The sun was just setting. The valley was filled with deep purple shadows. In the high places was the hush of coming twilight.
“What did you see?” asked Pete.
“Two more planes,” I told him, snapping the binoculars into the leather case.
Pete grinned at me. “That,” he said, “isn’t going to keep us from eating, is it?”
“Not this meal,” I told him, “but I don’t know about the next.”
III
Accessories to the Crime
Pete had his blankets spread out on the other side of a little ridge.
I was careful not to disturb him as I got up and sat there in the moonlight, looking down on the dark mystery of the shadow-filled valleys below. It was cold up here, but I had a blanket wrapped around me, Indian fashion.
Down below, as far as the eye could reach, stretched the desert; a great waste of level spaces, broken by jagged mountain spurs — mountains that were still a part of the desert, dry, arid, covered with juniper, stunted cedar, and an occasional pine. There were no tumbling streams, no dense underbrush — just barren rock and dry trees that rustled in the wind which was blowing from the desert.
Looking down into the black splotches of darkness in the valleys, I knew what was going on in the desert. The wind was stirring the sand into soft whispers, typifying the restlessness of the desert. For the desert is ever restless, ever changing. Its moods change as frequently as the appearance of the desert mountains is changed by sunlight and shadow.
Even up here in this cold, high place the desert seemed to be whispering its mysterious messages; the noise made by drifting sand as it scours against the soft desert rocks, carving them into weird structures, polishing, cutting, drifting, changing, ever changing.
I sat there for three or four hours, watching the moon climb over the eastern rim of the mountains, watching the black pools of mysterious shadow in the cañons gradually recede until the golden surface of the desert glinted up at me from below. Several times I listened to hear Pete’s snores, but no sound came from his direction.
After a while I felt somewhat relaxed, and rolled back into my blankets, where it was warmer. In fifteen or twenty minutes I began to feel drowsy, and drifted off to sleep. After all, as Pete had remarked, being a fugitive from justice didn’t feel particularly unique, once one had become accustomed to it.
I woke early in the morning and watched the east taking on a brassy hue. It was still and cold. There was not a sound, not a breath. The stars, which had blazed steadily during the night, had now receded to mere needle points of light; and soon they became invisible.
I kicked back the blankets, put on my boots and leather jacket, stamped my feet to get the circulation in them, and walked around the little ledge, to the place where Pete had spread his blankets. The blankets were there, but Pete wasn’t.
I looked over the ground, and felt of the blankets. There was frost on the inside of them, where they had been turned back when Pete slipped out. I studied the tracks as well as I could, and then I knew that Pete had slipped one over on me. He had pulled out long before I had got up to watch the moonlight.
Fifty yards from camp I found a piece of paper stuck on a bush. When he had to be, Pete was glib with his tongue, and glib with a pencil if he couldn’t talk. He was one of those fellows who expressed himself well.
I unfolded the note and read:
Dear Bob:
I got yon into this, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t take the blame. You didn’t do anything except follow my lead. I don’t know how serious it is, but I’m going to find out. You sit tight until I come back.
(Signed)
I should have known that Pete would have done something like that, and I felt irritated that I hadn’t guessed it in advance and guarded against it.
It was all right for Pete to claim that I had been blameless and that he was going to take the responsibility. I probably wouldn’t have started things if Pete hadn’t been there — and then again I might have. But I didn’t need a nurse or a guardian, and when I pulled a gun on an officer it was my own free and voluntary act. I didn’t like the way Pete was trying to shield me, as though I were a child, instead of a man ten years his senior.
I got some firewood together, got the coffee to boiling, and sat crouched by the fire, warming my hands and waiting for a while before I drank the coffee, hoping that Pete would show up. When he didn’t show up, I drank a couple of cups of coffee, but kept the pot hot so that he could have some when he came in.
The sun climbed slowly up the blue-black of the desert sky, and there was still no sign of Pete. I went out on a projecting rock where I could look down into the valley, and kept watch on what was going on. Toward ten o’clock I heard the sound of automobiles, and I could make them out through the glasses, two carloads of men jolting their way along the floor of the valley.
An hour later, I heard them coming back; and the glasses showed me that which I had dreaded to see, yet expected. In the rear seat of the first automobile was a man and a woman. At that distance I couldn’t make out their features, but I didn’t have much doubt who they were.
I waited until the machines had gone the length of the valley and turned through the pass into the level desert, then I threw packs on the burros and started back down the mountain. Pete knew exactly where I had been camped, and he also knew that I had the binoculars. I figured that he probably would have a chance to use his pencil once more.
I hit the trail of the automobiles and started following along, keeping my eyes pretty much on the ground. Within half a mile I found what I was looking for, a folded piece of paper lying by the side of the road, catching the glint of the hot desert sun. I unfolded the paper. It was a note from Pete, all right. He hadn’t put any heading on it at all, so that if the officers discovered it, it wouldn’t give them any clew which would lead to me. The note read simply:
They caught me. I put up a fight, hut they got me, and I guess they got me dead to rights. The woman is the daughter of Sam Blake. Blake killed a prospector named Skinner who had a cabin over in Sidewinder Cañon. They jailed him, and the woman helped him escape. They caught him again and are holding her as an accessory. I don’t know what they’re going to put against me. I told them you didn’t know anything about it and had hacked my play with an empty gun. I don’t think they’re going to look for you.
I knew Bob Skinner, and I also knew the place over in Sidewinder Cañon. It was fifteen or twenty miles over the mountains.
There was nothing much to be done except trail along behind the automobiles, so I plugged along doggedly through the desert sunshine. All the time, I kept thinking about the stuff the woman had buried at the foot of the sagebrush when she saw the two men coming from the direction of the road. When I got near that first camp of hers, I made a detour and went into it. The officers had been all through it, probably looking for evidence.
I climbed back into the shade cast by a spur of rock, and got out the tenderfoot’s binoculars again. When I was sure that I had the desert all to myself, I went over to the clump of sagebrush and dug in the sand.
I found a package done up in a newspaper. The package had hacksaw blades and a gun. The hacksaw blades had been used, and I figured that was how Sam Blake had managed to slip out of jail. As far as I could tell, the gun hadn’t been fired.