Norton, Andre - Novel 15 (29 page)

 
          
 
''Chew," he ordered. "It'll keep you
going—"

 
          
 
Ritchie chewed. It didn't much
matter,
he thought dazedly, what they did now. In the end it
would all be the same. Either the Apaches would catch up with them or thirst
and hunger would knock them out.

 
          
 
They prodded on into a basin where the
sandstone walls opened out in a series of long jagged points, like the fangs of
a trap waiting to close on them for all time. Herndon stopped and caught
Ritchie's arm.

 
          
 
"Look!" Dust and thirst had made his
voice a croak, but the ring of command was still in it.

           
 
Ritchie obediently raised his head and looked.

 
          
 
On the top of one of the rock fangs was a
tower—not a crumbling
ruin
of adobe such as they had
seen before, but a real tower of squared stones, sturdy against wind and
weather.

 
          
 
Slowly he turned his head. Now that he had
sighted the first, he could see the others where they stood on the tops of the
pinnacles close to the encircling cliffs, outlined against the solid rock of
the natural walls behind them. Some were alone and others clustered together.
There were more towers than he could count.

 
          
 
"The land of the Torreones," Herndon
said softly. "The valley of many towers—"

 
          
 
"But where are the people?" Ritchie
searched those flanking cliffs with restless eyes. There seemed to be no life
within those patiently erected walls, unless it was the life of bird, snake, or
lizard. It was a valley of the dead, sucked clean of movement and life.

 
          
 
"Gone.
There are
the lines of their fields. But how long has it been since water ran in those
irrigation ditches? This may have been ancient and deserted before the first
European dreamed of the western world. Lost and forgotten—"

 
          
 
"Dead."
Ritchie struck at the black flies. Bess stamped weakly and whinnied. Herndon
urged her toward the cliff side. Getting up on the saddle, he was able to
scramble to a higher vantage point. His lookout duties took some minutes.
Ritchie flopped down behind a screen of low growing cactus, his carbine to
hand. But the country through which they had come seemed as barren as the waste
of the tower land. Herndon came down with a jarring thud.

 
          
 
"There's an old river bed down the center
of the basin.

           
 
If we use that for a guide, there's a chance
it will lead us to the Chama—"

 
          
 
"Yes?" Ritchie pulled himself up
again with an effort. "You mean it will if we can keep going—which we
can't. Diego's Apaches are probably beating up our back trail right now—"

 
          
 
But Herndon had more attention for the towers
than for what his companion was saying. "I wonder if Apaches would come
here?
Most primitive peoples are superstitious, and some
tribes avoid the cliff ruins for fear of spirits. These towers seem so
untouched—this whole section might well be forbidden territory. We can get down
that river-follow it—"

 
          
 
"And something is following us!"
Ritchie had glanced over the Sergeant's shoulder, and now with a push he sent
Herndon sprawling into cover as he himself went to one knee and steadied the
carbine across a rock.

 
          
 
A large dun-colored creature was coming at a
deliberate pace down the basin. For a moment Ritchie just stared at it, and
then he began to laugh weakly as the Sergeant sat up spitting gravel and hot
words. It was the "mule" camel, a whisp of spiky desert stuff
protruding from its working jaws at almost the same angle as that of a Mexican
cigarrillo its dignified tread that of a pompous man of affairs on his way to
his appointed place of business.

 
          
 
Herndon made for the lariat which had been
hung over the horn of Bess's saddle. The mare was rolling her eyes in the
direction of the camel, trying to pull free and go far, far away.

 
          
 
Looping the lariat, Herndon jerked out an
order to Ritchie. "Circle to the left and see if you can force him over in
this direction. I'll try to get him with the rope—"

 
          
 
Ritchie circled. The camel was watching him.
When he came within ten yards or so, it removed itself—to the right as they had
hoped. Breathlessly Ritchie went on in a direction which he trusted would drive
it toward the waiting Sergeant. Why the beast had continued to follow them, yet
refused to let them get near it,
was a mystery they could not
solve—not knowing
the tricks of the camel mind. But there was a good
chance that if they once managed to get a rope over its ungainly head, it would
allow itself to be mastered.

 
          
 
The circling continued. Herndon scrambled up
to the top of a boulder and spread the rope in the way the cow-herders did. The
camel proceeded to drift at a slow, unhurried pace.

 
          
 
And at that moment Bess at last broke free.
With a neigh of pure terror she streaked away from the monster she saw bearing
down upon her. Ritchie could not suppress a cry as she went. The camel stopped,
making an uneasy sound not unlike a snort.

