Silvertip's Search (12 page)

Desert March

T
HEY
went out of the Higgins oasis as a party of five, with ten horses. The spare horses were loaded with waterskins, after the Mexican fashion of carrying the liquid across the desert, and it was estimated that they had enough water to last them for three days of hot marching.

They started at a dogtrot, for a slow beginning is apt to make a strong ending. It was the hope of Barry Christian that he would be able to shake off all pursuit before the torrid heat of that desert march had ended. He could have headed due south. He chose, instead, to take a straight line southwest across the most terrible of the alkali flats. With Silver and Brender there could not possibly be such provision against thirst, and they had but one horse apiece.

With Christian traveled the girl, of course, and Murcio, also big Alonso Santos, on whose bulk and poundage Christian cast a doubtful eye more than once, and finally one of Christian's most trusted men, “Blondy.” He was almost an albino and therefore he deserved his name. Lean and desert-dried, weightless in body, quick as a snake to strike and deadly as a snake in his effects, Blondy was a perfect tool in the hand of Christian. There was nothing in the world that he loved and there was only one thing in the world that he feared — Christian himself. When Blondy's white eyelids were lowered, there was in his face no more expression than in a stone. But when he looked suddenly up, as was his way, one could occasionally see a little reddish-yellow flame wavering in his eyes. That fire, burning dim or bright, was never entirely absent.

They jogged the horses steadily forward, Blondy first, as being the one best acquainted with the desert of this section, then the girl on a good pinto mustang, a rope running from the neck of the pony to the pommel of Blondy's saddle. Next came Murcio, then Santos, and last of all, a good bit behind so that he would be out of the dust, rode Christian in the post of honor.

It was the post of honor because it was the place of danger, and it was his duty to scan the horizon behind them with his keen eyes, continually.

The moon was very bright and clear. The windless night had left the air undisturbed by dust, comparatively, and the stars were unusually keen points of brilliance. Yet for all this clarity of the atmosphere, Christian spotted nothing suspicious behind them.

As morning approached, a thrill of hope began to grow in him that perhaps there would be no clash with Silver whatever and that that pursuer would never find their traces leading away from the oasis. The dawn came on. The banded color about the horizon grew from ochre to crimson, to gold, and then all color ended as the white sun slid above the sky line and instantly began to burn them to the bone.

They paused, ate a breakfast of raisins and hardtack, and changed the saddles to the backs of the mustangs that had been carrying the lighter waterskins. After that, they went on again. And Barry Christian came up to ride at the side of the girl for a few moments.

The sun was very strong and keen by this time, and every face in the party was flushed, except the face of Christian. He, instead, was as pale as ever — not chalky-white, as usual, but a more translucent clarity of skin.

He looked over Rosa Cardigan with a shrewdly appraising eye and took note of her erectness in the saddle and the brightness of her eye.

“I see,” said Christian. “All of this trouble and all of this pother, when the dear girl wanted nothing, really, except to kill homesickness by getting back to her native land. Why else should you be shining and glowing like this, Rosa Cardigan?”

She was still half smiling, as she glanced at him, though he could see that the smile had nothing to do with him.

“I'm happy because I see the end of it,” she said.

“What end?” he asked her.

She made a quick gesture, as though the thing were too obvious to call for more explanation.

“You help them take me back to Mexico. Once there, I can be legally robbed. Once robbed, I'll be free entirely. And
then
I can come back!”

“Ah,” said Christian. “To Brender? Then you come back to him?”

“I do,” she said.

“Does he know that?”

“No. He ought to know it, but he doesn't.”

“An outlaw?” said Christian. “My poor girl, what a sad future for you — to be married to an outlaw!”

She merely laughed.

“Now I should think,” said Christian, “that you'd cast an eye on the hero of the two, the great Silver, the terrible man. Why not?”

She amazed him by saying: “Perhaps I would. But I found Rap Brender first. And there's no space left in me. Besides, Silver is too grim. I think of him still, half smiling, and his step gliding, and the gray marks above his temples, like horns. I'd be afraid of him — as you are!”

“Yes,” said Christian, with a sudden need for confession of the latent terror within him, “I'm afraid of him. Otherwise it would not be so important that he must die. We've shaken him off now. He'll not interfere again, I imagine. And when I come back from Mexico — ”

He opened his hand, then closed the fingers slowly together. And she watched him, fascinated, well understanding that in his thought he was crushing out a human life.

“And you wouldn't turn back if he followed?” she asked. “You wouldn't turn back to — to crush him?”

