Valley Of the Sun (Ss) (1995)

by L'amour, Louis

  "How much? You know, eh?".

  "Fifty thousand, or about.".

  "I'd settle for half!" Smith spat.

  "Yuh'll settle for a lot less." Red. turned his hard green eyes on Smith. "I'm takin' the top off this one. Took me four weeks of playin' tag with Gleason to get the layout.".

  "What do yuh call the top?".

  "Seventeen thousand, if she comes to fifty. You. get eleven thousand apiece.".

  Bronco pondered the thought. It was enough. In seven years of outlawry he had never had more than five hundred dollars at one time. Anyway, he wouldn't have stayed that close to Gleason for twice the money. That sheriff had a nose for trouble.

  When Big Red first suggested the raid on Cholla, Smith had thought him crazy, but he had to chuckle when he remembered the astonishment on the cashier's face when he stepped around and blocked the door with the mirror before it could be opened, and how "Big Red" had come in through the door on the other side that looked like it wasn't there.

  The escape into Victorio's country was pure genius--if they avoided the Apaches. Yaqui Joe's idea had been a good one, but Red had already planned it in advance, as was proved by the waiting horses. Of necessity a pursuing force would have to go slow to avoid the Indians, and they would have no fresh horses awaiting them at the notch.

  Under a hot and brassy sky they held steadily southward over a strange, wild land of tawny yellows and reds, bordered by serrated ridges that gnawed at the sky. Clanahan mopped the sweat from his brow and stared back over the trail, lost in dancing heat waves. As usual there was nothing in sight.

  Hours passed, and the only movement aside from the walking of their horses was the wavering heat vibrations and, high under the sun-filled dome of the sky, the distant black circling of a buzzard. On the ground not even a horned frog or a Gila monster showed under the withering sun.

  "How much farther to water, Joe?".

  "One, maybe two mile.".

  "We'll drink and refill our canteens,".

  Red told them, "but we stop no longer than that. We've got gold enough to do somethin' withand we'd better be gettin' on.".

  "No sign of 'Paches.".

  Red shrugged, then spat, wiping the sweat from the. inside of his hatband.

  "The time to look for Injuns is when there's no sign. Yuh can bet the desert's alive with 'em, but if we're lucky they won't see us.".

  Latigo Spring was a round pool of milky-blue water supplied by a thin trickle from a crack in the sandrock that shaded it. The trickle waged a desperate war with the sun's heat and the thirsty earth. Occasionally, it held its own, but now in the late summer, the water was low.

  They swung down and drank, then they held their canteens into the thin flow of the spring. They filled slowly. One by one they sponged out the nostrils and mouths of their horses and led the grateful animals to the water.

  Bronco wandered out to where he could look back over their trail. He shaded his eyes against the sun, but then as he started to turn back, he hesitated, staring at the ground.

  "Red." His voice was normal in tone, but it rang loudly in the clear, empty air.

  Caught by some meaningful timbre in his tone, the others looked up. They were wary men, alert for danger and expecting it. They knew the chance they took, crossing Victorio's country at this time, and trouble could blossom from the most barren earth.

  Big Red slouched over on the run-down heels of his worn boots. Mopping his face and neck with a bandanna, he stared at the tracks Bronco indicated.

  Two horses had stood here. Two riders had dismounted, but not for long.

  "Hey!" Clanahan squatted on his heels. "Those are kids' tracks!".

  "Uh-huh." Bronco swore softly.

  "Kids! Runnin' loose in Apache country.

  Where yuh reckon they came from, Red?".

  Red squinted off to the south and west. The direction of the tracks was but little west of their own route.

  "What I'm wonderin' is where they are goin'," he said dubiously. "They shore ain't headed for nowhere, thataway, and right smack into the dead center of the worst Injun country!".

  Smith stared off over the desert, shook his head wonderingly, then walked back to the spring and drank deeply once more. He was a typical man of the trail. He drank when there was water, ate whenever there was food, rested whenever there was a moment to relax, well knowing days might come when none of the three could be had. He straightened then, wiping the stubble of beard around his mouth with the back of his hand.

  "Somet'ing iss wrong?" The Dutchman glanced at Red. "What iss, aboot a kid?".

