Desert Gold
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Zane Grey >> Desert Gold
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From time to time Thorne looked back. He strode swiftly, almost
carrying Mercedes, who clung closely to him. She, too, looked back.
Once Gale saw her white face flash in the light of a street lamp.
He began to overhaul them; and soon, when the last lamp had been
passed and the street was dark, he ventured a whistle. Thorne
heard it, for he turned, whistled a low reply, and went on. Not
for some distance beyond, where the street ended in open country,
did they halt to wait. The desert began here. Gale felt the soft
sand under his feet and saw the grotesque forms of cactus. Then
he came up with the fugitives.
"Dick! Are you--all right?" panted Thorne, grasping Gale.
"I'm--out of breath--but--O.K.," replied Gale.
"Good! Good!" choked Thorne. "I was scared--helpless....Dick, it
worked splendidly. We had no trouble. What on earth did you do?"
"I made the row, all right," said Dick.
"Good Heavens! It was like a row I once heard made by a mob. But
the shots, Dick--were they at you? They paralyzed me. Then the
yells. what happened? Those guards of Rojas ran round in front
at the first shot. Tell me what happened."
"While I was rushing Rojas a couple of cowboys shot out the lamplights.
A Mexican who pulled a knife on me got hurt, I guess. Then I think
there was some shooting from the rebels after the room was dark."
"Rushing Rojas?" queried Thorne, leaning close to Dick. His voice
was thrilling, exultant, deep with a joy that yet needed confirmation.
"What did you do to him?"
"I handed him one off side, tackled, then tried a forward pass,"
replied Dick, lightly speaking the football vernacular so familiar
to Thorne.
Thorne leaned closer, his fine face showing fierce and corded in
the starlight. "Tell me straight," he demanded, in thick voice.
Gale then divined something of the suffering Thorne had undergone
--something of the hot, wild, vengeful passion of a lover who must
have brutal truth.
It stilled Dick's lighter mood, and he was about to reply when
Mercedes pressed close to him, touched his hands, looked up into
his face with wonderful eyes. He thought he would not soon forget
their beauty--the shadow of pain that had been, the hope dawning
so fugitively.
"Dear lady," said Gale, with voice not wholly steady, "Rojas himself
will hound you no more to-night, nor for many nights."
She seemed to shake, to thrill, to rise with the intelligence.
She pressed his hand close over her heaving breast. Gale felt
the quick throb of her heart.
"Senor! Senor Dick!" she cried. Then her voice failed. But
her hands flew up; quick as a flash she raised her face--kissed
him. Then she turned and with a sob fell into Thorne's arms.
There ensued a silence broken only by Mercedes' sobbing. Gale
walked some paces away. If he were not stunned, he certainly was
agitated. the strange, sweet fire of that girl's lips remained
with him. On the spur of the moment he imagined he had a jealousy
of Thorne. But presently this passed. It was only that he had
been deeply moved--stirred to the depths during the last hour--had
become conscious of the awakening of a spirit. What remained with
him now was the splendid glow of gladness that he had been of service
to Thorne. And by the intensity of Mercedes' abandon of relief and
gratitude he measured her agony of terror and the fate he had spared her.
"Dick, Dick, come here!" called Thorne softly. "Let's pull ourselves
together now. We've got a problem yet. What to do? Where to go?
How to get any place? We don't dare risk the station--the corrals
where Mexicans hire out horses. We're on gold old U.S. ground this
minute, but we're not out of danger."
As he paused, evidently hoping for a suggestion from Gale, the silence
was broken by the clear, ringing peal of a bugle. Thorne gave a
violent start. Then he bent over, listening. The beautiful notes
of the bugle floated out of the darkness, clearer, sharper, faster.
"It's a call, Dick! It's a call!" he cried.
Gale had no answer to make. Mercedes stood as if stricken. The
bugle call ended. From a distance another faintly pealed. There
were other sounds too remote to recognize. Then scattering shots
rattled out.
"Dick, the rebels are fighting somebody," burst out
Thorne, excitedly. "The little federal garrison still holds its
stand. Perhaps it is attacked again. Anyway, there's something
doing over the line. Maybe the crazy Greasers are firing on our
camp. We've feared it--in the dark....And here I am, away without
leave--practically a deserter!"
"Go back! Go back, before you're too late!" cried Mercedes.
"Better make tracks, Thorne," added Gale. "It can't help our
predicament for you to be arrested. I'll take care of Mercedes."
"No, no, no," replied Thorne. "I can get away--avoid arrest."
"That'd be all right for the immediate present. But it's not best
for the future. George, a deserter is a deserter!...Better hurry.
