The Bounty Hunters

by Elmore Leonard

  Flynn nodded. “He’ll be bringing you the scalp pretty soon.”

  “Oh…he was dead.”

  “He was after a while.”

  Duro shrugged. “Lazair is a businessman. A live Apache is worth nothing to him.”

  Bowers said quietly, “You get the feeling a live anything is worth nothing to him.”

  “Except perhaps a woman,” Flynn added.

  Duro handed them each a glass and said offhandedly, “He has a woman with him?”

  “Didn’t you know that?” Flynn asked.

  “I have never visited his camp.”

  They sipped at the mescal, saying nothing. It was not a tension, but an uneasiness. After a moment Flynn said, “How do his men get on in the village?”

  Duro shrugged. “As well as can be expected. They are, of course, sometimes primitive in their ways. As men would have to be who live as they do, by fighting Indians. But I have asked our people to treat them with courtesy since they are rendering our government a service.” He sighed. “But sometimes they eye our women too covetously and with this my men are prone to raise objections.”

  “In other words,” Flynn said, “they don’t get along.”

  “Not all of the time, no.”

  “Lieutenant,” Bowers said, “one of the reasons we came…I wonder if I could talk you into selling me a gun from your stores. I lost both of mine yesterday. That’s if you have any extras.”

  “I could not possibly sell you one,” Duro said stiffly, then smiled. “But I would be honored if you would select any gun you wish, as a gift.”

  They finished their drinks and descended to the equipment room. Bowers chose a Merrill carbine, and then a .44 Remington handgun which Duro insisted that he take. And though again he offered to pay for the arms, Lieutenant Lamas Duro would have none of this.

  Flynn said, “Let us buy you a drink now.”

  But Duro refused painfully. “I’m sorry…a volume of paperwork awaits me. You would not believe that only thirty men can do so much to expand the records.” He bowed. “Perhaps another time.”

  They walked off toward Las Quince Letras, leading their horses, as Duro mounted the stairs.

  “Well,” Bowers said wearily, “what does he know?”

  “One thing I’m willing to bet on,” Flynn answered, “—the difference between a Mimbre and a Mexican scalp.”

  From the sunlight they entered the dimness of Las Quince Letras, Flynn half expecting to see Frank Rellis, half hoping and ready, but Rellis was not there though four Americans were toward the other end of the bar at a front table. Three girls were with them. They looked up as Flynn and Bowers moved to the bar. Here and there were men of the village, older men, sipping their wine or mescal slowly to make it last and they looked up only for a moment.

  “Those four weren’t at Lazair’s camp,” Bowers said. The men with the girls at their table were still looking toward them.

  “No, I didn’t see them,” Flynn said. He held up two fingers to the mustached Mexican behind the bar and said, “Mescal.” Then to Bowers, “Let’s sit down.”

  They brought bottle and glasses with them to a table. Bowers poured the mescal and pushed a glass toward the cavalry scout. His eyes held on the sandy mustache, waiting for Flynn to say something. Bowers was in charge—that’s what the orders read—but it wasn’t that simple. Just putting a man in charge doesn’t make it so. Bowers was realizing this.

  He said finally, “Now what?”

  Flynn was making a cigarette. He lighted it and blew smoke and through the smoke said, “I’m going back to Lazair’s camp.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I see Hilario.”

  “Alone?”

  “I think it would be better.” Looking at Bowers he added, “If there are no objections.”

  “Of course not.”

  Flynn leaned closer. “Have you been figuring this?”

  “How does it stand?”

  “I know which is the worst now. I think Soldado is in second place, then the rurales.”

  Flynn added, “None very pleasant, and all of them hating each other. What does that suggest?”

  “The obvious. Get them against each other.”

  “You want to work on it?”

  “I’m not sure about going about it.”

