Secret of the Malpais

by Ferber, Richard

  too exposed for her, probably; in plain view of everybody for miles around. He stopped bothering to call. There were places in the Malpais where your voice would go on forever. There were other places where it came back at you almost before you could get it out of your mouth. This was one of them.

  He found her at the third water hole. He climbed up through a tangle of high boulders and looked down and saw her. She was standing not quite up to her hips in the water, bent over splashing her face, and it was a minute before he even thought of calling her. Then it was too late. She looked up and saw him and went stiff like a doe that has just seen a mountain lion. Her hands went to her breasts. She tried to cross her legs. Then she realized how useless it was and started to run.

  Or tried to. Logan had seen women run gracefully, when there was no water holding them back and when no one was watching them. Her self-consciousness threw her off balance. She tipped sideways and fell, not even putting her arms out to break the fall; they were still covering her breasts.

  Logan called to her, and she could hear him all right this time, but she had mistaken his motives, that much was plain. She was frightened, and the shout and the clatter of rocks as he went down after her only frightened her worse.

  She had just managed to slip into the trousers by the time he got to her. She left the rest of the garments lying on the ground and dodged him and started to run again. He kept yelling to her to stop, but she wouldn't; he finally had to haul her down.

  He held her by the arm with his free hand and tried to keep her from banging against the rifle in her struggle to get free.

  "Stop it, Angela," he said. "There's a bunch of

  Apaches headed up this way. We haven't got time to..."

  She hit him, and suddenly found her voice. "Leave me alone, Logan. Leave me alone."

  She was hysterical, and he would have hit her back. It might have calmed her. But that would mean letting go of her, and there wasn't time to catch her again. There wasn't time to reason with her, either. He tightened his grip on her arm and half-dragged her back through the rocks toward the canyon. She kept hitting out at him, trying to break loose, and his arm was numb by the time he pulled her into camp.

  When he let go of her she backed away from him. There were plenty of things she could have put on, but she just stood there staring at him, and trying to cover herself with her hands. He didn't pay any attention. He'd used up too much time on her already; there was hardly any time left.

  He kept an eye on the ridge above the talus slope while he worked at the rock outcropping. Something had dug the dirt out from beneath it... javelinas, probably... and there was a shallow cave there, protected on three sides. He cut a lever from a piiion sapling and used it to roll boulders down in front of the opening. Then he piled packs and saddles on top and went over to fill the two canteens. They could stay there for a week, he thought. After that...

  "Get inside, Angela," he said. She was still standing where he had left her, but her eyes were clear, without hysteria; she was frightened of something else now. "You heard me, get inside."

  He had left just a small opening, and she had to crawl through it. He handed her the canteens and untied the lariat from his saddle. He'd forgotten something. He had been ready to give up the horses...

  they'd try to scatter at the first sight of the Apaches ... but it occurred to him now that he could stop them. They wouldn't try to climb the talus slope with the Apaches up there. That left only the narrow opening through the rocks, and he could rope it off. It would be enough to hold them, though he wasn't quite sure for what. For the Apaches, probably. He had a hunch about the way things were going to turn out.

  He had finished and was coming back across the canyon when he saw them. Indians could be incredibly wary when they suspected something, and incredibly lax when they didn't. They'd merely been looking for a camp, apparently, because they had started down the slope before they even noticed the horses. Then they stopped, and exchanged a few "hyahs" of surprise. Logan came out from behind the gelding, made a sign to them, and went on toward the barricade.

  It worked for a few moments. They hadn't expected to find anyone in the canyon, and they just sat watching him as if he was some sort of curiosity they had never come across before. Finally they shook themselves out of it. One of the bucks fitted an arrow in his bow. Another one hauled out a rifle ... and Logan dove for the rocks.

