Arizona Nights

S >> Stewart Edward White >> Arizona Nights

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Well, it was really none of my business, as you might say. Men
got batted over the head often enough in those days. But for
some reason I picked him up and carried him to my 'dobe shack,
and laid him out, and washed his cut with sour wine. That
brought him to. Sour wine is fine to put a wound in shape to
heal, but it's no soothing syrup. He sat up as though he'd been
touched with a hot poker, stared around wild-eyed, and cut loose
with that song you were singing. Only it wasn't that verse.
It was another one further along, that went like this:

Their coffin was their ship, and their grave it was the sea,
Blow high, blow low, what care we;
And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea,
Down on the coast of the High Barbaree.

It fair made my hair rise to hear him, with the big, still,
solemn desert outside, and the quiet moonlight, and the shadows,
and him sitting up straight and gaunt, his eyes blazing each side
his big eagle nose, and his snaky hair hanging over the raw cut
across his head. However, I made out to get him bandaged up and
in shape; and pretty soon he sort of went to sleep.

Well, he was clean out of his head for nigh two weeks. Most of
the time he lay flat on his back staring at the pole roof, his
eyes burning and looking like they saw each one something a
different distance off, the way crazy eyes do. That was when he
was best. Then again he'd sing that Barbaree song until I'd go
out and look at the old Colorado flowing by just to be sure I
hadn't died and gone below. Or else he'd just talk. That was
the worst performance of all. It was like listening to one end
of a telephone, though we didn't know what telephones were in
those days. He began when be was a kid, and he gave his side of
conversations, pausing for replies. I could mighty near furnish
the replies sometimes. It was queer lingo--about ships and
ships' officers and gales and calms and fights and pearls and
whales and islands and birds and skies. But it was all little
stuff. I used to listen by the hour, but I never made out
anything really important as to who the man was, or where he'd
come from, or what he'd done.

At the end of the second week I came in at noon as per usual to
fix him up with grub. I didn't pay any attention to him, for he
was quiet. As I was bending over the fire he spoke. Usually I
didn't bother with his talk, for it didn't mean anything, but
something in his voice made me turn. He was lying on his side,
those black eyes of his blazing at me, but now both of them saw
the same distance.

"Where are my clothes?" he asked, very intense.

"You ain't in any shape to want clothes," said I. "Lie still."

I hadn't any more than got the words out of my mouth before he
was atop me. His method was a winner. He had me by the throat
with his hand, and I felt the point of the hook pricking the back
of my neck. One little squeeze--Talk about your deadly weapons!

But he'd been too sick and too long abed. He turned dizzy and
keeled over, and I dumped him back on the bunk. Then I put my
six-shooter on.

In a minute or so he came to.

"Now you're a nice, sweet proposition," said I, as soon as I was
sure he could understand me. "Here I pick you up on the street
and save your worthless carcass, and the first chance you get you
try to crawl my hump.
Explain."

"Where's my clothes?" he demanded again, very fierce.

"For heaven's sake," I yelled at him, "what's the matter with you
and your old clothes? There ain't enough of them to dust a
fiddle with anyway. What do you think I'd want with them?
They're safe enough."'

"Let me have them," he begged.

"Now, look here," said I, "you can't get up to-day. You ain't
fit."

"I know," he pleaded, "but let me see them."

Just to satisfy him I passed over his old duds.

"I've been robbed," he cried.

"Well," said I, "what did you expect would happen to you lying
around Yuma after midnight with a hole in your head?"

"Where's my coat?" he asked.

"You had no coat when I picked you up," I replied.

He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more--
he wouldn't even answer when I spoke to him. After he'd eaten a
fair meal he fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk
was empty and he was gone.

I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him
quite a ways off. He nodded at me very sour, and dodged around
the corner of the store.

"Guess he suspicions I stole that old coat of his," thinks I; and
afterwards I found that my surmise had been correct.

However, he didn't stay long in that frame of mind. It was along
towards evening, and I was walking on the banks looking down over
the muddy old Colorado, as I always liked to do. The sun had
just set, and the mountains had turned hard and stiff, as they do
after the glow, and the sky above them was a thousand million
miles deep of pale green-gold light. A pair of Greasers were
ahead of me, but I could see only their outlines, and they didn't
seem to interfere any with the scenery. Suddenly a black figure
seemed to rise up out of the ground; the Mexican man went down as
though he'd been jerked with a string, and the woman screeched.

I ran up, pulling my gun. The Mex was flat on his face, his arms
stretched out. On the middle of his back knelt my one-armed
friend. And that sharp hook was caught neatly under the point of
the Mexican's jaw. You bet he lay still.

