About one o’clock she asked me the question I’d been expecting to hear long before.
“Why are we running away?”
“Because Ortley holds all the trump cards. He’s got a killing radius with a rifle that beats what we have with a revolver. He’s got shade and shelter. He’s got transportation. There’s only one chance we’ve got. That’s to beat him to water and then be able to wait him out.”
“What do you mean by ‘wait him out’?”
“I’ll show you, when we get to water.”
We plugged along for another hour. The girl stumbled once or twice. I made her take off her boots and looked at her feet. They were getting in bad shape. I had a little adhesive tape, and I bound them up as best I could. She lay flat on her back for fifteen minutes. I didn’t dare to let her rest long. It was going to be a struggle.
I got her to her feet, and we plugged on. The shoulder pack was rubbing pretty badly. I’d had to take stuff that would carry and didn’t have the chance to arrange it so it’d ride best. There were too many bulky objects, too little blanket.
Daylight saw us two miles from the water and the girl looked pretty white in the morning light. I began to drive her unmercifully. I taunted her with being a weakling. I told her Ortley was too smart for her, that she was too soft for the desert, that she was a drag. I told her lots of things that made me squirm as I said them, but it was the only way.
She didn’t have spirit enough to reply. Her white face remained expressionless. Her calm eyes were paled with fatigue. Her feet moved as though her boots were made of lead.
And it began to get hot.
I’d gone strong on the water with her when I saw we could probably make it. We didn’t really run out until the last mile.
A mile doesn’t seem very far. But let me tell you that last mile was a torture, every step of it. The sun was beating down on us. The girl’s feet were gone. I was carrying an awkward pack. We’d made twenty honest miles of sand and fine rock, twenty desert miles of up and down, and we’d crossed one ridge that went up two thousand feet above the rest of the desert, and it went up straight. The climb up that slope had been heartbreaking.
The girl’s boots were typical department store boots of the type that are manufactured for women who want to look well in hiking clothes. They’re all right for riding, but for walking they’re a different thing. And a woman’s feet aren’t built for heavy boots.
I tried to do some more taping. But the skin had gone completely soft. It was like wet tissue paper. She was staggering and wincing, moaning, biting her lip, gasping irregular breaths.
We got to the water hole. She was all in.
I got some wet mud around the fevered feet. I soaked her wrists in cold water and I sopped her forehead. She rolled over and went to sleep. I took the things from the pack and buried the stuff that the sun would hurt. Then I sat there to fight flies and wait.
There was a little shade, some mesquite that wasn’t very high or very thick. We had to keep moving around to follow that shade. The flies were bad, and it was one hot day.
She woke up around noon, so stiff she could hardly move. I fed her.
“I can never walk out of this desert,” she said. “I’m not a quitter, but I just can’t do it.”
“I know it. I’m not asking you to — yet.”
“How else could we get out?”
“Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For about four or five days.”
“Here?”
“Here.”
“Why so long?”
“If it happens sooner we’re licked.”
“What happens?”
“Wait and see.”
Five days passed, and I was afraid I’d guessed this Ortley wrong. But on the sixth day, just a little after sunup, I saw the dots come straggling across the desert. Four burros and a man.
It was about time. The grub I’d taken hadn’t been any more than enough. The flies and the heat and the continued inactivity had been awful. The girl had had plenty of water to drink and sop on her skin. I’d been afraid to get myself accustomed to too much water, so I’d kept on my regular desert ration, which was plenty short.
The burros speeded up as they neared the water.
“What now?” she asked. “He’s still got the rifle.”
I indicated the little trenches I’d dug.
“We can keep out of the line of his fire, no matter where he tries to shoot from.”
“But he won’t bother with us. He’ll keep on going.”
“Maybe.”
“And our provisions are almost gone.”
“It’s a show-down now. Either we win or we lose. If we lose you’ve got to wait here while I walk to Randsburg and get some help. Those provisions will have to last you.”
“How about you?”
“I won’t bother with provisions. I’ll carry water — if I have to go.”
The black spots got nearer. We could see the long, dancing shadows cast by the early sun. I got up close to the little embankment I’d thrown up and got the girl placed where she’d be safe.
Ten minutes more and I could hear the crunch of their feet in the sand. When they were within about forty yards I slipped my forty-five forward and took a peek.
It was as I’d thought. Ortley had figured out what the embankments meant. He was behind a burro, his rifle ready. At the flicker of motion I made when I raised up, he fired.
I dropped back and called to him.
“Better surrender, Ortley. You were so confident we’d left, and so damned greedy, that you waited until you’d milked the last ounce of gold from the claim, and that means you’re short of water. We can hold the water hole.”
His language was worse than strong. And I could hear the thick tone of his voice which told me what I’d surmised. He was out of water — had been for a few miles at least. Ortley was gold-mad, and he’d stayed on to work as much out of the claim as he could. The burros were weighted down with his plunder. He’d postponed the trip for water until the very last minute that he dared, knowing he wouldn’t dare to return to the claim — not until he heard what had happened to us.
He walked around the water hole, shooting from time to time, trying to find a weak point in our defense. There wasn’t any.
The burros got restive and tried to walk in. He tied them together and kept herding them out of range. I’d have shot his burros and left him in a trap, only we’d have been caught in the same trap.
Ortley had been a thinking machine, but he hadn’t known the desert long enough. The desert gives its hoard to those who know her. In the desert, knowledge counts. Ortley didn’t realize his position even now.
It was nearly noon before he knew what he was up against. He went almost delirious with rage. He would have charged the spring, only he knew it would be sure death. I’d have shown him no mercy, none whatever.
Finally he knew the alternative.
“Damn you! I’ll win my way out. You can stay here and starve!”
I looked up after a while. He was plugging his way toward the next water, Bitter Springs. I sighed and smiled at the girl.
“Well, that’s that.”
“But he’s gone with all the gold, and he has the burros and the grub — and everything.”
I nodded.
“That’s true. But he’s cruel, this Ortley, and He’s undoubtedly been cutting down on the water he’s given his animals. You wait — and see what happens.”
His first trouble came when he was less than a mile away. The thirsty burros, knowing they were being taken away from water, balked. He was cruel, this Ortley, and he got the train to moving again. It took work, and blows, and spurs, and cruelty.