Desert Death-Song

by Louis L'Amour

  Did she doubt him now? Would she, too, believe he had held up the stage and then killed the sheriff? As he lay in the grass he could find nothing on which to build hope.

  Hemmed in on three sides, with the waterless mountains and desert behind him, the end seemed inevitable. Thoughtfully, he shook his canteen. It was nearly empty. Only a little water sloshed weakly in the bottom. Yet he must last the afternoon through, and by night he could try the waterhole at Mesquite Springs, no more than a half mile away.

  The sun was hot, and he lay very still, knowing that only the faint breeze should stir the grass where he lay if he were not to be seen.

  Below him he heard men’s voices, and from time to time could distinguish a word or even sentence. They were cursing the heat, but their search was not relaxed. Twice men mounted the hill and passed near him. One man stopped for several minutes, not more than a dozen yards away, but Nat held himself still and waited. Finally the man moved on, mopping sweat from his face. When the sun was gone he wormed his way off the crest and into the manzanita. It took him over an hour to get within striking distance of Mesquite Springs. He stopped just in time. His nostrils caught the faint fragrance of tobacco smoke.

  Lying in the darkness, he listened, and after a moment heard a stone rattle, then the faint chink of metal on stone.

  When he was far enough away he got to his feet and worked his way through the night toward Stone Cup, a spring two miles beyond. He moved more warily now, knowing they were watching the waterholes.

  The stars were out, sharp and clear, when he snaked his way through the reeds toward the cup. Deliberately, he chose the route where the overflow from the Stone Cup kept the earth soggy and high-grown with reeds and dank grass. There would be no chance of a watcher waiting there on the wet ground, nor would the wet grass rustle. He moved close, but here, too, men waited.

  He lay still in the darkness, listening. Soon he picked out three men, two back in the shadows of the rock shelf, one over under the brush but not more than four feet from the small pool’s edge.

  There was no chance to get a canteen filled here, for the watchers were too wide awake. Yet he might manage a drink.

  He slid his knife from his pocket and opened it carefully. He cut several reeds, allowing no sound. When he had them cut, he joined them and reached them toward the water. Lying on his stomach within only a few feet of the pool, and no farther from the nearest watcher, he sucked on the reeds until the water started flowing. He drank for a long time, then drank again. The trickle doing little, at first to assuage his thirst. After a while he felt better.

  He started to withdraw the reeds, then grinned and let them lay. With care he worked his way back from the cup and got to his feet. His shirt was muddy and wet, and with the wind against his body he felt almost cold. With the waterholes watched there would be no chance to fill his canteen, and the day would be blazing hot. There might be an unwatched hole, but the chance of that was slight and if he spent the night in fruitless search of water he would exhaust his strength and lose the sleep he needed. Returning like a deer, to a resting place near a ridge, he bedded down in a clump of manzanita. His rifle cradled in his arm, he was almost instantly asleep… .

  Dawn was breaking when he awakened, and his nostrils caught a whiff of wood smoke. His pursuers were at their breakfasts. By now they would have found his reeds, and he grinned at the thought of their anger at having had him so near without knowing. Morton, he reflected, would appreciate that. Yet they would all know he was short of water.

  Worming his way through the brush, he found a trail that followed just below the crest, and moved steadily along in the partial shade, angling toward a towering hogback.

  Later, from well up on the hogback, he saw three horsemen walking their animals down the ridge where he had rested the previous day. Two more were working up a canyon, and wherever he looked they seemed to be closing in. He abandoned the canteen, for it banged against brush and could be heard too easily. He moved back, going from one cluster of boulders to another, then pausing short of the ridge itself.

  The only route that lay open was behind him, into the desert, and that way they were sure he would not go. The hogback on which he lay was the highest ground in miles, and before him the jagged scars of three canyons running off the hogback stretched their ugly length into the rocky, brush blanketed terrain. Up those three canyons groups of searchers were working. Another group had cut down from the north and come between him and the desert ghost town.

