Novel 1963 - Catlow (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  He smelled the dust…and there was blood too. His blood.

  A hand grasped his collar and he was dragged around the corner. Somebody was swearing.

  A voice said: “Who is it?”

  “That damn’ marshal friend of Catlow’s.”

  “To hell with him.”

  There was a momentary silence. Then someone said, “With Catlow too.”

  Another silence, and then the first voice spoke again. “Everything in its time, my friend. But we understand each other, no?”

  Ben heard, but he could not act. He could not even think. He had no will to act, to think, even to try to move. He simply lay still, and then after a while he was conscious of nothing at all…nothing.

  DIEGO RECALDE STOOD up with an effort. After sitting, his leg became stiff, and it was difficult to handle himself with ease. His doctor had told him emphatically that he must not come out tonight, but Diego Recalde had already been planning which of his dress uniforms he would wear.

  Now he glanced toward the door. Ben had left suddenly at least a half hour ago, and he had not come back. It was not like him to do such a thing.

  Limping, Recalde crossed the room to Rosita Calderon. She turned to meet him, smiling a little. “You have waited a long time to speak to me, Diego,” she said. “Are you still frightened of me?”

  “Who is frightened?” She was lovely, he admitted, and there was a frankness about her that he liked. Came from riding around like a boy, or maybe from that American cousin she had—a cousin by marriage, at least. What was his name? Sackett, or something like that. Lived in New Mexico.

  “What did you say to my friend? To Benito? He left here as if you had insulted him.”

  “Do women insult men? I think not until they know them better than I know him. No, he just left suddenly—and rudely.”

  “You said nothing to him?”

  She frowned. “Nothing…unless he does not like my name. When we were introduced he did not hear it, I suppose, and he asked me what it was. I told him, and he ran away.”

  “I cannot ask you to dance,” Recalde said then. “You see I was—”

  “I know, and I am sorry.”

  He frowned, worrying over Ben Cowan’s sudden departure.

  “You told him your name, you say? That would scarcely have meant anything to him. Why, I mentioned you this evening, and he did not seem to have ever heard the name.”

  Still puzzled, he glanced across the room to where General Armijo was talking casually with a white-haired man, Don Francisco Vargas.

  “Vargas!”

  He wheeled suddenly, forgetting his leg, and fell flat upon his face as it gave way under him.

  “General!” he shouted. “The pack train!”

  Chapter 16

  BIJAH CATLOW’S NOTE, written by Christina and signed with the name of Rosita Calderon, reached Rafael Vargas as swiftly as a rider could take it, and Vargas reacted as Catlow had expected.

  Excited at the prospect of seeing the girl who had seemed uninterested until now, and of dancing with her, Vargas had driven the pack train at a fast pace over trails where normally they would have plodded. Surely, General Armijo would be pleased to have him arrive sooner than expected.

  Up and down the column Vargas rode, urging the muleteers to greater speed. Impatient at the slowness of the exhausted mules, he wished to ride on, leaving the train to follow, but he was wise enough to realize the General would not be pleased at that.

  When finally they arrived in Hermosillo the streets were dark and silent. The soldiers, who had been kept alert for a time by their swift ride, now felt its effects, and weariness came over them; they thought of nothing but their barracks, a hot meal, and bed. Sagging in the saddle, half asleep, they rode into the courtyard, and Vargas swung from the saddle, turning to his second in command.

  “Lieutenant,” he said to Fernandes, “see to the unloading and storage of the cargo, then bring the keys to me. I want a guard posted at once, subject to removal only on orders from General Armijo.”

  He turned swiftly, and a man stepped from the darkness of a doorway. A gun in the hands of Rio Bray shocked him into his first realization that he had walked into a trap.

  Rosita Calderon was forgotten; the distant strains of dance music seemed to come from another world. The courtyard was silent and dark, but he could see clearly enough to make out that his men were being disarmed and backed to the wall.

  Everything moved swiftly. The mules were turned toward the gate, the disarmed soldiers marched to the guardhouse.

