enovel Payoff For Passion Kevin North [Future Story Codes]

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Payoff For Passion ....(78k)    by Kevin North

A NAKED WOMAN WAS THE DECOY She lay there in the shadow of the huge boulder, stark naked, gagged and bound with her hands behind her back, her ankles tied to her wrists Indian fashion ... The sadistic outlaws had stripped her of her clothes, tortured and raped her. After taking their fill of her, they left her there to die in the broiling sun ... Her eyes were open, staring at Steve, trying hard to tell him something ... Then he understood. She was trying to warn him that she was a decoy, staked out to bring him within rifle range of murderous men holed up in the rock wall just beyond, perhaps fifty yards away. Two vicious animals, who took what they wanted from women of the desert, and Steve was their target ... But he had no alternative, he had to try and save her....

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CHAPTER ONE

THE ROCK BOUNCED OFF my unprotected skull with a vengeance. It was the size of an English walnut, or larger, and it hurt like blazes.

Most girls are very inaccurate when they throw things. But not this chick. She made a bull's-eye on the first try. I got a glimpse of the missile zooming toward me like some honey bee headed for the hive, but it seemed so preposterous that I couldn't believe it wasn't a mirage. The temperature was all of one hundred and six at the moment. By. the time my laggard brain cells telegraphed that I was the target, it was too late to duck.

"Don't you come one step closer!" she warned. The words, like the rock, had a sting in them.

Isolated Salt Creek at this particular spot makes a sharp U-turn, to dig its thirsty way through a maze of jutting basalt boulders that some ancient glacial upheaval had stacked here in grotesque confusion.

I was walking upstream, eyes intact on the pony tracks in the gravel bed of the stream, wondering whether the man who rode in here was white or red.

Then wham!

This rock sailed right for my noggin, bounced off my crewcut cranium like a tennis ball off a tight net. Only the effect was slightly more disastrous to my skull.

I jerked up faster than I would had I encountered a prowling side-winder. My first impulse, naturally, was one of anger. Most folks don't get conked on the noggin and remain calm and unperturbed, including me.

Then I saw the girl against the rock overhang and this had to be a mirage! She was burnished copper from head to toe, possibly a Bannock if her raven hair meant anything. I knew there were several small communities of Bannocks in the area.

But she was taller and slimmer than the usual Bannock girl, with long-stemmed legs arching gracefully from trim ankles. Missing too was the round, Oriental face. Instead, her profile was oval, with good definition in the chin, a straight nose, and a wide mouth that could easily be classified in the sex dictionary as sultry. Just now the full lips were tight in anger.

No, this wasn't a mirage. Mirages aren't angry, and mirages don't have vocal chords.

Saying she was angry isn't quite adequate, even. Sizzling might be a better word.

I could understand her temper flareup. Without doubt she had assumed that she was the only human being in miles, so she had taken advantage of that fact to strip down and cool off in the creek. She was really soaping it up in this pool left by the Spring rains. And then I had blundered into the scene.

"You take another step, mister, and I'll scratch out your eyes!"

Yep, she was boiling, furious at my intrusion!

Not that I blamed her in the least.

She was naked as the day she was born.

I stood there for a moment, oogling. Any male who didn't oogle at this pulchritudinous female taking a bath needed a hormone injection, king size. You could have out-lined that scene in the pool with a giant picture frame, and it would have outshone anything that Gaugin ever did.

Her breasts were firm conical mounds of perfect symmetry, the points upthrust and saucy. She had soaped her entire body, but now the lather was dissipating, revealing larger areas of golden girl, inch by inch. Her hips were sleek and lean, still her rounded buttocks molded perfectly to the voluptuousness of her willowy form.

Discreetly I wandered over to a ledge of rock, sat down, and turned my back upon her.

"Is this better?" I asked.

"Much better. And don't you dare turn around!"

"And if the temptation becomes too great?"

"My rifle is leaned against that red rock, with my clothes. I'll get to it before you do!"

"Naked and barefoot?"

"Naked and barefoot!"

I got a cigarette between my dry lips, lighted it. "Are you Nan Goodwin?"

She was long in answering. "How did you know?"

"I didn't. I was merely guessing. I was told that Nan Goodwin was Miss Western Tribes of 1963, a girl so outstanding that she didn't even have competition. You looked very beautiful there in the pool, so I merely presumed you had to be Nan."

"I've never seen you before-"

"Perhaps not. I'm Steve Hille."

Again the splashing momentarily stopped, as if she might be in deep thought. I was tempted to turn, felt the swelling bump on my head, and decided that I wouldn't risk another siege of migraine.

"Hille! I saw that name somewhere, quite recently."

"On the side of a truck or jeep, perhaps?"

"That's it! On the side of a truck at Arroyo Seco. Hille Video, Inc."

"Right!" I said. "We're on location in Cougar Canyon."

"You mean you're shooting there?"

"We're headquartered in the canyon. Some of our shooting sites are fifty miles distant."

She was silent. If my ears were right in deciphering sounds, she was at the moment wading out of the pool. That meant she was about ready to slip back into the garb of civilization.

I couldn't suppress an ironical chuckle at the moment, thinking of Ben. If only he had tagged along, with a camera. But we couldn't have used any of the footage-even a long shot-without permission from her, and a signed release.

Ben, who has a phobia for exotic chicks, would really have swallowed his tonsils. And that is no criticism of Ben Carazzo. He's the best thing behind a camera I've seen-and I've seen a lot of the boys who control the galloping celluloid.

There was some rustling sounds now, and finally approaching footsteps.

"Okay, Steve," she said simply.

I swung about on the ledge to face her. She stood about ten feet distant, a tight smile on her face.

"It's damn near unbelievable!" I exploded.

"What's so unbelievable?"

"That you're a Bannock."

"But I'm not a Bannock. I'm Maricopa."

I shrugged. "What I really meant: it seems so unbelievable that you're Indian. You could be Italian or Portuguese or Spanish-or even Gypsy."

"What's wrong with being an Indian?" she parried. She wasn't angry, merely inquisitive.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I'd say it's rather a proud heritage. What I was talking about is facial and physical features. You simply don't look like an Indian girl!"

She came closer and the smile deepened, grew friendlier. She reached forward, rather timidly, and her cool still-damp fingers started a bit of exploratory work on my skull.

"I'm sorry about the rock," she said.

I grinned. There was a deep, unnoticed gem-like lustre in her eyes, once you were close to her. Her lips were cherry red, I was positive that at the moment she wore no makeup. Her attire was a simple khaki shirt stuffed into hiking pants. High-top trail boots completed her dress. She wore no hat and now she stood there, whipping her black hair back in place.

"Think nothing of it!" I assured her. Then as an after-thought: "How did you learn to throw so accurately?"

She chuckled. "We used to hunt jack rabbits with rocks as children. It's something like swimming, once you learn you don't forget."

She completed the push-up hair-do, stuffed the comb in her shirt pocket.

"Steve, why were you in this particular canyon?"

It was a good question, and I suppose I should have answered it fully for her. Yet this little unseen mascot of mine which sometimes rides my shoulder in the guise of a green leprechaun was pecking at my ear, bidding me be cautious.

"Did you ever follow a creek?" I rationalied. "One bend leads to another, and pretty soon you're miles from home base?"

She shrugged. "Well, at least that's one answer-"

I reached forward, imprisoned one of her hands.

"What did you mean by that, Nan?"

Her smile seemed fixed. "Oh, I don't exactly know. Very few white men follow the creek even this far."

"Why?"

She didn't immediately answer, let her eyes rove the heights, the black basalt walls frowning down on the narrowing canyon.

"I suppose it's the desolation," she said at last. She gestured with her hands, as if she might in this manner paint a picture. "Utter desolation, the desert and that deepening canyon going on and on-and not a living thing."

Her young face sobered. I caught a somberness creeping into her voice.

"You sound bitter, Nan."

"I am bitter!" she said spiritedly. She pivoted so she faced the desert, back of us. "This is the land they herded my people into. This barren, ugly land-"

My grip on her hand tightened as an impulse struck me. This girl was far from a common person; she had vision, education, a certain charm. She was an Indian. Her people were desperately poor, deprived. How had she attained this advanced status? She was a girl I suddenly wanted to know more about.

"Nan, this is my day off," I said. "I would like nothing better than to take you into town. Perhaps we could have dinner together-"

"And then?"

She caught me with my guard down, it came so abruptly. "Why, nothing. I've got the jeep back on the rim. I'll motor you back here, any time you say-"

She didn't try to release her imprisoned hand. Her eyes were hard on mine. I had the awkward feeling she was reading my mind, bit by bit, in her silent evaluation. Then at last the tight smile again.

"All right," she agreed. "I'd like that. I've been with my grandfather's people for nearly a month without a break."

Another thought struck me so forcibly I had to ask it, blunt as it seemed:

"Nan, what in the world is a girl like you, pre sumably educated in the white man's school, a name in the world, doing in this hidden canyon?"

Her smile was enigmatical, but she made no attempt to answer my question.

"Could it be that you're tired of publicity, of everything that is phony and rotten in the 'beautiful girl' contests?"

"We'll talk about that later," she said.

I nodded.

"Will you wait here-thirty minutes?"

"I'll wait thirty minutes-or even sixty, if need be."

She smiled. And she was gone, walking down the creek with that free, swinging cadence to her hips that is never learned on city sidewalks with spiked heels.

That pool in the shade of the rim looked so inviting that on the spur of the moment I shed my own clothes and waded in. The water was remarkably cool, despite the heat of the surrounding desert. I was splashing quite contentedly when I got the provoking thought: what would I do now if she walked up, or returned before the thirty minutes The thought was still disturbing my brain cells when I heard her gay laugh. It was free and uninhibited now. I crouched down, hoping the water was deep enough to cover my loins. She came up to the pool's edge, her eyes glistening.

"Now you throw the rock!" she teased.

"Go away!" I said. And I meant it. But she didn't. She stood there, ogling me. "You look-almost beautiful," she said. "Slim and tanned, and muscles-"

I dipped my hand to the pool's bottom, hoping to come up with a good-sized pebble to toss at her. Suddenly she broke away, walked over to the ledge and retrieved her rifle.

"Forgot my protector," she said, "relax now, it'll be thirty minutes for certain, this time."

She was an Indian-the stoic Indian? My foot!

She was an uninhibited girl, as American as they come, a provocative young woman, every inch of her. Wait until I told Ben about her!

"Listen, Ben," I would say, in that breathless voice a man assumes when he is spilling a priceless story, "I rounded this bend in the creek, and there bathing in a shallow pool was this chick, a Maricopa maid, fairest of the fair, and naked as a newborn jay bird. Ben, she had the most amazing-"

I could see his frown, the 'don't-give-me-that-malarky' look on his bronzed, scholarly young face.

And he would have a point. This was crazy, man-real far-out. It could happen on TV, on some goony-zone fantasy show, but not in real life. It couldn't happen to Steve Hille. But it did.

She was here, hiding she said. Hiding from what? The soothsayers who had paraded her before the cameras? Or hiding from something else?

And that reminded me. There was something else hiding here. Not right here perhaps, but in this barren desert, which no one had ever found. Not right here, perhaps, but in this barren desert, which no one had ever found. I had the spot pin-pointed on a map. I had information which a hundred other people possessed-perhaps even more. But neither I, nor the hundreds of others hunting for the same thing, had ever found it. Not even a trace.

It was maddening, the very thought of it. Hundreds of people hunting for something that never was found.

Two years now they had hunted, searched, tracked. Nothing. One lost airplane.

Not a super-jet or a strato-liner. Just a small, two-place airplane.

But on board that tiny ship, when it had taken off from a private strip near Las Vegas, were two men-and a cool $800,000 in Uncle Sam's coin of the realm. All good greenbacks. Not counterfeit, but the real mazuma.

One of those men was my brother.

I had hunted, along with the others, after the reported crash. Then the fanfare died down. Periodically after that I had made lone safaris into the desert, to renew the search. But always there had been a time limit. I had to return because the small video layout we were nursing so carefully in suicide gulch (Los Angeles) needed day-by-day attention.

But now the video outfit had grown. The home office got along very well without me under the management of Lou Warren.

Ben and I were out here on the desert, holed up for as long as three months if need be, hunting.

Oh yes, we were shooting too. We had a lot of background footage to shoot for the morgue, and this was one of the finest spots in the world for flora and fauna of the desert. To any inquisitive goon visiting our camp, this was our alibi.

But the real reason was something bigger than producing video tape.

I wasn't advertising the fact, for various reasons.

Footsteps came up the canyon and suddenly there she was, a vision right out of desolation itself. I pulled in a big breath and held it, as one sometimes does when he is unduly excited. She was that kind of girl-exciting.

"Ben," I could hear myself explaining, "it's all true, every word I've been trying to tell you-"

And Ben's quick, sharp eyes, looking down my nose: "You haven't been drinking cactus juice, have you, Steve?"

Well, if he were here at this moment, he would know it was true. He would be just as amazed and incredulous as I, but he would know it was no desert mirage. She was real, in the flesh; and we had a date.

The sun was westering now, the heat less intense. Even so we were winded when we made the rim and climbed into the jeep.

Before we zoomed off she pointed to a speck on the flats, to the left of the jutting basalt. From here it looked like a small cabin, or someform of habitation.

"My grandfather's home," she said.

I couldn't conceal my surprise.

"How long has he lived there, Nan?"

"Since my grandmother died, three years ago."

"But this is the desert. Even a rattlesnake has a problem keeping alive in this barren pothole!"

Her smile was tight. "You forget something," she said. "We've lived in this desert all of our lives."

I wouldn't argue that. I started the jeep, headed toward Arroyo Seco.

And suddenly I was thinking of something else, a thrilling thought right out of the blue; if her grandfather had lived in this pothole for three years, perhaps he could tell me something about the mysterious plane crash.

Her hand was on my arm. "Why so serious all of a sudden, Steve?" I shrugged. "Oh, nothing-" She was persistent. "Want to tell me about it?"

I smiled. "Later, perhaps."

It was roughly twenty miles to Arroyo Seco. And in that distance, coming in from the desert over an unpaved road that was little more than a pack trail, we saw exactly nothing except the desert. Not a telephone pole, a house, or anything that even suggested human habitation, red or white. This could have been the earth after the big one dropped barren cinder.

Nothing. Just the arid land, and the alkali dust stirring up under the jeep's tires.

I believe that even she felt it, the stark emptiness of this land. For suddenly she half-turned in the seat, with a tight smile.

"Does it frighten you, Steve?"

"The emptiness?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I suppose it will always frighten me."

"It frightens even me. I seem to remember something that is very dim. The same scene keeps coming back, again and again. I was quite young in this dream, but there wasn't this barren land. There were trees, and grass, and blooming flowers scenting the air-"

That was an odd thing to say. I looked briefly at her face; she was dead serious.

"The Maricopas never were nomadic, were they, Nan?"

"No," she said.

"Then how do you account for this fantasy-that once you lived in a different type of country?"

"I wish I could account for it; I would have greater peace of mind."

We were in Arroyo Seco now, the one long street that was really the highway, the little cottages, the trailers; a few new business buildings, a shopping center so new it looked out of place. On the South edge of town was a roadside restaurant where the Mexican food was somewhat above par-if you like pepper and spices in everything but the coffee.

Two hours later, after much small talk and a leisurely dinner, we headed back to the desert over the same trail. It was dusk now. Once we left the main highway, the same reversion took place. No more traffic noises, no trucks roaring through, no street lights, nothing to indicate that man had ever trod here. It was uncanny, realizing that only a few hundred miles from here seven million people were trying to find elbow room.

She was more than an acquaintance now. In two hours' time two people can either blend into mutual acceptance of each other, or grow distant and cool. Between us there seemed to be a warm comaraderie cementing; it was sex attraction, and yet something deeper.

Perhaps it was the loneliness of the desert itself.

Perhaps it was a natural yearning, two people mutually attracted. Whatever it was I felt her magnetism, merely sitting there at my side. She might be a Maricopa Indian girl, but physically she was a golden gypsy wafted to my arms by some strange magic.

The track paralleled the rim now, a rather spectacular road in the pale light of the moon. I pulled up, leaned toward her, drew her into my embrace and kissed her.

Her lips were warm, alive; yet there was no response.

"Why did you do that, Steve?"

I shrugged. "I merely felt like it. So I put the feeling into action."

Her smile deepened, but she made no answer.

"Did you mind?" I asked at last.

"No, I didn't mind. Except-"

I waited, and she failed to explain. "Except what?"

"I have a job to do here," she said at last. "I have no idea how long it may take. I've forced myself to be dedicated to this one task. It comes before anything else in my life. Even a kiss might detour my objective-"

I sat back, grinned at her. "Well now, what kind of talk is that?"

"I suppose it sounds corny. But it isn't."

She was dead serious about something, evidently a problem she was facing, something of giant magnitude. I got my fingers under her chin, turned her face toward me. "Let's talk about it."

"I've known you only for a few short hours. We're strangers."

"Strangers?'"

"Well, almost strangers." Her face sobered. "Steve, I've kept this secret for two years. I meet you, and in the course of a few hours I feel a strange compulsion to tell it all to you-"

"Is that bad?"

"Well, it doesn't quite make sense. Does it?"

I felt a quickening at her words, one of those crazy hunches everyone gets now and then. Perhaps it's mental telepathy, or a photoflash by the subliminal mind at the use of a familiar word or phrase. She had said 'two years'. She had a secret locked in her heart for two years. Perhaps it meant not a thing; perhaps we had something in common, and didn't know it.

There was only one way to find out. I had to be the protagonist. I pressed her hand tighter now, tried to plumb the depths of her eyes.

"Nan, will you be honest with me?"

"Of course, Steve."

"I have an unusual job here, too. Would you care to share confidences?"

She thought that over.

"All right," she said at last. "The thing you tell me will not be repeated. And likewise, I'll expect the same confidence from you."

We shook hands. It might have looked corny, had there been someone to witness it. But it didn't seem corny to me.

"Two years ago a small private airplane crashed somewhere in this immediate area," I began. "It never was found. Despite the fact that the desert was combed by air and by searchers on foot over a long period of time, not even a torn-off fragment of aluminum ever came to light."

She sat there, looking at me as if she had seen a ghost

"There were two men in the plane," I concluded. "One of them was my brother, Larry."

The pallor was still in her face.

"The pilot of that plane was Johnny May," she said hollowly. "We were engaged to be married."

I had nothing to say at the moment; we sat there in shocked silence.

Coincidence?

I suppose you might scoff, and call it that. But looking at it objectively, coincidence had nothing to do with it. She was here, searching for the same thing I was. Some strange compulsion drove her, as it did me. Someone spun fortune's wheel, and two black balls rolled out of the slot. Nan and me. Two people with the same problem. Coincidence?

I pulled her into my arms, mashed my lips on her own. This time there was response. It built slowly, finally was a stinger. Her elongated breasts were mashing into my rib cage, her arms were sinews of unusual strength. The kiss was fast turning into ecstasy. At last she pulled away, perhaps a bit amazed at her own fervor.

"Steve, the money in that plane-about $800,000-was stolen from a Las Vegas casino. It was all so .hush-hush, but it was stolen!"

I nodded.

"I've got to know!" she said at last. And in the very vehemency of her words was the compulsion that had been driving her. "Who stole it-Larry or Johnny?"

"Both of them, don't you think?"

"I suppose so. Or could they both be innocent?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

"Oh, Steve!"

She was on the verge of tears. I merely held her closely, nuzzling her soft hair with my cheek.

"Two years, and not a trace of that plane," I said at last. "It's uncanny!"

She didn't reply.

"They saw it in Arroyo Seco, flying low and heading into the Potholes, in trouble. They saw it crash, even heard the explosion-"

"But no plane!"

I nodded. "It has to be in this area, Nan-against some canyon wall, or smashed against one of diose basalt columns-"

"But Steve, if that theory is right, someone would have found the wreckage. There has to be wreckage-"

I nodded in agreement. "It's inconceivable that it could have completely disappeared the way it did."

"Unless-" She hesitated, as if what she had intended to say seemed utterly ridiculous. "Unless in the badlands beyond the spring there still is some unexplored nook, some declivity into which a small plane might have fallen and disintegrated."

"Impossible!" I said at length. "The area has been combed, not once but dozens of times, with 'coptors and planes. I've walked it myself, every blind canyon, every foot of terrain that could hide a rattlesnake."

"So have I," she admitted.

"And we've found nothing."

Suddenly I was thinking of something she said before we went into town.

"Nan, didn't you tell me that your grandfather has lived out here on the mesa for three years?"

"Yes," she said. "You're wondering if he knows anything? He is quite deaf, Steve. He goes to bed when the sun sets. But even so, the explosion of the plane was great enough to waken him."

I was excited now. "Did he see anything-a fire after the explosion, debris, anything?"

"He immediately went down into the canyon. He saw nothing, found nothing. He has returned with me dozens of times, searching. We haven't unearthed a single clue."

Perhaps there wasn't a clue, but there was one encouraging thing. There were two of us now, seeking the same thing. Perhaps three, even.

I pulled her tighter. "Nan, we'll start anew, both of us, the first available day."

"I'd like that."

Her lips were back on mine. And suddenly I was visualizing her as I had seen her in the pool, the golden loveliness of her body.

I rationalized that it was the loneliness of the desert itself, or the fact that we were both emotionally upset. Whatever it was, I felt myself kissing her with tingling excitement. We both were quickening; this thing had reached-and passed-the point of no return.

I worked my hand up to her breast, loosened the buttons on her blouse. Her hand caught mine. "No, Steve."

"I need you, Nan. I hope we need each other." Her eyes probed mine. In the soft moonlight of the desert she looked more desirable than ever. "If I agreed, you'd think me a tramp."

I smothered the words with my lips.

"Honey, you'll never be a tramp to me."

