“Reckon it’ll rain?” I yelled at him.
He still wasn’t feeling much like a joke. He just give me a weak grin and kind of shook his head.
“We better hit it up,” I said. He nodded and we put the horses back into a lope. It was a good way to break a horse’s leg, but it just couldn’t be helped. We had to get some distance under our belt.
When the storm finally passed the moon came back out, but it was lower in the sky and nowhere near as bright. We had the horses in a walk. They were just about whipped. For one day’s riding we’d covered a power of miles. We plodded along. After the rain the air smelled nice and fresh. Rain won’t do that by itself, but rain and lightning will. It made me think of when I was a boy and the way it would smell. It’s funny how a smell can suddenly come back on you like that, like a memory. There’ll suddenly be a smell you haven’t thought of in a long time and it’ll hit you and take you right back to where you was when you first smelled it or last smelled it—whatever.
Me and Les were as wet as drowned kittens. I don’t reckon we could have transported another single drop of water. We were full up, as the cowboys say, full up and running over. We both had slickers in our bed rolls, but it was a little late for that.
“How far you reckon?” I asked Les, meaning how far to the river. From the moon I judged it to be after midnight. That would have meant we’d been riding hard for at least three hours.
“Can’t be far,” Les said. “Fifteen miles, maybe.”
“We better rest these horses,” I said. “Else they gonna crater on us.”
We rode until we came to a particular piece of high ground and then dismounted and loosened cinches. There wasn’t any cover to speak of, but the ground was high enough to afford us a good view in all directions.
Les sat down on the ground and leaned back, hooking his hands behind his head. “I’m about whipped,” he said. “Been a long day.”
“Close your eyes a minute,” I said. “I’ll be watching.”
“Naw,” he said.
“Sure, go ahead. We’ll be riding out in just a minute and I ain’t a bit sleepy. I had several drinks in town and I’m pretty well fixed up.”
“Well, I won’t sleep,” he said.
But I could see he went to sleep almost the minute he closed his eyes. I figured old Les had had a pretty hard day. He deserved a minute or two of shut-eye. Things hit him a lot harder than he lets on and I knew he was still feeling pretty bad about old Tod. I guess when you grow up with somebody and visit back and forth and sleep over as he and his cousin had done that it takes you up kind of short to see him catch one. But yet, in our line of work, you’ve got to figure that it’ll happen. You can just bet, once you start into robbing banks, that somebody is going to be shooting at you. It just works out that way.
But I’m out of it, I suddenly thought. It made me feel good all of an instant. It was the best I’d felt in some time. It seemed as if I’d forgot all about it and then, when it came back over me and I remembered it, it was like found money.
I hunkered down on one heel and looked up at the sky as I’d done at the camp we’d made outside of Uvalde. It was a clear sky, the direction I was looking, all the clouds being to the north, and I stared at it, noting the stars, and again wondered if it was the same sky over the girl. Being that much closer to the border I figured it probably was. It made me feel good thinking about that.
Then a little bad thought came in and hit me. Would the fact that I’d give up bank robbing really change me? Wouldn’t I still be the same Wilson Young? Would I really be that much different where I could go about consorting with grandees and their nieces?
The thought made me angry and, to shake it, I suddenly got up and walked off a few feet. I told myself I wasn’t quitting bank robbing because I wanted the company of such people, but simply because it was time to quit. I told myself the girl had absolutely nothing to do with it because I wasn’t such a fool as to think that girl would care for me whether I was a bank robber or a bank president. Men don’t think that way, I told myself, and I certainly wasn’t.
But I knew, even as I was talking to myself, that it was about half lie. I hadn’t been myself since the moment I’d seen that girl and, sure as hell, once across the border I’d find me some way to make it back to that ranch.
All the thinking was making me angry with myself. I said aloud: “Aw, go to hell!” It startled me to hear my words in the quiet night and I whipped around to see if Les had heard and what he’d think. He was sound asleep. It made me smile seeing him sleeping and remembering how he’d said he wouldn’t. Well, I’d give him a little more time. I hunkered down and reached for my tobacco sack. It was wringing wet and I threw it on the ground. The cigarette papers had made a soggy ball in my pocket and I got them out and threw them on the ground too. After a minute I began wishing for a drink but I knew there wasn’t any, so I finally just sat back and stared out at the country. If anybody was coming I’d be able to see them for a long ways off.
I let Les sleep until the false dawn was beginning to streak the sky. He and the horses both needed a rest. Finally I went over and roused him. We still had some miles to go. I shook him.
“Time to go,” I said. “We got a river to cross.”
CHAPTER 13
Mexico
The sun was well up by the time we got to the river. We’d taken it easy the last ten miles or so, there being no sign of pursuit and the horses being fairly fagged. After the storm the weather had turned off pretty, a high sky, a gentle little breeze and the sun feeling good on our backs. We’d dried out finally, but our saddles were still wet and they creaked as we rode along. We pulled up at the edge of the river and looked at it. By chance we’d come straight to a good crossing. We could see bottom most of the way across and we knew we’d have no trouble.
