Catlow (1963)

by L'amour, Louis

  "How far to the border?" Keleher asked.

  "As the crow flies? Eighty miles. Rough miles, if you ask me.... Next, you boys clean your guns. Scatter around the walls and keep a sharp eye out. We ain't fresh out of Indians, you can bet."

  Bijah took his hat off and wiped the sweat band, and dropped to a seat with his back against the inner wall of the ruined church. Under his breath he whispered to Cowan.

  "Ben, if you get shut of this place, I've got a mess of horses waitin' in the Churupates, about thirty miles northwest o' here. Nobody knows but me an' the Old Man. Horses and mules."

  They sat there quietly. Nearby were the prisoners, and three wounded men--one of Catlow's and two of the bandits recruited by Christina.

  "I'd watch that one," Ben said, with a slight gesture toward Christina. "She's got no more conscience than a rattler, and she's just as mean."

  "Her?" Catlow laughed. "That there's quite a girl. You just seen the wrong side of her."

  Then he grew serious. "Damn it, Ben, why didn't I tell Cord the truth? That there's a woman, you know?"

  "I think so."

  "If I ever get out of this ..."

  "You'd have to go straight."

  "Who'd want it any other way? Anyway," he said, "just let me over the border and I'll buy her a piece of Oregon she couldn't ride across in a week."

  He got up and delegated some of the men to sleep while others kept watch. There was no cover close to the ruins except on the side of the river bank, and even then, not much. Then he returned to the place near Cowan and, without another word, stretched out and in a moment was asleep.

  Ben Cowan sat beside him for a few minutes, considering the situation. There was no telling how many Indians were out there--there might be few or there might be many. But now the Indians had their chance to bottle them up good.

  He glanced at the cottonwoods. There ought to be water here. Had the monks who had lived in this place gone to the river for their water? It did not seem logical. There had been trouble with the Seris in their time, too; and though at first the Seri Indians had yielded many converts, later they had left the fold, perhaps with reason, and had become relentless foes of the Spanish.

  Ben got to his feet and slowly scouted the ruins. At one point, in a hollow not far from the wall, he saw a low place where the grass grew thick and green. He went to the packs and got a shovel, and returned to the spot.

  Outlining a space about four feet in diameter, he sank the spade in. For several minutes he dug, but the earth was dry. Nobody came near him, and when he had the hole down two feet he put the shovel aside and went back to Catlow. He was still asleep.

  Two of the men had started fires, and one was making coffee, the other broiling some mule meat. Nobody spoke to Ben, and he went over to where Christina sat. Her wrists and ankles were tied and she shot him a venomous look, but he merely smiled.

  "I should have killed you!" she said.

  "You tried," he said. "I'll say that you tried."

  He squatted on his heels beside her. "You shouldn't have come," he said. "None of us may get out of this alive. Those Seris, they can wait. They can wait for weeks if they want to--we can't." He paused for a moment, then added, "There isn't food enough--even if we could get water."

  Then he left her and returned to the hole and dug again for several minutes. At the end of the time the bottom looked the same.

  When he went back to the place by the wall, Catlow had left it. The men had exchanged places, and those who had been on guard slept. Catlow came toward him, a cup of coffee in one hand, and strip of jerked beef in the other.

  "Never fancied mule meat. Apaches like it better than beef." He bit off a chunk of the beef and worked at it seriously for several minutes.

  "Old Man, he was a mountain man--trapped with Carson, Bridger, and them. He says the best meat of all is puma-- mountain lion. Says Coulter told him the Lewis and Clark men preferred it to all other meat. He tried it many a time, swears it's best."

  When he had finished eating, Catlow cleaned his rifle and reloaded it, and Cowan did the same. Neither man talked much, and from around the walls the low murmur of conversation was slowly petering out. Not a man but expected an attack. They could not guess whether it would be a screaming rush out of the darkness, or a creeping menace, sliding ever closer to the walls under cover of darkness.

  Seated against the wall, Ben Cowan tried to compose himself for sleep, but the face of Rosita as he had last seen her kept coming into his thoughts. And when sleep came Rosita was still in his mind.