My hand was on her now, caressing. I felt the tautness. A shiver ran through her body and she arched toward me, clutched me tighter. I bent my head, kissing her throat. When I touched her breast, she put her hands against my cheeks and pulled me tighter. I felt her need and no doubt she felt mine.

Words were of no consequence now. We might have been the last two lovers on the face of the earth, but out desires were age-old and violent.

The ecstasy was there, building each moment, the hot flush of desire that at last grows uncontrollable.

"Kiss me, Steve!"

She rolled into my arms, suddenly there was violence in her hips, we were together. Her lips were firebrands, sparking the lash of her tongue. And the ecstasy came up in a giant wave to engulf us....

It was gloriously over at last. We lay there in the hot sweat of physical exhaustion. I could hear her heart hammering against her rib cage. Nothing mattered at the moment, except the softness of her there in my arms, the fact that we had requited one another. And then it started all over again. This time we tempered the violence and desire, prolonging our little Utopia of love to the last precious second.

Somewhere on the rim came a haunting cry that was loneliness in all its impact, as only a coyote can send forth in nocturnal lament. But there was no loneliness between us; just a complacency that whatever the morrow would bring, we would face it together.

CHAPTER TWO

THE JOSHUA TREE BAR IN ARROYO SECO isn't large or elaborate, but it is cool. The thick 'dobe walls account for that.

The woman sitting alone at the bar looked like a very cool chick. Not exactly a chick, either, once you gave her a second look. She could have been in her high thirties. But she definitely was not out of circulation.

She had rather an amazing figure, sleek and hard. Not a wasted pound, and yet the right curves hipwise and bustwise. Her face intrigued me. It had the look of far-off places and pulse-pounding music, wisdom and cunning, all molded into a pleasing though brittle montage.

That sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet that's the impression she gave me as she sat there, toying with a tall drink.

I slid to the stool next to her and tried to act nonchalant. "You wanted to see me?"

She took her time, half-turned on the bar-stool in a slow appraisal. Her eyes met mine. It was something like an electric shock.

No, I'm far from an impressionable kid, getting his first look at temptation in the opposite sex. But she had that kind of projected magnetism, in her look, in her tight, sultry smile.

"Yes, Mr. Hille. I passed the word around that it might be nice, talking to you."

"Are you an actress?"

"Not any more. You're in TV, so naturally you're thinking that I'm someone who'd like to get in front of a camera-your camera."

"That was my first impression."

"Nothing could be further from the truth."

Her eyes gave me the silent treatment and I had the sudden feeling that she didn't miss a thing; the color of my shirt buttons, or the mole just below my left ear. It's not a very big mole, but I'm positive that she caught it. She had that kind of eyes.

"Then what did you want to see me about?" I asked, giving her my best grin.

"I understand you're quite an authority on the local desert."

"You mean its flora and fauna?"

"Yes. And its dangers."

"There are several dangers. You might get lost and die of thirst and exposure. The sun might fry your brains. Or you could meet up with an obstreperous rattler-"

She didn't actually cringe, but I caught her reaction to the word. Something like a breeze over a body of water, a slight ripple. She was afraid of snakes, I'd bet my bottom dollar on that

"No danger from human traffic?"

"No danger."

Her eyes came back to my face. I decided they might be gray-green, or the opposite-green with flecks of gray. Something like some of the rocks one picks up in the canyons. Light reflection causes the picture to vary. But there was one thing about her eyes: they were steady in their gaze, quite frank. I got the impression that she had seen many things in her thirty-odd years, some good, some bad. Perhaps more bad than good.

"Would it be possible to purchase your time-say, for a week?"

"My time?"

"To serve as a guide?"

"I don't happen to be a guide, Miss Lopez." Then I wondered if I was addressing her properly. "It is Miss Lopez, isn't it?"

"Yes. Geri Lopez. May I call you Steve?"

"Of course!"

I motioned to a booth, ordered a refill for her drink and a bottle of beer for myself. Picking up the drinks, I followed her to" one of the wall stalls. "It's more comfortable here, and private."

She slid onto the hard board, I sat down beside her. The booth was narrow, there wasn't any room to spare with both of us on the same side. I could feel the warmth of her hip, against me.

"Now to get back to business," she said, smiling tightly. "I realize that you're not a guide, Steve. But I'm told that you know this particular desert, every rock and goat-bush."

"You've been listening to some exaggeration."

"I don't think so."

Her eyes were appraising me again. "I'll be very frank. I must go into the desert, the pothole country South and West of here. It's imperative. I've got to go in deep. I wouldn't want to try it without a competent guide."

"There are several registered guides, right here in Arroyo Seco."

"Men I could trust implicitedly?"

I thought that over. "I know two Indians, and an old rock-hound."

"I've checked. The Indians are out. Either of them could be bought for a bottle of whiskey. The old rock-hound is simply that-too old."

"I already have a job.-"

"I know. You're an executive. You're here with your side-kick, Ben Carazzo. A real fancy camp in Cougar Canyon."

"You've visited us, then?"

"Yes. You were away. And your charming junior partner, Mr. Carazzo, was quite busy, trying to make a Gila monster pick a fight with a gecko."

"Putting it on film, of course?"

"Of-course. But a very leisurely job, he assured me." She leaned closer. "He also assured me that time was of no essence, at the moment, to either of you. I think that Ben was very happy, talking to that Spanish chick who thought she was an actress."

That was news to me. I didn't know any Spanish chick had visited our camp. But it could be. Words get around in a hurry, once you set up cameras in some out of the way place. Well, I suppose Ben was entitled to a little relaxation, come to think of it.

"To get back to business," she said persuasively, "I am quite willing to pay if you'll serve as my guide."

I wasn't too much interested in the pay. Another thing was slowly but surely edging its way into my thinking. Why did she want to go into this particular bit of God-forsaken emptiness?

"You say a week? That's a lot of time.

"To follow the canyon through the pothole country?"

"Two days in, two days out."

"Providing we have good luck. And there are no mishaps."

"You think there might be mishaps?"

She shrugged. "Couldn't there be?"

"Of course. You could step on a scorpion, or even a side-winder. Or the shale could come down."

"Why are you always mentioning snakes?"

I looked at her eyes. There was revulsion there.

"Snakes are part and parcel of the desert. You realize that."

She shrugged. "Ugh! That would be the one thing to keep me out. Nothing else-heat, hardship, lack of water-bothers me. But snakes-"

"There wouldn't be much danger from snakes in the daytime."

Her eyes lifted eagerly. "What do you mean by that?"

"Contrary to popular opinions, you'll never find a rattler out sunning itself. They have no sweat glands, so they forage mostly at night or on cloudy days."

"Well, that one statement has taken a load off my mind."

"One more thing; why are you going into the desert, afoot?"

"Is there any other way?"

"Not through the pothole country. Unless you want to use a 'coptor."

"That's why we're going in afoot."

"But why?"

She glared at me. "You're persistent, aren't you?"

"Remember, it won't be easy or pleasant. If I'm to go in as your guide, I think I'm entitled to know why the safari is being made."

"I am looking for something," she said. "What I am seeking is very precious-to me, and me only. Outside of that, I can't tell you anything further."

I was wondering, suddenly, if she might be looking for the same thing I was. That was the one thing that might tempt me. But it seemed rather thin, just thinking about it and trying to relate the two of us, after the same thing.

I had other plans to go into the desert any day now, but with Nan Goodwin. We had something in common.

But Geri Lopez and I didn't have anything in common. Or did we? "I presume you draw the salary of an executive?"

"Something like that."

"How much in dollars and cents? Or is that too inquisitive?"

"No, my life is an open book-at least my financial life. Three hundred weekly, before taxes."

She smiled. "I'll raise the ante. If you will give me one week of your time, I'll pay four hundred. And I'll furnish the supplies, things like that."

I sat back and looked at her. At the moment something made her tick as loud as a two-dollar alarm clock. I wondered what it was. One missing airplane, perhaps? And if so, what connection did she have with the two men who had died on it? To my knowledge I had never before set eyes on her, physically, in a photo, on the TV screen or in a movie. If she had had any connection with my brother even her unusual name, Geri Lopez, would have rung a bell somewhere down the line.

Of course she could have changed her name. But I don't forget faces very easily. Hers was an unusual face. I was positive that if I'd seen her before, even some fleeting glimpse, I would have remembered.

"Well," she said at last, "when do we start?"

"I never make decisions in a hurry," I persisted firmly. "Meet me here tomorrow afternoon and it will be a frank yes or no."

Her hand suddenly was on my arm.

"Steve, you've got to help me!" she implored.

In that one sentence I detected a complete metamorphasis of character. The hard shell, the brilliancy, the aloofness, had vanished. She was, under all her varnish, a frightened woman. For some reason she had turned to me for help.

"Tomorrow," I said.

I slid out of the booth and walked out of the bar.

I had the feeling that her eyes were burning a hot spot between my shoulder blades. This woman was driven by a compulsion. But what was it?

We sat in the jeep, Nan and me, and talked about it a long, long time.

"Does the name, Geri Lopez, ring any kind of a bell in your memory?" I asked. , Nan was long in answering. "No, I'm afraid not."

"Give me one reason why this woman has a compulsion to explore this desert-the pothole country during the hottest month of the year?"

"I can think of only one thing-the plane."

I nodded. "That was my first reaction, too. But the more I think about it, the more vague this becomes."

"Then why is she going, Steve?"

I shrugged". "I wish I knew."

"Well, there-'s only one way to find out," Nan said at last, smiling rather grimly. "Be her guide."

"If I thought that she was going in to hunt for the plane, I'd gladly be her guide. On the other hand, if she's hunting for a long lost mine some old prospector told her about in his delirium, or something equally silly, then I'm not interested."

She was silent, studying my face.

"Nan," I said at last, "what is out there beyond the last pothole, besides a few Maricopa sheep herders?"

"Nothing, except two hermits."

"Two hermits?"

"Zeke and Zachary Collins, on Pinto Creek."

"How long have they lived there?"

"I'm not sure," Nan said. "I wouldn't trust myself near either one."

"You mean they're that kind of men?"

"Every Maricopa girl knows better than to get near the Collins brothers."

I reached forward, gave her a peck of a kiss.

"And that goes for you, too!"

Here it was again: recurrence of a longing that dominated me since the moment I had seen her at the pool. She was more than an acquaintance, a friend. Already I was planning my daily activities with her in mind. I felt myself thinking about her at the oddest moments, day and night. And right now, I even felt concerned about her personal safety.

We'd had one glorious evening together; because we had needed each other, we had been intimate. A physical desire, a satiation of that desire. Period.

"You're kidding yourself, old man!" my tiny green advisor whispered in my ear. "Already she's more to you than that, isn't she?"

I pulled her into my arms, held her close. I kissed her, and suddenly the kiss was more than an invitation to sex.

"Oh, Lordy!" I said, "wait until Ben hears about this!"

"Hears about what?"

"You and me."

Her eyes searched mine. "You wouldn't tell him-"

"How wonderful it was? No, I wouldn't tell him about that. I'd rather tell him about the crazy thing happening to me."

"Steve, don't kid or say meaningless words!"

"I'm not kidding." I kissed her, first on the lips, then all over her face down to that little hollow in her throat.

I pushed back, and held her at arms' length. And I couldn't help a chuckle-not at her, but at myself.

"Girls!" I said. "Hundreds of girls, Nan. Crazy girls, all ready to give their right arm for a chance before a camera. Girls ready to peel at the drop of a hat. I can press a button, and a dozen will be on tap. All beautiful girls, talented. All there, waiting, hoping. Take your pick. And then out here one lone girl, and all of the rest fade into the background-"

There was a strange quickening in her eyes, her smile. "What are you trying to say?"

"I don't really know, honey. I won't, admit that I'm falling in love with you. It's too crazy, it couldn't happen. But I won't say I'm not, either." I grasped her hands, held them tightly. "Honey, will you give me a rain check for a few days, let me think about this? Then I'll come back. If the bug still is biting, you'll know about it."

"Oh, Steve!" she said, mashing her lips to mine. "Steve, I'm dreaming. I'll wake up, and it will all be gone."

"I hope it isn't gone."

Her face sobered. "This Geri Lopez you're taking into the desert-"

"Is someone old enough to be your mother," I said. "Quit worrying your pretty little head."

I watched her walk down the canyon trail. I sat there, even after her figure was a diminutive speck. Then I got out the binoculars and watched her climb the steep trail to the mesa tableland where the Maricopa community was located.

"There goes your life!" the little green man said, pecking me on the ear as he usually does.

Well, he could be right!

I'll say one thing for Geri Lopez: she had stamina.

It was mid-afternoon of the first day, and in the sinks the sun, reflected off the cobalt heights, was wicked. Yet she never complained.

The hiking outfit she wore might be very chic-chic for some deb in the Bahamas, or a stroll along a beach, but it wasn't the right garb for the desert. I could see the sweat oozing through where the cloth was drawn too tightly. I turned at last and eyed her critically.

"You're ogling," she reminded me.

She had ogling merchandise, but at the moment I wasn't dwelling upon that fact.

"What are you wearing under the shirt and pants?"

"Wait a moment! Let's not get rude!"

"I'm dead serious," I said. "And I don't mean to be rude."

The quick flareup of anger died down in her face. "What's this all about?" she asked at last, more serious than angry.

"You're wearing too much clothing, for one thing."

"Nothing that can be expended."

I grinned. "You think not? One bra, one pair of panties."

Her face had a look that I couldn't at the moment quite determine. Possibly it was anger, flaring up again, or mere surprise.

"Are you kidding?"

"I am not kidding," I assured her. "The lower we get into the sinks, the hotter it will become. The only way to stand it is in loose, porous clothing."

Her eyes still were questioning. "What about yourself?"

I unbuttoned my shift, showing her there was nothing but bare chest under it. "And that goes for the trousers, too."

Suddenly she was chuckling. "What is this-a strip tease in the desert?"

"You can hide behind that outcropping, "T suggested. "But I'm serious about the extra clothes."

She still eyed me. "I believe you are," she said.

"With a single garment, loose-fitting, it's something like the thermo-glass window principle. Air cooled by the clothing will circulate between the garment and your bare flesh, provide some degree of protection against dehydration."

"Yes, doctor!" she said meekly.

She didn't go behind the outcropping, as I suggested. She stood there, and faced me.

Slowly but deliberately she unbuttoned her shirt. I got a glimpse of a bulging black bra, lacy and form-fitting. Then her hands worked backward and she unzipped the garment.

She was very adept at it. She worked one arm out of the shirt, held the khaki snug against her, slipped out of the bra strap, and got back into the shirt. All without allowing me to feast my eyes. She followed the same procedure with the other arm. And suddenly the bra was off. I got a flash of some very amazing cleavage, then she was unbuttoning the shirt.

I noticed something then that the shirt could never hide. She didn't need the bra to augment, but to tone down. She had protrusion-conical, pointed protrusion, no weak springs.

She held up the bit of silk. "What will I do with it?"

"It's too expensive to discard," I grinned. "It might even have a sentimental value. So we'll make a cache under a rock and pick it up on the way out."

"Better wait for the companion-piece," she said wryly.

"Okay." I turned my back, lit a cigarette. I had the feeling that she was daring me to turn around, as she pulled out of the hiking pants and got rid of her silkies. But I didn't. I wasn't sure just how long that shirt-tail was. Presently I heard her chuckle.

"You're very modest, Steve."

"This is a business trip, isn't it?"

"Business and pleasure. Or whatever you say."

I gave her a tight grin. "The safari is still young. We'll see."

She was an enigma. Or perhaps I hadn't pegged her right. At times she seemed human, kind, solicitous. Then the brittleness pushed through the good streak in her nature, and she seemed a different person. Perhaps she had a dual personality. I've known people like that.

She had taken advantage of a situation of my own making. But it had been for her own good. It could be that she misinterpreted it. And she had thrown it right back into my face by burying her modesty.

She handed me the silkies now, and I wrapped the apparel in a tight bundle. Ahead was a rock shelf that jutted out from the shale. It ran almost head high. I put the bits of silk atop the shelf, weighted them with rocks. From the trail no one would notice the strange cache. We could pick them up on the way back.

"Doesn't it get pretty cold on the desert at night?" she queried. "It does."

"I might need my unmentionables, don't you think?"

"We've got warm blankets," I assured her. She gave me a tight smile.

I reshouldered the packs and we got underway again. I pulled up, finally, to let her catch up. I noticed something now that I hadn't noticed before. She had a very disturbing jiggle as she walked.

The pace was telling, but I kept prodding on. Let her be the one to call it a day.

The sun was slicing the western horizon when she called to me.

"Steve!"

I pulled up, waiting for her to come up alongside.

"I've had it!" she admitted. "Where can we camp for the night?"

"Not here," I said, looking at the terrain. "We're on the floor of the sink, for one thing."

"Is that bad?"

"It isn't good."

"Don't beat about the bush, Steve!" she said, irritation in her voice. "What's bad about it?"

"We might have visitors."

"Crawling visitors?"

I nodded, and watched her face change. At the moment we were about half way across one of the famous sinks called potholes. The basalt walls ringed us, the desert floor seemed sunken to form this particular sink.

"Steve, we haven't seen a snake all day."

"Don't get optimistic," I said with purpose. "They're in the crags. They'll come out to forage at night."

"Where can we go to be safe?" It sounded like an entreaty.

I pointed. "There are numerous ledges along the basalt walls. Any one of the ledges will be comparatively safe."

Her face relaxed. "You had me about ready to scream!" she admitted, and wiped a tired hand over her eyes.

I raised the binoculars, made a wide sweep of the back-trail, then handed the glasses to her. "See that niche in the wall up ahead?"

"It's too narrow to crawl through."

"No, it isn't. If we can get there, I'm hoping to find water."

"Lead on."

"Do you think you can make it?"

"I can make it."

I noticed that she had unbuttoned the second button on her shirt. There was cleavage and a jiggle with each step she took.

She was thirty-eight, possibly more. But her figure belied her years. So far, all through the long day's trek, we had talked very little. I knew nothing about her.

Why were we here? It was so ridiculous it smacked of insanity.

But she didn't have to tell me. I was merely her guide.

Ahead of us loomed a high wall, seemingly the dead-end of a box canyon. But there was a niche there, I knew. And as we approached we saw it in its true perspective-a jagged split in the wall, wide enough for a trail.

Suddenly she jerked up, the expression on her tired face changed from dull fatigue to renewed interest.

"I remember this, Steve! It's been so long ago-" I waited for her to explain, but she didn't. That one sentence told me something: she had been over this trail before. "There's a spring in the rocks," she said. "Water, trickling down-"

But the spring had dried, we found. We stood there, looking at the mossy green of the wall, attesting to water and shade and moisture. But no water.

I unlimbered the pack shovel and dug in the sand at the base of the wall. After awhile the sand showed moisture. I dug some more, until I was in as deep as the handle on the shovel.

"There should be enough seepage by morning to fill the canteens," I said encouragingly.

"You mean we'll camp here?"

I pointed to the ledge, a natural outcropping about ten feet above the trail. "Up there."

We sat around the fire, strangely silent. Dusk had fallen now, and a chill was in the air. I unrolled the blankets, handed her one.

I had checked the shelf, inch by inch. I was quite certain there were no snakes.

Down in the sink, on our back trail, there was a sudden clattering of rocks.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Shale letting loose, sliding down."

She never answered, merely stared at the fire, her knees pulled up, under her chin. There was something pathetic about her, this fear of natural things that seemed so deeply ingrained.

Up on the rim a coyote howled, and she threw her cigarette into the fire with a sudden compulsive movement that showed her tenseness.

"Damn that coyote!" she said. And meant it. "Relax," I grinned. "It will be a hard day tomorrow."

"I can't relax!" she admitted at last. "I'm so tight I'm about ready to flip."

"I can't help you, unless you let me."

"Meaning?"

I moved closer to her, nursing carefully the tiny fire, for there was very little fuel available.

"You've been over this trail before," I said. "Evidently it wasn't a pleasure trek. Why don't you tell me about it?"

She sat there, stared at the fire. Her fists were clenched. I wasn't wrong in my first impression of her, back at the Joshua Tree bar: her face did have the look of far-off places, gypsy music, cunning and hatred. It was all there right at this moment, as she stared into the burning greasewood. And there was something else, too.

It could have been fear. Or some obnoxious thing that was a compulsion, tugging at her mind.

At last her eyes swung to mine.

"Anything I would say would only incriminate myself."

I reached forward, got one of her clenched hands in my own. "Geri, I still think you should tell me."

"I haven't told a soul for seventeen years." I felt her fingers stiffen, her grip in mine tightened. "All this time, day after day, it's been with me, prodding me. Yet I couldn't force myself to tell-"

I didn't say anything, just waited. The coyote sent up its mournful dirge again.

"Steve, if I tell you-"

"I'm not a priest, and neither am I a lawman."

"What does that mean?"

I grinned at her. "At the present you happen to be my client. I think that should cover it."

She shook her head. "I'm not too sure. When you hear what I am tempted to tell you-"

"You're still my client. I mean it."

She tugged at my hand, moved it until it lay against her breast. It seemed to be an unconscious action. I could feel the warm softness of her. I waited.

"Steve, do you remember the McNaughton case?" It rang a bell, but very dimly. "I'm not sure, Geri."

"It was a long time ago. John McNaughton was an oil man in southern California, rich and influential. While in Spain he married a girl whom the newspapers called his "barefoot gypsy".

I nodded. "Yes, I remember now. I was just a kid, but it's coming back now."

"He brought his golden gypsy back to his home on the coast. They had a child, seemed to be very happily married despite the difference between them. The child, a girl, was kidnapped when she was about two years old."

"It was something like the Lindbergh case," I said, interrupting. "Only in this instance, the baby was never found. Neither were the kidnappers ever apprehended."

"Yes," she said.

I waited. I could feel the tenseness of her.

"I helped kidnap that baby, Steve."

There it was! She had carried it around inside of her for long years. And at last, in the silence of this secluded place, she had told me-a stranger. She had revealed it to me in confidence.

