To ride among them made every step a risk. The joints broke off and stuck in the horses’ legs, in the riders’ clothing, even in the saddle ladder. Nothing was safe from the thorns. Once in the flesh, they seemed hooked there, and were both difficult and painful to remove.
Dan Rodelo rode in the lead, weaving a precarious way among the outcroppings of jagged lava and the cholla. It was ugly country. At times they had to cross short stretches of lava where a slip would be almost sure to mean a broken leg for a horse. Once they skirted a crater that must have been at least four hundred feet deep. In the bottom were several scattered sahuaro, and some of the big cactus had grown at a point where the ridge was broken like a breach in a wall. Clusters of cholla were all about them, and clumps of cat-claw. Far off he could see a bighorn watching from a volcanic cone. This was the heart of the Pinacate country.
Nora closed in beside him. He was shocked at her face. Her lips had cracked, and they had bled. “Is it much further, Dan?” she asked. “I mean to the bay?”
“A good bit.”
“What’s going to happen?”
He looked at her, and he was worried by the same thought. “Too much, I’m afraid. You keep your head down, d’you hear, when the Yaquis come. And after that…well, you know how Joe Harbin feels.”
“What’re you two talkin’ about?” Harbin shouted. “That’s my woman you’re a-talkin’ to, Rodelo, and don’t you forget it.”
Dan turned a bit in the saddle. “She will decide that, I think.”
“Like hell she will! I’ve decided it. She’s mine, and any time you want to argue the question you speak up.”
Dan sat easy on his saddle, but the thong was off his six-shooter. “Don’t ride that reputation too hard, Joe. Somebody might want to try it out.”
“Any time.”
Talking hurt his lips, and Dan Rodelo did not reply. He squinted his eyes against the sun, searching the lava for familiar signs, but he saw none. Yet the tank had to be near.
All morning they had ridden without water. Now the sun was high, the horses moved with lagging steps. Suddenly he saw a white blaze on a dark rock up ahead. At the same time a bee shot by him, flying a straight course.
The horses smelled the water and quickened their pace. And then they all saw it. Nora stared, and then turned her face away. Tom swore bitterly. In the tank, which was half filled with water, lay a dead bighorn, and it had been dead several days.
Joe Harbin turned on Rodelo. “This the kind of water you take us to?”
“It ain’t his fault. Be reasonable,” Tom said quietly. “We’re in trouble, but we ain’t goin’ to get out of it by fightin’ amongst ourselves.”
Gopher looked at Rodelo, his eyes haunted by fear.
“We’ve got another chance,” Rodelo said, “about an hour from here.”
Wearily, they climbed into their saddles once more and started the reluctant horses toward the southeast. Fear rode with them, for now their margin of safety was gone. All were feeling the effects of dehydration, which had been growing with each passing hour. Rodelo, who had saturated himself with water when he had the chance, was in better shape than the others. Nora had followed his advice to some degree.
Dan Rodelo studied the terrain as they moved along. Once down on the flat, there would be no water. He knew that Papago Tanks, usually holding some water, often quite a lot, were somewhere near. But there were few landmarks. The terrain, weird as it was, had a sameness that made locating any spot difficult.
He could feel the effort his horse was making, could feel the heaviness in its muscles, the desire to stop, no matter what. When they had put a mile behind them, he drew up. “We’d best walk,” he said, “if we want our horses to last.”
Though loath to do so, they dismounted, and Rodelo started to walk on.
Nobody felt like eating, nor was it wise to eat, with no water. Rodelo’s lips were painfully cracked, but they scarcely bled, for with dehydration any scratch dried up almost at once. He walked slowly, setting a pace easier for those behind him to follow. A careless touch on a bit of rock in passing was like touching red-hot iron from a forge.
Ahead of them he saw a black ridge, shading off in places to a dull red, depending on the way the sunlight fell. Was that the place?
