High Lonesome

Lennie shrank from the body, which had fallen within reach of them. He had been young, this Apache, and overeageruand the chance-takers never last.

Silence followed ... Were there others near? Or had this one raced on ahead?

The Indian had carried a Winchester and had a Mexican bandolier filled with cartridges. Spanyer shucked these from their loops one by one and filled his pockets. The Winchester was old. He took it in his hands and smashed it against a boulder, then threw it aside.

Lennie glanced at the Indian. "He looks very young," she whispered.

"Old as he"ll ever be," Spanyer said dryly.

Dave Spanyer knew patience. Somewhere out there were enemies, so for the time he would not move. He settled back, trying to think his way out.

The horse must be saved. Food and water and a fresh shoe would put it in shape again, and they would need the horse when they got where they were going. And if they took a route out past that basaltic rock they would be in the sand, where their steps would make no sound.

Only a mile farther and the entrance to High Lonesome began. It was no sanctuary, for there was no such place with Indians around, but it was a better place to make a stand. There was water, and they would be on familiar ground.

He plotted every move they must make, once darkness came, and then he set back and rolled a smoke. Having done all that a man could do, he waited.

The rest would do them good ... tomorrow would be a long, long day.

a At sundown, when the first shadows moved out from the cliff walls, Considine found the horse with its broken leg and cut throat. He drew rein, and the others came up and ranged alongside in a ragged line, looking down upon the dead animal.

The scene required no explanation. It told its own grim story, perhaps the prelude to one even more stark; for without a horse, in desert country, with Apaches on their trail, they would have small chance. This was no country in which to ride double, even if there were no Indians.

Whatever a man does leaves a trail behind, and in his pa.s.sing he leaves indications of the manner of man he is, of his character, and even something of his plans. It requires only the observant and understanding eye to read what the trail can show.

Nor does any person stand completely alone in this world, for when he pa.s.ses he brushes, perhaps ever so slightly, upon others, and each is never quite the same thereafter. The pa.s.sing of Lennie Spanyer had left no light touch upon the consciousness of the man called Considine.

The four men, loaded with the loot of their robbery, looked upon that dead horse and upon those tracks, and for each there was some personal message. Each was disturbed, but these were men without words, unused to voicing their thoughts for all to hear. Nor had they quite shaped those thoughts into words they could share with each other.

Each of these men was worried, for in those moments in the store each had found that Lennie was in some part his own.

For a brief instant her freshness, her brightness, and her open charm had brought something to them that had not been there before, and left a mark upon them. The danger to Lennie was a danger they all felt.

Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes upon him.

And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant, a man on horseback rescuing the weak and helpless. Never consciously in their thoughts, to these men without words the image was thereuand more. For Lennie was the sweetheart, the sister, the wife, each one of them would have ... if only in daytime dreams.

"That"s the girl"s horse."

Dutch cleared his throat uneasily. "No time to waste. We"d better push on."

They pushed on ... and the tracks of the led horse lay in the dust before them.

Spanyer, each man was thinking, was shrewd. Trust him to know what to do ... else Lennie"s dark hair would hang in some wickiup.

"None of our business," Hardy said brusquely. "I"m a-worryin" to see that Mex gal down Sonora way."

"It isn"t far to that tinaja in the Pedregosas," Considine said, "let"s get along."

When they made that turn toward the tinaja they left this trail behind, they left Lennie and Dave Spanyer behind, and they turned south into the desert that lay between them and the Mexican border.

They saw one last smoke before the sun went down, a smoke that ascended straight and unbroken, and then broke twice sharply and clearly. It gave them something to remember during the dark hours of the coming night.

Darkness comes suddenly to the desert, where twilight is quickly gone. A bat dipped and fluttered above them, a star appeared ... the serrated ridges gnawed at the deep, deep blue of the evening sky. A far-off coyote spoke the moon, and the hoofs of their horses, the creaking of their saddles, made the only other sounds.

