Catlow (1963) (17 page)

At the desert's edge he drew up. "Thank you," he said to Rosita Calderon. "Now you'd best go back. I'll take it from here."

She held out her slender gloved hand. "Vaya con dios, senor." And then she added in English, "And if you come back to Mexico--come to see me."

He watched her straight, slender back as she rode away, then swore softly and turned his horse into the desert.

Forty mules and a dozen mounted horsemen leave some mark upon the land in their passing; and these did so, despite the efforts of Bijah Catlow to keep the trail hidden. The soft sand of washes, the hard-packed sand of windblown mesas, the shallow stream beds--all these were made use of. But always there was the mule that stepped out of line, that trod on vegetation, or left a hoofprint on the edge of a stream.

Ben was a full day behind them when he reached the Bacoachi and saw where they had dug for water. He saw the prints left in the sand where the water kegs had stood while being filled, and he studied what tracks he could find, realizing the knowledge might serve him well at a later time. To a western plainsman, a track was as easily read as a road sign.

From Rosita and the vaqueros he had learned about the country that lay ahead of him. He refilled his two canteens, and when he left the Bacoachi it was dusk and he rode swiftly.

There was no need to see the trail here, for the only water ahead lay at Arivaipa Well in the river bottom of the San Ignacio. If there was no water there, eight miles west at Coyote Wells there might be water.

At midnight Ben made a dry camp, watered his horse from his hat, and, after three hours of rest, saddled up and went on. In the graying light of dawn he found a mule. Or what remained of one.

Played out, the mule had obviously been abandoned, and what happened after that was revealed by the tracks and the bones. The mule had been killed, cooked, and eaten.

Ben Cowan studied the moccasin tracks. They were not Apache or Yaqui, and this was the homeland of the dreaded Seri Indians, said to be cannibals, and known to use poisoned arrows. All sorts of fantastic stories were told about them, most of them untrue. It was sometimes said that they were the descendants of the crew of a Swedish or Norwegian whaler or some other ship wrecked on Tiburon a hundred and fifty years before. At any rate, it was clear that the Seris had come upon the mule and eaten it. There had been a dozen or more in the group.

It was mid-morning when Ben cautiously approached the Po7,o Arivaipa. The mule train had been there and had watered, and they had left no water in the well. The bottom of it was merely mud.

He hesitated only an instant. Coyote Wells might be dry too; and to ride there and back would mean sixteen miles with nothing gained in the pursuit. To the north were the Golondrina tinajas, where there would surely be water. They were perhaps twenty-four miles away, with other wells fifteen miles or so beyond.

So Ben Cowan rode north, but he rode uneasily, worried by that half-eaten mule. Those moccasin tracks were surely made by the Seris, and they would be somewhere around; if they lived up to the stories about them they would be up ahead, scouting that mule train.

Did Catlow know? The vaquero who told Ben about the Seris had crossed himself when he mentioned them, and that vaquero was a tough man and a brave one. Ben Cowan rode more slowly, studying the country, and taking care to avoid any likely ambush. He could think of a lot of ways to die, but one he particularly did not want was to turn slowly black with a poisoned arrow in his guts.

He had heard many stories about how that poison was made, none of them appealing. Bartlett, who had led the party that surveyed the border between the United States and Mexico along those miles where New Mexico, Arizona, and California adjoin the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California, reported that the Seris obtained the poison by taking the liver from a cow and putting it in a hole with live rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes, then stirring up the whole mass until the creatures exhausted their venom on each other and on the liver. The arrow points are then passed through this and allowed to dry in the shade.

Father Pfefferkorn, who spent many years in Sonora during the earliest times, had a somewhat different story to tell. The poisons, he said, are collected from all those creatures and also from the Mexican beaded lizard, and mixed with the juices of poisonous plants, then sealed in a large earthenware jar so that none of the poison can evaporate. The pot is then placed on a fire under the open sky and cooked until ready for use. The care of this evil concoction was always delegated to the oldest woman, for when the pot was uncovered the vapor invariably killed her.

