THE WELL IN THE DESERT
THE WELL IN THE DESERT
THE WELL IN THE DESERT
THE WELL IN THE DESERT
Blue Gulch was relaxing after the ardors of its working-day. From the direction of the Cheerful Heart Dance Hall issued sounds of mirth and festivity, and a weaving fantasy of shadows on its canvas walls proclaimed to those without that the cheerful hearts were in executive session.
A man coming furtively along Upper Broadway made a detour to avoid the bar of light that shone through the open door of the hall. He passed behind the building, and around the big fandango, where the trip of feet mingled with the tinkle of a guitar and the whirr and thump of a wheel of fortune.
“It can’t be anywhere along here,” he muttered,coming back to the road and pausing to survey the starlit scene.
Blue Gulch had but one street, the two sides of which lay at different levels, separated by the wide yawn of the gulch itself, thrusting into the mountain from the desert below. From where the man stood he commanded a very complete view of the place. In nearly every house was a light, and the shadows thrown upon the canvas walls gave a fair clue to the occupations of those within; so that during the early part of each evening at least neither half of the town need be in any doubt as to how the other half was living.
The life and gaiety of the community in relaxation seemed to gather upon the upper plane. Across the gulch Lower Broadway lay in comparative darkness.
The man drew back again as a couple of shadowy forms came wavering down the road. One of these carried a lantern, which hung low at his side, revealing the heavy miners’ boots of the pair, and casting grotesque shadows up the mountain-side.
“Where’s Westcott? Why ain’t he along?” one asked, as they passed.
The skulking figure in the shadow strained his ears to listen, one hand pressed upon his mouth to keep back the cough that would have betrayed him.
“He’s back at his office, digging,” was the careless response. “Westcott ain’t a very cheerful cuss.”
The two laughed lightly, and disappeared within the dance-hall.
When they were out of sight the man came forth again, hurrying past the glowing windows of the Red Light Saloon, stopping beyond it to muffle with his shapeless hat the cough that took toll of his strength. He leaned panting against a boulder, waiting to regain his breath.
The way was more dimly lighted now. He was nearing the civic center of the place, the one bit of level ground in the gulch. Here, a faint light showing from one window, was the mining company’s hospital. Beyond this the man passed a big, barn-like structure of wood, that announced itself, by a huge, white-lettered sign, showing faintly in the starlight, as an eating-house. Next it was the low adobe hotel of the place, and farther on, beyond a dark gap, was a small building, boasting a door and two windows in its narrow front.
The visitor regarded this place consideringly. He thought it more than likely that it was what he sought. Light streamed from both windows and, stepping close, the prowler looked within.
What he saw was a man writing at a rough pine desk. The room was not large. One or twochairs, a couch, and some rude shelves, where a few law books leaned; a small earthen-ware stove, now glowing with heat, completed its furnishings. The watcher’s eyes yearned to that stove. He was shivering in the chill autumn night, and he wore no coat. With a muttered curse he opened the door and stepped quickly into the room.
The man inside looked up from his writing, peering past the lamp the better to see his visitor. For a moment he stared, incredulous, then, as recognition was confirmed, he softly slid a hand toward one drawer of his desk. The new-comer noted the movement.
“You can stow that,” he snarled, scornfully, “I haven’t got any gun.”
The other’s fingers had already closed upon the handle of a revolver that lay in the drawer. With the weapon in his hand he crossed quickly, from one window to the other, and carefully pulled down the shades. The intruder had stepped into the full glare of the lamp, and now bent forward, his hands upon the desk.
As he stood thus, gaunt, haggard, panting, he seemed little calculated to awaken fear. The hands that clutched the table’s edge were trembling and emaciated, and of a curious, waxy pallor. This same pallor was in his drawn, sunken face, and from out the death-like mask of its whitenessthe man’s deep-set eyes gazed, heavy with despair.
“I haven’t got any gun, Westcott,” he repeated. “You needn’t be afraid. You played a damned, dirty trick on me, three years ago, but that’s all done with. I ain’t here to throw it up against you; but I want you to do me a favor.”
The lawyer had turned the key in the lock and stood near the door, watching him intently, noting the close-cropped head, the thin, pallid face, the nondescript garments of the wayfarer.
“You managed to escape,” he finally said, slowly.
“Yes, I did.” The man coughed, clutching the table for support.
“I got away last week,” he explained, panting. “Yes—and I stole the clothes,” with a glance at the sleeves of his rough gray shirt. “I’m a thief, now, just like you, Westcott.”
The other made an inarticulate sound in his throat.
“We’ll let all that pass,” the intruder said, with a toss of one gaunt hand. “I’m up to no harm, but I’ve got to have help. I’ve got out of that hell you left me in at Phoenix; but it won’t do me any good. I’m dying!”
Another fit of coughing shook him, until he reeled. Westcott pushed a chair toward him and he sank into it, still gripping the table.
“I’m dying,” he said again, when the coughhad spent itself, “and I want to get back and die in God’s country.”
Westcott sat down opposite him, still watching him, intently.
