“You must be careful when walking on the desert, ma’am,” he said gravely. He thrust his gun into its holster and strode back to the fire.
Hope looked down at the fat coils of the dying rattler and shuddered. She turned away, faint and sick, and retraced her steps to the camp, keeping her eyes on the ground and avoiding the clumps of sage. More than ever she was a prisoner. With a canteen she might have braved the trackless desert in an effort to escape back to the foothills that she could follow to the ranch road, but she knew she would not dare walk out alone after what had just happened. She sat down on the pile of bedding.
Channing went quietly about his work and soon had a palatable meal prepared. The girl accepted her plate without looking at him.
“Better drink a hot cup of coffee first,” he suggested. “It’s warm here already an’ your clothes are dry, but you look a little peaked. All women do after they meet up with their first rattler.”
She accepted his advice. Then she ate almost greedily, for she was ravenous. She watched Channing, who ate more slowly, and who looked off into the desert frequently the way they had come. “Did you kill that guard at the cabin?” she asked suddenly.
“No. Just laid him out for a spell till we could get a start.”
“I don’t suppose Mendicott knew we were going,” she said rather sarcastically.
“I forgot to tell him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did he really have a man shot last night for stealing from his commissary and trying to get away?”
“Yes.”
Hope saw that she had not been mistaken as to the look in the outlaw leader’s eyes. After all it was perhaps better to be away from there. “Where are we going?” she asked in a more amiable voice.
He pointed toward what she thought was the east.
“How far?” she inquired.
“Quite a ways,” he answered. “To Ghost Wash, and then we turn south.”
The look of worry and despair returned. She gazed off across the desert, burning hot now, for so early in the season. Where and how was it all to end? “You wrote your name on the cover of a magazine that man brought me,” she accused.
“I did that thing,” he agreed.
“You remember you told me if I should get into trouble to remember your name?”
“Yes, I remember that.” He did not meet her eyes.
“And you have betrayed me!” she exclaimed bitterly. “You fooled my uncle, his men, and . . . me. And I trusted you. Do you think you have achieved anything? Haven’t you any sense of manhood?”
He looked at her, biting his under lip until it was white. Then he proceeded to clear the camp and pack the burro. While he worked, he sang, and Hope, who had walked to her horse, listened in surprise. He had an excellent tenor voice, and he was singing an air from The Tales of Hoffmann.
“Where did you learn that?” she asked, unable to conceal her curiosity.
“From a girl who sings in a dance hall in Bandburg,” he replied coldly.
Hope tilted her chin. He frequented with dance-hall girls. Well, it was to be expected. His occupation should have led her to expect it. This caused her to look at her own plight in a new light. Her eyes widened.
At that moment he finished packing the burro and turned toward her. His look was the same he had given her shortly before. Was it—could it be malice, or just resentment because of what she had said about him? Or—was it something else? “We’re ready to go!” He had never used such a curt tone in speaking to her before.
Hope again looked across the burning waste where the heat waves shimmered above sage and greasewood and an occasional cactus. To Ghost Wash and then south! Away from Rancho del Encanto. And she had trusted him—relied on him. Into the desert with an outlaw, a man who sang songs taught him by girls who sang in dance halls. A man whose eyes appeared to be those of an honest, self-respecting man, but that burned with a light that caused her uneasiness. Hope put her hands to her face and sank down upon the hard, sun-baked earth. Then came the tears. When she finally looked up, Channing was standing before her with his hat in his hand. The sun turned his hair a brilliant bronze, his lips were pressed tightly together, and the peculiar look in his eyes was gone.
“I’m sorry, Miss Farman,” he said in a softened voice. “I ain’t often seen a good woman cry. I ought to have told you before, but you sort of riled me with what you said. You have no cause to worry, none whatever.”
“Then . . . we’re going back . . . back to the ranch?” she asked, her lips quivering.
