“These Indians, too?”
“No, these are not mission Indians. Some of them go to Pala occasionally, but usually they return here. No priests have come here yet.” “Where do the trails go?”
“Nobody knows. To water, probably. Sometimes I believe they go to hidden places where there is writing on the rock walls.”
“What does the writing say?”
“Often it is only a few pictures of animals, sometimes there is more. We do not know what it means.”
“I shall find out. I want to know what it means.” “There are trails no Indian will follow. Someday you may go, but first there is much to learn.” My father got up. “It grows late. Now we will go home.” There were sandhills and cactus where we were, and there was scattered brush. The sun was going down. Something moved in the sand and started a small trickle down the dune toward us. Looking up, I saw nothing. “If it is the house of Tahquitz,” I said, “I like it. Will we stay there?” “If he comes to claim it,” my father said, “we will give it up, although I like it, too.” He paused to rest. “It shows much love, that house. It shows the love of a man for his materials and his creation. It is a thing to be respected. There is beauty in the house,” he added, “and I envy the skill of the builder.” I thought of the trickling sand. It was probably a lizard. “Will he come back, do you think?”
“Who knows?”
My father took my hand. “Come, we must get home. I am suddenly very tired. I wish …”
They were there, waiting for us in the yard. There were four of them. The first was an old man with white hair and a stern face. His eyes were mean and cruel. He said, “It is he. Kill him.”
“Sir?” My father’s tone was calm, although he must have heard the men behind us.
“Let the boy go. He is a child.”
“Kill the cur,” the old man said, “and kill the whelp. Do it now!” He turned sharply away as he spoke, and my father shoved me hard away and to the ground, and he drew. His right hand was shoving me from danger, so he drew more slowly. He was hit twice-I saw it-before he could fire. He fired then, once, and a man fell. His second shot cut a nick in the corner of our door, and then he fell.
“Be sure he is dead.” The old man spoke quite calmly. “Such carrion is harder to kill than a snake.”
Men came around my father and shot into his body. One of them turned his pistol to me.
“Not here,” the old man said. “We will take him with us and leave him in the desert. It is better so.”
A man grabbed me, and I kicked him. He slapped me hard across the face, smiling past his mustache. “Try that again and I’ll cut off your ears before we leave you.”
He had a scar across the bridge of his nose, a livid scar that must have almost cut it in two. He was one of those who shot my father as he lay on the ground. “Take him,” the old man said impatiently. “We must be gone. The Indians will come.”
“We will kill them, too,” said the man with the scar. “You are a fool! They are many, we are few. Always,” he added, “they have liked him as if he were one of their own.”
Holding me tight, the man with the scarred nose twisted my arm and smiled when I winced. “Maybe he will give you to me,” he said. “Then we shall see you cry. When I move, you will tremble. When I lift a hand, you will scream.” It was almost dark now, and they rode swiftly, avoiding trails. There were nine of them besides the old man.
One was a young man, very handsome, very cold. He had looked at me with contempt. Now he said to the old man, “At last it is done. When this one is dead, it will be finished.”
“Leave him to me,” the scarred one said.
The old man turned sharply. “Silence! He will die. We will leave him in the desert.”
“We are riding east!” the young man said suddenly. “It is the wrong way!” “It is the right way,” the old man said impatiently. “The Indios will believe we are returning through the pass. They will ride after us. They cannot see our tracks, for it is dark. East is the right way.” There was a faint light in the sky when they stopped. It was an empty place of flat sand and broken rock and cactus. All around, as far as I could see, there was nothing but a few great boulders and the empty desert. “Here,” the old man said. “Leave him. He is of my own blood, after all. If he dies-“ “Kill him now,” the younger man said. “Leave him dead.” “I will not,” the old man said stubbornly. “Leave him. Let the desert do it. I will not destroy my own blood even if it is mingled with that of scum. Leave him.”
The man with the scarred nose pulled me free of the saddle and dropped me, then sharply turned his horse so that it would trample me, but I rolled away, then ran and hid among some stones.
“Leave him!” the old man said impatiently.
They started off, and filled with anger, I stood up among the rocks. “Good-bye, Grandpa!” I shouted.
He winced as if struck, and his shoulders hunched as from a blow. He started to turn, but the young one said, “It is an insolent whelp! Like the father!” They rode away, and I was alone.
Fourteen
I was in the desert. I was alone. To myself I whispered, “I am Johannes Verne, and I am not afraid.”
My father was dead. They had killed him, and they had left me to die. I was not going to die. I was going to live. I was going to live and make them wish they were dead. The faint light in the sky had increased. I stood by the rocks where I had gone to hide, and I looked around. Everywhere was desert, sand and bare rock. Here and there was cactus. Those who brought me here had ridden all night, and they had said they were riding east, but I knew it was not only east. It did not matter. I would follow their tracks. How far had we come? They had traveled at a good gait, slowing to a walk from time to time, but most of the time at what my father called a shambling trot. I knew something of distance, for we had counted the miles westward from Santa Fe. Mr. Farley had often spoken of how far he must go each day, or how far he had come. I suspected they had brought me forty miles into the desert. Those who rode horses thought it a lot to walk, but I had walked behind the wagon sometimes and I did not think it was so far.
It would be hot. If I was to walk, it must be now when the air was cool. Mr. Farley had rested his horses during the hottest part of the day. He would only begin to travel when the sun was down. When it was cool, I would walk; when it was hot, I would find a place to hide from the sun. Where? I did not know.
What would Francisco do? He would do as I was doing. He would walk. What else? There were the tracks of their horses in the sand. I could follow them back to the house of Tahquitz.
Turning slowly around, I looked at where I was. It was a place to start from, a place to begin. In a few days I would be seven years old. In a few years I would be old enough, and then I would go calling. There were three men I would visit. The old don, the young handsome one, and he of the scarred nose. It was a thing to live for.
My mother had taught me never to hate. Hate would destroy him who hated. Nevertheless, I would hate. My mother was gone, my father had been murdered, I had nothing else.
My legs were short. I wished they were longer, and tried stretching my steps. Behind me the sun would be rising. The tracks were there, sometimes plain, sometimes faint. My father had taught me a little of tracking, but here it was not needed. The tracks of ten horses were plain. I had no water. We had stopped at no spring. I had not been this way before. I did not know where water could be found. I was thirsty, but not enough thirsty to worry. I would wait, and walk.