by E. R. Slade
Clint quit, throwing the switch off into the brush, irritated at Felipe. Felipe was about to fall off his horse with laughter.
“Think it’s goddamned funny, do you Fats?” Clint shouted, clenching his fists. “I ought to take you down a peg, you fat thieving lying Mexican tortilla chili bean. I ought to make a Mexican jumping bean out of you, eh?”
Felipe was hooting with laughter, thin black mustache stretched even thinner. Clint charged him, but Felipe wheeled his horse and rode in circles around Clint, waving his sombrero over his head, still laughing. Clint stood helplessly in the dust and yelled obscenities.
~*~
“Guess I had it coming,” Clint admitted, as they sat in the shade of a patch of mesquite watching the horses and burros graze. The apples were gone, but Clint had some sourdough biscuits left from the previous night and he ate them slowly, making them last. Felipe had insisted on cooking a tortilla on a flat rock in a fire in the hot sun. Now he was guzzling tequila and munching the tortilla, rolled up with some godless spices inside.
“Let us be friends, Cleent. Let us trust each other.”
Clint looked carefully at the Mexican. He sure looked genuine about it. If Clint had not had that bad experience waking up in the night to find Felipe fishing his pockets for the money, he would have taken Felipe at his word.
Could it be he was mistaken? The whole event tended to fade into an obscure darkness. Could Felipe have really been telling the truth? Was it possible?
Clint wasn’t sure now. He still tended to mistrust Felipe. But when a man has fought for his life with another man at his side, even gone so far as to save the man’s life, he becomes inclined to trust his companion. In this case, it might not be such a smart thing to do. Felipe had sided him out of the same necessity Clint had sided the Mexican: survival. Neither of them could expect to survive alone against the Indians. It was unlikely good luck that they’d survived as only two against the Indians.
Yet the feeling remained.
“What the hell,” Clint said, throwing his better judgment to the winds.
“Sí, Cleent,” Felipe said, grinning broadly, “what thee hell!”
“I don’t like that grin,” Clint said dubiously. “But like I said, what the hell.”
“You will not be sorry, Cleent. I am your friend for life because I have much gratitude. You are a fine man, Cleent. You do not like people to think you are fine, but I have the sharp eyes and ears, no? I can see.”
“I still don’t like that grin of yours. I ...” Clint broke off, catching sight of something out in the desert. He jumped up, rifle in hand. “Sonofabitch,” he said, and started running towards the burros.
Several Mescaleros were cutting the packs off the burros—they were smart enough not to try to take the burros along too. Clint and Felipe shouldered their Winchesters and started spitting lead at the Indians.
That had the effect of triggering a barrage of fire and smoke from the mesquite thicket behind them. With lead buzzing in the air around them, they both dove with alacrity into the nearest cover, which happened to be another clump of mesquite, thick and thorny. It was not a comfortable dive into the middle of the thorns, but it was better than braving the bullets.
As soon as they were neatly cornered in the mesquite, the Indians quit wasting their lead. The smoke blew away, and there was no way to tell the Indians were still there. But the point was, you knew they were still there.
Out on the patch of grass, Indians, perhaps twenty of them, were quickly dividing up the spoils. It didn’t take long. They didn’t even leave the aparejos, though what good they were without the burros was hard to see. Perhaps they figured to sell them, or use the leather in them. The Mescaleros rode off taking the two horses but wisely leaving the burros.
Clint had meanwhile been trying to struggle his rifle around through the thick thorny brush to get a shot at the Mescaleros. Now, finally, he managed it, sent a few shots after the retreating Indians, got a few parting shots in return, and then the Indians, including those which had been in the mesquite, were gone in a cloud of dust that grew smaller and smaller.
Clint and Felipe struggled out of the thorn bushes and leaned on their Winchesters.
“Goddamned Indians,” Clint said. “Tricky sons of guns, aren’t they. Well damn it, we can’t let them get away with it. That was all our supplies, our water, except for a canteen apiece.”
