The Hot Country

49

“Walk with me,” I said to Slim. He knew from my voice that he shouldn’t ask why. It felt good to say three words in English at the moment.

He took a last pull from a bottle of pulque, which had to be about eighty degrees at the coolest. I couldn’t imagine drinking the stuff in the desert. But Slim also fought wars for money. And it also struck me about this moment that I was having thoughts like these. Which led me to think: part of me has already gotten on a horse and ridden far away and written a news story and found a telegraph operator and has left my participatory days far behind me.

Slim rose and we both nodded to Hernando and the rest of the boys, and Slim fell in beside me as I headed back to the postal car.

“I need your help,” I said.

“You know you got it,” he said.

“I have to ride out of here tonight.”

“That was fast. Your story done?”

“I had a breakthrough.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Help me retrieve my horse.”

“I’ll find the boy.”

“I’ve got a map and compass,” I said. “It looks like Laredo.”

“Okay. Probably best, if the U. S. of A. is your intention. Take you three days if you don’t want to kill your animal.”

“Much trouble along the way, you figure?”

“I’ll get you a Mauser just in case. But no. Not if you stay at least twenty miles away from the railway till you get to the Salado River. You could lead your horse over the train bridge there, and you’re good the rest of the way to the border.”

We were approaching the postal car.

“I’ll get my saddlebags,” I said.

“Horse and rifle,” he said. And as an afterthought: “And a phial of iodine and clean bandages.” He headed off up the tracks.

I stepped into the car and Mensinger was still out cold. I’d checked his pulse after quickly pulling my things together and before I’d gone after Slim. The pulse had seemed fine.

He was drooling a bit now. His fingers were starting to twitch. There was some incipient movement under and around the closed eyelids. He had a knot in the center of his forehead, as if all his secret plans were being drawn into the open.

I put the bags over my shoulder and sat for a moment on the chair. I needed to wait. I was ready to give Mensinger another tap if he suddenly popped back awake. But before I had to do that, I heard Slim on the steps. I rose and I moved toward the door and I stopped when Slim stopped, framed in the door, a Mauser in his hand and a bandolera draped over his arm, and his face had an expression as close to true wondering surprise as Tallahassee Slim’s face had probably ever come. He was staring at Mensinger.

“My breakthrough,” I said.

Slim looked at me with every bit as much admiration as he’d showed when I saved his life.

I said, “If he has his way, you’ll need to leave Pancho’s employ. He’d like you all to take back the Alamo.”

Slim shook his head, once, like didn’t that beat all. And he thrust the Mauser straight out into the air between us. “Go tell ’em,” he said.