Hombre

5

Frank Braden had nerve. You can put that under his name big. A man does not hold up stagecoaches without nerve, or walk up an open grade in plain sight of people he knows are armed.

If he was afraid at all, he never showed it. The way his hat was funneled and tipped forward over his eyes he had to raise his head to look up. He kept watching, but it did not make him hesitate. He came across the open from the company building like nothing in the world bothered him, the Winchester raised a little and the white truce flag tied to the end of it.

He was putting his faith in that truce flag and the fact that the Mexican had done the same thing yesterday without drawing fire. It showed he still didn’t know John Russell very well.

Russell was letting him come. He never took the Spencer away from his shoulder, but the barrel kept lowering a hair at a time as Braden came closer. Anyone else might have been covering Braden; but somehow you knew Russell meant to fire on him, else he never would have raised the gun. The question was how close Braden would get.

“Listen-he just wants to talk,” Mendez said, moving toward Russell as you would approach a bronc with your hand out to gentle it. “You can see it’s no trick. The man is coming to talk. Can’t you see that? You want to start something when there’s no need to?

“Look at me!”

Russell’s head raised up a little, interrupted from what he was concentrating on. But he kept his eyes on Braden who had now reached some ore-cart tracks that came across from the crushing mill and past a little shack on out into the open a ways. On this side of the tracks Braden was less than a hundred yards off. He kept coming.

“Just see what he wants,” Mendez said. “You don’t have to talk to him. You don’t want to, one of us will.” Mendez looked outside, seeing Braden on the grade now and starting up.

“You don’t know what he wants. Man, you got to find out what he wants,” Mendez kept saying. “Listen to him. He trusts us…we have to trust him and see what he wants. Doesn’t that make sense to you?” Mendez said it all fast. If it didn’t convince Russell, it bothered him enough so he couldn’t concentrate on Braden.

By that time Braden was part way up the grade. He stopped there and yelled out, “Anybody home?”

Mendez saw the opportunity looking at him and he grabbed a hold of it. “We hear you!” he yelled back.

“Come on out of that boar’s nest,” Braden called. “We’ll talk some.”

“Say what you want,” Mendez answered.

“I thought maybe you’d like to go home.”

“Say something,” Mendez said.

“It’s looking at you,” Braden said back. “We can sit here long as we want. I can send a man for more water and chuck, but you people can’t move. You only move if we let you. You see that?”

“What else?”

“There doesn’t have to be much else.”

“All right, what do you want?”

“You leave the money, we leave the woman.”

“And everybody goes home?”

“Everybody goes home.”

“We’ll have to talk about it.”

“You do that.” Braden held the Winchester cradled over one arm, the truce flag hanging limp. He stood with his feet spread some, posing, it looked like, confident he knew what he was doing.

“We’ll let you look at the woman while you talk,” Braden said. “Then when you’re ready you bring the money down and take the woman.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Mendez said again. He glanced over at Dr. Favor who was at the other window, then down at Braden again.

“What if,” he said “-well, what if nobody wants this woman?”

“Wait a while,” Braden answered, “before you think anything like that.”

“I just want to make sure what you mean, that’s all.”

“You just have to be sure of one thing,” Braden said. “You don’t leave here with the money. You see that?”

Mendez didn’t answer. Frank Braden waited a minute then started to go.

“Hey,” Russell called out to him and Braden stopped, half way around so that he was looking back over his shoulder.

“I got a question,” Russell said.

Braden was squinting to make out Russell in the window. “Ask it,” he said.

“How you going to get down that hill?”

Braden knew what he meant. He stood there a moment, then came around slowly to face the shack again, showing us he wasn’t afraid.

“Look, I come up here to tell you how things are. I’m making it easy on you.”

“We didn’t ask you,” Russell said. “You walk up here yourself. You come and say we’re not leaving with the money…uh?”

“You heard what I said.” Braden was tenser, you could tell.

“We give you the money or you kill us.”

“I said you wouldn’t leave here.”

“But it’s the same thing, uh?…Maybe we give up the money and you still kill us.”

“You better talk to your friends.”

“I think,” Russell kept on, “you want to leave dead people who can’t tell things.”

“If that was so, we’d have killed you at the stagecoach.”

“You tried to,” Russell said, “taking the water. But it came back to us.”

“You think what you want,” Braden said, meaning to end it.

Russell nodded. He nodded up and down very slowly two or three times. “I’ve already thought,” he said in that mild way, so calm you did not suspect what he meant until he raised the Spencer. Then there was no doubt what he meant.

“You hold on, boy!” Braden said. “I’m walking down the same way I come up.” But he was backing off, keeping his gaze fixed on the window.

