wall in bas-relief, twenty feet high. Flashes of images came to MacLeod: strings of camels crossing Egypt, spears and pedestals, dusty Watcher histories and modern sculpture. A huge bed with a black leather comforter. A volume of Sartre laid down upon a ledge of the wall-molding. Things very old, and very new.

He was hunting for something that had been lost millennia before he had been born.

Something hidden. Secret. An antique impossibly old - which MacLeod alone could discover, could find and understand. Though no other immortal alive could see this treasure, still it had been revealed to MacLeod. And it was as transparent as fine old glass - as desert glass tinted by the sun, that once was ordinary but - if it survives - may eventually become tinged with colors no hand save God's can paint. Duncan sobbed as he searched, his sword trailing from his exhausted hands, and he cried aloud, "Tessa, Darius, Connor! Methos! Methos! Methos!" But no one answered.

Then at a sound he stood frozen, face to face with something hidden from all others. A living legend, a myth made real - like the White Pacing Stallion, not to be caught or bound. Slowly revealed, though it had always been there. The defenseless figure of an invisible man becoming visible to MacLeod alone.

Turning to look at him with the face of a laughing boy. A shock of black hair tumbling over his forehead. Slain enemies beyond number behind his wide innocent eyes. Dropping his sword, Duncan stretched out a hand and touched him - with the barest possible kiss of the fingertips - and Methos stepped forward into the light of day.

He said, "In the end, we can only be one."

MacLeod woke, starting upright, his heart hammering. But he was in his own bed at Mrs Bunch's, with the absurd Scottish Glen wall-hanging of the stag at bay staring quizzically down. He had left the curtains open. The orange glow from the yard-light fell across the stag, flickering as the leaves of cotton poplars played in the wind; the impression of Methos' proximity was like a wind blowing through his mind. Like distant music. Like a fading tom-tom of drums.

He sat hunched on the edge of the bed: his wrinkled pants still on, his katana held across his lap. He had gone to sleep clothed, the blade next to his hand. Rubbing his head, he tried to remember the vanishing images of his dream. Wasn't it the Prize he had been searching for? Finally he rose and padded away, bare-chested, carrying the sword.

Methos was on the porch, in the big old rocking chair.

He stirred as Duncan stepped through the door, leaning forward to look and gripping the hilt of his own sword in his fist. His voice came like the whisper from the dream: "Thought you were going to catch a few winks?"

"I couldn't sleep. Too wound up, I suppose." Mac moved to the porch steps, stood with one hand on the railing, and peered out into the night; the yard-light painted him chiaroscuro like an Italian painting, every muscle rendered with warm red-golden highlights and warm deep shadow. "No sign of Milagra yet?"

"Not a creature was stirring . . . Nightmares, Mac?"

"I keep trying to remember her, back in the eighteen-forties. But she was just a little girl then, not even immortal, and the most harmless spunky thing I'd ever seen. A kitten fluffed up like a lion. Afraid of nothing."

"But look at the way she took out Corao," Methos said - hidden in the shadows of the overstuffed rocking chair. "She's a lioness, disguised as a kitten. Bet she doesn't even weigh a hundred pounds, either."

"I only knew her for a few days, really. She wouldn't let me teach her. She said she could do it all herself."

"Well, I guess time has proved her right." The chair rocked a few times, creaking faintly. "I doubt she'll put in an appearance tonight. Did I tell you how many weapons I found in her house? I tuned the shortwave in the basement onto the police band - they have an APB out on her. They think she's been kidnaped by the Seacouver beheaders."

"She should be laying low somewhere now, planning . . . Methos?"

"Mm?"

MacLeod swung around restlessly, crouching down on one knee beside the arm of the chair. He gripped the fringes of the macrame runner, and began to turn and twist the smooth wooden beads strung on the thick cord. "You've been hunted for centuries. Millennia. Christ, you must have been the oldest for twice as long as I've lived, Methos! Other immortals must have found you before. How have you survived? What do you do?"

"Whatever I have to."

"What will you do about her? She's got to want your head - what immortal wouldn't? We should get out of here, Methos - head for Paris, maybe - tomorrow I can--"

"Mac, Mac, Mac." Methos leaned over and patted the top of his head. "I'm a big boy, Mac. Tomorrow you'll anneal your sword and paint it, and tomorrow night you'll get the hardening done right, you hear me? And I have to look around, see where I can rent a riding hack. I'll deal with our Great White Huntress."

Duncan jerked out from under his hand, the whites of his eyes showing wild. "Don't treat me like a child!!"

"You act like a child with night terrors," said Methos. "What did you dream, Duncan?"

"How did you know? I-- I dreamed I was searching for you - and you were a ghost, a myth--" What had he dreamed?

"But I am a myth," Methos was saying. "Unbelievable as the Easter Bunny. It's how I survive, by making people believe I don't really exist. Sometimes I run across one like Milagra, who won't be persuaded." He slid his fingertips under Mac's and Mac, surprised, found himself curling his fingers around Methos' thumb. The gesture was absurdly comforting. And Methos smiled.

