“HEY, LU,” SADIE WHISPERED. “You awake?”
“What is it?” Lu poked his head out from under his blanket. It was still dark, and very cold. The western bank of the Hell Mouth was higher than the eastern bank, and once the sun went down the temperature dropped precipitously. The night before, Lu got so cold he’d nearly wet his bed. He woke up feeling a dire need to make water, but hated to leave the meager warmth of his blanket long enough to do it.
“C’mon,” Sadie said. “Get up.”
“What for?” Lu looked around. The sun wouldn’t rise for two hours at least, and Henry was still sound asleep beside the smoky remains of their fire.
“I want to talk.”
Lu slipped on his boots and followed Sadie out of camp. They walked along the creek until they were out of earshot of their sleeping friends, and then Sadie turned and stared Lu in the eye. She was breathing hard, as though she’d just run a race. Puffs of white vapor spewed from her mouth like dragon smoke.
“Find anything else in my valise?” she asked. She didn’t even wait for Lu to answer. “You found my bonnets. My gloves. My dress. Find anything else while you were snooping?”
“Trousers,” Lu stammered. He figured she was asking him about the lacy bloomers, but Lu was too modest to say so. “I guess I found everything.”
Sadie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a navy blue handkerchief. “Anything else?” She waved the handkerchief in his face. “Did you give it to that killer?”
Lu took the tiny revolver from his pocket and held it out to her. “It’s right here.”
Sadie snatched the pistol out of his hand just as though it was made of butter and Lu’s hand was a hot skillet. She shoved it in her jacket pocket, then wound up and slapped Lu across the face. Her palm struck his cheek so hard it sent him spiraling to the ground.
“Never touch my stuff again,” she growled.
Lu shook his head. He wouldn’t. Not for anything.
“Never!” Sadie turned on her heel and strode back toward camp.
Lu watched her go, wondering if the handprint on his cheek would disappear before the others woke up.
“She got you a good one,” Jack said, striding out of the bushes on the other side of the creek. “I saw it all.”
“Glad you liked it,” Lu muttered.
“Don’t take it too hard. You just learned something about women, that’s all. They don’t much care for a man invading their delicates.”
“I saved her little gun,” Lu said. “She should have thanked me.”
“You did save her gun,” Jack agreed. “I’ll give you that much.”
“I might have given it to Gokhlayeh, too. He told me he wanted it.”
“No, you did just fine. Took guts, too. I reckon Gokhlayeh was about as likely to tie you to a stake and burn you alive as lead you out of that canyon.”
“Bill wasn’t scared. He rode right into the Mimbrachua camp just as calm as if he owned it.” Lu’s comment was intended to sting Jack’s pride, but he didn’t think it worked. The expression on the gunfighter’s face remained as cool and aloof as ever.
“Tell you what,” Jack said. “You gather an armload of sticks and I’ll light a fire. It’s cold as hell up here.”
“Starting fires is Sadie’s job.”
“Well, tell her to do it then.”
“That’s all right,” Lu said. “I’ll gather the wood.”
Their horses had been saddled, and Lucky the mule harnessed and packed, when Jack called them all back to the fire.
“It’s time we filled the water-skins Chino brought,” he said. “Desert’s coming. Never can tell when the next stream is likely to show.”
“One mule can’t carry all that,” Chino remarked. “Not with the baggage he’s already got.”
“There are six skins,” Lu suggested. “If we each take one—”
“Good enough,” Jack said. “But there’s something else. The five of you have got a decision to make. I agreed to lead you across the Hell Mouth. You’re across. My job’s done.”
“But—” MacLemore stammered. “Where do we go from here? Is there a road?”
“Might be a game trail through these hills. I can’t say. I expect Chino could find his way if he was so inclined. Only problem is, you’re short on food.”
“So what do we do?”
“Your other choice is to follow me. I’m going south. It’ll take you out of your way, but I might be able to scare up one last acquaintance. Could mean the difference between life and death.”
MacLemore looked at Henry and Chino. Neither offered an opinion. Henry merely shrugged. Chino stared into the rapidly diminishing flames.
“How far out of our way will we have to go?” MacLemore asked.
“Not far,” Jack said. “Three hundred miles, maybe. Four at the outside.”
“I say we go with Jack,” Sadie said. “He’s brought us this far.”
MacLemore crossed his arms. “How much is this going to cost me?”
