The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 Page 4

“Why you helpin’ me?”

  Speke sat back on his heels. He nodded at the horse he had stolen. “I’m leavin’ you that horse and a canteen. You head out of here. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  He got to his feet and started for the horses. Ross stared after him, then tried to lift himself to an elbow, managed it. “You leavin’ me a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m a sittin’ duck for Injuns.”

  Speke smiled a rare smile. “Maybe you’ll be lucky.”

  He walked his horse away on Floren’s trail. He was in no hurry. Before them lay the breaks of the Colorado. Soon Floren would be stopped by the canyon itself. Speke had been long in the desert, and the desert teaches patience. There was no escape for Floren.

  For days Speke had directed his smoke columns and his actions to cause the two outlaws to pull farther and farther north, until now Floren was in a cul-de-sac from which there was no way out except back the way he had come. But Floren would not know this. He would waste time looking.

  It was a hot still day when the search ended. A day of a high sun and the reflecting heat from the face of vast plateaus of rock and the cedar-clad hillsides. Lizards panted even in the shade, their mouths held open, their sides pumping at the hot, thin air.

  Floren was hollow-eyed and frightened. Whichever way he went he faced awesome canyons, and the only water was far, far below. Only a few drops slopped lonesomely in his canteen, and the horse he rode was gaunt and beaten. He swung down, and his heels hit hard, and he stared over the brink into the vast canyon below.

  Trapped … Seven times he had found new routes, and each had ended in a cliff. Seven times he tried and seven times he failed. And now he knew there was no way to turn but back. He turned toward the horse, and as if expecting him, the animal went to its knees, then rolled over on its side. Fiercely, Floren swore. He kicked the horse. It would not rise, it could not rise. Better yet without the horse he could take the gold and find a way down the cliffs. Then a raft … feverishly, he rushed at the horse and stripped off the pack of gold. He started to take his rifle, then shrugged. It would only be in the way.

  Shouldering the gold, he walked to the cliff ’s edge. There was no way over at that point. He turned, then stopped abruptly. One hundred yards away was Speke. The prospector held a Winchester cradled in his arm.

  Speke said nothing. He just stood there, silent, still, alone.

  Floren touched his lips with his tongue. He held the gold sack in his right hand. Anyway, at that range … a pistol … he looked toward his rifle. Too far away.

  Speke shot from the hip, and the sack jerked in Floren’s hand. Another shot. Speke moved a step forward and Floren dropped the sack and drew. He fired quickly, hastily. He missed.…

  Speke fired again and Floren felt the bullet tug at his shirt. He took a hasty step back, then fired again himself. The bullet struck far to the left. Speke swung his rifle and fired. Rock fragments stung Floren’s cheek. He jerked his head back up.

  Speke said nothing. He worked the lever on his rifle and waited. Floren started forward, and a bullet kicked up sand ahead of him. He took a hasty step back.

  The edge … could not be far behind. He glanced back and Speke fired swiftly, three shots. They scattered rock around his feet and a ricochet burned Floren’s face. He was no more than six feet from the edge.

  “You ain’t goin’ to make me jump!” he shouted angrily. He threw up his gun and fired.

  Speke waited a minute, then walked swiftly forward and picked up the gold. He backed away, then dropped the sack and fired. His Winchester ’73 carried eleven bullets and he was counting them.

  The shot whipped by Floren’s face, so close it drew blood.

  Floren was frightened now. His face was drawn and white. He stared with wide eyes and haggard mouth. Speke picked up the gold again and backed to his horse. Lashing it behind the saddle, he swung into the leather.

  As he did so, he dropped the lead rope of one of the Indian ponies. “Help yourself,” he said, and rode slowly away.

  Floren started after him, shouting. Tom Speke did not turn his head or glance back. He merely rode on, remembering Tucson and the Shoo Fly. He would enjoy a meal like that now. Maybe, in a week or so …

  He had lots of time … now.

  Desperate Men

  They were four desperate men, made hard by life, cruel by nature, and driven to desperation by imprisonment. Yet the walls of Yuma Prison were strong and the rifle skill of the guards unquestioned, so the prison held many desperate men besides these four. And when prison walls and rifles failed, there was the desert, and the desert never failed.

