Desert Death-Song

by Louis L'Amour

  Out of his blankets by daybreak he ate breakfast and completed the extraction of the gold. At a rough estimate his first day’s work would run to four hundred dollars. He made a cache for the gold sack and took the now empty ore sacks and climbed back to the tower.

  The air was clear and fresh, the sun warm after the chill of night, and he liked the feel of the pick in his hands.

  Laura and Tommy awaited him back in Horsehead, and if he was killed here, there was small chance they would ever know what had become of him. But he did not intend to be killed. The gold he was extracting from this rock was for them, and not for himself.

  It would mean an easier life in a larger town, a home of their own and the things to make the home a woman desires, and it meant an education for Tommy. For himself, all he needed was the thought of that home to return to, his wife and son—and the desert itself. And one was as necessary to him as the other.

  The desert could be the death of him. He had been told that many times, and did not need to be told, for few men knew the desert as he did. The desert was to him what an orchestra is to a fine conductor, what the human body is to a surgeon. It was his work, his life, and the thing he knew best. He always smiled when he looked first into the desert as he started a new trip. Would this be it?

  The morning drew on and he continued to work with an even-paced swing of the pick, a careful filling of the sack. The gold showed bright and beautiful in the crystalline quartz which was so much more beautiful than the gold itself. From time to time as the morning drew on, he paused to rest and to breathe deeply of the fresh, clear air. Deliberately, he refused to hurry.

  For nineteen days he worked tirelessly, eight hours at day at first, then lessening his hours to seven, and then to six. Wetherton did not explain to himself why he did this, but he realized it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on the job. Again and again he would walk away from the rock face on one excuse or another, and each time he would begin to feel his scalp prickle, his steps grow quicker, and each time he returned more reluctantly.

  Three times, beginning on the thirteenth, again on the seventeenth and finally on the nineteenth day, he heard movement within the tower. Whether that whispering in the rock was normal he did not know. Such a natural movement might have been going on for centuries. He only knew that it happened now, and each time it happened a cold chill went along his spine.

  His work had cut a deep notch at the base of the tower, such a notch as a man might make in felling a tree, but wider and deeper. The sacks of gold, too, were increasing. They now numbered seven, and their total would, he believed, amount to more than five thousand dollars—probably nearer to six thousand. As he cut deeper into the rock the vein was growing richer.

  He worked on his knees now. The vein had slanted downward as he cut into the base of the tower and he was all of nine feet into the rock with the great mass of it above him. If that rock gave way while he was working he would be crushed in an instant with no chance of escape. Nevertheless, he continued.

  The change in the rock tower was not the only change, for he had lost weight and he no longer slept well. On the night of the twentieth day he decided he had six thousand dollars and his goal would be ten thousand. And the following day the rock was the richest ever! As if to tantalize him into working on and on, the deeper he cut the richer the ore became. By nightfall of that day he had taken out more than a thousand dollars.

  Now the lust of the gold was getting into him, taking him by the throat. He was fascinated by the danger of the tower as well as the desire for the gold. Three more days to go—could he leave it then? He looked again at the batholith and felt a peculiar sense of foreboding, a feeling that here he was to die, that he would never escape. Was it his imagination, or had the outer wall leaned a little more?

  On the morning of the-twenty-second day he climbed the fan over a path that use had built into a series of continuous steps. He had never counted those steps but there must have been over a thousand of them. Dropping his canteen into a shaded hollow and pick in hand, he started for the tower.

  The forward tilt did seem somewhat more than before. Or was it the light? The crack that ran behind the outer wall seemed to have widened and when he examined it more closely he found a small pile of freshly run silt near the bottom of the crack. So it had moved!

  Wetherton hesitated, staring at the rock with wary attention. He was a fool to go back in there again. Seven thousand dollars was more than he had ever had in his life before, yet in the next few hours he could take out at least a thousand dollars more and in the next three days he could easily have the ten thousand he had set for his goal.

