by Gene Curry
Cassidy whipped off his hat and used it to shade his eyes. I had better eyes than Cassidy and didn’t need any hat. Far back I saw a bunch of riders coming hell for leather.
“Pinks!” Butch yelled, and like the rest of us he scrambled to get out of there. Once again I had to put Pearl up in front. This time she didn’t fight it.
We ran, heading downhill, straight down into the desert shimmering blue-gray in the heat miles away. Already the sun was hotter, but that was just the beginning. There sure were a lot of Pinkertons. I didn’t stop to count how many. There were enough of them to do for the lot of us. These were the slate-eyed men who hunted and killed other men for a living. They killed men the way undertakers build coffins. Mercy had no meaning for them, and they would kill a wild sixteen-year-old rustler as readily as a bloody-handed murderer.
We were scrambling into a scatter of rocks and mountain juniper when the Pinkertons opened fire. It sounded like a small army had opened up with rifles and handguns. Unless we got awful lucky my criminal career wasn’t going to last much longer, I thought. I was part of Cassidy’s gang, like it or not. I gave no thought that the Pinkertons were in the right, and we in the wrong. I would kill Pinkertons to keep from going to jail for thirty years. After all, I was the feller who fronted the robbery for Cassidy. I had talked my way into that bank. I could just about hear the bank manager and the tellers testifying at my trial, if I lived that long. Jesus! I’d be lucky if I didn’t get hanged.
Thinking of the rope, I urged my horse to greater speed. There wasn’t much shooting now, but they were following fast. We had a start, but I wasn’t sure it would do us much good. We had run a good two miles from the place of ambush and were dropping down fast to the desert. So far we had a small edge on the Pinkertons, the only consolation being that they had been traveling just as hard as we had.
Along about now they would know they hadn’t killed Cassidy or Sundance, always the main targets of their hate. We could scatter the stolen money around, every dollar of it, and that wouldn’t slow their pursuit or cool their fierce determination. From what I knew of the Pinkertons they wouldn’t hesitate to leave all that money behind if it meant getting Cassidy, who was the one badman they hadn’t been able to catch or kill. Bringing him in dead or alive would be invaluable advertising. If they could catch Butch Cassidy they could catch anybody.
This was their best chance, the best they’d ever had; now they had him far away from his natural haunts. Butch had always relied on his knowledge of the wild country north of Jackson Hole and on his impregnable hideout. Near the Hole in the Wall he could outfox and outrun them. But here in the desert he was just another hunted man.
“What now?” Butch asked the old man. He didn’t sound mad at anybody, but for a change he wasn’t grinning. I think Butch saw the end drawing near for the first time in his reckless life.
The old man pointed out toward the gray wasteland in front of us. I guess he thought Butch’s question was a dumb one. So did I.
“What nothing!” the old man answered. “Out there is where we have to go. It’ll be as hard on them as it will be on us.”
“That’s a great help,” Butch said. “What about water? It’s running low.”
The old man said, “There’s—there used to be—a waterhole about twenty miles from here. Maybe it’s still there.”
“Be hell if it ain’t,” Butch said. “If it is there we’ll fill up, let the horses drink as much as they can, then choke it with sand.”
Pearl asked, “And after that?”
Butch shrugged. “First we find the hole. Come on now, they’ll be able to see us pretty soon.”
Cassidy was right. A rifle shot rang out before we had gone more than three miles. I looked back and could see them bunched up on top of a bare brown hill in the distance. It was still too far to count and I didn’t try. Half their number would have been enough to put an end to us. I wondered how well the women would stand up to the desert. I’m never one to downgrade the toughness or determination of women, but if the women caved in on us, our force would number three men and one peg legged old man who might know the country all right, but was no kind of hard case. So, in the end, that left three men against a whole mess of Pinkertons. I hoped I’d be wrong about the women.
I had to have mercy on my horse, so I got down and kept up with the rest of them as best I could. That wasn’t so hard because you can’t push a horse, any horse, in desert country. If you do, you end up with a dead horse. Butch and Sundance just looked at me. Both were big men and they couldn’t add Pearl’s weight to their own. Etta was light and could have shared her mount, but she didn’t.
After another hour it didn’t matter much. The horses, bred in Wyoming, weren’t used to the desert heat and it was beginning to show. Come to think of it, apart from me, none of the other humans there had had much truck with the desert. Once upon a time the original Butch Cassidy might have been something of a desert rat. A long time before, that is.
“You better all climb down or you’ll walk all the way to California. If you get there at all,” I said.
Butch, the ex-cowpuncher, didn’t like the idea of walking. “This is a good strong horse, Saddler.”
I said, “Not for this country. Right now the horse looks all right, but you’re using up strength maybe you’ll need later. The old man should get down while we’re in stony desert where he can manage with the peg leg. Do what I tell you, Butch. This is more my kind of country than yours.”
They climbed down when they saw the sense of it. The old man clumped along as best he could, now and then getting into difficulties when he ran into a patch of sand. I let Pearl lead my horse and walked with the old man. He glared sideways at me, mad because he thought he was the one who should have told them about the horses. “What’s beyond the waterhole?” I asked him.
