In his pocket I found a stub of pencil and some old papers on which he had been
learning to write his name. He had gotten somebody to write it for him, or had
taken it from something addressed to him, and had practiced, over and over
again, on many different surfaces. I had never seen him do so, nor likely had
anyone else, for he was a proud man, ashamed to let us know he could not write,
and that he cared.
There was no address, nothing to show that there was anyone to whom he belonged.
But there had been a girl he had talked of, so I took what money he had, only a
few dollars and some pesos, to give to her.
Scarcely twenty minutes was used in burying the body. Then, leading the spare
horse, I went back to the arroyo and followed it for perhaps a mile, the soft
sand leaving no tracks that could be recognized. When I came out I started
across country.
The sun had gone down by now and the desert was cool. Off in the distance I
could hear a quail call … I hoped it was a real quail.
I felt stiff and cold now, and I worked my fingers to keep them easy for my gun.
Shifting to Rocca’s horse, I rode on into the night. There was no trail, but I
went ahead, all the time looking for water. The green place I’d seen from afar
should be near.
The black horse pulled up alongside me, and Rocca’s horse quickened its pace.
They smelled it.
An arroyo opened on my right and I found my way into it, listened, then walked
the horses on, knowing the arroyo would end where the water was. The arroyo
gaped, and I looked into a small oasis darkening with the cool of evening.
There were a dozen cottonwoods, some mesquite and willows, and slopes green with
grass, and through the trees a glimmer of water. I could hear birds twittering.
The horses tugged at their bits, wanting to go forward. Winchester in hand, I
walked them slowly, ready with a spur if need be.
Suddenly my way was blocked by a low stone wall that looked to be a part of one
of those trincheras the ancient people built to terrace and till their land, or
sometimes for dams. I’d seen a lot of them in Mexico.
Dismounting, I led the horses around it and down to a broken place in the wall,
and saw something dark and shadowy through the trees. There was no sound but the
water, and the rustle of the cottonwood leaves. I walked ahead to an opening
among the trees, and came to an ancient ruin. It had once been a considerable
structure, built right from the edge of the pool back to the cliffs where it
joined the native rock.
Only the floor remained, and a corner of a wall that reached up to six feet,
slanting down to no more than three feet near the water. There was green grass
all around, and a stillness that came from utter isolation.
First off, I let the horses drink sparingly, and drank myself, and then filled
Rocca’s canteen. All the while I kept my ears tuned for any sound. But there
were no tracks around that I could see, no signs of campfires, nothing to show
anybody had been here at all in years.
Picketing the horses, I found a corner of the wall that protected me on two
sides. A pile of fallen adobe bricks mingled with chunks of rock that had been
used in the walls formed a partial breastwork on the other sides.
Tired as I was, there was no sleep in me. Places like this made a man sort of
sad. Somebody had lived here, and judging by the look of the place, different
people at different times. There had once been a building of native stone. It
had fallen in and been rebuilt with adobe and rock, and it looked as if the last
time was no more than thirty, forty years back. Indians had perhaps built the
place first, and rebuilt it, too. Later white people had settled in here until
driven out.
It was a quiet place. A small garden patch had been worked at one time, and
there was a meadow where hay might have been cut, but nobody could live long in
such a place with the Apaches on the rampage.
I settled down, and after a while I slept. I awoke when the morning sun began to
filter through the leaves. Everything was as quiet as before. I watered the
horses, saddled them, and prepared to move out, but first I had scouting to do.
There were crude steps cut from the rocks at one side, taking advantage of
natural steps left by the erosion of rock layers. Climbing these, I found a
natural hollow that had been shaped by hand into a lookout of some comfort, with
a view in all directions.
For several minutes I studied the desert, but saw nothing. Back down below
again, I dug into my saddlebags for the small packet of coffee I always carried
for emergencies. Often I carried some jerky and flour, but now there was only
the coffee.
I built a small fire, and rinsed out an old clay jar I found. When I’d made
coffee I filled a cup and prowled around, and finding some chia, I gathered a
handful of the seeds and ate them. Then I went up for another look.
Off to the north I glimpsed a buzzard. There might be a dead steer, or it might
be one of my friends, and buzzards do not always wait for a man to die.
Due north I rode, then I swung wide to the east, cutting for a sign. Whatever
was up ahead must have left tracks getting there, and I wished to find out what
I was up against.
“Tell,” I told myself, “you better ride easy in the saddle. I think you’re
headin’ into trouble.”
That black nicked an ear at me as if to show he agreed. A lonely man a-horseback
in wild country gets to carryin’ on conversations with his horse, and some
horses become right knowledgeable and understanding.
No tracks. I rode up on the east of where the buzzard circled, and swung in
closer. Standing in my stirrups I looked the country over, and at first I saw
only a lot of prickly pear around, and some clumps of cholla, all white thorns
on top, brown underneath.
Then I saw the horse — a horse down, a saddled horse.
Circling around it, rifle in hand, I taken a chance and called out: “Spanish? Is
that you?”
A couple of buzzards roosting in a palo verde tree nearby looked mighty upset
with me, and one of them dropped his wings as if to scare me off or stampede my
horses.
No answer came back. So I cut a little closer, then drew up and looked around.
It was all just as it should be, sunlit and still.
My black was curious, too. He could sense something I could not, and though it
made him curious, it was something he shied from. Probably it was the dead
horse.
I walked him slowly forward, the hammer of my Winchester eared back for trouble.
The shirt was what I saw first, men the boots, and the Mexican spurs with the
big rowels. It was Spanish.
I swung down and, having tied the black to a mesquite, I walked up to him.
He was lying face down in the sand, but he had pulled his saddlebags across his
kidneys, so he’d been alive and conscious when he hit the ground. He knew that
buzzards went for the eyes and the kidneys first, so he’d rolled on his face and
pulled those saddlebags over him. They might not help much, but getting them off
him might bring him to enough to fight the buzzards off.
Lifting the saddlebags free, I rolled him over.
There was blood all over the front of him, dried blood that seemed to come from
a shoulder wound. And there was blood lower down that came from some place in
his middle. But he was breathing.
We were right out in the open, and those buzzards could attract more than me,
so, good for him or not, we had to move.
He muttered something, so I tried to let him know who was with him. “It’s all
right, Spanish,” I said. “You’ll see that girl in Tucson yet.”
There was no time for fixing him up at all. Gathering him into my arms, I went
with him to the spare horse and put him in the saddle, then I lashed his wrists
to the pommel and his boots into the stirrups. I taken his saddlebags, although
what was in them I didn’t know. Then I checked his horse, but the animal was