Desert Death-Song

by Louis L'Amour

  Briefly, he explained, and after a minute the door opened. “Come in, Jim. Figured I heard a shot awhile back. Dan Mello, you say? He’s a bad one.”

  Hurrying to the corral, Jim harnessed two mustangs and hitched them to the buckboard. A moment later Bill Katrishen, tall and gray-haired came from the cabin, carrying a lantern in one hand and a black bag in the other.

  “I’m no medical man,” he said, “but I fixed a sight of bullet wounds in my time.” He crawled into the buckboard and one of his sons got up beside him. Led by Sandifer they started back over the way he had come.

  Mello was still conscious when they stopped beside him. He looked unbelievingly at Katrishen.

  “You come?” he said. “You knowed who—who I was?”

  “You’re hurt, ain’t you?” Katrishen asked testily. Carefully, he examined the man, then sat back on his heels. “Mello,” he said, “I ain’t one for foolin’ a man. You’re plumb bad off. That bullet seems to have slid off your hip bone an’ tore right through you. If we had you down to the house we could work on you a durned sight better, but I don’t know whether you’d make it or not.”

  The wounded man breathed heavily, staring from one to the other. He looked scared, and he was sweating, yet under it his face was pale.

  “What you think,” he panted, “all right—with me.”

  “The three of us can put him on them quilts in the back of the buckboard. Jim, you slide your hands under his back.”

  “Hold up,” Mello’s eyes wavered, then focused on Jim. “You watch—Martin. He’s plumb—bad.”

  “What’s he want, Mello?” Jim said. “What’s he after?”

  “G—old,” Mello panted, and then suddenly he relaxed. “Fainted,” Katrishen said. “Load him up.”

  All through the remainder of the night they worked over him. It was miles over mountain roads to Silver City and the nearest doctor, and little enough that he could do. Shortly before the sun lifted, Dan Mello died.

  Bill Katrishen got up from beside the bed, his face drawn with weariness. He looked across the body of Dan Mello at Sandifer. “Jim, what’s this all about? Why was he gunning for you?” Hesitating only a moment, Jim Sandifer explained the needling of Gray Bowen by Rose Martin, the undercover machinations of her and her tall son, the hiring of the Mellos at their instigation, and of Art Dunn and Klee Mont. Then he went on to the events preceding his break with the B Bar. Katrishen nodded thoughtfully, but obviously puzzled.

  “I never heard of the woman, Jim. I can’t figure why she’d have it in for me. What did Mello mean when he said Martin was after gold?”

  “You’ve got me. I know they are money hungry, but the ranch is—” He stopped, and his face lifted, his eyes narrowing. “Bill, did you ever hear of gold around here?”

  “Sure, over toward Cooney Canyon. You know, Cooney was a sergeant in the Army, and after his discharge he returned to hunt for gold he located while a soldier. The Apaches finally got him, but he had gold first.”

  “Maybe that’s it. I want a fresh horse, Bill.”

  “You get some sleep first. The boys an’ I’ll take care of Dan. Kara will fix breakfast for you.”

  The sun was high when Jim Sandifer rolled out of his bunk and stumbled sleepily to the door to splash his face in cold water poured from a bucket into the tin basin. Kara heard him moving and came to the door, walking carefully and lifting her hand to catch the door jam.

  “Hello, Jim. Are you rested? Dad an’ the boys buried Dan Mello over on the knoll.”

  Jim smiled at her reassuringly.

  “I’m rested, but after I eat I’ll be ridin’, Kara.” He looked up at the slender girl with the rusty hair and pale freckles. “You keep the boys in, will you? I don’t want them to be where they could be shot at until I can figure a way out of this. I’m going to maintain peace in this country or die tryin’!”

  “You’re a good man, Jim,” the girl said. “This country needs more like you.”

  Sandifer shook his head somberly. “Not really a good man, Kara, just a man who wants peace and time to build a home. I reckon I’ve been as bad as most, but this is a country for freedom, and a country for things to be done. We can’t do it when we are killin’ each other.”