Russell had the Spencer at his shoulder, but his head up as he watched Braden.

“You hear me!” Braden yelled. “You hold on!”

It was like Russell was letting out rope, giving Braden a little slack before he yanked it tight. It was coming. We knew it and Braden, still backing away, knew it. But only Russell knew when. That’s what finally spooked Braden. He might have had seven miles of nerve inside of him, but all of a sudden he found it all let out and there was only one thing left to do.

He started running, starting so fast across the slope toward the crushing mill that he fell within four or five steps, falling just as Russell pressed his face to that Spencer and fired. Maybe that fall saved Braden’s life; for certain it hurried Russell’s second shot, trying to get Braden while he was down, but that one kicked sand right in front of Braden who was lunging to his feet, running again, getting some distance as Russell took his time and aimed and when he fired again Braden twisted and rolled a ways down the slope. That’s when the gunfire opened up from the company building as the Mexican and Early woke up and started giving Braden some cover. Braden was crawling, then up on his feet and running again, limping-running, favoring one leg-and bam, the Spencer went off and Braden was knocked down again, down on his hands and knees, but somehow kept going, clawing the ground and half running half crawling, the Winchester truce flag behind him now and forgotten. Russell fired again, hurrying it because Braden was close to the crushing mill by then and that was Russell’s last one; Braden made it, reaching the corner of the building, about forty yards over from us, as the sound of Russell’s shot sang off down canyon.

It was the Mexican who got Braden out of there. He came up over on the other side of the crushing mill and brought Braden down the same way, keeping the crushing mill between us and them so they wouldn’t get shot at.

Early came out of the veranda shade to help the Mexican take Braden inside: Early looking back like he was afraid Russell would open up again, and Braden walking but dragging his legs and leaning on the two men. He had been shot up good.

Mr. Braden, I thought to myself. Meet John Russell.

But was our situation any better?

Maybe. Depending on Braden. If he was hurt bad enough, they would have to get him to a bed or a doctor. So for a while we watched with that hope. But the hope kept getting smaller and smaller as time passed and nobody rode out from the company building.

When there was no doubt but they were staying, Henry Mendez started on Russell again. Why did you have to do that? Why didn’t you let things just happen? he kept saying. It would be worse for us now, Mendez was sure. And it was Russell’s fault.

“Nothing is different,” Russell said. In other words, they could be mad or shot up or hungry or drunk, they’d still try to kill us. When you thought about it, you knew it was true.

While Mendez and Russell were together I brought up the idea of getting out the way we’d come in.

They’d shoot us off the wall as we climbed up, was Mendez’s answer. “Not when it’s dark,” Russell said; you saw he was thinking of ways.

So far, you will notice, no one had said Russell should give them the money in exchange for Mrs. Favor: do what Braden wanted and see what would happen, not just guess. Maybe because it would be wasting breath to mention it to Russell. Or maybe because no one was thinking of Mrs. Favor at that time.

Well, that changed as soon as the Mexican brought her out. Maybe an hour had passed from the time Braden was shot. (It’s hard to remember now the different spaces of time.) It had been so quiet over there. Then the Mexican was coming out across the open with Mrs. Favor in front of him. Her hands were tied and there was a length of rope, like a dog leash, tied around her neck with the Mexican holding the other end.

He brought her all the way out to the ore-cart tracks that came down from the crushing mill and made her sit down there. Kneeling, he tied the leash to one of the rails, keeping Mrs. Favor in front of him as he did. He drew his left-hand Colt then, holding his right elbow tight against his side, and ran to a little shed that was just above and over a few yards.

He surprised us then. Instead of going back, keeping the shed in line with us as a cover, he made a run all the way across a pretty open stretch to the crushing mill.

Picture him about forty yards down and over to our left; Mrs. Favor straight down, looking small sitting there and staring up at the shack, about eighty yards away.

It was while the Mexican was making his run that Early came out carrying a rifle and moved off toward the south pass on foot. I did not have to think about it long. Early was circling around to get behind us, closing the back door whether we wanted to use it or not.

That’s what Russell said too. He was still at the window watching the corner of the crushing mill where the Mexican was. The McLaren girl asked him where Early was going and Russell said, “Behind us,” not taking his eyes off the crushing mill; the Mexican had not shown himself yet.

Dr. Favor, at this time, was at the other window looking down at his wife. It was a strange thing, while he was there no one else went out to the window, as if letting him be alone with her. But he did not stay too long; he walked away and lit up a cigar and sat down, I guess to think some more.

The McLaren girl and Mendez and I finally found ourselves at that window, where we stayed just about all the rest of the time we were there. Of course we kept looking at Mrs. Favor.