"I have no alibi, other than one of desperation," she continued. "Thorne Rawlings, my husband, was a brilliant man. But he developed one weakness-drink. By the third year of our marriage he was a confirmed alcoholic. We didn't have a dime. And then he got this obsession-to make a bundle and get out of the country, away from it all. He thought that some new locale, some new land, would be a challenge."

Her face was stony now. She kept staring into the fire.

"He knew a Mexican woman out on the desert. We picked up the McNaughton baby from its crib and took it to this woman. He fully intended to re turn the child as soon as ransom negotiations were set up. But something went wrong, and we had to flee. There were road blocks everywhere, cops everywhere, the only thing left was the badlands."

She was crying softly now. I didn't try to touch her, or console her.

"Finally we had to leave the car, and we realized that the baby would die if we took it further into the desert. We saw this Indian community, then. I don't even know what tribe they belonged to. But we left the baby with an old man and his wife. I remember we had a lone fifty dollar bill. We gave them the fifty dollars and started running again, deeper into the badlands."

She sighed, as if the gesture might shift a weight from her shoulders.

"Thorne didn't make it," she continued. "The alcohol took its toll in the heat. I buried him in the sand, back there somewhere-"

She half-turned. Her hand gripped mine tighter.

"But I got to Arroyo Seco. And finally to New York with' a new name-Geri Lopez. And at last to London, and Paris-all over the world. I could sing, and there men-"

She stopped, there was agony in her eyes now.

"But Steve, I couldn't dance or sing it out of my mind: I couldn't forget it, in the height of gaiety. It's always been there to haunt me in the stdlness of the night, in the lonely hours." Her face was bitter. She shivered, and I'm sure that it wasn't from the chill. "Even in someone's arms the image was always there-that sweet little girl-"

"So you came back."

"I had to come back, Steve. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "It's pretty hopeless, don't you think?"

"I've got to know. Somewhere in that village, someone will tell me whether she's dead or alive."

"You don't even know the name of the man you left her with?"

"No! All I have is one feeble clue. The old man had a thumb missing on his left hand."

"How old was he?"

"He was very old, with a wrinkled face."

"He's probably long since dead."

"Yes, I've thought the same thing. But possibly someone in the village can give me a clue, tell me something."

"You don't even know if the village remains, Geri. Indians are nomadic, they follow the sheep." She didn't answer.

She was crying now. I saw her as a woman who had made an irreparable mistake and paid for it, over and over. I couldn't feel any sympathy. I kept thinking of the baby, its distressed parents. There is no excuse for kidnapping. In my book, it is the worst of crimes.

I didn't feel pity, but I did feel compassion. The fact that after all of these years she was forcing herself to return told me that deep under the brittleness she was still a woman-a woman capable of loving, caring.

I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly.

We rolled up in the blankets and stretched out. It was a temptation to roll over, pull her into my embrace, and give her the loving she needed at this moment.

The desire finally was greater than my resistance. I reached for her, then jerked up. Already she was asleep.

CHAPTER THREE

SOMETHING AWOKE ME. One moment I was sound asleep, the next wide awake, triggered into consciousness by something that no doubt registered on my subliminal mind. So far, I had no idea what it was. But with the caution instinctive in all of us when we are alert to potential danger I lay perfectly still, hardly breathing, listening for the slightest sound.

I was on my back and the vast dome of the sky was above, darkly cloud-flecked, beautiful. It no longer was night; the silver grayness of dawn was evident. On the peaks of the cliffs was a bright orange cast that could come only from the rising sun.

By turning my eyes far to the left I could see Geri, still soundly asleep. She too lay on her back, possibly six feet away.

The blanket had slipped down from her shoulders. Even in relaxation her breasts were protrusive. Two conical mounds, they moved in cadence to her breathing. Her face looked less tense now; lying there, she could have been twenty-five or even younger.

My eyes moved downward-and I saw the snake!

It was a diamond-back and it lay there coiled, head erect and slightly above its body, ready to strike.

My first impulse was to execute a quick roll out of its path. But I killed the impulse even as it was born. That would leave Geri at its mercy. If she moved a hand, or rolled over on her side, it would strike.

It was warning us. That tad was quivering, making that slight but recognizable sound which once heard is never forgotten.

How quickly can a rattler strike? Faster than you can move out of its path. I knew that; I had seen it happen before.

I moved a hand slightly and immediately the wicked, diamond-shaped head turned, the beady eyes watching me like a hawk.

There was only one thing to do. The problem was right there in front of me. It could be solved in only one way, and even that was dangerous.

I had to be the decoy. I had to attract and hold its attention whde Geri moved out of its path, an inch at a time. But first, arouse her!

I pulled in a lungful of air, slowly moved my head a fraction of an inch at a time, so I could see her face.

"Geri!" I said softly.

If only she awakened naturally, didn't make any erratic body movement! If only I could arouse her, keep her calm and then tell her of the danger, minimizing it as much as possible. If only she didn't panic!

"Geri!" I said again. "Do you hear me, Geri? Whatever you do, don't move. Don't move a single muscle!"

I saw her eyelids flutter open, close. She moved her hand, and I went cold. What if she sat upright in one violent movement, as people sometimes do when they are aroused from deep slumber?

"Geri, don't move!" I repeated.

Her eyelids fully opened now. She was looking at the sky above, half-awake, perhaps realizing that it was dawn, time to get back on the trail before the heat of the day clamped down.

"What is it?" she asked.

Thank heavens, she was fully awake at last!

"Don't move a muscle, Geri-"

I saw her eyes searching the perimeter of her vision. Lying there on her back, she couldn't see the snake until she moved her head.

"Now don't be frightened!" I said as calmly as I could. "Listen to every word I say. Got it, Geri?"

"I'm listening, Steve-"

I noticed a quiver in her voice. She realized that something was wrong, didn't know what the danger was.

"Keep very calm," I beseeched. "If you don't keep calm, absolutely relaxed with no movement of your body, hand, foot, or even a sudden turn of your head, we're in trouble.

"What are you trying to say?"

The quaver was more noticeable in her voice now. Awakened from a deep sleep, the first word she heard was an admonition to keep absolutely quiet. I realized what it must be doing to her, building up tension so fast that soon she would have no control over her reflexes. She would turn, see the snake and panic. I had to keep her from doing that.

"We have a problem," I said. "It's a physical problem for our safety, yours and mine. But if you do as I tell you we'll lick it, neither one of us will get hurt."

I saw her eyes flicker. Perhaps she thought it was something above us, something like a sword of Damocles.

"My God, Steve, tell me!" she said. Her voice was tight, jerky. "All right, I'll tell you. Now hold on!"

I moved my finger slightly, saw the beady head of the snake swing back to me. Any little movement will attract a snake. It considers movement as danger. Anything that moves is a potential enemy; it will strike at anything that moves. So I had to keep it looking my way, in case she made any sudden movement.

"Geri, there's a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike, between us.

Something like a moan started in her throat. Whatever it was, I realized that she had no physical control over it. The sound was simple, unadulterated terror.

"It won't strike you," I continued, "if you lie perfectly still."

She didn't say anything. But I noticed the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, a barometer of her excitement and emotion.

"Now here's the plan of escape for you," I said. "Wait until I give the signal, then slowly inch your body away. I said inch it away, and that's exactly what I mean. A guarded motion, so slow it will not attract the snake's attention. Use your hips, your elbows. Slow, Geri! Slow as a snail!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to keep the snake's eyes on me while you make the move."

"I-I can't, Steve. I'm cold to the bone!"

I waited, sweating it out.

"Geri, if you don't do as I say, you'd get the snakes fangs. It's closer to you than it is to me."

I saw her eyes turn to the left. She was trying to see the snake without moving her head. That was impossible.

"Move your head toward the left slowly, Geri!"

I flicked my finger again, and the beady, arrow-shaped death-point swung in my direction. I was sweating now, real drops of oozing sweat.

I saw Geri's head move just a bit, then a bit more.

Suddenly she saw the coiled snake.

For what happened then, I'll never blame her. The terror was greater than her resolve to keep calm. I saw her eyes dilate, her chest expand. I knew the scream was coming.

It wasn't the scream that had me worried, it was the tightening of her muscles. She was going to make a desperate attempt to get out of the snake's path. And that would be fatal.

I looked at the snake, saw its head swing toward her.

Zero-hour! A split-second, and then death. The rattler was so positioned that if it struck, it would bury its fangs in her face or in her throat. And that meant almost certain death.

"Geri!" I said, "Don't move!"

But it was too late. Terror had taken over. I saw her hands clench, and she pulled up her legs. The snake's head swung toward her.

One second. Not two, or five. One second!

I sliced at that wicked head with my hand, holding it stiff in a judo-stance which I hoped would catch the snake back of the head and break its neck. That the odds were great didn't at the moment figure in the picture. It was the only thing I could do, a long shot-maybe a million to one.

I knew I lost the moment I started the action.

Lay on your back sometime, try to bring up your arm and slice outward, away from your body. See how long it takes. Two seconds, possibly.

The rattler's head was pointed at Geri when I started the swing. It head zoomed back to give it leverage for the strike. It had seen her spasmodic movement.

But the sudden movement of my own arm, the vicious slice toward it, caused the snake to whip its head toward me so quickly that the eye couldn't even follow the action. I saw it all in the quick hazy flash of a terror-filled split-second, death coming at me and no way to stop it. Like being caught in the middle of a street, with a truck bearing down on you.

My hand caught the snake possibly a foot from its upraised head. The momentum of the slice was hard enough so its body lifted, shot through the air, bounced off the side of the ledge.

Even so its fangs caught me in the forearm.

There was no pain other than a slight sting, something like that of a bee. But hollow venom-filled needle went in, and that's all it takes!

Geri was screaming at the top of her voice, still rolling away from me. She didn't realize I had been bitten.

I sat up, grabbed her, and shook her hard. She was still screaming and I sliced my fingers across her face, to shock her into reality.

It stopped the scream. She sat there, shaking all over. Then she flung herself into my arms, and I felt her breasts hard against my rib cage.

"You flung it off the ledge!"

"Yeah!"

I pushed her back, dug frantically for my pocket knife.

"Get a handkerchief around my arm, above the elbow," I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

Only then did she realize the snake had bitten me. "Steve! Oh, Steve!"

I'll say this for her: she didn't go into hysteria. She calmed down in a hurry, grabbed my arm. Then she saw the punctures.

"Steve, you'll die!"

"I hope not."

I had the knife out now, got the sharp point into the punctures and sliced deep. I crisscrossed the spot, and the blood spurted.

"Wind that tourniquet tighter!" I said.

Her fingers were trembling. Her lips were trembling, too. But somehow she got the handkerchief around my arm. I found a small greasewood stick, showed her how to tighten the handkerchief, pulled up my arm to suck the wound.

But it was about an inch from the elbow. I'm quite a contortionist, but I couldn't make it.

"I'll do it!" she said.

I grabbed her arm.

"Geri, let's face facts. If you have a hollow tooth, a cut gum, even a badly chapped lip, the venom can get into your blood stream."

"My teeth are perfect," she assured me.

She bent her head and sucked blood out of the wound, spitting it out until the ledge was discolored with it.

I was feeling it now: nothing alarming, but the first hot flush of the poison was quickening my heart action.

"That should do it!" I said at last. I loosened the tourniquet, then tightened it again.

"What now?" she asked. The fear in her voice was very real, it was crowding her rationality.

I pulled her into an embrace with my good arm. Her shirt had come unbuttoned, she was showing me a set of the most provocative breasts any woman could be endowed with. But at the moment, Cleopatra herself couldn't have tempted me.

"There a compass in the pack," I said. "Get it, take one of the canteens and half the food. I think you can climb to the rim over there, if you're careful."

I pointed to what looked like a break in the wall.

"And leave you here?"

"Yes, it's the only way. Now listen good. I'll go into a fever, then a chill, maybe a coma. But if I don't move to tax my heart action, I'll live. I've seen it happen before. But I won't be worth a damn for two days at the most-three, maybe. If we both stay here well run out of supplies, and water. If you strike South you'll run across an Indian somewhere on the mesa. Get help, and come back."

I felt it now, but good! I tried to hang on, not let her know. But I think she saw it, too. She bent over me and kissed me hard, violently. It was a salty kiss, so I knew she was crying.

"Oh Steve, it was my fault!"

"Quit torturing yourself! Start climbing before it gets too hot." She was gone. She was sobbing, but I could hear her moving away. My eyesight was blurry all of a sudden. I had the blanket, and it was getting cold as hellShe had such glorious breasts and they were right there, in my face, the aureoles large and dark. Still I was so cold, and they were cold I awakened, went back to sleep.

The second time I awakened, it was night. A coyote howled somewhere up on the rim-or was that Geri's cry?

I was so weak that I couldn't lift my hand, and so sleepy The next time I awoke it seemed to be late afternoon. The heat was intense, even in the shade of the wall. That seemed strange. I'd been bitten by the snake early in the morning. There had been darkness. Now daylight again-and more darkness coming.

Holy cow, was it possible that I slept through an entire day and night? First the coma, the chill. There had been fever, too. I could faintly remember the fever. Then the fever died down, and the chill took over again.

I raised my hand now, rather amazed that I could do this little feat. I was still weak, but not as weak as before. My fingers came up to my face, felt my beard. It was a real buzz-saw beard-two days' growth.

But I wasn't going to die! Nope, the worst was over.

Then a disturbing thought suddenly claimed my attention: Geri hadn't come back! She'd had ample time to find some Indian hogan and bring help. I knew these Indians; there would be no argument, they would follow to help. Simple people, with kindness as a virtue.

What had happened to Geri? She might have been lulled, trying to gain the rim. She was in a highly nervous state. Anything could have happened to her in that frame of mind, I assured myself. She might even have tangled with another rattler. No, that was simply too preposterous!

But the feeling persisted that she wasn't coming back. Could it be that terror had taken over, that she had headed for safety with civilization her only thought? No, I couldn't accept this at all.

She helped kidnap a baby, years ago. She had been married to a man who had dragged her down deep, because of his own weakness of character. But the fact that she had come back to this very spot, proved to me there was compassion and kindness in her heart.

When the snake had bitten me the terror on her face, the anguish, was far from acting. She had even endangered her own life, vacuuming blood from the wound. No, she hadn't willfully run out on me. There was something else. But what?

I was still too weak to follow, far too weak. I was thirsty, found the canteen, took a swallow of the tepid water. I realized, too, that I was hungry.

My arm was stiff and swollen. I looked at the wound. The blood had congealed now, and I couldn't help but grin. I had really sliced that knife across those tiny punctures! Perhaps that alone, plus Geri's efficient work, had saved my life.

For one thing, I had new respect for a rattlesnake. How much of the venom had I gotten! A drop, five drops? Medically speaking, how many CCs? I didn't know, but I realized one thing: that venom was potent. If I had lost my head and tried to climb to the rim after being bitten, my laboring heart would have hammered itself to death.

"Say a prayer, fellow!" the little green man advised me, pecking very lightly on my ear. "You were lucky, old man. You were so lucky!"

Time passed. I slept again. When I woke up, it was dusk. I felt much better now, so darned hungry I started scrounging for the pack, to see what foodstuff it contained.

I got to my feet, wobbly at first, but upright, walking. At last I made it down to the spot where I had dug for water. There was about a foot of seepage in the sand-pit, enough to fill a canteen-and more. I drank, and never did water taste so good.

I built a fire, put the coffee pot on. Waiting for it to boil, I got most of the whiskers off my face.

We had packed some dehydrated milk and eggs. In the service, this kind of stuff didn't appeal to me at all. But at the moment it was the best darned food I ever tasted.

I sat back after the meal and smoked a cigarette, staring into the dying fire. I couldn't get Geri Lopez out of my mind.

In the coma, long delirious half-sleep that gripped me while the venom was at work, I was dreaming of her. She tempted me with her provocative body. Her sensuous mouth was luring me on, teasing me with kisses. I saw her back in the canyon when she slipped out of the bra, giving me a great big tease as she did so. I had modestly turned my back while she stripped down, and she had laughed at me.

Was she hard and callous, or was this merely a front? She had indulged in a heinous crime. "But," some little voice said, "she's paid for it-a hundred times. No, ten thousand times. She's a woman, Steve, a woman so thrilling that her very touch is fire. And you haven't even laid a hand on her!"

"Perhaps she wants you to touch her, Steve," the voice went on. "She needs you, and you need her-"

Now it might be too late. I gazed up at the rim. Directly opposite the shelf, there was a break in the wall. It wasn't exactly a trail, but it might have been used by the Indians as a sort of a broken-ladder trail to the top, and the mesa beyond.

Geri had started up from this spot. That's all I knew. Had she fallen, or gotten lost, or fallen victim to some other hazard? Perhaps she had, perhaps her screams had reached me and my ears hadn't heard. Or if they heard, my brain hadn't responded.

I had a feeling that I would find her somewhere up there, broken and dead. It was a fearful thought, somehow it kept nagging me.

At last I could bear it no longer. I was still weak, but somehow I started out.

I had to find her, dead or alive.

CHAPTER FOUR

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CLOSE brush with almost certain death? If you have, you know the usual aftermath-a feeling of amazement and humility that it happened to you, that you were miraculously spared. This was the feeling that possessed me as I slowly climbed up from one rock ledge to another, toward the rim.

The feeling was augmented by still another sensation-an appreciation to the woman who had helped to save my life. The thought of putting one's mouth to a wound-a wound made by a poisonous reptile and vacuuming out the poisoned blood, is obnoxious in any respect. To some women it might have been so sickening that they would have shied away from the physical part of it, regardless of their feelings. But Geri Lopez hadn't hesitated, even momentarily.

She had grasped my arm, that lovely sensuous mouth had turned into a human pump. She hadn't grown panicky in the process. She was cold to the bone with the fear of the snake itself, but this didn't stop her.

She had knelt over me, my arm clutched tightly in both of hers, totally oblivious to the fact that her shirt was unbuttoned, that her protrusive golden breasts were bare. Her one thought was to be of service.

Now it was my turn to be of service.

Why all this solicitude toward a kidnapper?

That was dark green water under a bridge. She was a woman, a kind, desirable woman. Something had happened to her.

I was winded, and I wasn't even-half way up. The light was fading fast, making the climb even more difficult. I was hunting, too, for some evidence of her passing. I found nothing.

Wait a moment! Here was the torn branch of a scrub cedar, poking its hardy trunk out of a niche in the rocks. That meant she had grasped the rugged limb to pull up her body from a lower level. It had torn, but still held. I kept working upward, toeholds, hand-holds, taking my time. This weakness, I realized, was one of those things that wasn't going to leave very suddenly.

Each ledge was a struggle. And the fear was there too, growing. I had a premonition that I would find her any moment now.

But I didn't. And at last I was on the rim so utterly spent that I stretched out on the bare face rock, still warm from the sun, and lay there slowly recapturing my breath.

Night had clamped down now. The desert was a mantle of emptiness, serenely stretching away to the murky horizon.

I had instructed Geri to head into the South. With the compass as her guide, I believed she would do just that without too much variation.

But now that I was atop the rim I saw immediately that I had erred. The Maricopa community was to the East of us, not directly South. We had penetrated deeper into the pothole country than I realized. Heading South would miss the Indian village.

Heading South might mean miles of emptiness, barren desert, not a single habitation.

"You pulled a boner this time, chum!" the little green man persisted. "You've sent her after shadows. It could be you even sent her to her death!"

I headed South, a bit frantic now. Away from the rim I turned at right angles, checking in the hope that I might come across her trail. But there was nothing. And now the light was too dim to tell.

If she followed the compass, she would head South. But how far, I asked myself? When will she pull up, change her course-after she finds nothing? Or how long will she last? What did yesterday's boding sun do to her?

Questions, but no answers. Weary steps and no purpose to them, just desperation. Somewhere out here was a lone woman, in big trouble. I had to find her for my own peace of mind.

I pulled up at last for a much-needed rest. The moon was a huge fireball just above the horizon, and the desert was catching its magic sheen. Nothing but barren land, stretching on. This could be the earth, perhaps in some far distant year after the powers-that-be let go the big one, turning the landscape into a cinder. Nothing.

I started walking again, wondering if the coyote knew just how lonely his cry sounded to a human ear. Something scurried under the protection of a goat-bush. I shuddered, thinking of the snake. But this was a desert rabbit.

Finally the land dipped, the terrain changed noticeably. I found myself stumbling along in a dry creek bed.

Then the unbelievable took place. I jerked up, blinked my eyes, thinking perhaps it was some hallucination caused by weakness and fatique. But it was not.

Up the draw there was the faint gleam of light. A stationary fight. That meant some habitation, the window of a dwelling no doubt. A candle, or a kerosene wick lamp.

It was instinctive to quicken my step. But I did just the opposite, listening to the cautioning of my inherent nature.

This was not an Indian hogan; it was a cabin. I could see its outline now. Nearby was something that looked like an old mine tipple. This was the cabin of a prospector, a desert rat.

If Geri had reached here, she would be safe. But why hadn't she come back to the canyon with help? Any white man would go back to help another person, the victim of a rattler's bite.

Any white man, perhaps. With the exception of the two Collins brothers.

Suddenly I was thinking of Nan Goodwin, what she had told me of Zeke and Zachary Collins. "Any Maricopa girl knows better than to get too close to either of them," Nan had said. And meant it.

If Geri Lopez had stumbled in here, thinking she would get help, she would soon awaken to the rude realization that she was merely a human mouse, trapped very securely.

Geri Lopez was a beautiful woman, a provocative woman physically.

I felt a new fear now, a new weakness. But it wasn't all from the snake bite.

Would there be a dog? That had to be ascertained.

I kept to the shadows, wormed closer. The moonlight was an aid, bathing the barren shack, with its tin walls and sod roof, and the equally barren landscape. All I could see was the old mine tipple and the cabin. If there was a dog he might be on a long leash, sleeping under the shack or tied in the shadows of the old tipple. I made sure there was no dog anywhere in the yard.

