Kid Rodelo (1966)

by L'amour, Louis

  He had watched her. There were little refinements about her that puzzled him. She was, despite what one might have imagined, a girl with the instincts and perhaps the training of a lady. Her language was good. She had none of the careless, often rough talk of drifting frontier women. She was obviously not Joe Harbin’s woman, although he had plans in that direction. Tom Badger resented her, and that was because she represented a threat to their escape.

  Badger knew they dared carry no excess baggage. He knew their escape was going to be touch and go, and there shouldn’t be anyone extra to worry about. Above all, Nora was another mouth that drank water.

  They rode on through the blazing afternoon, heads hanging, mouths dry. Several times they drank a little water, and from time to time they stopped to sponge the mouths of their horses.

  The mirages vanished, and the mountains far off to the south turned blue, then purple. The sun declined, the shadows grew long, and canyons bulged with darkness, ominous and threatening. The sky was streaked with flame; a few scattered clouds were edged with gold.

  Dan Rodelo turned in his saddle and looked back. There was nothing. No sign of dust, only the quiet beauty of a desert when the sun has gone.

  Tom Badger had slowed his pace. His face was streaked with dust and sweat. “How far to Tinajas Altas?” he asked.

  “Too far.” Rodelo gestured toward the low mountains along which they rode. “We’ll cross over here and take a chance. There’s a tank over there by Raven’s Butte. Sometimes it has a little water.”

  He led the way. The going was no better and no worse than they had had before—a dim, rocky trail to be followed single file. They found the tank in a canyon southwest of Raven’s Butte.

  Rodelo swung down. “There’s not enough here for the horses,” he said, “but it will help.”

  He led each horse to drink, counted slowly while they drank to allow each horse an equal amount. When the horses had finished, the tank held no more than a cup of water.

  When they left Raven’s Butte, going south, they walked the horses. It was about seven miles, Dan Rodelo decided, to Tinajas Atlas. There would be water there, and they could fill their canteens, then water the horses again. They would need every drop they could get.

  “No Injuns,” Gopher said triumphantly. “We lost ‘em.”

  Harbin glanced at him contemptuously, but made no comment. It was Badger who spoke. “Don’t you fool yourself, kid. They’re back there, and they’re comin’ on.”

  “Do you really think they’ll catch up with us?” Nora asked Rodelo.

  “They’re in no hurry,” he said. “They can catch up all right, but they will wait until the desert has had time to work on us.”

  It was full dark by the time they reached Tinajas Altas, where they camped on the flat desert in a cove in the ridge. They built a small fire and made coffee. Nora sliced some of the bacon from a slab they had bought, among other food supplies, from Sam Burrows. They were not hungry, only exhausted from the heat and the savage travel over the blistering desert.

  Presently the moon rose, and Tom Badger took up several canteens. “Let’s see if there’s water,” he said.

  Rodelo went ahead. He had been here only once before, but he found his way to the place where some traveler had left a rope trailing to help climbers. “The lowest tank is usually half full of sand, but there’s water under it,” he explained to Badger. “We’ll try the upper tanks.”

  The water lay in basins of solid rock, hollowed by centuries of tumbling water in a stream channel, which was actually more of a waterfall. “There are dead bees in it sometimes,” Rodelo explained, “but they’re no problem.”

  Badger dipped up some of the water in his palm. It was cold and fresh. “Can’t knock that. Anyway, I heard there were some rains down thisaway a few weeks back.”

  They filled the canteens, and then sat down on the rock beside the pool, refreshed by the coolness and drinking again and again.

  “I can’t just figure you,” Badger said after a minute or two. “You don’t size up like the law, but you sure ain’t on the dodge. You done your time.”

  “Put me down as a man who likes money,” Rodelo replied carelessly. “And where else could I get a piece of fifty thousand dollars? For that matter,” he added ironically, “where could you?”

  Badger chuckled. “You got me there,amigo . A piece of fifty thousand … What we’re all wonderin’ about is how big a piece?”

  “A three-way split, what else?”