  Darkness fell, the fires died ... a sleeping man muttered, and somewhere a coyote howled.

  Ben Cowan woke with a start, and for a moment he held himself perfectly still. Never in his life had he awakened as he had now, filled with such a sense of dread.

  He lowered his hand for his gun ... and it was not there.

  Chapter Twenty-One.

  He lay still, sorting out the situation in his mind. Carefully, he felt around on the ground, but he was sure the gun had not fallen of itself, but had been taken from his holster. The gun was gone.

  He sat up, careful to make no sound. Bijah might have taken it, but that he doubted. Or one of the others might have done it, knowing him for a United States marshal. Yet that, too, he doubted.

  The pistol was gone, and his rifle was gone, and whoever had taken them must be incredibly light-fingered. Christina?

  He got to his feet, and stood listening. The night was still, incredibly still, when one came to think of it.

  No one but Bijah had slept near him. Ben's eyes grew accustomed to the night, and he stepped over to where Bijah lay. He bent over him, shaking him gently. Bijah was instantly awake.

  Bending down, Ben whispered, "You got your gun?"

  Bijah's hand moved, felt. "No! What the--"

  "Ssh!" He leaned closer. "Mine's gone, too. Where's Christina?"

  Together, they stepped to the break in the wall. All was dark and still. A man turned and muttered in his sleep.

  Bijah went quickly to where Christina had been left, Ben Cowan close behind him. She was gone!

  The other prisoners were gone, too.

  Swiftly, silently, the camp was awakened. Every man had been stripped of his guns. The two sentries were dead--they had been strangled. Old Man Merridew had been struck over the head, apparently as he awakened.

  Crouching together, every man realized what must have happened. Christina had freed herself, then her men. And then she, moving with the softness of a cat, had gone from one to the other, stripping them of their guns. The Old Man had started to wake up and had been struck; the guards had undoubtedly been strangled without ever realizing what was happening.

  "Now what?" Keleher asked.

  "The Seris," someone said, "they'll be comin'."

  "That's what she figured," Bijah said quietly. "Oh, she's a smart one! When the soldiers found us, we'd all be dead, killed by the Seris ... the loot gone. And they'd never even look for it again, figuring the Indians had it."

  "Look funny, us dead with no guns," one of the men said. "Hell," said another one, "they'd bring those back and scatter them around! And they'd take off with the loot, scot free!"

  "That ain't the question," Bijah interrupted. "Them Seris'll be comin'. We've got to fight."

  Ben Cowan spoke up. "Maybe they won't come. Gather all the fuel you can. Get some fires going."

  "Huh?" Bijah looked up at him in amazement.

  "Indians are puzzled by anything they don't understand--hell, anybody is! So we build fires and we keep them going all night. We make noise around, lots of confusion so they don't know exactly what's happening, and maybe they'll hold off. Meanwhile, we rig any sort of weapons we can find that will help us fight them off."

  Bijah went immediately to the remains of the fire, stirred the coals, then put on fuel. Dead branches and brush lay about, and there were two dead trees. All these were gathered. A second fire was started, and in a few minutes the flames were
a roaring blaze.

  All of the men but one had knives. Bijah had a derringer he had kept as a hideaway gun. Several of the men began making spears whose points they hardened in the fires. Loose bricks and stones were gathered. Some of the men slipped off their socks--a stone in the end of a sock could be used for a club.

  Meanwhile they shouted, sang, banged sticks together, and ran back and forth, never stopping where they might offer a target. It was a mad, unbelievable sight, but the men caught the spirit of it and it soon became almost a game. Wild yells rang out, shrill cowboy yells, and Indian warwhoops.

  When the stars began to pale, Bijah spoke to the men. "All right--saddle up and load up. We're goin' to ride out of here."

  "Them Indians are out there!"

  "Sure they are. But have they ever attacked us close up? We'll ride out of here carryin' sticks to look like guns. We'll ride out with our loot and we'll head northwest. We'll ride like hell the first few miles to get ahead of the Indians, then we'll troop along for a ways, then ride hard again. There'll be fresh horses waiting for us when we get there."