I wormed still closer to the shack. It sat up on posts about two feet from the ground; I could see underneath it, but not too well. I directed a small pebble toward the darkness beneath the building. Nothing happened. If there was a dog, he wasn't too interested in guard duty.

To make sure I tossed another rock toward the tipple. I heard it strike some object, making a slight, tiny noise. I held my breath. No dog there, either.

I crawled up to the unwashed window that emitted the light, cautiously raised up to check the interior.

I had to clamp my lips to stifle the groan that welled up from my throat.

The light was dim inside the shack-a candle on an oilcloth-covered table. But it wasn't so dim that I couldn't see Geri Lopez.

She sat on a chair, her hands tied back of her. Facing her, straddling another chair-this one backless-was a man. I had never seen him before, but he easily fell into the category of the Collins brothers.

He had the lean, hump-shouldered frame that Nan described, the black, unkempt hair, the unshaven face. He sat there, leering at the woman.

Geri stared back at him, lips clamped. Her face seemed tired, but there was resistance in her eyes.

Her khaki shirt had been ripped down, pulled out of her jeans. It hung on her shoulders like the garment of a garden scarecrow. Her elongated breasts were bare.

The man had a knife in his right hand and he leaned closer, the blade pushed forward until the sharp tip was touching the golden flesh of her right breast He seemed to be playing some kind of a game, letting the tip of the blade circle her dark aureole, just lightly touching the flesh, but not hard enough to cut it..

The walls of the shack were thin; I didn't have to strain much to hear the conversation inside.

"Zack'll get back from the canyon 'fore daybreak. Reckon hell find out whether or not you're lyin'."

"I am not lying," Geri said, her voice tired.

"Maybe not," he said, "but if ye air-"

He left the sentence unfinished, and the knife point shifted to her left breast.

"Reckon we can wait a little longer."

"You'd better untie me and let me get some sleep."

"You kin rest, right there in the chair."

"With that knife pricking my flesh?"

"You better start prayin' mat Zack gets back, or you'll wish you was dead."

"You're very stupid," she said, desperation in her voice. "You've hunted for that missing airplane for years. You haven't found it. And still you doubt my story."

"I doubt you. If Zack finds that feller, and he tells the same story you did, you won't be bothered."

"If you touch me, you'll never find out."

The knife blade raised, hovered over the nipple, touched it with a sly little dig that forced her back into the chair, straining away from him.

He chuckled. "Reckon a man'd like to go to bed with a woman like you fer a long, long time."

Geri didn't reply, just sat there staring at him with hatred and repulsion in her eyes. And his eyes were on her bared breasts.

I didn't for the moment follow the trend of the conversation. Then it dawned. Evidently she too knew about the lost airplane, was using it in a desperate effort to save her life, and perhaps even mine.

She had probably stumbled upon the shack by accident, and asked for help. Then her woman's intuition told her that she had fallen into a den of human derelicts. In desperation, or through some dropped word, she had ascertained that they too were interested in the lost plane-perhaps thinking of the rich bounty buried with it somewhere.

She led them to believe that we were on the same quest, that we knew more than they did. If they would go back with her to help me, she would divulge the information they were seeking and the search would be a foursome. Something like that. How she intended to acquaint me with this new switch was beyond me.

But her ruse had been only partially successful, they didn't exactly fall for her story. At least they were playing it cautious. One would stay with her whde the other went back to the canyon to hunt for me.

That meant the one searching for me would soon be coming back He wouldn't find me, of course, and that would further complicate matters. He might find our camp and do some exploring, up and down the canyon; but he still wouldn't find me. I was hoping he would explore; that would give me more time to get Geri out of their clutches.

The thing to do was take care of this guy, right now.

That sounded far easier than the actual deed. I was in a weakened condition, no match for this big, lanky, trail-hardened man. Furthermore there was a rifle lying on the table, within easy reach. I could plainly see the gun. If I barged inside, he would grab it-and that would be that.

I had to get him outside by some ruse.

This was Zeke. He had said that Zack was out on the search for me.

I listened to the arguments, wondering if I could imitate his voice, or the voice of his brother. This one's voice was high-pitched, with a definite nasal twang, as if he had catarrh. Would Zack have the same kind of voice?

That was a risk I had to take.

I circled the shack, hugging the shadows as much as I could. At the mine tipple I scrounged around, hoping to find some good-sized club. But there was nothing, just a few bales of hay. Evidently they owned a burro or a pack horse.

I crawled back to the shadow of the shack wall.

Then I saw the clothesline, and the overalls flapping in the night breeze. I got the garment, ran back to the mine tipple, stuffed in all the hay I could until I had a reasonably good dummy. Without a head, of course. But for my purpose it didn't need a head, just a torso.

There wasn't a club, but there was a shale pile. I got a hunk of flinty rock that fit my fist, shouldered my dummy and walked over to the creek bed. As if I was coming up from the canyon, and couldn't make the grade with the load on my shoulder.

Then I shouted, hoping the twang would get by:

"Hey, Zeke, gimme a hand, will ya?" Nothing happened. I waited, repeated the call.

The door opened, closed. He was cautious, didn't allow himself to be silhouetted by the light from the inside, offering a target.

"Hurry up, Zeke. This guy's heavier'n hell!"

I waited, deep enough in the gulch to lead him to think I couldn't quite make the last steep climb. I was turned so he could see the imitation man over my shoulder.

He started a slow dog-trot toward me.

Either the illusion was much better than I hoped, or my voice misled him. Perhaps he had a one-track mind; when he saw what he supposed was his brother coming back from the canyon, toting a man who had been bitten by a snake, he just threw caution to the wind.

He came steadily on, didn't jerk up until he was right there in front of me, possibly eight feet away.

Then he saw the decoy. I could see his expression as the shock registered. He tried to pull in the slack, but his facial muscles didn't respond. His loose mouth sagged, his eyes bugged.

He'd been too anxious to help; he hadn't brought the rifle, and that was in my favor. The moment he wised up, he did an about-face. He intended to sprint to the shack for the gun, hoping I wasn't armed.

I wasn't armed-at least not in the way he expected. I let the dummy slide, and sent the rock sizzling for his head.

He was in high gear on the back-track, and as he was facing away from me, he didn't have a chance to duck. The rock caught him on the back of the neck, just below the base of the skull. He went down, sprawling, his stop so sudden that it looked ludicrous. Suddenly he was all legs and arms, going down.

I didn't take a chance. I got to him in about two seconds, put a real stinger on his chin, then chopped him across the windpipe with the edge of my hand for good measure.

He groaned, sort of a wheezing pig grunt, and didn't move.

I got out my knife, ripped the legs of the overalls and tied him up good, wrists behind his back. Then I stuffed a hunk of cloth into his mouth as a gag and pulled him over to the shadows of the mine tipple.

I stood there, heaving, realizing it was a lucky break. I was weak as a cat. In a hand-to-hand encounter, he would have beat me into the dust in a hurry.

I pushed into the cabin, still breathing like a race horse coming in on the last stretch.

Geri's dull eyes regarded me in disbelief. Or perhaps she thought she was seeing a ghost. The expression on her face was pitiful to see-disbelief trying to argue with credence.

"It's me-in the flesh!" I said, cutting loose her hands.

She sat there for a moment, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists. Then she came out of the chair in a single leap and was tight in my arms. She was making sounds I couldn't understand. The most wonderful sounds in the world. It was all there in her voice; the relief, the dread, the terror. And she was holding onto me in desperation, kissing me, crying and laughing at the same time.

It was natural to respond. I held her tightly, felt her breasts warm under my hand. Her kiss was the response of a woman who had suddenly come back from the dead to new, vigorous life.

"Oh, Steve, Steve-"

"Let's get out of here, before the other one comes back! " I said at last.

The rifle was on the table. I picked it up, ejected the shells, and broke it over the back of a chair. I looked around: it was the only gun I could see. The room was a pig sty; it smelled like one, was encrusted with the dirt and filth of years.

"Steve, how did you ever do it?"

"We'll talk later, Geri."

I grabbed her hand, pulled her through the door. We ran to the creek Then I decided to check, ran with her to the mine tipple. He was still there, tied just as I had left him, moaning now.

We were about to leave when Geri's hand tugged loose. She closer to Zeke. Then her foot came down in a vicious smash.

"That's for the knife!" she said. I had no criticism to make.

We headed back to the dry creek bed, started on a dog-trot away from the cabin.

Suddenly I jerked up, as calm thinking replaced the excitement of the rescue. The other brother would be coming back from the canyon any time now. If we continued to the North, we might run into him. I didn't want that to happen, at least not tonight. I was weak, exhausted. So was Geri. We needed rest and food before we tackled with more trouble.

So we climbed out of the creek and turned Northwest. This course might bring us out on the rim, possibly a mile to the West of the ledge upon which the rattlesnake had changed the course of our safari.

We walked until we were ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. We were on a ridge now, with some head-high scrub cedar as cover. We hunkered down at last and stretched out on the sand.

"I don't think he'll find us here," I said. "Unless he can track like an Apache."

We didn't say a word for moments, too exhausted to expend another bit of energy. We merely lay there side by side, letting the tenseness slowly wash out of our bodies. Up above the cloudless bowl of the heavens, star-studded, looking down on this little drama of two frightened people.

"Steve, I feel quite small lying here. Don't you?"

"Yes, very small and insignificant."

She rolled over on her side, facing me. Her arms reached out, and I pulled her into my embrace. For moments I held her tight. This was our private little world, a sand-pit under two scrub cedars, the sand still warm from the day's heat.

"Steve," she whispered, "it was so horrible, facing them-and thinking of you back in the canyon."

She was very much of a woman now. Her lips found mine, the kiss demanding. She didn't let go, at the moment I didn't care if she never let go. I found myself seeking her tongue; obviously she had the same idea. We lay there, tight in each other's arms, and the kiss built into a stinger.

I pushed back at last.

"Geri, somehow you held them off. Was it the airplane gimmick?"

She nodded. "I got the idea the moment I got to the cabin and saw what I had walked into. They were sitting at the table, looking at old newspaper clippings. I saw the deadlines about the missing plane, the $800,000. I was desperate, and this seemed the only chance."

I kissed her, squeezed a bit tighter.

"But it didn't quite work out?"

"No, they kept at me for hours, trying to figure out whether I was lying. Then Zack started out after you, leaving me with the other one."

I was thinking of all the loose ends. "What would you have done if they both accompanied you back to the canyon?"

"First things first," she grinned. "At the moment I didn't even consider that. I suppose I would have tried to swing the conversation in some way so you could have wised up to the game I was playing."

I didn't answer, content to hold her and caress her with my hands. She pulled up my arm, still swollen.

"How do you feel? "

"Okay, merely weak."

"I'll never forget that night as long as I live!"

"You saved my life, you know, sucking out that venom."

"Did I, Steve? First I send you to your death, then I hold back the executioner."

I had no answer to that.

"Did the brothers feed you?"

"If you call that stuff they eat food." She made a wry face.

"We'll get a fire going as soon as we can find a safe place."

"Steve-"

It was the way she said it. It was an entreaty. A man knows, somehow. We needed many things, food, drink, rest. But we also needed each other.

I knew it, and so did she. There were no pangs of conscience about it. We had been through an ordeal together, and this alone was sufficient reason for this feeling we had, this physical yearning for each other.

Her lips were on mine, we were exploring each other's mouth cavities with our tongues. I touched her and felt the tautening in her breasts.

"She's older than you," I cautioned myself. "But that is no criterion of her desire." It was there, under my hands, in her lips, the warm response of her body as she cradled her hips tight against mine.

Finally I moved my face away from her lips, kissed her throat, worked down to her breasts. The nipples were hard between my teeth, she made a whispering sound in her throat that was both desire and pain.

She pulled back at least, breathing heavily. Her fingers caressed my face. "Steve, it's been so long-"

I didn't answer, merely let my finger tips trace a pattern on her puffy aureoles, playing a hide tune first on one breast, and then the other.

"Honey, you're so beautiful-"

"Let's say I've merely taken care of my body," she whispered. "What's that mean?"

"Just what I said. I've never abused it, sexually."

I didn't argue. She looked far younger than her years. Her breasts were the taut cones of a young girl, her kiss had the fire of youth and the skill of maturity. And there was something else, a desire for gratification in every move she made.

She needed me, and I needed her. It was as old as the world, as young as a virgin's kiss.

She prolonged the love-play minute by minute, teasing, withdrawing, teasing again. A bit of heaven; then, when the red light of ecstasy started to glow, a restraining hand.

But even so, desire grew into compulsion at last. Her breasts were taut under my hand, her heart was hammering madly in her rib cage. Her tongue was a fiery wand, augmenting the desire, fanning the fire in our loins.

At last we were together, nothing mattered but the movement of our bodies in the rhythm of love. I felt her need in each violent movement of her hips, in the frantic grip of her hands. Then it was over and we lay there, so exhausted that there was no desire other than that of sleep.

And that is exactly what we did. The cold of the deep night was coming now, the blankets felt good.

She lay there, buttoned her shirt:

But even her buttoned shirt couldn't quite hide her beauty.

She was shaking me.

"Steve," she whispered, "wake up!"

I was already awake. At first I couldn't ascertain just what had aroused me. But now I knew, the sound I heard was easily recognizable.

It was the growl of a dog, a big, ferocious dog.

He stood there, not five feet away, baring his teeth. He looked big as a lobo wolf, and just as vicious.

"Steve-"

The dog moved closer. I was wondering just what would be the best plan to keep those tearing fangs off us.

I sat up slowly, eyes on the dog.

That's when the club came down across my skull.

I hadn't heard a thing, just a slight scraping noise that last instant, as if someone moved a boot in the sand. I was thinking only of the dog.

The club cracked down hard. My last recollection was Geri's scream. There was a terror in it that I shall never forget.

CHAPTER FIVE

FANTASY, DREAMS, VISIONS, NIGHTMARES in a mad succession of unreality floated though my comatose mind. I was soaking on a cloud, in the arms of a beautiful woman; then the stab of a snake, and the fevered terror that followed. Over and over again a montage of madness, and none of it in focus sharp enough to register.

But above all there was something else: the intense heat of the desert sun burning down on me, dehydrating my brain.

At last the unreal fused into reality and I opened my eyes, squinting into the brightness of day. I lay for long minutes, trying to orient myself to my surroundings. Oh yes, the vicious dog, his fangs bared, ready to attack us. The club bearing down, Geri's scream. It all came back in a rush of coherency now.

I raised one hand to my head. There was a nice egg-shaped lump there, above my left ear. It was tender to the touch. I decided that I must have a very thick skull to withstand the blow of that club. Or perhaps my assailant had nearly missed, struck a glancing blow.

I pulled myself up to a sitting position, and the landscape turned into weaving rubber. It quieted down, and I knew the guy hadn't struck quite hard enough.

But what about Geri? He had Geri!

That was positive fact. It had to be the other Collins brother, Zack. Evidently he had come back to the shack after a fruitless search of the canyon. He found Zeke and the woman missing from the cabin. He had a dog. Of course the dog immediately smelled bound-up Zeke at the old mine tipple, and alerted his boss.

Zack untied him, heard his story and started out after us. The fact that he was alone told me that Zeke wasn't feeling too well at the moment.

Another doubt asserted itself. I hadn't even seen the man, just the dog. How did I know that Zack was alone at the time of the attack? Perhaps both of them were there. But the feeling persisted that the man was alone.

What would be Geri's fate? That was the question that tore at me. Could she still sell them on the idea that she possessed some secret knowledge of the missing plane which they didn't? It was a long shot, any way you looked at it. But the fact remained that Geri was back in their clutches.

By the looks of the sun, it was past noon. I had been comatose for long, inactive hours.

Where had the brothers-and Geri-vanished in the meantime?

I got to my. feet at last, started out. I circled the spot, trying to pick up their trail.

I found it at last, in sandy shale. Evidently they weren't particular about concealing it. And thinking about it, why should they?

There were two of them, plus the vicious dog. Evidently Zeke had gotten over the rock sock. There were the tracks of two men and a woman. I even found the imprint of the dog's pads, and they looked big as a wolf's tracks. It could be that they had trained a wolf cub, that the beast was a lobo instead of a dog.

The trail headed for the rim. That at least gave me a bit of hope. Evidently they were still after the plane, checking on Geri's story.

The sun seemed hotter than usual today-or maybe it was my aching head that gave that illusion.

I kept stumbling on. The desert turned into a sea of rubber, I had difficulty following the trail.

I knew then that I wasn't going to make it.

Physical stamina is one thing. If it's virgorous, the body can take a lot-of punishment. But on the low side, energy is quickly snapped and expended. First it had been the snake bite, then the blow on the head. Add the desert's midday heat, and you have exhaustion.

Not only exhaustion-fear!

This was nothingness, just barren land. Not a drop of water, not a human habitation in sight. Just the sandy soil, powder-dry, the greasewood and goat bushes.

I could hear Ben's lament: "You crazy goon! Do you think you're a one-man dynamo with transistors instead of a run-down battery? You're no tougher than any human-and this is past human endurance. Crawl into the shade and cool your brains before they ridge and fry in your skull. Or they'll find what's left of you some day-possibly in the year 1980-a chalky skeleton of white bones."

I rubbed my eyes. Double vision now, and crazy whirling shapes.

Geri, with that provocative body, her need of protection! And now, when she needed me most, I wasn't there to help her.

That thought drove me on. All I could see was Zeke, with the point of his knife circling the dark aureole on her breast tip, ogling her, waiting like a rattler. Just waiting; plenty of time to make the strike.

"Geri!" It was a sob. Somehow I had no knowledge that I had uttered the word. Just a sob. Funny, there was sand in my mouth.

I tried to spit it out, found that I was on the ground.

That seemed quite natural. Perhaps it was the same sensation a man had, dying in a snow-bank. This was the finest bed I'd had in days. I reached out. She would be there, right at my side, that soft golden flesh and those protrusive breasts, awaiting my caresses....

But she wasn't.

Water, cool, precious water! It was there, against my lips. My hands came up, searching. And suddenly there were other hands, holding a canteen, the precious fluid trickling between my parched lips.

"Thank heaven you 're coming out of it!"

Geri? It was a woman's voice, a young vibrant voice edged with anxiety. But not Geri.

I squeezed open my eyes. Just a blur at first. A cool hand on my head, or was it a dampened cloth? Movement, sponging my brow, wiping my sandencrusted face. Then the blur dissolved into a human form.

I closed my eyes. I knew the face would be gone when I reopened them. I never did believe in miracles, they were merely images of the mind.

But the face was still there, smiling slightly now, in apparent relief that I had regained consciousness.

"Go easy on the water!" the voice cautioned.

The hands were exploring now, and finally the fingers touched the sore spot where the club had connected. They probed, not too hard.

Then the smile deepened. "Welcome to the VV Club!" the voice said.

That didn't exactly make any sense to my dulled brain. I lay there, stared at the face.

"The Vicious Viper Club," the voice explained. "Just a private group of desert folks who know what it means to tangle with a rattler."

"You're-very observing," I said, my words thick. "I didn't think you would notice."

"Not only have you tangled with a rattler, you've been conked on the head."

"A man with a vicious dog that looked like a lobo wolf."

"That sounds like Zack Collins."

I was feeling better by the moment. I sat up and stared at this Samaritan who had evolved out of thin air.

"Don't look so startled," the girl said. "I'm real. My name's Jane Trovillion. We've got a sheep ranch" on the far side of the basin."

"I'm Steve Hille," I grinned, "and you're an angel."

She didn't look like an angel. She looked like a ranch girl, tall and slim in hip-hugging levis and a blue shirt open at the throat. She wore a black stetson, pushed back on her head now, and I saw that her hair was black as the felt on the hat. The rest of her was tanned so coppery that she easily could have passed for a Maricopa.

"How in the world did you find me?" I asked, still amazed.

She nodded to the right. I saw the cow pony standing patiently, nibbling at some kind of thorny bush.

"Suzy nearly unseated me," she grinned. "She's spirited, and she didn't like it a bit when she saw you sprawled in the trail-"

"Trail?"

"Of course! I've been following this trail for miles, trying to figure out who had made it. Two men and a woman. The dog's pads told me it had to be the Collins'. But who was the woman? "

I took another swig from the canteen.

"The woman is Geri Lopez," I explained. "I'm her guide, and I'm afraid she's in big trouble with the Collins'."

"That figures," she said. "I'm in trouble, too. They're stealing my sheep."

I got to my feet. The terrain turned in rubber again, then it quieted down. I grinned at her.

"Thanks for saving my life, Jane!"

"Don't mention it!" she quipped. "But just where do you think you 're going? "

"After them," I said. "I've got to-for Geri."

"You have a point. But at the moment you wouldn't last two miles."

"I feel much better."

"I dare you to walk a dozen steps without weaving.

That would be easy. I started counting. The darned sand just wouldn't lie still under my feet.

"See what I mean?" she asked, with a tight smile. "I've lived here all of my life. I've been bitten twice by a rattler. You don' recover overnight. On top of that, you've had a bad thump on the head. Not to mention that fact that you're starved for good nourishing food."

"But Jane, this woman-"

"I know. I won't kid you, either. I would hate to be Geri Lopez. But it changes nothing!"

Good, practical girl, this Jane Trovillion. A single glance at the determined young face told me that. Still in her twenties, but determined-and efficient.

Of course she would be practical and determined! This was hard land. The sissies, the suckers, didn't make it.

"Suzy can carry both of us," she said tightly. "Think you can swing up? "

There was no use arguing. She was so correct in her judgment, I didn't offer a single objection. She swung up to the saddle first. Her agility told me that she knew all there was to know about a horse. I got my foot in one stirrup, with her aid swung up behind her. Brother, that took energy.

She tugged at the reins, and the cow pony headed West at a slow easy trot that featherbedded the ride.

