Valdez Is Coming: A Novel

by Elmore Leonard

  “That’s the way I still picture you,” Inez said. “When someone says Bob Valdez, this is the one I see. Not the one that wears a suit and a collar.”

  Valdez was concentrating on the book, looking now at a photograph of a young Apache scout in buckskins and holding a rifle, standing against the same background used in the photo of himself. He remembered the photographer, a man named Fly. And the day the pictures were taken at Fort Apache. He remembered the scout washing himself and brushing his hair and putting on the buckskin shirt he had bought and had never worn before.

  “Peaches,” Valdez said. “General Crook’s guide. His real name was Tso-ay, but the soldiers and the general called him Peaches. His skin.” Valdez continued to study the photograph. He said, “They’d put a suit and a collar on him too, if they ever took his picture again.”

  Inez looked up as Polly came in with the other scrapbook. She took it from her and held it over the table.

  “I don’t know where he is now,” Valdez was saying. “Maybe Fort Sill, Oklahoma, with the rest of them. Planting corn.” He shook his head. “Man, I would like to see that sometime. Those people growing things in a garden.”

  Inez opened the book and laid it over the page Valdez was studying. He sat back as she turned a few pages and raised his gaze to Polly, who was looking over Inez’s shoulder again, letting her robe come open. She was built very well and had very white skin.

  “Here it is,” Inez said. “Sutler murdered at Fort Huachuca. James C. Erin was found shot to death a few miles from the fort today—”

  Valdez stopped her. “When was this?”

  Inez looked at the date on the clipping. “March. Six months ago.”

  “That’s the one Orlando Rincón was supposed to have killed.”

  “It says he was found by some soldiers and”—her finger moved down the column—“here’s the part. ‘Held for questioning was Frank J. Tanner of Mimbreño, said to be the last person to have seen Erin alive. Mr. Tanner stated he had spent the previous evening with Mr. and Mrs. Erin at the fort, but had left for a business appointment in Nogales and had not seen Erin on the day he was reported to have been killed.’ ”

  “He was sure it was Rincón,” Valdez said. “And that his name was Johnson.”

  Inez nodded, looking at the book. “They mention a Johnson, listed as a deserter and also a suspect. A trooper with the Tenth Cavalry.”

  “Maybe they know this Johnson did it now,” Valdez said.

  Inez looked over the pages facing her. “I don’t see anything more about it.”

  Valdez raised his eyes from the open robe to the nice-looking face of the dark-haired girl. “It’s too bad he doesn’t come here,” he said.

  Inez closed the book. “He never has and I would guess he knows where it is.”

  “If he did,” Valdez said, his gaze still on Polly. “I could wait for him.”

  Diego Luz had a dream in which he saw himself sitting on a corral fence watching his men working green horses in the enclosure. In the dream, which he would look at during the day as well as at night, Diego Luz was manager of the Maricopa Cattle Company. He lived with his family in the whitewashed adobe off beyond the corral, where the cedars stood against the sky: a house with trees and a stone well in the yard and a porch to sit on in the evening. Sometimes he would picture himself on the porch with his family about him, his three sons and two daughters, his wife and his wife’s mother and whatever relatives might be visiting them. But his favorite dream was to see himself on the corral fence with his eldest son, who was almost a man, sitting next to him.

  The hands were very nervous when he watched them with the horses because they knew he was the greatest mustanger and horsebreaker who ever lived. They knew he could subdue the meanest animals and they were afraid to make mistakes in his presence. He had told them how to do it, what they must do and not do, and he liked to watch them at work.

  In the dream Diego and his son would watch R. L. Davis hanging on to the crow-hopping bronc until finally they saw him thrown and land hard on his shoulder. His son would shake his head and say, “Should I do it, Papa?” But he would say no, it was good for the man. He made R. L. Davis ride only the rough string, the outlaws and spoiled horses, when they were on roundup or a drive, and made R. L. Davis call him Señor Luz.

  R. L. Davis mounted the bronc and was thrown again and this time he went after the horse with a loaded quirt and began beating the animal over the head. At this point in the dream Diego Luz walked over to R. L. Davis and said to him, “Hey,” and when R. L. Davis looked around Diego Luz hit him in the face with one of his big fists. R. L. Davis went down and the eldest son poured a bucket of water on him and when the man shook his head and opened his eyes, he said, “What did I do?” Diego Luz said, “You hit the horse.” R. L. Davis frowned, holding his jaw. “But you hit them when you broke horses,” he said. And Diego Luz smiled and said, “Maybe, but now I hit whoever I want to.”

  R. L. Davis was a good one to hit. Once in a while though, he would leave R. L. Davis alone and hit Mr. Malson, not hitting him too hard, but letting him know he was hit. And sometimes he would fire Mr. Malson, call him over and say, “It’s too bad, but you’re too goddam weak and stupid to do this work anymore so we got to get rid of you. And don’t come back.”

  Diego Luz would think of these things as he worked his land and broke the mustangs he and his eldest son drove down out of the high country. His place was southeast of Lanoria, well off the road to St. David and only a few miles from the village of Mimbreño, though there was no wagon road in that direction, only a few trails if a man knew where to find them.

