It was growing light now. We waited, listening, catching a faint smell of wood smoke, then a clink of metal against metal.
“Close,” Brodie whispered. “Only a couple of hundred yards or less.”
The trail we followed branched suddenly, as I had foreseen, and one branch dropped sharply down into a shaded hollow that opened into the wider canyon. Sunlight sparkled on the creek there. Each of us had drawn his rifle; we looked one to the other.
We looked down into the hollow through the trees and brush, down a steep trail made by men on moccasined feet for other moccasined feet. There was no easy way down, and from the moment we started there would be a trickle of rocks and gravel falling, warning them.
Dismounting, I walked to the rim and looked down. A horse could make it, but we could not. We’d be shot out of our saddles before we got halfway down. Slowly my eyes searched for a way.
A man on foot, if he was careful. A faint sound of voices came, a laugh; they were right below us. Yet that one man with a rifle…Maybe he could pin them down, scatter them, leave time for the riders to make it.
There were oaks along the steep mountainside. A man would have to be careful to start no pebbles rolling. Even one might cause a man to look up, and the descending man would be pinned against the slope, an easy target.
Studying the ground, I saw my way. Yet if the others did not manage it, I’d be trapped. Yet the horses stolen were my horses, and the trap, if such it was, was set for me. I walked back to my horse, got out my moccasins, and taking off my boots, slung them to the saddle horn. Then I donned the moccasins.
“What are you thinkin’ of?” Monte asked.
“One man can make it. I’ll pin them down, then you boys come.”
Jacob Finney spat. “You let me go, boy. I’m an old hand at this game.”
My eyes picked out a flash of sorrel from among the leaves. Moving over a bit, I could see the horses, all neatly gathered behind a makeshift gate in a small box canyon. There seemed to be somewhat of an obstruction further along the canyon, an improvised brush-and-timber fence across the upper end of the corral.
If a man could…
“Jacob?” I pointed. “If a man could get down there and open that gate—”
“He could stampede those horses right through their camp and down the canyon,” Brodie interrupted.
“And we’d have our horses,” Hardin accepted the idea.
Monte McCalla had ridden off along the ridge. Now he returned. “Yonder,” he pointed, “there looks to be a way down to the upper canyon. I figure we can make it down a-horseback. It’s a steep slope, but away from their camp, and it doesn’t look to be as steep as this.”
“Take my horse with you,” I suggested. “I’ll take this route down.” Pausing, I added, “We all know what this is going to be like. If anybody gets separated, go back to town. If we shake the horses loose, get away with them.”
Monte caught up the reins of my horse. “Let’s go,” he suggested, and they rode off along the ridge and I was alone.
For a moment I stood there in the lemon light of early morning. The sky was slightly overcast. It was still cool, and I looked around, inhaling very deep. The air was fresh, and I filled my lungs with it, then walked to a big old blue oak and stood beside it, looking down the way I must go. Taking my rifle in my right hand, I started down the hill, taking my time, putting each foot down with care, lifting it with equal care.
If they found a way down, it would take them a while to get to the corral gate, which was out of sight of the camp below but had been a convenient place to hold the stolen horses.
Twelve or more men, eager to kill me, and for a minute or two I’d be facing them alone. Supposing that route Monte had found proved impossible? It could….Many a time I’d seen an apparently easy way down end in a fifty-foot drop with no way around. If that happened, I’d have something to sweat about.
My moccasin came down on gray, dusty earth and pine needles. These were the needles of the Digger pine, eight to ten inches in length. Step by step I worked my way down for fifty feet, then crouched by the trunk of an oak to study the way I should take.
Three men were loafing about a small fire. A short distance away, two more were playing cards on a blanket. All were armed, all had rifles close by. There was a pot of coffee on the fire. There was no way I was going to get down there without getting my head blown off. What the hell was I doing here, anyway?
Where were the other men? I had figured on at least another five. There might be a dozen more, or there might be no more.
The trouble with a situation like this was that a man had to keep going forward until there was no turning back.
From where I now waited their camp was about a hundred yards away, more than fifty yards of it almost straight down. Lowering one knee to the earth, I studied the route I’d have to take, then moved quickly to another vantage point behind part of a huge old oak that had broken off about five feet above the ground and lay where it had fallen.
The concealment was better, I was closer, and there was some cover from the thick trunk of the remaining stump as well as the fallen part and its branches.
A stone trickled past me. Startled, I looked up, half-turning to see a Mexican in a big sombrero and a serape aiming a rifle at me.
In half-turning I had thrown myself off-balance, and I just let go and fell. The rifle above blasted, and whipping over on my left elbow, I fired my rifle like a pistol. He was looming above me, not more than thirty feet away, and I could scarcely miss.
My bullet caught him in the brisket and he fell toward me. Twisting to one side, I let him fall, then whipped around to face the camp.
From the canyon I heard yells and shots, and then I was shooting into the camp. One man near the fire had leaped up, and my bullet spun him around. Twisting position, I fired at one of the card-players. I missed and so did he; then I triggered another shot and he fell back, blood turning his pants leg crimson.