 
          
 
Herndon threw the lariat. But, either by sheer
luck or with
an intelligence
Ritchie did not believe
it possessed, the camel swung its head aside at the same moment. And before the
Sergeant could try again, it trotted off at a speed they could not match
without the aid of the vanished Bess.

 
          
 
Ritchie walked up to the boulder, and Herndon
greeted him with a grimace which had no hint of humor in it.

 
          
 
"My skill does not seem equal to this,
does it?" With the coil of lariat in one hand and Tuttle's rifle in the
other, he jumped down to follow the mare's track. "At least we can be
thankful she kept going in the right direction when she bolted."

           
 
"What's the big hurry?"

 
          
 
"Hasn't it occurred to you yet that the
spare canteens are strapped to her saddle?"

 
          
 
It was like taking an uppercut on an already
aching chin. No, he had forgotten that fact. He matched Herndon stride for
stride through
a fine
sand that shifted and slid
underfoot until their progress was that of drunken men. They had no eyes now
for the silent towers they passed.

 
          
 
A combination of chance, hate, and
overeagerness saved them from the death that padded at their heels. The sharp
crack of a shot broke, and they dropped, each as if that bullet had plowed
between his bony shoulders.

 
          
 
"Apaches!"
Herndon's lips shaped the word rather than spoke it aloud.

 
          
 
Save for that warning shot, they could not
have guessed what menace lay behind. They could see nothing. But who had ever
sighted a rock-lizard Apache when he wanted to pass unnoticed?

 
          
 
The Sergeant's fingers dug into Ritchie's
upper arm, pulling him back. On their stomachs they made a worm's progress
between rocks and stunted bushes, Herndon leading the way. He brought them up
against a small break in the cliff wall, a fault like a narrow chimney vent.

 
          
 
"Up!"
Herndon pushed his companion toward that impossible stair. "I'll cover you.
When you reach the top, bark like a coyote and then cover me."

 
          
 
Up—up where? But with a blind faith in the
Sergeant, Ritchie slung his carbine and climbed. With torn nails and bleeding
fingers he crawled out at last on a ledge at the base of one of the mysterious
towers—this one not quite so well preserved as some of its neighbors. He barked
sharply twice, his eyes watchful, finger on his trigger.

           
 
It seemed a year of days before the Sergeant
heaved his longer body out beside him and lay panting a few seconds before he
crept into cover, his rifle ready to fire.

 
          
 
The valley still seemed deserted. But as they
strained their eyes against the glare of the sun, a familiar dun shadow bobbed
along,
backtracking
its own trail, covering the ground
at an awkward speed.
And as the camel went by, Ritchie saw
the telltale red trickle down its nigh shoulder and the arrow shaft sticking in
its hide.
Some Apache had not been able to resist such an interesting
target. So menace now lay ahead as well as behind—they were being boxed in.

 
          
 
"Here they come!" warned Herndon.

 
          
 
Come they did, a thin fan of red-turbaned
figures flitted over the edge of the basin and disappeared among the rocks.
Ritchie was sure he had sighted a small white blot following on the heels of
one of them—Diego had not given up the hunt.

 
          
 
For the two on the tower ledge there was
perhaps one slim chance in ten thousand. Apaches were master trackers, but the
trail which led over bare rock was doubly hard to trace. If the dragoons could
lie quiet, they might be passed by without discovery. It was the only chance
they had.

 
          
 
Ritchie nipped his lower lip between his teeth
and bit down hard. The Apaches were showing some contempt for their quarry;
they were not even keeping
to cover
now. Two had
trotted out into plain sight.

 
          
 
Slowly they were working down toward the point
where the climb had started. Ritchie blinked salt sweat out of his eyes. He
could hardly draw a full breath. Black flies bored into his flesh, and he dared
not beat them off.

 
          
 
But the worst was not yet. The trackers had
reached the foot of the pinnacle; their guttural speech drifted up. But another
sound puzzled Ritchie, a faint slithering as if I something was slipping across
the stone by his side. With infinite caution he turned his head one inch at a
time.

 
          
 
A yard away and gliding nearer was a black
rattler. And the snake was already suspicious and angry.

 
          
 
The snake was coiling, and after it coiled—!
Ritchie cringed and then froze as he watched the flat head sway, the
thread-tongue flicker. Unable to turn his eyes away, he sensed rather than saw
Herndon move.

