Their eyes met. Ben Wilson knew this country as well as anybody could, and he knew the only ranch where they could get fresh horses. It was a hangout for outlaws, for Vasquez and his lot, and Ben Wilson knew it. He also knew that Finney knew it.
Jacob Finney walked to the door. He glanced back at Miss Nesselrode and lifted a hand. When the door closed, she said, “He did not want to go.” “And I don’t blame him,” Wilson replied.
Fifty-one
On a cool brown ledge in the shade of a jagged up-thrust of rock, I looked out upon a desert turning gray with the coming of night. It had been four days since I left my last enemy shouting threats and obscenities as I walked away. Those who pursued me were dead, and some future traveler could mark their trail by their whitening bones and the sound of a desert wind moaning in their empty rib cages.
My moccasins had worn out again. As I watched the desert that tomorrow I must travel, I made a fresh pair from the buckskin of my sleeve-canteen. That water bag had leaked, yet retained enough water to get me across three long stretches where there were no springs.
Torn on the rocks when I fell, the water bag lost the last few drops and I was near my end when I glimpsed some salt grass at the lowest part of a blistering desert basin. As I drew closer, I saw arrowweed and crawling mesquite, two more evidences of water. And then I found a spring that offered no other sign of its presence.
That had been two days ago. Now I sat within a dozen feet of a rock tank containing water, a place visited by bighorn sheep, coyotes, and other wildlife. Their converging tracks, scarcely to be seen in the sand, had brought me here. I had drunk deep, splashed my face and chest with water, and then I’d moved off to sleep the night through and leave my animal guides access to the water. In the morning I returned to drink and then settled down to rest, study the desert, and wait for night.
The changing light on the desert had let me pick my route. Tonight there would be a moon, and I would start for the mountains on the skyline. Now I was close to the southern edge of the desert and must move with extreme care. Every instinct and a bit of common sense warned me somebody would be waiting. At least three men had turned back, and one of them would have been Don Federico. He had tried too often and had a fierce hunger to see me die. The logical thing would be to watch every water hole at the desert’s edge until I appeared, as eventually I must.
Odd, but I had never thought of myself as an heir. Nor had I wanted anything from Don Isidro, although the irony of it appealed to me, to inherit after all his efforts to see me die. It would serve him right. On the horizon were the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. If I could reach those mountains I could travel south to join my friends the Cahuillas with less trouble. Not only would I be traveling among the pines, but water would be easily available. The thought of traveling with water and shade was tantalizingly beautiful.
Now, studying the desert from my high point, I tried to decide where my enemies might await me.
Not more than five miles from the low range of rocks where I now rested was Old Woman Springs; near it, Cottonwood Spring. Beyond them were the mountains where I wished to be.
Twenty-five or thirty miles away was Rabbit Springs, but in the wrong direction for me. Don Federico would rightly guess that I would attempt to reach my friends the Indians at the hot-water springs at the mountain’s edge. Not these mountains, but the San Jacintos further south. He might or might not know about the Indians in Morongo Valley, closer, and also my friends. It was near there, I believed, that Paulino Weaver had settled. Don Federico would have men watching these springs.
That I would be in desperate need of water they would realize, and they had only to wait. Yet there was now an advantage for me. This was country I had ridden and walked with the Cahuilla.
By the time I reached the vicinity of Old Woman, I would be thirsty and needing a drink, yet I would pass it by in favor of a more hidden spring with even better water, Saddlerock Spring, where the water flowed right from the granite in a hidden place in the mountains. Only a few miles further south and I would be safe among my friends the Indians.
Now I rested. My belt was drawn four notches tighter than when I left the others. The last piece of jerky left to me was now in my mouth. I chewed slowly, to make it last as long as possible. During the days in the desert, I had found seeds that could be eaten, and with my small supply of jerked beef they had kept me alive.
One more stretch of desert to cross, one more group of watchers to evade, and then I was safe.
Now … I sat still, dreading the moment when I must leave this water behind and once more endure the desert.
I arose. On a rock face near where I had been sitting there was Indian writing, faded by blown sand, almost obliterated by time. Here, long ago, Indians had come to drink. There was no pile of stones, what some unknowing people had called “shrines,” but I placed two stones, one atop the other. Then I turned away into the desert San Gorgonio Mountain, something over eleven thousand feet above sea level, was almost due south of me. For a moment I looked at it, then chose a star just east of the peak and started walking. Once I paused to stretch, trying to stretch some of the stiffness from my muscles. I was tired, very, very tired. Until now all my effort had been directed simply to the next spring, water hole, or tank. At each I had fallen, exhausted. One spring upon which my hopes depended had proved to be dry. A tank I had hoped to find containing some water had been a bed of sand.
Before me, beyond this stretch of desert, were the mountains. A forest, even if a sparse forest at first, but the cool, cool shade and cool, cool water! I longed to lie on pine needles beneath a tree and rest, just rest. A little further, just a little further! Into the night and the coolness I walked … and walked. Sometimes I found my eyes closing even as I walked; I stumbled and awakened, but on course. There was my star, there were the mountains.
I smelled smoke.
Wood smoke, the smoke of a campfire. There, not a half-mile away, perhaps even less, Old Woman Springs, and a faint gleam through the brush. A fire. My enemies awaited me. They were resting, drinking water and coffee at their leisure.
Yet suppose these were not enemies? Perhaps some other travelers, merely camping at the water hole. They would welcome me, give me something to drink and to eat. Should I chance it? It had been days since I’d had enough to drink, and I was always hungry. I hesitated, wanting to go closer, yet afraid, too. Now that I was so awfully tired, I was clumsy, too. I could not manage my feet well, I stumbled often, and if I went closer, would be sure to alarm the camp. Moreover, the horses would smell me. Hesitantly I moved closer, pausing often. Somebody moved near the fire, throwing a shadow as he passed close to the fire; then I heard somebody say, “It is a waste of time! The man is dead! Who could survive out there without food or water? And without a horse? Juliano is sure to have caught and killed him.”
“What difference does it make? Are we not paid for what we do? Sit down, rest yourself. It is for a few days only.”
For a moment I swayed on my feet, sick with disappointment; then I turned away and walked on by. One step at a time, half-asleep, I stumbled on. Several times I staggered; once I fell to my knees. Saddlerock Spring must be ten … No, more. At least twelve miles.
There was another spring nearer, but it might be watched as well. On I went, walking, staggering, almost falling. My feet were tender, for the skin had often broken.
Again I fell to my knees. For a moment I stayed where I was, wanting nothing so much as to fall forward and to sleep. At last I got up and walked on. Somehow I clung to my rifle. Time and again I used it to push me up from the sand where I had fallen. Now I was existing only for water, any kind of water, anywhere. There was Two Hole Spring … I had heard of it … somewhere nearer than Saddlerock. Without a drink I would never make it. Suddenly the mountains were lifting up before me. I started on, smelled smoke again, and stopped. Peering through some scattered brush and the rocks, I caught a gleam of fire. Carefully I edged closer.