  "Couple of youngsters ridin' south. Boy, mebbe thirteen or fourteen, and a girl about the same age." He mopped his face again, and replaced his hat. "Mount up.".

  They swung into their saddles and Red shifted his bulk to an easy seat. The saddle had grown uncomfortably hot in the brief halt. They started on, walking their horses. It was easy to kill a good horse in this heat. Suddenly the trail the kids were taking veered sharply west. Clanahan reined in and stared at it.

  "Childer!" The Dutchman exclaimed in a puzzled voice. "Und vhy here?".

  "They are shore headin' into trouble," Smith said, staring at their trail. His eyes stole sheepishly toward Clanahan, and he started to speak, then held his peace.

  The Dutchman sat stolidly in the saddle. "Mine sister," he said suddenly, absently, "has two childer. Goot poys.".

  Yaqui Joe looked over his shoulder at their trail, but it was empty and still. Off on their far right a line of magenta-colored ridges seemed to be stretching long fingers of stone toward the trail the kids had taken, as though to intercept them. A tuft of cactus lifted from the crest of the nearest hill like the hackles on an angry dog.

  Red's mouth was dry and he dug into his shirt pocket for his plug and bit off a sizable chunk. He rolled it in his big jaws and started his horse moving along the trail to the west, following the two weary horses the youngsters were riding.

  Smith stared at the desert. "Glory, but it's hot!".

  He suddenly knew he was relieved. He had been afraid Red would want to hold to their own route. Safety lay south, only danger and death could await them in the west, but he kept thinking of those kids, and remembering what Apaches could do to a person before that person was lucky enough to die. Thoughtfully, he slipped a shell from a belt loop and dropped it into his shirt pocket.

  An hour had passed before Clanahan halted again, and then he lifted a hand.

  "Joe," he said, "come up here.".

  The four gathered in a grim, sun-beaten line.

  Five unshod ponies had come in from the east and were following the trail the youngsters had left. his'Paches," Joe said. "Five of them.".

  Red's horse seemed to start moving of its own. volition, but as it walked forward Red dropped a hand to the stock of his Winchester and slid it out and laid it across his saddlebow. The others did likewise.

  Suddenly, with the tracks of those unshod ponies, the desert became a place of stealthy menace. These men had fought Apaches before, and they knew the deadly desert warriors were men to be reckoned with. The horses walked a little faster now, and the eyes of the four men roved unceasingly over the mirage-haunted desert.

  Then the faraway boom of a rifle jarred them from their drowsy watchfulness. Red's gelding stretched his long legs into a fast canter toward a long spine of rock that arched its broken vertebrae against the sky. Suddenly he slowed down. The rifle boomed again.

  "That's a Henry," Bronco said. "The kid's got him a good rifle.".

  Red halted where the rocks ended and stood in his stirrups. A puff of smoke lifted from a tiny hillock in the basin beyond, and across the hillock he could see that two horses were down. Dead, or merely lying out of harm's way?.

  In the foreground he picked up a slight movement as a slim brown body wormed forward. The other men had dropped from their saddles and moved up. Still standing in his stirrups, Clanahan threw his Winchester to his shoulder, sighted briefly, then fired.
<
br />   The Apaches leaped, screamed piercingly, then plunged over into a tangle of cholla. Bronco and the Dutchman fired as one man, then Joe fired. An Indian scrambled to his feet and made a break for the shelter of some rocks. Three rifles boomed at once, and the Indian halted abruptly, took two erect, stilted steps, and plunged over on his face.

  They rode forward warily, and Clanahan saw a boy, probably fifteen years old, rise from behind the hillock, relief strong in his handsome blue eyes.

  "Shore glad to see yuh, mister." His voice steadied. "I reckon they was too many for me.".

  Red shoved his hat back and spat. "You was doin' all right, boy." His eyes shifted to the girl, a big-eyed, too thin child of thirteen or so. "What in thunderation are yuh doin' in this country? This here's 'Pache country. Don't yuh know that?".

  The lad's face reddened. "Reckon we was headed for Pete Kitchen's place, mister. I heerd he was goin' to stay on, Injuns or no, an' we reckoned he might need help.".

  Clanahan nodded. "Kitchen's stayin' on, all right, and he can use help. He's a good man, Pete is. Your sister work, too?".