  Their first volley sailed harmlessly. Their second left lead splashes all around the outcropping, but by that time Logan was inside. He levered a shell into the chamber of the Winchester. The young buck with the bow had come halfway down the slope, trying to get in range. Logan held low on him, too low. The bullet hit just under the rawhide saddle, and the pony caved down, throwing its rider. The kid got up immediately and tried to scramble up the slope, but he wasn't making much headway. He was a sitting duck, and Logan levered the Winchester again and started to squeeze

  the trigger, then slacked off. He watched while another Apache rode down the slope, offered the kid his horse's tail, and hauled him to safety.

  "There's nothing to do but wait now," Logan said. "They'll take awhile figuring out their next move."

  He laid the rifle against the packs. It was almost dark inside the cave, too dark to see anything but the vague shape of Angela's body huddled a few feet away. He tried to sit up, and bumped his head.

  "You all right?" he said.

  "I'm all right."

  He put a hand out and touched her back. It was still naked. She trembled, whether from the cold or from his touch he couldn't be sure.

  "You ought to put something on," he said. He untied a blanket from one of the packs and draped it over her. She didn't move, or say anything.

  "You left your underthings by the pool," he said. "Those Apaches will find them and take two days trying to figure them out. Maybe it will even be enough to scare them off."

  It wasn't wildly humorous, but it had its effect. She stirred a little. "I'm sorry for the way I acted," she said. "I thought..."

  "I know what you thought," he said. "Forget it."

  Something stirred up on the ridge. It was blue, and for a moment it raised Logan's hopes. Cavalrymen wore blue sometimes ...

  But it was no soldier; Logan recognized him. Old Pablo came walking down the slope, one arm raised, trying to look dignified even though the gravel kept slipping out from under him.

  He stopped halfway down, close enough for Logan to see what he was wearing. It was a cavlaryman's uniform, an officer's uniform, complete with epaulets.

  sword, campaign hat and leggings. There were several ways he could have gotten it. And only one that made any sense. Some poor lieutenant had learned all about the rigors of Indian war, all in one final lesson.

  "Pestre atencionV he said, starting off in Spanish and abandoning it immediately. "You in hole in rock. Old Pablo know. You bad man. Very bad. Do bad things to Apache girl, then sneak away like dog."

  He paused to let the message sink in, but he needn't have bothered. Logan had gotten the message three or four times, from the echoes. They made Old Pablo's oratory seem more stately and impressive than it actually was. He went on:

  "White man very bad. Belong in hole like..." He couldn't find the word for a moment. "Rata. Rat. But Old Pablo no kill."

  He stopped again, and Logan lifted the rifle. He was an easy target... and a tempting one. But he put the Winchester down again. The old Apache kept his hand raised as a sign of peace, and killing him wouldn't do any good anyway. Succession would probably pass ^ to his big lout of a son. Mule Ears, and he was probably more stubborn yet ... if not as clever.

  "Old Pablo no kill," he singsonged again. "Just take cajones."

  It was some sort of joke, and he paused to give the people up on the ridge a chance to laugh. They snickered only briefly, and he raised his hand higher, to stop them, long after they had.

  "Old Pablo want white man," he said, lowering his tone and getting down to cases. "If white
man give up, no harm woman. If white man no give up, by-'n-by we kill white man. And squaws do bad things to woman."

  Bad things. Logan knew what he meant, and the offer was almost worth considering. There was just

  one flaw. With some Indians, honesty was a virtue, but only as long as it fitted in with their purposes. Old Pablo was probably as good a liar as the next one. Maybe better.

  "There's no woman here," Logan shouted to him. They were sharp-eyed, but they couldn't possibly have made out Angela in the darkness of the hole. "I'm all alone."

  "All alone?" Old Pablo said. "No woman?" He turned toward the ridge, still keeping his right hand raised. Then he lifted his left. Something white showed in it, something white and unmistakable. One of the squaws had gone wandering off, in an excess of modesty probably, and found Angela's undergarments.

  "All alone? No woman?" Old Pablo said derisively. "White man wear funny clothes." He dropped all but one; he held that one against his waist.

