Hombre

3

Lamarr Dean was close now.

“I pretty near forgot something,” he said. Then he noticed Russell up on the roof behind me. “What’re you at up there?”

“Getting my things,” John Russell said. The Spencer was down between his legs as he knelt there, sitting back on his feet, his hands flat on his thighs.

“Expect you’re going somewhere?”

“Well,” Russell shrugged, “why sit here, uh?”

“How far you think you’ll get?”

“That’s something to find out.”

Lamarr Dean heeled his horse, moving to the back of the coach. He stood up in the stirrups to reach one of the two waterskins hanging there, unhooked it, and looped the end thong over his saddle horn. Then he came back with the skin hanging round and tight in front of his left leg. He pulled the horse around so he was facing us again.

“You didn’t say how far you’d get,” Lamarr Dean said.

Russell’s shoulders went up and down. “We find that out after a while.”

Lamarr Dean raised the revolver, hesitating, making sure we saw what he was going to do. Mendez yelled something. I’m not sure what, maybe just a sound. But as he yelled it, Lamarr Dean pulled the trigger and the waterskin still hanging from the back of the coach burst open. It gushed and then trickled as the bag sagged, all the water wasting itself on that sandy road, and Lamarr Dean just sat there looking at us. He didn’t smile or laugh, but you could see he enjoyed it.

He said to Russell, “Now how far?”

There wasn’t supposed to be an answer to that. Lamarr Dean took up his reins and started around. Russell waited till that moment.

“Maybe,” he said, “as far as Delgado’s.”

Lamarr Dean held up, taken off-stride, and now he was sideways to us, his gun hand on the offside and he had to turn his head around over his shoulder to look up at Russell.

“You said something?”

“Maybe if we get thirsty,” Russell said, “we’ll go to Delgado’s and have mescal.”

Lamarr Dean didn’t move, even with his head turned in that awkward position. He stared up at Russell, and I’m certain that right then something was dawning on him.

He said, “You do that.” For a few more seconds he looked up at Russell, then nudged his horse and started off again with his back to us and holding to a walking pace to show that he wasn’t afraid of anything.

I kept watching him-thirty, forty, fifty feet away then, about that far when Russell’s voice said, “Get down,” not suddenly, but calmly and in a quiet tone.

I dropped down on the seat, ducking my head, and Russell said, “All the way down-”

And that last word wasn’t quiet, still it wasn’t yelled or excited. I saw the Spencer suddenly up to his face and I dropped, looking around to see where I was going and catching a glimpse of Lamarr Dean sixty feet out and wheeling his mount and bringing the Colt gun straight out in front of him, thinking he had time to be sure and bam the Spencer went off in my ear and Lamarr Dean went out of that saddle like he’d been clubbed in the face, his horse swerving, then running.

Russell must have been sure of his shot, for he was already reloaded and tracking the horse, and, when he fired, the horse stumbled and rolled and tried to get up. And out past the horse you could see Braden coming in. Coming, then swerving as that Spencer went off again, banging hard close to me and cracking thin out in the open. There was the sound of Braden’s revolver twice and I hugged the floor of the boot, looking up to see just the barrel of the Spencer. Russell was full length behind it now, resting the barrel on the front rail, tracking Braden with the sights and not hurrying his fire. Braden swerved again and this time kept going all the way around full circle and back the way he had come toward the small figure way out there that was Mrs. Favor, so you knew Russell had come close. At least Braden didn’t want any part of him right then.

I raised up. Russell was loading again, now that there was time, taking a loading tube from his blanket and putting seven of the.56-56 slugs in it and shoving the tube up through the stock of the Spencer.

“They’ll all come back now,” I said. “Won’t they?”

“As sure as we have what they want,” Russell said.

There was a space there where nothing happened. I saw Dr. Favor and Mendez and the McLaren girl, all three of them in a row, crouched against the cutbank where they’d gone when the shooting started. It was quiet now, but still nobody moved.

Russell was buckling on his cartridge belt, over his left shoulder and down across his chest, working it around so that the full cartridge loops were all in front. While he did this, his eyes never left the two specks way out on the meadow.

We had some time, but I did not think of it then. Braden had to get Early and the Mexican before he came back and they could be a mile off running the stage horses. I kept thinking of how Russell had brought up his Spencer and put it on Lamarr Dean, the way a man might aim at a tin can on a fence, and killed him with one shot. Then he had dropped the horse that was running away with the water bag. He had killed a man, sure of it, and in the same second he had known he must get the horse and he did that too.