  The buckskin horse was resting but the iron gray that Katrishen had provided was a good mountain horse. Jim Sandifer pulled his gray hat low over his eyes and squinted against the sun. He liked the smell of pine needles, the pungent smell of sage. He moved carefully, searching the trail for the way Lee Martin’s horse had gone the day Grimes followed him.

  Twice he lost the trail, then found it again only to lose it finally in the sand of a wash. The area covered by the sand was small, a place where water had spilled down a steep mountainside eating out a raw wound in the cliff, yet there the trail vanished. Dismounting, a careful search disclosed a brushed over spot near the cliff, and then a chafed place on a small tree. Here Lee Martin had tied his horse, and from here he must have gone on foot.

  It was a small rock, only half as big as his fist that was the telltale clue. The rock showed where it had lain in the earth but had been recently rolled aside. Moving close, he could see that the stone had rolled from under a clump of brush, and parting the brush, the clump rolled easily under his hand. Then he saw that although the roots were still in the soil, that at some time part of it had been pulled free, and the clump had been rolled over to cover an opening no more than a couple of feet wide and twice as high. It was a man made tunnel, but one not recently made.

  Concealing the gray in the trees some distance off, Sandifer walked back to the hole, stared around uneasily, then ducked his head and entered. Once inside, the tunnel was higher and wider, and then it opened into a fair sized room. Here the ore had been stoped out, and he looked around, holding a match high. The light caught and glinted upon the rock, and moving closer he picked up a small chunk of rose quartz, seamed with gold!

  Pocketing the sample he walked further in until he saw a black hole yawning before him, and beside it lay a notched pole such as the Indians had used in Spanish times to climb out of mine shafts. Looking over into the hole he saw a longer pole reaching down into the darkness. He peered over, then straightened. This, then, was what Dan Mello had meant! The Martins wanted gold.

  The match flickered out, and standing there in the cool darkness, he thought it over and understood. This place was on land used, and probably claimed, by Bill Katrishen, and could not be worked unless they were driven off. But could he make Gray Bowen believe him? What would Lee do if his scheme was exposed? Why had Mello been so insistent that Martin was dangerous?

  He bent over and started into the tunnel exit, then stopped. Kneeling just outside were Lee Martin, Art Dunn, and Jay Mello. Lee had a shotgun pointed at Jim’s body. Jim jerked back around the corner of stone even as the shotgun thundered.

  “You dirty, murderin’ rat!” he yelled. “Let me out in the open and try that!”

  Martin laughed. “I wouldn’t think of it! You’re right where I want you now and you’ll stay there!”

  Desperately, Jim stared around. Martin was right. He was bottled up now. He drew his gun, wanting to chance a shot at Martin while yet there was time, but when he stole a glance around the corner of the tunnel there was nothing to be seen. Suddenly, he heard a sound of metal striking stone, a rattle of rock, then a thunderous crash and the tunnel was filled with dust, stifling and thick. Lee Martin had closed off the tunnel mouth and he was entombed alive!

  Jim Sandifer leaned back against the rock wall of the slope and closed his eyes. He was frightened. He was frightened with a deep, soul-shaking fear, for this was something against which he could not fight, those walls of living rock around him, and the dead debris of the rock-choked tunnel. Had there been time and air a man might work out an escape, but there was so little time, so little air. He was buried alive.

  Slowly, the dust settled from the heavy air. Saving his few matches he got down on his knees and crawled into the t
unnel, but there was barely room enough. Mentally, he tried to calculate the distance out, and he could see that there was no less than fifteen feet of rock between him and escape—not an impossible task if more rock did not slide down from above. Remembering the mountain, he knew that above the tunnel mouth it was almost one vast slide.

  He could hear nothing, and the air was hot and close. On his knees he began to feel his way around, crawling until he reached the tunnel and the notched pole. Here he hesitated, wondering what the darkness below would hold.

  Water, perhaps? Or even snakes? He had heard of snakes taking over old mines and once crawling down the ladder into an old shaft had seen an enormous rattler, the biggest he had ever seen, coiled about the ladder just below him. Nevertheless, he began to descend—down, down into the abysmal blackness below him. He seemed to have climbed down an interminable distance when suddenly his boot touched rock.