“What do you think? More desert is what there is.”
I told him to answer the question straight. “If the waterhole is there and we fill it in, how far is the next one?”
The old man said, “If the waterhole is there it won’t take much filling in. It never was much of a hole, in the best of times. How far is the next one? Maybe another thirty miles. Saddler, if the first one ain’t there, we ain’t going to make it to the second.”
The old man quickened his pace to get away from me and I began to figure things. A waterhole in the desert, when it existed at all, took a long time to fill. Of course there were the exceptions, but this didn’t sound like one of them. A bad hole, or a weak hole as the old-timers called it, might take days to fill up with a few inches of water. I was betting that if we could dry up the first hole, the Pinkertons would have to turn back toward the mountains. There wouldn’t be a whole lot to gain by that. Still, there might be some water in the mountains if they looked hard enough. For us, we didn’t even have that much choice. If the first hole proved dry or sanded over, then we were dead.
Thirteen
I dropped back to tell Cassidy what I was thinking and he scoffed at the idea that the hated Pinkertons would give up the chase. Maybe his pride was injured.
“You don’t know them bastards. They’re this close to killing me,” he said, measuring off a space between his thumb and forefinger. “You think they’re going to quit now? The fuckers always have everything they need—latest guns, special trains, private telegraph lines. How do you know they don’t have all the water they need? If they filled enough canteens, they’ll have all the water they can drink.”
“Water is weight,” I said. “They couldn’t have been sure you were in the mountains. And maybe they didn’t think it would get this far.”
Butch scowled. “They won’t turn back,” he said. “I’m the one they want. You said that yourself, Saddler.”
“They’re just men,” I said. “They work for wages. There’s a difference between doing a job and dying for it.”
Butch turned to scan the desert behind us. “I can’t see them, but I know they’re coming.
They must be a long way back.”
I shook my head. “Not so far back. The heat shimmers are hiding them right now. You may see them close enough when the day begins to cool.”
Butch looked away from me. “They won’t quit,” he repeated, and after that I couldn’t get any more talk out of him.
We moved on through the worst heat of the day. There wasn’t enough distance between us and the Pinkertons to allow us to rest. I knew Butch was wrong about the Pinkertons having all that extra water. I had been in desert country half my life and never knew anyone to carry enough water. You can’t load a horse with canteens. Hang enough canteens on a horse and you have the weight of a small man or a large boy.
Toward mid-afternoon we had to cross a stretch of sandy desert and the old man had to mount up because his peg leg kept bogging down with every step he took. After that the worst part came when we had to climb high gypsum dunes that rolled away like breakers on the sea. It took some doing to get over to the other side, and when we got there rocky desert started again. The heat was bad, but not nearly as bad as it had been. There was a hot stillness in the air as the sun began to go down. The desert wind stopped blowing as it always does at that time of day. After the sun went down it would blow up again, and as darkness settled in it would start to get cold.
Now and then, as the day cooled, I looked back. There was still no sign of our pursuers. I was looking back for the third time when I saw them. The image was that of a lot of men and horses bobbing in a cracked mirror. Maybe they were five miles back. Guesses don’t count for much in the desert, where nothing you see is for sure until it’s right on top of you. But they looked like they were mounted up, pushing their horses now that the worst of the day’s heat was over.
“How far to the waterhole?” I asked the old man.
“Maybe three miles, give or take,” he said. “Everybody get mounted,” I said. “We’re going to make a run for it. They’re coming right up on us.” Everybody’s head jerked around but mine. I vaulted up behind Pearl and set my tired horse to running as best he could. Not riding the horses had paid off and we struck out across the rocky desert at a fair clip. We had given most of the remaining water to the horses an hour before. Even so, I didn’t think we could get much more than three miles out of them. After a while it seemed as if we had gone more than three miles. I was wondering if the old man’s memory had failed him, or if the hole was sanded over. What had once been a waterhole might now be a hill of sand. I yelled at the old man and he said to look for a red rock sticking up out of the ground. I tell you my heart jumped in my chest when I saw it off to the right. It looked like a monument somebody had placed there.
I jumped down and ran for the red rock, the others behind me. The old man stayed with the horses. And then, by Christ, there it was—a shallow pool of dark-colored water. I lay beside it panting and scooped up a handful and tasted it. It was warm and brackish, but it was safe. In a minute we all lay beside it drinking and filling canteens. Pearl was guzzling and I pulled her away. “That’s enough. Everybody has had enough. Let the horses drain the rest.”
Good with horses, even mine, the old man led them to the hole and let them drink. After days of short supply they greedily sucked it up. I stared into the gathering darkness trying to see our pursuers. I couldn’t be sure if I saw a shape or not. The horses were down to licking wet mud when the old man pulled them away and we started kicking sand into the hole. Suddenly I heard them coming, horse hoofs tearing across hardpan.
When the hole was covered, completely sanded over, Butch was jubilant. “Come ahead, you bastards. If you can get a drink out of that I’ll kiss your shitty asses.”
