“Let go of my horse.”
Deliberately, he swung the horse around, and Nora, lifting her quirt, struck him hard across the face with it.
Wrenching it from her hand, he threw it onto the sand. The livid streak left by the lash lay across his face. There was blood on his lips where it had cut into the chapped flesh. Harbin’s eyes were ugly.
“You’ll pay for that, a-plenty. You ride along now. You may last out the year, but I won’t never let you forget that blow, believe me. Now get on before I kill you right here.”
He started her horse toward the dunes. “You might as well know it—I’m the boss man from here on.”
Tom Badger pulled his horse alongside, and Joe reined in. “Ride on ahead, Tom,” he said.
“You’re the boss, you said.”
“That’s right. And I’ll give the orders.”
“Not in the back, Joe. I’m not Rodelo. We ride together.”
Harbin shrugged. “Suits me, if you feel you’re safer.”
Skirting the crater, they picked their way across the broken lava, following a precarious trail. To the north a long dune stretched out far to the east, at one point coming almost to the base of the Pinacate. From time to time they glanced back to look for the gap between Pinacate and Sierra Blanca. Then they entered the dunes.
They had drunk well before leaving the tank, and if the horses held up they hoped to be through the dunes in two or three hours, or even less if they found a place where the sand was hard-packed. At one place they saw the raw granite peaks of a sand-buried mountain range projecting a few feet above the sand. The time would come when they would be completely covered, a range of mountains several hundred feet high drowned in the sand.
A huge dune lifted on their right, another on the left. They rode a few yards and then found their way partly blocked by a drift of sand several feet high. The horses plunged and struggled getting through it, and by the time they reached the small space beyond it they were blowing hard. Tom Badger swung down, his face gray.
“We got trouble,” he said.
Harbin nodded. “Must be an easier way through.” The dune ahead of them was at least sixty feet of slanting sand, not too steep, but soft.
“Maybe…but we ain’t got the time to look for it.”
They started on, struggling up the long slope of the dune, sinking over their ankles, the horses going in over their hocks. But they kept going, and made the top of the dune. Looking back, they could see the way they had come…not much more than a hundred yards.
Joe Harbin swore bitterly. He could have sworn they had walked almost a mile.
They pushed on, but it was an unending struggle. The horses lunged, the packs came loose. There was no question of riding; they not only had to lead their horses, but had to pull to help them through the sand.
There was a temptation, once on top of a dune, to follow its ridge. Once, finding a ridge that seemed to run in a somewhat southwesterly direction, they did follow it rather than descend into the hollow between that one and the next, a higher dune. When they looked back they had lost their guide mark, the gap between the mountains.
When perhaps an hour had passed, they stood together on the crest of a long sand hill. In no direction could they see anything but sand.
“I’ve got to rest,” Harbin muttered. He dropped to the sand and put his head on his arms, which lay across his knees.
There was a faint breeze that smelled of the sea. Nora inhaled deeply, hoping it would last, but it did not. After a while they started on. There was no sign of pursuit.
Nora Paxton was a girl who had spent much of her life riding, canoeing, hiking in the woods, and she was glad of it now. Neither of the men had ever done much but ride a horse until they went to prison, and there was no question of even walking more than a few yards while guests of the Territory of Yuma.
Now she was thinking of Dan Rodelo. She told herself that what Harbin had said must be true. Dan was out there either dead or wandering on foot in the desert’s heat. If he was not dead he soon would be.
For the first time she began to realize fully what might be the consequences of her longing to hold in her hands once more something that belonged to her mother. It was coming home to her that she might not extricate herself from the situation into which she had forced herself. Even if they got out of the dunes alive, which at this point was uncertain, there would remain the problem of escaping from Joe Harbin, and possibly from Tom Badger. If successful in that, she must still get back to civilization somehow.
During most of her life she had followed the way that seemed open at the time. Things had gone well for her, considering everything. But until now she had been dealing with civilized people in a civilized and ordered world. Now she might as well be a million miles away from that world.
She did not for a minute believe that Dan Rodelo had been dead when Joe Harbin took his horse. Or rather, she had believed it for no longer than a minute. Somehow Harbin had murdered Rodelo or had contrived to set him afoot—which was much the same thing.
Of one thing she was sure. She was in better shape to cope with the present situation than either man was. Both were riders, not walkers; both had spent some time in prison, a part of it in solitary confinement. They had been weakened by lack of exercise, inadequate food, and lack of the need for effort. The hard labor they had been doing during the past few days had only just begun.
She had to get away—somehow she must escape them. But what if the Indians came, as they were sure to do? Harbin and Badger must at least defend her as they must defend themselves. She would wait, at least until the Indians had attacked; and knowing the two men, she knew no Indian or anyone else was likely to take them easily.
They struggled on, falling down, tugging at the bridles, even pushing the horses. The packs slipped, were readjusted, slipped again.
Suddenly Badger stopped. “Joe…look!” He pointed at the declining sun, and it was on their right. Still high in the sky, still blazing hot, but on their right. They were going south, not west!