“I can’t walk back,” the man went on, “and I ain’t fit to beat it back. You’re welcome to the fifteen hundred you got off me; but can’t you—for the love of God,won’tyou—give me the price of a ticket back to Iowa?”
His dull, sunken eyes were akindle, and he leaned forward, an agony of eagerness in his eyes. The prison-born look of age fell from him for the moment and it became apparent that he was not only a young man, but must once have been a comely one, with a powerful frame.
“I heard you were attorney for the Company here,” he went on, as Westcott still kept silent. “You ought to be able to do that for me. You had fifteen hundred of mine.”
The attorney flinched, ever so slightly, then he rose, dropping the revolver into his coat-pocket, and took a turn about the room.
“I—I wasn’t such a beast as it looks,” he finally said, speaking with difficulty. “I’ve been ashamed of myself: I meant to stay and try to clear you. I don’t know how I came to do it; but Jim Texas swore’t was you; and I lost the money playing faro at Randy Melone’s.”
The brief glow in the sunken eyes had burned itself out. The man surveyed Westcott, apparently without interest.
“Jim Texas lied,” he said, apathetically, “and nowyou’relying. You paid some of that money to Raoul Marty for a horse; and you got away with most of the rest of it in your clothes. You can hear things, even in jail.” This was said with a weary laugh, in which was no mirth.
“You don’t always hear ’em straight,” the attorney replied, with studied gentleness.
“Iwasashamed, Barker,” he went on, quickly. “I’ve been sorry ever since.”
“Then you’ll give me the price of a ticket?” Hope gleamed again, in the dull eyes. Westcott considered.
“I haven’t got the money here,” he mused; “but I think I can raise some by to-morrow. How would you get down to the railroad?”
“I’ll take care o’ that—” another siege of that racking cough. Barker leaned back in his chair, faint and gasping. Westcott drew a flask and poured some of its contents into a tin cup. The other drained it, eagerly.
“That’ll help,” he murmured, handing back the cup. “I ain’t always so weak as this; but I’ve been hitting the trail for a week, without much grub.”
“Did anyone see you come in?” Westcott asked, with apparent irrelevance.
“No. I kept out of sight.”
“Good!” The other nodded. “That’s what you’ll have to keep doing.”
“I’ve got to go out and see what I can do about that money,” he continued; “and you’ve got to have something to eat. I guess I’ll have to lock you in here while I’m gone, in case anyone should come along. You needn’t be afraid but that I’ll come back,” he added, as the other looked up, in quick suspicion. “It’s safer so, and I want you to have something to eat.”
“I sure need it,” was the reply. “Mighty bad.”
“I know you do; I’ll bring it soon’s I can.” Westcott moved toward the door. “You lay low till I get back.”
“You’re not going back on me?” Barker still studied him.
“Going back on you?” Westcott laughed, shortly.
“Lord!” he exclaimed, “Do you think I didn’t have enough of that?”
He threw some lumps of coal into the little stove. “I’ll have to douse the glim,” he explained, “since I’ll be out around town, and someone might wonder who’s here. You can lie down there.”
He waved a hand toward the couch and Barker nodded.
“I’m pegged out,” he said, wearily. “I’ll just sit here by the fire. Lord! How long is it since I’ve been warm?”
He drew his chair nearer and bent to the glow. Westcott lowered the light and blew out the flame.
“I’ll lock the door on the outside,” he said, “And don’t you worry, Barker: I’ll take care of you. Just trust me.”
“I guess I’ve got to trust you,” was the helpless reply, “I can’t do anything else.” And Westcott stepped out into the night, locking the door behind him.
Once outside he walked along the plaza to the head of the gulch and stood looking down upon the town. The varied sounds of a mining settlement at night came plainly to his ears. A new dancer from over the border was making her first appearance at Garvanza’s that evening, and the Mexicans were gathered in force. There was a crowd of miners in the Red Light Saloon. He could hear their voices.
“How I hate it all,” he muttered. “I wish I was out of it!”
The post-office was on Lower Broadway in the Company’s store, where a single light burned, dimly. Farther down was the school-house, wherethe school-teacher labored by day, with the half-dozen white children of the town, and twice as many young Papegoes. Behind the gulch, climbing heavenward, verdureless, copper-ribbed, austere, lay the mountain, where the mines were.
Westcott had been in Blue Gulch for more than a year. He had drifted out of Phoenix after the Barker affair, glad to get away, where he was sure no one knew of the matter.
There had been no question about Barker’s guilt. Jim Texas swore to having seen him knife Lundy. He couldn’t have saved him if he had stayed, Westcott told himself. He had never understood why they had not hung the fellow, instead of sentencing him for life.
“Better have done it outright than to kill him by inches in their hell of a jail,” he thought.
But now what was to be done with the man? Westcott stood scowling at a house down the gulch. There was a light inside that threw upon the canvas side-wall the gigantic figure of a woman, coughing. It reminded him unpleasantly of Barker.
“Damn the fellow,” he muttered. “Wha’d he come up here for, anyway? He’ll never live to get back east.” He walked on, turning up the collar of his coat. “It’s coming winter. The cold’ll kill him.”
