Santana took one more drink, repeating that he had only a moment, then left the mescal shop.
Red Bowers exhaled slowly, a long sigh. Flynn had it right, Bowers thought. Santana arouses easily, and he hates Lazair’s men. This could be all right. This could work, if it’s handled properly. Just take it slowly. This could be like war from a general’s saddle—moving troops, but only hearing the gunfire in the distance. Here’s some practice for you. And then there’s Duro…something for his ear.
He paid the bartender and started for the door.
“Boy…you goin’ to wait for Frank!”
Bowers glanced back at the table where Embree and the other sat. He hesitated, then went out without bothering to answer.
He crossed the square toward Duro’s house, leading his mount, hoofs clopping behind a thin shadow with legs twice as long as they should be. The square was still vacant; the two rurales who had been in front of Duro’s were not in sight.
He mounted the stairs heavily, slowly. If he were interrupting anything Duro would hear him and have time to clear away whatever it, or she, might be. That was the gentlemanly thing to do. But when he reached the veranda there was no sound from within. He called the lieutenant’s name through the partly opened door. He waited, then pushed in when there was no answer. Calling again, he moved to the bedroom doorway—
Duro was on the bed, sprawled on his back. A fly buzzed close to his face, close to his open mouth. The mescal bottle was on the floor, but Duro still clutched the glass he’d been holding when he passed out.
“Officer and gentleman,” Bowers said half aloud. He left then.
Lazair counted the scalps again as they returned to camp. He knew there were eight, but there was no harm in a recount. His hunch had paid off. With the rain the streams had filled. He had located his men at three watering places on the chance Soldado’s people would come to one of them. And they had.
The second evening they came—seven women and two old men to protect them. And now they had eight scalps. One woman had gotten away. It was almost dark, but best to return to camp now than wait for a war party to come storming back for revenge. You could always pick off a few if you found the right water holes, that was the way to do it; but God, don’t try and hit the whole bunch!
He’d sent a man to gather the ones at the other two places, and some men were bringing up the rear to cover sign as best they could in the fast-falling dark. Well, it was a worthwhile two days. He’d get a good rest, maybe have a little talk with Nita, and take the scalps in in the morning. A good day to go to town…there was supposed to be some kind of fiesta.
15
We are all afraid of death, Lamas Duro thought, but one admits it only to himself. He was standing on the veranda of his headquarters, watching the straggle of villagers coming now and then from the side streets, crossing the square in the direction of the cemetery.
In company we can be brave. We proclaim this festival, Día de Los Muertos, to celebrate on the grave stones and joke at death and tell him we aren’t afraid…but these are only outward signs. With some of the people it takes a full bottle of mescal before they are at ease in his presence. And with others it takes even more. And he thought: Like yourself…it takes a bottle every day. Did you know that? For you, every day is Día de Los Muertos.
Looking across the square, he watched one group pass into the midmorning shadow of the church. They moved along the west wall, carrying their homemade wine and mescal, and lunches of bread—small loaves baked in the shapes of death’s heads for the occasion.
Take a bite of death on the grave of your father.
Death and the devil are one. Show him you aren’t afraid and he’ll stay in hell where he belongs. But take another drink before it wears off and he comes leaping out.
Lamas Duro smiled. Children of the ignorant whore Superstition. But he thought: You believe in nothing, now; yet you conduct yourself in this manner every day. What does it mean?
He looked out over the square, at the shadow of the obelisk which was the only thing about the square that ever changed, and made the scene seem more monotonous because the change itself was a dull, inching thing that wasn’t worth thinking about.
It means you’re sick of life…but afraid of death, so you take the in-between, and that’s mescal. You didn’t begin that way. Even a year ago there was no fear, but that was before Diaz…and his rurales…his bandits, which is what they are.
It came suddenly, and he wasn’t aware of the reason—though it must have been the picture of himself as he had once been, for that flashed in his mind, differently than it had the many times before, for consciously now he saw himself as he had been and, at the same time, as he was now—and he knew then that he would leave.
