Читать книгу The Mesa - Charles Alden Seltzer - Страница 4

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Deep in a gorge that gashed the desert between the Cabeza Pireta and the Aja Mountains went two horses with riders. The horses moved slowly, as though spent, while the riders, gaunt and haggard, and so thickly covered with dust that their eyelashes were heavily rimmed with it, kept urging them on and frequently looked back as though fearful of pursuit.

And yet behind the two horses and their riders was no visible movement. Beyond the point where the gorge sank into the desolate land stretched a flat, unfeatured desert. Eastward rose the black summits of the Ajas, westward were the uncompromising peaks of the Cabeza Piretas. Southward, not more than a dozen miles, was Mexico in which, where they would enter if their pursuers did not reach them before that time, were lowland forests in which they might hide for a time without danger of discovery.

Half an hour later, when they had got out of the gorge and were riding around the shoulder of a hill, they got a glimpse of a green-brown land that stretched below them, southward.

“I reckon we’ll make it, Galt,” said one of the riders.

Galt merely nodded. His eyes were red as coals of fire with inflammation, his lips were thick and cracked. He was limp and saddle weary, and yet he snarled as he glanced backward into the yellow haze out of which he and his companion had ridden.

“Damn their hides, we’ll shake ’em yet!” declared the man who had first spoken. “If the Picacho Kid hadn’t let off his gun when he did, we’d have got away clean!”

The Picacho Kid was dead. He had been killed at Gila Bend, where the trio had held up a train. They had got away with ten thousand dollars in currency, which they had already divided, and which at that instant was safe in the pouches on their saddles.

A dozen times within the past two days they had discussed the robbery, had gone over every feature of it. And still their thoughts reverted to it as a subject which was of supreme importance. But always their final thoughts were of their chances of escape. For after the fight at Gila Bend they had discovered that two horsemen were on their trail.

However, they were natives of the country and were familiar with it, and they surmised that their pursuers were railroad detectives who would have trouble in tracking them. Their conviction of the ignorance of the two pursuers grew when they discovered quite a distance back that they were apparently alone in the desert.

“If we’d have pulled it off at Maricopa, where they’d have had a chance to get a posse together, we’d have been swingin’ by this time,” said the speaker. “As it is, if we can get into the lowlands we can hole up for a few days an’ then slip down to Hermosillo or Guaymas. Then we can take a boat up to ’Frisco.”

“Simms, you’re talkin’ sense,” answered Galt. “There ain’t no place in this greaser country where a man can spend cash like she ought to be spent.”

“Right now I’m more interested in water,” declared Simms. “I’m baked. My tongue is clackin’ ag’in’ the roof of my mouth.”

“If we keep on goin’ straight south we’ll hit the north fork of the Altar pretty soon,” predicted Galt. “That’ll bring us onto old Don Pedro Bazan’s land.”

Two hours later the riders were deep in a lowland wilderness. Behind them, rising like a dun wall, was the slope they had descended. Secure in their green fastness they turned in their saddles and scanned the high, irregular horizon. Galt cursed when he observed a pin-point dot moving on the skyline.

“There’s the critters!” he said. “Let’s fan it! If we keep in the brush, they can’t see us!”

Their horses scurried deeper into the wilderness. They reached a forest of cypress and eucalyptus which filled a flat. They went out of the flat into a prickly pear patch, miles wide, through which they sent their horses recklessly. They emerged with their clothing ripped and torn and the skin of their faces and hands scratched and bleeding. Again they turned in their saddles and surveyed the back trail. Where there had been one dot on the skyline there were now two.

Vitriolic profanity issued from their lips. They were saddle weary, and still they must press on.

“Them guys stick like burrs,” said Galt. “They must be tough!”

At dusk, in the solemn shadows of a forest, they reached a small stream of water. Regardless of the riders who were pursuing them, they dismounted, removed their clothes, rolled in the water, and drank. For half an hour they luxuriated in the pool; then, refreshed, they again mounted and sent their horses southward. Just as darkness began to fall, they reached a small town, which Galt learned from a native was called Peza.

They entered a cantina and drank thirstily of the fiery liquors they found there. After a dozen drinks Simms found Galt standing with legs wide apart reading a notice that had been posted on a wall of the cantina. Simms approached Galt and looked over his shoulder. The notice was written in Spanish, and Simms could not understand it. But when Galt interpreted it, Simms laughed aloud.

Galt had stumbled upon a copy of Don Pedro Bazan’s pronunciamento!

“Why, hell!” he declared. “We’re free as kings! Them hombres that’s been on our trail won’t dast touch us! That there pronunciamento has been in effect since six o’clock this mornin’!” He emitted a whoop of delight and grabbed Simms around the waist. Together they danced about the room and at last brought up against the bar.

“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed Galt. “Let them hombres come! Just as soon as I collect a couple hundred more drinks I’m headin’ for the Mesa del Angeles!”