The space where nothing happened lasted maybe a minute altogether. Then it was over for good.

Russell moved past me, frontwards, stepping on the wheel and then jumping. He was carrying his Spencer of course, and in the other hand his blanket roll and the canteen he and Mendez had used. (Little things you remember: there was no strap on the canteen, only two metal rings a strap had once been fastened to, and Russell hooked a finger through one of the rings to carry it.)

I don’t think he even looked at the others, but started off down the road we had come up, only stopping to pick up his Colt gun and shove it in his holster. Down just past there he left the road and started up the slope, moving pretty quickly through the greasewood and other brush.

Dr. Favor woke up first. He yelled at Russell. Then Mendez was out on the road looking up at Russell, and Dr. Favor had run off into the brush on the other side of the coach.

I started down then, taking the grainsack our provisions were in and my blanket roll. By the time I was on the road, Dr. Favor was coming out of the brush with his little revolver and Mendez’s sawed-off shotgun. Mendez and the McLaren girl were still watching Russell.

“He’s running,” Dr. Favor said. He was not at all calm and at that moment I thought if the shotgun was loaded he would have fired it at Russell.

“We need him,” Dr. Favor said then. He knew it right then. He knew it as sure as he thought John Russell was an Apache Indian and we were afoot out in the middle of nowhere.

That’s when the rest of us came wide awake. The McLaren girl said, “I wouldn’t have any idea where to go. I don’t think I even know where we are.”

“We’re maybe half way,” I said. “Maybe more. If we were over on the main road I could tell.”

“Then how far’s the main road?”

Favor shot a look at her like he was trying to think and she had interrupted him. “Just keep quiet,” he said.

It stung her, you could see. “Standing out here in the open,” she said, “what good does keeping quiet do?”

Dr. Favor never answered her. He looked at Mendez and said, “Come on,” handing him his shotgun, and they hurried out to where Lamarr Dean’s horse was, Dr. Favor skirting around Lamarr Dean’s body which lay spread-armed like it had been staked out, but Mendez stopped there to take Lamarr Dean’s Colt. Then they were both at the dead horse, kneeling there a minute, Favor pulling loose the saddlebags while Mendez got the waterskin. They didn’t bother with the Henry rifle, or else it was under the horse and held fast.

While they were at the dead horse, the McLaren girl said, still watching them, “He’s not even thinking of his wife. Do you know that?”

“Well, sure he is,” I said, not meaning he was actually thinking about her, but at least concerned about her. What did the girl expect him to do? He couldn’t just chase after Braden. That wouldn’t get his wife back.

“He’s forgotten her,” the McLaren girl said. “All he’s thinking about is the money he stole.”

“You can’t just say something like that,” I said. I meant you couldn’t know what somebody was thinking, especially in the jackpot we were in right then. A person acted, and thought about it later.

It was getting the things from Lamarr’s horse that took time, the reason we were not right behind Russell or had him in sight anymore by the time we got down the road past the cutbank and started up the slope.

Dr. Favor, with the saddlebags over one shoulder, kept ahead of us, following the same direction Russell had taken. The slope was not very difficult at first, a big open sweep that humped up to a bunch of pines along the top; but, as we were hurrying, it wasn’t long before our legs started aching and getting so tight you thought something would knot inside and you’d never get it loosened.

We were hurrying because of what was behind us, you can bet all your wages on that. But we were also hurrying to catch Russell, feeling like little kids running home in the dark and scared the house was going to be locked and nobody home. Do you see how we felt? We were worried he had left us to go on his own. In other words, knowing we needed Russell if we were going to find our way out of here alive.

When Dr. Favor reached the trees he hesitated, or seemed to, then he was gone. That’s when we hurried faster, all worn out by then. You could hear Mendez breathing ten feet away.

But there was no need to hurry. As we reached the top there was Dr. Favor standing just inside the shade of the trees. Russell was just past him. He was sitting down with his blanket open on the ground and his boots off. He was pulling on a pair of curl-toed Apache moccasins, not paying any attention to Dr. Favor who stood there like he had caught Russell and was holding him from getting away, actually pointing his revolver at him. Dr. Favor’s chest was moving up and down with his breathing.

Mendez moved in a little closer, watching Russell. “Why didn’t you wait for us?” he said. Russell didn’t bother to answer. You weren’t even sure he heard Mendez.

