Novel 1966 - Kid Rodelo (v5.0) (8 page)

Rodelo listened for a moment, then he said, “Did you ever look over a desert from high up on a mountain? The greasewood looks as if it had been planted, it’s so evenly spaced. Well, it’s spaced like that because it needs to draw water from the area around it.”

They sat quietly for a time, and then he spoke again. “I don’t get it. What are you doing here? I mean, what have you got to gain?”

“What have I to lose?”

“Your life means nothing to you?”

“Of course it does.” She looked around at him. “It might be that I want that gold, too. Or part of it.”

“You’d be wasting your time. You’ll never see a single coin of it.”

“Joe Harbin may feel otherwise.”

He was silent while again he assayed the darkness. “He won’t,” he said then. “Joe isn’t the kind to let one bit of that gold slip through his fingers if he can help it. If you’re counting on that, you better forget it.”

“I can handle Joe.”

“Maybe you can, at that.” There was an edge of sarcasm in his tone. “Jake Andrews was no Sunday school teacher, either.”

“What’s that to you?”

“Nothing…nothing at all.”

“Jake was all right. He was a good enough man in his way, but he listened to Clint. Jake heard about the gold, heard of it from Joe Harbin’s woman, because one night when Joe was drunk he did some bragging. Clint kept after him until Jake agreed to go and have a look for that gold.”

“What about you and Jake?”

She turned her eyes on him, but in the darkness he could not see their expression. “What about us?” she said.

“I mean…you don’t seem his sort of girl.”

“Any sort of girl was Jake’s sort. He pulled me out of a wrecked train up in Wyoming. I was on fire—my clothes, I mean. He put the fire out, and helped me get away from the Indians who wrecked the train…if they were Indians.”

“What do you mean?”

“I always thought Jake was in that himself. Only when he found me he pulled out, very fast. But he treated me all right. Jake was a hard man, and something of a brute, but he had a queer streak in him. He talked roughly to me, as he did to everyone, but he was oddly gentle too. He wanted to marry me.”

“He was a rancher, wasn’t he?”

“Indians drove off his herd and burned him out. He had some idea of going into Mexico and starting again.”

“So now you’re here.” He started out over the desert, keeping his ears attuned to night sounds. Their voices were low, barely above a whisper. “Right in the middle of hell.”

The wind was cold, and unconsciously they had drawn closer together. Dan looked toward the camp. All lay still, sleeping. At the fire only a few embers glowed among the ashes. His eyes searched the darkness for movement, for any shape that did not belong there.

He knew the Yaquis were close, knew they were skilled man-hunters, and he knew what the fifty dollars a head would mean to them. And there was the added attraction of the girl, of Nora. Of course, they would not bring her back. Nobody knew about her, and it was unlikely that questions would be asked.

As for himself, he wasn’t wanted anywhere, but Hat wanted his boots, which would be reason enough. And, of course, they wanted to make a clean sweep.

“If you’re the last one alive,” he said, “and the Indians take you, you might talk them into taking you to Sam Burrows. He’d give them a hundred dollars for you. Tell them that—it might save your life.”

“And otherwise?”

“There are some springs on Adair Bay, and there’s to be a boat there to pick up a man named Isacher. He’s dead, so don’t worry about him. If not that boat, there are fishing boats along from time to time.”

“And what if we all come through? Or if it is just you and Joe Harbin?”

He looked at her thoughtfully in the darkness. “Then I suppose you will have to choose, Joe Harbin or me.”

He turned suddenly and took her by the shoulders, and for a moment he held her, looking into her face. Then he bent his head and kissed her, lightly, on the lips. “There…when the times comes, that may help.”

A
T NO GREAT distance, at a place where the basalt had faulted, Hat lay in a niche in the rock. It was a place where he was sheltered from the cold wind, and high enough above the sand so that he had a good view of the camp with its red, winking eye marking the fire. He could distinguish occasional movement near the horses, or about the camp.

They were standing watch, of course. He had expected that. In fact, he had expected about everything that had happened thus far. There was not much a running man could do when he got into the Pinacate country. The only difference was that someone here knew about the water holes.

