Arizona Nights

S >> Stewart Edward White >> Arizona Nights

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Suddenly he seemed to disappear.

Denton and I hurried back to find him on his hands and knees
behind a sagebrush, clawing away at the sand like mad.

"Can't be water on this flat," said Denton; "he must have gone
crazy."

"What's the matter, Schwartz?" I asked.

For answer he moved a little to one side, showing beneath his
knee one corner of a wooden box sticking above the sand.

At this we dropped beside him, and in five minutes had uncovered
the whole of the chest. It was not very large, and was locked.
A rock from the wash fixed that, however. We threw back the lid.

It was full to the brim of gold coins, thrown in loose, nigh two
bushels of them.

"The treasure!" I cried.

There it was, sure enough, or some of it. We looked the rest
through, but found nothing but the gold coins. The altar
ornaments and jewels were lacking.

"Probably buried in another box or so," said Denton.

Schwartz wanted to dig around a little.

"No good," said I. "We've got our work cut out for us as it is."

Denton backed me up. We were both old hands at the business, had
each in our time suffered the "cotton-mouth" thirst, and the
memory of it outweighed any desire for treasure.

But Schwartz was money-mad. Left to himself he would have staid
on that sand flat to perish, as certainly as had poor Billy. We
had fairly to force him away, and then succeeded only because we
let him fill all his pockets to bulging with the coins. As we
moved up the next rise, he kept looking back and uttering little
moans against the crime of leaving it.

Luckily for us it was winter. We shouldn't have lasted six hours
at this time of year. As it was, the sun was hot against the
shale and the little stones of those cussed hills. We plodded
along until late afternoon, toiling up one hill and down another,
only to repeat immediately. Towards sundown we made the second
bay, where we plunged into the sea, clothes and all, and were
greatly refreshed. I suppose a man absorbs a good deal that way.
Anyhow, it always seemed to help.

We were now pretty hungry, and, as we walked along the shore, we
began to look for turtles or shellfish, or anything else that
might come handy. There was nothing. Schwartz wanted to stop
for a night's rest, but Denton and I knew better than that.

"Look here, Schwartz," said Denton, "you don't realise you're
entered against time in this race--and that you're a damn fool to
carry all that weight in your clothes."

So we dragged along all night.

It was weird enough, I can tell you. The moon shone cold and
white over that dead, dry country. Hot whiffs rose from the
baked stones and hillsides. Shadows lay under the stones like
animals crouching. When we came to the edge of a silvery hill we
dropped off into pitchy blackness. There we stumbled over
boulders for a minute or so, and began to climb the steep shale
on the other side. This was fearful work. The top seemed always
miles away. By morning we didn't seem to have made much of
anywhere. The same old hollow-looking mountains with the sharp
edges stuck up in about the same old places.

We had got over being very hungry, and, though we were pretty
dry, we didn't really suffer yet from thirst. About this time
Denton ran across some fishhook cactus, which we cut up and
chewed. They have a sticky wet sort of inside, which doesn't
quench your thirst any, but helps to keep you from drying up and
blowing away.

All that day we plugged along as per usual. It was main hard
work, and we got to that state where things are disagreeable, but
mechanical. Strange to say, Schwartz kept in the lead. It
seemed to me at the time that he was using more energy than the
occasion called for--just as man runs faster before he comes to
the giving-out point. However, the hours went by, and he
didn't seem to get any more tired than the rest of us.

We kept a sharp lookout for anything to eat, but there was
nothing but lizards and horned toads. Later we'd have been glad
of them, but by that time we'd got out of their district. Night
came. Just at sundown we took another wallow in the surf, and
chewed some more fishhook cactus. When the moon came up we went
on.

I'm not going to tell you how dead beat we got. We were pretty
tough and strong, for all of us had been used to hard living, but
after the third day without anything to eat and no water to
drink, it came to be pretty hard going. It got to the point
where we had to have some REASON for getting out besides just
keeping alive. A man would sometimes rather die than keep alive,
anyway, if it came only to that. But I know I made up my mind I
was going to get out so I could smash up that Anderson, and I
reckon Denton had the same idea. Schwartz didn't say anything,
but he pumped on ahead of us, his back bent over, and his clothes
sagging and bulging with the gold he carried.