“He doesn’t care what we do,” Dr. Favor said. “Long as he gets away.”

“Man,” Mendez said. “What’s the matter with you? We have to think about this and talk it over. What if one of us just ran off? You think that would be a good thing?”

Russell raised his leg to pull a moccasin on. They were the high Apache kind, like leggings which come up past your knees. He began rolling it down, stuffing the pants leg into it and fastening it about calf-high with a strap of something. He didn’t look up until he had finished this.

Then he said, “What do you want?”

“What do we want?” Mendez said, surprised. “We want to get out of here.”

“What’s stopping you?” Russell said.

Mendez kept frowning. “What’s the matter with you?”

Russell had both moccasins on now. He took his boots and rolled them inside the blanket. Doing this, not looking at us, he said, “You want to go with me, uh?”

“With you? We all go together. This isn’t happening to just one person,” Mendez said. “This is happening to all of us.”

“But you want me to show you the way,” Russell said.

“Sure you show the way. We follow. But we’re all together.”

“I don’t know,” Russell said, very slowly, like he was thinking it over. He looked up at Dr. Favor, directly at him. “I can’t ride with you. Maybe you can’t walk with me…uh?”

For a minute, maybe even longer, nobody said a word. Russell finished rolling his blanket and tied it up with a piece of line he’d had inside.

When he stood up, Mendez said-not surprised or excited or frowning now, but so serious his voice wasn’t even very loud-he said, “What does that mean?”

Russell looked at him. “It means I can’t ride with them and maybe they can’t walk with me. Maybe they don’t walk the way I walk. You sabe that, Mexican?”

“I helped you like you’re my own son!” Mendez’s voice rose and his eyes opened so that you could see all the whites. But Russell wasn’t looking. He was walking off. Mendez kept shouting, “What’s the matter with you!”

“Let him go,” Dr. Favor said.

We stood there watching Russell move off through the trees.

“What do you expect?” Dr. Favor said. “Do you expect somebody like that to act the way a decent person would?”

“I helped him,” Mendez said, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened.

“All right, now he’ll help us,” Dr. Favor said. “He won’t have anything to do with us, but we can follow him, can’t we?”

Nobody thought to try to answer that question at the time, because it wasn’t really a question. I thought about it later, though. I thought about it for the next two or three hours as we tried to keep up with Russell.

It was about 3:30 or 4 o’clock when the holdup took place, with already a lot of shade on this side of the hills. From then on the light kept getting dimmer. I mean right from the time we started following Russell it was hard to keep him in sight, even when he was out in the open.

In daylight the land was spotted with brush and rock, dead and dusty looking, but with some color, light green and dark green and brown and whitish yellow. In the evening it all turned brown and hazy looking, with high peaks all around us once we’d gone on down through the other side of the pines out into open country again.

I say open, but by that I mean only there weren’t any trees. I don’t mean to say it was easy to travel over.

We moved along with Dr. Favor usually ahead of us. Way up ahead you would see Russell. Then you wouldn’t see him. Not because he had hidden, but because of the time of day and just the way that country was, with little dips and rises and wild with all kinds of scrub brush and cactus. The saguaros that were all over didn’t look like fence posts now. They were like grave markers in an Indian burial ground, if there is such a place as that. This wasn’t what scared you though, it was what was coming behind us and trying to keep up with Russell that did.

He must have known we were following. But he never once ran or tried to hide on us. The McLaren girl wondered out loud why he didn’t. I guess he knew he didn’t have to.

There was a pass that led through these hills which Russell followed a little ways, then crossed the half mile or so of openness to the other side and headed up through a barranca that rose as a big trough between two ridges. Following him across the openness we kept looking back, but Braden and his men were not close to us yet.

Russell left the barranca, climbing again up to the cover of trees. I think that climb was the hardest part and wore us out the most, all of us hurrying, wasting our strength as we tried to keep him in sight. Once up on this ridge, though, there was no sign of him.

We kept to the trees, moving north because we figured he would. Then after a mile or so there was the end of the trees. This hump of a ridge trailed off into a bare spine and then we were working our way down again into another pass, a darker, more shadowed one, because now it was later. It was here that we sighted Russell again, and here that we almost gave up and said what was the use. He was climbing again, almost up the other side of this pass, way up past the brush to where the slope was steep and rocky, and we knew then that we would never keep up with him.

