Secret of the Malpais

by Ferber, Richard

  *'Por Dios, por Dios,' Old Pablo said, his voice fluttering, and launched into a string of entreaties that were no less heartfelt because he didn't fully understand their meanings. *'Por Dios. Jesus y Maria. Jesus Christe "

  Mule Ears moved again; he merely tried to lift his head... but it was enough to start him sliding. He slid two or three feet and stopped. His head was down hill and every time he lifted it he'd slide a little farther

  and his head would flash red in the sunlight... exactly as his scalp had done. It was uncomfortable to watch, and the squaws made it almost unbearable. They set up a wailing all through the rocks, with one voice rising pitifully above the rest and reaching a wild, frantic pitch whenever Mule Ears made one of his feeble efforts. The wailing went on and on, long after Logan and the squaw had dragged Old Pablo back to his place against the boulder.

  "Bring horse," the old man said as soon as they got him seated again.

  "What?" Logan said, not sure that he understood.

  "Bring horse. Now big agent die, all Apache police die."

  "You can't," Logan said. "That's just what Moon wants. You'll be cut down just as soon as you show your head out of these rocks."

  "No. Bring horse. Kill white dog." He made a useless try to haul himself up.

  Logan pushed him back. He got to his feet and stood looking past the boulder. He had a view of the talus slope and he could see Mule Ears' body. It was still alive, still inching its way purposelessly down through the gravel, and the futility of it was what struck Logan the hardest. Where did he think he was going? Or perhaps he wasn't alive enough to think at all. He reminded Logan of a snake with its head cut off and its body made torpid by the sun, and he couldn't blame Old Pablo for wanting revenge. But there had to be another way to get it. There was one, and he kept trying to avoid recognizing it, and finally he couldn't any longer. He squatted down again.

  "Listen, old man, you were right the first time. If you kill off Moon, you'll get rid of those policemen. They won't have any stomach left for fighting, and

  any reason for it, either. It won't be quite so dark tonight, and..."

  The old chief shook his head. "No good. Who go now? Old Pablo sick. Young Mule Ears dead. Maybeso Aguilo Blanco, maybe not.. .'* "I'll go," Logan said.

  The old man's expression was a mixture of surprise and contempt. "You? You go? You no Apache. You no

  go through rocks like Apache "

  "No, I go like crazy lizard. You remember? You said so yourself. I crawled through your whole bunch, back in that canyon. The Place in the Rocks."

  Old Pablo remembered and smiled faintly, but he still looked doubtful. "Why? Why not you and woman just sneak out, go away?"

  "It's a week to the nearest settlement, maybe farther.

  We'd never make it." ,,

  "Me give horse. Ride horse till horse die. Then eat.^^

  "There's only one way to get a horse out of here,"

  Logan said. "That's through the canyon, right under

  their firing line. No, we've come as far as we're gomg

  to. Besides..."

  The old man waited, still looking uncertam.

  "I promised Moon something," Logan said. "He left us out in the rocks, without food or water. I'd like to pay him off... and I may never get another chance.

  Old Pablo sat thinking on it. The squaws down below were still wailing, and the wailing turned into a high shriek... which meant that Mule Ears had moved again. The old chief cocked his head toward the sound,

  then nodded. .„ j i »

  "Sj. £5 correcto. But long time till dark. "I can wait," Logan said, and must have misunderstood the meaning; the old man motioned to one of the squaws.

  *'Obtene rifle" he said, and the squaw immediately dropped to her knees and crawled down through the opening in the rocks. In a few minutes she was back with a carbine and a handful of cartridges. *'Uno;* he said and shoved one into the slot and worked the lever.

  "Help/* he said to Logan, and Logan finally understood.

  "You ought to let me do that for you," he said. "You shouldn't be moving around. You..."

