Forty Lashes Less One

“I think we should take the two in the rocks. See what Frank does in the morning when nobody’s there.”

The grin spread over Harold’s face. That sounded pretty good.

They slept for a few hours and when they woke up it was night. Harold touched Raymond. The Indian sat up without making a sound. He opened a canvas bag and took out the small bottles of iodine and white paint and they began to get ready.

There was no sun yet on this side of the mountain, still cold dark in the early morning when Virgil Shelby came down out of the rocks and crossed the open slope to the trees. He could make out his brother and the woman by the fire. He could hear the horses and knew Frank’s men were saddling them and gathering up their gear.

Frank and the woman looked up as Virgil approached, and Frank said, “They coming?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see them.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see them?”

“They weren’t up there.”

Frank Shelby got up off the ground. He dumped his coffee as he walked to the edge of the trees to look up at the tumbled rocks and the escarpment that rose steeply against the sky.

“They’re asleep somewhere,” he said. “You must’ve looked the wrong places.”

“I looked all over up there.”

“They’re asleep,” Shelby said. “Go on up there and look again.”

When Virgil came back the second time Frank said, Jesus Christ, what good are you? And sent Junior and Joe Dean up into the rocks. When they came down he went up himself to have a look and was still up there as the sunlight began to spread over the slope and they could feel the heat of day coming down on them.

“There’s no sign of anything,” Virgil said. “There’s no sign they were even here.”

“I put them here,” Frank Shelby said. “One right where you’re standing, Dancey over about a hundred feet. I put them here myself.”

“Well, they’re not here now,” Virgil said.

“Jesus Christ, I know that.” Frank looked over at Junior and Soonzy. “You counted the horses?”

“We’d a-heard them taking horses.”

“I asked if you counted them!”

“Christ, we got them saddled. I don’t have to count them.”

“Then they walked away,” Frank Shelby said, his tone quieter now.

Virgil shook his head. “I hadn’t paid them yet.”

“They walked away,” Shelby said again. “I don’t know why, but they did.”

“Can you see Dancey walking off into the mountains?” Virgil said. “I’m telling you I hadn’t paid them.”

“There’s nothing up there could have carried them off. No animal, no man. There is no sign they did anything but walk away,” Shelby said, “and that’s the way we’re going to leave it.”

He said no more until they were down in the trees again, ready to ride out. Nobody said anything.

Then Frank told Joe Dean he was to ride ahead of them like a point man. Virgil, he said, was to stay closer in the hills and ride swing, though he would also be ahead of them looking for natural trails.

“Looking for trails,” Virgil said. “If you believe those two men walked off, then what is it that’s tightening up your hind end?”

“You’re older than me,” Frank said, “but no bigger, and I will sure close your mouth if you want it done.”

“Jesus, can’t you take some kidding?”

“Not from you,” his brother said.

They were in a high meadow that had taken more than an hour to reach, at least a thousand feet above Shelby’s camp. Dancey and Howard Crowder sat on the ground close to each other. The Apache and the Zulu stood off from them leaning on their spears, their blankets laid over their shoulders as they waited for the sun to spread across the field. They would be leaving in a few minutes. They planned to get out ahead of Shelby and be waiting for him. These two, Dancey and Crowder, they would leave here. They had taken their revolvers and gun belts, the only things they wanted from them.

“They’re going to kill us,” Dancey whispered.

Howard Crowder told him for God sake to keep quiet, they’d hear him.

They had been in the meadow most of the night, brought here after each had been sitting in the rocks, drowsing, and had felt the spear point at the back of his neck. They hadn’t got a good look at the two yet. They believed both were Indians—even though there were no Indians around here, and no Indians had carried spears in fifty years. Then they would have to be loco Indians escaped from an asylum or kicked out of their village. That’s what they were. That’s why Dancey believed they were going to kill him and Howard.

Finally, in the morning light, when the Zulu walked over to them and Dancey got a close look at his face—God Almighty, with the paint and the scars and the short pointed beard and the earring—he closed his eyes and expected to feel the spear in his chest any second.

Harold said, “You two wait here till after we’re gone.”

Dancey opened his eyes and Howard Crowder said, “What?”

“We’re going to leave, then you can find your way out of here.”

Howard Crowder said, “But we don’t know where we are.”

“You up on a mountain.”

“How do we get down?”

“You look around for a while you find a trail. By that time your friends will be gone without you, so you might as well go home.” Howard started to turn away.

“Wait a minute,” Howard Crowder said. “We don’t have horses, we don’t have any food or water. How are we supposed to get across the desert?”

“It’s up to you,” Harold said. “Walk if you want or stay here and die, it’s up to you.”

“We didn’t do nothing to you,” Dancey said.

Harold looked at him. “That’s why we haven’t killed you.”

“Then what do you want us for?”

“We don’t want you,” Harold said. “We want Frank Shelby.”

Virgil rejoined the group at noon to report he hadn’t seen a thing, not any natural trail either that would save them time. They were into the foothills of the Little Ajos and he sure wished Billy Santos had not got shot in the head in the train station, because Billy would have had them to Clarkstown by now. They would be sitting at a table with cold beer and fried meat instead of squatting on the ground eating hash out of a can. He asked if he should stay with the group now. Norma Davis looked pretty good even if she was kind of sweaty and dirty; she was built and had nice long hair. He wouldn’t mind riding with her a while and maybe arranging something for that night.

Frank, it looked like, was still not talking. Virgil asked him again if he should stay with the group and this time Frank said no and told him to finish his grub and ride out. He said, “Find the road to Clarkstown or don’t bother coming back, because there would be no use of having you around.”

So Virgil and Joe Dean rode out about fifteen minutes ahead of the others. When they split up Virgil worked his way deeper into the foothills to look for some kind of a road. He crossed brush slopes and arroyos, holding to a south-southeast course, but he didn’t see anything that resembled even a foot path. It was a few hours after leaving the group, about three o’clock in the afternoon, that Virgil came across the Indian and it was the damnedest thing he’d ever seen in his life.

There he was out in the middle of nowhere sitting at the shady edge of a mesquite thicket wrapped in an army blanket. A real Apache Indian, red headband and all and even with some paint on his face and a staff or something that was sticking out of the bushes. It looked like a fishing pole. That was the first thing Virgil thought of: an Apache Indian out in the desert fishing in a mesquite patch—the damnedest thing he’d ever seen.

Virgil said, “Hey, Indin, you sabe English any?”

Raymond San Carlos remained squatted on the ground. He nodded once.

“I’m looking for the road to Clarkstown.”

Raymond shook his head now. “I don’t know.”

“You speak pretty good. Tell me something, what’re you doing out here?”

“I’m not doing nothing.”

“You live around here?”