Big Bend

by John Benteen

  Ramsey ground out the cigarette. “How come Sheep Kelly didn’t take her from Stewart long time ago? If he wanted her, with all the men he had ... ”

  “He needed Stewart,” Concho said. “Stewart never rustled with Sheep, never got any of the money, anything like that. But he had to buy the right to ranch in Kelly’s territory, the right not to have Kelly bother his wife or his stock. He did it by freightin’ in supplies to Kelly, lettin’ him use the place for a way station for rustled cows now and again, keepin’ his ear to the ground and pickin’ up news ... He didn’t like it, but he had to do it to keep his wife and goods and stay alive.” A match flared as Concho lit a cigarette of his own. Then his voice roughened. “How’d you know where she come from?”

  “You talked a lot last night after you was shot.”

  Concho swore.

  “Another reason we ain’t startin’ out tomorrow,” Ramsey went on inexorably, “is that we got to make a plan. The two of us can’t take on all of Kelly’s bunch single-handed.”

  Concho said thinly, “You was aimin’ to do it to get your horses back.”

  “I had guns, then, too,” Ramsey replied wryly. “And horses and supplies. And I didn’t have any shot-up, played-out cowhand hangin’ around my neck. Things are a little bit different now. We got to git some guns and some mounts and some grub from somewhere before we can even think about takin’ on Kelly. Ain’t there some other ranches down in here?”

  “If we go near ’em, we’ll be cooked,” Concho said bluntly. “They all tied in with Sheep just like Stewart was.”

  “Yeah, but suppose we could steal what we need from ’em.”

  Concho considered. Then he said, “No. We’d never make it. They keep too good an eye out. Part of the agreement of their workin’ with Sheep is that he makes the Mescans lay off ’em, too. But these Revolutionarios gittin’ more and more feisty. Especially after Vera Cruz, they liable to break out against the gringos down here, Sheep or no Sheep. Everybody down here’s just about on a war footin’ now. Stewart and me was like that, we kept watch all the time. But he wasn’t afraid of that bunch from North Wells, that’s where he made his mistake. He didn’t know how mean and mad they was after gittin’ shot up by the Mexes.”

  “Well, we got to figure out something,” Ramsey said.

  Concho was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Goddammit.”

  Something in his tone brought Ramsey’s head around. “What?”

  “Stewart’s place. They burned ever’thing. But the cave’s still there.”

  “What cave?”

  “Back up behind the ranch house, not far. When we got to worryin’ about the Mescans, me and him started fixin’ it up. We figured we might need a place to run to, kinda storm cellar, you know? If the Revolutionarios hit us, me and him and Nora could hole up there, let ’em raid the damn place, but at least we’d be safe. And if they found us, it made a fine fort; it’d cost ’em more than they’d want to pay to dig us outa there. I shoulda thought of it before.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Grub, anyhow. Plenty of that. And some rifles and ammo. Yes, by God. Two Springfields and plenty of ammo.” His cigarette made a winking arc as he threw it away. “Me and Nora didn’t dare go near the place once we got away. We was blocked off from the cave and had to hightail it in the other direction. And even after them bastards from North Wells left, I knew the smoke they made would draw Sheep and maybe the Mescans, too, to find out what was goin’ on. I didn’t dare bump into either one; they’da killed me outa hand and taken Nora.”

  “So there’s still guns there and food. You sure?”

  “Why wouldn’t there be? Nobody’s likely to of found it. You can’t hardly see it, ’less you know where it is.”

  “How far is it?”

  “South of Chilicotal Springs. A good forty miles from here, right between Talley Mountain and Chilicotal Mountain.”

  Ramsey thought of his own raw feet and Concho’s weakness. “Will there be water between here and there?”

  “We should be able to make Neville Spring all right. There’s water at Dugout Wells, but we’ll have to swing clear of that—too close to Chilicotal.”

  “Forty miles,” Ramsey murmured. “We ought to make it in two nights, two and a half at most.”

