Chapter XII
The Desert Supreme
Considerably to his surprise Howard found absolutely no trace ofCourtot in Quigley. He inquired at the pool room, at the restaurant,at the stable. No one had seen the gambler for several months. Itstruck the cattleman as strange that a man should have ridden out ofLas Palmas, taking the Quigley trail, and not have come to Quigley.Where else could a man go? On the west lay the desert, on the east theLava Mountains and beyond the desert again, and it was a far call toany settlement or habitation. Even the sheepmen did not come up thisway; only the Quigley mines brought men here, and yet Courtot had notcome to Quigley.
'He turned out somewhere,' mused Howard, 'the Lord knows what for orwhere. But it's his business, and I'm going home.'
He gave his horse an hour in the stable while he himself made ready forhis short cut across the Bad Lands. The preparations were simple; atthe store he bought a small pack of provisions, enough to last himthree or four days at a pinch and in case of accidents; he filled hiscanteen; he spent half an hour with the grizzled old storekeeper, whoin his time had been a prospector and who knew the country hereaboutsas only an old prospector could know it. On a bit of wrapping-paperthe old fellow sketched a trail map that indicated the start throughthe Pass, the general direction and the chief landmarks, theapproximate mileage and--here he was very exact and accompanied hissketch with full verbal instructions--the few water-holes.
'You can make it all right, Al,' he said when Howard slipped the paperinto his vest pocket. 'It's no trick for a man like you. But Iwouldn't send a tenderfoot in there, not unless I wanted to make himover into a dead tenderfoot. And, mind you, every year some of themwater-holes dries up; the only ones you can count on for sure are theones I've marked with a double ring that way. So long.'
'So long,' said Alan, and went for his horse.
The forenoon was well advanced when he rode into the mouth of thenarrow pass which gives access, above the mines, into the LavaMountains and through them into the Bad Lands. In twenty minutes hehad entered a country entirely new to him. He looked about him withinterested eyes. Never, he thought as he pushed forward, had he knownuntil now the look of utter desolation. The mountain flanks werestrewn with black blocks and boulders of broken lava and were alreadyincredibly hot; underfoot was parched earth upon which it seemed thatnot even the hardiest of desert grasses cared to grow; yonder the BadLands stretched endlessly before him, blistering mounds of rock,wind-drifted stretches of burning sand, dry gulches and gorges whichone's wildest imagining could not fill with rushing waters. Here andthere were growing things, but they were grey with desert dust andlooked dead, greasewood dwarfed and wind-twisted, iron-fanged cactisnarling at the clear hot sky and casting no more shade than lean poles.
'A man won't find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,'thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool noseinto this bake-oven. Whew, it's hot.'
Hotter it grew and drier and, though such a thing had not seemedpossible, altogether more repellent and hostile to life. He climbed aridge to get his bearings and to locate in the grey distance the blackpeak which the storekeeper had indicated on his map as the firstlandmark and steering-point. He found it readily enough, a dozen milesoff to the south-west, and jogged down the gentle slope toward it, hishat drawn low to shield his burning eyes. Within an hour theimpression obtruded itself upon his fancies that about him the worldwas 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 dryfeathers and bones, hung in the sky. Why should a rabbit come hitherwhere there was no herbage? Why a coyote when his prey shunned thesewastes? Why even the winged scavenger when all animal life fled theBad Lands? The man's spirit was oppressed and drooped under theweariness of the weary land.
It was a tedious day, and more than once he regretted that he had takenthis trail; for it seemed likely, as is so often the case, that thelong way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, andplugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he foundthe first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It wasugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears pricked forwardand nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, thoughthey came to other spots where there should be water, they found noneuntil after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse ahandful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. Then he madehis own dinner, had his smoke and threw himself down for a couple ofhours' rest and dozing. It was his intention to travel on in the nightto the next spring, which was some ten miles farther on and which,because of its location in the centre of a cluster of hills alreadyclear against the skyline, he was sure he could not miss. It was oneof the map's double-ringed water-holes.