  “Santana, Duro’s sergeant, I think he’s the one to start on. Tell him about all the Mexican girls in Lazair’s camp. Concentrate on Santana. Make up whatever you like; whatever he wants to believe; something that would take time to prove.”

  “And Duro?”

  Flynn said thoughtfully, “And Duro—He’s in with Lazair, that stands to reason since he’s paying for scalps he knows damn well aren’t Apache. Santana against Duro…that makes sense…if you can work it.”

  Abruptly, seriously, Bowers said, “Why was I sent on this?”

  “Somebody had to go.”

  “You told Deneen he should have picked a man with more experience.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why did he pick me?”

  “I don’t know. How well does he know you?”

  “I met Deneen in Contention for the first time.”

  “Your dad was division commander over both of us in the war. Maybe you knew, Deneen was a captain then. I’ve known him off and on for thirteen years.”

  “Well?”

  Flynn shrugged. “Maybe he admired your father so, he knew you’d make a good soldier.”

  Bowers glanced up from his mescal, but said nothing.

  “Look, what difference does it make?” Flynn said. “We’re here now.”

  “He dislikes you,” Bowers said, glancing at him again. “That’s apparent.”

  “You can’t like everybody.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Why not just think about the job you have to do?”

  “All right.”

  Flynn finished the mescal in his glass and rose. “I’m going to see Hilario now. Look for me the day after tomorrow. But if I don’t come then, wait a few more days before you do anything.”

  “You don’t want me to go with you?”

  “If it doesn’t work with one, it wouldn’t work with two.”

  “You make it sound like taking a walk in the park.”

  The corners of Flynn’s eyes creased as he smiled; then the eyes were serious. “Look, I’d like to help you…but there isn’t any pattern to these things. You can’t open Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics and get the answer. Much of this is patience. But having time to think, you end up worrying about what you’re going to do first, then about why you were sent and you even worry whether or not Apaches become afraid.” Flynn smiled. “I meant that as no offense.”

  Bowers said, “That’s all right.”

  Flynn sat down again. “Let’s get it out in plain sight. You know Deneen doesn’t have one ounce of authority to send us down here?”

  “He’s Department Adjutant. I’d say that was enough.”

  “In Arizona. This is Mexico, somebody else’s country. Remember, the orders said the army would not recognize us as lawful agents if we were held for any reason.”

  “He explained that to me in Contention,” Bowers said. “He said so far it was a verbal agreement with Mexico. We can cross their border so many miles and they can enter the United States, if it means running down hostiles. He said he had to put that not responsible business in the orders as a formality. The agreement was supposed to be in writing soon, he said probably before we’d get here.”

  “But Duro said if his government had known about it…” Flynn said. “That doesn’t sound like an agreement.”

  “Then why are we here?” Bowers said.

  Flynn hesitated. “You’re here because you’re obeying an order.” He added, “Because you’re not in a position to question authority.” Now go easy, he thought, and said, “I’m here because I want to be. It’s that simple.”

  “Yet you say neither of us have any busine
ss being here.” He wanted to ask Flynn what was between him and Deneen, but it wouldn’t be in order.

  Flynn smiled again. “All right, but what would you be doing if you weren’t here? Parade drills…patrols that never find anything…mail-run escort—”

  Bowers nodded.

  “So…why don’t we do the world a good turn and kick Soldado’s Apache tail back to San Carlos. And if problems come along we’ll meet them one at a time and not worry about everything at once. Right?”

  Bowers nodded, thoughtfully. “All right.” He watched Flynn rise and move to the door, then nodded as Flynn did. The screen banged.

  He took a sip of the mescal and putting the glass down he saw the four Americans watching him.

  The street of the house of Hilario Esteban was quiet. There were sounds from other streets, but here was only sun glare on sand-colored adobe and a thin shadow line close to the houses extending down both sides of the street. The bullfight poster near the deserted home of Anastacio Esteban was hanging in small shreds now and only a few words were readable.

  A small boy ran out of the house next to Hilario’s.

