Novel 1963 - Catlow (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Now, a man who rides in wild country devotes quite as much time to his back trail as to that ahead, not only because he may be followed, but because he may have to retrace his steps, and the back trail does not look the same to him. Many a traveler has failed to watch his back trail and, turning back, has found nothing familiar in the country over which he has traveled, and becomes lost.

  Ben Cowan, who had been holding to low ground for the most part, and riding parallel to the route the others were taking, now discovered that somebody else was following them…or him. A solitary rider and what appeared to be a black horse.

  That lone rider raised no dust, so the chances were that Ben himself raised none, yet the rider must know of his presence, for from time to time his own trail had joined that of Catlow’s band.

  On the fourth day of riding, Cowan came to several decisions. The first was that the other man trailing them must be Miller; and another was that the Indian trotting beside Catlow must be a Tarahumara, one of a tribe noted for their tremendous faculty for endurance. A Tarahumara who could not run a hundred miles was scarcely worthy of belonging to the tribe—though as far as that went, the Apaches were great runners and walkers, men who preferred to fight on their feet, rarely on horseback.

  Also, Catlow was looking for something in country with which he was not familiar. That Indian, Ben knew, had been brought along for the purpose of leading them to the little-known seeps, water holes, and rock tanks. There were many of those to be found in the desert, but they were rarely used because they were known only to wild things, including a few wild Indians. They held little water, not enough for any but a small party, sometimes scarcely enough for more than one or two men.

  But by following such a route Catlow would be able to penetrate deep into Sonora without being seen or questioned. It was a shrewd idea, and it indicated that Catlow had planned better than was his usual method. This was something to be remembered…Bijah Catlow was thinking, and Bijah was shrewd, with a brilliant imagination. Knowing all the tricks, he was capable of coming up with a few new ones on the spur of the moment.

  The route presented an acute problem for Ben Cowan as well. Most of the water holes the men used would be exhausted before he reached them…in fact, Catlow no doubt depended on that very fact to eliminate pursuit.

  That night five more riders joined Catlow. Rather, the five were waiting when Catlow and his men came. This, then, was what he had been looking for, and he had not been exactly sure where their camp would be.

  An hour after daybreak Ben Cowan came up to the camp. His canteen had less than a pint of water in it, and his horse was desperate for a drink. And the bottom of the small seep where their camp had been was simply a few feet of drying mud.

  There was no question of going on. First, he must have water, for the next water hole might be even worse. With a discarded tin can, Ben dropped to his knees and in a few minutes had scooped out a deep hole in the center of the mud. He worked a little longer, then withdrew to the shade, and settled down to wait.

  Water might seep in…if it did not, he would have to strike out for the main trail and hope that he reached it at a point not too far from water.

  He thought Catlow was headed for Hermosillo, but he did not know. Their destination might be Altar, not far off now; or, more likely, Magdalena and its rich mines. He could only find out by staying with Catlow and his band.

  It was noon before he allowed his horse to drink, and shadows were gathering before he could fill his canteen. There was no possibility of keeping up with their trail in the dark, but a few hours of daylight remained, and there was the man following him to consider.

  If he was still back there, he would come up with this seep in the same condition Ben Cowan had found it in, and he would undoubtedly make camp there. During the night Cowan might elude him.

  Ben saddled up and rode out of the hollow where the seep lay, holding to low ground as much as possible, and wary of an ambush. But Miller was no longer first in his mind; he hoped above all to prevent Catlow from carrying out whatever it was he had planned.

  He picked up the trail and rode away at a canter, making several quick changes of direction in case his follower was taking a sight at him, or circling to head him off. When darkness finally came, he took a last sight along the line of tracks he followed, lining them up with a mountain peak that would be visible for some time after nightfall. The great risk lay in the party he pursued veering off toward another water hole that lay to the east or west, in which case he would lose them, and the water as well.

