Curly Part 17

Yet in a single evening these two had got to feeling each other's thoughts, acting together without talk, partners like the hands of a man. They knew that for them it was death to show on the skyline, sure good scouting to jump for the lowest ground, and keep the dust a-rolling to hide their movements. They struck a gulley, and Jim led over rock and cactus, riding slack rein, trusting that buckskin mare. After the first five minutes, looking round, he saw the belated outfit along the skyline following, and heard the whoops of our crowd closing in on the left.

"I reckon," says Curly, "they'll get us."

"Very awkward," says Jim.

"Say, Curly," he called out, "there's a fence here somewhere on Chalkeye's pasture. It's broken where it cuts this arroyo, but just 'ware wire! Here! 'Ware wire!"

The mare took a stumble, but cleared the fallen wire. The black horse just jumped high. Up on the plain above the pursuit was going to be checked by my standing fence.

"We're plumb in luck to the lips," says Curly.

And now the rocky hollow widened out, the trail was smooth, the pace tremendous. While our citizens behind were having a check betwixt rock and wire, Jim struck the further gate of my pasture, and held it wide for Curly. Horsemanship had given the partners a mile of gain, but now, on level ground, where any fool could ride, our posse gained rapidly, for the youngsters had to go moderate and save their horses.

"Down on yo' hawss," says Curly, "you ride too proud," and a spatter of blue lead made Jim lie humble. The fool gallopers were right handy for war, when sudden the winding valley poured out its fan of debris upon the lower plain towards Mexico. Here just below the mouth of the arroyo a railroad track swung right across the trail on a high embankment. On the nigh side of the embankment ran a waggon trail, climbing a hill on the left to cross the track, and that was sure foul luck for Jim and Curly, for now they rode out clear against the sky in a storm of lead, and began to reckon they was due at the big front door of heaven. Jim was all right in a moment, for the buckskin mare just rose to the occasion, leapt the rails, and got to cover down the bank beyond; but Curly's horse was an idiot. At the sight of the gleaming rails, he stopped dead to show himself off, shied, bucked, pawed the full moon, fell in heaps, tumbled all over himself, dug a hole in the ground with his nose, and timed the whole exhibition to get Curly shot. The gallopers were right on to him before he chose to proceed, with flanks spurred b.l.o.o.d.y, down the further bank.

Jim circled back to the rescue. "Hurt?" he called.

Curly lay all of a heap on the saddle. "Shoot!" he howled, and flashed on across the plain.

Jim got the gallopers stark against the sky at point-blank range, and just whirled in for battle, piling the track with dead and dying horses, blocking the pa.s.sage complete. Then he streaked away to see if Curly had gone dead on Jones' back.

Five minutes after that, Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came blundering into the wreckage. He jumped through somehow, leading eighteen men, but I stopped to help a hurt man, and used his rifle to splint his broken leg. The fool gallopers were mostly wrung out, and gone home, or left afoot by Jim. The good stayers were on ahead, but weary maybe, it being late for pleasuring. So I proceeded to have an attack of robbers all to myself, with the wounded man's revolver and my own, shooting promiscuous. Sure enough, half a dozen of them bold pursuers came circling back to find out what was wrong.

When I had turned back with my idiots for home, a ripple spread along the gra.s.s, an air from the south, then a lifting wind, full strong, steady as ice aflow, cold as the wings of Death. Jim fought up wind, battling at full gallop until he overtook the little partner, then ranged abreast and steadied knee to knee, nursing his mare at a trot.

The moon slid down flame-red behind the hills, the wind blew a gale, the night went black, the sky a sheet of stars.

Jim had quit being tired, for his body was all gone numb and dead, so he felt nothing except the throb of hoofs astern. Then he heard a popping of guns faint in the rear, and on that saw flashes of signal firing away on the right, besides other gun-flames back below Mule Pa.s.s. He held his teeth from chattering to speak.

"Curly, old chap, they've wired for a posse up from Naco, and the City Marshal's men are coming down from Bisley. They're closing in on three sides, and we can't escape."

Curly said nothing.

"Say, Curly, you're not hurt?"

"Mosquito bite," said Curly; "look a-here, Jim. If anything goes wrong, you'll find the captain at La Soledad to-morrow."

"What captain?"

"My father. I made him swear he'd wait. How's yo' buckskin?"

"Flagging."

"She'll live through all right. Don't you talk any mo'."

"You're losing hope?"

"There's allus hope," said Curly, "but them stars seem nearer to we-all."

They were riding through greasewood bushes and long gra.s.s, whilst here and there stood scattered trees of mesquite. That made bad going for horses, but, when they swung aside for better ground, they nearly blundered into an arroyo.

Only the dawn grey saved my boys from breaking both their necks in that deep gap, but now they had got to lose the sheltering darkness, their horses were mighty near finished, and three big outfits of riders were closing down all round them. Jim looked up the sky to see if there were miracles a-coming, for nothing less was going to be much use. Then the Naco people came whirling down on the right, and the black arroyo lay broad across their hopes, so they swung north to look for a crossing, and were thrown right out of the hunt.

Presently soon my youngsters had another big stroke of luck, because the Bisley crowd missed aim, and had to swing in behind with the men from Grave City.

