A Noose for the Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  But he ran out that night. I heard the empty bottle when it hit the ground and I went over to where he was.

  “It's beginning to stink,” he said. “In a couple of days it'll turn black and smell like all the cesspools in the world come together.” He laughed abruptly. “This is a hell of a way to die, Tall Cameron. But then, I guess there isn't any good way to die, is there?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “The old man will be here tomorrow with the silver and we'll buy you the best doctor in Mexico.”

  But I don't think he heard me. “There was a lot of blood poison during the war,” he said. “I've seen men rub blisters on their heels and in a few days there would be a surgeon amputating the whole damn leg. I was in a field hospital after the battle of Chickamauga—did I tell you about that?”

  “No, I don't think so.”

  He seemed to forget about the hospital. I rolled a cigarette for him and put it in his mouth. “I've been thinking about the war,” he said as I held the match. “I wonder if anything was decided by it. There's a theory that wars are inevitable because the natural blood lust in a man demands them. What do you think about that?”

  “I don't know anything about wars.”

  “But you know about killing. It's the same thing.”

  “It's not the same thing. Do you want to know how I got a reputation as a gunman? It all started one day in a little town in Texas. A drunk Davis policeman pushed me off the plank walk. A little thing like that. Well, I hit him and that raised a big racket, but Pa managed to get things quieted down, and we thought it would blow over. But then another guy hit a cavalryman, and that made two of us, and the Yankees figured they'd have to do something about it. The first thing I knew, the bluebellies were wanting to put me on the work gang, so I had to light out. The federals came out to our ranch and wanted to know where I was, and when Pa wouldn't tell them they tried to beat it out of him. They killed him.”

  I hadn't thought that I could ever talk about it without getting crazy with anger, but all that happened a long time ago. It was almost like telling a story about somebody else, some person that I only slightly knew.

  “That was the way it started,” I said. “I came back home and killed the bluebelly. Then it seemed like everywhere I went people were hunting me. They never learned, goddamn them—they would just make me kill them.”

  It was quiet for a minute. And Bama was right about one thing—I began to smell it.

  “I went back once,” I said, “to that place in Texas. It was a crazy thing to do, I guess, but there was a girl there and it seemed like I just had to see her. But I shouldn't have done it, I had teamed up with a famous gunman, Pappy Garret, and got myself a reputation, and things weren't the same any more. She was afraid of me. If I had touched her I think she would have fainted. Anyway, she was going to marry somebody else. I guess I'll never go back again.”

  I had never told those things to anybody else. I don't know why I told them to Bama, unless maybe it was to get his mind off his leg.

  “I wonder,” Bama said, “what would have happened if you hadn't run away.”

  “I would have put in two years on the work gang.”

  “Would that have been so bad?”

  I knew that he was talking about Johnny Rayburn, not me. I got up and went to my own bunk.

  It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and our tongues were beginning to get too big for our mouths, when Marta's old man finally showed up. Around noon I went up on the bluff that formed the south wall of our cave, and there he was, him and his two burros, about three miles away and looking like three bugs crawling up the side of a mountain. He had the silver, all right, I could tell that by the heavy way the burros moved. There was nobody with him, and nobody following him.

  “Here he comes,” I shouted down to the others. “Johnny, you gather up the horses.” Then I went down and we all waited in the mouth of the cave.

  The old man was puffing and blowing and the burros were all lathered up as they pulled in. Marta swung onto Papacito's neck and they both began to jabber away in Spanish. I went around punching the big leather pack bags, and they all seemed solid and heavy enough, so I guessed that all the silver was there. Marta had found a canteen somewhere and was swigging from the neck when I came up and took it out of her hands. “No!” she yelled. “For Marta!”

  “It's for all of us,” I said.

  The kid was coming up with the horses, so I gave him a drink, then I poured a little in my hand and let the horses wet their muzzles. “Get the horses stripped down,” I said, “and throw away everything but the saddles and guns. You can start getting those pack bags split up and we'll divide the load between us.”

  Bama was sitting with his back against a rock as I came up with the canteen. “Have a drink of this,” I said.

  He turned the canteen up and gulped. His leg didn't look any better. The flesh around the wound was beginning to turn a dark purple, like a deep bruise, and he had that wild look that fever puts in a man's eyes.

  When I got the canteen there was about a mouthful of water and some dregs in it. I emptied it and hung it over my shoulder.

  “Do you feel like riding?”

  He shrugged. He should have been in bed. He should have had a good doctor and a roomful of nurses, and maybe a few preachers to say some prayers. But he was going to ride, because there was nothing else to do. “How far are we from the border?” I said. “Only a few miles,” he said, “if we go straight south. But we can't go that way. Federal marshals and Mexican soldiers patrol that country. We'll have to ride into the mountains and take one of those canyons that the smuggler trains use.”

