She fought desperately, wickedly. Her body was suddenly a bunch of steel wire. She drew back, struggling to free herself. He caught her face and twisted her lips roughly toward him.
Distant lightning flashed and he saw her eyes were wide, her lips parted. He bent his head toward her and suddenly she caught the hair on the back of his head with both hands and crushed her mouth against his with fierce intensity. Her splendid body shaped itself against his and her lips parted … then suddenly she tore at his hands and jerked free, slapping him wickedly across the face. She sprang back then, like a cornered cat, standing against the brush, half-crouched.
“Don’ touch me! Don’ come near me! I kill you!”
For an instant he felt like taking her back into his arms and keeping her there whether she liked it or not but he let his hands fall. What she had said was no wild statement. If he tried to force himself on her she would kill him if she could.
“Have it your way.” He picked up his rifle and started through the brush, then stopped and, grinning in spite of himself, he said, “But I’ll always remember you liked it … for a minute, anyway.”
“You are animal… I think I hate you.”
“You’re animal too,” he said, chuckling, “and I like it that way.”
“You think I am cheap woman.”
“I don’t think anything of the land. I think you’re a mighty fine woman but you’re balky as a mustang.”
“You are a fool”
The night was black and wild. Distant lightning weirdly lit the desert, turning into a pale moonscape this ash heap from the world’s creation. Thunder rumbled and muttered in the far-off canyons, giant boulders seeming to tumble down vast corridors of stone. The wind skittered leaves along die ground and whipped the brush with savage gusts.
Near the edge of the brush he sat down. There not even the lightning would reveal his presence.
The wind was rising … branches flew along the sand and tiny particles stung his face. The wind cuffed and slapped him, thrusting hard against his shoulder. If it became worse there would be no reason to remain longer for the horses were not resting and it was doubtful if Maria Cristina would sleep.
It was raining in the mountains and soon the washes would be running bank-full, wild torrents of water rushing down from the barren slopes of the mountains to turn their dry beds into raging rivers for a few short hours. The canyons would be running twenty feet deep in roaring water soon … A spatter of rain fell… then another. He went to his saddle for his slicker and from Maria Cristina’s saddle he got her poncho and spread it over her.
At the moment he spread it over her the lightning flashed.
She was apparently sleeping soundly, her face in repose, lovely as a madonna. All the fierce anger, the sudden aloofness, all that was gone.
He reached down and touched her hair. So black … so very black. Like midnight caught in a web. For a moment he held a strand in his fingers, then replaced it gently and got to his feet He took up his rifle and started back to his place at the edge of the brush and he did not see her hand come up and touch the strand of hair he had caressed. Nor did he see her eyes, wide open in the darkness.
There were scattered dashes of rain and gusts of wind. He watched the lightning-lit desert for an hour and then another. And then it was suddenly colder and in a lightning flash he saw a solid wall of rain advancing across the desert. Swiftly he came to his feet and turned toward the camp.
Maria Cristina was up, rolling her bed. She glanced around at him, her words torn by the wind. “We go, yes?”
“Better … horses might stampede. Anyway, we can’t rest and they won’t.”
He saddled up in a driving, pelting rain. Both got onto their horses and started north. Rain hammered their backs in savage gusts and the horses moved out fast, glad to be moving ahead of the storm and away from the whipping brush.
All night they drifted before the storm. Twice they crossed deep washes only minutes before rolling walls of water swept down and once lightning struck so near they smelled the sharp odor of sulphur in the air and their scalps prickled with electricity.
Suddenly, ahead of them, they heard a vast roar. Then they saw a canyon running with a tremendous rush of water. There was no question of getting through. No question at all. That water might be ten feet deep or forty feet and no horse living could swim in that mighty torrent
Lightning flashed and Trace Jordan caught Maria Cristina’s shoulder, gesturing toward some rocks. They rode toward it and found an overhang with its back to the storm.
Once under the rock they were out of the rain and away from the wind. He swung down and lifted her from the horse. Then he led the two horses deeper into the cavernlike overhang and tied them to a limb of cedar that stretched into the gloom.
Rain swept by the opening and the wind was cold. He glanced at Maria Cristina and she was shivering. Her legs from the knees down were wet.
Heedless of risk, he gathered dry sticks and built a fire. The horses were restless and frightened by the storm but a fire would calm them. Most horses accustomed to campfires enjoy their presence and all night long will feed closer and then away from the fire, liking its friendliness and assurance of companionship.
There was a pack rat’s nest that offered a liberal supply of dry wood and by now it was close to dawn. There would be no light this morning until late for the sky was heavily overcast still and there was no evidence of a break.
How far they had come he had no idea but the storm would have wiped out their trail completely. There was a very good chance they were free at last. Not even Lantz could find tracks where there were none.
With daylight he should recognize this country. Now they were again in an area with which he was familiar. North of them, not too far away now, was the San Bernardino Ranch and he had visited the place, had covered all that country north to Tucson and even to Prescott and Congress.
Shivering, they huddled near the fire. The big red horse stamped and there was a momentary lull in the storm.
“Tomorrow we will be safe. I know the man on this ranch. He is a hard man but a good man.”
“I hope.”
“He is … his name is Slaughter.”
“He has kill men.”
“Yes … when they needed it” He added fuel to the fire. “So have I.”
“Before this?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Four … five, maybe.”
They waited out a blast of wind. Some rain whipped into the overhang and the fire hissed and spluttered.
“You never tell me: Why you kill Bob Sutton?”
Taking his time, he explained about Johnny Hendrix and the horses. He told her of working through stampede and storm, through the dust of long cat-tie drives and the smell of burning hair around branding fires. And then of their months of effort to catch, brand and tame the horses, of this struggle to become something more than mere cowhands, to begin a business of their own. Then he told of his return from Durango and of finding the body of his friend.
“Jack Sutton,” she said, “that was like him. And Mort Bayless, I think. He is another.”
Trace Jordan went to the pack rat’s nest for fuel. He dropped an armful near the fire and then walked around the fire to sit down. But he stopped there, looking out into the morning.
Without their being aware of it the sky had grown lighter. Outside the overhang the brush and trees bent stark and black before driving sheets of rain. Water stood on the desert in scattered pools that reflected the vague light, pools like mirrors of steel under the lowering sky, gray and black with rain-weighted clouds.
All this Jordan saw. All that and something more. He saw also five rain-wet horses and five mounted men and all those men had rifles and all of them were looking at him.
So … this far they had come and this close — and all for nothing at all.
He stood very still, yet his mind reached swiftly forward. As at all such times the minute seems to stand still in which each detail is impressed upon the mind.
He recognized the blocky man with the hard square face who would be Ben Hindeman. The narrow features of old Jacob Lantz and there were others whom he had never known and probably would never know. He saw their horses and three of those horses had belonged to him.