Desert Death-Song

by Louis L'Amour

  “I’ll be seein’ yuh!” he said softly. “Soon!”

  Solderman and Hardin had fallen in around him, and behind them two of Hardin’s roughs.

  The jail was small, just four cells and an outer office. The door of one of the cells was opened and he was shoved inside. Hardin grinned at him. “This should settle the matter for Austin,” he said. “Childe had friends down there!”

  Anson Childe murdered! Tack Gentry, numbed by the blow, stared at the stone wall. He had counted on Childe, counted on his stirring up an investigation. Once started, he possessed two aces in the hole he could use to defeat Hardin in court, but it demanded a court uncontrolled by Hardin.

  With Childe’s death he had no friends on the outside. Betty had barely spoken to him when they met, and if she was going to work for Hardin in his dance hall, she must have changed much. Bill London was a cripple and unable to get around. Red Furness, for all his friendship, wouldn’t come out in the open. Tack had no illusions about the murder. By the time the case came to trial, they would have found ample evidence. They had his guns and they could fire two or three shots from them, whatever had been used on Childe. It would be a simple thing to frame him. Hardin would have no trouble in finding witnesses.

  He was standing, staring out the small window, its lower sill just on the level of his eyes, when he heard a distant rumble of thunder and a jagged streak of lightning brightened the sky, then more thunder. The rains came slowly, softly, then in steadily increasing volume. The jail was still and empty. Sounds of music and occasional shouts sounded from the Longhorn, then the roar of rain drowned them out. He threw himself down on the cot in the corner of the room, and lulled by the falling rain, was soon asleep.

  A long time later, he awakened. The rain was still falling, but above it was another sound. Listening, he suddenly realized what it was. The dry wash behind the town was running, probably bank full. Lying there in the darkness, he became aware of still another sound, of the nearer rushing of water. Lifting his head, he listened. Then he got to his feet and crossed the small cell.

  Water was running under the corner of the jail. There had been a good deal of rain lately, and he had noted that the barrel at the corner of the jail had been full. It was overflowing and the water had evidently washed under the corner of the building.

  He walked back and sat down on the bed, and as he listened to the water, an idea came to him suddenly. Tack got up and went to the corner of the cell, and striking a match, studied the wall and floor. Both were damp. He stamped on the stone flags of the door, but they were solid. He kicked the wall. It was also solid.

  How thick were those walls? Judging by what he remembered of the door, the walls were all of eight inches thick, but how about the floor? Kneeling on the floor, he struck another match, studying the mortar around the corner flagstone.

  Then he felt in his pockets. There was nothing there he could use to dig that mortar. His pocket knife, his bowie knife, his keys, all were gone. Suddenly, he had an inspiration. Slipping off his wide leather belt, he began to dig at the mortar with the edge of his heavy brass belt buckle.

  The mortar was damp, but he worked steadily. His hands slipped on the sweaty buckle and he skinned his fingers and knuckles on the rough stone floor, yet he persevered, scraping, scratching, digging out tiny fragments of mortar. From time to time he straightened up and stamped on the stone. It was solid as Gibraltar.

  Five hours he scraped and scratched, digging until his belt buckle was no longer of use. He had scraped out almost two inches of mortar. Sweeping up the scattered grains of mortar, and digging some of the mud off his boots, he filled in the cracks as best he could. Then he walked to his bunk and sprawled out and was instantly asleep.

  Early in the morning, he heard someone stirring around outside. Then Olney walked back to his cell and looked in at him. Starr followed in a few minutes carrying a plate of food and a pot of coffee. His face was badly bruised and swollen, his eyes were hot with hate. He put the food down, then walked away. Olney loitered.

  “Gentry,” he said suddenly, “I hate to see a good hand in this spot.”

  Tack looked up. “I’ll bet yuh do!” he said sarcastically.

