Slocum #422 (10 page)

“Where now, John?”

“South to the tracks,” he said. “You'll be back on your pa's railroad before you know it.”

“About that,” she said slowly, eyes downcast. “I've tried to tell you but something always interrupted. You see, ­I—”

He silenced her again.

“Hear that? Horses. Lots of them.”

“The cavalry?”

“The main body of the Apaches,” he said grimly. “You better clamp your thighs down because we're going to ride like the devil is after your soul.”

He put his head down and showed her how to do it. If they couldn't outrun the Apaches, they were goners, and even if they reached the railroad tracks and a repair crew, they were still in danger. The crew wouldn't have the arms necessary to fight off dozens of raiders.

The night wind slipped past his face and turned warmer as dawn broke. By the time they raced across the desert less than a mile from the tracks, the Indians spotted them.

“There's no way we can keep going like this,” Slocum said, slipping back down the sand dune and lying flat on his back to stare at the cloudless sky.

The heat built quickly, and finding water had proven to be a problem. He had misjudged where they were and had ridden a considerable distance to the south without finding the tracks. Going west would eventually bring them to the Colorado River, but Slocum had spotted another problem to wandering about aimlessly.

“How many?” Marlene asked.

Slocum appreciated how quickly she was understanding the problem.

“A couple dozen. This must be the main body of the Indians. They're going west, likely to get water from the river.”

“They'd see us, wouldn't they?”

“If we tried to do the same.” Growing exasperation seized him. “I took us in the wrong direction. I thought the railroad was only a few miles away.”

“It might have been if we'd been closer to the river,” Marlene said, “but it doesn't run straight east and west. Immediately after crossing the Colorado, it takes a dogleg to the southeast, angling down toward Yuma.”

“How much farther do we have to ride to get to the tracks?”

Marlene shook her head. “I know there is a small station for taking on water that can't be too far away.”

“Water,” Slocum said. The word caused his mouth to turn even drier. “The Apaches have to know about the water tank. Why are they riding west if the station is east?” The answer worried him.

“We can find out,” Marlene said. “We don't need to follow the tracks.” She squinted at the sun, then drew a crude map. The wind erased her lines almost as fast as she ran her finger through the sand.

Slocum watched as she worked out where they had to ride, but he paid less attention to her drawing than to the woman. Not once had she complained. They had ridden until the horses were almost dead, then they'd dismounted and walked to rest the horses. Slocum barely had the strength to put one foot in front of another, but Marlene said nothing that didn't buoy his spirits and give him reason to keep going. How could he give up when he had to deliver her to her family in San Antonio?

“No, you wouldn't,” she said, looking up.

“What's that?”

“You'll never give up. No matter what, you won't surrender, to the Indians, to the desert, to simply dying. You're a fighter, John. I hear it in your words, and I see it in the set to your shoulders. You carry yourself like a winner.”

“I don't feel much like a winner,” he said. Stretching caused bunched muscles to protest. His back was covered with small cuts from rocks, and his chest still leaked blood in a dozen places where the Indians had tortured him.

Marlene looked at him. He tried to decipher the message in her eyes and couldn't. She looked down in embarrassment and ran her finger in a wide circle around her map.

“I didn't mean to be so forward,” she said. “It's not my place.”

“Seems like whatever place that is,” Slocum said, “it's where we are both stranded. How far from this sand dune to the watering station?” His finger dug down over the small X marking their destination.

“I've never had to guess such things. The times I've ridden the Yuma Bullet, I never left the train. When Mad Tom lowered the water spout, I wasn't allowed outside to watch.”

Slocum found that a curious thing to say because her pa was such an important man with the railroad. Most girls in her position insisted on having their way and what employee dared deny her when a simple comment to her pa could send him on his way?

“An hour,” she said suddenly. “It was an hour along the track from the bridge. That'd make the water tank thirty miles away. Or a little more because the track goes off at an angle.”

“A day's ride,” Slocum said. That was a hard day's ride in the desert. Without water, reaching the way station looked difficult if not impossible.

“The Indians won't be back until they've watered their horses,” she said. “If we start now, we can make it after dark.”

“Better to wait until it gets cooler, then ride like we mean it,” Slocum said. “We can get to the station before dawn.”

