The desert is cold at night, and soon I was cold, but I walked on, stumbling once in a while. A coyote howled and I took a firmer grip on my stick. It was a good strong stick.
My mouth was very dry. Sometimes it was hard to swallow. I took deep breaths of the cool, clear air, which seemed almost like water, it was so fresh. Once I almost fell asleep walking. When I found a flat rock, I sat down. The coyotes seemed close, and I wondered if they were following me.
Somebody had said they did not eat people. My father laughed at that. They were carnivores, he said, and would eat anything available. They were afraid of the man-smell because it meant danger, but they would attack anything they might eat if it could not fight back. If a man or a child is helpless, my father said, he might be eaten. Jacob Finney had agreed.
“No animal has any special respect for man,” he said. “It is just that they have learned to fear. Once they lose their fear, a man has to be careful.”
Clutching my stick, I waited. If one came close, I would hit him.
Bending over, I gathered some rocks. They were black against the white sand. I piled them beside me on the flat rock.
Sometimes I dozed, yet I tried to stay awake, and several times I heard something moving, but I couldn’t see anything. A small wind stirred, rustling the dry leaves on the brush. Something stirred again, closer. I picked up a rock and threw it hard. After that I heard no sound.
A long time later I awakened from dozing and heard a soft sound, so I took my stick and hit the brush near me; then I threw another stone into the darkness. In stories, they always spoke of gleaming eyes peering from the darkness. I saw no eyes. I heard only the soft rustling of something moving in the darkness.
When the first gray light came, I stood up. I was very stiff, and very tired. Also I was hungry, but mostly I wanted a drink. The coolness of the night had made it better, but I wanted a drink, I needed a drink.
Papa had said one could get a drink from a barrel cactus, but I did not see any. Just stiff, dry wood and sometimes whitish-looking grass.
My point of rock was gone. My star was gone. I could not find the tracks, yet I could see where the sun was rising and I started off to the south. I had not gone far when I saw a coyote track in the sand. It was a fresh track.
When I topped a small rise, I sat down. My legs ached and I was very tired. I put a pebble in my mouth again, but it did not work very well. The sun had come up, and it was very hot.
Heat waves shimmered on the desert, and far ahead I could see a blue lake that was only mirage. There were rocks ahead, and more brush. Beyond them I could see the mountains, the San Jacintos they were called, but they seemed far, far away.
Then, walking on, I found the tracks again. Following them, I fell down, and when I got up from the sand, my hands were bloody from the gravel.
There were other, older tracks. I was on some kind of a trail, and it seemed to dip down into the hotter desert, but beyond were the mountains. My tongue was dry and I could not swallow. My eyes hurt and I was very hot. I wanted to lie down, but the sand was like a hot stove.
For a time there was a sound, a drumming sound, and then it became the sound of horses, and I turned around.
A half-dozen riders were coming at me. Was it a dream? My eyes blinked slowly, and I frowned, trying to make them out. They were only a blur against the shimmering heat waves, and the horses seemed to have legs enormously long, but that was the heat waves again.
They came up, coming out of the heat waves and the dust, and the foremost rider had a wooden leg.
They pulled up, and the man with the peg leg said, “Holy Jesus! It’s Verne’s boy!”
He dropped from the saddle, amazingly agile, and held his water bag to my lips. A sip and a swallow, then he took it away.
“Just rinse your mouth this time,” he said. “Let it soak in a mite.” After a moment he said, “Where you comin’ from, boy? Where’s your pa?”
“They killed him,” I said. “They were waiting for him. He tried to push me away so I would not be hurt, and they shot him.”
“He git any of them?” another man asked.
“One, I think.” Peg-Leg gave me another swallow and then stepped back into the saddle, reaching a hand down for me.
“Come on, son,” he said. “We’ll take you in.” Then he hesitated. “Your pa’s dead, boy? What’ll you do now?”
“I want to go to our house. Peter Burkin will come.”
“Reckon he will, at that. Pete’s a loyal man.” Peg-Leg started off, leading the way. “You got grub in that house, boy? You got some’at to eat?”
“Yes.”
We rode on for a little way, and then he stopped and let me have a drink, stopping me before I drank too much.
“We come on your trail, boy,” Peg-Leg told me. “We follered you. You come quite a stretch, you surely did.”
He looked down at me. “You got anybody in Los Angeles, boy?”
“No, sir.” Then I said, “Maybe Miss Nesselrode.”
He laughed. “Say! I mind her! That there’s quite a woman!” He turned in his saddle to speak to the others. “Said if I stole any of her horses she’d hang me!” He chuckled. “By damn, I think she’d do it, too! That there was some kinda woman, boy. When the time comes, you find yourself a woman like that. Ain’t none any better.”
A long time later, after the drum of hooves and my own tiredness had made me fall asleep, we rode up the lane toward our house. All was dark and still.
“Tom?” Peg-Leg said. “Take a look inside. See if there’s anybody there. We’ll cover you.”
Tom swung down, and, gun in hand, walked over to the door and lifted the latch. He stepped inside. A moment, and we could hear him fumbling about for the candles; then light streamed out the door.
