At Piute Spring, on the eastern foot of the range, we pulled up long enough to water the horses and drink a mite ourselves. The valley ahead of us was mostly flat-seeming land covered with Joshua trees. We went out of the shadow of the Piute Range and into the Joshuas, and at first they were scattered, then they thickened up. Once into the Joshuas, we slowed down to raise as little dust as possible.
There were thousands of those trees there in the valley, and they offered a might of cover. From a height, somebody might have picked us out, but nobody on our own level was likely to, so we pushed on, holding parallel to the old Government Road from Fort Mojave.
The sun had. gone before we sighted the draw I was looking for and, riding up a hundred yards, came to Rock Spring. There was little water, which suited me, for when we left I didn’t mean for there to be any.
The Robiseau woman looked pale and drawn when
I reached up to take her by the waist to swing her down. Tired as she was, she wasn’t ready to haul down her flag. As her feet touched the ground she let her hands rest on my forearms and said, “You’re very strong.”
“I’d better be.”
She gave me an odd look, but I turned away and began gathering sticks for a fire. The spot was sheltered, and there was time for coffee and a quick meal.
This was something I’d done so often that it was no trick at all, and by the time I’d stripped the saddles the water was boiling and the food about ready.
“You haven’t told me your name.”
“Folks call me Tell.”
“Only that?”
“It’s enough.”
“I am Dorinda Robiseau.”
It sounded like a made-up name, but I’d known folks with real names that sounded made up. “Pleased to meet you.”
“You haven’t asked me why I couldn’t wait for the stage.”
“Your business.”
She acted like she wanted to explain, but I had no plan to get more involved than I was. I’d been fool enough to take her along, but the sooner I got shut of her the better.
Sitting under the stars, we ate a quick meal, then finished the coffee I’d made. “There’s something about a campfire …” she said. “I like to look into the coals.”
“Take your last look,” I said. “I’m putting it out.” When I’d kicked sand over the coals I added, “Fool thing, looking into a fire. When you look away you’re blind … and men have been killed that-away.”
I saddled up and loaded our packs. She looked like she couldn’t believe what I was doing, but I said, “If you’re coming with me, get up in the saddle.”
“You’re going on? Tonight?”
“You want your friends to catch us? You can bet if I knew where this spring was, they’ll know. In the desert a man’s travelin’ is pretty well cut and dried by where he can find water.”
Whoever those men were, they must be wanting her pretty bad to follow us as they were. Of course, there was a chance they were following me. They might be the same outfit that had trailed me to Hardyville. There’d been a bunch of renegades drifting through the country raiding ranches or mine prospects for supplies. Somebody said they were a Frisco outfit that had come down through Nevada.
As for this Robiseau girl, she might be somebody’s wife, or she might have been involved in some shady doings out California way. Anyway, they needed her bad enough to chase her.
Meanwhile, I’d been doing some pondering of the situation, and there was nothing about it to make a man content. According to what I’d been told when preparing to start westward, it was twenty miles to the next water at Marl Spring, almost due west of where we were now. Most of that twenty miles lay out on bare desert, and if we started from here now we could make it by daylight – if we didn’t stray from the trail.
If we strayed … Well, there were bones a-plenty out there on the desert to answer that question. Moreover, I had me a tired woman, in no shape for such a ride.
In those days every saloon was a clearing house for information. Sitting around in a saloon or standing at a bar, loafing in a cow camp or riding the trail, men just naturally talked about places they’d been. It was likely to be all a body would ever get to know about trails or towns until he traveled them, so men listened and remembered.
Nobody reckoned in miles. Not often, at least. Distance was reckoned in time, and a place was a day’s ride, or two days’ ride, or whatever.
And many a cowhand who had never left Texas could describe in detail the looks of Hickok, Earp, Tilghman, Masterson, or Mathers. If a body wasn’t able to recognize the town marshal, he’d best not try to cut any fancy didoes in western towns.
So I knew a good bit about the Mojave, although I’d not crossed it before. I knew what landmarks to look for, and the trouble to expect. Only nobody had told me I’d be crossing the wide sand with a fine-dressed woman behind me.
Well, it was twenty miles to water if I held to the trail, but there was water south along the Providence Mountains, and if we could locate one of those springs we could hole up for the night, then work our way south. We’d be taking big risks, venturing off into the desert thataway, but there was a good chance we’d leave all pursuit behind.
And so it was that when we left out of Rock Spring, we headed south.
The night, as desert nights are inclined to be, was cool … almost cold. There were many stars, and around us lifted the jagged shoulders of black, somber-looking mountains. We went at an easy pace, the ground being rough and the country unfamiliar, and we had to pick our way. So it was over an hour of riding before we covered the six miles to Black Canyon.
There was a spring in the canyon, but we took no time to look for it, pushing on toward the south.
Getting through the canyon, which was close to impassable, was a struggle. By daylight it might have been no trouble, but at night it used up time, and by the time we covered the four additional miles to Granite Well, we were tuckered.
We made dry camp a short way from the well, bedding down on a patch of drift sand among the rocks. Rolling out my bed, I pointed at it. “You roll up there. I’ll sleep on the sand.”
“I’ve no right to take your bed.”
“Don’t argue,” I said shortly. “I can’t have you falling out of the saddle tomorrow, and what we did today will look like one of your pink tea parties to what we got ahead of us.”
It was rugged, broken country, mostly rock and drift sand, with some low-growing desert brush, and I lay awake for some time, speculating on our chances of getting through. Mostly, folks went by the northern route, following the old Government Road or Spanish Trail across the desert and over Cajon Pass. But with men following us with no good intent, it seemed best to risk the run to the south.
There was another pass down thataway, or so Joe Walker had told me. The Indians had used it a time or two, and some Spanish man had gone through the pass fifty or sixty years before. It was a risky trip, but we Sacketts always had an urge to try new country, and the time was right. As for that black-eyed woman … she should see some new country, too. Although I wasn’t sure she was going to take to it.
A time or two I glanced over at Dorinda Robiseau. She lay quiet, resting easy, as she should have, for that bed of mine was a good one, and the sand I’d spread it on was deep and free of rocks, more comfortable than many a mattress. I could only see the white of her face, the darkness of her loosened hair.
She would be a trial in the days to come, but somehow I felt better just having her there.
It worried me, though … why were those men chasing her? And were they the law?
Remembering the men at the bar, I doubted it. They had a bad look about them. One thing was sure: if we faced up to each other out here in this lonely desert I was going to be glad that I was packing a gun.
That big-shouldered man who had stood with his back to me … he worried me. Why was there something familiar about him?