Authors: Edward Abbey
Half an hour later he entered the deep gloom under the cottonwoods. He felt better: the city was now hidden from him by the banks of the arroyo, the great flare in the west had faded and died, his supper was partly digested—or at least well shaken down—and he could smell and hear his horse. Whisky greeted him with a complaining whinny. He walked close to her and patted her neck, while she nuzzled him in the chest “Glad to see me, old girl?” he said; “You think I forgot you? No sirree; you just take it easy now.” She snorted and tried to lick his face. “Easy, girl, easy; I’ll feed you right off.” He climbed out of the arroyo toward the slab of rock that sheltered his saddle and other belongings. He put the rifle in the scabbard, slung the guitar on his back, lifted the saddle to his shoulder and went back down to the mare. He filled his hat with a mixture of bran and barley from one of the saddlebags, about a peck, and set it in the sand
before the mare. While she fed he threw on the saddle-pad and the saddle and cinched the latigo down tight. He checked off his equipment: bedroll, saddlebags, canteen, rifle, rope—only the bridle was missing. He thought of the twenty-five pounds of jerked venison he was going to add to that burden in about three days and reminded himself that he would never get far toward Sonora without a packhorse. Tomorrow night, perhaps, he would go look for one; tonight he was going to get some sleep. He went back to the boulder above the arroyo and looked for the bridle; he could not find it and did not remember where he had left it until he took a second look at the scrubby juniper near the rock.
He was sliding down the loose bank of the arroyo when he heard a noise that stopped him in his tracks: the slam of a car door. He stood frozen, listening, while his muscles tensed with the instinct to flee. He could hear nothing more, nothing but the whine of cicada and from somewhere down the wash the occasional zoom and groan of a striking bullbat. Quickly but carefully he stepped over the stretch of sand that separated him from the mare, put one hand over her nostrils to prevent a possible nicker and with the other, letting the bridle fall, reached up over the saddle and slid the rifle out of its smooth worn case. He laid the barrel across the saddlebow, leaving the action uncocked, and waited.
For what seemed like a long time, perhaps five minutes, he heard nothing unusual. He could see very little, with the high bank of the arroyo directly in front of him, and the night closing in. Although his cover was good there in the darkness under the trees and between the walls of the arroyo, he was also painfully aware that if he should be discovered he would be pretty well boxed in, with escape possible only by a run down the wash toward the mesa. And he had not even had a chance to bridle the mare. Balancing the rifle with his
forearm, he started to untie the rope around Whisky’s neck that tethered her to the picket.
Then he saw and almost
felt
a beam of light that swung quickly through the air over his head, danced over the leaves of the cottonwoods and disappeared. A few seconds later he heard the crunch and scrape of gravel under heavy, slow feet. He heard no voices, however, and gratefully assumed that he probably had only one man to deal with. The footsteps approached the bank of the arroyo—while Burns stopped breathing, his thumb set firm on the hammer—and then halted, not coming to the edge. Burns listened; he watched the top of the bank but could see only the dark sky and the tall slender black silhouette of a yucca. From down the arroyo he heard the roar of a bullbat again.
Presently, after a minute or so, he heard the author of the footsteps tramping off, this time apparently in the direction of the old house. Listening intently, he heard the steps grow fainter, then the short crash of a dislodged rock, the rattle of a loose board. He lifted the carbine up from its rest on the saddlebow and wedged it between the cantle and the bedroll, and bent down and felt around on the sand for the bridle. He found it without trouble, disentangled the reins from the headstall, forced the bit into the mare’s mouth, slipped the stall over her ears, and buckled the throatlatch. He was ready now; he reached for the carbine again and waited and listened, breathing, slowly and quietly.
He heard nothing, nothing human, for another five minutes; then came the second slam of an automobile door and he breathed more freely. When he heard an engine starting he left the mare and struggled up the bank of the arroyo, and saw the car at once, a dull lustre of enamel and chrome backing and turning on the old wagon road below the ruin. He watched the car get turned around, start forward and go bouncing down the rutted, twisting road, rocks clanging on its fenders, brakelights flicking on and off, the headlights sweeping
over a forlorn landscape of boulders and cactus and crouching juniper.