  Fate, however, delivered these four a chance to test the desert. In the early dawn the land had rolled and tumbled like an ocean storm. The rocky promontory over the river had shifted and cracked in an earthquake that drove fear into the hearts of the toughest and most wicked men in Arizona. For a minute or two the ground had groaned and roared, dust rained down from cracks in the roofs of the cells, and in one place the perimeter wall had broken and slid off, down the hillside. It was as if God or the Devil had shown them a way.

  Two nights later, Otteson leaned his shaven head closer to the bars. “If you’re yellow, say so! I say we can make it! If Isager says we can make it through the desert, I say we go!”

  “We’ll need money for the boatmen.” Rodelo’s voice was low. “Without money we will die down there on the shores of the gulf.”

  All were silent, three awaiting a word from the fourth. Rydberg knew where the army payroll was buried. The government did not know, the guards did not know, only Rydberg. And Otteson, Isager, and Rodelo knew he knew.

  He was a thin, scrawny man with a buzzard’s neck and a buzzard’s beak for a nose. His bright, predatory eyes indicated his hesitation now. “How … how much would it take?” he asked.

  “A hundred,” Otteson suggested, “not more than two. If we had that much we could be free.”

  Free … no walls, no guards, no stinking food. No sweating one’s life out with backbreaking labor under the blazing sun. Free … women, whiskey, money to spend … the click of poker chips, the whir of the wheel, a gun’s weight on the hip again. No beatings, no solitary, no lukewarm, brackish drinking water. Free to come and go … a horse between the knees … women …

  He said it finally, words they had waited to hear. “There’s the army payroll. We could get that.”

  The taut minds of Otteson, Rodelo, and Isager relaxed slowly, easing the tension, and within the mind of each was a thought unshared.

  Gold … fifteen thousand in gold coins for the taking! A little money split four ways, but a lot of money for one!

  Otteson leaned his bullet head nearer. “Tomorrow night”—his thick lips barely moved as he whispered—“tomorrow night we’ll go out. If we wait longer they’ll have the wall repaired.”

  “There’s been guards posted ever since the quake,” Rodelo protested.

  Otteson laughed. “We’ll take care of them!” From under the straw mattress he drew a crude, prison-made knife. “Rydberg can take care of the other with his belt.”

  Cunningly fashioned of braided leather thongs, it concealed a length of piano wire. When the belt was removed and held in the hands it could be bent so the loop of the steel wire projected itself, a loop large enough to encircle a man’s head … then it could be jerked tight and the man would die.

  Rodelo leaned closer. “How far to the gold?”

  “Twenty miles east. We’ll need horses.”

  “Good!” Otteson smashed a fist into a palm. “East is good! They’ll expect us to go west into California. East after the gold, then south into the desert. They’d never dream we’d try that! It’s hot as sin and dry as Hades, but I know where the water holes are!”

  Their heads together, glistening with sweat in the hot, sticky confines of their cells, they plotted every move, and within the mind of three of the men was another plot: to kill the others and have th
e gold for himself.

  “We’ll need guns.” Rydberg expressed their greatest worry. “They’ll send Indians after us.”

  The Indians were paid fifty dollars for each convict returned alive—but they had been paid for dead convicts, too. The Yaquis knew the water holes, and fifty dollars was twice what most of them could make in a month if they could find work at all.

  “We’ll have the guns of the two guards. When we get to Rocky Bay, we’ll hire a fisherman to carry us south to Guaymas.”

  The following day their work seemed easy. The sun was broiling and the guards unusually brutal. Rydberg was knocked down by a hulking giant named Johnson. Rydberg just brushed himself off and smiled. It worried Johnson more than a threat. “What’s got into him?” he demanded of the other guards. “Has he gone crazy?”

  Perryman shrugged. “Why worry about it? He’s poison mean, an’ those others are a bad lot, too. Otteson’s worst of all.”

  “He’s the one I aim to get,” Johnson said grimly, “but did you ever watch the way he lifts those rocks? Rocks two of us couldn’t budge he lifts like they were so many sacks of spuds!”