  "She cooks mighty good, washes dishes, mends." The boy looked up eagerly. "You fellers wouldn't be needin' no help, would yuh? We need work powerful bad. Pa, he got hisself killed over to Mobeetie, and we got our wagon stole.".

  "Jimmy stole the horses back!" the girl said proudly. "He's mighty brave, Jimmy is! He's my brother!".

  Clanahan swallowed. "Reckon he is, little lady. I shore reckon.".

  "He got him an Injun out there," Smith offered. "Dead center.".

  "I did?" The boy was excited and proud. "I guess," he added a little self-consciously, "I get to put a notch on my rifle now!".

  Bronco started and stared at Red, and the big man hunkered down, the sunlight glinting on his rust-red hair.

  "Son, don't yuh put no notch on yore rifle, nor ever on yore gun. That there's a tinhorn trick, and you ain't no tinhorn. Anyway," he added thoughtfully, "I guess killin' a man ain't nothin' to be proud of, not even an Injun. Even when it has to be did.".

  The Dutchman shifted uneasily, glancing at the back trail. Yaqui Joe, after the manner of his people, was not worried. He squatted on his heels and lighted a cigarette, drowsing in the hot, still afternoon.

  "We better be gettin' on," Clanahan said, straightening. "Them shots will be callin' more Injuns. I reckon you two got to get to Kitchen's all right, and this is no country to be travelin' with no girl, no matter how good a shot yuh are. That Victorio's a he-wolf. We better get on.".

  "Won't do no good, Red," Smith said suddenly. "Here they come!".

  "Gleason?".

  "No. More 'Paches!".

  A shot's flat sound dropped into the stillness. and heat, and the ripples of its widening circle of sound echoed from the rocks. Joe hit the ground with his face twisted.

  "Got me!" he grunted, staring at the torn flesh of his calf and the crimson of the blood staining his leg and the torn pants.

  Clanahan rolled over on his stomach behind a thick clump of creosote bush and shifted his Winchester. The basin echoed with the flat, absentminded reports of the guns. Silence hung heavy in the heat waves for minutes at a time, and then a gun boomed and the stillness was spread apart by a sound that was almost a physical blow.

  Sweat trickled into Red's eyes and they smarted bitterly. He dug into his belt loops and laid out a neat row of cartridges. Once, glancing around, Red saw that the little girl was bandaging Joe's leg while the Yaqui stared in puzzled astonishment at her agile, white fingers.

  Out on the lip of the basin a brown leg showed briefly against the brown sand. Warned by the movement, Clanahan pointed a finger of lead and the Apache reared up, and the Dutchman's Henry boomed.

  It was very hot. A bullet kicked sand into Red's eyes and mouth. His worn shirt smelled of the heat andof stale sweat. He scratched his jaw where it itched and peered down across the little knoll.

  Across the basin a rifle sounded, and Smith's body tensed sharply and he gave out a long "Aaahh!" of sound, drawn out and deep. Red turned his head toward his friend and the movement drew three quick shots that showered him with gravel. He rolled over, changing position.

  Bronco Smith had taken a bullet through the top of the shoulder as he lay on his stomach in the sand, and it had buried itself deep within him, penetrating a lung, by the look of the froth on his lips.

  Smith spat and turned his eyes toward Red. "Anyhow," he said hoarsely, "we put one over on Gleason.".

  "Yeah.".

  Red shifted his Winchester, and when an Apache. slithered forward, he caught him in the side with a bullet, then shifted his fire again.

  Then for a long time nothing seemed to happen. A dust devil danced in from the waste of the desert and beat out its heart in a clump of ironwood. Red turned his head cautiously and looked at the boy. "How's it, son? Hotter'n blazes, ain't it?".

  Later, the afternoon seemed to catch a hint from the purple horizon and began to lower its sun more rapidly. The nearby rocks took on a pastel pink that faded, and in the fading light the Apaches gambled on a rush.

  Guns from the hollow boomed, and two Indians dropped, and then another. The rest vanished as if by a strong wind, but they were out there waiting. Clanahan shifted his position cautiously, fed shells into his gun, and remembered a black-eyed girl in Juarez.

  A lizard, crawling from a rock, its tiny body quivering with heat and the excited beat of its little heart as it stared in mute astonishment at the rust-red head of the big man with the rifle.