“I can use some rest.” She rubbed her forehead and left dirty streaks. Still, sweating was a good sign.

Slocum made a crude lean-to of their blankets and let the horses rest in the dubious shade of a gangly Joshua tree. He made certain both were securely staked before dropping beside Marlene in the lean-to. Her eyelids dipped and she muttered something he couldn't understand. It sounded as if she called out her own name, but she soon drifted off to troubled sleep. He stretched out, found a comfortable position, and soon slept, only to awaken hours later. His chest boiled and salt stung the cuts. But he saw the reason for the hot band circling his body. Marlene had draped her arm over him and nestled her head into his side.

A quick look at the sun told him he had slept about five hours. It felt cooler but only because it had been such a furnace all day long. Slocum looked down at Marlene, then reached over and laid his hand on her cheek. She stirred but didn't awaken. She moved her hand up and covered his before murmuring her own name again. She came alert when he slipped his hand away.

Her green eyes went wide with panic, then she settled down.

“I had a terrible dream,” she said, “but it was all right because you were there.” She reached out to him, but Slocum moved back enough so she couldn't quite reach him. “Oh, I understand. It's time to go.”

Seeing how she moved stirred feelings in him he tried to quash. She stretched her arms high above her head. This caused her breasts to flatten, but when she relaxed, they popped up firm and impudent. Much of her dress had been shredded again because of the fighting and riding. Before she had been shy, but now she moved in such a way as to emphasize her charms, even giving him a tantalizing glimpse of a pink nipple behind a dangling scrap of blouse.

“Will we have any trouble with the Apaches?” She brushed off sand from her skirt and turned away modestly to repair her clothing the best she could.

“I hope not.” Slocum instinctively touched his ­six-­shooter and knew a ­shoot-­out with so many Indians ended in only one way. Even if the trusty pistol fired and all the Apaches had run out of ammo, he and Marlene would still be goners. Sheer numbers would flood over them, and the war party would show no mercy.

He watched as she swung up onto the pony. He caught a hint of bare leg all the way to the thigh, then Marlene smoothed her skirts and sat primly. With a vault he mounted his horse and got his bearings from the setting sun. Due south added to their trip, though they would reach the railroad tracks fastest that way. The way station with water had become a more enticing goal because any repair crew might find itself fighting off the Apaches.

The sun sank into the hills in the direction of the river. At first the chill felt good, then Slocum began to shiver. He saw that the desert cold caused Marlene to shudder so hard her teeth chattered. Neither said a word. They kept riding. As the stars came out, Slocum got his bearings again.

“See the bright red star? We're following it.”

“Sirius?”

“Reckon I've heard it called that. A friend with a considerable amount of book learning said it's pronounced ‘serious' but spelled all different. I never heard why. It's in a constellation shaped like a dog, and the dog's chasing a rabbit. I don't much see it, but folks out on night herd have to do something to keep themselves awake so they make all this up.”

“Those are ancient Greek constellations,” she said. Hurriedly, she added, “I read about them in a book I had once. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, and it's in Canis Major.”

“The Big Dog.”

“Yes, and that's Lepus running toward Orion the Hunter.”

“You've done more than read all this in a book,” Slocum said.

“I spent a lot of nights outside when I was a little girl, perched in a tree, staring at the sky and wondering what's up there. You ever do that, John?”

“Wondering what's down here on the ground keeps me occupied.”

They talked of nothing but comparing different ­diamond-­hard stars as they rode until Slocum drew rein and pointed.

“See that? Starlight shining off railroad tracks.”

“You see
that
?” Marlene countered. “Starlight shining off a water tank! We've found the way station!”

She started to ride, but Slocum leaned over and grabbed the reins.

“Whoa. Don't be in such a rush. Something's not right.”

“It looks perfectly fine to me. There's the depot and the water tower and . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“The water spout's all broke and hanging down.”

“The station master would have repaired that right away.”

He bade her stay put while he dismounted and sneaked closer to the run-down building, which was hardly more than a ­one-­room shack. A dozen yards away, an outhouse had been pushed over. Slocum saw starlight shining off the wings of bugs flying above the honey hole. Other than the loud buzz from these insects, he heard nothing.

