by E. R. Slade
The buckboard jounced on and on. The night passed slowly. The stars grew pale and tired after the long night and lost some of their piercing sharpness, then disappeared altogether as the sun came up and made a bright hard glare of the sky. The men halted and ate something, took a swig or two from a jug of forty rod, and then, ignoring the prisoner, went on driving the buckboard, talking about whiskey they’d drunk and women they’d had and gold they’d found and fights they’d fought, each fellow trying to outdo the other, the tales getting taller and taller, and gaudier and gaudier.
They had gotten to where one of them had just told how he’d killed thirty-five Mexicans and ten Indians in one morning and was about to tell about what he’d done at Kate’s over to Dry Diggings, where there were twenty-five girls ready and willing, when the other told him to cork up and meditate on his lying nature, they had arrived.
Clint, sore and tired from the long painful sleepless ride, was cut loose and jostled out of the buckboard onto his feet.
They were nowhere, unless you could call the broken down Conestoga wagon sunk in the sand somewhere. The wagon had about half the canvas cover left, bleached a hard white by the sun, torn and frayed by the wind. A pair of horses were tethered off in the brush a ways, and that was it. Just desert and sky in all directions.
Clint mopped at his neck with his bandana and found his arm and hand had to work hard to do that much. He was given a chance to relieve himself and did so. Then he was led to the rear of the Conestoga wagon.
Sitting calmly in the shade of the cover, like people in other parts sat under awnings and watched life go by, were two men, a cold-eyed, well-dressed fellow, and a bodyguard type bristling with pistols, knives, spurs, teeth and the points of a waxed mustache.
The cold-eyed man looked with curiosity at Clint, running his eyes down and up his length like a man sizing up a horse.
“So you’re Evans,” he said mildly. “You wanted to talk to me? Important, I think you said.”
Clint sized up the other a moment, and then said, “Dixon?”
“Who did you figure?” Dixon was amused. His sidekick was not, and kept his dour watchful look, like a man who’s just tasted meat and suspects it’s more maggots than beef.
Clint didn’t figure Dixon for anything better than totally treacherous, but he was remembering too much of how his dead wife had looked to think sensibly and be cautious.
“I’m here to kill you,” Clint said. “Because of my wife.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dixon almost managed to look really surprised and puzzled.
“Never mind playing innocent. Five years ago, before you got rich, you decided to have some fun. You found my wife alone in the house and took her off into the woods. I found her naked and battered to death. I’m saying this not to remind you, but to let your friends here know the kind of man you are, in case they don’t know already.”
Dixon’s face twisted into a cynical grin. “You have a notion to stand off the whole bunch of us with nothing but your fists?”
“I’ll do that if I have to. You don’t have any self-respect at all?”
Dixon laughed.
“You mean honor? You want to fight it out, man to man? Don’t be foolish. Only cowboys and Mexicans talk about honor. Fools. Why should I give you a chance to kill me? I’ve fought long and hard to get where I am. Why should I take any risks I don’t need to? For you it’s too late, but I’ll give you a piece of advice anyway. If you want to get anywhere, forget about honor. Any man of sense knows he cannot afford it.”
He got up and stepped into the sun. “Well, boys, I’ll bet you could do with some fun, eh? Just keep an eye on him while I get my horse.”
Dixon mounted up and adjusted a lariat in his hand. A moment later he set his heels, rope flying over his head, and Clint ducked aside as the rope whistled out.
The three henchmen laughed and pushed Clint out away from the cover of the wagon, grins on all their faces. Clint took his opening and ran.
So what the hell had he expected Dixon to do? Fight him a fair fight?
He had not planned on giving Dixon that opportunity. He had planned to kill Dixon slowly, making sure he hurt plenty for his crimes.
There were only a few small clumps of mesquite dotting the area around the wagon, not much cover. Clint headed across the seventy yards of open space for the nearest of them, Dixon whirling his horse to come after him, swinging his loop.
