Deraux slid in and out of consciousness, automatically shuffling one foot ahead of the other, boots husking on the parched earth. His mind wandered, disconnected from present time and place.
He caught his toe on a half-buried rock and tumbled forward like a disjointed puppet, tearing the knees out of his pants, and bruising the heels of his hands as he broke his fall on the scorching earth. Jolted back to the present, he started to rise, but discovered that it required great effort, as if his arms and legs were not used to working together. Erect again and swaying, he sensed the blisters burned on the bottoms of his feet through the worn boot soles and socks.
Pulling down the bandanna, he sucked in deep breaths of the lung-withering air. Several rods ahead, two dark figures continued bobbing away from him, their outlines blurry through the shimmering heat waves.
Deraux looked over his shoulder—nothing on their back trail but a wavering dust devil silently skipping and spinning across the uneven desert.
In a flash of clarity, he knew he was going to die here. Years from now, some lone traveler on this anvil of the sun would stumble across his bleached bones scattered by scavenging buzzards.
He had no choice but to keep going. He shuffled forward again, breathing heavily, eyes squinted against the blinding glare.
Suddenly a great weakness engulfed him and he felt himself falling into a black hole.
Consciousness returned slowly. He opened his eyes, but could see nothing. Was he dead? No. The hard ground pressing against his cheek told him he was still in the physical world. Darkness had fallen.
With a great effort, he pushed up to a sitting position, pausing for a wave of dizziness to pass. Moonlight was silvering the landscape. He brushed sand from the parched skin of his face. His cracked lips were crusty, and he reached for his canteen. It was gone. He searched the ground around him, but the bright moonlight revealed only scuffmarks and footprints in the sand. The boot prints were too big to be Rivera’s. Ocano. The big man had seen him fall and come back to rob him of his last half pint of water. His gun belt was also missing.
“The bastard should have put a bullet in my head and been done with it,” he muttered aloud. In the enveloping stillness his voice rasped like dry cornhusks. He fumbled on the ground and found a smooth pebble to place in his mouth. He’d heard this sometimes started some saliva. It didn’t. He was too dry.
His feet felt as if they were glued to the insides of his boots. Fearing his feet were a mass of broken blisters and blood, he tugged at his left boot. But he lacked the strength to remove it.
Hate began to seethe up from deep within him. He would live to get that damned Ocano, somehow.
Struggling unsteadily to his feet, he spat out the dry pebble. No one in sight. From the looks of things, he might have been the last human on a deserted planet. The Tinajas Altas Mountains loomed up ahead, how close he couldn’t tell. The dry air and the moonlight made distances deceiving. He put on his straw hat, took a deep breath, and began walking. Hate fueled his strength. He was determined not only to reach the tanks, but to catch up with the pair who’d robbed and abandoned him for dead and kill them both. Plotting and imagining just how he would do this furnished his mind with something to work on as he trudged forward, tongue swollen, throat burning, unable to swallow. His sensitive skin prickled under his clothing, as if he were covered with fine sand. Probably grains of salt from dried perspiration. The sunburned skin of his face felt stretched across his cheek bones and forehead.
I’m dried out, he thought. If I don’t find water soon, I’m a dead man.
By the time the moon was on the wane, he’d stumbled onto a faintly rutted road that trended along the eastern side of the mountains. But to his left, winding through the scattered greasewood and ocotillo, was another faint trail. He paused to examine it. This trail was not marked by wheels, but by the hoofs of animals—and the boots of men.
He walked up the steadily rising slope, the moon lighting the barely discernible trail. Higher and higher. There was no wind, no movement. His harsh breathing sounded loud in the silence. The sandy soil gave way to rocks that were still warm from heat absorbed during the day. Now boulders humped up from the flank of the mountain.
He looked back across the silvery desert. This was his last chance. He wouldn’t survive another day without water. Where were Ocano and Rivera? Lying dead, or unconscious out there? They’d robbed and left him to the mercy of the sun. Now the desert may have claimed them as well.
His weakness was apparent as he paused to catch his breath and rest his legs, aching from the climb. Where was the water? He’d been this way once before, a long time ago, but everything looked different now, especially in the dark. He might have to wait until daylight to scout for the tanks.