Joe Harbin swore slowly, in a muffled, ugly tone.
His cheekbones were streaks of red from the sun. His cracked lips were white with dust, as was his beard. His cruel black eyes were deep-sunken under shaggy brows. Grimly, he turned right, descended a couple of hundred feet on a long slope of sand, then started up, at an angle, another long slope.
Twice they believed they had reached the edge of the dunes, but each time more sand hills lay beyond. Finally at sunset, from the crest of a dune, they saw the sea.
They stood unmoving, struck dumb at the sight. The sun was setting beyond the dark mountains of Baja California, but nearer to them lay that thin streak of blue that was the Gulf.
“We made it,” Harbin croaked. “By the Lord Harry, we made it!”
“Not yet,” Badger replied grimly. “Look!”
Half a mile away, riding the ridge of a dune, one…two…three…four…Four Indians, just to the north of them, and probably at the edge of the dunes.
“I can take that many standin’ on my head,” Harbin said. “Any time!”
“How about those?” Nora asked quietly, pointing to the south.
Five…no, six Indians there.
Joe Harbin looked at them. “One good drink o’ water and I’ll handle them too.”
“Water?” Badger glanced at him. “You don’t savvy Injuns, Joe. They’ll let us get close, and then they’ll pin us down out in the open where there’s no shade, no shelter, and no chance. They’ll have water. They’ll drink, they’ll stay out of rifle shot, and they’ll wait…like buzzards, for us to die.”
Nevertheless they moved on, wanting at any cost to get out of the sand hills.
“We could wait at the foot of the hills,” Nora said, “find a place in the shade. It would be late afternoon before the sun got to
us.”
“And then?” Joe’s tone was sarcastic.
The answer to that was obvious. If they waited, they would die. And if they tried for the shore, they would die.
“Answer to that is,” Harbin muttered, replying to what Badger had said, “don’t let ourselves get pinned down. We got to keep going. If they want to set on a water hole they got to fight us for it.”
The pack horse went down, struggled, and failed to get up. “Cut the pack loose,” Badger said, “and load the gold on the grulla.”
When they went on, the pack horse still lay there. But Nora knew that when the coolness of night came the horse would get up, and somehow it would get to the edge of the sea, where it would find water at one of the water holes near the shore.
The sand hill broke off sharply and before them lay the coastal plain. Now they could feel the coolness of the Gulf, though it was five miles off at this point.
“We better rest,” Badger muttered through broken lips. “We’d stand a better chance.”
* * *
DAN RODELO DRANK deep of the cold water at the base of the Sierra Blanca. He drank, and drank again. He removed his shirt and bathed his chest and shoulders. And all the while he was thinking hard.
By now they might have reached the Gulf, but he thought not. Perhaps Tom Badger could have, but there was no telling about Harbin. He was impulsive, dangerous, and tyrannical. Badger would play second fiddle to Harbin, waiting for his chance.
Seated in the cool shade of the rocks near the tank, Rodelo went to work on the battered canteen. Though a bullet had gone through it, he had an idea he might plug the holes well enough to keep some water in the canteen.
The weblike skeletons of the cholla that he tried to use crumbled in his fingers. Nor could he do much with a piece of ironwood that he found. He had neither time nor patience to carve that very hard wood into the necessary shape. The result was that he cut from a sahuaro cactus a plug for each hole, then filled the canteen. A little water leaked, but as the cactus plug swelled, it leaked no longer.
Carefully, he cleaned his guns, wiping each cartridge free of dust, running a rag through the barrels, checking the action then reloading.
Finding a hidden shadowed place among the rocks, he slept again. When he awakened the sun was already high and hot. His canteen was still full; he sat on a rock and studied the way he must go.
He was, he was sure, near the southern end of the area of great dunes, and might save time in the long run by scouting south, but he did not know how far he would have to go. After considerable thought he decided to strike out across the dunes, holding to as direct a line as possible.
He was so close to the Sierra that he could not pick out any distinctive peak, but far up the side of the mountain he saw a white scar, apparently a deep cut made by run-off water. Choosing this as a means of holding his course, he took up his rifle, shouldered the canteen, and started off at a steady walk.
He continued to check the white scar on the mountain, looking back and keeping it directly behind him, but when he had gone perhaps half a mile, he chose a peak that would be even better as a guide. The first mile was the easiest, following much of the way along the high side of a dune where the sand had packed well. He made good time—not so good as a man might make on hard ground, but not much slower.
After that it was a struggle. Soft sand that slid back, losing one step out of three. But he was familiar with shifting sand, and he chose his way with care. After about an hour of walking, he believed he had made almost two miles, and now he could smell the sea plainly.
A moment later he heard the first shot. It seemed to come from the north, and at first he was not sure that it was a shot, yet what other sound could it be in this lonely, desolate land?
He heard no more shots and kept on, adding half a mile to his distance. Sliding down one dune, he climbed another at an angle, and when he reached the top he lay down on the sand. It burned his flesh, but he lay there a moment, looking ahead. Then he took a long, comfortable drink, and moved on again.
