The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five

by Louis L'Amour

  It is a scientifically accepted fact that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time, and the resulting altercation, carried on while the frightened horse headed for the brush at a dead run, left the Kid a bedraggled winner.

  His shirt was gone and he was smeared head to foot with mingled lion and human blood. The Kid had handled the mountain lion with a razor-edged bowie knife, and regardless of their undoubted efficiency, they simply aren’t neat.

  Accordingly, Bess O’Neal, with Irish temper and considerable flashing of eyes and a couple of stamps of a dainty foot, had said he either must arrive on hand and in one piece or no more dates. Should he be in no condition to dance with her, he could go his way and she would go hers.

  HENCE, THE CACTUS KID, wearing a black buckskin jacket heavily ornamented with silver, black-pearl inlaid gun belt and holsters, black creased trousers, highly polished boots and a black, silver-ornamented sombrero, was bound for Rock Creek School.

  His gelding, a beautiful piebald with a dark nose and one blue eye, stepped daintily along doing his best to live up to his resplendent master as well as to the magnificent saddle and bridle he wore.

  These last had been created to order for Don Pedro Bedoya, of the Sonora Bedoyas, and stolen from him by one Sam Mawson, known to the trade as “One Gun” Mawson.

  Mawson decided they would look best on the Kid’s horse, and attempted to effect an exchange by trading a bullet in the head for the horse. He failed to make allowances for an Irishman’s skull, and the bullet merely creased the Kid, who came to just as Mawson completed the job of exchanging saddles and was about to mount. The Cactus Kid spoke, Mawson wheeled and drew…One Gun was not enough.

  The outlaw’s taste, the Kid decided, was better than his judgment. He departed the scene astride a one-thousand-dollar saddle.

  With Rock Creek School a bare six miles away where Bess O’Neal would be looking her most lovely, the Cactus Kid, a gorgeous picture of what every young cowhand would wear if he had money enough, rode along with a cheerful heart and his voice lifted in song.

  “Lobo” Fernandez was big, rough, and ugly. He had loved his brother Ace—but then, Lobo never played poker with him. With Miguel, a younger brother, he waited beside the road. Someone had noticed and commented on that deft movement of the Kid’s fingers that foretold the demise of Ace, and then, Lobo had never liked the Kid, anyway.

  Out in the West, where men are men and guns are understood, even the bravest of men stand quiet when an enemy has the drop. The Kid was a brave man, but Lobo and Miguel Fernandez, two men on opposite sides of the road, had the drop on him, and clearly the situation called for arbitration.

  He reined in the piebald and for one heart-sinking, hopeless instant he realized this was the third and last chance given him by Bess O’Neal.

  “Buenas noches, señores!” he said politely. “You go to the dance?”

  “No!” Lobo was more emphatic than the occasion demanded. “We have wait for you. We have a leetle bet, Miguel and I, he bet the ants finish you before the buzzards. I say the buzzards weel do it first.”

  The Cactus Kid studied them warily. Neither gun wavered. If he moved he was going to take two big lead slugs through the brisket. “Let’s forget it, shall we? The dance will be more fun. Besides, ants bother me.”

  There was no humor in the clan Fernandez. With hands bound behind him, and one Fernandez six feet on his left, another a dozen feet behind, the Cactus Kid rode away.

  He knew what they planned, for the mention of ants was enough. It is a quaint old Yaqui custom to bind a victim to an anthill, and the Fernandez brothers had been suspected of just such action on at least two occasions. On one of these the Kid had helped to remove the body from the hill before the ants finished. It had been a thoroughly unpleasant and impressive sight.

  The moon he had planned for Bess (by special arrangement) was undeniably gorgeous, the lonely ridges and stark boulders of the desert seemed a weird and fantastic landscape on some distant planet as the Cactus Kid rode down a dim trail guided by Lobo. Once, topping a rise, he glimpsed the distant lights of Rock Creek School, and even thought he heard strains of music.

