The desert is a wise mother when you know her ways.
Blood-Red Gold
I
The Human Juggernaut
Nobody knows all that happens, right at the finish, when the desert has her way with a man. It’s a grim secret that only the desert herself and the buzzards can tell.
But this much is certain. Right at the last, the victim tears off his shirt and starts digging with his hands. I’ve found my share of bodies in the desert, and I know others who have found their share. In every case shirts torn from backs, fingers shredded by the cruel sand-gravel of the desert.
That’s why we didn’t take so kindly to Harry Ortley’s story of what had happened — not after we found Grahame’s body.
I’d first seen Harry Ortley when he drove into Randsburg. It wasn’t any trouble to judge his character. He was one of those birds who played sure things. You couldn’t figure him taking a chance of any kind, or giving another fellow a break.
Stringy Martin was standing with me when Ortley drove into Randsburg. He had a sedan, and he parked it in front of the Palace Restaurant, locked the ignition, locked the transmission, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors.
Stringy’s lived nearly all of his life in the desert. He watched the performance, then turned to me with a grin.
“If that fellow ever raised a bet it’d be a cinch he held better than three of a kind,” he said.
And, somehow or other, it was the best description of the man’s character you could make. Stringy’s like that — always pulling some crack that hits a bull’s-eye.
Ortley walked into the restaurant.
He was fat, not paunchy fat, but the smooth, well-distributed sleek fat that comes to people who are accustomed to getting what they want. He was about forty, and his eye was as cold as the top of Telescope Peak in the winter. His cheeks were round, but his mouth was unusually small.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in a thin, reedy voice, “good afternoon.”
Stringy nudged me.
“He’s speakin’ to you,” he said.
“Howdy,” I said.
The cold eyes turned from Stringy to me, me to Stringy, and back to me.
“I am to meet a man named Sidney Grahame,” he said.
I couldn’t see how the information meant anything in my young life, but the cold eyes kept boring into mine as though I was supposed to do something about it.
“Don’t know him,” I said.
The eyes continued steady.
“I was to meet him here in Randsburg. He was to have a string of burros. I’d like to get started to-night.”
There wasn’t any apology in his tone, and there wasn’t any request. He was the type that was accustomed to make his wishes known, and have men jump to do his bidding.
“Stranger,” I told him, “you ain’t accustomed to the desert.”
The eyes never wavered.
“No. That’s why I felt you might secure some information for me while I was eating. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast. You should be able to find him by locating the string of burros.”
And he ignored the lunch counter, sprawled his bulk in a chair at one of the tables, and picked up the bill of fare. As far as he was concerned, the incident was closed.
Stringy Martin snickered.
Mary Garland, who was running the Palace, chipped in with a bit of information. She’d heard the conversation.
“There’s a gent named Sid something-or-other that’s got his packs out in front of the hotel. I heard him mention he was waiting for some one.”
The man looked up.
“Was the name Ortley, the one he was waiting for?”
“I d’know. I didn’t hear any name.”
Ortley looked at Stringy Martin.
“If you should be going by the hotel,” he said, “you might tell this man that Mr. Ortley is here... I’ll try some of the spare ribs, and you can give me a side order of roast lamb. Are your vegetables canned?”
Stringy and I walked out before we heard what Mary had to tell him about the vegetables. There he was, plunked down in the middle of the Mojave Desert, damned lucky to be getting anything, and wondering if the vegetables were canned.
Some folks get like that.
We sort of stuck around to see what happened when Ortley met his man. There were five burros tied up in front of the hotel, all packed and ready to go. Four of ’em were pack animals, and one had a riding saddle. He was a big burro, and he looked to be a good one.
The chap who was crouched down on the porch of the hotel, hugging what little shade there was, was a lunger. You couldn’t miss that. But he was beating the game. There was a luster to the brown skin, and a strong set to the jaw. His eyes had lost the feverish glitter, and were steady.
Ortley came crunching down the road after a while.
“Mr. Grahame?” he asked.
The thin chap got to his feet, his face all crinkled with a cordial smile.
“You’re Harry Ortley. Mighty glad to meet you. I’ve got something that’ll sure interest you this trip. Been waiting since morning.”
“I was delayed. Did you get my message?”
“What message?”
“I sent a man to tell you I was here.”
“Nobody said anything to me.”
“Humph. Well, let’s start.”
“I ain’t eaten anything. Better have a snack before we get going. We’ll go pretty far to-night after it gets cool, and food will come in handy.”
Ortley let his cold eyes drift over the packed burros, then turned them on Grahame.
“I doubt if we can waste time eating. You should have had your lunch. Where can I leave my car, where it will be safe?”
Sid Grahame flushed a little, then pointed to the building that had a dirt floor and a galvanized iron roof.
“You can park it in there,” he said.
Ortley unlocked the door, unlocked the transmission, unlocked the ignition, drove the car into the garage, and locked it all up again. He took out a hand bag, and then strapped a big forty-five about his middle.
“We’ll have to take my personal belongings,” he said.
“Maybe we can put ’em in a roll. A hand bag’s hard to pack,” said Grahame.
Ortley’s cold eye held his gaze.
“I prefer my things in the bag. They are more convenient that way.”
Grahame took five minutes getting the bag tied on one of the packs. He didn’t say anything while he was doing it.
“Only one saddle burro?” asked Ortley.
“Yes. We can take turns riding.”
“I see,” said Ortley, and climbed into the saddle.
They shuffled out into the desert and I heard Stringy Martin’s chuckle in my ear as the last of the burros disappeared round the base of a sage covered hill.
“When,” he asked me, “do you suppose it’ll be the little guy’s turn to ride the burro?”
I didn’t answer the question. There wasn’t any use.
II
One Man Returns
That was the first time we saw Harry Ortley.
The second was when he came back from the desert-alone.
The desert hadn’t been exactly kind to him. His eyes were swollen. His skin was red and angry. His boots had been dried and cracked by the desert dust, and his flesh hung in bags under his eyes. But the eyes were as cold as ever.
He was leading the string of burros, and the packing wasn’t anything to write home about. There were some sore backs in the train, but Ortley didn’t mind a little thing like a burro’s suffering.
He pulled up in front of the hotel and walked right to his hand bag that was tied on top of the pack. He seemed to be in a hurry because he didn’t monkey with any pack rope knots. He pulled out a knife and cut the ropes. I noticed the bag seemed mighty heavy as he pulled it from the pack.