He led them down through the trees, and out on a narrow trail that clung for a while to the edge of a steep shoulder of hill. Then they were out on an open rise at the edge of the desert, and the Saint set his horse to an easy canter, threading his way unerringly along a trail that was nothing but a faint crinkling in the hard earth where other horses had folнlowed it before.
It seemed strange to be out riding like that, so casually and inconsequentially, when only a few hours before there had been very tangible evidence that a threat of death to one of them had not been made idly. Yet perhaps they were safer out there than they would have been anywhere else. The Saint's eyes had never stopped wandering over the changing panoramas, behind as well as ahead; and although he knew how deceptive the apparently open desert could be, and how even a man on horseback, standing well above the tallest clump of scrub, could vanish altogether in a hundred yards, he was sure that no prospective sniper had come within sharp-shooting range of them. Yet...
He stopped his horse abruptly, after a time, as the broad flat that they had been riding over ended suddenly at the brink of a sharp cliff. At the foot of the bluff, another long column of tall silent palms bordered a rustling stream. He lighted a cigarette, and wondered cynically how many of the spoiled playboys and playgirls who used Palm Springs for their wilder weekends, and saw nothing but the smooth hotels and the Racquet Club, ever realised that the name was not just a name, and that there really were Palm Springs, sparнkling and crystal clear, racing down out of the overshadowing mountains to make hidden nests of beauty before they washed out into the extinction of the barren plain . ..
Freddie Pellman reined in beside him, looked the landscape over, and said, tolerantly, as if it were a production that had been offered for his approval: 'This is pretty good. Is this where we eat?'
'If everybody can take it,' said the Saint, 'there's a pool further up that I'd like to look at again.'
'I can take it,' said Freddie, comprehensively settling the matter.
Simon put his horse down the steep zigzag, and stopped at the bottom to let it drink from the stream. Freddie drew up beside him again-he rode well enough, having probably been raised to it in the normal course of a millionaire's son's upнbringing-and said, still laboring with the same subject: 'Do you really think one of the girls could be in on it?'
'Of course,' said the Saint calmly. 'Gangsters have girl friends. Girl friends do things like that.'
'But I've known all of them for some time at least.'
'That may be part of the act. A smart girl wouldn't want to make it too obvious-meet you one day, and bump you off the next. Besides, she may have a nice streak of ham in her. Most women have. Maybe she thinks it would be cute to keep you in suspense for a while. Maybe she wants to make an anniversary of it, and pay off for Johnny this Christmas.'
Freddie swallowed.
'That's going to make some things-a bit difficult.'
'That's your problem,' Simon said cheerfully.
Freddie sat his saddle unhappily and watched Ginny and Esther coming down the grade. Ginny came down it in a spectacular avalanche, like a mountain cavalry display, and swept off her Stetson to ruffle her hair back with a bored air while her pony dipped its nose thirstily in the water a few yards downstream. Esther, steering her horse down quietly, joined her a little later.
'But this is Wunnderful!' Ginny called out, looking at the Saint. 'How do you find all these marvelous places?' Without waiting for an answer, she turned to Esther and said in a solicitous undertone which was perfectly pitched to carry just far enough: 'How are you feeling, darling? I hope you aren't getting too miserable.'
Simon was naturally glancing towards them; He wasn't looking for anything in particular, and as far as he was concerned Esther was only one of the gang, but in those transient circumstances, he felt sorry for her. So for that one moment he had the privilege of seeing one woman open her soul in utter stark sincerity to another woman. And what one woman said to another, clearly, carefully, deliberately, quietly, with serious premeditation and the intensest earnestнness, was 'You bitch.'
'Let's keep a-goin',' said the Saint hastily, in a flippant drawl, and lifted his reins to set his horse at the shallow bank on the other side of the stream.
He led them west towards the mountains with a quicker sureness now, as the sense of the trail came back to him. In a little while it was a track that only an Indian could have seen at all, but it seemed as if he could have found it at the dead of night. There was even a place where weeds and spindly clawed scrub had grown so tall and dense since he had last been there that anyone else would have sworn that there was no trail at all; but he set his horse boldly at the living wall and smashed easily through into a channel that could hardly have been trodden since he last opened it... so that presently they found the creek again at a sharp bend, and he led them over two deep fords through swift-running water, and they came out at last in a wide hollow ringed with palms where hundreds of spring floods had built a broad open sandbank gouged out a deep sheltered pool beside it.
'This is lunch,' said the Saint, and swung out of the saddle to moor his bridle to a fallen palm log where his horse could rest in the shade.
They spread out the contents of their saddlebags on the sandbank and ate cold chicken, celery, radishes, and hard-boiled eggs. There had been some difficulty when they set out over convincing Freddie Pellman that it would have been imнpractical as well as strictly illegal to take bottles of chamнpagne on to the reservation, but the water in the brook was sweet and ice-cold.
Esther drank it from her cupped hands, and sat back on her heels and gazed meditatively at the pool.
'It's awful hot,' she said, suggestively.
'Go on,' Ginny said to Simon. 'Dare her to take her clothes off and get in. That's what she's waiting for.'
'I'll go in if you will,' Esther said sullenly.
'Nuts,' said Ginny. 'I can have a good time without that.'
She was leaning against the Saint's shoulder for a backrest, and she gave a little snuggling wriggle as she spoke which made her meaning completely clear.
Freddie Pellman locked his arms around his knees and scowled. It had been rather obvious for some time that all the current competition was being aimed at the Saint, even though Simon had done nothing to try and encourage it; and Freddie was not feeling so generous about it as he had when he first invited the girls to take Simon into the family.
'All right,' Freddie said gracelessly. 'I dare you.'
Esther looked as if a load had been taken off her mind.
She pulled off her boots and socks. She stood up with a slight faraway smile, and unbuttoned her shirt and took it off. She took off her frontier pants. That left her in a wisp of sheer close-fitting scantiness. She took that off, too.
She certainly had a beautiful body.
She turned and walked into the pool and lowered herself into it until the water lapped her chin. It covered her as well as a sheet of glass. She rolled, and swam lazily up to the far end, and as the water shallowed she rose out again and strolled on up into the low cascade where the stream tumbled around the next curve. She waded on up through the falls, under the palms, the sunlight through the leaves making glancing patterns on her skin, and disappeared around the bend, very leisurely. It was quite an exit.- The rustle of the water seemed very loud suddenly, as if anyone would have had to shout to be heard over it. So that it was surprising when Ginny's voice sounded perfectly easy and normal.
'Well, folks,' she said, 'don't run away now, because there'll be another super-colossal floor show in just a short while.' She nestled against the Saint again and said: 'Hullo.' 'Hullo.'
'Hullo,' said the Saint restrainedly.
Freddie Pellman got to his feet.
'Well,' he said huffily, 'I know you won't miss me, so I think I'll take a walk.'
He stalked off up the stream the way Esther had gone, stumbling and balancing awkwardly on his high-heeled boots over the slippery rounded boulders.
They watched him until he was out of sight also.
'Alone at last,' said Ginny emotionally.
The Saint reached for a cigarette.
'Don't you ever worry about getting complicated? he asked.