  “No use talkin’ that attitude,” Olney protested, “after all, yuh made trouble for us. Why couldn’t yuh leave well enough alone? Yuh were in the clear, yuh had a few dollars apparently, and yuh could do all right. Hardin took possession of those ranches legally. He can hold ’em, too.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “No, I mean it. He can. Why don’t yuh drop the whole thing?”

  “Drop it?” Tack laughed. “How can I drop it? I’m in jail for murder now, and yuh know as well as I do I never killed Anson Childe. This trial will smoke the whole story out of its hole. I mean to see that it does.”

  Olney winced, and Tack could see he had touched a tender spot. That was what they were afraid of. They had him now, but they didn’t want him, they wanted nothing so much as to be completely rid of him.

  “Only make trouble for folks,” Olney protested, “yuh won’t get nowhere. Yuh can bet that if yuh go to trial we’ll have all the evidence we need.”

  “Sure. I know I’ll be framed.”

  “What can yuh expect?” Olney shrugged. “Yuh’re askin’ for it. Why don’t yuh play smart? If yuhd leave the country we could sort of arrange maybe to turn yuh loose.”

  Tack looked up at him. “Yuh mean that?” Like blazes, he told himself. I can see yuh turnin’ me loose! And when I walked out yuhd have somebody there to smoke me down, shot escaping jail. Yeah, I know. “If I thought yuhd let me go—” he hesitated, angling to get Olney’s reaction.

  The sheriff put his head close to the bars. “Yuh know me, Tack,” he whispered, “I don’t want to see you stick yore head in a noose! Sure, yuh spoke out of turn, and yuh tried to scare up trouble for us, but if yuhd leave, I think I could arrange it.”

  “Just give me the chance,” Tack assured him. “Once I get out of here I’ll really start movin’!” And that’s no lie, he added to himself.

  Olney went away, and the morning dragged slowly. They would let him go. He was praying now they would wait until the next day. Yet, even if they did permit him to escape, even if they did not have him shot as he was leaving, what could he do? Childe, his best means of assistance, was dead. At every turn he was stopped. They had the law, and they had the guns.

  His talk the night before would have implanted doubts. His whipping of Starr would have pleased many, and some of them would realize that his arrest for the murder of Childe was a frame. Yet none of these people would do anything about it without leadership. None of them wanted his neck in a noose.

  Olney dropped in later, and leaned close to the bars. “I’ll have something arranged by tomorrow,” he said.

  Tack lay back on the bunk and fell asleep. All day the rain had continued without interruption except for a few minutes at a time. The hills would be soggy now, the trails bad. He could hear the wash running strongly, running like a river not thirty yards behind the jail.

  Darkness fell, he ate again, and then returned to his bunk. With a good lawyer and a fair judge he could beat them in court. He had an ace in the hole that would help, and another that might do the job.

  He waited until the jail was silent and he could hear the usual sounds from the Longhorn. Then he got up and walked over to the corner. All day water had been running under the corner of the jail and must have excavated a fair sized hole by now. Tack knelt down and took from his pocket the fork he had secreted after his meal.

  Olney, preoccupied with plans to allow Tack Gentry to escape, and sure that Tack was accepting the plan, had paid little attention to the returned plate.

  On his knees, Tack dug out the loosely filled in dust and dirt, then began digging frantically at the hole. He worked steadily for an hour, then crossed to the bucket for a drink of water and to stretch, and then he returned to work.

  Another hour passed. He got up and stamp
ed on the stone. It seemed to sink under his feet. He bent his knees and jumped, coming down hard on his heels. The stone gave way so suddenly he almost went through. He caught himself, withdrew his feet from the hole, and bent over, striking a match. It was no more than six inches to the surface of the water, and even a glance told him it must be much deeper than he had believed.

  He took another look, waited an instant, then lowered his feet into the water. The current jerked at them, and then he lowered his body through the hole and let go. Instantly, he was jerked away and literally thrown downstream. He caught a quick glimpse of a light from a window, and then he was whirling over and over. He grabbed frantically, hoping to get his hands on something, but they clutched only empty air. Frantically, he fought toward where there must be a bank, realizing he was in a roaring stream all of six feet deep. He struck nothing, and was thrown, almost hurtled downstream with what seemed to be overwhelming speed. Something black loomed near him and at the same instant the water caught at him, rushing with even greater power. He grabbed again at the blob of blackness and his hand caught a root.