Dr. Favor claimed he was deliberately trying to lose us. But the McLaren girl said no, he didn’t care if we followed or sprouted wings and flew; he was thinking of Braden and his men on horseback and he was making it as hard for them as he could, making them get off their horses and walk if they wanted to follow him.

When she said this and we thought of Braden again, we went on, tired or not, and climbed right up that grade Russell had, skinning ourselves pretty bad because now it was hard to see your footing in the dim light.

It was up on that slope, in trees again, that we rested and ate some of the dried beef and biscuits from the grainsack. Before we were through it was dark, almost as dark as it would get. This rest, which was our longest one, made it hard to get up and we started arguing about going on.

Mendez was for staying. He said going on wasn’t worth it. Let Braden catch up for all he cared.

Dr. Favor said we had to go on, practically ordering us to. Braden would have to stop because he couldn’t follow our trail in the dark. So we should take advantage of this and keep going.

Keep going, the McLaren girl said. That sounded fine. But which way? How did we know we wouldn’t get turned around and walk right back into Braden’s hands?

We would head north, Dr. Favor said. And keep heading north. The McLaren girl said she agreed, but which way was it? He pointed off somewhere, but you could tell he wasn’t sure. Or he could go on alone, Dr. Favor suggested, watching us to see our reaction. Go on alone and bring back help. He didn’t insist on it and let it die when nobody said anything.

Why didn’t he mention his wife then? That’s when I started thinking about what the McLaren girl had said earlier: that he had forgotten about his wife and only the money was important to him.

Could that be? I tried thinking what I would do if it was my wife. Hole up and ambush them? Try and get her away from them? My gosh, no, I thought then. Just trade them the money for her! Certainly Dr. Favor must have thought of that.

Then why didn’t he do it? Or at least talk about it. When you got down to it, though, it was his business. I mean we had no right to remind him of what he should do. That was his business. I don’t mean to sound hard or callous; that’s just the way it was. We had enough on our minds without worrying about his wife.

We just sat there until Dr. Favor said he was going. When he started off, the McLaren girl started after him, so Mendez and I did too. I guess we had to follow somebody.

From then on I don’t know where we were or even what direction we went.

By then there wasn’t much talk among us. Once in a while Dr. Favor said something, usually about what way to go. One time though he brought up the subject again of us hiding somewhere and him going on alone.

Mendez said it was all right with him, not caring one way or the other. But neither the McLaren girl nor I would agree to it. I kept picturing Braden somewhere behind us waiting for morning so he could get on our sign and run us down. Who would want to just sit there waiting for him?

The McLaren girl looked at it another way. She said right to Dr. Favor’s face, “That money’s been stolen enough. Don’t worry about one of us trying to take it.”

“As if I’d distrust you people,” Dr. Favor said. “The things you think about.”

“I’d like to know what you think about,” the McLaren girl said. “Since it sure isn’t your wife.”

Dr. Favor didn’t say anything and we went on.

If you were to ask me who was the best one, who took it the best and never once complained, who even walked with hardly any trouble, I would say the McLaren girl. If you are surprised, remember she had been held by wild Apaches over a month. She had traveled with them as they kept on the move, keeping up with them else they would have killed her. You looked at her and wondered how something like that could have happened to a young girl and still not see it on her face.

Once she offered to take the grainsack or blanket roll I was carrying, but I wouldn’t hear of it.

She even said we should still keep going when finally Dr. Favor led us off into a gully and announced we would camp there. He said if we stopped now we would have a better chance of finding Russell when daylight came. I’m not sure what he meant by that and think it was just an excuse, the real reason for his wanting to stop being his tiredness. The McLaren girl argued we should use the darkness while we had it-it was still a few hours before sunup-but gave in when she saw how tired Mendez was. So tired he could hardly stand up.

We had already eaten some of the biscuits and dried meat from the grainsack. Now there was nothing to do but sleep. I was the only one with a blanket, so I offered it to the McLaren girl. She said no, for me to use it. I did, finally, but all rolled up as a pillow. (Somebody might think this was dumb, but I couldn’t cover myself with it being the only one. It would have felt good too, I can tell you that.)

It was only a few hours before sunup when we stopped here; so there wasn’t much time to sleep, and it was hard getting to sleep, even as tired as I felt. But finally I did.