And the plan of what he would do fell into place quickly…remembering the bounty money in his possession and Lazair away from the pueblo and Santana due in from patrol that morning but being weary should be in the mescal shop or at camp and the entire population of Soyopa celebrating Día de Los Muertos…. No one, no one would notice alone rider leaving Soyopa!
He would ride north…across the border. That was it. Living among the Americans would be something to get used to, but at least the bounty money would make the getting used to it less unbearable. And it now seemed so simple, so elementary, that he wondered why it had not occurred to him before this. He inhaled deeply, feeling his shirt tighten against his chest, then moved away from the veranda railing and went into the office.
A half-full mescal bottle that he had started only that morning was on the desk. He picked it up by the neck and was smiling as his arm swung wide and let it go. The bottle smashed against the far wall—shattering, flying glass and the liquid burst of it beginning to run down to the floor.
Entering the square, Bowers glanced at Santana. “What was that?”
Santana smiled through the sweat-streaked dust on his face. “This is a feast day. Many bottles are opened, some of them are dropped.”
They were passing Duro’s house, less than a hundred feet away, and nodding toward it Bowers said, “Sounded like it came from there.”
Santana answered, “Lieutenant Duro has never dropped a bottle in the entirety of his life.”
They stopped in front of Las Quince Letras, Bowers and Santana, with a few of the rurales pulling even with them now. Most of the rurales had swerved from the square down the street leading to their camp.
Bowers came off the saddle stiff-legged. It seemed a long time since dawn; riding steadily for hours with nothing happening made it seem like days. There were no Apaches, not even a pony sign all day yesterday or that morning. But the thought was in Bowers’ mind all during the patrol that probably it was just as well. Santana wouldn’t have been ready for Apaches had they appeared. He allowed his patrol to stretch thin. There was more than just talking in ranks—loud laughter, even drinking. Almost, it seemed to Bowers, as if their purpose was to ride through the brush to flush out game for a hunting party ahead. Santana failed to send out flankers. He kept two men riding advance, but each time the twenty-man patrol caught up with them they were dismounted, lying in the shade, if there was shade, or else with sombreros tilted over their faces. When they reached Alaejos, two men were missing. The two straggled in almost an hour later, and Santana said nothing to them. In more than a dozen places along the way, three Apaches could have annihilated a good half of the patrol. Bowers kept his thoughts to himself. By the time they had reached Alaejos, that afternoon, he realized it wasn’t a lack of discipline; Santana didn’t know what he was doing…in spite of his years in the army. He thinks he’s a soldier, Bowers had thought, but he isn’t even close to being one.
When they left Alaejos, a man in white peon clothes was with them. He rode between two rurales and his hands were tied to the saddle horn. A middle-aged man with tired eyes that looked at nothing. Santana said he was a thief and one purpose of the patrol was to bring him back to Soyopa to be tried by Duro. “What did he steal? I
don’t know. What difference does it make? I have the name and this is the man who answers to it.”
A few miles out of Alaejos Bowers noticed Santana nod to one of the men next to the peon. The rurale dropped back half a length and suddenly slapped the peon’s mount across the rump. Santana waited, deliberately. No one had moved. Bowers looked at Santana quickly, with astonishment that turned to shock as Santana smiled, waiting, then with the smile in the tone of his voice shouted for his men to stop him.
A dozen rurales fired, and when the man was on the ground motionless some of them were still firing.
“Why do they always try to escape?” Santana had said, then shrugged. “Ley fuga. It saves the cost of a trial.”
They had made camp later on and started for Soyopa again with the first light.
Now it was midmorning as they entered Las Quince Letras.
“Mescal?” Santana asked, and when Bowers nodded he said, “This time on me.”
Bowers waited as Santana paid for the bottle. He was more than a little tired of Santana now, after a full day and a half of him, but if he wanted to buy a drink that was all right. After, he would go to Hilario’s house and wait for Flynn. Today was supposed to be the day.