"I wish we could trust her, Methos. I remember her when she was young - remember what I told you she said, that chasing the white stallion was more important than catching it, that the hunt was what mattered most? And what happened to her in the end. I liked her better then."

"Trust is a gamble. Who do you trust, Mac - really trust, I mean? With your life? With your head?"

"Maybe one or two people alive, no more. You're one of them. But you don't trust anyone, Methos."

"Maybe we mean different things by the word," Methos murmured. There was amusement, surprisingly, in his melodious voice. "What did I offer you, when first we met? I don't risk my neck around other immortals without good cause. Or do you mean I should trust other people, and not just you?"

"You're old enough to be able to judge other immortals, aren't you? If anyone is. What will you do about Milagra?"

"That depends upon Milagra," said Methos.

By the middle of the next morning, Milagra was on the move.

She had spent the night under the stars, no hardship for an old cowgirl. She suffered from an empty belly come daybreak, but that was all. An pleasant hour spent in a strawberry patch filled her stomach, and afterward she sat on a grassy bank, rolling herself a smoke and thinking hard. Her face was calm. But her heart was filled with panic.

When she was just a young immortal, for almost three years she had been terrorized by a hunter called Hyde. She had fled before him, from city to city across an entire continent - mortals dying like flies around her - and twice she had actually been caught by him, pinned down with his sword across her throat. Each time, he had scorned her and walked away. He had wanted the names of her teachers. He killed only seasoned immortals. But the only older immortal whose location she knew was Darius; she had lost touch with MacLeod and Amanda decades before.

The ambush she had eventually set had cost her half a year of agonized scheming . . . but it had worked. What a rush that had been! She had strung Hyde up in a net like a fighting puma, mad as a hive of hornets, and shot him point-blank with her Derringer. But she hadn't been able to bring herself to take the head. She hadn't been as hardened then. And running wasn't the answer, for she had never seen a hunter so good in her whole life. At last she had stolen his sword, squatted down beside him until he came back to life, and then they had had themselves a little talk.

For the next fifteen years, she had been Hyde's student. She knew he had found her amusing - and what hadn't she had learned from him! But the terror she had felt - running for her life with Hyde behind her all the way - was like the terror she was feeling now.

She needed weapons. Lots of weapons. All she had on her was her sword, pepper spray and garotte. She needed to turn the tables, set a trap or two. Did he have the police cruising for her? Fine! Milagra struck out cross-country. She knew every short cut and back trail in the whole county. By lunch-time, she had skulked through the bushes all the way to the Sunrise Stud.

She knew the routine of that place like beat of her heart. By noon, morning stables and exercising was over and the grooms were down by the stream, smoking and comparing lottery tickets. Two of the mares had dates, would be put to the stallions in the breeding paddock at one and three o'clock sharp; it had been on yesterday's schedule sheet. She had booked a four-day weekend off and would be paying in karma to the other stallion girls for a month - 'cept that this job was history, she guessed. Too bad, she'd got tolerably fond of old Tall Tail. Maybe she should buy him and ship him home to the ranch in Montana.

But no. She was never there enough. It didn't pay anymore to get attached to horses. Not when they died, or so it seemed, before she could turn around twice.

Her other cache of arms and ID was stashed, naturally, on the Sunrise grounds. It was behind the manger in Tall Tail's stall. Well, there was some cash in her locker too, but she didn't think she wanted to risk going into the coffee room. Milagra lay under a bush at the edge of the vegetable garden, watching the stables, for a good half hour - until everybody left. And then a quarter hour longer. Then she made her move.

Her best boy was in his stall, just where he ought to be. He hung his head over the edge of the door, and breathed gustily into Milagra's hair. She rubbed his shoulder where he liked it, tilted her face up to blow in his nostrils the way horses enjoyed. Horses were funny things. A little child with confidence could lead half a ton of horseflesh by a belt strung around its neck; the same mare could look in a grown man's eye, sense it by ESP if he felt the slightest hesitation, and be off over the horizon in two shakes. She shoved Tall Tail off, and slipped into the stall. By habit, she glanced at the bedding and saw that Jane had been shoddy in changing it - by God, if her boy got bog hoof from standing in damp straw, then there would be hell to pay - and hunkering down, snaked a hand under the end of the manger--

There was a green happy face pasted to the boards of the manger.

Her breath gasped out. She crouched down to the ground, darted a suspicious look that way, that way. Nothing. No one. Nothing. What the hell--? And just then Tall Tail nosed down and shoved her in the back of the neck, and Milagra screeched silently and clutched the edge of the manger to avoid tumbling in a heap.

It had to be a bluff. He didn't have time to set a trap here. The other grooms would have stopped him. But if it wasn't a bluff . . . ?

It was then that the buzz hit her.