His horse finished its drink and its barley. He heard it shake itselfas a horse does after its sweaty work is done. Without turning hishead he knew where it was going to lie down for a roll. Now he didturn a little, seeing through the coming dimness of night the four legswaving in air as the beast struggled to turn over on its back. It wasa new horse, one he had purchased some weeks ago with a number ofothers and had not ridden until now; he recalled how, when a boy, hehad shared other youngsters' superstition in connexion with a horserolling. If it went clean over, it was worth a hundred dollars, if itrolled back, another hundred, and so on.
But this animal did not complete the one effort. Howard heard itssudden terrified snort, saw it scramble wildly to its feet and goplunging off to the end of its tether, knew that even the strong ropehad broken and the horse was running wild. And as the man jumped tohis feet he knew why. For before the snort of fear he had heardanother sound, one indescribable to him who has not heard it andunforgettable and on the instant recognizable to him who has; thatquiet noise resembling as much as anything else the harsh rustling ofdead, bone-dry leaves. As he ran forward, Howard prayed in his heartthat the snake's fangs had not met in horseflesh.
Because the light was not all gone and he knew just where to look, hesaw the rattler slipping away across the sand. He thrust his gun downas close as he dared and with the first shot blew the sinister, flathead off the ugly thick body. Then he went forward, calling soothinglyto his horse.
Had it been any one of the horses he rode customarily, his voice mighthave carried something of quiet to startled nerves. But as it was thehorse was frightened, it was free, it was running and the broken end ofthe tie-rope, whipping at its heels, put fresh terror into it. Howardsaw it dimly as it crested a ridge a few hundred yards off; then itsvague shape was gone, swallowed up in the night. He hurried after itover the ridge. The stars showed him empty spaces of billowy sand;there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yethe went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. Hehad little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoothere in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of anhour 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 hereuntil daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or mightnot recapture it; to-morrow he might see the poor beast lying dead andhorribly swollen; to-morrow he might find in the empty desert nothingbut emptiness. For to-night there was nothing better to do than makehis bed and go to sleep under the stars and thank God for food andwater.
At the first pale glint of the new day he was astir. With sleep stillheavy in his eyes he hurried back to the ridge over which his horse hadgone. As he was pretty well prepared to expect, there was no horse insight. He waited for the light to brighten, probing with eager eyesinto the distances. Swiftly the sky filled to the coming day; theshadows withdrew from the hollows, the earth stood forth, naked andclearly revealed. Save for himself, feeling dwarfed in this immensity,there was no living thing within the scope of his vision. He shook hishead and turned back to camp and breakfast, frowning grimly. He wouldhave to walk out of this mess, and like an
y twelve cattlemen out of adozen he had little love of walking.
While he ate his morning meal he turned matters over in his mind. Hesaw that he could look forward confidently to a couple of unpleasantdays. He did not anticipate any difficulty beyond that of theirksomeness of being obliged to trudge something like fifty miles inthe sun. He knew that he would waste no end of time trying to trackthe vanished horse across such a land as this; he saw onlyfoolhardiness in leaving the trail he had had picked out for him and,with little food and no knowledge of water, turning out across anutterly unknown land of forbidding desolation. He judged roughly thatDesert Valley was as near as Quigley. Hence, having filled his canteenand tied his provisions into a bundle, he slung the two over hisshoulders, left his saddle where it was and turned his face toward thehome range.
Despite his determination to get an ugly task over and done with, hewas a full four hours making the first ten miles. He walked as swiftlyas he might to take the full advantage of the lesser heat of theearlier hours, but his way led him through loose sand, down into cutsand gorges, up their steep sides, across fields of loose stones, which,shifting underfoot, made his striving for haste a pure work ofTantalus. 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 desertsands and that the moisture of his body was being sucked out of it bythe thirsty air and that at every stride the day grew drier and hotter.Thirst clutched his throat, ached throughout his body, that thirstwhich is like no other, desert thirst. Again and again he drank fromhis canteen. When he ploughed up the slope of the little hills andthen down into their hollow to the double-ringed spring, his canteenwas half empty. And when at last he came to the spring itself he foundit as dry as a last year's seedpod.
Until this instant the day's adventure had been merely the acme ofunpleasantness. Now something more sinister entered into it. He madecertain 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'llnever get out of this.'