Again he stood pondering, while one by one the lights down the gulch went out. Then he bethought himself of his errand and went stumbling down Lower Broadway in the dark.
The storekeeper was just closing up, but the young fellow turned back to wait upon him.
“I won’t keep you more’n a minute, Farthing,” he said, and proceeded to buy bread and cheese, a tin of meat and a couple of bottles of beer. A little package of tea was an after-thought.
“Going prospecting, Mr. Westcott?” the clerk asked, as he made up the packages.
“Maybe,” was the reply.
Westcott was at the door as he spoke. Young Farthing was putting out the light.
“Oh, Johnnie,” the attorney said, with the air of just remembering, “I want to telephone ... ‘long distance.’ I’m afraid it’ll take some time.” He half hesitated.
The boy looked disappointed; he had planned to get over to the fandango in time to see the new dancer. He spoke cheerfully however.
“That’s all right, Mr. Westcott,” he said, and turned up the lamp again.
“Why can’t I lock up, Johnnie?” Westcott asked; “I’ll bring the key up to the hotel when I come.”
“If you wouldn’t mind—” Farthing lookedrelieved, “Everything’s all right but just turning out the light,” he added.
“All right.” Westcott gave him a little push; “You go on,” he said, cordially; “I can lock the door as hard as you!”
“I guess that’s true, Mr. Westcott,” the boy laughed, and with a relieved “good-night,” he departed, as Westcott was turning toward the telephone-booth.
Half an hour later the attorney was in his own office, boiling water in a tin pail, on top of the little stove, while Barker, warmed and cheered, made great inroads upon the bread and cheese and the tinned meat. Presently Westcott made tea in the pail.
“Seems like old prospecting days, don’t it?” he said with ostentatious cheerfulness, as he filled the tin cup. “I dare say you’ve had your share of them?”
“Some.... A-a-h!” Barker drank, blissfully, of the strong, scalding brew.
“I located a good claim once,” he said, setting down the cup. “But it was jumped. All I ever got was—”
He paused, in some embarrassment, and changed the subject. “Great stuff, that tea,” he said, and Westcott refilled the tin cup.
“I’ve done better for you than I hoped to,” he volunteered presently. “I couldn’t raise themoney in the town—too near pay-day; but I got a pal of mine on the ’phone. He can let me have the cash, and I’ll get it to-morrow. Don’t you worry, Barker.” He answered the question, in the other’s eyes, “I’m looking out for you all right. You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m a pretty sick man,” Barker answered, his white face flushing. “I know I’m done for; but I want to die in the open.”
“Don’t you talk about dying.” Westcott went about the place making it secure for the night. “You’ll be snug as can be here,” he added, “By seven o’clock to-morrow morning this town’ll be practically empty. All the men’ll be at the mine. Sime’s going down to the plain to meet the stage, and the school-teacher’ll be busy. We’ll get you off in good shape.”
He took some papers from the desk and put them in his pocket.
“I wouldn’t show myself, though,” he said. “Keep the curtains down, and lay low. Lock the door after me, and take out the key.”
At the last words the man’s look of anxiety vanished.
“All right,” he replied. “I’ll sure lay low. I haven’t slept much in a week. I’ll be glad enough to take the chance.”
“So long, then,” Westcott said, slipping out.
“So long,” and the key turned in the lock.
CHAPTER II
Having secured the door, Barker took the key from the lock and hung his hat upon the knob.
“Don’t want anyone peeking in,” he murmured, as he resumed his seat by the fire. He was no longer cold, but there was companionship in its glow.
The meager little office was a palace compared with the cell from which he had escaped, he thought as he looked about him in the dim light from the open door of the stove.
“If he plays me any more tricks—” His mind reverted to Westcott, and the cold sweat stood upon his forehead at the idea of possible treachery.
“Pshaw!” he muttered. “There’s nothing more he can do. He’s done it all. God! To think I swore to kill him at sight, and here I am begging favors of him.”
The angry snarl in his voice changed to a cough, and ended in a whimper.
“I couldn’t do anything else,” he pleaded, asthough arguing with someone. “I want to get back east. I want to die in the open. Hell! I was going mad in that hole.”
He rested his head between his fists, torturing himself with memories of the days before he crossed the Divide, the youngest chain-man in the surveyors’ gang of a projected new railroad. He had come from Iowa, and boy-like he sang the praises of his native state all across the alkali plains, until, in derision, his fellows dubbed him “the Iowa barker.”
The name stuck. In Nevada he was plain “Barker.” The others seemed to have forgotten his real name, and as Barker, when he left the outfit, he drifted down into Arizona. He blessed the easy transition when the trouble came that fixed the killing of big Dan Lundy on him. He had kept his real name secret through all that came after.
What had it all been about? What was he doing here to-night? Why hadn’t he killed Westcott, instead of sitting here by his fire?
He passed a wavering hand before his eyes. Oh, yes. Now he remembered. Westcott was going to send him east—to God’s country. Meanwhile, he was dead for sleep. He caught himself, as he lurched in his chair, and rising heavily, he threw himself upon the couch.