Clint saw he wasn’t going to make it, and as the loop sailed out towards him, he cut from under it, darting behind Dixon’s back and continuing for the mesquite.
He made the mesquite this time, and dove under its thorny branches, getting scratched but not really noticing. It was only a momentary shelter, he knew that. But he needed time to think. What he wanted was to get the other horse. That would at least give him a chance to get away. But the dun was forty yards off, and Dixon was prancing his black back and forth yipping and yelling in between.
The loop lashed out, settled around the small mesquite bush and Dixon set his spurs. The bush thrashed wildly while the audience yelled encouragement. There was a snap and a twist of branches, and then the little bush was gone, bouncing along behind Dixon’s horse. Clint, sprayed with sand, blinked at what had gotten into his eyes and rolled to his feet, figuring to make use of what time he had to get to the dun.
Dixon had to get down from his black to get his rope off the mesquite bush. Clint, breathing hard and sweating in the sun, got most of the way to the dun before the men watching saw what he was up to and yelled. Dixon spun on his heel, drawing, and sent lead whizzing past Clint’s ears.
He still had distance enough to go to get to the dun that figured he might die before he got there, so dove for the cover of the nigh thicket, several little bushes, scrawny and thin. Dixon was back on his horse again, and here he came, swinging his loop and yelling.
He thrashed right into the thicket, mercilessly kicking his horse through the brambles, plunging at Clint. Clint scrambled out the far side and started around towards the dun again, but Dixon was quicker than Clint had figured and suddenly he realized that with Dixon between him and cover he had nowhere to run.
The loop licked out again, Clint managed to dodge again, and he felt it hit him on the head. The third time Dixon guessed correctly which way Clint would cut and the loop dropped neatly over him, tightened pinning his arms to his sides, and then tugged him backwards onto his butt, and he was being dragged along the ground.
It wasn’t pleasant, but it was bearable, until Dixon spurred into a bed of cactus. Clint felt the spines of the cactus tear his clothes, then his flesh, and he gritted his teeth, trying to roll onto his feet. He knew if he didn’t get there in a few seconds, he would be so ripped up he’d bleed to death in only minutes, with Dixon and his crew standing around watching and laughing.
He timed a bounce and got his feet under him, running after the horse, working hard to keep his footing. He hadn’t been given back his knife, or his pistol, and so had only his hands to work with. He tried to run fast enough to take the tension out of the rope, but Dixon saw he was on his feet and spurred his horse on faster, heading through the cactus bed again. Clint tripped and fell.
Spines ripped at him from all sides, and he tried again to get to his feet, but his head hit something hard and he blacked out.
Chapter Seventeen
He woke up thinking of burros and Mescaleros, and then wondered what he was doing looking up at the bright glare of the midday sky. His eyes hurt to look at it and he closed them again, trying to make out why he felt uncommonly pained all over and dizzy and didn’t seem to have any strength.
He remembered and groaned, and struggled cautiously to sit up, feeling light-headed. Searing pain yelled out all over him as crusted scabs cracked open.
He was alone. At least as far as he could tell. He heard nothing, saw nothing—except a couple of carrion birds drifting around interestedly away up there over his head. He felt irritated
and tried to shake his fist at them, but the pain was so great, he soon gave up that effort and lay back, figuring he was done.
“It is the way the world passes, no?” he muttered aloud, mimicking Felipe.
Thinking of Felipe, he recalled all those Mexicans who had surrounded him in the saloon, wanting to see him die, and thinking of them made him think about how he had come to the point he was at now, dying in the desert. If he died, Dixon would win.
That annoyed him. In fact it made him damn mad. It was Dixon who deserved to die. He deserved to die in the most horrible way imaginable.
Clint decided he wouldn’t just lie here and give up. He was going to see that Dixon paid for what he’d done. If there had been any doubt before whether torture was right for Dixon, there was none now. Clint made up his mind he had no reason to feel guilty about his plans for that sonofabitch.