Hardy could contain himself no longer. "It must come to sixty thousand. Sixty thousand in gold!"

There was no response. They were four belted men riding for the border, four men who had chosen to live by the gun ... and some day to die by it One was a man who wanted a woman in Mexico; one was a man who wanted a long, quiet drink; and there was an Indian who wanted nothing at all. And there was one man who did not know what he wanted.

Only he was beginning to be afraid that he did know.

The Kiowa drew up suddenly. "Dust," he said. "Horses pa.s.s."

They waited, a tight knot of men, sitting still in the leather, listening.

The tracks of the Spanyers were hours old, and no other white man would be riding in this country now. So it had to be Indians ... and they would be camping somewhere close by.

"A big party ... a war party."

"Now how do you know that?" Hardy demanded.

"By the smell." The Kiowa spoke softly. "The paint smell ... the medicine smell."

They still waited ... listening. One of their horses stamped impatiently. With darkness the desert had become cool. In the clear air of the desert, with no vegetation or water to hold the heat, it is quickly gone.

At last they moved out, and when they stopped, hours later, it was in a nest of boulders where a defense could be made. The way they must go on the morrow was a way that must be watched with care. The tinajas where water could be had were few, and to miss one might well be fatal.

They lighted no fire. Nor did they make any sound but the faint whisperings of their clothing as they moved. No boots were removed tonight, only gun belts and hats, and the gun belts and saddle guns were kept close at hand.

Overhead there were many stars. The Kiowa was restless. Finally he spoke very quietly. "Woodsmoke ... they are very near."

No comment was made. Considine remembered two men he had found, suspended head down over fires that had cooked them until their skulls burst ... and Dutch thought of something he had once seen: a man staked out near an ant hill, up to his chin.

The smoke might come from a fire a hundred yards offubut it was more likely to be half a mile away.

Considine was tired, but not sleepy. "You rest," he told them. "I"ll stand watch."

He wrapped his blanket about his shoulders and sat against a boulder, a huge rock that leaned over their small camp. The night was cool, but pleasant.

Somewhere nearby someone had broken a branch of thamnosma. He could smell the pungent, peculiar odor of the Injiap witch-plant.

Under the shelter of his blanket he lighted a cigarette, cupping its tiny red eye in his palm, liking the dry, hot taste of the tobacco. The horses cropped gra.s.s, a comforting sound ... there was the smell of the horses, of the thamnosma, and the stale smell of his own unwashed clothing. That he would change when he got to Mexico. There was little time for washing clothes on the trail.

Why should his thoughts turn to Lennie now? What had there been about that slim, tanned girl in her proud dress, faded from many washings? Had it been the feel of her young body through the thin slip? Or the memory of her cool lips? Or was it something deeper? Was it some response from deep within himself, some response of his own loneliness to the loneliness in her?

He was no thinker, and he had no answers. He drew deep on the cigarette and snubbed it out in the sand. He got up and went among the horses, then he moved beyond the rocks, where he stood listening to the night. There was no sound.

As it was growing gray in the east he shook Dutch awake. The big man got up silently, and Considine then stretched out and slept.

When he was awakened scarcely an hour later, Dutch was making coffee over a tiny, smokeless fire. Hardy was saddling his horse, and the Kiowa had slipped away somewhere before daylight. Considine saddled his own horse and that of the Kiowa, then went to the fire for coffee.

The Kiowa returned, coming in among the boulders, and squatted by the fire. "Fourteen ... they have fresh scalps."

They looked at him, afraid to ask the question that was in all their minds.

"No long hair ... no woman."

The Kiowa drew on a cigarette, and gulped coffee. "They are gone now, but they follow a trail. They expect more scalps today."

"Dave"s no fool," Dutch said. "He"ll know those Indians are trailing him."

"That Pete Runyon," Hardy said, "he"ll be right behind us. We"d better light a shuck."