"Where are we headed?" I asked at last.

"We're herding to a new range," she explained. "Shortage of water. Right now we've got about three thousand woolies on Pinto Creek. There's still a bit of feed and water there. The Mex herders can take care of the flock, while I deposit you at the line shack for some needed rest."

I didn't argue. That cow pony knew its business better than some humans. Jane half-turned in the saddle, grinned at me.

"Feeling any better?"

"A lot better."

There was a question in her eyes. "Whatever in the wide world sent you to the canyon, then the Collins' shack?"

I told her, in snatches, as the pony picked its way over the desert. I even told her about the lost airplane, and Geri Lopez' compulsion to come back here to locate the old Indian couple with whom she had left the baby. I didn't, however, tell her that the baby had been kidnapped.

"Now that's about the strangest story I've heard in many a moon," she said. "And I've heard some good ones. Every prospector who works this desert has a dozen pet yarns up his sleeve."

"This isn't a yarn," I persisted. "It happens to be the truth."

"I'm not doubting you," she said. "I remember the plane crash. The radio was full of it, all the area newspapers gave it a big play."

"If Geri Lopez can sell the Collins' on the fact that she knows something about the crash that might lead them to the boodle, it could save her life."

She nodded. "Don't discount the brothers Collins," she said. "I wouldn't face them, day or night, unless I had a rifle pointed at them."

"But you were headed there."

"They stole some of my sheep," she insisted. "I'm a better shot than either of them, and they know it."

Rather remarkable girl, this Jane Trovillion. Riding back of her, I realized she sat tall in the saddle. She had long, slim legs as well; that told me she was nearly as tall as me. Nice, capable shoulders too. When she half-turned in the saddle, there was a very apparent jiggle, an obvious sign that she had plenty of femininity to augment her other capabilities.

"Just where is Cougar Canyon?" she asked at last.

"I'd say fifty-odd miles to the East of here."

"Television, you say?"

Don't put an aura about my head, I say to myself. It's a stinkin' competitive rat-race without one fleck of glamor.

The terrain changed, we worked down into a draw. She pulled up the pony in the shade of a ledge, to give it a breathing spell.

"I've been thinking," she said tightly. "And my thoughts aren't good."

"Geri Lopez?"

She nodded. "She really has two stories up her sleeve, used the airplane dodge to conceal the real reason for her visit to the canyon."

"That's right."

"I know the Collins brothers. They might look like desert hermits, but they're sharp. And I'm wondering what will happen to the Lopez woman when they find they've been on a wild goose chase."

I was thinking the same thing, and it wasn't a pleasant thought.

"Zach Collins will figure out finally that they've been the victims of a lie. Then they'll put on the heat to find out the real truth-the real reason she was in the Pothole country."

"They wouldn't-"

"What makes you think that they won't?"

I shrugged. "They might be heels, small time crooks; but surely they wouldn't physically harm a woman."

A hardness crept into her eyes. She half-turned on the saddle. The top button of her shirt was open. She unbuttoned the next button as well and pulled back the shirt just far enough to expose about three inches of golden flesh. There was nothing immodest about it. Her breasts were low on her rib cage. She wasn't even showing me a suggestion of cleavage.

But I saw something else. A scar ran from her throat down across her chest, presumably to her left breast. It could have been the mark of a knife blade, or the vicious swipe of a man's nails.

"I got careless on the range one night," she said tightly. "Zack caught me asleep. Luckily I had 'Poleon, one of the sheep dogs-"

"You mean he attacked you, while you slept?"

"Let's just say that they take what they want."

I suddenly thought of what Nan Goodwin had said, how they had ravished some of the Maricopa girls. Very earthy studs, the Collins brothers!

I turned to her, and I suppose she saw the anxiety filming my eyes.

"Jane, that's why I've got to go help her, right now!"

Her eyes searched mine. "Be reasonable. You're only a shadow of your usual self. Admit that. Even if I loaned you a rifle, you couldn't make it. You're not following two goonybirds. They're desert foxes, they know every trick in the book."

"I still have a duty to perform!"

"Yes, you have!" she admitted. "I like your attitude. If I were Geri Lopez, I'd like it even better. But even so-"

"You can't talk me out of it, Jane!" I said doggedly.

Her smile was tight. "I know I can't. And I won't try. Something else will do it for me."

That sounded enigmatic, and I suppose I showed it in my stars.

"Look out there!" she said, nodding her head to the Northwest. "What do you see?"

"Desert."

"What do you see in the sky?"

"Merely a cloud bank. It could even be a rain cloud, and that would be to my advantage."

"It isn't a rain cloud," she said firmly.

I couldn't argue with her over a point of weather; she lived here. Obviously she knew the vagaries of the local weather much better than I did.

"We had a sheep herder last year who originally came up from the lower Louisiana country," she explained. "A cajon. When he saw a cloud like this, he called it a chubasco. "

"What is a chubasco?"

"A lot of wind, a great deal of wind. We don't call it a chubasco here on the desert, but a fantail."

"Okay, so we're in for some wind and dust."

Her smile was patient. "Steve, about fifteen miles deeper in the badlands is an area of eroded pipes called chalk cliffs by the natives for want of a better name."

Chalk cliffs!

The very mention of the name rang a bell deep in my mind. But at the moment I could not bring it into focus.

"This wind starts in these organ-pipe cliffs," she went on. "The erosion there is terrific. The cliffs themselves are rotten and cored. The wind picks up tons of this white, chalky dust which is heavy with some kind of alkali. It roars down from the potholes, and when it does you'd better hunt cover."

I looked at her young face. She wasn't kidding; neither was she trying to dramatize a situation for my benefit. She wasn't that kind of person, I was positive of that.

"What about the sheep? " I asked.

"Sheep have an instinctive sense of survival," she explained. "I'll venture to say that even now the flock is headed pell-mell for a gorge that is part of the Pinto Creek range, where there'll be some protection. "

I had seen desert dust storms before. They were nothing to laugh at. This might be even worse.

"Why don't you ask where you and I will seek cover?" she asked.

"It's a good question."

"There's an old line-shack, just a hovel, further up this draw. And there's a lean-to large enough for Suzy."

We were facing a problem, of that I was quite well aware. Still I had another problem equally as important. Geri Lopez.

Jane shook her head, her smile tight. She seemed instinctively to sense what I was thinking.

"Don't torture yourself, Steve!" she said. "You wouldn't make it out in the open."

"How long do these storms usually last?"

She shrugged. "Three or four hours, six at the most."

"In six hours-"

"I know. But there is nothing you can do about it."

I nodded in defeat. I never did accept the fact that a man can turn into a hero simply by pressing a button. Heroes usually are the product of some TV dramatist, or fantasy writer. But I couldn't get Geri Lopez out of my mind.

She spoke to the pony and we got into motion, heading up the draw.

My gaze centered on the cloud. It didn't look very dangerous, as clouds go. But it did have a sort of puff-ball appearance and that meant wind.

We got the first touch of it within minutes. The pony didn't like it, kept tossing its head.

Up ahead huge monolith shafts pushed upward from the desert floor, grim sentinels that surely had guided wagon trains in the grim past. I saw the sheep camp presently, near one of these grotesque-looking rocks. A weathered hovel was built against the wall, and a chuck wagon stood nearby.

We pulled up, and suddenly she was shouting orders to an aged Mexican.

"Take the team and the dogs into the gorge, Juan," she bid, pointing to the sky.

"Si, senorita!"

The herder seemed to pay no attention to the fact that I was a newcomer. There was urgency in his step. I saw the small Indian fence corral then, and two work horses inside. Already the aged Mexican had a rope on the horses, was leading them out. Dogs were barking.

"Herd Suzy into the lean-to!" Jane said to me. "I'll need your help lacing down the canvas on the wagon."

"Yes, boss!"

She grinned, and I liked it. I had sudden thought: what a capable wife she would be for someone.

For Ben? Well, we'd see. Right now, first things first.

The cow pony seemed to realize that the lean-to was the best place in the world at the moment. I slipped off the bridle and saddle, got back to the wagon to help her lace down the canvas. She handed me a corrugated box filled with assorted packages, tugged at a wooden water cask that no doubt held water.

"Inside!" she bid, "Or you'll be picking sand out of your eyes for a week!"

She knew the fury of that approaching cloud. Now it comes on, a solid front, something like a breaker at sea. Before it the desert was calm. But the wave itself was a rolling mass of air, dust-laden, pushing over the sand like a giant rotary boom.

Then it struck, and the shack quivered under the impact. In the lean-to, the cow pony whistled its protest.

"See what I mean?" Jane said. It was unbelievable. But I was a witness to it, and that made the truth even more vivid. One mo merit the sun shone; the next there was a half-light, visibility dimmed to zero. The door raided, the window shook.

There was an old cook stove, and Jane motioned to it. "Stir up the fire, add some greasewood and we'll get chow going before we find ourselves eating grit."

I had a sudden feeling of claustrophobia, as if the tiny room were walled by an immense sea, dark and impenetrable, closing in upon us. Jane at the stove seemed a lone figure in the dim void.

Then I thought of something else. Out there, somewhere in this raging dust storm, was Geri Lopez.

Jane grinned tightly. "If you're thinking of the woman, forget it. If she's in the canyon, she'll be safer than we are."

"How did you know I was thinking of her?"

She shrugged. "You have a very readable face."

That was news. But she had a point, come to think of it. I never did win at poker, for one thing.

We ate bacon and eggs, washed it down with black coffee. It wasn't a banquet at the Conrad Hilton, but it was good nourishing food. I ate like the proverbial horse. I knew it, and my only alibi was physical need.

The meal over, she approached me with a wry smile on her face.

"Let doctor examine die wound."

Her fingers probed at the welt on my skull very efficient fingers, long, graceful, strong. She was very close. I encircled her waist with my arms, pulled her down to my lap, and kissed her on the lips.

She didn't try to break away; neither did she respond to the kiss. She merely looked at me. I decided her eyes were green, flecked with gray.

"Why did you do that?"

I countered with an evasive: "Did you mind?" I m not sure.

"I have no excuse to offer," I said, "outside the fact that I had a compulsion to kiss you, and I simply followed through."

"What prompted the kiss in the first place-some action of mine?"

"No. You're a very attractive girl, for one thing."

Her smile was tight. "Now you're going to tell me that it was a mood. Two of us alone in this shack, the storm raging outside-"

"You don't like moods?"

"I didn't say that."

I let my fingers caress her face. "Know something? I do like moods."

"Enough to kiss me?" j I pulled back, searched her eyes. "Perhaps it was more than a mood, Jane."

"Now you're trying to be evasive," she said at last.

Then she did a very wonderful thing. She bent her head and kissed me. It was a warm, womanly kiss of promise.

"Now I've taken the initiative," she said. "Call me a tramp."

I pulled her closer, rubbing my hand up her back, into the edge of her hair, feeling the softness of her.

"Honey," I said softly, "you could never be a tramp. You've got the wrong label."

She gave me another little peck of a kiss. "That was sweet, Steve."

I cuddled her head against my shoulder. "Why don't we talk about you? "

"About me?" She laughed, but I imagined that there was a tinge of bitterness in. it. "Why me, Steve?"

"Oh, I don't know. Somehow you intrigue me. The mere fact that a girl like you is out here on the desert, husbanding a flock of sheep-"

"I'll make it more factual-more brutal," she said. "I'll take the glamor out of it, the romance, and paint it as it is."

She pulled herself up so she could look into my eyes. "My grandfather came out here in a covered wagon," she said. "He found this valley on the Pinto and homesteaded it. He died, giving the ranch to my father. He died, giving it to me. Each of them added his sweat and tears and dreams-very futile, I would say. Now they're gone, and I'm the next in line."

"Rather romantic-"

"Is it, Steve? Have you ever lived on a sheep ranch, an isolated spread such as this? Do you know what it means? I haven't found any romance."

"You're an attractive girl, and dreams come true for all of us sooner or later."

"Do they?" Her young face was sober now. "I thought a dream was coming true. He was a poor boy, just like me. We fell in love. He went to Korea, and he didn't come back."

The loneliness was there in her voice. There was something else, too-physical need. She was a human being. The frustration was there in her voice. Her only associates were Mexican sheep herders, and a barren desert.

She was a young girl, healthy, demanding. Right at the moment she was in my arms, wondering if a mere kiss put a label on her.

Outside the storm continued. The light was entirely gone now and she was a vague profle, inches from my face.

Call it mood, whatever you will. I call it, simply need-one person for another.

I pulled her tighter and kissed her hard. The kiss held. At first she was lax. Then I felt her arms tighten about my shoulders. And in seconds, a complete physical metamorphasis took place, from lax to compulsive response.

I knew something then. And knowing it was in itself a thrill. She needed me. She was afraid she would be called a tramp, but the need was there nonetheless.

"Honey," I said at last, "don't hold back "

"Steve, I've never loved a man-like this."

"There is always a first time."

"Yes, I suppose there is."

Her lips were back on mine. I felt her tongue, exploring. When I met its challenge with my own, her body quivered and her hands dug into my back in a gesture that verged on the sadistic.

There was a bunk of sorts built against one wall. I picked her up bodily and carried her there. Her arms still encircled my neck.

"Steve, I'm frightened," she whispered.

"What are you frightened of?"

"Me!" she said.

That one word told me a vivid truth that was thrilling. The same old word again: need.

Her hands worked upward to the back of my head. She pulled my face down, fingers caressing.

Suddenly the shirt was open, I felt the soft warmness of her. She wasn't heavy-breasted like Geri.

Her breasts were quite small, but very pointed. It was too dark to see the scar, but I knew it was there. And that brought into focus the Collins', and what I must do sooner or later.

I touched her with my lips, her hands tightened and pulled my face closer.

I kissed her, felt the tautness grow with each caress. Her nipples were rock hard now and I teased them with my teeth, nibbling just hard enough to make it felt.

The fire burned high in her, and I fanned it even higher. A moan started in her throat, she arched upward as if to drive herself deeper into my mouth cavity. Her heart was hammering wildly, in cadence with the wildness of the storm outside.

Finally she pushed back, her eyes staring at me in the gloom."

"Steve, don't you understand?"

"I understand-"

"No, no! I'm a virgin, Steve!"

It was rather a surprising statement, but I didn't question its veracity.

"THEN I feel honored, Jane."

"It isn't that. I-I'm afraid-"

"What are you afraid of, Jane? The actual physical union?"

"I-I suppose that's it."

"Jane, it's a very wonderful experience."

"But afterward-tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow will be a wonderful day, Jane, with the memory of a moment so dominating it will forever be part of your secret thoughts."

"Steve, you make it sound so-so proper!"

"Let's just say, so necessary."

She thought that over. I was caressing her and the desire was there, hot under my hand.

"Is it necessary, Steve?"

"You answer that, honey."

She pulled my head down and suddenly her lips were smashing into mine, her tongue lashing out with a fury that equalled the storm.

Words were unnecessary. Perhaps the storm itself gave us the impetus to satiate the desire that lashed us. It seemed very necessary now.

"Steve, I'm still frightened," she whispered.

"You be the protagonist, Jane."

"I couldn't."

I pulled her down, waited. The fear was there, as I knew only too well. But the desire won.

She arched downward and we were together. I knew by the grip of her hands that the pain was real, but insignificant by comparison with the ecstasy that followed.

I loved her and she returned each caress with one of her own, even more violent. Outside the storm beat with increased fury. In the lean-to the cow pony bugled in fear.

But there was no fear in my heart, just compassion for this girl.

At last it was over and we drifted off to sleep, tight in each other's arms, oblivious to anything but our own exhaustion.

We awoke, and it started all over again.

I realized dully that the storm was still a part of the mad night.

CHAPTER SIX

SOMEHOW A GUN GIVES A MAN stature. At least this gun gave me quite a bit of stature and security as I climbed down from the rim to the canyon floor. It was an old-style repeating Winchester which Jane assured me had been in the Trovillion family since the turn of the century. The gun was aged, but it was efficient. I had plenty of shells, too. At first it had seemed foolish, borrowing the gun. But practical Jane changed that.

"Don't forget," she cautioned, "you're hunting desert foxes."

It was a bit awkward, leaving her. She had saved my life; we had been intimate in a most unusual way. During a single night of storm we had confided a great many secrets and-fears. It all added up to one remarkable girl.

"I'll bring back the gun," I assured her. "Give me ten days."

"I'm not worrying about the gun," she said. "I'm merely wondering how good a fox hunter you are."

I didn't tell her that in Korea I had been quite a good fox hunter-red foxes. Perhaps this was a bit different, hunting them on the desert.

Before I left, she was tight in my arms. A man can learn to care for a girl like this in a hurry. But I still believe in monogamy, and Nan Goodwin already had moved in, a fact that Jane knew. She was an honest girl, and I tried to be honest with her.

"Don't forget that dream!" I told her, over a last kiss. "Don't ever forget it!"

There was a wistfulness about her smile that was hard to interpret.

"You need a vacation," I grinned at her, "When this is over I'm coming back and we'll do the town. I mean it."

"I'd like that, Steve!" Her eyes were bright now. She watched me go, from the doorway of the line shack.

The Potholes. I wondered who had ever named the area. Pretty good name, too. And down there, somewhere, death awaited.

"Don't forget, you're hunting foxes," Jane had cautioned. It wasn't an idle admonition, just to make talk. She had tangled with them; she knew. She even had a scar to back it up.

I pulled up, hugging the shadows of a shelf, wondering just where those two human foxes might be hiding. And wondering, too, whether the woman with them was still on her feet.

"Yes, she's on her feet," I reassured myself. "Geri Lopez is no fool. She'll outwit them some way, if it is humanly possible. She'll not divulge all the things she knows, just enough to keep them interested. She'd play for time, hoping I can get to her in some way."

That was one line of thought. But there was some negative thinking as well. We'd been asleep there on the desert when the attack came. She awakened first, hearing the snarl of the dog. I raised up on one elbow and the club came down with a vengeance. She had seen it, I was positive of that, for my last recollection was her scream of terror.

Okay, she saw the act. She saw me crumple over, unconscious. Perhaps she thought I was dead. There could be no more help from me. She was their prisoner, strictly on her own. Then what could she do under these circumstances?

That was a big question. Most women would panic, grow depressed and melancholy as hope fled. But Geri Lopez was different. She had a lot of stamina, both physical and mental. I knew for a fact that she had kept pace with me that first day in the Potholes, under the boiling noon-day sun.

Even that time she was a prisoner in the Collins' cabin, subjected to the taunting knife, stripped to the waist, an ogling sadistic goon sitting in front of her staring at her provocative mammaries, she had somehow managed to kept her sanity and strength.

After the escape, when we had been intimate on the desert, she was as sexually vigorous as any woman could be. Her strength and stamina seemed unlimited. I hoped I was right, she would need every ounce of strength she possessed to come out of this alive.

Now another question confronted me: which direction? Would she lead them deeper into the Potholes or try to head back for civilization?

Toss a coin?

No, I wasn't so vague as that. I sat there in the shade of the ledge, thinking it out from all angles.

There could be only one answer, I assured myself at last. She would take me into calculation in her thinking, just as I was doing to her at the moment.

The end of her journey was West, where the Potholes thinned out in a broad tableland. Here was where the Maricopas originally lived. Here was where they left the baby, years ago, in their mad flight from the law after the kidnapping in California.

Would a woman remember the terrain, the exact flight path, after all these years?

That was another question. But I believed the answer was positive. A man, running, has something indeliably etched on his brain. This woman had been running. I didn't think she would forget a single moment of that mad chase.

So I headed away from the boulder, moved deeper into the canyon.

This was a game now. I realized that they would take no chances. They were not above murder.

Then another question shouted for answer: d they were not above murder, why didn't they complete the job once they clubbed me?

I believe I had an answer to that, too. Even the potential murderer doesn't kill if he can stop his victim short of death. This might have been Zack Collins' thinking when he clubbed me on the desert and forced Geri to accompany him. Geri at the time was nude. Perhaps even this was a factor in my survival.

There was one other important factor: they would not know about Jane Trovillion. They wouldn't know that during the storm I had been safe in the line shack Although the storm no doubt never touched the floor of the canyon, they knew it raged on the flat desert above. They had lived in the shack for long years, observing. They knew all about dust storms. They would assume that in my weakned condition, after the blow on the head, I would almost certainly fall victim of the storm.

So they wouldn't be watching the back trail too carefully. Perhaps they wouldn't be watching it at all, intent only on getting to that distant mesa to see whether Geri Lopez' story-whatever it was-could be true.

Just what had she revealed to them? That she knew something about a forced-down airplane that no one else knew? Perhaps. I didn't think she had revealed the kidnapping to them. It would have no purpose-or would it?

"But what will she do when she gets to the site of the old Maricopa village?" I asked myself. "That's trail's end, the jumping-off place. There will be no airplane. They'll know she was lying. What will she do then?"

There was only one answer to that: she was depending upon me. Somewhere inside her cunning head she was hoping that I would survive, follow them, turn the tables before she was backed into a corner. I had survived the rattlesnake bite. Perhaps that gave me a sort of infallibility. That had to be her thinking.

I pushed ahead,, keeping under cover as much as I could. I had the binoculars, and I kept combing the distant cliffs, the narrow trail between the monolithic barriers.

They were foxes. I didn't want to forget that. Either one of them, holed up in a crag, could gun me down with a rifle at long range.

Time, the blazing sun, two desert foxes. That was the problem, shorn of all its trimmings. Up ahead somewhere was a woman who had been a kidnapper. There should be no sympathy expended on such a person, some tiny voice of conscience reminded me. But somehow I disagreed. She was a very human person today.

She was trying to atone. This alone told me that she had suffered, down through the years.

The terrain changed now. I noticed it first in the color of the walls. The black basalt was gone. The cliffs were just as high and rugged, but the basalt had changed into granite.

