Dillinger - Jack Higgins [52]
'Shouldn't you be more concerned about a bullet in one of those cans you're carrying back there?'
'A bullet hits one of those, and you and I don't have to worry one bit. Would you rather take your horse?'
'I'll stay where I am.'
'Even in this dangerous, gas-carrying heap?'
Rose laughed. 'You have such an expression on your face. What are you thinking? What are you wishing?'
'I wish we were setting out to rob a bank,' he said.
The night sky was clear, and the moon bathed the desert in a hard white light, making it easy for Nachita to follow the tracks Ortiz's band had made in the dust and sand of the valley floor.
They pressed on without a halt, pushing their mounts hard. Just after midnight the trail turned into the foothills of the mountains. Nachita halted them for a rest and Dillinger got out of the Chevrolet and walked across to a slight rise.
The view was spectacular. The desert stretched to the horizon, and its hollows and canyons were dark and forbidding, thrown into relief by the white moonlight which picked out the higher stretches of ground.
'Beautiful, isn't it?' Rose sat on a boulder beside him, taking off her hat and shaking loose a switch of long hair.
'It is now.'
She smiled momentarily and then gazed out over the desert. 'In a way, I feel that you came because of me. Juanita, my uncle, Ortiz, what do any of them mean to you?'
'Ever since Fallon showed me the picture postcard, I've headed here like I was pulled by a magnet. Your worries are my worries, Rose.'
She turned, her face grave. 'You could still turn back.'
He smiled slowly. 'I never go back to anything. An old superstition.'
'You'll go back to the States, won't you?'
'That's different. That's home.'
'Why are they looking for your car? It sounds like they really don't want you at home.'
'Oh, I'm wanted all right,' Dillinger said, laughing. 'By my friends and by my enemies.'
He put a cigarette in his mouth and Chavasse called out softly, 'No lights. That's one thing we can't afford.'
Dillinger put the cigarettes back in his pocket. 'I wonder just how close we are? We must have come better than twenty miles.'
'Nachita thinks they may have sent scouts down to the foothills,' she said. 'From now on progress will be slower. An hour, perhaps two? Who knows?'
Above them, stars swam in the hot night, and he was aware of the heat like a living thing crowding in. He wiped sweat from his forehead. 'It's too damned hot.'
Fallon moved across to join them and stood looking to the far mountains. In the distance the stars were already being snuffed out as clouds moved across the sky.
'I think we're in for a storm.'
'In these mountains?' Dillinger said in surprise.
Fallon nodded. 'The heat builds up the pressure during the day. It has to give some time.'
'What's the going likely to be from here on in?' Dillinger asked. 'Will the Chevrolet take it?'
'Wagon trains did in the old days,' Fallon told him. 'Mines all over these mountains then, even a ranch or two. Desert again on the other side.'
Dillinger moved back to the Chevrolet and got behind the wheel. 'They'd sure as hell like to know about you at the factory,' he said softly, switched on the motor and took up his position at the rear of the small group.
They ascended into a country of broken hills and narrow twisting waterways long since dry. The slopes on either side of the trail were covered with mesquite and greasewood and, as they climbed higher, a few scattered pines, rooted in the scant soil, thrust their pointed heads into the night.
On one occasion, Dillinger and Rose had to stop and call to the others for assistance to roll a boulder out of the way so that the car could pass. Later, thunder rumbled in the distance, and the sky over the peaks on the far side of the valley was momentarily illuminated by sheet lightning. The air seemed charged with electricity, vibrant and humming with a restless force that threatened to burst loose at any moment like water running over a dam.
For a while Nachita had been on foot, moving slowly, sometimes even feeling for the trail