Leaping up, I plunged down the slope toward the camp. A bullet hit a tree near me and spat bark into my face. I hit level ground and went into the camp firing. These men had, after all, prepared a trap to kill me.
There was a wild yell from the main canyon, and horses went streaming past. A man leaped up to try to head them off, and I burned him with a shot that spun him around and made him dive for cover. Horsemen went streaking by, there were more shots from down canyon, and I glanced quickly around.
Two men were on the ground. Another was gripping his leg and trying to stop the flow of blood. I ran down the canyon, looking for a horse.
Men were coming up the canyon from some post below, and turning, I ran up the canyon, hoping for a horse, any kind of a horse. There were none.
Rounding the bend, I came on a Mexican down and dead, and a little beyond him, Brodie.
A glance was all I needed. Brodie was dead, too. I could hear men coming, and I ran up the canyon, holding to the soft sand to make no sound. Seeing a crevice in the wall, I darted into it, pausing to catch my breath, and then went scrambling over the rocks, trying to get higher, to escape the canyon.
Brodie gone! He was a good man, a damned good man.
I paused again to catch my breath. Did they know I was still around, and afoot? If they did, they could soon round me up. I checked my rifle and my cartridge belt. Then I climbed on, up the canyon, keeping to whatever cover was available. My one desire was to get away, to find a horse.
Brodie gone…and what of the others? What of my old friend Jacob? He whom I had known since boyhood, who had taught me so much, who had been and still was my friend? The place where I was climbing was, during hard rains, a steep runoff for water. Soon I would top out on the ridge. Would some of them be waiting?
Under some trees near the crest of the ridge I studied the situation. I had been seen, no doubt recognized. The man
with the wounded leg, if he did not bleed to death, would have recognized me. They would know I was here and afoot.
They would come seeking me. The horses they could afford to lose, but I was the game they had planned to hunt down and kill.
Turning to the trail, I glanced at it, disappearing among the rocks, appearing on the grass beyond. The canyon would be a trap from which there was small chance of escape. The bald hills where I now was offered no place to hide. There would be several mounted men hunting me, and I was on foot. What I needed was a change of scene. I started to run.
Often, when living with the Cahuillas, I had run with Francisco or others, run mile upon mile in all sorts of weather, over all kinds of terrain. Automatically I used every device for hiding my trail, leaping from rock to rock, running along occasional fallen logs, but moving swiftly. The ancient trail had once gone somewhere, and now I hoped it would take me away, take me to a place where I could hide.
Jacob, Monte, and Hardin had the horses and would drive them back to Los Angeles or at least to a rancho where they could be held for us. They might come hunting me, but it would be better for them if they did not.
Ancient men had run this trail, to trade, to visit, to attend places of worship; in war and in fear they had run where my feet now ran. Once, topping a razor-backed ridge, I paused to throw a rock on the pile. Only minutes remained to me, only minutes until they would be upon my trail, mounted and hunting.
Slowing to a walk, I looked back. Nothing yet. Miss Nesselrode, Aunt Elena, Meghan…I thought of them. They were my family. Yes, Meghan, too.
I had loved her. I still did.
Turning, I ran on into the bright crystal morning; I ran on into the face of the rising sun.
Behind me, the pound of hooves….
CHAPTER 48
Was this to be the end? Here in this high, rocky country above the desert? Had all my dreams and plans come only to this? To die here, alone, killed by my enemies? Had all the sacrifice of my father and mother brought me only to this?
Yet I fled not in fear but to find a better place from which to fight. The odds were great against me—how great, I did not know. Many times before, I had run with my friends, the desert Indians. My breath came evenly and strong; the rifle was heavy, but I would need it.
A mile, another mile. Thicker, taller, rougher rocks, great crags jutting out, trails that dipped between them. Topping out on a great ridge among some rocks, I glanced back and saw them coming, single file, issuing from a narrow place. I counted six, and more followed behind.
“You want a chase,” I said aloud, “I’ll lead you one.”
Running with an easy stride, I knew I could go on for miles. I also knew that although a horse was faster, a man could run a horse to death over a distance. Deliberately I turned to a route that would keep me parallel to the old track I’d been following, but one that led into much rougher terrain.
Barren crags loomed above the way I chose to go, and there were no more oaks, but here and there ancient cedars and patches of cholla cactus. We were nearing the desert now, the harsh Mohave that lay off to the south, mile upon mile of the Mohave, until it merged with the Colorado desert.
Now the coolness of early morning was gone and the heat was coming. Turning sharply to the right, I went down a steep slope among the cacti, crossed a wash, following it through a natural gate in the rocks, and then found what I sought, a place among the rocks and a gnarled old cedar.
There was more than expected, for in a shallow pool scarcely an inch deep and a foot across was water left from a recent rain. I wet my lips, then sucked some up as I waited.
With my rifle trained on the natural rock gate, I heard them coming, slowing a little, but coming on. A rider loomed in the opening, and I squeezed off my shot.