We used to travel all night, because it was cool, and rest an
hour or two at noon. That is all the rest we did get. I don't
know how fast we went; I'd got beyond that. We must have crawled
along mighty slow, though, after our first strength gave out.
The way I used to do was to collect myself with an effort, look
around for my bearings, pick out a landmark a little distance
off, and forget everything but it. Then I'd plod along, knowing
nothing but the sand and shale and slope under my feet, until I'd
reached that landmark. Then I'd clear my mind and pick out
another.

But I couldn't shut out the figure of Schwartz that way. He used
to walk along just ahead of my shoulder. His face was all
twisted up, but I remember thinking at the time it looked more as
if he was worried in his mind than like bodily suffering. The
weight of the gold in his clothes bent his shoulders over.

As we went on the country gradually got to be more mountainous,
and, as we were steadily growing weaker, it did seem things were
piling up on us. The eighth day we ran out of the fishhook
cactus, and, being on a high promontory, were out of touch with
the sea. For the first time my tongue began to swell a little.
The cactus had kept me from that before. Denton must have been
in the same fix, for he looked at me and raised one eyebrow kind
of humorous.

Schwartz was having a good deal of difficulty to navigate. I
will say for him that he had done well, but now I could see that
his strength was going on him in spite of himself. He knew it,
all right, for when we rested that day he took all the gold coins
and spread them in a row, and counted them, and put them back in
his pocket, and then all of a sudden snatched out two handfuls
and threw them as far as he could.

"Too heavy," he muttered, but that was all he could bring himself
to throw away.

All that night we wandered high in the air. I guess we tried to
keep a general direction, but I don't know. Anyway, along late,
but before moonrise--she was now on the wane--I came to, and
found myself looking over the edge of a twenty-foot drop. Right
below me I made out a faint glimmer of white earth in the
starlight. Somehow it reminded me of a little trail I used to
know under a big rock back in Texas.

"Here's a trail," I thought, more than half loco; "I'll follow
it!"

At least that's what half of me thought. The other half was
sensible, and knew better, but it seemed to be kind of standing
to one side, a little scornful, watching the performance. So I
slid and slipped down to the strip of white earth, and, sure
enough, it was a trail. At that the loco half of me gave the
sensible part the laugh. I followed the path twenty feet and
came to a dark hollow under the rock, and in it a round pool of
water about a foot across. They say a man kills himself drinking
too much, after starving for water. That may be, but it didn't
kill me, and I sucked up all I could hold. Perhaps the fishhook
cactus had helped. Well, sir, it was surprising how that drink
brought me around. A minute before I'd been on the edge of going
plumb loco, and here I was as clear-headed as a lawyer.

I hunted up Denton and Schwartz. They drank, themselves full,
too. Then we rested. It was mighty hard to leave that spring--

Oh, we had to do it. We'd have starved sure, there. The trail
was a game trail, but that did us no good, for we had no weapons.

How we did wish for the coffeepot, so we could take some away.
We filled our hats, and carried them about three hours, before
the water began to soak through. Then we had to drink it in
order to save it.

The country fairly stood up on end. We had to climb separate
little hills so as to avoid rolling rocks down on each other. It
took it out of us. About this time we began to see mountain
sheep. They would come right up to the edges of the small cliffs
to look at us. We threw stones at them, hoping to hit one in the
forehead, but of course without any results.

The good effects of the water lasted us about a day. Then we
began to see things again. Off and on I could see water plain as
could be in every hollow, and game of all kinds standing around
and looking at me. I knew these were all fakes. By making an
effort I could swing things around to where they belonged. I
used to do that every once in a while, just to be sure we weren't
doubling back, and to look out for real water. But most of the
time it didn't seem to be worth while. I just let all these
visions riot around and have a good time inside me or outside me,
whichever it was. I knew I could get rid of them any minute.
Most of the time, if I was in any doubt, it was easier to throw a
stone to see if the animals were real or not. The real ones ran
away.

