Desert Gold
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Zane Grey >> Desert Gold
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A sharp rifle shot rang out.
"Laddy's right," called Gale. "The Papago's hit--his arm
falls--There, he tumbles!"
More shots rang out. Yaqui was seen standing erect firing rapidly
at the darting Mexicans. For all Gale could make out no second
bullet took effect. Rojas and his men vanished behind the bulge
of lava. Then Yaqui deliberately backed away from his postion.
He made no effort to run or hide. Evidently he watched cautiously
for signs of pursuers in the ruts and behind the choyas. Presently
he turned and came straight toward the position of the rangers,
sheered off perhaps a hundred paces below it, and disappeared
in a crevice. Plainly his intention was to draw pursuers within
rifle shot.
"Shore, Jim, you had your wish. Somethin' come off," said Ladd.
"An' I'm sayin' thank God for the Yaqui! That Papago 'd have
ruined us. Even so, mebbe he's told Rojas more'n enough to make
us sweat blood."
"He had a chance to kill Rojas," cried out the drawn-faced,
passionate Thorne. "He didn't take it!...He didn't take it!"
Only Ladd appeared to be able to answer the cavalryman's
poignant cry.
"Listen, son," he said, and his voice rang. "We-all know how
you feel. An' if I'd had that one shot never in the world could
I have picked the Papago guide. I'd have had to kill Rojas. That's
the white man of it. But Yaqui was right. Only an Indian could
have done it. You can gamble the Papago alive meant slim chance
for us. Because he'd led straight to where Mercedes is hidden, an'
then we'd have left cover to fight it out...When you come to think
of the Yaqui's hate for Greasers, when you just seen him pass up
a shot at one--well, I don't know how to say what I mean, but
damn me, my som-brer-ro is off to the Indian!"
"I reckon so, an' I reckon the ball's opened," rejoined Lash, and
now that former nervous impatience so unnatural to him was as
if it had never been. He was smilingly cool, and his voice had
almost a caressing note. He tapped the breech of his Winchester
with a sinewy brown hand, and he did not appear to be addressing
any one in particular. "Yaqui's opened the ball. Look up your
pardners there, gents, an' get ready to dance."
Another wait set in them, and judging by the more direct rays of the
sun and a receding of the little shadows cast by the choyas, Gale
was of the opinion that it was a long wait. But it seemed short.
The four men were lying under the bank of a half circular hole in
the lava. It was notched and cracked, and its rim was fringed by
choyas. It sloped down and opened to an unobstructed view of
the crater. Gale had the upper position, fartherest to the right,
and therefore was best shielded from possible fire from the higher
ridges of the rim, some three hundred yards distant. Jim came
next, well hidden in a crack. The positions of Thorne and Ladd
were most exposed. They kept sharp lookout over the uneven
rampart of their hiding-place.
The sun passed the zenith, began to slope westward, and to grow
hotter as it sloped. The men waited and waited. Gale saw no
impatience even in Thorne. The sultry air seemed to be laden
with some burden or quality that was at once composed of heat,
menace, color, and silence. Even the light glancing up from the
lava seemed red and the silence had substance. Sometimes Gale
felt that it was unbearable. Yet he made no effort to break it.
Suddenly this dead stillness was rent by a shot, clear and stinging,
close at hand. It was from a rifle, not a carbine. With startling
quickness a cry followed--a cry that pierced Gale--it was so thin,
so high-keyed, so different from all other cries. It was the
involuntary human shriek at death.
"Yaqui's called out another pardner," said Jim Lash, laconically.
Carbines began to crack. The reports were quick, light, like sharp
spats without any ring. Gale peered from behind the edge of his
covert. Above the ragged wave of lava floated faint whitish clouds,
all that was visible of smokeless powder. Then Gale made out round
spots, dark against the background of red, and in front of them
leaped out small tongues of fire. Ladd's .405 began to "spang" with
its beautiful sound of power. Thorne was firing, somewhat wildly
Gale thought. Then Jim Lash pushed his Winchester over the rim
under a choya, and between shots Gale could hear him singing:
"Turn the lady, turn--turn the lady, turn!...Alaman left!...Swing
your pardners!...Forward an' back!...Turn the lady, turn!" Gale
got into the fight himself, not so sure that he hit any of the
round, bobbing objects he aimed at, but growing sure of himself
as action liberated something forced and congested within his
breast.
Then over the position of the rangers came a hail of steel bullets.
Those that struck the lava hissed away into the crater; those that
came biting through the choyas made a sound which resembled a
sharp ripping of silk. Bits of cactus stung Gale's face, and he
dreaded the flying thorns more than he did the flying bullets.