  Captain Rafael Vargas was a brave man. He was also a sensible one—up to a point. With a shock of cold realization, he knew the note for what it was—a trick. Rosita Calderon had not changed, and he had been betrayed. Mexico was about to be robbed.

  Somebody stepped up behind him and a hand unsnapped the flap of his holster. Vargas whipped around like a cat, knocking away the grasping hand, and drew his pistol.

  A blow staggered him, and then a gun muzzle was thrust under his heart. Something exploded there, and Vargas turned, squeezing off a wild, futile shot that lost itself in the earth at his feet, and then he fell.

  Bijah Catlow rushed up, the taste of anger bitter in his mouth. He stared down at the dead man. It was bad—he had hoped to kill no one.

  “Get going!” he said to Bray. “There’s no time!”

  Catlow had no idea that riding the saddle of a captured horse was the one man he did not want anywhere around…Ben Cowan.

  Ben Cowan was unconscious. He had fought against the wave of darkness creeping over him, but had lost the fight. Tied now in the saddle, his body bobbed with the movement of the horse. Pesquiera had wanted to knife him, but Rio Bray had ruled against it. “You don’t know Catlow,” he said. “I’d never want to be the man who killed Ben Cowan.”

  As the men moved up the dark street, Pesquiera rode in beside Catlow. “The cellar!” he said, sharply.

  “No.”

  “They will never find us there!”

  “If they don’t find us on the trails they will go through this town like it has never been gone through before. They would find us—and the gold.”

  But Catlow was not altogether sure of that. He was sure, though, that once that gold got into Pesquiera’s secret cellar, it would never get out. He was equally sure that the Mexican had no intention for it ever to get away from Hermosillo.

  Nor for them to get away, for that matter. A little poison in their food—and they would have nowhere else to get food—and it would be an end to them. That ancient cellar could conceal bodies as well as gold, as no doubt it had.

  Pesquiera gripped his gun butt. “It must be the cellar,” he declared, “or—”

  Catlow smiled, and Pesquiera did not like what he saw in that smile. “You go ahead, amigo,” Catlow said. “You draw that gun.”

  Pesquiera hesitated, and the moment was past. “You may be right,” he said; “but your friend—it would be wise to leave him here, no?”

  It was the first that Bijah Catlow had known of Cowan’s presence. There was no more time to be wasted, and Bijah did not want Ben Cowan along. “All right,” he said, “leave him here.”

  BY THE TIME Recalde had explained to General Armijo what he believed was happening, the pack train was leaving the outskirts of Hermosillo.

  The first wild rush of cavalry went out the trail toward the border, assuming that Catlow, being an American, would lead his men that way. And they found nothing. Other detachments scattered in several directions, all of them wrong.

  Bijah Catlow, with characteristic cunning, had led his pack train down back streets, where they made no sound in the soft dust. Turning from a trail, he took them through an orchard, then opened the gate on the irrigation ditch just enough so it might appear to be an accident but would successfully flood the orchard, wiping out all tracks.

  Through country lanes, past orchards and wheatfields, Catlow led his mule train, the animals staggering from weariness. Twice he pau
sed to open corral gates and allow animals to get out that would destroy the trail they had left. Finally, with the mules more dead than alive, he herded them into a pole corral on the edge of a small arroyo. Nearby was a dam. The ranch itself was deserted, and apparently had been for some time.

  In another, larger corral, among the trees on the far side of a low butte, fresh mules awaited him. Swiftly exchanging pack-saddles and loads, Catlow led the train off toward the northwest. He had told no one his plans, nor did he intend to.

  On the skyline, more than a dozen miles away toward the northwest, was the Cerro Cuevas, a low mountain range that stood out above the comparatively level plain. The trail toward it was a long-unused one. When they came close to the mountains, a Mexican was waiting by the trail to guide them into the caves.

  It was midday when they unsaddled inside the caves. Old Man Merridew climbed up among the rocks and settled down to watch. The rest ate, slept, and waited for Catlow to tell them what he planned. But Catlow said nothing.