We began to see bands of wild horses in the uplands. One day
both Denton and I plainly saw one with saddle marks on him. If
only one of us had seen him, it wouldn't have counted much, but
we both made him out. This encouraged us wonderfully, though I
don't see why it should have. We had topped the high country,
too, and had started down the other side of the mountains that
ran out on the promontory. Denton and I were still navigating
without any thought of giving up, but Schwartz was getting in bad
shape. I'd hate to pack twenty pounds over that country even
with rest, food, and water. He was toting it on nothing. We
told him so, and he came to see it, but he never could persuade
himself to get rid of the gold all at once. Instead he threw
away the pieces one by one. Each sacrifice seemed to nerve him
up for another heat. I can shut my eyes and see it now--the
wide, glaring, yellow country, the pasteboard mountains, we three
dragging along, and the fierce sunshine flashing from the
doubloons as one by one they went spinning through the air.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN,
THE CHEWED SUGAR CANE

"I'd like to have trailed you fellows," sighed a voice from the
corner.

"Would you!" said Colorado Rogers grimly.

It was five days to the next water. But they were worse than the
eight days before. We were lucky, however, for at the spring we
discovered in a deep wash near the coast, was the dried-up skull
of a horse. It had been there a long time, but a few shreds of
dried flesh still clung to it. It was the only thing that could
be described as food that had passed our lips since breakfast
thirteen days before. In that time we had crossed the mountain
chain, and had come again to the sea. The Lord was good to us.
He sent us the water, and the horse's skull, and the smooth hard
beach, without breaks or the necessity of climbing hills. And we
needed it, oh, I promise you, we needed it!

I doubt if any of us could have kept the direction except by such
an obvious and continuous landmark as the sea to our left. It
hardly seemed worth while to focus my mind, but I did it
occasionally just by way of testing myself. Schwartz still threw
away his gold coins, and once, in one of my rare intervals of
looking about me, I saw Denton picking them up. This surprised
me mildly, but I was too tired to be very curious. Only now,
when I saw Schwartz's arm sweep out in what had become a
mechanical movement, I always took pains to look, and always I
saw Denton search for the coin. Sometimes he found it, and
sometimes he did not.

The figures of my companions and the yellow-brown tide sand under
my feet, and a consciousness of the blue and white sea to my
left, are all I remember, except when we had to pull ourselves
together for the purpose of cutting fishhook cactus. I kept
going, and I knew I had a good reason for doing so, but it seemed
too much of an effort to recall what that reason was.

Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a
stimulant. Gradually, without really thinking about it, I came
to see this, and then went on to sabe why Denton picked up the
coins; and a great admiration for Denton's cleverness seeped
through me like water through the sand. He was saving the coins
to keep Schwartz going. When the last coin went, Schwartz would
give out. It all sounds queer now, but it seemed all right
then--and it WAS all right, too.

So we walked on the beach, losing entire track of time. And
after a long interval I came to myself to see Schwartz lying on
the sand, and Denton standing over him. Of course we'd all been
falling down a lot, but always before we'd got up again.

"He's give out," croaked Denton.

His voice sounded as if it was miles away, which surprised me,
but, when I answered, mine sounded miles away, too, which
surprised me still more.

Denton pulled out a handful of gold coins.

"This will buy him some more walk," said he gravely, "but not
much."

I nodded. It seemed all right, this new, strange purchasing
power of gold--it WAS all right, by God, and as real as buying
bricks--

"I'll go on," said Denton, "and send back help. You come after."

"To Mollyhay!" said I.

This far I reckon we'd hung onto ourselves because it was
serious. Now I began to laugh. So did Denton. We laughed and
laughed.

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay."

said I. Then we laughed some more, until the tears ran down our
cheeks, and we had to hold our poor weak sides. Pretty soon we
fetched up with a gasp.

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay,"

whispered Denton, and then off we went into more shrieks. And
when we would sober down a little, one or the other of us would
say it again;

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay,"

and then we'd laugh some more. It must have been a sweet sight!

At last I realised that we ought to pull ourselves together, so I
snubbed up short, and Denton did the same, and we set to laying
plans. But every minute or so one of us would catch on some
word, and then we'd trail off into rhymes and laughter and
repetition.

"Keep him going as long as you can," said Denton.

"Yes."

"And be sure to stick to the beach."

That far it was all right and clear-headed. But the word "beach"
let us out.

"I'm a peach
Upon the beach,"

sings I, and there we were both off again until one or the other
managed to grope his way back to common sense again. And
sometimes we crow-hopped solemnly around and around the prostrate
Schwartz like a pair of Injins.

