Title: Buzzards know
Author: Tuttle, W. C. (Wilbur C.)
Language: English
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Buzzards Know

By W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Hashknife Hartley”


The Coachella Kid left a plain trail. After killing Deputy Jack Welden
with an iron cot leg, he stole a gun and ammunition, saddled one of the
sheriff’s horses and headed straight for the desert. It all happened
only a few minutes after the jury had been sent to deliberate on the
guilt or innocence of the Coachella Kid, who was charged with first
degree murder.

It was the first time the Kid had ever been tried--his first time to
face a judge and jury. Only luck had allowed him to travel his crooked
trail this long. Several times he had escaped the clutches of the law by
the narrowest of margins. Twice he had killed deputy sheriffs--but no
one could prove it. The Coachella Kid was a cold-eyed killer,
contemptuous of the law; and for five years he had nursed a bitter hate
against Dave Fulton, the sheriff who had finally arrested him.

The Coachella Kid was a small man, wiry as a bobcat, soft-spoken; he was
not over thirty-five years of age. There was nothing conspicuous about
him. He had been very quiet during his trial, until the sheriff,
speaking from the witness stand, recited a brief résumé of what he knew
about the Coachella Kid’s past. Then the Kid got to his feet.

“Me and him loved the same girl five years ago,” he said, barely loud
enough for the jury to hear. “He got her by lyin’ to her about me. He’s
scared I’m goin’ to make him pay for them lies; so he’s tryin’ to git me
hung.”

Then the Kid sat down and refused to talk any more.

But the Kid was free now, well mounted and armed. Men saw him ride
through Yucca City; and they recognized the sheriff’s black horse. Ten
miles farther on he rode the length of the Main street at Signal Rock,
where he was seen and recognized. It would have been easy for him to
circle both towns.

At the Smoke Tree ranch he stopped to water his horse and fill an
enormous canteen, which he had stolen from the sheriff’s stable. There
was only one cowboy at the ranch at the time, and he did not know the
rider was an escaped prisoner until the sheriff arrived an hour later.

The Coachella Kid did not hurry. He was heading for the worst spot in
the desert--a section where rain never falls, where there are no
water-holes, where the blackened rocks are like uncooled lava. Heat
waves shimmered and danced before him as he rode toward the vague line
of broken hills. Mirages appeared across stretches of dry lake beds. The
Coachella Kid paid them no heed.

Mile after mile he rode, scourged by thirst, but refusing to touch the
precious fluid in his canteen. He knew the horse must die, but he wanted
to reach those hills before taking to foot travel. He knew of a single
water-hole, miles and miles beyond the hills; and he knew that the one
canteen of water would enable him to make that spot on foot. From there
another full canteen would take him to a ranch where he would be safe
for awhile.

                *       *       *       *       *

The Coachella Kid had a sinister purpose in making this trip.

He knew Dave Fulton very well indeed. With his only deputy lying dead,
Dave Fulton would ride alone; and Dave Fulton rarely failed to get his
man. It would have been a simple matter for the Kid to ambush and kill
the sheriff, thus delaying any pursuit for several days. But the Kid
wanted a more satisfactory revenge.

That night he made a dry camp in a clump of ocotillo. After riding
almost to the clump, he turned right on a back-track for some distance,
swung to the left in a wide circle and came to the clump from almost an
opposite direction. If the sheriff followed the Kid’s horse tracks in
the sand, he must first ride up close to the bandit’s hiding place.

The Kid left the weary horse saddled and tied. It was only a few more
miles to the broken hills. The Kid had no food, but that did not worry
him. Once across the hills, with the sheriff disposed of, he would have
a chance to kill a sage rabbit or something. He had eaten buzzards and
rattlesnakes, when hard pressed.

But the sheriff did not come along that night, because the sheriff,
several miles behind, was saving his horse. Shortly after daylight the
Coachella Kid mounted his horse and rode on. The heat was almost
unbearable now, and the Kid realized that he would be lucky to reach the
hills. His eyes were swollen from the heat, his face burned raw from the
sun reflections on the sand. This was the land of a hundred and thirty
degrees in the shade--and no shade.

The Kid had long since ceased to watch his back trail, because the eye
strain made his head throb. He drank sparingly of the warm water, cursed
the sun and the sand and lashed the stumbling horse with a rope-end. It
seemed ages and ages before he reached the rocky hills, where they
angled up a small canyon. The heat was stifling. The horse was weaving
drunkenly. The Kid dismounted. Unfastening the heavy canteen from the
saddle, he booted the horse in the belly.

“You’re through,” he told the suffering animal. “Buzzards will git a
feed for once in their lives, and I----”

An idea struck him suddenly. Whipping out his sixshooter, he shot the
animal dead. The crack of the revolver echoed back from the rocks and
the Kid wondered whether any one had heard it. With an old knife he had
taken from the dead deputy he cut a generous hunk of meat from the
horse. It would be enough to feed him for several meals, and was better
than taking a chance on rattlesnakes or buzzards. Then he swung the
canteen over his shoulder and went on. The heat of the sand almost
cooked his feet. As he searched for just the right place he purposely
staggered, making tracks like a drunken man, indicating to any possible
pursuer that he was nearly at the point of collapse. Finally he went
through a narrow cut in the rocks, dropped his canteen in the shade and
sat down. Here was the spot where he would get even with Dave Fulton.