“No, Miss Farman. I reckon you’ve just got to take my word for it that it isn’t safe for you to go there. We’re going to Ghost Wash, camp there tonight, and then push south to Bandburg.”
“But . . . my uncle . . . ?” The girl’s voice choked in a sob.
“If he gives in, and he will on your account, that’s sure, they’ll have to have a notary to put his seal on that deed. The nearest notary’s in Bandburg. Your uncle’s hit in the side, I hear, not bad, but bad enough so he can’t be moved pronto. So they’ll send to Bandburg for a notary. We’ll be in Bandburg before they can cover the ground and get their messenger there.”
“But suppose we are,” said the girl, although she was beginning to understand.
“They won’t get the notary, and we’ll get word to your uncle Nate in the bargain.”
Hope saw with joy that he was speaking truthfully and contritely. “Was this your plan all the time, Mister Channing?” she asked.
“It sure was. I’m sorry I failed to tell you a bit back.”
“Then you’re . . . you’re not connected with that awful Mendicott?”
“In a way, I am,” he confessed to her amazement, looking her in the eyes.
This gave her pause. How could he be taking both sides at once? Was it because of her? She didn’t wish to ask him this. And another question occurred to her. “Mister Channing, why does Mendicott want my uncle’s ranch so badly?”
“I reckon I can’t answer that,” he replied, stiffening. “Not now.”
“Well, I guess I can forgive you under the circumstances,” she said.
He favored her with his flashing smile and put on his hat. “If you’re ready to go, ma’am, we’ll just naturally slope.”
Hope turned to her horse. He stepped to her quickly and helped her up. He attached a canteen of water to the horn of her saddle. She watched him swing into his own saddle and start the burro. Then they were again on their way.
Ahead of them the heat waves shimmered. The sun beat down upon them and Hope took off her jacket and put it across the saddle in front. Far to northward a range of bare, black hills rose against the horizon. Behind them the purple mountains retreated, veiling their lower slopes in a haze of blue. Elsewhere was desolation—dreary, complete, no sign of water, sage and greasewood, a cholla cactus spreading its thin arms in ridiculous gestures—sage and greasewood, and heat and glare. Hope Farman stroked her horse on his glossy neck. She was alone in the desert wastes with a man she had every reason in the world to believe was a member of a ruthless band of outlaws—robbers, rustlers, killers—and she was not afraid.
Chapter Fourteen
As the sun mounted toward the zenith, the heat increased. There was no shade, not a vestige of tree growth large enough to screen them from the burning rays that beat down upon them. The horizon was bathed in a thin, blue haze, but the world close at hand was dazzling. It was a yellow world, with gray and dull green spots where the clumps of sage and greasewood grew. Occasionally they would cross a rise strewn with round, smooth boulders that looked as if they had been smoke-stained. Then would come a wash, white with alkali drawn by the water that filled the wash during the infrequent storms when the rain fell out of the sky in a short but violent downpour. Lizards scurried across their path. They rode side-by-side. Major, Channing’s horse, continually nosed toward his master. The burro plodded on ahead, waving an ear at times, otherwise proceeding as if walking in his sleep. Their progress
was slow.
Channing brought out a pair of sunglasses and handed them to Hope. She thanked him. The extraordinary brightness of the sun’s rays thrown back from the yellow earth was telling on her eyes. It was particularly bad, in another way, when they crossed the patches of alkali. Here the white glare was similar to the sun shining on a field covered with snow, but more intensified. Fortunately these patches were not very wide.
They rode in silence. Hope was busy with her thoughts, for surely she had much to think about—least of which was the wonder of it all. Channing was not disposed to talk. He apparently was at home in this environment. Hope studied him furtively. He had an excellent profile, a strong face, and he was handsome. He was such a man as women like. She wondered if he sang in the desert when he was alone. She decided he did. He didn’t seem to mind the heat at all; of course he was accustomed to it. He was rugged enough, quiet, almost always serious. He appeared to be of the very desert itself.