He was surprised at the amount of people in the shop and then he remembered that this was a festival day. There was a hum of talking spotted with laughter and the sounds of glasses and bottles. And going over the room his eyes hesitated on the table where the four Americans sat. The same table as before. One of them was the man who had torn the girl’s dress off. God, he must live here. And with the same three friends. No, one of them wasn’t here the other day. His eyes moved on and came back to the bar and Santana was coming toward him with bottle and glasses. There was a vacant table in front of them and they sat down at it.
“Good crowd,” Bowers said, “for before noon.”
Santana smiled. “Preparing themselves for the graves.”
“Part of the festival?”
“The big part. Día de Los Muertos lasts these three days. On this the first day, the graves of ancestors are visited. They are mourned, toasted and finally eaten over before the day is through. By the third day death is convinced that we aren’t afraid of him.”
Now they did not speak. As if there was nothing more in common between them which they had not already spoken of. Bowers, out of politeness, thought for something to say, but the things that occurred to him weren’t worth talking about. There was the mescal to drink and many faces about and movements in the room to attract attention, so talk wasn’t necessary. Bowers sank back into the cane-bottomed chair and sipped the sweet liquor, now and then thinking about the peon. “Why do they always try to escape?” Santana had said that, smiling. Bowers thought: If they were going to hang the man anyway, what difference does it make? But it did make a difference. It didn’t seem right. Two men and a girl laughing at the next table and the girl saying something as she laughed, a phrase she repeated three, four times. The words had almost a musical sound and Bowers repeated the phrase in his mind trying to translate it. It’s an idiom that you can’t translate word for word. You have to concentrate, pick up the idioms, if you get those you’ve got the language. There’s no reason in the world why you should think that peon was treated unfairly. He was a thief. He would have been tried and hanged. Their justice is somewhat more harsh, and they cut corners administering it. Now he heard the girl’s voice at the next table again. He glanced that way, but a man’s legs and stomach and chest were there. Two, three feet away, standing, and now Bowers looked up at him, recognizing the new man he had seen at the Americans’ table and at the same quick moment he knew who the man was…though the first and only time he had seen him had been through field glasses focused on the man’s back as he rode out of the canyon shadow.
“Where’s your partner?” Frank Rellis said.
Bowers shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
Bowers hesitated. “That’s a funny question.”
“I don’t see anybody laughin’.”
Bowers sat up straighter, slowly. “I said before I don’t know where he is. I don’t see how I can help you.”
Rellis was holding a glass in his left hand. He raised it, finishing what he was drinking, then moved to the bar and brought the glass down hard on the polished surface. He was half watching Bowers as he did this and now he turned, leaning his elbows on the bar behind him. He stared for long seconds, staying in this position, motionless but relaxed, then he stirred. He began making a cigarette. Behind him, the bartender filled his glass with mescal. Rellis was hatless, hair hanging low on his forehead, and he needed a shave. It was evident that he had been drinking most of the morning: it showed in his eyes, though not in his voice. He was armed: a pistol hanging low on his right hip.
Rellis said, “You shouldn’t a let him out of your sight. He’d probably run for home.”
Bowers had looked away. Now his eyes returned to Rellis. “I’m not worried about that.”
“What are you worried about?”
“Nothing.”
“Does your partner know I’m here?”
Bowers shrugged. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Frank Rellis.”
Bowers waited. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“He never mentioned my name to you?”
“Why should he?”
“You’re a goddamn liar if you say he hasn’t.”
It was in Rellis’ mind, planted firmly, that Flynn was in Soyopa because he had followed him down after what happened in Contention, somehow learning of his having joined Lazair. Two men coming down to locate Soldado and his band made no sense at all. That was a cover-up. Lazair had a mule’s ass for brains if he believed that. Rellis turned sideways to the bar and drank off part of the mescal.
