Terror at Hellhole (19 page)

Knowing that there was no water or food on the premises, he began to trot toward the river. He needed to refresh himself—dirt and Carugna's blood caked his sweat-drenched clothing. At the Gila river he took a quick plunge, then drank deeply of the cool water. Squinting at the sun, he took a southeasterly bearing and walked rapidly.

The sun was a molten orb focusing on Print's shaven head, and he cursed himself for not having taken Carala's cap, or even picked up his own blood-covered hat from the grave. Heat from the sky hammered down on him, and reflected back from the sand, stealing his breath away. He had once heard that this Sonoran desert often reached 150 degrees, and he felt that today was one of those days.

His ankle began to throb where the lead weight had chafed it raw while he walked. Suddenly he realized that he was not moving very fast, and that the rifle's weight was becoming noticeable. He licked his dry lips and spurred himself to a faster pace through the endless sand.

It was late afternoon when his dragging feet came to a halt. Rifle hanging, stock to the ground, he peered behind him through burning eyes. Here and there long scrub bushes hugged the torturing sand and the shimmering heat waves radiating from the ground distorted his vision.

Hell, right now he couldn't make out a man from a bush anyway. Why keep looking? Besides, when they came there'd be many of them, and with horses, too. Yet something akin to cold fear lay in the recesses of his mind, and he knew it had nothing to do with a posse.

Then his eyes caught a flutter on a waist-high cactus off to his left. Shuffling quickly forward he found an arrow sunk deep into the cactus barrel. It was a short piece of yellow ribbon tied to the shaft that had attracted his attention. Quickly his eyes swept the brush again before he saw the second arrow partially driven into the ground with its wisp of yellow ribbon visible. Yellow ribbons! Fear clamped his chest like a giant band.

Honas Good's young wife had yellow ribbons braided in her hair that fateful day! He began to run off to the right, frantically eager to put distance between him and the fearful arrows.

Gulping hot air into overworked lungs soon reduced his movement to a stumbling pace before he stopped. Feebly he wiped a hand over his dry mouth, then tried to lick the sweat from the back of his hand. Throat rasping, he began to walk again, his steps dragging weakly. The sun had reached the horizon when he revived from a somnambulistic stupor.

He stopped and gazed bleary-eyed at the scrub trees ahead. Trees meant that water was somewhere beneath that burning sand, and he shuffled rapidly forward. There it was, a tiny pool of water nestled between the trees. Print dropped to his knees and lay with his face in the water and when he had drunk the puddle dry, he scraped deeper into the sand until more water bubbled up. Pieces of adobe and sticks mingled with sand clogging the well were pushed aside by Print in his frenzy to get more water.

His thirst quenched, he got to his feet and peered around, for there was something familiar about this place. Adobe blocks were scattered around, half covered by sand, and a corner of a structure was still intact against the ravages of the desert winds. The brush roof had long since blown away, along with other debris. Then his glance came back to the well at his feet; this had once been a thriving well, not a mere water hole partially blocked and blown over with sand. Then an eerie feeling like a frosty finger touched his spine. This had been the homesite of those Quechan trackers and the two women he had helped ravish and kill!

Once again he glanced furtively around at the purple gloom settling over the land. Was there someone still out there, someone tracking him? He felt cold in spite of the heat still radiating up from the sand. But he knew that he had to rest and recharge his waning energy. Water would help and he was glad he had been able to find some. He would sleep a few hours, then drink his fill of the precious water before leaving. Even though he had no canteen his rejuvenated strength should carry him to Mexico by tomorrow afternoon.

But tired as he was his superstition would not let him sleep near the ruins of the
jacal
. He curled up on the sand a short distance away, the rifle at his side, before a wearied sleep overtook him. Soon in his troubled dreams the dead women began stirring with the desert wind now starting to blow.

Several times he jerked awake with a start at the low moaning of the wind, which at times sounded like curses, then, rising in pitch, it sounded like the lamented wailing of women in sorrow. Straining his eyes into the shadowy darkness, he keened his ears striving to determine the source of every new sound chilling him. And each time he awakened he hurriedly sat up, until exhausted, his strength deserted him and he slept.

