Curtis agreed drinking the cool water the rusting pipe offered. “Man,” he said, “I was hoping that you’d say that.”
Bardwell laughed.
Chapter Thirteen
Even in the shade the tall buildings offered, it was hot. As the horses regained their composure after taking on plenty of water, they began to spread out grazing on what little grass there was here. Without eating, the lawmen lay back on their saddles closing their eyes.
As the daystar blazed high overhead, Bardwell and Curtis slept. After a time, the temperatures had dropped considerably. Something stirred close by. Bardwell rolled to the sound with a Colt in his hand. It was Curtis moving his saddle and gear.
“There’s a little more grass around the side of the building, Sir,” he said. “I’ve gathered us up some sticks for a fire tonight.”
Bardwell smiled placing the pistol back in its time-worn leather holster. He sat up leaning on his saddle rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The daystar was setting quickly in the dirty sky behind the building. The winds had come up––the boy was probably right in moving to the leeward side of the building for the night.
As Bardwell sat trying to wake his bone weary body, Curtis returned to carry his superior’s saddle around the building.
Back here the water spilled over from another trough irrigating the nearby desert soil. Grass stood several inches high in places. Curtis had already moved the horses to the greener pasture.
In the distance, the first of the desert city’s electric lights twinkled in the coming night sky. One of the flying ships lifted off from in the city circling around several times before departing.
“Are you going to make it, Sir?” Curtis asked, setting Bardwell’s saddle down near his against the crumbling concrete wall where they would camp for the night.
“Yeah,” Bardwell said, getting up. He listened to his tired joints crack like pine knots in a fire. “A little whiskey and some tobacco,” he said. “And I’ll be good as new.”
Both lawmen laughed each knowing that Bardwell’s time in the saddle was coming to an end. The senior tin star lawman would continue to ride out of Sacramento for many calendars if lucky, but sooner or later, they would pass over the aging lawman when it came to great journeys such as these.
Bardwell sat back down fumbling with his saddlebags. He took a good drink of cool water, removed the cork from a bottle and had a good pull of the whiskey before biting off some of his tobacco.
“You haven’t eaten much in a couple of days, Sir,” Curtis mentioned, as he tended a small fire, “You might feel a little better if you have something?”
“Yeah,” Bardwell said. “Let me wake up first.”
Curtis walked to a stand of trees nearby to gather another armload of sticks. Bardwell walked in the opposite direction to see what he could find out here in this Godforsaken place.
A shot rang out. Curtis came on the run with two of his Peacemakers drawn. “What the hell are you shooting at, Sir?” he asked.
Bardwell bent to retrieve a rabbit that had made the mistake of scurrying across the sand. “Dinner,” he said. Another ran for cover, the elder lawman reached out one of his Colts and fired again.
“Right on,” Curtis said.
“You’d better gather us up some more of those sticks,” Bardwell said, grabbing up the second shot. “I’ll get busy cleaning these.”
Supper that night under the stars was roasted rabbit with flour gravy and hard tack. Curtis boiled a can of coffee as the meat roasted over the fire.
“What do you plan to do if those fellas ain’t in the city?” Curtis asked.
“Maddox will be there. I’m sure of it,” Bardwell said. “Folks back in the hills said that he was looking real sick.”
“Long grass,” Curtis asked.
Bardwell nodded. “Or worse…?”
“What about the others?” Curtis asked. “What if they’ve run along leaving their pal behind?”
“Then we’ll be trailing them on up to what there is of Denver or maybe out across the plains to Omaha?” Bardwell said matter-of-fact.
“I figured you’d say that.”
Bardwell didn’t answer.
“How you reckon we’re going to get inside?” Curtis asked, leaning back now that the sun was down and the camp chores finished.
“We’ll leave the horses outside,” Bardwell said. “And walk in like anyone else.”
“You mean to tell me that you’re planning to walk right in like you own the place?” Curtis asked.
Bardwell nodded.
“Man,” Curtis said. “That’s what I like about you, Sir. You know that, don’t you?”
The lawmen as well as their mounts were just glad to have a place to rest for the night, a place that offered clean water and shade from the daystar.
“That rabbit was good,” Curtis said, pulling the cork from the bottle of whiskey, “You think you might shoot us another one for breakfast?”
“You think that you can wake up for breakfast?” Bardwell asked, taking the bottle from the boy.
“What time’s breakfast here south of the border?”
“We’re in New Mexico territory now, Son,” Bardwell said. “We’re back in the states, have been for two days now.”
“Damn,” Curtis said. “So we got to behave like the law now, right?”
“For the most part,” Bardwell said, smiling.
“That’s another thing that I like about you, Sir,” Curtis said, laughing.
Both lawmen laughed around the fire as the nighttime temperatures plummeted back to near freezing.
If the fierce desert winds came up again tonight, at least they’d have shelter behind the crumbling concrete walls.
The desert winds blew through, and as the animals took cover between two of the crumbling buildings from the blowing dust and sand, the lawmen slept like it would be their last.