In the morning there weren’t two words said by anyone. You know how it can be in the morning anyway: on top of having slept no more than two and a half hours on the ground and in the cold after walking almost all night. (Yes, it was cold. Even though during the day it was blistering hot.) And on top of that not knowing where you were and Braden coming after us on horseback.

The only thing we were sure of in the morning was the direction north and that was the way we went, having eaten a little more of the dried beef and biscuits and taken a few swallows of water each.

Going toward the north does not mean we went in a straight line. Unless you wanted to climb steep slopes all the time, and maybe get up there and find no way down, you had to follow the washes and draws that cut through this high country, so that maybe you would walk two, even three miles to get one mile north. You can see nobody talked much. That’s the way it was all morning, or until the next part happened which I would judge was an hour or so before noon.

We came out of some trees onto an open meadow, a little graze like that was cupped there in the hills, then crossing the meadow and taking the only way out, we went up a pretty long draw that was deep and lined with thick brush and rocks along both sides, the draw being about sixty feet wide and upwards to three hundred or more feet long, that being a calculation from memory.

We made our way up this draw, looking back across the meadow as we went, finally reached the top and almost dropped everything we carried. Not out of tiredness, out of surprise!

For sitting there with his Spencer across his lap and smoking a cigarette was John Russell.

Mendez yelled his name and ran over to him, Mendez assuming just as I did, I guess, that Russell had changed his mind and gotten the mean feeling out of his system, and now wanted to show us the way out of here.

Mendez scolded him a little, but in a kidding way, that he shouldn’t have done what he did. Mendez was too glad to see Russell to be serious or angry at him, telling him how we couldn’t keep up with him and how worn out we got trying to.

Russell moved him aside with his arm and motioned all of us back from the crest so we wouldn’t be seen from below.

From the way Mendez acted, our troubles were over.

Not so according to Dr. Favor. He said, staring at Russell, “You going to sit there for a while, are you?”

Russell didn’t move. “You want to go bad, uh?”

He saw that Russell had no intention of getting up. “Now it comes,” Dr. Favor said. “I want to hear how you’ll say this.”

“You want to go,” Russell said, “go on.”

Dr. Favor kept looking at him. “What else?”

“Leave the saddlebag and the gun here.”

Dr. Favor’s big red face almost seemed to relax and smile. “There,” he said. “Right out in the open. It took you all night to realize you’d run off and left something behind.”

Mendez, not understanding, had that worried look again. “What is it?” he said to Russell.

“It’s my money,” Dr. Favor said. “He’s thinking it looks pretty good. Out here and no law to stop him. But four people against one. Maybe he hasn’t thought about that.”

Russell drew on the cigarette. “Maybe one is enough,” he said.

That was when the McLaren girl stepped in. “Your money,” she yelled at Dr. Favor. I mean yelled it. “After you stole it! We’re supposed to side with you to protect money you stole!” Then her eyes took in Russell too. “You sit here arguing about money and giving Frank Braden all the time he’d ever need.”

“Be careful what you say,” Dr. Favor said to her. “I think you are talking without thinking. This is my money, in my possession, and it will take more than the word of a dead outlaw to prove it isn’t.”

“All this talk,” Mendez said, like he had just thought of it. “We have to move.”

Russell looked up at him. “Where do you want to go?”

Mendez said, “Are you crazy? They’re coming!”

“Tell me where,” Russell said.

“Where? I don’t know. Out of here.”

“I’ll tell you something,” Russell said. “There’s open country. Maybe it takes you two, three hours to cross it. And while you’re there they come with their horses.”

“Then hide somewhere,” Mendez said, “and wait for dark to cross it.”

Russell nodded. “Or do better than that. Wait for them here. Shoot their horses to make it even, uh? Maybe finish it.”

“Finish it,” I said, understanding him, but I guess not believing what he was asking us to do. “You mean try and kill them?”

“If they get close enough,” Russell said, “they’re going to kill you.”

“But they didn’t harm anybody before. Why would they want to now?”

“Do you want to give them your water?”

“They got water.”

“Two canteens which they were drinking out of all day yesterday. Do you want to give them yours?”

“No, but-”

“Then they’ll kill you for it.”

Until then it seemed just a matter of running and getting away or running and being caught and they getting the money after all. But kill them or they would kill us? It was a terrible thing to think about and you couldn’t help looking for other ways. Run or hide. Run or hide. Those ways kept popping into your head while Russell just sat there looking down the draw and waiting.

