West of Tombstone (7 page)

‘Hurry up!'

‘Where are the guards?'

‘At a meeting: I told you I had a reason for picking this night,' Hogan lied thinly.

Cameron almost laughed out loud. Let him lie, let him complete the ruse. In only a little time he would be free on the desert. Then let Hogan and the others do their best; he would at least have a chance.

They clattered down the adobe steps, their heavy work boots making far too much noise. Still no one else stirred in the prison until they had nearly reached the steel door to the warden's office. The figure appeared from out of the shadows. Hogan drew up short, obviously confused and startled.

‘I'm going with you boys,' Voonman said in a low voice.

‘The hell you are,' Hogan said bitterly.

‘The hell I'm not,' Voorman said, and, in his hand, Cameron could make out the long, thin menace of a leather awl. ‘No time for arguing now, Hogan.'

‘No,' Hogan agreed haltingly. He knew that Voorman was a killer and believed the man would use the long deadly awl if pushed to it.

‘Get the door,' Voorman commanded, and Hogan did so, cursing under his breath. He shot a poisonous glance at Cameron, knowing who had given up the plan to Voorman. Cameron Black cared nothing at all for the threat or Hogan's frustration. The three men shouldered through the partially locked steel door and made for the window opposite. They quickly dragged the warden's desk beneath the high narrow window and in another moment were outside.

It was a matter of minutes before they had scaled the twelve-foot outer wall using the Indian ladder made from a barked pole with a dozen cross pieces secured to it with rawhide. Then, dropping to the sandy earth on the far side, Hogan led them on a weaving run through the tall sage and greasewood to a small clearing where two horses waited in the night, their eyes bright with curiosity and reflected starlight.

‘There's only two horses,' Hogan said, stating the obvious.

‘They'll do to get us on our way,' Voorman said. ‘I'll ride behind you, Hogan.'

‘Why not with Stony?' Hogan said complainingly.

‘Because I say we do it this way,' Voorman said, and Hogan, knowing what the desperate man could do with a thrust of the awl, could only nod with resignation.

Cameron took one of the horses, a roan with a bad coat, while the other men clambered aboard a time-weary bay, an old army horse, Cameron guessed. Neither was in its prime, but why would the escapees be supplied with sturdy mounts? Cameron wished he had Dolly under him. He might even then have made a break for it if he had Harte's mare, but he did not. He followed docilely. From here on, he knew, every chance at escape had to be attanded to.

There was a small creek here which was the prison's water supply. As usual in this part of the country it was lined with willow brush, here and there a clump of cottonwood trees casting shadows against the sand and only now and then a sycamore. They followed the creek northward for half a mile and then Voorman had Hogan halt the bay horse.

‘Back toward the south now, I think.'

‘We're wasting time!' Hogan said peevishly.

‘It's not time wasted if we can confuse them,' Voorman said strongly. ‘Once we hit the flats we're visible for miles and any good horses can run down these pieces of dog meat we're riding. I don't intend to get caught, do you, Hogan?'

‘Of course not,' Hogan said indignantly. He wiped his hand across his face. The moon was beginning to rise too quickly to the west. ‘I just wanted to put some ground under us before they got wise.'

There was palpable tension between the two, each mistrusting the other as they started to back-track, riding in the creek proper to disguise their tracks. Hopefully the prison did not have an Indian tracker or an experienced army scout at its disposal. Most men, Cameron knew, could not find such slight traces as a stone chipped by a steel horseshoe, let alone follow after them swiftly. Voorman, he knew, was correct and he was momentarily glad that the Dutchman was with him.

But which of the two was to be more feared? Hogan's job was to find the missing stolen money by coercing Cameron Black. Once he finally came to understand that Cameron was not Stony Harte, he was apt simply to leave him in the desert to die. Voorman? Did the Dutchman simply wish to escape or had he made a separate bargain with the authorities to try to make them reconsider his own pending death sentence?

There was no telling. Cameron could trust neither of them, he knew. His wish had been to find Stony Harte, somehow recover the loot and return it. Return it to … he was still a young man and unused to duplicity, but he realized that Warden Traylor and Sheriff Barney Yount who had been at this sort of business for a long time would happily welcome him back with the money – and as happily toss him back into a cell where he would never live to tell his tale.

