by Jory Sherman
In the fraction of seconds it took for the man to steady his horse and take aim, John judged the distance between him and the muzzle of that rifle.
At least two hundred yards, maybe more, he figured.
A hundred thoughts flashed through John’s brain in those meager seconds. Distance. Trajectory. Angle. Windage. All useless, all numberless. But he thought of them and wondered if the man on the hill was a marksman. If it wasn’t Crudder, he would have sent his best shot up there, a man who could drop game at four hundred yards or maybe five hundred yards. Who could shoot a running rabbit, bark a squirrel, take a turkey’s head off with a .30-30 at one hundred and fifty yards.
That was likely who was up there on that peak, and he and Ben were out in the open, no cover that would stand up to a lead bullet that could go through a saguaro and tear a man’s heart to shreds.
“Zigzag,” John barked and wheeled Gent just as he saw a puff of white smoke belch from the muzzle of that rifle.
Ben rode off in one direction. John rode off in another.
He heard the crack of the rifle after the bullet struck near the spot where he had just been a split second before. He didn’t look back and rode for the little hill, twisting Gent back and forth like a corkscrew. A few seconds later, he heard the whine of a second bullet as it caromed off a rock, and the rifle report sounded like an afterthought in the stillness.
He reached the hill and reined Gent behind it as another shot sounded. He did not hear the bullet and hoped it had not hit Ben.
Ben rounded the other end of the hill and John pointed straight south. The horses were struggling to keep up speed, and he knew they could only go a few more yards before one or both of them foundered.
It was a dangerous time.
More figuring in his head. How long would it take the shooter to ride down that hill and give chase? How stout was the man’s horse, how much wind did it have left?
Questions and more questions, hurtling at lightning speed through his mind as if any of the answers could save them.
And where were the other three men?
“We got to hold up, John,” Ben said. “Or we’ll kill these horses.”
“Do it,” John said, hauling on the reins. Gent stumbled to a halt and hung his head, gasping for breath, the air wheezing in his throat, his sides heaving with the effort to draw cool air into his lungs. Only the air was not cool, but hot and thick, burning already tortured tissue.
“He’ll be comin’ after us, John.”
“Probably. Let’s walk them south and we’ll make a stand behind the next hill.
Both men looked ahead as their horses plodded along, out of breath, out of strength, and out of fight for survival. It pained John to hear Gent struggling for breath and feel him walking on wobbly wooden legs that were about to turn to rubber.
There was nothing but empty plain ahead.
The landscape was as desolate as if a giant thrasher had swept it clean of all life. The hills were on either side and far away. South were gullies and washouts and stately saguaros standing mute as statuary.
John jerked his rifle from its scabbard, then hauled on the reins, pulling Gent to a full stop.
“What’re you gonna do, Johnny?” Ben asked.
“I’m going to shoot the first sonofabitch that rides around that hill.”
Ben stopped, turned Blaster around, and pulled his rifle from its scabbard.
Neither man said a word as they waited. Waited for whatever was bound to come.
10
FAR OFF IN THE DISTANCE, TO THE SOUTH, JOHN SAW SOMETHING that startled him. It was so far away he could not be sure what it was. The only thing about it that caught his eye was the color. Green. He felt as if he was looking at a far-off sea, the way the light bounced off the verdant patch of land. He closed and opened his eyes as if to clear his brain of mirages, false images.
When he opened them again, the color was still there, and his heart throbbed in his temples for a moment. So small, so far away, but the contrast of that color against the bronze brown of the surrounding landscape made his heart skip a beat as if some drug had invaded his veins and pumped some exotic fuel into his bloodstream.
“Somebody’s comin’, Johnny,” Ben said, his voice a whispery rasp.
John looked back toward the hill they had rounded. A man on horseback was heading their way, his rifle barrel glinting in the sun.
“Yeah,” John said.
“It looks like that Mead feller.”
“It is.”
“Where you boys goin’?” Mead called. “Don’t y’all want to come to Tucson with us? Make you some money?”
Ben and John exchanged glances.
“No, Jubal,” John yelled back, “we have other plans.”
“You got Cruddy mighty upset, runnin’ off like that.”
“Let Cruddy ride his own trail,” John replied.
“He don’t like folks he treated real nice runnin’ out on him.”
All the time he was yelling, Mead was walking his horse closer to them. John noticed that, measured the distance, gauging the range.
“We don’t like to be told where to go,” John said as Mead closed the distance a foot or two at a time.
“He thought you’d be grateful.”
“Grateful for what?”
“Well, he didn’t kill you boys.”
“You’re right about that, Jubal,” John said. “All he did was kidnap us and keep us prisoner.”
Mead guffawed. Coming closer.
“He’s inchin’ up on us, John,” Ben said.
“More like yarding up on us, Ben.”
Ben didn’t laugh.
“Why don’t you and Ben ride on back with me and talk to Cruddy? See if we can’t settle this.” Mead kept coming.
“Nothing to settle,” John said. He no longer had to shout.
Another few feet and he’d be able to see Mead’s eyes. They were shaded now by the brim of his hat.
