Chapter 4
HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CLOSE brush with almost certain death? If you have, you know the usual aftermath-a feeling of amazement and humility that it happened to you, that you were miraculously spared. This was the feeling that possessed me as I slowly climbed up from one rock ledge to another, toward the rim.
The feeling was augmented by still another sensation-an appreciation to the woman who had helped to save my life. The thought of putting one's mouth to a wound-a wound made by a poisonous reptile and vacuuming out the poisoned blood, is obnoxious in any respect. To some women it might have been so sickening that they would have shied away from the physical part of it, regardless of their feelings. But Geri Lopez hadn't hesitated, even momentarily.
She had grasped my arm, that lovely sensuous mouth had turned into a human pump. She hadn't grown panicky in the process. She was cold to the bone with the fear of the snake itself, but this didn't stop her.
She had knelt over me, my arm clutched tightly in both of hers, totally oblivious to the fact that her shirt was unbuttoned, that her protrusive golden breasts were bare. Her one thought was to be of service.
Now it was my turn to be of service.
Why all this solicitude toward a kidnapper?
That was dark green water under a bridge. She was a woman, a kind, desirable woman. Something had happened to her.
I was winded, and I wasn't even-half way up. The light was fading fast, making the climb even more difficult. I was hunting, too, for some evidence of her passing. I found nothing.
Wait a moment! Here was the torn branch of a scrub cedar, poking its hardy trunk out of a niche in the rocks. That meant she had grasped the rugged limb to pull up her body from a lower level. It had torn, but still held. I kept working upward, toeholds, hand-holds, taking my time. This weakness, I realized, was one of those things that wasn't going to leave very suddenly.
Each ledge was a struggle. And the fear was there too, growing. I had a premonition that I would find her any moment now.
But I didn't. And at last I was on the rim so utterly spent that I stretched out on the bare face rock, still warm from the sun, and lay there slowly recapturing my breath.
Night had clamped down now. The desert was a mantle of emptiness, serenely stretching away to the murky horizon.
I had instructed Geri to head into the South. With the compass as her guide, I believed she would do just that without too much variation.
But now that I was atop the rim I saw immediately that I had erred. The Maricopa community was to the East of us, not directly South. We had penetrated deeper into the pothole country than I realized. Heading South would miss the Indian village.
Heading South might mean miles of emptiness, barren desert, not a single habitation.
"You pulled a boner this time, chum!" the little green man persisted. "You've sent her after shadows. It could be you even sent her to her death!"
I headed South, a bit frantic now. Away from the rim I turned at right angles, checking in the hope that I might come across her trail. But there was nothing. And now the light was too dim to tell.
If she followed the compass, she would head South. But how far, I asked myself? When will she pull up, change her course-after she finds nothing? Or how long will she last? What did yesterday's boding sun do to her?
Questions, but no answers. Weary steps and no purpose to them, just desperation. Somewhere out here was a lone woman, in big trouble. I had to find her for my own peace of mind.
I pulled up at last for a much-needed rest. The moon was a huge fireball just above the horizon, and the desert was catching its magic sheen. Nothing but barren land, stretching on. This could be the earth, perhaps in some far distant year after the powers-that-be let go the big one, turning the landscape into a cinder. Nothing.
I started walking again, wondering if the coyote knew just how lonely his cry sounded to a human ear. Something scurried under the protection of a goat-bush. I shuddered, thinking of the snake. But this was a desert rabbit.
Finally the land dipped, the terrain changed noticeably. I found myself stumbling along in a dry creek bed.
Then the unbelievable took place. I jerked up, blinked my eyes, thinking perhaps it was some hallucination caused by weakness and fatique. But it was not.
Up the draw there was the faint gleam of light. A stationary fight. That meant some habitation, the window of a dwelling no doubt. A candle, or a kerosene wick lamp.
It was instinctive to quicken my step. But I did just the opposite, listening to the cautioning of my inherent nature.
This was not an Indian hogan; it was a cabin. I could see its outline now. Nearby was something that looked like an old mine tipple. This was the cabin of a prospector, a desert rat.
If Geri had reached here, she would be safe. But why hadn't she come back to the canyon with help? Any white man would go back to help another person, the victim of a rattler's bite.
Any white man, perhaps. With the exception of the two Collins brothers.
Suddenly I was thinking of Nan Goodwin, what she had told me of Zeke and Zachary Collins. "Any Maricopa girl knows better than to get too close to either of them," Nan had said. And meant it.
If Geri Lopez had stumbled in here, thinking she would get help, she would soon awaken to the rude realization that she was merely a human mouse, trapped very securely.
Geri Lopez was a beautiful woman, a provocative woman physically.
I felt a new fear now, a new weakness. But it wasn't all from the snake bite.
Would there be a dog? That had to be ascertained.