It was past noon when he woke. The sun lighted the yellow curtains; the door stood open, and Westcott bent over him, shaking him by the shoulder.
“Barker! Barker!” the attorney called.
“Barker! Wake up! Time to get out of this. I’ve got a chance to send you down to the railroad.”
By degrees he struggled to consciousness, and sat up. Westcott had brought him a big cup of steaming coffee.
“Drink this,” he said, not unkindly.
“My friend came up with the money,” he went on, as Barker drank, sitting sidewise on the couch. “He’s going to take you down in his buggy. He’ll fix you up all right.”
Barker was still dazed with sleep. His ears rang, and the lawyer’s voice sounded strange and far away. The coffee made him feel better. It soothed the cough that had racked him the moment he sat up.
“Now eat some grub,” Westcott said.
He had brought food from the hotel. Barker was still too far off to wonder at this. He had no desire for food, but he ate, obediently.
Westcott, meantime, had gone outside. In front of the hotel stood a big, rangy bay horse, hitched to a light road-wagon. Near the outfit lounged atall, determined-looking man, who came forward when he saw the attorney.
“I’ve got to be getting a move on soon,” he said. “It’ll be late night, as ’tis, before we get there.”
“He’ll be ready in the shake of a horn,” the other replied.
“Say, Frank,” he continued. “He don’t know who you are. I’ve let on you’re a friend of mine, going to take him down. Let him think that till you get out of town.”
“Must be a dead easy one,” the man addressed as Frank said.
“Well, you see,” Westcott laughed, nervously, “I doped him pretty well last night—the poor devil coughed so,” he added, in explanation, and the deputy sheriff gave a grunt that might mean anything. It brought a flush of embarrassment to Westcott’s face.
“Come on,” he said, shortly, turning toward his office. The deputy climbed into his buggy and drove after him.
“Got to hurry, Barker,” Westcott called, opening the door.
He escorted his charge briskly outside.
“This is Mr. Arnold,” he mumbled, beside the wagon. “A friend of mine that’ll see you fixed all right.”
The man holding the reins scrutinized Barker closely as the latter climbed up beside him.
“All right,” he decided, finally, speaking to Westcott, and handed the attorney a folded paper.
“That’s what you were after,” he said, briefly. “So long.”
A word to the bay colt and they were swinging down Upper Broadway at a pace that made Barker catch his breath as he noted the narrow road, and the steep cañon-side.
“It’d sure be a long fall,” his companion said, answering his look, “But we ain’t goin’ to take it. You can bank on the colt. He’s sure-footed as a deer.”
“I ain’t afraid,” Barker responded. The fresh, sweet air was beginning to clear his brain and he sat up straighter, a touch of color coming into his death-like face. The other man avoided his glance, giving all his attention to the colt, who was swiftly putting distance between them and the town. The exigencies of the steep, rough road made such attention necessary and neither man spoke again until they had traversed the narrow pass, and were out of the gulch. A sudden turn of the way brought them among the foothills, the broad, yellow expanse of cactus-dotted plain before them.
“Doesn’t seem as far as it did when I footed it in last night,” Barker said at last, with an attemptto smile, and Arnold nodded. The bay colt was a good traveler, and they were on the level now, following the road that wound its spiritless, grey way among the cacti. The colt took it in long, free strides, that promised to get them somewhere by daylight.
“Good horse you got there,” Barker said, with a country-bred man’s interest in animals. “Mighty good shoulders.”
“You bet!” was the deputy’s hearty response. “Good for all day, too.”
“I raised him myself,” he went on, “and he’s standard bred, too, Daystar, out’n an Alcantara mare.” He spoke with proper pride, as the owner of a good horse may.
“They raise some fine stock back in Iowa,” Barker remarked, and his companion’s fount of speech seemed suddenly to run dry. Barker waited, expectant, for some little time.
“Where are we going to hit the railroad?” He asked, at last.
“The railroad?” Arnold looked puzzled.
“Westcott said you’d land me where I could get the train east,” the other explained. “He said you had the price of a ticket for me. It’s all on the level, ain’t it?” he demanded, his voice going higher.
“Oh—Oh! yes, yes! It’s all fixed. Don’t youworry none.” The bronze of the deputy’s face crimsoned.
“Don’t you worry none,” he repeated, with a glance at the sky.
An ominous cloud lowered, overhead. The sun was hidden, and the air had grown chill. A fit of coughing had followed Barker’s flash of excitement, and he crouched in his seat, shivering slightly.
“Look here,” Arnold exclaimed, “you ain’t dressed warm enough. They’s some kind of weather breeding.”
He reached beneath the wagon-seat and pulled forth his own coat.
“Put this on,” he directed. “I’ve got my sweater on, and don’t need it.”
Barker pushed it back.
“I’m all right,” he said. “You’ll need that yourself.”
“You do what I tell you,” the deputy insisted. “Put it over your shoulders. The wind’s at your back.”