I really think I was just in time to save the man's life.
According to my belief another minute would have buried the hook
in the Mexican's neck. Anyway, I thrust the muzzle of my Colt's
into the sailor's face.

"What's this?" I asked.

The sailor looked up at me without changing his position. He was
not the least bit afraid.

"This man has my coat," he explained.

"Where'd you get the coat?" I asked the Mex.

"I ween heem at monte off Antonio Curvez," said he.

"Maybe," growled the sailor.

He still held the hook under the man's jaw, but with the other
hand he ran rapidly under and over the Mexican's left shoulder.
In the half light I could see his face change. The gleam died
from his eye; the snarl left his lips. Without further delay he
arose to his feet.

"Get up and give it here!" he demanded.

The Mexican was only too glad to get off so easy. I don't know
whether he'd really won the coat at monte or not. In any case,
he flew poco pronto, leaving me and my friend together.

The man with the hook felt the left shoulder of the coat again,
looked up, met my eye, muttered something intended to be
pleasant, and walked away.

This was in December.

During the next two months he was a good deal about town, mostly
doing odd jobs. I saw him off and on. He always spoke to me as
pleasantly as he knew how, and once made some sort of a bluff
about paying me back for my trouble in bringing him around.
However, I didn't pay much attention to that, being at the time
almighty busy holding down my card games.

The last day of February I was sitting in my shack smoking a pipe
after supper, when my one-armed friend opened the door a foot,
slipped in, and shut it immediately. By the time he looked
towards me I knew where my six-shooter was.

"That's all right," said I, "but you better stay right there."

I intended to take no more chances with that hook.

He stood there looking straight at me without winking or offering
to move.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I want to make up to you for your trouble," said he. "I've got
a good thing, and I want to let you in on it."

"What kind of a good thing?" I asked.

"Treasure," said he.

"H'm," said I.

I examined him closely. He looked all right enough, neither
drunk nor loco.

"Sit down," said I--"over there; the other side the table." He
did so. "Now, fire away," said I.

He told me his name was Solomon Anderson, but that he was
generally known as Handy Solomon, on account of his hook; that he
had always followed the sea; that lately he had coasted the west
shores of Mexico; that at Guaymas he had fallen in with Spanish
friends, in company with whom he had visited the mines in the
Sierra Madre; that on this expedition the party had been attacked
by Yaquis and wiped out, he alone surviving; that his
blanket-mate before expiring had told him of gold buried in a
cove of Lower California by the man's grandfather; that the man
had given him a chart showing the location of the treasure; that
he had sewn this chart in the shoulder of his coat, whence his
suspicion of me and his being so loco about getting it back.

"And it's a big thing," said Handy Solomon to me, "for they's not
only gold, but altar jewels and diamonds. It will make us rich,
and a dozen like us, and you can kiss the Book on that."

"That may all be true," said I, "but why do you tell me? Why
don't you get your treasure without the need of dividing it?"

"Why, mate," he answered, "it's just plain gratitude. Didn't you
save my life, and nuss me, and take care of me when I was nigh
killed?"

"Look here, Anderson, or Handy Solomon, or whatever you please to
call yourself," I rejoined to this, "if you're going to do
business with me--and I do not understand yet just what it is you
want of me--you'll have to talk straight. It's all very well to
say gratitude, but that don't go with me. You've been around
here three months, and barring a half-dozen civil words and twice
as many of the other kind, I've failed to see any indications of
your gratitude before. It's a quality with a hell of a hang-fire
to it."

He looked at me sideways, spat, and looked at me sideways again.
Then he burst into a laugh.

"The devil's a preacher, if you ain't lost your pinfeathers,"'
said he. "Well, it's this then: I got to have a boat to get
there; and she must be stocked. And I got to have help with the
treasure, if it's like this fellow said it was. And the Yaquis
and cannibals from Tiburon is through the country. It's money I
got to have, and it's money I haven't got, and can't get unless I
let somebody in as pardner."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Why not?" he retorted. "I ain't see anybody I like better."

We talked the matter over at length. I had to force him to each
point, for suspicion was strong in him. I stood out for a larger
party. He strongly opposed this as depreciating the shares, but
I had no intention of going alone into what was then considered a
wild and dangerous country. Finally we compromised. A third of
the treasure was to go to him, a third to me, and the rest was to
be divided among the men whom I should select. This scheme did
not appeal to him.

