the Burning Hills (1956)

by L'amour, Louis

  There was an instant then when Trace Jordan looked down into the dying man's eyes. "That was my horse," he repeated. "My partner was murdered when he was stolen."

  All time seemed to stop while the old man struggled to speak but blood frothed at his lips and he died. But of one thing Jordan was sure. The old man had believed him.

  From up the street a yell, "He's downed Bob Sutton! He's shot Bob!" And the doors vomited men into the street. Trace Jordan hit the leather running and took the big red horse out of town at a dead run. Behind him guns talked but no bullet hit him.

  And now he was here, high on a sunlit mesa, dying in the saddle. There was nothing to see but distance, nothing but an infinity of far blue hills and nameless mysterious canyons. The mustang stopped suddenly, head up. Jordan turned painfully, searching all around, and in all that vast emptiness there was no living thing to be seen but a solitary buzzard. Heat waves shimmered the outlines of the junipers but nowhere was there movement, nor any sign of life ... and then he saw the tracks.

  The tracks of a pack rat in the dust and the tracks of a deer.

  They led to the cliff edge and disappeared there. Why did that seem important? His mind fumbled at the puzzle but the mustang tugged impatiently at the bit and Jordan gave the horse his head. The mountain-bred horse swung at once to the cliff-edge and, reaching it, stopped.

  Below him was an eyebrow of trail that clung to the cliff face. To this trail led the tracks. Jordan tried to focus his thoughts on the trail. The tracks of a pack rat alone would mean nothing, yet the deer tracks on the same trail could mean water. And the smell of water would have stopped the horse, for the animal must be half-dead with thirst.

  Despite his condition he realized at once the possibilities of such a place. His horse, bred to wild country and only a few weeks away from running wild, might take that trail. A wrong step could send them plunging a thousand feet or more to the bottom, yet those tracks might lead to water and a deer had negotiated the trail. And what had he to lose? Going on was impossible ... he spoke to the horse.

  Momentarily, ears pricked, the horse hung back; but the urging of the rider and his own promptings decided the matter. The inside stirrup scraped hard on the canyon wall and the outer hung in space but the mustang, walking on delicate feet, went on down the trail, no more than an edge of sloping rock stratum, to a place some forty yards along where the trail widened to ten feet. Here Jordan swung from the saddle and, trailing his reins, he went back up the trail on hands and knees, unable to risk walking in his weakness.

  With a handful of bunch grass he brushed out the tracks leading to the cliff-edge and then, taking a handful of dust, he let it trickle from his hand and, caught by the wind, spray over the ground, leaving the earth apparently undisturbed. Then he edged back down the trail and climbed to the saddle.

  Concealed from above by the overhang of the cliff, the trail became increasingly dangerous. At one point there was only slanting rock but the big red horse scrambled across while Jordan sat his saddle only dimly aware of what was happening.

  Suddenly, after more than a half-mile of trail, it ended in a half-acre of shelf almost entirely overhung by the cliff and entirely invisible from above. The outer edge was skirted by manzanita and juniper that gave no indication from across the canyon of the space that lay behind it. Here, concealed from all directions, was an isolated ledge ... and at one side of the ledge, a ruin.

  Without waiting to be guided, the horse walked toward the ruin with quickening footsteps ... and Jordan heard the sound of running water.

  Almost falling from his horse, he staggered to the basin where clear cold water trickled from a crack in the rock to fall into a rock basin some dozen feet across. When he had drunk deep of the water he rolled on his back and tried desperately to think.

  Wrinkling his brow against the dull throb of pain, he went back over his trail in his mind. Not even Jacob Lantz would find it a simple one. Much of the mesa had been bare rock, nor was there any indication from above of this place he had found. Nor would any man in his right mind attempt the trail to it.

  He drank, and drank again, feeling the slow penetration of the cold water through all his thirst-starved tissues. After a time he stumbled to his feet and stripped saddle and bridle from the horse, picketing it on the thick grass.

  He would need a fire ... dry sticks that would make no smoke. The ruin would shield the reflection. He must have hot water to bathe his wound. He must ...

