It was near evening of the next day that they got back to Sandoval’s ranch. Asa and Cameron rode with Pa between them and Brian brought up the rear. They couldn’t have gotten a wagon out to the Rabbit Sink Country, so they had been forced to bring Pa back on his horse. It had been a cruel ride for him, and he was half-delirious in the saddle.
Estelle was the first to come from the house, staring blankly at the little group of alkali-covered riders, then breaking forward with a sharp cry. Brian dismounted and helped Cameron ease the elder Gillette out of his saddle. Pa opened fever-rimmed eyes as Estelle reached him, suppressed hysteria in her pale face.
“It’s all right, daughter,” he said feebly. “Little gunshot wound ain’t going to hurt me after what we went through. Brian saved my life. He’s a real Sheridan all right. Nobody’d ever believe that story about his pa. He proved it. Just a match like that. Just a little match—”
He winced and sagged forward against Sheridan. With a small sob, Estelle turned and helped them half carry him toward the house. It was then that Brian noticed the two dusty horses at the door, and the pair of men who had followed Estelle.
Morton Forge was a thick-muscled man in a linseywoolsey coat and brush-scarred leggings of rawhide, the ruddy hue of a perpetually sunburned face glowing faintly through a gray mask of alkali. Ring Partridge was smaller, his narrow shoulders stooped in their horsehide vest, his sun-squinted eyes smoldering with an old hatred. Last year Wolffe had foreclosed on the long-overdue notes of both these men. Seeing the unveiled hostility in their faces, Brian knew an impulse to try and explain how little contact he’d had with the business of the Double Bit. Then he shrugged it away, knowing how useless apology was now.
“I never thought I’d see you riding with Salt River,” Partridge said acidly.
Forge put a rope-gnarled hand on Partridge’s arm. “Never mind, Ring. What happened out there, Brian?”
“Somebody’s put bobwire around Rabbit Sink,” Brian said. “When we tried to drive the beef through, they started shooting. The cattle scattered out into the badlands north of the sink. Sandoval’s out there trying to round them up.”
“What now?” Partridge asked.
“I’m riding for the doctor.”
“Doc Manning is Tarrant’s cousin.”
“What’s the difference? He’ll come.”
“Sure he will,” Forge said. “He’s decent enough. But that won’t keep him from talking. It’ll bust the Salt Rivers for good if it gets around that Pa Gillette’s wounded this bad. Pa was all that held us together.”
“It was bad enough when you foreclosed on him,” Partridge said. “A lot of borderline men thought we were finished. They hopped right over to Tarrant.”
Forge nodded. “Tarrant’s working like hell to get enough signatures on that recall petition. But he hasn’t got fifty-one per cent yet. If we can only hang on till Mayor Prince gets the franchise voted through, we’ll be safe.”
Brian saw the wisdom in their talk. If it got out that Pa was hit this bad, men like Sid Bouley and Wirt Peters would go over to Tarrant immediately. Maybe Bouley had already gone over, by the looks of the wire around Rabbit Sink.
Asa came to the door. The boy’s eyes were like holes burned through the dust-caked mask of his gaunt face.
“Sandoval’s wife got the bullet out,” he said.
“How’s the wound?” Brian asked.
“Little swollen. The Indian woman says she can draw it out with a poultice. I think Pa’s main trouble is loss of blood. He wants to see you.”
Brian and the other two entered the squalid mud jacal. A pot-fire flickered in one corner, a stew kettle hanging over it. Stooped over the kettle was Quita, Sandoval’s tubby Indian wife, stirring a stinking mess of piñon gum and creosote leaves that was to be the poultice for the wound. Pa Gillette lay on a pallet next to the wall, Estelle on her knees beside him.
“I heard what you said outside,” Pa told them feebly. “Don’t ride for the doctor.”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t feel right about it.”
“You don’t know these Yaquis,” Pa said. “I’ve seen Quita heal men Doc Manning gave up for dead.”
For some reason Brian looked at Estelle. She met his eyes soberly, nodding. “I trust her, Brian.”
It decided him. “All right. Just promise me one thing. If Pa gets worse you’ll send for the doctor.”
They all nodded in silent agreement. Brian turned and went outside. Now that it was over, reaction began to set in. His exhaustion struck him like a blow and he felt sick and began to tremble. Forge and Partridge followed him out.
“I’ll be going back to help Sandoval with those cattle,” Brian said. “Why don’t you come along?”
“With you?” Partridge’s voice was sarcastic.
“It’s not for me,” Brian said angrily. “It’s for Sandoval.”
“We ain’t got any beef in the herd,” Partridge said.