“Yeah, I think there is,” Mead said, his horse eating up more ground.
“We can’t just let him . . .” Ben’s voice trailed off.
Jubal Mead stopped his horse. He was raising his rifle to his shoulder.
John’s hand dove for his pistol. Mead was well within pistol range. John’s hand was a blur as he cleared leather, cocking the pistol on the rise.
Ben swore under his breath.
Mead steadied his rifle. John could see him clearly.
Mead fired his rifle.
Ben ducked instinctively.
John raised his arm, took deadly aim with his pistol. As Mead was levering another cartridge into the chamber of his Winchester, John squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked in his hand with the recoil. Smoke and sparks belched from the muzzle and the bullet sped on its way. Mead looked up as the bullet caught him square in the chest.
Mead’s arms rose up and the rifle in his hands took to the air. He looked, for an instant, like some lost supplicant beseeching the heavens for mercy. It was a terrible moment for John as he let out the breath in his lungs.
He cocked his pistol for another shot, but Mead was finished. He clutched at his chest and swayed to one side, then toppled to the ground. His rifle fell nearby with a dull thud.
“You got him, John. Put his lamp out, sure as hell.”
John said nothing. He looked at the fallen man. Mead was not moving. His horse had backed away and, head drooping, ears stiffened, looked at the dead man, whickering softly. The sound of the horse tore at John’s heart. There was a sadness in that whicker, a note of animal grief over a lost friend.
John put the pistol on half cock, rammed the empty hull out of the cylinder chamber, and shoved another cartridge into the empty spot. He spun the cylinder and seated it. He kept six bullets in his pistol, unlike some, who left an empty chamber on which the hammer could rest. For safety’s sake. He left the pistol on half cock and slipped it back in his holster, a sudden sickness in him that had no known origin nor residence.
“He ain’t goin’ to get up, John,” Ben said, as if reading his thoughts. “We ought to light a shuck. Them others’ll be swarmin’ out here like a pack of hornets.”
“Yeah,” John said, just to be using his voice instead of thinking about Mead and the bullet that had taken his life.
Did talking about a thing make it so?
John wondered.
Perhaps, he thought, there was a curse on the gun his father had customized for him. Maybe there was a curse born of that day when Hobart and his men had gunned down his entire family—father, mother, little sister—and he had taken up the gun to exact vengeance.
Have I kept the pistol with honor? He wondered. Have I only drawn it with good reason?
Maybe.
“John, we ought to git,” Ben said. “You can’t do nothin’ for Mead.”
“I know.”
Ben tickled Blaster’s flanks and turned him to the south.
“Well, come on, then,” Ben said.
John clucked to Gent and turned him, following Ben, the sickness gradually subsiding. That is, the queasiness in his belly was diminishing, but there was a cloud of it in his brain, a worry that flitted around inside the cloud like a wounded bird, a broken-winged fledgling sparrow that had fallen from its nest and could not fly. The gun weighed heavy on his gunbelt and he could feel its pressure against his leg, the heat from it burning through to the bone.
“See that green spot yonder?” John said to Ben when they had ridden some distance from where they had been.
Ben squinted into the sun, shaded his eyes.
“Might be one of them mirages.”
“Do you see it, damn it?”
“Ain’t no need to get testy about it, John. Yeah, I see somethin’ green way off. Don’t look real, though.”
“Well, head straight for it. Might be grass, and where there’s grass, there’s probably water. And where there’s water, there are probably trees.”
“Whooo-ee, John, I think that sun done burned your brain to a crisp.”
“Just hold to that line, Ben.”
“You are testy, ain’t you?”
John said nothing and when Ben looked over at him, Ben turned away as if unable to bear the look on John’s face.
They rode on in silence, both looking back every so often to see if they were being followed. They were not, but the uneasiness between the two men continued. For no good reason, Ben would have said, but he was keeping his mouth shut.
The green patch grew as they rode closer. It spread from a small island into a peninsula, but they still could not make out what it was. The ground was uneven. It rose and fell like some undulating reptile, and they did see small shimmering lakes dancing in the sun, looking like lakes or ponds. The heat was intense and both men were oiled in sweat, their foreheads grimy and glistening, their shirts black with moisture and stuck to their backs and drooping sodden in front.
The valley was lower than the terrain the two men were traversing, and when they came to its rim, their eyes widened in wonder. Spread out before them was a long valley, lush and green with grass and a sea of wooly sheep clustered at one end. There were adobe huts, like small islands, on the far side and in the middle and near them. They saw no signs of life, neither herders nor sheepdogs, and they rode down into the grass and saw the irrigation canals threading through the grass, little silver threads among the green.
“A sheep ranch,” Ben said.
“Looks like it.”
John scanned the horizon. The sheep were feeding. He had no idea how many there were, but they covered a large section of land and seemed so peaceful and contented, he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.
“There’s a little canal near that adobe over yonder,” John said. “Let’s give the horses a drink and see if anyone’s home.”
“It don’t look natural, does it?” Ben said, tipping his hat back and scratching behind his ear.
“It’s mighty strange. But somebody went to a lot of trouble to bring water and grass to the desert.”