"How do I know you plays fair?" he complained. "They'll be four
of you to one of me; and I don't like it, and you can kiss the
Book on that."

"If you don't like it, leave it," said I, "and get out, and be
damned to you."

Finally he agreed; but he refused me a look at the chart, saying
that he had left it in a safe place. I believe in reality he
wanted to be surer of me, and for that I can hardly blame him.

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE MURDER ON THE BEACH

At this moment the cook stuck his head in at the open door.

"Say, you fellows," he complained, "I got to be up at three
o'clock. Ain't you never going to turn in?"

"Shut up, Doctor!" "Somebody kill him!" "Here, sit down and
listen to this yarn!" yelled a savage chorus.

There ensued a slight scuffle, a few objections. Then silence,
and the stranger took up his story.

I had a chum named Billy Simpson, and I rung him in for
friendship. Then there was a solemn, tall Texas young fellow,
strong as a bull, straight and tough, brought up fighting Injins.
He never said much, but I knew he'd be right there when the gong
struck. For fourth man I picked out a German named Schwartz. He
and Simpson had just come back from the mines together. I took
him because he was a friend of Billy's, and besides was young and
strong, and was the only man in town excepting the sailor,
Anderson, who knew anything about running a boat. I forgot to
say that the Texas fellow was named Denton.

Handy Solomon had his boat all picked out. It belonged to some
Basques who had sailed her around from California. I must say
when I saw her I felt inclined to renig, for she wasn't more'n
about twenty-five feet long, was open except for a little sort of
cubbyhole up in the front of her, had one mast, and was pointed
at both ends. However, Schwartz said she was all right. He
claimed he knew the kind; that she was the sort used by French
fishermen, and could stand all sorts of trouble. She didn't look
it.

We worked her up to Yuma, partly with oars and partly by sails.
Then we loaded her with grub for a month. Each of us had his own
weapons, of course. In addition we put in picks and shovels, and
a small cask of water. Handy Solomon said that would be enough,
as there was water marked down on his chart. We told the gang
that we were going trading.

At the end of the week we started, and were out four days. There
wasn't much room, what with the supplies and the baggage, for the
five of us. We had to curl up 'most anywheres to sleep. And it
certainly seemed to me that we were in lots of danger. The waves
were much bigger than she was, and splashed on us considerable,
but Schwartz and Anderson didn't seem to mind. They laughed at
us. Anderson sang that song of his, and Schwartz told us of the
placers he had worked. He and Simpson had made a pretty good
clean-up, just enough to make them want to get rich. The first
day out Simpson showed us a belt with about an hundred ounces of
dust. This he got tired of wearing, so he kept it in a
compass-box, which was empty.

At the end of the four days we turned in at a deep bay and came
to anchor. The country was the usual proposition--very
light-brown, brittle-looking mountains, about two thousand feet
high; lots of sage and cactus, a pebbly beach, and not a sign of
anything fresh and green.

But Denton and I were mighty glad to see any sort of land.
Besides, our keg of water was pretty low, and it was getting
about time to discover the spring the chart spoke of. So we
piled our camp stuff in the small boat and rowed ashore.

Anderson led the way confidently enough up a dry arroyo, whose
sides were clay and conglomerate. But, though we followed it to
the end, we could find no indications that it was anything more
than a wash for rain floods.

"That's main queer," muttered Anderson, and returned to the
beach.

There he spread out the chart--the first look at it we'd had--and
set to studying it.

It was a careful piece of work done in India ink, pretty old, to
judge by the look of it, and with all sorts of pictures of
mountains and dolphins and ships and anchors around the edge.
There was our bay, all right. Two crosses were marked on the
land part--one labelled "oro" and the other "agua."

"Now there's the high cliff," says Anderson, following it out,
"and there's the round hill with the boulder--and if them
bearings don't point due for that ravine, the devil's a
preacher."

We tried it again, with the same result. A second inspection of
the map brought us no light on the question. We talked it over,
and looked at it from all points, but we couldn't dodge the
truth: the chart was wrong.

Then we explored several of the nearest gullies, but without
finding anything but loose stones baked hot in the sun.

By now it was getting towards sundown, so we built us a fire of
mesquite on the beach, made us supper, and boiled a pot of beans.

We talked it over. The water was about gone.

"That's what we've got to find first," said Simpson, "no question
of it. It's God knows how far to the next water, and we don't
know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat.
If we run our water entirely out before we start, we're going to
be in trouble. We'll have a good look to-morrow, and if we don't
find her, we'll run down to Mollyhay[4] and get a few extra
casks."

[4] Mulege - I retain the Old Timer's pronunciation.