Squinting his eyes, he looked for some familiar landmark. He knew that in the wilderness any place may have many different aspects, which is the reason why seasoned travelers watch their back trail, to know how the country will look on their return journey. A slightly different view of terrain, under different conditions of light, can often make a surprising difference in appearance.
Rodelo’s brain was sluggish. He struggled with his thoughts, trying to remember what he knew of this place…if it was the place. Finally, he started on once more, tugging to get his horse moving again.
The rocks were corrugated and rough, each edge like a serrated knife, tearing at their boots or clothing. Turning to look back, he was shocked at the looks of those who followed him. Nora’s blouse had been torn by cactus, her boots were badly scuffed; her buckskin divided skirt was standing up best of all, but even that was showing signs of the rough travel.
Gopher’s thin face looked strained, his lips ugly with cracks and bleeding. Badger and Harbin were caricatures of their original selves. The small procession was scattered over several hundred yards, and had the Yaquis attacked at that moment they would have had an easy victory.
At the next step Rodelo saw the track of a bighorn. There were a lot of the desert bighorns in the Pinacate country, and as his eyes searched the ground he saw another, somewhat smaller track, partly overlaid by the track of a desert fox. All pointed the same direction. He stopped and studied the slopes carefully, then turned in among the rocks.
He had not found the trail by which he had once come to Papago Tanks, but he was trying to find his way by deduction, with an assist from the tracks he had seen. Much of the rock here was polished by wind and blown sand, and it was slippery under foot. This was a wild land, gloomy and forbidding, a place normally to be avoided, but it was here he hoped to find water.
Suddenly he saw the bluish basaltic rock he remembered. He veered a little, went down between two great slabs of volcanic rock, and was on the tiny sandy beach by the water hole. At the base of a twenty-foot drop a hollow had been worn by falling water and churning rock fragments to a depth of four or five feet. Back of it, and close by, was another pool, at least a dozen feet in diameter. There the water was shaded by a slight leaning of the rock, and the water below was cold and clear.
“Let the horses drink from the near pool,” Rodelo said. “We’ll drink from the one further back.”
He stooped and scooped a mouthful of the water, sucking it from his palm and feeling the coolness of it bring life to the parched tissues of his mouth. He let a few drops trickle down his throat, and felt his stomach contract. He drank slowly, taking only a swallow at a time. Then he took the canteen from his horse and filled it, and after that he filled Nora’s.
Then he led the horses to water, allowed them a little and took them away, and after a bit came back with them for more.
This was not the end of their troubles, he knew. They could no longer use their largest canteen and they could not carry enough water. How far was it to Adair Bay? Twenty miles perhaps? Twenty-five?
With the horses in such bad shape they could not hope to make it in a day. After some rest here, they might make it in two days. So far they had been lucky; and he, better than any of the others, knew how lucky.
He glanced at the sky. It would be hot tomorrow; and he knew that when the temperature is 110 degrees at breathing level it may be fifty degrees hotter on the sand underfoot. In this arroyo where they now were it could be bitterly cold at night, but during the day heat was sucked up from the sands, and the stiflng hot, drying winds drained the moisture from the tissues and left man or animal dried out like old shoe leather that has been exposed to the sun. In such heat, even twenty-fo
ur hours without water could kill a man.
Nora came up beside him. “What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“We’ll rest, eat, drink some more, and get ready to start for the coast.”
“Do you think there will be trouble?”
He considered that. “Yes, I am afraid so. The Indians are out there. They’ve got to take us now, and they know it.”
“What can we do?”
“Drink…drink all you can hold. Saturate all your tissues with it. You’ll last longer if you do.”
He led the horses to water once more, then picketed them near some mesquite brush and clumps of burrow bush.
He was gathering a few sticks of dried-out wood when Joe Harbin came up to him. Gopher was with him, Tom Badger bringing up the rear.
“That’s good water, Rodelo,” Harbin said. “I’ll apologize. You knew where you were goin’, all right.”
“I still do.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We’re not out of the woods yet, Harbin. It’s maybe twenty-five miles or so down to the coast. That’s two days, at best.”