I kept to the shadows, wormed closer. The moonlight was an aid, bathing the barren shack, with its tin walls and sod roof, and the equally barren landscape. All I could see was the old mine tipple and the cabin. If there was a dog he might be on a long leash, sleeping under the shack or tied in the shadows of the old tipple. I made sure there was no dog anywhere in the yard.
I wormed still closer to the shack. It sat up on posts about two feet from the ground; I could see underneath it, but not too well. I directed a small pebble toward the darkness beneath the building. Nothing happened. If there was a dog, he wasn't too interested in guard duty.
To make sure I tossed another rock toward the tipple. I heard it strike some object, making a slight, tiny noise. I held my breath. No dog there, either.
I crawled up to the unwashed window that emitted the light, cautiously raised up to check the interior.
I had to clamp my lips to stifle the groan that welled up from my throat.
The light was dim inside the shack-a candle on an oilcloth-covered table. But it wasn't so dim that I couldn't see Geri Lopez.
She sat on a chair, her hands tied back of her. Facing her, straddling another chair-this one backless-was a man. I had never seen him before, but he easily fell into the category of the Collins brothers.
He had the lean, hump-shouldered frame that Nan described, the black, unkempt hair, the unshaven face. He sat there, leering at the woman.
Geri stared back at him, lips clamped. Her face seemed tired, but there was resistance in her eyes.
Her khaki shirt had been ripped down, pulled out of her jeans. It hung on her shoulders like the garment of a garden scarecrow. Her elongated breasts were bare.
The man had a knife in his right hand and he leaned closer, the blade pushed forward until the sharp tip was touching the golden flesh of her right breast He seemed to be playing some kind of a game, letting the tip of the blade circle her dark aureole, just lightly touching the flesh, but not hard enough to cut it..
The walls of the shack were thin; I didn't have to strain much to hear the conversation inside.
"Zack'll get back from the canyon 'fore daybreak. Reckon hell find out whether or not you're lyin'."
"I am not lying," Geri said, her voice tired.
"Maybe not," he said, "but if ye air-"
He left the sentence unfinished, and the knife point shifted to her left breast.
"Reckon we can wait a little longer."
"You'd better untie me and let me get some sleep."
"You kin rest, right there in the chair."
"With that knife pricking my flesh?"
"You better start prayin' mat Zack gets back, or you'll wish you was dead."
"You're very stupid," she said, desperation in her voice. "You've hunted for that missing airplane for years. You haven't found it. And still you doubt my story."
"I doubt you. If Zack finds that feller, and he tells the same story you did, you won't be bothered."
"If you touch me, you'll never find out."
The knife blade raised, hovered over the nipple, touched it with a sly little dig that forced her back into the chair, straining away from him.
He chuckled. "Reckon a man'd like to go to bed with a woman like you fer a long, long time."
Geri didn't reply, just sat there staring at him with hatred and repulsion in her eyes. And his eyes were on her bared breasts.
I didn't for the moment follow the trend of the conversation. Then it dawned. Evidently she too knew about the lost airplane, was using it in a desperate effort to save her life, and perhaps even mine.
She had probably stumbled upon the shack by accident, and asked for help. Then her woman's intuition told her that she had fallen into a den of human derelicts. In desperation, or through some dropped word, she had ascertained that they too were interested in the lost plane-perhaps thinking of the rich bounty buried with it somewhere.
She led them to believe that we were on the same quest, that we knew more than they did. If they would go back with her to help me, she would divulge the information they were seeking and the search would be a foursome. Something like that. How she intended to acquaint me with this new switch was beyond me.
But her ruse had been only partially successful, they didn't exactly fall for her story. At least they were playing it cautious. One would stay with her whde the other went back to the canyon to hunt for me.
That meant the one searching for me would soon be coming back He wouldn't find me, of course, and that would further complicate matters. He might find our camp and do some exploring, up and down the canyon; but he still wouldn't find me. I was hoping he would explore; that would give me more time to get Geri out of their clutches.
The thing to do was take care of this guy, right now.
That sounded far easier than the actual deed. I was in a weakened condition, no match for this big, lanky, trail-hardened man. Furthermore there was a rifle lying on the table, within easy reach. I could plainly see the gun. If I barged inside, he would grab it-and that would be that.
I had to get him outside by some ruse.
This was Zeke. He had said that Zack was out on the search for me.
I listened to the arguments, wondering if I could imitate his voice, or the voice of his brother. This one's voice was high-pitched, with a definite nasal twang, as if he had catarrh. Would Zack have the same kind of voice?
That was a risk I had to take.
I circled the shack, hugging the shadows as much as I could. At the mine tipple I scrounged around, hoping to find some good-sized club. But there was nothing, just a few bales of hay. Evidently they owned a burro or a pack horse.
I crawled back to the shadow of the shack wall.
