The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [115]
Bowie Allison studied the gradual rise of the rock wall, passing his tongue over cracked lips. “There could be water up there. Sometimes the rain catches in hollows and stays there a long time if it’s shady.”
McKay squinted into the air. The irregular crests were high and dead still against the sky. “Could be.”
Mickey Segundo looked up and then nodded.
“How far to the next hole?” McKay asked.
“Maybe one day.”
“If it’s got water…. Then how far?”
“Maybe two day. We come out on the plain then near the Datil Mountains and there is water, streams to be found.”
McKay said, “That means we’re halfway. We can make last what we got, but there’s no use killing ourselves.” His eyes lifted to the peaks again, then dropped to the mouth of a barranca which cut into the rock. He nodded to the dark canyon which was partly hidden by a dense growth of mesquite. “We’ll leave our stuff there and go on to see what we can find.”
They unsaddled the horses and ground-tied them and hung their last water bag in the shade of a mesquite bush.
Then they walked up-canyon until they found a place which would be the easiest to climb.
They went up and they came down, but when they were again on the canyon floor, their canteens still rattled lightly with their steps. Mickey Segundo carried McKay’s rifle in one hand and the limp, empty water bag in the other.
He walked a step behind the two men and watched their faces as they turned to look back overhead. There was no water.
The rocks held nothing, not even a dampness. They were naked now and loomed brutally indifferent, and bone dry with no promise of moisture.
The canyon sloped gradually into the opening. And now, ahead, they could see the horses and the small fat bulge of the water bag hanging from the mesquite bough.
Mickey Segundo’s eyes were fixed on the water sack. He looked steadily at it.
Then a horse screamed. They saw the horses suddenly pawing the ground and pulling at the hackamores that held them fast. The three horses and the pack mule joined together now, neighing shrilly as they strained dancing at the ropes.
And then a shape the color of sand darted through the mesquite thicket, so quickly that it seemed a shadow.
Mickey Segundo threw the rifle to his shoulder. He hesitated. Then he fired.
The shape kept going, past the mesquite background and out into the open.
He fired again and the coyote went up into the air and came down to lie motionless.
It only jerked in death. McKay looked at him angrily. “Why the hell didn’t you let me have it! You could have hit one of the horses!”
“There was not time.”
“That’s two hundred yards! You could have hit a horse, that’s what I’m talking about!”
“But I shot it,” Mickey Segundo said.
When they reached the mesquite clump, they did not go over to inspect the dead coyote. Something else took their attention. It stopped the white men in their tracks.
They stared unbelieving at the wetness seeping into the sand, and above the spot, the water bag hanging like a punctured b1adder. The water had quickly run out.
Mickey Segundo told the story at the inquiry. They had attempted to find water, but it was no use; so they were compelled to try to return.
They had almost reached Yucca Springs when the two men died. Mickey Segundo told it simply. He was sorry he had shot the water bag, but what could he say? God directs the actions of men in mysterious ways.
The county authorities were disconcerted, but they had to be satisfied with the apparent facts.
McKay and Allison were found ten miles from Yucca Springs and brought in. There were no marks of violence on either of them, and they found three hundred dollars in McKay’s wallet. It was officially recorded that they died from thirst and exposure.
A terrible way to die just because some damn Apache couldn’t shoot straight. Peza-a survived because he was lucky, along with the fact