HE SAW THE Apache against the early morning light. The picket rope was already loose. The Indian was already on the animal’s bare back. He did not shoot. At the distance he might hit the horse.
In this dry, hot country he rode at night, slept through the daylight hours. He was not on the trail. He did not use the beaten ways. He had just made his camp, just laid down under the filigree branches of the smoke tree.
He had caught the swift, brown shadow from the corner of his eye and sunk against the ground, still. Now he saw the other three come in around the ashes of his breakfast fire. In silence they pawed through his gear, tore apart and divided the remains of his rabbit. Then they turned to search him out.
Their moccasined feet made no sound. They separated, two going into the rock burst, the one on the horse testing it, dragging its head around, walking it back the way he had come. The fourth Indian came toward him. The knife blade winked in his hand.
Lassiter looked to be asleep. He did not move, not until the Apache began his crouch, the knife arm reaching toward his throat. Then he doubled. His boot toe caught the Indian in the neck. Hard. It paralyzed the voice box. He caught the brown wrist in both hands, twisted it, broke the shoulder out of its socket. The Indian flipped over him. He took up the dropped knife, held the head by its dank hair, and slit the jugular vein. There had been no noise.
He pulled off his boots, went on sock feet into the rocks. He came on the second Apache from the back and cut the throat, before the man knew he was there.
The third one saw him. He had to use a gun. When he came back out of the rocks, the fourth man and the horse had disappeared. He did not touch the torn-up camp. He found a horizontal crevice where wind had scooped the sand from under a boulder wedged in its place, prodded through it with his rifle, found it clear of snakes, and wriggled into it on his belly, feet first. He lay in the shade, his head just inside the mouth, the roof four inches above his hips. He could see the camp. He waited for the fourth Apache to come back for the gear there, and for his hair.
The Indian played it safe. It was night before the shadow moved along the ground, near the saddle. It made for an uncertain shot. Lassiter writhed out of his crevice, went down the slope on his elbows, inching the rifle before him, his finger flat against the side of the trigger, ready to curl.
Metal on his gun belt clicked against a stone. The Apache heard it. He rolled toward cover, bush that framed the little clearing. The shape was still too fuzzy to fire at. Lassiter came to his feet in a rush, jumped the ten feet to the level, ran at the moving shadow.
He closed with the brown body as it came up short against the low, stiff brush, threw his rifle aside, pulled a short gun, clubbed with it. If he fired it the flash would blind him. The fight was short. He broke the skull. When he got up from the limp figure, he swore. The Indian had used a knife. There was a slash in the front of his new shirt.
He thought then about the horses: his and those the Indians must have picketed somewhere in the neighborhood. He would not look for them in the darkness.
He walked to the dead fire, located his canteen, picked it up. He had had no water throughout the day. The canteen was all but empty. The Indians must have been thirsty. That meant there was probably no spring within miles. He rinsed his mouth from the canteen, took it with him, and removed to another place to wait for day.
He slept lightly; his ears tuned to hear the soft rustles of night moving animals. He would hear any foreign sound, if one was made.
The first scream did not surprise him. A mountain cat, hunting. The second brought him up, reaching for his rifle, running. It was not far off. A horse in fear and pain. Under the high cry came the clatter of hoof horn, unshod ponies.
The starred night was waning. It was not yet light, but he could distinguish forms, avoid collisions. He ran toward the screams that continued and then abruptly stopped. He found the place where the horse lay fallen, still kicking in reflex jerks. The big cat was at its neck, already tearing flesh from it. As he came up, the animal crouched low, flattened back its ears, then fled in a shadowy streak.
Lassiter waited there until the lightening sky showed him the scene, and beyond the dead horse he found where the ponies had been tied, the earth churned by their fight to break free. The animals were gone, scattered in their panic. He could follow their tracks, but there was not much use. Fear would send them running for a long way.
The rising day would soon bring temperatures over a hundred and twenty. It was a fool’s way to waste time in a long search for either the horses or a source of water that he might not find. It was a time to conserve energy, pull in his resources, expend himself toward where there was certain profit.
The river, the Colorado, was west of him, probably three days on foot. He retraced his steps, tied the light canteen to his belt, rolled his blanket and looped it over his shoulder, slung his rifle from the other shoulder, and walked west.
Through the morning cool he used a long stride, a steady gait that covered good ground. The going was up and down, low rolling sand hills broken by ridges of lava rock bursts. By noon he was well up toward the crest of the long spine, but the altitude did not diminish the heat. He stretched out in the shade of a high upthrust, slept until sunset. He rinsed his mouth sparingly, went on.
The night walk brought him down to the rim of the tongue of desert that licked up between him and the ridge, behind which lay the river. He could see across it, see the sawtooth streak a shade darker than the sky’s blue, low on the sand horizon, low because the mountains were beyond the curve of the earth.
He weighed his decision. Whether to use the remaining two hours of comparative cool to push into the desert, try to make the crossing by day, or to lay over until night? He had already lost much moisture. Time pushed him. But he needed rest, and he thought he could not afford the rate of evaporation that the desert afternoon would cost. He hung his blanket over a tumbleweed and slept under it.