  The trail they followed dipped deep into the canyon of the Agua Prieta and skirted the dark waters of the stream. The Cactus Kid knew then where they were taking him—to the old medicine camp of the Yaquis. With the knowledge came an idea.

  Suddenly Miguel sneezed, and when he did, his head bobbed to the left.

  “Ah!” the Kid said. “Bad luck! Very bad luck!”

  “What?” Miguel turned his head to stare at him.

  “To sneeze to the left—it’s the worst kind of luck,” the Kid said.

  Neither Fernandez replied, yet he had a hunch the comment on the old Yaqui superstition impressed them. He knew it had been a belief of many of the southwestern tribes that if the head bobbed left when one sneezed, it spelled disaster. He had a hunch both men knew the old belief.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he said softly.

  MIGUEL SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY in the saddle. The high black cliffs of the canyon loomed above them. Both men, he knew, had been here before. Being part Yaqui, they would be impressed with the evil spirits reported to haunt the old medicine camp of the tribe.

  He worked desperately with his cramped fingers, trying to get the rawhide thongs looser. A stone rattled somewhere, and he jumped.

  “What was that?” he said, in a startled voice.

  Lobo Fernandez looked up, glared at him, then glanced around uneasily. There was no moonlight here, and nothing could be seen. The Kid’s gun belt hung over the pommel of Lobo’s saddle, and with a free hand a lot might be done.

  “Wait!” he said suddenly, sharply.

  The brothers reined in, and he could almost feel their scowls. “Listen!” he said sharply. Their heads came up with his word, and he had a hunch. When one listens for something at night, there is invariably some sound, or seeming sound.

  Somewhere, rocks slid, and the canyon seemed to sigh. Lobo shifted uneasily in his saddle, and spoke rapidly to Miguel in Spanish, and Miguel grunted uneasily.

  “Ah?” the Cactus Kid said. “You die soon.”

  “Huh?” Lobo turned on him.

  “You die soon,” the Kid repeated. “The Old Gods don’t like you bringing me here. I’m no Yaqui. This here is a Yaqui place. A place of the spirits.”

  Lobo Fernandez ignored him, but Miguel seemed uneasy. He glanced at his brother as if to speak, then shrugged. The Kid worked at the rawhide thongs. His wrists were growing sweaty from the warmth and the constant straining. If he could get rid of them for a while, or if he had a little more time—

  Then suddenly the trail widened and he was in the flat place beside the stream, the place where the Yaquis came, long ago. Once before, chasing wild horses, the Kid had been through here. There was an old altar, Aztec, some said, at the far end in a sort of cave formed by the overhang. The Mexican rider he had been with had been fearful of the place and wanted very much to leave.

  “Maybe you die here,” the Kid said. “My spirit say you’ll die soon.”

  Lobo snarled at him, and then they halted. About here, the Kid recalled, there was a big anthill. They had certainly brought him to the right place, for no one would ever come by to release him. This was a place never visited by anyone. Probably only two or three white men had ever descended to this point, and yet it was no more than fifteen miles at most from Rock Creek School.

  Lobo swung down, and then walked over to the Kid and, reaching up with one big hand, dragged him from the horse. The Kid shoved off hard and let go with all his hundred and forty pounds.

  It was unexpected, and Lobo staggered and fell, cursing. Miguel sprang around the horse, and the Kid kicked out viciously with both feet and knocked the younger Fernandez rolling. But the Kid’s success was short-lived.

  Lobo sprang to his feet and kicked the Kid viciously in the ribs, and then they dragged him, cursing him all the while, to the anthill. He felt th
e swell of it under his back. Then, as they bound his feet and Miguel began to drive stakes in the ground, Lobo drew his knife and leaned over him. He made two quick gashes, neither of them deep, in either side of the Kid’s neck.

  Then he drew the sharp edge of the knife across the Kid’s stomach, making no effort to more than break the skin, and then on either of his ankles, after pulling off his boots. It was just something to draw enough blood to invite the ants. The rest they would accomplish in time, by themselves.