“Summer must have come today!” she called to him. “It’s hot enough.”
She wanted to catch his smile again and she was immediately rewarded.
“This is just a sample, ma’am, of what it’ll be right soon now,” he said with a laugh.
“How hot is it?” she asked, genuinely interested.
“Around ninety, I ’spect.”
“Well, how hot does it get?”
“A hundred and thirty . . . or more.” She looked at him incredulously, decided he was beguiling her, and didn’t ask any more questions.
An hour passed without a word being spoken. Then Hope began to wonder how Channing kept to his course. She could not tell by the sun in which direction they were traveling; she only knew they were going east because he had said they were to go that way. She thought the knowledge of how it was done might prove useful sometime.
“How do you keep sure of your directions?” she asked loudly.
“Landmarks,” was the laconic reply.
She looked about with fresh interest. The black hills seemed to have disappeared. The mountains were still behind them, but they were mistier with haze, and they seemed to have shifted somewhat. There was nothing else she could seize upon as a landmark except a pink cone to the right of them, a long distance away.
“Where do you find your landmarks?” she asked, knowing that the query sounded silly.
“I pick ’em up as I go along,” he answered with a grin. “But I usually have one that’s a long way off,” he continued, sobering. “When we get on top of the next little ridge, you look away ahead and you’ll see a button sticking up on the horizon. That’s what it’s called . . . Button Butte. Ghost Wash is between here and there. But I know these local marks, like the flats and washes and monuments . . . those funny-shaped rock pillars and chimneys sticking up . . . and I go by them, too. Sometimes I have a mark behind me and one in front and keep on a line between ’em, and sometimes I have a triangle of marks, and sometimes, ma’am, I don’t have a dog-goned thing ’cept a sense of direction the devil must have given me to make me like the desert.”
The finish of his speech seemed appropriate to Hope. It was such a country as the devil must favor. But this desert lore was interesting, and it made Channing more interesting.
Channing did ask her twice if she wanted to make a dry camp and eat, or push on to their destination, and she decided on the latter. She drank frequently from the canteen of water suspended from her saddle horn.
It was cooler, and the sun was slanting well to westward when they rode up a long rise and she saw a great wash, or dry lakebed, ahead. There was another rise on the opposite side, and then, to her astonishment, she saw a cabin nestling among some green trees larger than any she had seen on the trip from the foothills. It evidently was a verdant spot.
“We’re here!” Channing called to her, pointing to the white bed of the wash.
Hope decided the place was well named in being called Ghost Wash, for ghosts were proverbially white. She didn’t know it hadn’t been named for the reason she thought. She suspected there was water on the other side where the green trees grew. She asked the name of the trees.
“Paloverdes,” replied Channing. “There’s water there. We’ll camp there tonight and make Bandburg tomorrow.”
They rode around the wash to the cabin. There was a patch of green grass in front of the cabin and Hope smiled as she realized, for the first time in her life, the real beauty of plain green grass. It savored of living things and of water. Then, remaining in the saddle, she looked for the water and saw what appeared to be a small well, filled and slightly overflowing. She dismounted and went for a drink. The water was surprisingly cool, but had a flat taste.
“Little alkali in it,” said Channing, noting her look, “but it won’t hurt you.”
She walked around, exploring, while Channing unsaddled the horses, hobbled them, and unpacked the burro. When Hope returned, he was busy building a fire.
“Why don’t you use the cabin?” she asked.
“No stove in there, and I’d rather do it this way. The cabin is for your use, Miss Farman,” he concluded, looking at her and smiling.
The door was open and Hope looked in. There was a bunk on which he had spread two blankets, a rude table, a bench, some shelves with some canned goods and other scanty provisions on them, and a few cooking utensils. It was plain this was one of his stopping places, for she did not doubt but that the things there belonged to him. Probably he had many such retreats in the desert. There were two windows, both open, but she noted they could be closed and fastened. There was a bar on the inside of the door that could be slid into place.