"Hold on, boys," called Ladd, as he crouched down to reload his
rifle. "Save your shells. The greasers are spreadin' on us, some
goin' down below Yaqui, others movin' up for that high ridge. When
they get up there I'm damned if it won't be hot for us. There ain't
room for all of us to hide here."
Ladd raised himself to peep over the rim. Shots were now
scattering, and all appeared to come from below. Emboldened by
this he rose higher. A shot from in front, a rip of bullet through
the choya, a spat of something hitting Ladd's face, a steel missle
hissing onward--these inseparably blended sounds were all registered
by Gale's sensitive ear.
With a curse Ladd tumbled down into the hole. His face showed a
great gray blotch, and starting blood. Gale felt a sickening
assurance of desperate injury to the ranger. He ran to him calling:
"Laddy! Laddy!"
"Shore I an't plugged. It's a damn choya burr. The bullet knocked
it in my face. Pull it out!"
The oval, long-spiked cone was firmly imbedded in Ladd's cheek.
Blood streamed down his face and neck. Carefully, yet with no
thought of pain to himself, Gale Tried to pull the cactus joint
away. It was as firm as if it had been nailed there. That was
the damnable feature of the barbed thorns: once set, they held
on as that strange plant held to its desert life. Ladd began to
writhe, and sweat mingled with the blood on his face. He cursed
and raved, and his movements made it almost impossible for Gale
to do anything.
"Put your knife-blade under an' tear it out!" shouted Ladd,
hoarsely.
Thus ordered, Gale slipped a long blade in between the imbedded
thorns, and with a powerful jerk literally tore the choya out of
Ladd's quivering flesh. Then, where the ranger's face was not
red and raw, it certainly was white.
A volley of shots from a different angle was followed by
the quick ring of steel bullets striking the lava all around Gale.
His first idea, as he heard the projectiles sing and hum and whine
away into the air, was that they were coming from above him. He
looked up to see a number of low, white and dark knobs upon the
high point of lava. They had not been there before. Then he saw
little, pale, leaping tongues of fire. As he dodged down he
distinctly heard a bullet strike Ladd. At the same instant he
seemed to hear Thorne cry out and fall, and Lash's boots scrape
rapidly away. Ladd fell backward still holding the .405. Gale
dragged him into the shelter of his own positoin, and dreading
to look at him, took up the heavy weapon. It was with a kind of
savage strength that he gripped the rifle; and it was with a cold
and deadly intent that he aimed and fired. The first Greaser
huddled low, let his carbine go clattering down, and then crawled
behind the rim. The second and third jerked back. The fourth
seemed to flop up over the crest of lava. A dark arm reached for
him, clutched his leg, tried to drag him up. It was in vain.
Wildly grasping at the air the bandit fell, slid down a steep shelf,
rolled over the rim, to go hurtling down out of sight.
Fingering the hot rifle with close-pressed hands, Gale watched
the sky line along the high point of lava. It remained unbroken.
As his passion left him he feared to look back at his companions,
and the cold chill returned to his breast.
"Shore--I'm damn glad--them Greasers ain't usin' soft-nose bullets,"
drawled a calm voice.
Swift as lightning Gale whirled.
"Laddy! I thought you were done for," cried Gale, with a break in
his voice.
"I ain't a-mindin' the bullet much. But that choya joint took my
nerve, an' you can gamble on it. Dick, this hole's pretty high up,
ain't it?"
The ranger's blouse was open at the neck, and on his right shoulder
under the collar bone was a small hole just beginning to bleed.
"Sure it's high, Laddy," replied Gale, gladly. "Went clear through,
clean as a whistle!"
He tore a handkerchief into two parts, made wads, and pressing them
close over the wounds he bound them there with Ladd's scarf.
"Shore it's funny how a bullet can floor a man an' then not do any
damage," said Ladd. "I felt a zip of wind an' somethin' like a pat
on my chest an' down I went. Well, so much for the small caliber
with their steel bullets. Supposin' I'd connected with a .405!"
"Laddy, I--I'm afraid Thorne's done for," whispered Gale. "He's
lying over there in that crack. I can see part of him. He doesn't
move."
"I was wonderin' if I'd have to tell you that. Dick, he went down
hard hit, fallin', you know, limp an' soggy. It was a moral cinch
one of us would get it in this fight; but God! I'm sorry Thorne had
to be the man."
"Laddy, maybe he's not dead," replied Gale. He called aloud to his
friend. There was no answer.