He thrust the garment across his companion’s wasted shoulders and Barker drew the sleeves across his chest.
As he did so his hand touched something hard, under one lapel. He glanced down at it, and started.
“What’s that?” he cried, turning the metal badge up for closer inspection.
A groan of horror escaped him as he recognized the object.
He sprang to his feet, his long, gaunt hands reaching for the deputy’s throat. Arnold swept him back with one motion of his powerful arm.
“Don’t you do anything like that,” he said, with rough kindness. “You’d be just a skeeter if I took hold of you, and I don’t want to. Suffering snakes!” he pleaded, “Don’t look like that! I’m sorry, man; by Heaven, I’ve hated this job like blue poison, ever since I laid eyes on you.”
The words died away in his throat before the dumb misery in the other man’s face. The wasted figure was slumped forward in an abandon of despair. All the man’s pride and courage died in the face of his fearful disappointment.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” he moaned. “And I thought I was going to die in the open.”
He turned to the deputy, a sudden hope lighting his woe.
“Let me get out,” he begged. “Let me get out right here. I can’t get anywheres: I’m bound to die; but it’ll be out in the open. Please let me out.”
“I can’t.” The words came through Arnold’s set teeth.
“Why not? I never killed Dan Lundy. Before God, I never laid a finger on him.” Barker spoke fast and thick, in his eagerness.
“I went to his shack and found him there, knifed to death. And Jim Texas swore he saw me do it. Swore it, mind you; when Hart Dowling and I both knew Texas had threatened Lundy time and again.”
A fit of coughing interrupted him, but he went on as soon as he could, his hoarse voice breaking now and then.
“And Westcott came sneaking ’round to see what there was in it for him. He was just starting in then, and I’d heard he was a smart fellow. I told him of the fifteen hundred dollars dust I had hid in my shack. He was to find Dowling. Dowling ’d gone up into Wyoming. Westcott was to get him down here as a witness. And the damned coyote was to have my fifteen hundred.”
Again the racking cough, and his voice trailed off in a choking struggle for breath. He was shrieking when he continued.
“And Westcott took the money! Took it out of my shack, and never came near me again. Left me to die. They’d ha’ hung me, sure, if some of the jury hadn’t believed Jim Texas lied.”
The deputy’s face was twisted with pity and shame; the man was so horribly broken.
“They’s a flask in the pocket o’ that coat,” he said. “Take a pull; it’ll brace you up.”
“I don’t want it,” Barker snarled. “It chokes me more.”
He had drawn the coat about him, the sleeves tied across his chest.
“And Westcott went back on me this time, too.” He took up the pitiful tale again. “He couldn’t be satisfied, the devil, with what he’d done. He had to do it over. But what for? What for? I say? I never didhimdirt.”
The deputy gave a start of surprise.
“Why Westcott got—” he began, then pity kept him silent. If Barker had not guessed he would not tell him.
“Westcott ... hell!” He spat savagely out upon the desert, shaking his head with pity, as he glanced again at the huddled figure.
“Westcott’s a damned side-winder,” he muttered.
They were descending into an arroyo, once the bed of a creek; dry, now, for more than a year. The road crossed it, here.
“We’re going to get our weather, quick,” the deputy said, as he noticed that the bottom of the arroyo held tiny pools of water.
Even as he spoke a little stream came trickling down.
“It’s us for the level! Quick!” he shouted, urging the bay.
In an instant darkness was upon them. A sudden flash of steely blue rent the sky; almost with it a quick roll of thunder was all about them and a bellowing rush of water came tearing along the arroyo.
The bay colt squealed with terror, plunging sidewise, heedless of whip and voice. The deputy tried to turn him back to where the bank sloped, but already they were sweeping along with the torrent.
“A cloudburst,” Arnold shrieked, and with the words he was wrested from his seat.
The shafts of the light vehicle snapped short at the gear. The colt, plunging, open-mouthed, was hurled forward in a fearful somersault, and went under, just as the wagon and its remaining occupant rolled over and over, as a boulder might roll, in the churn of maddened water.
It was far into the night when, amid a matted drift, half-way up one bank of the arroyo, something stirred, faintly. Caught in a web of debris, and a tangle of mesquite roots that thrust far out from the soil, a man strove feebly to disentangle his head from a smother of something that enwrappedit. When at last he partly succeeded he looked up at the calm stars, lamping the sky in solemn splendor. Below him he could still hear the rush of water, but above all was peaceful.
Long he lay, more dead than alive, trying to remember what had happened. By the bright starlight he managed to make out that the body of the light wagon had caught upon an out-thrust web of mesquite roots. He was lying on his side in the wagon box, one arm thrust, to the shoulder, through something that he could not see. About his neck and head was a tangle of cloth which he made out to be the deputy’s coat, and a long thong of leather, probably one of the harness reins. This was wound, as well, about what remained of one of the seat braces.
Slowly, by agonizing degrees, the man began to work himself loose from the tangle. Then he discovered that the thing binding his shoulder was the strap of a horse’s nose-bag, and the bag itself. It was caught over a long, splintered fragment of the reach, which had broken through the bottom of the wagon box. The bag seemed to be about half full of oats.