“All the tequila,” Felipe moaned. “Cleent, we cannot go after them. It will be stupid. And we will never catch them anyhow. No, Cleent, we are just the misfortunates. It is the way the world passes, no? There is nothing we can do.”
But Clint was angry. He had made up his mind the Indians weren’t going to get away with this, never mind there were twenty-five or thirty of them, armed to the teeth, and with a terrifying reputation for fighting and torture. It did not cross his mind that perhaps he and Felipe had been lucky to have kept their lives, under the circumstances.
He trotted to the burros, swung aboard one, and using the lead line for reins, dug in his heels. The burro was not particularly impressed. It went on cropping grass.
“Get up!” Clint instructed. “Get along you damfool critter.”
The burro’s ears perked around interestedly, but the animal went on cropping grass.
“¡Arre! ¡Burro! ¡Arre!” Clint shouted, remembering the way Felipe talked to the burros. The burro was still not impressed, though the ears kept perked around for listening.
“The burro he doesn’t want to chase Indians,” Felipe said coming up. “I think perhaps el burro is smarter than you in this way, Cleent.”
Clint got down and cut a switch. The Indians were long out of sight over a rise by now, and not even dust marked their position.
Clint got back on the burro and began whaling the animal’s flank with the switch, sinking his spurs in and yelling, “¡Arre, burro, Arre!”
Felipe folded his arms and watched dolefully.
“El burro, he is muy independiente, no?” he commented.
The burro had not budged. In fact, it had eaten everything within reach and would have to move to go on eating, but did not apparently care to encourage Clint into thinking all his efforts were paying off.
Clint, sweating and swearing now, leaped off this burro and tried another—with the exact same result.
“Cleent, I have the good luck with los burros because I do not try to make them do what they do not wish to do. It is plain they do not wish to chase Indians. I believe they have much sense in so thinking, Cleent. Let us seet down in the shade and think about this while los burros have their lunch, eh?”
Clint was not satisfied. He was worried, and that made him angry.
“I want to know which way they went,” he said, and went running towards the top of the rise, leaving Felipe ambling slowly back to the shade of the mesquite thicket.
Clint, breathing hard and drenched with sweat, halted on the crest of the long rise and gazed around the horizon. There was nothing but sun-baked desert. Not a puff of dust anywhere. There was another rise probably a mile off, and he debated running over there for a look, but decided against it.
He’d calmed down some now, and had realized that Felipe was right. Clint knew better. In fact, usually he would have kept his head. It was just having Felipe and the burros to contend with ...
He returned in no haste, taking it easy, trying not to sweat any more than was necessary. It was stupid to sweat off more water than he really had to. One canteen had to get him to the next watering hole, wherever that might be.
Felipe was asleep under his sombrero when Clint returned. How can he sleep in this situation? Clint wondered. Clint had always thought of himself as pretty cool most of the time, but here was this Mexican going to sleep the first thing after a catastrophe. Maybe he wasn’t smart enough to know better?
No, Felipe was plenty smart enough. He was just cool.
“What did you see, Señor Cleent?”
“Nothing.”
“It is good, no? Perhaps the Indians are finished with us, eh?”
“That’s what we thought the last time.”
“Sí. They like to kill. I am surprised they did not kill us. Maybe they try again. Perhaps they are in a big hurry for something. There is a trail three days east from here, and many wagons go by sometimes. Perhaps they know some are coming, eh? And they will be back for us when they have more time.”
“They do, and I’m going to see not one gets away alive.”
“This will be hard to do. And not wise. It is better that we hide, no? We see them coming and we hide. They will not take the burros, as you see. They know the burros will not move fast enough, and perhaps they will not move at all, eh?” Felipe grinned. “Perhaps they will shoot them, but that is a risk we take.”