  “I will hold your horse!”

  Flynn swung down and handed him the reins. “Carefully.”

  “With happiness,” the boy smiled.

  It was a woman who opened the door to his knock. Stooped, beyond middle age, a black scarf covered her shoulders and her dress beneath that was black. Hilario appeared behind her and his eyes brightened.

  “Davíd!”

  “How does it go?”

  “Well,” the alcalde answered. He motioned the woman and Flynn past him into the room.

  The woman moved to the fireplace and sat on the floor there. She began stirring a bowl of atole and did not look at Flynn. With her head down, her figure was that of a child who weighed less than ninety pounds.

  Hilario indicated the woman and said, “La Mosca. She is a herb woman, but now she prepares atole for me out of kindness. If there were a wound on my body, La Mosca would apply to it seeds of the guadalupana vine each marked with the image of the Virgin and soaked in mescal…or a brew of pulverized rattlesnake flesh if I were afflicted with the disease which the gachupines introduced to the women of our land…but she can do nothing for me now.”

  “Listen, Hilario,” Flynn said. “I have not much time. I’ve come to tell you that your daughter is alive. I saw her.”

  He heard the soft rough sound that cloth makes and La Mosca, the curandera, was next to him.

  “I have felt this,” she said, “and have already told our alcalde of it.”

  Flynn said, “All right. Then I’m confirming what you have already told.”

  Hilario’s voice was barely above a whisper, breathing the words in disbelief. “Is it true? Where?”

  “If I told you that, you would go there hastily—”

  “With all certainty!”

  “And that would not be wise.” He touched the old man’s arm. “Look. I am going there now, with a plan. It is a matter of trusting me. If I told you where I was going perhaps others would find out—”

  “Not from me.”

  “Perhaps not. But this not telling you is an additional safeguard.”

  The curandera said then, “She is being held by a man.”

  Hilario looked at her. “This comes to you?”

  La Mosca nodded. “The man is not Indian. That I also know.”

  She can figure that out without looking into the future, Flynn thought.

  “Is this true, David?”

  “My companion, the one I came with, will remain here. He knows about this and will help you if for a reason I cannot come back.”

  Quietly Hilario said, “All right.”

  La Mosca said now, “You will come back.” Her wrinkled face looked up at Flynn. “This comes to me now. You will return by the beginning of Dia de los Muertos—the festival of the dead—and you will bring with you the daughter of this man.”

  13

  He studied the place for a long time, his gaze holding on the shape that was barely visible through the trees at the bottom of the shallow slope.

  Someone was there. Not a movement, but something resembling a human form, though from this distance it was hard to tell. Flynn was on his stomach in the coarse grass that grew among the pines here. His horse was yards behind him, below the line of the hill.

  Above the tree that he watched, a cliff rose shadowed with crevices and grotesque chimneys; pink cantera stone fading pale as the threat of rain washed the sky gray. High above the thickening clouds was an eruption of sunlight, a cold light that fanned upward away from the rain that was to come.

  Minutes passed and the shape did not move.

  Flynn eased back from the crest to his mount and pulled the Springfield from its scabbard. He crouched at the crest again studying the shape, then rose and moved slowly, cautiously down the slope into the trees.

  There it was. And he saw now why there had been no movement.

  It was Matagente. He was hanging from the twisted limb of a juniper by a short length of rawhide that squeezed into the flesh of his throat. Matagente no longer wore his headband…the crown of his head had been hacked off for its scalp.

  It’s a warning, Flynn thought, meant for Soldado. But probably the buzzards would have found him before Soldado.

  And then it occurred to him: But where are they? If there are no buzzards then he was just hung there…within the hour probably. Because Lazair shot him this morning you assumed he was put here then. But if he’d been here all day there wouldn’t be much left of him—

  He went back up the slope and returned to his mount, drawing a clasp knife from his pocket, and from the height of the McClellan saddle had to raise himself only a little more to reach the rawhide and cut it. He held the Apache about the body as he did this, feeling hard flesh and caked blood that crumbled against his hand and as he felt the full weight he tried to bend Matagente across the pommel of his saddle. But the body was stiff with death.