“No charge,” Jack said. “So long as you don’t hold me up, I reckon it’s no skin off my teeth.”
They rode for two straight days, barely leaving their saddles long enough to spread their blankets on the ground. If anybody slept, Lu wasn’t aware of it.
Jack led them along an old game trail. In the beginning, it stayed fairly close to the edge of the canyon. But by the evening of that first day, the trail had begun shading off to the west. Lu was glad of that. He didn’t know if the Mimbrachua ever wandered up this high, and didn’t care to find out. Meeting Gokhlayeh once had been plenty.
Leaving the canyon also meant ascent. Every step took them higher. Soon they’d reached elevations beyond which not even the heartiest pine and fir trees could grow. These were miserable old mountains, Lu thought. Rocky and dead. As little like the verdant range on the other side of the canyon as heaven is from hell. Things didn’t look to be getting better, either. According to Jack, on the other side of these mountains was a vast desert. Mister MacLemore found that particularly disconcerting, but Lu didn’t see how things could get much worse. Or much drier. In two days they’d come upon exactly one creek, and that was barely wet enough to darken the bottom of their horses’ hooves. This land was desolate in every sense of the word. They saw no game, not even rodents, though they kept their eyes peeled and guns at the ready just in case. There were still a few pounds of pemmican in their gunnysacks, but that wouldn’t last much longer. Lu guessed they’d be eating snakes before long. Chino said he’d eaten lizards and found them tasty. Lu thought he could eat one, if it became absolutely necessary, but didn’t particularly relish the idea.
They finally crested a pass on the afternoon of their third day, and got a good look at the desert. It was laid out below them for as far as the eye could see, and undoubtedly a whole lot farther than that. When Lu heard that they’d be traveling through a desert, he’d imagined an endless sea of yellow sand. But this wasn’t that sort of desert at all. If there was sand down there, it came only in patches. This desert was mostly rock.
“Does anything grow out there?” Lu asked Chino.
“Sure,” he said. “Stickers. Lots of ’em.”
They rode down the other side of the mountains, picking their way between heaps of jagged stones, each sharp enough to cut through a pair of brand new boots, to say nothing of the tender feet beneath. As the elevation dropped, they began to see plants again, though of a variety and type Lu had never before imagined. This desert was a good deal more complex than his first view had given him to believe. He recognized a few of the cactuses from story-books, especially the giant saguaros, arms reaching skyward like a teller at a bank hold-up. More interesting by far were the twists of thorn-ridden vine that stood, sometimes ten feet tall, in the shade of the rock-piles. Chino called them ocotillo, and claimed they made good fire-wood. Every plant they saw had spikes. Some appeared to be all spikes, with just enough plant underneath to hold it all together.
“Watch out for the pears,” Jack shouted back.
“Pears?” Lu asked.
Sadie pointed to a bunch of green pincushions lying to either side of the path. “Prickly-pears,” she explained. “Purple are the worst. Get one in your hand and it’ll fester awful. The fruits make good jelly though.”
They camped that night in a clearing surrounded by thorns, spines, briars, stickers and thistles. It was warm, but Jack still cut wood for a fire. Actually, he dug it up. He found a bush he called a “honey mesquite,” and used his knife to dig out the roots. Just a few of those sticks and they had a fire that lasted nearly all night, with hardly any smoke.
“I don’t know how you can stand to sleep in boots,” Lu said to Sadie. She was sprawled out with her feet just a few inches from his nose. “My feet cramp if I leave my shoes on overnight.”
“Can’t stand the thought of scorpions climbing in and laying eggs.”
“Do they do that?”
“They could, I guess.”
Lu put his boots back on.
He was just closing his eyes when a bloodcurdling moan suddenly broke from the thicket. Lu had never heard a sound like it in his life. His first thought was of a werewolf, prowling at the edge of the camp.
“He’s close,” Chino observed. “Could be watching us through the bushes.”
“Is it a wolf?” Lu asked.
“Naw. Just a little ol’ coyote. Probably searching for scraps.”
“Strange that he wants to be so near camp,” Henry said. “Coyotes are usually solitary creatures. Something’s got this one riled.”
“Maybe Jack,” Chino said.
Lu sat up. Sure enough, the gunslinger was nowhere to be seen. His bedroll was spread, his appaloosa hobbled and standing with the other horses, but Jack was gone.
“Where is he?” Lu asked.
