Bloom of Cactus

by Robert Ames Bennet

  CHAPTER IV

  PARDS IN PERIL

  As Lennon's clasp relaxed, the girl's tightened. She drew him toward thepony.

  "You've got to ride," she said. "You can't stand the pace. That poisonis no joke. Don't want to hold me back, do you?"

  The question overcame Lennon's reluctance. The girl had refused to leavehim, and she was right about the poison. He could endure the severe painof his wounded hand, but he was still weak and badly shaken from theeffects of the venom. Unless he rode he would be a drag upon her.

  "Very well," he agreed, and he permitted her to help him clamber up intothe saddle.

  No time was lost over lengthening the stirrup leathers. Carmena handedhim his rifle and the half-emptied gallon canteen, caught up the smallone and her own rifle, and started off in lead of the pony. Her easyswinging stride, though seemingly unhurried, covered the ground fasterthan the pony could walk. Every little while the animal had to breakinto a jog to catch up with her.

  At the far end of the scattered mesquite growth Carmena edged off to theleft, down a shallow wash that brought them around to the west side of aridge. Under cover of the gaunt earth-rib of worn rock she headed north,straight for the distant towers of Triple Butte.

  The deceptive green of occasional palo-verde bushes now gave place tothe columns of the giant sahuaro. The fluted, leafless stems of thesehigh-towering cactus candelabras bristled with fierce thorns, yet eachwas crowned with the glory of a gorgeous foot-wide blossom.

  Over the loose hot sand, amidst this shadeless mockery of a forest,Carmena swung steadily along at her graceful stride. Her movementsseemed as lacking in effort as the lope of a coyote or the bound of acat. Lennon would not have realized how greatly she was exerting herselfhad he not seen how frequently she drank from her canteen.

  No one of white blood, however thoroughly inured to thirst, can walkfast under the blistering sun, in the bone-dry air of the desert,without need of much water. Lennon, though riding, was no less parchedthan the girl. He was fresh from a moist climate, and the Gila monsterpoison had put him into a feverish condition. Hard as he tried, he couldnot resist drinking. His canteen was emptied even sooner thanCarmena's.

  This was little past mid-afternoon. They had left the sahuaros behindand were coming down among widely scattered salt bushes to the border ofan utterly barren alkali flat. For the first time since the stop in themesquite, Carmena halted her quick advance. But it was not to rest. Thefeverish crimson of Lennon's face sobered her reassuring smile. Shepeered searchingly back along the trail, glanced at the sun, and hastilytransferred to their empty canteens all but a quart from the fullcanteen on the saddlehorn.

  "We've got to make it last till sundown, Jack," she warned. "Then, ifonly we can hold our lead, we'll be able to keep going all night."

  Lennon drew out two half dollars. "How about trying these in ourmouths?"

  "They'll help," she replied, and she took one. "Be ready to tie yourneckerchief over your nose, soon as we strike the alkali."

  The wisdom of this advice was evident when they started out across thesnow-white flat. Every step stirred up clouds of alkali dust that hungabout the fugitives like thick smoke. The impalpable powder penetratedtheir clothes, smarted in their eyes, and all but choked them, evenbehind the veiling neckerchiefs.

  Before they had half crossed the fearful dust flat Carmena was walkingas slowly as the pony. At the far side she sank down beside athick-stemmed cactus. Lennon, half delirious from fever, sought tospring off, with the vague idea of forcing her to ride. He succeededonly in tumbling upon the sand. The startled pony shied clear. With asmothered cry, Carmena leaped up to grasp his bridle.

  "Close call!" she gasped at Lennon. "If he'd made off--no show for us atall."

  Lennon was too far gone for speech. His canteen was already half empty.Carmena gave him a sip from her own and dragged him around until hishead lay in the small blot of shade made by a cactus stem. Half an hourpassed before he was able to get back into the saddle. But the restappeared to have fully restored the girl's strength. She set off at apace that again forced the pony into an occasional jog.

  After a time the sheltering ridge ran down into the sandy level of thedesert. Yet Carmena continued to find a route protected by inequalitiesof the ground or by growths of cactus and thorn scrub from any eyes thatmight be peering across the Basin. As the sun sank nearer to the westernrim of buttes and mesas she kept an ever closer watch to the rear. Herown and Lennon's canteens were again empty and her seemingly tirelessstride was at last beginning to flag.

