The Painted Desert runs to color, of course, but, more than that, it runs to weird rock formations. Little outcroppings of rock thrust out from the main formations, standing up to a height of from ten to a hundred feet, have had the sand whipped against them for thousands of years, until the sand has carved them into freakish designs.
These rocks are formed of strata of different hardness. Some of them the sand wears away in a few hundred years, some last three or four times that long; and the rock finally takes on a peculiar appearance, as though big pancakes of different sizes had been plunked down, one on the other, all of different color. Then the profiles show up in strange shapes against the blue black of the desert sky.
At nightfall, we had a few swigs of water, stretched out our blankets and slept.
The next day was a tiresome repetition of the first. The water was low in our canteens, despite the fact that we were trained to disregard the “mouth-thirst” of the tenderfoot. A little water at morning, a few sips at night, and we could travel all day.
It wasn’t until late afternoon of the next day that we came to the end of the mapped road. It was a little spring of clear water that trickled out of a rock fissure. We filled the canteens.
There was no one to meet us, no sign of any one. But we knew something of the Indians. We looked around.
Fifteen feet from the water, we found a little forked stick, apparently dropped carelessly on the ground. It pointed northeast. We followed the direction of the stick.
Toward dark we found another stick, just a little forked branch of desert plant, dry and brittle. It pointed northeast. We kept on until it got pretty dark. Then we made camp on a little rise of ground.
There was a little crescent of moon, in the west, a moon that was a couple of days old. We watched it slide down below the horizon. Then I noticed a pin-prick of red light, off to the east and north. I looked at it and it disappeared. I didn’t say anything about it, but I kept watching.
A coyote yap-yapped-yippety-yapped a few preliminaries, and then burst into a full-throated screaming of hysterical discord that sounded like a dozen brazen throats getting into play at once.
I kept watching the place where I’d seen the red pin-prick of light. Then I saw it again. This time it was brighter. I lined it up with one of the low stars, and then told my companions about it.
“Somebody’s got a little campfire over there,” I said.
They both saw it when I pointed.
“We can come back later on and get the packs,” I said. “It may be our man, and it may not.”
I could hear them getting to their feet. They didn’t say anything at all. That’s the nice part about desert-bred companionship. People aren’t always babbling half-formed ideas, valueless reminiscences and meaningless words. There’s a dignity about the desert that impresses itself upon the people who live in it and love it. After a while it does things to their natures. Notice any one who’s spent a lot of time in the desert. He’ll have sun-bleached eyes, a voice that has something of the stinging of drifting sand in it, and he won’t talk much. The desert leaves its imprint upon all of them.
We trudged along toward that speck of red light. The starlight reflected from the sand showed something of the surface of the desert, enough to enable us to keep from floundering over ridges, slamming into sagebrush, or dropping into ravines.
Walking in a dim light that’s almost no light at all is a strain, however. The eyes keep trying to focus, as though they could stare more light into the surroundings.
The campfire got brighter as we got nearer. At that, it was quite a distance. It wasn’t an Indian fire. I could tell that when we were a quarter of a mile away.
We reached the illumination after a while and we could see four black shadows between us and the firelight.
I called, “Halloo!”
The four black silhouettes scrambled into motion that was as abrupt as though I’d dropped a bombshell into their midst. I could see hands tugging weapons from holsters.
“They aren’t desert men,” I said.
I heard Ed Kaplin grunt assent.
Then, abruptly, the figures scattered into the darkness on either side of the fire.
“But they’ve got a desert man with them,” I went on.
And again I heard Kaplin’s grunt of assent. It was a cinch that a desert man, surprised when he was near his campfire, would never have remained outlined against the light of the fire — not if he’d been suspicious enough to go for a gun when he heard the hail. The fact that those men tugged out their guns, and then remained against the light of the fire showed that they were city bred; just as the fact that they moved with a swift unison which showed that some word of command had been spoken, indicated that some desert-wise man in the shadows had given an order.
That would mean five men in all.
I wondered if the one who had given the order might be Hoste-Ne-Bega.
“We’re friends,” I called.
“Well,” said a voice from the blackness, “come on in by the fire, and let’s have a look at you.”
I didn’t like the sound of that voice.
“They’ve heard my voice,” I whispered to Kaplin. “But they don’t know that you’re here. I’ll go on in with Bess. You stick around and wait until you’re sure that everything’s all right before you come in. If anything happens, you’ll have the drop on ’em from out here.”
He hissed a whisper that showed he understood, and Bess and I walked into the circle of firelight.
After a while the men began to ooze in out of the darkness. They were a sorry looking lot. From the minute I saw them, I didn’t like them. They were of the city all right, but they’d been in the desert a while — long enough to allow their skins to become brown and to get over the first angry red which comes to the city born when they tackle the desert.
There were four of them, right enough. But there was another man who stuck out in the darkness. He must have been there, because it had certainly been a desert dweller who had sent them tumbling out of the firelight, and these four men were city men — definitely. I could tell it from their hands, from the way they stood around the fire, from the guns they used — automatics that gave lots of shots fast, but weren’t the guns a desert man would have used as holster weapons.
Not that we pack guns around in the open, when we’re around our fellow man. The old prospector may have a gun in a slick holster, worn black and smooth by years of use — when he’s out on the desert. If he’s going on a trip, when he thinks he may run into a claim jumper, he’ll have it with him pretty steadily. But for the most part the desert man will have his gun in his war bag, when he’s around his fellow mortals. A desert man would never make the mistake of going for his iron, and then remaining outlined against a campfire.
I had my own gun at my hip because I’d rather expected some sort of trouble, following the hunch Bess had. And she had stuck a gun down the front of her blouse. But neither of us were making any false motions toward the guns. When we pulled ’em there’d be action, and we wouldn’t stick around a campfire, either.
The men sat down on the sand, and they sat awkwardly. Bess dropped to a sitting position, light as a feather. I sat on my heels, the way of the desert man who’s making himself comfortable for a short visit.
“Looking for an Indian who’s supposed to be in these parts,” I said.
“Yeah?” asked one of the men swiftly. “What’s his name?” Bess told him the name. I wouldn’t have done it, not just then — not until the other man showed up, at any rate.