  “Three or maybe four,” Concho said. “We got to go through a lot of rough country. We make ten miles a night, we’ll be doin’ good.” His voice roughened. “Thass why I say we got to go right away. If we don’t, Sheep Kelly’ll have had Nora for God knows how long before we catch up with ’im.” Ramsey sensed the terror in the man—not for himself, but for the woman. “And—a man that’s sick in his head about women, like Sheep ... it don’t take him long to ... to use up a woman. ’Specially if she fight back.”

  “You think Nora will fight back?”

  Concho was silent for a moment; when he spoke, there was misery in his voice. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

  Ramsey sat there for a while, listening to the slow drip of the water and trying to think, to plan. But he kept seeing the woman’s image in his mind: face, body, the graceful way she moved, and he heard her husky voice, and there was an urgency in him every bit as great as Concho’s.

  “When he git through with her,” Concho said thinly, “he pass her on down to his men. When they finished, they turn her over to the Mescans. And after that—God knows what happen to her or where she wind up ... ”

  A gust of cold wind came up the draw and Sam Ramsey shivered. But then he said quietly: “It can’t be helped. You got to rest and heal up. We’ll travel by night and day, too, to make up for lost time, if we can come by enough water and somethin’ to eat. But I can’t carry you from here to Stewart’s place, and I can’t do anything down in this country by myself against those people. We got to spend at least a day here, and maybe two if that’s what it takes.”

  For a while, there was silence in the draw. Then Concho said, “Awright. If that’s the way it got to be, it’ll be that way.”

  ~*~

  Concho knew survival in the desert. “We fill our canteen, move away from this spring in daylight. This the only water for miles, anybody comin’ through gonna stop here. We wanta be damn sure we see them ’fore they see us. ’Sides, we got to find ourselves somethin’ to eat.”

  “Like what?” Ramsey asked.

  Concho’s lips curled wryly. “Like sidewinder,” he said.

  Ramsey’s stomach convulsed at the thought. But hunger was a torment, and Concho was inexorable. They found a sheltered spot on a bench farther up the mountain, from which they could overlook the territory for miles, and Ramsey went out to look for snakes. He was not notably successful; rattlers were vulnerable to the intense heat and holed up during the day. But he managed to catch a couple, and under Concho’s direction, he beheaded, skinned, and filleted them. Despite his hunger, it took some doing to force down the soft white meat, even when it had been roasted in the coals of a smokeless fire of brushwood.

  “We got to have more’n that,” Concho said, “if we gonna make Stewart’s place. You know how to build a deadfall?”

  “No,” Ramsey said.

  “If the coast clear, I show you this evenin’ late,” Concho said. “You have to do the work, though. There a lot of heavy lifting and I might open this here wound.”

  A couple of hours before dark, Concho surveyed the country and seemed satisfied. “I reckon it all right to work down in the draw for a little while.” With Ramsey’s help, he and Ramsey climbed down off the bench.

  “I been watchin’ all day,” Concho said. “We scared away all the game last night and they ain’t come back to drink, yet. But they got to come sooner or later, because there ain’t no other place to water. We’ll put our trap here where the draw narrows down.”

  The worst part of it was finding the necessary wood. Ramsey had to climb back up the mountain until he could cut the pieces needed for triggers off some stunted junipers and pinons that grew at higher alt
itudes. Then, under Concho’s directions, he bridged the draw with rock deadfalls at its narrowest point. First, a heavy upright stick to support a broad, flat stone upon which other stones were to be piled to increase the weight. Then a figure-four trigger contrivance, so that anything that hit it would bring the rock down crushingly. It took five of them to close the floor of the draw, and then there were stones to be piled on the sloping sides of the defile to make the barrier more complete.

  “What we likely to git,” Concho said, “is a javelina, if we lucky. They ain’t drunk since yesterday evenin’. Tonight there may be some thirsty enough to come up here regardless of all the man scent we done left around here. The ones behind crowd the ones in front to git to water, if it a herd of any size, and maybe one of ’em git pushed or bump into them trap triggers. Then again, maybe we only git a jack rabbit or maybe we git nothin’. We move back up on the bench and wait and see.”

  Ramsey was too exhausted to reply. It took the last of his strength to help Concho back up the mountain. There they wolfed the last few crumbs of snake meat and huddled behind boulders that broke the chill wind of the desert night.