  Yet it was nothing secure, merely a huge cottonwood log rushing downstream. Working his way along it, he managed to get a leg over and crawled atop it. Fortunately, the log did not roll over.

  Lying there in the blackness, he realized what must have happened. Behind the row of buildings that fronted on the street, of which the jail was one, was a shallow, sandy ditch. At one end of it the bluff reared up. The dry wash skirted one side of the triangle formed by the bluff, and the ditch formed the other. Water flowing off the bluff and off the roofs of the buildings and from the street of the town and the rise beyond it had flooded into the ditch, washing it deeper, yet now he knew he was in the current of the wash itself, now running bank full, a raging torrent.

  A brief flash of lightning revealed the stream down which he was shooting like a chip in a mill race. Below, he knew, was Cathedral Gorge, a narrow, boulder-strewn gash in the mountain down which this wash would thunder like an express train. Tack had seen such logs go down it, smashing into boulders, hurled against the rocky walls, then shooting at last out into the open flat below the gorge. And he knew instantly that no living thing could hope to ride a charging log through the black, roaring depths of the gorge and come out anything but a mangled, lifeless pulp.

  The log he was bestriding hit a wave and water drenched him, then the log whirled dizzily around a bend in the wash. Before him and around another bend he could hear the roar of the gorge. The log swung, then the driving roots ripped into a heap of debris at the bend of the wash, and the log swung wickedly across the current. Scrambling like a madman, Tack fought his way toward the roots, and then even as the log ripped loose, he hurled himself at the heap of debris.

  He landed in a heap of broken boughs, felt something gouge him, and then scrambling, he made the rocks and clambered up into their shelter, lying there on a flat rock, gasping for breath.

  CHAPTER FOUR: Return with Death

  Along time later he got up. Something was wrong with his right leg. It felt numb and sore. He crawled over the rocks and stumbled over the muddy earth toward the partial shelter of a clump of trees.

  He needed shelter, and he needed a gun. Tack Gentry knew now that he was free they would scour the country for him. They might believe him dead, but they would want to be certain. What he needed now was shelter, rest, and food. He needed to examine himself to see how badly he was injured, yet where could he turn?

  Betty? She was too far away and he had no horse. Red Furness? Possibly, but how much the man would or would not help he did not know. Yet thinking of Red made him think of Childe. There was a place for him. If he could only get to Childe’s quarters over the saloon!

  Luckily, he had landed on the same side of the wash as the town. He was stiff and sore, and his leg was paining him grievously. Yet there was no time to be lost. What the hour was he had no idea, but he knew his progress would be slow, and he must be careful. The rain was pounding down, but he was so wet now that it made no difference.

  How long it took him he never knew. He could have been no more than a mile from town, perhaps less, yet he walked, crawled, and pulled himself to the edge of town, then behind the buildings until he reached the dark back stairway to Anson Childe’s room. Step by step he crawled up. Luckily, the door was unlocked.

  Once inside, he stood there in the darkness, listening. There was no sound. This room was windowless but for one very small and tightly curtained window at the top of the wall. Tack felt for the candle, found it, and fumbled for a match. When he had the candle alight, he started pulling off his clothes.

  Naked, he dried himself with a towel, avoiding the injured leg. Then he found a bottle, and poured himself a drink. He tossed it off, then sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at his leg.

  It almost made him sick to look at it. Hurled against a root or something in the dark, it had torn a great, mangled wound in the calf of his leg. No artery appeared to have been injured but in places his shinbone was visible through the ripped flesh. The wound in the calf was deeper. Cleansing it as best he could, he found a white shirt belonging to Childe, and bandaged his leg.