“I’ll say,” Ben said.
They rode down to the nearest adobe shack. It looked old, as if it had been there for centuries. The bricks were smooth and crumbling, but the roof had not been thatched that long. It was small and had but one window on their side. As they rode around it to the front, there was a side window, too. But the adobe looked deserted.
In front, there was a bare patch of ground where no grass grew, and a pot of flowers next to the door. The ground looked trampled, as if it had known many feet of late.
“Hello the house,” John called as the two men reined up. The horses nickered and shook their heads, their rubbery nostrils sniffing the nearby water. Gent looked longingly at the ditch where fresh water ran from east to west. Both ends curled back into the grass in the shape of a horseshoe.
“Anybody home?” Ben called, a note of uneasiness in it.
“Door’s closed,” John said, “but it doesn’t look tight.”
“Nope. It’s open a crack.”
“Well, let’s go see. Maybe somebody’s asleep inside.” John swung out of the saddle and led Gent to the ditch. The horse drank greedily, the bit clicking against its teeth.
Ben dismounted and took Blaster to another spot and let the animal drink.
John walked up to the door and pushed on it. It swung on leather hinges, but it was too dark to see inside.
He started to step through the door, when he heard a slight sound.
The next moment, he was staring at the twin snouts of a double-barreled shotgun.
He heard two clicks as someone on the other end hammered back.
Ben froze to a statue.
John’s muscles tightened and then loosened as instinctively his right hand dropped to the butt of his pistol. This happened so fast, he wasn’t even aware of what he had done, but his mind was clanging with warning klaxons and he knew he was just a split second away from getting blown to shreds at close range.
“You jerk that pistol, mister, and you’ll be nothin’ but blood and bone lying in a pile of rags.”
John’s fingers went numb as his gut roiled with a sickening bile and his knees turned to jelly.
He looked into the darkness and saw only a black chasm where a man might tumble into eternity in the solitary blink of an eye.
11
BEADS OF SWEAT GLITTERED LIKE AMBER ON JOHN’S FOREHEAD, glistened like a cluster of tiny jewels. His pulse pounded in his ears. His heart raced with a runner’s speed. Beyond the barrels of the shotgun was a darkness as black and cold as a mine pit, and the abyss beckoned to him with all the hypnotic power of a hooded cobra weaving a dancer’s arabesques as it rose slowly from a fakir’s woven basket.
Time stood as still as the caught air in his lungs.
He raised his right hand with a slowness beyond measure. He opened his palm to show that it was empty. Sweat seeped into his eyes, stinging the delicate tissue with the acrid breath of shaven onions.
“There you go,” the husky voice said. “That’s a nice boy.”
John tried to swallow the hard lump in his throat.
“Now, step back, sonny. Real slow-like.”
John took a step backward. The ground felt like a sponge under his boots, as fragile and shaky as a suspension bridge over a deep canyon.
Next, John heard a shrill, high-pitched whistle from inside the adobe.
“Both of you, keep your hands high, where I can see ’em.”
Ben’s hands shot upward and John let his float to a place above his head. Men rose up from places in the surrounding grass. They all held rifles and they advanced slowly toward the two men. They were Mexicans and their bronzed faces bore menacing looks. They seemed to appear from out of nowhere. He heard the soft squeak of leather as the door to the adobe opened wider.
“Now, let’s see you boys try something,�
� the voice said.
John saw something move and then a person stepped out, holding the shotgun.
The person was a woman. She was wearing duck pants and boots, a bright blue gingham shirt, and a straw hat. Her hair was snowy white, dripped down her back in a single braid. She wore a pistol and gunbelt. John stared at her in disbelief.
“Now, what have we got here,” she said. “A couple of sheep rustlers?”
Ben swallowed and said nothing.
“No, ma’am,” John said. “We’re not rustlers, honest.”
The Mexicans, six of them, surrounded John and Ben, their rifles held at the ready, hip high.
“Then, what the hell’re you two doin’ on my property? Sneakin’ around, tryin’ to break into my line shack?”
“Ma’am, if you’ll ease those hammers down on that scattergun, I’ll tell you why we came onto your property.”
“Mister, I don’t trust you as far as I could throw your horse. You just tell me what you’re doin’ here and you’ll keep breathin’.”
“Some outlaws are chasing us, ma’am. We were just riding south to get away from them.”
“That what the shootin’ was all about? I heard some shots a while ago.”
“Yes’m,” John said.
“You kill anybody?”
“Yes’m.”
A look of suspicion crept into the woman’s eyes.
“Who’d you kill?”
“One of the outlaws. He was drawing down on me with his rifle.”
“And you shot him?”
“Yes’m, I did.”
“So you say.”
“So I say.”
“You look like an owlhooter yourself. You and that old codger there.”
“I know,” John said, and his lips formed a wry smile. “But do we look like sheep rustlers?”
The woman cocked her head and eyed John with one raised eyebrow.
“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “You look like my kid brother. And he’s a no-account scoundrel.”
“Yes’m,” John said.
“What’s your name?” she asked, and from her tone, John thought she really cared.