I checked my watch. Already past noon. And still not a sign, not a footstep. In a canyon of this kind, the walls themselves are a giant sounding box. The fall of a rock, miles off, is amplified to startling volume. The crunch of a foot in gravel is heard over great distances. The bark of a dog, the sound of a human voice, all bounce off the canyon walls in a confusion of echoes.

I pulled up now, listening. Not a sound. Just that ominous silence, and the sun mercilessly beating down.

Finally I came to a spot where the walls pulled in sharply, a natural wedge. The trail between was a narrow footpath, not wide enough for a wagon to slip through. At the wedge it was ankle deep in sand and shale, blown there by erosion of the wall itself.

I approached the spot with care, for it was a natural ambush. I got down on hands and knees and checked the sand.

There wasn't a footprint of man, woman or dog.

There was no way they could have detoured this spot. The walls were almost perpendicular on either side. Even a mountain goat couldn't have scaled them, let alone three humans, one of them a woman.

Squatting there, wiping my perspiring brow, I came to one conclusion.

They hadn't passed this spot. There could be no doubt. Here the white sand lay unmarked, positive proof.

It had lain there for ages, perhaps. The only indentation in it was the tiny zigzagging print made by a crawling snake.

I shuddered, thinking of the rattler. Instinctively my fingers caressed my arm, where the soreness still was there from the fangs.

A rattler had passed through this wedge since the last windstorm, but no human.

Thinking of that, I suddenly was gripped by a new fear. They had not come this way, after all. Geri Lopez had led them on some other trail! Why?

I squatted there, trying to think objectively. But terror still gripped me.

"She thought you were dead," my little green leprechaum persisted. "She thought you were dead, so her one tiny chance at survival was to head up the canyon, back toward Arroyo Seco. If she could get them back to civilization, she might have a chance.

That had to be it.

Maybe I should have tossed a coin. Old Lady Luck might have been far more accurate than my own thinking.

Time! I had spent the greater part of the morning pushing in deeper. And I had been wrong. Wasted time. Retrace your steps, fellow! Long, wasted hours.

The tension built up as I started on the back trail.

"They're desert foxes," Jane had cautioned. "Remember that!"

Not only were they foxes, but Geri Lopez also was a fox, fighting for her life. I was a man trying to outthink all tree of them.

Suddenly the futility of it all rose up, a natural barrier as forbidding as the granite shafts of the canyon.

"Fool!" the walls kept saying. "Fool, trying to pit your wits against something bigger than you are!"

Back at the sheep camp I had told Jane Trovillion never to abandon her dream, even in her loneliness. My own words were being handed back to me now.

There, up ahead, was the ledge where we had camped, where the rattler had struck. And on the far wall was the trail that Geri had climbed, in search of help. Instead, she had walked into a rat trap.

Then I thought of something else. Further up the canyon, I had made a cache of her bra and panties.

My step quickened. Don't ask me why. Perhaps some futile hope, a slim chance that she had left some message in passing. I was winded when I reached the spot at a dog trot.

"You're growing careless," my conscience challenged. "Better slow down and check the trail ahead, before you walk into a spitting gun barrel."

It was a chilling thought.

There was the cache, just as we had left it. I was positive that no one lurked in the rocks before I climbed up on the exposed shelf. I was equally careful at the cache itself. It just might be large enough to house a rattler.

Gingerly I poked at the rocks with the tip of the rifle barrel, until I was certain that no snake lurked inside.

A rattler in a woman's bra? The very thought brought a grim chuckle to my lips. Ben should have been with me at this moment.

"I've heard of human rattlers in their bras," he would have quipped. "But not the crawling kind."

I retrieved the wispy garments and stuffed them into my pack bag. Just lifting that lacy bra brought back the memory of Geri herself, standing there in the trail, teasing me as she got out of the garment in one of those swift movements that gave me a glimpse of her glorious breasts.

I proceeded now with more caution, hugging the ledges and every bit of cover. I looked for tracks, but the bedrock was swept clean by the wind. Even an Apache would have had trouble tracking his quarry here.

Far ahead there was a flash of light. Just a stab of brightness. Then it was gone.

Imagination? I hunkered there, squinting into the bright glare, wondering whether it was an' illusion or the real thing. Sunlight, reflecting from any bright object, might do it. A woman's vanity might do it. Anything that caught the dazzling light of the sun would reflect the light for a long, long distance.

Was it a clever signal from Geri? Or had my eyes imagined it?

I proceeded with utmost caution now, eyes scaling the cliffs ahead for any spot where a man with a rifle might be hidden to cover the back trail.

The walls frowned down-rotten walls, I realized; the shale piles told me that.

This was something like Korea. Advance, reconnoiter. Repeat the procedure, hoping an enemy sniper didn't outwit you as you gained a few precious feet of ground.

There were two snipers up ahead somewhere, and a woman in a lot of trouble. Two to one, plus a vicious dog. The odds didn't appeal to me.

Days ago we had" covered this same trail, Geri and me. More at ease then. I was in the lead, and she was right behind me. Every time I turned to check on her, I was amazed by her stamina. She was nearing forty, but she had the strength of an ox. Not only strength, but feminine allure. I could still envision the jiggle after she had shed the bra-elongated breasts and muscles so taut there was no sag.

And after the rescue from the cabin, when we had holed-up on the desert, she had been a fireball in my arms, tempestuous and demanding.

Something moved up ahead.

I pulled up the rifle, and again I was in Korea.

I had the same state of mind. These two men up ahead were enemies of our society. I wouldn't hesitate one instance to pull the trigger. If I killed one, or even both of them, I was confident that I would go free under a plea of justifiable homicide. Any jury, knowing the facts, would free me.

There was a huge, rectangular boulder in the trail ahead. It was the size of a six-wheel truck, lay there as if some giant had tossed it from the wall above, partially blocking the canyon bed. Now with the sun high in the southern sky, the boulder cast its shadow into the sandy patch at its base that was the trail.

Something moved here.

I waited, flat on my stomach, poked cautiously around a shale heap.

If it was one of the brothers, he had grown a bit careless. He had cover, of course; but at the moment he was wide open from my vantage point. I poked up the rifle, and wormed higher on the shale bank.

"Good God!" I said. Suddenly I was gripping the rifle barrel, like a drowning man grasping a stick.

I was looking at Geri Lopez.

She lay there in the shadow of the boulder.

She was stark naked.

She was gagged and her hands were behind her back, evidently bound in a hitch, ankles to wrists. She lay there, facing me.

It was unbelievable. The gross cruelty of it was past human thinking. They had trussed her up here after stripping off her clothes, a victim to the sun and to anything that crawled or walked.

Why?

Of course they had first raped her. Satiated no doubt, needing her no longer, they had left her to die.

But that in itself meant something else as well. Evidently she told them that the airplane story was a farce-or they had forced the truth from her. Perhaps, after some torture only they could dream up, she had told them the real reason she was here.

In any event she no longer was of use to them. Thus was a way of payment.

But it could mean something else, as well. It could mean that they were coming back for her. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed logical. She was a beautiful woman, far above the usual type of sex these men might obtain. Her physical voluptuousness was too great for them to use once and abandon. Perhaps they were coming back.

Then she must be alive.

At this distance I couldn't tell. She lay there, facing me, on her side. I couldn't see whether her eyes were open. Her body was motionless.

I lay there, checking the terrain. Even the shale pile behind which I had taken refuge presented its own danger. I gazed up at the rotten wall. Even the recod of a gun might send it crashing down. It had happened before.

I wormed over the shale pile like a giant centipede, an inch at a time. I was watching her face. There was no motion of her body.

Yes there was, too! She saw me. Her eyes were open, staring at me. She was trying to tell me something. Or it was renewed hope I read there. I crawled closer, watching her. She moved her body slightly, as far as her bounds would allow.

I was positive now that she was trying to say something. But the gag in her mouth prohibited that.

She did emit a sound-a low, inarticulate gurgle.

Her eyes were on me, she was trying so hard to tell me something. But what?

I gave one last look at the rotten wall ahead, then I got up and sprinted to her side. In one savage movement, I tore the gag out of her mouth.

It took perhaps three seconds.

I started to scoop her up in my arms, saw that they had driven a peg into a crevice back of her and tied her to it, Indian-fashion.

She was trying to talk, her words thick and in coherent from the swelling induced by the gag.

But she made me understand. "Steve, run! He's-in-the-rocks with-rifle-" She was a decoy. Desert fashion, just as Jane had warned.

I gave one wild look at the opposite wall, trying to find him, then flung myself flat at her side.

Even so I was a target-and she was a target. I was fully aware of that. But there was no alternative at the moment.

I pushed up the rifle, dug frantically for my knife, if I could cut her loose, we could roll to the protection of the boulder's lower corner.

"Whang!"

I heard the crack of the rifle, even as my knife slid forward toward her wrists. He was in some soft of a hole in the opposite wall slightly above us, possibly fifty yards away.

The bullet whistled off the boulder just an inch above my head.

"I can shoot better than they can," Jane Trovillion had said. I hoped that she wasn't exaggerating.

"Steve, run-please-" Geri entreated.

I sliced with the knife at the tough buckskin they had used.

He fired again. Geri made some inarticulate sound. Then the knife was through the thong, and I had her in my arms. We rolled and the bullets screamed off the rock, shattering gravel over us. "Steve-"

We were safe now. I pulled free, pushed up the rifle.

"Don't move!" I whispered. "I'm going through the crevice back of the boulder-"

She didn't answer.

I was on the far side of the big boulder now, crawling through a fissure that was deep and narrow. I prayed that some rattler wasn't holed up there in the shade.

I could see the opposite wall now. He might spot my head, but it would an awfully small target.

I had to lure him out of the hole.

How do you lure a fox out?

I triggered a shot at the spot I thought he might be. He didn't fall for the trick. Nothing moved; there were no more shots.

Then suddenly I got that gleam of light again, and smiled grimly. Evidently he had a rifle with a reflecting bit of metal on it which gave .away his position.

He was behind a rock outcropping at the base of the cliff. The ledge was a narrow shelf, about ten feet above the trail.

"You're not a very good shot," I said to myself. "That first try should have done the trick."

But getting him out into the open was another problem.

If I approached him in the open, it would be like shooting ducks in a cracker barrel.

I slammed two more shots at the rock shelf. Nothing happened.

We both had natural cover. This wasn't too good for me. He had help somewhere nearby. Plus the dog. If he couldn't smoke me out, no doubt his brother would come back to help him. Or they could send in the dog.

And there Was Geri back there in the sun, naked, exhausted, pinned down. They had hidden her clothes. She had to have clothes to protect her body from the burning sun. She had to have her boots to walk.

He slammed a shot in my direction, and it threw gravel into my face. I pulled back No doubt he had a better view than I did.

This was no good at all. Pot-shooting would soon run me out of ammunition, if nothing else. And a stray shot might do the trick.

I saw no way to smoke him out. He commanded the trail in three directions, and his elevation was also an advantage.

Behind the rock Geri moaned.

That spurred me into action.

Back in Korea, if we couldn't get them out of the caves we threw in a grenade, or slammed in a bazooka shell and buried them. Maybe I could bury him.

I looked at the wall towering above his hiding place. The cliff here was terraced, something like an Old World cathedral, spire upon spire.

I found myself looking at one needle-like spire, far above him. Erosion had worked here for centuries, eating away a bit at a time, a grain of sand, a bit of shale.

The needle was directly above him, up perhaps eighty feet. High, but not too high for a rifle shot. I needed a bazooka to do the job right. But the rifle had to serve.

I pushed back into the crevice so he couldn't see me. I sat back on my haunches and pushed up the rifle, aiming at the needle's most vulnerable spot.

Then I squeezed the trigger, not once, but kept squeezing it until the hammer clicked on an empty magazine. Little puffs of dust rose from the needle as the slugs screamed into the rotten shale, one by one.

It wasn't going to work.

There was a dust cloud, but the needle was still there.

Then it happened. Even as I looked, the spire seemed to disintegrate. It came down in a cloud of dust, gathering momentum as it crashed. And of course its weight and size increased as it tore loose the rotten shale in its path.

I sat there and watched it happen, an almost unbelievable sight. First it was just a rattle of rocks. Then the rattle turned into a roar.

He must have heard it before he actually saw what was happening. He came off the ledge, half-turned, eyes on the wall above.

Even at this late moment, he might have saved himself had he thrown his body either to the right or the left. But he stood there, transfixed in fascinaion, seeing his doom and doing nothing to stop it.

I heard his scream, choked off as tons of debris struck him and pressed him down.

I had no emotion whatsoever. It was like stepping on a spider or a scorpion. He had tried to kill me. He and his brother had raped Geri and left her to die.

I got to my feet, stood there and laughed. I am not a hysterical person usually. But I stood there, looking at that dust cloud mushrooming from the cliff base, the huge pile of shale slanting down from the wall, and I couldn't choke back the laugh.

There wasn't a jury in the land that would have convicted me of killing Zeke Collins. I didn't kill him, technically. I didn't even nick him with a bullet.

Mother Nature had killed him. If there was ever any poetic justice in a man's erasure from the landscape, this surely must be it. He wouldn't even need burial at the taxpayers' expense.

The dust sifted away, wafted away. Some day, in some distant century, an electronic giant might scoop up these rocks and find in them the skeleton of a human being. It would be of no consequence, surely.

I reloaded the rifle and crawled back through the crevice to Geri.

I scopped her up in my arms, with a glad little cry, and kissed her on the lips.

Her mouth was soft and warm, but there was very little response.

Suddenly I tasted blood-and fear built in me anew.

"Steve-" The word was choked.

I felt the blood on my hand now as I gripped her nude body, under the shoulder blades.

I eased her to the sand, rolled her onto her left side. The bullet had entered beneath her left shoulder blade, evidently slanted downward. It had not emerged.

"Oh, Geri-" I couldn't go on. I couldn't tell her. I merely sat there, holding her hand, looking at her pale face. There was a bloody froth on her lips, I bent and wiped it away.

"Perhaps-it's better-this way," she said weakly. "I've-never been-free-since that day-we took the baby-"

"Don't talk, honey," I cautioned, calmly as I could. "I'll get you back to Arroyo Seco in some way. I'll fly you into the city. You'll live, Geri."

"No, Steve," Her hand clutched me. "No. Steve please listen. There isn't much time-"

I sat there, her head on my lap, wiping away the blood.

"Steve, they made me-tell. They tortured me with hot sticks-until I couldn't stand it. Steve, they know who the-old Indian is-"

"Geri, don't worry-"

"You've got to hurry, Steve. The other one, and the dog-"

She was gone. I felt the sudden constriction of her muscles, then relaxation. I sat there and held her tightly, trying to reassure myself that it wasn't so.

She was still alive, had merely slipped into a coma. I stretched her out on the sand, bent my head. There was no heartbeat under those glorious breasts. I felt for her pulse. Nothing. She was gone.

I sat there, my eyes filming with tears. I saw the burns at last, on her breasts and abdomen. Bending over her, I cradled her face close to mine and talked to her, letting the anger burn itself through my body, inch by inch.

I looked up at last, at the towering shale pile that was his crypt. It seemed almost sacrilege that I must bury her so near this human wolf. But there was no alternative.

I hunted for her clothes, but I couldn't find them.

I was exhausted when the crypt finally was complete. I piled the rocks high so no maurading thing would ever get to her.

Picking up the rifle and packs, I strode off.

I pulled up at the big boulder, turned for a last look at that cairn of rocks near the wall. Suddenly I was thinking of something she had said, when we started in. When they had stolen the McNaughton baby, abandoning it at the Maricopa village, they had started through this same canyon to make their escape. But her alcoholic husband hadn't made it. She had buried him here. She had not intimated where the grave might be. Perhaps she didn't even know.

But now she was here, with him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THERE WAS A TREMBLE IN my fingers I couldn't at the moment control. I sat in the shade of a boulder and got a tiny greaswood fire going. I needed food and coffee. There was nausea in my stomach. All I could see was Geri's nude body, her magnificent breasts, and the little pin-pricks in their softness where she had been tortured with the point of a knife. There were burns, as well, and the bruises of clutching hands.

Thinking about it, the sadistic inhumanity of it, anger turned into a compulsive thing that shook me in its intensity.

The only ointment to the wound was the fact that one of them would no longer terrorize any women. He was beaten back into the dust from which he had sprung.

If only I could have found her clothes. Piling those rocks, against her bare flesh I was draining my coffee cup when I saw the dog. Or was it a wolf? Wolf or dog, it was the same animal that had bared its fangs to me that night in the desert.

It came down the canyon at a slow trot, sniffing the trail. Near the spot where the shale slide had buried Zeke it seemed momentarily confused. It ran back and forth, sniffing the ground, back-tracked, finally climbed partially up the shale pile.

"That damned wolf knows!" I said to myself.

I picked up the rifle. I am not a dog killer. In fact I love dogs. But this wasn't an ordinary dog. The more I looked at the animal the more I was convinced that it was a wolf. Why not? They were desert rats. Wouldn't it be plausible that they had killed a mother wolf, or trapped one, and taken one of her cubs to raise?

It had to be a wolf. It's long, rangy body, the thick neck, attested to that. It was a killer. I carefully raised the rifle, drew a bead on it so the bullet would strike just behind its front leg.

Even with my finger tightening on the trigger, something seemed to bid me wait.

I had to find Zack Collins.

Geri's last words were an entreaty to find Zack before he found the old Maricopa. Just what did she mean?

The dog-or the wolf-might lead me to Zack Collins. It would be easier to trail the animal than the man.

But if the beast smelled me-Keep your distance, some little voice cautioned.

The animal still paced up and down the shale pile. Once it dug its nose into a loose crevice, scratched in the shale with its front paws, finally withdrew.

I waited, repacking my gear.

Now the animal led off toward the head of the canyon. I took one last look at the cairn of rocks that enclosed Geri Lopez' body, and started after the animal.

Somehow I almost hoped the beast would turn down canyon and sniff out Geri's grave. It would have given me a good excuse to kill it.

Some day, I said solemnly, I would come back. I would mount a cross atop this cairn of rocks, and a marker: Geri Lopez Geri Lopez, Baby Snatcher? No, merely her name. Or Geri Lopez, Woman. She had been all of that-and more.

A strange neurosis seemed to grip me as I traded the animal. Perhaps it was fear, or a natural aftermath of the hectic action of the day.

Zack Collins was hot on a trail. And me on his trail.

"Why get so concerned about an old Indian?" I tried to rationalize. "Perhaps this old Maricopa is quite able to fend for himself."

But the fear persisted. It was augmented by the things I had seen.

The dog kept up a steady jog-trot up the canyon. It would stop to sniff at something occasionally, but always it resumed its pace, head low to the ground.

The fact that the dog was here in the canyon in itself was unusual. Why hadn't Zack kept it on leash?

"He has no further use of the animal," I rationalized. "He definitely knows where he is going, and what he is facing."

To save herself, Geri Lopez had revealed to them that she was looking for an old Maricopa with a mutilated hand. Had she also told them about the kidnapping? Evidently she had-at least to a degree. Once the idea was implanted in their minds, they had tortured the truth from her.

"Zack Collins knows who the old Indian is!" I said to myself. "He knows where he lives, and he has no further need of the dog tonight. So he sent it back into the canyon to contact Zeke."

The trail led on.

And the fear grew.

When at last the animal left the canyon floor, and started to climb toward the rim, I knew where Zack Collins would be.

The Maricopa farmers were out there on the tableland, atop the Salt Creek gorge.

They had their small ranches there, their sheep herds.

Nan Goodwin was there too.

Suddenly I was seeing Geri Lopez' nude form, the burns, the knife wounds-only the body was that of Nan.

I started the climb to the rim, fear eating at me.

I lost sight of the dog now, but knew that he was headed for the top.

When I crawled up to the rimrock at last, I evidently had gained on him. He had smelled me. He was facing me, not ten feet distant, fangs bared, growling deeply and challenging my progress. I knew one thing at that moment: I had to kill this vicious animal. But if possible with my gun as a club, so as not to risk the danger of a shot being heard.

On the open desert, a shot can be heard for miles. The Maricopa community was possibly a half mile distant, to the South. If Zack Collins had reached there, awaiting his time to contact the old Indian, I surely didn't wish to alert him to the fact that he was being followed.

"Too bad," I said to the snarling animal, "But you're trained to kill, that's all you know."

I stooped, picked up a rock and threw it at him. He didn't run. Instead, he sprang, leaping forward and upward in a burst of power that took him off the ground right at my throat. It caught me completely by surprise.

I didn't have time to swing. I merely threw up the rifle barrel to shield my body and face, and we went down. He was a big fellow, weighing well over a hundred pounds. The smell of him was a stench in my nostrils. Those fangs worked for my throat.

I kicked free, clubbed with the gun. He circled, just out of reach, then leaped again. I sidestepped this time and swung the gun hard. The barrel caught him across the back, he went down. Only to turn and charge again.

I got too close this time, felt his fangs nip my right forearm.

Hurriedly I backed away from him, realizing last a brutal truth: I'd never be able to club him to death without getting seriously hurt myself. It was like walking into a buzz saw.

He sprang again and I pulled up the rifle, almost touching his midriff with the end of the barrel. I squeezed the trigger and he seemed to stop in mid-air. The growl in his throat was broken off, and he crumpled. I waited, ready for a second shot. But it wasn't needed.

I was breathing hard, realizing that had I been un armed the brute would have killed me.

I looked at my arm. There was a trickle of blood from a tear in the flesh. Nothing to worry about, unless the brute had had rabies. I didn't think he did. He was merely a trained killer, and he was doing his job.

I poked at the carcass with the rifle barrel. The bullet had gone in behind his front leg and torn through his heart. He wasn't a dog, I was certain of that now. He was a prairie wolf.

That made me feel much better.

I headed toward the Maricopa community. Suddenly I had rubber legs, wondering what I would find there.

* * *

I could see Ben's face, incredulous. "Don't give me that, Steve. You sound like a cops and robbers movie!"

