“Get away from that phone!” Sam snapped.
Johnson began dialing. “Hello, Highway Patrol,” he said.
“Get away!” Sam roared.
“This is Luke Johnson,” Johnson said into the telephone. “There’re a couple of stickup artists here...”
Sam averted the muzzle of the gun and pulled the trigger. A click was the only result. He howled in rage and threw the gun to the floor. Johnson said, “Excuse me a minute,” into the phone, then reached to a shelf nearby. He whirled on Sam with a twin to the other Frontier model.
“This one is loaded,” he said. He lowered the muzzle, pulled the trigger. A terrific explosion rocked the little room and splinters flew from the table. “See?”
Sam was already hurtling through the door into the filling station. Johnny knocked the table aside and followed. Old man Johnson calmly sent a bullet after Johnny.
Sam was whipping open the outer door when Johnny came through from the rear room, but so great was Johnny’s speed, that he collided with Sam just outside the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Old Man Johnson came hobbling outside, but by that time Johnny and Sam were fifty yards from the filling station... and going fast. The old boy gave them an additional burst of speed by sending a couple of bullets winging over their heads.
It was every man for himself, and when Johnny pulled up a quarter of a mile from the filling station, Sam was a hundred yards behind. And having tough going. Johnny dropped to the ground and waited for Sam to come up.
“Jeez!” panted Sam, when he finally arrived.
“You can say that again,” cried Johnny.
He looked back toward the filling station and discovered that he and Sam had taken off across country, away from the highway. As a matter of fact they had even run up hill, for the filling station was some distance below them.
The moon was almost full and the station stood out brightly. Johnny got to his feet. “We’ve got to go back,” he announced.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Sam howled.
“I have — but they’ve got our car and we’re lost without a car, out here on the desert...”
“We’re lost if we go back,” Sam protested. “He was calling the cops...”
“A bluff...”
“Yeah? Listen...!”
Johnny listened and the thing he heard sent a little shiver through him. A siren, still some distance away, but coming closer. He groaned. Far to the left, down the highway, a red light appeared.
“It’s the cops, all right.”
“Goddamit!” Sam Gragg cursed. “Goddamit the hell!”
“Come on,” said Johnny. “We’re in no position to be picked up by cops — on any charge whatever.”
The siren was still piercing the night and the red light on the highway was growing brighter.
“I can’t run another step,” Sam complained.
“I’ll bet you can,” said Johnny. “I’ll bet you can run quite a ways...”
And Sam did. They reached the crest of the hill a few minutes later, by which time the red light had come up to the filling station. Johnny stopped a moment to look down and suddenly cried out, as the red light shot out across the desert and silhouetted him on the hillside.
That he was seen was quite obvious, for a bullet whined somewhere through the air and a moment later came the report of a gun — a much heavier, sharper report than that made by the old Frontier Model. A rifle.
They ran again, a quarter mile at pretty good speed, then another quarter mile at a stumbling lope. Sam fell two or three times, but always picked himself up again. Then he fell and remained on the sand. Johnny came back to him, threw himself down beside Sam.
They remained on the ground for five minutes, then Johnny sat up.
“Think you can make it now?”
Sam rolled over on his back 2nd looked up at the sky. “No,” he replied.
Johnny did not urge him. But after awhile Sam got wearily to his feet. “All right.”
Johnny rose. Without speaking they began plodding through the sand. It was tough going and they stopped to rest frequently. But they kept on. Sam knew as well as Johnny that they had to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the filling station on the highway.
There might not be a pursuit in the night, but in the morning there most certainly would be. And by morning they had to be pretty far away.
Dawn came early on the desert and in a little while the sun rose in the east, a great red ball. Johnny and Sam sat down and surveyed the landscape. The desert seemed to stretch out endlessly in every direction. In the north, far away, were white-crested mountains and there were mountains to the east. But between them was a vast stretch of wasteland.
“How far would you say we’ve traveled since Tucson?” Johnny asked.
Sam groaned. “I didn’t pay any attention.”
“Neither did I, but we were crowding it and we left Tucson about a quarter after eleven... It was right around twelve when we hit that filling station... Mmm, I’d say we were forty-fifty miles from Tucson then... Can’t be so awfully far to Tombstone...”
“They may be putting up a tombstone for us out here,” Sam said, bitterly, “if they ever find our bodies...”
“That’s what they said to Ed Schiefelin, the guy who discovered Tombstone.”
“I wish the hell he’d never discovered it,” complained Sam. He loosened his shirt collar. “It gets hot damn early out here on the desert.”
Johnny looked steadily at Sam. “I read a book about Death Valley once...”
“Don’t tell me about it!” Sam said, quickly. “Which way’s civilization?”
“Tombstone ought to be east... and north. But we don’t want to go north too much, because we’ll hit the highway...” Johnny hesitated. “I think.”
Sam looked at him sharply. “All right, let’s travel.”
They started in an easterly direction. The sun began to rise and inside of ten minutes both men were dripping with perspiration. They forgot their weariness and began traveling faster. Before eight in the morning Sam was in distress and Johnny not much more comfortable.
“We’ve got to have some water,” Sam gasped.
“We’ll have to head north,” Johnny said. “I don’t see any signs of life in the east at all.”
Without a word Sam started northward. Johnny trudged at his side. Within a half hour Sam turned to Johnny. “What was that stuff about Death Valley?”
“It said you couldn’t go more than a few hours in the desert without water. The heat dehydrates you...”
“You aren’t sweating any more.”
“Neither are you,” said Johnny soberly.
Ten minutes later they labored up a sand dune and threw themselves on the top. They lay motionless for a few minutes, then Johnny stirred.
“It can’t be more than a few miles more to the highway.”
“If it was only a half mile, I couldn’t make it.”
“You’ve got to, Sam.”
“You go alone — I’m all in.”
“I’m as tired as you are, Sam,” said Johnny. “But you just can’t quit.” He got to his feet, nudged Sam with his foot. Sam got to his knees, looked up and gritted his teeth.
Johnny reached down and helped his friend. They started off, keeping hold of one another. Their gait was stumbling and uneven, but their peril kept them going, to another sand dune, even higher than the previous one.
It was Johnny who gave out then. Sam stumbled halfway up the dune, stopped and saw Johnny on his knees down below. He turned and went back.
“Come on, kid,” he said.
Johnny smiled weakly. “This does it, Sam.”
Sam put his arms about Johnny, tried to raise him to his feet, but found that his great strength had gone.