“We do. Hunt up some rifles, water, and the horses. I’ll be down at the Jew’s, ordering breakfast and getting some lunch wrapped up.”
Forty minutes later Milk River and I were out of Corkscrew.
The morning warmed as we rode, the sun making long violet pictures on the desert, raising the dew in a softening mist. The mesquite was fragrant, and even the sand—which would be as nice as a dusty stove-top later—had a fresh, pleasant odor. There was nothing to hear but the creaking of leather, the occasional clink of metal, and the plop-plop of the horses’ feet on hard ground, which changed to a shff-shff when we struck loose sand.
The battle seemed to be over, unless the battlers had run out of bullets and were going at it hand to hand.
Up over the ranch buildings, as we approached, three blue spots that were buzzards circled, and a moving animal showed against the sky for an instant on a distant ridge.
“A bronc that ought to have a rider and ain’t,” Milk River pronounced it.
Farther along, we passed a bullet-riddled Mexican sombrero, and then the sun sparkled on a handful of empty brass cartridges.
One of the ranch buildings was a charred black pile. Nearby another one of the men I had disarmed in Bardell’s lay dead on his back.
A bandaged head poked around a building-corner, and its owner stepped out, his right arm in a sling, a revolver in his left. Behind him trotted the one-eyed Chinese cook, swinging a cleaver.
Milk River recognized the bandaged man.
“Howdy, Red! Been quarreling?”
“Some. We took all th’ advantage we could of th’ warnin’ you sent out, an’ when Big ’Nacio an’ his herd showed up just ’fore daylight, we Injuned them all over the county. I stopped a couple o’ slugs, so I stayed to home whilst th’ rest o’ th’ boys followed ’em south. ’F you listen sharp, you can hear a pop now an’ then.”
“Do we follow ’em, or head ’em?” Milk River asked me.
“Can we head ’em?”
“Might. If Big ’Nacio’s running, he’ll circle back to his rancho along about dark. If we cut into the canyon and slide along down, maybe we can be there first. He won’t make much speed having to fight off Peery and the boys as he goes.”
“We’ll try it.”
Milk River leading, we went past the ranch buildings, and on down the draw, going into the canyon at the point where I had entered it the previous day. After a while the footing got better, and we made better time.
The sun climbed high enough to let its rays down on us, and the comparative coolness in which we had been riding went away. At noon we stopped to rest the horses, eat a couple of sandwiches, and smoke a bit. Then we went on.
Presently the sun passed, began to crawl down on our right, and shadows grew in the canyon. The welcome shade had reached the east wall when Milk River, in front, stopped.
“Around this next bend it is.”
We dismounted, took a drink apiece, blew the sand off our rifles, and went forward afoot, toward a clump of bushes that covered the crooked canyon’s next twist.
Beyond the bend, the floor of the canyon ran downhill into a round saucer. The saucer’s sides sloped gently up to the desert floor. In the middle of the saucer, four low adobe buildings sat. In spite of their exposure to the desert sun, they looked somehow damp and dark. From one of them a thin plume of bluish smoke rose. Water ran out of a rock-bordered hole in one sloping canyon-wall, disappearing in a thin stream that curved behind one of the buildings.
No man, no animal was in sight.
“I’m going to prospect down there,” Milk River said, handing me his hat and rifle.
“Right,” I agreed. “I’ll cover you, but if anything breaks, you’d better get out of the way. I’m not the most dependable rifle-shot in the world!”
For the first part of his trip Milk River had plenty of cover. He went ahead rapidly. The screening plants grew fewer. His pace fell off. Flat on the ground, he squirmed from clump to boulder, from hummock to bush.
Thirty feet from the nearest building, he ran out of places to hide. I thought he would scout the buildings from that point, and then come back. Instead, he jumped up and sprinted to the shelter of the nearest building.
Nothing happened. He crouched against the wall for several long minutes, and then began to work his way toward the rear.
A hatless Mexican came around the corner.
I couldn’t make out his features, but I saw his body stiffen.
His hand went to his waist.
Milk River’s gun flashed.
The Mexican dropped. The bright steel of his knife glittered high over Milk River’s head, and rang when it landed on a stone.
Milk River went out of my sight around the building. When I saw him again he was charging at the black doorway of the second building.
Fire-streaks came out of the door to meet him.
I did what I could with the two rifles—laying a barrage ahead of him—pumping lead at the open door, as fast as I could get it out. I emptied the second rifle just as he got too close to the door for me to risk another shot.
Dropping the rifle, I ran back to my horse, and rode to my crazy assistant’s assistance.
He didn’t need any. It was all over when I arrived.
He was driving another Mexican and Gyp Rainey out of the building with the nozzles of his guns.
“This is the crop,” he greeted me. “Leastways, I couldn’t find no more.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked Rainey.
But the hophead didn’t want