“Get moving and keep moving,” I yelled, throwing Pearl up in front of me as gunfire ripped the evening quiet. Cassidy began to return their fire and I yelled at him to quit. He fired off two more shots before he holstered his pistol and took off after the rest of us. Bullets chased us, but it was too dark for proper aim. Refreshed by water, the horses responded well, and gradually we drew away from the Pinkertons. The shooting stopped as we put distance between us. The night was getting cool as the wind blew up after sunset.
The horses were starting to labor again, and I yelled at Cassidy to go easy. We all reined in and listened. The only sound was the wind.
“The bastards! The dirty bastards!” Cassidy yelled. “You were right, Saddler! They don’t have water or they’d be right after us!”
Nudging my horse again, I said, “They may have some water, more than we had. They may follow us for a while. We’ll keep on going and see what happens. Go easy on the water. Save it for the daytime. Come morning we’ll know what kind of a chance we have.”
It turned out to be a brilliant, starry night. The light of the stars seemed to become more brilliant as we traveled on across the desert. In that cold light you could see for miles. Nothing moved out there. The wind blew colder and Pearl shivered in front of me. It got past midnight and we kept moving. Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure whether the Pinkertons turned back when they found the waterhole dry. They might have been hanging back just far enough so we couldn’t see them.
By the time red painted the sky we were ready to drop. We spilled water in our hats and watered the horses. Now that the sun was coming up I could see a line of jagged mountains in the distance. We were still in desert country, but its nature had changed. Behind us had been nothing but rock and sand. Now there was some vegetation: yucca, barrel cactus, creosote. The desert flowers were bright in the morning light. There was no sign of the Pinkertons. To make sure, I climbed a tall rock and lay on top of it, watching. I came back to where the others lay in the shade of a barrel cactus, taking careful sips of water from their canteens. Even though the horses had been watered, they drooped with fatigue.
“How’s it look?” Cassidy asked.
“So far nothing,” I said. “They may still come, but they have to rest and so do we. We’d best stay here until the sun is past the noon mark.” Pearl had fallen asleep with her hat over her face. Etta had the bright-eyed look that often disguises exhaustion. The Sundance Kid asked me if I wanted him to take the first watch. I said I’d take it; he should get some sleep.
It was beginning to get hot. The barrel cactus provided some shade, but in an hour the desert would be boiling again. A few minutes later everybody was asleep, their faces and clothes coated with alkali dust. The horses twitched in the shadow cast by the cactus.
Maybe it was going to be all right, I thought. If the Pinkertons had quit the chase all we would have to face, at least for now, was the hardship of the long journey to California. That didn’t mean we might not have to face other agency men when we got there. But this was the here and now and California was later. As soon as we got out of the Nevada desert—if we did—I was going to cut loose from Cassidy and head south to Texas. I might even drift on down to Mexico and lay low until the stolen bank money was gone. In a few months there wouldn’t be much to connect me to the Wild Bunch.
I sat in the shade of the big rock and watched the desert behind and thought of cold beer and hot women. It was hot enough, so I thought mostly of beer—good, dark Mexican beer in bottles right off the ice. You could get ice-cold beer even in Mexico if you went to the right places. Hell! I thought. The beer didn’t even have to be cold just as long as it was wet. You get such thoughts in the desert. It would be good to walk into a dark, cool cantina, then watch while the bartender uncorked the first bottle. Then when it was ready you could hold it in your hand for a while. The foam would begin to settle, but you always blew a little off because it was something you always did.
Suddenly I was jerked out of my daydream. Something was moving a long way out. Something black moved against the white of the sand and then it was gone. I blinked and waited for it to move again, but nothing happened. It had to be a man because nothing but men moved in the heat of the day. I watched for signs of dust and saw none. I saw nothing, yet it had been there a moment before. One thing was sure.
It was no posse.
I gave it a few more minutes before I slid out from the shadow of the rock and woke Cassidy. The Kid woke up when he heard us talking.
“What is it?” the Kid asked.
Butch rubbed at his dusty eyelids. “Saddler thinks he saw something.”
“I saw it,” I said. “Not the whole posse, more like one man. It was like he stepped out from behind a big cactus, then hid himself again.”
“Makes no sense,” Butch complained. “If the rest quit, why would one man keep coming?”
I had no quick answer for that. “I’m just telling you what I saw. You’ve had an hour’s rest, so we’d better move on.”
Butch said all right, but first he climbed up on the rock and lay on its baking surface, studying our back trail. He came down.
“The heat’s getting to you,” he said. “There’s nothing in the world to be seen.”
I walked toward my horse, spilled water into my hat and let my horse drink. I drank a little myself. “You say there’s nothing there. Fine! You stay and go back to sleep. I’ll be moving on.”
Butch looked doubtful. “You been right a lot lately, so maybe you’re right about this. You think the main party has sent one man ahead to scout us?”
I didn’t know what to think. “It could be that, but I don’t think so. Why would such a large force hang back? If they have water it would make more sense for them to surround us, wait us out. Then we could choose surrender or suicide.”
“Suicide is all they’ll ever get from me, besides a bullet in their heads,” Butch said.