Last Stand at Saber River

4

Now there was silence.

With Janroe’s full weight on top of him and the cool hardness of the floor flat against his cheek, Cable did not move. He felt Janroe’s chest pressing heavily against his back. His right arm, twisted and held between their bodies, sent tight, muscle-straining pain up into his shoulder. Janroe had pulled his own hand free as they struck the floor. It gripped the handle of Cable’s revolver, then tightened on it as the boards creaked above them.

Faint footsteps moved through the store and faded again into silence. Cable waited, listening, and making his body relax even with the weight pressing against him. He was thinking: It could be Martha, gone out to call the children. Martha not twenty feet away.

He felt the Walker slide from its holster. Janroe’s weight shifted, grinding heavily into his back. The cocking action of the Walker was loud and close to him before the barrel burrowed into the pit of his arm.

“Don’t spoil it,” Janroe whispered.

They waited. In the darkness, in the silence, neither spoke. Moments later the floor creaked again and the soft footsteps crossed back through the store. Cable let his breath out slowly.

Janroe murmured, “I could have pulled the trigger. A minute ago I was unarmed; but just then I could have killed you.”

Cable said nothing. Janroe’s elbow pressed into his back. The pressure eased and he felt Janroe push himself to his feet. Still Cable waited. He heard Janroe adjust a lantern. A match scratched down the wall. Its flare died almost to nothing, then abruptly the floor in front of Cable’s face took form. His eyes raised from his own shadow and in the dull light he saw four oblong wooden cases stacked against the wall close in front of him.

“Now you can get up,” Janroe said.

Cable rose. He stretched the stiffness from his body, working his shoulder to relieve the sharp muscle strain, his eyes returning to Janroe now and seeing the Walker in Janroe’s belt, tight against his stomach.

“Did you prove something by that?”

“I want you to know,” Janroe said, “that I’m not just passing the time of day.”

“There’s probably an easier way.”

“No.” Janroe shook his head slowly. “I want you to realize that I could have killed you. That I’d do it in a minute if I thought I had to. I want that to sink into your head.”

“You wouldn’t have a reason.”

“The reason’s behind you. Four cases of Enfield rifles. They’re more important than any one man’s life. More important than yours-”

Cable stopped him. “You’re not making much sense.”

“Or more important than the lives of Vern and Duane Kidston,” Janroe finished. “Does that make sense?”

“My hunting license.” Cable watched him thoughtfully. “Isn’t that what you called it? If I was in the gunrunning business, I could kill them with a clear conscience.”

“I’ll tell it to you again,” Janroe said. “If you worked for me, I’d order you to kill them.”

“I remember.”

“But it still hasn’t made any impression.”

“I told you a little while ago, now it’s up to the Kidstons.”

“All right, what do you think they’re doing right this minute?”

“Maybe burying their dead,” Cable said. “And realizing something.”

“And Joe Bob’s brothers-do you think they’re just going to bury him and forget all about it?”

“That’s something else,” Cable said.

“No it isn’t, because Vern will use them. He’ll sic them on you like a pair of mad dogs.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got a feeling Vern’s the kind of man who has to handle something like this himself, his own way.”

“And you’d bet the lives of your family on it,” Janroe said dryly.

“It’s Vern’s move, not mine.”

“Like a chess game.”

“Look,” Cable said patiently. “You’re asking me to shoot the man down in cold blood and that’s what I can’t do. Not for any reason.”

“Even though you left your family and rode a thousand miles to fight the Yankees.” Janroe watched him closely, making sure he held Cable’s attention.

“Now you’re home and you got Yankees right in your front yard. But now, for some reason, it’s different. They’re supplying cavalry horses to use against the same boys you were in uniform with. They’re using your land to graze those horses. But now it’s different. Now you sit and wait because it’s the Yankees’ turn to move.”

“A lot of things don’t sound sensible,” Cable said, “when you put them into words.”

“Or when you cover one ear,” Janroe said. “You don’t hear the guns or the screams and the moans of the wounded. You even have yourself believing the war’s over.”

“I told you once, it’s over as far as I’m concerned.”

Janroe nodded. “Yes, you’ve told me and you’ve told yourself. Now go tell Vern Kidston and his brother.”

End it, Cable thought. Tell him to shut up and mind his own business. But he thought of Martha and the children. They were here in the safety of this man’s house, living here now because Janroe had agreed to it. He was obligated to Janroe, and the sudden awareness of it checked him, dissolving the bald, blunt words that were clear in his mind and almost on his tongue.

He said simply, “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

Janroe’s expression remained coldly impassive; still his eyes clung to Cable. He watched him intently, almost as if he were trying to read Cable’s thoughts.

“You might think about it though,” Janroe said. His eyes dropped briefly. He pulled the Walker from his waist and handed it butt-forward to Cable.

“Within a few days, I’m told, Bill Dancey and the rest of them will start bringing all the horses in from pasture. That means Duane and maybe even Vern will be home alone. Just the two of them there.” Janroe lifted the lantern from the wall. Before blowing it out, he added, “You might think about that, too.”