“Blondy and I,” said Christian in his gentle voice, “are the escort of a rich fleet of merchant ships. Of course we won't risk a fight that we can run from. Not until the cargoes are safely in some harbor.”

Her glance wandered away from him and far to the side and the rear where a small cloud of dust was rising; it might have been lifted by a whirl in the dead air of the desert. No, it was persisting.

Barry Christian followed the direction of her eyes. He saw that continuing little puff of dust, stopped his horse, and drawing out a pair of field glasses, stared long. The four went on from him.

He remained behind with the studious glass fixed on the target. He saw it move. He saw the head of the dust cloud rolling. And then, beneath it, he made out two small forms. As his gaze focused more carefully, he could distinguish the sheen of one of the horses, like metal, like gold, in fact.

That was enough for Christian. He came up at a gallop and joined the others.

“Freshen up this pace,” he said. “Let's have a real trot. Break it for a lope, when your bones begin to rattle loose. But keep to the trot as long as you can. We may need everything that we can get out of these horses. Because Brender and Silver are coming up with us. There they are, over yonder. If they're in striking distance by nightfall, something is likely to happen to us.”

So the rate of travel was raised. The cracking trot shook the riders from head to foot. The saddles creaked and groaned. The horses began to blacken and then to drip with sweat. Perspiration soaked through the shirts and the coats of the riders and left dark stains, rimmed around with white edgings of salt. Before them the desert was covered with dim reddish haze that blurred all things but gave no shelter against the sun. And there was no shade. The greasewood stretched, here and there, like a faint smoke near the ground. The mesquite bushes held up the edges of their leaves to cleave the terrible blaze of the sun. There was no wind to cool the body or help breathing. They were in a moving caldron. The dust they raised was the steam of the pot. And they cooked as the mustangs trotted on, jolting the breath from their bodies.

It was forced march. Now and then they halted, and the dust rose slowly, then began to settle again. Sweat continued to run on the horses, but the moisture on the outer hair disappeared almost at once, and the animals turned gray with salt. The dry air and the fierceness of the sun sucked at the very forces of the body. It seemed to be drawing up the life through the throat. It was a time when they could have ridden with a canteen in the hand, constantly sipping but never keeping very far ahead of the drain of the heat and the dryness.

Yet none of them attempted large inroads on the water supply. Their own needs for water were small compared with their need of life itself. And if the little dust cloud in the rear were able to come up with them, bullets would begin to sing.

Blondy could stand the thing no longer. He called to his chief and when Christian came up, exclaimed:

“There's four males here, and they're running away from two gents that are all alone!”

He glared fiercely at Christian, but his leader merely smiled.

“Murcio can use a gun; Santos is an excellent shot,” said Christian. “And they both will fight when the need comes. But the need doesn't come until we've burned up the horseflesh.”

“I don't sort of foller that,” commented Blondy.

“When there's long-range shooting, anything is likely to happen,” said Christian. “If a lucky shot hits me, I'm out. It won't need killing. Any sort of a wound will make the fellow that's hit drop out of the race. If a bullet snags you, the same thing happens. That's all. And if one of us goes down, the two Mexicans are likely to lose heart. They're likely to scatter to either side and leave the sole survivor carrying on — with the girl on his hands. Does that picture appeal to you?”

“I never knew you to turn your back on no two gents before,” said Blondy grimly.

“Ah, Blondy,” said Christian, “the fact is that you never saw me convoying merchandise across a desert before!”

Blondy was silenced. He turned his eyes toward the north, where the feet of the mountains were lost behind the mist, but their blue shoulders and their pale heads were clear against the sky. He looked south and saw nothing but the dancing heat waves that rose from the surface of the plain. And turning, he stared straight into the face of the girl.

She was the least exhausted of the troop; she actually rode with a faint smile that was rather in her eyes than on her lips.

“There's Injun blood in her,” commented Blondy to himself.

They made a dry camp and stayed in it for four hours, with two men constantly on guard. Then they marched on. In the clear morning light they saw the southern mountains, many a bitter march away from them, but as the day increased, the mountains turned into sky phantoms and then disappeared entirely. And now the horses began to stumble.

Blondy, whose dry body weighed no more than that of a boy, was given the freshest horse in the party and sent on ahead. By noon he was waiting with a relay of horses and an old brown veteran of a desert rat who took over the ten mustangs of the party and led them off toward his dry ranch. And those fresh mounts put new vigor into the riders. Only Murcio could no longer endure the ceaseless racking of the trot. He either walked or loped his mustang.

The next day they repeated that performance, Blondy again riding off in advance, on the strongest horse, and appearing once more with fresh horses.