With the first hint of drop in the sun’s intensity, he waked and drank the last of the water. It would steam out in the canteen if he tried to save it. There was not enough to be of much help, as it was. He draped the blanket over his head and walked.
More than halfway across the sand, he came into a sparse scatter of barrel cactus, short, fat pillars of meaty pith, holding dampness to sustain the plant. Careful not to catch his hand in the stiff, sharp, hooking spines, he cut out the top of one, dug into the pulp, chewed chunks of it, sucked them dry, pressed others against his neck and face and head. The barrel had saved other lives before. It saved his. He filled the crown of his hat with the spongy stuff and wore it through the night.
It was another day and night before he saw the river. It lay in convulsed loops against the wide valley floor far below the height on which he stood. He felt lucky that he was south of the deep canyon through which it cut at the bottom of perpendicular walls. By the time he came down out of the black lava hills, crossed the flat and cut through the green fringe of willows, the sun was setting. He reached the shore opposite the steamboat.
He had not been surprised to see, from above, the black smoke, rolling from the twin stacks. A lot of boats used the river, flat bottomed craft more raft than boat. They plied the waterway between the mouth on the Gulf and Hardyville, Ehrenberg, the northern settlements and army posts. They picked up cargo from the ocean freighters out of San Francisco, hauled it upriver, and brought down raw ore to be transported to the smelters of Wales. Most were a single deck with a boiler room and cargo shed.
The one now hung up on the sandbar was more elaborate, carrying a cabin deck and a Texas above that. There were more people aboard and around it than he had seen in the frontier town of Tucson three weeks before.
He did not wave; the boat people were too busy to notice. He did not shout; he could not be heard. The boat was only thirty feet out in the stream, but the boiler hissed, the piston pounded, the stern wheel churned, splashing up mud, flailing in reverse, trying to drag the boat back into free water. There was an overriding, shouting voice, the captain’s.
Lassiter spread his blanket, dropped his rifle and gun belt on it, walked into the current. The water was gravy thick with silt. He lay down in it, sunk beneath the surface, lifted his nose only when he needed new breath. He lay there for ten minutes, let a few drops at a time of the heavy liquid filter past his lips. The grit packed against his teeth. He felt his body respond like a sponge. The water stung his sunburn, but his flesh seemed slowly to swell and fill his skin.
He found his feet, came up dripping, waded back to his guns, picked up his belt, and looked at the commotion around the boat. They had two stern lines out, snubbed around a pair of cottonwoods, using each as a deadman, trying with the winch to reel the ropes on the drum. All of the crew and many of the deck passengers were in the water, lined along the sides of the boat, hauling on a hawser anchored at the bow. And at the blunt prow itself, a party had its feet wedged into the sunken bar, its shoulders straining against the heavy planks.
He saw the captain, blue coat, brass buttons, billed cap, leaning from the front window of the pilot house, megaphone against his mouth. He heard the bull voice roaring thin among the other sounds.
“Again … one … two … three … heave.”
The winch groaned. The men on the ropes bent into them. Those at the prow fought for footing, thrust their necks against the wood. The piston throbbed. The boat did not move.
There was a strong rhythm to the work, trying to rock the shallow keel, shove and pull it free of the sand that sucked at it.
“One … two … three … heave.”
Lassiter thought the hulk slewed a fraction. He waded out, threw his gun belt up onto the lower deck, nudged into a place, waist deep, between a giant negro with a bald head, naked to his waist, shoulder muscles running into neck like roots of a swamp cypress, and a thick bodied redhead. He joined the alternate throw and rest, brought his weight from his feet up against the scuffed timber.
The boat slewed again, barely, the stern turning toward the cottonwoods at the ends of the ropes. The paddles splashed, spilling cascades in their heavy hurry.
“All right, you bastards, lay into it. One …”
The redhead beside Lassiter thrust back, straightened, arched his spine.
“… heave.”
The man bent forward without vigor, laid his shoulder against the wood, rested there.
“She’s stuck fast. She won’t come off this way, he’s just digging her butt in deeper. All day, and not two feet.’’
Lassiter looked at him between surges. “How long you been at it?’’
“Since midnight.”
“It’s low water at this season. Captain tried to run this stretch at night?”
“Stupid proud. Up there preening himself like a peacock. Showing off to the women passengers.” He shoved back again. “Hell with it. I’ve had it. Let her sit here.”
“It’s a long, hot walk.”
“Half a day back to Ehrenberg. I can get another booking there.” He turned away, stalked off through the oily whorls.
From the side of his eyes, Lassiter saw the redhead reach the shore, pick up his rifle, and without glancing around, walk into the willows. He let him go. At the moment, he did not want to call attention to himself.
Just before full dark the continued rocking paid off. The boat slid back, slowly, a foot, and then two feet. Then the big paddle took hold, and Lassiter went to his knees with the sudden retreat. The crew on shore shook its ropes free, ran into the river toward the bow, where hands on deck were hauling up the tired men. Lassiter went unnoticed among the many being brought aboard.