Desert Rat
Copyright© 2026 by Mark Randall
Chapter 7
After seeing the group of Apache leave the badlands, Caleb went back to working the quartz vein that he had abandoned when the neighborhood got crowded. For two days, he had been clearing out some of the damage from the storm and neglect. When he finally had a clean work area, he started digging out the quartz.
Caleb knew that quartz veins like this usually had threads of gold that spidered through them. The question was how much. Usually, the threads were thin, and the yield was marginal. But two years earlier, he had found nuggets in the rain water run off paths. Not many, but they were big enough to get Caleb excited.
On the third day, around noon, Caleb heard a pistol shot.
“Tarnation,” he grumbled, “Not this foolishness agin.” He paused and waited for another shot. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed, and there were no other sounds other than the normal desert sounds. Shrugging his shoulders, Caleb went back to work.
He was using his pick/mattock, he swung hard and buried a good six inches of the pick into the sandstone over the vein. Normally, he wouldn’t have taken that strong of a swing, but the anger he was slowly getting over from the gunshot powered the pick too deeply. As expected, the pick got stuck.
Swearing, he tried to yank the pick free, but it failed to come loose. He tried to wiggle the pick left, right, up, and down, but the pick was still stuck firmly.
Caleb was now getting even angrier. Grabbing the pick handle, he yanked on it as hard as he could. There was a loud crack, and the pick came loose. Caleb stumbled backwards and landed on his butt. Stunned for a moment, he looked at his pick. It would be just his luck if he had broken the handle. It would take a week to find the right wood and then carve a replacement.
But the pick was fine. He looked up at where the pick had been. A foot-long, foot-wide chunk of the quartz had broken loose. Staring at Caleb was a vein of gold.
Caleb knew the difference between fool’s gold and real gold. Iron pyrite glittered in the sunlight. Real gold had a dull, bronze-like appearance. This vein wasn’t glittering.
Caleb slowly stood up and approached the vein. He reached out slowly and touched the gold vein, almost like it would disappear like a mirage, but it didn’t.
The vein was a big one. At least an inch wide and ran from one side of the fracture to the other, disappearing into the quartz on either side.
Caleb stood there, dumbfounded and speechless. Then, as the situation fully dawned on him, he started laughing. Then started dancing around the claim. “I did it,” he shouted, “I dun found the motherlode. We’s rich now.”
Mutt was lying in the shade of a sagebrush, gnawing on a bone. He lifted his head and stared at Caleb’s antics. Bessie, uninterested, continued to nibble on what grass she could find.
Eventually, Caleb ran out of steam and sat down heavily. “What am I gunna do now.” He mused. Caleb hadn’t registered a claim yet. He considered it a waste of money to register a claim for a dry hole, so he decided to wait until it was worth registering. “Whal, mutt, looks like we be takin a trip inta town. Gotta make this all legal an proper. We be a leavin at dawn tomarra.”
Standing, Caleb cleaned up the site and hid the quartz vein. Then headed back to his canyon, planned what he needed to do before heading to Pozo de Agua.
After Long Eye abandoned them, Nick and Jesse started walking out of the badlands. For two days, water was their priority. At first, they headed to the water sources that Long Eye had found after the storm. But by the time they found them, they had dried up. They had continued backtracking their trail into the canyons, but as time went by, they became confused and disoriented. On the third day, after realizing that the canyon they thought was a way out was a blind canyon. When they reached the end of the canyon, Nick stopped and sat down on a boulder.
He was facing away from Jesse. His shoulders sagged, and his head was bowed.
Jesse uncorked his canteen and tried to take a drink. The canteen was empty. “Hey Nick, I’m out of water. Let me have a swig from your canteen.”
Nick didn’t say anything, just sat there.
Jesse was parched and starting to get angry. “Hey, Dunham, I’m talking to you. I’m thirsty and want a swig from your canteen.” While he was talking, Jesse had pulled his pistol and cocked it.
Nick was still silent, but now his shoulders started to shake. Jesse wasn’t sure, but it almost sounded like he was laughing.
“I ain’t kidding, asshole. I want your canteen.” Jesse croaked.
Dunham still didn’t say anything; he just pulled his canteen from his shoulder and held it out straight to the side.
Jesse’s anger was still rising. He raised his pistol and fired.
The round hit Nick in the back. The left side, just below the shoulder. The bullet hit his heart, and Nick Dunham was dead before he hit the ground.
Jesse, laughing maniacally, ran forward and grabbed the canteen. He yanked the cork and upended the canteen.
Nothing
The canteen was completely empty. Not just empty, dry as a dusty bone lying in the desert heat.
Jesse staggered back, the horror slowly dawning on him. He fell to his knees and started crying.
After murdering Dunham, Jesse became desperate. He was lost and dying of thirst. He staggered around, searching for water, for a way out of the badlands. Late the next morning, he came around a bend and there, in front of him, was a pond of water. Not really a pond, more like a large puddle. But it was water, water that Jesse desperately needed.
He rushed forward, falling face-first into the water. He gulped greedily. Sucking the water into his mouth. His lips and throat were stinging from the moisture.
The water tasted metallic, acrid, and it smelled off. But Jesse didn’t care. It was water.
As Jesse was gulping water the second time, a voice spoke up from behind him.
“Ya shouldn’t have done that son.”
Jesse whirled, drawing and cocking his pistol.
About fifteen feet away stood an old man. Long grey hair and beard hiding his face. His clothes were threadbare and patched.
“Who?” Jesse croaked, then, after clearing his throat, said louder. “Who the hell are you.”