Hombre

1

Here is where I think it begins-with Mr. Henry Mendez, the Hatch & Hodges Division Manager at Sweetmary and still my boss at the time, asking me to ride the sixteen miles down to Delgado’s with him in the mud wagon. I suspected the trip had to do with the company shutting down this section of the stage line; Mr. Mendez would see Delgado about closing his station and take an inventory of company property. But that was only part of the reason.

It turned out I was the one had to take the inventory. Mr. Mendez had something else on his mind. As soon as we got to the station, he sent one of Delgado’s boys out to John Russell’s place to get him.

Until that day John Russell was just a name I had written in the Division account book a few times during the past year. So many dollars paid to John Russell for so many stage horses. He was a mustanger. He would chase down green horses and harness-break them; then Mr. Mendez would buy what he wanted, and Russell and two White Mountain Apaches who rode for him would deliver the horses to Delgado’s or one of the other relay stations on the way south to Benson.

Mr. Mendez had bought maybe twenty-five or thirty from him during the past year. Now, I suspected, he wanted to tell Russell not to bring in any more since we were shutting down. I asked Mr. Mendez if that was so. He said no, he had already done that. This was about something else.

Like it was a secret. That was the trouble with Mr. Mendez when I worked for him. From a distance you could never tell he was Mexican. He never dressed like one, everything white like their clothes were made out of bedsheets. He didn’t usually act like one. Except that his face, with those tobacco-stained looking eyes and drooping mustache, was always the same and you never knew what he was thinking. When he looked at you, it was like he knew something he wasn’t telling, or was laughing at you, no matter what it was he said. That’s when you could tell Henry Mendez was Mexican. He wasn’t old. Not fifty anyway.

Delgado’s boy got back while we were having some coffee and said Russell would be here. A little while later we heard horses, so we went outside.

As we stood there seeing these three riders coming toward the adobe with the dust rising behind them, Mr. Mendez said to me, “Take a good look at Russell. You will never see another one like him as long as you live.”

I will swear to the truth of that right now. Though it was not just his appearance.

The three riders came on, but giving the feeling that they were holding back some, not anxious to ride right up until they made sure everything was keno. When Russell pulled up, the two White Mountain Apaches with him slowed to a walk and came up on either side of him. Not close, out a ways, as if giving themselves room to move around in. All three of them were armed; I mean armed, with revolvers, with cartridge belts over their shoulder and carbines, which looked like Springfields at first.

As he sat there, that’s when I got my first real look at John Russell.

Picture the belt down across his chest with the sun glinting on the bullets that filled most of the loops. Picture a stained, dirty looking straight-brim hat worn almost Indian-fashion, that is, un-creased and not cocked to either side, except his brim was curled some and there was a little dent down the crown.

Picture his face half shadowed by the hat. First you just saw how dark it was. Dark as his arms with the sleeves rolled above his elbows. Dark-I swear-as the faces of the two White Mountain boys. Then you saw how long his hair was, almost covering his ears, and how clean-shaved looking his face was. Right then you suspected he was more to those Apaches than a friend or a boss. I mean he could be a blood relation, no matter what his name was, and nobody in the world would bet he wasn’t.

When Mr. Mendez spoke to him you believed it all the more. He stepped closer to John Russell’s roan horse, and I remember the first thing he said.

He said, “Hombre.”

Russell didn’t say anything. He just looked at Mr. Mendez, though you couldn’t see his eyes in the shadow of his hat brim.

“Which name today?” Mr. Mendez said. “Which do you want?”

Russell answered Mr. Mendez in Spanish then, just a few words, and Mr. Mendez said, in English, “We use John Russell. No symbol names. No Apache names. All right?” When Russell just nodded, Mr. Mendez said, “I was wondering what you decided. You said you would come to Sweetmary in two days.”

Russell used Spanish again, more this time, evidently explaining something.

“Maybe it would look different to you if you thought about it in English,” Mr. Mendez said and watched him closely. “Or if you spoke about it now in English.”

“It’s the same,” Russell said, all of a sudden in English. In good English that had only a speck of accent, just a faint edge that you would wonder every time you heard him if it really was some kind of accent.

“But it’s a big something to think about,” Mr. Mendez said. “Going to Contention. Going there to live among white men. To live as a white man on land a white man has given you. To have to speak English to people no matter what language you think in.”

“There it is,” Russell said. “I’m still thinking all the different ways.”

“Sure,” Mr. Mendez said. “You could sell the land. Buy a horse and a new gun with some of the money. Give the rest to the hungry ones at the San Carlos Indian agency. Then you got nothing.”

Russell shrugged. “Maybe so.”