  A long time later he opened his eyes into darkness. Listening, he could hear no sound but the trickle of water. The night was cold.

  Crawling to his saddle, he fumbled at the knots and finally loosened them enough to get at his blanket roll. Wrapping himself in his blankets, he lay still, his head feeling like a great half-empty cask in which his brains seemed to slosh around like water. His lips were cracked by fever ... outside a lone star hung over the rim of a far cliff.

  Through the fog of his delirium Jordan listened to the trickle of water. He must be careful ... careful. His enemies might be far away but in the still of a clear desert night, sound carries. And by daylight they would be all around, thirty or forty belted blood-hungry men. And at dawn he must be watching that thread of trail, rifle in hand.

  Pain gnawed at his side like a hungry rat... such a little wound but it needed care, it needed cleansing. His eyes found the lone star above the canyon's rim and held to it and a long time later, he slept. A pack rat appeared at the edge of the trail, peering curiously at the sleeping man, then went on, wary but unfrightened, to the water's edge. Out in the canyon a small stone, long poised by erosion, fell into the depths with a faint, lost sound.

  On the mesa's top a long wind stirred, moaning among the junipers and fluttering the campfires of the searching men. A man had been slain and it was the law of their time that the killer must die in turn. A coyote yapped at the moon, a weird cacophony of sound suspended a moment, then scattered by the wind and then the night under the lonely moon was voiceless and still. Only the water trickled and the hunted man moaned softly in his delirium and his sleep.

  Through the day-long heat that followed the night, Trace Jordan wavered between delirium and a sick exhausted consciousness. Shortly after daybreak he heard the drum of hoofs overhead and later heard the riders return more slowly. He got his rifle and lay quietly, waiting. If they found him, some of them would die.

  He had no animosity for these men other than the six who had murdered Johnny. The code by which they operated was his own but it was his nature to fight. There was water here and he had two hundred rounds of ammunition. There was no food, so all he could do was to wait until he starved to death or died of his wound.

  He dozed or became unconscious ... vaguely he recalled drinking and bathing his face and his fever-slaked lips. He remembered getting sticks together for a fire to heat water in the bottom of an ancient jar found in the ruins. He removed the bandage to look at the wound. It was ugly and inflamed, frightening to see.

  He never succeeded in bathing it. Somewhere along the line of his planning he lost consciousness again ... when he opened his eyes again his head was throbbing, his side a knot of raw pain. He wanted water desperately but was too weak to crawl to it.

  The first thing he realized was a sense of movement where no movement should be. He listened, aware of danger, trying to place that faint, mysterious rustling ... petticoats! But that was ridiculous.

  He felt cool now and comfortable. There was a dull throb in his side but some of the stiffness was gone. His head felt heavy and he did not wish to open his eyes. Something cool touched his brow and he lay still, afraid it would go away. He tried to identify the sounds, fearing he was delirious or dying.

  The trickle of water, as always. The horse cropping grass ... a faint wind stirring among the junipers. There was a smell of sage and of wood smoke. This was very close but slight. He kept his eyes shut and tried to place the exact location of his gun. He had no friends within many miles, so anyt
hing here, man or animal, was dangerous to him.

  The coolness on his brow went away but he felt fingers unbuckling his belt, moving his shirt aside. Fingers cool and deft touched the wound and then something comforting and warm was placed against his side.

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the rock overhang. The coolness on his brow was a memory but the pleasant warmth at his side remained. He looked down.

  A woman knelt beside him but at first all he could see was a smooth brown shoulder, from which the red blouse had slipped, and a wealth of intensely black hair.

  He was delirious ... he had to be. No such woman could be in this lonely place. He was hiding on a wind-hollowed shelf in the face of a cliff, miles from human habitation. And then she turned her head and looked at him.

  Her eyes were large and dark, ringed with long lashes, and in that first glimpse he found eyes that were soft with a woman's tenderness ... and then that tenderness was gone and she looked away. "How you feel?"

  She spoke abruptly, her tone giving nothing, neither friendly nor unfriendly.