Leave the girl to me till tomorrow."
Mercedes embraced her lover, begged him to go. Thorne wavered.
"Dick, I'm up against it," he said. "You're right. If only I can
get back in time. but, oh, I hate to leave her! Old fellow, you've
saved her! I already owe you everlasting gratitude. Keep out of
Casita, Dick. The U.S. side might be safe, but I'm afraid to trust
it at night. Go out in the desert, up in the mountains, in some
safe place. Then come to me in camp. We'll plan. I'll have to
confide in Colonel Weede. Maybe he'll help us. Hide her from the
rebels--that's all."
He wrung Dick's hand, clasped Mercedes tightly in his arms, kissed
her, and murmured low over her, then released her to rush off into
the darkness. He disappeared in the gloom. The sound of his dull
footfalls gradually died away.
For a moment the desert silence oppressed Gale. He was unaccustomed
to such strange stillness. There was a low stir of sand, a rustle
of stiff leaves in the wind. How white the stars burned! Then a
coyote barked, to be bayed by a dog. Gale realized that he was
between the edge of an unknown desert and the edge of a hostile town.
He had to choose the desert, because, though he had no doubt that in Casita
there were many Americans who might befriend him, he could not chance
the risks of seeking them at night.
He felt a slight touch on his arm, felt it move down, felt Mercedes
slip a trembling cold little hand into his. Dick looked at her.
She seemed a white-faced girl now, with staring, frightened black
eyes that flashed up at him. If the loneliness, the silence, the
desert, the unknown dangers of the night affected him, what must
they be to this hunted, driven girl? Gale's heart swelled. He
was alone with her. He had no weapon, no money, no food, no drink,
no covering, nothing except his two hands. He had absolutely no
knowledge of the desert, of the direction or whereabouts of the
boundary line between the republics; he did not know where to find
the railroad, or any road or trail, or whether or not there were
towns near or far. It was a critical, desperate situation. He
thought first of the girl, and groaned in spirit, prayed that it
would be given him to save her. When he remembered himself it was
with the stunning consciousness that he could conceive of no
situation which he would have exchanged for this one--where fortune
had set him a perilous task of loyalty to a friend, to a helpless
girl.
"Senor, senor!" suddenly whispered Mercedes, clinging to him.
"Listen! I hear horses coming!"
Chapter III
A Flight Into The Desert
Uneasy and startled, Gale listened and, hearing nothing, wondered
if Mercedes's fears had not worked upon her imagination. He felt
a trembling seize her, and he held her hands tightly.
"You were mistaken, I guess," he whispered.
"No, no, senor."
Dick turned his ear to the soft wind. Presently he heard, or
imagined he heard, low beats. Like the first faint, far-off beats
of a drumming grouse, they recalled to him the Illinois forests of
his boyhood. In a moment he was certain the sounds were the padlike
steps of hoofs in yielding sand. The regular tramp was not that of
grazing horses.
On the instant, made cautious and stealthy by alarm, Gale drew
Mercedes deeper into the gloom of the shrubbery. Sharp pricks from
thorns warned him that he was pressing into a cactus growth, and
he protected Mercedes as best he could. She was shaking as one with
a sever chill. She breathed with little hurried pants and leaned
upon him almost in collapse. Gale ground his teeth in helpless
rage at the girl's fate. If she had not been beautiful she might
still have been free and happy in her home. What a strange world
to live in--how unfair was fate!
The sounds of hoofbeats grew louder. Gale made out a dark moving
mass against a background of dull gray. There was a line of horses.
He could not discern whether or not all the horses carried riders.
The murmur of a voice struck his ear--then a low laugh. It made him
tingle, for it sounded American. Eagerly he listened. There
was an interval when only the hoofbeats could be heard.
"It shore was, Laddy, it shore was," came a voice out of the darkness.
"Rough house! Laddy, since wire fences drove us out of Texas we ain't
seen the like of that. An' we never had such a call."
"Call? It was a burnin' roast," replied another voice. "I felt
low down. He vamoosed some sudden, an' I hope he an' his friends
shook the dust of Casita. That's a rotten town Jim."
Gale jumped up in joy. What luck! The speakers were none other
than the two cowboys whom he had accosted in the Mexican hotel.
"Hold on , fellows," he called out, and strode into the road.
The horses snorted and stamped. Then followed swift rustling
sounds--a clinking of spurs, then silence. The figures loomed
clearer in the gloom.. Gale saw five or six horses, two with
riders, and one other, at least, carrying a pack. When Gale got
within fifteen feet of the group the foremost horseman said:
"I reckon that's close enough, stranger."