Remember Braden saying, “We’ll let you look at the woman while you talk?” He knew what he was doing.

She sat there between the ore-cart tracks looking up this way most of the time. We soon learned that she could not stand up straight; the rope tied to her neck was not long enough. She could get in a bent-over position, but that was all. For a time she tried to undo the rope end tied to the track, but evidently the Mexican had tied it too tight.

So she just sat there out in the open with the sun getting higher all the time, sometimes brushing her hair out of her face or picking things off her skirt. The way she would look up-my gosh-you knew what she was thinking. But she certainly was calm about it, not even crying once. It was not till a little later we found out they had not given her any water.

It was after the Mexican started on Russell.

He yelled out from the corner of the crushing mill, just showing part of his head for a second, “Hey, hombre! How do you like that woman?…You want her?…We give her to you!” Things like that.

John Russell did not answer. Except he put his face against the stock of the Spencer and the front sight on the corner of the crushing mill.

The Mexican waited a while. Then he yelled, “If you want that, hombre, you better hurry! Maybe there won’t be nothing left in the sun!”

It was about 10 o’clock by then, maybe a little earlier.

Then the Mexican yelled, “Man, why don’t you come out and give her a drink of water? She hasn’t had none…not since yesterday morning!”

There he was, just a little part of him at the corner, and bam the Spencer went off and you saw the wood splinter right where the Mexican’s face had been.

It was quiet right after, long enough for us to wonder if Russell had got him. Long enough for the McLaren girl to say, “That woman hasn’t had any water.” Then to Russell: “Did you hear what he said? She hasn’t had water since yesterday.”

Russell was watching the corner still. The McLaren girl kept staring at him. “Is that why you want to kill him?” she said then. “To shut him up? So you won’t have to hear about her?”

I touched her arm to calm her, but she jerked away. “It won’t help to get fighting among ourselves,” I said.

“Are we all on the same side?” she said. “Do you really think that?”

“Well, we’re all sitting here.”

She was looking at Russell again. “He’s sitting here with twelve thousand dollars of somebody else’s money and that woman is tied like an animal out there in the sun.” She looked at me like somebody should do something.

“Well, what do you want him to do?”

The McLaren girl never answered. The Mexican yelled out again, letting us know he was still alive. “Hey, hombre!” he called out. “You got wood in my eyes!…Come down here and help me get it out!” Honest to gosh, like he thought it was funny to be shot at.

He kept it up, yelling at Russell from time to time, trying to get him outside. We heard from Early a few times too. Rocks coming down on the roof from above: Early still feeling his whisky and being playful, or else just letting us know he was up there and not to try anything.

The McLaren girl was quiet for a while. I guess she had calmed down. The sole of one of her shoes was loose and she kept fooling with it, trying to twist it off, even when she was looking at Mrs. Favor who sat with her shoulders hunched over now and her head down. The McLaren girl could not look at her too long, or fool with that shoe forever.

She started looking at Russell and finally went over and kneeled down next to him. Russell was smoking, sitting back on his feet, the Spencer resting on the ore bags lining the window sill.

“We have to give them the money,” she said, very quietly, “I think you know that.”

He looked at her, not just glancing but taking his time to look at her dark sun-browned face good.

“Like you had to give that one water,” Russell said. Meaning Dr. Favor.

“That’s over with.” She bristled up a little.

“You think he would have done it for you?”

“Somebody would have.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know. People help other people.”

“People kill other people too.”

“I’ve seen that.”

“You’re going to see some more.”

“If you want to say it’s my fault we’re stuck here, go ahead,” the McLaren girl said. “It might make you feel better, but it won’t change anything.”

Russell shook his head. “The thing I want to know is why you helped.”

“Because he needed help! I didn’t ask if he deserved it!”

She let her temper calm down and said, half as loud, “Like that woman needs to live. It’s not up to us to decide if she deserves it.”

“We only help her, uh?”

“Do we have another choice?”

Russell nodded. “Not help her.”

“Just let her die.” The McLaren girl kept staring at him.

“That’s up to Braden,” Russell said. “We have another thing to look at. If we don’t give him the money, he has to come get it.”

The McLaren girl almost let go of her temper then. “You’d sacrifice a human life for that money. That’s what you’re saying.”

Russell started making a cigarette, looking out the window at the crushing mill as he shaped it, then at the McLaren girl again. “Go ask that woman what she thinks of human life. Ask her what a human life is worth at San Carlos when they run out of meat.”

“That isn’t any fault of hers.”

“She said those dirty Indians eat dogs. You remember that? She couldn’t eat a dog no matter how hungry she was.” Everybody was watching him. He lit his cigarette and blew out smoke. “Go ask her if she’d eat a dog now.”