“Or you sell only the herd and grow corn on the land and make tizwin, enough to keep you drunk for seven years.”

“Even that,” Russell said.

“Or you can work the herd and watch it grow,” Mr. Mendez said. “You can marry and raise a family. You can live there the rest of your life.” He waited a little. “You want some more ways to picture it?”

“I have too many ways now,” Russell said. But he didn’t sound worried about it.

That didn’t satisfy Mr. Mendez. He was trying to convince him of something and kept at it. He said then, “I hear it’s a good house.”

Russell nodded. “If living there is worth it to you.”

“Man,” Mendez said, like something good was staring at Russell and he didn’t know enough to take it. “What do you want?”

Russell looked down at him. In that unhurried easy way he said, “Maybe a mescal if there’s some inside, uh?”

Delgado laughed and said something in Spanish. Mr. Mendez shrugged and both of them turned to the adobe.

I was watching Russell though. He dismounted, still holding his carbine, which I now saw was an old.56-56 Spencer, and came right toward me looking at the ground, then looking up quick as he must have sensed me. For a second we were close and I saw his eyes. They had that same tell-nothing-but-know-everything expression as Henry Mendez’s eyes. That same Mexican, Indian look. Only John Russell’s eyes were blue, light-blue looking in his Indian-dark face. Maybe that doesn’t sound like anything, but I’ll tell you it gave me the strangest feeling.

The two Apaches carried Springfields, as I had guessed. They held them cradled across one arm and even with the bullet belts and all, they looked kind of funny. Mainly because of their vests and straw hats that were very narrow and turned up all around. They went inside too and I followed.

Only I didn’t stay long. Mr. Mendez sent me out to the equipment shed to start the inventory. Then over to see about the feed stores. So it was maybe a half hour before I got back to the main adobe. Five saddle horses along with the mud wagon were standing in front now instead of three.

Inside, I saw Mr. Mendez and John Russell at one end of the long table the stage passengers sat at. Russell’s carbine lay on the table, like he never went far without it; another thing that was just like an Apache.

At the bar along the right wall stood his two Apache riders. Down from them were two more men. I didn’t look at them good till I sat down next to Mr. Mendez. Right away then I got the feeling something was going on. It was too quiet. Mendez was looking over at the bar; Russell down at his drink, as if thinking or listening.

So I looked at the two men again. I recognized them as hands who rode for a Mr. Wolgast who supplied beef to the reservation up at San Carlos. I would see them in Sweetmary every once in a while and they would most always be drunk. But it was a minute or two before I remembered their names. One was Lamarr Dean, who was about my age, maybe a year older. The other one’s name was Early; he was said to have served time at Yuma Prison.

Delgado poured them a whisky like he’d rather be doing something else. Early, who wore his hat funneled down over his eyes and ordinarily didn’t talk much, said, “I guess anybody can come in here.”

“If they allow Indians,” this Lamarr Dean said. He was looking at the two Apaches. They heard him, you could tell, but didn’t pay any attention. Of course not, I realized; they didn’t know any English.

The one named Early asked Delgado, “When did they start letting Indians drink?” I didn’t hear what Delgado answered.

Lamarr Dean stood with his side against the bar so that he was facing the first Apache. “Maybe they have been drinking tizwin,” he said. “Maybe that’s where they bought the nerve to come in here.”

Early said, “It would take a week with tizwin.”

“They got time,” Dean said. “What else do they do?”

“That’s mescal,” Early said then.

Lamarr Dean went on staring. “I guess,” he said. He moved toward the first Apache, holding his drink, his elbow sliding along the edge of the bar until he was right next to the Apache. Early stayed where he was.

“Mescal,” Lamarr Dean said. “But it’s still not allowed. Not even sticky-sweet Mex drinks.”

The first Apache, not even knowing what was going on, raised his glass. It was right up to his mouth when Lamarr Dean nudged him, reaching out and pushing him a little, and the mescal spilled over the Apache’s chin and down the front of his vest. He looked at Lamarr Dean then, not understanding, I guess not sure if it was an accident or what.

“They just can’t hold it,” Lamarr Dean said. “Nobody knows why, but it’s a fact of nature.” He raised his whisky right in front of the Apache, as if daring the Apache to try the same thing on him.

That was when Russell stood up. His eyes never left Lamarr Dean, but his right hand closed on the Spencer and it was down at his side as he walked over the few steps to the bar.

Lamarr Dean was facing the Apache, starting to drink, sipping at the whisky to give the Apache all the chance he needed. Like saying come on, nudge my arm and see what happens. Then his chin raised as he started to down the whisky.

