Last Stand at Papago Wells (1957)

by L'amour, Louis

  The thought came to him suddenly, and he tried to dismiss it, but it returned to his mind. Well, why not? It was doubtful that more than two or three Apaches would be on watch. They would be sure by now that none of the party would make a break.

  But how to get the horses out? He considered that, dismissing as impossible all ways but one. A man would have to go down the draw, make an opening in that wall of brush and get out that way. It could be done. From Yuma they could send help, and in the meantime they would be on their way to San Francisco.

  Kimbrough looked at the dark brown coffee, swirling it in his cup. He had only seventy dollars in his pocket, and it was not enough. Of course, if he could get in a game in Yuma—and they could sell their horses.

  He glanced at the place where Jennifer slept. Would she go? She’d be a fool not to, and the chance they took would be slight. Still, if there was one more man … he thought of Zimmerman, then dismissed it. He did not like the big, overbearing soldier; he was a dangerous man.

  Webb was another story … or Conley. But Conley leaned toward Cates and might not go. Cates … where was Logan Cates?

  Kimbrough came suddenly to his feet. Cates was gone. He had not seen the man for hours. Hastily, Kimbrough went from bundle to bundle, checking. All there but those on guard, and Cates.

  He had given them the slip—he was gone. Instantly, Kimbrough felt a sharp anger. Cates had gone and left them behind! What kind of a man was that? Hearing a crunch of a boot on the sand, Kimbrough turned sharply. It was Sergeant Sheehan.

  “Cates is gone, Sergeant,” Kimbrough said, “he pulled out and left us.”

  Sheehan’s head came up sharply. “I don’t believe it!”

  “Nevertheless, he’s gone. Look and see for yourself.”

  “Nonsense, man! He wouldn’t—”

  Kimbrough laughed without humor. “Nonetheless, he’s gone. And if we’re smart, we’ll all go. We can make it. I think we could make Yuma, all right, and I don’t believe there are so many Indians out there. If we put a bold face on it, run for it—”

  Sergeant Sheehan measured Kimbrough coolly. “Mister, you’re forgetting something. We have fourteen people here, and just eight horses.”

  Grant Kimbrough started to speak, then stopped. Slowly, the excitement went out of him. Fourteen people and eight horses. “But one of those horses is mine,” he said.

  Sheehan nodded shortly. “That it is,” he said, and turning abruptly, he walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  Webb was standing close behind him when Kimbrough turned around. Webb was a man of thirty, burned red by the sun. “We’re fools,” Webb was saying, “pure damn fools! I say we ought to take the horses and run for it. If the others want to stay, let ‘em. They can have it.”

  “We couldn’t do that,” Kimbrough said, but his words carried no conviction, no force. He had been thinking of doing just what Webb suggested, for he did not want to die, nor did he want to remain here in the heat with no bath, no chance to shave, no change of clothing. It was no way for a gentleman to live. He wanted to take Jennifer and get out—fast.

  Webb would be the man to help. He was not dangerous as Zimmerman was, but a follower, a man who would never act by himself. “No,” Kimbrough repeated, “it wouldn’t be right.”

  “I’d rather be a live coward,” Webb replied shortly.

  Coward. The word stiffened Kimbrough, shocked him. Immediately he began to reason. It would not be cowardice for he had never wanted to stay, but to ride on, and to ride on might be more dangerous than staying. And he had nothing in common with these people, nor did he wish to have. He had allowed himself to be persuaded and now he would merely resume his original course. It was simple as that.

  “What about it?” Webb persisted. He stepped closer to Kimbrough, and the gambler started to draw back in distaste, then held himself. “Why shouldn’t we go?” Webb insisted. “There’d be more food and water for the others.”

  Kimbrough turned away. “Later,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  He walked swiftly away to the fire, which was the focal point of all their living these days. Men came and went from the fire for it was the center of their lives, of their being. They drank coffee, even if it was now more than half mesquite bean coffee, they drank coffee and sat, for there was nothing else to do.