Just for a second. Milagra jerked away from whatever boobytrap might (or might not!) be under the manger. She ran by her horse, slapping his flank to warn him as she went around his hindquarters; he swung about to follow her, and she shoved up the stall latch and brought him out with her, hooking a finger through his halter ring. Tall Tail, pleased and excited, clattered in her wake as she strode swiftly toward the tackroom. She still had her sword, in its sheath sewn into her jacket. As long as she had her sword, she could survive. She still had her wits. She had a hundred and fifty years of woodscraft to draw upon - she could light off into the back country and hide there for a century - she had Tall Tail--

As she was reaching for her bridle and saddle on their neatly labeled pegs, the warning came again.

There was a yellow happy face on the cantle of the saddle.

Now the warning buzzed into her brain like a stinging deerfly. Milagra hesitated - her heart drumming within her. These damned bluffs! Then she yanked down the tack, and saddled Tall Tail lickety-split. And she brought him around even as she hooked the stirrup with her toe and swung up aboard - with the red vinyl halter still on him underneath his bridle. They went out of the stable in a canter, with her head down to clear the doorframe.

Death, on a pale horse, was waiting on the far side of the stableyard. She turned Tall Tail and they lit out of there like the devil was on their heels.

Three fences, two pastures, a dirt access road. That was what lay between her and freedom. She could hear him coming up after her. Three fences; between these, two pastures; between these, a dirt access road. The oldest immortal alive, the greatest survivor of all . . . the most dangerous prey. That was what was behind her. Getting closer. Half a mile across the back field, and she would be on land belonging to the Wisener ranch: three sections of cattle pasture without road or fence, and beyond that lay the wooded mountains. Beyond three fences, two pastures, and one access road.

As they cleared the first fence, the girth of her saddle came apart.

Milagra swarmed over the sliding saddle like a monkey, kicking her feet clear of the stirrups, and never lost the integrity of her seat. But even as she plumped her bottom down and wrapped her legs around his barrel, Tall Tail flung up his head in curiosity and lost a stride. She shouted, laid herself flat along his neck, and whipped him with the ends of her reins. He flattened his ears, stretched out his long body, and charged away. With the other horse a bare length behind them.

They rode hell for leather. Milagra screamed in Tall Tail's ears, driving him mad with shock and communicated panic; and behind her drummed the hoofbeats of her pursuer. Oh God. Oh God. She risked a glance back, saw a drawn sword gleaming in the sun, and stopped thinking. Then he was upon her. The sword whistled past Milagra's shorn head, she heard Pierson laughing, and she rolled sideways off her mount's back and landed tumbling - ripping her coat apart as she struggled to free her sabre. Crash jangle went the blades as she parried Pierson's lazy downward blow. Crash ring went steel on steel as she riposted and his grey horse skipped aside like a polo pony, obedient to his hand on the rein - God! the man could ride! - and crash smash his arm came swinging around, Pierson leaning forward into the movement, and all his strength of his arm was in the blow that struck the foible of her sabre. The sabre left her hand and somersaulted off into the wolf willows.

Milagra made a blind rush forward, and Pierson heeled his horse between her and the lost sword, kicked out and caught her on the point of the chin. By the time her head stopped spinning, his feet had hit the ground and he was striding toward her, lifting his weapon. It was big. It was huge. It was bigger than the pyramids.

Her mind blank with terror, she crawled backwards holding up her forlorn little aerosol of pepper spray. Pierson - Methos - tilted his head and smiled at her. He flicked out with his blade and the pepper spray went flying. It had all happened so fast that only now was her horse cantering back to see what the fuss was about. Then Methos swung his sword up - poising it, back-handed, above his head. Ready for the beheading blow.

She scuttled backwards out of reach. Methos began without haste to walk after her.

"Fight me," he said.

"Don't - don't--"

"You know who I am." He looked her in the eyes. "I'm Methos. Take my head, girl - if you can!"

Milagra made a little squeak like a mouse. She got to Tall Tail, swarmed atop his back, and fled.

In eighteen-forty-two:

". . . Flying Pegasus," Lash was saying, in his whiskey-rich ringmaster's voice. "Shipped express from Boston. One of the finest steeplechasers ever born in England. Look at him, my friend! Is he not himself a steed out of legend - fit to parade round the center ring, with the prettiest of equestriennes poised like a fairy atop his shoulders?"

And she, Milagra disguised as Pepe, had sat kicking her heels on the top rail of an improvised corral, twisting her oversized cowhide gloves in her hands as she stared at the English stallion. As the stallion ran swiftly around the perimeter of its pen, his stride even and raking - a big rangy horse with the thoroughbred's greyhound build, with long powerful legs and great muscled quarters and a neck that snaked forward through the air. He peeled back his upper lip and scented the free winds of Texas, and neighed out with a voice like brazen bugles. Tirelessly, he circled without slowing, and his leaning canter was swifter than the gallop of lesser horses. And he was a blood bay so bright that he seemed like an onrushing fire.

