Secret of the Malpais

by Ferber, Richard

  It was an old irrigation ditch, built back in the seventies by a young consumptive who had come West for his health. There were three miles of it, and it had taken him two years to build it, grubbing it out alone; and by the time he was finished, he was miraculously well again, well enough to go back to wherever

  he had come from. He'd never used one drop of the water from it, and neither had anybody else. It simply ran for a ways and then disappeared into the desert.

  Logan stopped the horses and sat thinking. Trying to throw a man off your trail was like playing cards. You could pretend to do one thing, and do another; or you could pretend to do one thing, and do it... leaving it to your opponent to outsmart himself. Either way had something to recommend it. The ditch ran east and west. He could angle into it toward the east, ride for awhile, then double back. Or he could angle into it toward the west and not double back at all, and hope that Moon would think he had. Convenience won out in the end; trying to turn the horses in that narrow ditch was more work than such simple-minded trickery was worth.

  He had other cards to play, anyway. After a couple of miles the valley narrowed down to practically nothing and the grassland gave way to rock. There was a half-mile stretch where the consumptive had had to hack and blast his way through outcroppings, and there were any number of places where a horse could step directly from water to rock. Logan chose a spot where the banks were steepest, so the horses wouldn't be tempted to try for footing in them, and hauled them out. They came out with a great deal of splashing, and they dripped water from their bellies, but in a half-hour the wind would dry it.

  A half-hour. It would have taken Moon that long to realize that no one was using the outhouse after all, then round up his Apache police and get on the trail. They were safe... at least for a little while.

  It was almost daylight now. Logan rolled a cigarette and lighted it. Far ahead he could see the rock-tangle of the Malpais: a hundred square miles of gulches and

  gulleys, hidden canyons, brush, stunted pifions, and something worse—Apaches. He looked at Angela. She'd found a pair of men's trousers somewhere, Jeffrey's probably. She was all rigged out for whatever might happen, or so she thought.

  "We'll walk the horses for awhile," he said. "Pushing through that water tired them out."

  She didn't say anything. Off toward the Malpais an owl was hooting at the dawn. An owl or...

  Ramsey Moon sat smoking his pipe and watching his Apaches scurrying over the rock outcroppings. They were wasting their time, he knew, but it was better to let them find it out for themselves. He wasn't in any hurry now, anyway. And there was just the off chance that they might find some sign. If anyone could, they could. They'd been known to track a fly across a windowpane.

  They came back to their horses, not saying anything, but shaking their heads to show him they'd given up. He took it calmly. Logan had made a fool of him, but that only meant one more score to settle. He'd settle it. He didn't know how yet, but he'd find a way.

  He turned and rode back up the valley, with the Apaches riding in an orderly group behind him. He had to admit there was humor in it: waiting outside that outhouse, thinking at first that Logan must be constipated, then finally catching on. The rest had been easy. Bigges had pointed out the trail through the corrals and the Apaches had no trouble following it down to the ditch, or along it, for that matter. The water in that old ditch hardly moved and Logan's horses had roiled it up so that you could follow them by just tasting the water for mud. But he had forgotten about those rock outcroppings. Logan hadn't, and it just

  showed how costly it was to underestimate a man. Well, it would only happen once.

  He reined up and spoke to his Apaches. The band was a mixture of Mimbrenos and Chiricahuas, with a few White Mountains thrown in, and there was no one tongue that they could all understand; he used Spanish.

  **Por ahora," he said, and indicated a grove of cotton-. wood. They could stay there for awhile. He had something to do, and no Apache could help him.

  He rode down the alley and tied up at the picket fence. The hell with roses this time, he thought. Roses meant nothing to Selina. Bracelets did. And now he had something else to offer her.

  She was awake. She called to him to come in, and he found her sitting at the table, her hair mussed and her eyes red; she'd been crying. It touched him. He went over and put a hand on her shoulder.

  "Don't gloat, Ramsey," she said.

  "Gloat?" he said. "Why should I?"

  "He's gone."

  "I know."

  "Oh?" she said. She looked up at him, questioning.

  "I've been watching. Where did he go?"

  "You've been watching. You tell me."

  "Toward the Malpais. That's all I know."

  She was interested now. He could feel her eyes on him as he paced around the room. He came back to the table. The bracelet was still lying there. He picked it up.

  "I paid eighty dollars for this," he said. What difference whether you bought a woman with affection, or money? "I could buy you a hundred of these, more, if I knew where Logan was going. He's going after gold."

  She lost interest and looked away. *'He*s not the first

  one."

  "He*s found it/' he said, and waited until her eyes swung back to him again. "He and a bunch of others. But something happened up there. Somebody raped Old Pablo's daughter-in-law, and Old Pablo wiped them out. All except Logan. Did he say anything?"

  "Not to me. Why should he? Why not ask that squatter woman, the one that was here yesterday? You were watching; you saw her. Or ask Old Pablo. He ought to remember where his daughter-in-law was raped."

  "It's sacred ground," Moon said patiently, "Or maybe he's lying; maybe they've got a tiswin camp up there. Anyway, he won't say anything. I thought maybe Logan..."