  Exhausted, he fell asleep. When, he never recalled. Only hours later he awakened suddenly to find sunlight streaming through the door into the front room. His leg was stiff and sore, and when he moved it throbbed with pain. Using a cane he found hanging in the room, he pulled himself up and staggered to the door.

  The curtains in the front room were up and sunlight streamed in. The rain seemed to be gone. From where he stood he could see into the street, and almost the first person he saw was Van Hardin. He was standing in front of the Longhorn talking to Soderman and the mustached man Tack had first seen at his own ranch.

  The sight reminded him, and Tack hunted around for a gun. He found a pair of beautifully matched Colts, silver plated and ivory handled. He strapped them on with their ornate belt and holsters. Then, standing in a corner, he found a riot gun and a Henry rifle. He checked the loads in all the guns, found several boxes of ammunition for each of them, and emptied a box of .45s into the pockets of a pair of Childe’s pants he pulled on. Then he put a double handful of shotgun shells into the pockets of a leather jacket he found.

  He sat down then, for he was weak and trembling.

  His time was short. Sooner or later someone would come to this room. Someone would either think of it or someone would come to claim the room for himself. Red Furness had no idea he was there, so would probably not hesitate to let anyone come up.

  He locked the door, then dug around and found a stale loaf of bread, some cheese, then lay down to rest. His leg was throbbing with pain, and he knew it needed care, and badly.

  When he awakened, he studied the street from a vantage point well inside the room and to one side of the window. Several knots of men were standing around talking, more men than should have been in town at that hour. He recognized one or two of them as being old timers around. Twice he saw Olney ride by, and the sheriff was carrying a riot gun.

  Starr and the mustached man were loafing in front of the Longhorn, and two other men Tack recognized as coming from the old London ranch were there.

  He ate some more bread and cheese. He was just finishing his sandwich when a buckboard turned into the street, and his heart jumped when he saw Betty London was driving. Beside her in the seat was her father, Bill, worn and old, his hair white now, but he was wearing a gun!

  Something was stirring down below. It began to look as if the lid was about to blow off. Yet Tack had no idea of his own status. He was an escaped prisoner, and as such could be shot on sight legally by Olney or Starr, who seemed to be a deputy. From the wary attitude of the Van Hardin men he knew that they were disturbed by their lack of knowledge of him.

  Yet the day passed without incident, and finally he returned to the bunk and lay down after checking his guns once more. The time for the payoff was near, he knew that. It could come
at any moment. He was lying there thinking about that and looking up at the rough plank ceiling when he heard the steps on the stairs.

  He arose so suddenly that a twinge of pain shot through the weight that had become his leg. The steps were on the front stairs, not the back. A quick glance from the window told him it was Betty London.

  What did she want here?

  Her hand fell on the knob and it turned. He eased off the bed and turned the key in the lock. She hesitated just an instant, and then stepped in. When their eyes met hers went wide and her face went white to the lips.

  “You!” she gasped. “Oh, Tack! What have you been doing! Where have you been!”

  She started toward him, but he backed up and sat down on the bed. “Wait. Do they know I’m up here?” he demanded harshly.

  “No, Tack. I came up to see if some papers were here, some papers I gave to Anson Childe before he was—murdered.”

  “Yuh think I did that?” he demanded.

  “No, of course not!” Her eyes held a question. “Tack, what’s the matter? Don’t you like me anymore?”

  “Don’t I like yuh?” His lips twisted with bitterness. “Lady, yuh’ve got a nerve to ask that! I come back and find my girl about to go dancin’ in a cheap saloon dance hall, and—”

  “I needed money, Tack,” Betty said quietly. “Dad needed care. We didn’t have any money. Everything we had was lost when we lost the ranch. Hardin offered me the job. He said he wouldn’t let anybody molest me.”

  “What about him?”

  “I could take care of him.” She looked at him, puzzled. “Tack, what’s the matter? Why are you sitting down? Are you hurt?”

  “My leg.” He shook his head as she started forward. “Don’t bother about it, there’s no time. What are they saying down there? What’s all the crowd in town? Give it to me, quick!”