***
As the daystar rose to the north, Bardwell kicked around searching out wood for the damped down fire. Coffee was just as needed as clean water and air for the lawman from Sacramento.
Franklin Curtis slept late into the chilly morning. Bardwell didn’t bother to wake him. If all went well, they’d have a couple of long nights ahead of them, not to mention some long days in the saddle.
After the winds of the night had subsided, the horses were out in the sun warming and grazing without a sound.
Bardwell kindled a small fire and put on a can of coffee. With the boy sleeping, his thoughts drifted to what lay ahead. They could gain access to the city down there on the valley floor, he was sure of this. Once inside, he and the boy would have to move fast to keep from sounding the alarm. The lawman didn’t know much about the desert city other than what had been written, and that wasn’t much these days but he reckoned the city would be under martial law and controlled by a central government of sort.
From this distance, Arroyo de las Vegas appeared to have a walled southern perimeter, but the lawman had heard that folks were allowed to travel freely there. The wall had either been erected during the dark days of the Mexican occupation or it was there to warn off any with the wrong sort of ideas.
Word was that Wyman Maddox had taken ill, infected with Dry Ditch Fever maybe or the black lung? Maddox had been known to smoke the long grass for some time now, and the Opium use of the past few months may have been taking a toll? Not to mention the rough miles they’d covered in getting to this place here in the New Mexico territory.
Holderman and Deville would be an altogether different go as far as the lawman could see. Marion was quick with a pistol, maybe the best of the gunmen Bardwell had gone up against. Parle Deville couldn’t shoot worth a fuck, but he carried at least two pieces from the days of old. Bardwell and the boy would have their work cut out for them. That was for sure.
“How long you been up?” Curtis asked, beginning to stir for the morning.
“About four hours,” Bardwell said.
“You got coffee?”
“I don’t,” Curtis answered. “But it’s cold and I could use something to warm me up.”
Bardwell reached for the can in the fire and poured a dented cup full. He handed it over to the boy.
“Are we going to hold up here for the day?” Curtis asked.
“Yeah,” Bardwell said. “I reckon that we should. There’s plenty of water and the horses could use a day of grazing before we ask them to run all night?”
“You really think we’re going to have to run for it?”
“I do.”
The younger lawman pondered what Bardwell had said. He had stood next to the lawman on several occasions in his young life and Bardwell had always come out on top. Maybe he would again and they could finally start for Sacramento and home.
“Tell me that we ain’t riding back across this fucking desert and out toward Los Angeles?” Curtis griped.
Bardwell smiled, looking out across the desert to the tall range to the west of the city. “Fuck no,” he said. “We’ll start to the north of west into the mountains. I don’t think any will follow and if they do, we can find cover there.”
“There’s another desert between,” Curtis said.
“Yes,” the lawman said. “But we won’t be following anyone by then. We can take all of the time we need.”
“Fresno?”
“Yes,” Bardwell said. “We should drop down out of the mountains into that place. We can rest up there and continue on home then.”
“Sounds good,” Curtis said, nodding.
Bardwell got up in search of an arm load of sticks to keep the fire going throughout the day. A shot was fired. Another followed. Curtis didn’t bother in getting up.
Before long, the lawman returned with a handful of sticks and a pair of those rabbits. He tossed them to the boy. “You wanted breakfast, you clean them.”
After an early meal, the lawmen laid up in the shade during the long, hot after median. The animals sensed another hardship and were more than willing to conserve their energy and take on all of the calories that they could before the ordeal.
As the day wore itself out, Bardwell laid out his weapons on a tattered wool blanket and began the painstaking process of disassembling each, oiling them well and putting them back together. Curtis did the same as it wouldn’t do either of them good for a weapon to misfire.
Neither bothered looking for more game as nightfall came upon them, the lawmen were happy with hard bread and the jerked beef the clansmen had provided. The requisite coffee boiled in a can over the fire.
Over a bottle of whiskey, the lawmen went over their plan one last time as stars traced across the dark, desert sky.
“Hit and run right?” Curtis asked.
“Yes, Son,” Bardwell said. “Just like we always do. We get in, get our man, and get out hopefully before anyone knows that we’ve been there.”
Curtis laughed. “Every time you go in after some bandit, you start shooting the place up and alerting everyone in town?”
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” Bardwell asked, laughing.
“What time do want to get started?” Curtis asked, lying back on his bedroll. The temperatures would remain warm for another couple of hours.
“I figure we should start out about midnight,” Bardwell answered. “That should put us close before the daystar heats the surrounding desert too much?”
“Sounds good, Sir,” Curtis said, closing his eyes. If the young lawman had learned anything in his years of riding with the elder, he knew there would be hell to pay come the morrow.
Chapter Fourteen
Half past midnight and the lawmen were mounted and traveling across the cool desert landscape. Both the horses and the men had a full day rest behind them. The lawmen looked forward to finishing this job and starting westward for home.
Great aluminum hulks of the elder’s flying coaches littered vast fields of macadam to the east of the forgotten highway. In the distance, a great pyramid-shaped building loomed large on the horizon.
