Kid Rodelo (1966)

by L'amour, Louis

  There had been no horse tracks or human tracks around this tank, and that meant it was either unknown to the Yaquis or unused by them. Perhaps the tank was normally empty at this season, but even so, had it been used at times the tracks would have been there. And the only ones he had seen were those of bighorn sheep and the odd twisting trail of a sidewinder.

  Dan Rodelo stared off toward the dunes, but he was keeping Badger and Harbin within view at all times. From now on he must be wary, for he was sure neither of them had any plan to share the gold with him. As soon as the danger of Indian attack seemed past, they would waste no more time.

  Nora moved over to stand beside him. Her lips were cracked, her cheeks burned red along the cheekbones, but nothing could spoil completely the quiet beauty of her face.

  “I love the desert at this hour,” she said, as she looked westward. “I like to see the shadows gather, and feel the coolness come.”

  “Enjoy it while you can. Tomorrow will be our worst day.”

  “I think so too. I can remember the sand dunes.”

  “I wonder that you survived. That must have been a tough trek for a youngster.”

  “It wasn’t that. It was what I’d left behind. I lost my family in that wreck. At least, I lost all of it I knew.” She looked at him suddenly. “You see, I don’t even know who I am, or where I came from. My father was drowned over there in the Gulf, my mother died in the desert just at the edge of the dunes, only a few miles from here.”

  “Dean Stafford brought you across the desert. Five of you started, and three of you made it across. I heard the story.”

  Rodelo paused a moment. “What I don’t understand is why you ever wanted to come back.”

  “I was alone in the world, and I did not want to be alone. I … I wanted to find something, something we left back there.”

  “You left a lot back there, Nora. You left a father and a mother, but you cannot find them now. It is too late for that.”

  “Maybe it isn’t.”

  He turned to face her questioningly. “Nora …”

  “You do not understand. We did leave something back there … a box.”

  “Abox ?”

  “Oh, it was nothing much. Just some things my mother loved. Some letters, some pictures … nothing valuable. At least, nothing valuable to anybody but me. But don’t you see? In a way those thingsare me.

  “I was too young to really know either my father or mother, but if I could see their pictures, read some letters they wrote, maybe I could make them seem real to me. I have been thinking of this ever since I was a little girl, because if I have these things that belonged to them, in a certain sense I will havethem . They won’t be just shadowy figures I can only vaguely remember, but real people, my people, my family. My own father and mother.”

  “You riskedthis , forthat ?”

  “I know what you’re thinking. It is what everyone thought when I said I wanted to come down here, but don’t you see? I’ve never had anyone who was really my own. I had foster parents and they were good to me; and after they died I finished school on the money they left me, but always I kept thinking of this place. I had to come back. I simply must find that box.”

  “I never had any idea what was pushing you.” He hesitated. “Do you really think it is wise? Suppose you found … well, suppose you found they weren’t what you would have wished them to be? Sometimes it is better to have the dream than the reality.”

  “I’ve thought of that. No … I must find out. I must know. Why, I don’t even know where they were coming from or where they were going … or why.”

  It was a question that had puzzled Rodelo. If Dean Stafford, whom he had known slightly, had any idea who Nora Reilly’s parents were he had never said. Rodelo thought back. Dean had rarely talked about that trek across the Pinacate country … not that Stafford had been a taciturn man, for he was not. There simply had not been much to tell. He had told Rodelo about the water holes … as much as he knew.

  Rodelo knew all that anyone had known. The outfit had started for Yuma, on the Colorado River. Stafford knew they were on some sort of a sailing craft. What he knew about ships could have been written on a postage stamp, as he often said. On board ship he had never talked to the child Nora nor to her parents. They had kept to themselves, were well dressed, polite, but somewhat stand-offish.

  The boat’s captain was no sailor. He was headed for the goldfields at Ehrenberg, and had bought the boat to get passage to the mouth of the river. Caught in the tidal bore, he had never even known what hit him, nor did Stafford until he reached Yuma. When the child’s mother died she asked Stafford to see that her child was cared for.