They moved out of the cellar into the abrupt sun glare of the yard, and there Janroe waited while Cable went inside to tell Martha goodbye. Within a few minutes Cable reappeared. Janroe watched him kneel down to kiss his children; he watched him mount the sorrel and ride out. He watched him until he was out of sight, and still he lingered in the yard, staring out through the sun haze to the willows that lined the river.

He isn’t mad enough, Janroe was thinking. And Vern seems to want to wait and sweat him out. If he waits, Cable waits and nothing happens. And it will go on like this until you bring them together. You know that, don’t you? Somehow you have to knock their heads together.

Manuel Acaso reached Cable’s house in the late evening. The sky was still light, with traces of sun reflection above the pine slope, but the glare was gone and the trees had darkened and seemed more silent.

Manuel moved through the streaked shadows of the aspen grove, through the scattered pale-white trees, hearing only the sound of his own horse in the leaves. He stopped at the edge of the trees, his eyes on the silent, empty-appearing adobe; then he moved on.

Halfway across the yard he called out, “Paul!”

Cable parted the hanging willow branches with the barrel of the Spencer and stepped into the open. Manuel was facing the house, sitting motionless in the saddle with his body in profile as Cable approached, his face turned away and his eyes on the door of the house.

He looks the same, Cable thought. Perhaps heavier, but not much; and he still looks as if he’s part of the saddle and the horse, all three of them one, even when he just sits resting.

Softly he said, “Manuel-”

The dark lean face in the shadow of the straw hat turned to Cable without a trace of surprise, but with a smile that was real and warmly relaxed. His eyes raised to the willows, then dropped to Cable again.

“Still hiding in trees,” Manuel said. “Like when the Apache would come. Never be where they think you are.”

Cable was smiling. “We learned that, Manolo.”

“Now to be used on a man named Kidston,” Manuel said. “Did you think I was him coming?”

“You could have been.”

“Always something, uh?”

“Why didn’t you run him when he first came?”

Manuel shrugged. “Why? It’s not my land.”

“You skinny Mexican, you were too busy running something else.”

The trace of a smile left Manuel’s face. “I didn’t think Janroe would have told you so soon.”

“You haven’t seen him this evening?”

“No, I didn’t stop.”

“But you knew I was here.”

“A man I know visited the store yesterday. Luz told him,” Manuel said. “I almost stopped to see Martha and the little kids, but I thought, no, talk to him first, about Janroe.”

“He wants me to join you, but I told him I had my own troubles.”

“He must see something in you.” Manuel leaned forward, resting his arms one over the other on the saddle horn, watching Cable closely. “What do you think of him?”

Cable hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“He told you how he came and how he’s helping with the guns?”

“That he was in the war before and wounded.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t have a reason not to. But I don’t understand him.”

“That’s the way I felt about him; and still do.”

“Did you check on him?”

“Sure. I asked the people I work with. They said of course he’s all right, or he wouldn’t have been sent here.”

Looking up at Manuel, Cable smiled. It was good to see him, good to talk to him again, in the open or anywhere, and for the first time in three days Cable felt more sure of himself. The feeling came over him quietly with the calm, unhurried look of this man who lounged easily in his saddle and seemed a part of it-this thin-faced, slim-bodied man who looked like a boy and always would, who had worked his cattle with him and fought the Apache with him and helped him build his home. They had learned to know each other well, and there was much between them that didn’t have to be spoken.

“Do you feel someone watching you?”

“This standing in the open,” Manuel nodded. “Like being naked.”

“We’d better go somewhere else.”

“In the trees.” Manuel smiled.

He took his horse to the barn and came back, walking with a slow, stiff-legged stride, his hand lightly on the Colt that was holstered low on his right side, holding it to his leg. He followed Cable into the willows. Then, sitting down next to him at the edge of the cutback, Manuel noticed the horse herd far out in the meadow beyond the river.

“You let Vern’s horses stay?”

“I ran them once,” Cable said. “Duane brought them back.”

“So you run them again.”

“Tomorrow. You want to come?”

“Tonight I’m back to my gun business.”

Denaman, Cable thought. The old man’s face appeared suddenly in his mind with the mention of the gunrunning. He told Manuel what Janroe had said about John Denaman’s death. That he was worried about his business. “But I suppose that meant worried about the guns,” Cable said. “Having to sit on them and act natural.”

“I think the man was just old,” Manuel said. “I think he would have died anyway. Perhaps this gun business caused him to die a little sooner, but not much sooner.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Thank you,” Manuel said, with understanding, as if Denaman had been his own father.

“At first,” Cable said, “I couldn’t picture John fooling with something like this-living out here, far away from the war.”

“Why?” Manuel’s eyebrows rose. “You lived here and you went to fight.”

“It seems different.”

“Because he was old? John could have had the same feeling you did.”

“I suppose.”