He knew now who it was. It was simply a matter of reading the sign right, seeing who scouted in the right directions. It was the man with the new boots…Rodelo.

They were carrying something they could not have had when they left the prison, and it was too heavy to be supplies. He had seen the tracks of the pack horse that carried it, and he had seen where it rested at night.

Hat had his own plans, but they were not new. He had used them many times before, and they had been successful. He had never attacked until they reached the dunes or the beach.

Here, among the broken lava flows around Pinacate, there were too many sheltered places. They could defend themselves too well, and usually they were still in shape to put up a stiff fight. He could wait until the dunes and drift sand broke their spirit. None of them carried much water, and that was his first target.

His plan was simplicity itself. Get them out in the dunes. They would have had little to eat or drink, and if their horses had lived this far they had reached their limit. There was shelter in the dunes for him and for his warriors, and they could move easily. The escaped prisoners would be trying for the coast, and he would edge them back from it, make them struggle among the dunes until the last of their water and the last of their strength was exhausted. After that, it would be easy enough.

Usually they died among the dunes, but occasionally one or two would reach the shore. Then he would push them toward one of the two or three poisoned springs nearby, keeping them away from those where fresh if slightly brackish water might be found. Several of the escaped prisoners in the past had been dead before he shot them…the bullet hole was evidence of his capture.

Hat was curious, as all Indians were inclined to be. Now he was wondering if the man with the new boots knew about the other water holes. Which side of the Pinacate would he take? He had an idea it would be the eastern side, away from the volcanic vents and the lava of the western slope.

Hat now had eleven warriors with him, all eager for the hunt. Four were Yaquis, one an outlaw Pima, and the others of the Yuma tribe. All but one had ridden with him before, although at different times.

With such a number he could herd the escaped prisoners like sheep, firing a bullet when necessary to turn them back, edging them away from the easiest routes, winning his final victory and the gold merely for a long ride into the desert. It amused Hat to consider that. Yet he had a moment of doubt…There was that one with the new boots…he was a cunning traveler, like a prairie wolf. Would he find another way?

But eventually he must turn to the dunes. Of course, if he held to the line of mountains he could reach a point where the ride to the water would be shorter. If he tried that, they must head him off.

Hat was first of all a hunter, and as such, he was interested in what his prey might attempt. He was not worried. After all, they were amateurs in the Pinacate country; he was the professional. One last reservation he had…the Pinacate itself might take a hand in the game.

The old gods lurked among the mountains, this he knew, and the Pinacate was a place of the gods, as all such solitary places are apt to be. The Pinacate had moods and whims—sudden storms, strange fogs moving up from the Gulf, white frosts that came suddenly, even in summer. Such frosts appeared on the rocks in the morning and vanished with the first sun.

Directly in the path of the way they must go lay a forest of cholla. By appearing on the slopes to the east or west, he would herd his quarry into the cholla. Possibly they might pass through without injury, but such a thing rarely happened. There were paths that led into the cholla, some of which went nowhere, and he had made a few of these himself. On his various forays into the desert he would take the time to follow these little trails, in and out. Each was a cul-de-sac, a trap difficult to escape from without injury.

He had found these blind trails successful in putting his enemies afoot. A horse badly stabbed by the thorns of the cholla was a crippled horse. Hat had no such feeling for horses as was found among the Plains Indians, and also among some of his own tribe. To Hat the horse was something to ride, and when a horse died or was crippled, he got another one.

Finally Hat went to sleep. He would awaken with the first light, and that would be soon enough. It was up to him to choose the place where they would die, and in his own mind he had already made a selection.

Out on the lava, a coyote howled. A nighthawk swooped and darted in the night, and out on the broken basaltic fragments a tiny rock fell, rolled down a slope, and fell again.

The stars, like far-off campfires, held their stillness in the sky.

Tom Badger came out from the camp and paused beside Rodelo. “Quiet?”

“Yeah.”

“Dan, you keep shy of Harbin. What’s between you is your own business, and you settle it when you can, but now we’re needin’ every gun.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

“You know, I’m wonderin’ about you, Rodelo. Why are you here—what are you after?”

Rodelo ignored the question. He nodded his head toward the mountains. “You’re an Indian, Tom…or part Indian. What’s he waiting for?”