 
          
 
There was an odd smacking sound, and a splotch
of brown liquid splashed on that ugly head. The coils writhed as the blinded
snake lashed around close to the edge of the ledge. Then it went over, falling
straight into the knot of savages gathered below. The Sergeant's hand jerked
his companion back with scant feeling for scrapes and bruises.

 
          
 
"Behind that bit of wall—"

 
          
 
There was no need for silence now. That
floundering reptile had betrayed them as a surprised shout from below had
testified. They fled, bumping carbine, rifle, and canteen along with them.

 
          
 
In some forgotten storm the tower's top rocks
had crashed down to make a natural breastwork. Herndon was already making a
pile of small stones he wrenched out of the ruins. When he had enough to hand,
he got to his knees and pitched. The stone he hurled went over and down,
its landing marked by another furious yell
.

 
          
 
Ritchie built up his own pile of ammunition.
Unless the Apaches could win up to their level, the beseiged still had a
chance. But the familiar ping of a carbine put an end to that faintest of
hopes. Ritchie dropped flat and lay looking up at the white furrow banded
across one of the top stones of the breastwork.

 
          
 
"On that other pinnacle—hiding out like a
lizard!" Herndon explained briefly.

 
          
 
There was a tower on that pinnacle, too. And
if that sniper got on the top of it, he could pick them off at his leisure.

 
          
 
“If he gets up in that tower—"

 
          
 
The Sergeant shook his head. ''These towers
must have been entered only by ladders through the roof—there're no wall
openings. And I don't think they'll try to climb-not while we keep an eye on
them. But they have got us nailed here. And it's a waiting game in which they
hold all the aces."

 
          
 
"If we had those extra canteens—"
Ritchie had shaken the one by his hand, and the answer was not pleasant.

 
          
 
Herndon snorted. "And if we had a
battery, we could rival Napoleon. If that fool snake hadn't gone over—"

 
          
 
"What did you do to it?"

 
          
 
The Sergeant's shadow grin showed for a
second. "Spit tobacco juice in its eyes. Rocked it right out of battle
formation, didn't I?"

 
          
 
"Listen!" Had he or had he not heard
that faintest of sounds, not unlike the slithering advance of the reptile?
"Would-be-heroes!"
Herndon's attack had a speed
even the rattler might have envied. His stone whizzed, and he flopped back into
shelter before the sniper was ready. The bullet sang by too high and too late.

 
          
 
"Look!" Ritchie dug with his hands
into the rubble of the fallen tower. What he uncovered was a thin slab of
stone, smooth and carefully edged.

 
          
 
"If we could push this over the wall,
lean it with the end down on the ledge, we could roll rocks down it and maybe
they would bounce off just about on a line with the place where we
climbed—"

 
          
 
Herndon's eyes gleamed. "We'll have to
get rid of our friend across the way before we can rig it. He'd drill us both
if we left cover to move it. Let me have your hat."

 
          
 
Using both their shirts and Ritchie's hat, the
Sergeant constructed a bundle that might just pass as the head and shoulders of
a dragoon. Having punched it into the best shape possible, he passed it to
Ritchie.

 
          
 
"When I snap my fingers, let Zero here
get a little careless—as artistically as you can—"

 
          
 
Ritchie nodded as the Sergeant squirmed around
to face the other tower, Tuttle's rifle ready, his eyes squinting against the
sun. At the faint sound Ritchie raised Zero, trying to mimic the motions of a
man crawling behind the barrier, holding his body just a little too high for
safety.

 
          
 
Zero was almost torn from his hands as a slug
drilled the headless hat. And simultaneously the rifle cracked in reply.

 
          
 
The Sergeant's voice had a purring note in it
as he said, "See that spot of red—to the left of the needle rock?"

 
          
 
Ritchie saw it. It was very still.

 
          
 
"Now let's get to work before someone
else mans that post!"

 
          
 
Ritchie tugged and pulled on one side of the
slab and Herndon on the other, reckless of barked fingers and raw flesh,
expecting every moment to feel the blow of a shot. But at last one end dropped
on the other side of the barrier, and Herndon brought up a reasonably round
stone to try. It rolled down and popped squarely over the spot they had
climbed. Herndon laughed.

 
          
 
"Here's to the Tower Artillery!" His
thirst-husky voice probably even reached those below. "Bring up the
ammunition, m' lads!"