“Sure, and I think you going off to war, and the other people he knew who went, convinced him he had to do something to help. Since he couldn’t become a soldier he did this with the guns.”

“Did he talk to you about it first?”

Manuel shook his head. “There were already guns under the store when I found out. John got into it through some man he knew who lives in Hidalgo. He didn’t want me to help, said I had no part in it. But I told him if he believed in what he was doing then so did I, so why waste our breath over it.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“I believed in John; that’s enough.”

“But what about now?”

“He started it,” Manuel said. “I’ll finish it, with or without the help of this man who’s so anxious to kill.”

“Something else,” Cable said. “Janroe told me that John was worried about Luz. That she was keeping company with Vern, and John didn’t like it.”

Manuel nodded. “She was seeing him often before Janroe came. Sometimes it bothered me, Vern being around; but John said, no, that was good, let him sit up there in the parlor with Luz. If we sneaked around and stayed to ourselves, John said, then people would suspect things… So I don’t think he was worried about Vern Kidston. If anything, John liked him. They talked well together; never about the war but about good things… No, Janroe was wrong about that part. He figured it out himself and maybe it made sense to him, but he’s wrong.”

“Luz stopped seeing Vern?”

“Right after Janroe came.”

“Do you know why?”

“I think because she was afraid Janroe would kill him, or try to, and if it happened at the store it would be because of her.” Manuel paused. “Does that make sense?”

“I suppose. Since she knew Janroe and Vern were on opposite sides.”

“Luz is afraid of him and admits it,” Manuel said. “She says she has a feeling about him and sees him in dreams as a nagual, a man who is able to change himself into something else. A man who is two things at the same time.”

“He could be two different people,” Cable said, nodding. “He could be what he tells you and he could be what he is, or what he is thinking. I don’t know. I don’t even know how to talk to him. He wants me to work for him and kill Vern and Duane because of what they’re doing.”

Manuel stared. “He asked me to do that, months ago.”

“What did you tell him?”

“To go to hell.”

“That’s what I wanted to say,” Cable said.

“But now Martha and the kids are living in his house and I have to go easy with him. But he keeps insisting and arguing it and after a while I run out of things to tell him.”

In the dimness, Manuel leaned closer, putting his hand on Cable’s arm. “Do you want to find out more about this Janroe?”

“How?”

“I’ll take you to the man I work for. John’s friend from Hidalgo. He can tell you things.”

“I don’t know-”

“You were at the war and you’d understand what he says about Janroe. You’d be able to ask questions.”

“Maybe I’d better.” Cable’s tone was low, thoughtful.

“Listen, you’re worried about your land; I know that. But after this I’ll help you and we’ll run these Kidstons straight to hell if you say it.”

“All right,” Cable nodded. “We’ll talk to your man.”

It was still sky-red twilight when they rode out, but full dark by the time they passed the store, keeping to the west side of the river and high up on the slope so they wouldn’t be heard.

Martha stood at the sink, taking her time with the breakfast dishes, making it last because she wasn’t sure what she would do after this. Perhaps ask Luz if she could help with something else. Luz, not Mr. Janroe. But even if there was something to be done, Luz would shake her head no, Martha was sure of that. So what would she do then? Perhaps go outside with the children.

Her gaze rose from the dishwater to the window and she saw her children playing in the back yard: Davis and Sandy pushing stick-trains over the hard-packed ground and making whistle sounds; Clare sitting on a stump, hunched over her slate with the tip of her tongue showing in the corner of her mouth.

They’re used to not seeing him, Martha thought. But you’re not used to it, not even after two and a half years. And now he seems farther away than before.

That was a strange thing. She had waited for Cable during the war knowing he would come home, knowing it and believing it, because she prayed hard and allowed herself to believe nothing else. Now he was within one hour’s ride, but the distance between them seemed greater than when he had served with General Forrest. And now, too, there was an uncertainty inside of her. Because you haven’t had time to think about it, she thought. Or not think about it. This time you haven’t gotten used to not thinking anything will happen to him.

For a moment the thought angered her. She had things to do at home. She had a family to care for, husband and children, but she stood calmly waiting and washing dishes in another person’s house, away from her husband again, and again faced with the tiring necessity of telling herself everything would be all right.

Was it worth it?

If it wasn’t, was anything worth waiting or fighting for?

And she thought, if you don’t have the desire to fight or wait for something, there’s no reason for being on earth.

That’s very easy to say. Now wash the dishes and live with it. Martha smiled then. No, she told herself, it was simply a question of stubbornness or resignation. If you ran away from one trouble, you would probably run into another. So face the first one, the important one, and get used to it. She remembered Cable saying, years before, “We’ve taken all there is to take. Nothing will make us leave this place.”

And perhaps you can believe that, just as you knew and believed he would come home from the war, Martha thought. So put on the big-smiling mask again. Even if it makes you gag.

But I’m tired, Martha thought, not smiling now. Perhaps you can keep the mask on only so long before it suffocates you.

She glanced over her shoulder as Luz entered the kitchen.