  He used the rawhide line then, piecing it together, and dragged the Mimbre behind the horse carefully through the evergreens until he reached the sandy cantera cliff. There was no other way to do it.

  He carried Matagente then, when he was closer to the wall, and laid his body into a hollow of the base. There were hundreds of cracks, hollows and niches here, sharply shadowed black seams rising with the heights of the pink façade. Then he placed rocks over the hollow and within minutes Matagente was a part of the cliff.

  Flynn retraced his steps then, smoothing the marks Matagente’s dragged body had made.

  Let’s go slow now, he told himself. Let’s think it out before jumping into anything. Their camp is beyond the cliff and even up another climb farther on. If they were to ride to Soyopa they would pass this place. They could have hung him here on their way…but I would have seen them…Not necessarily. You could have passed in timber. You could have missed them easily and there would not have been a dust rise in the trees.

  He looked at the sky now. It’s going to rain before dark. I can’t picture Lazair’s men riding out into the rain unless ordered to, unless he was there to make them.

  Tracks. It occurred to him then. With the rain there will be no tracks tomorrow of where they went today. They can hang Matagente and Soldado cannot trace the sign to Lazair’s camp.

  He rode back to the juniper from which Matagente had been hanging and looked at the ground. The tracks, half-moon impressions of steel-shod hooves, went east…not to Soyopa, nor back to Lazair’s camp. There had been no attempt to cover the tracks.

  That’s it, Flynn thought, they’re counting on the rain. They’re riding because it’s going to rain and they’re not going to all this trouble for anybody else but Soldado. Setting up an ambush at a logical place…along some trail they think the old Indian would have to take some time or another…and they don’t want their tracks to warn him and turn the ambush around. And if this is true, then there would not be many at
Lazair’s camp now.

  He went on, and even though he could feel an excitement inside of him now he traveled at the same careful pace, watching four directions as he skirted the steep slant of cliff wall and began climbing again, now into dwarf oaks. He would stop and wait and listen, then go on. You never knew for sure, so why take a chance?

  Finally he reached the meadow and by this time it was beginning to drizzle. It was not yet dark and a gray mist hung over the sabaneta grass that would bend silently in a wave as the wind stirred. The rain made a sound, but it was a soft hissing whisper that was not there after you listened to it long enough.

  He would move when it was dark. He’d cross the meadow and climb the slope there two hundred yards away and find the guard before the guard found him. If the rain keeps up it will help, he thought.

  Then he would find out if he’d guessed right. He had planned to watch here until the band of scalp hunters rode out…even if it might take a few days…but now he was almost certain they were not in camp, and waiting to make sure would only waste time.

  It took longer for full darkness to creep over the meadow, because Flynn was waiting for it, but finally it settled and with it the rain seemed louder.

  Pretend you’re Mimbreño, he thought as he left the cover of the trees and started across the meadow. This would be easy for one of Soldado’s boys. It would be nothing. But think of the guard now; he was up in the rocks before; that doesn’t mean he’ll be there now. It’s raining. If he’s taken cover you’ll have to be careful; but at least he won’t hear you with the rain. Think like an Apache. But don’t kill him, he thought then. Not if you can help it.

  Faintly he could see the shape of the rock rise against the sky. We were over more to the right, he thought, remembering the outline of the crest as it had looked to him the first time. The first and only time…this morning. And that’s hard to believe that it was this morning. The guard had been to the left then. Now he would be directly in front of you if he’s in the same place.

  Flynn moved to the right, now, holding the detail of the rock rise in his memory and now estimating where the defile would be. He moved closer, threading into the rocks and there it was just above him slanting darkly into the slope.