The Desert Valley Part 14

thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this bake-oven. Whew, it's hot.'

Hotter it grew and drier and, though such a thing had not seemed possible, altogether more repellent and hostile to life. He climbed a ridge to get his bearings and to locate in the grey distance the black peak which the storekeeper had indicated on his map as the first landmark and steering-point. He found it readily enough, a dozen miles off to the south-west, and jogged down the gentle slope toward it, his hat drawn low to s.h.i.+eld his burning eyes. Within an hour the impression obtruded itself upon his fancies that about him the world was dead. He did not see a jack-rabbit or a slinking coyote or a bird; not even a buzzard, that all but ubiquitous, heat-defying bundle of dry feathers and bones, hung in the sky. Why should a rabbit come hither where there was no herbage? Why a coyote when his prey shunned these wastes? Why even the winged scavenger when all animal life fled the Bad Lands? The man's spirit was oppressed and drooped under the weariness of the weary land.

It was a tedious day, and more than once he regretted that he had taken this trail; for it seemed likely, as is so often the case, that the long way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, and plugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he found the first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It was ugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears p.r.i.c.ked forward and nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, though they came to other spots where there should be water, they found none until after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse a handful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. Then he made his own dinner, had his smoke and threw himself down for a couple of hours' rest and dozing. It was his intention to travel on in the night to the next spring, which was some ten miles farther on and which, because of its location in the centre of a cl.u.s.ter of hills already clear against the skyline, he was sure he could not miss. It was one of the map's double-ringed water-holes.

His horse finished its drink and its barley. He heard it shake itself as a horse does after its sweaty work is done. Without turning his head he knew where it was going to lie down for a roll. Now he did turn a little, seeing through the coming dimness of night the four legs waving in air as the beast struggled to turn over on its back. It was a new horse, one he had purchased some weeks ago with a number of others and had not ridden until now; he recalled how, when a boy, he had shared other youngsters' superst.i.tion in connexion with a horse rolling. If it went clean over, it was worth a hundred dollars, if it rolled back, another hundred, and so on.

But this animal did not complete the one effort. Howard heard its sudden terrified snort, saw it scramble wildly to its feet and go plunging off to the end of its tether, knew that even the strong rope had broken and the horse was running wild. And as the man jumped to his feet he knew why. For before the snort of fear he had heard another sound, one indescribable to him who has not heard it and unforgettable and on the instant recognizable to him who has; that quiet noise resembling as much as anything else the harsh rustling of dead, bone-dry leaves. As he ran forward, Howard prayed in his heart that the snake's fangs had not met in horseflesh.

Because the light was not all gone and he knew just where to look, he saw the rattler slipping away across the sand. He thrust his gun down as close as he dared and with the first shot blew the sinister, flat head off the ugly thick body. Then he went forward, calling soothingly to his horse.

Had it been any one of the horses he rode customarily, his voice might have carried something of quiet to startled nerves. But as it was the horse was frightened, it was free, it was running and the broken end of the tie-rope, whipping at its heels, put fresh terror into it. Howard saw it dimly as it crested a ridge a few hundred yards off; then its vague shape was gone, swallowed up in the night. He hurried after it over the ridge. The stars showed him empty s.p.a.ces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or might not recapture it; to-morrow he might see the poor beast lying dead and horribly swollen; to-morrow he might find in the empty desert nothing but emptiness. For to-night there was nothing better to do than make his bed and go to sleep under the stars and thank G.o.d for food and water.

At the first pale glint of the new day he was astir. With sleep still heavy in his eyes he hurried back to the ridge over which his horse had gone. As he was pretty well prepared to expect, there was no horse in sight. He waited for the light to brighten, probing with eager eyes into the distances. Swiftly the sky filled to the coming day; the shadows withdrew from the hollows, the earth stood forth, naked and clearly revealed. Save for himself, feeling dwarfed in this immensity, there was no living thing within the scope of his vision. He shook his head and turned back to camp and breakfast, frowning grimly. He would have to walk out of this mess, and like any twelve cattlemen out of a dozen he had little love of walking.

While he ate his morning meal he turned matters over in his mind. He saw that he could look forward confidently to a couple of unpleasant days. He did not antic.i.p.ate any difficulty beyond that of the irksomeness of being obliged to trudge something like fifty miles in the sun. He knew that he would waste no end of time trying to track the vanished horse across such a land as this; he saw only foolhardiness in leaving the trail he had had picked out for him and, with little food and no knowledge of water, turning out across an utterly unknown land of forbidding desolation. He judged roughly that Desert Valley was as near as Quigley. Hence, having filled his canteen and tied his provisions into a bundle, he slung the two over his shoulders, left his saddle where it was and turned his face toward the home range.