“I think Mr. Janroe is going out,” Luz said. She pulled a towel from a hook above the sink and began drying dishes. “He’s in the store, but dressed to go out.”

“Where would he be going?” Martha asked.

“I don’t know. Sometimes he just rides off.”

“Would it have anything to with the guns?”

Luz looked at her. “You know?”

“Of course. Don’t you think Paul would have told me?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Luz, do you have anything to do with it?”

The girl nodded. “On the day the guns are to arrive, I ride down to Hidalgo in the afternoon. That night I return an hour ahead of them seeing that the way is clear. Manuel follows, doing the same. Then the guns come.”

“Are you due to go again soon-or shouldn’t I ask that?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The girl shrugged. “Tomorrow I go again.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Not when I’m away from here.”

“But you’re afraid of Mr. Janroe,” Martha said. “I’m sure of that. Why, Luz?”

“You don’t know him or you wouldn’t ask that.”

“I know he’s gruff. Hardly what you’d call a gentleman.”

“No.” Luz shook her head solemnly. She glanced at the doorway to the main room before saying, “It isn’t something you see in him.”

“Has he ever…made advances?”

“No, it isn’t like that either,” the girl said. “It’s something you feel. Like an awareness of evil. As if his soul was so smeared with stains of sin you were aware of a foulness about him that could almost be smelled.”

“Luz, to your knowledge the man hasn’t done a thing wrong.”

“The feeling is a kind of knowledge itself.”

“But it isn’t something you can prove, is it?” Martha stood with her hands motionless in the dishwater, her full attention on Luz. “What if suddenly you realize that all you’ve said couldn’t possibly be true, that it’s all something out of a dream or-”

“Listen, I did dream about him! A number of times before, then again last night.” The girl’s eyes went to the main room and back again.

“I saw an animal in the dream, like a small wolf or a coyote, and it was slinking along in the moonlight. Then, in front of it, there was a chicken. The chicken was feeding on the ground and before it could raise its head, the animal was on it and tearing it apart with its teeth and eating it even while the chicken was still alive. I watched, cold with fear, but unable to move. And as I watched, the animal began to change.

“It was still on its haunches facing me, still eating and smeared with the blood of the chicken. First its hind legs became human legs; then its body became the clothed body of a man. Then the face began to change, the jaw and the nose and the chin. The teeth were still those of an animal and he had no forehead and his eyes and head were still like an animal’s. He was looking at me with blood on his mouth and on his hand…on the one hand that he had. And at that moment I ran from him screaming. I knew it was the face of Mr. Janroe.”

“Luz, you admit it’s a dream-”

“Listen, that isn’t all of it.” Luz glanced toward the main room again. “I awoke in a sweat and with a thirst burning the inside of my throat. So I left my bed and went down for a drink of water. The big room was dark, but at once I saw that a lamp was burning in here. I came to the door, I looked into this room, and I swear on my mother’s grave that my heart stopped beating when I saw him.”

“Mr. Janroe?”

Luz nodded quickly. “He was sitting at the table holding a piece of meat almost to his mouth and his eyes were on me, not as if he’d looked up as I appeared, but as if he’d been watching me for some time. I saw his eyes and the hand holding the meat, just as in the dream, and I ran. I don’t know if I screamed, but I remember wanting to scream and running up the stairs and locking my door.”

Martha dried her hands on her apron. She smiled at Luz gently and put her hand on the girl’s arm.

“Luz, there isn’t anything supernatural about a man eating with his fingers.”

“You didn’t see him.” Luz stopped. Her eyes were on the doorway again and a moment later Janroe appeared. Martha glanced at him, then at Luz again as the girl suddenly turned and pushed through the screen door.

Janroe came into the kitchen. He was holding his hat and wearing a coat, but the coat was open and Martha noticed the butt of a Colt beneath one lapel in a shoulder holster. Another Colt was on his hip.

“Did I interrupt something?”

“Nothing important.” Martha turned from the sink to face him. “You’re going out?”

“I thought I would.” He watched her with an expression of faint amusement. “Wondering if I’m going to see your husband?”

“Yes, I was.”

“I might see him.”

“If you’re going that way, would you mind stopping by the house?”

“Why?”

“Why do you think, Mr. Janroe?”

“Maybe he’s not so anxious to let you know what he’s doing.”

Now a new side of him, Martha thought wearily. She said nothing.

“I mean, considering how he dropped you here and ran off so quick.” Janroe hooked his hat on the back of the nearest chair. Unhurriedly he started around the table, saying now, “A man is away from his wife for two years or more, then soon as he gets home he leaves her again. What kind of business is that?”

Martha watched him still coming toward her. “We know the reason, Mr. Janroe.”

“The reason he gives. Worried about his wife and kids.”

“What other reason is there?”

“It wouldn’t be my business to know.”

“You seem to be making it your business.”

“I was just wondering if you believed him.”

He was close to her now. Martha stood unmoving, feeling the wooden sink against her back. “I believe him,” she said calmly. “I believe anything he tells me.”

