The Silver Tombstone

Chapter Thirteen

Old Man Johnson came hobbling outside, but by that time Johnny and Sam were fifty yards from the filling station... and going fast. The old boy gave them an additional burst of speed by sending a couple of bullets winging over their heads.

It was every man for himself, and when Johnny pulled up a quarter of a mile from the filling station, Sam was a hundred yards behind. And having tough going. Johnny dropped to the ground and waited for Sam to come up.

“Jeez!” panted Sam, when he finally arrived.

“You can say that again,” cried Johnny.

He looked back toward the filling station and discovered that he and Sam had taken off across country, away from the highway. As a matter of fact they had even run up hill, for the filling station was some distance below them.

The moon was almost full and the station stood out brightly. Johnny got to his feet. “We’ve got to go back,” he announced.

“Haven’t you had enough?” Sam howled.

“I have — but they’ve got our car and we’re lost without a car, out here on the desert...”

“We’re lost if we go back,” Sam protested. “He was calling the cops...”

“A bluff...”

“Yeah? Listen...!”

Johnny listened and the thing he heard sent a little shiver through him. A siren, still some distance away, but coming closer. He groaned. Far to the left, down the highway, a red light appeared.

“It’s the cops, all right.”

“Goddamit!” Sam Gragg cursed. “Goddamit the hell!”

“Come on,” said Johnny. “We’re in no position to be picked up by cops — on any charge whatever.”

The siren was still piercing the night and the red light on the highway was growing brighter.

“I can’t run another step,” Sam complained.

“I’ll bet you can,” said Johnny. “I’ll bet you can run quite a ways...”

And Sam did. They reached the crest of the hill a few minutes later, by which time the red light had come up to the filling station. Johnny stopped a moment to look down and suddenly cried out, as the red light shot out across the desert and silhouetted him on the hillside.

That he was seen was quite obvious, for a bullet whined somewhere through the air and a moment later came the report of a gun — a much heavier, sharper report than that made by the old Frontier Model. A rifle.

They ran again, a quarter mile at pretty good speed, then another quarter mile at a stumbling lope. Sam fell two or three times, but always picked himself up again. Then he fell and remained on the sand. Johnny came back to him, threw himself down beside Sam.

They remained on the ground for five minutes, then Johnny sat up.

“Think you can make it now?”

Sam rolled over on his back 2nd looked up at the sky. “No,” he replied.

Johnny did not urge him. But after awhile Sam got wearily to his feet. “All right.”

Johnny rose. Without speaking they began plodding through the sand. It was tough going and they stopped to rest frequently. But they kept on. Sam knew as well as Johnny that they had to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the filling station on the highway.

There might not be a pursuit in the night, but in the morning there most certainly would be. And by morning they had to be pretty far away.

Dawn came early on the desert and in a little while the sun rose in the east, a great red ball. Johnny and Sam sat down and surveyed the landscape. The desert seemed to stretch out endlessly in every direction. In the north, far away, were white-crested mountains and there were mountains to the east. But between them was a vast stretch of wasteland.

“How far would you say we’ve traveled since Tucson?” Johnny asked.

Sam groaned. “I didn’t pay any attention.”

“Neither did I, but we were crowding it and we left Tucson about a quarter after eleven... It was right around twelve when we hit that filling station... Mmm, I’d say we were forty-fifty miles from Tucson then... Can’t be so awfully far to Tombstone...”

“They may be putting up a tombstone for us out here,” Sam said, bitterly, “if they ever find our bodies...”

“That’s what they said to Ed Schiefelin, the guy who discovered Tombstone.”

“I wish the hell he’d never discovered it,” complained Sam. He loosened his shirt collar. “It gets hot damn early out here on the desert.”

Johnny looked steadily at Sam. “I read a book about Death Valley once...”

“Don’t tell me about it!” Sam said, quickly. “Which way’s civilization?”

“Tombstone ought to be east... and north. But we don’t want to go north too much, because we’ll hit the highway...” Johnny hesitated. “I think.”

Sam looked at him sharply. “All right, let’s travel.”

They started in an easterly direction. The sun began to rise and inside of ten minutes both men were dripping with perspiration. They forgot their weariness and began traveling faster. Before eight in the morning Sam was in distress and Johnny not much more comfortable.

“We’ve got to have some water,” Sam gasped.

“We’ll have to head north,” Johnny said. “I don’t see any signs of life in the east at all.”

Without a word Sam started northward. Johnny trudged at his side. Within a half hour Sam turned to Johnny. “What was that stuff about Death Valley?”

“It said you couldn’t go more than a few hours in the desert without water. The heat dehydrates you...”

“You aren’t sweating any more.”

“Neither are you,” said Johnny soberly.

Ten minutes later they labored up a sand dune and threw themselves on the top. They lay motionless for a few minutes, then Johnny stirred.

“It can’t be more than a few miles more to the highway.”

“If it was only a half mile, I couldn’t make it.”

“You’ve got to, Sam.”

“You go alone — I’m all in.”

“I’m as tired as you are, Sam,” said Johnny. “But you just can’t quit.” He got to his feet, nudged Sam with his foot. Sam got to his knees, looked up and gritted his teeth.

