She stamped her foot.
“I tell you I know. I don’t know what the explanation is. That’s what I’m going in to find out. But I know that this is from Sid’s mine. And Ortley insisted on taking his clothes, his shaving things, and his tooth brush and paste in a leather hand bag.”
I nodded.
“Yeah. I saw that. I saw him bring the hand bag out, too, and put it in the car. That don’t prove anything.”
“The dickens it doesn’t!” she snapped. “When they unpacked the burros, they found all of his personal things wrapped in a canvas. So what was in that bag when he brought it out?”
I did some fast thinking and remembered how he’d cut that bag loose from the pack and put it in the car before he did any talking, and I remembered how heavy the bag seemed.
“You win,” I told the red-head. “Can you be ready to leave by to-morrow morning?”
The smile that twisted her lips was a funny one.
“Want to get drunk, Bob Zane?” she asked.
“No; why?”
“I wondered why you wanted to stay in town tonight.”
“Lord, I don’t want to stay. But we’ve got to get a couple more burros and some grub and some water cans.”
“I’ve got them all. How long will it take for you to put the packs on?”
“About forty-five minutes, for the first packing.”
“Then we can leave in an hour.”
It was settled, just like that. We left in exactly fifty-seven minutes. And I did something I haven’t done in the desert for a long time — I strapped my old forty-five onto my waist and got a box of fresh shells.
You get acquainted with people quick in the desert. They can’t fool themselves and they can’t fool you, out where there’s nothing but eternity and silence. I never found out why it is, but it’s so. Take a two-day trip in the desert with some one and you’ll know him like a book, no matter if he doesn’t say a thing.
We traveled late the first night, and we rolled our blankets under the stars. I made the girl as comfortable as I could, and then I went up the ridge a hundred yards or so, so she wouldn’t feel I was intruding. I’ve acted as guide, off and on, for lots of women parties, and the first night they usually sleep with a gun clenched in their fist.
Funny thing about people. They’ll sleep in a Pullman car with nothing between them and a lot of strangers but a little green cloth with some numbers on it; but when you get ’em out in God’s outdoors they’re likely to get self-conscious.
Not this girl.
She was one of the kind that was sure of herself, and of every move she made. She had the poise of a thoroughbred, and she took to the desert like a duck to water.
People are like that. They either take to the desert or they don’t. They either love it or they hate it, and if they hate it, the hatred is born of fear.
That night a faint breeze sprang up out of nowhere. The stars blazed steadily. The sage leaves commenced to rustle against each other, and then the sand began to whisper. I went to sleep with the sand making little whispering noises that sounded more and more like words.
In the morning she was up, waiting for me, which I hadn’t expected. It was early. The desert was cold with a dry cold that penetrated. There was just the faintest streak of dawn in the east. The stars hadn’t commenced to pinpoint out before the day. They were still blazing steadily.
She threw some sage branches on the fire and the red flared up over the desert.
“Go get the burros,” she said. “I can get the breakfast.”
She was like a great shadow, moving between me and the fire.
“No fancy stuff,” I warned. “Coffee and something we can handle quick. We’ve got to get started before it gets too hot.”
She clattered the pans about and I could hear the gurgle of water from a canteen. I rounded up the burros, put on the saddles, and heard the beat of a spoon against a pan.
It was a good breakfast, and it came up on the dot.
“One cup of water for dishwater,” I told her.
“No more than that?”
“No. You’ve got to get accustomed to the desert, and you might as well begin.”
She didn’t argue. She just measured out a cup of water and poured it in the frying pan. Fifteen minutes later we were throwing the last rope on the pack, and she knew a lot about the squaw hitch.
The east was a red gold now, the color of the gold that had fallen from Ortley’s pocket, the color of bloodstained gold. She watched it as the burros shuffled their way through the sage and greasewood clumps.
“I heard whispers last night,” she said.
“Sand,” I told her.
She said nothing.
IV
Trail’s End
The red faded from the east. The golden light was so strong it hurt the eyes. Purple shadows began to form and long streamers of light tinged the high points. Then the sun fairly jumped over the horizon, and it was hot.
It was a typical desert day. By eight o’clock the mountains began to shimmer. By ten; there were mirages playing tag with us. By eleven, the place was a furnace with no shade. I knew of a clump of mesquite, and I made it a little before noon.
The girl’s face was red, her eyes were inflamed, and her lips were cracked, but she managed a grin. I slung off the packs and loosened the saddles. The shade was welcome, and there was a little breeze. Fierce desert flies came and nipped at us, danced in front of our eyes, buzzed in our ears, crawled on our moist skin.
I was accustomed to it, and I slept. The girl couldn’t sleep. I knew she was tossing on her blanket, fighting flies, trying to shut the torture of the sun out from her eyes.
By three o’clock I slung on the saddles and we started again. The horizons were still dancing. Then the purple shadows crept stealthily out from the high ranges. The sage cast long shadows. The horizons quit jumping about, the mirages vanished, and cool fingers of soothing wind reached out over the sandy wastes.
“Here is where he’s buried,” I said.
She got off her burro. I showed her the grave, and then I went on for a hundred yards or so with the burros and left her there. She came up in about fifteen minutes.
“Do we camp here?”
I shook my head. “I found where they spent a night. I think it was the last night they had together. We’ll camp there. We can make it by dark.”
I crowded the burros, and we made it by dark. It had been a long, hard day. Most women would have had hysterics, but this red-headed campaigner wanted to cook the supper.
I parked her off to one side and made lots of hot tea and opened some of the canned delicacies I’d brought.
She drank the canned tomatoes eagerly and smiled at me with tired eyes. She ate some of the canned vegetables, nibbled at the toast, nodded her head, stiffened, took some more tea, nodded again, and fell asleep.
I took the plate from her nerveless fingers and eased her back on the blanket, put another blanket under her head for a pillow. She never stirred.
I took a flashlight and looked around.
I’d seen it all before. There was a cliff that stretched up from the desert, hollowed by wind and drifting sand into a million little caves. There was a dry wash, and then the blackened ashes of an old camp fire.
I got the camp made and went to bed.
The girl slept late in the morning, and I let her sleep. It was sunup before I called her to coffee and bacon. She grinned apologetically, and toyed with the food. The sun was commencing to do its stuff and the sand radiated the dazzling light.