Chino shrugged. “Scouting, I guess.”
Another long howl froze the blood in Lu’s veins.
“Don’t worry,” Chino assured him. “Jack’s safe. No coyote alive is mean enough to get the best of him.”
“What about us?”
“We’re safe, too. I promise.”
Jack didn’t show up until morning. The first glow of new-risen sun had just started to break over the eastern peaks when the gunfighter came striding into the clearing, his boots chalky with dust. He rolled up his blanket, grabbed his saddle by the horn and slung it over his horse’s back.
“Get ready to ride,” he said.
The path continued its slow descent of the mountains. By noon, Henry judged that they’d come down nearly ten thousand feet, from pass to basin. Lu could certainly tell the difference. He’d already sweated clean through his shirt, and his pants weren’t exactly dry. Henry took his jacket off and tied it around his waist. Sadie and Chino both followed suit. Only MacLemore remained fully dressed, and he claimed to be perfectly comfortable.
“It’s a dry heat,” he said. “Dry.”
“I guess that’s right,” Sadie remarked. “Though it’s got you about as wet as if you’d been dropped in a pond.”
Despite the oven-like temperatures, Chino never stopped naming and describing the uses of the various plants they passed. He pointed out one type of pink flower, the stem of which was covered in spines as long as a ten-penny nail, and called it “Spanish Needle.” Then he pointed at another flower, identical in color and armament, and called it “Apache Plume.” Lu doubted whether he could remember a quarter of what Chino told him, and was glad he wouldn’t be tested. During the course of that afternoon they encountered yucca, fishhook barrels, beavertails, prickly-pears and cholla enough to stab holes through the fingers of every man, woman, and child on the continent. Lu’s favorite flower was one Chino called “cowboy’s fried egg.” It looked about like it sounds, white with a big ball of yellow at the center, but was supposed to be as poisonous as a coral snake. According to Chino, just one petal, ground up and mixed in a barrel of beer, was powerful enough to murder a whole ranch full of vaqueros. Sagebrush was the most common plant they saw, though greasewood and creosote came close. Mesquite lent the whole desert a scent like a pit barbecue on a summer evening.
They also saw birds and reptiles of all sorts. Woodpeckers, roadrunners, and wrens twittered amongst the cactuses and thorn-bushes as happy as any robin in a yard back home. Golden eagles and turkey-vultures turned on heat waves in the pale blue sky. They even saw a horny toad—though Lu thought it looked more like a fat lizard with scaly eyes—and about sixteen thousand snakes, rattlers chief among them.
Taken all together, the desert was a fascinating place. It might have even been enjoyable, except for the sun. All through that day, Lu stared at the horizon, hoping in vain to see a cloud. He wasn’t particular. It didn’t have to be a storm-cloud. Any old puff of white would do, so long as it came between him and the sun for a second or two. But no cloud was to be had. Not one.
It was while Lu was staring at the horizon that a large fur-covered pig broke from the brush and went charging across the path. Quick as lightning, Henry yanked his rifle and set it to his shoulder.
“Don’t—” Jack shouted.
Henry’s finger was on the trigger, but he didn’t fire. “I can take it clean.”
“No. Leave it.”
“But—”
“It doesn’t belong to us.”
Henry thrust his rifle back into its scabbard. Jack offered no explanation, nor did Henry ask for one. They rode on.
“I didn’t know there were pigs in the desert,” Lu said, squinting down at the hoof-prints as they passed.
“Javelina,” Chino corrected him. “Good eatin’. But if you see one comin’, get out of its way. Darned things got teeth like chisels.”
They found another clearing just before sunset, and decided to set up camp. Lu and Sadie gathered wood for their fire. As soon as it was lit, Sadie handed around the pemmican. Lu only ate a tiny bit. Their provisions had dwindled alarmingly. Two or three more days and they’d be completely out.
Jack didn’t even wait for supper. He put his saddle down, told the others to sit tight, and strode up the path.
“Are you leaving again?” Lu called after him.
Jack looked back.
“Can I come with you?”
“No. Stay here. Don’t go anywhere.”
A coyote began howling as soon as it was full dark. It sounded suspiciously like the same one that’d haunted their camp during the whole night previous. On a whim, Lu let out his own high-pitched whoop. Sadie thought she could do better, and MacLemore guessed he’d like to try as well. After that, barely a second went by when one or another of them wasn’t yowling at the moon. Chino liked to finish his howls with a bark. Lu thought that made him sound more like an old bloodhound than a coyote, but he didn’t guess Chino would much care for his saying so. Henry’s howls had a vibrato quality, like a lady singing hymns in church. Sadie laughed at that, but Henry didn’t seem to mind.