  Standing upright, one hand on the pole, he reached out. His hand found rock on three sides, on the other, only empty space. He turned in that direction and ran smack into the rock wall, knocking sparks from his skull. He drew back, swearing, and found the tunnel. At the same time his hand touched something else, a sort of ledge in the corner of the rock, and on the ledge— his heart gave a leap!

  Candles!

  Quickly, he got out a match and lit the first one. Then he walked into the tunnel. Here was more of the rose quartz, and it was incredibly seamed with gold. Lee Martin had made a strike. Rather, studying the walls, he had found an old mine, perhaps an old Spanish working, although work had been done down here within the last few weeks. Suddenly Jim saw a pick and he grinned. There might yet be a way out. Yet a few minutes of exploration sufficed to indicate that there was no other opening. If he went out it must be by the way he came.

  Taking the candles with him he climbed the notched pole and stuck a lighted candle on a rock. Then, with the pick at his side, he started to work at the debris choking the tunnel. He lifted a rock and moved it aside, then another.

  An hour later, soaked with sweat, he was still working away, pausing each minute or so to examine the hanging wall. The tunnel was cramped and the work moved slowly ahead for every stone removed had to be shoved back into the stope behind him. He reached the broken part overhead, and when he moved a rock, more slid down. He worked on, his breath coming in great gasps, sweat dripping from his face and neck to his hands.

  A new sound came to him, a faint tapping. He held still, listening, trying to quiet his breathing and the pound of his heart. Then he heard it again, an unmistakable tapping!

  Grasping his pick, he tapped three times, then an interval, then three times again. Then he heard somebody pull at the rocks of the tunnel and his heart pounded with exultation. He had help! He had been found!

  CHAPTER FOUR: Guns Out

  How the following hours passed Sandifer never quite knew, but working feverishly, he fought his way through the border of time that divided him from the outer world and the clean, pine-scented air. Suddenly, a stone was moved and an arrow of light stabbed the darkness, and with it the cool air he wanted. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air so liquid it might almost be water, and then he went to work, helping the hands outside to enlarge the opening. When there was room enough, he thrust his head and shoulders through, then pulled himself out and stood up, dusting himself off— and found he was facing, not Bill Katrishen or one of his sons, but Jay Mello!

  “You?” he was astonished. “What brought you back?”

  Jay wiped his thick hands on his jeans and looked uncomfortable.

  “Never figured to bury no man alive,” he said. “That was Martin’s idee. Anyway, Katrishen told me what you done for Dan.”

  “Did he tell you I’d killed him? I’m sorry, Jay. It was him or me.”

  “Sure. I knowed that when he come after you. I didn’t like it nohow. What I meant, well—you could’ve left him lie. You didn’t need to go git help for him. I went huntin’ Dan, when I found you was alive, an’ I figured it was like that, that he was dead. Katrishen give me his clothes, an’ I found this—”

  It was a note, scrawled painfully, perhaps on a rifle stock, or a flat rock, written, no doubt, while Jim was gone for help.

  Jay:

  Git shet of Marten. Sandfer’s all right. He’s gone for hulp to Katrisshn. I’m hard hit. Sandfer shore is wite. So long, Jay, good ridin.

  Dan.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. He was game.”

  “Sure.” Jay Mello scowled. “It was Martin got us into this, him an’ Klee Mont. We never done no killin’ before, maybe stole a few hosses or run off a few head of cows.”

  “What happened? How long was I in there?” Jim glanced at the sun.

  “About five, six hours. She’ll be dark soon.” Mello hesitated, “I reckon I’m goin’ to take out—light a shuck for Texas.”

  Sandifer thrust out his hand. “Good luck, Jay. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

  The outlaw nodded. He stared at the ground, and then he looked up, his tough, unshaven face strangely lonely in the late afternoon sun.

  “Sure wish Dan was ridin’ with me. We always rode together, him an’ me, since we was kids.” He rubbed a hard hand over his lips. “What d’you know? That girl back to Katrishen’s? She put some flowers on his grave! Sure enough!”

  He turned and walked to his horse, swung into the saddle and walked his horse down the trail, a somber figure captured momentarily by the sunlight before he turned away under the pines. Incongruously, Jim noticed that the man’s vest was split up the back, and the crown of his hat was torn.