Curtis pointed. Bardwell nodded but said nothing taking in the ruins of a once great city of the desert.
At odd intervals, smoky little fires burned in the rubble of the smaller buildings that had once been the city’s suburbs, Bardwell reckoned. Desert clans and tribes carried on, each keeping to themselves and their distance. After a long night of booze, Opium, and long grass, the inhabitants seemed content to remain hidden away from the hot desert sun.
No one seemed to notice the two lawmen riding among them. Maybe these desert people knew not of the Sacramento Tin Star and what it meant to humanity? For miles leading closer to the city, the lawmen rode in obscurity. Mongrel dogs and dirty children ran in the streets.
Each of the clans here seemed to be separated by at least a half rod in distance. The automobiles of the elders were heaped into the low junk walls that separated each. Bardwell didn’t figure that these outlying people of the desert city would have firearms of any sort. They would be allowed to live and trade among those of the city proper as long as they raised no hell of any sort out here on the fringes of civilization.
He also figured that if they did, the clan would be targeted for extermination by those in charge on the inside. Cruel yes, but this was order in the year of the Lord 2150.
Bardwell held up a hand signaling for his partner to rein in. Curtis rode up alongside as he had been following the unsaddled horse.
“We should turn here,” Bardwell said, not daring to take his eyes from the four-sided pyramid-like structure. The high-security walls were made of concrete rubble and twisted steel piled high just to the south of the capital building and not far from where the horsemen rode along the macadam the elders had called I-15. “We will seek a place for our horses through the after median,” he continued. “If luck favors our kind, we might rest some ourselves?”
Curtis nodded his agreement but said nothing.
The lawmen turned in a westerly direction along a smaller—but still great macadam path, the elders had called HACIENDA.
They traveled along the dirty asphalt no more than an eighth of a rod when an older gentleman with a long gray beard stepped close to where they rode. Dirty children hid in the shadows of the rubble behind.
“Ello,” the gentlemen said, raising a hand for the lawmen to stop.
Bardwell reined in, followed by Curtis. The long coats of the lawmen did little to conceal the weapons at their side. The long rifles and saddle guns were plain for anyone to see in the open.
“Gunfighters of the old I see?” the gentleman said.
“We are lawmen from Sacramento,” Bardwell answered, stopping his mount.
The old man smiled. “It has been a long, long time since my eyes have witnessed such as this.”
Bardwell nodded. “We do exist,” he said, stepping to the ground. “Although, not in the numbers that we once did?”
“We seek shelter for our animals,” the lawman continued. “I will pay you greatly if you can be of service to us this day?”
“For a man of the tin star,” the old man said. “I will charge you nothing. It would be my honor.”
Bardwell placed ten coins in the hands of the aging gentleman. “Here are ten large pieces of silver for your trouble,” he said. “There will be ten more if our animals are well cared for when we return.”
The old man couldn’t seem to believe what his cataract eyes saw before him. It had most likely been some time since he had held so much in fortune.
“Yes, yes,” the old man said. “And if you will allow us, we will care for you also?”
The daystar was just beginning its long arc down to the horizon. If the lawmen were going to get into the city and out, they would need to start on foot soon. There would be a lot of walking ahead for the both of them.
“Mother,” the old man said, turning for the sagging doorway of his broken desert dwelling. “Mother, we have guests.”
There was discussion inside as the lawmen waited under the relentless sun. The old man was soon out front and leading them around behind his dwelling to another with a doorway large enough to accommodate the horses.
“They will remain in here for as long as you wish,” the old man said. “In here, they will be hidden away from prying eyes.”
“Are there eyes of this nature upon the place?” Bardwell asked.
The old man looked skyward. “There is,” he said. “The flying ships overhead see all in these parts. Three fine-looking animals, such as these, will bring unwanted attention to our clan.”
“Then here they will remain,” Bardwell said, removing the saddle guns and pulling his saddle to the floor of the abandoned dwelling.
Inside, the old gentleman offered a chair to each of the lawmen. To Bardwell, he offered his best.
“What is that brings two gunslingers of old to our city here in this Godforsaken desert of Mojave?” he asked.
His woman offered stone mugs of cool punch.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Curtis said.
“Ma’am,” Bardwell said, removing his hat.
“We are here seeking the conviction of three gentlemen from our world,” Bardwell said. On this subject, he would say no more. These little towns were the same no matter where he found himself. Word could travel awfully fast when a lawman rode into town.
“I see,” he said, resting against the back of his chair, “Will you gunslingers be long in the city?”
“We might,” Bardwell said, in the ways of the old. “For it is untold where and when we might meet up with those that we seek.”
The woman filled the mugs again. The punch was nearly as powerful as the whiskey men out west drank.
“If you wish to make the city before nightfall,” the old man said. “You will want to move along soon, before the closing of the gates.”
“The gates close at night?” Curtis asked, from his side of the small table.
“Yes,” the old gentleman said. “Only here to the west and south. There is little of a defensive position on the far side of the city.”
Ain't No Law in California Page 10