  Sheriff Bill Gleason drew up. When morning found the posse far into the desert, he decided he would ride forward until noon, and then turn back. The men who rode with him were nervous about their families and homes, and to go farther would lead to ou-and-out mutiny. It was now mid-morning, and the tracks still held west.

  "Clanahan's crazy!" Eckles, the storekeeper in Cholla, said. He was a talkative man, and had been the last to see and the first to mention that Big Red was on a trail. "What's he headin' west for? His only chance is south!".

  Ollie Weedin, one of the Cholla townsmen, nudged Gleason. "Buzzards, Bill.

  Lookffwas.

  "Let's go," Gleason said, feeling something tighten up within him. The four they trailed were curly wolves who had cut their teeth on hot lead, but in the Apache country it was different.

  "Serves 'em right if the Injuns got 'em!".

  Eckles said irritably. "Cussed thieves!".

  Weedin glanced at him in distaste. "Better. men than you'll ever be, Ecklesffwas.

  The storekeeper looked at Weedin, shocked.

  "Why, they are thieves!" he exclaimed. indignantly.

  "Shore," someone said, "but sometimes these days the line is hard to draw. They took a wrong turn, somewheres. That Clanahan was a good man with a rope.".

  In the hollow band of hills where the trail led, they saw a lone gray gelding, standing drowsily near a clump of mesquite. And then they saw the dark, still forms on the ground as their horses walked forward. No man among them but had seen this before, the payoff where Indian met white man and both trails were washed out in blood and gun smoke.

  "They done some shootin'!" Weedin said. "Four Apaches on this side.".

  "Five," Gleason said. "There's one beyond that clump of greasewood.".

  A movement brought their guns up, and then they stopped. A slim boy with a shock of corn-colored hair stood silently awaiting them in sun-faded jeans and checkered shirt. Beside him was a knobby-kneed girl who clutched his sleeve.

  "We're all that's left, mister," the boy said.

  Gleason glanced around. The eyes of Yaqui Joe stared into the bright sun, still astonished at the white fingers that had bandaged his leg in probably the only kindness he had ever experienced. He had been shot twice in the chest, aside from the leg wound.

  Bronco Smith lay where he had taken his bullet, the gravel at his mouth dark with stain.

  The Dutchman, placid in death as in life, held a single shell in his stiff fin
gers and the breech of his rifle was open.

  Gleason glanced around, but said nothing. He turned at the excited yell from Eckles. "Here's the bank's money! On these dead mules!".

  Ollie Weedin stole a glance at the sheriff, but said nothing. Eckles looked around and started to speak, but at Weedin's hard glare he hesitated, and swallowed.

  "It was one buster of a fight," somebody said.

  "There's seventeen Injuns dead," the boy. offered. "None got away.".

  "When did this fight end, boy?" Gleason asked.

  "Last night, about dusk. They was six of 'em first. I got me one, and he got two or three with a six-shooter. Then they was more come, and a fight kind of close up. I couldn't see, as it was purty dark, but it didn't last long.".

  Gleason looked at him and chewed his mustache. "Where'd that last fight take place, son?" he asked.

  "Yonder.".

  Silently the men trooped over. There was a. lot of blood around and the ground badly ripped up. Both Indians there were dead, one killed with his own knife.

  Weedin stole a cautious look around, but the other men looked uncomfortable and, after a moment of hesitation, began to troop back toward their horses. Gleason noticed the boy's eyes shoot a quick, frightened glance toward a clump of brush and rocks, but ignored it.

  Ollie shifted his feet.

  "Reckon we better get started, Bill?.

  Wouldn't want no running fight with those kids with us.".

  "Yuh're right. Better mount up.".

  He hesitated, briefly. The scarred ground. held his eyes and he scowled, as if trying to read some message in the marks of the battle. Then he turned and walked toward his horse.

  All of them avoided glancing toward the steeldust, and if anyone saw the sheriff's canteen slip from his hand and lie on the sand forgotten, they said nothing.

  Eckles glanced once at the horse that dozed by the mesquite, but before he could speak his eyes met Ollie Weedin's and he gulped and looked hastily away. They moved off then, and no man turned to look back. Eckles forced a chuckle.

  "Well, kid," he said to the boy, "yuh've killed yuh some Injuns, so I reckon youh'll be carvin' a notch or two on your rifle now.".