Frank Gruber
The Honest Dealer
Chapter One
With the Funeral Mountains behind him and the Panamints far ahead, he looked down into Death Valley and wondered if this place would take his life as it had taken so many others.
He had heard about Death Valley all his life. For years he had lived within a day’s travel of it and on a number of occasions he had skirted the edges. Once, even, he had gone through it; in a speeding car, in the late fall of the year.
But now he was afoot and it was July. He was wearing a brown pin-stripe suit that had cost him a hundred and fifty dollars. His shoes, tan oxfords, were utterly inadequate for walking across the hot sands and salt crusts of Death Valley. His shirt, once white, was a dirty gray. He wore a shapeless hat and he carried a canvas sack of the sort that travelers in the desert carry in their cars. But there was only a pitifully small amount of water in it.
He turned and looked back up the Funeral Mountains. Was there movement up there? Was his pursuer that close to him? Would he follow him even into Death Valley?
He studied the ravine down which he had himself descended and after a while picked out a tiny figure. Yes, he was coming.
Maybe Death Valley would get them both.
He started out into Death Valley. Perspiration was seeping from his pores, so that his clothing was damp and sticky, but that was good. It was when you stopped perspiring that you had to worry.
After a few minutes of traveling, the sand gave way under his feet and he traversed a bed of salt or borax. In some spots it was fairly hard, in others it cracked and crunched underfoot. The color was a mixture of a dirty white and yellow. Far ahead was a dazzling white plain that resembled frost on a frozen river.
The heat of the sun beat upon him and the reflection of heat from the valley floor caused him to keep his mouth open so that he was like a man gasping for breath. He felt oddly depressed, which had nothing to do with the danger from the man who was following him. It was caused by the density of the air which closed tighter and heavier around his body, for by now he was well below sea level.
He never looked behind him until he reached a smooth bed of salt, glistening as if it were powdered ice. This was the “frozen river” he had seen from a distance. He stepped on it and found that it trembled and heaved with his weight, but upheld him.
He stopped now and looked back. Yes, he was coming. He was probably two miles away, but looked closer. He would follow the pursued man through Death Valley.
There was really very little use in continuing. But you can’t quit; you can’t just sit down and wait for death. Instinct won’t let you. His tongue was swollen in his mouth and he unscrewed the cap of the canvas bag and drank sparingly. There was only another mouthful or two left in the bag and the sun was still high over the Panamints.
Gasping, he started across the white salt. The substance grew softer as he progressed and in a little while became wet and sticky. Fortunately the river of salt was quite narrow. On the other side of it extended a wide flat of salt and mud, rough, upheaved as it had boiled and baked to a crust, then cracked and sunk in places. The crust crumpled under the traveler’s shoes, got into them and burned his feet. Frequently he came upon thin streams of colored water. He knelt and tasted of one. It was strong as acid and burned his lips and tongue. A mouthful of it, he knew, and he would remain where he drank.
The Panamints stood ahead, dim and distant in a strange haze. Low down, the heat veils lifted in ripples, and an object at a distance seemed elusive. Turning, he failed for a time to see his pursuer and thought that he had quit. But then, in a while, he saw him again.
How long he traveled he couldn’t guess. The sun seemed closer to the Panamints, but Time itself seemed to stand still here on the floor of Death Valley.
He dropped to his knees frequently and it became harder and harder to get up. Finally, he could not make it at all and then he opened his water bag once more. He meant merely to moisten his throat, but the water slipped down and he swallowed again and again until he realized that he was sucking in only air.
His water was gone.
It gave him strength enough to get to his feet and he looked back. The man was closer — much closer.
The hunted one sobbed aloud and staggered on. The Panamints seemed as far away as ever, but the sun was closer to it... it had to be closer. Perhaps he could survive until darkness fell upon the Valley.
He ran his hand across his face and discovered with a shock that he was no longer perspiring. He began to run, or thought that he did. Actually, he moved no faster than before. He merely stumbled, and falling, had to struggle to pick himself up. But the salt under his feet changed to sand and gravel and he seemed to be slowly ascending. If he had water he might make it. But he had none; he had dropped the bag itself, and after a while he fell to his knees and could no longer get up.
He was lying flat on his back, his eyes open and staring at the sky, when the pursuer finally reached him. He was a much younger man than the one lying on the ground and he was better equipped for desert traveling. He wore boots and Levis, a broad-brimmed Stetson hat and he carried two canteens, one still full. He stood for a moment looking down at the man on the ground.
Then he said, “Well, I guess you couldn’t make it.”
The man on the ground made no reply. His swollen, blackened tongue couldn’t move. The standing man unscrewed the cap of one of his canteens and, stooping, let water trickle into the other’s mouth; a few drops, then a few more. Perhaps a spoonful altogether.
Then he straightened and watched the other man. The glaze faded from his eyes, the lips moved.
“Water... water...”
The other man’s mouth twisted cruelly. He stooped once more and again let a few drops trickle down the parched throat. The little water revived the man on the ground. After a few minutes he even sat up.
For a long moment the two stared at each other. Then the man on the ground cried out, “What’re you waiting for?”
“You think I’m going to kill you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” He paused a moment. “But not until you talk.”
The thirsting man laughed horribly.
The man with the canteens shook the one from which he had doled out drops. “Like a drink? A good drink?”
For an instant a light glowed in the dying man’s eyes, but then it faded again.
“You can have all the water what’s in this,” said the man with the water, “all you have to do is to tell me what I want to know.”
“But you’ll still kill me?”
The cold eyes looked down into the anguished ones. “Yes,” said the owner of the cold eyes. “I’ll still kill you. It’s just a matter of whether you’ll die with water in your belly, or...” He shrugged significantly.
The eyes of the sitting man dropped to the canteen in the other’s hand. It was a large, round canteen, heavy and hard. It was almost empty, but there was at least a gill of water in it. And a gill of water...
“All right,” said the man on the ground. “Give me the water...”
“After you talk.”
“I can’t talk without the water...”
The man with the canteens hesitated, then deciding that it really didn’t make any difference, he dropped the canteen on the sand at his feet. He stepped back as eager hands snatched it up.
Water gurgled past parched lips, flowed down into the man’s throat and restored life to him. He drank all the water and by the time he had drained the last drop, strength was flowing back into his body. But he did not take the canteen from his lips. Not yet. Not until he dug the toes of his shoes into the gravel.
Then he took the canteen from his mouth... and threw it into the face of the standing man. The throw caught the other by surprise and the canteen struck his forehead. The man cried out in sudden alarm — and pain — and staggered back.