“Did he tell you he led a saintly life the years he was away?”

“I never questioned him about it.”

“Want me to tell you what a man does when he’s away from home?”

“And even if I said no-”

“They have a time for themselves,” Janroe went on. “They carry on like young bucks with the first smell of spring. Though they expect their wives to sit home and be as good as gold.”

“You know this from experience?”

“I’ve seen them.” His voice was low and confiding. “Some of them come home with the habit of their wild ways still inside them, and they go wandering off again.”

He watched her closely, his head lowered and within inches of hers. “Then there’s some women who aren’t fooled by it and they say, ‘If he can fool around and have a time, then so can I.’ Those women do it, too. They start having a time for themselves and it serves their husbands right.”

Martha did not move. She was looking at him, at his heavy mustache and the hard, bony angles of his face, feeling the almost oppressive nearness of him. She said nothing.

Janroe asked, almost a whisper, “You know what I mean?”

“If I were to tell my husband what you just said,” Martha answered quietly, “I honestly believe he would kill you.”

Janroe’s expression did not change. “I don’t think so. Your husband needs me. He needs a place for you and the kids to stay.”

“Are you telling me that I’m part of the agreement between you and my husband?”

“Well now, nothing so blunt as all that.” Janroe smiled. “We’re white men.”

“We’ll be out of here within an hour,” Martha said coldly.

“Now wait a minute. You don’t kid very well, do you?”

“Not about that.”

He backed away from her, reaching for his hat. “I don’t even think you know what I was talking about.”

“Let’s say that I didn’t,” Martha said. “For your sake.”

Janroe shrugged. “You think whatever you want.” He put his hat on and walked out. In front of the store, he mounted a saddled buckskin and rode off.

He could still see the calm expression of Martha Cable’s face as he forded the shallow river, as he kicked the buckskin up the bank and started across the meadow that rolled gradually up into the pines that covered the crest of the slope. Then he was spurring, running the buckskin, crossing the sweep of meadow, in the open sunlight now with the hot breeze hissing past his face. But even then Martha was before him.

She stared at him coldly. And the harder he ran-holding the reins short to keep the buckskin climbing, feeling the brute strength of the horse’s response, hearing the hoofs and the wind and trying to be aware of nothing else-the more he was aware of Martha’s contempt for him.

Some time later, following the trail that ribboned through the pines, the irritating feeling that he had made a fool of himself began to subside. It was as if here in the silence, in the soft shadows of the pines, he was hidden from her eyes.

He told himself to forget about her. The incident in the kitchen had been a mistake. He had seen her and started talking and one thing had led to another; not planned, just something suddenly happening that moment. He would have to be more careful. She was an attractive woman and her husband was miles away, but there were matters at hand more important than Martha Cable. She would wait until later, when there were no Kidstons…and no Paul Cable.

Still, telling himself this, her calmness and the indifference grated on his pride and he was sure that she had held him off because of his missing arm, because he was something repulsive to her. Only part of a man.

He jerked his mind back to the reason he was here. First, to talk to Cable, to hammer away at him until he consented to go after the Kidstons. Then, to scout around and see what was going on.

The latter had become a habit: riding this ridge trail, then bearing off toward the Kidston place and sometimes approaching within view of the house. He did this every few days and sometimes at night, because if you kept your eyes open you learned things. Like Duane’s habit of sitting on the veranda at night-perhaps every night-for a last cigar. Or Vern visiting his grazes once a week and sometimes not returning until the next morning. But always there had been people around the house while Duane sat and smoked on the veranda; and almost invariably Vern made his inspections with Bill Dancey along. Knowing that Kidston’s riders would be off on a horse gather in a few days was the same kind of useful intelligence to keep in mind. He had already told Cable about the riders being away. Perhaps he would tell him everything-every bit of information he knew about Vern and Duane Kidston. Lay it all out on the table and make it look easy.

High on the slope, but now even with Cable’s house, Janroe reined in. There was no sign of life below. No sounds, no movement, no chimney smoke. But Cable could still be home, Janroe decided.

Then, descending the path, keeping his eyes on the shingled roof and the open area of the front yard, he began to think: But what if he isn’t home?

Then you talk to him another time.

No, wait. What if he isn’t home and isn’t even close by?

Reaching the back of the adobe, he sat for a moment, listening thoughtfully to the silence.

And what if something happened to his house while he was away? Janroe began to feel the excitement of it building inside of him.

But be careful, he thought.

He rode around to the front and called Cable’s name.

No answer.

He waited; called again, but still the house stood silent and showed no signs of life.

Janroe reined the buckskin around and crossed the yard to the willows. His gaze went to the horse herd out on the meadow and he studied the herd for some moments. No, Cable wasn’t there. No one was.

He was about to turn back to the house, but he hesitated. No one anywhere. What does that say?

No, it’s too good. When a thing looks too good there’s something wrong with it. Still, he knew that all at once he was looking at an almost foolproof way to jab Cable into action. He sat motionless, looking at the horse herd, making sure no riders were out beyond the farthest grazing horses, and thinking it all over carefully.

