High Wild Desert

by Ralph Cotton

  Orez stepped back, and red blood washed from his knife blade, turning lighter, thinner in the rain. Sam turned and scanned the telescope to where ten feet away the man with the gaping throat had struggled along as far as he could and appeared to melt down into the ground.

  Two down, one to go . . .

  Marking the spot in his mind with a close-by stand of rain-whipped juniper, Sam closed the telescope between his wet hands and slipped it inside his slicker. Picking up his Winchester from beside him, he slid back on his belly to the edge of the boulder and down its side to where the surplus roan stood waiting. The horse appeared annoyed and restless, hitched to the spiky remnants of a weathered pinyon. As Sam shoved the wet rifle down into the saddle boot, the roan grumbled and nickered and tossed its head against its tied reins. A forehoof splashed down hard in a puddle of water.

  “Hope I haven’t kept you from anything pressing,” Sam said wryly, unhitching the exasperated animal. The roan was one of three horses making up the Nogales outpost’s surplus riding stock he’d had to choose from. His personal stallion, Black Pot, was still recovering from a pulled tendon he’d picked up during their previous venture across the Mexican border.

  The roan snorted and raised a threatening rear hoof. Sam ignored the gesture and patted its wet withers.

  “I know . . . ,” he said quietly. He stepped up into the saddle as if they were longtime friends. Before the roan could organize itself enough to offer resistance, he’d backed it a step, collected it firmly beneath him and nudged it forward through the mud. “I know . . . ,” he repeated. “You’re a tough fellow. Now let’s go.”

  The roan settled as if satisfied it had made its position clear and rode on, taking up a steady gait, the Ranger riding easy, his hand drawn loosely on the reins. With the horse’s head lowered sidelong against the blow of wind, he’d only managed to get halfway across the rolling terraced land before the constant slam of wind and water and the lack of visibility forced him to step down from his saddle, draw his rifle and lead the roan the rest the way.

  When he did reach the place where the killings had taken place, he came upon the spot all at once, the powerful thrust of the storm waning for a moment to reveal the juniper bush. The slant of the rain corrected itself and fell straight and steadily. He stood in the silver-gray mist like some supplicant to the dark sky churning above him. Rifle in hand, he stared through a braided stream of water running steadily from the lowered front brim of his sombrero.

  Fifteen feet in front of him, the juniper bush was stooped and dripping. Beyond the juniper, pipe organ cactus stood erect like lean apparitions in a low swirling mist. Sam looked around at the sodden ground expecting to find the bodies of the two men. Yet, only mildly surprised, he found no sign of the hapless thieves except for the dropped Remington and two watery pink puddles lying in the indentations where the two had fallen and the rain had not completely washed the blood away.

  He looked at the watery hoofprints, barely visible now in the falling rain. Each set showed signs of equal weight on their backs. Stooping, he picked up the black-handled Remington and inspected it. The initials TQ were carved into the right side of the handles.

  You loaded the bodies up and sent them off. Sam spoke to himself as if he was speaking to Wilson Orez. “Wise move, Orez.” He shoved the Remington behind his slicker into his gun belt. “You’re a cautious man,” he murmured aloud, still searching the rolling land while the wind rebuilt and groaned and came hurling back across the land in a low, menacing roar.

  Even in a storm Orez had raised any pursuer’s chance of following him, no matter how briefly, from a sure thing to the slimmer odds of one out of three.

  The wind passed and started to build again as he noted the three sets of hoofprints disappearing in three separate directions before being lost to the pounding deluge altogether.

  Standing behind him the roan grumbled and sawed its head against its reins, feeling the rain lashing sideways once again. Lightning sprang up anew and writhed in place, followed by another deep rumble of thunder. The roan whinnied and shied.

  “Easy, boy, easy . . .” he said to the horse, jerking firmly on the reins, settling the animal. He stood staring out into a distant swirl of silver-gray until the rain slashed in horizontally again and obscured even that.

  Still he stood with his slicker tails twisted and flapping sidelong, the brim of his sombrero pressed straight up on one side. He considered Wilson Orez, trying to sketch out a better picture of the man, this man he was sent to stop—to kill, he corrected. He’d seen enough to realize killing was the only thing that would stop Wilson Orez. He’d watched two men fall in their own blood as the silent scene played itself out beneath the rumble and roar of the storm. Orez was cautious and deadly, a man who killed quick, kept moving and left little behind to follow.

  “So, this is how it is with you . . .” he said quietly out to the dark swirling firmament. In reply, lightning and thunder cracked and exploded all along the far curve of the earth.

  “All right, then,” he said, clearing all slates, settling all accounts past or present in preparation for what lay at hand. He felt the big Remington cold and wet on his belly beneath his slicker as he pushed forward against the wind, pulling the roan behind him. “You best stay up with me, horse,” he cautioned over his shoulder, “Orez might just eat you before it’s over.”

  The roan sawed its wet head in protest, but followed, mane and tail wind-whipped, slinging water.