Russell was right there. But he didn’t nudge him. He didn’t ask or tell him to leave the Apache alone. Or say anything like, “If you want to pick on somebody, try me.” He didn’t give Lamarr a chance to know he was there.

He just swung the barrel of the Spencer up clean and quick and before you had a chance to believe it was happening the barrel shattered the glass right against Lamarr Dean’s mouth. Lamarr jumped back, dropping the broken pieces and with blood all over his hand and face.

I think he would have tore into Russell the next second, with his fists or his revolver, but now the Spencer was leveled at his belly, almost touching it. Early had his hand on his gun, but it had happened so fast even he couldn’t do anything.

Russell said, “No more, uh?”

Lamarr Dean didn’t say anything. I don’t think he could talk.

Russell said, “Before you leave, put money down for a mescal.”

That was John Russell, no older than I was at twenty-one and no more Apache than I was. Except he had lived with them-the wild free ones in the mountains and the wild caught ones up at San Carlos-about half his life and that made the difference. He was perhaps one-part Mexican, according to Mr. Mendez, and three-parts white. But I will go into more of that a little later. Right here I just wanted to tell about the first time I ever saw him.

Now, three weeks later, here is where I was advised to begin-with them bringing the McLaren girl over from Fort Thomas in an ambulance wagon and the lieutenant taking her right into the Alamosa Hotel.

I was out in front of the Hatch & Hodges office at the time, directly across the street, and I got a clear look at the girl even with all the people around. She was seventeen or eighteen and certainly pretty. Though maybe pretty wasn’t the word, the way her hair was cut almost as short as a boy’s and her face dark from the sun. But she looked good anyway. Even after living with Apaches over a month and after all the things they must have done to her.

Somebody said the girl had been taken by Chiricahuas on a raid and held four or five weeks before a patrol out of Fort Thomas surprised their ranchería and found her. She had stayed at Thomas a while and now this officer was to put her on a stage for home. Some place around St. David.

Only by now there weren’t any more southbound stages, and there hadn’t been for over a week. There were notices all over, but that was like the Army to bring her all the way over to Sweetmary not knowing Hatch & Hodges had shut down its stage service. They told the lieutenant over at the hotel, but he wanted to hear it directly from the company. So he sent one of the escort soldiers for Henry Mendez who went right over.

I stayed out front hoping to get another look at the girl if she came out. That’s why I was still there when John Russell appeared, which was some fifteen minutes later.

Somebody might laugh, but just for something to do I was picturing the McLaren girl and I sitting alone in the hotel café. We were talking and I heard myself say, “It must have been a very terrible experience, being with those Apaches.” Her eyes stayed on her coffee, and she didn’t say anything to that.

So we talked about other things. I heard myself speaking calmly in a low tone, telling her how I would be looking into some other business now that this office was closing. Go some place else. With no family here there was nothing to keep me. Then I pictured us traveling together. (Do you see how one thing led to another?) But what would we travel in?

That’s when I thought of the mud wagon, the light spring coach Mr. Mendez and I had taken to Delgado’s that day. It was still here.

I said to the McLaren girl, “Since you’re anxious to leave and there’s no regular stage, I wonder if you would like to ride along with me?” (Which proves that using the mud wagon was my idea; whether Mr. Mendez agrees or not.)

Then I skipped the part where she says yes and goes and gets her things and all and pictured the two of us in the coach again. It was night and we were traveling south. Above the wind and the rattle sounds I’d hear her start to cry and put my arm around her and lift her chin and say something that would calm her. She’d sniffle and nestle closer, and even with the peculiar haircut I’d know she wasn’t any boy.

We might have rode along in that coach the whole night while I just stood there in front of the office. But both the McLaren girl and the coach disappeared the second I saw John Russell. The new John Russell.

He was sitting his roan horse on this side of the street but down a ways. He was watching the hotel, sitting there like he’d always been there. Smoking a cigarette, I remember that too. But the only thing I recognized about him right away was his hat, worn straight and the brim just curled a little.

Now he had on a suit. It was a pretty worn dark gray one, but it fit him all right. You could see that his hair had been cut. Without the hair covering the ears and that shell belt and all he wasn’t someone you would stare at. At least not till you saw him close.

That was not till a few minutes later. Until Mr. Mendez came out of the hotel and Russell nudged his roan up to in front of the office. As he dismounted he looked at me over the saddle and there was that tell-nothing expression, looking at me no different than the way he had looked at Lamarr Dean the moment before he broke a whisky glass against his mouth.

Mr. Mendez was standing there now. He said, “You’re going to do it?”

“I’m going there to sell the place,” Russell said.