Inch by inch he cleared himself, and laying hold upon the mesquite roots, rose slowly, until he stood up. Every movement was pain, but he persisted doggedly, climbing little by little up the bank,clinging now to a root of mesquite, now to a point of rock, pausing for breath, or to ease the strain upon his tortured muscles. At last he grasped the trunk of a mesquite and dragged himself out upon the desert, where he fell helpless upon the sand.
CHAPTER III
The shadowy bulk of distant mountains changed to pale blue as the purple of night slowly lightened. The stars faded, one by one, and a spectral moon slipped wearily down the sky. Beyond the scant mesquite fringing the arroyo the desert lay still and gray, like a leaden sea.
The man woke, and moved slightly, groaning as his wrenched and stiffened body protested. Consciousness strengthened, and he struggled to his knees to stare about him. The chill of early morning had him by the bones, and he shook in its grip. After a little he got to his feet and tried, painfully, to swing his arms.
Away westward a subtle hint of color crept across the pale sky, heralding a coming radiance in the east; but it brought no sense of comfort.
“There’s no one left alive but me,” the man whispered, as his gaze took in the awful solitude. “No one but me, Gabriel Gard!”
The sound of that name, spoken all unconsciously,made him start, and look furtively about. The loneliness of the plain had betrayed his jealously guarded secret. Then his mood changed.
“I’ve a right to die with it, at least,” he muttered. “They can’t steal that from me. Barker’s dead, already. Gabriel Gard goes next. Hear that, Gabriel? You go next. Y-a-a-h.... God!”
A sudden agony of pain shook him as he began to cough. Every muscle in his body was sore. Then, as the racking grew less, he stood transfixed, staring across the desert.
A crimson glow from the coming sunrise flushed far across the eastern sky, and coming toward him, touched by its glory, was a figure that his astonished brain sought to define.
It was no mirage. He knew the marks of that supreme cheat of the desert. This was no trick of refraction or of reflection. He saw, as a man sees, this creature silently, steadily drawing near.
It was a strangely familiar shape; vague, uncouth, incredible, it seemed; yet he recognized it. He recognized the slender, shuffling legs, the swinging gait, the mis-shapen body, the ungainly, crooked neck and high held head; but why, in the name of reason, should a camel be coming to him, out of nowhere?
Nearer and nearer the creature drew, the uncouth form now a wonder of azure and crimson,as the light became stronger, and still the man gazed, his bewildered mind refusing to accept the testimony of his eyes.
He was filled with awe. It was true, then, what old prospectors had lately declared, that this solitary wanderer was still in the desert, sole survivor of the old Jeff Davis caravan.[1]Old man Dickson, and again young Bennett, swore they had seen it. Dickson told, indeed, of having had the creature about his camp for nearly a week.
1. When Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War he imported a caravan of camels into the desert, to carry supplies for the army. The creatures stampeded the army mules, whenever they appeared, and the soldiers took to shooting them, on the sly. In time so many were killed that not enough remained to form a caravan, so the survivors were turned loose in the desert. Here they were hunted by tourists, who shot them for “sport,” until it was supposed that all had perished. It is known now, however, that one, at least, survives. This solitary one still wanders about the desert, and the writer knows of more than one prospector who has encountered it, very recently.
1. When Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War he imported a caravan of camels into the desert, to carry supplies for the army. The creatures stampeded the army mules, whenever they appeared, and the soldiers took to shooting them, on the sly. In time so many were killed that not enough remained to form a caravan, so the survivors were turned loose in the desert. Here they were hunted by tourists, who shot them for “sport,” until it was supposed that all had perished. It is known now, however, that one, at least, survives. This solitary one still wanders about the desert, and the writer knows of more than one prospector who has encountered it, very recently.
On came the camel, looking neither to the right nor the left, its shuffling stride getting it over the ground with curious swiftness. When it was very near it stopped, under the mesquites, and seemed to wait for the man to approach. Recovered somewhat from his amazement, Gabriel Gard drew nearer and, reaching out a tentative hand, touched the creature’s neck.
The animal neither started nor flinched, but begancropping beans from the mesquite trees, quite as if the man were not there. Gard, noting the action, became aware that he was himself faint with hunger.
On the desert, where he had thrown it in rising, lay the deputy’s coat, and tangled with it Gard found his own canteen. He took this as a good omen.
“I may need you, yet,” he whispered, as he took it up.
In one pocket of the coat was a nickle watch, made fast by a leather thong, to a buttonhole. Another contained the deputy’s pipe, some loose tobacco, and a water-tight box, in which were fourteen matches. Gard counted them, carefully.
He turned to the other side-pocket, with but faint hope that the flask which he had scorned the day before would be in it yet.
It was there, however, and beside it, in a greasy, crushed packet, a big beef sandwich. The deputy, accustomed to provide against long rides in the desert, had secured this before leaving the hotel.
The man ate it eagerly, and took a swallow from the flask. The food, and the fiery liquor, warmed him, and revived his courage.