Topping out on a high pinnacle of sand that probably was the shroud for some buried granite or lava peak, he saw the sea. The blue was still far off, beautiful in the afternoon sun and the clear air. Then he spotted them, a small cluster of dark dots on the expanse of the desert.
Between the great dunes and the shore lay flat land with good patches of galleta grass and scattered mesquite or cacti. There were patches of dry lake, bare of vegetation for the most part, and, of course, the creosote bush everywhere.
At that distance he could not make out who was who, seeing them only as several dots in a cluster. Some distance away, on all sides, were the Yaquis. They were well back out of range, it seemed, and they were just waiting.
Well, Hat was in no hurry. He had them now where he had wanted them all the while. He had them out on the flat land without much shelter from bullets and no shelter from the sun.
He could afford to wait.
CHAPTER 13
AFTER SOME SEARCHING, Rodelo saw a route to the flat by which he could not be seen by the Indians. He was quite sure they were not expecting him, but he dared take no chances. He got to lower ground, took a long pull on the canteen, and then chose the shallow wash by which some of the water from Pinacate found its way to the sea.
He walked across several yards of flat ground to get to it, hoping that the Indians, a good mile or more away, would be too occupied with their quarry to see him. Once in the shallow wash, aware that he had little cover, he started off at a brisk walk. From time to time he heard a shot.
He knew what was happening. Hat was trying to draw fire from the surrounded group. He wanted to keep them worried, keep them from making a desperate try to break out of the trap. He also wanted them to expend their ammunition and their energy.
Dan Rodelo knew just how much of a gamble he was taking, and how slight were his chances, but the girl he loved was out there, and the gold that would prove him an honest man. Whatever his future might be, he knew he could not face the world without proving his innocence of crime….And he wanted that girl.
But there was something else. He had never backed away from a fight, once the issue had been faced, the battle joined. He could not back away from this one; and this was a fight he had to win.
He knew he was being a fool; he knew the odds were high that he was probably within a few hours, perhaps even a few minutes, of his death. He knew that even should he get Badger and Harbin out of the corner they were in, it would still mean shooting it out with them.
He followed along the wash, where the sand was still hard packed from the last rain. He was out of sight, but he believed he was some distance away: There had been no shot in several minutes, when he rounded a corner of the wash that was masked by mesquite and found himself face to face with an Indian.
The Yaqui wore a band around his head, and an old blood-stained army coat. He had been creeping up the bank when he heard Rodelo’s step.
Rodelo was holding his Winchester in both hands ready for a quick shot, but the Yaqui was so close there was no chance to fire. He jerked the end of the barrel up hard, driving for the spot where chin and throat meet. The end of the barrel struck, and the Indian’s cry was caught in a gagging, choking sound, horrible to hear. He staggered back and Rodelo followed in remorselessly, giving him a wicked smash to the head with the rifle butt driven by both hands.
The Yaqui went to the sand, and Rodelo leaned over and stripped him of his cartridge belt. He carried the second Winchester along with him.
He saw the two Indians almost at once, fifty yards off and half hidden by the sand bank. He dropped the dead Indian’s rifle and brought up his own as the Yaquis caught sight of him. He saw them start to lift their rifles, but he was already firing.
His first shot, a snap shot but with enough time, was a direct hit. He saw one Indian
stagger a few steps, then fall. His second shot glanced off the other Indian’s rifle and went along his arm, leaving a streak behind it. The Indian dropped to one knee and fired back. Rodelo’s third and fourth shots smashed him in the chest and neck.
Then Rodelo went up the wash at a run, carrying the extra rifle. His advantage was now gone, and from this moment it would be a hunting party, and he would be the game. How many Indians remained he did not know, but it was a safe guess to estimate it at ten or a dozen—far too many.
* * *
IN THE TINY hollow behind low mesquite brush where there was only partial concealment and sparse cover, Joe Harbin crouched with his gun in hand. Badger, his shoulder carrying the bloody scratch of a bullet, was nearby.
“What’s goin’ on out there?” Harbin muttered. “We got comp’ny.”
“That will be Dan Rodelo,” Nora said coolly.
Harbin looked around at her. “Like hell!” he said. “Nobody could cross that amount of country without water.”
There was no further sound for several minutes, and then Harbin saw an Indian moving swiftly through the brush, his attention not on them, but directed toward some other object. He was a young warrior, and he had momentarily forgotten one enemy in concentrating on another. He was a very young warrior who would grow no older.
Joe Harbin saw him drop to the ground, and waited. The Indian had made one mistake in forgetting his first enemy, and having made one mistake he might make a second and get up from the sheltered position into which he had dropped. An older warrior would have crept along the ground and then gotten up some yards from where he had hit the ground.
The young Yaqui had been taught all that, and had done it many times in practice, but right now he forgot. Intent upon Dan Rodelo, whom he could see edging along the shallow wash, he raised up from his position slowly.
Kid Rodelo (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 11