  By the time the lower edge of the sun touched the rim of the Basin thefugitives had come opposite a long range of broken hills. Carmenadragged herself wearily up over an out-thrust spur ridge. Lennon wasswaying in the saddle, and his tongue, like hers, had begun to swell.But the girl did not offer to open the canteen on the saddlehorn.

  At the top of the ridge she hurried the pony down below the skyline andcrept back to peer over a ledge. Far to the rear, across theshadow-streaked waste, her anxious eyes sighted a group of moving dots.She ran to seize the pony's bridle and urge him into a jog.

  "Must hurry!" she rasped in a thirst-harshened voice. "They're trailingus--on the lope!"

  The alarm shocked Lennon out of his semi-delirium. His relaxing grip onthe rifle tightened. He straightened in the saddle. Carmena did not lookback at him. She was turning into the mouth of a wash that appeared tohead over toward the far side of the hills. Half a mile up the wash thegravelly bottom changed to loose stones. Carmena smashed the smallercanteen and tossed it off to one side.

  Some distance farther along the footing became all rock. Carmena stoppedon a flat ledge and flung the big canteen she was carrying as far as shecould up the arroyo. She then changed from her boots to the long-leggedmoccasins that she had hidden in one of the saddlebags. No less hastilyshe cut strips from the Navaho saddleblanket to tie over the pony'slightly shod hoofs.

  The sun had now been down for several minutes, and the clear deserttwilight was beginning to fade. Carmena turned the pony and carefullyled him at an easy angle up a flight of solid step ledges on the side ofthe arroyo. Half circling a hill, she descended another arroyo that rannorthwest, back down into the level desert.

  By the time the edge of the broken ground had been reached dusk wasdeepening into night. Carmena halted and eased Lennon down out of thesaddle. Water, trickled a few drops at a time between his cracked lips,gradually soothed his swollen tongue and parched throat. His fever wasalready subsiding in the coolness of nightfall.

  Carmena gave him almost half of the remaining quart of water. A halfpint more she used to rinse her own mouth and moisten the nostrils ofthe pony. The few sips left were held in reserve.

  Scant as was the water ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon tosuck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing thegreasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightestthud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness ofthe desert night.

  "Looks like we fooled 'em," whispered Carmena. "They must have found thecanteens--figured we'd gone desperate with thirst and headed on acrossfor the nearest water hole. Can you mount again?"

  Lennon dragged himself to his feet.

  "You're wonderful!" he murmured. "If you'd leave me here--I'm only adrag. You could ride at a gallop----"

  She grasped his arm and pushed him around beside the horse.

  "Don't be looney. We can go all night without a drop. Count on me toout-travel the pony till sun-up. Get on. You don't suppose I'm goingback on my pard, do you?"

  There was no room for argument. Lennon's condition was still so seriousthat she had to help him into the saddle. With the pony in lead, she setout straight toward the North Star.

  Before many miles Lennon caught himself lapsing into a doze. He hadalmost dropped his rifle. To make certain against its loss, he thrust itinto his cartridge belt like a pistol. After this he drowsed off againinto a half torpor of sleep and exhaustion. Some
automatic functioningof his subconscious mind kept him balanced in the saddle.

  When at last he roused from the stupor it was to a miserablerealization of pain and weariness and cold. A bleak gray light wasfiltering over the eastern rim of mesas down into the blackness of theBasin. Dry as was this land of desolation, it was not so utterly arid asthe sea-level deserts of the lower Colorado.

  Lennon shivered and forced open his heavy eyelids. He first made out thebowed figure of Carmena plodding along, with one backward-dragged handnoosed in the reins of the weary pony. The gray light graduallybrightened. He saw that the girl was swaying, almost staggering. Heforced out a hoarse cry:

  "Stop!"

  The call broke the hypnotic spell of motion that alone had enabled thegirl to keep placing one leaden foot before the other. She tottered andsank down and lay still. Lennon dropped out of the saddle to bend overher. Like the knees of the pony, the girl's moccasins were torn with thethorns of cacti and desert bushes, against which they had struck in thedark.

  She had not fainted. Her dark eyes gazed up at Lennon, wide with ananguish of self-reproach.

  "Used up--can't make it," she whispered. "No chance for both--aftersun-up. Ride hard toward Triple Butte."

