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ignored The Preacher and his ramblings to avoid him causing his aim to veer again as he took careful aim at the stick.
    The Preacher continued speaking. ‘The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.’
    The flame spluttered into the stick itself. Only seconds remained….
    ‘The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’
    Nathaniel drew back his arm then threw the boot.
    ‘And God said …’ The Preacher said, raising his voice.
    The boot flew across the cage and hit the dynamite square on.
    ‘… “Let there be light” …’
    The stick bounded away, hit a bar, bobbed up, looking for a moment as if it would rebound into the cage, but then it sank from view outside.
    ‘But there wasn’t light,’ Nathaniel shouted, ‘Nathaniel one, verse one.’
    Then he turned away, curling himself into a ball.
    The dynamite exploded, kicking the cage up and sending it tumbling over to land on its side.
    The force peppered Nathaniel’s back with debris and knocked him into the bars. When the cage cameto rest, he and The Preacher lay entangled. His ears were ringing and his limbs were shaking, but he felt more alive than he’d expected to be.
    He looked over his shoulder. The dynamite had blown a hole in the base of the cage; its edges were peeling upwards like the petals of a flower.
    He breathed a sigh of relief as he appraised the wrecked cage. The dynamite had blown the roof off and left the bars broken and twisted enough to let him slip the manacles away. Then they would be able to get away, provided he could gain The Preacher’s co-operation.
    ‘We survived,’ he murmured, turning to him and smiling in the hope of finding some common ground. ‘Will you help me … help us get away?’
    But The Preacher’s deep-set eyes were staring beyond Nathaniel’s shoulder, his hands rising to point.
    ‘And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss, Luke eight, verse thirty-one.’
    Nathaniel swung round to see what had shocked The Preacher and saw that the yawning chasm of the canyon was ahead, the force of the blast having thrown them perilously close to the edge.
    As he watched the cage tipped, then slid forward a foot. Then, having built up momentum, it inexorably speeded up, rocking back on to its base, then sending them down the slope and into Devil’s Canyon.
    Within moments all that Nathaniel could see ahead was blackness.

CHAPTER 6
    Shackleton and Elwood maintained a steady pace back towards the cage. The horse with Barney’s body splayed over the back ensured their mood remained sombre.
    Kurt had stayed behind to clear up the aftermath of the gun-battle in the pass, his pleasure in finally getting the second Rodriguez brother in no way diminished by his own losses or his accidental shooting of Barney.
    Neither Shackleton nor Elwood gained any such pleasure out of his success.
    As they closed on the cage, Elwood veered his horse in to speak to Shackleton for the first time since they’d left the pass.
    ‘I may be wrong,’ he said, shrugging as if he were debating whether to mention what was on his mind. ‘But back when Barney got shot, I thought I heard gunfire and a loud noise, and it wasn’t coming from inside the pass.’
    Shackleton hadn’t heard anything, but Elwoodhad keen ears as well as keen eyes, so he hurried his horse on.
    He expected that the fire would mean he would be able to see the cage from some distance away, but they skirted along the edge of Devil’s Canyon without seeing it or any lightness ahead, adding to his anxiety .
    So it was with some surprise and trepidation that when he at last saw light ahead they were within a hundred yards of the low camp-fire.
    Hiram could have let the fire die down but the nervous glances Elwood was casting around continued to make Shackleton uneasy. Accordingly they gave the fire a wide berth, heading for the rill where they’d first encountered Pablo’s men.
    When they could see the full extent of