When they’d had enough of howling, Chino told a joke. It wasn’t funny, but it got the ball rolling. MacLemore told a story about a man who traveled about washing ladies’ underclothes, but could never get them quite fresh. Lu wasn’t sure he understood, but laughed anyway. Sadie recited a poem about a lass from Nantucket, which she’d heard from a ranger down on the border, and which Chino thought about the funniest thing he’d ever heard, but which must have embarrassed her father somewhat. Lu knew no jokes, so he told the only funny story he could think of. It was the same story all the kids back in St. Frances had made such sport of, about how Jack had arm-wrestled Bigfoot. Henry said it was just like Jack, to take credit for something he’d done himself. Sadie wondered if there really was a Bigfoot, and Chino said he knew for a fact that there was, as he’d seen the beast himself. Henry voiced some doubts about that, but didn’t deny Chino’s claim outright. They had such a merry time, talking and telling lies, that not one of them even noticed when the coyote stopped howling.
Jack wandered into camp just after midnight, and was surprised to find the whole group awake and alert. Slung over his shoulder was a dead javelina. It had already been skinned and gutted. Jack dropped it beside the fire and got a drink from one of the water-skins.
“Let’s get that thing on to roast,” he said. His shirt was soaked with blood.
“Who field dressed this carcass?” MacLemore asked.
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“None. Only it looks like its throat was chewed out—” MacLemore pointed at the ragged flesh around what remained of the javelina’s neck, “by a wolf or a big—”
“Maybe it was.” Jack took another long drink from his water-skin.
A few minutes later, the meat was sliced, skewered, and roasting over the fire. The fattier bits Chino placed on flat rocks over the coals, frying it ‘til it was crispy like bacon. Lu ate a few pieces. The meat needed salt, but was still a whole world better than the pemmican they’d been getting by on for so long.
“I have to make,” Sadie announced, as they were finishing their late night snack. She got up and headed toward the bushes.
“Stay in the light,” Jack told her.
“What am I supposed to do, squat right out here in front of everybody?”
“I don’t care how you do it,” Jack said. “Just make sure you stay in the clearing.”
“Can everyone turn their backs at least?”
Jack nodded.
Sadie strode to the furthest edge of the clearing, unbuckling her belt as she went. “Well, go on then,” she commanded. “Turn your heads.”
Lu untied his blanket from his saddle and spread it beside the fire. There were only a handful of hours left before morning, and he was suddenly very sleepy. Before long, all of them had bedded down. All but Jack, who sat up, smoking and staring at the darkness. No sooner did Lu’s head touch his saddle-seat than he was out.
He woke an hour or two later to see Jack, standing over the fire with his palms resting lightly on the butts of his pistols, a cigarette poking from the corner of his mouth. All the rest of the camp was asleep. Chino was snoring.
Lu had to relieve himself, and so quickly made his way to the edge of the clearing. He saw the spot where Sadie had gone hours before, and decided to rewet it. He’d already undone his pants and started the flow, when a flash of movement caught his eye. Lu squinted, trying to see what it was. At first, he thought it was just another javelina. Then he saw what it really was and leapt backwards.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked him. “What’d you see?”
“I thought I saw …” Lu shook his head. “It was a face, only—”
“What’d it look like?”
“Sort of like a big dog with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Except its eyes were blue and—”
“Was it a coyote?”
“I don’t know. Looked like a dog to me.”
“Get on back to bed,” Jack said.
“But—”
“Go on.”
Lu turned and started back toward the fire. Their chatter must have woken Sadie, because she was sitting up staring at him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I think I saw the coyote,” Lu said. “Or something.”
“Was it big? Dang, I wish I’d seen it.”
Lu wished he hadn’t. He just knew he’d be seeing its teeth in his dreams. And those eyes.
“Are you feelin’ all right?” Sadie asked him. “You look pale.”
“I guess. Yeah, I’m all right. Just startled me, that’s all.”
“Well, close your pants then. And try to get some sleep.”