In the coat’s inner pocket were papers, a worn memorandum book, an envelop covered with figures, another, longer one, containing a document.As Gard turned them over a postal-card fell to the desert.
He picked it up. On the back were a picture, and some printing. The man read the latter through before he realized what the card was for. It published his escape from jail, and the fact that five hundred dollars reward was offered for his capture.
Now he remembered the deputy’s unfinished sentence, and knew why Westcott had betrayed him.
Westcott had got that reward! He had sold him back to death as he had sold him before. God! Why could he not have had his fingers upon that lying throat just once? He would have found strength for the job that needed doing!
He stretched forth his wasted, jail-bleached hands, and regarded them, snarling. Then he raised them, shaking them at the sky.
“I’ll live to do it yet! Do you hear?” he shrieked, “I say Iwilllive!”
He beat the desert air with his clenched fists.
“God—devil—whatever you are that runs this hellish world, you’ve got to let me live. I’ll make that infernal side-winder wish he could hide in hell’s mouth, before I die!”
The torrent of his rage was stemmed by a vicious attack of that racking cough. It tore hischest, and flecked his lips with blood. When it was over he lay upon the sand for a long time, sobbing the dry, anguished sobs of a man’s helpless woe.
The sun, rising above the distant mountains, shone red upon him. The camel left the mesquite’s thin shade for the warmer light and the pad of its soft feet aroused Gard. He must not let the creature get away.
He rose, painfully, and went to it, considering the brute carefully. A plan was dawning in his brain. He took the strap that served him for a belt, and buckled it around the camel’s neck. The animal followed him, docile as a sheep, when he led it back to the mesquite. Then he bethought himself of the oats, in the horse’s bag, below.
Going to the edge of the arroyo he could see it in the wreck of the road-wagon, and he made his way painfully down to it. As he was clambering back he noticed that the back spring of the light rig still clung to it by a single bolt. A slight wrench brought it away, and he secured it, with a vague feeling that it might prove useful.
The full horror of his position was becoming clear to him. He was alone in the desert, without food or weapons. He put the thought away, summoning all his faculties for the need of the moment.
The camel was indifferent to the oats, turning from them to the mesquite, after a tentative investigation. With his belt and the harness rein, Gard proceeded to fashion a sort of rude hackamore, which he put over the creature’s head. The great beast, as soon as it was adjusted, settled itself, as by instinct, in an attitude of waiting, while Gard proceeded to fill his canteen and to gather quantities of mesquite beans, bestowing them in the feed bag, and in the pockets of Arnold’s coat.
He threw the coat across the camel’s back, the buggy-spring and the bag secured by its knotted sleeves. Then he took the leading strap in his hand, spoke to the animal, and they moved out upon the desert.
Gard had no idea in which direction it was best to go, but he argued that the camel knew the plain, and its fastnesses. For himself, he had but one thought—to hide, to rest, to gather strength for vengeance. At that thought he stifled the cough that rose in his throat.
Once they were started he let the strap hang loose and gradually fell behind. The camel went forward a few paces in the direction ahead of them, but feeling no guidance, gradually deflected its course toward the west. Gard followed every movement eagerly, until presently they were goingforward at a steady pace, as travelers with a definite aim.
The sun was well up now, and its beams warmed the man’s chilled, sore body. The desert was no longer gray, but a glowing yellow. Even the air was warm-hued, suffusing the landscape with a roseate loveliness that yet seemed less of life than of death.
Everywhere were the desert growths, travesties of vegetation, twisted, grotesque, ghostly gray and pale green in hues. A profound stillness, insistent, oppressive, was upon everything. The yellow sand, the glowing air, the cloudless dome of the sky, the far-off mountains, all seemed to soak up sound. The world lay hushed in fierce, tense quiet, as though waiting the appearance of some savage portent.
The camel did not hasten. Gard, walking beside it, had a feeling that the creature was very old. Its eyes were bright, its coat silky and fine, but deep under the hair’s soft luxuriance the man’s fingers felt the skin, wrinkled and folded over shrunken muscles.
But there was neither feebleness nor hesitation in the forward progress of the desert pilot. It moved forward with a sort of inexorableness, its padded feet making no sound on the hard sand, its gaze bent steadily ahead, its inscrutable visagewearing ever, a look of centuries-old scorn for all things made.
They passed a huge bull-snake sunning upon a rock, and here and there a silent bird flitted to or from its home in some thorn-guarded cholla. Once a coyote tossed lightly across their vision, a blown gray feather along the horizon, but no other signs of animal life stirred the death-like plain.
The sand grew warmer in the sun’s rays, till permeating heat radiated from it and hung over it everywhere, a palpable, shimmering mist of lavender and gold, between earth and air. By mid-forenoon the sun’s rays were oppressive, and they halted in the shadow of a giant suhuaro.
The camel, when the man released the leading-strap, lowered itself slowly to rest, doubling down its legs like the shutting of a jack-knife, and settling upon the sand with the curious, sighing grunt of old age.