“You’re still with the Salt Rivers, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then do it for them. If Tarrant stops Sandoval from this drive you might as well give up.”
Forge frowned at the smaller man, scratching thoughtfully at his ruddy face. “Boy’s right, Ring,” Forge said. “Sandoval’s about our last hope.”
Brian heard a stir in the doorway and turned to see that Estelle had been standing there, a cup in her hand. “You can’t go now,” she said. “You’d pass out.”
He smiled wearily. “You’re right. How about first thing in the morning?”
Forge nodded. Partridge did not react. He stared at Brian a moment, the suspicion deepening weather-tracks around his narrow eyes. Then both he and Forge turned and headed for their horses, hitched at the corral. Silently Brian watched till the men reached the animals. They stood by the horses a moment, talking; then they began to unsaddle. Brian turned to see Estelle smiling at him. He returned the smile and she held the cup of steaming coffee out.
“Quita’s getting up a plate of food, too,” she said. She was silent, watching as he drank. Then she said, “Brian … how can I thank you?”
He looked at her, remembering when their whole relationship had been a gay, bantering duel. He had never been able to penetrate her defenses, verbally or otherwise. But now a change had come. Her face held a different expression from any he’d ever seen before; it was soft, accepting. There were no defenses to penetrate. A short time ago he would have pressed his advantage.
He handed the cup back. “One of those things, Estelle. Pa would have done the same thing for me.”
Her breathing lifted her breasts. They formed a round, high shape against the dress. It made him suddenly conscious of her whole body. Summer corn and fresh-baked bread and a sweet spring wind. The blood thickened in his throat.
She saw the change in his face and moistened her lips. “Brian—”
He waited expectantly. She did not continue. Her body seemed to settle, to move away from him. Her cheeks were flushed and her tawny eyes had grown veiled.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She put her hands together and looked down at them. “If you’re going in the morning you’d better get some rest.”
“Yeah. I guess I had.”
She raised her eyes to him for a last time. Then she turned and went into the house. He waited a moment, finally began walking toward the bear-grass huts down by the river. He had gone all the way before he remembered that Estelle had said Quita was getting a plate of food for him. He stopped by the door, eyes closed with exhaustion. Morton Forge came from inside.
“We stowed our gear in there for tonight,” he said. “You going to eat?”
Brian shook his head dully. “Tell Quita I’m too tired. You take my plate.”
Forge nodded. Partridge joined him and they went toward the main house. Brian stumbled inside. Estelle was still in his mind. He wanted to think about something. He was too tired. He knew he could think about it if he wasn’t so tired. It was about Estelle. Something about Estelle. He rolled into a bunk without even bothering to undress. He went to sleep before he thought to pull a cover up.
* * * *
They rose next morning just after dawn. Quita was already up, making their coffee, heating their tortillas and beans. They ate hurriedly, shivering and groggy in the early chill. Then they rode—Brian and Partridge and Forge and the two Gillette brothers.
It was a grueling ride, through the hottest part of the day. Sandoval had set up a half-faced camp on the rim of the badlands a few miles north of Rabbit Sink. The men reached it near evening, faces alkali-whitened masks, clothes turned to a clammy paste by sweat and dust. There was an ocotillo corral jammed into a box-end gully, holding a pitiful handful of the Yaqui’s cattle. Pancho stood guard on the ridge, a sleepy, cat-nervous sentry with an old Sharp’s buffalo gun loaded and cocked in the crook of one arm. He told them Sandoval was still back in the badlands gathering the stampeded cattle. Quita had sent coffee with them and they made a pot and sat around the juniper fire drinking it, bitter and black, while the sun went down. In the following darkness Sandoval and Juan returned with a dozen more mangy head of beef. They drove the cattle into the corral and then swung off their briny horses. Exhaustion and defeat seemed to deepen the gaunt hollows in the Yaqui’s primitive face.
“At this rate it take us all year to get in those cattle,” he said.
“We got two fresh hands to help,” Brian told him.
The Indian glanced at Forge and Partridge without hope. “So we get the beef. So what then?”
“We go on to Alta,” Brian said.
“Without water?”
“We can find a new route. There are other sinks.”
“Fenced in too.”
Brian frowned at him. “How can you be so sure?”
Sandoval sat down on a saddle, pulling a hoja from the pouch at his belt, building a cigarette. “You think Bouley put this wire up?”
“He owns Rabbit Sink.”
“Juan he tell me funny thing. Some of the men who shoot at us they also ride in to stampede cattle. Juan he get a good look at one. Latigo. Riding your Steeldust.”
