Last Stand at Saber River

by Elmore Leonard

  If he had not entered the kitchen he wouldn’t have heard anything. A man couldn’t wait and plan for eight months and know what he had to do, and then see it all canceled by walking into a kitchen. That couldn’t be.

  So the two women had lied and it was stupid to think about it. And even if it was not a matter of their lying, then it was something else, something equally untrue; and whether the something was a lie from the women or a trick or an untruth from another source was beside the point.

  He was hurrying, as if to keep up with time, so that not another moment of it would go by before he reached the Kidston place. But even after half admitting this was impossible he told himself that right now was part of a whole time, not a time before or a time after something. It was a time which started the day he came to live at the store and would end the day he saw the Kidstons dead. So this was part of the time of war. But almost as he thought this, it became more than that. Now, right now, was the whole of the war, the everything of a war that would not end until the Kidstons were dead.

  It took him less than an hour altogether. By the time he left the horse trail he had cleared his mind of everything but the Kidstons. Winding, moving more slowly through the sandstone country, he was able to calm himself and think about what he would do after, what he would do about Cable, what he would tell Martha and Luz. Martha…

  By the time he reached the edge of the timber stand bordering the Kidston place, looking across the open area to the house and outbuildings, he was composed and ready. He was Edward Janroe who happened to be riding by, say, on his way to Fort Buchanan. He was a man they had seen at least once a week for the past eight months. He was the one-armed man who owned the store now and didn’t say much. He was nothing to be afraid of or even wonder about. Which was exactly the way Janroe wanted it.

  6

  Janroe came out of the trees, letting the dun mare move at its own pace toward the house. He was aware of someone on the veranda, certain that it was Duane when he saw the pinpoint glow of a cigar.

  There was no hurry now. Janroe’s eyes rose from the veranda to the lighted second-story window, then beyond the corner of the house, past the corral where a dull square of light showed the open door of the bunkhouse. There were no sounds from that end of the yard, none from the big adobe that was pale gray and solid looking in the darkness. The cigar glowed again and now Janroe was close.

  “Good evening, Major.”

  Duane leaned forward, the wicker chair squeaking. “Who is it?”

  “Edward Janroe.” Now, almost at the veranda, Janroe brought the dun to a halt. He saw Duane rise and come close to the railing, touching it with his stomach.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Janroe said.

  “You didn’t startle me.” There was indignation in Duane’s tone.

  “I meant you sitting here by yourself…Is Vern about?”

  “No, he’s up at his pastures. You wanted to see him?”

  “I’d like to have. But I guess you can’t have everything.”

  “What?”

  “Where’s Vern, out on the horse drive?”

  “Getting it started. He’s been gone all day.”

  “You alone?”

  “My daughter’s in the house.”

  “And somebody’s out in the bunkhouse.”

  Duane seemed annoyed, but he said, “A couple of the men.”

  “I thought everybody went out on the drives,” Janroe said.

  “We always keep one man here.”

  “You said a couple of men were there.”

  As if remembering something, Duane’s frown of annoyance vanished. “The second man rode in a while ago to tell us the news. I’ve been sitting here ever since thinking about it.” Duane paused solemnly. “Mr. Janroe, the war is over. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant on April ninth.”

  “Is that a fact?” Janroe said.

  “I have been thinking of a place called Chancellorsville,” Duane said gravely. “I have been thinking of the men I knew who died there: men I campaigned with who gave their lives that this final victory might be accomplished.”

  “A touching moment,” Janroe said.

  Duane’s eyes rose. “If you had served, you would know the feeling.”

  “I served.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know that. In the Union army?”

  “With Kirby Smith.”

  “Oh…You lost your arm…were wounded in battle?”

  “During the fight at Richmond, Kentucky.”

  “Is that right? I was in Cincinnati at the time. If I hadn’t been on my way to Washington, I would have answered General Nelson’s call for volunteers.”

  “That would have been something,” Janroe said, sitting easily and looking down at Duane, “if we’d fought against each other.”

  Duane nodded gravely. “More terrible things than that have actually happened. Brother fighting brother, friend against friend. The wounds of our minds as well as those of our bodies will have to be healed now if we are to live together in peace.” Duane added, for effect, “The war is over.”

  “You’re not just telling me that?” Janroe said.

  “What?”

  “That the war’s over.”

  “Of course it is. The word came direct from Fort Buchanan. They learned about it this afternoon. Their rider ran into Vern, and Vern sent a man here to tell us. Vern realized I would want to know immediately.”

  “I haven’t been told,” Janroe said. “Not officially, and your telling me doesn’t count.”

  Duane was frowning, squinting up at Janroe in the darkness with his cigar poised a few inches from his face. “How could you learn more officially than this? The message came from Fort Buchanan, a military establishment.”

  “You learned it from your side,” Janroe said. “I haven’t been told officially from mine.”

  “Man, you’ve been out of the war for at least a year! Do you expect them to tell personally every veteran who served?”