“Hell, I’ve ridden seventy miles a day more’n once.”
“On horses like these? They’re in bad shape, Harbin.”
“They’ll make it.”
“Take your time, Joe,” Badger suggested. “Maybe he’s right.”
“Like hell he is! He’s stallin’ for time. We just don’t need him any more.”
Dan Rodelo got up from the pile of sticks he was preparing. “We’ll make some coffee,” he said to Nora, “and have something to eat. The hardest time is still ahead of us.”
He looked around at Harbin. “You need me, all right. You need me now worse than ever. You’ve still got a fight with those Indians…and don’t underestimate them. They’ve been trackin’ down escaped convicts for years, and they get most of them.”
“Let ’em come—the sooner the better.”
“That’s dune sand west of here, Harbin. There’s places out there where a horse can sink belly-deep, and every time he tries to get out he sinks deeper. And the same for men. Or suppose your canteen gets holed? You’re a long way from being out of the woods yet. You got any idea how many cons got this far? I can name you a dozen…but they lost out between here and the coast.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He makes sense,” Badger said. “We’d better look to our hole card.”
Gopher brought more sticks and added to the fire. Nora looked at him and asked, “Why do they call you Gopher?”
He grinned at her. “I was forever tryin’ to dig cut. Made so many tunnels they called me Gopher. It was partly because of him”—he indicated Tom Badger. “He was the Badger, and bigger than me, so they called me the Gopher.”
They ate and drank, and finally one by one they lay down exhausted on the sand.
“You cover up,” Rodelo warned Nora. “The wind will start coming down this arroyo, and it will be cold.”
“Cold?” She was incredulous.
“You’ll be chilled to the bone, take it from me. You cover up.”
He looked in the direction of the coast. From a high point a man might see it all, laid out there before him, but it would be deceiving. Desert country has a way of concealing its obstacles: canyons that don’t seem to be there until one stands on the very edge of them, and lava flows that would ruin a new pair of boots in a few miles.
Somehow he knew. Tomorrow would be the day…tomorrow.
Chapter 7
*
DAN RODELO SLIPPED the thong off his six-shooter and worked his fingers. He wanted no trouble. He had come here for a purpose, and if he could accomplish that purpose without a gunfight he would be satisfied. How he would fare in a gun battle with Joe Harbin he had no idea, but he knew that Harbin had not killed men by accident. He was a good shot and a tough man.
Tom Badger was shrewd and careful, willing to let the others fight. And neither of them planned to let Gopher come in for anything.
Rodelo had gone to prison for a crime he had not committed. That rankled, but what hurt most was that others believed him guilty. Above all else, he meant to prove himself innocent, and then he would drift out of the country. He no longer wanted any part of those who had distrusted him, who had lost faith in him so quickly.
Nora was at the fire, and the coffee water was boiling. Badger hunkered down, back a bit from the flames, and faced partly away from them. “So far so good, Danny,” he said. “You brought us to water.”
“Better tank up,” Rodelo answered. “Drink all you can. We’ve got the worst of all waiting for us out there.”
Harbin snorted. “I can do the rest of it standin’ on my head.”
Rodelo shrugged. “You pick your own way of doing it, Harbin, but I’ll see no man die out there if I can help it. There’s a belt of shifting dunes between here and the coast, miles of them, and not a drop of water to be had.”
Harbin looked at him. “You sure like to make a big man of yourself, don’t you?”
Rodelo made no reply. Harbin’s frustration and irritation, coupled with the harsh travel, had brought him to a murderous mood, and Rodelo realized it.
“Coffee’s ready,” Nora said. “Come and get it while it’s hot.”
“I’ll have some,” Rodelo said. “A cup of coffee would taste right good.”
Nora filled a cup and handed it to him, but Harbin reached over so suddenly he almost spilled the coffee in grabbing for the cup. “I’ll take that!” he said sharply.
“Sure,” Rodelo replied mildly, “you have it, Harbin.”