Mr. Mendez seemed to stare at him for awhile, thinking or just looking, I don’t know which. Finally he said, “It’s up to you. You can be white or Mexican or Indian. But now it pays you to be a white man. To look like a white man for awhile. When you go to Contention, you say, How are you? I’m John Russell. I own the Russell place. Some people will remember you from before; some won’t. But they will all know you as John Russell who owns the Russell place. You look at it. If you don’t like it, sell it. If you like it, keep it, and see what happens and then decide.” Mr. Mendez almost seemed to smile. “Did you know life was that simple?”

“I’ve learned some things,” John Russell said. “That’s why I sell it.”

He left his roan horse in front and went with Mr. Mendez back across the street to the Alamosa Hotel. Mr. Mendez hadn’t bothered to introduce us. In fact he had not bothered to look at me at all. Which was all right.

A little later this Mexican boy who worked for us took Russell’s horse around to the stable. I was in the office then, having given up on seeing the McLaren girl again. The boy came in through the back carrying Russell’s blanket roll and carbine and put them down on the passenger bench. I remember thinking, What will he do without the Spencer if Lamarr Dean or Early are over there at the Alamosa?

I also remember thinking at the time that dressing like a white man and taking a white man’s name wasn’t ever going to hide the Apache in him. I don’t mean Apache blood. I just mean after the way he had lived, how was he even going to convince anybody he was a white man? He didn’t even prefer to speak English. It was things like that gave you the feeling he had no use for white men or our ways.

According to Mr. Mendez he was most likely three-parts white, as I have said, and the rest Mexican on his mother’s side. John Russell himself had no memory of his father and only some memory of living in a Mexican village. Probably in Sonora. At that time they say the Apaches were forever raiding the little pueblos and carrying off whatever they needed, clothes, weapons, some women, and sometimes boys young enough to be brought up Apache-style. Which is what must have happened to John Russell. Piecing things together, he must have lived with them about from the time he was six to about age twelve.

Here is where a James Russell, late of Contention, comes in. At that time he owned supply wagons contracted to the Army, and he was at Fort Thomas when this boy who was called Ish-kay-nay was brought in with some prisoners. The boy was assigned to a work detail under James Russell and that was how the two became friends. Just a month later, when James Russell sold his business and went to settle in Contention, he took the boy with him and gave him his American name, John Russell. Five years or so passed and the boy even went to school there. Then all of a sudden he left and went up to San Carlos and joined the reservation police as if to become Apache again. (Here they called him Tres Hombres, which I will try to tell you about later.)

Now we are almost up to the present. He was with the police about three years, mostly up at Turkey Creek and Whiteriver. Then he moved again. Off on his own now as a mustanger. (I guess to break horses you don’t have to be halter-broke yourself, because he was pretty good at it Mr. Mendez said.)

A month ago, then, when Mr. James Russell died, the word was passed to John Russell through Mr. Mendez that he had been left Russell’s place outside Contention. Mr. Mendez wanted to put him on a coach and send him down there in style, but Russell kept backing off. Finally, when he did show up willing, there were no more stagecoaches. As I have explained.

Hatch & Hodges was leaving Sweetmary partly because there wasn’t enough business from here south; partly because the railroad was taking too much business other places. But that day, all of a sudden, you’d never know we were hard up for business.

First the McLaren girl had come. Then John Russell. Then, right after he and Mr. Mendez left, a mustered-out soldier from Thomas came in looking for passage to Bisbee. He was going to get married in a week and anxious to get there. I told him how it was and he left, walking over to the hotel.

It wasn’t long after that Dr. Favor came.

I had never seen him before, but I had heard of him. So when he came in and introduced himself, I knew this was Dr. Alexander Favor, the Indian Agent at San Carlos.

His name was heard because San Carlos was so close, but not too much. You heard of Indian Agents if they were very good, like John Clum, or if they were bad and got caught dealing poorly with the Indians for their own personal gain. You heard when they weren’t at the reservation anymore and you heard of the new man arriving. So I didn’t know much about Dr. Favor. Only that he had been up at San Carlos about two years and had a wife that was supposed to be very pretty and about fifteen years younger than he was.

He came in so unexpectedly I probably acted dumb at first. He stood with his hands and his hat on the counter which separated the waiting room from the office part, looking straight at me and never away. He was a big man, not so tall but heavy, with kind of reddish-brown hair-what there was of it-and a finely-kept half-moon beard on his chin. But no mustache. You have probably seen the style I am talking about.

He knew the stage line had stopped running. But what about hiring a rig and driver? I told him we were out of business, even for hiring. He said, but what was the possibility? We talked about that for a while and that was when I got the idea of using the mud wagon. Not just for him but for the McLaren girl too, and just like before I could see myself sitting in it with her.