  He had two million dollars in gold and silver and, aside from the Old Man, there was not a one among them he could trust.

  If he was unlucky, the mules would be found at the abandoned ranch before the day was out. If he was lucky, they might remain there for several days before some searcher happened upon them. The route he was taking was the least likely of any that could be found. Just as he had done when slipping into Mexico, now in slipping out he intended to use the least-known route and the least-known water holes. But if the men with him had any idea of what they faced he would have mutiny on his hands.

  It was a hot, still day. After a while the Tarahumara went up to relieve the Old Man.

  Merridew came and squatted near Catlow. “Nothin’ stirrin’,” he commented. “Seemed a sight of dust over east, but that might have been anything.”

  “How’d Cowan happen to stumble on us?” Catlow asked.

  The Old Man shrugged. “Durned if I know. Pesky was takin’ over the sentry’s job so’s everythin’ would look all right. He says Cowan came up there in a rush and started to ask a question. Rio Bray slugged him.”

  “Cowan’s too smart.”

  “Well,” Merridew replied dryly, “if they got him locked in that there cellar, he’ll keep for a time. Lucky if he ever gets out, if that Christina takes after her pa.”

  Catlow looked from the mouth of the cave toward the north. “Didn’t you tell me you’d been down to the Rio Concepcion one time?”

  Merridew shot him a startled glance. “Look here, you ain’t figurin’ on that route, are you? There’s no water—or so damn’ little it don’t matter.”

  “All the more reason. They won’t be lookin’ for us there, Old Man. Look,”—squatting, he drew a rough diagram in the sand—“there’s the border…over here is the Gulf of California. The main trail from Hermosillo to Tucson is yonder. Here’s where we are. And here”—he indicated a spot on the sand—“is Pozo Arivaipa—“pozo” meaning well.”

  The Old Man looked up. “How far is it between here and that pozo you speak of?”

  Catlow lowered his voice to a whisper. “Maybe sixty miles—as the crow flies.”

  “Sixty miles? Without water? With mules?”

  Catlow lifted a hand. “See here? Right there is the Rio Bacoachi. It’s about sixteen miles out. Now, it ain’t a reg’lar river. In fact, it flows only part of the time—we might have to dig for water there. But we’ve had a wet spring…I think it’s a good chance.”

  “You goin’ to tell them?”

  “No—not until I have to.”

  Merridew squinted his eyes at the desert. “You’re shapin’ for trouble, Bijah. I tell you, this lot won’t stand for it—not Pesky, nor Rio either, for that matter.”

  “Rio’s been with me as long as you have.”

  “There’s a difference. I’m a segundo. I never aimed or figured to be owner or foreman. Rio, he figures he’s smarter than you. He goes along, but it chafes him. It really chafes him. Here lately it’s been worse, so don’t you put faith in Rio Bray.”

  “What about the others?”

  “I’d say Keleher—you can count on him. And the Injun. That Injun likes you, and I don’t think he cottons to any of the rest of us. If trouble breaks, it might split fifty-fifty, and it might not break so good for us.”

  Catlow nodded. “That’s about the way I figured, Old Man; but we need them, and once we get far enough into that God-forsaken desert, they’re going to need me—like it or not.”

  When the sun went down they moved out, Bijah leading off. He started at a good clip deliberately, to keep them so busy there was no time to ask questions. He pulled his hat low over his eyes and looked north into the desert. He knew what he was going into, and what was likely to happen before he got out—if he ever did.

  The last man off the mountain reported no sign of pursuit, and from where he had been watching he could see for miles, with the setting sun making the land bright.

  On top of a low rise, Catlow drew up to let the mule train bunch a little and to look over the country. Old Man Merridew had not asked the question Bijah had been fearing; and fortunately, the Tarahumara did not talk. The desert, the lack of water, and the heat…they were bad enough, but the country into which they were riding was the land of the Seri Indians.