Harbin stared at him angrily. “What’s the matter? You yella? You afraid to fight?”
Rodelo shrugged. He was half smiling. “What’s there to fight about? We’ll all get coffee. You can have the first cup.”
“Maybe I’ll have the second too!” Harbin was prodding him; but the time was not right, and Rodelo could wait.
“All right, you have the second too.”
“And maybe I’ll take it all!”
“What about us, Joe?” Badger spoke quietly. “I’d like a cup myself.”
Nora held out a cup to Dan. “Take this. There’s no sense in bickering over a cup of coffee.”
Instantly, Joe Harbin slapped the cup from her hand and grabbed for his gun. He drew and fired so quickly that his shot missed, smashing into the just filled waterbags behind Rodelo.
Rodelo, close to him, went in on a long dive, his powerful right shoulder catching Harbin on the hip and knocking him spinning to the ground. Before he could get a good grip on his gun again, Rodelo kicked it from his hand.
With a grunted oath, Harbin came off the sand in a lunge, but he pulled his punch too wide and Dan Rodelo’s caught him on the cheekbone with a wicked right as he came in. Harbin, stopped in his tracks, was perfectly set up for the sweeping left, and he went down hard.
Instantly, Badger leaped in and grabbed Rodelo. “Easy now! Let’s not be fightin’!”
Stunned, Harbin lay still for a moment. When he got up he was quiet. “All right, Rodelo,” he said. “I’ll kill you for that.”
His voice was cold and even. The man who spoke was not the man Rodelo had knocked down, scarcely the man he had known for all those months in prison. For the first time Dan Rodelo felt something like fear. Yet he stood quietly and looked at Harbin.
“You’ll be a fool if you try, Harbin,” he said. “You’re out of prison. You’re in Mexico. In a matter of a day or two you’ll be aboard Isacher’s boat and headed for Mazatlan. But believe me, you’ll need me from here until you get to the Gulf. You’ll need me until you get your feet on that boat.”
There was a growing welt on Harbin’s cheekbone, a thin cut on his jaw. Harbin’s fingers touched them gingerly. “You marked me,” he said almost wonderingly. “Nobody ever put a mark on me before.”
He took up his coffee and, making no effort to retrieve his gun, walked off and sat down on a rock. Nora filled cups for B
adger, Gopher, and Rodelo, and finally for herself. Nobody talked. They drank their coffee, the wind down the arroyo grew chill. Dan added wood to the fire, going out into the darkness for branches or roots of dried mesquite and creosote.
The fire blazed up, the smoke smelled good, the stars became brighter and the wind colder.
“Is there water down by the Gulf?” Badger asked.
“Some…and some of it is bad.”
“But you know the good springs?”
“Sure he does,” Harbin spoke up. “You can bet he knows. He knows just about everything.”
Badger strolled over to the waterbags. The sand was damp under them. He knew what he would see when he lifted the sacks, for he had seen the bullet strike. The bags had been piled together; now they were flat and empty. Each of them had been holed by the bullet, cutting a corner from one sack, going through another and into the third.
Harbin watched Badger examine the bags and drop them back on the ground. “We still got two canteens,” he said. “That should last us.”
“And the horses?”
“We’ll water them before we leave. They’ll make it.”
The horses were in bad shape and they all knew it; they were in no condition for a grueling ride through the last of the lava, and then the tough travel over the deep sand of the dunes.
Harbin came over, picked up his gun, rubbed the sand from it, and slid it into his holster.
“Where are they?” Nora asked. “The Indians, I mean.”
“Out there. They’re where they can see our fire, maybe even within the sound of our voices. They’ve seen all this before, you know. We’ll have to keep a good lookout tonight.”
He got up and walked over to the horses. Leading them to water, he allowed them to drink their fill. He noticed that the campfire showed scarcely at all when a man was well away from it. He let the horses take their time, then led them to some mesquite brush and picketed them nearer the fire.
Novel 1966 - Kid Rodelo (v5.0) Page 6