He opened his eyes and struggled up to a sitting position again and began to take stock. His shirt didn’t amount to anything but a few shreds, and likewise his pants, though they were a little better. His boots were still intact, more or less. He did not see his pistol or knife left around for him anywhere, and his money was gone. The wagon was empty, and so were the bushes where the horses had been tethered, and the buckboard was gone. He guessed from the look of his bloody body and the stains in the sand that he had lost a fair amount of blood. It seemed likely that he’d lose a lot more without considerable bandaging and three or four weeks in bed with somebody seeing to his wants. It also seemed likely he was going to have to do without these luxuries, for the most part, for some time. He might be able to make a few bandages out of what was left of his clothes, but if he lay around here very long the buzzards were going to have a feast in a short while.
Very gingerly he prodded and tested and found where the worst leaks were, and then with a great deal of moaning and groaning due to the pain, he got what was left of his shirt off and made into a sort of generalized bandage that went around his chest and back, where the worst rents in his skin were. He also tugged out a few of the more obvious thorns stuck in him, so as to keep the further aggravation of the wounds to a minimum. Then, fortified with the bandage and with the knowledge that he had no choice, he began trying to get onto his feet.
This took him what seemed like ten years, all of it spent in the lower regions of the place below, but at last he managed it, and weaved around in his dizziness, having no confidence he was going to be able to remain standing long, let alone start walking.
But after a little while, his head got used to working in an upright position, and the pain dulled down and became a sort of generalized throb.
Clint peered around the horizon and wondered which way he ought to go. After sunup, at least, they had taken him east of Crooked Creek, so the thing to do was go west, follow the sun, which was now getting well along on its way to the horizon. It was going to be a long walk, but there was nothing he knew of in the other direction for fifty miles. With his doubtful sense of navigation he might ride for a week whichever way he would on a good horse and never see anything, unless it was Mescaleros out to scalp him, but it wasn’t as though he had a lot of alternatives. There was no use staying here, that was clear enough.
So, finally, he set off. The first hundred yards was the most terrible kind of torture, and Clint became certain that there was no kind of terror hell could hold for him worse than what he went through those first hundred yards.
But since he had no choice but to keep walking or die—and let Dixon get away with his crimes—he walked. He sustained himself partly by telling himself how he would take it out of Dixon’s hide, planning the details.
The second hundred yards was a lot easier. The wounds that were going to open, had, and the pain became a general throb that little by little receded into a kind of weariness. His mind became blank, plans for Dixon receded, their sustaining power unequal to the grim desperation of his need to survive. He trudged on, following the sun down, and then feeling the relief of the evening cool coming on as it set and the desert fell dark.
He stopped not too long after, but an hour later when he tried to get going again the pain was so bad and he felt so weak that he resolved not to stop again until he either found the town or other refuge, or died.
He walked all night and by now was moving slowly, tongue lolling with thirst. He stopped again because he couldn’t keep going. Then, after another two hour break, he went on. The pain was unspeakable, but somehow it seemed removed, like it was really somebody else’s pain this time and he was just hearing the screams.
He managed to keep going all day, even in the heat of the noonday furnace. He wanted to stop all the time, but believed if he did he’d never get up again.
Night fell, and he estimated that he should have come almost far enough to fetch the town, but he couldn’t hear anything on the southwest wind, nor smell anything either.
He kept moving, going more and more slowly, all night, and by now was feeling that if in the morning the Mescaleros came for him it would be a blessed relief.
In the middle of that next morning he collapsed and blacked out, thinking vaguely that he’d sure given it a try anyway.
He woke up stiff and dry and hungry and so tired it took five tries to get onto his feet. He would have fallen down again and been all done right there, he was sure, if he hadn’t happened to look southwest and seen a lone brush hut.
Felipe’s?
If it was it meant he’d missed the town.