When the car was well on its way back to the city, Burns returned to the mare, replaced the rifle in the scabbard, coiled his rope and tied it to the swell, stowed the picket in the bedroll, had one more drink at the spring, and climbed at last into the saddle, a very considerable pleasure which he had been anticipating for the last two or three hours; he forebore to think of the canyon ahead, where he would have to walk and lead over at least half the distance.
“Hup, girl,” he said, and touched the mare with his heels. Fresh and eager, she started off as though bent on a free run through woods and green fields, and he had to rein her in at once to keep her to a walk. He rode up and around the ledge behind the spring, recovered his spurs, rode on up to the head of the arroyo and up the bank there, and over the saddle of the hill and into the canyon. Above him leaned the canyon walls, and above them the mountain with its granite cliffs; far above and beyond the mountain the stars began to appear, one by one, the chill blue glittering stars of the autumn.
Burns felt tired, very tired, and cold.
H
INTON
DRANK
THE
SCALDING
COFFEE
,
GASPED
,
AND
set the cup down. It had not been a bad night; he had managed to get some sleep, more than he usually did in a truckers’ bunkhouse. He drank the rest of the coffee, then sank his chin in his hands and gazed out the window at the vast flat uninspiring desolation of Texas. The wind, rather brisk the day before in Oklahoma, was howling freely here, whipping the over-grazed, over-planted earth into clouds of bitter dust.
Nine-thirty: he should have been on his way three hours ago, with the rising sun and the gas station attendants. He knew that, he remembered it, but he did not move. Yes, he was late—not a mere three hours but nearly twenty-four, practically a whole day behind schedule. Four hundred and fifty miles to Duke City. And he didn’t even care; nothing could have interested him less.
The last trip? He only half-believed it, smiling a little at the thought. The same resolve had come and gone a dozen times in the last three years; he was accustomed to it. How did he know? how could he say? There was the money to think of, not only the hills above the Shenandoah, or the interesting condition of his—the word seemed to him to be exactly correct—of his guts.
Speaking of guts, he thought, there was no point in eating breakfast this morning;—not that he was sick: simply didn’t feel like it. Wasn’t hungry. After all, he
had been living for years on coffee, cigarettes, and diesel fumes.
He lit a cigarette.
I can take it, he told himself; I can last for another ten years, if I want to. He thought of the girl back in the aluminum diner on the edge of Oklahoma City, and smiled involuntarily. Twenty years, he said silently.—But why should I?
As a matter of fact he was full of sentimental notions now, indulging himself as he had not done for a long time. For the last day and night he had been haunted by the remembered image of that gill’s face and hair, and by a hazy aureole of ambitions, adolescent dreams, memories and sensations surrounding the image. He felt himself suffering from—or being elevated by—an uncomfortable thawing and leavening of the sensibility. A peculiar strain of experience: he was disturbed both by the novelty and the old familiarity of it.
Hinton became aware of an intense irradiation of heat focused on his lips; he removed the butt of the cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray. Might as well, he thought, might as well shove on. Tonight the haul will be over; I’ll have time to think about these things at last. And of other matters I’ve been putting off for too long.
Getting up, he felt the odd rather interesting crimp somewhere deep in his abdomen: a tough knotted ache, firm and definite and not particularly painful—almost pleasant, in fact. Just a little baby, he thought; an old friend. He paid for his coffee—four cups—and stepped outside.
The wind screamed in his face, clawed at him, sucked his breath away. He staggered back, surprised and laughing, clutching at his cap. Between here and the North Pole, he recalled, nothing but
bob
wire. The wind rushed at him from the north, cold and powerful and thick with dust… . Baaaah! he muttered, spitting and grimacing; he held tightly to his cap and pushed his way through the massive torrent of air, stumbling a
little, toward his truck. He squinted, looking for the silver and red—
ANOTHER LOAD OF
ACME
BATHROOM FIXTURES! AMERICA BUILDS FOR…
—Saw it, about where he thought he had left it America builds, he said. The wind pushed and shoved at him, an angry gritty quarreling wind; he lurched forward, his jacket whipping and snapping about him, the collar flicking his mouth. Dammit, he said, staggering sideways. The power of the wind, he thought; he felt slightly ridiculous, fighting and falling his way through this semi-invisible flood. More dust in his teeth—the sharp pleasing alkaline flavor of South Dakota, the old dry horse-chips taste of Kansas.
The wind embraced him, drew at his mouth, flayed his skin with its bitter ardor. He was laughing with excitement when he finally reached the truck.