His boots went from room to room; then he came to the door. “She’s clean as a whistle, Peg!”
Peg-Leg lowered me to the ground. “You’ll be all right here, boy? You an’ them Injuns get along?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know they set store by your pa. You get some sleep now, boy. Drink a mite now an’ again, but don’t tank up until tomorrow. Then you’ll drink more’n you ever thought a man could hold.
“An’, boy? You be careful of that ol’ Spanish man. He hears you’re alive, he’ll come back for you. He’ll skin you alive.”
For a moment longer he stayed, and then he said, “You see, boy, I dasn’t stick around. I’m a man with enemies. There’s some as would hang me in a minute if they come upon me. I d’clare, boy, I’m goin’ to pack it in an’ head north. This here’s too rough a life for an old man. I can make a good livin’ up there in Frisco sellin’ maps to that gold mine folks think I lost.”
He turned. “See you, boy! I’m right sorry about your pa. He was a good man!”
For a long time I stood alone in the yard near where my father had fallen, listening to the receding sound of their horses. Then I went inside and looked around.
I was alone in the house of Tahquitz. Would he be angry that I was here? Would he come to drive me away or kill me?
What was Tahquitz? Who was he…or it?
I was very hungry, yet I did not want to eat. I straightened my bed, undressed slowly, then crawled into bed. For what seemed a long time, I lay still, staring into the darkness above me.
Somewhere far off there was a low rumble, and the earth seemed to shake a little. Was it Tahquitz?
Was he angry?
But this was my home. It was the only home I had. What would I do now? What could I do? Would Peter ever come again? And why should I matter to him? I was not his boy. He had business of his own to see to.
A low wind moaned around the eaves, and sand rattled against the windows and ran nervous fingers along the roof.
Miss Nesselrode had said I could come to he
r, but if I did, I should be close to my enemies and they would know I was alive; and that they must not know. To Los Angeles was a ride of five or six, maybe seven days. I did not know just how far.
What could I do? I could stay. I could live here, in the house of Tahquitz.
At least, until he returned….
CHAPTER 15
When morning came I went to the cupboard. There was bread in the breadbox, there were two jars of jam, and there was cornmeal, two bottles of wine which I did not drink, and there was coffee which I did not drink either. At least, not often.
I found in the cool place under the floor a big hunk of cheese, so I cut off a piece and returned the rest to the cloth wrapping and the open jar. With the cheese and a piece of bread thickly covered with jam, I sat down by the table and ate. Until then I had not realized how hungry I was. Before, I had only wanted water.
When I had eaten, I went to the door, and Francisco was there.
“You do not see Tahquitz?”
“No,” I said.
“He was here. He covered the blood.” Francisco pointed to the place where my father had fallen. “Then he went away.”
“What was he like?”
“I did not see him. Nobody sees him. He comes in the night, and he goes. He was heard.” Francisco looked at me. “He was in the cabin.”
Awed, I looked at the cabin. He was there? He had been inside?
“What do you do?”
“What?”
“You can come with us. You can become an Indian.”
“But I am not an Indian.”
“You can live like Indian.” He glanced at me from the corners of his very black eyes. “You can eat like Indian. At least,” he added, “you can eat.”
I could eat. When the bread was gone, and the jam and cheese, what would I do?
Father had told me that the Cahuilla collected acorns, that they were an important part of their diet. They also collected chia and other seeds.
“I must stay here. Peter Burkin will come. Then I will go with you and you will teach me what to do.”
Francisco stood up, and then for the first time I saw the buckskin bag he had. He held it out. “Is for you.” He looked at me. “Jerky?” he said, as if the word were not familiar.
Peering into the bag, I could see the pieces of dried meat.
“Gracias,” I said, and he smiled, showing his white teeth.
“I go now,” he said.
He walked away, and after a moment I went back inside. Tahquitz had been here!
Standing just inside the door, I looked all about me. If Tahquitz was here, what did he do? Why would he come? To see his home, if this was his house? To see what we did here?
Nothing was changed, nothing was different. Carefully, going from room to room, I looked for what he might have done here, and I found nothing.
Anyway, I did not believe in Tahquitz. He was a story, like “Cinderella” or “Jack the Giant-Killer.” Even the Cahuillas had not seen him; they had heard him, which was not the same. It could have been the wind, or a coyote. It could have been anything.
Papa’s rifle stood in a corner, and I went to see if it was loaded. It was. His pistol belt had been hung on a peg in the bedroom, and I took it down. It was loaded, too. Somebody had loaded it, because my father had fired it. Somebody had loaded it while I was gone.
Taking the pistol belt from the peg, I hung it on the bed. It would be close to me at night, if I needed it. I had shot a pistol, but only with my father helping me. I had shot a rifle, too.
Remembering what my father had done, I got the broom and swept the cabin floor. Then I wiped the windows clean and dusted the furniture. In the desert there is much dust.
When the house was clean, I filled the bucket with fresh water and filled a water bag and let it hang in the wind to keep cool.
Chewing on a piece of the dried meat, I went to the shelf to look at the books. Quentin Durward was the book my father was reading. I would try to….