  “How far will it be that way?”

  “Fifty miles, maybe. It's pretty rough country, but you have to go the long way around with the load we've got. We wouldn't be much good if it came to a horse race.”

  Bama was right, as usual. All right, we would go the long way around. Fifty miles wasn't so far. Not for the rest of us, but for Bama it was going to be a long, long trip. Of course, I could lighten our load by leaving Bama behind. It would make things a lot easier for me, and chances were Bama would never last the trip anyway.

  But I didn't have the stomach for it. I said, “I'll have the kid bring your horse around and we'll put you in the saddle.”

  There was one more way to lighten our load, but I was going to wait until the last minute to do it. I went up to the mouth of the cave and helped get the silver loaded. A lot of it we got in the saddle bags, and the rest of it we had to lash on behind the saddles. It was a clumsy way to do it, and the horses could hardly walk, much less run, but I couldn't think of anything better. When we got to Marta's horse I said, “Throw the saddle off of this one.”

  The kid didn't ask any questions this time. We stripped the horse and loaded the rest of the silver in those pack bags.

  I found Marta and her old man just outside the cave having another one of their arguments. Papacito was all blown up with anger and Marta was stamping her foot and spitting. I thought I could guess what the argument was about.

  I said, “Shut up for a minute and ask the old man how they're taking it back in Ocotillo.”

  I guess the sight of me reminded Marta of the silver, and she forgot all about the old man and flashed a smile at me. She turned and spat out the question. The old man answered sullenly, angrily. I had almost forgotten how much he hated me.

  “Papacito say much anger in Ocotillo.” She cranked her hand by her ear to show how the men felt about losing their silver. Well, to hell with them. Maybe the next time they wouldn't run off when there was a job to be done.

  “Ask him if he saw any cavalry,” I said. She asked him and shook her head.

  Then the kid and Bama rode up, leading my big black and Marta's animal, which we had turned into a pack horse. She didn't get it at first. She just looked surprised, like somebody had pulled the chair from under her. But when I swung up on the black she got it. She started screaming and
screeching and clawing, trying to pull me out of the saddle.

  “Get out of here,” I said to the kid. “Take Bama up in the hills and I'll catch you there,” And all the time the girl was yelling her head off and cursing me, I guess, in Spanish. I gave her a kick and sent her reeling against the old man, and Bama and the kid began squeezing their way out of the cave. Before I could get my own horse through, Marta was clawing at me again. I yelled, “Take her, old man! Get her away from me. That's what you want, isn't it?”

  That was what he wanted, but he didn't know how to go about it. He tried to pull her away but she wouldn't budge. The first thing I knew, she had snatched a pistol out of my holster and was shoving the muzzle in my face. “No leave Marta!” she yelled. “No leave Marta!” And all the time she was wrestling the hammer back with both hands.

  It was no time to play the gentleman. I rammed the steel to my horse and he jumped and knocked the girl rolling in the dust. But she was up like a cat. She ran to the mouth of the cave and stood in front of it, yelling all the time. She pointed that pistol at me again, but by that time I had my black horse right on top of her. The pistol exploded, but she wasn't a very good shot with a thousand pounds of horseflesh pounding down on her like a runaway locomotive. The bullet must have hit a rock somewhere, because I heard the disappointed whine as it shot up toward a million miles of sky. And that was all for Marta.

  We went right over her and blasted through the opening, and the only reason she wasn't killed was because horses, unlike people, are naturally neat animals, and they won't put a hoof down where it's likely to get messed up if they can help it. I looked back once and saw that she wasn't really hurt. The old man was standing outside the cave clutching those wooden beads around his neck, and I suppose he was offering a prayer of thanks because I hadn't run off with that wildcat daughter of his. Or, come to think of it, maybe he was just cursing. I know that's what I would have been doing if I had been in his place and had been stuck with a girl like that.

  So that was the last I saw of Marta. There she was lying full length in the dust, beating the ground with her fists and shredding the air with screams like a madman tearing a rotten shirt. Good-by, Marta. The black horse fogged it down a slight grade and we headed for the higher hills where Bama and Johnny Rayburn were waiting. After a while I couldn't hear her screams any more.

  We didn't travel far that day—about ten miles, maybe, and by that time Bama had taken all the jolting around he could stand. So we unbitted and unpacked in a gully where some water oozed out of a broken rock. The kid helped me get Bama stretched out in the shade, and then I went down and filled the canteen and gave him some water. That was about all I could do.

  The trip hadn't done Bama's leg any good. It was getting blacker—almost to the knee now—and the inflamed underflesh reached down beyond that. His face was bloated and spotted with fever, but he cooled off some after we got some water down him, and after a while he went to sleep.

  “He ought to have a doctor,” the kid said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Why don't you just ride over the hill and find one?”

  His face warmed, but he had his teeth in the idea and he wouldn't turn loose.