Despite his determination to get an ugly task over and done with, he was a full four hours making the first ten miles. He walked as swiftly as he might to take the full advantage of the lesser heat of the earlier hours, but his way led him through loose sand, down into cuts and gorges, up their steep sides, across fields of loose stones, which, s.h.i.+fting underfoot, made his striving for haste a pure work of Tantalus. At the end of the first hour the heat was already intense; at the end of the second he felt that his skin was as dry as the desert sands and that the moisture of his body was being sucked out of it by the thirsty air and that at every stride the day grew drier and hotter.

Thirst clutched his throat, ached throughout his body, that thirst which is like no other, desert thirst. Again and again he drank from his canteen. When he ploughed up the slope of the little hills and then down into their hollow to the double-ringed spring, his canteen was half empty. And when at last he came to the spring itself he found it as dry as a last year's seedpod.

Until this instant the day's adventure had been merely the acme of unpleasantness. Now something more sinister entered into it. He made certain that he had found the place where the water-hole should be.

Then he sat down. His eyes were very grave.

'If I don't play this hand right,' he told himself solemnly, 'I'll never get out of this.'

He found a few breast-high bushes and crawled into their thin shade and lay down; before him he spread out the Quigley storekeeper's map. This he studied with thoughtful eyes. The storekeeper had said it would be no trick at all for a man like Howard to make the trip, but he had meant Howard on horseback. On foot it became quite another matter.

The next spot where he should find water was some twenty miles ahead of him; at the rate he had travelled this morning it would take him some eight hours to come to it. Further, at the rate he had drank from his canteen this morning, that canteen would be empty when he had gone half the distance. Clearly, he must drink less water, just half what he had drank during the last four hours. Clearly also, it would grow hotter and he would want more instead of less water. Clearly again--and here was the point of points--when he came to the twenty-mile-distant water-hole, it too might be dry. And, after that, there was not another spring for another twelve or fifteen miles. Yes, many things were clear.

He sat up and rolled a cigarette; he sat still while he smoked it.

Here was plainly a time for cool thinking; he would take all of the time that he needed to be sure that he had decided correctly. For later there might be no minute to squander. At present he had both food and water. At present he could go on or turn back. There was water where he had left his saddle; he could count on that positively and could get to it before he had emptied his canteen. But, if instead he went forward, there could be no turning back. He studied his map again. So far as he could make out from it, it was as well to go on as to retreat. So, putting his paper into his pocket he took up his food and water, made certain of his bearings and went on. It was a gamble, but a gamble his life had always been, and a fair gamble, an even break, is all that men like Alan Howard ask. He realized with a full measure of grimness that never until now had he placed a wager like this one; he was betting heavily and he knew not against what odds that at the end of twenty miles he would find water.

Hour after hour he trudged on. His feet burned; they ached; his boots made blisters and the blisters broke. Always he was thirsty with a thirst which his whole supply of water could not have slacked and which grew steadily more acute. Now and then he paused briefly and drank sparingly. His bundle of food, small as it was, grew heavy; his feet were heavy; only his canteen seemed to him lighter and lighter. A hot wind rose, blowing direct into his face, flinging at him fine particles of burning sand that sifted through his clothing and got into his boots, torturing further his tortured feet; the wind seared his eyeb.a.l.l.s and threatened to blind him. He lifted his head, selected a distant landmark, sought to shelter his eyes with the broad brim of his hat and went on.

Noon found him plunging down the steep bank of a dry gulch, a hideous gash in the breast of the hideous land. He found a spot where there was a little shade under a clump of bushes growing upon the bank's edge. He ate a little of his dried beef; he treated himself to half a dozen big, slow swallows of water; then he lay and rested for half an hour. Again he rose; he moistened his mouth and lips, shut his teeth hard together as he took the first step upon swollen feet; again he wandered monotonously through a monotonous land. There was no wind now save, infrequently, frolicsome little whirlwinds which danced about him and were gone. When he found that their play angered him, that they seemed to mock at his weariness and dying energies, he frowned. This was no time and here was no place for nerves.

In the late afternoon, after having laboured all day through a h.e.l.l of tedium and distress, he came to the water-hole. He marked it from afar by its dusty willows; he wondered if this time he would find water. It struck him that he must. He began to walk faster; he curbed a heady desire to break into a run. As it was, he came slowly, steadily to the spot. And there was no water. He would not believe it. He walked along the line of willows, looking carefully everywhere. And not until he had looked everywhere did he give up. Oddly, his compelling want at the moment was less for a drink than for a smoke. He began rolling a cigarette. Half-way through the brief task he desisted, returning the thimbleful of tobacco to its sack. For the hot smoke would merely dry out further his already dry mouth.

He lay down in what shade he could find and estimated very carefully the amount of water in his canteen. He weighed the vessel in his hand; he unscrewed the top and held it so as to look into it.