It was gone!
There were twelve books on the shelves, and I had looked often at each, but Quentin Durward was not among them. Yet there were still twelve. I looked again, and the book that replaced Quentin Durward was another novel by Scott, Guy Mannering!
Hesitantly I took the book down, and as I opened the pages, I caught a faint odor of pine needles. Holding it to my nose, I sniffed curiously.
Definitely pine, but our books had been nowhere near any pine trees. Very carefully, half-frightened, I put the book down. Who had been here since we had been gone? Tahquitz, Francisco had said, but that was nonsense.
There had been someone else; someone had been in our house, had taken one of our books and left another, hoping no doubt that we would not notice. Especially that I would not notice, for my father was dead.
It was unusual that a boy of my age should read such books, but my father and mother had both taught me, and I had begun reading at an early age, after my parents had read to me.
Why bother to substitute a book at all? Why not just push them together, hoping no one would notice there was one fewer on the shelf?
Again I picked up the book, slowly turning the pages. I turned almost a third of the book, page by page, but there was no clue. The odor of pine needles remained, and there were no pines here. The only trees here were palms, smoke trees, and a few palo verde. In some of the canyons there were sycamores.
Uneasily I put the book down again. Yet, why not read it? Quentin Durward was gone, but the new story might be quite as good.
Yet I put the book down for the time and went outside. The horses came to me eagerly, and I realized I had not fed them, and did so. They had water running into a trough, so that was something I did not have to do, yet they were my responsibility now, and I must not forget. But who had fed them when I was gone? Francisco, no doubt, or one of the other Indians.
Turning, I stared up at the looming San Jacinto Mountains, rising so steeply from the desert. If Tahquitz lived up there, why would he come down here? It was high, and must be cooler. Cool enough that there might be pines. The thought frightened me, and I went quickly inside.
My feet were very sore and there were places where my heels had chafed during the walk. I bathed them again and lay down, trying to think what Papa would have wanted me to do.
I was half-asleep when I heard a horse. I heard the clop, clop-clop of hooves and got quickly up, wide-awake. I looked to the pistol and went to stand beside the door. My heart was pounding. Then the rider came into sight, and it was Peter. I put down the pistol and ran outside.
“Howdy, boy. Is it true, then?”
“Yes, sir. There were many of them. He pushed me out of the way before he got his pistol out.”
“He git any of them?”
“Yes, sir. One, I know.”
He dismounted and I went with him as he walked his horse back to the corral. He watered his horse, then tied it and took his rifle from the scabbard. We walked back to the house with the sunshine on the peaks.
Inside, he got out the pot and made coffee as I told him what had happened and how Peg-Leg Smith had found me and brought me in.
“He’s a cantankerous old devil, but he’s a good man to have around if you’re in a corner.” He looked at me. “How you doin’, all by yourself?”
“All right. I think I shall go with the Cahuilla. They spoke of it.”
“You ain’t got no other folks, I know. Your pa said something about this Nesselrode woman?”
“She was in our wagon coming west. She said she would take me, but she may have been just talking. Anyway, I want to stay here.”
“Here? Alone? Well, I was on my own when I was nine, and I hadn’t as much savvy as you. I brought you some grub. It’s in those sacks back of my saddle, but that ain’t much, an’ I’m not sure I c
an keep makin’ this trip.”
“It is a long ride.”
“I got to make a livin’, boy.” He looked around. “No place for you there. It’s a mighty rough neighborhood where I live, and all I’ve got is a bunk in a cheap roomin’ house with a bunch of drinkers an’ fighters.”
“I am all right here. I want to stay.”
“Mind if I sleep here tonight, boy? I’m surely tuckered.” He looked at me again. “You ain’t scared they’ll come back?”
“They think I am dead.”
“Well, you ain’t. No tellin’ how long before they find out.” He paused again. “You seen anything of that there Tahquitz?”
“No.”
Peter stoked his pipe with tobacco, waiting for the water to boil. “Any of that bunch get inside? I mean those folks who killed your pa?”
“No. They killed him, took me, and rode away. They didn’t even look inside.”
Peter’s chuckle was not amused. It was a dry chuckle concerned with something in his mind. “Give ’em a shock if they had,” he said.
He did not say anything more, and I did not know what he meant. Sometimes I had a feeling Peter knew more than anyone guessed.
Gesturing at the books, he asked, “Can you read them? I reckon you’re a mite young.”
“I can read them. Some words I do not know, but if I think, I can find their meanings. Papa and Mama started teaching me when I was three. We traveled a lot and I was with them all the time.”
“Well, I brought you some more. I don’t know what they are, but a man in town who reads a lot, he said they were good.”
He pulled off his boots and sat on Papa’s bed looking at me. “Got to get you an eddication. Your pa had it. He knew everything, I reckon. Me, I never had no schoolin’ to speak of. I can read a mite, an’ I can cipher, sign my name, and the like.
“Read them books, boy. Learn something. I got no eddication, and all I can do is work for the other fellow. I prospect a mite, trap a little fur. It ain’t much more than a livin’, son, so you get you an eddication.”
The Lonesome Gods (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 10