Thoughts of such tales as these were in Ben Cowan's mind as he rode.

To the north of the route he was following was the Cerro Prieto, the Black Range, so called because it was covered by dark forest. This was a favorite haunt of the Seris, second only to the Isle of Tiburon.

Ben Cowan rode with caution, his eyes continually busy, not only looking for what the desert could tell him in the way of tracks, but searching the horizon too. In the desert, the careless die ... and wherever they are, the reckless die, some sooner, some later. Ben Cowan was neither.

Four miles off to the west, six Seris trotted across the sand. They held to low ground, and they were patient. They knew about Ben Cowan, but they were in no hurry. He was going where they were going, and all in good time they would have him too. They could afford to wait.

The Seris were of the desert, and the desert can wait.... the buzzard that soars above the desert also knows how to wait. Both desert and buzzard know that sooner or later they will claim most things that walk, creep, or crawl within the desert.

Though the men who drove the mule train were in a great hurry, neither the Seris nor the buzzards were worried. The mule train was marked for death. In fact, death was already among them, and once there, it would not be leaving before its work was done.

Bijah Catlow had seen a mule die ... and afterward, another mule.

And now a man was to die ... and then more men.

Chapter
Nineteen.

Under a hot and smoky sky the mule train stretched out for half a mile, plodding wearily, heavily, exhausted by the distance, the dust, and the everlasting heat. Contorted by the heat, the air quivered and trembled, turning the low areas into pools of water that beckoned with sly, false fingers of hope.

The sky was blazing with the sun of Sonora; though the sun was masked by the smoke from the fires that burned in the hills, there was no relief from the heat. This was the desert ... sand, rock, cactus, greasewood, and ocotillo ... and nowhere was there any water.

Bijah Catlow mopped the sweat from his face and blinked at the strung-out train through the sting of the salt sweat in his eyes. He should ride back and make them bunch up; despite all his warnings they did not pay heed to them. It was too far west for Apaches, they claimed, and it was north of Yaqui country; of the Seris, most of them had never heard.

They had watered well at the tinajas of Golondrina, but the rock tanks at Del Picu had been bone-dry; so instead of adding another twenty miles to the twelve they had covered, Catlow had turned east toward Pozo del Serna, where there was nearly always water.

Less than an hour ago they had lost the second mule, and had divided its load between five of the others. At the next camp Bijah planned to bunch the supplies that were left, and so free a mule for packing treasure. Though he had expected to lose mules, he had not expected it so soon.

The Tarahumara trotted up to him as Merridew drew up alongside. The Indian spoke rapidly, using sign talk as well. Merridew glanced from him to Catlow. "What's he say?"

"He says we're bein' followed."

Merridew spat. "Well, why don't he tell us somethin' we don't know?"

"He says it isn't white men--it's Seris. And he's scared."

Merridew looked at the Indian. He did look scared, come to think of it. The Old Man's bleak eyes studied the distance, which revealed nothing--only the dancing heat waves, and faint haze of smoke that hung over everything. But he knew the desert too well to be deceived by the apparent emptiness. If that Indian said there were Seris out there, they were there.

The Old Man's horse, carrying much less weight than Bijah's own, was in better shape. "Ride back and bunch them up, will you?" Bijah said to him. "Tell em it's not far to water."

He gestured toward the mountains. "It's up there, maybe three, four miles.... Then you come back up here--bring Rio or Bob along and we'll scout those wells."

Catlow watched while the riders bunched the mules, scanning the desert at intervals. He had an odd sense of impending disaster that worried him.

From the slight knoll on which he sat his horse, he watched the Old Man ride up with Rio Bray. The three turned their horses eastward then, and cantered forward toward the dark, looming mountains. The low mountains to the right were bare, but to the left and north the crests were covered with a thick forest of pine.