  “I haven’t been out of it.” Janroe paused, studying Duane’s reaction. “I’m still fighting, just like you’ve been with your saddle-tramp cavalry, like your brother’s been doing supplying Yankee remounts.”

  Duane was squinting again. “You’ve been at your store every day. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “Look under the store,” Janroe said. “That’s where we keep the Enfields.”

  “British rifles?”

  “Brought in through Mexico, then shipped east.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Duane shook his head. “All this time you’ve been moving contraband arms through the store?”

  “About two thousand rifles since I started.”

  “Well,” Duane said, officially now, “if you have any there now, I advise you to turn them over to the people at Fort Buchanan. I presume Confederate officers will be allowed to keep their horses and sidearms, but rifles are another matter.”

  Janroe shook his head slowly. “I’m not turning anything over.”

  “You’d rather face arrest?”

  “They can’t take me if they don’t know about the guns.”

  “Mr. Janroe, if you don’t turn them in, don’t you think I would be obligated to tell them?”

  “I suppose you would.”

  “Then why did you tell me about them?”

  “So you would know how we stand. You see, you can be obligated all you want, but you won’t be able to do anything about it.”

  Duane clamped the cigar in the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got the nerve to ride in here and threaten me?”

  “I guess I do.” Janroe was relaxed; he sat with his shoulders hunched loosely and his hand in his lap.

  “You’re telling me that I won’t go to Buchanan?” Duane’s voice rose. “Listen, I’ll take my saddle-tramp cavalry, as you call it, and drag those guns out myself, and I’ll march you right up to the fort with them if I feel like it. So don’t go threatening me, mister; I don’t take any of it.” />
  Janroe watched him calmly. “It’s too bad you didn’t volunteer that time you said. That would have made this better. No, it would have made it perfect—if you had been in command of that Yankee artillery company. They were upon a ridge and we had to cross a cornfield that was trampled down and wide open to get at them. They began firing as soon as we started across. Almost right away I was hit and my arm was torn clean from my body.”

  “I think we’ve discussed this enough for one evening,” Duane said stiffly.

  “What if you had given that order to fire?” Janroe said. “Do you see how much better it would make this?” He shook his head then. “But that would be too much to ask; like having Vern here too. Both of you here, and no one else around.”

  “I would advise you to go home,” Duane said, “and seriously consider what I told you. I don’t make idle threats.”

  “I don’t either, Major.” Janroe’s hand rose to the open front of his coat. He drew the Colt from his shoulder holster and cocked it as he trained it on Duane. “Though I don’t suppose you’d call this a threat. This is past the threatening stage, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t frighten me,” Duane said. He remembered something Vern had told Cable that day at Cable’s house, rephrasing it now because he was not sure of the exact words.

  “There is a big difference between holding a gun and using it. If you’re bluffing, Mr. Janroe, trying to frighten me, I advise you to give it up and go home.”

  “I’m not bluffing.”

  “Then you’re out of your mind.”

  “Major, I don’t think you realize what’s happening.”

  “I realize I’m talking to a man who hasn’t complete control of his faculties.”

  “That’s meant to be an insult, nothing else,” Janroe said. “If you believed it, you’d be scared out of your wits.”

  Duane hesitated. He watched Janroe closely, in silence; the hand holding the cigar had dropped to his side. “You wouldn’t dare use that gun,” he said finally.

  “It’s the reason I came.”

  “But you have no reason to kill me!”

  “Call it duty, Major. Call it anything you like.” Janroe put the front sight squarely on Duane’s chest. “Do you want to run or stand there? Make up your mind.”

  “But the war’s over—don’t you realize that!”

  Janroe pulled the trigger. In the heavy report he watched Duane clutch the railing, holding himself up, and Janroe fired again, seeing Duane’s body jerk with the impact of the bullet before sliding, falling to the porch.

  “It’s over now,” Janroe said.

  He reined and kicked the dun to a gallop as he crossed the yard. Behind him he heard a window rise and a woman’s voice, but the sounds seemed to end abruptly as the darkness of the trees closed in on him.

  Now back to the store. There was no reason to run. He would tell the women that Cable was not at home, that he’d looked for him, but with no luck. Tomorrow he would ride out again, telling the women he would try again to locate Cable.

  But he would take his time, giving Vern time to learn about his brother’s death; giving him time to convince himself that it was Cable who’d killed Duane; giving him time, then, to go after Cable. No, there was no need to run.

  It had been a satisfying time. The best since the days near Opelousas when he’d killed the Yankee prisoners.

  Bill Dancey had spent the night in a line shack seven miles north of the Kidston place. The day before, after the incident at Denaman’s, after watching Duane demonstrate his authority with a rawhide quirt, after riding back to the Kidston place with Duane and the Dodd brothers and not speaking a word to them all the way, Dancey had decided it was time for a talk with Vern.

  But Vern was still away. Since that morning he’d been visiting the grazes, instructing his riders to begin driving the horses to the home range. Vern could be gone all night, Dancey knew, and that was why he went out after him. What he had to say wouldn’t wait.