“That’s why!” the McLaren girl said, like it was all clear to her now. “She insulted the poor hungry miserable Indians and you’d let her die for that!”

Russell shook his head. “We were talking about human life.”

“Even if there was no money, nothing to be gained, you’d let her die!” All the McLaren girl’s temper was showing now, and she was just letting it come. “Because she thinks Indians are dirty and no better than animals you’d sit there and let her die!”

Russell held the cigarette close to his mouth, watching her. “It makes you angry, why talk about it?”

“I want to talk about it,” she shot back. “I would like you to ask me what I think a human life is worth…a dirty human Apache life. Go on, ask me. Ask me about the ones that took me from my home and kept me past a month. Ask me about the dirty things they did, what the women did when the men weren’t around and what the men did when we weren’t running but were hiding somewhere and there was time to waste. I dare you to ask me!”

She knelt there tensed, like she was to spring on him if he moved, though it was just she was so intent on telling him what she’d just said.

It was all out of her system then. I think everybody wasn’t so tense anymore. She sank back to a sitting position, taking her eyes off Russell, looking down at that loose sole on her shoe and fooling with it as she thought something over.

Next thing, she was saying, “I haven’t seen my folks in almost two months…or my little brother. Just he and I were home and he ran and I don’t know what happened to him, whether they caught him or what.”

She looked up at Russell again, all the softness gone out of her that quick, like it was starting all over again. “What do they think of an eight-year-old human life?” she said. “Do they just kill little boys who can’t defend themselves?”

Russell had not taken his eyes off her, still holding the cigarette up near his face. “If they don’t want them,” he said, and kept looking right at her.

That ended it. For a thin little seventeen-year-old girl she was tougher than most men and I think you know that by now. But she had to give some time. I thought she was going to cut at Russell again, but the words didn’t come. Her eyes filled up first. She sat there trying to keep her chin from quivering or crying so we’d hear her, still looking right at Russell even with her eyes wet, daring him to say something else.

Right at that time (and it was almost welcome) the Mexican started again. He yelled out, “Hey man, you hear me!” Russell turned and looked down the barrel of the Spencer. The Mexican wasn’t showing himself now and his voice sounded a little farther away. You knew he was there though.

“Come on down here,” the Mexican yelled out, “I got something for you!”

Russell had something for him too if he showed even part of his face.

“Man!” the Mexican yelled then. “We both come out-talk to each other!”

He waited.

“You bring that piece of iron you got. I bring one, uh?”

Every word he yelled echoed up canyon and came back again.

“Hey, hombre, whatever your name is-you hear me!”

After that he said some things I had better not put down here, terrible words that were embarrassing to hear with the McLaren girl in the same room. He was trying to get Russell out by insulting him, but he could have been yelling at a tree stump for all the good it did. Russell sat there waiting for the Mexican to show himself; which he never did.

Something Russell had said to the McLaren girl bothered me, so I asked him about it: about them having to come up here if they wanted the money. Why couldn’t they just outwait us? Our water would run out (there was about a quart and a half left), then what would we do?

Theirs would run out too, Russell said. But, I said, they can go get more.

All the way to Delgado’s? Russell said. Who would go, the one up behind us? The Mexican? Then who would watch us? No, Russell said. Some time they have to come up here. They know it.

I said that may be, but the Favor woman would be dead by then. Russell didn’t answer.

About two o’clock in the afternoon the Favor woman started screaming.

It could not get any hotter than it was then. There was no breeze, no clouds; the sun was bright, boiling hot and you would not even dare look up to see where it was.

The Favor woman sat down there near the bottom of the grade, no hat or anything to cover her head, no shade to crawl into. As I have said, there was a little shack near where she was, but the rope tied to her neck would not even let her stand up straight much less get over to the shack. She had given up trying to undo the rope.

For the longest time she sat hunched over, her face buried in her arm resting on her raised knees. Now she was looking up toward us, as she had done when the Mexican first put her there, and now every once in a while she would scream out to her husband, calling his name at first.

“Alex!” she would call, but drawn out and faint sounding, not sharp and loud as you would imagine a real scream.

“Alex…help me!” Sounding far away almost, like hearing only an echo of the words. She had not had water since yesterday. It was something that she could call out at all.

Dr. Favor raised up when she started and looked down at her for a while. I don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t even know if he felt sorry for her, because his expression never changed; he was just looking at something. He didn’t call back to her or say a word.

Some people can hide their feelings very well, so I had better not pass judgment on Dr. Favor. I remember picturing him and his wife alone and wondering what they ever talked about and if they had ever got along well together. (I couldn’t help having that feeling she had been just a woman to him. You know what I mean, just a woman to have around.) I tried to imagine her calling him Alex when they were alone. But it didn’t sound right. He was not the kind of man you thought of as having a first name. Especially not a name like Alex or Alexander.

