Last Stand at Papago Wells (1957)

by L'amour, Louis

  They waited, and then they saw it, they all saw it, and they saw it at once. It was miles away, it was well up the mountainside, and it was definitely a fire.

  “Who would want a fire that big?” Lonnie wondered.

  “It doesn’t have to be big,” Cates told them. “On a night like this if it’s high enough, a man can see a campfire for miles. They may be more than ten miles off; fact is, they are closer to fifteen.”

  “It’s white man’s fire,” Lugo said. “No Indian build big fire.”

  “So,” Taylor said, “what good does it do us?”

  “If they can build a fire that we can see,” Cates said, “we can build one they can see. Only we’ve got to build up on the rocks.”

  “Anybody going near it will be a target,” Taylor objected.

  “We can feed it from below. We can poke sticks into it while staying out of sight. We can build the fire on that flat rock.” He indicated a rock right behind where the man on watch always stood. “And I’ll build it. Rustle wood, all of you.”

  There were a few sticks left where the fire had been and he gathered them up and carried them to the rock. It was the highest rock around, and it was shoulder-high to a standing man where one stood. Gathering the sticks he hurried back, placed them in order, and then with some crumpled leaves, a piece of cloth torn from his shirttail and some smaller sticks, he got the fire going. Then, reaching up from a crouching position, they added sticks to the fire.

  The flames crept along the sticks, crackled and took hold. The flames leaped up, and each one vied with the others in running to carry wood to the fire. Soon a great, roaring flame lifted into the sky. Sparks climbed and mounted like floating stars high into the sky. Under the brush there was more wood, old dried and gnarled sticks, blackened by sun and exposure. These were added to the flames.

  Suddenly a shot struck the rock where the fire was burning and ricocheted wickedly across the clearing. A burst of firing followed, but they huddled under the rocks and waited. Then they crept out and began gathering more sticks. Lonnie ventured down into the arroyo and returned with a load of big sticks thicker than a man’s arm.

  Suddenly, Cates was astonished to see Maria come up, bearing an armful of wood. She dropped it, then went back for more. Suddenly, as she was walking back with wood, she looked around at Jennifer. “Jen,” she said, “I think they will come for us.”

  Her voice was strangely soft, and Jennifer glanced wonderingly at Logan Cates.

  They worked busily, and despite the shooting, kept the fire going. Logan got his Winchester and began to shoot back at the muzzle blasts from the brush. Once when he fired they heard a scream from the brush, and after that, silence.

  The fire soared, building its gold and orange flames into a red-line spire against the dark sky. The clearing was lighted like day and the firing continued.

  Far and away the distant fire winked against the mountainside. Was it a friendly fire? Across the distance it seemed like a beacon that spoke of home, of friends, of escape for them, but the fire told them nothing more. Had their own fire been seen? Or did anybody care?

  The shots were fired from close up now, and soon once more the defenders scattered around the perimeter, firing back into the darkness.

  “Keep it up,” Cates told Lugo. “If they don’t see the fire, they may hear the shooting. This air is very clear.”

  Yet it was a forlorn hope, all of it was. And in the morning there would be fighting. It was in the cold, lonely hours before dawn that the fire at last died down. To a man they were dog-tired and beaten, and the day was still to come.

  “They’ll be afraid,” Cates told them, “that somebody saw our signal. In the morning, come daylight, there will be Indians.”

  Suddenly Big Maria screamed. It was a hoarse, choaking scream. They turned swiftly to look, and Zimmerman was backing away from them, and he had the saddlebags. In his hand he held a big Colt. He was grinning.

  “Wherever that fire is,” he said, “there’s people. And where people are, that’s where I want to be.”

  “Give her back the gold,” Cates told him. His face was suddenly icy. “Drop it, Zimmerman, and get away from it.”

  “Like hell!” Zimmerman was backing toward the horses, and now they saw that one of them was saddled. “You stay if you want to. I’m ridin’ out!”