“Funny about you, Felipe,” Clint said. “Before the Indians scared you, got you all jumpy. Now you are calm. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I was afraid of loss. But now the horses and the supplies they are gone. What is there to be afraid of? You and me, we can hide. We dig ourselves into the sand. It is the old trick. The horses could not hide, and the packs take too much time to hide. But now the worst has happened. It is the way the world passes, is it not? There is nothing to be done. Worry will do no good and much harm. Do not fear, Cleent, we will live.”
Chapter Seven
“You say there’s a trail three days to the east of here?”
“Sí. But it will be stupid to go that way if the Mescaleros have gone that way. And it is just the same to the mountains, where we go.”
“Those mountains we’ve been looking at since we started?”
“Sí. I think it may be that Señor Dixon will be in Oak Creek. I do not make the guarantee, Cleent. It is just a hope.”
“You figure three days?”
“Three or four. Perhaps more. It depends much on los burros.”
“Maybe we can walk it more quickly.”
“Perhaps.”
“What are we going to water the burros with?”
“Los burros will need only what is in our canteens. They will be thirsty, but they will live.”
“Wait a minute. You plan to give all the water to the burros?”
“Sí. It is best. Three days is not long without water.”
“Damn sight longer than I want to go. Suppose it takes five days or more? If it’s a three day ride you can figure the burros will take more like three weeks. In this sun we’ll never make it. I think we ought to shoot the damn burros and walk. Then we get there just as fast and we have something to drink along the way.”
“Señor Cleent, have you not been a few days without water before?”
“Once. I don’t figure on doing it again.”
“There may be certain cactus with water, if you are uncomfortable.”
“What’s the good of saving the burros?”
“Señor, it is a long walk.”
“Let the burros eat cactus.”
“Sometimes they will not. It is not so bad, Cleent. It is better to ride than to walk.”
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think you want to save the burros so you can steal them when we get to the mountains, along with the money.”
Felipe waved his arms. “It is not true, Cleent! Por Dios, it is not true at all. I only wish to ride, not walk. It is a long and painful walk in riding boots, Cleent.”
Clint eyed Felipe dubiously, not convinced at all that Felipe’s motive was what he claimed it was. But at the same time, Clint was realizing how much his feet hurt him from the running he’d done in his tight riding boots. They were not made for walking. He imagined walking in them for a week, and reluctantly decided to go along with Felipe.
The burros saw fit to move on after the sun had gotten a good start down the sky. It was not exactly cooler, but the sun’s rays had lost some of their fierce furnace-like quality. On Felipe’s insistence they watered the burros from their hats.
“Why bother with all three?” Clint demanded. “Two burros is plenty.”
“It will be better to have one to spare. If they rest, los burros will go faster.”
“The water will go further with only two animals,” Clint argued.
“The burros will need less water if they work less hard,” Felipe returned.
Clint was very dubious about Felipe’s sense of economy, but he did have to admit that Felipe had lived many years in the desert whereas he himself had only been down south here for a couple of years or so, and had never had anything to do with burros before. He was used to real grassland and streams and wooded mountainsides. This lizard and sun country wasn’t his kind of thing.
Clint didn’t really feel thirsty until they stopped for supper. The burros had not caused undo trouble, though they were never in any hurry. Now Clint hobbled them and Felipe insisted they give the animals a small ration of water. They had not passed any cactus of the kind Felipe had mentioned. He said he did not recall having seen any in this stretch of desert before, but that there might be a stray or two somewhere.
Since there was nothing to eat and nothing to drink, Clint lay down and went to sleep as soon as the burros were taken care of, leaving Felipe on watch. He decided if he slept soundly and Felipe got the money away from him and took off, well, that was just too bad. As Felipe would say, that was the way the world passed.
Felipe woke him up, breathing out fumes that still smelled of chili, and Clint took over watch, having checked his pockets and found both the letter and the money still there. The sky was huge and the stars brilliant. As the rest of the night went by, he watched them parade west and disappear below the horizon.
