The Desert Hawks by James Walker

Author:James Walker [Walker, James W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4412-6194-6
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

The desert floor

Saturday afternoon

The burial service for China Mary was simple. There would be no marker, no sign that she had ever been on the earth, except for the memories she had left behind. From the way she had been hustled onto the stage in Prescott, Ruggles was sure that the people who would miss her most were those now standing around the lump of sand covering what was left of her. Had it been he lying there instead of she, he was dead sure that would have been his eulogy as well.

In the end, that was the most that many people could expect. Houses owned, horses, bank accounts, businesses, the rewards of occasional recognition, all of that went into the hole with a man. Ruggles had never spent much time thinking about his own death. It was the finish; the end of torture, the end of trying to make a place for himself, the end of warm sun, clean shirts, women who smiled, spicy food, and the satisfaction of winning a hand of poker. In some ways, his own life seemed pointless. Perhaps the only thing he might be able to look back on now would be a promise kept to a dying man.

Only Tommy was crying. Mary had done her best to shelter him from the blowing sand. The storm had been too much for her heart, and the stage falling to its side had been the thing that finally put an end to her wayward life. Amy crouched down beside Tommy and held him in her arms.

“Why did she have to die?” Tommy asked.

“It was just her time,” Amy said. “Everybody has a time.”

The Reverend Black finished his words. “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The men had righted the stage, and Peters and Gray hitched the horses back in their traces. Hec Peters walked back to the group. “We’d better be moving on. Can’t stop here. Got about an hour left to go before we can pull up and sleep for a spell.”

The group walked back to the coach, and soon they were moving north once again. Only Tommy poked his head out the window to watch the spot behind them disappear.

In a short time, the shade from the hills covered them, providing a welcome relief from the bright sun on the desert floor. Peters wound the team down a steep canyon, the sides of the hills echoing with the sound of the coach and the horses’ hooves.

Up ahead, pockmarks on the bluffs marked the place of an ancient people. Apartments were built into the sides of the limestone cliffs. The holes in the canyon walls seemed to watch them, ageless guardians of time and place. The sight made the hair on the back of Ruggles’s head stand up and bumps rise on his arms.

Peters pulled up on the reins and brought the coach to a stop. Wrapping the ribbons to the brake handle, he took off his hat and wiped his head.

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