  “We got to be very quiet tonight,” Concho said. After a pause, he added: “I feelin’ lots better, though. A good square meal and I sure I be ready to move on tomorrow night.”

  Ramsey didn’t reply, and they lay in silence, shivering with the cold. Stars appeared in unbelievable profusion overhead, and a larger slice of moon came up. The night dragged on, endlessly. At last Ramsey slept.

  He was jerked awake, heart pounding, by a hideous noise. It was a banshee shriek, rising from the draw, and it kept on and on and on, shrill, piercing, full of agony. He rubbed his eyes. “What the hell—?”

  Concho’s voice came from darkness, full of exultancy. “We got one. A javelina done tripped the trigger and he pinned down.”

  Ramsey comprehended then and sprang to his feet, but Concho caught his ankle. “Wait,” the Negro rapped. “Them pigs is still down there in the draw. You go down there in the dark, they all excited, they cut you to ribbons. Jest wait.”

  Ramsey sank back down. The squealing went on for a long time. Then it died to a thin, rasping, pathetic sound. At last, Concho said, “You better go down now. But be careful. Herd of javelinas can tear a man plumb apart with them tushes of theirs, they git riled. I think they gone, but you look out. And not only for them pigs. That’s jest the kind of noise brings a cougar, and one of ’em might jump you thinkin’ you were a deer.”

  Ramsey said nothing, but he pulled out his sheath knife and edged down off the bench. It took him a long time to make his way through darkness to the draw. By the time he reached it, he was tense and jumpy. But he found it empty, except for thirty pounds of young javelina, its hindquarters pinned under one of the collapsed piles of rock. There was still some life in it, and it gnashed its tusks at him as he stuck it with the blade.

  At last he wrestled the carcass back up to the bench. “God,” he said, as he dropped it on the rock. “This thing stinks like a skunk.”

  “It won’t be no tender steak,” Concho said wryly. “Lemme have your knife. I cut them musk glands out, it be better. Anyhow, we got us meat now. We cook it dry, it’ll keep a coupla days. Wish to hell we could smoke it, but we don’t dare.”

  The next morning, they built a fire and ate ravenously of the rank, stringy flesh. Concho cooked the rest of the meat until it was black and charred and there was no grease left in it. Then he divided it into two parts and shoved one toward Ramsey. “Stick that in yo’ shirt,” he commanded. “Soon as the worst of the heat’s gone, we strike out.”

  Ramsey looked at him. “You feel good enough?”

  “I’m fine,” Concho said.

  “You’re lyin’ in your teeth,” Ramsey said. “That rib must be like a knife goin’ through you every time you move.”

  Concho’s eyes flared. “Goddammit, man, you think I got time for a rest cure or somethin’? We got to git that woman back from Kelly!” He struck the ground with a big fist. “We done wasted enough time already!”

  “Lemme look at that wound,” Ramsey said.

  “It’s all right, I tell you!”

  “Lemme see it.”

  Concho’s lips thinned; for an instant Ramsey thought he would refuse. But then the Negro sighed and lay down on his back.

  Ramsey stripped away the crusted, filthy bandages carefully. The bullet-chopped flesh of Concho’s side was a huge, scabby mess, with semi-raw places showing through. Ramsey probed it carefully with his fingers. He could feel only a little fever around it, but that was normal, and no pockets of pus had formed.

  “You see?” Concho said triumphantly. “It healin’ fine. Not even any proud flesh.”

  Ramsey nodded and poured half the contents of the canteen into the hollow of a rock. As Concho watched, he began to rinse the dirty bandages as best he could. As soon as Concho realized what Ramsey was up to, he snapped: “I’ll do that. You got no call to do that. It ain’t yo’ place to wash out my filth.”

  “Shut up,” Ramsey said, “and lie still.”

  It took no time at all for the bandages to dry, and while they were far from clean when he put them back on Concho, they would keep a certain amount of dirt out of the wound and strap the shattered rib in place.

  When it was done, Concho growled: “Much obliged.”

  “Por nada,” Ramsey said. He got to his feet. “Keep a lookout. I’m goin’ up th’ mountain.”

  “What for?”