The springs, when they reached them, lay in the bottom of a branch off a dry wash, surrounded by ironwood and smoke trees. In the trees, birds sang; all else was still.

The Tarahumara came up, drank briefly and then disappeared among the trees.

"If there's anybody around," Catlow said, "he'll find em."

Rio Bray stepped down from his saddle and drank, then filled his canteen. "How much further, d'you reckon?"

"Hundred miles."

Bray indicated the mules. "They ain't gonna make it."

"We'll have to get more."

Bray said nothing, but his expression was sour. Bijah swung down and eased the girth on his saddle, then led his horse to the water. Old Man Merridew was doing the same thing.

Suddenly, Rio swore viciously, and kicked a rock.

Catlow glanced up and spoke mildly. "Somethin' bitin' you, Rio?"

"We were damn' fools to come by the desert! Why, if we'd come up the trail we could have stole fresh animals all the way along! We'd have been nigh to the border by now."

"And have half the country chasin' you? That Calderon ranch has a reg'lar army on it, an' tough vaqueros. Did you ever tangle with a bunch of hand-picked Sonora vaqueros? Take it from me, and don't."

"Halfway to the border and not a shot fired," the Old Man commented. "Don't seem too bad to me."

The mule train streamed into the hollow and the mules lined up eagerly along the trickle of water that spilled down from the springs and then disappeared in the sand.

Rio Bray stalked off, and stopped to talk to Pesquiera. Bijah's eyes followed him. "There's trouble," the Old Man commented.

"Old Man," Bijah said, "if anything happens to me, you take this outfit north to Bisani. There's water there, and the ruins of an old church--good place to fort up if you have to. Caborca's to the east of us, but fight shy of it. You head for La Zorra ... about fifteen miles. Less than that distance beyond La Zorra, you come up to the Churupates. There'll be mules waiting there. Follow up the bed of the Rio Seco, then cut for the border and the foot of the Baboquivaris."

"You figured mighty close." Merridew drove the cork into his canteen with a blow of his palm. "Any of the rest of them know that route?"

"No ... but stick to it." Catlow took up a twig. "Old Man, there's troops stationed at Magdalena, and we all saw them. By now the troops at Altar have been alerted, too. If we tried to go the way Bray suggested they'd have us in a pocket."

The packs were stripped from the mules, and they were led out and picketed on the grass. Catlow was everywhere, checking their backs for sores, checking their legs and hoofs. Not much further with this bunch, he realized, but every mile was important now, and every pack.

The Mexican soldier squatted on the sand and put together a small fire. He glanced up at Catlow with an odd expression in his eyes, and Bijah was instantly alert. He raised his eyes and without turning his head or seeming especially interested, he placed every man--all but Pesquiera.

Rio Bray stood up and two of the Tucson crowd were also standing, spread out from Bray.

"I figure," Rio said, "we should go east, up the Pedradas."

"No," Catlow replied quietly, "we'd be walkin' into a trap." His eyes went slowly around the group, pinning each man. Where the hell was Pesquiera?

Keleher got to his feet slowly, suddenly aware of a showdown.

"We talked it over," Rio said, "and we've had enough of goin' short on water. We've decided to take off up the Pedradas."

"You've 'decided'? Rio, you decide nothing here. What's decided will be decided by me."

Rio's eyes flickered, and Bijah knew where Pesquiera was. On his right, Old Man Merridew held his rifle in his hands. "Go ahead," Catlow said, "you take care of Pesky, Old Man. Rio's my meat."

Rio Bray began to sweat. He looked at Catlow, and suddenly Bijah was smiling. "It's your play, Rio," he said. "You go with us, or you go for that gun."

A few minutes before, Rio Bray had been sure and confident. He had been looking forward to this showdown, and he had Pesquiera for insurance. Now suddenly there was no insurance.

"We're callin' your hand, Catlow," Bray said. "We put it to a vote, and the most of us want to go up the Pedradas."