  He was watching Cates and grinning, and his Colt was right on Cates’s belt line. He was watching Cates and the others as he backed away, and there was in his mind no other thing than the fact that he had the gold, that he would take a horse.

  Cates watched him and waited for the break he was sure would come. But Zimmerman was much too careful. He had kicked Maria’s shotgun out of the way, and they all knew he would kill. Still facing them, he stepped into the stirrup and swung into the saddle. He remembered them, he gave them no chance at all, but he forgot to keep his head down. Even as the horse gave the first jump there was a shot from somewhere out beyond the rocks and Zimmerman stiffened with shock. The horse made it over the rocks into the sand as Zimmerman toppled from the saddle, his foot caught in the stirrup.

  For a few yards the horse dragged him, then the hastily cinched saddle slipped and the horse stopped, the fallen man’s foot still caught in the stirrup of the saddle which had slipped sidewise.

  Taylor rushed to the rocks. “The gold! We’ve got to get that gold!”

  “To hell with the gold,” Cates said. “We need the horse.”

  Taylor started through the rocks. “Come back, you fool!” Cates yelled at him. “They’ll get you, too!”

  Taylor was beyond thinking. He hesitated only an instant, then sprang in the open. He ran down the slight incline through the sand and rushed up to the standing horse. The animal shied a little, but Taylor dropped on his knees in the sand and began tearing at the saddlebags.

  Cates, Kimbrough and Lonnie watched to cover him with rifle fire if any attempt was made to reach him. Lugo watched from the opposite side, and Junie stood close beside him, holding Beaupre’s rifle.

  Taylor was frantic. He jerked the saddlebags free; then instead of trying to return, he ripped loose the girth and sprang bareback on the horse. Booting it in the ribs, he started off.

  “The damn fool!” Cates stood back wearily. “He’s trying to get away!”

  The horse was running like a frightened rabbit, and Kimbrough swore softly. “He’s going to make it, too! He’s getting away!”

  In the open desert the horse was running beautifully, when they heard the shots. Not one or two shots, but a ragged volley. Taylor was swept from the saddle as if by a mighty blow. He hit the sand, slid a few feet, then stopped. Suddenly he was on his feet, and, still holding the sacks, he started to run, and this time he ran back toward them while the horse, holding his head high, ran in a small circle and stopped, looking back.

  Taylor was running desperately. Now that he was too far away he seemed bent only on getting back to the circle of rocks at Papago Wells.

  “He’s going to make it!” Lonnie said.

  “No.” Logan Cates shook his head. “He hasn’t a chance. They’re letting him come. Churupati is just having fun.” Jennifer stared at him, shocked. “It’s true,” Cates said, “he hasn’t a chance.”

  Yet Taylor ran on. He seemed inexhaustible. He ran to the very foot of the slight slope until he was almost close enough for them to see his features. Then he stumbled and fell in the soft sand. He staggered to his feet, then stared down. The saddlebags had come open and had spilled out nothing but sand and fragments of rock!

  Taylor seemed frozen. He stared, unwilling to believe what his eyes told him. Then he turned his head and looked up at the wall of rocks, standing very still.

  Suddenly frantic with unbelief, he picked up the other saddlebag and ripped it open, emptying it out, and nothing came but fragments of lava rock and a little sand. He seemed to come to himself with a start, and for the first time he realized that he was standing still, out in the open, that there w
as nobody anywhere around and that shelter was all of sixty yards away.

  He dropped the useless saddlebags and started to run. It was a clumsy run now, but he ran, and from the rocks they could see his face straining with the effort he was making. He ran up the slope, seemed almost about to make it, and then there were three quick shots and he pulled up stiffly, turned halfway around and fell back, rolling over and over to the bottom of the slight slope.

  Big Maria pointed her finger and screamed with wild, hysterical laughter. “The fool! You’re all fools! Look!” She ran to the rocks and hauled from them the strip of canvas ground sheet that had covered her bedroll when she rode in. “Did they think I was crazy? I switched the gold, and the fools were killing themselves over a sack of old rocks!” She went off into screams of wild laughter.

