“Oh, shut up! I started this and I want to finish it!” Paula got into the jeep. Her blouse was damp on the shoulder blades and armpits and the two-mile walk had done neither of them any good. She was in heels, and he wore tight city shoes. They were good and hot now, and dry.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Ash said, “it’s a long ride back.”
“Come on! We can stop by that last place for a Coke! I thought you wanted to get out of here?”
Ash got in and the jeep started willingly enough. When they had gone Monte Jackson got up. He took his time for there was lots of it, he knew about how far they would be able to get. He made up a few sandwiches, put them in the haversack with a blanket and his leather jacket, then stuffed cookies into his pockets and with his rifle and canteen, walked east, away from the road.
From time to time he stopped and mopped sweat from his brow, and then walked on toward Marble Canyon. They would make anywhere from five to ten miles with the gas they had, traveling in low as they would. It was only six miles to Dodd’s Spring but he doubted if they would get so far.
* * *
SLIM GARNER WAS washing dishes when Jackson showed up. “Too late for coffee,” he said.
“Not hungry, Slim.” He grounded his rifle. Garner glanced curiously at the pack and rifle but said nothing. “Tell you what you might do, though. About the day after tomorrow you might drive over to Stovepipe Wells and call the sheriff. Ask him to meet me at Dodd’s Spring and to bring Ragan from the Riverside Police Department. Robbery-Homicide. You tell him it’s the Burgess case.”
Garner stared. “Homicide? That’s murder!”
“You’re darn’ tootin’, it is! Call him, will you?”
“You ain’t fixin’ to kill nobody?” Slim protested.
“No, the fact is I’m takin’ a gamble to prove I haven’t killed somebody already.” Knowing he must not walk again until the cool of the evening, he sat down and quietly spun his yarn out while Slim listened. Garner nodded from time to time.
“So they come up here after you?” Slim asked. He chuckled, his old eyes twinkling. “Sure, I’d like to see their faces when they find they are out of gas clean over there on the edge of the Valley!”
“Do you suppose they could find Dodd’s Spring?”
“Doubt it. Ain’t so easy lest you know it’s there.” He grinned. “Let ’em sweat for a while. Do ’em good: Make ’em feel talkative.”
* * *
DUSK WAS SETTLING over the desert when Monte Jackson again saw the utility wagon. Evidently gas had not been their only trouble, for a punctured tire was now lying in the backseat. The jeep was stopped on open ground and the man and woman stood beside it, arguing. Their gestures were plain enough, but when he crawled nearer, he could hear them.
“Why not start tonight? We’ve got to have gas and you could be there by morning.”
“Are you crazy? It’s twenty miles, and maybe thirty!”
“Well, what if it is?” she asked irritably.
“In this country, wearing these shoes, I’d be lucky to make it in two days! And without water? What do you think I am?”
“What a guy!” she exclaimed contemptuously. “You let me plan it all, do everything, and then you come off without enough gas to get us back!”
“Look, honey,” he protested patiently, “we had enough gas. There should be seven or eight gallons left!” He dropped to his knees and peered under the rear of the vehicle. “There’s a hole,” he said.
“A hole?”
“He put a hole in our tank…or someone did.”
“What do you think he intends to do?”
“Do?” Ash shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe call the cops. I’m more worried about us!”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re in the middle of the desert. Nobody comes out here. We could die, okay.” He sucked in a deep breath. “You’re worried about the guy being a witness. You’re worried about the cops. I’m worried about the fact that we’re in the desert and, unless it was a rock that put a hole in our tank, this guy Jackson is the only person who knows we’re here.”
“So what do we do?”
“We’d better wait. Cars have been over this trail, and one might come along. If none does, then I can start walking by daylight. At night I couldn’t keep to the trail.”
There is no calm like the calm of a desert at dusk, there is no emptiness so vast, no silence so utterly still. Far, serrated ridges changed from purple to black, and the buttes and pinnacles pointed fingers of shadow into the wasteland. Stars were coming out, and the air grew faintly chill. Monte Jackson pulled on his coat and crawled closer…it was time to have a little fun.
“I’ll build a fire,” Ash said.
“Don’t pick up a snake,” Monte said.
The woman gave a little shriek, but though their eyes lifted, they were looking some distance off to his left where a rock cliff had caught the sound and turned it back to them. Ash put a hand on his gun but kept it under his shirt. When there was no other sound they moved together and stood there, looking up toward the ridge where he lay, a long low ridge of sand and rock.
“Who’s there?” the man called out.
Jackson settled back against a warm rock, and waited. A tall saguaro, one of those weird exclamation points of the desert, stood off to his left, and beyond it the desert stretched away, a place of strange, far beauty, and haunting distance. A coyote broke the silence suddenly, yapping at the moon, the sound chattering plaintively against echoing cliffs until the long valley resounded with it, and then it ceased suddenly, leaving a crystalline silence.
He heard a stick cracking then and saw a flashlight moving along the ground, then more breaking sticks.
Monte turned his face toward the cliff and asked, “What about water?”
Ash peered around him in the gathering dark. “Hey you! We’re in trouble, we need help!”
“Trouble?” Monte said. “No. You’re not in as much trouble as you’re gonna be!”
There was a brief, whispered conversation. Then…
“Now see here,” the man blustered, “you come down! Come down and we’ll talk about this.”
Monte Jackson did not reply. The fire would help with the cold but it would not help their thirst. By noon tomorrow they would be suffering. They asked for it, and a little fear is a wholesome thing.
* * *
LEAVING HIS POSITION, Monte hiked up the wash to the spring. He ate a sandwich, had a long drink, chewed a salt tablet and settled down for the night. Awakening with the first dawning light he made coffee, ate another sandwich, and then returned before full sunup to his vantage point. The two were huddled in the jeep. But now the day was warming up, from a nighttime low in the mid-fifties, today it would be over one hundred degrees.
“It’ll be over a hundred today,” he called loudly. “Without water, you might last from one to three days. If you are very lucky you could make twenty miles.”
Ash got out of the jeep. “Wait a minute!” he called. “I want to talk to you!” His voice tried to be pleasant, but starting toward the rocks he slipped his hand behind his back, reaching for the gun. Knowing how difficult it is to see a man who does not move, Monte lay still on the dusty ground.
Ash got close to the rocks, then looked around. “Where are you?” he asked. “Do you have gas?” Ash scrambled over rocks and peered around. “Let’s talk this over. We need gas to get out of here.”
Monte said nothing, Ash was closer than he liked.
After a moment Ash gave up and walked back to the jeep. It was still cool, but clambering over rocks had him sweating profusely. He got out of his coat and mopped his face.
“Better save that energy,” Monte called out.
“Go to the devil!” Ash yelled. He scanned the rocks but had not yet figured out where Jackson was.
“We can go back to the spring where we left the jeep,” Paula suggested in a low voice.
“You won’t like the water. What do you think I did with the gasoline?” Monte lied. They both spun around.
“Damn you! Who are you, and what’s this all about?” Ash squinted at the area where Monte lay, he was looking right at him but couldn’t make him out in the clutter of rocks and brush. They must know he knew who they were; what he was doing was fun but it was also serious business and rapidly growing tiresome.