  "Helpl Ayudrer

  Logan got up and dragged Old Pablo to the edge of the boulder. Down in the canyon the long journey was over, though Mule Ears didn't know it. He had settled at the bottom of the slide and could go no farther, but he kept raising one arm and reaching for something, perhaps just trying to shade his eyes from the sun. Old Pablo leaned back in Logan's arms, leveled the carbine and fired. He'd been right; uno bullet was enough. Mule Ears lifted his head, then seemed to settle farther down in the gravel. A pufE of smoke rose from the far ridge and a split-second later they heard the slug whine past the boulder. But it was a long time before the old man ordered Logan to drag him back to safety.

  The moon was later and paler than it had been the night before. Just enough light to see by, Logan thought, and thought no more about it. No amount of thinking would change his luck, and luck was what he needed most.

  One of the squaws had brought him a pair of moccasins, and they were stiff and he had to struggle to get into them. He could have used a pair of pants, too; his own were in shreds and it would be hard going over the rocks. But the Apaches had no pants. They'd

  taken the soldiers* coats, hats and sabers, but not their trousers.

  He grunted in the darkness and Angela reached out and touched him. She didn't say anything, and he was glad. He let her hand rest on his shoulder, and then after awhile he took it off and got up. Old Pablo was just a shadow against the boulder, and he didn't say anything either. The only sound was the wailing of the squaws below; not as loud now, but just as persistent. It was a mournful noise, and it stayed with him all the way up the side of the canyon. But then the ridge shut it out, and the silence was more mournful yet.

  He went slowly. In a little while he would have to crawl, but now it was only necessary to be careful, to be sure that he wasn't skyJighted. The moccasins were beginning to loosen up, and he could feel each single rock under his feet. That helped. He could move so silently that now and then he startled some animal and sent it rustling noisily through the brush. Even the animal at the water hole didn't raise its head until he was within fifty or sixty feet of it. Then it did, and he saw what it was. The big cat stayed crouched at the edge of the pool for a moment, its eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight; then went gliding off more silently than the mice or woodrats had done.

  El tigre, Logan said to himself. Tigre real. Luck was already running against him, he decided. It was bad enough to be sneaking around in the darkness; now he had to share it with a jaguar. They were nuisances, mostly, but sometimes dangerous. He knelt down to rest and think, and the idea took form slowly. Nuisances. Jaguars liked horses. Maybe the cat didn't mean bad luck after all.

  Ramsey Moon had checked the two guards on the ridge. They were awake, but now he wondered about the third guard. He could see him all right, sitting in front of the big fire down in the meadow, but he hadn't moved for a long time, not even to throw another stick on the blaze. He was asleep probably. Or maybe he was out of wood and afraid to go into the brush for more. Afraid of the cat, damn his yellow Apache soul. If he let the fire go out and the jaguar got in close and bothered the horses, he'd have something worse to be afraid of.

  The Apache got up and threw pinon cones on the fire, and in a few minutes the flames rose so high that Moon could see the markings on the picketed horses. All right. He sat down and spread out the blanket roll and found the bottle. The last one, he thought. Well, tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow maybe Old Pablo would come out of his hole. Watching his son die hadn't done the trick, but those buzzards wouldn't stay up so high forever. They would come down after awhile, they always did, and the old man would have to sit and watch them picking out his son's eyes. If he could stand it.

  He uncorked the bottle and drank twice. He lay down, but after a half hour he hadn't gone to sleep and he sat up again. It was just as well, he thought. He shouldn't sleep; th
ere would be plenty of time for

  sleep later. The guard was hunkered down again, his blanket pulled over his head, and there was no way of telling whether he was awake or not. But the fire was almost out. The horses were no longer visible; there wasn't even a glow from their eyes.

  Moon got to his feet. It was almost a hundred yards down to the meadow, but most of it was straight downhill. He picked up a rock and lobbed it out into the darkness. He heard it hit somewhere in the brush beyond the fire. He picked up another one, and this time the rock hit the fire itself, and it seemed that the embers splashed out at the Apache's feet. But he didn't move. Moon sent the third one directly at him, and it struck him high on the shoulder, and still he didn't seem to move. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, he tipped over.