  He tried several times to speak before he could make his lips shape the words. "Good." And then after a pause he indicated the poultice. "Feels good --" She gave no indication that she had heard but arose and went to the edge of the cliff where, concealed by the manzanita, she looked into the canyon. He listened and heard nothing and after a few minutes she returned to his side.

  She had built a small fire to heat the water and now she added some tiny sticks to the little flame. There was no smoke, almost no smell.

  "Nice," he whispered. "Nice of you."

  She looked around sharply. "I do it for a dog!"

  And when she removed the poultice the gentleness was gone from her fingers. He watched her as she worked, liking the way her dark hair fell across her shoulders, the swell of her breasts under the thin blouse. Yet her features were sullen and without warmth.

  "If they find you've helped me you'll be in trouble."

  "There is always trouble."

  There was no strength in him and he lay staring up at the overhang and he must have slept, for when he awakened again she was gone. The fire was cold. His side was freshly bandaged and his face had been bathed, his hands washed.

  There was nothing he could do so he was glad no effort was required of him. Yet he could wonder about the girl and it passed the long hours when he lay awake with only remote sounds from the canyon or the distant cry of an eagle. She had been gentle when she believed him unconscious but changed abruptly when she became aware of his attention. It made no sense ... but neither did her presence in this place.

  She asked no questions so she must know what he was doing here. She was neat, her clothes not dusty from travel, so she could not have come far to get here. Yet if she lived nearby, the Sutton outfit must know her. Thought of the Suttons made him remember his guns.

  Lifting himself on one elbow, he saw his saddle had been brought nearby and his rifle lay against it within reach of his hand. His two pistols in their twin belts, the one he wore and the spare he carried, had been placed near him, their butts within easy grasp.

  The opening of the path down the mountain had been barricaded with brush and branches, all dry so the slightest noise among them would awaken him if he slept. Whoever the girl was, she thought of everything and she could be no friend of the Sutton-Bayless outfit.

  Yet how had she reached him if the trail was blocked? The thought of another approach worried him and if the girl knew of this place, others must know. For the first time he gave careful attention to the shelf on which he lay.

  That part of the hollow exposed to the sun was thick with grass and there were some bushes and trees. Where he lay no sunlight could reach and no rain unless blown by wind. There was grass enough for his horse unless he had to remain too many days. Looking around, he found his tobacco and papers at the edge of the ground sheet upon which his blankets were now spread. He rolled a smoke and when it was alight he lay back, drew deep, then exhaled.

  The girl might be an Indian, yet she was no Apache and this was Apache country. Yet neither her facial structure nor manner impressed him as Indian and her inflections were definitely Spanish. Few Mexican families were supposed to live along this section of the border, yet it could be.

  It was very hot. He rubbed out his cigarette and eased his position. Sweat trickled down his face. His mouth tasted bad and he dearly wanted a drink, yet lacked the will to rise. Out over the far canyon wall a buzzard wheeled in wide, lazy circles.

  No sound disturbed the fading afternoon and across the canyon a great crag gathered the first shadow of evening. Somewhere a horse galloped and then the hoofbeats drummed away into silence and the heat.

  Maria Cristina had heard the riders when they first came into the valley. No such group of riders had come to the canyon since her father's death and it would mean nothing but trouble. When as many as a dozen men rode in a group in this country it meant killing.

  Turning from the sheep, she walked to the horse that dozed in the shadow of a cottonwood and took from a holster an ancient Walker Colt. Held at her side, it was concealed by the folds of her skirt.

  She had no reason to believe the oncoming riders were friendly. She was a Mexican and she owned sheep but aside from that, she was the daughter of Pablo Chavero, who had died up the canyon to the west, fighting even as his blood wrote its epitaph upon the rocks. Listening to the sound of their coming, she could almost see the faces of the riders. Only the Sutton-Bayless outfit could muster so many. "Juanito! Stay with the sheep!" Juanito at eleven was already more like her father and not at all like her older brother, Vicente.