  He walked to the opening, dropped to his knees and crawled into the narrowing, flat-roofed hole. No sooner was he inside than fear climbed up into his throat. He felt trapped, stifled, but he fought down the mounting panic and began to work. His first blows were so frightened and feeble that nothing came loose. Yet, when he did get started, he began to work with a feverish intensity that was wholly unlike him.

  When he slowed and then stopped to fill his sack he was gasping for breath, but despite his hurry the sack was not quite full. Reluctantly, he lifted his pick again, but before he could strike a blow, the gigantic mass above him seemed to creak like something tired and old. A deep shudder went through the colossal pile and then a deep grinding that turned him sick with horror. All his plans for instant flight were frozen and it was not until the groaning ceased that he realized he was lying on his back, breathless with fear and expectancy. Slowly, he edged his way into the air and walked, fighting the desire to run, away from the rock.

  When he stopped near his canteen he was wringing with cold sweat and trembling in every muscle. He sat down on the rock and fought for control. It was until some twenty minutes had passed that he could trust himself to get to his feet.

  Despite his experience, he knew that if he did not go back now he would never go. He had but one sack for the day and wanted another. Circling the batholith, he examined the widening crack, endeavoring again, for the third time, to find another means of access to the vein.

  The tilt of the outer wall was obvious, and it could stand no more without toppling. It was possible that by cutting into the wall of the column and striking down he might tap the vein at a safer point. Yet this added blow at the foundation would bring the tower nearer to collapse and render his other hole untenable. Even this new attempt would not be safe, although immeasurably more secure than the hole he had left. Hesitating, he looked back at the hole.

  Once more? The ore was now fabulously rich, and the few pounds he needed to complete the sack he could get in just a little while. He stared at the black and undoubtedly narrower hole, then looked up at the leaning wall. He picked up his pick and, his mouth dry, started back, drawn by a fascination that was beyond all reason.

  His heart pounding, he dropped to his knees at the tunnel face. The air seemed stifling and he could feel his scalp tingling, but once he started to crawl it was better. The face where he now worked was at least sixteen feet from the tunnel mouth. Pick in hand, he began to wedge chunks from their seat. The going seemed harder now and the chunks did not come loose so easily. Above him the tower made no sound. The crushing weight was now something tangible. He could almost feel it growing, increasing with every move of his. The mountain seemed resting on his shoulder, crushing the air from his lungs.

  Suddenly he stopped. His sack almost full, he stopped and lay very still, staring up at the bulk of the rock above him.

  No.

  He would go no further. Now he would quit. Not another sackful. Not another pound. He would go out now. He would go down the mountain without a backward look, and he would keep going. His wife waiting at home, little Tommy, who would run gladly to meet him—these were too much to gamble.

  With the decision came peace, came certainty. He sighed deeply, and relaxed, and then it seemed to him that every muscle in his body had been knotted with strain. He turned on his s
ide and with great deliberation gathered his lantern, his sack, his hand-pick.

  He had won. He had defeated the crumbling tower, he had defeated his own greed. He backed easily, without the caution that had marked his earlier movements in the cave. His blind, trusting foot found the projecting rock, a piece of quartz that stuck out from the rough-hewn wall.

  The blow was too weak, too feeble to have brought forth the reaction that followed. The rock seemed to quiver like the flesh of a beast when stabbed; a queer vibration went through that ancient rock, then a deep, gasping sigh.

  He had waited too long!

  Fear came swiftly in upon him, crowding him, while his body twisted, contracting into the smallest possible space. He tried to will his muscles to move beneath the growing sounds that vibrated through the passage. The whispers of the rock grew into a terrifying groan, and there was a rattle of pebbles. Then silence.

  The silence was more horrifying than the sound. Somehow he was crawling, even as he expected the avalanche of gold to bury him. Abruptly, his feet were in the open. He was out.