It took most of the morning for him to labor the relatively short distance, and he kept wondering why nobody came out or moved around the area. It was Felipe’s, he soon confirmed. He recalled that odd looking rock over there, and the lay of the ground.
Overhead circled buzzards, and Clint made a hoarse sound of defiance, thinking that he was going to outwit them after all. With a final effort he fell across the doorstep and onto the packed floor half into the shade of the hut. He looked vaguely at all of Felipe’s family sitting or lying around and wondered at their lack of surprise, and then let go and fell asleep.
~*~
He woke to find his vision blurry. When it cleared somewhat, he looked at the group of people sitting and lying around him and was still amazed at their lack of reaction to him being there.
Then he was even more puzzled to see that nobody seemed to budge at all, or say anything.
There was a flapping in the doorway, and a searing pain in his leg as something sharp dug in. He jerked in response, and the buzzard flew away, to stand around looking hurt a short way off.
Clint struggled up into a sitting position. Flies roared. There was a lot of blood.
They were all dead.
Chapter Eighteen
Clint had been at Felipe’s for three weeks, nursing his wounds, eating of what food had been left, drinking water that had to be hauled from a tinaja some distance away, before he had the strength to do more than cover the bodies with mats and a few rocks. It had taken him two days of recovery to get to the water, and it was only on the third day that he found energy enough to cover the bodies. He mostly stayed outside the hut, in its shade, because of the smell and the flies.
Now he used an old shovel he found in a corner to dig a large grave, and he hauled the bodies, what was left of them, buzzing with flies and crawling with insects and larvae, to it and dumped them in. He was glad to get them underground and let the hut air out.
He made himself something to eat and sat in the shadows of the hut’s doorway watching the night come on.
He had been sitting there for some time—feeling for the first time in a long time a sense of well-being, wondering if it was the Mexican clothes he’d found to wear that made him feel cooler and more comfortable here in the desert, or whether it was just that he was getting used to the heat finally—when there was a clatter of pebbles and the nicker of a horse.
Clint, having no weapon, slid into a nook he’d made in the thick brush wall of the hut, and waited.
“Adelita!” Felipe’s voice sung out gaily. “Adelita, my darling sweet rose, my pretty flower of the desert! I have brought you a present!”
Clint slid from his nook and out the front door.
“Hola, Felipe,” he said.
“Cleent?” Felipe jolted in surprise. “It is good to see you, Cleent! But what are you doing wearing the clothes of México, señor? Have you decided to become part of my family?” Felipe was wary.
“Get down, Felipe. I’ve got bad news for you.”
“Oh, señor, have compassion. You leave and you do not come back. I look for you, Cleent, but I do not find you. I swear on my mother’s holy grave that I search, Cleent. I am afraid that you are killed and I ask everywhere, but you are gone.”
“Forget it, Felipe. It isn’t that. Come around here with me a minute. I’ve got to show you something.”
“But Señor Cleent,” Felipe said, “I will be glad to go with you, but first I must speak to my wife and my children. Why do they not come out to greet me? ¡Adelita! ¡José, Francisco! ¡María!”
“They were murdered, Felipe,” Clint said bluntly.
Felipe was deathly silent for a moment.
Then he said softly, “Dios mío.”
He slid slowly off his horse and came to look into the hut, as though he expected to see them all lying there.
“I’ve buried them just today,” Clint said. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”
Felipe spent a long time by the grave, and Clint heard him praying off and on in Spanish.
~*~
The desert lit up with a bolt of lightning like a jagged rent in the sky letting in the fires of hell beyond, and then came a rumbling of thunder. The sky lit up again, then again, the thunder roaring and booming off around the desert like the place was full of artillery fighting a war.
The rain came suddenly, in a furious torrent that inside of five minutes was rushing in the wash just down over the rise on which the hut stood. Inside of ten minutes, water was running through the hut itself, just as though the hut had been built in the middle of a stream. Felipe had still not come in.