'I've got about three cupfuls,' he told himself.

Again he studied his map. Again he ate sparingly and thereafter took a sip of water. He screwed the top on quickly and tightly, jealous even of a drop which might evaporate in this sponge-air. He stood up, knowing that he must not loiter. For each second his thirst would increase as the arid air took the moisture forth through the pores of his body. Before he had moved a step forward he saw a man coming toward him. He laughed outright, a laugh of suddenly relieved nerves which had been very tense. That man would have water and would know where other water was to be found.

The man came neither from the direction of Quigley nor yet of Desert Valley. Rather he was coming in from the north, would cut Howard's trail almost at right angles. He was on foot. Howard wondered at that. Further, the man had a strange way of walking. He was half naked and about his head a dark cloth was tied. He trotted a few steps, seemed to hesitate and balance, he came on head down. Something seemed to get in the way of his feet; he stumbled, caught himself, stumbled a second time and fell on his face. He got to his hands and knees, slowly rose to his feet and came on, walking crazily. Then Howard understood. The man was an Indian or a half-breed and he was dying of thirst.

Chapter XIII

A Son of the Solitudes

Wonderingly Howard watched the man come on. For a moment he believed that the new-comer had gone both mad and blind. For the roving eyes were terrible to look into, black pools of misery, and the mouth was distended and the stumbling feet did not turn aside for scrub-brush or rock. From the waist up the gaunt coppery body was naked; of a ragged pair of overalls held up by a rawhide thong one leg was gone; the feet were bare.

'Hey there, _companero_,' called Howard. 'Where are you going?'

It was no longer a question of breed or Indian now. Despite the grime that made a mask over the face the features were unmistakably those of a pure-bred Hopi; the shape of the body that of the desert Indian. He had the small shoulders, the thin arms and the powerful iron legs of his people. He was pa.s.sing only a dozen steps from Howard. He stopped at the sound of the voice, stared wildly and then sagged on by. Howard called again and then followed, bewildered. The Indian fell twice before he came to the spot where there should be water. Here he went down on his stomach, putting his face down as though to drink. Howard heard him groan when the bleared eyes saw that instead of water there was but blazing hot sand. The Indian made no other sound but merely rolled over on his back and lay very still, eyes shut, jaw dropping, hands lax at his sides.

'You poor devil!' muttered Howard.

He came to the prostrate figure. Now he noted that from the string-belt there hung at one hip a little buckskin bag; it might have held a handful of dried meat. Tied at the other hip was a bundle of feathers that made gay colour against the grey monotony, feathers of the bluebird, the redbird, blackbird and dove. Scabbardless, tied with a bit of thong close to the feathers, was a knife with a long blade.

The Indian's chest heaved spasmodically; his breath came in dry gasps.

Howard stooped over him and called to him softly. The eyes flew open and, after a heavy gathering of the brows bespeaking the effort made, focussed upon Howard's.

'_Agua_,' pleaded the swollen lips.

Howard took up a sardine tin, the contents of which he had eaten while he rested, and, very careful not to spill a drop of the priceless fluid, poured it half full from his canteen. Then he knelt and put an arm about the gaunt body, lifting it a little, offering the water to the broken lips. Now he noted that the cloth about the black head of hair was stained with blood.

He had expected the man to drink thirstily. Instead, manifesting a display of will power such as the white man had never seen, the Indian took the water slowly, held it a moment in his mouth, swallowed it drop by drop.

'More,' he said when the tin was emptied.

Again Howard filled it. Now the Indian sat upright alone and drank.

Afterwards he looked at Howard with a long, piercing regard. A second time he said 'More.'

Howard with his finger indicated how low his water was.

'Not much water, _companero_,' he said quietly. 'Pretty soon all gone.'

'No more?' queried the Indian sharply.

Howard poured out the third small tin; altogether he was giving the poor devil only about a cupful when a quart would have been all inadequate. Again the keen black eyes that seemed clearer now and like a bird's probed at him. Again and as before, the Indian drank.

'Me Kish Taka,' he announced slowly and with a certain dignity. 'Come far, head hurt, much sick, much blood. Pretty soon, no water, die.

Now, pretty good.'

Howard grunted. That a man in this fellow's shape should declare himself as being 'pretty good' was worth any man's snort. He looked as though he would be dead in ten minutes as he lay back and shut his eyes. With his eyes still shut, the Indian spoke again:

'You _sabe_ other water-hole?'

'No. I found it dry.'

'Kish Taka _sabe_ water-hole. Sleep now, d.a.m.n tired, d.a.m.n hot, head sick. Sun go down, get cold, Kish Taka go there, you come, get water.'

'Where?' demanded Howard quickly. 'How far?' For he was half inclined to believe that if Kish Taka went to sleep now he would never wake.

The long, thin arm pointed out to the south-west.