Gard, in the meantime, set about the preparation of a meal. He shelled a handful of tree beans and crushed them between two stones, mixing them with water from his canteen into a sort of paste, which he ate. The suhuaro’s fruit was yet hanging upon its great branches, dried, somewhat, by the autumn sun and wind, but palatable and nutritious still. Gard found a long pole, once part of the frame of another giant cactus, and with thissucceeded in knocking down some of the fig-like growths.
When he had eaten them he stretched himself upon the sand, filled the deputy’s pipe, and lighted it with one of the precious matches. The unwonted luxury brought him comfort, and ease of mind. He smoked slowly, making the most of it in delicious relaxation, his head in the shade, his weary, sick body basking in the heat of desert and sunlight.
Lying thus there presently spread out before his eyes the sudden vision of a great, island-dotted sea. The surface of the water dimpled and sparkled in the sun; the islands shone jewel-like with verdure, an exquisite suggestion of rich color was over it all.
His eye was not deceived, though his mind half accepted the vision. He knew that it was a mirage, but he lay for a long time watching its changing beauty, a half-amused sense of superiority to illusion ministering pleasantly to his pride. The scene was so very like what it seemed to be.
Suddenly, from the surface of the sea rose a monstrous thing, huge, formidable, portentous, and endowed with motion. Gard turned upon his side, with a gasp. The mystic sea still wavered in the distance, but the shape was no part of it.
An instant he studied it, then sank back with asigh of relief. The apparition, upon scrutiny, had resolved itself into a little wild burro, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, passing across the face of the mirage. It was such a germane little shape, this familiar of the desert, that he was cheered by the sight of it. The next instant he noted a tarantula, hairy, vicious, glaring at him from a tiny eminence of sand.
Acting upon impulse, Gard hurled at it the rounded stone with which he had crushed the mesquite beans. The missile struck the sand close beside the tarantula and the huge spider sprang upon it in a frenzy of stupid ferocity. The man laughed silently, a laugh not good to see.
A shadow floated across the plain, and then another. The man glanced upward, to see three or four great black forms circling against the blue.
“You would, eh?” he shrieked, springing to his feet. “Yah! Not yet, you devils! I’m not dead yet!”
He shook his fist skyward at the huge, waiting birds.
“I’m alive yet!” he yelled. “You don’t get me yet; not till I’ve hadmymeat.”
The cough seized him, and ere it let go its hold the disappointed vultures, with never a stroke of their wide wings, faded into the skyey depths.
But Gard had no heart to linger further. Thesight of the desert scavengers had shaken him sorely, he hastened to rouse his strange fellow, and soon the pair were again threading that weary way from nowhere to the unknown.
All day they had moved steadily mountainward, and now they began to draw nearer the range that ever since dawn had reared a jagged line along the horizon. Gard had not known whether they would reach the mountains that day. One does not predicate distances in the desert. They may be long, or short; the lying air gives no clue.
But as the afternoon shadows were turning to mauve and blue, what had for hours looked like sloping foothills, leading gently toward further heights, suddenly reared itself before them in a long stretch of high, perpendicular wall.
Straight toward it the camel went, never pausing or looking around at the man beside him, and when another forward step would have found their progress barred, the creature swerved to the left, to enter a narrow pass that appeared as if by magic in the seemingly unbroken wall.
Now the way wound upward along a dry wash, climbing almost imperceptibly, at first, growing steeper, by degrees, though at no time a sharp ascent. The shadows closed in upon them, and the air grew chill, but still the camel walked on, andbeside him, clinging, now, in his weakness, to the animal’s long hair, toiled the man.
More and more often he paused for breath, his lungs tortured by the pace. He was faint with fatigue, chilled by the shadow-cooled air, but a drink from the flask gave him brief strength, and he struggled on.
An hour, and they were well within the mountains. The way wound now among greasewood and scrub oaks, with only here and there a cactus. The chaparral drew dense, and Gard could hear birds calling in its depths.
The trail began to widen, and patches of coarse grasses cropped out, here and there. The altitude was not particularly great, but it was beginning to tell upon the man when his strange guide halted in a little open glade, where the wash ended abruptly.
Night was falling, and Gard could make out very little save that the forest growth closed in the glade on all sides. Overhead he could just get a glimpse of the purpling sky, where the stars were already out. Off at one side he could see these reflected in water, and he could hear, as well, the gentle splash of a stream.
The camel stood beside him, wearily patient until, lifting a hand, he removed its load and slipped the hackamore from its head. Freed, thecreature turned away, and presently Gard heard him drinking, not far off.
He followed the sound until he reached water, and passing beyond the camel, knelt to drink his fill from a clear, cold fountain.
Later he gathered such dry sticks as he could find and kindled a fire, as much for protection as for warmth. He was too weary to think of food, but crouched before the cheering blaze, alternately dozing, and rousing to feed the flame.
As often as he did the latter he could see, in the darkness beyond the blaze, the gleaming eyes of small forest-prowlers, come to stare in wonder at the strange thing by the pool. Nothing molested him, however, and toward dawn he fell into a profound, restful slumber.