  He slacked off on the reins, trusting to the horse. The roan was desert-and mountain-bred, accustomed to dry, rocky wastelands, and it would naturally go toward water. Moreover, the horse knew he was following a party of mounted men, and wild horses have been known to follow a scent as well as any hound.

  For two hours the roan walked steadily toward the south; when it veered sharply off, he permitted it to go, only pausing from time to time to listen. The slightest noise carries far in the silence of a desert night, and he neither wanted to come on the others unexpectedly, or to betray his own presence by noise.

  Suddenly, his horse stopped. Ben gathered the reins, listening into the night. He heard no sound.

  They had paused in the deep shadow of a sheer wall of rock that reared up from the desert sand. About him was scattered brush. It was cooler in the shadow of the rock, and he waited, but the roan showed no disposition to move on.

  He walked the horse closer to the rock face and dismounted. Judging by the actions of his horse, there was water near, but the roan had not gone up to it, so it was probably beyond reach.

  Stripping the rig from the tired animal, he picketed the roan on a small patch of grass, then he dug into his saddlebag for a piece of jerked beef. After a while, when the sky was spangled with stars, he rolled up in his blankets and slept.

  Far-off, a coyote howled…a quail called its question into the night, and above the horse and man the black cliff leaned, somber and stark against the blue-black sky.

  He awakened suddenly in the cool dim light just before the dawn. His first glance was to his horse, for the roan was erect, ears up, nostrils flared. Swiftly, Ben was beside the horse, whispering a warning, putting a hand to its nostrils to stifle a whinny.

  After a moment of silence he heard the steps of a walking horse. A horse that walked, paused…then came on again.

  Ben Cowan shot a quick glance at his Winchester and gun-belt which lay on his ground-sheet beside the blankets. He wanted those guns desperately, but feared the sounds the move would make, and he did not dare to leave the horse. Something beyond the mere coming of a strange horse seemed to have alarmed the roan.

  Suddenly, on a low rise off to his left, he saw the horse. Even as he glimpsed it, the animal let out a questioning whinny. The small breeze was from the strange horse and toward them, but it must have realized the presence of another horse.

  The animal came a step nearer…there was something on its back…something more than a saddle. A pack? The shape was wrong.

  It was a man, slumped down. A man wounded or in trouble of some kind.

  Waiting no longer, Ben Cowan stepped quickly to his gun-belt and slung it about his hips, slipping the thong from his six-shooter as he did so.

  Then, leaving his own horse, he walked toward the strange animal, talking in a low, friendly tone. The horse took a step or two nearer, hesitant and anxious, as if wanting the presence of a human.

  Ben paused, listening. Never unaware of danger, he lived always with the possibility of it, and no amount of easy living would ever take this from him. He was born to it, and was glad of it. He listened, but he heard nothing but the breathing of the horse.

  He went up to the animal. A man lay slumped upon its back, tied in place crudely but efficiently. Ben led the horse to his camp and, having untied the knots, he lifted the wounded man from the saddle.

  He was a Mexican officer in uniform, shot in the body and the leg.
Hesitating only briefly at taking the risk, Ben dismissed it as one that must be taken, and put together a small fire. He built it close against the cliff and under a smoke tree where the rising smoke would be spread out and dissipated by even that sparse foliage—if such it could be called.

  There was little water in his canteen, but he put a part of it on to boil; then he slipped off the wounded man’s coat and split his pants leg. The bullet in the body had gone through flesh above the hip and had bled badly. The bullet hole in the leg seemed to have touched no bone, but the wounded man had lost blood there too.

  When the water was hot, Ben bathed the wounds and bound them up with the matadura herb. He had no powder, nor was it possible to prepare any, but he used the herb just as he had found it.

  When he had finished dawn had come, and he sat back on the ground and looked around him.

  He had to have water, and water must be close by, for he doubted if the roan would have stopped for any other reason. He glanced up at the rock wall. There could be a rock tank up there, a tinaja, as the Mexicans called it, a natural hollow where water from the scarce rains might be found.