A dozen reporters had just finished taking photographs: of a Wanted poster featuring a white horse's likeness, of Lash posed beside a fretting Flying Pegasus. There was a tiny racing saddle slung over the gate of the corral, scarcely more than a silk pad and surcingle. Like the light mestenera's saddle she had used, but this was gaily colored, all blue, like a flag; it didn't look like it weighed more than a pound all told. The matching bridle hung on a post was made of dyed and gilded leather.

With an experienced eye, she watched the stallion canter. Ay! but he had a beautiful pace with that leading left leg! She thought she had never seen a saddlehorse run so fast.

Her heart yearned within her breast. She inched further along the fence, edging close to MacLeod and Lash as they stood talking - talking about their plans to catch the White Pacing Stallion.

"With you astride him, Flying Pegasus should be a match for any mustang. Once he sees mares running, he'll be eager to give chase. He's stood to stud this past six months, and his instincts for the ladies are keen - look at him snuff the wind now! He'll go flying like his namesake the instant you give him his head. Think you can master him, Friend MacLeod?"

"Oh, I've ridden a horse or two in my time," drawled MacLeod, gazing at the steeplechaser.

"Fifty cowboys are even now building a spiral corral to your specifications - what did you call it, a caracol? A snail. Ah, such an ill-fitting name for the trap which will catch our speedy hare. By the time you give the word, all will be in readiness."

Milagra looked at MacLeod. The man was a mystery to her. Certainly an hombre de campo! and as brave as a mountain lion with a gun - but how had he seen through her disguise? And he treated her with gentle indulgence, as a loving father might treat a daughter. Why?

. . . and a small voice whispered inside her that he was also twice her size. Were he a mestenero, they would laugh and say he had outgrown his use years ago.

"--Milagra?"

Milagra sat upright with a start. "Mister MacLeod?"

Everybody else had gone. Flying Pegasus swerved from side to side of his pen, his tail held straight up with excitement. Mr MacLeod stood beside her, regarding her with that enigmatic gaze - as if he was measuring her for some game she had yet to learn of. Nervously, Milagra pulled on her gloves, swung her legs over the fence and slithered down. "When do you ride out?" she asked him. "Tomorrow maybe?"

His face was grave. Suddenly he put his hands on her shoulders and held her in place. "Milagra. We've had word from Houston. Your family is waiting there for you, child."

She wiggled in his grip. "Madre and padre?"

"Aye." He gave her a shake. "They're worried about you. You're the breadwinner for your family, aren't you? I know you're a brave woman - not a little girl at all. And the reward for the white stallion is high enough to tempt a dead man-- But you have to go back to them, Milagra."

The reward? What reward? She squirmed away from him, looking out toward the horizon. She had utterly forgotten about any reward. She had lost all interest in anything he might say. Her mind and her heart were filled with wild dreams . . . dream images of an impossible challenge. The White Pacing Stallion - the White Pacing Stallion! And at the sound of his voice in her ears, she said impatiently, "Yes, yes, I promise. Yes!"

She lay awake that night, pulses hammering within her - so stirred by longing that she could not rest. Her pale head tossed from side to side. At last she shrugged into her disguise and went prowling away from the embers of the campfire, off into the dark midnight. Ghostly clouds blew in white and tattered rags across the skies, the wind howled and moaned; away out on the range a parliament of crows croaked and quarreled in the trees. In the stout wood corral, the tall silhouette of Flying Pegasus stood yearning toward the hills. She climbed the fence and slid down the inner side. The bridle was in her hand--

MacLeod caught her by the collar of her oversized riding coat, and jerked her back to the fence.

He lifted her bodily, hauling her right over the railings, and when he had her on the other side he dropped her like a sack of flour and shook a stern finger under her nose. But Milagra stood without shrinking, her freckled face lifted to his - as blank and unreadable as an egg in the moonlight - and though he had meant to scold her into submission, what good would his lectures do? So at last he said only, "Back to your bedroll, lass," and bundled her away from the corral.

He stood guard over Flying Pegasus until dawn - vowing that very morning, he would see her put on a horse and escorted to Houston. But by the time the sun rose, she was gone.

She had vanished, and the best mustanging horse in Mac's cavvy had vanished with her. He would have gone out and tried to cut her track, hunted her down - but the snail corral was finished, and the corrida wings of brush down which they planned to drive the wild horses. There was no time to go searching for runaways. Mac forced the thought of Milagra from his mind, saddled up Flying Pegasus, and gave orders to the men Lash had hired. Cowboys rode out, stationing themselves across the Red River hills. They fidgeted, drank cold coffee from their canteens, rolled smokes and checked their lariats. Every one would have an eye out to lasso the white stallion. When the sun stood overhead in the sky, they began to ride.