The desert morning opened around them, bright and amazingly clear. The rocks stood out in sharp relief, the distant mountains seemed close by, and only the solemn finger of beckoning smoke touched an ominous note.

But the smoke, like their hard-hewn faces and the smell of smoke and sweat, was of the desert...

Chapter IX.

When it was quite dark, Dave Spanyer took up the lead rope and started out from among the rocks. He had discarded the saddle, for it was more weight than it was worth, and he could come back for it later, if such an opportunity developed.

When the bulk of Packsaddle Mountain was behind them, he turned left into the velvety darkness. He could see only a little, but it was light enough to keep from stumbling over rocks or blundering into cactus. The mountains before them were a black wall offering no identifying features.

Lennie walked beside him, and when possible they kept to the soft sand. When pa.s.sing through occasional patches of desert brush they carefully held the branches aside so they would not brush against their clothing, a sound easily heard and recognized in the desert night.

At last the sudden dampness told them they faced the canyon, for cool air usually came down those canyons, and to a knowing man it was an indication. Once within the canyon, they were engulfed in a vaster, deeper darkness, for the walls rose five hundred feet above them. The sand was firm from recent floods following the rain, and it made walking easier, but it would leave tracks.

Spanyer blessed his luck in having a daughter who did not complain. Lennie was a girl to make a mother of men, not weak, sniveling mama"s boys. She was a good walker, too, and better than the average man with a rifle.

When they had come two miles into the canyon, they stopped to rest. It would be nearly morning now, although still night-dark in the canyon. Since their start they had come six or seven miles.

"Used to be a shanty up there"uhe gestured to the mountains ahead, and spoke in a whisperu "and a cave. It was a hideout some of the boys used. There"s a spring."

Something scurried in the darkness. The horse shifted his feet. Suddenly something bounded in the night, sticks cracked, the brush whispered. The horse jerked up its head at the sounds. Spanyer kept an iron grip on the lead rope, and after a minute the horse quieted.

"Lion," Spanyer explained. "Probably smelled the horse before he smelled us."

The stars kept their shy lamps alight in these last hours of darkness. The canyon narrowed and the walls seemed higher; but they had begun to climb, and after a while the canyon widened out and they found themselves in a small basin. Knee-high gra.s.s grew around them, and they could smell the freshness of water.

"We"ll rest," said Spanyer. "Come daybreak, I"ll get my bearings."

Lennie sat down and cradled her head in her arms, which rested on her knees. She thought of the tall rider with the easy walk.u.more like that of a woodsman than a cowhand. She could imagine him cutting wood for the fire while she fixed dinner, or washing in a tin basin with his sleeves rolled up over muscular arms, his hair splashed with water and sparkling where the drops caught the sun.

He did not seem like an outlawuand her own father had changed when her mother married him. Maybe he would come west ... When they got to California she would look around for another place, close to Pa"s...

She knew she was dreaming. She knew she would not see him again. For all she knew, he might even now be dead, his body propped up to be photographed, the way they often did with dead outlaws. Or he might be in prison.

Yet she could not admit either possibility, for she knew, deep down within her, that she loved him, and only him. She knew, too, that she was not cut out to be an outlaw"s woman. Oh, she could stand the hard travel, the rough living and all ... she had done that with Pa ever since leaving school; but she knew what she wantedua home, a nice ranch with cattle feeding on the hills, a stream somewhere close by, shaded trees, and the flowers she would plant "We"ll move now," her father said. "I can make out the shape of things."

He was an exciting man ... she blushed with the memory of how she had felt in his arms ... but what must he think of her? Scarcely dressed, and soaked to the skin like that.

They moved on, and the climbing was steady now. In some places it was difficult for the horse, and Lennie found herself gasping for breath. How her father made it she could not imagine, but he seemed made of rawhide and steel wire, for all the effect. At last they reached a cl.u.s.ter of rocks among which there was a spring, partly shaded by mesquite, cottonwood, and willow. From the edge of the rocks one could see all around.