… S
TRIDING
DOWN
THE
COURTHOUSE
ALLEY
,
THE
radio jeep and two dust-tan Chevrolets waiting for them—“Morey!” Six men bearing arms: pistols, shotguns, submachineguns. “Hey Morey!”
Johnson sat down at the wheel of the jeep. The radio operator got in beside him, wearing a pistol. “You fellas aren’t coming with us,” Johnson said. He loosened his belt a notch, trying to get comfortable in the cramped space between steering wheel and transmitter; Glynn and the three others stared at him.
“Morey!”
Johnson said: “Glynn, I want you and one of these fellas to go on up on the Rim. That’s where you two are gonna spend your time. You have the binoculars?”
Glynn nodded. “Yeah—”
“You know how to get up there?”
“Aw Morey, for chrissake—!”
“Hey Morey!”
Johnson unwrapped a stick of chewing gum. “Well take off. Get up there as soon as you can and when you do, radio me. And I don’t want you both just sittin in the car readin funnybooks: you have to cover about ten miles of trail. Did you bring any lunch with you?”
Glynn shook his head.
“All right, then get some on your way out of town. Fill your canteens and water bags. Don’t try to sneak any beer up there—this is no picnic. Don’t leave the keys in the car.” Johnson turned up the collar of his
leather jacket. “Now you know what to do when you get up there?” Glynn nodded. “Okay—take off. And keep your eyes skinned—the sooner we find this
vaquero
the sooner we come home.”
“Okay, Morey…” Glynn got into one of the cars; another deputy carrying a sawed-off shotgun followed him.
“Hey Morey!” One of the jailguards stood in the alley door, still shouting at him. Johnson turned his head, frowning. “Morey…?” the guard said tentatively.
“No,” Johnson said.
“Gutierrez called up, says he wants to go along.”
“No,” said Johnson. He faced the otter two men who stood there watching him. “Now I’d like you boys to run out to the Pueblo and pick up a man named Pete Sandia. He’s a tracker. He’ll be waiting for you at the postoffice. After that join me out in the mountains, I’ll be at the old Brown homestead. You know where it is?”
“You mean me?” one of the men said, “There’s two or three old places out there. I don’t know which one you mean.”
“This place is right near the mouth of Agua Dulce Canyon; there’s a spring there with three big cotton-woods. The house is an old wreck with a cholla growing on the roof.” The man nodded then. “You know where I mean now?”
“Yeah, I know.” He nodded again. “I been there.”
“Okay,” Johnson said. He started the engine of the jeep. “We’ll expect you in about an hour. Don’t come without that Indian—hell probably be drunk but bring him anyway.” He let the engine idle at a moderate speed, warming it up. “If he doesn’t want to come arrest him for drunkenness and bring him along.” The two deputies grinned. “Okay?” said Johnson; they nodded and got into the other automobile. Johnson craned his head around and backed the jeep off the parkinglot and into the alley.
He stopped by the rear door and spoke to the guard standing there: “Has Hernandez come in yet?”
“No…”
“When he does ask him to check again with the State Police about that airplane. He’ll know what I mean. And tell him the Marshal is picking up the Federal prisoner named Bondi today.”
The guard bobbed his head up and down. “Okay, Morey…”
Johnson drove on, turned out of the alley and went north on Second Street. Neither he nor the radio operator spoke; the jeep was only partially closed, with a frame and canvas rig, and the cold morning air rushed through it at forty miles an hour. Johnson regretted not having worn gloves.
They drove for two miles north through the gray bleak city, the streets nearly deserted, the sidewalks empty; nobody passed them in the opposite direction except the drivers of a few freight trucks. They turned east on Mountain Road, passing through one of the more substantial sectors of the city:—row on row of brick and glass boxes squatting under a dense thicket of television antennae, housing engineers and Buicks and dentists; not far away, beyond the golf course, was an Episcopal cathedral rising in imitation gothic above the shrubbery and lost balls; beyond the house of God lay an expanse of expensive formal gardens not easily distinguishable from the golf course, a “Memorial Park” so new that it had as yet found few, and these most reluctant, tenants; beneath those luxurious lawns, if all went well, the neighboring dentists and engineers would someday be interred, to enjoy in sub-pastoral elegance a leisurely recreation they had never known in life.