  Lennon's reply was to open the canteen and hold it to her lips. Only afew drops were left when she managed to thrust it away. He put hisuninjured arm about her slender waist and lifted her to her feet.

  "Ride--your turn," he commanded. "I walk. Never say die!"

  Her sunken eyes lighted with a faint glow. A last flicker of strengthenabled her, with his help, to pull herself into the saddle. Lennoncaught up her rifle and started off toward Triple Butte in desperatehaste.

  An hour after sunrise found him still staggering forward almost at a dogtrot. The northern border mesas of the Basin were now only a shortdistance ahead. But already his swollen tongue was beginning to blackenin his mouth. When at last he came to the foot of the lower mesa hecould barely totter.

  Carmena rode up alongside. She huskily whispered for him to hand overher rifle and grasp the stirrup leather. He had not dragged along besidethe pony more than a hundred paces when a jerk on the reins headed theweary beast around into the mouth of a broad canon. Carmena uttered asharp cry and pointed ahead. Near the base of the canon wall a darkpatch on the ledges was shimmering in the sunrays.

  Hope flared high in the hearts of the perishing fugitives--only toflicker and die out again in utter despair. The black patch waswater--a tiny spring that seeped from a horizontal crevice between thestratas of rock--but its trickle was spread out in a paper-thin sheetdown the sloping lower ledges. At their foot it vanished in the dry sandof the canon bed.

  They could cool their swollen tongues and so obtain temporary relieffrom their suffering. But they could not suck up enough water to quenchtheir terrible thirst. Nor could they collect in the canteen even a gillof water to take with them.

  Lennon, however, was an engineer. Even while hope fled from him, hiseyes were peering around with the scrutiny of a trained observer andthinker.

  His roving gaze fixed upon a bank a little way out from the canon mouth.He staggered down to it and came back with a handful of dry clay. Thishe spread out upon the least tilted of the wet ledges. By patting andscraping he soon had a little ball that kneaded like putty in his eagerfingers.

  Carmena already had perceived his purpose and was hurrying to fetch aheaping hatful of the dry clay. Before many minutes they had built alittle concave dam, in which the down-seeping water slowly but steadilycollected.

  When at last they had quenched their thirst Lennon took his rifle andwent to sit under a shady ledge where he could look out into the Basin.Carmena lingered at the spring to water the pony and fill the canteen.She then gave all the cornmeal to the beast and brought slices of rawbacon to share with Lennon.

  He clasped the hand in which she held out his first slice.

  "So we made it, after all. Good work?"

  "Yes, we made it, Jack!" she exulted. "Close shave--but worth the risk.I know now for sure you're a man, a real man!"

  Her glowing eyes brought a deeper red into Lennon's sunburnt face.

  "I'm still pretty much of a tenderfoot," he protested. "And there's thisgame arm. I'd rather run than fight."

  The girl smiled.

  "That's all right till you get back the use of your hand. But it won'thurt to show those bronchos the range of your rifle. They're coming abit too fast to suit us."

  Lennon stared out across the open plain. Rather more than a mile away adozen or more riders were loping along the trail of the fugitives.

  The sights slid up on Lennon's rifle. He put the butt to his leftshoulder and rested the barrel across a rock. The first bullet raised apuff of dust a little to the left of the Indians. The second must haveshrieked close over their heads. They wheeled their ponies and scatteredout in fanlike formation.

  Lennon's fourth shot caught one of the ponies broadside. The beasttumbled over and lay motionless. Its rider dashed behind a cactus. Therest of the Apaches wrenched their ponies about and raced to get backbeyond range. They had not bargained on a rifle that could shoot so far.A renegade prefers to kill without risk to himself.

  "That's enough," chuckled Carmena. "There's no cover for 'em unless theycrawl up afoot. Some will ride around and climb the mesa. Time we weremoving. Come on. We'll beat 'em into the Hole."

  Lennon elevated his rifle and sent a parting shot over the heads of thefleeing riders. When he came running back into the canon mouth Carmenahad the canteen swung to the saddlehorn and was lacing on her boots, inplace of the torn moccasins.

  After a last deep drink from the pool and another sombreroful for thepony, the little dam was carefully scraped off the ledge and the claycovered with a loose boulder. The Apaches would be able to lap the wetstone but not to drink. They were not engineers or dam builders.