“Four shots,” Monte warned himself. “There’s more to come.”
“Come on back! You can have the gun if you’ll give us water!”
Monte was beyond easy pistol range. He got to his feet and lifted the rifle. “Fire another shot, and I leave you for the buzzards!”
He walked toward them, watching Ash. “Give me the gun and I’ll tell you where there’s water.”
Ash hesitated no longer, but tossed the gun toward Monte. Jackson picked it up by the trigger guard, carefully wrapped it in his handkerchief and dropped it into the haversack.
Their faces were fiery red and there were ugly streaks on the man’s cheek where it had been raked by Paula’s fingernails. She stared at Monte, her eyes sullen with hatred. She was no longer pretty, for the desert sun and the bitterness of her hatred had etched lines into her face.
“There’s water in the radiator of your jeep,” he told them.
“Huh?” Hope flared, then died in the man’s eyes. “Aw, hell, man, give us a break!”
“Like she gave her husband? Like you planned to give me? Many a man’s been damned glad to get water out of a radiator and stay alive. It’s only five miles from here.”
He watched them, studying their faces. “Or, you can write out complete confessions, one for each of you, and then I’ll see that you both drink.”
Their faces were sullen. “You know,” he added, “you’re not really in a bad way yet. Soon it’ll start getting complicated. You’re losing salt, without it your bodies won’t be able to process water even if I give you some…you could die of dehydration in a swimming pool.” He took a salt pill out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “Soon water really won’t be the problem.”
They looked at each other in something approaching horror. He could see that they could just barely imagine what another two days would be like.
“That’s not human!” Paula protested. “You can’t do a thing like that to a woman!”
“Look who’s talking! You started this!” He shook his head. “I don’t care what happens to you. When a woman starts killing she is entitled to no special treatment.”
He sat down on a rock, but it was much too hot and he got up immediately. Neither of them were sweating now. Their skins looked parched and dry. “Ash could probably get off with a few years. You’ll have as much of a lawyer as you can buy, and who knows what a good lawyer can do. Out here it’s a different thing…there’s going to be no appeal when the sun comes up tomorrow.”
Without warning, Ash leaped at him, swinging, and instantly, Paula darted forward, her eyes maniacal.
Monte sprang back and, swinging the rifle, clipped Ash alongside the head with the barrel. He turned, and sank the butt into Paula’s stomach. They both went down, though Monte had pulled the blows. Ash wasn’t even bleeding.
“Don’t be foolish,” he said. “Exertion will only make the end come quicker. You’ve both stopped sweating, that’s usually a bad sign.”
Ash cursed, glaring up at him from the ground.
Monte Jackson walked away and when thirty yards off, lifted the canteen and took a long pull, then sloshed the water audibly. They stared at him, their hatred displaced only by thirst. Knowing the desert, he knew neither of these people were as badly off as they believed, but by noon tomorrow…
“You think it over.” He took a pad and pencil from his pocket, the pencil strapped to the pad with a rubber band. “When you’re ready, start writing.” He laid it on the ground.
Then he turned and walked into the desert toward a small corner of shade. His life, his freedom, everything depended on success, and if he failed now it would leave him in an even worse position with the law.
* * *
THE HOUR DRAGGED slowly by, then another half hour. They were no longer at the fork when he walked back, but their tracks were plain. They were returning to the jeep.
He turned off toward Dodd’s Spring, drank, then refilled the canteen. They had taken the pad and pencil with them. He walked slowly after them; when he caught up, they were still a mile from the jeep, and both were seated. Ash, behind a clump of brush, was writing on the pad, squinting his eyes against the sun’s glare on the paper.
* * *
THE SHERIFF CAME at noon on the following day, driving up to Dodd’s Spring in a jeep with Ragan on the seat beside him, and Slim Garner in the rear to show the way. Behind them was a weapons carrier with three more deputies. Monte Jackson walked down from the rocks to meet them.
“How are you, Jackson?” He had talked several times with the sheriff in Baker and elsewhere. “Ragan tells me you’ve had some trouble.”
“Did Slim tell you what I told him?”
“He sure did. You know where they are?”
“Up the road a few miles. Let’s go.” He got into the jeep beside Garner. While they rode he handed the two confessions to Ragan. “That about covers it. Right now there’s a chance they will both talk. Ash figures he will get off because he didn’t actually kill anybody.”
“We got a few facts,” Ragan admitted. “Somebody planned to burn the house, all right. We found the oil-soaked rags and some spilled kerosene on the counter in the kitchen. Lucky for all of us the place didn’t burn completely. Then we found out about Ash Clark, he’s the guy down there, right? He promised his landlady payment in a few days, said he was coming into money. It’s definitely a case with a few loose ends.”
Monte took the pistol from the haversack, and Ragan accepted it as the trucks rolled to a stop. Paula Burgess was haggard and the blazing desert sun had burned her fiercely. Ragan cuffed them and put them in with the deputies. Then they all turned and headed for town. Monte Jackson relaxed, looking back as the long desert road spun out behind the jeep. Long shadows stretched across the landscape, and dust devils danced like ghosts on the wide, sandy flats. A mirage glowed in the distance, looking for all the world like a cool and placid lake.
The desert, he thought, can be a friendly place…if only one showed it the proper respect.
Waltz Him Around Again, Shadow
* * *
DEKE MURPHY, WRANGLER for the Stockman’s Rodeo in Bluff Springs, drew back against the corral, his keen gray eyes on the girl who was passing with Bill Bly, the rodeo star. In the three days he had been in town, Deke had seen the girl several times—and had fallen completely in love with her. As for Bly, Deke would not have liked him even if he had not been with Carol Bell.
The boots with their rundown heels, faded Levi’s and his patched wool shirt made Murphy a distinct contrast to the immaculate gray of Bly’s rodeo costume, but the contrast did not end there.
Bill Bly was a splendidly built man, two hundred and ten pounds of muscle, and easily over six feet. He was cock of the walk, looked it, acted it, and wanted it known. Bill Bly was the hero of the rodeo world and Deke Murphy was an unknown, a hard-faced youngster who had dropped off a freight train and rustled a job handling stock for the rodeo.
Bly and the girl halted by the corral and peered through the horizontal bars to watch the milling horses. “I’d like to ride that Highbinder horse,” Bly told the girl. “He’s the worst horse in this show an’ a man could make a good ride up on him. The judges always watch the men who come out on bad horses. The Highbinder’s never been rode.”
He glanced tolerantly at Deke, who leaned against the corral, eyes for nothing and nobody but Carol Bell. “That Highbinder’s plenty bad, ain’t he, boy?”
Deke Murphy bristled. He disliked being called “boy.” He was all of twenty-two, and they had been rough years, even by the standards of the West. “Not really,” he said.
A shadow of dislike appeared in Bly’s eyes. He was used to being yessed by the wranglers. “I suppose you could ride him?” he suggested sarcastically.
“I reckon,” Deke said calmly. “Anyway, he’s easy compared to that Shadow horse.” He nodded toward the lean, narrow-headed grulla that idled alone near the far wall of the corral. “Shadow will pitch circles around him!”
Bly looked for the first time at the sleepy, mouse-colored horse. “Him? He couldn’t buck four sour apples!” Bly glanced again at Murphy. “If you think you can ride the Highbinder,” he said, with amusement, “you should be in the show! You’d be better than half the riders we’ve got! Maybe better than all of them!”