Land Grabbers

by Paul Lederer

  ‘I didn’t shoot a man, Vallejo. Clanahan did. And the man he shot was Jake Shockley, don’t you see? What happened next was funny. They were all glad-handing Clanahan here for killing a wanted outlaw. They gave him a reward for the shooting. Isn’t that right, Clanahan.’

  I didn’t answer. What was the point in it? The dry wind whipped the perspiration from my back and chest before it could form. My mouth was as dry as the desert sand. I eyed the slowly running river, blue along the banks, silver-bright, dancing with highlights the sun painted on its surface in the middle. Jake was taking his time, enjoying himself.

  ‘Two days later they were ready to hang Mr. Clanahan. Some folks came into town looking for a missing man. They identified the body and things got angry while they tried to decide if Clanahan had maybe made a mistake, or known all along that he wasn’t Jake Shockley, and been looking for a way to make some easy money. Either way they had it in mind to hang him for the murder … how’d you escape, Clanahan?’

  I still said nothing. I didn’t care to add to the entertainment at what was to be my own funeral.

  ‘If I’d escaped,’ Jake said, halting his horse again near a sycamore tree with heavy, low-hanging boughs, ‘I would have made for the border. Why chase after me, Clanahan?’ He shook his head heavily and said, ‘You are a man of little sense.’

  Then, abruptly, he stopped. ‘That one will do, Curt,’ he said, pointing up at a mottled branch ten feet overhead. ‘Flip that rope over.’

  It was then or never. Curt swung down, and doing so he loosened the rope just a bit. I hit the ground, shrugging out of the noose. I felt it slide up and over my ears, heard Jake yell, heard the report of his Winchester, but by then I had legged it the few yards to the river and plunged into it, swimming for all I was worth. Bullets fanned the water around me and I dove, swimming toward the far shore with all of my strength, lungs bursting. The river was carrying me away, the current much swifter than I had guessed. I had to come up for air; my lungs felt ready to explode, and when I rose gasping, I saw that I was a hundred yards downstream from the lynch mob.

  One of them spotted me and cried out and I saw them race for leather, flagging their horses after me. Taking three deep breaths, I went under again and let the current take me, propelling me along much faster than I could have swum.

  Coming up for air again, I saw that the beach where the outlaws rode was being pinched by a rising red bluff, leaving them no riverside trail to follow. They had drawn up in an angry knot.

  Bullets flew, wild and high, echoing distantly. I dove under once more.

  When I came to the surface again, I saw no one across the river. The red bluff dominated the skyline, casting a heavy shadow across the river. On my side of the river the land was flat, white sand and low, dry willow brush. I tried to stand, was knocked from my feet by the current and tried again. Finally I was able to wade to the beach and stagger away from the river.

  My lungs were burning, I didn’t have enough strength to run and so I staggered and stumbled on like a drunken man across the heated sand, looking back all the while. They might have crossed the river on horseback, they might appear around the last bend at any moment.

  But I didn’t think that Jake Shockley would just give it up. Not from what I knew of the man.

  He would track me down if he could, ride me into the ground and then he would try to hang me again.

  TWO

  I had seen the long miles of dunes when I crested out the low knolls along the river. Desolate and forbidding, there was no water, no vegetation to be seen. Only an endless sea of white sand stretching in every direction for as far as the eye could see. No man could cross them afoot, not without water. But neither could any horse. Its weight would drag it into the dunes up to its belly, leaving it thrashing and panicked, useless to any rider. The choice then being between returning to the river where I would certainly be run down eventually and striking out across the blistering dunes was no choice at all.

  They might one day find my bleached bones on the desert, but they would not find them with a noose around its neck. I went on through the dazzling light of day, the sand scorching my feet through my boots which, ironically, were still soaked with river water.

  I walked on, with no goal but escape. Dizzy and dehydrated, my legs growing heavier with each mile, each attempt to scale one more ridge of dunes, I continued, praying for darkness. Night would be cold, chillingly cold, but anything would be a welcome relief from the mocking glare of the sun.

