登陆注册
14821200000089

第89章

We'd be stronger for havin' more'n our faith in him. He's silent Indian, but make him tell."

Mercedes called to Yaqui. At her bidding there was always a suggestion of hurry, which otherwise was never manifest in his actions. She put a hand on his bared muscular arm and began to speak in Spanish.

Her voice was low, swift, full of deep emotion, sweet as the sound of a bell. It thrilled Gale, though he understood scarcely a word she said. He did not need translation to know that here spoke the longing of a woman for life, love, home, the heritage of a woman's heart.

Gale doubted his own divining impression. It was that the Yaqui understood this woman's longing. In Gale's sight the Indian's stoicism, his inscrutability, the lavalike hardness of his face, although they did not change, seemed to give forth light, gentleness, loyalty. For an instant Gale seemed to have a vision; but it did not last, and he failed to hold some beautiful illusive thing.

"Si!" rolled out the Indian's reply, full of power and depth.

Mercedes drew a long breath, and her hand sought Thorne's.

"He says yes," she whispered. "He answers he'll save us; he'll take us all back--he knows!"

The Indian turned away to his tasks, and the silence that held the little group was finally broken by Ladd.

"Shore I said so. Now all we've got to do is use sense. Friends, I'm the commissary department of this outfit, an' what I say goes.

You all won't eat except when I tell you. Mebbe it'll not be so hard to keep our health. Starved beggars don't get sick. But there's the heat comin', an' we can all go loco, you know. To pass the time! Lord, that's our problem. Now if you all only had a hankerin' for checkers. Shore I'll make a board an' make you play. Thorne, you're the luckiest. You've got your girl, an' this can be a honeymoon. Now with a few tools an' little material see what a grand house you can build for your wife. Dick, you're lucky,too. You like to hunt, an' up there you'll find the finest bighorn huntin' in the West. Take Yaqui and the .405. We need the meat, but while you're gettin' it have your sport. The same chance will never come again. I wish we all was able to go. But crippled men can't climb the lava. Shore you'll see some country from the peaks. There's no wilder place on earth, except the poles.

An' when you're older, you an' Nell, with a couple of fine boys, think what it'll be to tell them about bein' lost in the lava, an' huntin' sheep with a Yaqui. Shore I've hit it. You can take yours out in huntin' an' thinkin'. Now if I had a girl like Nell I'd never go crazy. That's your game, Dick. Hunt, an' think of Nell, an' how you'll tell those fine boys about it all, an' about the old cowman you knowed, Laddy, who'll by then be long past the divide. Rustle now, son. Get some enthusiasm. For shore you'll need it for yourself an' us.

Gale climbed the lava slope, away round to the right of the arroyo, along an old trail that Yaqui said the Papagos had made before his own people had hunted there. Part way it led through spiked, crested, upheaved lava that would have been almost impassable even without its silver coating of choya cactus. There were benches and ledges and ridges bare and glistening in the sun. From the crests of these Yaqui's searching falcon gaze roved near and far for signs of sheep, and Gale used his glass on the reaches of lava that slanted steeply upward to the corrugated peaks, and down over endless heave and roll and red-waved slopes. The heat smoked up from the lava, and this, with the red color and the shiny choyas, gave the impression of a world of smoldering fire.

Farther along the slope Yaqui halted and crawled behind projections to a point commanding a view over an extraordinary section of country. The peaks were off to the left. In the foreground were gullies, ridges, and canyons, arroyos, all glistening with choyas and some other and more numerous white bushes, and here and there towered a green cactus. This region was only a splintered and more devastated part of the volcanic slope, but it was miles in extent.

Yaqui peeped over the top of a blunt block of lava and searched the sharp-billowed wilderness. Suddenly he grasped Gale and pointed across a deep wide gully.

With the aid of his glass Gale saw five sheep. They were much larger than he had expected, dull brown in color, and two of them were rams with great curved horns. They were looking in his direction. Remembering what he had heard about the wonderful eyesight of these mountain animals, Gale could only conclude that they had seen the hunters.

Then Yaqui's movements attracted and interested him. The Indian had brought with him a red scarf and a mesquite branch. He tied the scarf to the stick, and propped this up in a crack of the lava.

The scarf waved in the wind. That done, the Indian bade Gale watch.

Once again he leveled the glass at the sheep. All five were motionless, standing like statues, heads pointed across the gully.

They were more than a mile distant. When Gale looked without his glass they merged into the roughness of the lava. He was intensely interested. Did the sheep see the red scarf? It seemed incredible, but nothing else could account for that statuesque alertness. The sheep held this rigid position for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then the leading ram started to approach. The others followed. He took a few steps, then halted. Always he held his head up, nose pointed.

"By George, they're coming!" exclaimed Gale. "They see that flag.

They're hunting us. They're curious. If this doesn't beat me!"