“And if we don’t finish it,” Dr. Favor said, making those last words sound dumb to have ever been thought of. “What then?”

“You don’t have a say in this,” Russell said, looking up at him. “You can stay or go, but either way you leave the saddlebag.”

“You must have kept awake all night,” Dr. Favor said.

“It came to me,” Russell said back.

“How much you figure I have?”

Russell shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Wouldn’t take much, would it, to keep you in whisky?”

“You leave the belly gun too,” Russell said. And held out his hand for it, turning just a little so that the Spencer in his lap turned with him.

Dr. Favor just stared, not moving. “You’re forgetting something,” he said. “What if the others decide against you?”

“Then they have you to lead them,” Russell answered.

He sat there with his hand still held toward Dr. Favor and you knew he could sit there the rest of his life and never budge. It was his way if we stayed with him. It was either do what he wanted or else go on with Dr. Favor. It was not like choosing between a good thing or a bad thing. Still, one felt to be better than the other and it wasn’t much of a hard choice to make.

The McLaren girl was the one who said it out loud, though not very loud. “I would like to go home,” she said, hardly glancing at Dr. Favor. “I sure would like to go home. And I know he can’t find the way.”

Neither Mendez nor I had to say anything. If we’d sided with Dr. Favor, we would have.

With us watching him, I believe, Dr. Favor didn’t want to get caught looking awkward or nervous. You had to give him credit for that. He took it calmly, not offering any argument, but I will bet thinking fast all the time. He just shrugged and handed his revolver to Russell.

“Chief make plenty war now,” he said. You see how he was passing it off? Like Russell was a bully you had to give in to if you wanted some peace.

Russell didn’t pay any attention. He took the gun, then looked at Mendez, noticing Mendez had Lamarr Dean’s revolver besides his shotgun.

“You shoot all right?” he asked.

Mendez frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“You’ll find out,” Russell said. “First the shotgun. When they’re close. So close you can touch them. Then the other one if you need it.”

“I don’t know,” Mendez said, worried. “Just sit and wait for them like that.”

“If there was a better way,” Russell said, “we would do it.” Just that moment talking to Mendez, Russell’s voice was gentle and you remembered they had known each other before and maybe had been friends.

He looked off down the draw, studying the trees over the other side of the meadow. If they were on our sign, he knew, they would come through there and up the draw.

Then he was looking right at me and handing me Dr. Favor’s revolver. At first I didn’t make any move to take it.

He pushed it out again like telling me, “Come on, take it,” and that time I did.

“You have one thing to do,” he said and shifted his eyes over to Dr. Favor and back again. “Watch him.”

Then it was the McLaren girl’s turn. She stood there, her dark nice-looking face very calm, seeing Russell looking at her then.

“You stay with this one,” Russell said, meaning me.

“Carl Allen,” the McLaren girl said.

It stopped Russell just for a second as if she’d interrupted his thoughts. “You’ll have the saddlebag and the water.”

“Squaw work,” Dr. Favor said. “You ought to like that.” He was also saying, “See what you’re getting yourself in for?”

It didn’t bother her, or else she was so intent on Russell she didn’t hear him. She said, “The money and the waterskin, but you carry your own water I see.” She meant the canteen that was on the ground next to him. The one he and Mendez had used.

He watched her, getting all the meaning out of her words that she didn’t say. “You want it too?”

“Why burden yourself?” she said, and you weren’t sure if she was serious or not.

For just a moment there John Russell hesitated, as if handing over the canteen would be giving up his independence. But he did and the McLaren girl took it.

“You and you and you,” Russell said, meaning the McLaren girl and Dr. Favor and I, “will be here. You don’t stand up. You don’t move back away from the edge here and stand up. You sit and don’t move.” (Like a teacher talking to little children in school!) “Him-”

“Reverend Dr. Favor,” the McLaren girl said with that little knife edge in her voice again.

“He can leave up to the time they come,” Russell went on. “After that, no.” Russell was looking right at me again, but still talking about Dr. Favor.

“If he tries to leave with nothing, shoot him once,” Russell said. “If he takes the saddlebag, shoot him twice. If he picks up the water, empty your gun. You understand that?”

(I have thought about those words since then and I am sure Russell was having a little fun with us when he said that. Part serious, part in fun. But can you imagine joking at a time like that? That of course was the reason no one even smiled. He must have thought we were dumb.)