  “You think Joe will settle for that? After all, he was the one who pulled off the holdup.”

  Dan Rodelo got to his feet. “We’d best get back to the horses. We’d be in fine shape now if Joe was to take a notion to ride out and leave us, wouldn’t we?”

  They climbed down the way they had come, going hand over hand, their feet against the steeply slanting rock wall. On the ground below, Rodelo added, speaking softly, “Tom, you know as well as I do, the size of that split is going to be decided by the Yaquis, not us.”

  “Yeah,” Badger said gloomily. “They could trim us down a mite.”

  The night was cold, and they took turn and turn about standing watch. In the last hour before dawn, Joe Harbin shook them awake. Over a small, quick fire of dried-out creosote wood, they made coffee and finished the bacon. Before the desert was more than gray, they were in the saddle once more, horses well watered, the desert stretching wide toward the border, now only a short distance away.

  The rocky ridge of the mountains was their guide line; the desert floor was broken here and there by black, ugly outcroppings of ancient lava. There was creosote brush, occasional agave, and cholla.

  The sun was not yet above the horizon when Joe Harbin rode up from the rear. “We got company,” he said.

  They drew up and turned to look. Far off they saw a thin column of smoke pointing a beckoning finger at the sky.

  “Well, we expected it,” Badger said. “They must’ve tried several routes. The smoke will call ‘em in.” He glanced back again. “No use waitin’ for ‘em.”

  They went on. The sun rose, the day’s heat began, and they deliberately slowed their pace. Gopher wanted to get on, to run. “It would kill your horse, kid,” Badger said mildly. “You’ll need that horse.”

  They saw no Indians. Rodelo looked only occasionally to the rear. He watched ahead and on both sides, for Indians could come from anywhere, and there might well be Yaquis somewhere ahead, returning from the Gulf, for instance.

  “You’re bearing east,” Harbin said suddenly. “What’s the idea?”

  “Pinacate,” Rodelo replied. “Some of the roughest country this side of hell, but some tanks of water, too … and some places to fort up if need be.”

  “Won’t that give us further to go?”

  “Very little. The Gulf is south of us now. Adair Bay is due south.”

  Nobody talked then for a time. Later they saw another smoke, off to the west. The horses slowed to a walk, and when Rodelo swung down and led his horse, the others did likewise. Again, Nora fell in beside him.

  She was showing her weariness now. Her face was drawn, her eyes hollow. “I had no idea it would be like this,” she said.

  “Whenever you can,” Rodelo advised her, “drink. Dehydration begins to dull your senses before you realize. Some say you shouldn’t drink at all the first twenty-four hours in the desert, but that’s insanity. Others say to make your water last. But it’s better to drink plenty when you’re close to water, and keep drinking. You’ll stand a better chance of getting through.”

  “Will we make it, Dan?” It was the first time she had called him by his name.

  He shrugged. “We’ll make it … some of us will. But we’ve got pure hell ahead of us, and don’t you doubt it.”

  He gestured to the east. “This is the Camino del Diablo … the Devil’s Road we’ve been talking about. Between three and four hundred people died along it during the Gold Rush.”

  Here the desert was sprink
led with creosote bush, clumps of cholla, and an occasional saguaro or ocotillo. They found their way through it, usually riding single file, maintaining a generally southerly route.

  When they came to a small rise Joe Harbin halted. “Why don’t we just lay up and ambush ‘em?” he asked. “We could be rid of them once and for all.”

  “And have them ride around us?” Dan answered. “They could cut us off from water.”

  “What water?” Tom Badger had turned his head and was watching Rodelo.

  “There’s Tule Wells, but it’s a mite far east, I’d say. We can save time by striking right for Papago Tanks.”

  And now the desert began to be broken and rugged. Volcanic cones stood up in half a dozen places and Rodelo, swinging wide, indicated a deep crater to the others.