  He got to his feet. And then for the first time he had a good look at the horse the man had been riding.

  It was Miller’s horse.

  Chapter 12

  THE YOUNG OFFICER lay still, but his breathing seemed less ragged and harsh. He was a handsome man, but now, in the early light, he looked pale, drained of blood by his wounds.

  Ben knew that the wounded man would awaken to a raging thirst, and there was scarcely a cup of water remaining in Ben’s canteen. Under the circumstances, there was nothing to do but leave him and go in search of water.

  Taking up his rifle and canteen, he walked northward along the wall of rock. It was a sheer wall for at least forty feet up, then it seemed to break back and rise up farther, jagged and serrated. It was perhaps two hundred feet above the desert floor at its highest, which was to the south of him. If there was any way to get up into those rocks, it must be from the end, or from the other side.

  The ridge was all of three hundred yards long. When he reached the end of it, it appeared to be no more than a third of that in width, but there was plenty of room up there for a tank. However, knowing such places as he did, Ben Cowan knew that without some clue he might die of thirst trying to find the water.

  He studied the sand for animal tracks, but found none. A bee flew past, pointing away on a straight line of flight into the rocks, and he followed, taking a sight on a pinnacle of rock. He lost the bee, but went on for several yards in the direction of its flight, and then stopped.

  The sun would soon be fully up, and the pale light of morning lay all about. Here and there were shadows among the rocks of the ridge. Glancing back toward camp, he could see the horses with their heads turned toward him, watching him. After a moment, they returned to their cropping of the dusty brown grass or brush.

  Another bee passed, but he lost it. He walked on up among the rocks and found the track of a coyote or desert fox…It was smudged somewhat and he could not make out which it was. The animal had gone on up into the rocks, and Ben scrambled over the rocks and climbed higher.

  By the time he was well up into the rocks the sun was up and already hot. He climbed a shoulder of granite and studied the surroundings with care. He saw nothing green, nothing to indicate water.

  The rocks about him were dull red, except off to the left where an upthrust of granite partly blocked his view. Sand had blown into the crevices, but as he climbed there was less of this. Brush grew here and there, sparse gray, unlikely-looking stuff that promised nothing. Here he must depend on chance, on what he knew about rock tanks, and what the wild life, if any, indicated.

  He clambered on. Sweat trickled down his face, the empty canteen battered against the rocks. He stopped again, his gaze sweeping the surrounding country. In every direction there was desert…greasewood, cactus. His searching eyes found nothing to promise water.

  Suddenly a bee went past him, so swiftly that he lost it instantly. He started on again, but where he climbed there was no easy way, no game trail, no way found by Indians. The coyote whose tracks he had seen earlier had not come this way; it must have turned off through some crevice or around some boulder.

  He was high above the desert now. Searching for a way to proceed, he saw a flat-topped boulder whose edge he could reach with his fingers. Being a cautious man, he picked up a pebble and flipped it up. If a snake was lying there, it would surely be aroused and rattle. He had no desire to pull himself over that edge and come face to face with a rattler. He flipped another pebble, but nothing happened.

  He pulled himself up and looked over a maze of dark rocks, smooth with the varnish of the desert. He got to his feet and looked back down the way he had come.

  The picketed horses fed on the brush, but the wounded man was too close to the rock face to be seen from here. Ben climbed a little way over the rocks and suddenly, in a small patch of blown sand, he saw the edge of a track…a porcupine track. From the rocks ahead, a bird flew up.

  Turning that way, he found himself on a narrow path, scarcely wide enough to place one foot ahead of the other between the rocks. Ahead, a huge boulder blocked the view, but when he rounded it he saw a deep, dark pool of water.

  Lifting his eyes, he saw another pool, slightly higher and just beyond it. Here the run-off from the highest part of the rocks was caught in the natural basins and held there.

