L'Amour, Louis - Novel 011

by Last Stand At Papago Wells

  Big Maria pointed her finger and screamed with wild, hysterical laughter. "The fool! Youre all fools! Look!" She ran to the rocks and hauled from them the strip of canvas ground sheet that had covered her bedroll when she rode in. "Did they think I was crazy? I switched the gold, and the fools were killing themselves over a sack of old rocks!" She went off into screams of wild laughter.

  Jennifer stared at Maria, appalled. Cates took her arm and turned her away. "Shes insane," he said, "shes completely insane."

  Lugo fired suddenly and they heard the flat, ugly impact of the bullets. He waited a moment, then fired another shot, holding a little lower. The bush moved as though tugged by hands, then was still. The wind stirred the sand along the ground, and that was all.

  "Logan," Jennifer whispered, "I think I see some dust ... its still very far off."

  They looked. Was it the dust of riders or a tiny whirlwind, the dust-devil of the desert? Or was it a trick of the dancing heat waves? They stared until their eyes tired from the strain and they saw nothing more, nothing more at all.

  Suddenly the shooting began again. Shots kicked up sand and ricocheted from the rocks. Cates ducked from point to point, trying a shot wherever movement showed or cover offered. It was like fighting shadows, yet they knew that the Apaches, if they managed to get into their small circle of defense, would wipe them out. A sudden rush could overwhelm the defenders and their only hope was to send searching fire into every possible cover and stop such an attack before it began.

  Yet the firing slackened, and seemed less than before, and at the end only one or two rifles were working, and no arrows came at all. Then silence.

  In the silence that followed the thunder of rifle fire, Grant Kimbrough looked into a desert as empty as his own hopes. All his plans were destroyed. Jennifer was a beautiful girl and a wealthy one, a girl he could admire and a girl of whom he could be proud, yet suddenly she was lost to him, and without doubt it was Cates who was responsible.

  Nothing awaited him but more gambling, the endless round of smoky saloons crowded with sweaty, whiskered, hard-pushing men, and ever and always the chance that some day he would draw a gun too slowly. Yet he had never drawn too slowly so far, and now it might be all there was left.

  He considered that. The small party had dwindled until only a handful were left, and on the ground behind them lay nearly seventy thousand dollars in gold, a small fortune to a man who could go to San Francisco and invest it wisely. A small fortune that could grow into a great fortune. Nothing moved out there in the desert over which he looked.

  Cates. Logan Cates was the trouble. Had it not been for him Jennifer and he might have gone on to Yuma. With Cates out of the way the entire situation might change. There was still time to talk to Jennifer, and the kids didnt matter. There was Lugo, but nobody paid any attention to an Indian, and Mariaif she was not insane now she was verging on it. Besides, this wasnt over and it would be only too easy for one or more of them to die before it was over.

  The fire last night might mean something and might not, but one thing he did knowthere were fewer Indians out there than there had been. He was sure he had killed at least one during the last burst of fire, and only a few shots had been fired from his side of the circle.

  Cover was not too plentiful out there, not so much that a man could not see most of the places where attackers might be, and over the days a lot of firing had been done. At times the execution must have been frightful.

  There comes a time in the life of each man when he must make a decision. Grant Kimbrough had made one such decision when he sold out and left his home after the war. He had made another when he gave up his trip to San Francisco and went home with Jennifer Fair. He had another one to make now: behind him on the sand was a small fortune. Behind him was a girl he wanted, but whether he got her or not, the gold was there. And all that stood in his way was the load carried by his six-shooter.

  It was murder, but he had killed before this. What of the men who died during the war, and those Indians who died here? Suppose, just suppose nobody was left alive but himself? It could easily happen. For that matter they might all be killed, himself included. And if only one or two were left, well, who was to say how they died?

  He stared bleakly at the sand. He had come a long way since the old days. He shied away from the memory of his father. He could see the old man now. If his father had ever believed his son capable of what he now considered his father would have killed him himself. Yet his father had never been in such a position; all that lay between himself and a bleak future was a few pistol bullets.

  The silence held. Nothing moved out there, not even a dust devil. The sky was an odd color, somewhere far off dust was blowing. It had changed to a weird yellow, like nothing he had ever seen, and the sky overhead seemed somehow higher, vaster, emptier. Like a great hollow globe of that vast yellow.

  Behind him he heard Logan Cates say, "Sand storm coming, and a bad one."

  A sand storm ... sand that buried tracks, buried people, wiped out the trails into the past and only left open the new trails, the one that led on from this place.

  There was time. Kimbrough would wait a little longer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  And so the sun shone ... and there seemed no end to its shining, but now the high dust carried by the winds above the mountains obscured the sun but took away no heat. It lay heavy upon the land, and although the heat waves were gone and the yellow pall covered the higher heavens, there was silence everywhere.

  No birds flew ... no lizard moved upon the ground ... no quail called from the distant trees, for there was silence, and only silence.