  By late evening, after he had roamed the west and north pastures, but always an hour or more behind Vern, Dancey decided to bed down in the line shack. It was deserted now, which suited him fine. It was good to get away from the others once in a while, to sit peacefully or lie in your blanket with quiet all around and be able to hear yourself think. It gave him a chance to review the things he wanted to tell Vern.

  With the first trace of morning light he was in the saddle again; and it was at the next pasture that he learned about Duane. There were five men here, still at the breakfast fire. They told him that Vern had been here; but a rider came during the night with news about Duane—one before that with word about the war being over; it had sure as hell been an eventful night—and Vern had left at once, taking only the two Dodd brothers with him.

  By six o’clock Dancey was back at the Kidston place. He crossed the yard to the corral, unsaddled and turned his horse into the enclosure before going on to the house.

  Austin and Wynn Dodd were sitting on the steps: Wynn sitting low, leaning forward and looking down between his legs; Austin sitting back with his elbows resting on the top step, Austin with his head up, his stained, curled-brim hat straight over his eyes. Both men wore holstered revolvers, the butt of Wynn’s jutting out sharply from his hip because of the way he was sitting. Austin, Dancey noticed then, was wearing two revolvers, two Colts that looked like the pair Joe Bob had owned.

  Dancey stopped in front of them. “Vern’s inside?”

  Wynn looked up. Austin nodded.

  “He told you to wait for him?”

  “Right here.” Wynn leaned back saying it, propping his elbows on the step behind him.

  “If that’s all right with you, Bill,” Austin said dryly.

  Dancey moved through them to the porch. He opened the screen then stood there, seeing Vern and Lorraine at the stove fireplace across the room. Dancey waited until Vern saw him before moving toward them.

  “I’ve been looking for you.” Vern said it bluntly, and the tone stirred the anger Dancey had held under control since yesterday afternoon.

  He wanted to snap back at Vern and if it led to his quitting, that was all right. But now Duane was dead and before he argued with Vern he would have to say he was sorry about Duane. And Lorraine was here. Her presence bothered him too. She didn’t appear to have been crying, but stood staring at the dead fire; probably not even thinking about her father, more likely wondering what was going to happen to her. She seemed less sure of herself now; though Dancey realized he could be imagining this.

  He looked at Vern. “Your brother’s dead?” And when Vern nodded Dancey said, “I’m sorry about it. Where is he now?”

  “Upstairs. We’ll bury him this afternoon.”

  “All right.” Dancey’s eyes moved to Lorraine. “What about his girl?”

  “I think she’ll be going back home,” Vern said. “This brought her up pretty short. She might have even grown up in one day.”

  “It could do that,” Dancey said. “When was it, last night?”

  Vern nodded. “He rode in while Duane was on the porch. Lorraine was upstairs. She heard the two shots and looked out her window in time to see him riding off.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Did she see him clearly?”

  “She didn’t have to.”

  “It’s best to be sure.”

  “All right, Bill, if it’s not Cable, who would it be?”

  “I know. It’s probably him; but you have to be sure.”

  “I’m sure as I’ll ever be.”

  Vern moved past him and Dancey followed out to the porch. The two Dodd brothers were standing now, watching Vern.

  “There’ll be just the four of us,” Vern told them. He waited until they moved off, then seemed to relax somewhat, leaning against a support post and staring out across the yard. He said to Dancey behind him, “They’ll bring you a fresh horse.”

  “I can get my own,” Dancey said. />
  “I guess you can, but they’ll bring it anyway.”

  “Now we go visit Cable—is that it?”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “Then I sure as hell don’t think I will.”

  Vern turned suddenly from the post, but hesitated then. “Bill, do you realize the man’s killed three people now, one of them my brother?”

  “Are you telling me you’re going after Cable because you and Duane were so close?”

  “Be careful, Bill.”

  “What would you have done if two men came to your house at night—two men like Royce and Joe Bob? What would you have done if somebody busted your house—”

  “I had no part of that; you know it.”

  “Duane said yesterday he didn’t either.” Dancey paused. “Maybe Lorraine just made it up.” The tone of his voice probed for an answer.

  But Vern said only, “Who did it isn’t my concern.”

  “All right,” Dancey said. “How would you see it if somebody had taken a rawhide quirt to your face while two others held your arms?”

  “I don’t have to see it! The man killed my brother, do you understand that?”

  “You’ve got something to say for your stand.” Dancey saw the anger etched deeply in Vern’s eyes, hardening the solemn, narrow-boned look of his face. “But what are you going to do about it?”

  “Take him up to Fort Buchanan.”

  “You better go in shooting.”

  “If that’s the way it has to be.”

  “It’s the only way you’ll beat him,” Dancey said. “And even then he’ll fight harder than you will. He’s got his family and his land at stake.”

  Vern shook his head. “This has gone beyond arguing over land.”

  “You’ve got three hundred horses up in the high pastures,” Dancey said. “When you bring them down they’re going to have water. That’s the point of all the talk. Nothing else. You’ve got horses relying on you. He’s got the people. Now who do you think’s going to swing the hardest?”