Ladd got up, and, after peering keenly at the height of lava, he
strode swiftly across the space. It was only a dozen steps to the
crack in the lava whereThorne had fallen head first. Ladd bent
over, went to his knees, so that Gale saw only his head. Then
he appeared rising with arms round the cavalryman. He dragged
him across the hole to the sheltered corner that alone afforded
protection. He had scarcely reached it when a carbine cracked
and a bullet struck the flinty lava, striking sparks, then singing
away into the air.
Thorne was either dead or unconscious, and Gale, with a contracting
throat and numb heart, decided for the former. Not so Ladd, who
probed the bloody gash on Thorne's temple, and then felt his breast.
"He's alive an' not bad hurt. That bullet hit him glancin'. Shore them
steel bullets are some lucky for us. Dick, you needn't look so glum.
I tell you he ain't bad hurt. I felt his skull with my finger.
There's no hole in it. Wash him off an' tie-- Wow! did you get
the wind of that one? An' mebbe it didn't sing off the lava!...
Dick, look after Thorne now while I--"
The completion of his speech was the stirring ring of the .405, and
then he uttered a laugh that was unpleasant.
"Shore, greaser, there's a man's size bullet for you. No slim,
sharp-pointed, steel-jacket nail! I'm takin' it on me to believe
you're appreciatin' of the .405, seein' as you don't make no fuss."
It was indeed a joy to Gale to find that Thorne had not received
a wound necessarily fatal, though it was serious enough. Gale
bathed and bound it, and laid the cavalryman against the slant
of the bank, his head high to lessen the probability of bleeding.
As Gale straightened up Ladd muttered low and deep, and swung
the heavy rifle around to the left. Far along the slope a figure
moved. Ladd began to work the lever of the Winchester and to
shoot. At every shot the heavy firearm sprang up, and the recoil
made Ladd's shoulder give back. Gale saw the bullets strike the
lava behind, beside, before the fleeing Mexican, sending up dull
puffs of dust. On the sixth shot he plunged down out of sight,
either hit or frightened into seeking cover.
"Dick, mebbe there's one or two left above; but we needn't figure
much on it," said Ladd, as, loading the rifle, he jerked his
fingers quickly from the hot breech. "Listen! Jim an' Yaqui are
hittin' it up lively down below. I'll sneak down there. You stay
here an' keep about half an eye peeled up yonder, an' keep the
rest my way."
Ladd crossed the hole, climbed down into the deep crack where Thorne
had fallen, and then went stooping along with only his head above
the level. Presently he disappeared. Gale, having little to fear
from the high ridge, directed most of his attention toward the point
beyond which Ladd had gone. The firing had become desultory,
and the light carbine shots outnumbered the sharp rifle shots five
to one. Gale made a note of the fact that for some little time he
had not heard the unmistakable report of Jim Lash's automatic.
Then ensued a long interval in which the desert silence seemed
to recover its grip. The .405 ripped it asunder--spang--spang
--spang. Gale fancied he heard yells. There were a few pattering
shots still farther down the trail. Gale had an uneasy conviction
that Rojas and some of his band might go straight to the waterhole.
It would be hard to dislodge even a few men from that retreat.
There seemed a lull in the battle. Gale ventured to stand high, and
screened behind choyas, he swept the three-quarter circle of lava
with his glass. In the distance he saw horses, but no riders.
Below him, down the slope along the crater rim and the trail, the
lava was bare of all except tufts of choya. Gale gathered
assurance. It looked as if the day was favoring his side. Then
Thorne, coming partly to consciousness, engaged Gale's care. The
cavalryman stirred and moaned, called for water, and then for
Mercedes. Gale held him back with a strong hand, and presently
he was once more quiet.
For the first time in hours, as it seemed, Gale took note of the
physical aspect of his surroundings. He began to look upon them
without keen gaze strained for crouching form, or bobbing head,
or spouting carbine. Either Gale's sense of color and proportion
had become deranged during the fight, or the encompassing air
and the desert had changed. Even the sun had changed. It seemed
lowering, oval in shape, magenta in hue, and it had a surface that
gleamed like oil on water. Its red rays shone through red haze.
Distances that had formerly ben clearly outlined were now dim,
obscured. The yawning chasm was not the same. It circled wider,
redder, deeper. It was a weird, ghastly mouth of hell. Gale stood
fascinated, unable to tell how much he saw was real, how
much exaggeration of overwrought emotions. There was no beauty
here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation
and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the
burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its
somber portent an unshakable foreboding of calamity.