 
          
 
The ammunition had to be properly shaped to
roll, and they discovered to their dismay that the number of available stones
was none too great. But all they could grub up were piled within reaching
distance of the slab. When that job was done, Herndon set out on a small shelf
in the wall a row of bullets, a very short line of them. When he had put them
all out, he had an odd look.

 
          
 
"There's our future.
Ten
for our friends, and one for yours truly.
How about
yours?"

 
          
 
Ritchie investigated his supply. He could not
match the Sergeant's display. Only seven loads remained for the carbine. From
these Herndon separated one.

 
          
 
"When it comes to the end"—he might
have been explaining any ordinary procedure to a recruit—"kick off your
boot. Take this." He had been twisting a bit of hide thong between his
fingers, and now he handed it to his companion. At either end was a loop.
"This loop on your trigger, the muzzle to your forehead, and
your toe in the other loop.
One jerk will do the business for you."

 
          
 
He was making another thong for his own
weapon. "However"—he glanced to where that red dot lay on the
neighboring pinnacle—"we shall contrive to send as many of them ahead of
us as we can. Aha!"

 
          
 
A thin curl of smoke was tailing up from an
outcrop out of range. Signal smoke to draw in reinforcements!

 
          
 
"Holla, Soldados! Now you die!"
Triumph once more in that familiar shout which might have come from anywhere.

 
          
 
"Diego.
That's
one brown monkey I'd like to get my sights on before the last rush!" said
the Sergeant between his gritted teeth.

 
          
 
''But would he lead the charge?"

 
          
 
"Indians don't follow men who aren't
battle leaders. And Diego has some power over them or he could never have kept
them on our trail this way. We're pretty small fry to be hunted down so
persistently.
Small fry—and unlucky!"

 
          
 
It had been ill luck that had dogged them all
right, thought Ritchie. The ambush and getting lost in this country, Sturgis'
death and Tuttle's, the camel refusing to be caught—and all the rest.

 
          
 
"Two day ago that might have saved
us."

 
          
 
"What?" Ritchie was pulled out of
his own thoughts.

 
          
 
"That storm."

 
          
 
There was a patch of dark cloud over the
mountains, a handsbreadth of spreading gloom. But Herndon had already forgotten
it.

 
          
 
"Artillery!"

 
          
 
Ritchie was ready. Their rolling stones hit
the slab and were funneled down the cliff. They could hear that rattling
descent and then a dull thud and a muffled cry. Ritchie answered with an
exclamation of his own as a branding iron seemed to be laid for an instant
against his jaw.

 
          
 
"They've manned the sniper's post
again," Herndon observed dryly.

 
          
 
Ritchie's fingers came away from his face red
and sticky, but the cut was only a shallow one.

           
 
A ragged whip of light snapped across the sky,
striking on the ridge across the tower valley. That patch of dark cloud had
spread fast.

 
          
 
There was an answering fusillade from the
sniper's pinnacle. Two of them must be there now, and they were keeping up such
a fire that the dragoons dared not use the slab. If that continued, it could
well cover any climbers. And then all that would be left for them was Herndon's
trick with trigger and toe.

 
          
 
The Sergeant brought out his battered journal
and was cramming it into the small bag that had held his extra ammunition.
Pulling the string tight, he thrust it into a dark hole, which must lead
straight to the heart of the ruined tower. He wriggled close to push it the
full length of his arm.

 
          
 
When he caught Ritchie watching him, he
appeared embarrassed. "It won't ever be found; sure, I know that. But at
least they won't tear it up. And there's always that faint chance that someday
someone else will find the Torreones.

 
          
 
"I had some delusions once that I was
going to be an explorer—find new lands and map them for the world. Then
everything went wrong for me, and I came out here." He was watching the
sniper's pinnacle, his finger on the trigger. "I've had my wish. It would
be good to know more about these towers—if we had time. But time is the one
thing the old gods are never lavish with. Whee—that must have struck!"

 
          
 
The spear of purplish light which had been
flung across the mountain almost blinded them.

 
          
 
"Now!"
Herndon shouted.
"Up with Zero again!"

 
          
 
Ritchie grabbed wildly for the dummy and
hoisted it. A shot sang, and Herndon fired in return.

           
 
''Let's hope that will discourage them a
little." He reloaded swiftly.

 
          
 
"You know"—he brought the rifle back
into firing position—"this is as good a place to die as any. They can't
rush us as they would like to, and we have some chance to choose how we're
going to end—which is more than those poor devils who get trapped in the
canyons have. This may not be the only battle this valley has seen, but it's
going to be one of the best!"