They shouted and fired off guns, beating the bushes - dozens of cowhands making a ruckus! - and they flushed out wild turkey enough for a world of Thanksgivings, screeching magpies and crows and flocks of foolish hens that darkened the skies of Texas; and sagebrush antelope that ran like grey streaks of light; and mustangs. Hundreds of mustangs. Mustangs out from under every bush, as numerous as jackrabbits - until the dust of their passage rose like summer storms as they stampeded over the range. Each manada preserved as if by magical instinct its distinct wheeling distance from every other. Each stallion drove his mares, rushing from side to side of his manada, snapping his teeth and charging and punishing the laggards. Foals went down, crying out for their dams; the weaker mares foundered and dropped back, and escaped the round-up though sheer lack of stamina; but the best horses drove onward. Foam flew from their bellies. Their eyes rolled wildly. Some fell stone dead, or rolled to a halt with snapped forelegs. The rest galloped on - running inexorably into the trap.

Little by little, the cowboys guided the stampede toward the waiting corral. The wings of stacked brushwood, at their mouth, were a half-mile across. At first sight of them, the mustangs veered instinctively away. They ran into the mouth of the cage, bunching together as they did, and the close quarters only added to their panic and confusion and forced them further forward. And then they were in the caracol, and it was too late.

Along a wide spiral, between walls higher than their own heads, they fled like the wind. They would have rammed into any straight wall or corner, and demolished it. But the walls were curved, and the mustangs ran along them. At the heart of the spiral was a broad circular holding pen. By midafternoon this was filled with maddened, circling gangs of exhausted horses. More mustangs, rushing constantly into the spiral, filled it and prevented any escapes. Every color of horse under the sun was there. Mustangs beyond number were caught that day, to be driven to Houston and sold and the proceedings divided among the cowboys in Lash's hire; for years to come, horses in Texas could be got dirt-cheap. But where was the White Pacing Stallion?

At last the cry rose across the range. Mac, waiting upon a hilltop, heard the word and started an overexcited, dancing Flying Pegasus on his way. The steeplechaser picked up his feet and sprang forward light as air, full of oats and delighted with the prospect of a race. MacLeod settled into the light saddle, stretching his long legs and centering his weight and balance, exactly so, over the shoulders of the running thoroughbred. Ahead of him, now, a single manada of mares charged in a cohesive gang . . . and through boiling clouds of dust, he glimpsed a white tail and quarters.

One lone white horse, so perfect that he stood out like a blazing beacon. Cowhands thundered among the mustangs, firing their six-shooters, screeching like banshees - galloping in vain after that white tail in the wind. MacLeod neck-reined Flying Pegasus into line, passing manada after manada of frantic horses. The earth shook to pounding hooves. Terrified neighing deafened him. Dust choked him. In every direction, the world was painted like a scene upon a Chinese vase - with a design of grey clouds and running horses.

The trap lay directly ahead.

Mac reached back with his quirt and just flicked his mount's rump. Flying Pegasus put his head down, gathered his strength, and ran like a champion. Exhausted mares dropped out of the race, whinneying and shaking their heads. No ordinary horse could match their pace. And now, upon the horizon, Mac could see the brush wings of the corrida.

The manada peeled apart like the Red Sea parting upon a miracle. A hundred cowboys fell behind, hooting and hollering and circling their lassos. Mac dropped his whip, and it flew through the air and maybe tumbled all the way to Kansas. He reached down to his knee, and gathered the coiled lariat into his hand.

And the White Pacing Stallion ran before them.

Time slowed to eternity. Nothing else existed in the world. The white horse paced serenely onward, and his mane and tail were rippling clouds; the dust blew away, and he was framed against the big blue Texas sky. Flying Pegasus had seen his rival now. Stride by stride they closed the gap, passing the other runners as if they were standing still. Mac's lariat whirled above his head. There was the corrida now. The brush wall flew by--

The white stallion ran straight into the brushwood wall.

He exploded through the barrier like something shot out of a cannon. He had turned the stampede; with him went a flood of struggling horseflesh. The corrida flew apart in a hundred places. Stampeding mustangs trampled it flat in the blink of an eye, and off they galloped - scattering across the range - snorting and bucking and going every which way - no man could catch them! Behind them, Flying Pegasus pulled up dead lame, put down his poor head, and began to puff. And Duncan MacLeod let his lariat drop into the dust; he stood in the stirrups and shaded his eyes to gaze after the lost horses, and he shook his head once, regretfully.

Then a cry arose. The cussing cowboys, milling around the mouth of their trap, saw one lone rider appear as if from nowhere. It was a pint-sized cowpoke in a ten-gallon hat, atop a coyote dun. Rider and horse were going like greased lightning. They were closing in on the herd of fleeing mustangs. They were going to make it. MacLeod roared to the heavens: "Milagraaa!!" All the cowboys cheered. But it was too late.

