Peter had told him that Zachary Verne and his son were returning, and they had agreed he must be stopped from going to Los Angeles. He avoided Indian trails but moved through the woods or mountains parallel to them, trying not to use the same exact route twice. In his earlier years, when he had been very strong, he could travel incredible distances, and he had ventured far into the desert. Peter had taught him about gold and precious or semi-precious stones he might find. Over the years he had made several small finds of gold and several fine opals.
While still in his early years, and living in the Indian village, he had learned about Telmekesh, the place where the spirits of the dead lived, which was reached through a gate between two moving mountains; the good were permitted to pass, but the evil were crushed as the mountains slammed together, closing the gate.
He had become a skillful hunter, but knowing the sound of a rifle could be heard for some distance, he preferred more silent means. He used a bow and arrow occasionally but had come to prefer the sling. Due to his length of arm and extraordinary muscular power, it had become a formidable weapon in his hands, and one with which he could kill at a considerable distance. “Come, boy. Set up an’ eat. Cookin’ for you is like cookin’ for an army. Takes time.” They sat opposite each other across the flat top of a chunk cut from a great stump.
“Meghan went to Francisco’s woman? She will be all right, then.”
“And you, Peter? What will you do?”
Peter looked into the fire; then he looked around at Alfredo. “I don’t know, boy. Get me an outfit an’ hit the trail, I guess, but I won’t be far from you-“ “Peter?” Alfredo placed a great rubbery hand on Peter’s. “I mean, afterwards? After that?”
There was a long silence. “Well, son, I hope there won’t be no afterwards. You an’ that woman”-his voice grew husky-“well, I never had nobody before. Not rightly, I didn’t, although Zack Verne was always a friend. You been part o’ my thinkin’ for so long-“ “Peter? Go to Johannes. Go and see him. I don’t want you to be alone, if it comes to that. Johannes will do big things, I believe, and he will need a good man, and he likes you.”
The big voice rumbled off into silence, and the two men sat quietly, watching the fire.
Before the day broke and while Peter Burkin slept, Alfredo slipped into his moccasins and a blanket coat and left the cave. He stood outside, stretching and looking carefully around. This cave was not unlike his temporary home in the San Bernardinos, except that the cave was larger and there were several inner rooms. It had two other entrances, both of them some distance away. One was natural; the other he had created himself when he discovered how close the cave came to the outer wall of the mountain. Both entrances were carefully hidden. Standing still, he looked around before moving. The chance that someone might have approached the place was always a possibility, although he had never seen a white man atop the mountain, and the Cahuilla avoided his area. Often there were deer feeding on a small meadow nearby, and once he had seen a bear. It was a grizzly, a huge beast that when standing on its hind legs towered even above him. The bear took a couple of steps toward him, and he stood his ground, unworried. He knew the beast was nearsighted and curious. When it found out what he was, it stood staring at him and he at it; then it dropped to all fours, and apparently satisfied, walked away. Yet, when some fifty yards off, it raised up on its hind legs again to look back, shaking its big head as if mystified. Now, on this morning, he walked back into the pines and followed a vague trail, his own, to the edge of the mountain and to what he called his chair. Actually, it was a ledge of rock, a quarter-circle of it, that offered a convenient seat. It was a place to which he often came, some eight thousand feet above the valley below, looking down upon the canyons and the palms that gathered near the hot springs and wound in a green, lovely ribbon up a canyon to the southeast. The widest of the canyons was below him.
Here he could watch the sunrise and sunset over the valley and look far up the pass through which Romero, Williamson, and Ben Wilson had traveled. He also could look eastward into the desert, a vast expanse of white and pink that was constantly changing color under the rising or setting sun. By day, cloud shadows paraded majestically across that vast emptiness. This was the place. When the end came, if he could make it, this was where he would come. He would sit here, as he sat now, and wait for the long silence. He started to rise, but his muscles seemed without strength. He tried again and half-fell back to his seat. For a long time he sat still, staring out over the desert. He tried again, but there was no strength left in him. His head ached … The headaches had been worse lately. He sat still, his eyes closed. Slowly, then, he opened them and watched an eagle riding the hot air rising from the desert, soaring out there on magic wings, soaring, soaring … For a moment he lost the eagle, his vision misting over.
He lifted a huge hand and stared at it, slowly closing the fingers. It fell back to his lap. He looked again, trying to find the eagle. It was there, tilting its marvelous wings against the sky.
He tried again to rise, but this time there was no response whatever. He relaxed slowly, sitting very still, his big hands resting on his massive knees. “Now?” he whispered. “Is it now?” And then, more softly still, “Why not now?”
Fifty-nine
Francisco sat on the sandbank watching me. “It was spoken that you had come. Your house is gone, so I knew you would be here, in our old place.” He glanced around. “Nothing has changed.”
“Not here,” I agreed. Then I looked at him, smiling a little. “You eat well, Francisco. There is more behind your belt than when we met.” He shrugged. “I have a woman. She is a good woman and she fears that I shall eat too little. Yet I can still run, and wrestle.”
“You were always good. Sometimes you beat me.”
He studied the breadth of my shoulders and shook his head. “No more, I think.
You have grown strong.”
“I have enemies,” I agreed.
“You have a woman?” he asked mildly, flicking a stick at the sand.
“No,” I said, “but there is one of whom I think.” He got to his feet and stretched, whipping the sand from his hat, which he had lying beside him. “She waits for you,” he said, “and talks to my woman.” Surprised, I got to my feet and went for the black stallion. “Meghan? Here?” ‘”She looks for you. She fears you will not come back to her.” Then he added as we walked along, “She has had much trouble, amigo. She speaks of this to my woman, and she to me.” He glanced at me. “She killed one man. Shot him.” “Meghan? I can’t believe it.”
Francisco shrugged. “Who knows what iron is in the heart of a woman? She escaped and they followed.” He paused, looking across at the clustering palms. “The big one, He Who Walks the Night … he found her and left her close to us. She rode on in alone.”
“The big one? Tahquitz?”
He shrugged. “It is a name. No doubt he has another. Your woman says he is Alfredo.”
So … Alfredo. It all was falling together at last.
Meghan came quickly to her feet as I came up to the fire. For a moment she simply stared; then she ran to me, and it was natural that I should take her in my arms.
“I think we should go home, honey,” I said. It was the first time I had called anyone such a name, and I was astonished at myself, but she accepted the term without question. Who knows about women?
We talked, and we ate the food Francisco’s woman brought to us, but when I went to my horse again, it was saddled and Francisco was there. He told me then what had happened with Meghan, and when he had finished he said, “So she killed one, and the Big One, he killed another. One is left, and he is the worst. He is Iglesias.”
“So?”
“He has come far, amigo, to ride back for nothing. Do you ride carefully, then.” Meghan emerged, her clothing brushed and her hair rearranged. She was the girl I’d dreamed of, and more.