  There is upon the great sand wastes no more terrible thing than a sand storm ... the driving grains of sand wipe out the earth and sky, obscure the horizons, and close one in a tight and lonely world no more than a few feet square. Until one has experienced a sand storm upon the desert one cannot know horror; until one has felt the lashing whips of sand one cannot know agony; and until one has felt that heat, that terror, that feeling that all the world has gone wrong, one has not known hell.

  The birds cease to fly, the tiny animals, even the insects hunt their hidden places. Horses roll their eyes, wild with terror, and men find places to hide from the stifling dust. Yet it is not the wind, nor the sand, nor the heat alone, it is the terror, the frantic choking, the gasping, the struggle and the cowering fear brought on in part by the quivering electricity in the air, the unbearable tension, the loss of all perspective. Our senses are fragile things, dainty things, occasionally trustworthy, yet always demanding of perspective. Our senses need horizons, they need gauges, they need rules by which to apply themselves, and in the sand storm there is no horizon and there are no rules. There is no near or far, no high or low, no cold or warm, there is only that moving wall of wind that roars out of distance, screaming insanely, screaming and roaring. And with it the uncounted trillions of lashing sand bits. One moves at the bottom of a moving sea, a literal sea of sand, whose surface is somewhere high above in the great vault of the heavens, and one dies choking, crawling on the hands and knees, choking with sand, choking with wind, choking with the effort to breathe.

  Such a storm was coming now.

  Logan Cates knew it was coming. He felt electricity in the air prickle the hair on the back of his neck, he saw the sky weirdly lit, and he knew the storm was coming. The horses tugged and pulled, anxious to run, yet there was nowhere to run, nowhere to go.

  Jennifer stared at him, wide-eyed and frightened. "What is it, Logan? Whats happening? Whats wrong? Theres something strange."

  "Its the storm." Cates turned swiftly. "Lonnie, Kimbrough, fill all the canteens, and make it fast. Lugo, hobble the horses, and get them down into the bottom."

  "What about the Indians?" Junie asked.

  "Dont think about them. Theyll be having troubles of their own. Hurry!"

  They worked swiftly, driven by a sort of panic, feeling the strange, vast stillness, feeling like t
iny things at the bottom of a huge bowl. Of them all, only Cates and Lugo knew what they faced, and there is no worse thing than a sand storm in a desert of loose sand.

  Vast dunes of it lay to the south of them, and there were dunes to the west and north, and some to the east, vast quantities of loose sand awaiting the hand of the wind. Cates led the horses into the bottom of the arroyo, working with the Pima. Feverishly the others worked, filling the canteens. Maria sat stolidly, seemingly unaware ... and at the last moment when the others had gone below, Cates came to her. "Come, Maria, were going below."

  She looked up at him with wide, liquid eyes. "No, not yet."

  He hesitated, then turned away to carry a last canteen of water and an armful of hastily gathered wood from the remains of the big fire.

  Grant Kimbrough came up through the rocks and looked quickly around. There was no one, only Maria, and she was staring at the vast yellow sky. Dropping swiftly to his knees he scooped the gold into a heap and gathered in handfuls to throw into the saddlebags he had hastily concealed in the rocks when carrying his saddle below. It was the work of a few seconds, and in that time Maria did not turn to look or give any evidence that she heard the faint, small sounds of his working. Quickly, he carried the saddlebags below and placed them near the mouth of the wind-hollowed, shallow cave that was their only shelter.

  The cave offered only a few feet of overhang, and partial shelter from a clump of mesquite. Behind this clump they held the horses, tied tight against lunging.

  Cates looked up suddenly and straightened to his feet listening. There was a faint, far-off sound, a sound that as he listened grew into a vast and mammoth roaring. "Its coming," he said, "get back against the rocks."

  He started for the path to the upper arroyo. Jennifer ran after him. "Logan, no!"

  He had to shout to make her hear, although the sand was still distant. "Maria!" he shouted.

  Wheeling, he ran up the path and she followed, at the top they looked around. There was nobody, anywhere. Maria was gone!

  Appalled, he sprang to the top of the rocks and looked quickly around. Then he pointed. Jennifer stared in consternation and horror. At least two hundred yards away, walking south into the desert, was Maria. She was walking quietly along, her square and heavy figure, shoulders somewhat stooped, but carrying a dignity all her own, acting as if nothing more serious impended than an afternoon stroll. She walked steadily, plodding through the sand, headed south in the wild, unbelievable loneliness toward Pinacate and the Gulf.

  Cates shouted, throwing his voice into the awful roar of the wind, but she could not have heard him. And if she did, by some freak of the wind, she did not turn or look back.

  "Logan!" Jennifer cried. "Weve got to get her! We must!"

  "We couldnt!" he shouted. "There isnt time!" He pointed to the open desert. There, only a mile or two away, and roaring toward them, was a wall of sand that towered thousands of feet into the sky; before it tumbleweeds rolled and bounced, and before it came a strange chill, frightening after the heat of the earlier day.