Now they could see the southern mountains clearly, by day and by night, and though there were many bitter leagues to be covered, Murcio and Santos were highly optimistic. Beyond the mountains and their foaming creeks they would find the river, and beyond the river lay Mexico. And into Mexico the pursuers would hardly dare to pass, or if they did, it would then be safe for Christian to turn back and strike them.

And still, every day, sooner or later into the view of the fugitives drew that small attendant cloud of dust. There could not be changes of horses for Silver and Brender, and yet they continued to keep near! They could not come quite up with the pursued and yet they could not be shaken off. The thing seemed a marvel.

Christian dropped back into rifle range one day, and examined the pursuit carefully with his field glasses. Then he came back to explain the mystery of the manner in which that pair, without a change of horses, had been able to keep up with the relayed flight of the group. For Christian had seen the two running on foot, driving tirelessly forward. He had seen the horses following behind, Chinook without a burden and the stallion carrying both saddles. His strength was greater, and the power of the mare was being conserved. So Silver and Brender must have passed hour after hour, each day, perhaps running on through the worst of the heat.

That was why they were able to bring up their chase a little nearer each day!

When Christian made that report, the two Mexicans looked suddenly askance at one another. They were brave enough, but it seemed now that the two who hunted them were a great deal more than human. The Mexicans looked down at the stony face of the desert. It was almost more than flesh could endure to sit the saddles through the long hours of the day, to say nothing of running on foot.

“They'll be losing their spare fat,” said Christian cheerfully to the girl.

But she smiled no longer.

“They
will
catch up,” she said.

“And then?” asked Christian.

“And then they'll be murdered!” said the girl. “Are you only drawing out their misery? Are you only letting them torture themselves with hope so that you can laugh at them all these days? And then in the end you'll crush them!”

He caught quickly at the air with his hand.

“Like flies!” said Christian softly.

The Pursuers

I
N
the heat of midday Silver covered the ground with a long swinging stride. He ran like an Indian, his body straight above the hips, his chin down, his legs moving with a tireless rhythm and the heel striking the ground a little before the toes. On his feet were improvised sandals with soles made of the saddle flaps. The stallion followed at his heels, a gaunt, rib-staring mockery of the sleek beauty that had left the oasis of Tom Higgins. A step or two back ran Rap Brender, leading Chinook. She was so spent that she had been dragging her feet for the last twenty-four hours and the hoofs were being beveled at the toes.

As for Silvertip, every ounce of fat was gone from his sinews. The skin of his face was hard-drawn. There was a hollow at the base of his throat, and the breastbone thrust out prominently. But there was still strength in him, as in the stallion. They were spent but they were not beaten.

Then, although he heard nothing, he was aware that something had happened behind him. He glanced back and saw Brender lying face down in the sand.

Silver returned. He had been half afraid of this during all the last day but had refused to let his fear get up into his brain. He had locked it back behind his set teeth.

Now he lifted the loose body and laid it on its back in the shelter of the mare.

She stood with hanging head and ears flopped forward, as though she were listening to a voice that rose out of the ground.

Brender was unconscious. His face was still crimson in places from the terrible effort of the run, but white like that of frostbite was all about his mouth and was rapidly spreading into his cheeks. His eyes were sunk into shadows. His face had wasted as though a fever had been burning in him constantly.

Silver took from his saddle a canteen wrapped in sacking. He sat cross-legged, took Brender's head in the crook of his arm, and forced the mouth open. It resisted with a shuddering effort, then hung loose. He poured in a swallow of water, watched it go down the skinny throat, and poured in more. He began to drop that priceless liquid in small splashes on the forehead and throat of the senseless body.

At last Brender opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Silver pressed him back into a recumbent position.

“I sort of stumbled,” said Brender. “I sort of stumbled and I must have banged my head on the ground.”

Silver wiped away from the face of his friend the dust that had turned to streaks of mud. Brender was still pale, but not the same deadly white. He was breathing more deeply; his heart no longer fluttered. In his throat a regular though rapid pulse was visible.

“You just went out; that's all,” said Silver. “Why didn't you tell me that you were out on your feet?”

Brender blinked at the sternness of that voice and answered:

“Chinook couldn't carry me ten miles. There was no good asking her to.”

“We've got to get fresh horses,” said Silver. “We've got to get
one
at least. They've been beating us with the relays. To-morrow they'll be able to pull right away from us. They'll get to the mountains. We can never catch 'em there. They'll be over the river and then into Mexico — and we're done for. We've got to get fresh horses, because to-morrow is the great day. Rap, start thinking. Make your head clear. Somewhere this side of the settlements there's a place where you can find a horse. Christian keeps finding them for his whole gang.”

