the Burning Hills (1956) Page 4

  Maria Cristina knew what her brother was thinking. She even knew what Jacob Lantz was thinking and she had known since early morning that he was on the hillside. She had known he would be there and, knowing all this canyon, she soon knew exactly where he was. It was not a problem yet. The man up there had food and there was water. If necessary he could manage at least two days alone.

  When she had first come upon him she believed him dead. Had she left him alone then, he would now be dead and no problem at all. And he was a gringo.

  This stranger was nothing to her. She had no liking for any North American. Only her husband ... he had been kind, even when drunk. Always a gentleman, too. Even now, remembering all his weakness, she had a queer respect for him.

  That one up there ... he was not weak. Nor was he soft. She remembered his guns. They were cared for. His jeans were polished where the holster chafed ... this was a man who had lived with a gun.

  She turned her thoughts from him. He would be all right, that one. When his strength returned he could ride. That would be an end of him ... and good riddance.

  Vicente was restless. He sat the worn saddle and rolled a cigarette. He liked the sunlight on his back. He did not know they were watched but knew they must be. He drew deep on the cigarette and Maria Cristina looked up at him. There was only that to be said for him. The way he sat a horse and wore a gun. "I think you too much frighten, Vicente. You ... who are good with a gun. I think you better than Jack Sutton."

  Vicente was so astonished that he rode away. It was the first time Maria Cristina had said one word of praise to him. But better than Jack Sutton? No ... no, it could not be. Yet the thought remained. She believed he could do it.

  All that night and the day following Trace Jordan lay quiet and rested. He nibbled at his food, drank a lot and slept. His thoughts reverted to Maria Cristina. There was a kind of strong fierce pride about her that got into a man's blood, no matter how sullen she might seem.

  At dusk three riders appeared on the crest, out of the canyon below. Lantz slipped out of his hiding place on some signal and went to meet them. Jordan watched, but without the glasses, for the sunlight was shining into the shelf and he was afraid a reflection, even from behind the brush, might warn of his presence.

  The sheep were starting home. He looked again quickly. Maria Cristina was not with them!

  Lantz finished his talk with the men and started back. Jordan reached for his Winchester, an automatic gesture. Yet almost at the point where Lantz could have seen the boy was alone with the sheep, he turned back for a final word.

  A stone rattled and Jordan turned swiftly. Maria Cristina had come around the ruined wall. Her breath was coming fast, her eyes were wide. She had a small package of food. She turned to go and he caught her hand.

  " Cuidado!He indicated the riders. "Hurry! They will find you gone!"

  Her eyes held his, cold, inscrutable. "You are afraid they will find you? Or that you will get no more food?"

  "Don't be a fool," he said shortly.

  She turned abruptly away.

  "And be careful," he said. "You are a beautiful woman, Maria Cristina."

  She looked at him, her eyes flaring a little, yet as she seemed about to speak she suddenly turned away.

  Lantz had disappeared and the other riders were riding away when he looked around. Rifle in hand, he moved to the cliff-edge. He had no doubt of what he would do if Lantz saw the girl and followed her. He could kill him.

  That night, long after darkness had come, he got to his feet for the first time. Using his rifle as a cratch, he took two steps, then had to sit down. Later he managed two more.

  The sheep were penned and Juanito was inside when Maria Cristina approached the house. She circled to come up from the spring where she had left a bucket She could hear angry voices within the house. One was Vicente. His eyes were flushed and angry when she came into the house.

  Her mother shot a quick glance at Maria Cristina from dark, worried eyes. Maria Cristina had entered in the midst of a quarrel gone suddenly silent.

  Vicente stared at her in sullen anger. Head high, she crossed the room to wash her hands. Her mother began placing food upon the table. Juanito sat at the table, holding his knife; the room was lighted by candles and by the fire. It was a large room, a living-room as well as a kitchen. There were three bedrooms and a parlor, never used.

  Vicente paced the floor. Suddenly he turned on her. "You'll get us all in trouble! Hiding that man!"

  Maria Cristina looked at him,her eyes disdainful. "You are a fool," she said.

