He was amazed at the distance he had climbed. The comblike ridge lay some miles behind and for a second time he marveled at the good fortune that enabled him to pick out the one pass through that wash.
Trace Jordan assayed his position and found nothing to like. His mind now worked with startling clarity, yet he distrusted it, knowing this clarity was the beginning of delirium. He felt his weakness, knowing he needed rest, water and time to treat his wound.
He needed no one to tell him the caliber of men who followed. Ruthless and relentless, they would never leave the trail until they had left him dead. In knowledge of the country and in numbers the advantage was all theirs.
His trail across the lava would be obvious to any eye but his direction along the wash would puzzle them for a while and every delay was important.
His head throbbed heavily. His mouth was dry, his lips parched and broken. He had a fever … he could feel it. His wound would be dirty and he could feel the gnawing agony of it constantly. His hands felt unnaturally large and his head was heavy and awkward.
When his horse crested the mesa at last, he drew up briefly. He could feel the wind. It was almost cold through his sweat-soaked shirt. He turned in the saddle and looked back again.
Faintly, far away still, a wisp of dust hung against the blue backdrop of the hills. A wisp of dust and then another and still another.
The horse walked on … the mesa was flat, stretching away to infinity, broken by few rocks and by a scattering of gnarled and twisted cedars and by a few thorns. Sparse grass, tight-clinging to the sand, showed here and there. At places the rock surface of the mesa had been swept clean by the wind. The horse walked on.
He carried a pebble in his mouth to relieve the thirst. Twice he dismounted and walked to relieve the horse of his weight, to let him rest. There was no telling how soon he might again have to make a break for it and the horse’s strength might mean his life.
He walked several miles before he fell … For a long time he lay where he had fallen, unable to summon the strength to rise. The wind stirred a wisp of hair against his forehead and the horse nuzzled him impatiently. His thoughts no longer clear, he got drunkenly to his knees and got hold of the stirrup, pulling himself erect. Somehow he got into the saddle and, of his own volition, the horse began to walk.
Heat waves shimmered their veil across the distance. A few cottony puffballs of cloud hung against the brassy sky … perspiration trickled down his body and weird dust-devils played across the mesa before him. Above the mirage of a distant blue lake the heads of the cedars peered like strange beings from some enchanted world.
He worked his jaws, his brain throbbed heavily and when he shifted his gaze his eyeballs grated dryly in their sockets, moving with painful slowness. There were passages of delirium then, through which were woven thin threads of sanity.
He must rest soon. If he fell now he could not get up again but must lie helpless until his enemies came upon him and killed him. Yet he had done nothing but what any man would have done. He had done nothing he did not have to do.
Old Bob Sutton was dead … the old bull of the herd shot down in the dusty street, and his sons and nephews would never stop hunting until Trace Jordan had been tracked down and killed.
A few days ago he had been a wild-horse hunter with no troubles. He and Johnny Hendrix had gone broke trying to buck a faro layout and, drifting west, they came upon a herd of wild horses. For a month they lived on the country, finally trapping two dozen horses in a box canyon. One by one they broke them and slapped on their brand, the JH, for Jordan Hendrix. All were good stock, better than they had a right to expect from wild stock. Trace Jordan had gone off to find a market and to buy more grub with their last three dollars, for there were still a few horses they wanted.
A bartender remembered them in Durango and loaned Trace Jordan money for supplies and he returned to camp.
Only there was no camp and there were no horses. All were gone, the camp trampled out by the rush of horses and Johnny lying dead near the water hole with four bullets in him and his gun gone.
The afternoon was still and hot. The sun glared down upon the basin and Johnny lay with his face against the baked earth and two of the bullets in him had been fired into his back while he lay sprawled on the ground. Whoever had done this had wanted to make sure. They wanted to leave nothing behind. Only they hadn’t known about Trace Jordan.
There were those back down the trail who knew Trace Jordan as a quiet easy-going man. Hell on wheels with a gun, some said, a man who could follow a trail like an Apache. In the rough-and-tumble brawls of saloon and trail camp he was one of the best. He had killed a man in Tascosa who called him a liar and he killed four Indians who trapped him in a buffalo wallow north of Adobe Walls. And a gun-slinger had died of bad judgment on the Ruidoso. But Trace Jordan was a quiet man.
Slowly, taking infinite pains, he worked out the story of the fight.
Six men had come in from the north. Spotting the horse camp, they had kept back in the brush along the creek and studied the layout.
It must have been about noon. The spilled bucket lay near Johnny and the frying pan lay on the ground near the scattered fire. They had come up, riding slow. Johnny had just filled the bucket and was leaving the spring (his tracks were cut deeper going away from the spring) and he had stopped as they rode up.
Twice in the days that followed Jordan wasted time on streams, yet each time he found the trail again and by that time he could identify the tracks of each of the six horses and those of several of the riders. He had studied their tracks around their camps and around the trails and by that time he knew something of their dispositions and manner.
One man rarely smoked more than half a cigarette. He occasionally took only a few nervous puffs, then dropped it. Another wore large-roweled Mexican-style spurs that left an imprint when he squatted on his heels.
After a week of such travel he rode into the street of Tokewanna. It was a single dusty street with the usual clapboarded false-front buildings and several of adobe. And a man loitering on the street took one quick, startled glance at the brand on his horse and ducked into a saloon.
Trace Jordan swung down from his horse and loose-tied him at the hitchrail. Yet when he went into the saloon there was no sign of the man he sought. Trace ordered a drink and looked around at the three men playing cards … another man leaned against the bar. Trace Jordan glanced at his spurs.
“How about a drink?”
The man moved over as he spoke. He was young, rugged-looking, a working cowhand. When their glasses were filled he lifted his and looked at Trace Jordan. “Here’s to you and the trail ahead.”
They drank and Trace said quietly, “I may stick around for a while.”
“My advice,” the young man was smiling, “keep travelin'”
The implication was obvious. To the man in the street the JH brand on his horse had meant something and that had to mean the man knew about the killing of Johnny. He either knew or had been one of the killers. Obviously, in passing through the saloon he had said something to this man. Trace was now being warned away and that implied the six had friends.
“Had some horses stolen,” Jordan said. “My partner was murdered. I trailed ’em here.”
The young man was no longer smiling. He took the last drop from his glass and stepped back from the bar. “Depends on how much country a man needs.”
Jordan waited the explanation, his eyes missing nothing in the room. The men at the table were alert and listening.
“Six thousand miles out there,” the man said, “or six feet here.”
The harshness of the trail had drawn him fine. He turned from the bar, a big tough lonely man suddenly showing all the danger that was in him. The young man took a step back, suddenly wary.