Johnny reached down and helped his friend. They started off, keeping hold of one another. Their gait was stumbling and uneven, but their peril kept them going, to another sand dune, even higher than the previous one.

It was Johnny who gave out then. Sam stumbled halfway up the dune, stopped and saw Johnny on his knees down below. He turned and went back.

“Come on, kid,” he said.

Johnny smiled weakly. “This does it, Sam.”

Sam put his arms about Johnny, tried to raise him to his feet, but found that his great strength had gone.

“Let’s make it to the top,” he panted.

Johnny shook his head; the strength for it was about all he had. Sam turned, tried the dune once more, but was down on his knees before he had gone a dozen feet. He slipped back through the deep sand.

Heat waves shimmered over the desert.

For a long time neither spoke. Then Johnny finally croaked. “So long, pal!”

Sam flopped a hand weakly in acknowledgment.

Minutes later, Johnny said, “Sam... that time in Louisville, when I beat the hotel out of six weeks’ rent... I wish I hadn’t done it...”

“What about the Hollenden in Miami?”

“We really didn’t have any money that time, but in Louisville, I had a hundred dollar bill pinned to my sock...”

“Huh?” Sam sat up. “You never told me...”

“I know. I thought I had a good one at Churchill Downs and figured to get us back in the chips. I put the hundred on the nag’s nose... It came in eighth.”

“Dammit, Johnny!” cried Sam. Then, “Hey...!” He scrambled to his feet. “Look — Johnny!”

Johnny raised himself, saw Sam standing and got up himself. “I guess we can go a little farther, eh?”

“Let’s go!”

They gained the top of the dune — and both cried out. An eighth of a mile below was a stream and beside the stream an Indian village; a populated village, consisting of twenty or more hogans.

Their fatigue fell away. They scrambled down the incline. They were a hundred yards from the village, when Johnny suddenly caught Sam’s arm and stopped. He nodded toward the Indian encampment.

Some sort of a ceremony was about to be enacted. The Indians, forty or fifty of them, were gathered in a square at the edge of the water. They were bedecked in native finery, their faces smeared with paint. A drum began pounding, then another and another. Several of the Indians began chanting.

“A war dance!” exclaimed Sam.

“Don’t be silly. The Indians haven’t been on the warpath in sixty years.”

“Are you sure?”

Johnny nodded. But there was a little frown on his forehead. Again they started toward the Indian group — now a frenzied group of chanting, dancing and stamping Indians.

They approached unseen, for the Indians — even the women and children on the outskirts — were enthralled by the dance. They were thirty feet away, when a sudden break in the square revealed what was going on inside. Sam Cragg cried out in horror.

“He’s got a snake in his mouth!”

Johnny had already seen. It was hard to believe, but it was true. One of the dancing Indians had a fat rattlesnake between his teeth; a live, squirming snake. On each side of the snake-biter, dancing Indians waved feathers to attract the snake’s fangs. Even as Johnny and Sam watched, the snake struck at a bundle of feathers.

Johnny nudged Sam and they began skirting the dancers, intending to reach the edge of the stream.

But it was too late. An Indian had spied them. He yelled suddenly and came for Johnny and Sam. There was a hissing snake in his fist.

“Yow!” cried Sam Cragg and jumped no less than six feet.

Johnny Fletcher stood his ground, although he was sure that the short hairs on the back of his head were standing up straight.

“Cut it out!” he exclaimed.

“Ai-yai-ai!” howled the Indian and thrust the snake’s head toward Johnny’s face.

Johnny ducked frantically and instinctively drove his fist into the Indian’s mouth. The Indian gasped and went over backwards, the snake flying from his hand. It missed Johnny by not more than an inch, hit the ground and began squirming away.

The Indian scrambled to his feet. He was a young brave, hideously painted and his face distorted by rage. Johnny backed away.

“Sorry, old man,” he said.

The Indian sprang at him. Johnny clinched with him, found that his strength had not yet returned and was borne backwards to the ground. Another Indian rushed in, pounced down and the two started to spread-eagle Johnny to the ground.

Then Sam Gragg came back. He reached down, took hold of each of the Indians and lifted them bodily off Johnny. Johnny scuttled out from underneath, got to his feet.

He looked past Sam Cragg, saw the entire Indian tribe swarming down on them.

“Let’s go, Sam!” he yelled.

Sam let go of the Indians and sprinted for the creek. Johnny was at his heels and behind them the entire Indian tribe. They hit the water at full stride. Luckily it was only a few inches deep and did not impede their progress.

They reached the shore on the far side and kept going. The Indians, however, did not follow past the water, but piled up on their own side and threw stones after Johnny and Sam.

Johnny and Sam slackened their speed after a few moments, then began cutting diagonally back toward the water, when they saw that the Indians were not pursuing them.

They reached the stream three or four hundred yards from the Indian camp, dropped to their stomachs and dipped their faces into the water. It was quite cool and they drank deeply.

After a moment they got up and grinned at one another. “Fifteen minutes ago I thought I was a goner,” said Sam.

Johnny chuckled. “That was when we didn’t know there was any water nearby. I felt better the minute I saw the water.”

Sam nodded toward the Indians. “That snake stuff...!” he shuddered.