  Who came to Yuma in those days? Who was headed upriver? Gamblers, honky-tonk girls, miners, adventurers … occasionally soldiers bound for one of the inland forts. Knowing who came up the river then, Rodelo would gamble that the odds were five to one neither of her parents was any good. They were probably people who followed the mining camps for whatever they could get in whatever way was possible in a rough camp among rough men.

  Suddenly Harbin was beside them. “What are you two talkin’ about? Rodelo, don’t you forget this here’s my girl.”

  “Your girl?” Nora turned on him. “Why, Mr. Harbin! Whatever gave you that idea? I wasn’t aware that I was anybody’s girl.”

  He looked hard at her. “Lady, out here you got no choice.”

  “I think she has,” Rodelo said.

  Harbin ignored Rodelo’s remark. “Look, lady, you better make up your mind. We ain’t got far to go. I can take you on with me, or I can leave you down there on the coast, whichever you like.”

  Dan Rodelo smiled at him. “Joe, you never could see much farther than your nose; but if you can’t, Tom Badger can. Sam Burrows, back there in the States, he knows this girl left with us. If she doesn’t show up, he’s going to ask questions.”

  “What do I care? I ain’t never comin’ back.”

  “Tom,” Rodelo said, “tell Joe about Kosterlitzky.”

  “What about him?” Badger asked.

  “Sam Burrows has two good friends in the world, Tom. Oh, he has many friends, but he has two almighty good friends, and one of them is Emilio Kosterlitzky, who commands the Rurales. I think you boys have heard of them?

  “Well,” he went on, “if Sam suggested to Emilio that he would like to know what became of Nora Paxton, Emilio would find whoever traveled with her and he’d make them sweat a little and bleed a little and suffer a whole lot until they told. And if the news was bad news, Emilio would just naturally feel that he had to send something to Sam Burrows to show his friendship, something like scalps, for instance. I’m not saying he would literally collect your scalps, but what he would send back would be evidence enough.”

  “You don’t scare me.”

  “He does me,” Badger said. “That Kosterlitzky is pure hell.”

  Neither of the men said any more, and they turned away.

  There was dead mesquite near the water hole, and enough dry wood to make a small fire, sheltered from observation. The coffee tasted good, and they had the last of the jerked beef from Sam Burrows’ store.

  Rodelo stayed back from the fire, eating in silence, listening for sounds from outside the basin. He had no confidence in their escape from the Indians. If by some luck they had evaded the Indians, it could not be for long. There would be a fight, sooner or later.

  “We’d better graze the horses,” Badger suggested. “There’s mesquite outside the bowl.”

  “I noticed some grass there,” Nora said.

  The horses needed it. These past few days had been cruelly hard for both man and beast, but horses could not stand what a man could, and if there was any forage they should have it.

  It was Joe Harbin who led them out and picketed them on the galleta grass near the mesquite. Rodelo was careful to be watching when he returned … he wanted no sudden shot, no advantage given to Harbin, who needed none.

  Now that the last
hours were coming, Rodelo had no plan. He could only go ahead, let them do what they might. One thing he did know, he was not going to allow that gold to be taken away from him.

  His thoughts went to Nora. Was there more in that box than she admitted? Treasure, perhaps? It was unlikely, and no matter how absurd her reasons might seem to others, he could understand them. In these days a girl with no family, no background, no money had little chance. Work that decent women could do was strictly limited by custom; but everywhere women were asked who they were, from what family they came, what was their background.

  The West did not ask questions of its men, but it still wanted to know about its women.

  Aside from that, what meant so much to Nora was just the knowing. He had been through it himself, and he still bore the scars of not knowing anything of his family. She had courage, this girl did. How many women would have dared the desert in the company of such men as these?