  Jennifer stared at Maria, appalled. Cates took her arm and turned her away. “She’s insane,” he said, “she’s completely insane.”

  Lugo fired suddenly and they heard the flat, ugly impact of the bullets. He waited a moment, then fired another shot, holding a little lower. The bush moved as though tugged by hands, then was still. The wind stirred the sand along the ground, and that was all.

  “Logan,” Jennifer whispered, “I think I see some dust … it’s still very far off.”

  They looked. Was it the dust of riders or a tiny whirlwind, the dust-devil of the desert? Or was it a trick of the dancing heat waves? They stared until their eyes tired from the strain and they saw nothing more, nothing more at all.

  Suddenly the shooting began again. Shots kicked up sand and ricocheted from the rocks. Cates ducked from point to point, trying a shot wherever movement showed or cover offered. It was like fighting shadows, yet they knew that the Apaches, if they managed to get into their small circle of defense, would wipe them out. A sudden rush could overwhelm the defenders and their only hope was to send searching fire into every possible cover and stop such an attack before it began.

  Yet the firing slackened, and seemed less than before, and at the end only one or two rifles were working, and no arrows came at all. Then silence.

  In the silence that followed the thunder of rifle fire, Grant Kimbrough looked into a desert as empty as his own hopes. All his plans were destroyed. Jennifer was a beautiful girl and a wealthy one, a girl he could admire and a girl of whom he could be proud, yet suddenly she was lost to him, and without doubt it was Cates who was responsible.

  Nothing awaited him but more gambling, the endless round of smoky saloons crowded with sweaty, whiskered, hard-pushing men, and ever and always the chance that some day he would draw a gun too slowly. Yet he had never drawn too slowly so far, and now it might be all there was left.

  He considered that. The small party had dwindled until only a handful were left, and on the ground behind them lay nearly seventy thousand dollars in gold, a small fortune to a man who could go to San Francisco and invest it wisely. A small fortune that could grow into a great fortune. Nothing moved out there in the desert over which he looked.

  Cates. Logan Cates was the trouble. Had it not been for him Jennifer and he might have gone on to Yuma. With Cates out of the way the entire situation might change. There was still time to talk to Jennifer, and the kids didn’t matter. There was Lugo, but nobody paid any attention to an Indian, and Maria—if she was not insane now she was verging on it. Besides, this wasn’t over and it would be only too easy for one or more of them to die before it was over.

  The fire last night might mean something and might not, but one thing he did know—there were fewer Indians out there than there had been. He was sure he had killed at least one during the last burst of fire, and only a few shots had been fired from his side of the circle.

  Cover was not too plentiful out there, not so much that a man could not see most of the places where attackers might be, and over the days a lot of firing had been done. At times the execution must have been frightful.

  There comes a time in the life of each man when he must make a decision. Grant Kimbrough had made one such decision when he sold out and left his home after the war. He had made another when he gave up his trip to San Francisco and went home with Jennifer Fair. He had another one to make now: behind him on the sand was a small fortune. Behind him was a girl he wanted, but whether he got her or not, the gold was there. And all that stood in his way was the load carried by his six-shooter.

  It was murder, but he had killed before this. What of the men who died during the war, and those Indians who died here? Suppose, just suppose nobody was left alive but himself? It could easily happen. For that matter they might all be killed, himself included. And if only one or two were left, well, who was to say how they died?

  He stared bleakly at the sand. He had come a long way since the old days. He shied away from the memory of his father. He could see the old man now. If his father had ever believed his son capable of what he now considered his father would have killed him himself. Yet his father had never been in such a position; all that lay between himself and a bleak future was a few pistol bullets.

  The silence held. Nothing moved out there, not even a dust devil. The sky was an odd color, somewhere far off dust was blowing. It had changed to a weird yellow, like nothing he had ever seen, and the sky overhead seemed somehow higher, vaster, emptier. Like a great hollow globe of that vast yellow.

  Behind him he heard Logan Cates say, “Sand storm coming, and a bad one.”