“He knows the dry farmers,” said Brender. “He's bought them up. They're his friends. And besides, I don't know where they're located. There's only one place inside of ten miles of this spot where we could get horses, and that place is no good.”

“What place?” asked Silver.

“It's no good. You couldn't get anything out of Cross-eyed Harry Trench and his vaqueros. He'd fill you full of lead. He doesn't ask questions. When a stranger comes along, he just starts shooting and his Mexicans do the same thing. You couldn't get horses from him. Not even Christian would try that place. I've heard Stew and the rest say so. Not even Christian with a gang behind him would try to get anything from that Cross-eyed Harry Trench.”

“Where's his place?”

“Right yonder, toward that mesa. Wait a minute. Hold on, Silver. Don't be a fool. You can't get anything from Cross-eyed Harry.”

Silver stood up.

“You do what you can,” he said. “Take my advice and stay here. Stay put. But if you have to keep going, don't follow me. Ride straight on down the line that Christian and the rest are taking. I'm going to get some horses from Harry Trench and I'll join you later on.”

He swung onto the back of Parade. Brender, raised to his feet with a sudden horror, began to cry out in protest, but Parade was already swinging away at a long gallop, and the rider pretended to hear nothing from behind.

It was by no means ten miles, in fact, before Silver came in sight of the little dobe house. It was so small that it was lost to view until one was fairly close, and at about the same time that Silver spotted it, he saw a man walk out of the black shadow of the doorway and stand in the sun with a rifle in his hands.

That would be “Cross-eyed Harry,” perhaps, ready to act as a reception committee to strangers!

Silver rode the stallion into a steep-sided draw that opened at the left and ran on in the general direction of the house. Where the bank of the draw became shallower, so that it would not shelter horse and rider from the eye, Silver dismounted, tied the reins over the pommel of the saddle, and with a whisper commanded Parade to stand still. Then he went on foot and then on hands and knees down the draw.

At last he could see the flat roof of the hut near by.

The instant he stood up, a rifle bullet kissed the air beside his head. He saw Cross-eyed Harry standing huge and formidable, long hair sweeping down to his shoulders, his rifle leveled; murder his intention.

Silver put a bullet through the right shoulder of the giant. It merely clipped the outer flesh, but it cut enough nerves to make the rifle sag. And Cross-eyed Harry took the gun under his left arm as Silver raced in. In the vast grasp of Trench that heavy rifle was hardly more than a revolver for an ordinary man. He had swung the gun across and brought it to a level, to use it like a pistol, when Silver reached him. Silver's hard fist might have done the trick, but he could take no chances with the brute. He hammered the long barrel of his Colt along the jaw of Trench and watched the bulk of the man topple sidewise.

Silver took from the senseless hand the rifle, a pair of revolvers from hip holsters, and a great hunting knife from the inside belt.

He stepped into the hut.

There was a bit of a primus stove that had soaked the entire interior with a layer of soot. A cot stood in a corner; some traps hung from the wall. Moidering, ancient garments hung from pegs. The floor was the bare earth. A saddle, also, was on the wall, with a strong Mexican rawhide lariat hanging from it.

Silver took down the saddle and stepped through the door of the hut. Cross-eyed Harry Trench was sitting up, bracing himself on his hands, regarding Silver with deathless hate out of his unfocused eyes.

“Afterwards,” said Silver, “I'm coming back this way. I'm giving you your chance now. But I'm coming back. And when I come, you're going to wave a hat at me, not a gun. You hear? You're going to cook food and coffee. You're going to act like a human, not like a wolf. Or otherwise, I'm going to plant you in your front yard.”

“You're a greaser!” said Cross-eyed Harry. “Ain't that what you are? A greaser?” He looked closely into the sun-darkened face of Silver.

“I'm Americano,” said Silver.

The other sighed and nodded. “That's better,” he said. “I knew that I'd have to get mine, one of these days. I dunno that I care so much, seeing you ain't a greaser! Whatcha want?”

“A horse, a canteen of water, some barley or oats, some hardtack and jerked beef, or anything you've got, like that.”

“Wait a minute,” said Trench. “Seeing that you can help yourself, lemme give you a hand and show you where things lay.”

Fortune had smiled on Christian and his friends from the start; now it betrayed them in the time of greatest need, for Blondy, who had been sent ahead to bring in the fourth relay of horses, appeared on the line of march, but alone, and with his horse very exhausted from the rapid pace to which he had forced it. His report was simply that where the ranch house to which he was sent had once stood there was now only a black smudge across the ground, and on the sun-burned range around it, there was not a sign of either horse or beef. The outfit had been burned out and had moved on, which was not very strange, for on the edge of the naked desert the grazing was always very poor.