My intent was not to kill, nor was it mercy that guided my bullet, but to give them a man to care for, a wounded man who would be a trouble to them.
He was a good three hundred yards off when he came through the opening, and I shot for his shoulder. His body jerked with the bullet’s impact and he lurched in the saddle. I put a second shot through the opening for good measure, then went down the rocks behind me and ran off down the slope, weaving among the trees.
They were not within view of me now, for the slope fell away and they must come forward a good hundred yards to have a view of the mountainside. Unexpectedly I came upon a trail, a companion or perhaps even an extension to that which I had followed earlier.
I hesitated a moment. It led into the desert, and I had no canteen, nor, I was sure, did they. Yet I was but one, needing little water, and they were many.
Would the wounded man be sent back alone? Or would he try to keep up with them?
The dim track I followed led along the mountainside, dropping slowly down, yet occasionally climbing. My gait slowed to a walk. Several times I paused for brief rests, once sitting down to study the ridge above me for a way down if they chose to hold to high ground.
Also, I tried to study the desert into which I was going. At all costs, I must keep to cover or concealment. There were places where runoff from the mountains had cut deeply into the desert; at other places there were shallow washes that still offered some slight shelter behind their banks.
There would be men among them who knew the desert, some who knew the country better than I, although not many of the Californios ventured into the desert regions.
Why should they? California offered all they needed, and there was no reason to come into these wilderness areas. Far into the desert I could see other mountains, bare ridges pushed up through the sand. There were springs and water holes in the desert if one knew where to find them, and I had learned from my friends the Cahuillas where they were likely to be. In the barest of rocky ridges there were often natural tanks that collected rainwater. Often in sheltered places they kept the water shaded and cool. Those tanks often held thousands of gallons. To find them was not easy, yet they were often there.
Rising, I moved on along the slope. Glancing back again, I saw them cresting the ridge far behind and above me. They were scattering out now, with an idea of cutting me off from the mountains, of herding me into the desert.
It was noon by the time I reached the desert’s edge. The sky was clear and blue. It was very hot.
The men would be suffering less than I, their horses more, yet now they were thinking of what lay before them. The dim track I followed disappeared, appeared again, vanished again, but its direction was plain. It led into the desert, and those who made that trail would have needed water as much as I. Of course—and this I knew from the Indians—the climate had changed, grown drier over the centuries.
Pausing beside some rocks fallen from the higher ridges, I glanced back. They were gaining on me, closing in.
I was tired now. I needed rest but could get along without it. They had a man’s hatred to drive them; I had my wish to survive.
Again I paused and looked back, measuring the distance and their strength. Suddenly I smiled. They were coming into the desert. They were mine now, they belonged to me.
This was my world, this barren, lonely place, this vast pink-and-copper silence, this land of dancing heat waves and cruel ridges. Here where even the stones turn black from the sun, if they followed me they would leave their bones to mark their trail.
Far to the south of here in another desert they had driven my father and mother, who had survived. And so would I.
Squinting my eyes against the glare, I saw them coming down that last slope. Into a wash I went, and along the bottom, hot as an oven. Deliberately I left my trail. Let them follow.
Once I went to my knees, struggling to get up. It was done with intent. Let them whet their appetite. Let them think they had me. No longer was I alone, for this was the land of the Lonesome Gods, and they were my friends. The desert itself was my friend.
“Come on!” I begged. “Follow me!”
Yet when I left the wash in the shadow of a cloud, I saw them hesitating at the mountain’s foot. There was argument among them, I was sure. At least there was reluctance. Would caution or hatred win?
One man turned back; the rest came on. Perhaps the wounded man? Or one wiser than the others?
When I came down off the mountains, I’d been somewhere near Lone Tree Canyon, and heading into the desert, I had a dry lake north of me, and beyond it, a range of ragged mountains. There were occasional clouds now, and when possible I used their temporary shadows, moving into the desert.
The low range ahead of me could have caught some of the brief showers that had fallen within the past few days. Often when I was with the Indians there had been talk of the desert and of places where water might be found at certain times of year. By this time such water would have been scarce or nonexistent had it not been for those brief showers.
The mountains ahead of me had no tanks that I knew of, but there would be hollows here and there, some of them shadowed by higher rocks. Water ran off these mountains like off a tin roof and gathered in whatever hollows there were.
Holding the dry lake on my left and the low range on my right, I moved along the mountains, following a dim trail that was, more often than not, invisible.
It was very hot. I had a lead of several miles and needed every inch of it. My shirt was soaked with sweat, but that was a help, as every slight stir of wind cooled my body. Turning into the mountains, I began searching for hollows. Several were dry; then under a slanting rock I found a half-shaded hollow with at least two gallons of water. I drank, waited, then drank again. Resting, I drank again, bathed my face and neck in the cool water, then started on.
They were closer now, but they would need water more than I, and there was none. Turning away, I walked along the rocks, then down into the sand. Almost ten miles, if I had understood correctly, from where I now stood, was Bed Rock Spring. It was northwest, a bit out of my way, but there would be water.
The Lonesome Gods (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 34
