“Where’ll they go?” Hindeman asked Lantz.
The old man spat into the fire. “No tellin’. With the Mex gal we could figure some but Jordan’s taken the lead now an’ he knows where he’s goin’. This here desert is out of my knowin’. Might be a sight of places around if a body knew ’em.”
He took a pull at the coffee. “You been thinkin’, Ben? This here’s Apache country. We get caught down here an’ we’re in genuine trouble.”
“No matter. We’ll find him.”
“Worse’n huntin’ a needle in a haystack,” Buck Bayless complained. “We’d have to hunt up every canyon. Take us ten year.”
“Hadn’t better,” Ben Hindeman replied dryly. “Your wife will forget you in that time.”
Wes Parker lifted himself to an elbow. “I’m goin’ back. I’m catchin’ me that Mex kid. If that gal knows a hideout down here, that kid should know.”
Ben Hindeman considered that. He did not like to have anyone abused but the situation was getting out of hand. They were losing time and the ranch needed them. All had work that needed doing. Moreover, for the first time he was finding an element of doubt. The increased caution of Lantz was part of it.
“All right, Wes. Take Buck with you. Maybe he’ll be better huntin’a Mex than a man.”
“Aw, Ben!” Buck protested plaintively. “That ain’t no —”
“Shut up!” Ben was exasperated. “Jake, you do something about where they might go. Meanwhile we’ll get some sleep.”
Lantz spat out his chewing. “Better set guards ” he said, “them broncho Apaches might want to collect some horses.”
Buck Bayless retired to his blankets vastly satisfied. What he wanted was less alkali and more beer. To hell with Jordan!
Before daybreak Trace Jordan crawled from his blankets into the pre-dawn chill. He slung his gun belts across his hips, then pulled on his boots. The fire had died to thin gray ashes, so he gathered a few dried leaves from under the trees and some dried-out branches of the curl-leaf, which makes no smoke.
Maria Cristina lay huddled in her blankets where he had last seen her, so he broke sticks quietly and fed them into the flames. He dipped water from the lake and placed the coffee pot on a stone by the fire to grow hot.
This place was well hidden. It was surrounded by a Jungle of cholla, sometimes called jumping cactus, one of the most vicious of all the desert’s plants. There were cat-claw, organ pipe and a few barrel cacti.
Finding a way through the maze would not be easy. He had stumbled upon it himself and even that trail had been difficult to follow.
When breakfast was ready he went to her and bent over to awaken her, yet even as he stooped, her eyes opened suddenly, dark and beautiful, ringed with black lashes. Her expression was, at that moment, unreadable. He started to reach for her, then drew back. “Got some coffee ready,” he said.
Their eyes held for a long moment and then she said, “All right. I come.”
Birds whistled and talked in the brush and the morning air was fresh and cool. He could smell the faint scent of ironwood in bloom but doubted his senses, for the season was late. Yet many desert plants bloomed according to rainfall and with small regard for seasons.
Maria Cristina came to the fire and accepted coffee from him. Her face was somber, and she stood, feet apart, holding the cup in both hands. “It is quiet,” she said suddenly. “Yes … I like it here.”
She drank her coffee, then ate. He gathered more firewood and then walked back up the trail to study the approaches by daylight. Only two or three places offered access to the water and all were in full view of their camp site.
From the top of the knoll he studied the surroundings. There was a nearby mesa that offered danger but few approaches through the cactus barrier. At the top of the knoll in a place he could work without being seen he assembled a few rocks into a low barrier.
There was grass for the horse and they had food for several days. They could wait
Maria Cristina had washed their few dishes and had hot water on when he returned. She was putting creosote leaves into the water and when they had steeped for some time she bathed her bruised face in the water.
All day long they rested, sleeping much of the time. Occasionally, from the top of the knoll, Jordan made a reconnaissance of the country around, always keeping himself under cover. He could see but a short distance and in that distance there was nothing alive but the birds, who seemed very busy among the cacti. Without doubt the Sutton-Bayless riders were somewhere around. By this time they should be closing in. The thought increased his restlessness but there would be nowhere that would offer them more than they had at present.
Maria Cristina bathed her bruised face several times and in the late afternoon went into the thicket to find herbs that could be eaten to fill out their slender supply of food.
At dusk Trace Jordan took his Winchester and worked his way to the top of the mesa where he sat for a long time, studying the country. From there he could see for miles in all directions, yet it was not until he started to get up to return that he caught sight of the distant spot of red.
Far beyond the limits of the cholla forest, it was without doubt a campfire. And it would be ten or twelve miles away. Catching the last of the fading light, he worked his way back down the mesa to the oasis.
“They’re out there,” he said.
“We stay?”
“If we don’t move we won’t make tracks.”
They did not have to worry about their own fire. He knew the distance a blaze can be seen at night but their own camp was so deep in the canyon and so well surrounded by trees and brush that it could not be seen fifty yards off. Their best chance was to sit tight
She sat close by the fire, its light touching her somber face. Some of the swelling had gone and the bruises were changing color. Yet now she looked remote, lonely.
“What will you do?” he asked suddenly. “You cannot go back.”
She shrugged.
“Stay with me.”
She looked up, her eyes flashing, almost angry. “With you? For why? Why I go with you?”
“You’re my woman, Maria Cristina.”
“I am nobody’s woman.”
“You’re my woman. Get used to the idea.”
She glared at him, then said contemptuously, “For why am I your woman? Because I help you? I do it for a dog. All right … I am in trouble. They hate me. I hate them too.”
“I’m not going to let you go, Maria.”
“You have nothing to say if I go or stay.”
He got his bed roll and opened it out near the fire. He stretched out, leaning on one elbow. He fed small sticks into the fire and tried to find words to say what was in his mind.
She could never go back now and because of him. Because of him she was lost to her family and yet he knew it was no sense of obligation that made him feel as he did.
It had been a long time since he had talked to women and words did not come easily to him and yet he knew, desperately, that he must find words to reach this woman. He must make her realize that he loved her, that he really wanted her. He thought of many things to say but they found no shape on his lips. They all seemed empty and meaningless.
He was learning that to speak of love is not easy when the feeling is deep and strong.
She lifted her eyes suddenly and looked across the small fire at him. “You think because I come here with you that I am your woman? Well … I am not.”
“I need you, Maria,”
“You need me? You need a woman … any woman. Then you ride-on. Maybe sometime again you need a woman, you find one again.” She looked at him with a taunt in her eyes. “Anyway, I don’t think you need a woman very often.”
He ignored the comment and relaxed. “Trouble is,” he mused, “I let you ride that horse. I should have made you walk … all the way.”
He sat up and began to roll a smoke. “And I should have made you carry the pack too.”
She glared at him. He took a stick from the fire and lighted his cigarette. “A good woman needs to work,” he said. “They’re unhappy if they aren’t working. Keep ’em busy, that’s what I say.”
“You!” she said witheringly. “What do you know?”