“Let’s make it to the top,” he panted.
Johnny shook his head; the strength for it was about all he had. Sam turned, tried the dune once more, but was down on his knees before he had gone a dozen feet. He slipped back through the deep sand.
Heat waves shimmered over the desert.
For a long time neither spoke. Then Johnny finally croaked. “So long, pal!”
Sam flopped a hand weakly in acknowledgment.
Minutes later, Johnny said, “Sam... that time in Louisville, when I beat the hotel out of six weeks’ rent... I wish I hadn’t done it...”
“What about the Hollenden in Miami?”
“We really didn’t have any money that time, but in Louisville, I had a hundred dollar bill pinned to my sock...”
“Huh?” Sam sat up. “You never told me...”
“I know. I thought I had a good one at Churchill Downs and figured to get us back in the chips. I put the hundred on the nag’s nose... It came in eighth.”
“Dammit, Johnny!” cried Sam. Then, “Hey...!” He scrambled to his feet. “Look — Johnny!”
Johnny raised himself, saw Sam standing and got up himself. “I guess we can go a little farther, eh?”
“Let’s go!”
They gained the top of the dune — and both cried out. An eighth of a mile below was a stream and beside the stream an Indian village; a populated village, consisting of twenty or more hogans.
Their fatigue fell away. They scrambled down the incline. They were a hundred yards from the village, when Johnny suddenly caught Sam’s arm and stopped. He nodded toward the Indian encampment.
Some sort of a ceremony was about to be enacted. The Indians, forty or fifty of them, were gathered in a square at the edge of the water. They were bedecked in native finery, their faces smeared with paint. A drum began pounding, then another and another. Several of the Indians began chanting.
“A war dance!” exclaimed Sam.
“Don’t be silly. The Indians haven’t been on the warpath in sixty years.”
“Are you sure?”
Johnny nodded. But there was a little frown on his forehead. Again they started toward the Indian group — now a frenzied group of chanting, dancing and stamping Indians.
They approached unseen, for the Indians — even the women and children on the outskirts — were enthralled by the dance. They were thirty feet away, when a sudden break in the square revealed what was going on inside. Sam Cragg cried out in horror.
“He’s got a snake in his mouth!”
Johnny had already seen. It was hard to believe, but it was true. One of the dancing Indians had a fat rattlesnake between his teeth; a live, squirming snake. On each side of the snake-biter, dancing Indians waved feathers to attract the snake’s fangs. Even as Johnny and Sam watched, the snake struck at a bundle of feathers.
Johnny nudged Sam and they began skirting the dancers, intending to reach the edge of the stream.
But it was too late. An Indian had spied them. He yelled suddenly and came for Johnny and Sam. There was a hissing snake in his fist.
“Yow!” cried Sam Cragg and jumped no less than six feet.
Johnny Fletcher stood his ground, although he was sure that the short hairs on the back of his head were standing up straight.
“Cut it out!” he exclaimed.
“Ai-yai-ai!” howled the Indian and thrust the snake’s head toward Johnny’s face.
Johnny ducked frantically and instinctively drove his fist into the Indian’s mouth. The Indian gasped and went over backwards, the snake flying from his hand. It missed Johnny by not more than an inch, hit the ground and began squirming away.
The Indian scrambled to his feet. He was a young brave, hideously painted and his face distorted by rage. Johnny backed away.
“Sorry, old man,” he said.
The Indian sprang at him. Johnny clinched with him, found that his strength had not yet returned and was borne backwards to the ground. Another Indian rushed in, pounced down and the two started to spread-eagle Johnny to the ground.
Then Sam Gragg came back. He reached down, took hold of each of the Indians and lifted them bodily off Johnny. Johnny scuttled out from underneath, got to his feet.
He looked past Sam Cragg, saw the entire Indian tribe swarming down on them.
“Let’s go, Sam!” he yelled.
Sam let go of the Indians and sprinted for the creek. Johnny was at his heels and behind them the entire Indian tribe. They hit the water at full stride. Luckily it was only a few inches deep and did not impede their progress.
They reached the shore on the far side and kept going. The Indians, however, did not follow past the water, but piled up on their own side and threw stones after Johnny and Sam.
Johnny and Sam slackened their speed after a few moments, then began cutting diagonally back toward the water, when they saw that the Indians were not pursuing them.
They reached the stream three or four hundred yards from the Indian camp, dropped to their stomachs and dipped their faces into the water. It was quite cool and they drank deeply.
After a moment they got up and grinned at one another. “Fifteen minutes ago I thought I was a goner,” said Sam.
Johnny chuckled. “That was when we didn’t know there was any water nearby. I felt better the minute I saw the water.”
Sam nodded toward the Indians. “That snake stuff...!” he shuddered.
Chapter Fourteen
Following the stream, a half mile from the Indian village, Sam and Johnny came upon a little-traveled desert road. A weathered wooden sign on a sagging post read: Tombstone, 8 miles.
They took a last, long drink of water, then struck out toward Tombstone. It was surprising how quickly they had recovered from the dehydrating of the morning sun. A quart or so of water and they were almost as good as before. A little more tired, perhaps. But with the knowledge that their destination was only eight miles away and that they were on the right road, their fatigue fell away from them.
In a little more than two hours the desert road climbed a steep hill and at the top of it cut a paved highway. Shortly ahead was a sign: Boot hill Cemetery. Johnny and Sam walked over to it, read some inscriptions on the stones.
“Nobody here we know,” Johnny commented.
“You didn’t expect anyone, did you?”
Johnny shook his head. “Some of our people had grandfathers.”
A short distance ahead and they were in Tombstone proper, a bleak, dying town that retained little of its onetime glory. A street or two of crumbling adobe and brick houses, a few stores; a couple of rundown motels that catered to a few tourists who wanted to spend a night in a once glorious boom town.
They turned into a drugstore and ordered a coke and a ham sandwich apiece. The soda jerk, a grizzled man of about fifty, sized them up, while they ate. “Like to buy some postcards?” he asked.
“Why?” Johnny asked.
“Great old town, Tombstone,” was the reply. He pointed to the window. “Right out there Buckskin Frank Leslie shot down Billy Claiborne. And over there, behind that building is the O. K. Corral, scene of the most celebrated gun fight of the Old West, the battle between the Earps and the McLowerys and the Clantons...”
“You seem pretty well posted on the old days.”
The soda jerk shrugged. “Can’t help it; tourists ask you questions. Been a lot of books written about Tombstone...”
“Ever hear of one called Tombstone Days?”
“No, but we got one here called just Tombstone. Cost you only...”
“Thanks,” said Johnny, “but I’m thinking of writing a book about Tombstone myself and I’d rather not read any more books about it. Might confuse me. I’d like to talk to some old-timers, though — fellows who were here when it was all happening...”