  "Hyah," he said, and everybody up on the ridge laughed. Then he threw the chemise down, not being careful about his peace sign any longer, and crouched forward.

  "Hyah," he said, pointing his finger at Logan. "Hyah, Old Pablo through with talk. Old Pablo kill white man. Cut off cajones. Cut off woman's..."

  It was almost dark, but he must have caught a glint from the Winchester. He stopped slashing the air and jumped sideways, streaking across the slope toward a clump of brush and pifion. He was old... and surprisingly fast and agile. Logan held a foot ahead of him, and saw the bullet iick up gravel a foot behind. There was no chance for a second shot. The old man disappeared into the rocks, and when he showed up again, he was on the ridge, and too small a target in the growing darkness. He called a few times, "Hyah, hyah.

  hyah," and the sound did things to Logan's spine, like the howl of a coyote from a calving ground.

  Then the darkness settled down completely and the hills were silent, and that was worse. The silence could mean anything; that the Apaches had pulled back to look for another camping spot, that a couple of them were right now sneaking down the slope. There were Indians in the country who refused to fight at all after dark, for fear of bumping into some unfriendly god. Not Apaches. They did their best work then, and Logan put an arm around Angela's shivering body and sat peering wide-eyed into the night.

  No attack came, not that night or the next day or the night after. Now and then the Apaches would let loose with a volley of gunfire, just to keep their hand in. The young buck kept practicing with his bow, and splintering arrows against the rocks. And on the third morning Old Pablo came out on the ridge top and made another speech, explaining all over again what had happened, what was going to happen... and why it hadn't happened yet. Logan finished listening to him and slid down deeper into the hole.

  "He's got it all figured out," he said. "He doesn't want to waste any men getting us out of here. He says I'm a dog, and not worth the sacrifice. He'll wait un-till we're out of water. He made a big point of it, and I'm not sure what he meant. That pool's spring-fed and there's no way of cutting it off, unless ..."

  Unless it headed up farther back in the rocks. Most springs in that country fed a whole chain of pools, seeping out into a natural basin, then running underground again until they found another place to surface; and so on. Old Pablo might have found where the

  spring started. The pool might be dry right now; it was just high enough above them that they couldn't see over the lip.

  "We'll know soon enough," Logan said. "Tonight. We'd better lay off jerky till then. It's full of salt, and if there's no water..."

  There was no point in finishing it for her; she knew. She sat back and opened the front of her shirt... his shirt... trying to catch whatever breeze was stirring in the canyon. He thought at first that the last few days had affected her modesty. But when she saw him looking at her breasts, her hands went to the buttons and she stared at him coldly.

  "You ought to sleep," she said severely. "You were awake all last night. I could hear you moving around."

  No second invitation was necessary. He felt as though he had never slept at all, and he lay back and let it settle down on him. It came almost immediately. He opened his eyes only once, to see if she had unbuttoned the front of the shirt again. She hadn't, and he was disappointed. Some things die hard in a man, he thought...

  Logan lay on his stomach and reached into the pool. His hand touched nothing. He had to reach all the way to the bottom before he felt water. Just a few inches of it. Just enough, perhaps, to fill the canteen if he laid it on its side.

  He tried, but it was no use. Even on its side the canteen was too deep. He lifted it in disgust and it slipped from his fingers and went clattering to the bottom.

  The first shot came from the ridge. The second came from the high wall at the other end of the canyon, but neither was particularly close. It was too dark; they were simply shooting at the sound. Logan turned carefully and crawled back to the cave under the outcropping.

  "It's all gone," he said. "Not enough to fill a canteen. That hole will be bone-dry by morning."

  It was no surprise to either of them, but for a moment they sat together in the darkness saying nothing. Then Logan rummaged through the packs, found the bowie knife and slipped it from its sheath. He found a smooth rock and began to sharpen it.

  It was too dark for her to see what he was doing, but the scraping sound gave him away. "What's that for?" she said.

  "There's no more water," he said, as though it would explain everything.

  "We still have one canteen."