  The far-flung skirmishing line was well disposed, and Nat could find it in himself to admire their skill. These were his brand of men, and they understood their task. Knowing them as he did, he knew how relentless they could be. The country behind him was open. It would not be open long. Knowing themselves, they were sure he would fight it out rather than risk dying of thirst in the desert. They were wrong.

  Nat Bodine learned that suddenly. Had he been asked, he would have accepted their solution, yet now he saw that he could not give up.

  The desert was the true Powder Basin. The Indians had called it The Place of No Water, and he had explored deep into it in the past years, and found nothing. While the distance across was less than twenty miles, a man must travel twice that or more, up and down and around, if he would cross it, and his sense of direction must be perfect. Yet, with water and time a man might cross it. And Nat Bodine had neither. Moreover, if he went into the desert they would soon send word and have men waiting on the other side. He was fairly trapped, and yet he knew that he would die in that waste alone, before he’d surrendered to be lynched. Nor could he hope to fight off this posse for long. Carefully he got to his feet and worked his way to the maw of the desert. He nestled among the boulders and watched the men below. They were coming carefully, still several yards away. Cradling his Winchester against his cheek, he drew a bead on a rock ahead of the nearest man, and fired.

  Instantly the searchers vanished. Where a dozen men had been in sight, there was nobody now. He chuckled. “That made ’em eat dirt!” he said. “Now they won’t be so anxious.”

  The crossing of the crest was dangerous, but he made it, and hesitated there, surveying the scene before him. Far away to the horizon stretched the desert. Before him the mountain broke sharply away in a series of sheer precipices and ragged chasms, and he scowled as he stared down at them, for there seemed no descent could be possible from here.

  Chuck Benson and Jim Morton crouched in the lee of a stone wall and stared up at the ridge from which the shot had come. “He didn’t shoot to kill,” Morton said, “or he’d have had one of us. He’s that good.”

  “What’s on his mind?” Benson demanded. “He’s stuck now. I know that ridge an’ the only way down is the way he went up.” “Let’s move in,” Blackie protested. “There’s cover enough.” “You don’t know Nat. He’s never caught until you see him down. I know the man. He’ll climb cliffs that would stop a hoss fly.”

  Pete Daley and Burt Stoval moved up to join them, peering at the ridge before them through the concealing leaves. The ridge was a gigantic hogback almost a thousand feet higher than the plateau on which they waited. On the far side it fell away to the desert, dropping almost two thousand feet in no more than two hundred yards, and most of the drop in broken cliffs.

  Daley’s eyes were hard with satisfaction. “We got him now!” he said triumphantly. “He’ll never get off that ridge! We’ve only to wait a little, then move in on him. He’s out of water, too!” Mortion looked with distaste at Daley. “You seem powerful anxious to get him, Pete. Maybe the sheriff ain’t dead yet. Maybe he won’t die. Maybe his story of the shootin’ will be different.”

  Daley turned on Morton, his dislike evident. “Your opinion’s of no account, Morton. I was there, and I saw it. As for Larabee, if he ain’t dead he soon will be. If you don’t like this job, why don’t you leave?”

  Jim Morton stoked his pipe calmly. “Because I aim to be here if you get Bodine,” he said, “an’ I personal
ly figure to see he gets a fair shake. Furthermore, Daley, I’m not beholdin’ to you, no way, an’ I ain’t scared of you. Howsoever, I figure you’ve got a long way to go before you get Bodine.”

  High on the ridge, flat on his stomach among the rocks, Bodine was not so sure. He mopped sweat from his brow and studied again the broken cliff beneath him. There seemed to be a vaguely possible route but at the thought of it his mouth turned dry and his stomach empty.

  A certain bulge in the rock looked as though it might afford handholds, although some of the rock was loose, and he couldn’t see below the bulge where it might become smooth. Once over that projection, getting back would be difficult if not impossible. Nevertheless, he determined to try.

  Using his belt for a rifle strap, he slung the Winchester over his back, then turned his face to the rock and slid feet first over the bulge, feeling with his toes for a hold. If he fell from here, he could not drop less than two hundred feet, although close in there was a narrow ledge only sixty feet down.