"Perhaps that map is wrong about the treasure, too," suggested
Denton.

"I thought of that," said Handy Solomon, "but then, thinks I to
myself, this old rip probably don't make no long stay here--just
dodges in and out like, between tides, to bury his loot. He
would need no water at the time; but he might when he came back,
so he marked the water on his map. But he wasn't noways
particular AND exact, being in a hurry. But you can kiss the
Book to it that he didn't make no such mistakes about the swag."

"I believe you're right," said I.

When we came to turn in, Anderson suggested that he should sleep
aboard the boat. But Billy Simpson, in mind perhaps of the
hundred ounces in the compass-box, insisted that he'd just as
soon as not. After a little objection Handy Solomon gave in, but
I thought he seemed sour about it. We built a good fire, and in
about ten seconds were asleep.

Now, usually I sleep like a log, and did this time until about
midnight. Then all at once I came broad awake and sitting up in
my blankets. Nothing had happened--I wasn't even dreaming--but
there I was as alert and clear as though it were broad noon.

By the light of the fire I saw Handy Solomon sitting, and at his
side our five rifles gathered.

I must have made some noise, for he turned quietly toward me, saw
I was awake, and nodded. The moonlight was sparkling on the hard
stony landscape, and a thin dampness came out from the sea.

After a minute Anderson threw on another stick of wood, yawned,
and stood up.

"It's wet," said he; "I've been fixing the guns."

He showed me how he was inserting a little patch of felt between
the hammer and the nipple, a scheme of his own for keeping damp
from the powder. Then he rolled up in his blanket. At the time
it all seemed quite natural--I suppose my mind wasn't fully
awake, for all my head felt so clear. Afterwards I realised what
a ridiculous bluff he was making: for of course the cap already
on the nipple was plenty to keep out the damp. I fully believe
he intended to kill us as we lay. Only my sudden awakening
spoiled his plan.

I had absolutely no idea of this at the time, however. Not the
slightest suspicion entered my head. In view of that fact, I
have since believed in guardian angels. For my next move, which
at the time seemed to me absolutely aimless, was to change my
blankets from one side of the fire to the other. And that
brought me alongside the five rifles.

Owing to this fact, I am now convinced, we awoke safe at
daylight, cooked breakfast, and laid the plan for the day.
Anderson directed us. I was to climb over the ridge before us
and search in the ravine on the other side. Schwartz was to
explore up the beach to the left, and Denton to the right.
Anderson said he would wait for Billy Simpson, who had overslept
in the darkness of the cubbyhole, and who was now paddling
ashore. The two of them would push inland to the west until a
high hill would give them a chance to look around for greenery.

We started at once, before the sun would be hot. The hill I had
to climb was steep and covered with chollas, so I didn't get
along very fast. When I was about half way to the top I heard a
shot from the beach. I looked back. Anderson was in the small
boat, rowing rapidly out to the vessel. Denton was running up
the beach from one direction and Schwartz from the other. I slid
and slipped down the bluff, getting pretty well stuck up with the
cholla spines.

At the beach we found Billy Simpson lying on his ace, shot
through the back. We turned him over, but he was apparently
dead. Anderson had hoisted the sail, had cut loose from the
anchor, and was sailing away.

Denton stood up straight and tall, looking. Then he pulled his
belt in a hole, grabbed my arm, and started to run up the long
curve of the beach. Behind us came Schwartz. We ran near a
mile, and then fell among some tules in an inlet at the farther
point.

"What is it?" I gasped.

"Our only chance--to get him-- said Denton. "He's got to go
around this point--big wind--perhaps his mast will bust--then
he'll come ashore--" He opened and shut his big brown hands.

So there we two fools lay, like panthers in the tules, taking our
only one-in-a-million chance to lay hands on Anderson. Any
sailor could have told us that the mast wouldn't break, but we
had winded Schwartz a quarter of a mile back. And so we waited,
our eyes fixed on the boat's sail, grudging her every inch, just
burning to fix things to suit us a little better. And naturally
she made the point in what I now know was only a fresh breeze,
squared away, and dropped down before the wind toward Guaymas.

We walked back slowly to our camp, swallowing the copper taste of
too hard a run. Schwartz we picked up from a boulder, just
recovering. We were all of us crazy mad. Schwartz half wept,
and blamed and cussed. Denton glowered away in silence. I
ground my feet into the sand in a help less sort of anger, not
only at the man himself, but also at the whole way things had
turned out. I don't believe the least notion of our predicament
had come to any of us. All we knew yet was that we had been done
up, and we were hostile about it.