  Moon ignored the winding trail and clambered down the slope. The guard was lying on his side, with his rifle under him. Moon rolled him over, saw nothing, rolled him on his side again and saw the hole in the blanket. He straightened up, snatched out the Colt and stared into the darkness.

  There was no sound out there. But that didn't mean anything. Whoever had slipped the knife into the guard's back had done his work silently, and not too long ago; the blood hadn't even oozed into the blanket yet. He stood listening, hearing nothing, seeing nothing ... until it dawned on him at last that the horses were gone.

  He used the trail this time... climbing it slowly and looking back... and calling to the Apaches as he went. They were all out of their blankets and waiting for him by the time he got to the top of the ridge.

  "Horses," he said. "Horses, ya no hay mas. All gone."

  They grunted, and he could see them getting ready

  in the darkness... getting their ropes and rawhide halters... and he hesitated. The horses wouldn't go far. Somebody had chased them out of the meadow, he was sure of that, but they'd pull up again at the first water or the first stand of good grass. Two men could catch them easily, he decided. Then he remembered the jaguar. That damned cat had probably left its smell all through the rocks, and the smell alone was enough to send the whole horse herd scattering. Rounding them up would take all night, and almost every man he had. Well, there was no help for it. And no harm in it, either. He'd keep the two guards, and that would be plenty. More than plenty. Whatever Apache old Pablo had sent this time had been smarter than Mule Ears, but he wasn't going to come out any better for it in the end. Not if he was fool enough to stay around.

  "Marcha pronto, pronto," he said, and they filed off into the darkness below. He heard them going through the brush, but then he heard nothing more; the silence settled back around him. He went to his bedroll and found the bottle and took a long pull from it. He held the bottle in one hand and took out the Colt with the other and rolled the cylinder against his arm to make sure that everything was working properly. Everything was. He put it back, sliding it in and out of the holster several times, and took another drink. Then he decided to check the two guards on the ridge again. It was impossible that they could be asleep now; they must have heard him yelling. But it was strange, too, that they hadn't come running in to see what the ruckus was about. Or at least shouted a question or two. Well... The first one was dead. He knew that before he even saw the body. He had left the guard sitting on a rock with his back to a stunted piiion and a broad view of

  the moonlit valley, and now there was no sign of him. Except that when he got closer he saw the foot sticking in the air, and he went around the rock and found that somebody had pulled the guard down and driven a knife twice into his chest. He pulled out the Colt and cocked it, and the sound seemed as loud as the crack of a rifle. He whirled and looked along the ridge, and for a minute he couldn't make out the figure of the second guard. But when he walked closer the shadows gave way and he could see the huddled figure. Sleeping like a babe, he thought. The son of a bitch.

  The...

  "Bastardo, Hijo de puta, listed bastardo/'^ There was no answer, no slow sheepish lifting of the head, and for a moment he thought that this Apache was dead too. But that was impossible, he told himself. If he were dead, he couldn't sit up that way. He went a step closer, trying to see the face half-hidden by the shadows. He lifted one corner of the blanket, and this time the figure moved. *'Bastardo. .. /'

  Moon tried to step back, but too late. Logan thrust the knife square in the broad belly and Moon went stumbling back instead. He lost his grip on the Colt. It fell clattering among the rocks somewhere. He turned to look for it and sat down with a jar. He stayed there for a long time, not saying anything, only his white hair visible in the darkness. And when he finally spoke his voice sounded weak and far away.

  "Logan?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought it was you. I should have known, I should have killed you when I had the chance. I may yet."

  Logan didn't answer. He stayed where he was, watching the white hair, waiting for the rest of Moon to take shape under it.

  "Listen, Logan. You've got to finish the job."

  "It's finished."

  "No. I've had worse. You should have sunk that knife to the hilt. Now you're going to have to do it all over again. You're going to have to come over here, and you're going to have to be careful, because if you aren't... I'll kill you, Logan."