  Using simple pull holds, and working down with his feet, Bodine got well out over the bulge. Taking a good grip, he turned his head and searched the rock below him. On his left the rock was cracked deeply, with the portion of the face to which he clung projecting several inches farther into space than the other side of the crack. Shifting his left foot carefully, he stepped into the crack, which afforded a good jam hold. Shifting his left hand, he took a pull grip, pulling away from himself with the left fingers until he could swing his body to the left, and get a grip on the edge of the crack with his right fingers. Then lying back, his feet braced against the projecting far edge of the crack, and pulling toward himself with his hands, he worked his way down, step by step and grip by grip, for all of twenty feet. There the crack widened into a chimney, far too wide to be climbed with a lie back, its inner sides slick and smooth from the scouring action of wind and water.

  Working his way into the chimney, he braced his feet against one wall and his back against the other, and by pushing against the two walls and shifting his feet carefully, he worked his way down until he was well past the sixty-foot ledge. The chimney ended in a small cavern-like hollow in the rock, and he sat there, catching his breath.

  Nat ran his fingers through his hair and mopped sweat from his brow. Anyway, he grinned at the thought, they wouldn’t follow him down here!

  Carefully, he studied the cliff below him, then to the right and left. To escape his present position he must make a traverse of the rock face, working his way gradually down. For all of forty feet of climb he would be exposed to a dangerous fall, or to a shot from above if they had dared the ridge. Yet there were precarious handholds and some inch-wide ledges for his feet.

  When he had his breath, he moved out, clinging to the rock face and carefully working across it and down. Sliding down a steep slab, he crawled out on a knife-edge ridge of rock and, straddling it, worked his way along until he could climb down a further face, hand over hand. Landing on a wide ledge, he stood there, his chest heaving, staring back up at the ridge. No one was yet in sight, and there was a chance that he was making good his escape. At the same time his mouth was dry and the effort expended in climbing and descending had increased his thirst. Unslinging his rifle, he completed the descent without trouble, emerging at last upon the desert below.

  Heat lifted against his face in a stifling wave. Loosening the buttons of his shirt, he pushed back his hat and stared up at the towering height of the mountain, and even as he looked up, he saw men appear on the ridge. Lifting his hat, he waved to them.

  Benson was the first man on that ridge, and involuntarily he drew back from the edge of the cliff, catching his breath at the awful depth below. Pete Daley, Burt Stoval and Tim Morgan moved up beside him, and then the others. It was Morgan who spotted Bodine first.

  “What did I tell you?” he snapped. “He’s down there on the desert!”

  Daley’s face hardened. “Why, the dirty—”

  Benson stared. “You got to hand it to him!” he said. “I’d sooner chance a shootout than try that cliff!”

  A bearded man on their left spat and swore softly. “Well, boys, this does it! I’m quittin! No man that game deserves to hang! I’d say, let him go!”

  Pete Daley turned angrily, but changed his mind when he saw the big man and the way he wore his gun. Pete was no fool. Some men could be bullied, and it was a wise man who knew which and when. “I’m not quitting,” he said flatly. “Let’s get the boys, Chuck. We’ll get our horses and be around there in a couple of hours. He won’t get far on foot.”

  Nat Bodine turned and started off into the desert with a long swinging stride. His skin felt hot, and the air was close and stifling, yet his only chance was to get across this stretch and work into the hills at a point where they could not find him.

  All this time Mary was in the back of his mind, her presence always near, always alive. Where was she now? And what was she doing? Had she been told?

  Nat Bodine had emerged upon the desert at the mouth of a boulder-strewn canyon slashed deep into the rocky flank of the mountain itself. From the mouth of the canyon there extended a wide fan of rock, coarse gravel, sand and silt flushed down from the mountain by torrential rains. On his right the edge of the fan of sand was broken by the deep scar of another wash, cut at some later date when the water had found some crevice in the rock to give it an unexpected hold. It was toward this wash that Bodine walked.