There it was though, faintly, coming from out of that big open canyon, “Alex…” And he just sat there looking down at her, not moving much other than to feel his beard, to rub it gently under his chin with the back of his fingers.

Once she stood up, as far as she could, and yelled his name louder than she ever did before. “Alex!” And this time it was sharp and clear enough and with an echo coming back to give you goose pimples at the sound of it.

And then again, which I will hear every day of my life.

“Alex…please help me!” The words all alone outside, echoing and fading to nothing.

It was strange to be in a room with four people and not hear one sound. Everybody sat there holding still, waiting for the Favor woman to cry out again. Maybe a couple of minutes passed; maybe more than that, it seemed longer. It was so quiet that when the sound came-the sound of a match scraping and popping aflame-everybody looked up and right at John Russell.

He lit his cigarette, shook the match out and threw it up past his shoulder, out the window.

The McLaren girl, closer to the window where Mendez and I still were, kept staring at Russell. Do you see how his calm rubbed her? I think any of the rest of us could have lit a cigarette at that time and it would have been all right. But not Russell. Lighting that match touched it off again. Just the way she was looking at him you could see it coming, so I tried to head it off.

I said, “I’ve been thinking”-though I hadn’t, it just came to me then-“when it gets dark, why can’t a couple of us sneak down and get her? Maybe we could get her up here without them even seeing us.”

“But if they heard you-” Mendez said.

“By dark she’ll be dead,” the McLaren girl said.

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“Do you want to wait and find out?”

“I was thinking something else,” I said. “Braden’s watching her too. What if he sees it’s not working or he feels sorry for her or something and has that Mexican bring her back in?”

“You just think nice things, don’t you?” the McLaren girl said.

“It could happen.”

“The day he changes into a human being.” She looked at Russell smoking his cigarette. “Or the day he does. That’s the only thing will save her.”

Russell was watching her, but just then the Mexican yelled out from the crushing mill, and Russell’s head turned to look down the barrel of the Spencer.

“Hey, hombre!” the Mexican yelled, followed by a string of words some of which were in Spanish and were probably as obscene as the English ones mixed in. “Come on down and see me!”

Russell kept looking down the Spencer for at least a minute. When he turned to us again, he drew on his cigarette and dropped it out the window. The hand came down on the saddlebags next to him. He lifted them up, feeling the weight of them, then let them swing a little and threw them so they fell out in the middle of the floor.

“You want to save her?” Russell said. He looked at Mendez and me and then over to Dr. Favor sitting with his back to the wall a few feet from me. “Somebody want to walk down there and save her?”

Nobody answered.

“Somebody wants to, go ahead,” Russell said. “But I’ll tell you one thing first. You walk down there you won’t walk back. Leave that bag and start to take the woman and they’ll kill both of you.”

The McLaren girl was watching him, leaning forward a little. “You’re saying that so nobody will take the money and try it.”

“They’ll kill both of you,” Russell said. “That’s why I’m saying it.” He looked over at Dr. Favor before the McLaren girl could say anything else.

“That woman’s your wife,” Russell said to him. “You want to go untie her?”

Dr. Favor, his head down a little, had his eyes on Russell, but he didn’t say one word.

Russell took his time, making it awful embarrassing, so you wouldn’t dare look over at Dr. Favor. Finally Russell turned to us again.

“Mr. Mendez,” he said, “you want to save her?…Or Mr. Carl Allen, I think your name is, you want to walk down there? This man won’t. It’s his wife, but he won’t do it. He doesn’t care about his own woman, but maybe someone else does, uh? That’s what I want to know.”

He was looking right at the McLaren girl then and said, “I don’t think I know your name. We live together some, uh? But I don’t know your name.”

“Kathleen McLaren,” she said. He must have surprised her, caught her without anything else ready to say.

“All right, Kathleen McLaren,” Russell said. “How would you like to walk down there and untie her and start up again and get shot in the back? Or in the front if that one by the mill does it. In the back or in the front, but one way or the other.”

She kept looking at him but didn’t say a word.

“There it is,” Russell said, nodding to the saddlebags. “Take it. You worry more about his wife than he does. You say I’m not sure or I’m not telling the truth-all right, you go find out what happens.”

Russell did a strange thing then. He took off his Apache moccasins and threw them over to the McLaren girl.

“Wear those,” he said. “You run faster when they start shooting.”

He opened up his blanket and took out his boots and pulled them on. While he did, the McLaren girl kept staring at him; but she never spoke. And when he looked up at her again, her eyes held only for a second before looking away.