“Well?” Les asked. He looked at me.
I turned in my saddle and took a long look behind me. I wanted Les to think I was checking to see if any pursuit was at hand, but I was really taking a good look at Texas from Texas soil. It might be a long time before I could do it again.
“Let’s go to Mexico,” I said, giving spur to my mare and riding her into the river.
We pulled up on the other side. Neither of us had said a word about stopping, we just reined in at the same time. For a while we didn’t speak, just sat our horses. I looked at the land that lay ahead thinking it didn’t really look much different from that on the other side of the river. Men may make boundaries and create nations, but the land don’t care: the land stays the same.
“Well . . .” Les said after a little. He reached in his pocket and got one of his little cigars. It was still a little wet, but he broke it in two and handed me half. “My last,” he said.
I put it in my mouth and chewed on it. After being soaked with rain water it tasted pretty rank. “I ain’t got no dry matches,” I said, “have you?”
“In my oilskin.” He turned in the saddle and undid his bedroll and reached inside and came out with a little packet of phosphors. After a few tries we got one going and lit up. It was pleasant sitting there, knowing our hard run was over, and smoking.
“Bad job,” I said after a little while.
Les nodded slowly, the cigar clenched in his front teeth. “Bad job.”
“Three men,” I said. “We never lost three men before.”
“Four, if you count Kid White.”
“Four, then.”
We fell silent again.
“You mean it?” Les asked.
“About quitting?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I mean it.”
“What’ll you do? We didn’t get no stake out of that bank, so you can’t buy a ranch.”
“I know it,” I said.
He nodded in that slow way he has.
“We better ride on in a ways,” I said, “and rest ourselves and these horses for a while.” I got my mare moving and he followed.
After an hour or so we f
ound a little patch of grass and some trees and unsaddled the horses and went and sat in the shade. My filly let out a long sigh when I finally got the saddle off her. I expect she was almighty tired of it. Both she and the black went right to work grazing. They hadn’t been eating too regularly the last day or two.
After the horses were seen to, me and Les got comfortable, put our hats over our faces and went to sleep. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I got stretched out good and kinda unwound.
It was good afternoon by the time we woke up. I came awake with the feeling somebody was watching me. It scared me for a second, not being sure if that posse might not actually have come on after us and followed into Mexico. If they had, my judgment had been bad wrong. I eased my head around, acting like I was still asleep, until I could just see out from under my hat brim. There, about ten yards away, was a Mexican peon sitting his little burro and staring at us. He was an ordinary-looking country Mexican—big straw sombrero, serape, and them white pants they tie at the ankles. I sat up and pushed my hat back.
“Buenos días,” I said. My sudden movement had kind of startled him and he made as if to rein his burro around. “Pardon me,” I said. “Está bueno.” I looked out past him to see if the horses were all right. They were and he didn’t seem to have any company. He’d just come riding along, seen a couple of gringos and decided he’d take the opportunity to give them a good looking over.
He sat there, staring at us, his burro switching flies, not saying a word. I poked Les. “We got company,” I said.
He sat up suddenly, making the little Mexican flinch again. “Don’t scare him off,” I said. “I want to find out where we are.” Running in the storm the night before, I’d kind of lost my bearings and I wanted to get a line on exactly where we’d crossed.
“Buenas tardes,” Les said.
“Ask him if he’s got anything to eat,” I said. “I’m about starved.”
“Tiene comedo?”
The little peon shook his head, still staring at us. He had a rope bridle looped around the under jaw of his burro. It was a rig an Indian might use.
“Tell him we’ll pay,” I said. “Maybe he thinks we’re bandits.”
“Nosotros pagar,” Les said.
The peon shook his head again.
“Well, my God!” I said. “Then see if he at least knows where we are. Damn!”
Les talked to him in Spanish, not getting much response. Finally the little peon put out his arm, without taking his eyes off us, and pointed to the northwest. “Villa Union,” he said.
“Quánto?” Les asked him.
The peon shrugged. “Quién sabe. Quién puede decir.”
“What’d he say?” I asked Les.
But Les was still working on the peon. “Próximo,” he asked him.
“Medio días,” the peon said. “Todas días.”
Les looked around at me. “Says it’s a half day’s ride, maybe a whole day’s ride to Villa Union. Probably about five miles yonder. These peons travel pretty slow.”
“Here,” I said. I got up and walked over and handed him a peso. He looked at the money for a minute without taking it and then suddenly rummaged in a sack he had over his burro’s neck and came out with a fistful of tortillas. We swapped bread for coin and I laughed. “He didn’t really believe we’d pay,” I told Les. “We must really look like bandits.”
Les didn’t say anything and I looked around at him. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you,” he said.
“Well?”
“Well, ain’t we?”
I thanked the peon as well as I could and walked over and sat back down by Les. I handed him half the tortillas and we sat there eating. The peon was still watching us, except he’d taken out a tortilla and was eating along as we did. The cornbread tasted mighty good as hungry as I was. I waited until I’d finished before I said anything.
“You figure I’m wrong?” I asked.
