The smoke was climbing to the sky now in a thin column. Adding fuel, Dan looked over at the suffering Indian. “You asked for it, boy,” he said grimly. “Now you get out of it.”
He left at once, starting down through the rocks at a breakneck clip. The Yaquis would be coming, and he had no idea how far away they were.
He was on a ledge almost at the bottom when he saw a rider with a led horse come out of the mesquite and start down the trail. It was Joe Harbin, and he was leading the grulla!
“Joe!” he yelled. “Joe!” Harbin turned in his saddle, thumbed his nose at him, and kept going.
Furious, Rodelo whipped his rifle to his shoulder, but Harbin was already down in the arroyo and out of sight. When he appeared later he was out of range … at least beyond accurate shooting, and a miss might kill the grulla.
They had him now, as good as dead. He was without a horse, without water, and the Yaquis were coming nearer every moment. He had to move. Somehow he must get to water, he must cross the dunes, he must survive.
His heart beat heavily with apprehension. He knew the desert too well not to know his chances were slim. The jaunt back to the hidden olla with its water supply would have meant little on a horse. Afoot, it was a matter of life and death. And suppose they had found the olla and broken it?
He had to move, yet he did not immediately. From this moment, every step he made must be a step in the right direction. To move without thinking was to ask for death.
Tom Badger would lead the way through the dunes, and they would have started without Joe Harbin. By the time Joe caught up they would be well into the sand and would be having a bad time. Once in the sand, the horses would be of little use to them, and the two men and the girl would have a struggle with them to even get them through. And during that time the Indians would be moving upon them. A man on foot could move faster than a horse in the dunes.
Rodelo had already been several hours without a drink of water. He was, he believed, closer to the shore at this point than Badger and Nora were, but he could not be sure, and to be lost in the dunes would be fatal. He knew that from now on, he was walking a thin wire, with death on either hand.
He moved then, keeping to the heaviest growth, searching for the few shadows, working into the thickest clumps of brush. The first thing to do was to get away from the mountain, away from observation.
He went on, turning south presently, and walked at a steady pace, or as steady a pace as the terrain would permit. He was alert for trouble, and he felt good to be moving. Somewhere ahead of him the showdown awaited … and then, if lucky, the gold and Nora.
For the first hour the going was not too difficult, and he made good time … he went perhaps two and a half miles. The next hour was over lava, in and out of the edge of the dunes, and he made less than half that distance. Time and again he was tempted to turn directly into the dunes and try to fight his way through to the shore. There were places where the sand seemed well packed, but he could not depend on it, and he needed water desperately.
By now his mouth was dry, his lips parched, his tongue like a stick in his mouth. His pace had slowed noticeably, and his reactions were slow too. He fought the urge to discard his rifle. He saw no Indians.
It was sundown when he finally reached the tank. As he had expected, the others were gone; and as he had feared, his olla was broken … that would have been Joe Harbin. But there was a taste of water in the bottom, not more than a swallow and he drank it eagerly. The water in the tank was gone, every last drop.
One thing he did find—an abandoned canteen with a bullet hole through it. Suddenly a thought came to him, and he stripped the blanket covering from the canteen. Dew would form on metal.
He considered moving on, thought of the risks, and decided to wait here and rest. He lay down and tried to sleep, but his thirst kept him awake. Then he recalled seeing a good-sized barrel cactus above the tank. Cautiously, he made his way through the broken lava about the tank and found it. Wary of its spines, he managed to slice off the top. Reaching in, he got a handful of the pulp and squeezed the juice into his mouth. It was somewhat bitter, but it was wet. For what seemed like a long time, he kept dipping into the top of the barrel cactus and squeezing the drops into his mouth. When he lay down again, he slept.
He awakened suddenly, conscious of a penetrating chill. Going to the canteen, he licked the dew from the surface and felt better, little though it was.
He thought of the tank in the Sierra Blanca—with luck there would be water there. If he were to start for it at once, there was a fair chance he could make it shortly after daylight … But suppose there was no water there? Then he would have to strike for the coast, with not a chance in a thousand of making it through.
By the time he had reached that conclusion he was walking, stepping out almost mechanically, his mind seemingly only half aware of what he was doing. On the horizon to the southwest he could see the ugly bulk of the Sierra, and the thought occurred to him that he should have struck out at once through the sand hills for the shore … back there where he had lost his horse. By now he might have been standing on the shore of the Gulf …
He fell down.
Staggering, he got up, wary of rocks. Like a drunken man, he felt his way cautiously, uncertainly, and stepped out upon a level space and started walking fast—or so he thought.
After a while he was conscious that it was growing light. He was dimly aware that he had fallen again … several times. And the mountains seemed no nearer.
He walked on, staggering and falling.
He was almost to the foot of the mountains when he fell again, and this time he could not get up.
He pulled one knee up and tried to roll up on it, but could not. He crawled a few feet on his belly, aware of the blistering heat of the sand. The thought went through his mind that if the air above was 120 degrees, it might be as much as a 160 degrees down on the sand. But he could not get up. Yet he clung to the rifle, and to the canteen.
He had been lying there for some time when he realized he was staring at the side of a barrel cactus. The realization heaved him to his knees, and the rifle, used as a crutch, got him to his feet.
Fumbling with his knife, he got it out and slashed off the top of the barrel. Once again he squeezed moisture from the pulp into his mouth, a miracle of coolness that seemed to go all through him.
After a few minutes, he started on once more.
When he came to the tank in the Sierra Blanca he found that it was in a hollowed rock basin under a waterfall. The water was deep and cold.
Twelve
Tom Badger was in the lead, and was starting to skirt a deep crater when they saw Harbin approaching, leading the grulla. Tom drew up. “Looks like Rodelo must have run into trouble,” he said.
Nora’s lips tightened, but she said nothing. Her heart was pounding as Harbin drew nearer, her body felt suddenly cold and stiff, as she had never felt before.
“What happened?” Badger asked.
“Looks like Danny’s plan to draw Indians drew them faster than he figured.”
“Tough.”
“Well,” Harbin said, “it wasn’t my idea to send up that smoke.”
“Nobody to blame but himself,” Badger agreed. Then, for Nora’s benefit, he added, “But he gave his life tryin’ to help us.”
“Where is he?” Nora’s voice was cold.
“Dead, more’n likely. Them Indians ain’t much on prisoners.”
“Why would they want him? I mean when he wasn’t with you? He isn’t an escaped convict, and they couldn’t get a dollar for him.”
Badger glanced at Harbin and said, “He was with us. They knew it, and that would be enough. Come on, we’re wastin’ time.”