  The sky was growing pale now, pale lemon and gray, and the rocks were black, the red rock of the lava and the black rock of other flows. Soon the sun would rise and it would be hot, it would be open and clear and everyone would be visible, and there would be no chance for escape.

  Still no sign of Cates.

  Jennifer stirred under her blanket, then sat up, brushing her hair back. Even now, after these brutal days in the desert, she still looked lovely, still seemed fresh. A bit drawn, but still beautiful.

  “He’s gone,” Kimbrough said, “Cates is gone.”

  “Gone?” She looked at him, trying to realize what the word meant. “Cates? No.”

  “He’s gone, I tell you. You’ll see.” Suddenly he was speaking with almost savage triumph. “He talked so much about staying, about sitting tight. Then he took off himself, without so much as a word.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Jennifer was suddenly on her feet. “He wouldn’t do a thing like that. He’s no coward.”

  Coward. That word again. Grant Kimbrough stared at her, almost with animosity. “Maybe he’s just smart. That’s what we all should have done.”

  “He hasn’t gone,” Jennifer was suddenly sure. “Logan Cates would not leave us, I know he would not. He isn’t that kind of man.”

  Big Maria was sitting up. She stared around her, then hunched herself to her feet. She was very heavy and she had made no effort to comb her hair or straighten her clothing. Her eyes seemed to have grown harder, and they looked from Jennifer to Kimbrough and then up at the rocks.

  They were all coming around now. Junie was brushing her hair back into place, trying with ineffectual hands to brush her dress into some semblance of shape.

  “Cates is gone,” Kimbrough said again.

  Junie looked her contempt and walked away from the group.

  Jim Beaupre picked up the battered coffee pot. “He was gone, all right, but now he’s back.”

  They all looked at him, and Beaupre took his time. “He’s back with enough sheep to keep us all eating a couple of days … if we go easy.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Kimbrough said, “he’s gone and that’s what we all should do—leave.”

  There was a stir on the edge of the group. They parted to see him standing there, with the blood of the Indian he had killed staining his shoulder and shirt and a thin red scratch along his cheek from the knife blade. He did not know it was there, had not felt it when it happened to him.

  He dropped the skin packed with chunks of meat and said, “I’m not gone and nobody’s going. The one chance we’ve got is to stay right here.”

  “Maybe,” Kimbrough’s anger suddenly flared, “maybe I’ll go whether you like it or not.”

  Cates merely looked at him. “All right,” he said, “go ahead. Go any time you like, but you’ll have to walk.”

  Kimbrough had started to turn away, then wheeled back. “Walk?” He took an angry step toward Cates. “I’ll be damned if I’ll—Why should I walk? I’ll ride the horse I came with.”

  “You’d deserve him,” Cates replied coolly. “That horse won’t make it to Yuma … but he’ll make it part way, so you’re not taking him. He’s community property now.”

  Grant Kimbrough stood very still, his hands at his sides. There was one thing Cates did not know, that he, Kimbrough, was a fast man with a gun, probably one of the very fastest. Kimbrough was thinking of that now. He knew he could kill Cates and knew this was as good a time as any.

  “You’d try to take my horse from me?” he asked.

  “All the horses here, mine included,” Cates replied, “now belong to the group until we get out of here. The strong must walk
, the weak will ride, and at least one horse must be kept for carrying water alone. No man or woman has a right to a horse of his or her own now.”

  “We didn’t agree to that,” Taylor objected.

  “I’m sorry,” Cates replied, “but it’s necessary.” He gestured toward the meat, changing the subject. “We’d best cook that. It won’t keep in this heat.”

  Abruptly he walked away. His weariness hit him suddenly and when he found a shady spot he sat down heavily. With an effort he managed to get his boots off, and, lying down, was asleep at once.

  “Takes a lot on himself, doesn’t he?” Webb muttered.

  Grant Kimbrough did not reply, but he was filled with impotent anger. Their only hope lay in flight, and if he had not crossed the desert to the west he was sure that a man on a good horse could make Yuma in no time. Without the drag of those who must walk, and those other women, they could make it through on fast horses.