It was one thing to know a woman would die if she didn’t get help. It was another thing to say you’d die helping her.

I kept thinking of what Russell had said right to me “…do you want to walk down there?”

No, I didn’t, and I will admit that right here. I believed Braden would shoot anybody who went down there with the money. I think everybody believed it by then. Yes, even the McLaren girl.

The best thing to do, I decided, was just sit there and wait and see what happened. That sounds like a terrible thing to say when a woman’s life is at stake, Mrs. Favor’s; but I will tell you now it’s easier to think of your own life than someone else’s. I don’t care how brave a person is.

I will admit, too, that Dr. Favor being there made it easier on your conscience. If anybody should go down there it was him. He wasn’t going though; that was certain.

Some more time passed. The Mexican, who was patient and had as much time as we did, yelled out at Russell once in a while. Russell stayed with his face pressed to that Spencer longer every time the Mexican insulted him or tried to draw him out. You could see Russell was anxious to get the Mexican. After quite a while passed and the Mexican did not yell at him again, Russell turned around to lean against the wall and make a cigarette. I noticed he threw the tobacco sack away after. It was his last one. He did not light it though; not yet.

Time passed as we sat there and nobody said a word. Russell was thinking, working something out and picturing how it would be; I was sure of that.

About four o’clock the Favor woman started screaming for her husband again; the sounds coming not so loud as before, but it was an awful thing to hear. She would call his name, then say something else which was never clear but like she was pleading with him to help her.

Sitting there in the shack you heard it faintly out in the canyon, “Alex”-the name drawn out, then again maybe and the rest of the words coming like a long moan.

It was quiet when Russell stood up. He looked out the window, not long, just a minute or so, then went over and picked up the grainsack, emptying out what meat and bread and coffee were left, and brought it back to the window. He took one of the ore bags from the sill and put it in the sack. Nobody else moved, all of us watching him. That was when he lit his last cigarette. He drew on it very slowly, very carefully. We kept watching him, maybe not trusting him either, knowing he was about to do something.

“I need somebody,” Russell said, looking right at me. Not knowing what he meant I just sat there. “Right here,” he said, nodding to the window.

I went over, not in any hurry, staring at him to show I didn’t understand. But he didn’t explain until he’d motioned again and I was kneeling there with the stock of his Spencer between us. Russell put his hand on it.

“You know how to shoot this?”

“I’m not sure.” Frowning at him.

“Push the trigger guard down with your thumb. That ejects and loads…uh? Right now it’s ready and maybe you only need the one.” He added, almost under his breath, “Man, I hope you only need one.”

I said, “I’m going to shoot at them?”

“The one by the mill.” Russell looked out the window. “He’ll come across and walk past that shack by the woman and stand with his back to you, up this way from the shack a little. Then, be sure then, you keep the front sight on him.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.

“What’s there to understand?” There was just a little surprise in his voice, mostly it was quiet and patient. “If he touches his gun, you shoot him.”

“But,” I said, “in the back?”

“I’ll ask him if he’ll turn around,” Russell said.

“Look,” I said, “I just don’t understand what’s going to happen. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’ll see it,” Russell said. He thought a minute. “Maybe you have to see something else. The money-that it gets up to San Carlos.”

“Look, if you’d just explain-”

He touched my arm. “Maybe it’s you who has to take it up to San Carlos after. That’s easy, uh?”

I kept staring at him. “You never were keeping it for yourself, were you?”

He just looked at me-like he was tired-or like what was the use explaining now?

He put his hat on, straight and pulled down a little over his eyes. He picked up the grainsack, swinging it up over his left shoulder. All of us were watching him, the McLaren girl never moving.

She kept staring and said, “You’re going.” Just those two words.

Russell made a little shrugging motion. “Maybe try something.”

“What if they don’t think you’ve got the money in there?”

“They come out and see,” Russell answered.

“They might,” the McLaren girl nodded. “They just might.”

“They have to,” Russell said.

The McLaren girl kept staring at him, wanting to ask why he was doing it, I think. But Russell was looking at Mendez then. “You’ll watch this Dr. Favor. Good this time?” he said.

Mendez said something in Spanish and Russell answered also in Spanish, shrugging his shoulders. Mendez appeared like he was afraid to breathe. Russell turned to Dr. Favor. He had something for everybody.

“All that trouble you went to, uh?”

Dr. Favor didn’t answer, not caring what anybody said or thought about him now. He sat there staring up at Russell, his big face pale-looking with that reddish hair around it and with hardly any expression. He probably thought this John Russell was the biggest fool God ever made.