That’s when I started to get excited about the idea. I wanted to get away from here. Why not in the mud wagon? I could talk to Dr. Favor on the way to Bisbee, which was where he wanted to go, and ask his advice about what business to get into. A man like Dr. Favor would know, and maybe he would even have some good connections. Between that and the idea of seeing the McLaren girl, it sounded better and better and finally I got the Mexican boy, who was out front again, and sent him after Mr. Mendez.

About fifteen minutes passed. Dr. Favor came through the gate at the end of the counter and sat at Mr. Mendez’s desk. We didn’t talk much and I felt dumb again. Finally Mr. Mendez came in.

He came right through the gate. I introduced them and Mr. Mendez nodded. Dr. Favor didn’t rise or even reach out his hand.

He said, “We’re talking about hiring a coach.”

Mr. Mendez looked at me. “Didn’t Carl tell you? This office is closed.”

“But you still have a coach here,” Dr. Favor said. “He called it a mud wagon.”

“That.” Mr. Mendez leaned back against the counter. “We move our office records in it when we leave.”

“Come back to get them,” Dr. Favor said.

I said, “They have to be in Bisbee Friday.” That was in three days. I even added, “If they don’t get there, it’ll be too late.”

Mr. Mendez just shrugged. “If I could do something-”

I said, “Why not use the mud wagon and come back? We could do that without any trouble.”

Mr. Mendez was probably already mad because I was talking up, but he still looked patient. He said, “And who would drive it?”

“I could do it,” I said. Which just came to me that moment.

“Do you think the company would put an inexperienced driver on a run like that?”

“Well,” I said, “how do you get experience?”

“All of a sudden you want to be a driver.”

“I’m trying to help Dr. Favor. If he has to be in Bisbee, I think the company should see he gets there.”

“Within the company’s power,” Mr. Mendez said, still patient. “I think you and I can discuss this another time, uh?”

“That doesn’t help Dr. Favor any.”

Dr. Favor said, “What if I’m willing to let him drive?”

“You might also be willing to bring suit if something happens,” Mr. Mendez said.

“If I bought the rig?” Dr. Favor said.

But Mr. Mendez shook his head. “It’s not mine to sell.”

“Then if I paid more than just our fares.”

“You’re anxious to get there,” Mr. Mendez said.

“I thought you understood that.”

Mr. Mendez nodded his head to the side. “Isn’t that your buggy by the hotel? Use that.”

“It’s government property,” Dr. Favor said. “There’s a regulation about using it for private matters.”

“We have regulations too.”

“How much do you want?” Dr. Favor seemed just as patient as Mr. Mendez.

“Well, if there was a driver here.”

“Then it comes down to a driver.”

“And horses. We would have to get four, six horses.”

“All right, get them.”

“But I couldn’t take responsibility for them,” Mr. Mendez said. “Now there are no change stations working. The same horses would have to go all the way.” Mr. Mendez shrugged. “If they don’t make it, who pays for them?”

“I buy the horses,” Dr. Favor said.

Mr. Mendez started to nod, very slowly, as if he was just understanding something. “You want to get there pretty bad, uh?”

“I have a feeling,” Dr. Favor said, “you’re going to find a driver.” He pushed up out of the chair, his eyes on Mr. Mendez. “If I went over to the hotel now and had supper, that would give you about an hour to find a man and get ready. Say six-thirty.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not?”

“I’ll see,” Mr. Mendez said.

“Do that,” Dr. Favor said. He moved through the gate, taking his hat from the counter.

“But I won’t promise you,” Mr. Mendez said after him. The Indian agent just walked out, like it was settled.

I said, soon as he was gone, “Mr. Mendez, I know I can drive it.”

“Driving a stage isn’t something you know you can do,” Mr. Mendez said.

“I’ve pulled the teams around from the yard plenty of times. And that mud wagon’s lighter than a Concord.”

“The horses pull it,” he said. “Not you.”

We argued some more, and finally I said, “Well, who else do you have?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Well, I am worrying, because I want to go too.”

He looked at me closely with those brown-stained eyes not telling anything, and I hoped my face was just as calm and natural.

“To talk to this Favor, uh? Get to know him?”

“Why not?”

“It’s all right, Carl.”

“I was thinking of some others too,” I said. “An ex-soldier who was in here. And there’s the McLaren girl.”

Mr. Mendez nodded again as if he was thinking. “The McLaren girl. Sure,” he said. “And maybe John Russell.”

It was all right with me. “That would be five inside,” I said.

“Six,” Mr. Mendez said.

“Not if I’m driving.”

Mr. Mendez shook his head. “You’re inside like a passenger. How does that sound?”