Evidently the Indian understood, for he grunted.

Gale found difficulty in curbing his impatience. The approach of the sheep was slow. The advances of the leader and the intervals of watching had a singular regularity. He worked like a machine.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 原罪彼方

    原罪彼方

    在未知的彼方是被称为镜界的原罪之地,规则崩坏的开始,有一个特殊的原罪知晓了现世的存在。有些人,背负着罪恶,在现世与镜界的边缘行走。
  • 巾帼女英豪

    巾帼女英豪

    简介:天有不测风云,人有旦夕祸福那天,我遇见你,是天赐良缘那天,晚风习习,离别将既我们默默注视着对方,心从未远离可是,你我都有自己的使命但愿,花开之时,我凤冠霞帔,与你相依在山清水秀,花飞蝶舞,琼楼玉宇,一世相依重逢,不是为了别离,而是为了两颗心,在一起如果有一天,我再次遇见了你,我再不会别离,因为,我爱你
  • 武破圣灵

    武破圣灵

    修为尽失沦为废人,跌落神坛,命不久矣,往日的奉承化作无数的白眼与嘲讽,尝遍世间人情冷暖,少年死而后生,咬着牙倔着骨,逆转人生….PS:前期修行境界:凡境、灵者、灵士、灵师、灵将、灵王、灵皇
  • 相思谋:妃常难娶

    相思谋:妃常难娶

    某日某王府张灯结彩,婚礼进行时,突然不知从哪冒出来一个小孩,对着新郎道:“爹爹,今天您的大婚之喜,娘亲让我来还一样东西。”说完提着手中的玉佩在新郎面前晃悠。此话一出,一府宾客哗然,然当大家看清这小孩与新郎如一个模子刻出来的面容时,顿时石化。此时某屋顶,一个绝色女子不耐烦的声音响起:“儿子,事情办完了我们走,别在那磨矶,耽误时间。”新郎一看屋顶上的女子,当下怒火攻心,扔下新娘就往女子所在的方向扑去,吼道:“女人,你给本王站住。”一场爱与被爱的追逐正式开始、、、、、、、
  • 轩寻月

    轩寻月

    年少时就与伙伴背负灭门之痛,失去了家的庇护,雏鹰还能否鹰击长空,一览天下芳容?资质平庸,却许下夸夸之词,自傲?非也。心中的仇恨鞭挞着他不断继续前进,好不容易步履蹒跚站稳实力的脚跟,却要面对爱情与友情的抉择,他问:“可不可以不要选择?”回答他的只有无边的心痛和无望,心魔已成形,他毅然选择逃避,张开路西法的黑色六翼黑化暴走,向从前的那个有着一头泛着紫意的白发白衣少女挥手说再见。等他想痛心疾首的挽回时,一切皆物是人非,扑朔迷离的局,毫无胜算的圈套,不可明说的身世,引起世间腥风血雨的旷世神物,到底有多少谜题等待解答?毁灭带来的是一切归于平静的死寂还是否极泰来的新生?
  • 李家嫡长女李倾渃

    李家嫡长女李倾渃

    是恨还是怨,是劫还是缘的重逢,命运的无奈。。。但愿今生平安喜乐,重生我便是你也成了你,为你活为我活,只求幸福一生
  • 天魔脉

    天魔脉

    他,是一个天赋极高的脉气高手,无缘无故回到了300年前,在这个时代,他脑袋装着的都是未来至高的脉术,甚至是禁书中的脉术!他是否能凭借自身的实力,傲然群雄?坐拥江山美女呢?
  • 碎裂九天

    碎裂九天

    传说神石降世,轰碎大地成五洲,淹没疆土成七海,然神石携有“原道”,以至人族大兴,妖族昌盛,海族肆虐,战起万年,直至神石皆毁。万年之后,有一人少年偶得神石,从此,风云叱咤,碎裂九天!
  • 末世之护短尸皇

    末世之护短尸皇

    【本文非重生,不小白,1V1女强文】娉婷悲催的成为了第一批丧尸,一个有着记忆的丧尸...为了保护弟弟走上了变强的道路。我只想默默地变强而已,我去,傲娇的萌宠你在干嘛,契约一滴血就够了,你居然差点把我咬死...那个孔雀男你给我放下,那是我弟弟!哎呀发现忠犬一枚,可是姐看上了外星腹黑男怎么办...一不小心启动了远古星系,又一不小心建立了丧尸帝国!这是一本为保护弟弟而顺便强大自己的护短小说,不喜勿喷!
  • 雪魁

    雪魁

    万年雪域,绝世一国,三年灭族,百年之谜。四季轮回的中原,永不见天日的西界,终日白昼的东极天,火龙丛生的南疆,雪落无痕的雪域。他,是这世间唯一幸存的雪国遗孤。他从百年后灭亡的雪域醒来,雪停,风云起,一切都是命运。