  "Don't forget," Merridew said, "that woman is out there with her men and our guns."

  "How could I forget that?" Bijah said bitterly. "We'll just have to gamble on her."

  Their water supply was scanty, and suddenly Ben thought of the hole he had dug. Turning, he went to the corner of the enclosure, and there it was--filled with water! Not enough for them all, but enough to water the horses and some of the mules.

  They waited until almost daylight for more water to seep into the hole, and it did come in, but not very rapidly. By the time they were ready to move, there was enough to water the rest of the animals. The men themselves would have to get along on whatever water they had in their canteens, and it was precious little.

  They rode out of the walls in a close bunch, down into the stream bed and across it. Once on the other side, Bijah gave the word and they rode out at a rapid clip.

  They saw nothing, they heard nothing. Morning lay gray upon the landscape. A light breeze drifted across the desert, played fitfully among the cactus, and died out. Carrying their sticks like rifles, the small band kept up the pace.

  With Ben Cowan added to Catlow's band, there were eight of them. Catlow's wounded man was able to ride, and to some extent, to fight. There was also one wounded man from Christina's group, the other one having died during the night. Pancho, the Mexican who had brought the news to Catlow in Tucson, had proved one of the best men he had.

  After galloping the horses for almost a mile, Bijah slowed down to a trot. There was no sign of the Indians. The Seris had never shown any indication that they would attack a ready and courageous enemy, but if the least sign of weakness or fear was indicated they would attack like madmen. That they were out there watching them, neither Ben nor Bijah had any doubt.

  They kept on, and gradually the ground began to rise. When they reached a comparatively level place, all but the wounded dismounted and walked their horses to rest them.

  Ben swore softly at being without a gun. He carried a bowie knife, but that was good only at close quarters. He knew that if once the sharp-eyed Seris detected that the riders were without rifles they would attack. They would not need to come to close quarters; they could stand off fifty or sixty yards and shoot them down with arrows.

  "Where d'you suppose that woman got to?" Bijah said suddenly. "How'd she manage to slip out without them catching her?"

  But Ben had no answer to this. . The day wore on, the sun climbed higher in the sky, the dreadful Sonora heat came upon them. The last of their water went to the wounded, and miles yet lay before them. The exhausted mules slowed and wanted to stop, but they drove them on ruthlessly. Now they could see, looming above the mirage, a far-off peak. "The Churupates," Bijah said, and they rode with hope.

  Ben Cowan's mouth was dry and his head ached from the heat. He loosened his shirt buttons, and squinted his eyes against the salt of the sweat on his face. The good brown gelding went steadily on, but now and then a heavily laden mule staggered.

  The wounded Mexican muttered in delirium, and moaned for water, but now there was none to give him. Dust rose in their faces, heat waves shimmered before their eyes. Around them grew creosote bush and cactus, along with the ever-present ocotillo. Otherwise the desert was empty.

  Mules stopped and had to be whipped to move them along, for to stop here, whether the Seris attacked or not, meant death. They plodded through a weird hell of cactus and heat, a world in which nothing seemed to exist but themselves.

  Suddenly off in the distance toward the east, Ben saw a column of riders. "Look!" he cried.

  "Five of them," Bijah said bitterly. "That's Christina."

  "We've fooled them too," Ben said after a moment. "They think we've got rifles. If they didn't, they would move in and shoot us down."

  "Maybe you're right."

  "I don't think so," the Old Man said wryly. "We're headin' for somewhere, an' she's got an idea what it's for--horses and mules. We're safe until we get there, because she'll need that stock as bad as we do."

  The miles unwound behind them. The wounded Mexican raved and screamed hoarsely, crying and begging for water. A mule went down, and they shifted its pack to the others and moved on, leaving it lying there.

  Bijah Catlow mopped his chest and swore, turning his eyes toward the distant mountain. The Mexican, Pancho, caught his shoulder and pointed excitedly at a dark loom of cloud beyond the mountain. "Tiempo de agua!" he shouted.

