Collection 1995 - Valley Of The Sun (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  * * *

  HE WAS LYING across the anthill, lying on his side. Stakes driven into the ground on either side of his body, but some distance off, tied him in position so he could not roll away. The rawhide thongs binding him to the stakes were tight and strong. Other stakes had been driven into the ground above his head and below his feet. From the stake above his head a noose had been slipped under his jawbone and drawn tight, so his head was all but immovable. His ankles had been roped tight down to the stake below his feet.

  It was with no happiness that the Cactus Kid contemplated his situation. Yet two factors aroused his curiosity; the señorita the brothers had talked about, and why they did not mount and leave the canyon.

  Their work here had been done. Neither brother was immune from superstition, and in fact, both of them were ignorant men reared in all that strange tangle of fact and fancy that makes up Yaqui folklore. This place had a history, a weird history that extended back to some dim period long before the coming of the red man, back to those pre-Indian days when other peoples roamed this land.

  Artifacts had been found in the caves, and back there where the idol was, there were stone remains of some kind of crude temple built under an overhanging shelf. A professor who explored the canyon had once told the Kid that the base of the supposedly Aztec god had provided a base for some other figure before it, that it was another type of stone, and one not found nearby.

  Yet there was nothing in all this to help him. What he had hoped for, he did not know, but any uncertainty on their part could act favorably for him, so when the idea came to him, he had played on their superstition and the natural feeling all men have when in a strange, lonely place during the dark and silent hours. It had come to nothing. He was strapped to an anthill, and when the sun awakened them to full vigor and they began their work, they would find the blood, and then they would swarm over him by the thousands.

  Doggedly, bitterly, almost without hope, he worked at the rawhide that bound his wrists. Fearful of what he might do if they had been freed even for a moment, the brothers Fernandez had left his hands tied when they threw him on the ground and staked him out. Yet despite the blood and perspiration on his chafed and painful wrists, the rawhide seemed loosened but little. Nevertheless, he continued to work, struggling against time and against pain.

  Then suddenly, in a bitter and clarifying moment, he realized what they had meant when they spoke of a señorita. They had been talking about Bess.

  The instant the idea came to him he knew he was right.

  Not over a week ago when he rode up to her home and swung down from the saddle, she had told him about Lobo Fernandez and his brother, the smooth, polished one, the one called Juan. They had stopped her in front of the store and tried to talk. Juan had caught at her arm. She had twisted away, and then Ernie Cable had come out of the general store and wanted to know what was going on, and they had laughed and walked away. But she had noticed them watching the house.

  They had been talking about Bess O’Neal. But what? What had they said?

  Where were the other brothers? Where were Juan and Pedro?

  The low murmur of voices came to him, and as he lay on the low mound of the anthill, he could see the glow of their cigarettes. They were sitting on the ground not far from the image, smoking. And waiting.

  Using all his strength, he tugged at his bonds. They were solid, and they cut into his wrists like steel wire. He relaxed, panting. He could feel sweat running down his body under his shirt. This was going to be hell. Even if he got free, he still must get his hands on a gun, and even then, there would be four of them.

  Four? There were only two, now. Yet once the idea had come to him, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Juan Fernandez was no fool. It was such a good chance, they could kill two birds with one stone. Juan wanted Bess O’Neal. If the Cactus Kid and Bess vanished at the same time, everyone would shrug and laugh. They would believe they had eloped. No one would even think to question the opinion. It was so natural a thing for them to do.

  Revenge for their brother’s death, and the girl. They could take her to Sonora or back in the hills, and nobody would even think to look.

  * * *

  THEN HE HEARD the sound of horses on the trail. He tried to lift his head to listen, but it was tied too tight. He lay there, hating himself and miserable, listening to the horses. Desperately, his mind fought for a way out, an escape. Again he strained his muscles against the binding rawhide. He forced his wrists with all his might, but although he strained until his hands dug into the sand under him, he could do nothing, he found them tight as ever. The sweat and blood made his wrists slippery so they would turn, ever so little, under the rawhide, but that was all.