  "That'll be gone by tomorrow," he said. "The next day, if we're careful. After that..."

  He went on sharpening the knife; scrape, scrape, in the darkness.

  "Someone might come by," she said.

  "For Christ's sake, who?" he said. It was the worst kind of wishful thinking, but he was sorry he had sworn at her; it was the only hope she had. He had one other.

  "No, there won't be anybody by," he said. "Not if we waited till Christmas. We won't. There's just one man guarding that trail at the end of the cayon, and ma'be one's enough. We'll find out; I'm going to try to kill him. If I do, we can ride out of here before they know what's happened."

  "You can't," she said. "I've seen him. He's on top of that high cliff."

  "I might be able to climb it," he said. "There's some way up, or he wouldn't be there."

  He finished sharpening the knife and put it back in the sheath, and slipped the sheath inside his belt. He had a hard time getting his boots off; his feet had swollen up inside them. He got them off finally and sat wondering if there was anything he'd forgotten.

  "We won't bother with saddles," he said. "There won't be time for them. The bridles are lying around the packs somewhere, though. You might get them out and have them ready when I get back."

  When I get back, he thought. // I get back. But there was no sense in dwelling on the possibility. Nothing better would happen to her if they tried to outwait the Apaches; it would merely take a little longer.

  "Logan?"

  "Yes?"

  "Nothing," she said, and it was just as well. He

  knew what she had in mind. There were things they probably ought to say to each other: remonstrances, apologies, pledges of undying love... or hatred. But they might not mean anything; they might not be true. Fear of death was just as capable of warping the truth as exposing it.

  "I'll be back," he said, and got up and crawled out of the opening.

  It wasn't as dark as it had seemed. The little pifions stood out sharply against the sky, and on the ridge he could see the Apache sentinel leaning against his rifle. The other one, though... the one on the high rock wall... was out of sight. Maybe he'd given up and hunkered down to sleep.

  He stayed in the shadows under the wall, feeling his way along with his bare feet. One of the pack horses heard him, or smelled him probably, and came over to have a closer look. He stood still until it got used to the
idea of his being around and went back to feeding.

  He found the rope stretched across the opening at the end of the canyon and slipped under it. There was no sound but the sound of the horses feeding. A bullbat flitted over their heads, picking off insects that they stirred up from the grass. Logan glanced back at the ridge above the talus slope, and as he did the Apache shouldered his rifle and went off out of sight. It was too cold for him, probably; it must be past three o'clock.

  Logan felt his way along the narrow trail. The high cliff leaned out over him, and he knew his only chance was to find his way around the back of it and hope for a climbable slope. It was risky. There might be Apaches sleeping in the rocks (Old Pablo probably wasn't as careless as he appeared to be) and it would be easy enough to stumble onto one of them. Unless he smelled

  them first. Apaches smelled sometimes.

  The trail ran out and he turned to his right and started to climb. He wished he knew what he was getting into. The cliff was nothing but a black mass above him, and he might get halfway up it and find he couldn't go any further. And maybe not be able to get down again, either. But there was no help for it. In the darkness, one way was as clear and promising as another.

  His feet were bleeding where he had cut them on the sharp lava rocks, and after a while his hands began to bleed too. But he thought he was getting nearer to the top. He couldn't be sure. It was like traveling cross-country; you always kept climbing the last ridge, and finding that there was another one just beyond it, higher.

  A pebble worked loose under his hand and he tried to grab it, but it sailed free and went clattering down the slope. He hung there frozen, listening to it and expecting something to happen. He was sorry now that he hadn't said anything to Angela. In another moment it might be too late. In another moment...

  A moment went by, and then another, and nothing happened. No shape or shadow appeared above him. The Apache had dozed off, all right. He took the knife from the sheath and put it between his teeth and began to inch his way upward again. The cliff top was only a few feet away now; he was sure of it. But it seemed to take forever to reach it. His arms and fingers were going dead. He had just enough strength left to pull himself up in one final, noisy lunge.