  He glared at her, furious. He started to speak, then plunged through the door and slammed it behind him. Maria Cristina looked after him, her lips tightening. Feeling as he did, there was no telling what he might do. Yet he did not know of the hiding place on the cliff. Not even Juanito knew.

  And he was right, of course. It was a danger to them all to help the wounded man. Yet she had found him alone, wounded and dying, and it had seemed there was nothing else to do.

  Vicente stomped back into the house and, seating himself, began angrily to eat "You have no right," he said. "Where is he?"

  "I don' know what you talk about."

  Vicente half-sprang to his feet "You know!" he shouted. "You hide that man! You feed him!"

  "And if I do?"

  "They'll bum us out! They'll kill the sheep!"

  "And what would you do? Fight or run?"

  Vicente glared. "I would fight!"

  "All right... I fight now."

  Sullenly he returned to his eating and when he had finished his meal he got to his feet and went outside. He paused by the window and Maria Cristina looked at him, a tall young man, too thin, in worn and shabby clothes. She felt a sharp pang ... it was not right ... Vicente had no youth. No bright time of riding, no colorful clothes and the courting of girls. He had grown up a frightened and lonely boy in a land of strangers. It was no wonder he had become a frightened young man.

  Vicente was right. She should not bring trouble to her family. They had been born to trouble and had lived always in the shadow of fear. She, at least, had the few good years away from here, even if there had been bitterness in those years also.

  Why should she help the man on the cliff? Because he was the enemy of her father's killers? She had not given it a thought at the time. Because he had been hurt... ?

  She had listened to his delirious muttering and he had called upon no woman. Why should that be important?

  Yet there was something quiet and sure about him, something that brought her peace, even in the midst of trouble, something that stilled her restlessness. The memory of it disturbed her so she brushed away the thought. Her imagination, that was all. She was no longer a child to be excited by any drifting cowpuncher.

  Trace Jordan got to his feet in the darkness and tried using the rifle for a crutch again. He moved carefully. Tonight a rolling pebble might be heard for some distance and he dared make no unusual sound. Yet he belted on his gun and tried it, knowing his hands would need their skill. He would need his guns. At any minute they might come.

  Considering that, he went around the ruin to the way up used by Maria Cristina. It was a steep slide of trail in a wide crack in the rock wall but as she had made no sound ... he saw it then, a narrow ledge, only inches wide, along the edge of the rock slide.

  He returned to the spring and drank deep and long. He never seemed to get enough water. A gentle wind stirred and he caught a whiff of wood smoke. They were still out there, just across the canyon, waiting for him to make a mistake. Had they a clue? Or was it the intuition of old Jacob Lantz?

  Despite his weakness he was restless and the big red horse was uneasy too. The grass was growing short now and the horse could not be fed for many more days. They had been penned too long, yet to try an escape now was out of the question. Using the rifle as a crutch, he kept trying his muscles. He knew only that when the time came it would be suddenly ... he was always hungry now. Was it a sign of
recovery?

  He had begun a systematic study of the country. Knowing desert lands, he could sort out the canyons and ridges and make sense of a sort. Even canyons have a pattern... the thought of attempting that trail up the cliff face at night made him sick to the stomach but by day they would be an open target, pinned to the cliffs face.

  What of Maria Cristina? So lonely, so sullen, so remote? She was proud ... it showed in every line of her body, every move. Her clothes might be shabby but her manner was that of a queen.

  Yet he had no right to think of her. He must think only of getting away for his every minute. Here was a danger to them all. He moved suddenly and the movement brought a gasp of pain that doubled him over. He sank to his knees, fighting for breath. If one unexpected movement could do that to him escape was impossible.

  He crept back to his blankets and slept and then a long time later he awakened with a start. His hand dropped over the butt of his gun ... what had awakened him? No ordinary sound in the night would have done it, his subconscious was too familiar with such sounds. It would have to be some other sound, something that did not belong to the quiet symphony of the night.