He wrestled with the spell as if it were a physical foe. Reason
and intelligence had their voices in his mind; but the moment was
not one wherein these things could wholly control. He felt life
strong withing his breast, yet there, a step away, was death,
yawning, glaring, smoky, red. It was a moment--an hour for a
savage, born, bred, developed in this scarred and blasted place
of jagged depths and red distances and silences never meant
to be broken. Since Gale was not a savage he fought that call
of the red gods which sent him back down the long ages toward
his primitive day. His mind combated his sense of sight and the
hearing that seemed useless; and his mind did not win all the
victory. Something fatal was here, hanging in the balance, as the
red haze hung along the vast walls of that crater of hell.
Suddenly harsh, prolonged yells brought him to his feet, and the
unrealities vanished. Far down the trails where the crater rims
closed in the deep fissure he saw moving forms. They were three in
number. Two of them ran nimbly across the lava bridge. The third
staggered far behind. It was Ladd. He appeared hard hit. He
dragged at the heavy rifle which he seemed unable to raise. The
yells came from him. He was calling the Yaqui.
Gale's heart stood still momentarily. Here, then, was the
catastrophe! He hardly dared sweep that fissure with his glass.
The two fleeing figures halted--turned to fire at Ladd. Gale
recognized the foremost one--small, compact, gaudy. Rojas!
The bandit's arm was outstretched. Puffs of white smoke
rose, and shots rapped out. When Ladd went down Rojas
threw his gun aside and with a wild yell bounded over the lava.
His companion followed.
A tide of passion, first hot as fire, then cold as ice, rushed over
Gale when he saw Rojas take the trail toward Mercedes's
hiding-place. The little bandit appeared to have the
sure-footedness of a mountain sheep. The Mexican following
was not so sure or fast. He turned back. Gale heard the trenchant
bark of the .405. Ladd was kneeling. He shot again--again. The
retreating bandit seemed to run full into an invisible obstacle,
then fell lax, inert, lifeless. Rojas sped on unmindful of the
spurts of dust about him. Yaqui, high above Ladd, was also firing
at the bandit. Then both rifles were emptied. Rojas turned at a
high break in the trail. He shook a defiant hand, and his exulting
yell pealed faintly to Gale's ears. About him there was something
desperate, magnificent. Then he clambered down the trail.
Ladd dropped the .405, and rising, gun in hand, he staggered toward
the bridge of lava. Before he had crossed it Yaqui came bounding
down the slope, and in one splendid leap he cleared the fissure.
He ran beyond the trail and disappeared on the lava above. Rojas
had not seen this sudden, darting move of the Indian.
Gale felt himself bitterly powerless to aid in that pursuit. He
could only watch. He wondered, fearfully, what had become of
Lash. Presently, when Rojas came out of the cracks and ruts
of lava there might be a chance of disabling him by a long shot.
His progress was now slow. But he was making straight for
Mercedes's hiding-place. What was it leading him there--an eagle
eye, or hate, or instinct? Why did he go on when there could be
no turning back for him on that trail? Ladd was slow, heavy,
staggering on the trail; but he was relentless. Only death could
stop the ranger now. Surely Rojas must have known that when
he chose the trail. From time to time Gale caught glimpses of
Yaqui's dark figure stealing along the higher rim of the crater.
He was making for a point above the bandit.
Moments--endless moments dragged by. The lowering sun colored
only the upper half of the crater walls. Far down the depths were
murky blue. Again Gale felt the insupportable silence. The red
haze became a transparent veil before his eyes. Sinister, evil,
brooding, waiting, seemed that yawning abyss. Ladd staggered
along the trail, at times he crawled. The Yaqui gained; he might
have had wings; he leaped from jagged crust to jagged crust;
his sure-footedness was a wonderful thing.
But for Gale the marvel of that endless period of watching was
the purpose of the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's
glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death
below him, death before him, and though he could not have known
it, death above him. He never faltered--never made a misstep
upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of
the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas
had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then,
his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the
Remington, and sinking on one knee, began to shoot. He emptied
the magazine. Puffs of dust near Rojas did not even make him turn.
As Gale began to reload he was horror-stricken by a low cry from
Thorne. The cavalryman had recovered consciousness. He was
half raised, pointing with shaking hand at the opposite ledge. His
distended eyes were riveted upon Rojas. He was trying to utter
speech that would not come.
Gale wheeled, rigid now, steeling himself to one last forlorn hope
--that Mercedes could defend herself. She had a gun. He doubted
not at all that she would use it. But, remembering her terror of
this savage, he feared for her.
Rojas reached the level of the ledge. He halted. He crouched.