He had said the cabin was for her use. She turned back to him, smiling. “It’s very nice, Mister Channing. And I’m as hungry as a bear. Shall I set the table?”
He indicated a pack sack that reposed on the ground with its straps unbuckled.
“You’ll find the things in there. I reckon they’re cleaner than the things inside.”
She set the table and pulled up the bench. He brought the food and coffee, and then took down a can from one of the shelves.
“I never carry canned stuff with me in my packs,” he explained, “’cept maybe on a short trip. I packed this stuff in here for an emergency.” He looked at her quickly. “And I always knew I brought this can of peaches in for something or other, but I never knew just what till now.”
Hope’s laugh was good to hear. He grinned with her and opened the can with his knife.
“Let’s eat,” he invited, taking off his hat and throwing it on the bunk. “I wish you’d tell me everything that happened on the ranch after I left, if you’d just as soon.”
So Hope recited the details of the quitting of the men after Brood left and concluded with short pursuit of Brood and the gang by McDonald and the other ranch hands who had remained loyal.
“McDonald likely quit because he saw it was no use,” Channing mused. “Never could follow that outfit without getting shot to pieces, never could find where they’d gone.”
“Do you think Brood stampeded the cattle on purpose?” asked Hope.
“Dunno. Maybe so, maybe no. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Then Hope remembered the day she had seen Channing and Brood meet in the rendezvous, when Channing had ordered the ex-foreman of the ranch to his cabin.
“Did you go straight to Mendicott’s place the time you left the ranch?” she asked.
“Almost,” he answered after a spell of hesitation. “First I went over where we got the jack out of the cabin last night.”
“Oh, by the way, how did you come to have everything ready there for us?” she demanded.
“I went out and made things ready,” he said with a light frown.
“Well, to get back to what I had in mind. That day you met Brood near me on the edge of the stream there and he seemed so surprised, was that the first time he ever saw you in there?”
Channing looked at her and considered the question for a time. “What make
s you ask that?” he countered.
“Because his face showed it,” Hope answered readily.
“Well, it was,” he confessed, scowling.
“Was it the first time you’d ever been there?” Hope asked eagerly.
“Miss Farman, you’re powerful curious. Tell me now isn’t that an honest fact?”
“Yes, I am,” Hope conceded. “But I don’t see why Brood obeyed your order so promptly when you told him to go to his cabin.”
“If you try to figure out everything you don’t understand in this country, ma’am, you’ll just naturally go plumb crazy,” he remarked, rising.
It was Mrs. McCaffy’s admonition all over, but it provided Channing with a loophole to avoid further questioning. Hope saw this and desisted. But she had learned something. Brood evidently hadn’t known Channing was acquainted with Mendicott, or an associate of his, until that day. Therefore Channing had no connection with the staging of the accident—if it had deliberately been planned. His action in saving her life and aiding Jim Crossley had resulted from an honest, courageous motive. The knowledge increased her sense of security with him.
“I’ll wash the dishes,” she volunteered, following him out of the cabin. “You look after the horses and that other animal.”
“That other animal,” he said testily, “learned to look after himself a long time ago.”
Hope smiled to herself. There was little to fear from this man, whatever he might be. She told herself she was beginning to like him. Then she caught herself up with a prim tightening of the lips. There was a well-defined gulf between their stations—a vast difference in their positions.
He went off somewhere and left her to take care of the dishes. After this she walked from the cabin to a point on the ridge behind it. Below, the great white bed of the wash stretched for more than a mile. Beyond, on all sides of the ridge, in every direction lay the desert. She watched the great gold ball of the sun drop steadily in the west. The air was cooling rapidly. To her astonishment some birds flew over her. Birds in that inferno? It seemed impossible, but she had seen them and heard them and she knew to a certainty they were there.
Man of the Desert: A Western Story Page 9
