In the dreadful heat, they could move only at the slowest pace. On their left several volcanic cones reared their heads. “Must be a hundred volcanoes in there,” Gopher commented. “I never seen so many.”
“Brady figured close to five hundred craters,” Rodelo said. “He was down here some years back and knew the country as well as anybody.”
The lava was a chaos of tilted blocks and pressure ridges, pock-marked with pits and deeper depressions; old flows of lava were covered by later ones. The cactus grew everywhere, seeming to need no soil.
By midday they had gained very little distance. Once a wrong turning had led them into a dead-end canyon and they had been forced to retrace their steps. Finally they found a way out of the arroyo in which they had seemed trapped; but climbing the steep trail, a horse slipped and scraped his leg.
At one time they rode for an hour over thick volcanic ash—black, powdery dust that rose all around them and settled on their faces and clothing. They crossed a point of ropy lava and worked a precarious way among the small calderas, or craters. Twice they dismounted to walk, sparing their mounts as much as possible.
They plodded on in sullen silence, submitting to the heat like beaten slaves no longer possessing even the will to protest.
Once a lizard darted across the trail before them, but nothing else moved. They saw no bighorns, no javelinas, not even a rattlesnake. Several times they saw or believed they saw Indians, but there were no more shots.
The earth shimmered with heat waves; the distant mountains seemed nearer. Pools of water seemed to lie across their way just ahead of them, and once when they topped out on a ridge they saw a far-off playa that appeared to be one vast lake.
“Mirage,” Badger said.
Their lips were cracked now, their mouths and throats parched. All of them were conscious of the slosh of water in the remaining canteen.
With startling suddeness they emerged from the chaos of lava and rode out upon a flat plain dotted with clumps of chamiso and creosote. No longer bunched together, they stretched out over at least a hundred yards, with Nora and Gopher bringing up the rear, separated by only a few yards.
The dead silence of the desert afternoon was split by the sharp reports of rifles. A bullet kicked dust just beyond the hoofs of Rodelo’s horse. He drew swiftly and fired a shot that ricocheted off a rock slab. Behind him he heard a choking scream, and he turned his horse swiftly. The others were on a dead run for the cover of the rocks, but Gopher was down, and he was dead. Riding past him, Rodelo saw he had been hit at least twice, in the head and in the neck. The other pack horse was down.
Rodelo was in the open, facing toward the danger, expecting every moment to be fired on, but he could see nothing of the Yaquis.
The gold was there in that pack on the horse that was dead, but Gopher’s horse was alive, if still in poor shape because of the bad fall into the cholla.
Now it was already the middle of the afternoon. How far had they come? Four or five miles? Perhaps even less. And now Gopher was gone.
Gopher was gone, a good horse was gone, and a canteen was gone.
Rodelo caught up Gopher’s horse and stripped the saddle from it. He was strapping on the pack saddle when Badger and Harbin came out of the rocks, followed by Nora. They helped him hoist the gold into the saddle.
Badger turned to where Gopher lay. “You’re forgettin’ somethin’, Joe.” From Gopher’s pocket he took the twenty-dollar gold pieces. “No use leaving that for those Injuns.”
“Toss ’em once, for luck,” Joe suggested.
Badger flipped the coins in the air and Joe promptly grabbed them before Badger could. “Thanks, sucker,” he said with a grin.
Tom Badger stood very still, looking at him, his eyes utterly cold. Then he walked to his horse. Rodelo handed the remaining canteen to Nora. “Drink,” he said.
“I’ll can manage.”
“Go ahead,” Badger agreed. “You drink it, lady.”
She glanced at Harbin. “Sure,” he said. “I want to keep you alive.”
She took a swallow, then passed it to Rodelo. He handed it on to Badger. When it was returned to him there was barely a swallow of lukewarm water, but it seemed amazingly cool to his parched mouth.
“Throw it away,” Harbin said. “I don’t like the empty sound of it.”
“And if we find a water hole? What will we carry water in? Nobody in his right mind ever threw a canteen away in the desert.”
“That reminds me,” Badger said, “that this lady said she knew of a water hole. Or have you forgot?”
“I say we make a run for the coast,” Harbin said. “How much farther can it be?”
“Too far,” Rodelo replied.
“You say it’s too far, but what if we waste time looking for water and don’t find any?”
“The breaks of the game,” Rodelo said shortly.
Badger looked at Nora. “Do you know where there’s water?”
“The water hole I know of is at the south end of the Pinacate.”
“That’s near where we are now.”
Nothing more was said, and they moved on. Dan Rodelo was in the lead again, just ahead of Nora. “Do you know any landmarks?” he asked her. “How do we know where this place is?”
“I will know it … I think.”
He glanced back at her in amazement. “You’ve actually been in this country?”
“When I was a child.”
Suddenly he turned in the saddle. “Then you must be Nora Reilly!”
“What do you know about Nora Reilly?” she asked.
“Shipwreck on the Gulf … eighteen or nineteen years ago. Small sailer of some kind, headed for Yuma. She got caught in the tidal bore … on the edge of it, I guess. Smashed into some rocks, but they got ashore, and they made it overland to Sonoyta—a little border town up yonder.”
She nodded her head, but said nothing.
He rode on. Suddenly he saw some broken pottery, rusty brown in color, and crudely made. He drew up, then walked his horse around slowly. At one place the rocks seemed to have a whitish streak across them … it was the vestige of an ancient trail.
He walked his horse along the trail. Here was more broken pottery, and an olla, a pot used to hold water. Then he rode out on a ledge and looked down at a tank … it was bone-dry.
“There should be water,” Badger said hoarsely. “There’s been rain.”
Rodelo pointed. A slab of rock had fallen across the channel that fed water into the tank. The run-off had plunged off down the slope and lost itself in the sand. He got down and went to the rock. It took some tugging to move it, but finally he got it loose and moved it to one side. Neither of the other men offered to help.
“Why waste time?” Harbin asked. “We ain’t comin’ this way again.”
“Somebody else may.”
Rodelo got back in the saddle. The struggle with the rock had left him exhausted, and it warned him of how narrow was the margin of strength left to him.
They had now been on short water since just after leaving Papago Tanks. They had been riding and walking in blazing sun. By now their blood would be thickening, their responses slowing down.
But when they passed the olla he reached down and picked it up, holding it before him on the saddle. It would hold a good deal of water … if they ever found any.
Ten
There was no shield from the sun. Nowhere a cloud, nor even a shadow. They plodded along wearily, slumping in their saddles, drained of energy by the fierce heat. When they lifted their heads to look about, even their eyeballs moved sluggishly, the movements of their hands felt awkward.
Dan Rodelo pulled up and slid from the saddle. By all means, he must save the grulla. The mouse-colored mustang might be all that he had between himself and death, and they would need each other.
The Yaquis did not worry them just now. Perhaps in the maze of rocks behind them their trail had been temporarily lost. None of them expected anything more than that.
Nobody talked of water. Nobody wanted to think of it, and yet they thought of nothing else.
Nora spoke suddenly. “There! I think it is there!”
She pointed toward three identical sahuaros that lifted their tall columns from a point of rock, standing close together like three upraised fingers.
There was no rush to seek the water, for their fear of disappointment was too great. Rodelo left his horse and climbed among the rocks. He heard the buzzing of bees, and turned left to follow the sound. He slipped on the lava, caught himself on his hand as he fell, and got clumsily to his feet, then looked stupidly at his bloody, lacerated palm.