  "Nothing," she said. "No, wait There was something, it didn't make sense then, but maybe it does now.

  He was talking in his sleep. If I can just remember "

  She sat twisting her hair around one finger and staring at the bracelet as he fiddled with it. "Something about a pumpkin patch... and the woman's breasts, whatever that means ... and a rock ... needle rock, that was it." "That's all?"

  "There might have been more. That's all I remember."

  It wasn't much; too little to mean anythmg. The Malpais was full of old pumpkin patches, some of them abandoned by old settlers, some of them relics of the time when the Government was trying to get the Apaches to grow things. The same was true of the woman's breasts. The number of rock formations that looked like parts of the female anatomy were limited only by the imagination... and most of them were

  products of it. Still, there was one rock he remembered, and it would be hard to mistake for anything else; it came complete with all the details.. .including an old pumpkin patch not three days ride away.

  "It might be enough," he said.

  "You think you can find it, then?"

  "That depends on Logan. If he finds the gold, I'll find him."

  It should have pleased her; instead, her face took on a strained look. He knew what she was going through. She wanted the gold, but she wasn't sure she wanted to pay the going price for it.

  "You can't have both," he said. "You can take your choice, what choice there is. You won't get Logan anyway, even if I don't kill him. You ought to know that by now."

  She sat silent and glum, her face looking dead, her hands, folded in front of her, looking lifeless.

  "Take your choice," he said again, and laid the bracelet down on the table.

  She took it up after a moment and fastened it on her wrist. She raised her arm and looked at it, with hardly any expression, except for a faint, childish glitter in her eyes. That was answer enough. He left her sitting there and went outside and untied his horse from the picket fence. He had mixed feelings about the choice she had made. It showed that greed counted higher with her than sentiment. On the other hand, it showed that Logan hadn't been so important to her after all.
Well, you had to take the bad with the good, and he loved her.

  Besides, it wasn't fair to criticize her. He hadn't really given her a choice. He was going to kill Logan no matter what she said ... and maybe she had known
  "There they are," Logan said, and stopped the gelding so that Angela could catch up. He was pointing toward the high peaks. "What, Logan?"

  "Up there," he said. "The big..." He was tempted to call them by their proper name, just to show her again how out of place she was, to give her one more reason to be sorry she'd come along. He didn't; she'd had enough, probably. "The breasts of the woman," he said. "At least that's what the old man called them." She shaded her eyes and squinted up at the twin peaks. In two weeks she'd taken on color; her face was tanned almost the color of mahogany, except for a lighter band where the scarf edged down over her forehead. The scarf wasn't much protection from the sun, but it was all she had. She hadn't thought to bring a hat with her.

  "See them?" he said.

  She just nodded. In the sun it was too uncomfortable to talk. Out on the desert the heat would have been bearable, but here in the rocks it sprawled down on you like a vulture. Even Logan could feel it. But he let the sweat trickle down his face without giving any sign that it was there.

  "Maybe you want to rest," he said. "Maybe there's some shade under that ledge."

  She shook her head again. She'd been like this ever

  since they had started. Refusing to rest. Insisting on pushing on farther each day than he might have rid-ren himself. He ought to give her credit for it, he supposed. But he put it down to pure stubbornness. She was cold and sharp-tongued and stubborn. And he hoped, at times, that it would kill her.

  "All right," he said. "We'll have to climb up past those peaks. I'm not sure that's the way. I might have seen those peaks from the south, or the west, or from anywhere but here. I can't remember. If I'm wrong, we'll have to come back down that hill and climb another one."

  It was a bleak outlook, and he thought he saw her lower lip tremble, but he couldn't be sure. She tightened it right away. There were little hair-thin cracks all along her mouth where the sun had blistered it.

  They went on foot, leading the horses. There were trails in places, but they were deer trails and they went too low through the brush to be of much use; the deer were stunted in that country. It was better to make your own trail and trust to luck.

  The gravel made it hard going. They kept sliding back in their own tracks, and the horses kept plunging and pulling them off balance. Finally Angela lost her hold altogether and came sliding down to him. She lay there, not trying to get up, and she pulled back when he tried to help her. She was crying silently. He knelt down beside her and put one arm around her and wiped the sweat from above her eyes. Poor Angela.

  "Leave me alone," she said. She shoved him viciously, and he teetered off balance and fell under the feet of one of the pack horses. The animal kicked him trying to get out of his way. He got up, swearing to himself, ready to swear aloud, then saw that she was frightened, not angry.

  SECRET OF THE MALPAIS Richard Ferber .61

  Frightened of what? The Malpais, the Apaches, the long slope that still faced them? Or frightened of him? That was probably it. Now that he had her out here alone, there was no telling what he might do to her. He was capable of anything. Capable of rape, even. He had done it before, hadn't he?

  "Get up," he said. "I gave you a chance to rest. It's too late now. You're better off walking than sitting there to fry in the sun."

  She obeyed. She got up and caught her horse and started up the slope. A pifion jay came sailing down past her, squawking in derision, probably, but she paid no attention to it.