Brian could not answer for a moment. He knew it should hold no shock for him, no surprise. Latigo was still handling the Double Bit cattle. Though he was technically now working for the court, his allegiance still remained to the ranch. And that ranch had been allied with Tarrant and all his interests for years.
“You think Tarrant did this?” Partridge said angrily.
Sandoval nodded. He dragged deep on his smoke. “The last of the Salt Rivers I am with any big herd. What you think it do to us if I no get through to Alta this year?”
Partridge began to pace around the fire, a stringy, bowlegged man, too exasperated to remain still. “I bet they got every free sink between here and Alta strung up with wire.”
“Or poisoned, or guarded,” Forge said. “What’s the difference? I think Sandoval’s right. This is Tarrant’s big bid to stop us for good.”
“We could fight ‘em,” Asa said hotly.
They looked at him without answering. They all knew that Tarrant had the combined crews of half a dozen of the biggest ranches in the state at his bidding. They would outnumber the Salt Rivers ten to one. It would be a stupid gesture to throw Sandoval’s pitiful group against such a force. The first clash would cut them to pieces, would leave them without enough men to handle the herd. Asa cursed softly and turned away, kicking spitefully at the gear on the ground.
Through the past moments, as their true position had become clear to Brian, something had been turning over in his mind. It was a gamble. But when a man’s back was to the wall, what did he have left?
“How about going in the back door to Alta?” he asked.
They all stared at him. In the flickering firelight their faces were drawn and chalky masks. Finally Forge said, “You mean up over the Rim?”
Brian nodded. “Circle north. Through the reservation if we have to. Down into the Tonto.”
He stopped. He hadn’t meant to stop. Hadn’t wanted to. But they all knew what was next and the expression on their faces stopped him and before he could continue again Partridge finished it for him.
“Dammit,” Partridge said, “who’s going through the Superstitions?”
“It’d be suicide!”
“How could we do it?”
“Tarrant would be on us before we topped the Rim—”
It came at Brian from all sides. He shouted to be heard over their voices. “You forget Tarrant’s got his men down here. If we move at all, they expect us to take the old route. They’ll be watching those sinks like hawks. The last thing in the world they’ll look for is a drive through their own back yard. If they do find out they’ll be a hundred miles behind us. There’s plenty of water up on the Rim. We can drive at night and cover ourselves.”
“So Tarrant doesn’t find us,” Asa said. “We still come up against the same thing at the end.”
“Damn right,” Partridge said. “My brother disappeared in them Superstitions fifteen years ago. I ain’t taking no cattle through there.”
It was Brian’s turn for anger. “Then where in hell are you taking ‘em?”
None of them answered. They scowled at each other, fingered their faces, toed the dirt. Finally Sandoval flipped his smoke into the darkness and rose.
“Is my cattle we talk about,” he said. He looked northwest into the night, toward the Superstitions. “Maybe Brian he is right. Maybe that is the only way left.”
A haunted look came to Juan’s seamed face. He crossed himself and shook his head. “I ride for you fifteen years, Chino, but I no can go there for you.”
Pancho moved closer to Sandoval. “I can.”
Sandoval smiled and put his arm across Pancho’s shoulder. He looked questioningly at Brian.
“It was my idea, wasn’t it?” Brian asked.
“And you’re stuck with it,” Partridge said.
“I’ll go,” Forge said quietly.
“Thanks, Morton,” Brian said. He was looking at Asa. The youngest Gillette met his gaze with smoldering eyes. Brian knew that Asa was still deeply suspicious of him, hostile despite what Brian had done for Pa. And Brian knew that Cameron would follow whatever decision Asa made.
Brian had the impulse to remind Asa how Sandoval had taken them in when no one else would defend them. But Asa was a hotheaded young fool without much room for moral obligation in his life. Brian figured that the only thing he could appeal to was the boy’s inflated ego.
“Maybe you haven’t got the guts,” he said.
A rush of blood darkened Asa’s face. He spat disgustedly. “I’ll last as long as you,” he said.
Partridge began moving again, scowling and kicking at the gear. “I’ll stand up to a fair fight, anybody knows that. You know that, Mort. I’ll stand up to a fair fight—”
“Forget it,” Brian told him. “You’ve made your choice. Just do one thing for us.” Partridge stopped fidgeting and frowned at Brian. “When you get back to Apache Wells,” Brian said, “spread the word that it’ll take us a couple of weeks to round up these cattle. And that we’re still going to try and drive across the desert.”
Partridge shook his head. “You’re a bunch of damn fools,” he said. He looked off toward the Superstitions. “You’re all just a bunch of damn fools.”