No, the only intelligent thing to do, he considered, as his horse plodded on along the dwindling watercourse and they moved out onto the wide desert, was to wait for his chance and make a break for California, Mexico … anywhere.

But that would leave Stony Harte unpunished, wouldn't it? And for what Stony's betrayal had caused him to go through, the bandit would pay if Cameron could find a way.

‘Where'd you get these horses?' Voorman demanded angrily.

‘When you're in need you can't pick and choose,' Hogan shot back, regaining his recklessness.

‘This damn' beast is staggering already. We're going to have to walk a way and we haven't made twenty miles. And look at that half-moon rising! We're nothing but targets out here.'

‘If you hadn't doubled back.…' Hogan sputtered.

‘If we hadn't, they'd probably already have us!'

The argument was somewhat surreal since both men knew that there would be no posse swooping down on them until they had somehow convinced or forced Cameron to show them where the stolen money was hidden. But both men were on edge – Cameron thought Hogan was nervous because he did not want to leave the pursuit behind and feared the doubling back might have done so. Then Voorman, although he probably would have liked to see the money, was a convicted killer who feared the men from the prison could be too close.

Cam allowed them their squabble, pretending to know nothing. Nonetheless, the horses, aged and out of condition, were weary and the three swung down to walk, leading the ponies across the moon-glossed white desert. The second day was a duplicate of the first, horse and man staggering across an endless desert waste with a merciless sun overhead.

‘We got to make camp,' Hogan complained, as they struggled on through the deep sand.

‘Not out here,' Voorman said. ‘Let's find us a place to lay up after sunrise. If we can't find water, we won't make it far in the heat.'

‘If we could find a ranch, maybe a small pueblo where we could snag up some good horses.…'

‘“If” is a fine and meaningless word,' Voorman grumbled.

‘Hell with you,' Hogan said. He was gradually regaining his truculence, convinced now, perhaps, that Voorman wasn't going to attempt to murder him.

The sand became deeper and by the middle of the night they found themselves wandering through a moonscape of dunes, forty- to fifty-feet high. The horses labored on, Cameron could hear their breathing and the hard breathing of the men. Hogan, Cameron noticed, looked back across his shoulder more and more frequently as if waiting for help to arrive. It was still far too soon; and then, maybe Voorman's maneuvering back on the creek had truly concealed their course from any pursuers.

‘There's no two ways about it,' Hogan said, as the three men sat resting in the scant shade of a half-dozen ocotillo bushes. The spiny plants rose twenty feet over their heads and the tips of these ‘coachman's whips' were decorated with incarnadine flowers at this time of year. The shadows of the tall whiplike plants wove and recrossed casting a basket weave of shadow against the hot sand. Cameron saw a fat horned toad, body panting as it breathed the hot dusty air.

‘We've got to find a little town, a ranch.'

‘Water,' Voorman said.

‘Yes. At least water, or we're not long for it. How about it, Harte? They say you know this desert as well as any man.'

Cameron hesitated a moment too long before answering, ‘Not this far south, I'm afraid.'

‘Water, boys,' Voorman repeated. ‘Some clothes if we can find them,' he said, plucking at his pale, ill-fitting prison garb. ‘And fresh horses. We haven't got a chance continuing as we are.'

They weren't quite desperate yet, but as twilight again began to dull the land with deep violet, Cameron's lips were cracked with the heat and the back of his neck was burned raw. The two horses – what were they, plow horses! – stumbled on through the sand and then across the rock-strewn flats with their heads lowered, bodies swaying without energy. All the same, the horses were liable to last longer than they were out here. One more day – did they have the strength to ride one more day through the desert's blast-furnace heat?

‘If we could find the Colorado, we'd be all right,' Voorman said.

‘That's a big snaking river. Which direction is it from here, do you think, Dutchman?'

‘I don't know! Damn all.'

‘We'll be all right. It will take some time, that's all,' Hogan said, with a confidence he might or might not have felt. ‘No one said it would be easy. We all knew what we were up against when we made this choice.'