  This was the edge of the Pinacate country. To the south it grew worse, with miles of pressure-ridge lava, sand dunes, and broken country almost devoid of water. Through all that country there was only a trail or two, so far as he knew. Miles and miles of it were broken rock, razor-edged lava that could cripple a horse or a man on foot within hours. There was no life out there except occasional bighorns, coyotes, and rattlers. But they must weave a way through, then make a run for it across the sand to the bay.

  They made dry camp among the black rocks, forting up for a fight that did not come. At daybreak they moved out again, drinking often from their canteens, seeing their water supply dwindle, bit by bit.

  Tempers grew short. Joe Harbin cursed his horse, and Gopher muttered under his breath and glowered at everybody. Dan fought to keep his temper. Nora alone seemed assured, calm. Her face was haggard, her eyes hollow, and at night when she dismounted she almost fell from her horse, but she did not complain.

  That night the Yaquis closed in, but not to fight.

  They came swiftly, suddenly, as Harbin was selecting a camp, another dry camp. From out of a seemingly empty desert the Indians came in a swift short charge, a flurry of shots, and then disappeared down a draw toward the desert ahead.

  Flattened out among the rocks, they waited, guns ready, but the Yaquis did not return. After a while, Badger got to his feet, expecting a shot.

  All was still. Twilight shadows were deep, the desert held no sound. Badger walked to the horses as the others slowly got up.

  He spoke suddenly, his voice oddly strained, high-pitched for him. “Look,” he said.

  A bullet had struck their largest canteen, and the water had drained out on the sand. Only a dark spot remained where it had soaked away.

  “We’ll make coffee,” Rodelo said, “there’s enough left for that.”

  Chapter Six.

  Dan Rodelo looked at the stars, felt the coolness of the desert night, and was thankful. There was not much in the life that lay behind him that had been pleasant or easy. Only there was a memory of his mother long ago, and of a home where all was comfort. How long had that been?

  Now he rode a desert trail with men of violence, and he himself had been a man of violence, living where the weight of a fist and the speed of a gun were all that spelled the difference between life and death. And now he fought out this last, desperate fight among desperate men.

  Desperate men … and a girl.

  What kind of person was she? Why did she want to make this trip into the desert with such men as these? Dan Rodelo had thought out every step of what he had to do. The one thing he had not counted on was Nora Paxton.

  Four men and a woman, ringed with death, a death that might come from the Yaquis in pursuit, but could just as likely come from the desert itself.

  Their biggest canteen was holed, the others almost empty. The horses would need most of what there was, and at best, there would be a swallow for each of them. When they rode out at daybreak there would be no water left.

  Without water, how long could a man live and travel under that sun, in that parching heat? A day, perhaps … or two days. He knew of one man who had lived three days beyond the point where he should have died, lived by sheer guts, by hatred, by the driving will to live and get revenge.

  There was water enough for coffee, and when the coffee was made they sat together and drank it, each busy with his own thoughts. Dan Rodelo knew what might be done in these circumstances, but he was no murderer, and he could come to only one conclusion, the same one he had arrived at in the beginning: to see the thing through to the end … and at the end he must tell them the truth.

  It would mean a shooting, of course, and he was not the gunman that Joe Harbin was. Possibly he was faster than Tom Badger, but even of that he could not be sure. He had been a fool to try what he was trying, but that was the sort of man he was—not very wise, not very shrewd, using only what he had, which was a certain toughness, a stamina, a stubborn unwillingness to quit.

  “What about it?” Joe looked up at Rodelo. “You are the man who is supposed to know where there’s water.”

  “We’ll try. We’ll move out by daybreak.”

  “If they let us,” Badger said.

  “They will,” Rodelo said.

  He was somehow sure of that, sure of it because he had known Indians before. There was something in the Indian that made him torture, not only to bring suffering to an enemy, but to test how much he could stand. To the Indian bravery was all, bravery and stamina, so it was like him to test his enemies, to know how great his victory had been.

  And Hat was no fool. Time was on his side, and he could afford to hang back, to let the heat and thirst and the fierce tempers of the men they followed do their work.

  The shooting they had done was only a preliminary test, a plumb line into the well of their resistance. The pursued men had reacted suddenly, sharply, so the Yaquis knew the time was not yet, and they would follow for another day, perhaps two days.