  It had all the symptoms of an idle threat. The knife had gone far deeper than Moon had let on, and he was probably sitting there now bleeding to death, bleeding faster than he could talk. Still, Logan hesitated. Those

  days without food had taken the strength out of him. He'd be a fool to go in close, where Moon could get hold of him. He remembered the Apache's rifle and started to turn; Moon's voice stopped him.

  "I know what you thinking. That guard had a carbine. Well, you've got your choice. You can come in here and hope you strike pay dirt the first time, because if you don't... Or you can shoot me from thirty feet away, nice and safe, and hope that you can outrun my men. They'll hear the shot and come swarming back like wolves, but you might make it. You might be healthier than I figure on."

  Logan couldn't help looking out into the darkness, weighing the choices in his mind. There was a third choice that Moon hadn't even mentioned... he could go off, hoping that the one knife thrust had been enough ... but it wasn't worth considering. He couldn't do it. You didn't leave a wounded animal to die. That left him right back where he had begun, and he stared out into the darkness some more. Then he made up his mind. He turned and started along the edge of the cliff toward the place where he'd dragged the Apache's body. The rock struck him on the neck. It stunned him, and he kept staggering forward, trying to keep his feet. But finally all he could do was put out his hands to break the fall.

  He lay with his face against the ground, his brain clearing gradually, sounds coming through just faintly to him. He could hear Moon making his way through the rocks. He was coming slowly, grunting and wheezing hard. Logan tighted his hand on the knife. He waited until the wheezing seemed just above him, then turned over and lunged.

  Moon stepped back, and laughed hoarsely. "Not this time, sport," he said. "Not twice. I'm going to crush

  your skull, and then..."

  He circled a little to his left, putting himself between Logan and the splinter of a moon, and Logan could see the rock in his hand.

  "... and then I'm going to peel your scalp back and drop you down there with Mule Ears. You'll wish..."

  Logan started to get up, and Moon circled to his left a little more.

  "... you'll wish ... you'll wish ..."

  He didn't finish. The words just hung there, and he hung there with them for a moment. Then he let go of the rock and his arms began to beat the air, and he looked like some grotesque bird trying to fly.

  But he couldn't. He said, "Oh, my God," tilted back still flailing, and dropped off into the darkness.

  Logan sat for awhile thinking of nothing; then he moved carefully to the edge of the cliff. It was closer than it had seemed; closer than it had seemed to Moon, apparently. His body lay spra
wled on the slope of the talus, and once or twice Logan thought he saw it move. But he couldn't be sure, and finally he put it down to the darkness. The darkness could play tricks on a man's eyes.

  They never saw the Apache police again. They waited until the sun had climbed five fingers into the sky and then a couple of Old Pablo's bucks walked out onto the floor of the canyon and nothing happened. They were all gone. "Desaparecieron/* Old Pablo said, "like mice."

  It took them only another hour to break camp. They collected their scattered belongings, loaded up their pack animals, hoisted Old Pablo onto the back of his favorite pony. They weren't taking their dead with them. They had buried Mule Ears and the two squaws.

  along with Jeffrey, under hastily built piles of rock.

  "Pretty soon more sojer come," Old Pablo said to Logan. "Old Pablo run like rabbit now. Fight no more. Go to Mexico and live happy ever after. Si?'*

  **Si/* Logan said, and tighted his grip on the rawhide rein he was holding. The old man had given them two horses and a pack pony, and he was looking at them fondly now. He smiled and showed his white teeth.

  "Good horses. You take good care. By-'n-by may-beso Old Pablo steal them back again."

  "I'll watch for you," Logan said, and raised his hand. "Good luck."

  "Buena suerte" Old Pablo said. Some of the squaws were still working on Moon's body and he called to them to fall in. Then he rode off slowly, holding his belly with one hand, and the little band of Apaches went straggling after him, down the canyon. In five minutes they were out of sight, and in five minutes more even their dust was gone.