  Catching Jennifers hand, he ran back to the path. Cowering to catch a breath in the shelter of some rocks, he shouted into her ear, "Think of it! What is there left for her? Shed be arrested for robbery, probably murder! Its better this way!" And he pulled her toward shelter.

  They stumbled down into the hollow under the arroyo bank. And then the wind came.

  Junie huddled close in Lonnie Foremans arms, her coat wrapped about her, a blanket over her hair and face. Grant Kimbrough stared at them, his face expressionless, showing neither emotion nor feeling of any kind. He drew his hat down hard and turned up the collar of his frayed frock coat, gathering a blanket around him. Lugo huddled in a blanket of his own near the horses, only his eyes visible, and when Jennifer Fair cuddled into a blanket with Logan Cates neither he nor anyone was surprised. He held her close, feeling her warmth, knowing suddenly this was the way it must be, not only now, but always.

  And the wind blew.

  It was like no other wind, it was like no other sound, it was a vast, mighty roaring, a sound beyond understanding that filled all the space between the mountains, and over them the sand blew, shutting them into their hollow, ripping shrubs from the earth, rolling stones that echoed down the wash with great, hollow, knocking sounds. Sand sifted into their eyes and ears, it choked their throats, and the air grew colder still, colder and thinner, until they gasped for every breath, fighting to stay alive, fighting to avoid suffocation.

  All sense of time was lost; they clung to each other as drowning people cling, frightened, cold, and alone. The earth seemed to rock beneath them, and still they clung together, and after that, a long time after, when minds, nerves and bodies were too weary to stand any further strain, they slept.

  Logan Cates awakened, chilled to the bone, to hear a faint stirring. He parted the blanket and sand cascaded from him. Huddled together as they were, they had been half buried in the blown sand. Tony Lugo was saddling a horse.

  Cates got stiffly to his feet and began digging the firewood from the sand. "Going somewhere?" he asked.

  "I think better I ride," Lugo said quietly. "Soon white men come." He twisted the rope in his hands. "Maybe they from Yuma."

  "All right, Tony." He brought a twist of grass, hastily ripped up the night before, from his pocket. Thrusting it under the wood he cupped a match in his stiff fingers. The grass caught, then a bit of hanging bark, and soon a fire was crackling.

  Then Tony Lugos words penetrated.

  "There are white men coming?"

  The Pima nodded. "They far off, one, two hour. I see them."

  Lugo paused as if searching for words, then glanced meaningfully at the still huddled shape of Grant Kimbrough. "Gold gone," he said.

  "Covered with sand, probably."

  "No."

  Logan Cates considered that. Had there been a slight move from Kimbrough? Was the man listening? "No matter," he said. He glanced at Lugo. "Did you want it?"

  If Lugo could have looked amused, he would have. "No, I have horse, gun, maybe two dollars, I get drunk. Man have gold, he runs too fast. All the time run fast before maybe somebody catch up." He stepped into the saddle. For a moment he hesitated. "You good man, Cates."

  He put the horse up the path and was gone. Logan looked after him, then knelt to stroke his fire, and when he looked around, the others were stirring, getting out of their blankets. Jennifer brushed her hair back and went to the waterhole, then up the path to the others. She came back, running.

  "Logan! The waters gone! Its all dried up and the holes are half full of sand!"

  "I know. Thats why I had the canteens filled. The air in those storms is so dry it sucks up any water thats left."

  Grant Kimbrough folded his blanket and picked up his saddle. Jennifer glanced at him, then at Cates, who said nothing. Kimbrough saddled his horse.

  Lonnie and Junie were folding the little gear there was left.

  Jennifer stood over the fire, warming herself, and Logan Cates waited, spreading his fingers over the flames.

  Kimbrough finished his saddling and turned on them.

  "Why dont you say something, Cates? You know I got the gold. Why dont you say something about it?"

  Logan Cates lifted his eyes. In that moment he knew that what was to come could not be avoided. He was glad that Jennifer was out of the line of fire, but wished she were further away. The kids against the back wall were all right.

  "I dont say anything about it, Kimbrough," he said quietly, "because I dont care."

  "You dont care?"

  "Why should I? It doesnt belong to me, and I dont want it. As far as that goes, it wont do you any good, either. If you stop and think about it, you know it, too."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "You may have some bright ideas about investments, but that just wont be. Youll gamble it, lose a little, win a little, and finally lose it all."

  Something inside Kimbrough died. Suddenly he knew th
at what Logan Cates had said was true. He would gamble it away, and if he had married Jennifer he might, sooner or later, have gambled that away, or let it waste. He knew it and hated Cates for making him know it.

  "Youre wrong, Cates," he said, and his voice sounded strange in the hollow of the bank. "Youre wrong about that, and wrong about a lot of things. You believe youll ride out of here with Jennifer, but you wont. Only one person is riding out of here, and thats me."

  Logan Cates heard Lonnie turn slowly around, and hoped Lonnie would stay out of it.

  Kimbrough said, "Dont look for your gun, kid. Ive got it. I took it last night when the wind was blowing. Id have taken yours, Cates, only you I want to kill."