Jorge gathered up the sheaf of ink-spattered legal sheets from the floor. ‘What I have written here is just the beginning. I will have to write it again and again until it is right. Judge Mendoza can be very impatient.’
‘How long will it take to finish?’
‘Days, two or three days, maybe as long as a week. I know you are thinking about Bannerman, so I will say four days. I’m going to need a table to work on.’
Sundance said, ‘The German on the plaza sells everything. I guess he carries tables too. I’m going to get some charcoal so we can make coffee in the fireplace and fry some meat. Anything else you want?’
‘A bottle of benzene,’ Jorge said, ‘to clean my clothes and my hat before I go into Judge Mendoza’s court. A lawyer with a dirty suit wouldn’t last long with the old man. And some yellow soap to wash my shirt.’
Sundance was unbolting the door. ‘That shirt is past washing—I’ll get you a new one. Keep the door bolted while I’m gone.’
‘I feel so good about all this,’ Jorge said before Sundance went down to the street.
‘Sure,’ Sundance said. He had been around too long to put much faith in anything but his weapons. They never failed you if you knew how to use them right.
Eight
Jorge worked furiously for the next three days, mumbling to himself as the steel-nibbed pen raced across page after page of legal paper. The small cheap pine table Sundance had bought from the German storekeeper was already stained with ink and ringed with drippings from coffee cups. The floor was littered with crumpled sheets of paper and there was always the smell of coffee in the two small rooms. Jorge hardly slept at all and Sundance gave up telling him he ought to. They ate bacon and eggs and steak and beans—all cooked over charcoal in the stone fireplace. Silvestra hadn’t come back from scouting Bannerman’s ranch.
Sundance whiled away the time by working on his weapons. Northern Mexico was a waterless country with dust always in the wind. The fine, gritty dust seeped through everything, even the best gun cover. General Crook hadn’t sent any more telegrams. Sundance, hunkered down on the floor, wiped gun oil from the muzzle of the 44-40 Winchester. Any gun had a tendency to throw wild if you didn’t wipe oil from the muzzle. After he finished with the Winchester he got a small slab of soapstone from his warbag and put an even finer edge on the Bowie knife. He moistened the stone and stroked the knife blade across it, shifting the angle of the blade as the edge grew keener. When he was satisfied that the great fighting knife was in perfect condition, he took the rag soaked in gun oil and wiped the blade clean and replaced it in its sheath. Working on his weapons, the tools of his trade, relaxed him, but there was more to it than making work to pass the time. A man was only as good as his weapons and not a week went by that he didn’t practice with all of his weapons, especially the great ash bow that could kill an enemy in almost total darkness without making a sound. With a quiver of arrows slung over his back, he could kill men running toward him almost as quickly as he could knock them down with a repeating rifle. It was the weapon of his boyhood, the first one he had learned to use—it always felt natural and easy in his hands. The bow was an even more sensitive weapon than a gun because the bowstring had to be adjusted if the bow hadn’t been used for some time. The temperature of the place he was in had to be considered, too.
Jorge, pen in one hand, a cup of cold coffee in the other, paused to look over at him. ‘If I win this case, and I will, you won’t have to use those weapons. Not in Las Piedras.’
Sundance had saved the big Remington for last. Every time he looked at the big-bore hunting rifle he thought of Lucas Bannerman. The thought refused to leave his head, but he hadn’t said anything to Jorge.
‘That’s good,’ he told Jorge. ‘I’m all for law and order when I run into it. I’d be glad to save my bullets for the tigres in the Sierra.’
Jorge didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he said quietly, ‘I have never thanked you for helping me in this fight. This isn’t even your country. But I thank you.’
‘No need for thanks,’ Sundance said. ‘I am half Cheyenne and I help the Indians any way I can. An Indian has no country except his family, his tribe, his own nation. Nothing is written down. A man has honor or he has not. So I help my mother’s people wherever I can. It is the Indians who should thank you.’
‘I don’t need thanks either. I am doing this thing, fighting this fight for myself. I just hope I can last long enough to get it done. I don’t want to die but that would make the dying easier.’
‘You can’t do everything, Jorge. No man can.’
‘I know that now.’
‘I was like you were when I began my fight against the Indian Ring,’ Sundance said. ‘Later I knew I was trying to do too much. I know now that the fight won’t be won in my lifetime. Far from it but no matter. Other good men will go on fighting. General Crook is like that. He’s a better man than I will ever be.’
‘Never,’ Jorge protested. ‘You are what we Mexicans call raro, a very rare man. No one is better than you are.’
