Last Stand at Saber River

by Elmore Leonard

  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 sur
e 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.”

  5

  Cable said nothing, his eyes going to the shattered china still on the cupboard shelves, then to the stove again and to the battered chimney flue lying on the floor.

  So Vern or Duane, or both of them, had become tired of waiting. Now they were doing something and this was a warning. Fix the house, Cable thought, then another time when you’re away they tear it apart again. How much of that could you take? Do you run out of patience right now or later sometime?

  He could release his anger and kick at the broken dishes or yell at Lorraine, threaten her, threaten her father and Vern. But what good would it do? That was undoubtedly their intention—to rile him, to make him start something. And once you did what the other man wanted you to, once you walked into his plan, you were finished.

  Lorraine was watching him. “When the wife is away, the house just seems to go to ruin, doesn’t it?”

  He looked at her. “What do they expect me to do now?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Or care,” Cable said.

  “Well, I’m sorry; but there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?”

  “Did both of them have a hand in this?”

  “I doubt if either of them did. They’ve been home all day.”

  “I just saw Vern.”

  “Alone?”

  “You were with him.”

  “Do I have to explain what we were doing?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Vern and I went for a ride after supper. When we reached the meadow he said he wanted to look at his horses. I told him to go ahead, I was going home.”

  Cable said nothing.

  “Well?” Lorraine looked at him inquiringly.

  “All right. Then what?”

  “Then I left him.”

  “And came to see what he did to the house.”

  Lorraine smiled, shaking her head. “Guess again.”

  “Some other time.”

  She caught the note of weariness in his tone. For a moment she said nothing, watching him stand the carbine next to the window and then move slowly to the table and place the field glasses there. “Did you see my horse outside?” she asked.

  Cable glanced at her. “I didn’t notice.”

  “No horse,” Lorraine said lightly. “That’s why I’m here.” She watched Cable gather the blanket and comforter and pile them on the slashed mattress.

  “I was going up the path behind your house, taking the short cut home, when something frightened my horse. It happened very suddenly; he lost his footing and started to slide back and that’s when I fell off.” Lorraine touched her hair lightly and frowned. “I hit my head.”

  Cable was looking at her again, sensing that she wasn’t telling the truth. “Then what happened?”

  “Then he ran off. I could hear him way up in the trees, but I couldn’t very well chase after him, could I?”

  “So you came to the house.”

  “Of course.”

  “You want me to look for your horse?”

  “He’s probably still running.”

  Cable paused. He was certain she was here for a reason and he was feeling his way along to find out what it was. “I’ve only got one horse here.”

  “I know,” Lorraine said.

  “You want me to ride you home?”

  “The way my head hurts I don’t know if I could stand it.”

  “Just for an hour? That’s all it would take.”

  She was staring at Cable, not smiling now, holding him with the calm, knowing impudence of her gaze.

  “We could wait until morning.”

  He almost knew she was going to say it; still, the shock, the surprise, was in hearing the words out loud. Cable’s expression did not change. “What would your father say about that?”

  “What could he say? I don’t have a choice. I’m stranded.”

  Cable said nothing.

  “Or I could tell him I spent the night outside.” Lorraine smiled again. “Lost.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “If you’re ready, I’ll saddle the horse.”

  “I told you, I couldn’t bear the ride.”

  “You told me a lot of things.”

  The knowing, confident expression was in her eyes again. “I think you’re afraid of me. Or afraid of yourself.”

  “Being alone with you?”

  Lorraine nodded. “But I haven’t decided which it is. The only thing I’m sure of is you don’t know what to do. You can’t take me home by force; and you can’t throw me out. So?”

  Momentarily, in his mind, he saw Lorraine at home sitting with Vern and her father evening after evening, looking up from her book and wanting to do something, anything, to break the monotony but having no choice but to sit there. Until she planned this, or somehow stumbled into it. Perhaps that was all there was to her being here. It was her idea of excitement, something to do; not part of a plan that involved Vern or Duane.

  So, Cable thought, the hell with it. He was too tired to argue. Tired and hungry and her mind was made up, he could see that. He moved to the door of the next room, glanced in and saw that the two single beds had not been touched, then looked at Lorraine again.

  “Take your pick.”

  She moved close to him in the doorway to look into the room. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Whichever one you want.” He walked away from her and for the next few minutes concentrated on shaping and straightening the stove flue. He was able to put it up again, temporarily, but his hands and face were smudged with soot when he’d finished.

  Lorraine waited until he started a fire in the stove, then told him to go outside and wash; she’d fix something to eat. Cable hesitated, doubting her ability at the stove; but finally he went out—washed up at the river, scrubbing his hands with sand and scooping the cool water into his face. He felt better being alone outside and he took his time at the river, then went to the barn and looked in at the sorrel again before returning to the house.

  Coffee was on the fire; Cable smelled it as he came in. For a
moment he watched Lorraine making pancakes in the iron frying pan and he thought: She wants you to be surprised. But he turned away from her and busied himself sweeping up the broken china. After that he turned the slashed mattress on the bed and spread the bedcovers over it. When it was time to sit down she served him the corn meal cakes in a pie plate and poured his coffee into a tin drinking cup. Lorraine sat down with him, watching him eat, waiting for him to say something; but Cable ate in silence.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “Fine.” He was finishing the last of his coffee.

  “Surprised I know how to cook?”

  “You’re a woman, aren’t you?” he answered, knowing she would react to it, but saying it anyway.

  “Does that follow,” Lorraine said peevishly. “Just because you’re a woman all you’re to be concerned with is cooking and keeping house?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re probably hopeless. You deserve to live out here with a wife and three kids.”

  “You make it sound like a sentence.”

  “You are hopeless.”

  “And tired,” Cable said. He got up from the table, walked around to Lorraine’s chair and pulled it out for her. “So are you.”

  She looked up at him. “Am I?” Her tone was mild now.

  “Tired out from that long ride with Vern.” He took Lorraine by the arm to the bedroom. “Have a good sleep and before you know it it’ll be time to fix breakfast.” He pushed her inside and closed the door before she could say a word.

  Cable blew out the lamp, then walked to the open front door and stood looking out at the night, letting the stillness and the breeze that was coming off the meadow relax him. This was good. But it was a peace that lasted only as long as the night. Slowly Cable sat down in the doorway. Take advantage of the peace you can feel, he thought. Sleep was good, but it wasn’t something you could enjoy each minute of and know you were enjoying it.

  So he sat in the doorway, feeling the silence and the darkness about him, thinking of his wife and children, picturing them in bed in the rooms above the store; then picturing them here, seeing himself sitting with the children close to him and talking to them, answering their questions, being patient and answering the questions that were unrelated or imaginary along with the reasonable ones. Clare would ask the most questions and through her eyes that were wide with concentration he could almost see her picturing his answers. It was like the times she would relate a dream she had had and he would try to imagine how she saw it with her child’s eyes and with her child’s mind. While he was talking to Clare, Davis would become restless and jump on his back, Davis with enough energy for all of them and wanting to fight or be chased or swim in the river. Sandy, lying against him, listening to them contentedly with his thumb in his mouth, would scowl and yell at Davis to stop it. Then he would quiet them and they would talk about other things until Martha called.