  He was right. When they reached the top the sun was going down, and against it they could see the needle-shaped rock. It was clear and close at hand, and the old man had had a name for it, too, just as vulgar. But there was no use mentioning it, and he was short of breath anyway. He started down the far slope, and she followed him. He let the horses make their own way; there was grass down there, and water. They smelled it, and planted their feet and went sliding down through the talus. They had finished drinking by the time Logan and Angela came up and dropped down on their hands and knees beside them.

  Logan unpacked and unsaddled the horses and turned them out to graze. They wouldn't go far; there was only an acre or so of grass, and they wouldn't want to leave it.

  He dragged the alforjas over to a small outcropping and stacked them all together and surveyed the canyon. There were worse places to camp. There was grass, and high walls on three sides to keep out the wind, and there was plenty of water. It was the kind of place

  he'd enjoyed plenty of times before, alone, with nothing but the horses to keep him company. They were better than people under such circumstances. They were like the surroundings; uncomplicated.

  He looked around for Angela. She was still by the water hole. She stood up finally, stretched, and rubbed her behind.

  "You'll feel better," he said, "after another week's riding."

  She took her hands away without looking at him. Women had one advantage over horses, he thought. They were prettier. She was wearing a pair of Jeffrey's old pants, but Jeffrey was ... had been ... a small man, and they were tight on her. Tight enough.

  He took a towel out of one of the alforjas and carried it over to her. "You probably want to take a bath."

  She needed one. There were streaks down her face where the sweat (and maybe a few tears) had run through the dust, and the scarf had turned a dark color around the edges.

  "I'll go off someplace," he said. "I won't look, if that's what you're thinking. You might as well get used to it. We'll be camped here for awhile. That needle rock is close to the diggings, but it's the last landmark I remember. We'll have to start exploring on foot."

  She looked at the water hole, then at him. "I can find some other place, I guess."

  She probably could. Water was scarce in the Malpais, but when you found one water hole, you usually found another close by. Maybe several. There were no more in the canyon, though; that was the trouble.

  "You shouldn't go out of sight," he said patiently. "I haven't seen any Apache signs, but that doesn't mean anything. They could be around; you never know until you see them."

  She shifted the towel from one hand to another, then tried to hand it back to him. "I guess I don't need a bath," she said, looking him in the face to make sure he caught the sarcasm. '1 smell, probably, but it doesn't matter. There's no one to smell me. You know, if a tree falls in the forest..."

  He gave in, partly out of anger, partly because he didn't want her to suspect him of unseemly motives in insisting that she take a bath in camp.

  "All right," he said. "Have it your way. But pick the first place you come to. And don't go too far. If you can't find a hole within shouting distance, don't bother about a bath at all You're right: you smell, and there's no one around here that cares about it."

  He thought she was going to slap him, but she must have realized at the last minute how senseless it would be. He was only repeating back to her what she had said in the first place. She walked off, and he watched her climb through an opening in the canyon and disappear among the rocks.

  There were a few pifions and plenty of brush around, and he went about gathering dead branches for a fire. Malpais springs were cold, and by the time she got back the air would be cold, too, and she'd need a fire to get warm by. He laid it out in Indian fashion, the sticks fanned out in a half-circle, but didn't light it. Then he slipped the Winchester out of the saddle scabbard and climbed back up the talus slope.

  The ridge was higher than any point around, except for the breasts of the woman and the needle, and he could see in several directions. Nothing moved that mattered. A Hock of pifion jays had discovered something in some low brush and were screaming at it. A buzzard soared listlessly overhead. A lizard came out on a rock and glared at Logan... or seemed to.

  He sat dow
n and rolled a cigarette. This was the best time of day, he thought, with the sun down and a fire laid and the horses cropping peacefully at the grass. The tortures of the day were worth those things alone, without the enticement of gold thrown in. Gold. A man went through more for it than he could ever anticipate, no matter how hard he tried. And a lot of sweat and physical discomfort was the least of it. Seven men had died. More might die. Angela might...

  He stood up. In the fading light he hadn't seen the dust at first. Now it was plain. It drifted up from the rocks about a mile away, and for a moment he hoped it might be a herd of javelinas. But no bunch of wild pigs made that much dust. Apaches did. He picked up the rifle and went down the slope as the horses had done, digging in and letting the sliding talus carry him along.

  The opening out of the canyon was narrow... just a trail between the two high walls... and he kept hoping he'd meet Angela coming back from her bath. One mile. If the Apaches were trailing him, it might take them as much as two hours to get here. If they were just looking for a place to camp, they'd know the canyon and head directly for it, without a lot of sniffing and zigzagging and scouting through the brush. That might give him a half-hour, not much more.

  The trail ran out into the rocks. There was a pool just beyond, and Angela should have been there, and wasn't. He cursed: damn that bitch, she really was frightened of him. He cupped his hands and shouted, but his own voice was all that came back, from several directions. "Angela. Angela. Angela."

  He hurried on, slipping and stumbling through the rocks. There was another pool not a hundred yards past the first one, but she wasn't there, either. It was