Something in the cowboy's hand glinted darkly bright in the starlight.
"You'd recognize me, if it wasn't so dark," replied Gale, halting.
"I spoke to you a little while ago--in the saloon back there."
"Come over an' let's see you," said the cowboy curtly.
Gale advanced till he was close to the horse. The cowboy leaned
over the saddle and peered into Gale's face. Then, without a word,
he sheathed the gun and held out his hand. Gale met a grip of
steel that warmed his blood. The other cowboy got off his nervous,
spirited horse and threw the bridle. He, too, peered closely into
Gale's face.
"My name's Ladd," he said. "Reckon I'm some glad to meet you again.?
Gale felt another grip as hard and strong as the other had been. He
realized he had found friends who belonged to a class of men whom he
had despaired of ever knowing.
"Gale--Dick Gale is my name," he began, swiftly. "I dropped into
Casita to-night hardly knowing where I was. A boy took me to that
hotel. There I met an old friend whom I had not seen for years.
He belongs to the cavalry stationed here. He had befriended a
Spanish girl--fallen in love with her. Rojas had killed this girl's
father--tried to abduct her....You know what took place at the hotel.
Gentlemen, if it's ever possible, I'll show you how I appreciate
what you did for me there. I got away, found my friend with the
girl. We hurried out here beyond the edge of town. Then Thorne
had to make a break for camp. We heard bugle calls, shots, and he
was away without leave. That left the girl with me. I don't know
what to do. Thorne swears Casita is no place for Mercedes at night."
"The girl ain't no peon, no common Greaser?" interrupted Ladd.
"No. Her name is Castaneda. She belongs to an old Spanish family,
once rich and influential."
"Reckoned as much," replied the cowboy. "There's more than Rojas's
wantin' to kidnap a pretty girl. Shore he does that every day or so.
Must be somethin' political or feelin' against class. Well, Casita
ain't no place for your friend's girl at night or day, or any time.
Shore, there's Americans who'd take her in an' fight for her, if
necessary. But it ain't wise to risk that. Lash, what do you say?"
"It's been gettin' hotter round this Greaser corral for some weeks,"
replied the other cowboy. "If that two-bit of a garrison surrenders,
there's no tellin' what'll happen. Orozco is headin' west from Agua Prieta
with his guerrillas. Campo is burnin' bridges an' tearin' up the railroad
south of Nogales. Then there's all these bandits callin' themselves
revolutionists just for an excuse to steal, burn, kill, an' ride
off with women. It's plain facts, Laddy, an' bein' across the U.S.
line a few inches or so don't make no hell of a difference. My advice
is, don't let Miss Castaneda ever set foot in Casita again."
"Looks like you've shore spoke sense," said Ladd. "I reckon, Gale,
you an' the girl ought to come with us. Casita shore would be a
little warm for us to-morrow. We didn't kill anybody, but I shot
a Greaser's arm off, an' Lash strained friendly relations by destroyin'
property. We know people who'll take care of the senorita till
your friend can come for her."
Dick warmly spoke his gratefulness, and, inexpressibly relieved and
happy for Mercedes, he went toward the clump of cactus where he had
left her. She stood erect, waiting, and, dark as it was, he could
tell she had lost the terror that had so shaken her.
"Senor Gale, you are my good angel," she said, tremulously.
"I've been lucky to fall in with these men, and I'm glad with all
my heart," he replied. "Come."
He led her into the road up to the cowboys, who now stood bareheaded
in the starlight. The seemed shy, and Lash was silent while Ladd
made embarrassed, unintelligible reply to Mercedes's's thanks.
There were five horses--two saddled, two packed, and the remaining
one carried only a blanket. Ladd shortened the stirrups on his
mount, and helped Mercedes up into the saddle. From the way she
settled herself and took the few restive prances of the mettlesome
horse Gale judged that she could ride. Lash urged Gale to take his
horse. But his Gale refused to do.
"I'll walk," he said. "I'm used to walking. I know cowboys are not."
They tried again to persuade him, without avail. Then Ladd started off,
riding bareback. Mercedes fell in behind, with Gale walking beside her.
The two pack animals came next, and Lash brought up the rear.
Once started with protection assured for the girl and a real objective
point in view, Gale relaxed from the tense strain he had been laboring
under. How glad he would have been to acquaint Thorne with their
good fortune! Later, of course, there would be some way to get word
to the cavalryman. But till then what torments his friend would suffer!
