A Noose for the Desperado (23 page)

So that was what I did. I got that black horse in the draw and
wrapped his forelegs and made him lie down. I picked out a place about
a dozen yards from Bama.

And there I stood, waiting for them to find me and come after me...

It seemed like a long time, but I guess it wasn't. I stood there and
looked at the hills to the west and wondered what was behind them. It
never occurred to me that I could get on my horse and find out, while
the cavalry was still scattered out. I heard a sound behind me then and
I thought Bama had waked up and was wondering what was going on.

“Bama.”

No sound.

“Bama, are you awake?”

Still no sound, except that of the wind coming down the canyon. I
left my position and went over to where he was. “It looks like we've
got a fight on our hands,” I said. “I just spotted some cavalry over
behind the ridge. They're spread out now, but I guess one of them will
find us before long.”

He didn't say anything. He lay there with his eyes wide open, staring
up at the sky. I knelt beside him and took his pulse. There was no
beat, not even a flutter. His chest was quiet. He was perfectly still.
After a while it dawned on me that Bama was dead.

I don't know what I did next. I think I got up and fumbled around for
the makings of a cigarette, and finally I remembered that Bama had used
the last of the tobacco. I must have stood there for quite a while, and
I had a queer, uncomfortable feeling that Bama had died just as a
personal favor to me. A thought kept nudging the back of my brain,
warning me to get out of there. There was no reason to stay any longer.
Bama was dead. You can't help a dead man.

But I was in no particular hurry. I wondered if I ought to try to dig
a grave for him. But I didn't have anything to work with, and anyway,
the cavalry would dig him right up again when they found him. Finally I
took off my neckerchief and spread it over his face.

Well, so long, Bama. This isn't much of a send-off, but it's the best
I can do.

Then I noticed that pile of silver. It wasn't going to help me, or
Johnny Rayburn, or Bama, or anybody else. The kid didn't want it, Bama
couldn't use it now, and I sure couldn't take it with me if I meant to
outrun the cavalry. Poetic justice, I think they call it. The funny
thing about it was that I didn't care.

I got my horse out of the draw and stripped everything off him except
the saddle and rifle. I walked over to Bama again, still feeling that
there was something I ought to do. If I knew any prayers, Bama, I
thought, I'd say one for you. But I didn't know any. There's the Lord's
Prayer, I thought. Everybody knows that. But when I started on it I got
bogged down in the first line and had to stop. I was wasting precious
time, but still I had a feeling that somebody ought to say a few words
over him, and I sure couldn't depend on the cavalry to do it. So
finally I said:

“Well, rest in hell, Bama. Amen.”

Then I got on my horse and rode west.

It surprised me, I guess, as much as it did the troopers, when I got
away with it. I rode out of the draw and into the hills, with the
soldiers beating the brush all around. Once I got a few miles away, I
was safe—for a day or two, anyway. That silver was going to keep the
cavalry busy for a while, when they finally found it, and by the time
they got around to thinking about me I would be somewhere else.

There was no use heading for Mexico, though. Without money Mexico was
no good. Maybe I could head north, where everybody was too busy
fighting Indians to pay any attention to me. Maybe I'd try to get to
Wyoming or someplace like that.

But that was a long way off, and I was just beginning to realize how
sick and tired I was of running. And maybe that explains the crazy
thing I did that same night.

A thing like that builds up in your mind, I suppose, and grows and
grows without your knowing it. Then at last it breaks as clear as a
summer day, arid you know what you have to do.

I still remember that night sometimes, pitch-black and the chill of
the mountains coming down. But still I had to keep running. My horse
almost went over the edge of the bluff before I saw the emptiness
looming in front of us. He took a step forward and skittered, and I
heard rocks and gravel begin to fall away into a black nothingness. My
stomach curled up like a prodded sow bug and I tried to get braced for
the sickening plunge.

But that horse had more sense than I had. He reared and wheeled and
his forefeet slammed solid earth. We were safe then, but it was a close
thing and it took something out of me. I climbed out of the saddle and
wiped the sweat off my face. I was scared. Pretty soon I stopped being
scared and got mad.

Nobody but a damn fool would try to cross country like this at
night—and maybe that's just what I was, a damn fool. And finally I
guess I got it through my head that it was time to do something about
it.

What I did was to take my pistol and throw it as hard as I could over
the bluff, and I listened and listened and after what seemed an hour I
heard it hit. Then I scooped the .44 ammunition out of my saddlebags
and heaved it into the darkness. And after it was all over I stood
there panting as if I had just come through a long spell of sickness.

Maybe it was a fool thing, throwing my pistol away like that, as
though by a single act I could throw off everything that was bad. But
that pistol was a part of me. And I didn't want it any more. A doctor
cuts off a leg when it's rotten. It was the same thing. It was with me,
anyway. I felt naked without it, but I wasn't sorry it was gone.

The rifle I kept in the saddle holster. A rifle is a defensive
weapon, a tool for getting food. It isn't the same as a pistol and it
can't get to be a part of you the way a pistol can.

I stood for a long time in the darkness, thinking about it. I half
expected to start cursing myself for an idiot as soon as the heat wore
off. But I didn't. Without that gun I would never have killed the first
man. I'd never have been on the run. Maybe I would have had that ranch
in Texas like Johnny Rayburn would have someday. Maybe...

But it was too late for a lot of things. Maybe too late for anything.
For all I knew, the cavalry was just a hop and a skip behind me, and
the important thing was to keep running.

Keep running. It didn't have the same sound that it once had. The
feeling of urgency wasn't there any more. I got back in the saddle and
the black horse started marching off into the darkness, just as if
there were a place out there somewhere that he knew about—a place
where we could stop and rest and live like a man and a horse are
supposed to live. It was a crazy idea. We kept traveling.

THE END

of a Gold Medal Original by
Clifton Adams