  His fingers were touching something, something cool and flat. For an instant, listening again to the approaching horses, that something made no impression, it refused to identify itself. Then on a sudden it hit him, and his fingers felt desperately.

  A small, flat surface, light in weight, triangular—an arrowhead!

  There were many of them here, he knew. All over this ancient medicine ground of the Yaqui Indians, delicately shaped from flint.

  He gripped it in his fingers and tried to reach it up to the rawhide that bound his wrists.

  They had crossed his wrists, then bound them tightly, and had taken several turns of the rawhide around his forearms, binding them tightly together, but by twisting his fingers he could bring the rawhide thong and the edge of the flint arrowhead together. Straining in every muscle, he commenced to saw at the thong.

  The horses were still coming. In the echoing stillness of the canyon, he knew he would hear them for a good half hour before they arrived. The steep path was narrow, and they must come slowly.

  Minutes passed. The cutting pain in his wrists was a gnawing agony now, and the salt of perspiration had mingled with it to add to his discomfort. Yet he struggled on. It was desperately hard to get the edge of the flint against the rawhide now, but he could still manage it, and a little pressure.

  A voice called out, then another. The horses came into the basin, and he heard a question in Spanish, then a laughing response. Then a light was struck, and a fire blazed up. In the glow of the fire applied to sticks gathered earlier, he could see the four brothers, and Bess O’Neal.

  She was standing with her back to him, her wrists tied, and Juan gripped her arm. Lobo stared at her greedily, and then Juan asked a question. Leading the girl, they turned toward the anthill and the Cactus Kid.

  Bess cried out when she saw him. “You! When they told me you were here, I thought they lied. They said you were hurt—that you—Then when I was outside talking to them, I suddenly realized something was wrong, but when I tried to leave and go back inside to get someone else, they grabbed me, tied me, and brought me to this place.”

  “Keep your nerve, honey,” the Cactus Kid said grimly. “This isn’t over!”

  Juan laughed and, leaning down, struck him across the mouth. “Pig!” he snarled. “I should kill you now. I should cut you to little pieces, only the ants will do it better. And if you die, you would not hear what happens to the señorita. It is better you hear!”

  He straightened up, and they trooped back to the fire. The frightened, despairing look in the girl’s eyes gave him added incentive. He scraped and scratched at the rawhide, staring hard toward the fire.

  The brothers were in no hurry. They had the girl. They had him. He was helpless, and no one suspected them. Moreover, they were in a place where no one came. They could afford to take their time.

  Suddenly he braced himself again and strained his muscles. He felt a sudden weakness in his bonds, and then his straining fingers found a loose end. He had cut through the rawhide!

  Working with his swollen, clumsy fingers, he got the loose end looser, then managed to shake some of the other loops from his wrists. In a matter of minutes, his hands were free. He lay still then, panting and getting his wind, then he lifted his hands to the halter
on his head and neck. A few minutes’ work and that was freed, then the thongs that bound his wrists and ankles.

  * * *

  HE WAS OUTSIDE the glow of the fire, which was at least a hundred yards away. He chafed his swollen wrists and rubbed his hands together. Then he got several pieces of rawhide and stuck them into his pockets. One piece, about eighteen inches long, he kept.

  The Cactus Kid got slowly to his feet, stretching himself, trying to get life into his muscles. In the vast, empty stillness of the black canyon the tiny fire glowed, and flamed red, and above it the soft voices, muted by distance and the enormity of the space around them, sounded almost like whispers.

  Tiptoeing to the edge of the stream, he felt for the rock he wanted, two inches long and evenly balanced in weight. Taking the eighteen-inch rawhide, he knotted one end of it securely about the stone. Then he tried it in his hand.

  Fading back into the shadows then, his boots still lying where Lobo had dropped them when they were jerked from his feet, the Kid melted into the almost solid blackness and began to cross the space between himself and the fire.

