Cunning came to him. To those who knew how to live with it, not against it. No man could fight the desert and live. A man must move with it, give with it, live by its rules. He had done that, so what remained?
His eyes peered into the growing light, refusing to focus properly, his thoughts prowling the foggy lowlands of his mind, seeking some forgotten thing.
Think back … the rock tanks of the Chocolates. The Chocolates. The Chocolates were a range running parallel to the dunes which the Mexicans called the algodones. Bit by bit his thoughts tried to sort out something he knew, but something was missing. Something else the Cahuilla had said. It came to him then like the Indian’s voice in his ears. “If there is no water in the tanks, there is a seep in the canyon.”
Almost due west was the canyon through which ran the old Indian trail … maybe five miles.
It was too far. And then he got up without decision and walked away. He walked with his head up, his mind gone off somewhere, walking with a quick, lively step. When he had walked for some distance he fell flat on his face.
A lizard on a rock stared at him, throat throbbing. Something stirred Cavagan’s muscles, and he got his hands under him and pushed himself to his knees. Then he got up, weaving a little. It was daylight.
A bee flew past.
He swayed a little, brow puckered, a bee flying straight … hive or water or a hive near water? He took a few hesitant steps in the direction the bee had flown, then stopped. After a bit another droned past and he followed, taking a sight on a clump of ocotillo some distance off. He stumbled and fell, scarcely conscious of it until he arose and stared at his palms, lacerated by the sharp gravel.
When he fell again he lay still for what must have been a considerable time, finally becoming aware of a whistling sound. He pushed himself up, listening. The sound reminded him of a cricket, yet was not a cricket. He listened, puzzled yet alerted for some reason he did not understand.
He moved then, and under a clump of grease-wood something stirred. He froze, thinking first of a rattler, although the heat was too great for one to be out unless in a well-shaded position. And then his eye caught a movement, and he knew why the sound had alerted him. It was a tiny red-spotted toad.
Long ago he had learned that the red-spotted toad always lived within the vicinity of water and never got far from it.
Awkwardly he got to his feet and looked carefully around. His eyes could not seem to focus properly, yet down the canyon he glimpsed some galleta grass and walked toward it, coming upon the seep quite suddenly.
Dropping to his knees he scooped water in his palm and drank it. A cold trickle down his throat was painful on the raw flesh. With gentle fingers he put water on his lips, bathed his cheeks and face with it, then drank a little more.
Something inside was crying out that he was safe, but he knew he was not. He drank a little more, then crawled into the shade of a rock and lay on his back and slept.
When he awakened he crawled out and drank more and more, his water-starved body soaking up the moisture. He had found water but had no means of carrying it with him, and the canyon of the seep might well become his tomb, his open tomb.
Cavagan got out the rawhide with which his wrists had been bound and rigged a snare for small game. In placing the snare he found some seeds, which he ate. He drank again, then sat down to think his way forward.
From where he now sat there were two possible routes. Northeast toward the Colorado was Red Butte Spring, but it was at least twenty-five miles away and in the wrong direction.
The twelve miles to Chuckawalla Spring began to loom very large, and leaving the water he had found worried him. The Chuckawalla Mountains were a thin blue line on the northern horizon, and even if he reached them the next spring beyond was Corn Springs, just as far away. Yet the longer he waited the more his strength would be drained by lack of food. He had never known such exhaustion, yet he dare not wait.
On the second morning his snare caught a kangaroo rat, which he broiled over a small fire. When he had eaten he got up abruptly, drank some more, glanced at the notch in the Chuckawallas and started walking.
At the end of an hour he rested, then went on at a slower pace. The heat was increasing. In mid-afternoon he fell on his face and did not get up.
More than an hour must have passed before he became aware of the intense heat and began to crawl like a blind mole, seeking shade. The plants about him were less than a foot high, and he found nothing, finally losing consciousness.
He awakened, shaking with chill. The moon cast a ghostly radiance over the desert, the clustered canes of the ocotillo looking like the headdresses of gigantic Indians. He got to his feet, aware of a stirring in the night. He waited, listening. A faint click of a hoof on stone and then he saw a desert bighorn sheep walk into the wash and then he heard a faint splash. Rising, he walked down to the wash and heard a scurry of movement as the sheep fled. He almost walked into the spring before he saw it. He drank, then drank again.
Late the next afternoon he killed a Chuckawalla with a well-thrown stone. He cooked the big lizard and found the meat tender and appetizing. At dusk he started again, crossing a small saddle to the north side of the mountains. It was twelve miles this time, and it was daybreak before he reached Corn Springs. He recognized it by the clump of palms and mesquite in the wash before reaching the spring, some clumps of baccharis, clusters of small twigs rising two to three feet. And then he found the spring itself. After drinking he crawled into the shade and was asleep almost at once.
He opened his eyes, aware of wood-smoke. Rolling over quickly, he sat up.
An old man squatted near a kettle at a fire near the spring, and on the slope a couple of burros browsed.
“Looks to me like you’ve had a time of it,” the old man commented. “You et anything?”
“Chuckawalla … had a kangaroo rat a couple of days ago.”
The old man nodded. “Et chuck a time or two … ain’t as bad as some folks might figger.”
Cavagan accepted a bowl of stew and ate slowly, savoring every bite. Finally, placing the half-empty bowl on the ground he sat back. “Don’t suppose a man with a pipe would have a cigarette paper?”
“You started that Mex way of smokin’? Ain’t for it, m’self. Give me a pipe ever’ time.” The old man handed him his tobacco pouch and dug into his duffle for a rolled up newspaper. “Don’t tear the readin’ if you can he’p. A body don’t find much readin’ in the desert and sometimes I read through a newspaper five or six times.”
Cavagan wiped his fingers on his pants and rolled a smoke with trembling fingers. Then he put the cigarette down and ate a few more bites before lighting up.
“Come far?”
“Fifty-five, sixty miles.”
“An’ no canteen? You had yourself a time.” The old man said his name was Pearson. He volunteered no more than that. Nor did he ask questions. There were not four white men between the San Jacintos and the Colorado River.
“I’ve got to get to that hot spring this side of the pass, up there by the San Jacintos,” Cavagan said. “I can get a horse from the Cahuillas.”
The old man stirred his fire and moved the coffeepot closer. “You listen to me you won’t go back.”
“You know who I am?”
“Got no idea. Figgered you didn’t get where you was by chance. Six years I been prospectin’ hereabouts an’ I ain’t seen nobody but a Chemehuevi or a Cahuilla in this here country. A man would have himself an outfit, gun, knife, canteen. Strikes me somebody left you out here apurpose.”
“If you could let me have a canteen or a water sack. Maybe a knife.”
“How d’ you figger to get out of here?”
“West to the Hayfields, then Shaver’s Well and the Yuma stage road.”
Pearson studied him out of shrewd old eyes. “You ain’t no pilgrim. You made it this far on nerve an’ savvy, so mayhap you’ll go all the way.”