In the morning, now feeling hungry as well as thirsty, he helped water the burros and then they climbed aboard and rode on.
The burros were now less ambitious and kept stopping to crop grass or sniff at thorn bushes. Felipe commenced cries of “¡Arre! ¡Burro! ¡Arre!” At noon they took a rest, a long one to pass the heat of the day, with the hope of conserving water and energy. Clint was very tempted to have a sip of water, but figured if Felipe could get along without, he could. Felipe looked subdued, but otherwise unchanged.
The afternoon jaunt was even slower than the morning had been. Clint estimated at the end of the day that they hadn’t made more than ten miles, perhaps less than that. Again they took the night in watches.
The next two days were much the same. The mountains seemed to tower over them, but somehow they didn’t appear to get any closer. At least they saw no Indians.
Clint’s tongue was swollen by this time, and it hurt to talk. His lips were parched. Just watching the burros slurp up water was painful knowing he couldn’t have some himself. And they were pouring away their water to burros yet! If it had been White Socks he wouldn’t have minded a bit. But these useless critters were a source of great irritation to him.
Felipe seemed to go on without much change. It was true he spoke very seldom and almost always it was to cry “¡Arre!” at the burros, but he seemed to be able to sweat right along, reeking of rancid chili and whatever. Clint wondered if Felipe was taking a sip in the night while on watch, but if he did it wasn’t much, since the levels in the canteens seemed no different as far as he could tell. Felipe couldn’t be all that dependent on tequila—at least he showed no ill effects of being deprived of it.
Clint figured he could last one more day, then he was going to take a drink before the burros had gotten it all. To hell with Felipe and the burros. Let the burros go thirsty for once.
But by the next night they had given all the water to the burros in an effort to make them perk up. However, they were within a short distance of the foothills, and could see the fluff of cottonwoods along the stream bank. The burros did not want to go once they’d stopped in the evening for a rest.
“I don’t care about the danged burros now,” Clint rasped. “I’ll walk if I have to, but I’m going to get a drink before I sleep.”
“Sí,” Felipe said. “It i
s the way I feel also.”
They left the burros and began walking, Clint ignoring the pain his tight riding boots gave him. They hadn’t gone far before they noticed the burros walking briskly along behind.
They climbed aboard a couple of them and dug in their heels. Now the burros became interested in some grass and would not move.
They swung off again and began walking. And again the burros began following. Clint was too weak to swear, or he’d have made the desert echo with obscenities.
It was close to midnight when they stumbled down a creek bank and discovered ... mud.
Clint croaked something inarticulate, and Felipe muttered something venomous in Spanish, and they crawled forward over the mud on their hands and knees.
There turned out to be water after all, but only a small sluggish trickle that normally Clint would have turned up his nose at as too brackish. But now it was better than any other water he’d ever tasted.
The burros, with much excited braying, came and plunged in stirring up the muck, kicking up their heels and snorting in the water.
That night, Clint slept comfortably, and by tacit agreement they didn’t bother to keep watch.
In the morning, the burros were nowhere to be seen.
“Perhaps we should skin them alive, no?” Felipe said.
Clint looked at Felipe in surprise.
“I thought you had a great love for the burros,” he said.
“That was because it was necessary.”
“Funny, I think they’re a damned nuisance and I wouldn’t own burros as a usual thing, and I’ve never seen a more ornery obstinate critter than what a burro is, and if a man gave me a choice of burros or paying him ten dollars, I’d pay up and figure I’d got the best of the deal. But you know, Felipe, it is a fact that those burros got us here. They didn’t do it like horses would have, and they cost us considerable cussing energy and so on, but they did get us here, and that’s a fact. I guess I’ve got kind of used to them around and I don’t feel like skinning them at all.”
“The trouble with you, Cleent, is you no are practical, you know? You don’t like los burros when it is sensible to like them, and you do like them after it becomes unnecessary to like them. It is a big difference between you and me.”