“Well,” I said, “could I ask who’s going to drive it then?”

“I am,” Mr. Mendez said. “Who else?”

The way Mr. Mendez decided to go all of a sudden didn’t make any sense at all until I thought about it a while. And then I realized it might not have been so all of a sudden at that. He could have seen money in this right off and been leading Dr. Favor on, seeing to make about a month’s wages in three days if he kept all the fares; and why wouldn’t he? That was one thing.

The other was John Russell being here. I think Mr. Mendez wanted to get him on his way before he had time to change his mind; before he spent another night staring at the ceiling and counting all the reasons why he shouldn’t go to Contention. Put him in a coach now and by morning Russell might be used to being close to white people again. But why Mr. Mendez bothered or cared was something else. Maybe because he was Mexican and John Russell was part Mexican. Does that make sense?

There was a lot to do before six-thirty. I had the Mexican boy get his father; they’d take care of the coach and horses. Mr. Mendez said he would go to the hotel for John Russell and the McLaren girl and also try and find the ex-soldier. So he would see me later.

Before he went though I reminded him I was going too, and he paid me my last wages. From then on I was no longer with Hatch & Hodges. It was a pretty good feeling, even not knowing what I was going to do in life now.

First thing, I went to the boarding house where I lived and put on my suit. It was pretty old and too small now, making me look skinnier than I was, but it would be all right for the trip. I didn’t want to buy a new one in Sweetmary. I thought about buying a gun, but decided against that too; I’d be out of money before I left. I wrote to my mother who lived up at Manzanita with her sister, Mrs. R. V. Hungerford, telling her how I was leaving my position and would write again when I had found some place I liked. Then I rolled up my things in a blanket and went out and had something to eat. By the time I got back to the office it was almost six-thirty.

John Russell was waiting. He was sitting on the bench along the wall on the left. His blanket roll, with the cartridge belt wrapped around it and the Spencer inside with part of the barrel and stock showing, was next to him.

I’ll admit he gave me a start, because it was dim in the office and I didn’t expect to see anybody. I left my blanket roll by the door and went around behind the counter and started making out a passenger list and tickets. Might as well do it right, I thought. Then it started to feel funny, just the two of us there and nobody talking.

So I said, “You ready for your stagecoach ride?”

His eyes raised and he nodded. That was all.

“What about your horse?”

“Henry Mendez bought it.”

“How much he give you?”

“Ask him,” Russell said.

“I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Ask him,” Russell said again.

Why bother? I thought, and went on making out the list. I put all the names down but the ex-soldier’s because I didn’t know his. I just put down Ex-Soldier and never did change it, even when he came in a couple of minutes later with this canvas bag on his shoulder. He swung it down, bouncing it off the counter, and reached into his coat pocket.

“What’s the fare?”

“I guess you saw Mendez,” I said, and told him how much.

“I don’t know the whyfor,” he said. “But I’m for it.”

He waited while I tore off one of the orange-colored tickets, then another one. “If any stops are open on the way, show this for meals. Drinks are extra. You hand it in when you reach your destination. The other one’s for him.” I nodded to Russell. “You want to hand it to him?”

The ex-soldier looked at the ticket as he walked over to the bench. He was a heavy man and his coat was tight-smooth across the back. I would judge him to have been about thirty-seven or -eight. “I see you’re going to Contention,” he said, handing the ticket to Russell. “I change there for Bisbee. Yesterday I was in the Army. Next week I’m a mining man and the week after I’ll have a wife, one already arranged for and waiting. What do you think of that?”

John Russell pulled the blanket roll toward him as the man sat down, propping his feet on his canvas bag. “You saving your lamp oil?” the ex-soldier said to me.

“I guess we can spare some.” I came around and put a match to the Rochester lamp that hung from the ceiling. Just then I heard the coach and I said, “Here it comes, boys.”

You could hear the jingling, rattling sound coming from the equipment yard next door. Then through the window you could see it-smaller than a Concord and almost completely open with its canvas side-curtains rolled up and fastened-just turning out of the yard, and the next moment the jingling, rattling sound was right out front. Four horses were pulling the mud wagon; two spares were on twenty-foot lines tied to the back end.

The ex-soldier said, “I wouldn’t complain if it was an ore wagon all loaded.”

“It’s mainly just for rainy spells,” I explained. “Sometimes a heavy Concord gets mired down; but three teams can pull a mud wagon through about anything.”

The Mexican boy and his father were both up on the boot. Then Mendez, who must have just crossed the street, was standing there. “Everybody’s going,” he said. Then looked at John Russell. “Your saddle is on the coach. Now I go up and get myself ready.”