I just nodded, not wanting to say anything with Dr. Favor standing right there.

“I don’t know,” Mendez said. You could see what had been going on in his mind. “Maybe we should just keep going, try and outrun them.”

“You run now,” Russell said to him, “they’ll catch you and kill you. Believe that more than you believe anything.”

Russell told us again to stay where we were, down low. He talked to Mendez, going over it again with him, telling him to wait till they got close and to be sure of hitting something, to shoot first at the men, then at the horses; but watch for the woman. Mendez listened, nodding sometimes, but kept looking over toward us.

After that Russell didn’t waste any more talk. He and Mendez crawled out through the brush, working their way about forty feet down the draw, then separating, Mendez staying on the right, Russell crawling way over to the left side so that anybody coming up the draw would pass between them. If one did not have a good shot when the time came, the other probably would.

Both had good cover, for there were sizable rocks that had been washed down the draw, mostly along the sides where they were, and pretty thick brush where there weren’t any rocks. Only the middle ground, where water would run off in the spring, was fairly open.

Russell had this timed pretty well, knowing how long it would take them to get on our sign and follow us. He had figured a few other things too. That they wouldn’t be as careful by now as they had been yesterday evening and during the first hour or so this morning. There had been good ambush places before this, but nothing had jumped out at them. Why should it now? They would be awake, of course, wide awake coming up something like this draw; but they would tend to keep their eyes on the top and expect it to come from there if it was coming at all.

(It is easy to talk about something like this. It is also interesting to plan and imagine what you would do, but only as long as you aren’t there. I wouldn’t sit where we were, just waiting there again, no matter what anybody gave me.)

We kept our eyes on the trees that were some kind of pine, big ones, probably ponderosa, across the meadow at the bottom of the draw. Still, when they came, it wasn’t sudden at all.

Right at the edge of the trees, in shadow, was a horse and rider and you wondered how long he had been there with you looking right at him. He was awake all right.

He came out of the trees holding to a slow walk and was out in the meadow a ways before the next rider appeared. Then another one came who you knew right away was the Favor woman. (I did not look over at Dr. Favor to see what his face showed. I would have if I had known I was going to write this.) The fourth one was right behind her. That would be Frank Braden, the big sugar of this outfit. He would be the one telling the others what to do, while he stayed with their hostage or whatever Mrs. Favor was.

It was the Mexican rider who dismounted and came first when they reached the bottom of the draw. He seemed to be making sure of our tracks, walking along a little ways with his head down. Then he swung back up and he and Early came on, the Mexican staying a little bit in the lead. They kept looking up at the sides of the draw, being very watchful now. They knew we had come this way and I think they smelled it as a fresh trail. Not so much Early as the Mexican.

You got the feeling he knew by the sign that Russell had passed through here on his own or ahead of us, or maybe Russell had left no tracks at all and the Mexican saw only that the four of us had come up this way. There is nothing to prove this, but I believe he did know. The Mexican seemed so sure of himself, riding right up the middle of the draw first, seeming relaxed but his eyes taking everything in.

Braden, with the Favor woman, kept a good ten lengths back of Early and the Mexican. That was the way they came up, walking right into it.

It was like watching a play. No, it was realer than that. (My gosh, it couldn’t get more real!) It gave you a strange feeling to watch it, thinking that in a minute or two you were going to see somebody get killed.

Russell never moved. We could see just part of him. He lay full length as if asleep. His hat was off and his head was down, as if he was listening to them coming up the draw instead of watching them.

Mendez kept looking over to where Russell was, but I doubt he could see him, being on about the same level. Then he would look back up in our direction. You could see he wanted no part of this. Why couldn’t he be up where we were? Or the rest of us down there helping him, he was probably thinking. Mendez was nervous. You couldn’t blame him for it. Still, it was strange to see him in that state. (In the last two days I had certainly learned a lot about show-nothing, tell-nothing Henry Mendez.)

As Early and the Mexican got up a ways, they started looking up at the top of the draw and studying it. Especially the Mexican. He was closer to Mendez’s side of the draw now and about five horselengths ahead of Early. Halfway up, the Mexican drew his right-hand gun and held it ready.

You saw Mendez pressing himself tight against the rock he was behind and not looking around now. He would inch up to sneak a look at the Mexican and then duck down again. You almost knew what he was thinking. You also knew this wasn’t something he had done before.