  He ran without stopping, but behind him he heard a growing roar that he couldn’t outrace. When he knew from the slope of the land that he must be safe from falling rock, he fell to his knees. He turned and looked back. The muted, roaring sound, like thunder beyond mountains, continued, but there was no visible change in the batholith. Suddenly, as he watched, the whole rock formation seemed to shift and tip. The movement lasted only seconds, but before the tons of rock had found their new equilibrium, his tunnel and the area around it had utterly vanished from sight.

  When he could finally stand. Wetherton gathered up his sack of ore and his canteen. The wind was cool upon his face as he walked away; and he did not look back again.

  DESERT DEATH-SONG

  When Jim Morton rode up to the fire three unshaven men huddled there warming themselves and drinking hot coffee. Morton recognized Chuck Benson from the Slash Five. The other men were strangers.

  “Howdy, Chuck!” Morton said. “He still in there?”

  “Sure is!” Benson told him. “An’ it don’t look like he’s figurin’ on comin’ out.”

  “I don’t reckon to blame him. Must be a hundred men scattered about.”

  “Nigher two hundred, but you know Nat Bodine. Shakin’ him out of these hills is going to be tougher’n shaking a possum out of a tree.”

  The man with the black-beard stubble looked up sourly. “He wouldn’t last long if they’d let us go in after him! I’d sure roust him out of there fast enough!”

  Morton eyed the man with distaste. “You think so. That means you don’t know Bodine. Goin’ in after him is like sendin’ a houn’ dog down a hole after a badger. That man knows these hills, ever’ crack an’ crevice! He can hide places an Apache would pass up.”

  The black-bearded man stared sullenly. He had thick lips and small, heavy-lidded eyes. “Sounds like maybe you’re a friend of his’n. Maybe when we get him you should hang alongside of him.”

  Somehow the long rifle over Morton’s saddle bows shifted to stare warningly at the man, although Morton made no perceptible movement. “That ain’t a handy way to talk, stranger,” Morton said casually. “Ever’body in these hills knows Nat, an’ most of us been right friendly with him one time or another. I ain’t takin’ up with him, but I reckon there’s worse men in this posse than he is.”

  “Meanin’?” The big man’s hand lay on his thigh,

  “Meanin’ anything you like.” Morton was a Tennessee mountain man before he came west and gun talk was no stranger to him. “You call it your ownself.” The long rifle was pointed between the big man’s eyes and Morton was building a cigarette with his hands only inches away from the trigger.

  “Forget it!” Benson interrupted. “What you two got to fight about? Blackie, this here’s Jim Morton. He’s lion hunter for the Lazy S.”

  Blackie’s mind underwent a rapid readjustment. This tall, lazy stranger wasn’t the soft-headed drink of water he had thought him, for everybody knew about Morton. A dead shot with rifle and pistol, he was known to favor the former, even in fairly close combat. He had been known to go up trees after mountain lions and once, when three hardcase rustlers had tried to steal his horses, the three had ended up in Boothill.

  “How about it, Jim?” Chuck asked. “You know Nat. Where’d you think he’d be?”

  Morton squinted and drew on his cigarette. “Ain’t no figurin’ him. I know him, an’ I’ve hunted along of him. He’s almighty knowin’ when it comes to wild country. Moves like a cat an’ got eyes like a turkey buzzard.” He glanced at Chuck. “What’s he done? I heard some talk down to the Slash Five, but nobody seemed to have it clear.”

  “Stage robbed yestiddy. Pete Daley of the Diamond D was ridin’ it, an’ he swore the robber was Nat. When they went to arrest him, Nat shot the sheriff.”

  “Kill him?”

  “No. But he’s bad off, an’ like to die. Nat only fired once an’ the bullet took Larabee too high.”

  “Don’t sound reasonable,” Morton said slowly. “Nat ain’t one to miss somethin’ he aims to kill. You say Pete Daley was there?” “Yeah. He’s the on’y one saw it.”

  “How about this robber? Was he masked?”

  “Uh huh, an’ packin’ a Winchester .44 an’ two tied-down guns. Big black-headed man, the driver said. He didn’t know Bodine, but Pete identified him.”