Beyond the running herd, across the green prairie, the lone rider raced neck and neck with the White Pacing Stallion. Oh, the stallion ran like a dream come true - but the stripe-legged coyote dun with its powerful barrel and sturdy legs was fresh, and the white stallion was not; and the dun's rider was no bigger than a postage stamp. Slowly the gap between them narrowed. The rider's flapping coat sailed skyward. Her hat flew off. Her straw-gold hair unfurled and streamed out like a horse's tail. Cowboys oohed and cowboys aahed, but one thing was indisputable: the boy on the dun horse was a girl.

With the smoothness of a dream she made the leap from horse to horse. She clung like a burr in the white whipping mane. Her hair reata spun round her mount's nose like magic. She snubbed a loop, gathered up the slack.

Milagra rode the White Pacing Stallion.

Those left behind witnessed the great horse, with Milagra astride its back, rush up a hill at whose summit stood the blazing afternoon sun. A hill higher than heaven. The stallion never broke the rhythm of its pace. No horse had ever run so fast. But (as all horsemen know) a pacer's action is beautiful to behold - and tougher on a rider than any other gait.

At the crest of the hill, she fell to her death.

Afterward, wondering cowboys swopped stories round campfires. Some claimed that the stallion reared up over its rider's tumbled corpse, neighed once as if in homage - and the cowgirl started and sat up, holding her head in her hands. A miracle! But on one thing, every man jack agreed: the White Pacing Stallion was never again ridden by mortal man. For he ran clear out of Texas, the cowboys said, up into the sky to graze amidst thunderheads and play tag with lightning bolts. In the country of the summer sun, where all legends belong. And though horse-hunters in Laramie claimed to have creased and killed him, and mustangers in Shiloh swore they had lassoed him and watched him die of a broken heart, no cowboy ever brought that cayuse in.

Flying Pegasus, his courage forever broken, stood at stud for twenty years - but never ran a stride again. Samuel Brighton Lash? He went home to Florida in a blaze of publicity, well satisfied with his work . . . for with him went Milagra Pelipe, the Miracle Girl of Texas, the only woman ever to have ridden the mythical White Stallion. And with the Miracle Girl went her whole amazed family, speechless at their good fortune. Oh, Duncan MacLeod tut-tutted at her notoriety and uttered grave warnings, and the Astounding Amanda clapped her hands in delight. But when Milagra rode out under the big top in her spangled tights, and whirled her lasso that glittered with diamond dust, she became the most famous equestrienne of the century.

May the tall tales of the Old West never die! May swift horses run forever beneath starry skies, and men bigger than legends stride onward, never aging. For in a world without myth or magic . . . is there any point left to life itself?

In the present day:

MacLeod sat brooding in Yoshihara-sama's workshop. He was alone; the whole family and both apprentices had gone to a restaurant for lunch. A tupperware of clay slip was at his elbow, and he was cutting up charcoal into tiny, exact chunks. While thinking about Methos and Milagra. Milagra sneaking off to ride the White Pacing Stallion . . . had any girl ever been so stubborn? Somewhere out there, Methos was dealing with her. Or she had dealt with Methos. Methos didn't like to kill. He had spent hundreds of years hiding, not out of fear but to avoid taking heads. But if he hesitated, Milagra surely wouldn't.

At the sound of horses running along the driveway, Mac started out of his reverie, lifted his head. A warning thrummed around him. And a live-wire with electric hair and a muddied face exploded through the door. In an eyeblink, she had crossed the forge area and pounced upon a sword-blank left at a workbench, there next to the electric grindstones and the rack of steel files; the tang was gripped in her fists and she whirled, crying out in defiance, thrusting Black Tony's unfinished blade upward like a raised finger. And she flew straight at Methos, who now stood in the doorway.

Their swords met: Methos' heavy blade, razor-sharp and perfectly balanced, and the incomplete blade which Yoshihara had now tempered, filed and sharpened . . . but which still lacked its hilt. Milagra clenched the rough tang in her small strong hands, the squared edges cutting her palms so blood christened the steel. The swordsmith had cut grooves, to lighten the blade, and at his customer's request he had chiseled the horimono, the emblem, of a running horse along the forte. The sight filled her heart with strength.

She needed strength.

Within instants, her wrists ached like fire from the shock of Methos' blows. She gave ground constantly, making repeated ceding parries and defending like mad in the high lines where he had the reach on her. Sure she was strong for her size - but too small to fight a big man for long. Her best strategy had always been to end things fast. But now she was already frightened, exhausted.

Vaguely, she was aware of Duncan MacLeod circling in the background, his katana in his hand. The grain of Yoshihara's file-strokes along the tang flayed the skin off her fingers, where she controlled the angle of blade en droighte as if with an epee. Her pulse pounded in her ears. All she could see was Methos' intent face - calm as the face of a smith busy with his tasks at the forge. His lips were moving.