  Two dark specks and then a third, a fourth, appeared overhead and I was spurred onward. I would not give my flesh up to the gathering vultures. Night came and passed – or so I imagined until I realized that I had passed out and fallen face-first into the sand. Night was still hours away – if I could make it that long, I thought that somehow I could survive. The gathering vultures had become a swarm, a dark cloud patiently hanging overhead.

  I walked on. The sky began to dim. There was a hint of palest crimson along the western horizon and deep violet shadows began to creep into the contours of the dunes. My tongue was glued to my palate; my legs were rubbery and leaden at once. My vision cleared only when I squinted my eyes as hard as possible. I saw the evening star blink on, glowing dully through the haze of color the sunset washed across the sky.

  I walked on, following the star to the west.

  After midnight there were a million stars, so silvery-thick that you could hardly see black sky between them. I could pick out the Dipper easily enough, and keeping it on my right shoulder, I continued westward. Hours passed, days, years, and I continued on, wading through the calf-high sand. Sometime halfway between midnight and dawn the land began to level. I could feel rough stones underfoot now, and I entered yet another dream world. Saguaro cactuses, twenty-feet high or more, stood with their arms elevated like felons caught in a raid.

  I tripped, stumbled, fell on my face and scraped it against the volcanic rock beneath me. I rose only with extreme effort, my mind shouting at my body that we must continue on or die here. My body paid little attention, but still I managed to draw myself to my feet somehow and walked on, moving in a weaving line.

  I thought I could make out the dark bulk of low hills ahead of me, but they were far distant. Depleted, beaten down I focused my eyes on one star low on the horizon and started heavily onward. The star flickered before my eyes, seemed to change color, to flare up and brighten. I was watching the end of days, no longer so much walking as dragging my boots on the ends of my legs.

  The star grew brighter, again changed color and I closed my eyes, tightly, trying to squeeze them to cogency. But when I opened them, the star continued to flare and flicker and change colors. Crimson and gold, then orange and twisting tendrils of black.

  It was a campfire that I had been watching. My heart gave a leap. I would have run if I could have. I didn’t care whose fire it was, what manner of men were gathered there. At that moment I didn’t even care if it proved to be Shockley – let them hang me, it made no difference any more. Dying couldn’t be any worse than what I had endured on the desert this day.

  Staggering, appearing like an apparition out of the night, I entered the camp and fell to my face. Someone grabbed me by the shoulders, rolled me over and splashed water on my sun-ravaged face. It was like a gift from the gods. I tried to stifle the groan which rose from my throat, but it escaped my blistered lips.

  ‘Get up, mister!’ a deep voice commanded. My moment of grace ended as quickly as it had begun.

  ‘Don’t know … if I can,’ I said.

  ‘Can’t you see the shape he’s in?’ another voice asked, a softer voice. ‘He can’t be scouting for them.’

  ‘Why not?’ the deeper voice demanded. ‘Just because he’s in bad shape?’

  ‘Little water,’ I managed to say and again the canteen was lowered, this time applying a few drops to my mouth. My swollen tongue sucked at it greedily.

  ‘Ask him who he is!’ yet another voice said.
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br />   ‘Find out if he knows where they are.’

  I had no idea what they were talking about, these voices, these shadows in the night. Someone helped me to sit up and I opened my eyes, squinting into what now seemed the fierce glow of a campfire. There were covered wagons around me and five or six men in Army uniforms watching me warily, rifles in their hands.

  The officer in charge raked me with his dark eyes and asked, ‘What happened to you?’

  I lied because the true story would have taken too long, was impossible to believe and might even have gotten me taken back to Mesa Grande to be hung.

  ‘Apaches.’

  ‘We haven’t heard of any in the area. What band were they? White Mountain? Chiricahua?’

  ‘I don’t know how to tell the difference,’ I said honestly. ‘I’m not a soldier. More water, please. Just a drop or two.’

  ‘Let him have some water, for God’s sake,’ the softer voice that I had heard earlier said, and I shifted my eyes to see that it was indeed a woman standing there, her face hidden in the confused shadows of starlight and fire-smoke, but sounding young, appearing slender. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts.

  ‘Captain?’ one of the soldiers inquired before tipping the canteen again.

  ‘We have little enough,’ the officer said stiffly, ‘but I wouldn’t let a dog die of thirst out here.’