But on the last day of the other man's life fate was not less harsh. Hedgemon Print awoke with a start. Grabbing his rifle he got to his feet, striving to see that which had awakened him, but he could see nothing in the moonless gloom.

He cocked his head against the blowing wind, but could hear nothing above the whisper in the trees. A light shiver passed over him when he looked toward the adobe ruins that once had been an Indian hovel. Still tired, his mind began to function—better he leave here at once now that he was awake, but first he needed to drink his fill of water.

He searched around in the dark but couldn't seem to find the well. Maybe it had sanded over, he thought, but the wind hadn't been that gusty. Regardless, he had to have water. On hands and knees he crawled until he found the wet spot on the sand, then he scooped with both hands until a small pool formed. He drank eagerly, by cupping his hand into the water. Phtew! He spat the foul-tasting water from his mouth.

He spat again before smelling his hand. The strong odor of urine assailed his nostrils. Someone had soiled the water!

“Damn it!” he cursed angrily; someone had fouled the well so that he couldn't drink. And no wonder he had such a difficult time finding the well; someone purposely had scraped over it after urinating in the water.

Latent fear suddenly shot through him—if someone was close enough to besmirch the water, they were close enough to kill him! He raised the rifle quickly. Any man trying to take him now would die in the attempt, he told himself. His hand reached to lever a cartridge into the chamber but found only a twisted stub of metal where the lever had been.

Fear slashed through Print like lightning. Someone had fouled the well, then had surreptitiously taken his rifle and broken off the lever before returning it to his side. Why hadn't that someone killed him while he lay sleeping? What manner of man could do this? Where was he now?

Nerves taut, he spun around wide-eyed, staggering while he stared into the shrouding gloom. But he could see nothing in the darkness, so he dropped the useless rifle and began to run clumsily as though possessed. When his lungs seemed ready to burst, he stopped and looked behind him in vain.

Sides heaving, he strained his ears for sounds of pursuit but heard nothing. He began walking slowly, gulping air until his breath fitfully returned. When the eastern sky began to lighten, he quickened his shuffling pace. The wind had died and warm air was already beginning to move upward from the sand when the sun neared the crest of the distant hills. He glanced quickly behind him again but the horizon was clear. He took another bearing for the direction and was chagrined to find he had wasted most of the night stumbling eastward instead of moving toward Mexico.

He licked dry lips, wishing that he had drank more water while he had the chance last night. He moved in a southerly direction with dragging steps as fast as he was able, trying to cover as much distance as possible before the blazing heat began.

Damn those two Indians, he thought. Why hadn't they minded their own business and not tracked him and Laustina that fateful day they had robbed the stagecoach? Why were they helping a damn sheriff, of all people, anyway? He had nothing against Indians except that they were a white man's pawn when they took up tracking for a living. Begrudgingly, he admitted they were good. Damn them all anyway, he cursed to himself, hadn't they found him and Laustina within twenty miles of the stage robbery?

Again he glanced nervously behind but nothing moved in the early morning light. The heat pressed down on him with surprising suddenness when the sun finally crested into the open. Feet dragging, his tongue thick and dry, Hedgemon Print kept moving. Far ahead lay the purple-blue hills of Mexico and safety if only he could reach them before the full heat of the desert engulfed him.

He would have to get to water in order to keep up this pace or he would surely die. Death comes to everyone, he thought, even to that bull of a man, Laustina. But not me, he growled to himself, at least not yet. Then thinking of bulls, he recalled a bullfight he had once witnessed in Mexico a long time ago.

Even though he was a violent man, he had somehow hated the bullfight. A fight was a fight but he hadn't liked the way those Mexicans wouldn't stand up to the bull, and he hadn't liked the way they had danced around while they stuck the animal at the top of his shoulders with their barbs before running away from him. The matador, however, had been a little different. He had been more clever but he stood in front while he challenged the bull, goading him gradually into outraged recklessness when he could endure no more. Finally, after the beast had been tormented until his strength was gone, the matador held his ground. He had met the bull's lethargic charge and deftly slid a sword downward into the animal's heart.