They had come out on top of the canyon, and it lay like a tremendous gash in the mountain, falling away steeply into its own darkness below them.

"They may not find us," Spanyer said. He glanced at her. "I got to sleep, Lennie. Can you stay awake?"

She did not want to sleep. She wanted to stay awake and think. The Apaches seemed farther away, more unreal than Considine ... what was his first name? Oddly enough, she had never heard him called anything but Considine. She knew the memory of him would fade out ... it would grow dim and she would forget, and she did not want to forget, for it was the only memory she wished to hold close.

There was so little else. She had been abysmally unhappy at school, although she was a good student. She could remember faintly her mother, a slender, lovely woman who had been tender and thoughtful, but Lennie had been at a friend"s when her mother died ... only vague impressions remained.

Pa was brusque, often stern, and she knew he was worried about her. Pa was a man who was sure in most things. He handled horses and cattle with easy confidence, and among men he walked his own way, never going around anybody. She knew he was respected ... even feared.

Back in Socorro where they had lived for a time she had been surprised to hear the respect with which he was addressed by men like the banker, the sheriff, and the big cattlemen around. He was beholden to no man, and the gun that rode his hip was a known thing. Yet it was not the gun that counted; it was the fact that Pa respected himself.

Those cold eyes of his could chill men ... she had heard them say it. Yet in his own rough way he was a good father, and a kind one, even though he often said and did the wrong thing.

Her father had that quality of desert and mountain men that he could sleep when he wished, and he slept now, curled up on the sand. Several times she got up from where she sat and looked around, careful to show no movement to any possible watcher below. Already she had acquired from her father those habits of care and eternal watchfulness so essential to the wilderness life among hostile Indians.

The sky grew pale, then the red arrows of the sun opened the heavens to the gold that followed. The shadows fled, somewhere a bird sang, the song crystal clear in the morning air. The sky became blue, the cacti turned from gray to green, and the morning was with them.

Her father still slept; and now, relaxed in the shade of a boulder, his face for the first time looked old, and for the first time she thought what this must mean to him, to be starting over again at his age, to be making a new life ... and for her.

There was strength in him still, a resilient strength as of some kind of strange steel that resists all corrosion, so that he lived on, seemingly timeless, everlasting. Yet he was not ... and she knew some of his haste, knew the reason for it.

The sky was fully light now, and when she looked around again she saw an Indian sitting on a horse. He was not over a hundred yards away, and he was looking straight toward them.

a Considine was riding with the Kiowa. The Apaches, who were stalking the two ahead of them, had not held to the trail, but they were moving westward. Considine remembered vaguely some story about a Yuma Indian who had taken an Apache girl to wife and had become a noted warrior among them. If that was the case, it might account for the Apaches ranging so far west.

The four riders had been following the trail only a short time when they found the broken shoe. From there on, the tracks were of two people who walked, leading the horse. Only occasionally did they ride, obviously saving the horse as much as possible for whatever might lie ahead.

Considine closed off his thoughts from Spanyer and Lennie. They would make it ... somehow. Tonight he and the boys would hole up in that cave on Castle Dome.

West of the Dome there was a saddle by which they could cross into the valley beyond, and then follow Silver Creek to the east side of the mountains. There were a couple of springs down there. It might be better to stay west and avoid those springs ... but there was good water there.

He could tell that the horse Spanyer led was limping badly, and would be no use at all if they did have to run for it. He swore to himself ... n.o.body looked at him, or said anything. The story of the tracks could be read by them all.

Hardy mopped his face and tried to ease his position in the saddle. Their eyes were constantly moving, searching, watching. They were carrying more money than they had ever had in their lives, or were likely to have again.

"Man," Hardy said suddenly, "I"d like to have seen their faces back in Obaro!"

n.o.body replied ... somehow robbing the bank in Obaro seemed a small thing today.