                *       *       *       *       *

He took a generous drink, recapped the canteen and sat down again. Even
in that shade the heat was terrific. Not a breath of air stirred. He
examined his sixshooter gingerly, because it was so hot. The chunk of
horse meat was already getting dry, like jerky.

For two hours or more the Coachella Kid sat there, suffering acutely
from the heat, wondering whether the sheriff had really followed him.
Suppose he had not? Suppose he guessed why the Kid had gone away openly?
The Kid cursed grimly.

Suddenly his keen ears detected a sound--the sound of boots in sand. He
froze against the rock, his cocked gun in his hand. A shadow struck
across the narrow opening, and the crunch of footsteps came closer. It
was Dave Fulton, hunched, watchful as a hunting cat. The Kid blended
well with the rocks; and perhaps the sheriff’s eyes were a little
blinded from the glaring sunlight. He was carrying his sixshooter
tightly in his right hand.

Then the Coachella Kid, as deadly of aim as a striking rattler, fired
the first shot; he fired it at the sheriff’s gun hand, and the sheriff’s
gun flew from his numbed fingers and clattered down among the rocks.

As quick as a flash the sheriff dropped flat on his left side, twisting
as he fell. His clawing left hand found the gun. The Coachella Kid
managed to swing his head and shoulders behind a rock, while the
sheriff, shooting with the wrong hand, and from a bad position, fired
five shots at what little he could see of the Kid. None of them took
effect, and when the Kid knew the sheriff’s gun was empty he came from
behind the rock.

The sheriff looked at him through red-rimmed eyes, and the Kid laughed
insanely at him. He forced the sheriff to his feet, took away his belt
and gun. Then he took the sheriff’s nearly empty canteen and drank it
dry, flinging it far off in the rocks.

“You fell for my trap, didn’t you, Dave?” He chuckled huskily.

“I found the horse,” replied the sheriff, “and then I seen your tracks.
I--I thought you was about all in, Kid.”

“Fooled you, eh?” jeered the Kid.

“Why?” asked the sheriff wearily.

“Why? I’ve allus said I’d git you some day, Fulton. You thought you’d
send me to the gallows, eh? You was wishin’ me plenty hell, wasn’t you?
Well, I trapped you out here to give you a little taste of hell. I could
have shot you--easy. But that ain’t revenge. No livin’ man can walk back
to that Smoke Tree ranch--and that’s the nearest water. The buzzards
will finish you. Me, I’m goin’ the other way. I’ve got food and I’ve got
water. You’re thirsty right now.”

“Yeah, I’m thirsty,” admitted the sheriff. “But why didja kill Jack
Welden?”

“Why? You fool, I had to kill him to git away. They can’t hang you any
higher for killin’ two than they can for killin’ one.”

“Then you admit murderin’ Ab Hill?”

“Admit it? Of course, I admit it.”

The sheriff’s split lip twisted in a curious smile.

“I was pretty sure of it--but you never can tell about a jury.”

“What about the jury?” asked the Coachella Kid hoarsely.

“They’d found you not guilty. The foreman told me they’d just reached a
decision when we learned you had killed Welden and made your escape.”

The Kid’s face twisted queerly and he licked his cracked and bleeding
lips with his dry tongue.

“Not guilty?” he whispered. “Not guilty? I’ll be damned!”

He backed up a few steps, staring at the sheriff. Not guilty! Why, he
didn’t have to kill Welden. He could have been free if he had waited a
few minutes. A black shadow passed over the glaring white sand, and he
glanced up at a huge buzzard, moving about on motionless wings. He
shifted his burning eyes to the sheriff and laughed queerly--a sound
like the crumpling of paper.

“You can’t tell about a jury,” he said. “You
jist--can’t--tell--about....”

“Your canteen’s leakin’,” said the sheriff huskily.

The Coachella Kid started to look, jerked back, his cocked gun covering
the sheriff. He was wise in the ways of gunmen and their tricks.

“No, you don’t,” he whispered. “I’m no damn fool.”

“Look at it,” urged the sheriff.

The Coachella Kid snarled wickedly as he backed toward the canteen. His
heel struck it, and it rang emptily. As quick as a flash the Kid
half-turned and swept it from the sand; but in that flash the sheriff
stepped behind the rock, leaving the Kid standing there dangling his
empty, bullet-riddled canteen in his left hand.

With a withering curse, the Kid ran erratically to the tall rock,
searching with burning eyes for the sheriff, who was somewhere out there
in that glare. He flung the useless canteen from him and leaned
helplessly against the rock. No use to follow the sheriff. He was crazy
if he thought he could make that far-away water-hole.

Thirty minutes later, far off the slope of the hill, the sheriff
shuffled up to a jumble of lava rocks, from under which he dug a large
canteen of water. He drank sparingly in the shade and splashed some of
it over his head.

“I can easy make it back to my horse by dark,” he assured himself, “and
by mornin’ I can be pretty close to Smoke Tree. It’s hell on a fellow’s
head and feet; but this old desert ain’t hard to beat--if you’ve got
water.”

He took another small drink, corked the canteen carefully and got to his
feet.

“I reckon them buzzards has done lit some’eres,” he muttered, after
scanning the sky above the hills.

“You can shore fool a jury--but buzzards know.”

THE END


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 1934 issue
of Adventure magazine.]





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