There were all those difficulties ahead of us, all right, but they were bridges we could cross when we came to them. What worried me was whether we could make the auto road, and whether there’d be a machine along it in time to do us any good. I had a hunch these men might start getting some sense, and patrol the routes toward the highway. There were some passes...
And then finally the girl started to sob.
I have a hard time when a woman sobs. I don’t hear it often enough. She cried for maybe a full minute, and then clung to my shoulder and quit it.
“I’m trusting to you,” she said. “I wish I’d confided in you right at the start.”
That would have been a wonderful idea, if she’d had it sooner, but it wasn’t of much use now. There was no time to waste figuring what would have been a good move to make if we’d made it.
“Let’s go,” I told her.
I helped her ease her way down the outcropping so she wouldn’t make any noise, and we started to walk. It was slow going, trying to be silent, and I knew that the faintest noise would bring them down on us. And they’d know then what we’d done to throw them off the trail the first time. It wouldn’t be so easy the second time.
We got pretty well out of the cañon, and I turned the girl so she was angling along a slope. I knew a short cut to a road on the other side of the mountains. We’d have to climb, but I thought there’d be water in one of the springs that was near enough to the route to make it worth while stopping to find out. But it’d be tough.
I could see her limping, and knew the blister wouldn’t get any better. Her boots were more of the department store kind that make a nice window display, but rub raw places on the feet when you get them out in the mountains.
Then she pitched, flung up her arms and went down.
I was afraid of the answer, even before I realized what it was. She tried to get up, lurched forward, and lay still. I felt for the ankle. She winced.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “that it’s broken.”
She might have been commenting on the weather, for all the expression of pain that was in her voice. But I knew how she felt.
It was the end.
I sat there. The ankle wasn’t broken, but it was a bad sprain, and I could feel it swelling. I managed to unlace the boot before we had to cut the leather. We sat in a huddle. It wasn’t a nice fix.
Then the wind sprang up and the desert began to talk. I could hear the sand whispering softly down the slope, rustling against the sparse sagebrush, hissing against the rock outcroppings.
“What a nasty, cruel place the desert is!” she spat.
“It’s the nicest mother a man ever had,” I told her.
“It’s cruel,” she said.
“And cruelty is really the best form of parental kindness. It makes one self-reliant.”
She sighed and pitched over so that her whole weight was resting against my shoulder.
“Well,” she said, “there’s a chance, and just a chance. You leave me and start traveling for help. You can leave a fire and some wood for me to keep it going. They’ll find me, of course, but they won’t dare to kill me, not with the story you can tell. They’ve either got to kill you, get rid of you, or else leave me alone.”
I broke it to her gently.
“That’s exactly what they would do — leave you alone. They’d just pretend they hadn’t seen you, would walk off and leave you here, alone in the desert, without food or water, and with a sprained ankle. Then, when people found you... they’d be blameless. The cause of your death would be all too apparent.”
I didn’t tell her just how they could tell. There was no use rubbing it in. People who die of thirst in the desert die a death that isn’t pleasant. And the last thing they do is to start digging with their hands. The cruel gravel of the desert rips the flesh from the bones...
We sat there in silence. The desert talked.
“Somehow, it seems like the desert’s talking to us,” she said.
“That’s what lots of people think when they’ve lived in the desert for a while,” I told her.
“But it seems to be saying something.”
I knew that it was only her imagination.
The desert whispers do that to people. Their ears get so fed up with the vast, aching silence of the place that they are anxious to interpret sounds as words. The mind is lonely, and the parts of the brain that hear speech get hungry. Just the same way the sound of the wind in trees will always sound like water to a thirsty man.
We sat for a spell in silence again. There was nothing else to do. It was the end.
I couldn’t carry her and reach any water. I doubted if I could get help and return to her.
The stars wheeled by majestically overhead.
And then the desert spell caught me, the desert seemed to be trying to talk. I shook off the feeling, knowing it was just the desert hypnosis. But the feeling came back.
I listened to the desert for a while, and then I started talking to the girl in a low voice, telling her what I’d been thinking.
“I’ve been laying down on the job,” I told her gently. “We should never have figured on running away. I should have fought the thing out. That’s what the desert’s trying to tell us.”
“Don’t be foolish. You’re one man, and you’re unarmed. They’re three, and they’re armed, and they’ve got all the advantage.”
I shook my head. The thought was taking a firmer root in my mind now. “Wrong,” I said. “I’m not just one man. I’ve got the desert on my side. These people don’t know the desert. I’m going to tackle them, and the desert’s going to help me. You can think I’m foolish and that the desert’s cruel, but I’m telling you that what I say is right. The desert’s going to help.”
She turned to stare at me. I got to my feet.
“You’ll have to be brave, and wait here. Keep out of sight, and wait for me. I’ll come back. It’ll be a long time, perhaps to-morrow night. You won’t dare to make even a fire. Hunger and thirst will be terrific, but the desert will win for us. When you begin to feel thirsty and the sun beats down on you, just be brave and know that it’s the desert helping.”
She was quiet for a little while, and the sand, slithering along on the sand, seemed to make whispers of encouragement.
“I think I understand,” she said. “I am not afraid.”
I patted her shoulder.
“Be brave,” I told her. Her hand came groping up mine, patted the side of my face.
“Good luck,” she said, and I surely needed it.
And I slipped down the slope into the darkness.
IV. Desert Tricks
I didn’t want her to know exactly what I was planning on doing, so I waited until I’d covered a hundred yards or so before I started to put my plan into execution.
There was a juniper tree, twisted and stunted, but a regular tree of the desert places. It had been forced to weather cruel heat and dry days, to stand up against twisting winds and hissing sand. The desert had been cruel to it, and it had received the reward of the desert. It had become tempered and strong.
I cut a limb and flexed it into the shape I wanted. It was green, but it had plenty of spring. The Indians make bows out of the juniper tree. It’s a tempered wood, one you can trust.
I took my bootlaces and split out a thong from them that was strong enough for my purpose. Then I started to climb. I wanted pine, and pine grows up near the summits. I knew where there were a few trees.
It was a hard climb, and I took it as easy as I dared. It was going to be a big battle, and I needed to conserve all my strength.