  It was sullen dark that night; no stars. There was thunder in the north and they could hear the river. The heat lingered and the guards were restless from the impending storm. At the gap where the quake had wrecked the wall were Perryman and Johnson. They would be relieved in two hours by other guards.

  They had been an hour on the job and only now had seated themselves. Perryman lit a cigarette and leaned back. As he straightened to say something to Johnson he was startled to see kicking feet and clawing hands, but before he could rise, a powerful arm came over his shoulder, closing off his breath. Then four men armed with rifles and pistols went down the side of Prison Hill and walked eastward toward the town.

  One hour before discovery. That was the most they could expect, yet in half that time they had stolen horses and headed east. Otteson had been shrewd. He had grabbed Perryman’s hat from the ground. Both Isager and Rodelo had hats of a sort. Rydberg was without any covering for his shaven head.

  Two hours after their escape they reached the adobe. Rydberg led the way inside the ruin, and they dug up the gold from a far corner. Each man took a sack, and then they turned their horses to the south and the desert.

  “Each year,” Otteson said, “the fishermen come to Rocky Bay. They live there while they fish, and then return to their homes down the gulf. Pablo told me, and he said to keep Pinacate on my left and head for the coast at Flat Hill. The bay is on a direct line between the hill and the coast.”

  Pablo had been killed by a blow on the head from a guard’s gun, but he had been planning escape with Otteson. Dawn came at last and the clouds slid away leaving the sun behind … and the sun was hot.

  From the Gila River to the Mexican border there was nothing. Only desert, cacti, rocks, and the sun, always the sun. There was not even water until one almost reached the border. Water was found only in tinajas, basins that captured rain and retained it until finally evaporated by the sun. Some of the tinajas were shaded and held the water for a long time, and in others there was just sand. Sometimes water impregnated the sand at the bottom. These things a man must know to survive on that devil’s trail.

  Their route from the Gila to the border was approximately fifty miles as the buzzard flies, but a man does not ride as the buzzard flies, not even in a lonely and empty land. There are clusters of rock, broken lava, upthrust ledges, and clumps of cacti. And there are always, inevitably, arroyos. Seventy miles would be closer to the truth, seventy miles of desert in midsummer.

  The border was a vague line which in theory left them free of pursuit, but in 1878 officers of the law often ignored lines of demarcation—and the Indians did not notice them at all. Actually, the border was their halfway point, for they had a rough distance of one hundred and forty miles to traverse.

  Behind them two guards lay dead, and the hostler only lived because Rodelo was not, by nature, a killer. Rodelo had the sleeping man’s hands and feet tied before he got his eyes open. Then he gagged and left him. They stole four horses and three canteens and filled the canteens at the pump. Otteson, Rydberg, and Isager took it for granted the hostler had been killed.

  They rode hard for twenty miles, and then they had the added weight of the gold. Otteson knew the way from Pablo and he pointed it out occasionally as they rode. But he did not offer his back to his companions.

  Four battered and desperate men headed south under the glaring sun. Dust lifted, they sweated, and their lips grew dry. They pushed their horses, for distance was important. Otteson called a halt, finally. He was a heavy man and the hard riding sapped the strength of his horse.

  “Where is it we’re gonna find water?” Isager noted the hesitation before Otteson replied. Isager knew the desert, but not this area. Otteson only had the knowledge Pablo had given him and he didn’t want to tell too much.

  “Near Coyote Peak there’s water. Maybe ten miles yet.”

  Isager tested the weight of his canteen. Rodelo drank several good gulps and returned his canteen to its place behind his saddle. Rydberg, who had brought the guard’s water bottle, drank also. Otteson made a motion of drinking, but Isager watched his Adam’s apple. It did not move.

  Isager was a lean man, not tall, and narrow of jaw and cheekbone. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds and carried no ounce of fat. He had been sent to Yuma after killing a marshal, which would have been his sixth notch if he had been a man for carving notches. It was noteworthy that in selecting a weapon he had taken a pistol. Isager was nothing if not practical. The pistol was his favorite weapon, and the four would be close together. By the time they had spread out to where a rifle might be useful, he would have a rifle. Of that he was positive.