Would he be suspected? No. He’d tell Martha and Luz he went to Fort Buchanan on business and no one was home when he passed here. He could even head up toward Buchanan, spend the night on the trail and double back to the store in the morning.

But what if someone came while he was in the house? What if Cable came home?

You either do it or you don’t do it, but you don’t think about it any more!

It was decided then. He returned to the adobe, swung down as he reached the ramada, and pushed open the front door.

Inside, in the dim closeness of the room, an urgency came over him and he told himself to hurry, to get it over with and get out.

From the stove he picked up a frying pan, went to the kitchen cupboards, opened them and swung the pan repeatedly into the shelves of dishes until not a cup or a plate remained in one piece. With a chair he smashed down the stove’s chimney flue. A cloud of soot puffed out and filtered through the room as he dragged the comforter and blankets from the bed. He emptied the kitchen drawers then, turning them upside down; found a carving knife and used it to slash open the mattress and pillows still on the bed.

Enough?

He was breathing heavily from the exertion, from the violence of what had taken him no more than a minute. Hesitating now, his eyes going over the room, he again felt the urgent need to be out of here.

Enough.

He went out brushing soot from his coat, mounted and rode directly across the yard and forded the river. He stopped long enough to convince himself that no riders had joined the Kidston herd since his last look at it. Then he rode on, spurring across the meadow now, pointing for the east slope and not until he was in the piñon, beginning the steep climb up through the trees, did he look back and across to Cable’s house. Not until then did he take the deep breath he had wanted to take in the house to make himself relax.

You’ve pushed him now, Janroe told himself, hearing the words calmly, but still feeling the excitement, the tension, tight through his body.

You just busted everything wide open.

It was evening, but not yet dark, a silent time with the trees standing black and thick-looking and the sky streaked with red shades of sun reflection. A whole day had passed and Cable was returning home.

He had already skirted the store, wanting to see Martha but wanting more to avoid Janroe, and now he was high up in the shadows and the silence of the pines, following the horse trail along the ridge.

He would talk to Janroe another time, after he had thought this out and was sure he knew what to say to him.

This morning he had talked to a man, a small old man who was perhaps in his sixties with a graying beard and a mustache that was tobacco-stained yellow about his mouth. Denaman’s friend from Hidalgo. In the dimness of the adobe room, and with the early morning sounds of the village outside, the man seemed too old or too small or too fragile to do whatever he was doing.

But he asked Manuel Acaso questions about Cable, then looked at Cable and asked more questions; and it was his eyes that convinced Cable that the man was not too old or too thin or too frail. Brown eyes-Cable would remember them-that were gentle and perhaps kind; but they were not smiling eyes. They were the eyes of a patient, soft-spoken man who would show little more than mild interest at anything he saw or heard.

He was willing enough to talk about Janroe once he was sure of Cable, and he made no attempt to hide facts or try to justify Janroe’s actions. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if he had memorized the things he was saying…

Edward Janroe, Cable learned, was a native of Florida, born in St. Augustine a few years before the outbreak of the second Seminole war, and had lived there most of his early life. Almost nothing was known of Janroe during this period; not until he joined the army in 1854. From then on his life was on record.

In 1858, a sergeant by this time, Janroe was court-martialed for knifing a fellow soldier in a tavern fight. The man died and Janroe was sentenced to six years of hard labor at the Fort Marion military prison. He was well into his third year of it when the war broke out. It saved him from completing his sentence.

With a volunteer company from St. Augustine, Janroe traveled to Winchester, Virginia-this during the summer of 1861-and was assigned to the 10th Virginia Infantry, part of General Edmund Kirby Smith’s forces. Strangely enough, despite his prison record, but undoubtedly because of his experience, Janroe was commissioned a full lieutenant of infantry.

A year later, and now a captain, Janroe lost his arm at the battle of Richmond, Kentucky. He was sent to the army hospital at Knoxville, spent seven months there, and was discharged sometime in March, 1863.

But Janroe didn’t go home. He learned that Kirby Smith had been made commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, headquartered at Shreveport, Louisiana, and that’s where Janroe went. In the early part of April he was reinstated with the rank of lieutenant and served under Dick Taylor, one of Kirby Smith’s field generals.

Up to this point Cable had listened in silence.

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“I don’t care what he told you,” the bearded man said. “He served under Taylor in the fighting around Alexandria and Opelousas.”

But not for long. He was with Taylor less than two months when he was discharged for good. He was told that he had given enough of himself and deserved retirement. The real reason: his wild disregard for the safety of his men, throwing them into almost suicidal charges whenever he made contact with the enemy. This, and the fact that he refused to take a prisoner. During his time with Taylor, Janroe was responsible for having some one hundred and twenty Union prisoners lined up and shot.

Janroe pleaded his case all the way to Kirby Smith’s general staff-he was a soldier and soldiering was his life; but as far as every one of them was concerned, Janroe was unfit for active duty and immediately relieved of his command.