At the same time that Blondy appeared with this bad news, the thin dust cloud which meant the pursuit heaved again on the northeastern horizon and began to close in with startling speed.

That was not all. For the girl, who had endured the ride better-than any of the men except the great Christian himself — for his lean frame seemed incapable of fatigue — had showed signs of depression that morning for the first time; by noon her face was flushed, her eyes dim, and by the mid-afternoon she was reeling in the saddle, clinging to the pommel with both hands, and looking about her in the delirium of a high fever.

Christian, studying the rapid approach of the dust cloud with his field glasses, made out not two figures, but four, and presently could distinguish a pair of horses mounted and a pair on the lead.

He broke into a strange cry to Blondy: “He's found remounts! He has fresh horses, Blondy!”

“It ain't likely. It ain't possible,” said Blondy. “There ain't any place where he could ‘a' got 'em, except from Cross-eyed Harry.”

“He's persuaded Harry Trench to mount him, at any rate,” said Christian, “and that's one of the wonders of this world. Harry Trench? I'd as soon try to persuade a Bengal tiger!”

“If he got horses there,” said Blondy confidently, “the gent that he persuaded was a dead man, and Silver did the killing. You can lay to that! Ride close to the girl's hoss, chief. She's going to fall on her head in a minute.”

Christian accepted that advice and presently was at the side of Rosa. Her head rolled from side to side as though all strength had gone from her neck.

There was one cheering prospect for the fugitives. That was the nearness of the mountains. All that day they had loomed clearly before the eye as they rode south, printed in detail of shining rocks, and trees, and the thin, hairlike flash of a creek now and then running down the slopes; all the summits were lost in dense cloud.

Now the heights were so close that at last the distance to the foothills could be estimated exactly, and the deep shadows of the ravines promised them shelter at last from the sun. That was why they pushed on more cheerfully, though now even to the naked eye the four forms on the horizon were clear, with the dust cloud rising and trailing behind.

It seemed for a time that Silver and Brender might actually close to good rifle range before the foothills were reached, but with whip and spur the four scourged the last effort out of their mustangs and entered the first long ravine well in the lead. Above them mounted a dimly winding trail which they followed for some time and at last entered a narrow ravine where the shadow sloping from the west covered them with coolness, like flowing water. Occasional breezes, also, now dipped into the hollows. Overhead, the cloud masses streamed far out into the sky, wind-whipped, before the rain mists were dissipated in the brilliance of the sun. It was apparent that a furious storm was blowing from the south and west on the farther side of the mountains.

Well down the ravine, they came to a narrow gap beyond which a second valley opened, with a rougher floor and a steeper rise.

“Go on!” said Blondy to Christian. “Go on with the loot. But I've rode long enough on the run. I'm going to take a berth here behind one of these rocks and plaster those two gents as they go by. It ain't going to be hard. It's the sort of a thing that we'd ought to ‘a' done long before.”

“Do as you please,” said Christian, “but I'll warn you of this — that all the weariness in the world won't make the eye of Silver a whit less keen. He'll see anything that a hawk could notice.”

“Yeah?” growled Blondy, his eyes blazing. “He's human; that's all that he is! You can lay to it that he ain't any more'n human. So long. I'll be seeing you later!”

He turned aside from the rest, at that, and they toiled steadily up and up the slope, taking the easier grades but always finding such sharp angles that it was necessary to dismount every one except the girl and struggle up on foot. The wind was growing stronger as the sun declined in the west, and now occasional strong gusts struck at them with the cold of snow. And when the billowing darkness of the storm lifted a little, here and there, they could see far up the summits the white sheets of the snow and the ice. They would be inside the storm fog before long, and with the slippery snow beneath their feet. The girl was already shuddering at every touch of the wind, though Christian had drawn his slicker about her shoulders.

So they came out on a projecting shoulder of the mountain from which they could look straight down into the ravine from which they had risen in so many zigzags. Through the crystal purity of the air they were able to see the small form of Blondy stretched out on the top of a great boulder, lying at ease with his rifle at his shoulder; his mustang had been tied in a clump of brush near by.

Murcio began to beat his hands together softly, forgetful that no sound he could make would reach to the ears of any one at that distance below.

“There!” he said. “Blondy has them. He'll bag them both, like two geese. You see, Santos? You see how the fools ride straight into the mouth of the danger?”