Lu looked down and saw that his trousers were still gaping open. He turned his back, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks as he fumbled with his buttons. When he looked at her again, Sadie was asleep—or at least her eyes were closed. Lu felt sure he could hear her snickering. He wondered if she’d seen his dingus, or just his open fly. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair. If she was going to look at him, he ought to be able to look at her. The worst part was, he couldn’t even complain. After all, he was the one who’d gone walking through camp with his dangle hanging out.
Fortunately, acute humiliation drove all thoughts of the coyote from his mind. Instead of nightmares about wild beasts, Lu dreamt he was naked and running down the streets of St. Frances. That wasn’t much of an improvement.
The next day went much as the two previous, except that they had bacon for breakfast, and spent a few of the hottest, driest hours tapping barrel cactuses and refilling their water-skins. It wasn’t all that difficult, once they’d shaved off all the spines. Chino simply drilled his knife through the meat of the plant, creating a hole as big around as a man’s thumb. After that, water trickled out for minutes at a time. They only had to tap three large cactuses before all six skins were full.
It was late afternoon and they’d been in the saddle for three straight hours, when they came upon a crossroads and Jack whistled for a stop. Lu hoped he just needed a moment to determine which path they ought to follow, but feared the worst.
“That there’s my road,” Jack said, pointing down the fork to the left. “And this one here is yours.”
“You’re leaving us?” MacLemore asked.
“I’ve spent too much time with you already. I’ve got my own business.”
“But I thought we were going to meet your friend. I thought you knew someone who might help us across the desert.”
“How much help do you want? He’s already given you javelina meat enough to last a week. I had to all but get down on my hands and knees and beg for that.”
“And we appreciate it,” Sadie said. “We just hate to see you go, that’s all.”
“This is your expedition. It’s about time you took control of it.”
“But we don’t even know where we’re going,” MacLemore complained. “Or who we’ll find when we get there.”
“Go west.”
“Bill says you know the man we’re after,” Lu said. “The Yankee.”
Jack glared at him. “I have my suspicions.”
“He also said not to let you leave until you’d spilled your guts.”
“Bill’s mighty sassy for a man hiding out at the bottom of a hole.”
“So, will you tell us?”
Jack took a quick glance at the sun. It had begun its descent to the horizon, though it showed no hurry about getting there. They had at least three more hours of brutal heat before it’d set. That was plenty, so far as Lu was concerned. But Jack didn’t seem to agree.
“I don’t want to say anything out loud,” he said. “There might be safe places to talk in this world, but here and now ain’t one of them.”
“Then what’ll we do?” Lu asked.
Jack reached into his saddlebag. “Take this.” He rode over to Lu and handed him a package. It was wrapped up in a piece of pearl-white silk, and bound with a string. A charm, just like those his mother sold in their shop back home, was tied to the knot.
<<A dragon?>> Lu asked. He turned the package slightly, so that the sun shone directly upon the charm. Instantly, the dragon changed from dark gray to pale blue, and its eyes blazed fiery gold. <<Is this Shen-Lung?>>
Jack nodded. <<A powerful spirit. Guardian against the eyes and ears of demons.>> He pointed skyward. <<All demons.>>
Lu could feel the other members of their band staring. He hadn’t meant to speak Chinese. Seeing the charm had just brought it out of him.
“Open it tomorrow at noon,” Jack said. “Read it, and then pack it away just as you found it.” He pointed at Lu. <<And don’t forget the dragon.>>
MacLemore took the package from Lu, glanced at it, and then handed it back. “I can’t read anything but English,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “This is as American as Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
“What’ll we do after we read it?” Lu asked.
“Remember it. If you can.”
“Anything else we should know about this desert?” Henry asked.
“It’s wide, and you’ve barely scratched the surface. Use every drop of good water you find. There’s a creek not far from here. Drink all you can stand, and fill your skins. You never know when there’ll be more. And don’t kill any animals, especially not coyotes. If you feel you just have to shoot something, shoot each other.”
“I still wish you’d come with us,” MacLemore said.
“You’ll be all right. Chino knows the way.”
And with that, Jack gave his horse a firm kick and went galloping away. It took only seconds for him to disappear amidst the sagebrush and mesquite.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” MacLemore grumbled.
“Yep,” Chino agreed. “That’s that.”
“He didn’t even wish us luck,” Sadie said.
“Who knows?” Henry said. “Maybe Jack will show up again sometime. He has a way of doing that.”
“I sure hope so,” Lu whispered.