  Wind stirred, a faint breeze. The night was wide, white and still. The pinnacles gave birth to long shadows ... he had been mistaken then. It had been imagination or fever. Yet he stood a moment longer. The air he drew into his lungs was fresh and cool as mountain water and the stars hung like lanterns in the sky. He knew the feelings, the smells. He knew the long hours of heat, the moving cloud shadows, the thousand canyons with their thousand untold stories. He knew the tumbledown pueblos and the Tivas and the mysterious trails left by the Old Ones and marked by their rock piles ... there were rock piles beside the trails in Tibet, he had heard ... his side was itching tonight. Maybe the flesh was beginning to heal.

  He turned back, then stopped abruptly. He heard a faint sound, something moving down below in the canyon. He listened ... the bright moonlit stillness brought tiny sounds to his ears. Barely audible. Something . . . somebody was moving down below.

  Breathless, he held himself, aware that somebody or something could hear also. And might already have heard him.

  Had he made a sound in his delirium? He did not believe so, for a man's subconscious remains on guard always. Yet the rock walls were like sounding boards and he could hear easier what moved below than they could hear him.

  He heard the faint stirring again ... had the searcher some clue? He could not be looking for tracks at this hour, yet... ? The night was empty again. Far off a plaintive coyote begged the sky.

  "It ain't no way reasonable." Joe Sutton stared Irritably into the fire. "No man drops out o' sight the way he done."

  Ben Hindeman rolled his tobacco in his jaws, not talking. He was reasoning it out in his slow, methodical way. Of them all, Hindeman was the only one to whom Jack Sutton ever took a back seat and Joe had his own ideas about that. Jack, for all his gun-slinging, was a little afraid of his hard-jawed brother-in-law.

  "Lost him," Mort Bayless said, "over on that mesa and he was in bad shape. He didn't get far."

  It was Mort's brother whom Jordan had killed at Mocking Bird Pass and Mort had been one of them with Jack at the killing of Johnny Hendrix. He had no particular worry about Jordan ever getting him ... he wanted to get Jordan to even up for his brother and because he was a killer by nature.

  "If he ever got to the mesa at all," Joe said.

  During the last two days the search had dwindled away and Jack Sutton was pleased. Two of the boys had returned to cut hay, another had a wife who was expecting. The need for many men was past and as he fingered the thick scab on his ear lobe, he wished they would all go home. He had plans of his own and the capture or killing of Trace Jordan had become secondary.

  Ben was the one he wanted to go back. Ben didn't want the Mexicans bothered and had it been anyone but Ben he would have believed him soft on the girl. But not Ben. He was never soft on anyone. That very lack of feeling made Jack uneasy. Ben was tough and in his slow way he was smart.

  Jacob Lantz leaned over and filled his cup with coffee, "He's around," he said flatly.

  Ben's head came up. "You see him?"

  "No ... but he's here."

  "How d' you know if you ain't seen him?" Jack demanded irritably. Sometimes Lantz's cocksureness infuriated him.

  "If Jake says he's here," Hindeman said, "then he's here."

  "I don't know why," Lantz said, "but I feel it."

  "If he's here," Mort Bayless poked the fire, "them greasers know it. I say we just ride down there and take that girl --''

  "Well do nothing of the kind." Hindeman did not even look around.

  "She wouldn't talk, no way," Lantz said.

  "I'd make her talk!" Mort said savagely. "You'd see!"

  "You're a fool," Hindeman said. "You could kill her and she wouldn't talk. Not that one."

  Lantz took his coffee and a dish of beans to one side. Meanwhile his ferreting mind gnawed at the problem. A wounded man, alone...

  "Got to be close," Hindeman said. "If he's alive he's eatin' and if he's eatin' he's gettin' it from the Mexicans. But Vicente is the only one ever leaves the place."

  Jack Sutton was stretched on a blanket. He lifted himself to an elbow. "Mort, tomorrow you an' Joe stick to Vicente. Go where he goes. Stick tight to him."

  "Won't get us nothing. I think it's the girl."

  "Jack's got the idea, Mort. Stick to him. He'll break. He'll make a wrong move or he'll talk." He turned his leonine head. "Don't crowd him, just watch him."