  Usually, the Seris held to the coast except when raiding, or to their stronghold on Tiburon Island, in the Gulf of California. Fierce as the Apaches—Catlow had heard rumors they were cannibals—they had devastated large areas of country, and he was leading the mule train right into the region where they traveled to and from their raids.

  But he was gambling on avoiding them, or even defeating them; and as for water, there had been heavy spring rains. Though now it was nearly July, from late July through August and September there were occasional heavy rains in Sonora—rains that fell suddenly upon relatively small areas, then vanished to leave it hotter than before. But for a time they left water in the water holes.

  Anyway, there was no other way to get out of Mexico with two million dollars in gold and silver.

  Again they pushed on steadily through the warm night.

  Two hours passed before the inevitable question was asked, and it was Rio who asked it. “Is there plenty of water where we’re going to camp?”

  “We’re not going to camp. Not until nearly morning, at least.”

  “Hell, Bijah, everybody’s about done in.”

  “By now,” Catlow replied shortly, “Armijo has cavalry scouring the country. Maybe he’s found the mules we left behind, maybe not. An’ you know how far we’ve got to go? Maybe two hundred miles.”

  “We got to rest,” Rio said stubbornly.

  “You’ll rest,” Catlow replied, “when we get where we’re goin’—not before.”

  It was rough, broken country. They rode down into arroyos, crossed long stretches of hard-topped mesa, waded through ankle-deep sand. Day was just breaking when they looked down upon a maze of arroyos, the broken water-courses of the Bacoachi…and there was no water in sight.

  “Where’s the water?” Rio demanded. “I thought there was water.”

  “Get the shovels,” Catlow said.

  “Shovels?” Rio swore. “I’ll be damned if I’ll—”

  “Give me one of them,” Keleher said quietly. “Come on, Old Man. You could always find water.”

  They found it two feet beneath the surface, and it welled up in quantity wherever they dug. The mules watered; Rio Bray was silent and sullen.

  “Fill your canteens and all the kegs,” Catlow told them. “It will be forty, fifty miles to the next water.”

  Nobody said a word—they simply stared at him. Bob Keleher gathered up the shovels and lashed them in place on the pack mules. Now he knew why Bijah had been insistent on loading four mules with two water kegs each.

  Loafing and resting in the shadows of the river bank, Catlow thought ahead. This was going to be the toughest job he’d ever tackled…and he figured that b
y now they had found his trail—or the mules, at least.

  They would be coming after him, but he was not worried about their catching him—not that, so much as their heading him off. Would they think of that? Would they leave his trail, gambling on riding ahead along trails where there was plenty of water and where they could travel much faster than he, and then heading him off before he could reach the border?

  Or would they think that perhaps he had a boat waiting somewhere along the Gulf coast, ready to pick him up and carry him out of their reach?

  Catlow tasted the brackish water and looked at the mules. There were no better mules in the country, and he had prepared them for this. Despite the fast pace, they were in good shape.

  Some miles away to the west lay a dark blue range of mountains. There were low hills between, but it was the mountains that were important—more important at that moment than Bijah Catlow knew.

  High on a serrated ridge a lone Seri huddled against a pinnacle of rock and looked out toward the east. His sharp eyes picked out a faint thread of smoke…a beckoning finger lifting a mute question toward the sky.

  The Seri ground some seed between his broken molars, and squinted into the distance. Smoke meant men, men meant horses, and horses were meat.…He was hungry for meat.

  The hard black eyes watched that finger of smoke and considered. It might be the Army; but the Army rarely came into this land, and then only after some raid by the Seris into settled land—and there had been no such raid.

  Rising, he looked eastward once more; then he turned and began to slide down off the rocks. He was several miles from his camp, but he was in no hurry. He knew the country that lay before those marching men.

  It would not be hard tomorrow, but the next day it would be easier…much easier.

  Chapter 17

  BEN COWAN’S FIRST conscious awareness was of a musty odor. He lay for what seemed a long time and could sense only that, and a dull throbbing in his skull. Then he opened his eyes, or he thought he opened them—but it remained dark. He could hear nothing—no sound, no sense of movement anywhere.