We were watching him, every one of us; perhaps still not certain he was going down there and having to see it to believe it.

He was at the door when the McLaren girl picked up his moccasins and threw them over to him. “Wear those,” she said. “You run faster when they start shooting.”

Do you see what she was doing? Giving it right back to him. Using the same words even that he had used before. Saying it calmly and watching to see his reaction.

And seeing his smile then; a smile you were sure he meant. Even with his hat on, at that moment he looked young and like anybody else.

Russell stood with his hand on the door, looking over his shoulder at the McLaren girl, at her only.

“Maybe we should talk more sometime,” he said.

“Maybe,” the McLaren girl answered. She was looking at him the same way, intently, like seeing something in him that was not there before. “When things calm down,” she said.

I had the feeling she wanted to say more than that, but she didn’t.

Russell nodded, his strange light-blue-colored eyes not moving from the girl’s. “When things calm down,” he said back.

He pulled the door open and stepped outside with the grainsack over his shoulder. The next time I was close enough to John Russell to see his face, he was dead.

Not long ago I was talking to a man from Benson who said they were playing a song now about Frank Braden and the woman he stole for reasons of love, and that I would appreciate it. I said are they playing a song about John Russell? He said who is John Russell?

What took place that afternoon at the San Pete mine has been written many times and different ways. (Including the song now.) Maybe you have read some of them. All I want to say is the account that appeared in the Florence Enterprise is a true one, even to the number of shots that were fired. Except even that account does not tell enough. (Which is what caused me to write this.) It describes a man named John Russell; but you still do not know John Russell after you have read it.

I am not saying anything against the Florence Enterprise. Their account was written in one hour or so, just telling what happened. I have been writing this for three months trying to tell you about John Russell as he was, so you will understand him. Yet, after three months of writing and thinking and all, I can’t truthfully say I understand him myself. I only feel I know why he walked down that slope.

I watched him from the window. I was also keeping an eye out for the Mexican. The Mexican must have seen Russell as he started down, but he did not come out from the crushing mill until Russell was about half way.

That was when Russell held up the grainsack. “Hey!” He yelled out, the same way the Mexican had been yelling at him, “I got something for you!”

The Mexican was being careful as he moved across the grade, keeping his eyes on Russell all the time. By then the Favor woman had seen him; sitting stooped over, her hair hanging and straggly, she was watching him come.

Russell did not look at the Mexican, though he must have known the Mexican was moving down and across the grade as if to head him off. By then you could see part of the Mexican’s back. I got down lower and, as Russell had instructed, put the front sight of the Spencer square on him, getting an awful feeling as I did.

At that moment, Early, up above us on the ridge, was probably putting his sights on Russell.

I kept expecting the Mexican to do something; but as he got over more by that little shack he slowed up so that he was hardly moving; not taking his eyes from Russell for a second, his right elbow bent and the elbow pressed against where he had been shot, his left hand hanging free. That was the hand I had watched, feeling the trigger of the Spencer and ready to pull it if the hand went to the Colt gun alongside it.

The Mexican stopped.

He was almost in line but a little to the left; so that from here you would look down past his right side to Russell who was nearing the Favor woman. She did not call out or appear to have said a word; she just kept staring at him, maybe not believing what she saw.

It was as Russell reached her that Frank Braden showed himself.

Braden came out of the veranda shade. He was limping some, I think trying not to show it, though he kept his left hand on his thigh, gripping it with his fingers spread.

The Mexican had not moved. I kept sighting on him, trying to watch Braden and Russell at the same time. Russell was kneeling by the woman, not paying any attention to Braden who kept coming. Braden called something, but Russell did not look up.

Braden called out again, slowing up and ready, you could tell.

Russell rose to his feet, helping the Favor woman as he did and you saw she was untied now. You also saw the grainsack lying over on the other side of the ore-cart tracks.

Russell and the Favor woman had taken only a few steps when Braden called out again. This time Russell stopped, though he motioned the Favor woman to keep going. She did, but looking back as Russell stood there watching Braden. She got up as high as the Mexican. He paid no attention to her. She was walking kind of sideways, coming up but looking back all the time.

The next thing I knew the front of the Spencer was on her. She had wandered just enough, looking back and not watching where she was going, to get behind the Mexican. I looked up, about to yell at her, but didn’t. The Mexican would hear it too.

All I could do was keep telling her to get out of the way in my mind. Please hurry up and get out of the way.

Braden had reached the grainsack. He stood by it saying something to Russell who was about ten feet from him. Russell answered him. (What this was about, no one knows. Braden could have said to open the sack, show him the money. Russell would have told him to look in it himself if he doubted it was there.)