Perhaps I would sound even worse. But I had proof, when I took Ben down into the canyon. He might need a bulldozer to uncover Zeke Collins. But Geri Lopez' grave was right there, for all to see. And Jane Trovillion was back there on the sheep ranch near the rim. The Collins' shack was there, too.

And Nan Goodwin, living with her aged grandfather. Fear was constricting my breathing now. The desert again, the empty land, soft and mellow in the afterglow of dusk, but vicious and hard under the burning sun.

Suddenly there was a rustle of movement to my right. Sheep, restless at the approach of a stranger. I saw the chaparral-stick corral. Further to the left was a low 'dobe building, evidently a human dwelling.

I heard the scream even as I rounded the corral, walking slowly to keep the sheep from being frightened.

It was a woman's scream-or that of a girl. It had a tremor in it that was high terror.

I didn't knock. I pushed through the door, rifle at the ready, and pulled up perfectly still.

There was a kerosene wick lamp burning on a small kitchen table draped with a gay cloth. There was a wood-burning cook-stove, a wash basin, several chairs, all in my line of vision. And a door leading to a second room.

Nan Goodwin stood facing me near this door, held by a man's arm hard about her slim waist. The man was taller than she, I could see his bearded face and his lank black hair, above hers. He held her with one hand and the other had a knife, the blade at her throat.

"Drop the rifle-and don't move!" Zack Collins said.

He looked like Zeke, a few years older. He had the same sharp face, tall lean frame and sharp eyes.

I stood there, a graven image. I saw the terror in Nan's eyes as she stared at me. There was a pleading in them-perhaps a pleading not to do anything rash. The knife blade was at her jugular vein.

I saw something else in this mad tableau in a dimly-lighted room, the neat kitchen in this Maricopa home. A rude, tearing hand had ripped downward on her blouse, tearing it off her body. The garment hung by its sleeves. On the floor was a wisp of cloth that was her bra.

Nan's golden breasts were bare. I saw the blood-reddened scratch, starting at the hollow of her throat, where his nails had raked. And suddenly I was thinking of Jane Trovillion. His fingers had raked down with her, as well, and she would carry the scar to her grave. And only a sheep dog had saved her.

Maybe at the moment I was a sheep dog. But I couldn't move a muscle, with that wicked looking knife so near Nan's throat.

"Reckon you're that feller, Steve Hille," Collins said.

I didn't answer.

"Ye got a pretty hard head!" he said, and laughed raucously.

"I've got something else," I said, and grinned evily. His smirk deepened. "You got nothing'-"

I had to rationalize with something, to stop him. I said the first thing that came into my mind-anything to arrest him.

"I've got your brother Zeke, deep in the canyon," I said.

It wasn't entirely an untruth. Zeke was deep in the canyon, all right, would stay there forever. "You're lyin', Hille!"

I kept my voice calm. "You think so? You staked him out near the Lopez woman, Zack. Your wolf dog came down into the canyon, and it was easy to see the trap set for me-"

His eyes widened. He was thinking it over. "You're still lyin', Hille. If you tricked Zeke, you'd have the Lopez woman with you-"

I tried to shake loose from the terror that was causing a tremble in my hands. This was a battle of wits, and it meant death for the loser.

"The Lopez woman was too weak to make it," I said. "You know why, too. You and Zeke tortured her, starting back in the cabin. You stole her clothes and her boots."

He was thinking hard. He wasn't stupid, by any means. But one thing never changed: the knife at Nan's throat.

The terror in her eyes didn't lessen, either. I could see the hysteria that gripped her, the battle she was making. She was powerless to move. I couldn't take the chance at a move, either. He might be bluffing, and then again he might not. His chuckle grated at me.

"That was a lucky night for me an' Zeke, when that Lopez dame stumbled up to the shack. She was a cute one, she was. Lyin' all the time. Reckoned she had somethin' big in diet pretty head of hers, an' at last we got her talkin'."

"She might have talked because you tortured her, but she told you nothing, Zack!"

"Didn't she?"

I didn't answer. Suddenly I was wondering just how much he knew. Possibly I could bluff some more, at least get Nan a stay of execution, get that sharp knife lowered from her jugular.

"If I were you I wouldn't hurt Nan," I said slowly. "Because if you do, you're destroying your ace in the hole."

His grin widened.

"You ain't tellin' me nothin', Hille. She's that McNaughton baby, all growed up real pretty, nothin' will change that-"

"Better take the knife off her throat, then. For I'm coming after you, and she might get hurt. You can't put the knife in her throat, for if you do, she won't be worth a thin dime to you."

He was thinking that over, whether he liked it or not.

"Nan's real father has about forty oil wells, plus more money than you can count," I went on, building the picture. "If you play the cards right now, if we play the cards right-"

The knife never moved. But there was renewed greed in his eyes.

"You can't do this thing yourself, Zack," I said. "You're not big enough, for one thing.

"Zeke and me'll do it!"

I played my big card.

"Zeke isn't here any more. He's dead."

His eyes twitched, hardened.

"You're bluffin', Hille!"

"Zeke is dead. So's the wolf."

I moved my arm, pulled back the torn sleeve. He saw the wound, and the coagulated blood. He was really thinking now.

"Geri Lopez tried to work this deal, and didn't quite make it," I went on pressing my point. "She was a clever, big city gal, Collins. But she didn't make it. Do you think you can make it all alone from here to the time you pick up the ransom money?"

He never answered. But the knife was still there.

"Zeke tried to kill me," I said. "He was a poor shot, and his slug killed the woman. I buried her back in the canyon, near that big boulder where you staked her out. You can walk down with me and see for yourself."

"Zeke'll come in that door, any minute now!"

"Zeke will never come through that door, Zack. When he shot the Lopez woman, lying under that rotten wall, the shale let loose up above and come down on him, tons of it. It buried him, gun and all. I can prove that, too."

The lie didn't hurt too much, considering the circumstances.

His brow was furrowed in thought now. There were beads of sweat forming on his dirty skin. But still he held the girl-and the knife.

"The girl is worth a cool million," I taunted. "Think you can collect it alone, Zack?"

He had no answer.

I saw something else now, a dim movement in the shadows of the adjoining room. It was dark in this room, and I could see only a few feet beyond the doorway. But evidently someone-or something was on the floor there.

"Come on, Zack, make up your mind!"

"I'm the boss, Hille!" he said in anger. "Don't forget it!"

But even the anger in his voice had a new timbre to it-indecision, perhaps.

"McNaughton lives in lower California," I went on, baiting him. "He won't believe this tale unless he is approached by the right people, in the proper way. Do you have a smart criminal lawyer you can go to? I don't believe you have."

I'm waitin' for Zeke to come through that door!"

"Let's go down into the canyon," I insisted. "Then you can see for yourself."

I was still trying to peer into the inner room. Something had moved there, but it could have been a cat or a lamb. I've seen baby lambs inside an Indian home, pampered like human babies while too young to fend for themselves. A lamb is that valuable to an Indian.

I stretched forth my hands. "Give the girl your belt. She can tie my hands. You have the knife, and my gun is there on the floor. Then I'll prove it to you."

He liked that, I could see it in his eyes. But he still wasn't buying it. He pushed the girl a step nearer but the knife never moved from her bared throat.

Then one long leg cautiously snaked out and pushed the rifle nearer, so he could stoop and pick it up.

"You pick up the gun!" he told Nan. The knife, if anything, pressed harder. "Easy now, or you'll be spittin' blood."

He knelt with her. I was watching Nan's eyes. The terror was still in them. Perhaps she realized I was playing some sort of a game. She was trying valiantly to play along. But the knife was the boss.

"That's it," Collins said, as he clutched the rifle with the hand that still encircled Nan's waist. He pulled it up now, inch by inch, so the muzzle pointed at me.

He never lowered the knife. He was cautious, and he was playing it close to home base.

"All right, Hille," he said at last. "If you're lyin'-"

I stood there, shrugged. He still had me tied down.

Jane had been so right. These men were foxes, all right, in more ways than one.

I glanced again at the darkened room back of him. Perhaps I had been mistaken about movement there.

He nudged the girl with his knee, his eyes hard on me.

"Move your hands back," he bid, "and unbuckle my belt. An' don't try anything funny." I merely stared at him.

He still hadn't given me a chance to get the knife away from Nan's throat.

I saw her work her hands backward, toward his abdomen. It forced the torn blouse further off her breasts. She was just as gorgeous today as she had been that first day of our meeting, in that pool. But now I was looking at her loveliness with nothing but fear in my gaze.

The belt was off now, in her hands.

The rifle raised until the muzzle covered my forehead. He loosened his hand from her waist so he could cock the gun.

"You don't know that it's loaded," I said.

His grin was tight. "It's loaded. You come bargin' in with it, cocky as "a Spring colt. That tells me it's loaded, all right!"

I never answered, watching his gimlet eyes.

There was something in the darkness of the other room. I was positive of it as last. But so far it was nothing discernible, nothing to get excited over.

Slowly he lowered the knife from Nan's throat. There was a red line there, showing that it had been against her flesh. The rifle was rock steady.

"Now stick out your hands, Hille, wrists together. If you move, or try to grab the girl, you get it right between the eyes."

He had a point. You can't move under a gun held less than ten feet away, at least not under a rifle held by a man who knows how to use it.

And this gun was cocked. I had fired it several times since Jane gave it to me. It was hair-triggered, a falacy with some of these older Winchesters that cattlemen had worked over to their own likes. One move from me, one false move, and that was it.

No, I couldn't afford the move. For my own sake, and for Nan's. My time would come later. At least I hoped so.

"Easy now!" he warned. "If you want to die real sudden, now's the time!"

He pushed Nan slowly toward me, an inch at a time. He was at her back, with the cocked gun.

She stood there, eyes hard on mine, trying to read what she saw there I suppose. Perhaps she was talking to me with her eyes, if that was possible.

She held out her hands, extending the belt.

My arms were in front of me, wrists together, rock-steady.

The movement again. I was sweating. I was as weak as uninflated rubber. But I tried to hold my wrists still so he wouldn't see the tremble.

I smiled at Nan.

"Do as he says, honey. Tie my wrists good and tight. He's got the gun on me, and it's got a hair-trigger."

The belt was inches away now. Her hands were trembling. Her face was pale under the tan, her lips were tight. She was on the verge of cracking up, and if she cracked up now all would be lost. One false move from either of us, and that gun would spit lead.

.The belt came down on my wrists.

The movement evolved into a leaping figure-from the back room.

I dived into Nan, and we went down.

The rifle roared, and I felt the breath of a bullet past my right temple. But the breath of one, not the slug itself.

We heard the cry then. It was the beginning of a scream that died in the hideous, gasping gurgle of a human being choked on his own blood.

I rolled to one side, pulling Nan with me.

Zack Collins' body crashed to the floor face-down, the rifle flying free of his grasp. I saw the spear between his shoulder blades, buried deep. I couldn't believe it, but there it was. It looked like some old heirloom, perhaps a ceremonial weapon of bygone days when the Maricopas were warriors instead of ranchers.

And old Indian came into the room. His head was bloody and he lifted his right hand to brush away the blood from his eyes.

I saw the mutilated hand-the hand without a thumb.

There it was, all in a flash, the crazy zigsaw puzzle falling into place right before my eyes.

I pulled Nan to her feet. Her hands pressed hard, I felt the brush of her lips.

Then she was at the old Indian's side.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CAMP IN COUGAR CANYON seemed much the same, attesting to the good housekeeping of my sidekick. I had been gone for some time, and all of those hectic days there had been no chance to communicate with Ben.

It was rather a shabby trick to play on one's business associate. But in this particular instance, I had an alibi. In fact, I had a flock of assorted alibis.

Ben's station wagon was there. And beside it was a smart little foreign job, a bright red convertible that I hadn't seen before. Evidently we had a visitor, nothing unusual at a TV camp on location.

I barged into the trader which we used as a combination bedroom and office.

"Hi, there!" someone said.

It wasn't Ben Carazzo. She had a much more melodious voice, and she didn't have red hair.

She stood in the opened door of the bedroom, dressed in a yellow housecoat and a pair of sandals.

She was a chick who evidently was built solely for a photographer or an artist.

The face was nicely chiseled, with a straight nose, sultry mouth, and a smile that turned off and on quite easily. She was about five feet five, I judged. I couldn't see her legs, but she had nicely turned ankles. The housecoat seemed to be doing a thorough job, bulging at the proper places.

"Hi, yourself," I said, surprised. "Do I know you?"

She walked closer. "No. But I'm sure that you're Ben's long-absent partner, Steve Hille."

"Guilty," I admitted.

"I'm Rita Gonzales," she said, and held out a long-fingered hand. "Are you working for Ben?"

"In a way."

"What does that mean?"

"I'd rather that Ben told you." I got hold of her hand again, didn't relinquish it this time.

"What goes on between you and Ben?" She gave me a tight smile. "What usually goes on between any man and women?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm listening."

"It could be that I've fallen in love with Ben."

"Is that bad?"

"It isn't bad-for me."

I pulled her closer. "Let me be the first to congratulate you."

I got her into my arms before she quite realized my intention. I was very certain of that. I got my lips over hers and mashed hard.

But the kiss was decidedly one-way. She didn't respond. I did feel her breasts under the housecoat digging into my chest. They dug quite hard, so I knew she was well endowed in the dairy department.

She pulled back, grinned at me. "No, you don't!" she said. "I'm saving all of that for Ben. He's got an option on me."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Evidently she meant it. And if she did, I was glad-at least for Ben. I always like to test them when the occasion offers. This was an occasion. But evidently she meant just what she said.

The housecoat had gaped a bit, showing me some very interesting cleavage. Her hands pulled it tighter.

"For Ben," I said, wishing she had pulled the coat open instead of closed.

"For Ben." Her eyes were frank, and they didn't waver a bit. "Now we know where we stand, you and I."

I was laughing and I suppose it was contagious, for she started laughing as well. She had very pretty teeth.

"Honey, if anyone is entitled to a gal who actually loves him, and will love him for keeps, it's old redheaded Ben!"

I walked closer to her now, and she didn't back off.

"If that's the way it is between you two, I'm for it all the way!"

"It's that way," she said, "a regular brush fire." I believed she meant it, and looking at her I believed she was the type of a girl who could ignite a brush fire in a man's loins.

"Now let's sit down, and you tell me all about yourself," I suggested.

But we didn't sit down.

Ben barged in at this moment and slammed the door. He's a big guy, five feet eleven and one-hundred-ninety on the hoof, stripped. He is a redhead, but he wears his hair so short in a crew cut it isn't too noticeable until he gets in the sun. He's one of the few guys who has a double-take face: calm one moment, visibly excited the next. Right now he seemed justifiably disturbed.

"Where in hell have you been?" was "his explosive greeting.

I looked at his angry eyes and decided to agitate him further. If Rita was to share his life, she should know all phases of him. "Out!" I said.

"For two-bits I'd knock out that false tooth!" He meant it, too. And in a fistic encounter he just might do it. He was terrific with his fists.

"All right, give me the bad news."

"Bad news? Nine days! Do you realize that, Steve-nine days!"

"And nights."

"Yeah. And I'll bet you had some real Arabian nights!"

I glanced at Rita's sober face, winked. "You didn't do too badly yourself, old man!"

"You leave her out of this!"

I shook my head. "She looks like a pretty package to me."

He advanced a step. "She is not for you. Period. Understand? Don't even hold her hand. I know you!"

I walked over to him, poked a finger at his chest. "Calm down. She's already confided in me. I'm tickled pink."

He turned off the anger like someone pushing a light switch. A smile started deep in his eyes, and suddenly he was laughing.

"Okay!" he said. "But it was a shabby trick, going off on your own private Shangri-La with not even a buzz-"

"There were no telephones near, fellow!"

"Just a gal, eh?"

"Not only one-a total of three."

"Let's sit down and talk," he suggested. "You must have a lot to say."

I sat down with them. It took better than an hour, and all that time I saw the consternation building on his young face. Rita sat there, a stone Indian as far as emotion was concerned. But when I told them about Geri's death, I saw the tears limning her eyes.

"I'm in love with a million-dollar girl," I concluded.

"Is that bad?"

"Yes, it is. It frightens me. I wish she was simply Nan Goodwin, a Maricopa."

I glanced at Rita, and suddenly realized that I didn't even know why she was here.

"Brief me!" I said to Ben.

"When you met this Lopez woman in Lou Fink's Joshua Tree bar," Ben explained, "the town sprouted ears all of a sudden."

That was news. I waited:

"They started to figure out some angles. Lou Fink, for one. And his right-arm, a guy called Sammy Morello."

"What angles?"

Ben shrugged. "Look at it this way. You meet this woman here; you have some close-lipped conversation in a booth. The next day they see you out fit for the desert. Morello even followed you to the rim, saw you leave the jeep at Salt Creek and start through the Potholes with her."

"I'm ahead of you," I grinned. "They could come up with but one conclusion: we knew a new twist to the airplane crash."

Ben nodded.

"So what?"

"They've been checking on you closer than you think. They know you've returned. But they've seen nothing of the Lopez woman. That excites them even more. They think maybe you've actually found something important. She's staying at the spot while you come back for a bigger outfit."

"Let them go in and get their brains cooked."

"They might give us trouble."

"What makes you think that we're going back to hunt for the plane?"

I saw the look of incredulity on his face. "Aren't you?"

"I'm not sure-at least not at the moment."

Ben slammed his big hands down on his knees.

"That's why Rita's here!" he ejaculated.

Now it was my turn to sit and listen to Ben.

Rita had come up from a little mining town about forty miles West of the Potholes, Ben told me.

Her father had died. He was the owner of some mining property that had possibilities. She was waiting in Arroyo Seco for an attorney to sell the property.

"She's massaging a drink in one of the booth of the Joshua Tree," Ben continued, "when she hears all this talk about outfitting a group to go into the Potholes to check on you and the Lopez woman. It seems that Lou Fink is the man sparking it. He thinks you two know something big, and they intend to beat you to the jackpot."

"They can still go in and cook their brains for all I care," I persisted.

"Hold your horses!" Ben said. "Rita knows something that makes real sense. When she heard all this, it disturbed her. She's an inquisitive girl, and finally she found out about you and the Lopez woman. She knew I was your partner, so she came over here to tell me a few things."

"And you fell in love."

Ben grinned. "Yeah! Isn't that something? But that isn't the story-"

I waited, noticing the building excitement in his face.

"I'll tell it," Rita interrupted. She leaned forward, and I could see that she was tense. The housecoat gaped a bit now, but she didn't seem to notice. Ben, you lucky dog, I thought, this chick has a lot of delectable merchandise; and she's real stingy with it.

"My father's mine is in Santo Nino Canyon," Rita said. "It's a jumping-off place if you ever saw one. He always called the canyon itself Hell's Kitchen."

It was interested now. "Why that name?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and there was a delightful jiggle that I tried not to notice under Ben's possessive eyes.

"The canyon had a solid wall of unusual cliffs," she went on. "My father esplained it as a glacial up heaval, some terrific upset in the bowels of the earth ages ago. These cliffs are different from any I've ever seen-shafts towering up like a solid wall."

Suddenly I was thinking of the dust storm, the unusual alkali I had noticed in the air when Jane and I sought the line shack for cover.

Rita's next words really jolted me.

"I think my father tacked the Hell's Kitchen name to the canyon because of the storms-the terrific dust storms-that seem to have their birth there."

I got a cigarette going, passed the pack. I needed one.

"These dust storms are terrible," Rita continued, "especially in the summer months. People moved out of the town. But my father remained there, for he was interested in the terrain. He kept studying the cliffs, their erosion-"

"Did he ever call them chalk cliffs?" I interrupted.

She nodded. "Yes. How did you know?"

There it was again.

Chalk cliffs!

The terrific dust storms, the erosion of the strange cliffs-They had to be the answer.

"Who knows about this strange canyon, Rita?"

She looked up with a tight grin. "No one but we three."

"Do you think that Lou Fink and his crowd might know?"

She shook her head. "How could they?"

I stood up, suddenly too nervous and agitated to stay seated.

"Ben, we're going in. The four of us!"

"The four of us?"

"We three-and Nan."

"Okay," Ben said. "That figures."

"Get the outfit ready. I'll be back by morning, and we'll head in."

I was at the door when he stopped me. His voice sounded like a fog horn.

"Where do you think you're going now?"

It would take too long to explain. So I merely shouted, "Out!"

I waited at the tiny strip that Arroyo Seco calls its airport. It wasn't anything but a strip of sand. Someone had bulldozed off the mesquite, and that was about all. It wasn't large enough to accommodate anything but light planes.

The plane coming in now was a four-place job, a trim little tri-pacer. It taxied up the strip like a sleek greyhound, the prop died. A single bareheaded man crawled out, locked the cabin door, then walked briskly toward the jeep.

I crawled out, extended my hand.

"Mr. McNaughton?"

"John McNaughton," he said. "And you're Steve Hillle, the man who phoned me."

I nodded. "Crawl in and well go into town."

He got into the jeep. But when my hand dipped to tarn on the ignition switch, his fingers were on my arm, detaining me.

"Hille, your phone call was puzzling."

I grinned at him, met his gaze. "I suppose it was."

He was well-preserved for his fifty-odd years. He had a rugged face, one of those chipped-from-granite profiles and a short-trimmed mustache. His eyes were steely, yet friendly. He looked exactly what he was-an executive, a man who knew his way around. There also was something else in his face that at the moment was unreadable.

"I'm waiting," he said. "You don't look like the kind of man who'd pull another man's leg."

"Thanks!" I said simply. I turned to face him. "I don't exactly know how to tell you, Mr. McNaughton."

"Tell me what?"

"Hold tight!" I warned. I pointed to the Northwest, where the desert stretched away. "If you came in from the coast, you flew over that."

"I did," he said. "Some of the roughest terrain in the nation."