  “There's a doctor in Tucson.”

  “There's also a company of cavalry and bevy of U.S. marshals. Besides, it's a three-day ride, and Bama hasn't got that long to go.”

  “You mean he's going to die?”

  He said it as if the idea were new to him. He sounded scared.

  Of course he's going to die, I thought. But I didn't say it. I said. “When we get across the border I'll get him a doctor.”

  “Do they have doctors in Mexico?”

  “Well, hell,- yes, they have doctors everywhere.” But I wasn't so sure about that. Come to think of it, I'd never seen a Mexican doctor. I'd never even heard of one. But then, Bama wasn't going to last that long anyway, and it didn't really make any difference if they had any doctors or not.

  Around sundown I went out with my rifle, but there were no rabbits up there in the mountains. We didn't have any supper that night. We built a little fire and sat there looking at it and wishing we had something to cook, but that was as far as it went.

  “Do you think Bama will be able to ride tomorrow?” the kid asked.

  “He'll have to ride whether he's able or not. We can't just sit here and wait for them to come after us. You don't think that girl's going to waste any time getting her story to the marshal's office, do you?”

  That gave him something to think about. Up until now he had just been coming along for the ride. I guess he had never figured on winding up like this, being chased out of the country and being hunted by half the lawmen in Arizona.

  I watched him closely, because now was the time to find out if he had the guts it took to face it put. I had taken it for granted that he was the kind of kid that could be some help to me. It came as a shock when I realized that maybe I had guessed wrong.

  We sat there for a long time, not saying anything. He knew what he was in for if he stuck with me. If he wanted to get out of it, all he had to do was ride off toward Texas and that would be the end of us.

  The stars were very clean and cold and superior that night. The kid lay back and watched them, and maybe he was thinking that those very same stars were shining on that wild piece of Texas brush country that he called home—a place that he might never see again.

  It all depended on what he decided. If he wanted to know about guns and how to cut aces from the middle, I was the one who could teach him. If he wanted something else... Well, that was up to him.

  And still we sat. An orange slice of moon came up behind the hills and a coyote came out and barked at it. A slight wind came up and rattled the parched grass. I listened to the thousand little night sounds, and to Bama's labored breathing, and finally the kid got up.

  “Well,” he said, “if we're going to travel tomorrow I guess I'd better get some sleep.”

  It took me a few minutes to realize that it was all over. He had thought it over in that slow, deliberate way of his, and he had decided to stay. He had built himself a hero to follow. And I was it.

  We traveled about twenty miles the next day before Bama's leg stopped us again. He suddenly dumped out of the saddle and hit the ground, and my first feeling was relief. No sorrow. No regret, or feeling of loss. Only relief, because Bama was finally dead and now we could push across the border.

  But I was wrong about Bama. At that moment he was as close to death as a man can get, but he wouldn't die. He lay there clutching like a drowning man at that razor-thin piece of life and he wouldn't let go. For a moment I hated him. He was going to die anyway, so why didn't he do it now while it would do us some good? Why did he have to hold on with that death grip and pull us down with him? I just sat there on my horse, watching, waiting. Die, goddamn you! But he wouldn't turn loose.

  “He's bad,” Johnny said. “Real bad.”

  The kid was already out of the saddle, wiping the dust off Bama's flushed face.

  Well, that was that. I couldn't just ride off and leave him, so I helped get him back on his horse and we held him in the saddle for a hundred yards or so until we came to a washed-out place in the side of a hill. That was where we laid him out. Then I sent the kid out to look for water.

  “Bama.”

  He didn't say anything. His face got as white as tallow, and it seemed that he would go for minutes at a time without breathing. At last he began to shake, and I knew the chills had started.

  The kid came back with the water, but we didn't need it now. We stripped the horses and piled the saddle blankets on top of Bama. We lugged the silver into the wash and staked the horses out. Then we settled down to wait.

  Night came finally, and there was no change that I could see. My stomach growled and knotted and ached, and I tried filling it up with water, but that didn't help.

  I said, “Get some sleep, kid. When you wake up in the morning it'll be all over.”

  But
it wasn't. Bama was shaking when I went to sleep and he was still shaking when I woke up. When the sun came up I took my rifle out again and this time I came back with two rabbits.

  We skinned them and cooked them like the other time. Me and the kid finished them off because Bama couldn't eat. He couldn't do anything except lie there and shake.

  The day dragged on somehow, and to pass the time I got to figuring on our chances of getting out of this. I counted up and discovered that about fifty-six hours had gone by since we left Marta and Papacito at Three Mile Cave. Three days gone and we hadn't traveled more than thirty miles at the outside. Three days. Marta could have got the word all the way to Tucson in that length of time. More than likely a detachment of cavalry was already headed south. Under forced march they would be right in our front yard by this time tomorrow.