  With that he turned his back to me, took the young woman by the elbow and marched off across the camp clearing. I could now make out the man with the canteen. He was thick through the chest and the feeble firelight revealed the three gold sergeant’s stripes on his blue uniform. He held my head and gave me a few more sips of water.

  ‘You’d better take it easy with that for awhile,’ he said not unkindly.

  ‘Sergeant?’ I asked. ‘What did the captain mean when he asked if I was “one of them”? Who are they?’

  The big man hesitated then replied, ‘If you are one of them you already know, if you aren’t you don’t need to know. Refer your questions to Captain Cole.’

  It was hardly a satisfying answer, but at the moment it seemed unimportant, so I let it go.

  ‘I’ll find you a blanket and a place to stretch out,’ the sergeant said, rising to his feet. ‘Morning’s time enough to ask questions.’

  Someone shoved a blue army blanket into my hands, I was hoisted to my feet and deposited beneath the tailgate of a wagon. I thought it was one of the most wonderful places I had ever been. A blanket, an army guard, water. I ached too much to sleep, to think of sleep. I needed it too much for it to be denied and in minutes I was wrapped in a dark, comforting cocoon, uncaring and, for the moment, quite content just to be alive.

  Morning, when it came with a lurid splash of color across the eastern skies, the sounds of men and horses stirring, was a different story.

  My eyes were glued shut with sleep, and I was first aware of the throbbing pain in my feet. My water-soaked boots had shrunken with the blazing heat of the desert sands and they were holding my swollen feet in an iron grip. I could cut them off, I thought, and walk in what? As I managed to rub the sleep from my raw eyes, I became aware of two things simultaneously – a headache of magnificent proportions rushed through my skull, threatening to explode it, and a soldier, dark and vague in silhouette against the harsh colors of dawn sat on an upturned crate nearby, a Springfield rifle across his knees, watching me.

  ‘Got any water?’ I managed to ask through my parched, split lips. That was still my primary concern. I wondered how much weight a body, unreplenished by water, would lose after ten hours of hundred-degree heat. I actually tried to calculate that, failed and gave it up as the soldier handed me his canteen. I uncorked it, rinsed my mouth and drank two hard swallows. I remembered someone saying that they were short on water and so I recorked the canteen and handed it back to the man, though I am sure I could have easily drunk its entire contents.

  The soldier, a corporal, I saw as my vision organized itself, looked more relieved than annoyed with me. He must have been sitting there for many hours through the cold desert night. He stood, shouldered his canteen and yelled across his shoulder:

  ‘Sergeant Hawkins! Billy – find Hawkins and tell him that the prisoner is awake.’

  Prisoner? Was I now a prisoner of the army? For what reason? I convinced myself that the guard had only used that term because he had obviously been posted to watch me and it was the term he associated with that duty.

  The corporal stood glowering over me, but I thought that it was only the duty he hadn’t liked, not me personally. Sergeant Hawkins, who I recognized by shape and by the chevrons on his sleeves from the night before, approached after another few minutes. He was graying, and I suspected, balding beneath his army cap. His face was the odd mixture of command and compassion that I supposed was necessary in a good non-commissioned officer.

  ‘All right, Gentry,’ he said to the corporal, ‘Get yourself some coffee before it’s all gone. I’ll take charge of the prisoner.’

  There was that word again. How could I be a prisoner? What was I convicted of? Accused of. Again I convinced myself that it was only terminology, there being no word to define a desert wretch who had invaded their night camp. I was, at the very least, suspicious. I knew that I hadn’t sold my story about being attacked by Apaches well the previous night. They still seemed convinced that I was one of them. It was useless to try explaining that I had no idea who they were.

  ‘Can you get up?’ the big sergeant asked, bending over me.

  ‘I guess I’ll have to,’ I said, manufacturing a weak grin, ‘if I don’t want to get left behind.’ Groaning with the effort I sat, turned and gripped the edge of the tailgate, pulling myself erect. Turning, I faced Hawkins. The huge red sun was stunning to my eyes as it floated up over the dunes. My legs were not wobbly – it was as if they were not even there. My feet I was well aware of, swollen and blistered, encased in shrunken leather, they gave the sensation of standing in a caldron of molten metal. Hawkins frowned.