She disengaged over and over, breaking ground in a flying retreat all around the confines of the workshop. With rapid finger play, she diverted the angle of his thrusts, pressed his sword-blade harmlessly aside. But at a swift movement of his sword, hers was wrenched upward and she felt the flesh of her fingers scraped raw. In a rush of tingling, a shock of vivid pain. Her blood was running along the steel tang.

And he was still talking! "Fight me." His voice came to her, distantly, over the rush of blood in her ears. "Fight, girl. Fight!"

"It isn't fair!" she screamed at him, and went on the attack.

With a flurry of crisp beats she forced his blade down, made a cut-over - and her rising point cut his cheekbone so a few drops of blood splattered. Milagra shrieked without words, thrust in tierce, gained ground. She wanted him dead.

She could feel the muscles tearing in her wrists, the tendons about to rip.

"Fight, Milagra." Why was there laughter in his voice? Methos swung his sword, circling hers in a grating parry, turning the blade out of line by sheer strength. She thrust wildly, turning the blow into a swinging cut like the sweep of a hatchet. Ah! now she had made him skip back! Milagra thought she was shouting, "I'll kill you!" but what came out of her mouth was a cry of joy. A glow like achievement filled her heart with courage. She was moving faster than she ever had. She beat repeatedly on his blade, attacked with a supreme effort. She had him. By God she had never fought like this before - and now she would take him - hiltless sword or not, she had him now!

She laughed aloud. And as her blade went into his shoulder, the force of the thrust sliced her palms open to the bone.

They both gasped. They hung frozen. Milagra felt tears of pain well up in her eyes, run down her cheeks. She didn't dare move. She was looking down. At the point of his sword, which rested against her stomach - with blood like tears welling up and soaking through the cotton of her shirt. A Mexican standoff.

Then, quick as thought, they moved as one. Methos' sword-point dropped, to touch the floor at Milagra's feet - while her sword slid out, and flicked up to touch his jugular.

Nothing else existed in the whole universe except the blazing triumph she felt. Here was Methos - the living legend - at her mercy. Gazing into her eyes. His shoulder had been run through, though already the wound was healing with a crackle of quickening. But she had beaten him. Why did he smile? This wasn't a game!

Then he tilted his head back, exposing his throat.

"There, Milagra," he whispered. "Do it."

Disbelieving, she leaned on the blade. He was shaking so that light juddered through the steel, so that the clove-blossom hamon of Black Tony's blade rippled and ran like rain - and yet his face was as calm as an Egyptian mask. "I can do it . . . I can kill you . . . why aren't you . . . ?"

"You can do it." His gaze met hers. A tremor ran through his voice. "Is that enough?"

". . . what? Enough?" She lifted the blade with its horse logo, slid it along his throat. Then she reached up and pressed the palm of her left hand to his heart. "Like counting coup? But maybe you always trick the young ones this way - maybe a hundred others have--"

"No," said Methos. He had shut his eyes. "You're - the only one."

The last words came out in a restrained scream. Milagra drew a deep breath, stood on tiptoe - making herself as tall as she could. Her eyes were faraway with wonder. "Why--" she said in surprise. "Why, it could be enough. But why?"

"As a lesson--"

"Huh?"

"Because - I like you. Because no one lives forever . . . in hiding. Running. Never taking a risk. No one can live forever without trust."

"Stop it!" That was MacLeod's voice, loudly, from behind her. "Both of you, stop it!"

She lifted the sword in a smooth sweep, and lowered it until the point hit the floor. There was a sweet ting as the tips of the two blades touched.

Milagra kissed Methos smack on the point of the chin, which was about as high as she could reach with dignity. Then she turned and walked without haste away from the shop. Toward Tall Tail. Knowing herself the only immortal ever to beat Methos, and live. For it was a good thing, very good, to be alive - and not have to answer to the likes of Duncan MacLeod.

And she skipped, just a little, as from behind her she heard an indignant voice rising: "And just what the hell was that about?!"

Inside the workshop, a glowering MacLeod confronted his friend. Methos was examining the rips in his bloody shirt. He glanced at the furious Highlander. "Not so much fun, is it," he remarked, "when I put your principle into practice? Or wasn't that what you meant, when you told me to trust?"

"I meant - oh, hell."

"And I hope you were watching closely, because I'm never doing that again."

Mac stared at Methos. Then, little by little, he began to smile.

"And now?"

"Now let's get this yaki-ire business over with, you hear me? You get it right tonight, and I promise, I'll teach you how to make a habaki."

"Yes, sensei."

Epilogue

". . . on convicted felons," said Methos. "They used to rope them against each other, and take a swing. Two was good. Three was better. A three-felon sword got the number inscribed on the tang for posterity. Oh, yeah, the convicts were going to be executed anyway - you know how that was - and personally, I thought a plate of soft steel worked just as well to test the edge. Everyone wore quilted cloth for armor. So the vogue in blades was for a narrow sharp edge. And the samurai would take our swords as fast as we could finish them, riding up to pay for them in the mornings and blooding them in battle by afternoon."