  Morton eyed Benson. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, and Chuck flushed.

  Each knew what the other was thinking. Pete Daley had never liked Bodine. Nat married the girl Pete wanted, even though it was generally figured Pete never had a look-in with her, anyway, but Daley had worn his hatred like a badge ever since. Mary Callahan had been a pretty girl, but a quiet one, and Daley had been sure he’d win her.

  But Bodine had come down from the hills and changed all that. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, dark hair and a quiet face. He was a good-looking man, even a handsome man, some said. Men liked him, and women too, but the men liked him best because he left their women alone. That was more than could be said for Daley, who lacked Bodine’s good looks but made up for it with money.

  Bodine had bought a place near town and drilled a good well. He seemed to have money, and that puzzled people, so hints began to get around that he had been rustling as well as robbing stages. There were those, like Jim Morton, who believed most of the stories stemmed from Daley, but no matter where they originated, they got around.

  Hanging Bodine for killing the sheriff—the fact that he was still alive was overlooked, and considered merely a technical question, anyway—was the problem before the posse. It was a self elected posse, inspired to some extent by Daley, and given a semiofficial status by the presence of Burt Stoval, Larrabee’s jailer.

  Yet to hang a man he must first be caught and Bodine had lost himself in that broken, rugged country known as Powder Basin. It was a region of some ten square miles backed against an even rougher and uglier patch of waterless desert, but the basin was bad enough itself.

  Fractured with gorges and humped with fir-clad hogbacks, it was a maze where the juniper region merged into the fir and spruce, and where the canyons were liberally overgrown with manzanita. There were at least two cliff dwellings in the area, and a ghost mining town of some dozen ramshackle structures, tumbled-in and wind-worried.

  “All I can say,” Morton said finally, “is that I don’t envy those who corner him—when they do and if they do.”

  Blackie wanted no issue with Morton, yet he was still sore. He looked up. “What do you mean, if we do? We’ll get him!”

  Morton took his cigarette from his lips. “Want a suggestion, friend? When he’s cornered, don’t you be the one to go in after him.”

  Four hours later, when the sun was moving toward noon, the net had been drawn tighter, and Nat Bodine lay on his stomach in the sparse grass on the crest of a hogback and studied the terrain below.

  There were many hiding places, b
ut the last thing he wanted was to be cornered and forced to fight it out. Until the last moment he wanted freedom of movement.

  Among the searchers were friends of his, men with whom he rode and hunted, men he had admired and liked. Now, they believed him wrong, they believed him a killer, and they were hunting him down.

  They were searching the canyons with care, so he had chosen the last spot they would examine, a bald hill with only the foot high grass for cover. His vantage point was excellent, and he had watched with appreciation the care with which they searched the canyon below him.

  Bodine scooped another handful of dust and rubbed it along his rifle barrel. He knew how far a glint of sunlight from a rifle barrel can be seen, and men in that posse were Indian fighters and hunters.

  No matter how he considered it, his chances were slim. He was a better woodsman than any of them, unless it was Jim Morton. Yet that was not enough. He was going to need food and water. Sooner or later they would get the bright idea of watching the waterholes, and after that… .

  It was almost twenty-four hours since he had eaten, and he would soon have to refill his canteen.

  Pete Daley was behind this, of course. Trust Pete not to tell the true story of what happened. Pete had accused him of the holdup right to his face when they had met him on the street. The accusation had been sudden, and Nat’s reply had been prompt. He’d called Daley a liar, and Daley moved a hand for his gun. The sheriff sprang to stop them and took Nat’s bullet. The people who rushed to the scene saw only the sheriff on the ground, Daley with no gun drawn, and Nat gripping his six-shooter. Yet it was not that of which he thought now. He thought of Mary.

  What would she be thinking now? They had been married so short a time, and had been happy despite the fact that he was still learning how to live in civilization and with a woman. It was a mighty different thing, living with a girl like Mary.