It was the act of a panther. Manifestly he saw Mercedes within
the cave. Then faint shots patted the air, broke in quick echo.
Rojas went down as if struck a heavy blow. He was hit.
But even as Gale yelled in sheer madness the bandit leaped erect.
He seemed too quick, too supple to be badly wounded. A slight,
dark figure flashed out of the cave. Mercedes! She backed
against the wall. Gale saw a puff of white--heard a report. But
the bandit lunged at her. Mercedes ran, not to try to pass him, but
straight for the precipice. Her intention was plain. But Rojas
oustripped her, even as she reached the verge. Then a piercing
scream pealed across the crater--a scream of despair.
Gale closed his eyes. He could not bear to see more.
Thorne echoed Mercedes's scream. Gale looked round just in time
to leap and catch the cavalryman as he staggered, apparently for
the steep slope. And then, as Gale dragged him back, both fell.
Gale saved his friend, but he plunged into a choya. He drew his
hands away full of the great glistening cones of thorns.
"For God's sake, Gale, shoot! Shoot! Kill her! Kill her!...Can't
--you--see-Rojas--"
Thorne fainted.
Gale, stunned for the instant, stood with uplifted hands, and gazed
from Thorne across the crater. Rojas had not killed Mercedes. He
was overpowering her. His actions seemed slow, wearing, purposeful.
Hers were violent. Like a trapped she-wolf, Mercedes was fighting.
She tore, struggled, flung herself.
Rojas's intention was terribly plain.
In agony now, both mental and physical, cold and sick and weak,
Gale gripped his rifle and aimed at the struggling forms on the
ledge. He pulled the trigger. The bullet struck up a cloud of red
dust close to the struggling couple. Again Gale fired, hoping to
hit Rojas, praying to kill Mercedes. The bullet struck high.
A third--fourth--fifth time the Remington spoke--in vain!
The rifle fell from Gale's racked hands.
How horribly plain that fiend's intention! Gale tried to close his
eyes, but could not. He prayed wildly for a sudden blindness
--to faint as Thorne had fainted. But he was transfixed to the spot
with eyes that pierced the red light.
Mercedes was growing weaker, seemed about to collapse.
"Oh, Jim Lash, are you dead?" cried Gale. "Oh, Laddy!...Oh, Yaqui!
Suddenly a dark form literally fell down the wall behind the ledge
where Rojas fought the girl. It sank in a heap, then bounded erect.
"Yaqui!" screamed Gale, and he waved his bleeding hands till the
blood bespattered his face. Then he choked. Utterance became
impossible.
The Indian bent over Rojas and flung him against the wall.
Mercedes, sinking back, lay still. When Rojas got up the Indian
stood between him and escape from the ledge. Rojas backed
the other way along the narrowing shelf of lava. His manner
was abject, stupefied. Slowly he stepped backward.
It was then that Gale caught the white gleam of a knife in Yaqui's
hand. Rojas turned and ran. He rounded a corner of wall where the
footing was precarious. Yaqui followed slowly. His figure was dark
and menacing. But he was not in a hurry. When he passed off the
ledge Rojas was edging farther and farther along the wall. He
was clinging now to the lava, creeping inch by inch. Perhaps he
had thought to work around the buttress or climb over it. Evidently
he went as far as possible, and there he clung, an unscalable wall
above, the abyss beneath.
The approach of the Yaqui was like a slow dark shadow of gloom.
If it seemed so to the stricken Gale what must it have been to
Rojas? He appeared to sink against the wall. The Yaqui stole
closer and closer. He was the savage now, and for him the moment
must have been glorified. Gale saw him gaze up at the great
circling walls of the crater, then down into the depths.
Perhaps the red haze hanging above him, or the purple
haze below, or the deep caverns in the lava, held for Yaqui
spirits of the desert, his gods to whom he called. Perhaps he
invoked shadows of his loved ones and his race, calling them in this
moment of vengeance.
Gale heard--or imagined he heard--that wild, strange Yaqui cry.
Then the Indian stepped close to Rojas, and bent low, keeping out
of reach. How slow were his motions! Would Yaqui never--never
end it?...A wail drifted across the crater to Gale's ears.
Rojas fell backward and plunged sheer. The bank of white choyas
caught him, held him upon their steel spikes. How long did the
dazed Gale sit there watching Rojas wrestling and writhing in
convulsive frenzy? The bandit now seemed mad to win the delayed
death.
When he broke free he was a white patched object no longer human,
a ball of choya burrs, and he slipped off the bank to shoot down
and down into the purple depths of the crater.
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