  Clambering down the slide, he walked along the bottom. Working his way among the boulders, he made his way toward the shimmering basin that marked the extreme low level of the desert. Here, dancing with heat waves, and seeming from a distance to be a vast blue lake, was one of those dry lakes that collect the muddy runoff from the mountains. Yet as he drew closer he discovered he had been mistaken in his hope that it was a playa of the dry type. Wells sunk in the dry type of playa often produce fresh cool water, and occasionally at shallow depths. This, however, was a pasty, water-surfaced salinas, and water found here would be salty and worse than none at all. Moreover, there was danger that he might break through the crust beneath the dry powdery dust and into the slime below.

  The playa was such that it demanded a wide detour from his path, and the heat here was even more intense than on the mountain. Walking steadily, dust rising at each footfall, Bodine turned left along the desert, skirting the playa. Beyond it he could see the edge of a rocky escarpment, and this rocky ledge stretched for miles toward the far mountain range bordering the desert.

  Yet the escarpment must be attained as soon as possible, for knowing as he was in desert ways and lore, Nate understood in such terrain there was always a possibility of stumbling upon one of those desert tanks, or tinajas, which contain the purest water any wanderer of the dry lands could hope to find. Yet he knew how difficult these were to find, for hollowed by some sudden cascade, or scooped by wind, they are often filled to the brim with gravel or sand, and must be scooped out to obtain the water in the bottom.

  Nat Bodine paused, shading his eyes toward the end of the playa. It was not much farther. His mouth was powder dry now, and he could swallow only with an effort.

  He was no longer perspiring. He walked as in a daze, concerned only with escaping the basin of the playa, and it was with relief that he stumbled over a stone and fell headlong. Clumsily, he got to his feet, blinking away the dust and pushing on through the rocks. He crawled to the top of the escarpment through a deep crack in the rock and then walked on over the dark surface.

  It was some ancient flow of lava, crumbling to ruin now, with here and there a broken blister of it. In each of them he searched for water, but they were dry. At this hour he would see no coyote, but he watched for tracks, knowing the wary and wily desert wolves knew where water could be found.

  The horizon seemed no nearer, nor had the peaks begun to show their lines of age, or the shapes into which the wind had carved them. Yet the sun was lower now, its rays level and blasting as the searing flame
s of a furnace. Bodine plodded on, walking toward the night, hoping for it, praying for it. Once he paused abruptly at a thin whine of sound across the sun-blasted air.

  Waiting, he listened, searching the air about him with eyes suddenly alert, but he did not hear the sound again for several minutes, and when he did hear it there was no mistaking it. His eyes caught the dark movement, striking straight away from him on a course diagonal with his own.

  A bee!

  Nat changed his course abruptly, choosing a landmark on a line with the course of the bee, and then followed on. Minutes later he saw a second bee, and altered his course to conform with it. The direction was almost the same, and he knew that water could be found by watching converging lines of bees. He could afford to miss no chance, and he noted the bees were flying deeper into the desert, not away from it.

  Darkness found him suddenly. At the moment the horizon range had grown darker, its crest tinted with old rose and gold, slashed with the deep fire of crimson, and then it was night, and a coyote was yapping myriad calls at the stars.

  In the coolness he might make many miles by pushing on, and he might also miss his only chance at water. He hesitated, then his weariness conformed with his judgment, and he slumped down against a boulder and dropped his chin on his chest. The coyote voiced a shrill complaint, then satisfied with the echo against the rocks, ceased his yapping and began to hunt. He scented the man smell and skirted wide around, going about his business.

  There were six men in the little cavalcade at the base of the cliff, searching for tracks. The rider found them there. Jim Morton calmly sitting his horse and watching with interested eyes, but lending no aid to the men who tracked his friend, and there were Pete Daley, Blackie, Chuck Benson and Burt Stoval. Farther along were other groups of riders.

  The man worked a hard-ridden horse and he was yelling before he reached them. He raced up and slid his horse to a stop, gasping, “Call it off! It wasn’t him!”