But somehow we got our plan laid at last, slipped the coins into
Schwartz's pocket, and said good-bye.

"Old socks, good-bye,
You bet I'll try,"

yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach,
and out into a sort of grey mist that shut off everything beyond
a certain distance from me now.

So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece
away, and "bought a little more walk."

My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was
grey mist. Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly
and Denton's footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the
wash of the waters would lap under the edge of that grey curtain.

If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to
them, the farther up I could see, but I could never see to the
top. It used to amuse me to move this area of consciousness
about to see what I could find. Actual physical suffering was
beginning to dull, and my head seemed to be getting clearer.

One day, without any apparent reason, I moved at right angles
across the beach. Directly before me lay a piece of sugar cane,
and one end of it had been chewed.

Do you know what that meant? Animals don't cut sugar cane and
bring it to the beach and chew one end. A new strength ran
through me, and actually the grey mist thinned and lifted for a
moment, until I could make out dimly the line of cliffs and the
tumbling sea.

I was not a bit hungry, but I chewed on the sugar cane, and made
Schwartz do the same. When we went on I kept close to the cliff,
even though the walking was somewhat heavier.

I remember after that its getting dark and then light again, so
the night must have passed, but whether we rested or walked I do
not know. Probably we did not get very far, though certainly we
staggered ahead after sun-up, for I remember my shadow.

About midday, I suppose, I made out a dim trail leading up a
break in the cliffs. Plenty of such trails we had seen before.
They were generally made by peccaries in search of cast-up fish--
I hope they had better luck than we.

But in the middle of this, as though for a sign, lay another
piece of chewed sugar cane.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE CALABASH STEW

I had agreed with Denton to stick to the beach, but Schwartz
could not last much longer, and I had not the slightest idea how
far it might prove to be to Mollyhay. So I turned up the trail.

We climbed a mountain ten thousand feet high. I mean that; and I
know, for I've climbed them that high, and I know just how it
feels, and how many times you have to rest, and how long it
takes, and how much it knocks out of you. Those are the things
that count in measuring height, and so I tell you we climbed that
far. Actually I suppose the hill was a couple of hundred feet,
if not less. But on account of the grey mist I mentioned, I
could not see the top, and the illusion was complete.

We reached the summit late in the afternoon, for the sun was
square in our eyes. But instead of blinding me, it seemed to
clear my sight, so that I saw below me a little mud hut with
smoke rising behind it, and a small patch of cultivated ground.

I'll pass over how I felt about it: they haven't made the
words--

Well, we stumbled down the trail and into the hut. At first I
thought it was empty, but after a minute I saw a very old man
crouched in a corner. As I looked at him he raised his bleared
eyes to me, his head swinging slowly from side to side as though
with a kind of palsy. He could not see me, that was evident, nor
hear me, but some instinct not yet decayed turned him toward a
new presence in the room. In my wild desire for water I found
room to think that here was a man even worse off than myself.

A vessel of water was in the corner. I drank it. It was more
than I could hold, but I drank even after I was filled, and the
waste ran from the corners of my mouth. I had forgotten
Schwartz. The excess made me a little sick, but I held down what
I had swallowed, and I really believe it soaked into my system as
it does into the desert earth after a drought.

In a moment or so I took the vessel and filled it and gave it to
Schwartz. Then it seemed to me that my responsibility had ended.
A sudden great dreamy lassitude came over me. I knew I needed
food, but I had no wish for it, and no ambition to search it out.
The man in the corner mumbled at me with his toothless gums. I
remember wondering if we were all to starve there peacefully
together--Schwartz and his remaining gold coins, the man far gone
in years, and myself. I did not greatly care.

After a while the light was blotted out. There followed a slight
pause. Then I knew that someone had flown to my side, and was
kneeling beside me and saying liquid, pitying things in Mexican.
I swallowed something hot and strong. In a moment I came back
from wherever I was drifting, to look up at a Mexican girl about
twenty years old.

She was no great matter in looks, but she seemed like an angel to
me then. And she had sense. No questions, no nothing. Just
business. The only thing she asked of me was if I understood
Spanish.

Then she told me that her brother would be back soon, that they
were very poor, that she was sorry she had no meat to offer me,
that they were VERY poor, that all they had was calabash--a sort
of squash. All this time she was bustling things together. Next
thing I know I had a big bowl of calabash stew between my knees.