  He didn’t like killing, and he didn’t like what he was going to have to do, yet he was not the one to underrate the fighting ability of the brothers Fernandez. They were cruel, vindictive men, lawless and given to murder. He knew what they would do to the girl, he knew the horror in which she would live for a few days or a few weeks, then murder. They dared not leave her alive, possibly to get back to Aragon.

  To think that only a few miles away now, the dance was in progress! Only a few miles away old Buck Sorenson was calling dances and his sons were sawing their fiddles. There was help there, but it was too far. What was to be done, he must do himself.

  Miguel knelt above the fire. He was cooking. Juan sat near the girl, and kept a hand on her. From time to time he made remarks to her in his sneering, irritating voice. Lobo sat across the fire, his eyes never leaving the girl’s slim body or her face.

  In the darkness, the Cactus Kid watched. His guns were there, he could see them lying on a blanket. They were too far away. There was no chance to get them.

  He waited. It was a deadly, trying waiting. Minutes seemed like hours. Then Miguel straightened. “Pedro!” he snapped impatiently.

  The Fernandez who dozed on the sand looked up.

  “Get me some water from the spring, you lazy one!”

  Pedro started to complain, then Juan looked up.

  “Get it!” he snapped.

  Grudgingly, Pedro picked up a canteen and started off into the darkness. The Cactus Kid came to his feet, moving like a ghost in his socked feet, moving after Pedro.

  He waited, while the hulking Mexican held the canteen in the spring to fill it, and then as he straightened, the Kid moved in behind him, holding a loop of the rawhide in his left hand and gripping the stone in his fingers.

  He threw the stone suddenly, and its weight swung the rawhide around the Mexican’s neck. He had swung the stone from the right and with a quick, backhanded motion, and as it came around Pedro’s neck the Kid caught it with his right. Then he jerked hard with both hands, cutting off the startled yell that started to rise in the man’s throat, and gripping the rawhide hard, the Kid jerked his knee up into the small of Pedro’s back and turned his knuckles hard against the back of Pedro’s neck.

  It was sudden, adroit, complete. For an instant the Kid held the man, then lowered him to the ground. Perhaps he was dead. Perhaps—there was no question now. Withdrawing the thong, the Kid searched him in vain for a gun, then slid away into darkness, and once more got close to the camp. He sighed regretfully. Pedro had been unarmed.

  “Where is that fool, Pedro?” Miguel demanded impatiently. Then he yelled, “Pedro! Where are you?”

  There was no answer.

  The echo of Miguel’s voice died, and for a minute the three brothers stared at each other. Lobo got to his feet, staring into the darkness. There was no sound out there but the falling water in the spring, and the rustle from the stream.

  Lobo Fernandez shifted uneasily, staring around into the darkness. “I’ll go see where is he,” he said, finally.

  * * *

  LYING CLOSE, THE Kid waited. What he wanted was a chance at those guns. Once the guns were in his hands, all would be well. Was he the Cactus Kid for nothing?

  Lobo walked off into the darkness. Suddenly there was a startled yell from him.

  “Juan!” Lobo screamed. “Come quickly! Pedro is dead!”

  Juan Fernandez sprang to his feet and lunged toward Lobo’s shouting voice. Miguel started up, his face ashen, and the Kid sprang, quickly, silently. Again the rawhide thong swung out, and again a man was jerked from his feet, but this time the Kid had no desire to kill.

  “It is the spirits!” Lobo shouted. “The gringo told me they would be angry!”

  Juan’s shout broke in. “The Keed? He has done this! He has gotten away!”

  The Cactus Kid heard them rushing toward the anthill where he had been tied, but he dropped the unconscious Miguel and sprang for the guns. He came up with the gun belt swinging in his hands and, with a quick movement, caught it and buckled the guns on. Then he sprang across the fire to the girl and dragged her into the darkness.

  While she sobbed with relief he tore at the knots with frenzied, eager fingers.

  “Where are the horses?” he said. “Get to them quickly! Get two and turn the others free. Then wait for me where the trail begins.”

  The girl asked no more questions, but slipped off into the darkness.

  There was not a sound from the brothers. Miguel, his face blue, lay on the ground near the fire. He was not dead.