"There. I'm done," said Mac. "You never told me that you were a swordsmith?"

"Mac, I've been everything. I've forged katanas. I've been a habaki-maker, a polisher, a scabbard-maker. It's good to know everything about the weapons you use."

"I want you to teach me what you know."

"Okay, okay, okay . . . Nice ashi pattern. What's it called, anyway?"

"Why, don't you know?"

"Hey, that was hundreds of years ago. The names all change. New things get invented."

"It's inazuma!" said MacLeod, laughing. "'Lightning bolts.'"

They put the sword aside to dry, and walked up and down the yard outside, talking, until the sky was completely dark; the thin new moon would not rise until dawn had almost come. Anyway, cloud cover was promising to sock in until morning at least. It would be another perfect night for yaki-ire. Finally they strolled back into the shop.

The forge burned hot and low. Perfect. Yoshihara-sama was puttering around the polishing machinery, cleaning with a soft cloth. He had kicked the apprentices out, on the grounds that they distracted MacLeod. And now Mac strode across to him, put his hands together and bowed low in respect. "I am ready."

"Do well, student," said the swordsmith. He bowed back, his eyes twinkling.

All went swiftly, surely. Mac crouched at the forge, passing the blade through the fire - as he had twice before, but now his heart was serene and his will was undivided. Methos stood nearby, warming his hands at the flames and smiling. The world glowed with heat, and fiery afterimages wandered at the corners of MacLeod's vision. It was the Zen moment, the perfect moment. He quenched the blade.

Steam hissed up; he lifted the sword from the trough, while they all looked on in rapt silence.

Water and fragments of clay ran off. The katana shone in the firelight: the blade had lengthened, its curvature increasing by almost half an inch. There were no marks of cracking, of air bubbles or any visible flaw. And like lighting, the shimmering hamon played along the surface of the steel.

Yoshihara examined the weapon with an eagle eye. Then, beaming, he snatched up Mac's hand and shook it. "Perfect!" he pronounced.

Mac sighed and wiped the sweat off his brow. "At last." His gaze met Methos'. "At last! Now I can finish it off . . . But what am I going to do with two katanas?"

Methos looked down, drew a finger along the hamon of the newborn blade. "I can tell you. I'll show you how to complete it: horimono, habaki, scabbard, the fourteen stages of polishing - the works. And then you can give it to me."

"And you'll . . . Methos, are you planning to send it to Milagra?"

"Sure, why not? Joe Dawson can tell us where she is by then. But we have to incise a suitable horimono on the blade. Maybe a happy face?"

"No!" said MacLeod, laughing. "A horse and a horsewoman! And there had to be a sun somewhere, too. Just the way it was, when she rode the Stallion."

And his mind's eye filled with the image of it - the girl on the big white horse, flying into the face of the sun.

Educational note: a modern Japanese katana is 24 to 30 inches long. Its blade is composed of a core of hard, high-carbon steel around which is wrapped a jacket of softer steel; the cutting edge (and the cutting edge only) is then hardened. The surface of the blade should have a pattern like woodgrain. Its trademark hamon - the shimmering line along the edge - is caused by whitish martensite crystals formed in the steel during yaki-ire. An antique sword's hamon, eroded by repeated polishing, is narrower - thinned down, sometimes, until it is almost half the width of that of a "healthier" modern sword.

During forging, the blade's jacket piece is folded about thirteen times; the core is folded ten times. The carbon content of the steel is carefully controlled. The jacket is then welded onto the core: the result is a complete sword blank, to be shaped by forging - and then hardened by yaki-ire. After yaki-ire, the blank is tempered, and the swordsmith usually does the rough polishing himself and cuts decorative grooves (hi) and designs (horimono). He then sends the blade to specialists: a sword polisher, and the craftsmen who make the habaki and scabbard.

The habaki: because rubbing against the inside of the scabbard would eventually dull a katana's edge, the blade should not touch the scabbard anywhere except at the hilt. The Japanese solution to this problem is the habaki: a wedge-shaped collar fitting around the base of the blade at the point where tang meets blade. A modern habaki is usually made of soft copper, perhaps with a jacket of gold foil. Because it tapers, it holds the katana securely in the scabbard hole, while the blade "floats" in the scabbard without rubbing.

The scabbard and hilt: these are made from a single piece of seasoned ho wood, and a responsible scabbard maker will go so far as to ensure that the temperature and humidity of his work area match that of the environment in the sword's eventual home. The wooden piece is sawn in half, grooved to hold the sword, and then fitted back together. The point of the rice glue is that it is strong, will not draw moisture - and finally that from time to time, a scabbard should be sprung open along its seams for cleaning.

After the scabbard is made and the hilt is fitted to the katana, the sword is sheathed, clamped, and the wooden scabbard and wooden hilt are planed to an even join. The finished katana with its custom-made scabbard is then wrapped in a paper slipcover for delivery to its owner.

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