“I just can’t see how you’ll make it,” Les said. “Why don’t you wait until you get you a stake of some kind?”
I studied the ground. The peon was still sitting his burro. We were talking like he was the bark on the tree. “Les, I’ve been trying for better than ten years to get me a stake. I went into this with the idea of just getting a stake together and all I’ve got after all that time is that horse yonder and this saddle and them silver spurs. I could turn gray waiting to get me a stake.”
“Well . . .” he said.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do either, but I’m full up. You know I’ve never taken much to Howland, but he used to have a saying that kind of describes the way I feel. He used to say he was like the house cat humping the skunk—he hadn’t had all he wanted, just all he could stand. That’s it, Les. I can’t stand no more.”
He looked off at the sky. “Do you know where you’re headed?”
It kind of hit me right then. Me and Les and Tod had rode together a mighty long time. Now Tod was dead and it looked like me and Les were about to split up. I guess I’d known it was coming, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I shook my head at his question. “Not right out,” I said. “I’ve got an idea I’d like to head down to Monterey maybe, but I’m not sure.” I pretty well knew, in the back of my mind, what I was going to do, but I didn’t want to talk about it. We’d made our crossing about where I’d had an idea we would. We were south of Villa Union and therefore south of Villa Guerro. Rancho Fernando lay right on the way.
Les finished his tortillas. “Wish I had a smoke,” he said.
“All my tobacco was wet,” I said. “I throwed it away last night.”
“Hey, Señor!” he called to the peon. “Tiene fume?”
“Si,” the peon said. He got down off his animal and rummaged around in one of the sacks he had slung all over the jackass.
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad to see him get off that mule for a minute anyway. Goddam, I thought he was glued to him.”
The Mexican came over and handed Les a handful of tobacco leaves and Les give him another peso. I expect he figured he’d found him a good thing, for he squatted down, crossing his arms over his knees, and stared at us. Les handed me a bit of the tobacco. I rolled it between my hands to break it into cigarette makings. It was still green and didn’t crumble too easily. “I ain’t got no paper,” I said. Les didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally he reached in his hip pocket and come out with a little soft-bound book. It was maybe three inches by five. I leaned closer to get a look. It was a Bible.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked him.
“It was Tod’s,” he said. “His daddy give it to him a while back.” He opened it and tore out a page.
“Here!” I said. “What are you about? I ain’t rolling no cigarettes outa Bible paper.”
“Tod did,” he said. And then I could see that many of the pages had been tore out. I figured Les must have gotten it off him after he’d died.
“Tod tore them pages out?”
“You never noticed him doing it?”
I shook my head.
“He done it. He used to always give me a wink when he done it.”
“That’s bad luck,” I said. “Mighty bad luck.”
Les shrugged. “Tod made his own luck.” He took the paper he’d offered me and began to roll himself a cigarette. It was flimsy, being well suited to cigarette rolling. It made me uneasy seeing him do it.
“That’s bad luck,” I said again.
He didn’t say anything, just licked the paper and finished the cigarette, shaping it and putting it in his mouth. He got out a match and lit it and got it going pretty good. I watched him smoking, me and the peon.
“Here,” I said. “Give me a page out of there.” I held out my hand and he tore out a sheet and I rolled myself a cigarette. It wasn’t too good a smoke. The paper burned too fast and the tobacco was green and not cured properly.
“I’ve done some bad things,” Les said. “Lots worse than burning a piece of
Bible paper.”
“Still,” I said, “it’s bad luck.”
He shrugged. “Hey!” he said to the peon. “You want a smoke?” He repeated it in Spanish and the peon made a kind of half-about smile and nodded his head. But he wouldn’t take any of our tobacco. He got a leaf of his own and rolled it into a kind of cigar. Les offered him a match and he took it gravely and lit up, holding the match after his smoke was going and staring at it. Finally it burned down to his fingers and he shook it out and put it on the ground.
“See, even that Mexican was scairt of it,” I said.
Les spit on the ground and didn’t say anything. He was not acting a lot like himself and I knew he was feeling bad about both Tod dying and me and him splitting up. Les is not a loner kind of hombre. He needs himself a friend. He makes a good friend, too.
I said: “Reckon whyn’t you ride along with me. We’ll find something good going on somewhere.” I said it easily, hoping he might just say what I wasn’t expecting him to.
But he didn’t. He shook his head. “No, Will. I don’t want to go inland. I want to stay on the border. I’ll need to go back and tell Tod’s daddy what happened.”
I shook my head. “It’ll be a while before you can go back to Texas, Les. South Texas, anyway. They’ll be looking for us pretty good.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll bide my time. But I want to stay on the border.”
My cigarette was about gone. I jammed it out in the dust. The paper kind of unfolded as I did and I could see a little printing on the pages. It made me uneasy. Les would have never done nothing like that before, burning Bible paper. I guess he somehow figured he was doing it for Tod.
“Les, they’s a price on our head. You know as well as I do that that little river ain’t gonna stop a ranger from coming across bounty hunting. You better come on south with me.”
The Bank Robber Page 16