Something moved. Something splashed! He ran awkwardly toward the sound. Some creature flashed past him, running for shelter in the rocks and brush. Mesquite branches raked his face, knocking off his hat. He paused, panting, and stared intently left and right, his vision trying to penetrate the deep shadows. Then he looked down the slope. Right below him was a great hole in the smooth granite. It was rounded and several yards across. The last of the moonlight reflected off the pewter-colored surface of the water that appeared to be covered with algae and dust. He stumbled forward, dropped to his knees to sweep the surface clean. Then he scooped up a double handful of water and drank, then drank some more. Thank God! He didn’t slow down to taste the water as it flowed into his mouth and down his throat. His tissues soaked up the moisture like parched desert soil. He splashed it into his face, then plunged his whole head under, rinsing the dust and sand out of his nose and eyes and hair. Finally he sagged down weakly on the warm rocks.
The moonlight was gone when he rolled over, put his mouth to the surface, and sucked up more of the life-giving liquid. This time he tasted the gamey flavor, but he ignored it. This was life or death—no time to be squeamish. But he was glad he couldn’t see the wigglers, the tiny pink bladders, the water spiders—all the tiny creatures he knew inhabited this pool.
He finally stopped drinking, feeling his stomach beginning to rebel. He’d drunk too much, too fast. To keep from throwing up, he carefully crept away upslope and lay, face down, on the smooth rock under some bushes to rest his stomach. His stomach relaxed.
In his exhausted state he dozed. When he awoke, the sky was just beginning to gray with coming day. He got up, feeling stiff and sore, and started downhill toward the big tank for another drink. The water had started his gastric juices flowing and a healthy hunger gnawed at his stomach.
He froze, staring down toward the largest tank. A warm, pre-dawn breeze ruffled the leaves of the shrubs. An animal wariness he never knew he possessed alerted him to danger. Was it just the movement of some nocturnal animal—a mule deer, perhaps, or a peccary? He sniffed the slight breeze and caught only the faint, dry scent of sage.
Then a chill went up his back as he found himself staring at the silhouettes of two hatless men standing on the edge of the largest tank. He didn’t move, he didn’t twitch, but felt his eyes widening to take in every particle of light the coming dawn provided. His ears picked up the guttural sound of voices. He couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t sound like English. And white men did not go hatless in this country.
Deraux shrank back and silently melted into the brush, crouching, carefully placing each foot, holding his breath, hoping the slight upslope breeze would carry the sour odor of his sweat-soaked clothing away from the two men. His heart thudded in his ears, shutting out other small sounds. Who were these men? Possibly only wandering Papagos. Everyone who crossed this desert knew of, and used, these high tanks. But the pair might also be Yuma trackers. He felt certain the alarm had gone out far and wide about the prison break. If any of the prisoners made good their escape, it would damage the reputation of the Yuma pen as a man-breaker from which no one left alive without serving his sentence.
Then a horse whinnied as if sensing the nearby water. If these were Indian trackers, they’d likely crossed the desert by night on horseback, using moonlight to trail the three fleeing prisoners.
Regardless of where the trail of Ocano and Rivera led, the Indians would have to break off pursuit to stop here for water. Their horses would need a lot of water, and the men would have to replenish their own. Where were the other two prisoners? Could it be these Indians were following his own solitary trail? He shuddered at the thought. With a standard reward of $50 for each returned prisoner, it was very likely these trackers would not return without all three of the escapees in custody, dead or alive.
The two Indians he’d spotted had apparently come ahead on foot to scout the tanks for danger before bringing up the horses. How many of them were in the party, he couldn’t tell, but guessed four or five. If he were discovered and still had his Colt and cartridge belt, he’d stand a least a fighting chance.
Before the light grew any stronger, he glided back into the shelter of the boulders, picking his way carefully to avoid making the slightest sound. Lying down in the cover of the jumbled rocks, he barely kept sight of the largest tank between two creosote bushes. By turning his head, he could see the rosy sky as the rising sun lit up the tops of the Cabezas Prietas to the east. On the desert below could be seen the Camino del Diablo snaking its way among the scattered mesquite and occasional organ pipe cactus. Above and behind him loomed the heights of the Tinajas Altas. A low bird whistle sounded from the tanks and was repeated somewhere downslope. Deraux watched as three more Indians led the tired animals up to drink. With any luck, they were only passing through and were not trackers. But he knew it was probably wishful thinking. The tracks he and Ocano and Rivera had made would have been easy to follow. If these Indians had lost the trail in the hard rocks, all they had to do was to sit at the tanks and look out across the heat-soaked desert toward the hazy Cabezas Prietas, and nothing could move out there during the day without being seen by those keen eyes. Or they could wait for him and the other two escapees to stagger up to the tanks, half dead of thirst and too weak to resist.