Moving like a ghost, he pressed himself flat against the cabin wall and peered between two split planks. The interior was blacker than a coal sack. Ear against the splintery wood, he listened for any sign of life. A ragged gasping sound punctuated with tiny moans warned him of someone inside.

It also prepared him for what he found when he stepped over part of the door, which had been kicked off its hinges. The man writhing in pain on a straw pallet had to be the station master from the occasional curses he uttered.

“Did the Apaches do this to you?” Slocum asked.

The man jerked so hard he sat upright. The effort proved too much for him. He fell heavily to the pallet amid a tiny cloud of dust.

“Who're you?”

“Name's Slocum. You the station master?”

“Ned Fisk. And yeah, them Injuns ambushed me. It's dark again. They musta shot me at dawn yesterday, but I outfoxed them and hid.”

Slocum had scouted the area as he worked closer to the cabin. That seemed unlikely and he said so.

Ned gasped, then laughed.

“They never thought to look in the outhouse.”

“You were in the hole?”

“Naw, the outhouse. I seen 'em comin' so I pushed it over, then crawled in. Nobody'd ever think to look in a ­knocked-­over outhouse. They didn't.”

“How'd you get so banged up?” Slocum moved closer and saw a couple bullet wounds in the man's chest.

“Cussed savages used the outhouse for target practice. I kept my tater trap shut in spite of 'em hittin' me ­four–­five times, shootin' right through the walls. Hardest thing I ever done, not cryin' out in pain. Harder even than watchin' 'em drink my water, then break the spout so's all the rest drained out.” Ned coughed again and turned to find a more comfortable position. “Gonna have the best damn crop of weeds under that water tower you ever did see. You spit on this ground here and weeds grow. You ever see a devil's claw? I got 'em all over the place. Nasty things to step on. Can ruin a horse's hoof. Goes right on through a boot, too.”

Slocum knew the man rattled on to hear his own voice, to assure himself he was still alive and to bend the ear of another human being. Alone in the desert, waiting for a train to come through, had to be as lonely a job as prospecting. In its way it had to be worse. The trains stopped for only a few minutes and then left. Ned Fisk had a taste of conversation often enough, but that'd be all he ever got. A taste. A sentence or two and then the locomotive would steam on into Yuma or Deming.

Kneeling, Slocum eased open Ned's shirt and examined the wounds. He examined two in the man's chest and two more in his upper thigh. Prowling about the cabin, Slocum found a small silver flask that sloshed with liquor inside. Not much but enough for what needed to be done.

“Damn heathens took a full bottle of my firewater. Reckon they never saw a gentleman's flask so they left that. Won it in a poker game over in San Diego a couple months back, just 'fore I come out here. Fool didn't know odds ­and—­hey, don't! Stop!”

Slocum used the brandy in the flask to cleanse the bullet wounds. When he'd finished, hardly a drop remained, but he let Ned suck on it.

“Waste o' good peach brandy, pourin' it on my bullet holes.”

Slocum probed carefully, found two slugs remained in the man's leg. The ones in his chest had gone plumb through. By the time he finished bandaging the station master up the best he could, Ned had passed out.

“Will he live?”

Slocum swung about, hand going to his ­six-­gun. He stopped when he saw Marlene outlined in the doorway. She held a bucket.

“I told you to stay with the horse.”

“I did. They're tied up under the water tower. Did the Indians destroy it?”

“You found some water?”

“The tank still has a few inches in it. I drained what I could and brought it when I heard you talking with Mr. Fisk.”

Slocum said nothing. Marlene had been eavesdropping longer than she let on if she'd caught the man's name.

“He'll do just fine. He's a tough old geezer,” Slocum said. He took the bucket, used the dipper to dribble water onto Ned's lips, then downed the rest himself.

“Not so fast. You'll bloat.”

“Don't much care. It goes down good.” He paused. “You've drunk your fill?”

“Why, no. I brought it straightaway here for him . . . and for you.”

Slocum held out the dipper. Marlene came closer, then greedily drank as he tipped it over and let water drip into her mouth. Some ran down her chin and dribbled onto her bodice, causing the fabric to turn transparent and show the flesh beneath. He was sorry when the bucket ran empty.

“There's more,” she said, but he wasn't sure she meant water.