  Getting out of the cul-de-sac that was their defensive position was the big thing. Once away they could run for it, and Webb was ready to go. So he would plan it that way, prepare Jennifer to be ready for the break, and when opportunity came they would ride out. If Cates objected, Kimbrough would kill him. He had, he realized, been giving the contingency a lot of thought these past two days. The first thing was to talk to Jennifer. She would, he was sure, be only too anxious to go.

  Logan Cates awakened with a start. He was bathed in perspiration and for a moment he did not know where he was. A blanket had been stretched from the rock to the ground forming a crude shelter that allowed shade and some air circulation. He sat up, and listened … there was a crackle from the fire, a distant murmur of voices, the sound of someone stirring about close by.

  He checked his pistols. These actions, the moment of listening to judge what was happening around him, the checking of the guns, all were second nature to him now. When he slid out from behind the blanket curtain he resumed the boots that he had immediately put on again after returning from his midnight foray.

  Jennifer was at the fire. “You slept a long time,” she said. “It’s noon.”

  “Anything happen?”

  “Styles is dead.”

  “He’s better off, but it’s a hard thing to die here.”

  “Why did you go out last night? You might have been killed.”

  “We needed meat.”

  “What happened out there?”

  “Met an Apache whose luck had run out.”

  Big Maria had moved herself closer to the rocks, near the place where Cates had seen her disappear that night. She kept a gun close to her at all times, and before Cates had finished his coffee he could see by her actions that she was suspicious and ready for trouble.

  He must talk to Lonnie Foreman. The boy was solid, he had nerve, and he was a stayer. He could count on Foreman, probably Sheehan. Who else? Junie Hatchett, with perhaps Beaupre and Lugo. Conley was another question but he seemed to be a solid citizen. As to Jennifer …

  Lugo was at the fire, gnawing on a mutton bone. He glanced up at Cates and his eyes went to the bloody shirt. It was like the Pima that he made no comment, asked no questions. The bloody shirt spoke for itself, and the Indian is not one to talk of the obvious or of needless things. Lugo knew there had been a fight out there in the dark, the fact that Logan Cates had returned and that the blood was not his own was sufficient evidence as to the outcome.

  “Who’s with the horses?” Cates asked.

  “Kimbrough,” Lugo said. “He watch horses.”

  Logan Cates considered that but saw nothing in it that was dangerous. It was true that Kimbrough had always held a position in the rocks or in the brush along the edge of the arroyo, but there were no assigned positions, and a man could choose his own.

  “Is he alone?”

  “A soldier is with him.”

  Lonnie Foreman was hunched in the shade talking to Junie. He was stripped to the waist and Junie was mending a rent in his shirt. Beaupre and Zimmerman were digging a grave for Styles in the lower arroyo not far from where the horses were. Webb paced restlessly; Kimbrough was busy with his own thoughts. Logan Cates picked up his Winchester, checked the load and then climbed up in the rocks, noting the water level as he went by. Although the water had fallen considerably since their arrival, there was still enough … if they did not stay too long.

  Conley was on watch in the rocks. “Nothin’,” he said, “just nothin’ at all. I never seen so much of nothin’.”

  Heat waves shimmered and the buzzards, high against the brassy sky, described long, loose circles. Nothing else moved. Cates sat down on a rock and mopped the sweat from his face. His clothing smelled of stale sweat and dust and his eyes were tired of the endless glare of sun on sand and rock. He laid the Winchester across his knees and swore softly.

  “My sentiments,” Conley said. “I can’t figure why I ever come to this country. My folks had them a good farm back in Kentucky. Right nice place … used to be parties or dances every Saturday night, and folks come from miles around. Now here I am stuck in a rocky desert with every chance I’ll lose my hair. Why does a body come to this country?”

  Cates took out the makings and began to build a cigarette. Sweat got in his eyes and they smarted. “You got me, soldier, but you stay a while and it grows on you.”

  “Not on me. If I get out of this fix I’m takin’ off. I’m goin’ to those gold fields and find myself a job. I know a fellow in Grass Valley … Ever hear a nicer name? Grass Valley. Makes a man think of cool, green meadows an’ streams. Maybe it ain’t like that, but I’d sure like to give it a try.”