  The Kid glided from behind the fire and, staring into the darkness, began to probe for the brothers Fernandez. Both were armed, as Pedro had not been. Both men were deadly with six-guns, and in any kind of a shoot-out they would be hard men to handle. Keeping his eyes away from the fire, he moved into the shadows, hoping to get near the horses but out of line with the girl.

  There was no sign from her. Then he heard a horse stamp and blow. He waited. Then he heard a footfall, so soft he scarce could hear. He whirled, gun in hand, and in the darkness he saw the looming figure of Lobo, just the faint outline of his figure in the light from the fire.

  Their guns came up at the same instant, and both blasted fire. The Kid felt a quick stab at his side, not of pain, but rather a jolt as though someone had jerked him violently. Then he fired again, and saw the big figure of Lobo wilting, saw the gun dribble from his fingers, and at the same instant there was a scream from near the horses.

  Turning in his tracks, he charged toward the scream and came up running. There was a wild scuffling in the dark, then a muttered curse and the sound of a blow. He saw them, and holstering his gun, the Kid lunged close and caught Juan with one hand at his shirt collar and one at his belt.

  With a tremendous jerk, he ripped the Mexican free and shoved him violently away. With a cry, Juan turned like a cat in midair and hit the ground in a sitting position. He must have drawn as he fell, for suddenly his gun belched fire and then the Kid fired.

  Juan Fernandez rolled over and the Kid dropped to the ground. They lay there, only a few feet apart, each waiting for a move from the other. Somewhere off to the right the girl was also lying still. Back at the fire Miguel might be coming to. What was to be done must be done now.

  He could hear the horses moving, so evidently Bess had reached them safely again after he had pulled Juan away from her. All was quiet, and then he thought he detected a movement off to the right.

  Picking up a small pebble, he tossed it into the water. It drew no fire, no reaction. Getting carefully to his feet, he tried to penetrate the darkness ahead of him. Circling, he headed toward where he believed Juan to be. Yet when he reached the spot, the outlaw was no longer there!

  Glancing back toward the fire, he saw that Miguel, too, was gone.

  Gun in hand, he started working toward the entrance to the trail where
he had warned Bess to meet him.

  * * *

  THE WHEREABOUTS OF the brothers disturbed him. Their hatred over his responsibility, small as it had been, in the death of Ace, would be nothing at all now that he had escaped them, killed Pedro, and taken Bess O’Neal from them. Above all, once the two left this valley, the brothers Fernandez would know only too well their day around Aragon was over.

  A movement near him, and he froze into a crouch, his gun lifted. Then he saw a dark shadow, and just as he lifted the gun and turned it toward the figure there came to his nostrils a faint, scarcely tangible breath of perfume!

  A moment only he waited, then he took a chance. “Bess!” he hissed.

  In a moment she was beside him. Her lips against his ear, she breathed softly, “Miguel is at the trail entrance! We cannot get away!”

  “The horses?”

  “I’ve yours and mine in the cutback under the shelf. Near that image!”

  Taking her hand, he began to move on careful feet toward the place she mentioned. It was dark there, in the overhang of the cliff. He drew her to him and slipped his left arm around her waist. Freed from his bonds, with Bess O’Neal beside him, and his guns on his slim hips, the Cactus Kid was once more himself. Grimly, he waited.

  Morning would come, and with it—well, the brothers Fernandez could run, or they could die, as they wished.

  Dawn came, as dawns will, slipping in a gray mystery of beginning light along the far wall of the narrow canyon, then growing into light. The gray turned softer and lay down along the gravel bench. The ants, unaware of what they had missed, began to bestir themselves, and the Kid, seated against the wall with the head of Bess O’Neal on his shoulder, watched the light and was thankful.

  No living thing beyond the ants appeared on the bench. He arose, and awakening the girl, they swung into the saddle and, walking their horses, started cautiously for the trail. When they rounded the cluster of boulders that concealed it from them, there was no one in sight. “Looks like they’ve gone!” he said.