  The two brothers drew off then, muttering between themselves. His talk of evil spirits had made them uneasy, he knew, and they kept casting glances toward the cave where the altar stood. Yet there seemed some other reason for their hesitation. They muttered between themselves, and then walked away, seeming to lose interest in him. Yet as they left he heard one word clearly above the others: señorita.

  What señorita? He scowled, still struggling with the thongs that bound his ankles. They were growing slick from perspiration now, and perhaps some blood. The ants had not discovered him, and probably would not until morning brought them out.

  HE WAS LYING across the anthill, lying on his side. Stakes driven into the ground on either side of his body, but some distance off, tied him in position so he could not roll away. The rawhide thongs binding him to the stakes were tight and strong. Other stakes had been driven into the ground above his head and below his feet. From the stake above his head a noose had been slipped under his jawbone and drawn tight, so his head was all but immovable. His ankles had been roped tight down to the stake below his feet.

  It was with no happiness that the Cactus Kid contemplated his situation. Yet two factors aroused his curiosity; the señorita the brothers had talked about, and why they did not mount and leave the canyon.

  Their work here had been done. Neither brother was immune from superstition, and in fact, both of them were ignorant men reared in all that strange tangle of fact and fancy that makes up Yaqui folklore. This place had a history, a weird history that extended back to some dim period long before the coming of the red man, back to those pre-Indian days when other peoples roamed this land.

  Artifacts had been found in the caves, and back there where the idol was, there were stone remains of some kind of crude temple built under an overhanging shelf. A professor who explored the canyon had once told the Kid that the base of the supposedly Aztec god had provided a base for some other figure before it, that it was another type of stone, and one not found nearby.

  Yet there was nothing in all this to help him. What he had hoped for, he did not know, but any uncertainty on their part could act favorably for him, so when the idea came to him, he had played on their superstition and the natural feeling all men have when in a strange, lonely place during the dark and silent hours. It had come to nothing. He was strapped to an anthill, and when the sun awakened them to full vigor and they began their work, they would find the blood, and then they would swarm over him by the thousands.

  Doggedly, bitterly, almost without hope, he worked at the rawhide that bound his wrists. Fearful of what he might do if they had been freed even for a moment, the brothers Fernandez had left his hands tied when they threw him on the ground and staked him out. Yet despite the blood and perspiration on his chafed and painful wrists, the rawhide seemed loosened but little. Nevertheless, he continued to work, struggling against time and against pain.

  Then suddenly, in a bitter and clarifying moment, he realized what they had meant when they spoke of a señorita. They had been talking about Bess.

  The instant the idea came to him he knew he was right.

  Not over a week ago when he rode up to her home and swung down from the saddle, she had told him about Lobo Fernandez and his brother, the smooth, polished one, the one called Juan. They had stopped her in front of the store and tried to talk. Juan had caught at her arm. She had twisted away, and then Ernie Cable had come out of the general store and wanted to know what was going on, and they had laughed and walked away. But she had noticed them watching the house.

  They had been talking about Bess O’Neal. But what? What had they said?

  Where were the other brothers? Where were Juan and Pedro?

  The low murmur of voices came to him, and as he lay on the low mound of the anthill, he could see the glow of their cigarettes. They were sitting on the ground not far from the image, smoking. And waiting.

  Using all his strength, he tugged at his bonds. They were solid, and they cut into his wrists like steel wire. He relaxed, panting. He could feel sweat running down his body under his shirt. This was going to be hell. Even if he got free, he still must get his hands on a gun, and even then, there would be four of them.

  Four? There were only two, now. Yet once the idea had come to him, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Juan Fernandez was no fool. It was such a good chance, they could kill two birds with one stone. Juan wanted Bess O’Neal. If the Cactus Kid and Bess vanished at the same time, everyone would shrug and laugh. They would believe they had eloped. No one would even think to question the opinion. It was so natural a thing for them to do.

  Revenge for their brother’s death, and the girl. They could take her to Sonora or back in the hills, and nobody would even think to look.