  ‘You’ve got to get those boots off,’ he said.

  ‘And run around barefoot?’

  ‘I’ll find you a pair of boots,’ the NCO offered. ‘For now, let’s feed you something.’ He inclined his head toward the campfire where four or five soldiers were standing, eating pan bread, drinking coffee.

  ‘I don’t think I could hold it down,’ I said honestly. ‘Coffee, if you’ve enough.’

  ‘All right, come along then.’

  I didn’t want to let go of the tailgate, but I forced myself to and I followed after the sergeant in a hobbling gate. Now I was aware of my leg muscles again – knotted and strained. I went stiffly on, feet burning. I touched my forehead and found a wide scrape there. It was a minute before I remembered having fallen.

  The soldiers around the campfire eyed me suspiciously. Sergeant Hawkins poured and handed me a cup of hot coffee which I drank with shaking hands. All around other troopers were hitching the horse teams, saddling their own mounts. I didn’t dawdle over the coffee, seeing that they were anxious to be moving. Hawkins told me to wait near the wagon where I had slept and I staggered that way.

  Hawkins caught up with me minutes later, astride a bay army horse. There was something in his hand and he tossed me a pair of scuffed cavalry boots.

  ‘I took you for a size eight, so I brought you tens,’ he said. ‘You might not want to put them on for awhile even so. Get up on the tailgate and perch there. We’ll be pulling out in ten minutes.’

  ‘Whose …?’ I asked, looking at the boots.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. He won’t be needing them any more.’

  With the ball of the red sun in my eyes I pulled myself up on to the tailgate of what I now saw was a supply wagon filled with barrels of flour and sacks of oats, miscellaneous hardware. With my skinning knife I got to work on my boots. The sharp, curved blade, meant for skinning deer and other game, sawed with little trouble from the top of my boots to the arch. Peeled open like that I was a
ble to spread the baked leather and remove them, sliding the boots carefully over the blisters there. It was painful enough, but the relief of bringing my feet out into fresh air made it worth it.

  I removed my foot rags and scowled down at the shape my feet were in. Shriveled yet swollen. There was a blister the size of a silver dollar on each heel and across my toes was a row of white blisters like pale knuckles.

  Someone yelled; the man driving the freight wagon cracked his whip and the wagon lurched forward, moving northward over the rough earth which was strewn with black volcanic rock. Now I began to grow hungry and wished I had eaten something at the cookfire. My feet, swollen and aching, continued to burn. I was sore all over and weak as a pup, as if my skeleton had dissolved on me.

  I watched the cavalrymen behind and to the side of me. They were grim to a man. I saw by their unshaven faces and the dust on their uniforms that they had been on the trail for a long time. Their horses were weary as they plodded on across the barren landscape where only cholla cactus, stunted sage and an occasional shaggy Joshua tree grew.

  The girl appeared out of nowhere, riding an off-white gelding. Slowing, she came even with the tailgate and with the agility of a circus rider, swung from the saddle and on to the tailgate to sit beside me.

  ‘Too darn hot,’ she said, tilting back her broad-brimmed black hat to dab at her forehead with a lace-edged handkerchief. She was smaller than I had thought, dark-eyed, dark hair tied up in one long braid that hung down her back nearly reaching her waist. She looped her horse’s reins around one of the chains that supported the tailgate and smiled at me.

  ‘I’m Beth Cole,’ she said, offering a gloved hand which I took. Her black eyes watched me questioningly. Her voice was pleasant, faintly Southern.

  ‘Gi … Jim Clampett,’ I stuttered. Her eyes narrowed in amusement. Perhaps she was used to men losing their tongues when talking to her. I suppose Beth was no artist’s model, no angelic creature – her nose was a little too short, her mouth too generous for perfectionist – but she was a striking woman, and her eyes, dancing with inner merriment were enough to make you swallow hard before you spoke. Even if you weren’t lying, which I was because I had no idea if the law was still looking for me for the murder of one Joseph Carter in Mesa Grande. I assumed they were. These small towns don’t take kindly to strangers riding in and gunning down respectable citizens. Unfortunately, I had completely botched my only chance at clearing myself by taking Jake Shockley back to stand trial for the murder.