I waited till we heard him on the stairs, then told them how I had offered to drive this run, but now that I was a passenger it would be against the rules. “There’s rules about who can ride up with the driver,” I said, looking at John Russell and wondering if he had any ideas. But that was all the farther I got.

The man who came in was wearing range clothes and carrying a saddle which he let go of just inside the door and came on, looking straight at me, but not smiling like he was ready to say something friendly.

He was tall by the time he reached the counter, with that thin, stringy look of a rider and the ching-ching sound of spurs. Even the dust and horse-smell seemed to be still with him, and he reminded you of Lamarr Dean and Early and almost every one of them you ever saw: all made of the same leather and hardly ever smiling unless they were with their own look-alike brothers. Then they were always loud, loud talking and loud laughing. This one had a .44 Colt on his hip and his hat tipped forward with the brim curled almost to a point, the hat loose on his head but seeming to be part of him.

“Frank Braden,” he said. His hands spread out along the edge of the counter.

I said, “Yessir?” as if I still worked for Hatch & Hodges.

“Write it down for that coach out front.”

“That’s a special run.”

“I heard. That’s why I’m going on it.”

I looked down at the four orange cards on the counter, lining them up evenly. “I’m afraid that one’s full-up. Four here and those two. That is all the coach holds.”

“You can get another on,” he said. Telling me, not asking.

“Well, I don’t see how.”

“On top.”

“No one’s allowed to ride with the driver. That’s a company rule. I was just telling these boys here, certain people can ride inside, certain people outside.”

“You say they’re going?” He nodded toward the bench.

“Yessir. Both of them.”

He turned without another word and walked over to John Russell with that soft ching-ing spur sound.

He said, “That boy at the counter said you got a stage ticket.”

John Russell opened his hand on his lap. “This?”

“That’s it. You give it to me and you can take the next stage.”

“I have to take this one,” Russell said.

“No, you want to is all. But it would be better if you waited. You can get drunk tonight. How does that sound?”

“I have to take this one,” John Russell said. “I have to take it and I want to take it.”

“Leave him alone,” the ex-soldier said then. “You come late, you find your own way.”

Frank Braden looked at him. “What did you say?”

“I said why don’t you leave him alone.” His tone changed. All of a sudden it sounded friendlier, more reasonable. “He wants to take this stage, let him take it,” the ex-soldier said.

You heard that ching sound again as Frank Braden shifted around to face the ex-soldier. He stared at him and said, “I guess I’ll use your ticket instead.”

The ex-soldier hadn’t moved, his big hands resting on his knees, his feet still propped on the canvas bag. “You just walk in,” he said, “and take somebody else’s seat?”

Braden’s pointed hat brim moved up and down. “That’s the way it is.”

The ex-soldier glanced at John Russell, then over at me. “Somebody’s pulling a joke on somebody,” he said.

Russell didn’t say anything. He had made a cigarette and now he lit it, looking at Braden as he blew the smoke up in the air.

“You think I come in here to kid?” Braden asked the ex-soldier.

“Look here, this boy is going to Contention,” the ex-soldier explained, “and I’m going to Bisbee to get married after twelve years of Army. We got places to go and no reason to give up our seats.”

“All this we,” Braden said. “I’m talking to you.”

The ex-soldier didn’t know what to say. And, even with his size, he didn’t know what to do with Braden standing over him and not giving an inch. He glanced at John Russell again, then over to me like he’d thought of something. “What kind of a business you run?” he said. “You let a man walk in here and say he’s taking your seat-after paying your fare and all-and the company doesn’t do a thing about it?”

“Maybe I better get Mr. Mendez,” I said. “He’s upstairs.”

“I think he ought to know about this,” the ex-soldier said and started to rise. Braden stepped in closer and the ex-soldier looked up, almost straight up, and you could see then that he was afraid but trying hard not to show it.

“This is our business,” Braden said. “You don’t want somebody else’s nose stuck in.”

The ex-soldier seemed to get his nerve back-I guess because he realized he had to do something-and he said, “We better settle this right now.”

Braden didn’t budge. He said, “Are you wearing a gun?”

“Now wait a minute.”

“If you aren’t,” Braden said, “you better get one.”

“You can’t just threaten a man like that,” the ex-soldier said. “There are witnesses here seeing you threaten me.”

Braden shook his head. “No, they heard you call me a dirty name.”

“I never called you anything.”

“Even if they didn’t hear it,” Braden said, “I did.”

“I never said a word!”

“I’m going to walk out on the street,” Braden said. “If you don’t come out inside a minute, I’ll have to come back in.”