  As he looked to the west, he saw far off a blue line of mountains in Baja California, across the Gulf. The sun was setting beyond them now, and was leaving a painted sky behind. Coolness was coming to the desert. Rodelo leaned back against the rock wall, half propped up by his saddle. He was tired … tired.

  He wanted another cup of coffee, but lacked the energy to get up and get it. For several minutes he sat looking at the pot and measuring his weariness against the desire for the coffee. Then the realization that it might help on the following day, when every drop of moisture would count, won the argument.

  He leaned forward to get up and the bullet smashed into the rock where his head had been, spattering him with stinging rock fragments. He threw himself to the ground, drawing as he went down, and in that split second he glimpsed the face of an Indian. He fired … missed … the face vanished.

  With a lunge, he was across the basin and scrambling around the rocks. He heard the Indian yelling, trying to stampede the horses. For a moment then, he caught sight of him, and fired again.

  The light was vague, and the Indian was sixty feet off, but the bullet caught him in the top of the head, killing him instantly.

  A voice spoke at his elbow. “Now that’s what I call shootin’,” Badger said. “I didn’t figure you were that good.”

  “Lucky,” Harbin said. “A scratch shot.”

  “You’ve got to buy chips to find out, Joe,” Dan said quietly. “You’ve got to stack your bet.”

  Harbin also had his gun in his hand. “When I’m ready,” he said, “you’ll draw to a busted flush. And you’ll get three aces … right through the belly.”

  “Forget it,” Badger said shortly. “What about this Injun?”

  “We’d better round up the horses first,” Rodelo said.

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Badger. “In the shape they’re in and the way they’re feelin’, they won’t go far. Not while there’s water in this hole.”

  He went on, “I figure this Injun was a scout who located us. He aimed to set us afoot and make the rest of it easy whilst he sent up a smoke to bring the others around.”

  “Now that’s a thought,” Dan said.

  “You mean to send up a smoke?”

  “Sure … from where we aren’t. Like that notch over there.”

  “If it works,” Harbin agreed, “we could gain five or ten miles on them. We might get off scot-free.” He hesitated. “Who sends up the smoke?”

  “And why that notch?” Badger asked. “Why should they expect us to be over there?”

  “That’s the best trail to the coast. If they see a smoke go up from there they’ll believe it.”

  “I like it,” Badger acknowledged. “It might work.”

  “Okay, Tom,” Harbin said. “You like it so much, you ride over and send up the smoke.”

  “And meet those Indians all by myself?”

  “You scared?”

  “You bet I am. I want no part of those boys. They’re not like my kind of Indians. I’m as scared of them as you are.”

  “I’ll go,” Rodelo said evenly.

  “Then you’d better get started.” Joe Harbin gave him a taunting smile. “Those Injuns will be expectin’ that signal.”

  Rodelo walked to thegrulla , led it into the basin, and saddled up. As he tightened the cinch he was thinking of the situation. It had to resolve itself quickly now. The beach was just over there across the dunes, and he did not want to precipitate a gun battle if he could help it. But when he told them he was taking the gold back, all hell would break loose … unless they risked shooting him first.

  Nora Paxton came close to him. “Don’t go, Dan.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “Why not Tom or Joe?”

  “With all that gold at stake they won’t risk turning their backs on each other. This is a last man’s club, Nora, and I have to be the last man.”

  “Why, Dan? Is the money so important to you?”

  “Yes, it is. Right now I’d say that money means more to me than anything else in the world.”

  “More than I do?”

  He looked down at her. “Yes, Nora, right now it means more than you do. If it did not mean so much, you could not mean so much to me. It is a matter of honor.”

  She drew back from him. “Pride, maybe—not honor. Well, that shows me where I stand.” She turned away sharply and walked off.

  “Nora!”

  She ignored him, and went to the fire. For a moment he stood staring after her, wanting to say more, yet afraid to show his hand, afraid of being overheard. Harbin was already suspicious, and as for Tom Badger, a man never knew about Badger. He played his cards close to his vest and nobody ever knew what he was holding.

