“We want to go to Burro Springs,” he said.
“That all?” I asked.
“That’s all,” he said.
“No reason for all the secrecy then. Hundreds of people go to Burro Springs. You come in a car?”
“Yes.”
“Better store it and get something to eat then. Meet me here at three o’clock, and we start. Give me some money now.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
I thought the sum would scare him out and then I’d be free to go back to my own business. But he took out a roll, peeled off the three outside bills as though he’d been tossing scraps of meat to a stray dog, and walked away.
I hated his insides, but I couldn’t turn down twenty dollars a day. I started getting the outfit together.
This much I’ll say for him, he was on time.
They showed up at three o’clock, on the dot. I had the whole thing packed and ready to go. Some of the saddles were pretty ancient, but they’d make the trip, and they were the best the desert town afforded.
I saw the girl then, and the other two men.
No one introduced us. They just asked which burros they were to ride, and climbed aboard. I lengthened the stirrups on one of the men’s saddles and shortened those on the girl’s saddle, and then we started.
She was slender, gray eyed, and silent. There was a poise about her that I liked. The other two men were puzzles to me. They walked with a swagger, and they wore city clothes and looked as though they’d like to fight the world.
Oh, well, the desert would take that out of them.
I led the way. The afternoon start gave us the sun at our backs, made it possible to get ’em broken in to the saddle without killing ’em, and caught the desert when the glare wasn’t so bad.
We angled down the steep slope of colored mountains, watched the shadows fill the cañons with purple, and came to the camping place I’d picked.
“Where’s the water?” asked Fargo.
“In the canteens.”
“Isn’t there any spring?”
“Not here. To-morrow night.”
“I want to wash.”
“Go ahead. There are four canteens, one apiece. Use that water any way you want. It’ll last you until to-morrow night.”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
I got a campfire going and put on some tea water. Then I looked around to see who was doing what. Evidently I was the only customer. No one seemed to think they should do anything, except the girl. She came over to help with the cooking.
“I’m Vera Camm,” she said. “I know your name. You’re Bob Zane. I want to help.”
I saw her right hand thrust out, and took it in my grizzled desert paw. I liked her smile and her voice. We cooked them up a good meal. The girl straightened up the dishes. The men did nothing.
The campfire died down, and the desert mountains got a tang in the air that penetrated.
Fargo shivered, looked at me.
“The fire’s dying down,” he said.
I nodded.
“We need some more wood,” he said, after a while.
I waved my hand toward the side of the mountain.
“There’s lots of sage. It makes a good fire.”
He sat still, and I sat still. The cold crept in. It’s a dry, insidious cold, but the air’s so light that it gets into your blood. The fire was just coals, and the stars came out and blazed steadily as the light of the fire shrank.
I kicked off my shoes and rolled up in my blankets.
After a few minutes Fargo turned to one of the two men.
“Harry,” he said, “go get some wood.”
The man got up and looked steadily at Fargo for a minute.
“Yeah,” he said, “we’ll all go.”
The other man got up. They both looked at Fargo. He squirmed. I could hear his breath suck in as he started to say something. Then he got to his feet. He was reluctant about it, but he went.
They came back with wood and threw it on the coals. It made quite a fire. They sat up and talked for quite a while. I went to sleep, woke up once or twice, found ’em still huddled there, the girl had gone off to her blankets. I noticed that she spread ’em so I was between her and the men.
About two o’clock in the morning I woke up.
Everything was quiet. The stars were steady, and the coals had gone down until there was just a reddish glow under the ashes.
The wind was coming down the slope.
Pretty soon the desert would start to whisper. That’s the way the desert does, nights. The wind springs up without warning, dies down the same way. The sand slithers along on the wind and rattles against the sage until it seems to whisper. Then, when the wind freshens, the sand slithering along the sandy surface of the desert makes the most elusive whisper of them all, the pure sand whisper.
A lot of old timers claim they can hear words when the desert starts to talk and they’re drifting off to sleep. It’s just a trick the ears play on a man’s brain when he’s dozing off, of course, but it’s something you’ll hear from almost anybody that’s spent much of his life in the desert.
I listened as the wind freshened and the sand started its hissing whispers. All around me I could hear the people stirring in their blankets, shifting about. I could have cut sage for them and made a pretty comfortable mattress under each blanket roll, but I didn’t do it. I had a hunch they might be out some time, and it’d be better to let ’em get hardened up. The desert’s cruel, all right, and it’s kindly. It’s the cruelty that makes it kind. It licks people into shape.
Mercy and kindness are funny things. Sometimes you can be more kind to people by being cruel to ’em. Lots of times you see people that have been pampered and humored all their lives until it’s done funny things to their characters. The desert ain’t that kind. It don’t pamper anybody. It’s like the ocean. One mistake, and that’s all.
The desert breeds men.
I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up the east was getting greenish with a streak of red on the opposite range of mountains that shut off the first of the sunrise colors.
I kicked out of my blankets and started after the burros.
I figured they’d either get up and start the fire and the coffee, or they wouldn’t. If they did, they’d get a good breakfast. If they didn’t, they’d take what they got. I could travel a long ways without much grub; I figured the others were accustomed to city stuff.
One of the burros was a drifter. I cussed. That meant the others were following along, hobbles and all. A burro that’s a good drifter can do a lot, even with hobbles.
I was some little time getting ’em located. Then they were down a mean cañon. Only a burro could have gone down the way they went; a horse would never have done it, not with hobbles.
The sun was slanting along the high slopes as I started back with the burros. I topped the ridge and heard a crisp revolver shot. Then I heard another and another.
I hadn’t strapped on my gat, but left it in my bed roll, which is the proper place for a gent’s gun, the way things are nowadays in the desert.
But those revolver shots sounded like business.
I slid off the burro I was forking, and crawled up to the ragged summit of the ridge, picked a place for my head where it wouldn’t be too prominent, and looked down.
They were the two men who were with Fargo. At first I didn’t get it. They were making funny motions, jumping about and shooting. I thought maybe it was a rattlesnake when I saw the bullets kick up the dust.
Then I saw what they were doing. They were practicing. They had shoulder holsters, and they were putting the guns back in them between shots. Then they’d crouch, whip their hands to the guns, rip ’em out, and fire at a bowlder that was on the ground.