  The gray waited patiently by the brush, but Jim Sandifer untied him and swung into the saddle. It was a fast ride he made back to the ranch on Iron Creek. There he swapped saddles, explaining all to Katrishen. “I’m riding,” he said, “there’s no room in this country for Lee Martin now.”

  “Want us to come?” Bill asked.

  “No, they might think it was war. You stay out of it, for we want no Pleasant Valley War here. Leave it lay. I’ll settle this.”

  He turned from the trail before he reached the B Bar, riding through the cottonwoods and sycamores along the creek. Then he rode up between the buildings and stopped beside the corral. The saddle leather creaked when he swung down, and he saw a slight movement at the corner of the corral.

  “Klee? Is that you?” It was Art Dunn. “What’s goin’ on up at the house?”

  Jim Sandifer took a long step forward. “No, Art,” he said, swiftly, “it’s me!”

  Dunn took a quick step back and grabbed for his gun, but Jim was already moving, expecting him, to reach. Sandifer’s left hand dropped to Art’s wrist and his right smashed up in a wicked uppercut to the solar plexus.

  Dunn grunted and his knees sagged. Jim let go of his wrist then, and hooked sharply to the chin, hearing Dunn’s teeth click as the blow smashed home. Four times more Jim hit him, rocking his head on his shoulders, then smashed another punch to the wind, and grabbing Dunn’s belt buckle, jerked his gun belt open.

  The belt slipped down and Dunn staggered and went to his knees. The outlaw pawed wildly, trying to get at Jim, but he was still gasping for the wind that had been knocked out of him.

  The bunkhouse door opened and Sparkman stepped into the light. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What goes on?”

  Sandifer called softly, and Sparkman grunted and came down off the steps. “Jim! You here? There’s the devil to pay up at the house, man! I don’t know what came off up there, but there was a shootin’! When we tried to go up, Mont was on the steps with a shot gun to drive us back.”

  “Take care of this hombre. I’ll find out what’s wrong fast enough. Where’s Grimes an’ Rep?”

  “Rep Dean rode over to the line cabin on Canyon Creek to round up some boys in case of trouble. Grimes is inside.”

  “Then take Dunn an’ keep your eyes open! I may need help. If I yell, come loaded for bear an’ huntin’ hair!”

  Jim San
difer turned swiftly and started for the house. He walked rapidly, circling as he went toward the little-used front door, opened only on company occasions. That door, he knew, opened into a large, old-fashioned parlor that was rarely used. It was a show place, stiff and uncomfortable, and mostly gilt and plush. The front door was usually locked, but he remembered that he had occasion to help move some furniture not long before and the door had been left unlocked. There was every chance that it still was, for the room was so little used as to be almost forgotten.

  Easing up on the veranda, he tiptoed across to the door and gently turned the knob. The door opened inward, and he stepped swiftly through and closed it behind him. All was dark and silent, but there was light under the intervening door, and a sound of movement. With the thick carpet muffling his footfalls, he worked his way across the room to the door.

  “How’s the old man?” Martin was asking.

  His mother replied. “He’s all right. He’ll live.”

  Martin swore. “If that girl hadn’t bumped me, I’d have killed him and we’d be better off. We could easy enough fix things so that Sandifer would get blamed for it.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” Rose Martin intervened. “You’re always in such a fret. The girl’s here, an’ we can use her to help. As long as we have her, the old man will listen, and while he’s hurt, she’ll do as she’s told.”

  Martin muttered under his breath. “If we’d started by killing Sandifer like I wanted, all would be well,” he said irritably. “What he said about the Katrishen trouble startin’ with our comin’ got the old man to thinkin’. Then I figure Bowen was sorry he fired his foreman.”

  “No matter!” Rose Martin was brusque. “We’ve got this place and we can handle the Katrishens ourselves. There’s plenty of time now Sandifer’s gone.”

  Steps sounded. “Lee, the old man’s comin’ out of it. He wants his daughter.”

  “Tell him to go climb a tree!” Martin replied stiffly. “You watch him.”

  “Where’s Art?” Klee protested. “I don’t like it, Lee! He’s been gone too long. Somethin’s up!”