The Favor woman looked up at where we were. I stood up and waved my arm, but as I did she was looking back the other way again.

Even standing and sighting down with the Spencer against the side frame, the Favor woman was still in the way. I could only see part of the Mexican.

In my mind I kept telling her over and over again to get out of the way, to please, for the Lord’s sake move one way or the other and to hurry! Now, right now, just move or look up here again or sit down or do something!

She stood there. She turned around to watch what was happening below and did not move from the spot.

Braden, his left hand still holding his thigh, straightened the grainsack with his boot toe so that the open end was toward him. Russell watched.

Braden went down to one knee, his right one, and now the hand came away from his thigh and unloosened the opening of the grainsack. Russell watched.

Braden straightened up, still kneeling. He said something to Russell. What? Warning him? Telling him not to try anything because the Mexican was behind him?

I saw Braden’s hand reach inside the grainsack.

Move! I thought. Get somewhere else!

If there was time-

Just move! I actually heard it in my mind, and I was to the door and out the door, running along the shelf, seven, eight, ten yards to be sure of the angle, to be sure of not hitting the woman.

But I had not even brought up the gun to aim when Braden’s hand came out of the grainsack. He was rising, trying to get out his revolver, but was already too late. Russell drew and fired twice with his Colt extended and aimed…his other arm coming up as he fired the second round and he was stumbling forward as if kicked in the back. The Mexican had pulled his long-barreled .44 and fired three shots in the time Russell had hit Braden twice and Braden and Russell both went down, Russell to his hands and knees, but turning with his revolver already raised and he fired as the Mexican fired again, fired as the Mexican stumbled forward, fired as the Mexican staggered and dropped to his knees and fell facedown with his arms spread. There were three more shots at that time, exactly three, because I can hear them every time I picture what took place; the shots coming from the ridge above us, from Early who was up there. I turned, aiming the Spencer almost straight up, but there was no sign of him. (There was no sign of him ever again that I know of.) When I turned back again, I saw Russell lying facedown between the ore-cart tracks. In the quiet that followed, all of us went down there.

Frank Braden had been shot twice in the chest; there was also the wound in his left thigh and a bullet crease across the shin of his left boot which had not touched him. Frank Braden was dead.

The Mexican had been hit in the chest twice and once in the stomach; plus the wound in his side that looked awful enough to have killed him. He lived another hour or so, but never told us his name, though he asked what Russell’s was.

John Russell had been shot three times low in the back. We turned him over and saw he had been hit twice again, through the neck and chest. He was dead.

I was the one rode to Delgado’s, running the horse most of the way, and ruining it, not intending to but not caring either. Delgado sent one of his boys to Sweetmary for the deputy. Delgado and Irode back to the San Pete in a wagon and got there in the dark of early morning. You could hear the crickets in the old buildings. Down in the open the McLaren girl and Henry Mendez and Dr. Favor and his wife were by a fire they’d kept going. Only Mrs. Favor had slept. Mendez had dug two graves.

Delgado and I sat with them and by the time it started to get light the Sweetmary deputy, J. R. Lyons, arrived.

He looked at the bodies, Braden’s and the Mexican’s by the graves, Russell’s in the wagon. Dig a hole for him too, J. R. Lyons said. What’s the difference? He’s dead. The McLaren girl said look all you want, but keep your opinions; we were taking Russell to Sweetmary for proper burial with a Mass and all and if Mr. J. R. Lyons didn’t like it he didn’t have to attend.

J. R. Lyons said of course he would. Once Dr. Favor and the stolen government money were handed over to a United States marshal.

(Which was done. Dr. Favor was tried in the District Court at Florence about a month later and sentenced to seven years in a Yuma prison. Mrs. Favor was not at the trial.)

John Russell was buried at Sweetmary. It was strange that neither the McLaren girl nor Henry Mendez nor I said much about him until after the funeral, and when we did talk found there wasn’t much to be said.

You can look at something for a long time and not see it until it has moved or run off. That was how we had looked at Russell. Now, nobody questioned why he had walked down that slope. What we asked ourselves was why we ever thought he wouldn’t.

Maybe he was showing off a little bit when he asked each of us if we wanted to walk down to the Favor woman, knowing nobody would but himself.

Maybe he let us think a lot of things about him that weren’t true. But as Russell would say, that was up to us. He let people do or think what they wanted while he smoked a cigarette and thought it out calmly, without his feelings getting mixed up in it. Russell never changed the whole time, though I think everyone else did in some way. He did what he felt had to be done. Even if it meant dying. So maybe you don’t have to understand him. You just know him.

“Take a good look at Russell. You will never see another one like him as long as you live.” That first day, at Delgado’s, Henry Mendez said it all.