That’s all there was to it. The ex-soldier stared up at Braden, the cords in his neck standing out, his hands spread and clamped on his knees. And even as he gave up, as he let himself lean back against the wall, he was holding on, knowing he had backed down and it was over, but doing it gradually so we wouldn’t see the change come over him. Braden held out his hand. The ex-soldier gave him his ticket. Then he picked up his bag and walked out.

Braden didn’t even offer to pay him for the ticket. He watched the ex-soldier till he was gone, then walked over to his saddle and carried it out to the coach. I could feel him right outside, but it bothered me that I hadn’t done anything. Or Russell hadn’t. I motioned him over to the counter and he came, taking his time and stepping out his cigarette.

“Listen,” I said, “shouldn’t we have done something?”

“It wasn’t my business,” Russell said.

“But what if he had taken your ticket?” I stared at him and this close you could see that he was young. His face was thin and you saw those strange blue-colored eyes set in the darkness of his skin.

Russell said, “You would have to be sure he was making it something to kill over.”

“He made it plain enough,” I said.

“If you were sure,” Russell said, “and if the ticket was worth it to you, then you’d do something to keep it.”

“But I don’t think that soldier even had a gun.”

Russell said, “That’s up to him if he doesn’t carry one.” Even the way he said it made me mad; so calm about it.

“He would have helped you and you know it,” I said.

“I don’t know it,” Russell said. “If he did, it would be up to him. But it wouldn’t be any of his business.”

Just like that. He walked back to the bench and just then Mendez came in. Now he was wearing a coat and hat and carrying a maleta bag and a sawed-off shotgun.

“Time,” Mendez said, sounding almost happy about it. He came through the gate to get something from his desk. That gave me the chance to tell what Braden had done, sounding disgusted as I told it so Mendez would have no doubt what I thought about Braden’s trick.

“Then we still have six,” Mendez said. That was all.

And that was the six-seven counting Mendez-who left Sweetmary that Tuesday, August 12.

Nothing much happened just before we left. Russell asked to ride up with Mendez, saying they could talk about things.

“Talk,” Mendez said. “You can’t hear yourself.” He pushed Russell toward the coach. “Go on. See what it’s like.”

Then there was a talk between Mendez and Dr. Favor. Probably about all the other people in what was supposed to be a hired coach. I heard Mendez say, “I haven’t seen any money yet.” They talked a while and finally must have settled it.

The seating inside was as follows: Russell, the McLaren girl, and I riding backwards, across from Braden, Mrs. Favor, and Dr. Favor. Which was perfect. We sat there a while, almost dark inside after Mendez dropped the side curtains, not saying anything, feeling the coach move up and down on its leather thorough braces as the boy who worked for us put the traveling bags in the rear end boot and covered them with a canvas.

I tried to think of something to say to the McLaren girl, hardly believing she was next to me. But I decided to wait a while before speaking. Let her get comfortable and used to everybody.

So I just started picturing her. She was too close to look right at. But I could feel her there. You had the feeling, when you pictured her, that she looked like a boy more than a woman. Not her face. It was a girl’s face with a girl’s eyes. It was her body and the way she moved; the thinness of her body and the way she had walked up the hotel steps. You had the feeling she would run and swim. I could almost see her come out of the water with her short hair glistening wet and pressed to her forehead. I could see her smiling too, for some reason.

Mrs. Favor was watching the McLaren girl, staring right at her, so I had a chance to look at Mrs. Favor. Audra was her name, and she was nice looking all right: thin, but still very womanly looking, if you understand me. That was the thing about her. If anybody ever says woman to me, like “You should have seen that woman,” or, “Now there was a woman for you,” I would think of Audra Favor, thinking of her as Audra, too, not as Mrs. Favor, the Indian Agent’s wife.

That was because one got the feeling she was not with her husband. Dr. Favor was older than she was, at least fifteen years older, which put her about thirty, and he could have been just another man sitting there. That would be something to watch, I decided. To see if she paid any attention to him.

Frank Braden, I noticed, looked right at Mrs. Favor. With his head turned his face was close to hers and he stared right at her, maybe thinking nobody could see him in the dimness, or maybe not caring if they did.

Just before we left, I raised up to straighten my coat and sneaked a look at the McLaren girl. Her eyes were lowered, not closed, but looking down at her hands. Russell, his hat tilted forward a little, was looking at his hands too. They were folded on his lap.

What would these people think, I wondered, if they knew he’d been living like an Apache most of his life, right up until a little while ago? Would it make a difference to them? I had a feeling it would. I didn’t think of myself as one of them, then; now I don’t see why I should have left myself out. To tell the truth, I wasn’t at all pleased about Russell sitting in the same coach with us.

When the coach started to roll I said, “Well, I guess we’ll be together for a while.”