Novel 1966 - Kid Rodelo (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online

There was no dust showing against the sky.
    Badger was not looking back. They would know soon enough when the Yaquis started to close in. “We’d better spell the horses,” he said, and all of them got down from the wagon and walked on.
    Ahead of them were the famous Tinajas Altas, the “High Tanks” famous for saving many lives on the Devil’s Road, a road where many had also died. And to the south the country became rough.
    Dan Rodelo dropped back beside Badger. “We’re going to take another chance,” he said. “I’m trying to lose those Yaquis.”
    Badger gave him an amused look. “You haven’t a chance.”
    “We can play for time.” He pointed to a long finger of rock that pushed into the desert not far ahead of them. “See that? Right beyond it there’s a narrow pass through the mountains and we’re going to take it, and hope they’ll miss the turn-off and ride on south.”
    Badger looked doubtfully at the mountains. “There’s a pass through
there
? I never heard of it.”
    “We’ll leave the wagon,” Rodelo said. “From here on we’ll ride.”
    “I’ll feel safer,” Badger acknowledged.
    The sun was well up in the sky when Rodelo guided the wagon into the lee of a sand dune, pulling in as close to the side of the dune as possible. Then, with Harbin and Gopher to help, he went up on the ridge of the dune and caved sand over on the wagon. In a few minutes it was covered; then, picking up handfuls of sand, they let it dribble out, sifting over what few tracks were visible.
    After they had mounted up, Rodelo led them in an abrupt turn into the mountains, and in no more than fifteen minutes they were in a rapidly narrowing canyon that led them up a thousand feet in altitude in less than a mile. They crossed the Gilas on a narrow trail that showed no signs of recent use other than the tracks of bighorn sheep, a trail that wove in and around among peaks and ridges that lifted several hundred feet higher.
    The route over the Gilas was not more than five or six miles. They had watered the horses well before abandoning the wagon, emptying many of the cans and sacks and leaving them with the wagon. This lightened their load considerably, but Dan Rodelo knew what lay ahead perhaps better than any of them, and he knew it was not going to be easy.
    “Are we going to make it?” Gopher asked him once.
    “Some of us will,” Rodelo replied.
    He led them south, taking up the old Journey of Death, the Devil’s Road. This led straight away south now for the Tinajas Altas, which were on a ridge that trailed off the end of the Gilas.
    The day was hot. He slowed the pace of the horses, paused frequently for rest, and kept an eye on the trail behind. He noticed that Nora was taking the hard going surprisingly well.
    She wore a skirt split for riding and a Mexican blouse, and like the others, she carried a gun. Joe Harbin seemed to have marked her for his own, but nothing was said, and she accepted the situation without comment, agreeing to nothing, rejecting no one. She was a shrewd girl, Rodelo decided, and one to watch.
    It was Gopher who kept looking again and again to the rear. Harbin looked back rarely. He rode with the confidence of a man who has been through the mill, a hard-shouldered man, sure he needed no one.
    The sun was now high overhead, the heat intense. In the brassy sky there was no cloud, only the sun whose rays seemed to blend into one great searing blast. The floor of the desert was hot beyond belief, and their horses plodded wearily, hopelessly, into the dead stillness. Far off to the south a dust devil sprang up, racing wildly across the flat desert floor.
    Now Gopher no longer looked back. He sat his saddle, head hanging, simply enduring the heat.
    “We had better hunt some shade,” Rodelo commented, “or we’ll kill our horses.”
    “Shade?” Harbin swore. “Where would you find shade?”
    “Up in one of the canyons.”
    “Not me,” Harbin said. “I’m headed for Mexico, and