  The upper pool, which was the easier to reach, was half-shadowed by an overhang of rock. The water was cold, very cold, and sweet. He drank, then drank again and filled his canteen.

  He looked down at the lower pool. Bees clustered around it, and he saw at the edge the droppings of a deer or mountain sheep—at this distance he could not make out which.

  Following the path back, he found a comparatively easy route, and was quickly down to the desert floor.

  The horses whinnied as he approached. The wounded man was conscious, and stared wildly at Ben as he approached.

  “What happened?” he asked in Spanish. “Who are you?”

  Ben Cowan squatted on his heels, and offered the wounded man a drink. Then he told him, as briefly as possible, what the situation was. “First off,” he said finally, “I’ve got to get those horses to water or they’ll break loose and go by themselves.”

  The wounded Mexican looked up at him. “Have you a gun? If you can spare me one, I’ll be all right.” He paused. “You know, of course, that this is Apache country?”

  “I know.”

  “Each minute you stay with me you risk your life, señor.”

  Ben Cowan got his spare Colt from the saddlebag. “Take this,” he said, “but don’t shoot unless you have to. I’ll be keeping a lookout from up above.”

  When he returned from watering the horses, the Mexican had managed to move and had dragged his bed deeper into the narrowing shadow of the cliff.

  “Now you tell me,” Cowan said to him, “where you got that horse.”

  Captain Diego Martinez de Recalde shrugged. “We were riding from Fronteras to Magdalena,” he explained, “and as I was going home to Guadalajara, I took with me my very special horse. I was trying his paces some distance from the column when I thought I saw a horse standing alone on the desert.

  “I rode closer to see…something hit me and I fell, hearing the shot as I struck the ground. A man rode up to me, shot at me again, and I remember nothing more.”

  “He shot you for your horse,” Cowan said. “His own wasn’t much good and was about played out.”

  “You know him, señor?”

  “I know him…he’s one of the reasons I am in Mexico. If I can arrange to take him here, I would like to take him back with me.”

  Recalde smiled, somewhat grimly. “You shall have every assistance, señor. I promise it. However,” he added, “if he rides that horse where any of my command see him, I fear you shall not have much to take back.”

  Aft
er Ben had dressed the wound again, he brought up the subject of travel. Captain Recalde agreed with him at once. Difficult, even dangerous as it might be for Recalde to travel, to remain where he was would be even more dangerous. And by this time his soldiers would be searching for him.

  Ben Cowan helped Recalde into the saddle and mounted up. There was no longer any question of attempting to trail either Miller or Catlow. Now he must get the wounded man to his own column of soldiers, marching southward, and then he could ride with them into Hermosillo, or at least to Magdalena.

  Recalde was gripping the pommel with both hands. “It is not a way to ride, señor,” he said, “but—”

  “You stay in that saddle any way you can,” Ben responded, “and don’t worry about how.”

  The desert was like an oven. Above them in the brassy sky there floated an enormous sun, a sun that seemed to encompass the entire heavens. Steadily they rode southward, south by east, hoping to come upon the trail.

  Their walking horses plodded through the sand interminably; their slow advance was broken only by the moments when they stopped for Recalde to drink. The sun was high above, and the desert all around them danced with heat waves. Ben’s clothes were stiff with dust and sweat, and sweat trickled down his spine and down his chest under his shirt.

  His rifle barrel he sheathed, for it became too hot to hold. White dust rose from the desert, a soft white dust that clung and choked. The wounded man rode with head bowed, his fingers clinging to the pommel, his body swaying loosely with the movements of the horse.

  The afternoon came; the brassy sun still hung in the sky. The day seemed to go on forever. Once Recalde’s horse stumbled, and seemed about to fall. They pushed on…and then they came upon the trail. It was empty of life.

  Tracks were there, tracks of wagons and of mounted men, tracks several hours old. They had, evidently, reached the trail some distance behind the column…at this point the Captain’s disappearance would not yet have been discovered.