But at camp we found something to occupy us for the moment. Poor
Billy was not dead, as we had supposed, but very weak and sick,
and a hole square through him. When we returned he was
conscious, but that was about all. His eyes were shut, and he
was moaning. I tore open his shirt to stanch the blood. He felt
my hand and opened his eyes. They were glazed, and I don't think
he saw me.

"Water, water!" he cried.

At that we others saw all at once where we stood. I remember I
rose to my feet and found myself staring straight into Tom
Denton's eyes. We looked at each other that way for I guess it
was a full minute. Then Tom shook his head.

"Water, water!" begged poor Billy.

Tom leaned over him.

"My God, Billy, there ain't any water!" said he.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BURIED TREASURE

The Old Timer's voice broke a little. We had leisure to notice
that even the drip from the eaves had ceased. A faint, diffused
light vouchsafed us dim outlines of sprawling figures and
tumbled bedding. Far in the distance outside a wolf yelped.

We could do nothing for him except shelter him from the sun, and
wet his forehead with sea-water; nor could we think clearly for
ourselves as long as the spark of life lingered in him. His
chest rose and fell regularly, but with long pauses between.
When the sun was overhead he suddenly opened his eyes.

"Fellows," said he, "it's beautiful over there; the grass is so
green, and the water so cool; I am tired of marching, and I
reckon I'll cross over and camp."

Then he died. We scooped out a shallow hole above tide-mark,
and laid him in it, and piled over him stones from the wash.

Then we went back to the beach, very solemn, to talk it over.

"Now, boys," said I, "there seems to me just one thing to do, and
that is to pike out for water as fast as we can."

"Where?" asked Denton.

"Well," I argued, "I don't believe there's any water about this
bay. Maybe there was when that chart was made. It was a long
time ago. And any way, the old pirate was a sailor, and no
plainsman, and maybe he mistook rainwater for a spring. We've
looked around this end of the bay. The chances are we'd use up
two or three days exploring around the other, and then wouldn't
be as well off as we are right now."

"Which way?" asked Denton again, mighty brief.

"Well," said I, "there's one thing I've always noticed in case of
folks held up by the desert: they generally go wandering about
here and there looking for water until they die not far from
where they got lost. And usually they've covered a heap of
actual distance."

"That's so," agreed Denton.

"Now, I've always figured that it would be a good deal better to
start right out for some particular place, even if it's ten
thousand miles away. A man is just as likely to strike water
going in a straight line as he is going in a circle; and then,
besides, he's getting somewhere."

"Correct," said Denton,

"So," I finished, "I reckon we'd better follow the coast south
and try to get to Mollyhay."

"How far is that?" asked Schwartz.

"I don't rightly know. But somewheres between three and five
hundred miles, at a guess."

At that he fell to glowering and grooming with himself, brooding
over what a hard time it was going to be. That is the way with a
German. First off he's plumb scared at the prospect of suffering
anything, and would rather die right off than take long chances.
After he gets into the swing of it, he behaves as well as any
man.

"We took stock of what we had to depend on. The total assets
proved to be just three pairs of legs. A pot of coffee had been
on the fire, but that villain had kicked it over when he left.
The kettle of beans was there, but somehow we got the notion they
might have been poisoned, so we left them. I don't know now why
we were so foolish--if poison was his game, he'd have tried it
before--but at that time it seemed reasonable enough. Perhaps
the horror of the morning's work, and the sight of the
brittle-brown mountains, and the ghastly yellow glare of the sun,
and the blue waves racing by outside, and the big strong wind
that blew through us so hard that it seemed to blow empty our
souls, had turned our judgment. Anyway, we left a full meal
there in the beanpot.

So without any further delay we set off up the ridge I had
started to cross that morning. Schwartz lagged, sulky as a muley
cow, but we managed to keep him with us. At the top of the ridge
we took our bearings for the next deep bay. Already we had made
up our minds to stick to the sea-coast, both on account of the
lower country over which to travel and the off chance of falling
in with a fishing vessel. Schwartz muttered something about its
being too far even to the next bay, and wanted to sit down on a
rock. Denton didn't say anything, but he jerked Schwartz up by
the collar so fiercely that the German gave it over and came
along.

We dropped down into the gully, stumbled over the boulder wash,
and began to toil in the ankle-deep sand of a little sage-brush
flat this side of the next ascent. Schwartz followed steadily
enough now, but had fallen forty or fifty feet behind. This was
a nuisance, as we bad to keep turning to see if he still kept up.

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