  “Do you know where there’s water?” Nora asked.

  “I know where it might be. Don’t expect a spring. If there are springs in this country I never met anybody who knew of them. There are tanks like those at Tinajas Altas or at Raven’s Butte … there’s Papago Tanks, Tule Wells, and some isolated places. I think I can find them.”

  “You’d better,” Harbin said.

  Rodelo glanced at him. “Don’t push your luck,” he said quietly, “because I have at least one advantage.”

  “You?” Harbin sneered.

  “I know just how good you are with a gun, but you don’t know anything about me.”

  “There’s nothing I need to know.”

  He spoke abruptly, almost carelessly, but Dan Rodelo was sure the remark had hit home. Harbin was naturally suspicious, trusting no one, and he would be doubly suspicious now. He would ask himself just what Rodelo meant. Was he, perhaps, a known gunfighter using a different name? If so, who would he be?

  Harbin ran through them in his mind, trying to place the whereabouts of each one. Jim Courtright, Ben Thompson, Commodore Perry Owen, Doc Halliday, John Bull, Farmer Peele … one by one he named them off to himself. But there must be some he didn’t know.

  Rodelo had hoped for just one thing, to make Harbin curious, and wary of him.

  These were not desert men, Dan Rodelo knew that much. Both Badger and Harbin were men of the plains. Tom Badger was part Indian; he had been a buffalo hunter and then a cow thief. He had more than once been involved in the holdup robberies of stages, and had ridden in a cattle war.

  Harbin had been a cowhand, a fireman on the Denver and Rio Grande, a hired gunman in several township and cattle wars, and finally a holdup man. His first killings had been over card games.

  Whatever they knew of wilderness was what they knew of the Plains states and the mountain country on the east slope of the Rockies. Neither was likely to know the little tricks of desert survival … though possibly Badger might.

  At daybreak they moved out, mouths dry, lips cracked and stiff, every movement of their eyes painful under inflamed lids. In the distance, but not very far off, there was a low dust cloud that kept pace with them. Harbin glowered a
t it, and swore.

  They could no longer travel with any speed. The Pinacate country was all about them, broken lava, deep craters, pinnacles of rock, and everywhere was a thick growth of cholla. Some desert dwellers called one kind of cholla the “jumping cactus,” for when a hand came near it or when you passed too close the cactus seemed to leap out and deliberately impale you upon its needle-sharp thorns.

  The cholla is covered with knobs about the thickness of a short banana, and these knobs are covered with spines, each one capable of causing a painful sore. The joints of the cholla break off easily, for this is the way the plant is propagated. The cholla grows in thick clumps, spreading in some cases out to cover acres, and it seems to love best the crevices in the lava. In some places clumps of cholla may climb halfway up a small volcanic cone, and their lemon yellow spines glow on the dark desert like distant lights.

  To ride among them made every step a risk. The joints broke off and stuck in the horses’ legs, in the riders’ clothing, even in the saddle ladder. Nothing was safe from the thorns. Once in the flesh, they seemed hooked there, and were both difficult and painful to remove.

  Dan Rodelo rode in the lead, weaving a precarious way among the outcroppings of jagged lava and the cholla. It was ugly country. At times they had to cross short stretches of lava where a slip would be almost sure to mean a broken leg for a horse. Once they skirted a crater that must have been at least four hundred feet deep. In the bottom were several scattered sahuaro, and some of the big cactus had grown at a point where the ridge was broken like a breach in a wall. Clusters of cholla were all about them, and clumps of cat-claw. Far off he could see a bighorn watching from a volcanic cone. This was the heart of the Pinacate country.

  Nora closed in beside him. He was shocked at her face. Her lips had cracked, and they had bled. “Is it much further, Dan?” she asked. “I mean to the bay?”

  “A good bit.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  He looked at her, and he was worried by the same thought. “Too much, I’m afraid. You keep your head down, d’you hear, when the Yaquis come. And after that … well, you know how Joe Harbin feels.”