  "Hell," Bijah said, "he's right! This here's beginnin' the rainy period. Last of July, through August and September, it rains nearly every day. The trouble is, they're just local rains and may not reach us at all. If you've got any influence upstairs, Ben, you'd better pray. We're goin' to need that water before we make the Churupates."

  The cloud mounted rapidly, and in the distance thunder rumbled. The far-off cloud was split by a streak of lightning. A faint, cool breeze stirred the desert, and the animals staggered on.

  Bijah carried his derringer almost all the time now, ready in his hand so it could be used immediately. Twice Indians had appeared not far off.

  Ben was scared, and he admitted it to himself. No gun--only a knife, and the Indians closing in. Once it dawned on the Seris that they were unarmed--and if they got closer they could see that--they would be upon them.

  That distant peak of the Churupates seemed no closer. But the wind blew a cooling breath from off the mountains, and the horses perked up, and the mules too.

  Thunder rolled continuously now, lightning flashed, and the wind blew harder. And then the rain came. It came with a rush, the dreaded culebra de agua, or water snake, which will flood villages, devastating the countryside. They scrambled across a dry wash and up the other side, and behind them came a rushing turmoil of water that filled the wash.

  Holding in a tight bunch, they pushed on. Once they stopped to allow the animals to drink a little at one of the pools on the desert. The animals seemed to have gained new strength, but the lashing rain and roaring thunder wiped out everything but the storm itself and the driving necessity to go on.

  For more than an hour the rain came in a veritable cloudburst. Then it eased off, although it continued for almost two hours more. Finally it eased away, leaving the desert drenched and cool. When the clouds cleared, the Churupates were just ahead.

  Bijah Catlow had fallen behind, and Ben lagged behind with him. As the outlaws and their mule train crossed the hill that was the beginning of the Churupates, Ben rode out on one flank to push a mule back into the herd. He heard a clatter of hoofs and looked around to see Catlow disappearing up an arroyo, driving several of the mules ahead of him. He hesitated only a moment then wheeled his horse and rode after him.

  He could have gone no more than a hundred yards when the arroyo branched, and the light was too dim to see tracks. Catlow and at least four mules had vanished. Cowan hesitated, chose the wrong arroyo and, after riding a short distance, sta
rted back. Bijah was waiting for him in the main arroyo when he reached it.

  Only when he was abreast of him could Cowan see that Catlow was grinning. "Fooled, weren't you?" He chuckled. "I believe in a little insurance. The way our luck's been runnin', I don't trust that place up there."

  They rode over the hill, then around a bluff. There, in a hollow among the hills of the Churupates was a ruined cabin and a small corral. At pasture in the hollow were the mules and horses awaiting them. But there was something more.

  The last light of day showed the scene in the hollow, though against the far wall it was dark. In the center were the outlaws,, their hands lifted; around them and all around the hollow there must have been at least two hundred horsemen ... Mexican soldiers.

  Instantly, Ben Cowan whipped the cuffs from his belt, and before Bijah could grasp the situation, snapped one around his wrist, the other around the pommel.

  "What the hell!" Bijah burst out in a fury. "You damned Judas, you'd--"

  "Shut up, you hot-headed fool!" Ben said quickly. "You're my prisoner--unless you'd rather rot in a Mexican jail, which you justly deserve."

  Bijah started to open his mouth to speak again, then he closed it tight. After a minute, he said, "You damned fool," but he said it with affection.

  Chapter Twenty-Two.

  "You understand, of course," General Armijo said coolly, "we need not let you have these prisoners?"

  "I understand," Cowan replied. "Of course, they were my prisoners. I was bringing them in--and the treasure."

  "So it seems--and, of course, we do have the treasure. Or most of it. You lost several mules, my scouts report."

  "There was no opportunity to recover the treasure," Ben Cowan replied, honestly enough. "And not much of it was lost."

  Armijo stood up. "We have much to thank you for," he said quietly, "so the prisoners shall be yours. It was your warning that alerted us, and the treasure was recovered by you. Also, there is the matter of Captain Recalde, whose life you saved."

  "It was little enough to do."