'How much further to the mountains? We'll rest then, won't we?'
'We won't rest until we find water ... if we do.' She got up into the saddle again with some help from me, and we started on, only this time I walked. At least, I walked for the first couple of miles. When I began to stumble, as near asleep as awake, I climbed into the saddle myself.
Sometime after that, I dozed in the saddle, and when my eyes opened again the horses had stopped and it was gray in the east.
We had come up to a deep, sandy wash.
Looking around, I saw that witch woman, looking like nothing but a tired girl, just sagging in the saddle and hanging on by sheer grit. My pack horse was gone.
Staring back over the desert, I figured I could see something back there, a black spot of something on the sand.
'You got anything in that outfit of yours that you can't afford to lose?' I asked.
She looked up at me, staring stupidly for a moment before the sense of the words reached her. Then she turned to look, and after a moment she shook her bead.
'He may come on after us,' I said. 'It'll be in him to come after the other horses if he's able.
They've been carrying more weight, but they're better stuff than him.'
Looking up at her, I added, 'Ma'am, you've got some solid stuff in you, too. You surely have.'
But her lips were cracked and swollen, and there was no more spark to her than nothing. Nor in me, neither.
Right and left I looked, seeking a way through that wash. The banks were steep, and I feared to slide my horses down for fear they'd never get up after reaching bottom. At last I saw a place that looked like a broken- down bank, so I turned and headed for it. The sky was already lighter, and without water we would last no time in our condition if the sun caught us here.
We got through the wash, although I had to dismount and bully and harry the horses to get them up the opposite bank. A break in the mountains showed ahead of us, and I headed for it. From somewhere there came a burst of energy ... most likely the last I had.
The sun was an hour old before we found shelter in the lee of a shoulder of rock. That horse of hers just quit cold, and I didn't blame him.
Dumping our saddle gear in the shade of the rocks, I stared around. There wasn't even a barrel cactus within sight, although this was the country in which they grew. Nor was there anything I could use to feed the horses or to give them a bit of moisture. There was nothing but creosote, and mighty little of that.
Sizing up those horses, I could see they weren't going to travel much further, for they were used up. Two of them, the big stallion and my own original horse, might go on for a while. Even the second horse I'd bought from Hardy ... but that was a question. We had to have water.
Dorinda had slumped over on the sand, but me, I walked out a ways from where she lay and studied the sand. For about an hour I crissed-crossed back and forth over the desert around and about, studying for tracks. Mighty few were to be seen, and none of them were bunched up and traveling the same route, which might indicate water.
Most desert creatures get along either without any water at all, or on mighty little, getting what moisture they need from what they feed on, be it plants or animals. But most will take water when they can get it, and some of them have to have it.
Finally I gave up and came back and sat down. I must have dozed off; when I woke up my throat was so parched I could scarce swallow, and when I tried to open my mouth I could feel my lips cracking with dryness. My tongue was like a stick in my mouth, and I knew our time was short.
The girl was asleep, or maybe passed out.
I didn't look to see. One of the horses was stretched out on the ground, the others slumped three-legged, their heads hanging. My face felt stiff, and when I moved my eyeballs they seemed to grate in their sockets.
Catching hold of a rock, I pulled myself up and decided to try it one more time. And like before, I taken up a canteen and slung it around my neck where it couldn't slip off.
We'd slumped down at the foot of a great chunk of white granite, off by itself from the foot of the mountain. Others like it were around, and, starved for water though I was, I had sense enough to fix the shape of it in my mind ... else I might never find my way back. Not that it was going to matter, if I didn't find water.
'I'll find water,' I said out loud.
If she heard me at all, she gave no sign of it, but just lay there on the sand. So I turned and walked off.
The desert sand was white and hot, and the sunlight blazed back from the sand into my face and there was no shielding myself from it. After I had taken only a few steps I began to stagger. Once I fell against a rock and stood there for several minutes, I guess, before I got started again.
My eyes were on the sand, for I was hunting tracks. But something buzzed in my brain--something like an alarm bell of some kind--and then it was gone.
Pausing, I felt my eyes blinking and I made my head turn, and there was a man standing on a rock some distance off.
As my eyes focused on him he lifted a rifle, sunlight glinted on the barrel, and he fired. Instinct made me grab for my gun, but the movement overbalanced me and I fell. That much I remember ... and then nothing else for a long time.
Cold ... I was cold.
Feebly, I tried to burrow into the sand for warmth, but warmth would not come. My eyes opened, and I tried to swallow. My throat was raw, and the membranes of it chafed and tightened with the attempt.
Somehow I got my hands under me and lifted myself up. It was night, it was cold, and it was very dark. Stars were out, a chill wind was blowing but I was alive.
Alive ...
I started to crawl.
Suddenly a coyote yapped weirdly, not very far off, somewhere among the rocks, and I stopped.
When I started to crawl again something moved near me and something clicked on stone.
I knew that sound. A hoof ... but not a horse.
Forcing my stiff neck to bend, I looked up and saw it there, black against the sky for an instant. A bighorn sheep. ...
In the half-delirium that clouded my brain I felt irritation at the thought of the name. The bighorn was no more a sheep than I was. It was a deer. It had a body like a deer, hair like a deer ... even the same color. Only the horns were different.
I crawled on, and the blood started moving within me. Pain awakened, I felt raw and torn inside, my body ached.
The bighorn would have to have water, so there must be water near. Forcing my muddled thoughts into line, I struggled to think more clearly. The bighorn had gone into the canyon, so the water must be there ... at this hour he would be joining others of his kind at water, or would be leaving it.
Somehow I moved on, and then all movement ceased. Something stirred in me and I tried to move on, but I could not.
And then I felt the sun upon my back, and it was hot, terribly hot. My eyes opened and I struggled. In my mind was terror--terror of death, terror of dying here, like this. ... And there was memory of the sheep. Pulling myself to hands and knees, I stared blearily around for tracks, and found none, for I had crawled upon the rock, bare rock where I saw not even the scars from hoofs.
Suddenly something buzzed by me and sang off into the distance.
A bullet? The sound lasted too long.
Struggling on, I paused again, hearing a queer, cricket-like sound. I knew that sound. It was the croaking made by the red-spotted frog.
And I knew something else. The life of that frog was lived in canyons or in places near permanent springs or seeps.
Water was near.
With a lunge, I came to my feet as though pricked with a knife point. Wildly, I stared around, and saw nothing.