He found a few breast-high bushes and crawled into their thin shade andlay down; before him he spread out the Quigley storekeeper's map. Thishe studied with thoughtful eyes. The storekeeper had said it would beno trick at all for a man like Howard to make the trip, but he hadmeant Howard on horseback. On foot it became quite another matter.The next spot where he should find water was some twenty miles ahead ofhim; at the rate he had travelled this morning it would take him someeight hours to come to it. Further, at the rate he had drank from hiscanteen this morning, that canteen would be empty when he had gone halfthe distance. Clearly, he must drink less water, just half what he haddrank during the last four hours. Clearly also, it would grow hotterand he would want more instead of less water. Clearly again--and herewas the point of points--when he came to the twenty-mile-distantwater-hole, it too might be dry. And, after that, there was notanother spring for another twelve or fifteen miles. Yes, many thingswere 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 thetime that he needed to be sure that he had decided correctly. Forlater there might be no minute to squander. At present he had bothfood and water. At present he could go on or turn back. There waswater where he had left his saddle; he could count on that positivelyand could get to it before he had emptied his canteen. But, if insteadhe went forward, there could be no turning back. He studied his mapagain. So far as he could make out from it, it was as well to go on asto retreat. So, putting his paper into his pocket he took up his foodand 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 evenbreak, is all that men like Alan Howard ask. He realized with a fullmeasure of grimness that never until now had he placed a wager likethis one; he was betting heavily and he knew not against what odds thatat the end of twenty miles he would find water.
Hour after hour he trudged on. His feet burned; they ached; his bootsmade blisters and the blisters broke. Always he was thirsty with athirst which his whole supply of water could not have slacked and whichgrew steadily more acute. Now and then he paused briefly and dranksparingly. His bundle of food, small as it was, grew heavy; his feetwere heavy; only his canteen seemed to him lighter and lighter. A hotwind rose, blowing direct into his face, flinging at him fine particlesof burning sand that sifted through his clothing and got into hisboots, torturing further his tortured feet; the wind seared hiseyeballs and threatened to blind him. He lifted his head, selected adistant landmark, sought to shelter his eyes with the broad brim of hishat and went on.
Noon found him plunging down the steep bank of a dry gulch, a hideousgash in the breast of the hideous land. He found a spot where therewas a little shade under a clump of bushes growing upon the bank'sedge. He ate a little of his dried beef; he treated himself to half adozen big, slow swallows of water; then he lay and rested for half anhour. Again he rose; he moistened his mouth and lips, shut his teethhard together as he took the first step upon swollen feet; again hewandered monotonously through a monotonous land. There was no wind nowsave, infrequently, frolicsome little whirlwinds which danced about himand were gone. When he found that their play angered him, that theyseemed to mock at his weariness and dying energies, he frowned. Thiswas no time and here was no place for nerves.
In the late afternoon, after having laboured all day through a hell oftedium and distress, he came to the water-hole. He marked it from afarby its dusty willows; he wondered if this time he would find water. Itstruck him that he must. He began to walk faster; he curbed a headydesire to break into a run. As it was, he came slowly, steadily to thespot. And there was no water. He would not believe it. He walkedalong the line of willows, looking carefully everywhere. And not untilhe had looked everywhere did he give up. Oddly, his compelling want atthe moment was less for a drink than for a smoke. He began rolling acigarette. Half-way through the brief task he desisted, returning thethimbleful of tobacco to its sack. For the hot smoke would merely dryout further his already dry mouth.
He lay down in what shade he could find and estimated very carefullythe 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 asip of water. He screwed the top on quickly and tightly, jealous evenof a drop which might evaporate in this sponge-air. He stood up,knowing that he must not loiter. For each second his thirst wouldincrease as the arid air took the moisture forth through the pores ofhis body. Before he had moved a step forward he saw a man comingtoward him. He laughed outright, a laugh of suddenly relieved nerveswhich had been very tense. That man would have water and would knowwhere other water was to be found.
The man came neither from the direction of Quigley nor yet of DesertValley. Rather he was coming in from the north, would cut Howard'strail almost at right angles. He was on foot. Howard wondered atthat. Further, the man had a strange way of walking. He was halfnaked and about his head a dark cloth was tied. He trotted a fewsteps, seemed to hesitate and balance, he came on head down. Somethingseemed 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 andknees, slowly rose to his feet and came on, walking crazily. ThenHoward understood. The man was an Indian or a half-breed and he wasdying of thirst.