“She must be found before she reaches the desert.”
“I go.”
“You? Only an Indian could find them!”
A glint of amusement showed itself. “I am born on the desert. My people were of the Taklamakan and mountains bordering it.”
“I know of the Taklamakan. I crossed the Gobi as a young girl. I know of your people, but this desert is different, although less dangerous than yours.” “I shall find them.”
“Johannes has been gone three weeks. No one has returned, so there will have been trouble.” She looked down at her desk, then looked up at Yacub Khan. “Johannes knew it was a trap. The stealing of horses was deliberate. They wished for him to follow.”
“He will not be trapped.”
“Yacub Khan, please bring her back. She is a young girl in love and she is my friend. She is very dear to Johannes, too.”
When he had gone, she sat very still, remembering not the desert she had crossed with Johannes and his father, but that long-ago crossing of the Gobi. The Taklamakan she knew only by reputation; some said it was the worst desert on earth. In the far west of China it was reached by the Silk Road, which went around its border. That road had been taken by pilgrims from China proceeding to India to study Buddhism at its source. There had been great schools at Khotan, and the Buddha himself had been a Saka, an Indo-European people from Central Asia whose tribe had settled in Nepal.
Such a man as Yacub Khan might find Meghan.
But where was Johannes? Actually, now that she thought of it, he had been gone more than three weeks.
Meghan herself had been worried about Johannes having enemies of whom he was not aware. At least he had been unaware of the true reason for their enmity, and she had herself been partly responsible for her father’s warning to Johannes, but that had been before she met Don Federico.
After meeting him, her fears seemed ridiculous. Intrigued by his courtly manner and his obvious interest in her, she had accepted a contrary view, unwilling to believe that such a polished gentleman could also be plotting murder. Johannes had gone. He had left abruptly. Miss Nesselrode remembered that she herself had implied he might not return. Meghan had returned home sick and empty at the thought that she had driven him away, that he might not come back. She was used to the young men of the town, but Johannes was different. He possessed a quality she had not fathomed, a strangeness and a sort of inner quiet. Her father respected him, which was astonishing, as her father was rarely impressed by anyone.
Yet she was not her father’s daughter for nothing. If Johannes would not come back, she would go after him. She told no one but the maid at her home, but she suspected Tomas had told Elena.
Miss Nesselrode walked to the window and looked into the street. The idea that Meghan would follow Johannes into the desert had not occurred to her. Nor could Meghan have any idea of what she was getting into. Few Angelenos had knowledge of what lay over the mountains, nor were they interested. Nor was it the kind of conduct one expected from a well-behaved young lady. She heard the steps on. the boardwalk and recognized them at once. Impulsively she started for the door as Jacob Finney pushed it open and stepped in. “Mr. Finney …!”
“He’s still out there, ma’am. We recovered the horses, but they took out after Johannes. He told us if we got separated to bring the stock back here, that he’d take care of himself.”
“He’s out there alone?”
“We weren’t ready for the desert, ma’am. Neither were they. Don Federico and a couple of his men came back for fresh horses and outfits. I think they plan to locate on water holes at the desert’s edge and wait for him to show.” “How is it out there?”
“Upwards of one hundred degrees, ma’am. If I know Johannes, he’ll come out of that desert alive, but nobody else will. I’ve heard him talk about it a time or two. Those Injuns and his pa, they taught that boy aplenty.” “Meghan has gone looking for him.”
“Meghan? What in God’s world …?”
“She’s a young girl, Mr. Finney, and she’s in love. She knows nothing of what is out there. The man she loves is gone and she is afraid he’ll never come back.” Jacob Finney swore softly, bitterly. How far had she gone? He asked quick, pointed questions. His thoughts raced. She would be impatient, and she would push it. Tomas was all right, but what if something happened to him? She’d be out there alone, with three men whom she did not know, and in bandit country. And how could she even dream of finding Johannes? Of course, Finney had been planning to go back. He had not wanted to leave Johannes out there, but they had the horses to consider, and Johannes in many ways was better off alone.
He was dead beat. He’d just come in, and the trip had been a hard one. It was the same with Monte and Owen Hardin, and Hardin was upset because of the loss of his friend Myron Brodie.
He needed rest. “You’re not as young as you used to be,” he told himself. Still, he was’ far from an old man, and he knew the desert somewhat. “Tomas will slow her down if he can. Maybe by the time she sees some of that country she will begin to understand what she’s up against.” He paused. “I’ll get the boys, but they’re dead beat, Miss Nesselrode. They came in off the trail all wore-out. We’ll do what we can.
“Yacub Khan went after her.”
Finney wiped the sweatband of his hat, thinking. Yacub Khan? Some kind of an Oriental foreigner who had a small place over against the mountain. He had only seen him once that he remembered.
“He is a friend of Captain Laurel’s.”
“Some kind of foreigner, ain’t he? What good will he be out there?”
“He grew up in a desert worse than the Mohave, a good deal worse.” “Can he sit a horse? I mean, most of those foreigners don’t know one end from the other, unless they’re Englishmen.”
“His people live on horseback. They are nomadic herdsmen, following the grass from the desert’s edge to the high mountain country. Mountains,” she added, “that make these look like prairie-dog mounds.” Finney was doubtful. “I been in the Sierras,” he said, “and the Rockies. There’s peaks in the Rockies that top out at fourteen thousand, a lot of them.” “Where he comes from they are twice that high,” she said quietly. “In the Kunlun and the Pamirs there are many peaks over twenty thousand feet. He’s used to rough country, Mr. Finney.”
“Maybe. But can he fight?”
“He can. His people all carry broadswords and rifles. They protect their herds from bandits and other nomads. He grew up fighting. They tell me, too, that he’s a master at several kinds of hand-to-hand fighting.” Finney was silent. Finally he dropped into a chair. He did not want to go back out there, but how to explain that? He had been constantly in the saddle for three weeks. There had been a short, hard fight, and above all he knew finding Johannes would be impossible. He would lose himself in that desert. He would go places no man on horseback could go unless he had three pack-horses loaded with water.
He did not know Meghan Laurel, but in his own mind he was sure she would give up and return. No young girl was going to buck the heat, the sweat, the sleeping out … She had to be crazy. Almost automatically he accepted the coffee Miss Nesselrode offered.
Other men were coming in. Matt Keller, De La Guerra, and then Ben Wilson.
“Captain Laurel’s daughter?” Wilson asked. “What in the world … ?”
“She’s in love,” Miss Nesselrode said.
Wilson shrugged, with a wry smile. “I suppose that explains everything. I’ve been across that desert, and I would say somebody had better bring her back before she dies out there.”
A young girl out there alone? Finney swore under his breath. Tomas was all right, but who were the others? And there were bandits out there, several roving bands along the fringe of the settlements, to say nothing of Indians. He put down his cup and got to his feet. “I’ll get some boys together,” he said.
“We’ll go after her.”
“Johannes will thank you for it. So will I.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There were so many routes, so many trails. Could he find hers now? He got to his feet. Wilson glanced at him over the rim of his cup. “It’s a big country,” he said.
“Yeah,” Finney said dryly.
Wilson glanced at him again. “If she’s in a hurry, as she probably is, they will need fresh horses.”