Then I saw the clothesline, and the overalls flapping in the night breeze. I got the garment, ran back to the mine tipple, stuffed in all the hay I could until I had a reasonably good dummy. Without a head, of course. But for my purpose it didn't need a head, just a torso.
There wasn't a club, but there was a shale pile. I got a hunk of flinty rock that fit my fist, shouldered my dummy and walked over to the creek bed. As if I was coming up from the canyon, and couldn't make the grade with the load on my shoulder.
Then I shouted, hoping the twang would get by:
"Hey, Zeke, gimme a hand, will ya?" Nothing happened. I waited, repeated the call.
The door opened, closed. He was cautious, didn't allow himself to be silhouetted by the light from the inside, offering a target.
"Hurry up, Zeke. This guy's heavier'n hell!"
I waited, deep enough in the gulch to lead him to think I couldn't quite make the last steep climb. I was turned so he could see the imitation man over my shoulder.
He started a slow dog-trot toward me.
Either the illusion was much better than I hoped, or my voice misled him. Perhaps he had a one-track mind; when he saw what he supposed was his brother coming back from the canyon, toting a man who had been bitten by a snake, he just threw caution to the wind.
He came steadily on, didn't jerk up until he was right there in front of me, possibly eight feet away.
Then he saw the decoy. I could see his expression as the shock registered. He tried to pull in the slack, but his facial muscles didn't respond. His loose mouth sagged, his eyes bugged.
He'd been too anxious to help; he hadn't brought the rifle, and that was in my favor. The moment he wised up, he did an about-face. He intended to sprint to the shack for the gun, hoping I wasn't armed.
I wasn't armed-at least not in the way he expected. I let the dummy slide, and sent the rock sizzling for his head.
He was in high gear on the back-track, and as he was facing away from me, he didn't have a chance to duck. The rock caught him on the back of the neck, just below the base of the skull. He went down, sprawling, his stop so sudden that it looked ludicrous. Suddenly he was all legs and arms, going down.
I didn't take a chance. I got to him in about two seconds, put a real stinger on his chin, then chopped him across the windpipe with the edge of my hand for good measure.
He groaned, sort of a wheezing pig grunt, and didn't move.
I got out my knife, ripped the legs of the overalls and tied him up good, wrists behind his back. Then I stuffed a hunk of cloth into his mouth as a gag and pulled him over to the shadows of the mine tipple.
I stood there, heaving, realizing it was a lucky break. I was weak as a cat. In a hand-to-hand encounter, he would have beat me into the dust in a hurry.
I pushed into the cabin, still breathing like a race horse coming in on the last stretch.
Geri's dull eyes regarded me in disbelief. Or perhaps she thought she was seeing a ghost. The expression on her face was pitiful to see-disbelief trying to argue with credence.
"It's me-in the flesh!" I said, cutting loose her hands.
She sat there for a moment, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists. Then she came out of the chair in a single leap and was tight in my arms. She was making sounds I couldn't understand. The most wonderful sounds in the world. It was all there in her voice; the relief, the dread, the terror. And she was holding onto me in desperation, kissing me, crying and laughing at the same time.
It was natural to respond. I held her tightly, felt her breasts warm under my hand. Her kiss was the response of a woman who had suddenly come back from the dead to new, vigorous life.
"Oh, Steve, Steve-"
"Let's get out of here, before the other one comes back! " I said at last.
The rifle was on the table. I picked it up, ejected the shells, and broke it over the back of a chair. I looked around: it was the only gun I could see. The room was a pig sty; it smelled like one, was encrusted with the dirt and filth of years.
"Steve, how did you ever do it?"
"We'll talk later, Geri."
I grabbed her hand, pulled her through the door. We ran to the creek Then I decided to check, ran with her to the mine tipple. He was still there, tied just as I had left him, moaning now.
We were about to leave when Geri's hand tugged loose. She closer to Zeke. Then her foot came down in a vicious smash.
"That's for the knife!" she said. I had no criticism to make.
We headed back to the dry creek bed, started on a dog-trot away from the cabin.
Suddenly I jerked up, as calm thinking replaced the excitement of the rescue. The other brother would be coming back from the canyon any time now. If we continued to the North, we might run into him. I didn't want that to happen, at least not tonight. I was weak, exhausted. So was Geri. We needed rest and food before we tackled with more trouble.
So we climbed out of the creek and turned Northwest. This course might bring us out on the rim, possibly a mile to the West of the ledge upon which the rattlesnake had changed the course of our safari.
We walked until we were ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. We were on a ridge now, with some head-high scrub cedar as cover. We hunkered down at last and stretched out on the sand.
"I don't think he'll find us here," I said. "Unless he can track like an Apache."
We didn't say a word for moments, too exhausted to expend another bit of energy. We merely lay there side by side, letting the tenseness slowly wash out of our bodies. Up above the cloudless bowl of the heavens, star-studded, looking down on this little drama of two frightened people.