  A sand storm … sand that buried tracks, buried people, wiped out the trails into the past and only left open the new trails, the one that led on from this place.

  There was time. Kimbrough would wait a little longer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  And so the sun shone … and there seemed no end to its shining, but now the high dust carried by the winds above the mountains obscured the sun but took away no heat. It lay heavy upon the land, and although the heat waves were gone and the yellow pall covered the higher heavens, there was silence everywhere.

  No birds flew … no lizard moved upon the ground … no quail called from the distant trees, for there was silence, and only silence.

  There is upon the great sand wastes no more terrible thing than a sand storm … the driving grains of sand wipe out the earth and sky, obscure the horizons, and close one in a tight and lonely world no more than a few feet square. Until one has experienced a sand storm upon the desert one cannot know horror; until one has felt the lashing whips of sand one cannot know agony; and until one has felt that heat, that terror, that feeling that all the world has gone wrong, one has not known hell.

  The birds cease to fly, the tiny animals, even the insects hunt their hidden places. Horses roll their eyes, wild with terror, and men find places to hide from the stifling dust. Yet it is not the wind, nor the sand, nor the heat alone, it is the terror, the frantic choking, the gasping, the struggle and the cowering fear brought on in part by the quivering electricity in the air, the unbearable tension, the loss of all perspective. Our senses are fragile things, dainty things, occasionally trustworthy, yet always demanding of perspective. Our senses need horizons, they need gauges, they need rules by which to apply themselves, and in the sand storm there is no horizon and there are no rules. There is no near or far, no high or low, no cold or warm, there is only that moving wall of wind that roars out of distance, screaming insanely, screaming and roaring. And with it the uncounted trillions of lashing sand bits. One moves at the bottom of a moving sea, a literal sea of sand, whose surface is somewhere high above in the great vault of the heavens, and one dies choking, crawling on the hands and knees, choking with sand, choking with wind, choking with the effort to breathe.

  Such a storm was coming now.

  Logan Cates knew it was coming. He felt electricity in the air prickle the hair on the back of his neck, he saw the sky weirdly lit, and he knew the storm was coming. The horses tugged and pulled, anxious to run, yet there was nowhere to run, nowhere to go.

  Jennifer stared at him, wide-eyed and frighten
ed. “What is it, Logan? What’s happening? What’s wrong? There’s something strange.”

  “It’s the storm.” Cates turned swiftly. “Lonnie, Kimbrough, fill all the canteens, and make it fast. Lugo, hobble the horses, and get them down into the bottom.”

  “What about the Indians?” Junie asked.

  “Don’t think about them. They’ll be having troubles of their own. Hurry!”

  They worked swiftly, driven by a sort of panic, feeling the strange, vast stillness, feeling like tiny things at the bottom of a huge bowl. Of them all, only Cates and Lugo knew what they faced, and there is no worse thing than a sand storm in a desert of loose sand.

  Vast dunes of it lay to the south of them, and there were dunes to the west and north, and some to the east, vast quantities of loose sand awaiting the hand of the wind. Cates led the horses into the bottom of the arroyo, working with the Pima. Feverishly the others worked, filling the canteens. Maria sat stolidly, seemingly unaware … and at the last moment when the others had gone below, Cates came to her. “Come, Maria, we’re going below.”

  She looked up at him with wide, liquid eyes. “No, not yet.”

  He hesitated, then turned away to carry a last canteen of water and an armful of hastily gathered wood from the remains of the big fire.

  Grant Kimbrough came up through the rocks and looked quickly around. There was no one, only Maria, and she was staring at the vast yellow sky. Dropping swiftly to his knees he scooped the gold into a heap and gathered in handfuls to throw into the saddlebags he had hastily concealed in the rocks when carrying his saddle below. It was the work of a few seconds, and in that time Maria did not turn to look or give any evidence that she heard the faint, small sounds of his working. Quickly, he carried the saddlebags below and placed them near the mouth of the wind-hollowed, shallow cave that was their only shelter.