After sundown on this night they camped on a low, rocky rise where yucca and some thorny mesquite trees grew. No one spoke. They were all thirsty, all hungry. Tempers were too short to risk much conversation.

Voorman did say, as he stood and pointed out toward the south, ‘Boys, I believe I see light that way. Camp-fire maybe, maybe a town!'

Neither of the others could see it; besides, whatever it was, it was too far for them to investigate on that cold night with man and horse beaten by the long miles.

‘I say we strike out that direction come morning,' the Dutchman said. ‘I tell you, I saw light.'

‘It makes no difference to me,' Hogan said, as he rolled up in his only blanket. Although Cameron knew that it probably did. Each day was taking them away from where the money was supposed to be hidden. Both of his companions had to be aware of that.

Nearly asleep, Cameron was awakened by a shuffling sound near his poor bed. He saw the Dutchman hovering over him and he stiffened reflexively. Voorman bent low and whispered very low but excitedly.

‘Hogan's got to have a gun with him. I mean to get it when he's full asleep. Are you with me, Harte?'

He nodded slowly. Voorman clapped him on the shoulder and skulked away. Cameron Black was still a cub among these violent wolves. He should have considered before that Hogan would have a gun. Of course he would, perhaps hidden in his saddle-bags. How else could he have been sure of gaining the upper hand when the time came?

He hadn't meant to agree to Voorman's plan, but there had been no choice. To join Voorman would incur Hogan's wrath, but to refuse the Dutchman would raise the suspicions of both of them as to where his loyalties lay.

The die was now cast for the attempt anyway. Cameron rested on his back, squirming from time to time as the rocks prodded him. He had one hand behind his head and, as he lay there in the silence, the dark near shadow of a great horned owl cast its sudden broad-winged silhouette against the rising half moon and it sent a little tremor down his spine.

Had he believed in omens as ancient men had.… He needed no omen to tell him that this night could come to no good end.

Voorman touched his shoulder and beckoned and Cameron rose to his knees. Silently then they inched to where Hogan lay curled up on his side. The men moved slowly and silently, on hands and knees across the cold camp. Hogan groaned in his sleep and rolled over toward them. His eyes opened slightly, and Cameron could see the white glow in the mask of the mustached man's dark face.

Cameron saw Voorman leap forward and he tried to hold him, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Hogan threw up protective arms but the heavy stone in the Dutchman's hand was already arcing down. It struck Hogan solidly on the skull and Hogan sagged back lifelessly.

Voorman turned and sat on the ground, grinning.

‘Don't look like that, Stony. You know he would have made you lead him to the loot and then he would have watched as you dug your own grave.' He rose heavily with a grunt of effort. ‘I told you I'd be your right hand.' He nodded at the inert form of Hogan as if that were proof of his statement. ‘Now let's find that gun.'

About that, Voorman proved to be correct. The gun was not hidden away in the saddle-bags of Hogan's horse, however. They found it strapped to his leg just above the ankle. Voorman opened the cylinder gate, satisfied himself that the revolver was fully loaded and nodded.

‘We're half again as well off,' he said, tucking the pistol behind his belt. ‘Two horses, two men – and no one we have to watch behind our backs.'

Cameron nodded. His stomach was cramped with revulsion. He liked none of this, had not from the start. At the first possibility, he was going to make an attempt to escape.

Voorman was standing, hands on his hips, looking again toward the south where he thought he had seen lights earlier. He glanced up at the bright half-moon, still and silver hanging above them and told Cameron, ‘We might as well be traveling. I think there's plenty of moonlight. Besides,' he said disparagingly, ‘I've had enough of him to last me.'

So had Cameron. He kept his eyes averted from the formless figure sprawled against the ground as he saddled and mounted up, riding the roan once again. The horse allowed his weight as if with utmost sadness, but with stolid resignation. They rode slowly southward. The terrain rolled gently, but the multitude of rocks strewn across the barren hills made for slow going. There were a few flowering yuccas around and now and then a patch of evil-looking cholla, ‘jumping cactus', their barbed spines silver in the moonlight.