"Steve, I feel quite small lying here. Don't you?"
"Yes, very small and insignificant."
She rolled over on her side, facing me. Her arms reached out, and I pulled her into my embrace. For moments I held her tight. This was our private little world, a sand-pit under two scrub cedars, the sand still warm from the day's heat.
"Steve," she whispered, "it was so horrible, facing them-and thinking of you back in the canyon."
She was very much of a woman now. Her lips found mine, the kiss demanding. She didn't let go, at the moment I didn't care if she never let go. I found myself seeking her tongue; obviously she had the same idea. We lay there, tight in each other's arms, and the kiss built into a stinger.
I pushed back at last.
"Geri, somehow you held them off. Was it the airplane gimmick?"
She nodded. "I got the idea the moment I got to the cabin and saw what I had walked into. They were sitting at the table, looking at old newspaper clippings. I saw the deadlines about the missing plane, the $800,000. I was desperate, and this seemed the only chance."
I kissed her, squeezed a bit tighter.
"But it didn't quite work out?"
"No, they kept at me for hours, trying to figure out whether I was lying. Then Zack started out after you, leaving me with the other one."
I was thinking of all the loose ends. "What would you have done if they both accompanied you back to the canyon?"
"First things first," she grinned. "At the moment I didn't even consider that. I suppose I would have tried to swing the conversation in some way so you could have wised up to the game I was playing."
I didn't answer, content to hold her and caress her with my hands. She pulled up my arm, still swollen.
"How do you feel? "
"Okay, merely weak."
"I'll never forget that night as long as I live!"
"You saved my life, you know, sucking out that venom."
"Did I, Steve? First I send you to your death, then I hold back the executioner."
I had no answer to that.
"Did the brothers feed you?"
"If you call that stuff they eat food." She made a wry face.
"We'll get a fire going as soon as we can find a safe place."
"Steve-"
It was the way she said it. It was an entreaty. A man knows, somehow. We needed many things, food, drink, rest. But we also needed each other.
I knew it, and so did she. There were no pangs of conscience about it. We had been through an ordeal together, and this alone was sufficient reason for this feeling we had, this physical yearning for each other.
Her lips were on mine, we were exploring each other's mouth cavities with our tongues. I touched her and felt the tautening in her breasts.
"She's older than you," I cautioned myself. "But that is no criterion of her desire." It was there, under my hands, in her lips, the warm response of her body as she cradled her hips tight against mine.
Finally I moved my face away from her lips, kissed her throat, worked down to her breasts. The nipples were hard between my teeth, she made a whispering sound in her throat that was both desire and pain.
She pulled back at least, breathing heavily. Her fingers caressed my face. "Steve, it's been so long-"
I didn't answer, merely let my finger tips trace a pattern on her puffy aureoles, playing a hide tune first on one breast, and then the other.
"Honey, you're so beautiful-"
"Let's say I've merely taken care of my body," she whispered. "What's that mean?"
"Just what I said. I've never abused it, sexually."
I didn't argue. She looked far younger than her years. Her breasts were the taut cones of a young girl, her kiss had the fire of youth and the skill of maturity. And there was something else, a desire for gratification in every move she made.
She needed me, and I needed her. It was as old as the world, as young as a virgin's kiss.
She prolonged the love-play minute by minute, teasing, withdrawing, teasing again. A bit of heaven; then, when the red light of ecstasy started to glow, a restraining hand.
But even so, desire grew into compulsion at last. Her breasts were taut under my hand, her heart was hammering madly in her rib cage. Her tongue was a fiery wand, augmenting the desire, fanning the fire in our loins.
At last we were together, nothing mattered but the movement of our bodies in the rhythm of love. I felt her need in each violent movement of her hips, in the frantic grip of her hands. Then it was over and we lay there, so exhausted that there was no desire other than that of sleep.
And that is exactly what we did. The cold of the deep night was coming now, the blankets felt good.
She lay there, buttoned her shirt:
But even her buttoned shirt couldn't quite hide her beauty.
She was shaking me.
"Steve," she whispered, "wake up!"
I was already awake. At first I couldn't ascertain just what had aroused me. But now I knew, the sound I heard was easily recognizable.
It was the growl of a dog, a big, ferocious dog.
He stood there, not five feet away, baring his teeth. He looked big as a lobo wolf, and just as vicious.
"Steve-"
The dog moved closer. I was wondering just what would be the best plan to keep those tearing fangs off us.
I sat up slowly, eyes on the dog.
That's when the club came down across my skull.
I hadn't heard a thing, just a slight scraping noise that last instant, as if someone moved a boot in the sand. I was thinking only of the dog.
The club cracked down hard. My last recollection was Geri's scream. There was a terror in it that I shall never forget.