The vultures were perhaps a mile away now, still spiraling slowly in the rising thermal. Carson and de Vaca walked in silence, leading their horses across the lava. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The lava seemed to glitter with endless lakes of blue water, covered with whitecaps. It was impossible for Carson to keep his eyes open and not see water.
Carson examined his thirst. It was excruciating. He had never imagined, much less felt, such a desperate sensation. His tongue was a thick lump of chalk in his mouth, without feeling. His lips had cracked and were starting to ooze fluid. The thirst was also gnawing away at his mind: As he walked, it seemed the desert had become one vast fire, lifting him like flyaway ash into the dazzling, implacable sky.
The horses were becoming severely dehydrated. The alteration that a few hours in the noonday sun had worked on them was almost incredible. He had wanted to wait until sunset to give them water, but it was now clear that sunset would be too late.
He stopped abruptly. Susana shuffled on a few steps, then halted wordlessly.
“Let’s water the horses,” he said. The sudden speech in his dry throat was exquisitely painful.
She said nothing.
“Susana? You okay?”
De Vaca didn’t answer. She sat down in the shade of her horse and bowed her head.
Carson dismounted and moved toward de Vaca’s horse. He unstrapped Nye’s saddlebag and pushed the horseshoes aside. Removing a canteen, he took off his hat and filled it up to the brim. The sight of the water flowing from the mouth of the canteen sent his throat into spasm. Roscoe, who had been standing beside him half- dead, suddenly jerked his head up and crowded forward. He sucked down the water in a moment, then grabbed the hat with his teeth. Carson rapped him irritably on the muzzle, yanking the hat away. The horse pranced and blew.
Carson filled his hat a second time, carrying it to de Vaca’s horse. The horse drank it down greedily.
Replacing the now-empty canteen with the full one, he gave each horse half a second hatful, then returned the canteen to the saddle. The horses had suddenly become agitated, as he knew they would, and were blowing and turning, eyes wide.
As he returned the second, half-full canteen to the saddlebag, he heard a rustling sound. Reaching in, he found a loose seam along the lining of the outer flap. A piece of aged yellow paper was peeping out: the paper that Nye had been examining in the barn, the evening after the dust storm. Carson pulled it out and looked at it curiously. It was tattered and not paper at all, but something that looked like a soiled piece of ancient leather. On it were crudely detailed sketches of a mountain range, a strangely shaped black mass, numerous markings, and Spanish script. And across the top, the perplexing words in a large, old-fashioned hand:
It all became suddenly clear. Were it not for his painfully cracked lips, Carson would have laughed aloud.
“Susana!” he exclaimed. “Nye has been searching for the Mount Dragon treasure. The gold of Mondragon! I found a map” hidden here m his saddlebags. The crazy bastard knew paper was illegal at Mount Dragon, so he kept it where nobody would find it!”
De Vaca glanced at the proffered map disinterestedly from beneath the shade of her horse. Carson shook his head. It was ridiculous, so out of character. Whatever else he was, Nye was no fool. Yet he had no doubt bought this map in the back room of some musty junk shop in Santa Fe, probably paying a fortune. Carson had seen many such maps being offered for sale; faking and selling treasure maps for tourists was big business in New Mexico. No wonder Nye had acted so suspicious of Carson’s tracking: He thought Carson was out to steal his imaginary treasure.
Abruptly, Carson’s amusement disappeared. Apparently, Nye had been searching for this treasure for some time. Perhaps it had begun simply as curiosity on his part. But now, under the influence of PurBlood, what had started as a mild obsession would have become much more than that. And Nye, being aware that Carson had taken the saddlebag, would have even more reason to hunt them down without mercy.
He looked more closely at the map. It showed mountains, and the black stuff might be a lava flow. It could be anywhere in the desert. But Nye obviously knew that Mondragon’s doublet had supposedly been found at the base of Mount Dragon; he must have been orchestrating his search from that point.
Even this remarkable solution to Nye’s weekend disappearances grew quickly dull under the burning thirst that would not leave his throat. Wearily, Carson returned the piece of vellum to the saddlebag and looked at the horseshoes. There was no time to put them on. They’d have to chance it in the sand.
He tied up the saddlebag, then turned. “Susana, we’ve got to keep going.”
Wordlessly, de Vaca stood up and began walking northward. Carson followed her, his thoughts dissolving in a dark dream of fire.
Suddenly they were at the edge of the lava flow. Ahead of them, the sandy desert stretched to the limitless horizon. Carson bent down in a salt pan that had formed along the edge of the lava and picked up a few pieces of alkali salt. It never hurt to be prepared.
“We can ride now,” he said, shoving the salt into his pocket. He watched as de Vaca mechanically put one foot in the stirrup. She hoisted herself into the saddle on the second attempt.
Watching her silent struggles, Carson was suddenly unable to stand it any longer. He stopped, reached over for the saddlebag, withdrew the canteen.
“Susana. Drink with me.”
She sat on her horse for a moment, silently. At last, without looking up, she said, “Don’t be a fool. We’ve got sixty miles to go. Save it for the horses.”
“Just a little sip, Susana. A sip.”
A sob escaped from her throat. “None for me. But if you want to, go ahead.”
Carson screwed the cap down without drinking and replaced the canteen. As he prepared to mount, he felt something run down his chin. When he dabbed at his lips, his fingers came away red with blood. This hadn’t happened in Coal Canyon. This was much worse. And they still had sixty miles to go. He realized, with a kind of dull finality, that there was no way they were going to make it.
Unless there were coyotes at the kill.
He put his foot in the stirrup, fighting back a sudden dizziness, and pulled himself upward onto the horse. The effort exhausted him, and he sagged in the saddle.
The vultures were still circling now, perhaps a quarter mile ahead. The two moved closer, Carson propping himself up with the saddle horn. In the distance, something dark was lying on the sand. Coyotes were tugging at it. Roscoe, seeing something in the featureless desert, automatically moved toward it. Carson blinked, trying to focus. His eyes were running out of water. He blinked again.
The coyotes bounded away from the carcass. At a hundred yards they stopped and looked back.
The horses drew closer to the carcass. Carson looked down, working to bring the dead creature into focus. His eyes were so dry they felt as if they were caked in sand.
It was a dead pronghorn antelope. The carcass was barely recognizable: a skull, with the characteristic stubby horns, peeking out of a desiccated lump of flesh.
Carson glanced at de Vaca, pulling up behind. “Coyotes,” he said. His throat felt like it had been flayed.
“What?”
“Coyotes. It means water. They never go far from water.”
“How far?”
“Ten miles, no more.”
He leaned over the saddle horn, trying to control a spasm in his throat.
“How?” de Vaca croaked.
“Track,” Carson said.
The heat played about them. A single cloud drifted across the sky, like a puff of acrid steam. The Fra Cristobal Mountains, which they had been approaching all day, now seemed bleached to bone by the sun. Behind them, the horizon had disappeared, and the landscape itself seemed to be evaporating, dissolving into sheets of light, floating upward into a white-hot sky. The coyotes were sitting on a rise, waiting for the interlopers to leave.