  His place was adobe with straw blinds that rolled down to cover the doorway and windows and an open lean-to built against the house for cooking. There were a few chickens and two goats in the yard with the three youngest children and a brown mongrel dog that slept in the shade of the house most of the day. There was a vegetable garden for growing beans and peppers, and the peppers that were drying hung from the roof of the ramada that shaded the front of the house, which faced north, on high ground. Down the slope from the house was the well, and beyond it, on flat, cleared ground, the mesquite-pole corral where Diego Luz broke and trained the mustangs he flushed out of the hills. He worked here most of the time. Several times a year he drove a horse string down to the Maricopa spread near Lanoria, and he would go down there at roundup time and when they drove the cattle to Willcox.

  When Bob Valdez appeared, circling the corral—two days following the incident at the pasture—Diego Luz and his eldest son were at the well, pulling up buckets of water and filling the wooden trough that ran to the corral. They stood watching Bob Valdez walking his horse toward them and waited, after greeting him, as he stepped down from the saddle and took the dipper of water Diego’s son offered him.

  There was no hurry. If a man rode all the way here he must have something to say, and it was good to wonder about it first and not ask him questions. Though Diego Luz had already decided Bob Valdez had not come to see them but was passing through on his way to Mimbreño. And who lived in Mimbreño? Frank Tanner. There it was. Simple.

  They left the boy and climbed the slope to the house, Bob Valdez seeing the children in the yard, Diego’s wife and her mother watching them from the lean-to where they were both holding corn dough, shaping tortillas. The small children ran up to them and the eldest daughter appeared now in the doorway of the house. Hey, a good looking girl now, almost a woman. Anita. She would be maybe sixteen years old. Valdez had not been up here in almost a year.

  When they were in the shade and had lighted cigarettes, Diego Luz said, “There’s something different about you. What is it?”

  Valdez shrugged. “I’m the same. What are you talking about?”

  “Your face is the same.” Diego Luz squinted, studying him. Slowly then his face relaxed. “I know what it is. You don’t have your collar on.”

  Valdez’s hand went to his neck where he had tied a bandana
.

  “Or your suit. What is this, you’re not dressed up?”

  “It’s too hot,” Valdez said.

  “It’s always hot,” Diego Luz said. His gaze dropped to Valdez’s waist. “No gun though.”

  Valdez frowned. “What’s the matter with you? I don’t have a coat on, that’s all.”

  “And you’re going to see Mr. Tanner.”

  “Just to say a few things to him.”

  “My son rode to Lanoria yesterday. He heard about the few things you said the other night.”

  Valdez shook his head. “People don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “Listen, the woman doesn’t need any money. She doesn’t know what it is.”

  “But we know,” Valdez said. “I just want to ask you something about Tanner.”

  Diego Luz drew on his cigarette and squinted out into the sunlight, down the slope to the horse corral. “I know what others know. That’s all.”

  “He lives in Mimbreño?”

  “For about two years maybe.”

  “How do the people like him?”

  “There are no people. Most of them left at the time of the Apache. The rest of them left when Frank Tanner come. He’s there with his men,” Diego Luz said, “and some of their women.”

  “How many men?”

  “At least thirty. Sometimes more.”

  “Do they ever come here?”

  “Sometimes they pass by.”

  “What do they do, anything?”

  “They have a drink of water and go on.”

  “They never make any trouble?”

  “No, they don’t bother me. Never.”

  “Maybe because you work for Maricopa.”

  Diego Luz shrugged. “What do I have they would want?”

  “Horses,” Valdez said.

  “Once they asked to buy a string. I told them to see Mr. Malson.”

  “Did Tanner himself come?”

  “No, his segundo and some others.”

  “Do you know any of them?”

  “No, I don’t think any of them are from around here.”

  “Do you think that’s strange?”

  “No, these are guns he hires, not hands. I think they hear of Tanner and what he pays and they come from all over to get a job with him.”

  “He pays good, uh?”

  “You see them sometimes in St. David,” Diego Luz said. “They spend the money. But you see different ones each time, so maybe he lose some in Mexico or they get a stomach full of it and quit.”

  “What, driving cattle?”

  “Cattle and guns. He gets the guns somewhere and sneaks them over the border to people who are against Díaz and want to start a revolution. So over there the rurales and federal soldiers look for him and try to stop him. Everybody knows that.”

  “I’ve been learning the stageline business,” Valdez said.

  “Keep doing it,” Diego Luz said, “and live to be an old man.”

  “Sometimes I feel old now.” He watched the chickens pecking the hard ground and heard Diego Luz’s children calling out something and laughing as they played somewhere on the other side of the house. What do you need besides this? he was thinking. To have a place, a family. Very quiet except for the children sometimes, and no trouble. No Apaches. No bandits raiding from across the border. Trees and water and a good house. The house could be fixed up better. A little work, that’s all. He said, “I’ll trade you. I become the horsebreaker, you work for the stage company.”

  Diego Luz was looking out at the yard. “You want this?”

  “Why not? It’s a good place.”

  “If I had something to do I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You do all right,” Valdez said.

