Ahead of them he saw a black ridge, shading off in places to a dull red, depending on the way the sunlight fell. Was that the place?
Squinting his eyes, he looked for some familiar landmark. He knew that in the wilderness any place may have many different aspects, which is the reason why seasoned travelers watch their back trail, to know how the country will look on their return journey. A slightly different view of terrain, under different conditions of light, can often make a surprising difference in appearance.
Rodelo’s brain was sluggish. He struggled with his thoughts, trying to remember what he knew of this place … if it was the place. Finally, he started on once more, tugging to get his horse moving again.
The rocks were corrugated and rough, each edge like a serrated knife, tearing at their boots or clothing. Turning to look back, he was shocked at the looks of those who followed him. Nora’s blouse had been torn by cactus, her boots were badly scuffed; her buckskin divided skirt was standing up best of all, but even that was showing signs of the rough travel.
Gopher’s thin face looked strained, his lips ugly with cracks and bleeding. Badger and Harbin were caricatures of their original selves. The small procession was scattered over several hundred yards, and had the Yaquis attacked at that moment they would have had an easy victory.
At the next step Rodelo saw the track of a bighorn. There were a lot of the desert bighorns in the Pinacate country, and as his eyes searched the ground he saw another, somewhat smaller track, partly overlaid by the track of a desert fox. All pointed the same direction. He stopped and studied the slopes carefully, then turned in among the rocks.
He had not found the trail by which he had once come to Papago Tanks, but he was trying to find his way by deduction, with an assist from the tracks he had seen. Much of the rock here was polished by wind and blown sand, and it was slippery under foot. This was a wild land, gloomy and forbidding, a place normally to be avoided, but it was here he hoped to find water.
Suddenly he saw the bluish basaltic rock he remembered. He veered a little, went down between two great slabs of volcanic rock, and was on the tiny sandy beach by the water hole. At the base of a twenty-foot drop a hollow had been worn by falling water and churning rock fragments to a depth of four or five feet. Back of it, and close by, was another pool, at least a dozen feet in diameter. There the water was shaded by a slight leaning of the rock, and the water below was cold and clear.
“Let the horses drink from the near pool,” Rodelo said. “We’ll drink from the one further back.”
He stooped and scooped a mouthful of the water, sucking it from his palm and feeling the coolness of it bring life to the parched tissues of his mouth. He let a few drops trickle down his throat, and felt his stomach contract. He drank slowly, taking only a swallow at a time. Then he took the canteen from his horse and filled it, and after that he filled Nora’s.
Then he led the horses to water, allowed them a little and took them away, and after a bit came back with them for more.
This was not the end of their troubles, he knew. They could no longer use their largest canteen and they could not carry enough water. How far was it to Adair Bay? Twenty miles perhaps? Twenty-five?
With the horses in such bad shape they could not hope to make it in a day. After some rest here, they might make it in two days. So far they had been lucky; and he, better than any of the others, knew how lucky.
He glanced at the sky. It would be hot tomorrow; and he knew that when the temperature is 110 degrees at breathing level it may be fifty degrees hotter on the sand underfoot. In this arroyo where they now were it could be bitterly cold at night, but during the day heat was sucked up from the sands, and the stifling hot, drying winds drained the moisture from the tissues and left man or animal dried out like old shoe leather that has been exposed to the sun. In such heat, even twenty-four hours without water could kill a man.
Nora came up beside him. “What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“We’ll rest, eat, drink some more, and get ready to start for the coast.”
“Do you think there will be trouble?”
He considered that. “Yes, I am afraid so. The Indians are out there. They’ve got to take us now, and they know it.”
“What can we do?”
“Drink … drink all you can hold. Saturate all your tissues with it. You’ll last longer if you do.”
He led the horses to water once more, then picketed them near some mesquite brush and clumps of burrow bush.
He was gathering a few sticks of dried-out wood when Joe Harbin came up to him. Gopher was with him, Tom Badger bringing up the rear.
“That’s good water, Rodelo,” Harbin said. “I’ll apologize. You knew where you were goin’, all right.”
“I still do.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We’re not out of the woods yet, Harbin. It’s maybe twenty-five miles or so down to the coast. That’s two days, at best.”
“Hell, I’ve ridden seventy miles a day more’n once.”
“On horses like these? They’re in bad shape, Harbin.”
“They’ll make it.”
“Take your time, Joe,” Badger suggested. “Maybe he’s right.”
“Like hell he is! He’s stallin’ for time. We just don’t need him any more.”
Dan Rodelo got up from the pile of sticks he was preparing. “We’ll make some coffee,” he said to Nora, “and have something to eat. The hardest time is still ahead of us.”
He looked around at Harbin. “You need me, all right. You need me now worse than ever. You’ve still got a fight with those Indians … and don’t underestimate them. They’ve been trackin’ down escaped convicts for years, and they get most of them.”
“Let ’em come—the sooner the better.”
“That’s dune sand west of here, Harbin. There’s places out there where a horse can sink belly-deep, and every time he tries to get out he sinks deeper. And the same for men. Or suppose your canteen gets holed? You’re a long way from being out of the woods yet. You got any idea how many cons got this far? I can name you a dozen … but they lost out between here and the coast.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He makes sense,” Badger said. “We’d better look to our hole card.”
Gopher brought more sticks and added to the fire. Nora looked at him and asked, “Why do they call you Gopher?”
He grinned at her. “I was forever tryin’ to dig out. Made so many tunnels they called me Gopher. It was partly because of him”—he indicated Tom Badger. “He was the Badger, and bigger than me, so they called me the Gopher.”
They ate and drank, and finally one by one they lay down exhausted on the sand.
“You cover up,” Rodelo warned Nora. “The wind will start coming down this arroyo, and it will be cold.”
“Cold?” She was incredulous.
“You’ll be chilled to the bone, take it from me. You cover up.”
He looked in the direction of the coast. From a high point a man might see it all, laid out there before him, but it would be deceiving. Desert country has a way of concealing its obstacles: canyons that don’t seem to be there until one stands on the very edge of them, and lava flows that would ruin a new pair of boots in a few miles.
Somehow he knew. Tomorrow would be the day … tomorrow.
Seven
Dan Rodelo slipped the thong off his six-shooter and worked his fingers. He wanted no trouble. He had come here for a purpose, and if he could accomplish that purpose without a gunfight he would be satisfied. How he would fare in a gun battle with Joe Harbin he had no idea, but he knew that Harbin had not killed men by accident. He was a good shot and a tough man.
Tom Badger was shrewd and careful, willing to let the others fight. And neither of them planned to let Gopher come in for anything.
Rodelo had gone to prison for a crime he had not committed. That rankled, but what hurt most was that others believed him guilty. Above all else, he meant to prove himself innocent, and then he would drift out of the country. He no longer wanted any part of those who had distrusted him, who had lost faith in him so quickly.