  “What the hell you think for? You think I’m gonna let you lean on me all day? I’m gonna cut you a crutch off a pinon tree.”

  Concho grunted, but he made no protest.

  When Ramsey returned, Concho got carefully to his feet and experimented with the crude crutch Ramsey had whittled. “This thing more trouble than it worth.” He walked back and forth along the bench without it, erect, striding out. “See?”

  “It won’t be after you’ve gone five miles,” Ramsey said. “Bring it along.”

  “Awright,” Concho growled. “But you just like an old granny-woman.”

  He sat down, and now his restlessness was evident. “I been thinkin’,” he said. “Here’s the way I see it. By this time, your hawses are in good shape and Sheep’s had time to git in touch with the Mescans. He’ll have left Chilicotal Springs by now and gone on down to the Rio. By the time we git to Stewart’s, he’ll be layin’ up at the old mine on Mariscal Mountain, and that’s where we got to head from Stewart’s. Your hawses will be gone by then, I reckon. The mine ain’t far from the San Vicente crossin’, and the Mescans will have already taken ’em across the river.”

  “I’m not worried about the horses,” Ramsey said.

  Concho looked at him strangely. His eyes glittered. Then he turned his head away without saying anything.

  Between three and four, they clambered down to the spring, drank their fill, doused heads and faces, filled the canteen, and even the bladder of the pig, small as it was, which Concho had taken out and cleaned and tied with a sinew from the hind leg. Then they set out across the badlands.

  Which was what the country really was, for it was too mountainous, too cut with gulches, arroyos and canyons, too heaped with piles of loose gravel, like the tailings from some gigantic mine, for the word “desert” alone really to describe it. The heat was still brutal, of course, and it occurred to Ramsey that what they were really doing was making their way across the cinders of a huge furnace, as dwarfed by the huge and convulsed landscape as a couple of ants that had found their way into a grate full of glowing coals.

  Concho led the way, moving with surprising speed at first—though he did not disdain to use the crutch. They kept, as far as possible, to cover, to the low ground, the bottoms of washes and draws and dry creek-beds with which the country was laced. It was not long before his own pace told on the Negro, and presently he slowed down. Ramsey was grateful, for the boots were rubbing his feet again, mercilessly. Concho’s boots, flatt
er of heel, were better adapted for walking.

  They camped that night at the bottom of an arroyo, rationing their water, ripping at the dried and leathery javelina flesh like wolves, shivering through the first few hours of darkness. When the slowly waxing moon rose and added its pale glimmer to starlight, they struck out again, through more nightmare terrain. By dawn, they had reached water at Neville Springs, and now the great bulk of the Chisos, its peaks soaring as much as four thousand feet up from the already elevated tableland, loomed over them. Concho became more furtive as the sun rose, for a watcher on the Chisos rim could spot them from miles away. Lame, exhausted, they slunk along through the comparative coolness of the early morning, until ten, when they found a covert in which to den up.

  “We got to keep watch,” Concho said now. “Kelly’s men, Mescans, no tellin’ who’s liable to be along any minute. You git some rest; I keep an eye out.”

  Ramsey didn’t argue; he was dead-beat. He had ridden horseback all his life and literally was capable of staying in the saddle for days, but he had never pretended to be a walker. In addition to the agony of his raw-rubbed feet, he was finding new muscles in his thighs and calves that he had never known he owned until now.

  Besides, the long march seemed to have had a strange effect on Concho. Instead of exhausting him, it appeared to have built up his strength. For the last four hours, his speed had increased, although he still used the crutch, and though his side must have tortured him, his breathing was no longer stertorous and rasping, but deep and regular. It began to be apparent to Ramsey how really tough this man was. There was no self-concern in him; like an animal, given a while to lick his wounds, he was ready for any exertion again, completely free of the self-pity and self-protectiveness which would have kept any ordinary human immobile for days.

  Ramsey got in two hours’ drugged sleep; then Concho awakened him for his turn at watch. A couple of hours later, though the heat was at its worst, they moved on, keeping to whatever shade they could find. But desert noon was too much even for Concho; presently they stopped again, in a crease between two hills that were composed entirely of loose, piled gravel.