  “Do it forever,” Diego Luz said. “See how you like it.”

  “Maybe sometime. After I see this Tanner.”

  Diego Luz was studying Valdez’s horse. “You don’t have a rifle either.”

  “What do I need it for?”

  “Maybe you meet a couple of them on a trail, they don’t like your face.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Valdez said.

  “Maybe they don’t let you talk.”

  “Come on, they know who I am. I’m going there to talk, that’s all.”

  “You talk better with a rifle,” Diego Luz said. “I give you mine.”

  From habit, approaching the top of the rise—before he would be outlined for a moment against the sky—Bob Valdez looked back the way he had come, his eyes, half-closed in the sun’s glare, holding on the rock shapes and darker patches of brush at the bottom of the draw. He sat motionless until he was sure of the movement, then dismounted and led his claybank mare off the trail to one side, up into young piñon pines.

  For a few moments he did not think of the rider coming up behind him; he thought of his own reaction, the caution that had stopped him from topping the rise. There were no more Chiricahuas or White Mountain bands around here. There was nothing to worry about to keep him alert and listening and looking back as well as to the sides and ahead. But he had stopped. Sure, habit, he thought. Something hanging on of no use to him now.

  What difference did it make who the man was? The man wasn’t following him. The man was riding southeast from the St. David road and must have left the road not far back to cut cross-country toward Mimbreño maybe, or to a village across the border. Sure, it could be one of Tanner’s men. You can ride in with him, Valdez thought, and smiled at the idea of it. He would see who it was and maybe he would come out of the pines, giving the man some warning first, or maybe he wouldn’t.

  Now, as the man drew nearer, for some reason he was sure it was one of the Maricopa riders: the slouched, round-shouldered way the man sat his saddle, the funneled brim of his hat bobbing up and down with the walking movement of the horse.

  Maybe he had known all the time who it was going to be. That was a funny thing. Because when he saw it was R. L. Davis, looking at the ground or deep in thought, the stringy, mouthy one who thought he was good with the Winchester, Valdez was not surprised, though he said to himself, Goddam. How do you like that?

  He let him go by, up over the rise and out of sight, while he stayed in the pines to shape a cigarette and light it, wondering where the man was going, curious because it was this one and not someone else, and glad now of the habit that had made him look around when he did. He was sure the man had not been following him. The man would have been anxious and looking around and would have stopped before he topped the rise. But the question remained, Where was he going?

  When Valdez moved out, keeping to the trees over the crest of the rise, he hung back and let the distance between them stretch to a hundred yards. He followed R. L. Davis this way for several miles until the trail came to open grazing land, and as R. L. Davis crossed toward the scrub trees and hills beyond the flats, a column of dust came down the slope toward him.

  You look around, Bob Valdez thought. That habit stays with you. But you don’t bring the field glasses.

  He remained in the cover of the trees and, in the distance, watched three riders meet R. L. Davis and stand close to him for some time, forming a single shape until the group came apart and the riders, strung out now, one in front of Davis and two behind, rode with him into the deep shadow at the base of the far hills. He saw them briefly again up on the slope and at the crest of the hill.

  They wonder about him too, Valdez thought. What do you want? Who do you want to see? They ask questions and take their jobs very seriously because they feel they’re important. They should relax more, Valdez thought. He mounted the claybank again and rode out into the sunlight, holding the horse to a walk, keeping his eyes on the slope the riders came down and wondering if they had left someone there to watch.

  No, they did it another way. One of them who had been with R. L. Davis came back. When Valdez was little more than halfway up the trail, following the switchbacks that climbed through the brush, he saw the mounted rider waiting for him, his h
orse standing across the trail.

  As Valdez came on, narrowing the distance between them, he recognized the rider, the Mexican who had brought him into the yard of the stage station.

  “Far enough,” the Mexican said. He held a Winchester across his lap, but did not raise it. He studied Valdez, who reined in a few feet from him. “You come back again.”

  “I didn’t finish talking to him,” Valdez said.

  “I think he finish with you, though.”

  “Let’s go ask him.”

  “Maybe he don’t want to see you,” the Mexican said.

  “It’s about money again.”

  “You said that before. For the woman. He don’t care anything about the woman.”

  “Maybe this time when I tell him.”

  “What do you have on you?”

  “Nothing.” Valdez raised his hands and dropped one of them to the stock of Diego Luz’s rifle in its leather boot. “Only this.”

  “That could be enough,” the Mexican said.

  “You want it?” Valdez smiled. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Sure, I trust you.” The Mexican raised the Winchester and motioned Valdez up the grade. “But I ride behind you.”

  Valdez edged past him up the trail and kept moving until he reached the top of the slope. Now he could see the village of Mimbreño across the valley, a mile from them beyond open land where Tanner’s cattle grazed. Valdez had been to this village once before, the day after White Mountain Apaches had raided and killed three men and carried off a woman and burned the mission church. He remembered the blackened walls; the roof had collapsed into the church and the beams were still smoking. He remembered the people in the square when they rode in, the people watching the Apache scouts and company of cavalry and saying to themselves, Why weren’t you here yesterday, you soldiers? What good are you?