  Lantz was beginning to know Jordan. He was a man who had been up the creek and over the mountain ... when they caught him it was not going to be fun.

  "I'll find him," he said. "When I find him, you boys can have him."

  They looked at him, this wry old man with his sour-smelling body and the look of secret humor about him.

  "What's that mean?"

  "Some of you boys won't ride back. This one's a curly wolf."

  Somebody snorted his disgust and Mort Bayless turned impatiently. Jack Sutton was angered by Lantz's attitude, yet he was well aware that without him they wouldn't have come this far. Old Bob Sutton had kept Lantz around and now it was Ben.

  Jacob Lantz went to his blankets and rolled up. Staring morosely at the sky, his thoughts ran back over the terrain. There had to be a place and it had to be close by.

  Morning was a suggestion of pale light when Jordan awakened. His first thought was of the creeping sounds of the previous night. He must be very careful.

  By daylight he examined the steep chimney of trails. A girl or a child might manage that narrow ledge but one wrong step ... that girl was one to mother a race of warriors. Yet a man might slide a horse down the incline of trails. He had seen wild horses do stunts almost as dangerous. Yet a man might wind up at the bottom with a broken leg and have to shoot it out.

  Jordan saw the young man he took to be Maria Cristina's brother start up the canyon on the paint pony. As he rounded a bend in the canyon, two horsemen fell in behind him. Twice the young Mexican turned to look back.

  Two more riders rode up to the house and dismounted near the stable. So it had gone that far. Every move of the Chaveros was to be watched. Another man came out of the willows and walked toward Maria Cristina. She saw him coming and waited, her black hair blowing in the wind, her skirt stirring. She stood very straight.

  Several minutes they talked. Her manner was cool and imperious. There was something fascinating in her face as he watched through the glasses, something proud and fierce that sent a strong eagerness through him.

  The man to whom she talked was Jacob Lantz, a man without emotion, a man with an obsession. Whatever he said left her unstirred and when she moved her dress clung to her hips and thighs. He put the glasses down and mopped his face. It was going to be a hot day.

  No question about it. He would have to go. He had no right to cause more trouble. He would make a break for it. Returning to his blanket
s, he settled down to wait for darkness.

  Awakening with a start, he found it was already night and he heard a faint rustle of sound. He came swiftly to his feet, gun in hand. Then, bolstering the gun, he moved swiftly to the ruin. Drawing back against the wall until the shadows folded him into their darkness, he waited ...

  At first, no sound but the trickle of water; then a faint whisper of movement, a suggestion in the night, a sound of breathing ... his hands went out, grasping for a throat.

  His hands caught at flesh ... there was an instant of fierce struggle ending abruptly when his hands found the soft contours of a woman's body. "Maria Cristina?"

  "Let me go."

  The voice was cool, almost detached. Yet there was tension in the body he held. Reluctantly his hands relaxed their hold but he did not move them away.

  She stepped back, letting his hands fall. He could hear the sound of her breathing. A little faster from the climb? Prom the struggle? Or... ?

  "Thought it was Lantz."

  She did not reply. There was a suggestion of perfume, some flower scent, faint but clinging. He could see the outline of her face against the outer sky. "I'm going," he said. "I'm getting you all into trouble."

  Still she did not speak nor move. The lone star hung above the canyon's rim. "If you had not come along, I'd be dead."

  Her face turned toward him but it was all darkness and he could see nothing of her expression.

  "You're a woman who could walk beside a man, Maria Cristina. Not behind him."

  "You talk too much."

  "Maybe . . . maybe not enough."

  Trace Jordan searched for words but found none. There was a time he had talked easily to women but with this girl and at this time he could find no words for what was within him.

  A quail called questioningly into the night and there was no reply. He smelled again the smoke from the watchfires of the hunting men and heard the wind stirring the manzanita, yet he was only faintly aware of them, so conscious was he of the nearness of Maria Cristina.

  "You must not go."

  "Got to... they know I'm close by." Again she was silent and he did not understand her silence. He walked to the horse and picked up the bridle so suddenly that the horse shied violently. He waited until the horse quieted, then saddled up.