It seemed to Dick that a very long time had elapsed since he stepped
off the train; and one by one he went over every detail of incident
which had occurred between that arrival and the present moment. Strange
as the facts were, he had no doubts. He realized that before that
night he had never known the deeps of wrath undisturbed in him; he
had never conceived even a passing idea that it was possible for him
to try to kill a man. His right hand was swollen stiff, so sore
that he could scarcely close it. His knuckles were bruised and
bleeding, and ached with a sharp pain. Considering the thickness of
his heavy glove, Gale was of the opinion that so to bruise his hand
he must have struck Rojas a powerful blow. He remembered that for
him to give or take a blow had been nothing. This blow to Rojas,
however, had been a different matter. The hot wrath which had been
his motive was not puzzling; but the effect on him after he had
cooled off, a subtle difference, something puzzled and eluded him.
The more it baffled him the more he pondered. All those wandering
months of his had been filled with dissatisfaction, yet he had been
too apathetic to understand himself. So he had not been much of
a person to try.. Perhaps it had not been the blow to Rojas any
more than other things that had wrought some change in him.
His meeting with Thorne; the wonderful black eyes of a Spanish
girl; her appeal to him; the hate inspired by Rojas, and the rush,
the blow, the action; sight of Thorne and Mercedes hurrying safely away;
the girl's hand pressing his to her heaving breast; the sweet fire
of her kiss; the fact of her being alone with him, dependent upon him--
all these things Gale turned over and over in his mind, only to fail
of any definite conclusion as to which had affect him so remarkably,
or to tell what had really happened to him.
Had he fallen in love with Thorne's sweetheart? The idea came in
a flash. Was he, all in an instant, and by one of those incomprehensible
reversals of character, jealous of his friend? Dick was almost afraid
to look up at Mercedes. Still he forced himself to do so, and as it
chanced Mercedes was looking down at him. Somehow the light was
better, and he clearly saw her white face, her black and starry eyes,
her perfect mouth. With a quick, graceful impulsiveness she put
her hand upon his shoulder. Like her appearance, the action was
new, strange, striking to Gale; but it brought home suddenly to him
the nature of gratitude and affection in a girl of her blood. It was
sweet and sisterly. He knew then that he had not fallen in love
with her. The feeling that was akin to jealousy seemed to be of
the beautiful something for which Mercedes stood in Thorne's life.
Gale then grasped the bewildering possibilities, the infinite wonder
of what a girl could mean to a man.
The other haunting intimations of change seemed to be elusively
blended with sensations--the heat and thrill of action, the sense
of something done and more to do, the utter vanishing of an old
weary hunt for he knew not what. Maybe it had been a hunt
for work, for energy, for spirit, for love, for his real self.
Whatever it might be, there appeared to be now some hope of
finding it.
The desert began to lighten. Gray openings in the border of shrubby
growths changed to paler hue. The road could be seen some rods
ahead, and it had become a stony descent down, steadily down.
Dark, ridged backs of mountains bounded the horizon, and all seemed
near at hand, hemming in the plain. In the east a white glow grew brighter
and brighter, reaching up to a line of cloud, defined sharply below by
a rugged notched range. Presently a silver circle rose behind the
black mountain, and the gloom of the desert underwent a transformation.
From a gray mantle it changed to a transparent haze. The moon
was rising.
"Senor I am cold," said Mercedes.
Dick had been carrying his coat upon his arm. He had felt warm,
even hot, and had imagined that the steady walk had occasioned
it. But his skin was cool. The heat came from an inward burning.
He stopped the horse and raised the coat up, and helped Mercedes
put it on.
"I should have thought of you," he said. "But I seemed to feel
warm . . . The coat's a little large; we might wrap it round you
twice."
Mercedes smiled and lightly thanked him in Spanish. The flash
of mood was in direct contrast to the appealing, passionate,
and tragic states in which he had successively viewed her; and
it gave him a vivid impression of what vivacity and charm she might
possess under happy conditions. He was about to start when he
observed that Ladd had halted and was peering ahead in evident
caution. Mercedes' horse began to stamp impatiently, raised his
hears and head, and acted as if he was about to neigh.
A warning "hist!" from Ladd bade Dick to put a quieting hand on
the horse. Lash came noiselessly forward to join his companion.
The two then listened and watched.
An uneasy yet thrilling stir ran through Gale's veins. This scene
was not fancy. These men of the ranges had heard or seen or
scented danger. It was all real, as tangible and sure as the
touch of Mercedes's hand upon his arm. Probably for her the
night had terrors beyond Gale's power to comprehend. He looked
down into the desert, and would have felt no surprise at anything hidden
away among the bristling cactus, the dark, winding arroyos, the shadowed
rocks with their moonlit tips, the ragged plain leading to the black
bold mountains. The wind appeared to blow softly, with an almost
imperceptible moan, over the desert. That was a new sound to Gale.