  Logan Cates lifted the cigarette to touch the edge of the paper to his tongue when he saw the movement. He dropped the cigarette and swung the Winchester. All he saw was a flickering movement and Conley’s body jerked sharply. He turned half around as if to speak to Cates, then fell, tumbling over and over among the rocks as Cates’s own shot followed the sound of the shot that killed Conley.

  Cates fired and saw his bullet kick sand. He fired again, into the brush, then tried a shot at a shelf of rock hoping for a ricochet into the concealed position from which the Indian had fired.

  Ofl the instant, all were alert. Beaupre had run forward, lifting Conley from the rocks as if he were a child. It was no use; the soldier was dead. Two gone. Styles and Conley. How many were to go? Out there again the desert was a silent place, a haunted place.

  Zimmerman mopped his face and peered into the brush. When he lifted his hand to brush away the sweat it was trembling. The death of Conley had shocked them all. It had come so suddenly, and that attractive, pleasant young soldier was smashed suddenly from existence. It was proof enough, if proof was needed, that their every move was watched, that the Apaches had made a tight cordon around them, watching, waiting.

  Suddenly the desert had become a place of menace; its very silence was evil, its heat was a threat. The sinking level of the water was obvious to them all, their food was growing less, and the forage for the horses was all but a thing of the past. The horses had eaten the grass down to the roots, sparse as it had been, they had eaten the leaves and the mesquite beans.

  The faces of the men were taut, sullen, and frightened, as they waited in place, staring at the blinding glare of the sun-blasted sand and waiting for a target that never appeared.

  Even Sergeant Sheehan was feeling the pressure. He looked drawn and old now, and his square shoulders sagged a little. “They’ll get us all, Cates,” he said. “We’re whipped.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Logan Cates searched the empty desert with his red-rimmed eyes. Nowhere was a sound or a movement. The sun seemed to have spread over the entire sky, and there was no shade. The parched leaves of the mesquite hung lifeless and still, and even the buzzards that hung in the brassy vault above them seemed motionless.

  The rocks were blistering to the touch, the jagged lava boulders lay like huge clinkers in the glowing ashes of a burned-down fire. The heat waves drew a veil
across the distance. Cates opened his shirt another button and mopped his face with his bandanna. He shifted the rifle in his sweaty hands, and searched the desert for something at which to shoot.

  Lonnie Foreman crawled up in the rocks and seating himself, took a healthy pull at his canteen, then passed it to Cates. The water tasted flat and dull, lukewarm from the canteen.

  “It’s awful down there.” Foreman gestured toward the deeper arroyo where the horses were held. “Like an oven.”

  “They can cover the horses from up higher. Tell Lonnie to come on up.”

  Foreman slid off the rocks and when he stood up on the main level he walked slowly away, his boots grating on the rock. He walked past the narrow shelf of shade under which the three women sat. Nobody cared about the fire, nobody wanted coffee. Despite the shortage of food, nobody was even hungry.

  Cates watched the men retreat to the higher level. They could watch the horses as well from there, and the defensive position was better. He was afraid of that corral now … he could not say why, but it seemed the most vulnerable, and the Apaches would want what horses they could get, either to ride or eat. Pulling the defenders back meant his line of defense was tighter, more compact, better sheltered.

  Nothing stirred out there. Now that the men had been pulled back he could hear their conversation. Cates sat quietly among the rocks, ready for anything. Evidently the Apaches had observed the construction of the corral when it was first built, for no attempt had been made to stampede the horses, nor for some time had any effort been made to kill them, so evidently they believed they would have them all before many days had passed.

  Nothing moved. From down by the waterhole someone was swearing in a heavy, monotonous voice. A fly buzzed near and lighted on Cates’s face. He brushed it with an irritable hand and a bullet spat fragments of granite in his face as the sound went echoing down the hills.

  He hunched lower, and, peering between the rocks, tried to find a target. He glanced down to see Zimmerman squatting near Big Maria, whispering. The big woman’s face was lowered and Cates could not discern what effect the words were having, if any. They had drawn apart from the others. It was very hot, and very still.