  Rodelo knew nothing of the desert but much of men. When younger he had sailed to the West Coast of Africa and had seen men die of the sun. He had replaced the bandanna that covered his head when working in the prison yard with a hat stolen from the livery, knowing the sun would be vicious on their shaven skulls. They depended upon Otteson, and he was not to be trusted. Isager alone he respected: he liked none of them. Rydberg did not guess what the others knew—that they would soon be minus a man.

  They walked their horses now. Behind them was no dust, but pursuit was certain. It was the Indians who worried them, for fifty dollars was a lot of money to an Indian. Two hundred dollars for them all.

  The air wavered and changed before them, seeming to flow and billow with heat waves. On their right was the Gila Range, and the desert grew more rugged. Otteson watched when Rydberg drank, when he passed his hand over his bare skull, saw him put water on his head. Otteson was complacent, confident.

  Isager’s mouth was dry, but he did not touch the canteen. A mere swallow at dusk could do more good than a bucket now. He watched the others with cat eyes. Rydberg took another pull. The heat baked the desert and reflected in their faces like heat from a hot stove. Twice they stopped for rest, and each time it was Otteson and Isager who stopped in what little shade there was. Rydberg swayed as he dismounted.

  “Hot!” he gasped. “How much farther to water?”

  “Not far.” Otteson looked at Rydberg’s horse. It was the best.

  Isager took water from his canteen and wiped out his horse’s mouth and nostrils. Rodelo thought this was a good idea and did likewise.

  “Let’s wait until dark,” Rydberg suggested. “I’m hot. My head aches. That sun is killing me.”

  “You want to get caught by them Injuns? Or them laws from Yuma?”

  They moved on, and Rydberg’s skull was pocked with sun blisters. The dust grew thicker, the air was dead, the desert a pink and red reflector for the sun. Rydberg swayed drunkenly, and Rodelo swore mentally and reflected that it must be 120 degrees or more.

  Rydberg began to mutter. He pulled at his dry canteen. He tried again, shook it, and there was no sound. Otteson looked straight before him. Isager said nothing, and only R
odelo looked around as the man swayed drunkenly in his saddle.

  “I’m out of water,” Rydberg said. “How about a drink?”

  “On the desert,” Otteson said, “each man drinks his own water. You’ll have to wait.”

  The dust and sun and thirst turned their world into a red hell of heat waves and blurred blue mountains. The hooves of their horses dragged. Rydberg muttered, and once he croaked a snatch of song. He mumbled through thin, cracked lips, and the weird face above the scraggly neck became even more buzzardlike. His skull was fiery red now, and it bobbed strangely as he weakened. Suddenly he shouted hoarsely and pointed off across the desert.

  “Water!” he gabbled. “Water, over there!”

  “Mirage,” Rodelo said, and the others were silent, riding.

  “Gimme a drink.” Rydberg rode at Otteson and grabbed at his canteen.

  The big man moved his horse away, striking at the skinny hand. “Go to hell,” he said coldly.

  Rydberg grabbed at him, lost balance, and fell heavily into the sand. He struggled to get up, then fell again.

  Rodelo looked at him. His own canteen was empty. “The damn fool,” Isager said, “why didn’t he get him a hat?”

  Nobody else spoke. Then Otteson reached for the canteen on Rydberg’s horse, but Isager was closer and unhurriedly appropriated it. He also took the rifle. “Take the horse if you like,” he said, “you’re a heavy man.”

  Otteson glared at Isager, and Rodelo moved in and took the gold. “Are you going to leave him here like that?” he demanded.

  Otteson shrugged. “He asked for it.”

  “He wouldn’t live until night,” Isager said. “Stay if you want.”

  Rodelo drew Rydberg into the shade of an ironwood tree. Then he mounted and followed. Why had they grabbed the empty canteen and the rifle when they could have gotten their hands on Rydberg’s share of the gold?

  A thin shadow of doubt touched him. Then the answer was plain and he cursed himself for a fool. Nearly two hundred gold coins he now carried, and it was considerable weight. They preferred that he carry the extra gold until … His jaw set hard, but within him there was a cold shock of fear.