I nodded. "I've been out there the past nine days. It's called the Pothole Country. I served as a guide for a woman named Geri Lopez. Seventeen years ago, she helped kidnap your baby daughter."

He never moved. But his eyes changed, hardened. I had the feeling that he was in a sudden state of shock.

"The woman died in the canyon," I said. "I buried her there."

"Hillle, he said, "just what kind of a crazy yarn are you trying to sell me?" I searched his eyes. His gaze never wavered, neither did mine. "Mr. McNaughton," I said, "I presume you checked on me before you flew down here."

"Yes, I did."

"I can't afford to tell you a crazy yarn."

"I wouldn't think so."

I related, briefly as I could, how I had acted as guide for Geri Lopez. I didn't condone what she had done, but I did try to explain her atonement.

"Now there are three deaths," I said. "There'll be an investigation, of course.-But before we bring in the law, I wanted to contact you."

He seemed older, suddenly. I knew that he must be living again that terrible moment when the baby was snatched.

"Mrs. McNaughton is a frail woman," he explained. "She never quite recovered."

I was afraid to spring it on him, but I had to tell him some way. Perhaps a blunt statement was the best.

"I've found your daughter," I said softly, perhaps too softly. "She's alive, very beautiful. In fact, I intend to marry her, in spite of her sudden millions."

He sat there, staring at me. If there was any blood left in his face, it didn't show. Suddenly his hand was on my arm, and he had a grip of steel.

"Hille, what are you saying? What is this-blackmail? My daughter is dead. She must be dead. We spent thousands and thousands. There wasn't a single clue."

I told him about the old Indian couple, the wife having since died, the man with the missing thumb; how the kidnappers had left the baby with them as a last resort, then started through the Potholes.

"Rawlings, the husband, died there; she buried him in the canyon. She went to Europe, took the name of Geri Lopez. But she couldn't live it down, so she came back to hunt for the old Indian."

I hesitated, looking at his face. It was stern and unmoving.

"In the meantime I'd met Nan. That's her name-Nan Goodwin. She assumes that she is Maricopa." I told him further about the Collins brothers, how the old Indian whom she called grandfather had killed Zack with the ceremonial spear.

He sat there, unbelieving. I could see his hesitancy. Seventeen years he had called her dead. And now a complete stranger was telling him that he was wrong.

"I don't believe one word of it!" he growled.

"Will you meet her?"

"Yes," he said. The hardness was still in his eyes. "Yes, I'll meet her. And within seconds I'll make positive identification of this girl, to prove to you that are wrong."

He lowered his head and cupped his hands above his face. I knew that he was trying to get a grip on his emotion.

"God, I hope I'm wrong and you're right!" he sobbed. "But it can't be!"

I started the jeep and we headed into Arroyo Seco, then out on the Salt Creed road. I parked the jeep on the rim and pointed down at the gorge.

"Feel like walking?"

We started down. The pool in the creek was nearly gone now, a victim of the summer drought. But I could easily visualize Nan bathing there in all of her nude glory. We headed down the canyon trail, unspeaking, then started the climb to the tableland where Toyee Goodwin had his small herd.

There was the chaparral stick corral, the small dwelling. I shuddered, thinking of Zack Collins. But that was all over now.

Nan came out of the house and ran toward us, into my arms. I held her tight for just a moment, kissed her. I could still see the red welt on her throat where Zack's knife had pressed.

I pushed her back at last, turned her to face McNaughton.

"Nan, this is the man I believe is your father."

She stood there unspeaking, eyes on his face in a swift evaluation. McNaughton seemed a graven image, but I knew he was marveling at her beauty-at the tanned face, the starry eyes, the quick, friendly smile.

Finally he stepped forward, and grasped her hand. But he didn't try to embrace her. I think he was trying very hard to conceal his emotion.

"Hello, Nan!" he said simply.

Then he did a very unusual thing. He put his hands upon her shoulders, gently. He slowly turned her about so she faced away from both of us.

"I must know something," he said, his voice tight. "There is only one way."

Nan stood there, wondering what it was all about.

"Will you please pull your blouse off your shoulders, dear?" he asked.

Nan half turned, saw his serious face, hesitated. It was a strange request, but evidently there was some reason for it.

We stood there. Slowly her fingers worked at her blouse She shrugged it off her shoulders.

I was looking at that perfect golden back, wondering what it all was about.

McNaughton stepped closer, his fingertips were tracing a pattern between her shoulder blades. And suddenly I saw a tiny brown spot in the shape of a cat's claw, a birthmark. It was there for all to see.

His arms enfolded the startled girl, he pulled her into his embrace. Nan was valiantly trying to pull up her blouse to hide her nakedness. He didn't seem to realize anything but one fact: with his own eyes he had seen positive identification.

"Honey," he said, "I can't talk-just yet. Let me hold you-"

I turned away, lighting a cigarette I" didn't need.

I hadn't known about the birthmark.

Later we sat and talked. We talked long. There were so many things to say. Old Toyee Goodwin sat with us, the bandage still about his hoary head.

And at last we took McNaughton to Arroyo Seco, so he could fly back to the city.

"I've got to go back and tell her, in my own way," he said. "I've got to break it to her very gently. It was a shock to me, and she can't take shocks any more."

"We're leaving shortly for the Potholes," I said, "in a last search for the lost plane. Then we'll spend our honeymoon with you."

It was hard for him to leave, even in his joy.

He'd had a hopeless dream for seventeen years, now it had come true.

We sat there in the jeep and waited. At last his plane was a tiny speck. Then it was gone.

We headed for the desert. Dusk was softening the hard land now, that magic moment when it is neither day nor night. Nan was unusually quiet, a very understandable mood. It couldn't be easy to find out suddenly that you've changed race, to the tune of millions.

I pulled up at our trysting spot at the rim at last, turned off the ignition. There was a certain nostalgia about this land that grew upon one. You hated it, still it beckoned.

I pulled Nan into my arms, kissed her.

"You never did show me that birthmark on your back."

"I didn't think you were much interested in my back," she whispered.

"I'm interested in every inch of that glorious body of yours."

At the moment I was thinking of Zack Collins and his sadistic hands. I kissed her throat, where the knife had pressed. Even now, after it was all over, the fear came back.

I started unbuttoning her blouse. Her hands came up in quick protest. "What are you doing?"

"Checking."

"Steve-"

The scar was still there, still livid, where his fingers had raked down.

"I scrubbed and scrubbed," she said. "Somehow I couldn't rid my body of his stench."

I bent my head and kissed her on the throat. I let my lips follow the scar. And at last her hands were holding my face tight against her breasts.

"Honey, I love you so much," I whispered.

She never answered, just caressed my face.

When I had first loved her she was a Maricopa Indian, winner of a beauty contest. But now she was part Irish, part Gypsy. It made no difference. She had been a virtual pauper, now she had a ihint. Nor did this make a difference. I was kissing the same lovely body. The same provocative breasts were there, bared to me in all their loveliness. She was young and vibrandy alive, and we were for each other.

We crawled out of the jeep at last, and spread the blanket. And on the sand, still warm from the blazing sun, we rolled into each other's arms.

This was for real. The sex was there, as it should be. But this was for real. The fear was there, too, as I thought of the knife. That was all as it should be, for I loved her.

The kiss built into an inferno now. Under my hands were two breasts, full and soft and warm, yet tautening now as the fire drove through her loins.

"Steve, will it always be like this?" she whispered.

"Always."

"I'm really Cinderella!"

"Cinderella and my Golden Gypsy."

"Steve, what was she like, Geri Lopez?"

I didn't have an answer. "I think she was a fine person, who made a horrible mistake that could never be corrected."

"And Zeke killed her!"

I never answered, but I was thinking a brand-new thought. Perhaps it was better this way, harsh as it sounds. If she had lived, with the case reopened due to Nan's discovery, she would have faced a charge for a crime that carries the stiffest of penalties.

Nan's lips were on mine, teasing. Then she drew back.

"I'm going to induce them to live here-somewhere on the desert."

"You mean your parents?"

"Yes," she said. "I'd never leave Tohee, and he won't leave the mesa."

"You can commute by plane, can't you, Steve?"

I nodded. That could all be worked out later. As of the moment the problem demanding immediate attention was of a wholly different nature. I got my lips back on hers. After a moment she forgot about the new problems facing us, and concentrated on building a kiss.

The law of propinquity helped, and soon the kiss was past the point of no return. Her heart was hammering crazily, her breasts were taut and demanding. And then she whispered that word that is the greatest thrill that a lover can hear:

"Now, Steve-"

We were together, with a violence that told our need. Her lips arched to meet me, and her tongue was stabbing at mine. The fire built into an inferno, suddenly the ecstasy was past human endurance. It was quiveringly over and we lay still, breathing hard, in that sudden relaxation that only two lovers can ever share.

Out on the desert a coyote howled. It sounded different tonight. Then I found myself thinking: maybe it isn't a coyote at all, but a timber wolf. No doubt I killed its mate.

But my mate was tight in my arms, and it was starting all over again.

CHAPTER NINE

HILLE VIDEO DOESN'T OWN A whirlybird, although we do have two light planes used for photographic work, plus a cargo job. The planes are housed at Bdl Davis' airport, near Redlands. After a bit of argument, Bill let us have a 'coptor for the trek to Santa Nino canyon. At least it was better than walking. An airplane was out, but I fully believed we could set down the 'coptor between those narrow walls without too much trouble. Unless the air currents were worse than I thought.

It was comparatively easy, getting good photos from the bubble. That was Ben's job.

I circled low at the Salt Creek tableland, where Tohee lived. Children waved at us and the sheep ran pell-mell, frightened by the chopper. I was about to dip down between the walls when I saw a dark blotch on the desert near the rim. In a 'coptor, a fellow can take his sweet time. I got down a sagebrush level and there was the wolf I had killed. He sprawled just as he had fallen. Pretty soon the vultures would get to him.

It was a bit tricky going down. But once in the canyon I relaxed. There was the big boulder, and the cairn of rocks where I had buried Geri. I couldn't keep the lump out of my throat, looking at that temporary grave. Ben's camera was whirring.

I tapped his shoulder, pointed to the shale slide.

"Nice grave!" Ben said.

We climbed now, to clear the wedge. There we were over the desert again. There was the Collins shack, and the old mine tipple where I had tied up Zeke. I swung Northwest, where Jane Trovillion had herded the sheep. There was no life there now. The line-shack seemed deserted; the chuck wagon was gone, too. Evidently Jane was still searching for greener pastures and more water. I still had her rifle, I remembered. Some day I'd take it back. Back in the canyon again, and the topography changed. The black basalt was gone. The cliffs were just as steep, but the color of the rock itself was changing. We were nearing the eroded area.

Suddenly Nan was tapping my shoulder, pointing downward. Something moved down in the canyon men, and two pack mules.

"We'll have company," Ben said, and grinned.

More eroded cliffs, and a widening chasm below us. Then at last Rita pointed downward.

"That's Santo Nino," she shouted, to make herself heard over the noise of the craft.

I circled, amazed at the terrific wall facing us. It was something like Canyon de Chelly. However this wasn't red granite, but a wall that sparkled in the sum, reflecting light like obsidian.

"Crazy looking cliffs!" Ben said. "Real crazy!"

"Chalk," Rita said. "My father explained it as an old marine area. Chemically the cliffs are almost pure calcium carbonate, with millions of tiny marine organisms encrusted in it."

"We have a geologist aboard!" I said, grinning.

We circled, set down at last on a level wind-swept area at the base of the wall. Back of us I noticed an old mine shaft, and the remains of what had once been a small mining community.

"I love ghost towns," Nan said, as we climbed out.

"You won't love this one!" Rita replied wryly.

Once out of the 'coptor, the heat struck us like the blast of a furnace. I could see why. The reflection from the wall was terrific at this time of day, with the sun at the right position.

Suddenly I was asking myself a question: would this wall fool a pilot, flying at night! Say he was in trouble, losing altitude. Would he mistake the wall for something it was not-an optical illusion, perhaps-and crash into it?

Or what about moonlight, reflecting from the wall? Would it resemble a barren tableland, a place to set down?

The wall stretched away into the distance. I looked at the base. The shale was piled high, attesting to the constant erosion.

We lugged out the gear and set up camp. I squinted at the sun, decided there would be shade near the wall in an hour or so. This was as good a spot as any for the camp.

"There's a spring, near the mine," Rita said.

"Okay, you gals start the food. Ben and I will check on the wall."

"Get back before the sun sets," Nan said. "It's more fun eating when one can see the plate."

"You have a point, honey," I said, and pulled her tight.

"Look at him," Ben quipped, "hugging a million dollars!"

Anyone but Ben making that crack was ready for some new dental work. But I merely grinned.

Ben walked over to Rita, scooped her up in his arms, patted her in a forbidden place.

"I got a million too-in merchandise," he said, and winked.

"You put me down!" Rita protested. He smothered her outburst with his lips and held her, squirming like an eel, until he was good and ready to release her.

"Oh, you men!" Rita said, adjusting her blouse.

"She's dynamite." Ben confided as we headed down the wall. "But I love her like hell!" He pulled up to face me. "Crazy, isn't it, Steve? You meet a hundred gals, nothing happens. Maybe a little hanky-panky from some stacked chick that arouses the hormones, but nothing really happens. Then you meet a gal and bingo, right between the eyes!"

I grinned at him in full under standing. I had gotten it right between the eyes too.

We worked along the wall, checking the huge shale piles. I had brought along a small rock-hound's hammer. I pecked at the cliff face at different spots. It was something like macadem, or stiff gumbo. The hammer went in very easily.

Suddenly I stood back, amazed at the size of this wall, at this deposit of mineral so different from any other outcropping of the area. I turned to Ben, with a look of futility on my face.

"What are we hunting, Ben-a needle in a haystack?"

"I was thinking the same thing," Ben agreed. "We could check this for days and never get to first base."

The answer was visual, right here before us. An impossibility.

But the feeling persisted that this was the place of the fatal plane crash. I stood back, and looked at the mighty wall.

"Ben, visualize this," I said. "See if you agree. Two men flying from Las Vegas, with all that money in the plane and the law hot on their tail. Excited, tense, nervous. Then something happens. The people in Arroyo Seco saw the plane, old Toyee heard the plane headed toward the canyon, already out of control-"

"Right into die wall, and bingo the whole cliff face shattered by the impact comes down, covering the plane entirely."

"My thoughts exactly."

At the moment my mind was back at the boulder, shooting at that needle. And suddenly down came the debris, burying Zeke. The same thing could have happened here. Even more violent, for here was a plane head-on into the wall, perhaps a violent explosion as it struck.

But where?

Somewhere under one of these shale piles was the remains of an airplane and two men, plus a lot of money.

All we had to do was move several billion tons of debris.

Back in the days of the Egyptians they might have tried it, putting several thousand slaves to the task. After twenty or thirty years the job would be done. But this wasn't for two puny men. , Suddenly, strange as it seems, I didn't care too much.

Don't ask me why this sudden feeling possessed me.

We could never prove that the plane's graveyard was right here. But this seemed the only logical spot where it could have happened, without leaving a trace of the plane. Hundreds of men don't comb an area over a long period of time and come up with exactly nothing unless there is a dominant reason.

The rotten chalk cliffs were the reason. Rita said that some of the old desert rats still living at the ghost town had heard an explosion. But they had found nothing. A lot of people had heard the explosion. No one had found a trace of the wreck.

Of course not! It was here, tight against the wall, covered with tons and tons of debris.

In that grave was my brother. And a companion who had once been Nan's sweetheart.

They had robbed a casino.

Let this be their grave for all time.

What would we gain, if we did find the plane?

Eight hundred thousand dollars, to return to a gambling syndicate.

The names of two men, now forgotten, dragged back into headlines.

Suddenly this was of no consequence. Something else, far more important, took its place. Nan and me, Ben and Rita.

We turned, retraced our steps toward the 'coptor, and camp. Already the sun was sinking low, and the shadows were lengthening against the wall. By the time we got to camp, it was dusk.

We came up from the wall hungry, at ease, big as life.

A rifle shot whizzed over our heads.

"Pull up, and stand still!" a voice ordered.

It didn't quite make sense, but there he was with the gun. There were two of them. I saw their pack mules, to the left. Then I remembered we had seen them down in the canyon as we came in.

"The man with the rifle is Sammy Morello," Ben said.

"And the other one is the bartender, Lou Fink."

I saw something else now. Rita sat back of Fink. She had her hands tied. But where was Nan?

"It's out there, isn't it?" Fink said, and grinned. He was a big sloppy man, a typical beer-pusher whose only exercise was bending his arm.

"You talking about the plane?"

"That's what we're talking about."

"Yes, it's out there-and all that money."

His eyes widened. The greed was so obvious he couldn't control it.

"You'll show us where it is. Then you can take off in your whirlybird, and never come back."

Ben laughed, and the rifle in Morello's hand swung quickly to cover him.

"What's so funny?" Fink asked.

"You tell him, Steve," Ben grinned.

"We don't know where the plane is," I admitted. "There's more than a mile of cliff line, and a jillion tons of shale at the base. Get a shovel and start digging. You might find it-in twenty or thirty years."

"Quit stalling! You know exactly where it is!" Fink said. His loose mouth hardened. "Maybe you'd better tell us in a hurry, for your own good."

I shook my head.

He reached back, yanked Rita to her feet none too gently. "We got your woman. We can make you talk."

I was watching Ben's face more than Fink. The anger was building there, fast. But he was under Morello's gun.

"Don't do anything foolish." I whispered to him.

The light was fading fast now, as the sun dipped behind the wall. I was watching the old mine shaft, far back of us.

Suddenly I saw Nan, and my heart came up in my throat. She was stealing up to the camp. Evidently she knew what had happened. But what could she do, a lone girl?

I couldn't motion her back They were watching us like hawks. If she came up they'd grab her as well, and we'd be in a worse mess than ever.

Ben was quite an artist, talking like a ventriloquist, his lips immobile.

"I'm going to dive for him," he said to me, just above a whisper.

"No!" I hissed. "You can't make it. And Nan's coming up."

I saw his eyes raise. Evidently he hadn't seen her. Fink pulled Rita closer now. There was a fistful of dress in his hand. "Better start talking-right now!" he said. Neither of us said a word.

Suddenly his big hand ripped down, and Rita lost the front of her blouse.

"Ben, don't!" I said. He stood there, trying to control his rage.

Rita never moved. Her breasts were bare-very beautiful, sharply-coned, topped with large aureoles that gave them an even more exotic look.

Evidently she was terrified. Fink took out a knife. "Real pretty, ain't she?" He swung toward us. "You want her to stay that way? Then tell us."

Nan was coming up faster now, relying on the gloom to conceal her movements. She walked like a cat, not a sound. And I said a silent prayer for old Toyee, who evidently had taught her all the tricks he knew.

Rita stood there, her protrusive breasts rising and falling under her excited breathing. "I'm going to get to him, Steve." Ben said. "Wait! Watch Nan!"

She was within forty feet of them now. Thirty. She raised her arm. The rock sailed through the air, struck Morello back of the neck. It flipped him, and the gun boomed as he pitched forward.

We dived, Ben for Fink, me for Morello.

The rock hadn't knocked him out, but It dazed him. By the time he recovered his senses, I put a stinger on the point of his chin. I stiffened my hand, sliced the edge across his windpipe, and he gurgled like a pig. He went down, and I put my shoe into his kidney just for good measure. He was out. I grabbed up the gun.

Ben was taking his sweet time, making a production out of his slow but methodical method of mayhem. He was raging. But even when he is angry, there is method in his fighting. He worked over the bartender, starting at the man's nose and stopping at his groin. When he was done, Fink wasn't interested in anything but his own misery.

Ben towered over the still conscious man. "The next time you lay a hand on my gal, I'll cut out your tongue!" he said. Then for good measure his foot came down hard, and Fink groaned some more.

We heard it now. It started with a low insistent whine, rather a mournful sound that was neither human or animal.

"What is it?" Nan asked.

Rita grinned, trying to repair the damage to her blouse.

"Wind. It starts each night like this."

Suddenly I was thinking of the 'coptor, its safety.

"Sometimes it blows harder. Then it turns into a real duster that spreads over the desert."

"How do you live, down here?"

Rita pointed at the ghost town at the far end of the canyon. "You don't-for very long."

We ate in silence, then repacked the gear.

Lou Fink was sitting morosely against a shale pile, nursing his many tender places, trying to repair his bleeding nose. Morello sat nearby, nursing a bellyache.

I went over to them, deliberately broke the rifle over a rock and scattered the shells.

I pointed to the wall with a grand gesture.

"It's all yours. Enjoy yourself."

Ben stooped, pulled up Fink by the front of his shirt.

"I'm still going to cut out your tongue some day!" he growled. He let go of Fink, and the sloppy man went down like a sack of potatoes.

We were in the air at last. The 'coptor really stirred up the dust as we wind-milled upward toward the rim.

"Look at those pack mules run'" Rita chuckled.

"You'll choke the men!" Nan said.

"Wait until the real blow hits them about three o'clock in the morning," Rita said vengefully.

Once above the canyon, there still was enough light to distinguish landmarks. But in the canyon itself, night had already clamped down.

I turned to Rita. "You knew about these dust storms. Yet you let us go down there, never warned us-"

Her smile was enigmatical. "I thought it might be fun at the ghost town, when the wind came up."

I had no answer to that but a fond memory. It had been fun for Jane and me in that line shack.

I circled, took one last look at the darkening canyon.

Down there, beneath some shale pile, was a grave. But somehow there was no emotion in me at all.

"Close the book," some little voice bid. "Don't reopen it."

I had no intention to. I had something more precious. So did Ben.

I headed toward Arroyo Seco's tiny air-strip.

"Hey, what gives?" Ben asked.

I snaked an arm about Nan's waist.

"I know a preacher there," I said, grinning, "who might like to do a little extra-curricular work for a few bucks."

THE END
Payoff For Passion ....(78k)    by Kevin North





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