Janroe returned to St. Augustine, then in the hands of Federal forces. Through a man he had known there before, he made contact with Confederate Intelligence agents and went to work for them. And eventually-in fact after well over a year in Florida-he was sent to Mexico. There he was given his present assignment.

“I can see why he didn’t tell me everything,” Cable said.

The bearded man nodded. “Naturally.”

Cable watched him. “What do you think of Janroe?”

“He’s a hard man to know.”

“But what do you think?”

“I don’t care for his kind, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yet you have him working for you.”

“Mr. Cable,” the bearded man said, “Janroe seems to have one aim in life. To see the South win the war.”

“Or to see more Yankees killed.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know he’s moved over two thousand rifles through the store since coming here,” the bearded man said.

“And now he wants to kill two men who aren’t even in the war.”

“Well, I wonder if you can blame him,” the bearded man said, somewhat wearily now. “A man is sent to war and taught how to kill; but after, the unlearning of it is left up to him.”

“Except that Janroe knew how to kill before he went to war,” Cable said.

So you’ll wait, Cable thought now, and wonder about Janroe and wonder when Vern will make his move, while you try to stay calm and keep yourself from running away.

He was perhaps a mile from his house, passing through a clearing in the pines, when he saw the two riders down in the meadow, saw them for one brief moment before they entered the willows at the river.

Cable waited. When the riders did not come out of the trees on this side of the river he dismounted, took his field glasses and Spencer from the saddle and made his way carefully down through the pines on foot. Between fifty and sixty yards from the base of the slope he reached an outcropping of rock that fell steeply, almost abruptly, the rest of the way down. Here Cable went on his stomach. He nosed the Spencer through a V in the warm, sand-colored rocks and put the field glasses to his eyes.

He recognized Lorraine Kidston at once. She stood by her horse, looking down at a stooped man drinking from the edge of the water. When he rose, turning to the girl, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Cable saw that it was Vern Kidston.

Two hundred yards away, but with them, close to them through the field glasses, Cable watched. He studied Vern standing heavily with his hands on his hips, his shoulders slightly stooped and his full mustache giving his face a solemn, almost sad expression. Vern spoke little. Lorraine seemed to be doing the talking. Lorraine smiling blandly, shrugging, standing with one hand on her hip and gesturing imperiously with the other.

She stopped. For a moment neither of them spoke: Vern thoughtful; Lorraine watching him. Then Vern nodded, slowly, resignedly, and Lorraine was smiling again. Now she moved to her horse. Vern helped her up. She rode off at once, heading north out into the meadow, and did not look back. Vern watched her, standing motionless with his hands hanging at his sides now.

He was close, his hat, his mustache, his shirt, his gun belt, his hands, all in detail. Then the glasses lowered and Vern Kidston was a small dark figure two hundred yards away.

There he is, Cable thought. Waiting for you.

He put the field glasses aside and took the solid, compact, balanced weight of the Spencer, his hands under it lightly and the stock snugly against the groove of his shoulder.

There he is.

It would be easy, Cable thought. He knew that most of the waiting and the wondering and the wanting to run would be over by just squeezing the trigger. Doing it justifiably, he told himself.

And it isn’t something you haven’t done before.

There had been the two Apaches he had knocked from their horses as they rode out of the river trees and raced for his cattle. He had been lying on this same slope, up farther, closer to the house and with a Sharps rifle, firing and loading and firing again and seeing the two Chiricahua Apaches pitch from their running horses, not even knowing what had killed them.

And there had been another time. More like this one, though he had not been alone then. Two years ago. Perhaps two years almost to the day. In northern Alabama…

It had happened on the morning of the fifth day, after they had again located the Yankee raider Abel Streight and were closing with him, preparing to tear another bite out of his exhausted flank.

He lay in the tall grass, wet and chilled by the rain that had been falling almost all night; now in the gray mist of morning with a shivering trooper huddled next to him, not speaking, and the rest of the patrol back a few hundred yards with the horses, waiting for the word to be passed to them. For perhaps an hour he lay like this with his glasses on the Union picket, a 51st Indiana Infantryman. The Yankee had been closer than Vern Kidston was now: across a stream and somewhat below them, crouched down behind a log, his rifle straight up past his head and shoulder. He was in plain view, facing the stream, the peak of his forage cap wet-shining and low over his eyes; but his eyes were stretched wide open, Cable knew, because of the mist and the silence and because he was alone on picket duty a thousand miles from home. He’s wondering if he will ever see Indiana again, Cable had thought. Wondering if he will ever see his home and his wife and his children. He’s old enough to have a family. But he hasn’t been in it long, or he wouldn’t be showing himself.

I can tell you that you won’t go home again, Cable remembered thinking. It’s too bad. But I want to go home too, and the way it is now both of us won’t be able to. They’re going to cry and that’s too bad. But everything’s too bad. For one brief moment he had thought, remembering it clearly now: Get down, you fool! Stop showing yourself!