Looking at Russell you couldn’t even tell if he was alive, laying there sighting down his carbine now and waiting as if he could wait like that all day, waiting for Early to ride right up to him.

I don’t remember what the McLaren girl and Dr. Favor were doing then. I could feel them there. The thing is, the one I really wanted to watch was Russell; then you would see how this was done. But Mendez, the way he was fidgeting, looking up at the Mexican coming and then pressing against the rock, made you nervous and you kept watching him, holding your breath for fear he was going to jump up and start running.

The Mexican was now about a hundred feet away from him, sitting round-shouldered and relaxed, the Colt gun held about chest high and pointed straight up, the sun glinting and moving a little with the motion of the horse and rider.

That was what Mendez saw coming toward him, a man holding a gun that seemed part of his hand, and another gun still holstered; a man you knew was ready, but could still be relaxed about it and not sit stiff in the saddle or with his shoulders hunched.

Maybe if I was Mendez I would have done the same as he did. Which was all of a sudden rise up and fire both barrels of that scatter gun like he couldn’t let go fast enough.

At a hundred feet or less, some of the buckshot could have found the Mexican, but Mendez hurried and didn’t aim at all. The Mexican straightened and fired three times, faster than I’ve ever seen a man thumb and fire a Colt revolver, with all three shots zinging off the rocks Mendez had flattened himself behind. Then you saw the Mexican twist in the saddle, like something had pushed him, and grab his side right above the belt.

Russell had fired.

He fired again as the Mexican rolled out of the saddle and into cover. He fired again and the Mexican’s horse threw up its head, shaking it, and sunk on its forelegs and fell over.

Early was already off and in cover. You saw him reach up to grab his horse’s reins as it reared around and started off down the draw. Early missed. Russell didn’t though. He fired twice again, quick, and I swear you heard both shots smack into that horse. The horse went down, rolled on its side and got up again and kept going, following Braden and the Favor woman-Braden holding her horse’s reins close at the bit ring and leading it as they rode back down the draw, all the way down to the bottom and around the outcrop of rocks into a little patch of scrubby woods. Even after they were out of sight you heard the horses in the thicket. Then everything was quiet.

It was quiet for the longest time. Mendez kept looking over to about where Russell was, not knowing at all what to do and maybe expecting some signal from him.

Russell didn’t move. You could see he had learned a lot from the Apaches, a kind of patience few white men could ever command. He lay there sighting, I think, on the place where Early had gone into the brush, waiting for a movement. He lay like that, I swear, for about two hours, all the while this stand-off lasted.

Not much happened during that time. The Mexican started calling out either to Russell or Mendez in Spanish. I didn’t know what he was saying, but they were questions, and there was a sound to his voice like the questions were meant to be funny. Not funny, exactly, but like insults or inviting Mendez to step out and show himself, things you wouldn’t expect to hear coming out of that draw. You had to give that Mexican something. There was no doubt he had been shot. Still he could yell at Russell and Mendez, trying to draw them out.

Once there was a quick glimpse of Early. He was there and then gone, off behind a scatter of rocks a little farther down the draw. Russell must have been waiting for the Mexican because he didn’t fire. We never did see the Mexican squirm out of there and Early only that one time.

Both of them worked their way down though. They stood out in the open for a second, way down at the bottom of the draw. The Mexican, holding his side with one hand, waved to us. Then they were gone into the thicket.

Just for a few minutes we had time to rest, not wondering where they were or worrying about them coming. They would have to think things over and maybe wait until dark to come up that draw again. Though we couldn’t count on it. We couldn’t sit here for long either. One of them could circle around, even though it would take time, and we wouldn’t ever be able to move.

So we had to get out of there. When Russell and Mendez came up, I opened the canteen. Nobody had had any water since this morning. But Russell shook his head. “Tonight,” he said. “Not while the sun is out.” Meaning, I guess, you would sweat it out right away and be thirsty again before you knew it.

That was all he said, with not one word to Mendez about shooting too soon and spoiling the ambush. That was over as far as he was concerned; he was not the kind of man who would stew over something finished and past fixing. He just picked up his blanket roll and that meant it was time to go.

Maybe we had showed them it wasn’t going to be easy, as Russell had said we might. But look at it another way. We might have finished it in the draw, but we didn’t and maybe never would. The only good to come out of the ambush was now they had one less horse-maybe two.

But now they were close. Now they knew where we were. And now there was no doubt they would come with guns out and shoot on sight.