“The right time, the right place. He knows where we have to go, he knows how we have to get there.”

Tom was silent for a moment. “I’d guess he only plans to kill one man.”

“One?”

“Yeah…the last one.”

Chapter 9

T
HE LAST STARS were still bright in the sky when they saddled up. The clumps of cholla seemed to glow with a light of their own, and the bleak moonscape of broken lava, eroded and faulted into a fantastic jumble of jagged rock, had an eerie look.

All of them were silent. There were only the sounds of leather creaking as saddles were heaved into place, of cinches tightened or packs adjusted.

The pack horses were in the worst shape. The gold was a load of about a hundred pounds, but it sat heavily, with none of the resilience of a live weight.

Rodelo, standing behind his horse, checked his gun. All the loads were in place, and he was ready. He holstered the gun but loosened the thong that held it in place, so it could be quickly removed.

Nora was first in the saddle. The others followed quickly, and after a moment in which no one moved Rodelo rode out, leading the way. He went eastward, then south, following the vestige of a trail that soon seemed to play out, but he held a course that could swing wide of Pinacate. Harbin came up beside him. “Where d’you think you’re going?” he asked.

“If you want to try it due south, you go ahead. I’m riding around.”

“What’s down there?”

“There’s a big crater. Between that crater and Pinacate peaks there’s the worst mess of pressure ridges and broken lava you’ll ever see. Maybe there’s a way through, but if there is I never saw it, and I’m not hunting it in the dark.”

Grumbling, Harbin fell back. He was suspicious of every move Rodelo made, and his suspicions were growing stronger. He was operating with a short fuse, and the blow-off could come at any time.

Rodelo picked up the dim trail, skirted a shoulder of black basalt, and rode down into a crack, emerging in a forest of cholla. He drew up, his eyes scouting what lay ahead to be sure he got the trail. There were numerous openings, but none of them looked good. Finally he made a choice, but he moved slowly, avoiding the thick clumps of cholla. The wickedly barbed spines had a way of penetrating deeper if not removed, and they could cause painful sores.

Nobody was talking. They had no idea of how close the Yaquis might be, but voices carried far in the rocky desert, and they had no wish to be heard.

Before leaving the tanks, Rodelo had taken a long drink of water, and then had drunk again. Standing beside Nora, he had said, “An old desert Indian told me once that the water a man lost went from his blood first. Did you notice how little we bleed after a scratch? That must be the reason. And if that’s true, it would slow up a man’s actions and probably his thinking.

“A white man usually tries to ration his water, but an Indian drinks all he can hold whenever he gets a chance, knowing he will last longer, and be in better shape.”

So far they had suffered little, but there had been a steady loss of water over the past few days which could have been only partly replaced by their drinking at the tanks. Watching, he had seen none of the others drink as much as he had.

When they came to a small clearing among the cholla, they drew up. Badger rode up to Rodelo. “Dan, we got a lame horse—a pack horse,” he said.

Rodelo and the others gathered around. A joint of cholla was tightly caught in the horse’s flesh just above the hock. There were thorns around the hoof, and flecks of blood on the shoulder.

“We’ll have to turn him loose,” Rodelo said. “We’ll load the pack on the other horse, and split up the grub among us.”

“Will he die?” Nora asked.

“Him? He’s better off than we are. He’ll have a sore leg and shoulder for a few days, but he will limp back to the tanks. There’s water enough there for him.”

“What will he eat?”

“What he ate last night. What the bighorns eat. Galleta grass, palo verde…he’ll make out.”

While the others stripped the pack from him, Rodelo extracted the thorns one by one, then released the horse with a slap on the hip. With only a few minutes’ loss of time, they moved on, but now it was light.

Under ordinary conditions the horse crippled by cholla would soon have recovered, and had there been no demand for speed he could have been taken along. The pain caused by the stabbing of a cholla thorn is intense, and the joints of cholla are difficult to remove. Rodelo had found the simplest way was to put a knife blade or strong stick between the cholla joint and the part it had penetrated, and then with a quick jerk rip the thorn free. Some might stay in the skin, to be removed by the teeth if no tweezers were handy.