"Jim," says Curly, "has they closed in yet?"

"Our wind is covering all three outfits now."

Then came a yell from behind, for in the dawn the hunters had caught sight of their meat.

Now close ahead loomed something white like a ghost, and Jim let out a screech as it reared up against him sudden. As he shied wide and spurred, he saw the ghost some better--a limewashed monument, the boundary mark of old Mexico.

"Saved!" he yelled. "They can't follow beyond the Line."

"They cayn't, but they will," says Curly; "fire the gra.s.s!"

Jim grabbed a hair from the buckskin's mane, took matches from his wallet and bound them into a torch, struck a light to the tip, and held it in his paws against the roaring wind. Then he made shift to swing himself down till the long gra.s.s brushed his fingers. He dropped his torch beside a greasewood bush, and cantered on with Curly knee to knee.

That flicker in the long gra.s.s grew to a blazing star, spread with the flaws of the wind, swayed its small tongues to lick new clumps and pa.s.s the word to others just beyond. The bush blazed up with a roar as only greasewood can, and flung its burning sticks upon the storm, so that the fire spread swift as a man could run over acres of greasewood. To the east was mesquite bush, which burns like gun-cotton in a gale of wind.

But now the draught of the fire had made that gale a scarlet hurricane with the stride of a running horse, which flushed the flying cloud wrack overhead, and made red day along the mountain flanks.

I reckon that if I'd happened with that outfit of hunters, I should have known enough to bear east and circle round the blaze without loss of time; but the leaders saw the burning mesquite grove, and tried to swing west of trouble. There the arroyo barred them, and before they won to the other horn of the fire their horses had gone loco, refusing to face the heat. Anyways, they stampeded with their riders, and I reckon those warriors never stopped to look back until they had thrown themselves safe beyond the railroad. If they had come out for a man-hunt, they got that liberal and profuse beyond their wildest dreams.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FRONTIER GUARDS

Well up to windward of the range fire, that fool horse Jones came to a finish sudden all a-straddle, swaying, nose down, and blood a-dripping.

So far Curly had just stayed in the saddle from force of habit, but when the usual motion stopped between his knees he surely forgot to be alive any more, and dropped like a shot bird to gra.s.s. As for Jim, he was too stiff to dismount, but the buckskin mare lay down with him complete; so he rolled from the saddle, and managed to stagger around. He uncinched Jones' saddle, eased his mouth of the bit, loosed the mare's girth as she lay, then knelt by Curly feeling him over for wounds. He didn't know until then that Curly had a bullet in the right arm; but all that side was in a mess of dry blood, and when he cut away the coat it began to spurt. He plugged up the hole, made a bandage with his handkerchief, twisted it up with a stick until the blood quit coming, then rolled himself down, dead asleep beside his partner.

The big gale roared overhead; a haze of flying dust; the country to the north was a flaming volcano; the sky was a whirl of clouds, all painted purple and crimson with the daybreak; but my kids and their horses cared nothing more at all for storm or fire. Then the skyline along the east began to glow white-hot, burned by the lift of the sun; and stark black against that rode a bunch of hors.e.m.e.n. They were coming from La Morita Custom House to find out what sort of felons had set the range on fire.

They were Mexican Frontier Guards.

Their lieutenant told me afterwards that when they saw the played-out horses and those two poor kids who lay between them, they thought the whole outfit must be dead. They reckoned up Jim for one of their countrymen, and surely did everything in their power to act merciful.

Firing the range comes pretty near being a serious thing, causing inconvenience to cattle, apt to annoy settlers by burning their homes and cooking their wives and families. Naturally that sort of play is discouraged, and the Frontier Guards was only acting up to their lights in arresting my youngsters. Still, they didn't act haughty and oppressive, but sent a rider off to fetch their waggon for the prisoners, and meanwhile made camp and boiled them a drink of coffee.

The _teniente_ woke them up, gave them their coffee and told them their sins, while the rest of the greasers, talking all at once, explained what their officer meant. As to Jim and Curly, they were interested in that coffee a whole lot, and ready to excuse the Frontier Guards; but the worries and troubles of a pack of greasers only made them tired; so they told them not to fuss, and slept through the rest of the sermon.

When they woke up again, they found themselves in prison.

That calaboose at La Morita is built of the usual adobe, sun-dried brick, with a ceiling of cactus sticks laid on beams to carry a couple of feet of solid earth. A 'dobe house is the next thing to comfort in a climate like ours, where the sun will scorch a man's hide worse than boiling water. The Frontier Guards had laid clean hay on the dirt floor, and hung an _olla_ of water to cool in the draught, but when my boys woke up they were sure puzzled, for the night had fallen, the moon was not yet stirring, and the place was surely dark as a wolf's mouth. Stiff and sore from hard riding, Jim got up to grope in the darkness, ravaging around in search of grub. He found hay and water, but nothing else, so thought he must have been changed into a horse, and set up a howl for corn. Then he attracted Curly's notice by tumbling over his bed.

"How many laigs have yo' got?" says Curly, "'cause that's ample. Catch me some water."

Jim reached down the hanging jar, and Curly drank. "I been waiting hours for that," says he; "now sluice my arm."