As the sun rose higher and struck the eastern flank of the Tinajas Altas, Deraux wormed his way deeper into the shade. Then it became a waiting game. Hour after hour passed, and he knew the Indians would not move until dark. Curled up like snakes in the hot shade, they’d await the relative coolness of night before moving out. In the meantime, Deraux began to feel like a loaf of bread in a bake oven as the sun heated up the surrounding rocks. The water he’d drunk came out through his pores and instantly evaporated. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d urinated. A powerful thirst returned to torture him. His mouth and throat burned, but he wasn’t yet in the extreme condition of the night before. In spite of his resolve to stay alert, his weary, tormented body slipped into a heat-induced doze.
When he awoke, the sun had probed his shaded nook, and his open mouth was dry. He licked his cracked lips and crawled back into the shade, noting the sun had slid toward the western horizon, and shadows were growing long. He heard voices. Then the blast of a gunshot made him jump. But there were no more shots or shouts or signs of a struggle. He rested his throbbing head on his forearms and waited. The sun finally disappeared, streaking the blue sky with red and gold. The smell of wood smoke drifted up to him, followed shortly by the aroma of roasting meat. Apparently they’d slaughtered a horse or the mule. His stomach growled loudly. He was weak from hunger and thirst, but could do nothing until they left.
Under cover of deepening dusk, he bellied forward until he could see the five Indians sitting around their campfire, gorging themselves on half-cooked chunks of bloody meat. He was nearly faint from hunger.
From their shorter hair, along with odds and ends of white man’s clothing and knee-high desert moccasins, these men resembled the Yumas that Deraux had seen around the prison. One of the Indians stood up, wiping his hands on his sleeveless shirt, and moved toward the tethered horses. He kicked at something and it was then Deraux saw a man lying trussed on the ground. The man didn’t react. Deraux focused intently. Even in the gathering gloom, there was no mistaking the naked barrel chest, bullet head, and huge mustache. It was Ocano. The big man was a prisoner, perhaps injured or wounded. Unless the trackers had surprised him, the big man would have put up a fight to avoid capture. Did they also have Rivera? Deraux saw no sign of him. The wily Mexican was either dead or had somehow eluded the trackers. It was likely they’d keep Ocano alive for the trip back so they wouldn’t have to haul a stinking carcass in the heat. Deraux had no feelings for Ocano, but realized the big half-breed was in for some rough treatment at the hands of his captors. Following Ocano’s return, he’d be punished by solitary confinement in the so-called dark cell, where he could easily go mad with no company, no bunk, nothing to do or read, and barely enough to eat. The big half-breed might even face a noose for killing the head guard, if anyone had witnessed the murder in the confusion of the break. Deraux wondered if the Indians had also confiscated the Colt and gun belt, along with the canteens Ocano carried. He lay still, pondering his next move.
He didn’t have long to wait. The Indians, talking and laughing, finished eating and tossed the remnants of the meat into the glowing coals of the fire. The meat sizzled as the grease flared up. By the flickering flames Deraux saw the bronzed faces and bodies moving, untying the horses. They swung the full canteens over their shoulders on long straps. He waited impatiently as they hoisted Ocano across the back of a horse and tied his wrists and ankles together beneath the animal’s belly. An argument broke out with harsh, guttural voices and much gesturing—an obvious disagreement as to who had to ride behind the prisoner to steady his weight on the horse. Finally one of them vaulted up behind Ocano, and then they guided their mounts downhill and out of Deraux’s sight.
Deraux breathed a sigh of relief as the last sounds of their passing died away. He was certain all five had departed, but, to be sure one of their number hadn’t slipped back to lay a trap at the campsite, he forced himself to wait and listen and watch another quarter hour before he moved.
Finally assured, he cautiously, noiselessly crept down toward the fire. With a stick, he raked out a half-raw, half-charred hunk of meat, blew on it, then tore at it ravenously with his teeth. The juice ran down his stubbled chin and arms. He rescued another piece and ate it. Then he stirred up the fire so he could see by a small flame, found a bone and cracked it open with a rock to suck out the marrow. He’d never tasted anything as delicious as fresh roasted mule, he thought as he leaned back against a boulder and breathed a long sigh, wiping his hands on his filthy blue uniform trousers. His shrunken stomach was full. Life was good, after all. He got up and walked several yards to the edge of the big tank, and lay down on his belly for a long drink of water.
He heard a slight scuffing noise behind him. A chill went up his back and he whipped around to face this unseen threat. He heard the double click of a cocking pistol, and froze.
“Ah, señor, I see you’ve already eaten without me,” a familiar voice said. “I was hoping we might have supper together, since this is your last meal.” An oily laugh followed and a figure holding a revolver stepped into the faint firelight. It was Rivera.