  Rodelo led his horse to the trail out of the basin. Joe Harbin followed after him, then Badger. Nora remained where she was, beside the fire.

  “Where do you figure we should go from here?” Badger asked.

  “West. Keep the Sierra Blanca on your left, and when you pass the point of that range, stay half a mile or so north of it. As you ride west, keep yourself lined up on the gap between Pinacate and the Sierra Blanca, and the coast you reach will be on Adair Bay.”

  “What about water?” Harbin asked. “On the bay, I mean?”

  Dan Rodelo smiled at him. “Why, there’s several springs down there … or water holes of some kind. Some of them are fresh water, some aren’t. If you get there before I do, you just sit and wait. I’ll be along to show you where the water is.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I’ll be riding north along the western line of Pinacate for a few miles. I’ll just come back here for water. I won’t need much.”

  He turned in the saddle and glanced toward the fire. Nora’s back was turned toward him.

  “Adios!“he called, and rode away.

  Joe Harbin was grinning. Badger looked at him suspiciously. “What’s so funny?”

  “Him … he said he’d come back here for water. When he gets back there’s not going to be any left.”

  “You’d dry it up?”

  “The horses wil take most of it. What we can’t take we’ll just dry up. I think we’ve seen the last of Dan Rodelo.”

  Tom Badger looked thoughtfully after the vanishing rider. “Yeah,” he said doubtfully, “it looks that way.”

  Nora, standing by the fire, was shading her eyes toward the west, watching him go.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Rodelo rode west, and then north. And from the moment of leaving the water hole he believed he was followed. Of course, that might simply come from the feeling the desert could give. At the same time, he had the sensation of being almost naked, exposed to view from all sides.

  He rode with his Winchester in his hand, his eyes never ceasing their movement, studying every corner and crack in the lava, studying the ground for tracks.

  The first sign was scarcely a track. A piece of black rock no larger than his fist had been knocked from its usual resting place. The desert rocks wear desert polish on their surface, that patina
or finish applied to exposed rock by the desert sun, the wind, the rain, and the blown sand, and perhaps by chemical actions within itself.

  This rock showed that it had been turned on its side, and what had been the top was now half buried in the sand. A man or an animal, leaping from rock to rock, might have dragged his toe at that point. It was an indication that something had passed by there, and therefore it was a warning.

  Rodelo rode warily through a clump of cholla, paused briefly in the partial shadow of a giant sahuaro, then moved out. The point for which he was heading was not far off.

  By now Badger, Harbin, and Nora would be starting into the sand hills. There a walking man could sink halfway to his knees at every step, or slide back one step for every two steps forward. A horse could sink in to its belly if it was carrying a rider. Once in the sand dunes, they would lose sight of Pinacate, their only landmark. From time to time they might see it, but unless they were especially careful they could spend time and effort struggling against the sand in the wrong direction. To maintain a true course there would be a part of the difficulty.

  Now he saw, off to his right and close against the base of the mountain, a clump of mesquite—perhaps eight or ten good-sized trees—and a sahuaro and some cholla grew nearby. The clump of mesquite would be an ideal place to leave hisgrulla .

  The mouse-colored horse was in better shape than the others. In any event he was a good horse, a mustang born to desert and mountains, used to getting along on sparse water and the indifferent forage supplied by the desert. That horse was Dan Rodelo’s ace in the hole, for he knew that when the chips were down the mustang would stand up long after the strength of the other horses had failed. This it was that would save him from the desert.

  Once among the mesquite, he stepped down from the saddle and tied thegrulla . The horse would feed off the green leaves and the beans while he was gone. Taking his rifle, he left the cluster of mesquite and scrambled up the steep side of the mountain toward the notch.

  A few hundred yards off, a Yaqui drew up and watched for a moment. Then he slid off his horse, tied it, and started up a game trail. He had known where the trail was, and had waited to see if Rodelo planned what he expected, and then he took his own route to the top. Following a trail known to him, he could move faster and more easily than the white man.