Now, strangely enough, I had no great interest in that calabash
stew. I tasted it, sat and thought a while, and tasted it again.
By and by I had emptied the bowl. It was getting dark. I was
very sleepy. A man came in, but I was too drowsy to pay any
attention to him. I heard the sound of voices. Then I was
picked up bodily and carried to an out-building and laid on a
pile of skins. I felt the weight of a blanket thrown over me--

I awoke in the night. Mind you, I had practically had no rest at
all for a matter of more than two weeks, yet I woke in a few
hours. And, remember, even in eating the calabash stew I had
felt no hunger in spite of my long fast. But now I found myself
ravenous. You boys do not know what hunger is. It HURTS. And
all the rest of that night I lay awake chewing on the rawhide of
a pack-saddle that hung near me.

Next morning the young Mexican and his sister came to us early,
bringing more calabash stew. I fell on it like a wild animal,
and just wallowed in it, so eager was I to eat. They stood and
watched me--and I suppose Schwartz, too, though I had now lost
interest in anyone but myself--glancing at each other in pity
from time to time.

When I had finished the man told me that they had decided to
kill a beef so we could have meat. They were very poor, but God
had brought us to them--

I appreciated this afterward. At the time I merely caught at the
word "meat." It seemed to me I could have eaten the animal
entire, hide, hoofs, and tallow. As a matter of fact, it was
mighty lucky they didn't have any meat. If they had, we'd
probably have killed ourselves with it. I suppose the calabash
was about the best thing for us under the circumstances.

The Mexican went out to hunt up his horse. I called the girl
back.

"How far is it to Mollyhay?" I asked her.

"A league," said she.

So we bad been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was
probably all right.

The Mexican went away horseback. The girl fed us calabash. We
waited.

About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When
they came near enough I recognised Denton at their head. That
man was of tempered steel--

They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we
had turned off, and so discovered us. Denton had fortunately
found kind and intelligent people.

We said good-bye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her
one of his gold pieces.

But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so
anxious to get back to town, so we mounted the horses he had
brought us, and rode off, very wobbly.

We lived three weeks in Mollyhay. It took us that long to get
fed up. The lady I stayed with made a dish of kid meat and
stuffed olives--

Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I'd be hungry
again, and scouting round to houses looking for more to eat!

We talked things over a good deal, after we had gained a little
strength. I wanted to take a little flyer at Guaymas to see if I
could run across this Handy Solomon person, but Denton pointed
out that Anderson would be expecting just that, and would take
mighty good care to be scarce. His idea was that we'd do better
to get hold of a boat and some water casks, and lug off the
treasure we had stumbled over. Denton told us that the idea of
going back and scooping all that dinero up with a shovel had
kept him going, just as the idea of getting even with Anderson
had kept me going. Schwartz said that after he'd carried that
heavy gold over the first day, he made up his mind he'd get the
spending of it or bust. That's why he hated so to throw it away.

There were lots of fishing boats in the harbour, and we hired
one, and a man to run it for next to nothing a week. We laid a
course north, and in six days anchored in our bay.

I tell you it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the
fire, and the coffeepot lying on its side. We took off our hats
at poor Billy's grave a minute, and then climbed over the
cholla-covered hill carrying our picks and shovels, and the
canvas sacks to take the treasure away in.

There was no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got
there we found it torn up from one end to the other. A few
scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried
off alone remained. Handy Solomon had been there before us.

We went back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We
went aboard and made our Greaser boatman head for Yuma. It took
us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was
the worst of the lot. Even after we'd got back to town and
fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over
it. He seemed plumb possessed of gloom, and moped around like a
chicken with the pip. This surprised me, for I didn't think the
loss of money would hit him so hard. It didn't hit any of us
very hard in those days.

One evening I took him aside and fed him a drink, and
expostulated with him.

"Oh, HELL, Rogers," he burst out, "I don't care about the loot.
But, suffering cats, think how that fellow sized us up for a lot
of pattern-made fools; and how right he was about, it. Why all
he did was to sail out of sight around the next corner. He knew
we'd start across country; and we did. All we had to do was to
lay low, and save our legs. He was BOUND to come back. And we
might have nailed him when he landed."

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