Suddenly a chill swept through him—wasn't this exactly what was happening to him? Wasn't he being goaded like a bull into exhausting anger and made ready for the kill?

He stumbled while frantically looking behind again, striving to see through the shimmering desert. Damn it, where was this cunning matador he couldn't see? Was he out there now?

Staggering onward once more, Print's feet still moved but his mind was beginning to sink into a torpor. Throat raw, his lips cracked, he noticed that the terrain had changed. Long, shallow-fingered draws and washes stemmed out from the hills. He cast another lingering look over his shoulder but nothing moved save for the shimmering heat waves above the scrubby sage.

Yet he felt that someone was out there—that matador who was relentlessly goading him on. Goading, goading, goading! The sounds now coming from deep within his chest were merely croaks as he cursed his unseen nemesis.

His brain numbed, he shuffled his feet, step by step, gasping for air through dried throat and mouth. He staggered onward. How little or how long he had been walking was unknown but suddenly a great haze seemed to appear in front of him and he halted.

He reared back his head. It took a long moment for the scene to penetrate his befuddled mind—the hills just in front of him were on the Mexican border!

“I...have...won...,” he cackled hoarsely. Only a few more yards and he would be safe in Mexico. Then he would have to find water, and soon, for he was growing steadily weaker.

Just like that bull in the arena, dragged slowly through his mind.

He staggered forward before sliding helplessly down into a ravine in a heap, but when he reached the top of the other side, he would be in Mexico! Head down, with eyes fixed on the sand, he slowly began crawling on hands and knees to the top of the other bank before something caused him to stop.

His brain gradually registered when his eyes took in the knee-length moccasins a few steps in front of him. Numbly, he raised his head. In front of him stood the silent matador who had been harrying him these many miles across the blazing desert. Terror froze his very mind!

Naked, except for a leather loincloth, the awesome Quechan stood, his face painted in a ceremonial blood-red death mask with a black stripe leading down across his forehead and nose. A bright yellow palm print was stained on his chest near his heart, with two thin black horizontal lines through the palm print.

Startled, Print wearily raised his eyes to the foreboding long-handled knife the Quechan had drawn from his loincloth before moving slowly forward. With a hoarse cry of despair, Print pushed to his feet to grapple with Honas Good. His left hand grasped the warrior's knife wrist, while the Quechan clutched the Negro's other wrist.

Muscles bowed and knotted, they stood face to face straining their sinews, trying to bow each other. Perspiration flowed down Print's face as they locked in a duel of brute strength, but the goading of the matador had taken its toll. In his weakened condition, Print's strength slowly gave way to the relentless pressure of the painted Quechan.

The knife moved slowly downward. Veins, like ropes, stood out on Print's forehead as his legs gradually bowed under the Indian's steady determination and his knees dipped toward the ground.

His throat was too raw to gasp for air before the tip of the Quechan's long blade touched flesh between his left collarbone and back muscles.
Mercilessly goaded and now stabbed just like the bull in the arena
, ran through Print's mind before Honas lunged the blade downward in a powerful thrust.

Print's mouth flew open, but pinched shut tightly without uttering a sound. The long blade had reached Print's heart and he sagged to both knees in the sand. After a moment, Honas withdrew his knife and Print's body fell face downward. He wiped the knife blade clean on the convict's striped uniform before he straightened.

He looked once in the direction of the land of his forefathers with deep regeret for all his losses. His wife Avita was back there dead; Palma his friend was dead, and so were all his dreams for life.

It was then he realized that maybe he had misinterpreted his dreams, for after all, he was still a Quechan. He wasn't meant to have wealth or live in the world of the white man. As in his dreams, he would never be able to hold on to his worldly goods. He would constantly lose them along the way.

He turned his eyes back toward the hills of Mexico and his mind moved to the past. Somewhere, hiding in those hills, there were still the remnants of the tribes of the Quechan, awaiting a new leader. Perhaps he could gather them together and lead them against the white man, even unto death. He turned and trotted gracefully up the hill.