  THEN HE HEARD the sound of horses on the trail. He tried to lift his head to listen, but it was tied too tight. He lay there, hating himself and miserable, listening to the horses. Desperately, his mind fought for a way out, an escape. Again he strained his muscles against the binding rawhide. He forced his wrists with all his might, but although he strained until his hands dug into the sand under him, he could do nothing, he found them tight as ever. The sweat and blood made his wrists slippery so they would turn, ever so little, under the rawhide, but that was all.

  His fingers were touching something, something cool and flat. For an instant, listening again to the approaching horses, that something made no impression, it refused to identify itself. Then on a sudden it hit him, and his fingers felt desperately.

  A small, flat surface, light in weight, triangular—an arrowhead!

  There were many of them here, he knew. All over this ancient medicine ground of the Yaqui Indians, delicately shaped from flint.

  He gripped it in his fingers and tried to reach it up to the rawhide that bound his wrists.

  They had crossed his wrists, then bound them tightly, and had taken several turns of the rawhide around his forearms, binding them tightly together, but by twisting his fingers he could bring the rawhide thong and the edge of the flint arrowhead together. Straining in every muscle, he commenced to saw at the thong.

  The horses were still coming. In the echoing stillness of the canyon, he knew he would hear them for a good half hour before they arrived. The steep path was narrow, and they must come slowly.

  Minutes passed. The cutting pain in his wrists was a gnawing agony now, and the salt of perspiration had mingled with it to add to his discomfort. Yet he struggled on. It was desperately hard to get the edge of the flint against the rawhide now, but he could still manage it, and a little pressure.

  A voice called out, then another. The horses came into the basin, and he heard a question in Spanish, then a laughing response. Then a light was struck, and a fire blazed up. In the glow of the fire applied to sticks gathered earlier, he could see the four brothers, and Bess O’Neal.

  She was standing with her back to him, her wrists tied, and Juan gripped her arm. Lobo stared at her greedily, and then Juan asked a question. Leading the girl, they turned toward the anthill and the Cactus Kid.

  Bess cried out when she saw him. “You! When they told me you were here, I thought they lied. They said you were hurt—that you—Then when I was outside talking to them, I suddenly realized something was wrong, but when I tried to leave and go hack inside to get someone else, they grabbed me, tied me, and brought me to this place.”

  “Keep your nerve, honey,” the Cactus Kid said grimly. “This isn’t over!”

  Juan laughed
and, leaning down, struck him across the mouth. “Pig!” he snarled. “I should kill you now. I should cut you to little pieces, only the ants will do it better. And if you die, you would not hear what happens to the señorita. It is better you hear!”

  He straightened up, and they trooped back to the fire. The frightened, despairing look in the girl’s eyes gave him added incentive. He scraped and scratched at the rawhide, staring hard toward the fire.

  The brothers were in no hurry. They had the girl. They had him. He was helpless, and no one suspected them. Moreover, they were in a place where no one came. They could afford to take their time.

  Suddenly he braced himself again and strained his muscles. He felt a sudden weakness in his bonds, and then his straining fingers found a loose end. He had cut through the rawhide!

  Working with his swollen, clumsy fingers, he got the loose end looser, then managed to shake some of the other loops from his wrists. In a matter of minutes, his hands were free. He lay still then, panting and getting his wind, then he lifted his hands to the halter on his head and neck. A few minutes’ work and that was freed, then the thongs that bound his wrists and ankles.

  HE WAS OUTSIDE the glow of the fire, which was at least a hundred yards away. He chafed his swollen wrists and rubbed his hands together. Then he got several pieces of rawhide and stuck them into his pockets. One piece, about eighteen inches long, he kept.

  The Cactus Kid got slowly to his feet, stretching himself, trying to get life into his muscles. In the vast, empty stillness of the black canyon the tiny fire glowed, and flamed red, and above it the soft voices, muted by distance and the enormity of the space around them, sounded almost like whispers.