But he heard nothing more.
Presently Lash went to the rear and Ladd started ahead. The progress
now, however, was considerably slower, not owing to a road--for that
became better--but probably owing to caution exercised by the
cowboy guide. At the end of a half hour this marked deliberation
changed, and the horses followed Ladd's at a gait that put Gale to
his best walking-paces.
Meanwhile the moon soared high above the black corrugated peaks.
The gray, the gloom, the shadow whitened. The clearing of the dark
foreground appeared to lift a distant veil and show endless aisles of
desert reaching down between dim horizon-bounding ranges.
Gale gazed abroad, knowing that as this night was the first time
for him to awake to consciousness of a vague, wonderful other
self, so it was one wherein he began to be aware of an encroaching
presence of physical things--the immensity of the star-studded sky,
the soaring moon, the bleak, mysterious mountains, and limitless
slope, and plain, and ridge, and valley. These things in all their
magnificence had not been unnoticed by him before; only now they
spoke a different meaning. A voice that he had never heard called
him to see, to fee the vast hard externals of heaven and earth, all
that represented the open, the free, silence and solitude and space.
Once more his thoughts, like his steps, were halted by Ladd's actions.
The cowboy reined in his horse, listened a moment, then swung down
out of the saddle. He raised a cautioning hand to the others, then
slipped into the gloom and disappeared. Gale marked that the halt
had been made in a ridged and cut-up pass between low mesas.
He could see the columns of cactus standing out black against
the moon-white sky. The horses were evidently tiring, for the showed
no impatience. Gale heard their panting breaths, and also the bark
of some animal--a dog or a coyote. It sounded like a dog, and this
led Gale to wonder if there was any house near at hand. To the
right, up under the ledges some distance away, stood two square
black objects, too uniform, he thought, to be rocks. While he was
peering at them, uncertain what to think, the shrill whistle of a
horse pealed out, to be followed by the rattling of hoofs on hard
stone. Then a dog barked. At the same moment that Ladd hurriedly
appeared in the road a light shone out and danced before one of
the square black objects.
"Keep close an' don't make no noise," he whispered, and led his
horse at right angles off the road.
Gale followed, leading Mercedes's horse. As he turned he observed
that Lash also had dismounted.
To keep closely at Ladd's heels without brushing the cactus or
stumbling over rocks and depressions was a task Gale found impossible.
After he had been stabbed several times by the bayonetlike spikes,
which seemed invisible, the matter of caution became equally one
of self-preservation. Both the cowboys, Dick had observed, wore
leather chaps. It was no easy matter to lead a spirited horse
through the dark, winding lanes walled by thorns. Mercedes horse
often balked and had to be coaxed and carefully guided. Dick
concluded that Ladd was making a wide detour. The position of
certain stars grown familiar during the march veered round from
one side to another. Dick saw that the travel was fast, but by
no means noiseless. The pack animals at times crashed and ripped
through the narrow places. It seemed to Gale that any one within
a mile could have heard these sounds. From the tops of knolls or
ridges he looked back, trying to locate the mesas where the light
had danced and the dog had barked alarm. He could not distinguish
these two rocky eminences from among many rising in the background.
Presently Ladd let out into a wider lane that appeared to run
straight. The cowboy mounted his horse, and this fact convinced
Gale that they had circled back to the road. The march proceeded
then once more at a good, steady, silent walk. When Dick consulted
his watch he was amazed to see that the hour was till early. How
much had happened in little time! He now began to be aware that
the night was growing colder; and, strange to him, he felt something
damp that in a country he knew he would have recognized as dew.
He had not been aware there was dew on the desert. The wind blew
stronger, the stars shone whiter, the sky grew darker, and the moon
climbed toward the zenith. The road stretched level for miles, then
crossed arroyos and ridges, wound between mounds of broken
ruined rock, found a level again, and then began a long ascent.
Dick asked Mercedes if she was cold, and she answered that she
was, speaking especially of her feet, which were growing numb.
Then she asked to be helped down to walk awhile. At first she was
cold and lame, and accepted the helping hand Dick proffered. After
a little, however, she recovered and went on without assistance.
Dick could scarcely believe his eyes, as from time to time he stole
a sidelong glance at this silent girl, who walked with lithe and
rapid stride. She was wrapped in his long coat, yet it did not hide
her slender grace. He could not see her face, which was concealed
by the black mantle.
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