  She walked away, her hair blowing in the wind, knowing why these men came, and she waited, standing sullen and lonely upon the hillside, expecting nothing.

  These would be the same men who had killed her father and driven them to this place. And now if they could find him they would kill the man who lay up there. In the rocks, perhaps dying.

  It was a vast and lonely land and if her whole family were killed here, there would be none to ask why. Only the restless eyes of the men along the street of Tokewanna would catch fire less often, for she would not be passing, her skirt rustling, her hips moving with the faint suggestion she knew so well how to use.

  It had been four years since she had a new dress. Just old things made over. It had been three months since she had been to town to look at the goods in the stores, to finger the cloth she could not buy.

  To walk in the town was good. The men stared and made remarks and the women turned away from her, their lips stiff, eyes angry. She was that Mexican girl, "no better than she should be." The women resented her because the men turned to look. Deliberately, she challenged their stares. She might hate them but she was a woman. They despised her but they wanted her too. Among the pale-faced women her dark beauty was an arresting thing. She knew it and liked it so. She knew that the something wild within her was felt by the men. She lifted her chin ... other women had beautiful clothes but she was Maria Cristina.

  They came over the crest of the knoll in a tight bunch, then walked their horses down the slope and drew up a dozen yards away. There were ten in the group and all their faces were familiar.

  Jack Sutton was the worst of them, recklessly good-looking and a man with death behind him. He looked her over deliberately, insolently, head to foot. "You get better-lookin' every time I see you, Mex! By the Lord, some day I'll --"

  "Some day!" Her contempt was a lash. "Some day you get keel!"

  Ignoring him, she turned to Ben Hindeman. "What you want?"

  There was no nonsense about Hindeman. Shorter than the rangy Sutton, he was a blocky powerful man, his broad jaws always dark with a stubble of beard, "You seen a wounded man on a beat-up red horse?"

  "I see nobody. Who come here?"

  Sutton was staring at her and she knew he wanted her and deliberately, with every move of her body, she taunted him, hating him both for his contempt and
his desire. She was a Mexican and she kept sheep, yet she treated him with contempt and it drove him to fury.

  "If you see anybody," Jack Sutton said, "send that kid brother to tell us. Better still ... I'll come back ... alone." He looked her over, grinning with no smile in his eyes. "I think you need a man."

  She turned her eyes upon him. "Where is a man?" Contempt edged the insult."You?"

  Anger whipped his face. "Why, you dirty -- !" He leaped his horse at her but, even as the horse sprang, Maria Cristina whipped up the heavy Colt, firing as it lifted.

  The blast and flash of the gun made the horse jerk aside his head and almost fall; but a bright spot of red showed on Button's ear and blood began to well from it in slow crimson drops.

  She held the Colt poised, her expression unchanged. "You go. Next time I no miss."

  Unbelieving, Jack Sutton touched his ear and brought his hand away covered with blood. His face was white with shock.

  Hindeman's eyes were glinting and he studied Maria Cristina with new attention. "If your horse hadn't shied," he told Sutton, not without an edge of satisfaction, "you'd be dead."

  "Why, yes, Ben." Button's voice was low. "She would have killed me. That dirty sheepherder would have lolled me."

  Hindeman turned his horse and the rest followed. Jack Sutton turned in his saddle to look back. "Keep that gun handy. Ill be back."

  As they crested the knoll one of the riders lifted his hand in farewell. It was Jacob Lantz.

  Prom a pocket in her skirt she took a cartridge and reloaded the Colt. If Lantz had tracked the man this far there was danger. He was a queer, stoop-shouldered old man, more bloodhound than human. He never bathed and prowled around the hills like a strange cat.

  What could the man have done? To make them hunt him so, he must have killed a Sutton. Twice during the morning hours riders paused near the spring and she gathered from talk she overheard that they were working all the canyons with care.

  Juanito walked toward her, swinging a stick. "Who do they look for?" he asked.

  She looked at him, her eyes warm. When she had turned back from her facing of Sutton she had seen Juanito get up from behind a rock. Only eleven, he was already like her father. He had been large-eyed and pale but he had the rifle.