Desert of the Damned by Nelson Nye Page B

order book for the black-haired girl of the stage to write her name on. It was an irrelevant thought which had nothing to do with getting Ben Reifel away from that posse; nevertheless it stopped him cold on the creek bank and drove a worried hand into searching his clothing. The hand didn’t find it so he stashed his empty pistol and put the other one to helping. He was in a fine sweat lest he’d forgotten to remove it from the clothes he had drowned in the creek behind Tim Foley’s. He finally found it in the sweatband of his hat.
    He had no recollection of putting it there but his head felt so queer he might easily have forgotten as he’d forgotten its existence up until right now. Kind of funny though the way it had got folded….
    He smoothed its creases and tried to make out the name but the light, even here in the open, wasn’t strong enough. The first word began with an M but it didn’t look like Mary. Monte, maybe — it had the right number of letters. Funny name for a girl, he thought, kind of scowling.
    The scowl was still on his face when he put it away. He got to wondering now if one of those possemen had found it, or maybe that sheriff. Any girl who could write her name on butcher paper — By God, if the sheriff
had
found it…. That might account for a lot that he’d found queer about this deal. If she was all that important, or if her old man was, the sheriff probably knew them. Knew of them anyway. It might have made all the difference. It might account for him being left here unbound without a guard. It might — but he could figure that out later. First things first. The most important thing right now was to get the hell away from here — and he had better be careful not to leave no trail.
    With that thought in mind he put Bugler into the creek. The New Mexican border couldn’t be very far away. If he could follow this water south or east and stay in it —
    He’d got just that far when a voice barked gruffly: “Hoist your hands an’ come outa that!”
    Sometimes when a man has reached the end of his string desperation lends him a strength beyond normal, a courage out of this world, the guts to achieve apparent miracles — but it was not that way with Ben Reifel. When those growled words came at him out of the dark he let out a long breath and let go of the reins, knowing deep inside him this was how he had expected it to end all along.
    “Come on — get ’em up. I ain’t figurin’ to be takin’ no chances with you.”
    Reifel, signing, raised his hands. But it was hard, bitter hard, to know he had failed so near to victory.
    A man stepped out of the blackness of the willows. Moon-glow silvered the gun in his fist. He was one of those who had been with the sheriff and he said with a dangerous edge to his tone, “Climb down off that nag an’ wade over here.”
    Reifel shook his head. “Not sure I can make it — ”
    “You better get sure then. I’ve seen all your tricks I’ve a mind to. Climb down!”
    Sudden hope poured through Reifel. This guy was too tense, his voice was too brittle. Ben Reifel had ridden too often with fear not to know a scared man when he saw one.
    He came out of the saddle. The stream was waist deep and the shock of cold water wrung a gasp from his throat. He took a couple of floundering steps, made a frantic grab for the saddle and clung there.
    The man on the bank above him swore. “I won’t tell you again — climb outa there!”
    “W-w-wait a second,” Reifel gasped through chattering teeth and, transferring his hold to the gelding’s bridle, wheeled the big roan around and waded out at the ford.
    The nervous deputy edged up to him warily but when he saw how used up Reifel looked, shivering and shaking in his soaked blue jeans, a sneer crossed his face. “You’re like all of these hard cases. Tougher than hell when you’re stick-in’ up stages an’ a damn sick chicken when you get caught up with. That horse’ll stand, you don’t have t’ hang