It was going through his mind that this couldn’t be better: the shavetail coming in alone…don’t count the rurale…yeah, that was all right, too. Teach him a lesson he won’t forget.
Bowers could see it. The tone of Rellis’ voice and the right hand hanging free. He was angry, watching Rellis, seeing what he was doing, but he knew it was exactly what Rellis wanted. Jump up, drawing, at an insult…and not having a chance…so he sat still and let the anger start to pass off. His own pistol was wedged between his thigh and the chair arm rest, and the holster flap was snapped. And you had to miss the table edge bringing up the gun. Rellis has done this before, you haven’t. The objections were there to calm him, to make him go slow, but they brought with them a fear, a small nervous fear, and planted it in the pit of his stomach.
His voice sounded loud in his ears as he said to Rellis, “I don’t keep tab on him. If you want him, go out and start looking.”
Rellis dragged on his cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly.
“What’s your name?”
“Bowers.”
“Bowers what?”
“Lieutenant Bowers.”
Rellis’ lips curled, grinning. “Well goddamn…” He said then, still grinning, “I was looking for you the other day. I came back from eatin’ and they said you’d run off.”
“You mean I’d left.”
“You heard what I said.”
“Why would I run away from you?”
Rellis lowered his head and drew on the cigarette, not taking his elbow from the bar. His head raised and the fingers holding the cigarette flicked out. The cigarette shot in a low arc and landed on the table in front of Bowers.
Bowers’ eyes held on the man, feeling the heat on his face, wanting to do something, but…he was conscious of stillness…a sound close to him then: Santana mumbling an obscenity in his breath…and the sound of the screen door closing, but not seeing anyone come in because his eyes were on Rellis and Rellis, elbow on the bar, his hand hanging limp above his pistol butt, was returning the stare.
“Mostly,” Rellis said now, “when I see a pissant like you I just step on him.”
&n
bsp; “Rellis—” It came unexpectedly, but without alarm.
Bowers’ face relaxed, that was the effect, that suddenly, even without looking. But Rellis had to turn his head, sharply, and as he did the grin died on his face.
Flynn stood in from the doorway. He came on a few strides and stopped, his eyes on Rellis, his right hand unbuttoning his coat.
“Frank, I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
Rellis wasn’t loose now, though he was in the same position, elbows on the bar. Now he might have been nailed there.
“I…was just asking where you were.”
“I heard you asking.”
“Listen.” Rellis straightened. “I want to get clear with you what happened in Contention. I might have talked out of turn in that barbershop—I’d been drinking and was anxious to ride out.” He added quickly, “And that’s what I did right after. I rode out a long ways to let my head clear, then camped by water and slept from early right through the night.”
“And now you want to buy me a drink.”
“That’s right.”
“You want to drink to what happened at the livery.”
“Listen, I didn’t have any part of that.”
“What?”
“Shootin’ that man.”
“If you left Contention, how did you know about it?”
“News travels.”
“All the way to Sonora?”
“It don’t take long.”
“Frank,” Flynn said quietly, “you’re a liar.”
“You got no cause to say that.”
Flynn moved toward Rellis. “It’s said.” He paused, watching Rellis’ eyes. “I’m going outside. I’ll expect to see you within the next few minutes…with your gun in your hand.”
Rellis’ face was stiff. Then it smiled, forcing the smile wide. “Now wait a minute. You’re jumping to conclusions. I swear to God I wasn’t near that livery!”
Flynn’s eyes stayed on Rellis, though he did not speak. He stared, watching Rellis trying to appear unconcerned, and he became more confident because he knew then that Rellis was half afraid to fight. Rellis would bully Bowers, he thought, because Bowers was young, too new to have experience. Maybe Red could take him with his fists, but he wouldn’t have gotten all the way out of the chair to try. This was different. This was something Rellis would want his own way or not at all, and Flynn thought: And you know how that would be. All right, let him have his way. Give him his chance.
The Bounty Hunters Page 14