Then someone was shaking his foot. He looked back at a bearded face. The face nodded twice. Cable touched the trooper next to him and whispered, indicating the Yankee picket, “Take him.”

The man next to him pressed his cheek to his Enfield, aiming, but taking too long, trying to hold the barrel steady, his whole body shivering convulsively from the long, rain-drenched hours. “Give me it,” Cable whispered. He eased the long rifle out in front of him carefully and put the front sight just below the Indiana man’s face. You shouldn’t have looked at him through the glasses, he thought, and pulled the trigger and the picket across the stream was no more. They were up and moving after that. Not until evening did Cable have time to remember the man who had waited helplessly, unknowingly, to be killed…

The way Vern Kidston is now, Cable thought.

There was no difference between the two men, he told himself. Vern was a Yankee; there was no question about that. The only difference, if you wanted to count it, was that Vern didn’t have a blue coat or a flat forage cap with the bugle Infantry insignia pinned to the front of it.

What if the 51st Indiana man had had a different kind of hat on but you still knew what he was and what he was doing there?

You would have shot him.

So the uniform doesn’t mean anything.

It’s what the man believes in and what he’s doing to you. What if Vern were here and you were down there, the places just switched?

The thumb of Cable’s right hand flicked the trigger guard down and up, levering a cartridge into the breech. The thumb eased back the hammer. Cable brought his face close to the carbine and sighted down the short barrel with both eyes open, placing the front sight squarely on the small figure in the trees. Like the others, Cable thought. It would be quick and clean, and it would be over.

If you don’t miss.

Cable raised his head slightly. No, he could take him from here. With the first one he would at least knock Vern down, he was sure of that. Then he could finish him. But if Vern reached cover?

Hit his horse. Then Vern wouldn’t be going anywhere and he could take his time. He wondered then if he should have brought extra loading tubes with him. There were four of them in his saddle bag. Each loading tube, which you inserted through the stock of the Spencer, held seven thick.56-56 cartridges. The Spencer was loaded now, but after seven shots-if it took that many-he would have to use the Walker.

Vern Kidston moved out of line. Cable looked up, then down again and the Spencer followed Vern to his horse, hardly rising as Vern took up the reins and stepped into the saddle.

Now, Cable thought.

But he waited.

He watched Vern come out of the trees, still on the far side of the river, and head north, the same way Lorraine had gone. Going home probably. Either by way of the horse trail or by following the long curving meadow all the way around. But why weren’t they together? It was strange that Vern would let her ride home alone at this time of day. In less than an hour it would be full dark. Cable doubted that she knew the country that well.

Another thing. Where had they been? Why would they stand there talking for a while, then ride off separately?

Instantly Cable thought: You’re letting him go!

He shifted the Spencer, putting the front sight on Vern again. He held the carbine firmly, his finger crooked on the trigger and the tip of the barrel inching along with the slow-moving target. The distance between them lengthened.

You’ve got ten seconds, Cable thought. After that he wouldn’t be sure of hitting Vern. His arms and shoulders tightened and for one shaded second his finger almost squeezed the trigger.

Then it was over. He let his body relax and eased the hammer down on the open breech.

No, you could have a hundred years and you wouldn’t do it that way. There’s a difference, isn’t there? And you’re sure of it now. You feel it, even if you can’t define it.

Cable rose stiffly, watching Vern for another few moments, then trudged slowly back up through the pines.

Mounted again, he felt a deep weariness and he sat heavily in the saddle, closing his eyes time and again, letting the sorrel follow the path at a slow-walking pace. His body ached from the long all-day ride; but it was the experience of just a few minutes ago that had left the drained, drawn feeling in his mind. One thing he was sure of now, beyond any doubt. He couldn’t kill Vern Kidston the way Janroe wanted it done. He couldn’t kill Vern or Duane this way regardless of how logical or necessary the strange-acting, sly-talking man with one arm made it sound.

Knowing this, being sure of it now, was something. But it changed little else. The first move would still be Vern’s. Cable would go home, not hurrying to an empty house, and he would hold on to his patience until he had either outwaited or outfought Vern once and for all.

He descended the slope behind the house, dismounted at the barn and led the sorrel inside. Within a few minutes he appeared again. Carrying the Spencer and the field glasses he walked across the yard, letting his gaze move out to the willows now dull gray and motionless against the fading sky. When he looked at the house he stopped abruptly. Lamplight showed in the open doorway.

His left hand, with the strap of the field glasses across the palm, took the Spencer. His right hand dropped to the Walker Colt and held it as he approached the house, passed through the semi-darkness of the ramada and stepped into the doorway.

He stood rigid, seeing the strewn bedcovers, the slashed mattress, the soot filming the table and the caved-in stove chimney on the floor; seeing the scattered, broken ruin and Lorraine Kidston standing in the middle of it. She turned from the stove, sweeping aside fragments of china with her foot, and smiled at Cable. “I’ve been waiting for you.”