‘Crook is. Better than me, better than you, better than most men.’
Jorge smiled. ‘I don’t mind not being so great as your general. You think he will come to Las Piedras, and will he help us when he comes?’
‘He can’t help officially, but the general has a way of cutting through red tape. The Indians respect him because he fights them hard when he has to but treats them fairly when he has won. A lot of politicians in Washington hate him and would like to destroy him because he sees them as the scum they are. He pulls a lot of weight because he never breaks his word once he gives it.’
‘I hope he comes soon,’ Jorge said, dipping his pen in the inkwell.
Sundance nodded agreement. ‘So do I.’
On the evening of the fourth day Jorge threw down his pen and shuffled his papers into an orderly pile. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hollow cheeks were grown over with stubble. When he moved his head, he grimaced with pain. A skillet with a steak in it was sizzling on a bed of charcoal and beside it a pot of coffee steamed. Sundance opened a can of tomatoes, not saying anything because Jorge was reading over the final draft of what he had taken four days to write.
Sundance took the skillet off the fire and put the tomatoes on to heat. Silvestra hadn’t come back. Now this was the fourth day he had been gone and it was beginning to look bad. Sundance hadn’t mentioned his concern to Jorge, who had been buried in his law books and papers for the best part of a week. Silvestra, always a reliable man, was taking too long and for Sundance the bad feeling grew stronger with every minute that passed.
He knew there was nothing he could do but wait. Sundance dished up his half of the steak and started on it without waiting for Jorge who muttered as he read and scratched his head with the end of the pen at the same time. When he had finished, he folded the papers. He put them in a long brown envelope and wrote on the outside of it. Only then did he seem to see Sundance, the cooling steak and the pot of steaming coffee.
‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything I can add to it.’ Jorge had lost track of time. ‘What day is it?’
‘The evening of the fourth day,’ Sundance answered.
Jorge looked surprised, then worried. ‘Why hasn’t Silvestra returned? He said he’d be gone only a few days. Four days is too long.’
Sundance poured coffee for Jorge who wasn’t showing much interest in his steak. The coffee had cooked too long on the charcoal and it was ink black and bitter, the way Sundance liked it. He said, ‘If he isn’t back by morning I’m going out to look for him.’
Jorge’s voice tried to sound confident. ‘Silvestra is a good man and can take care of himself. He’ll be all right.’
Thinking of all the good men he had known who were dead, Sundance said, ‘We’ll wait till morning. Some of Bannerman’s Apaches may have spotted him.’
‘Not Silvestra.’
‘It’s possible. Anything is pos
sible.’ Jorge’s hands trembled as he pushed the plate away from him. Grease was congealing on the plate and his coffee was getting cold. ‘If Bannerman’s Apaches got him—it makes me sick to think about it.’
‘Wait until morning—don’t think about it. No matter what happens to Silvestra you have to go ahead with your case. It’s all that matters.’
‘To hell with my case. I don’t give a damn about the case—I’m thinking about Silvestra.’
‘So am I, but there’s nothing to be done this time of night. Now get some sleep before I rap you over the head and lay you out. If you don’t sleep soon, you won’t be worth a damn to anybody. You hear what I’m telling you?’
But Jorge was already nodding in his chair and close to falling off it. Sundance got up quickly and helped him to the cot he had bought from the German. Then he pulled off Jorge’s boots and, after the lawyer muttered something, he fell asleep again.
Sundance drank what was left of the coffee and sat down to wait for Silvestra to come back—if he ever came back. While the white half of him hoped that Silvestra would get back safely, the Indian half knew instinctively that the big Indian was dead. There was no way to explain it, but the knowledge was there, defying him to ignore it. In the past he had been wrong or mistaken—never about death—and when he picked up the heavy Remington rifle he thought about Bannerman again. It was hot in the little room and the town was quiet except for an occasional drunkard staggering home from the cantinas. While he sat and waited in silence, Jorge slept the half-dead sleep of a man who had come close to total exhaustion. It was a long night and the hours passed slowly, but he waited without impatience, listening for sounds.
He felt bad about Silvestra, but there was nothing that could be done about his death. In the end, this was Jorge’s fight and he had to be given his chance to win it in his own way. Despite all the men he had killed in his time, Sundance did not consider himself a lawless man but simply a man who killed when the law was weak or corrupt and killing was the only way to right a wrong that would otherwise go unpunished. If the law failed again—that is, failed Jorge—he would take the big Remington and, in spite of all the odds against doing it, he would find a way to kill Lucas Bannerman. No man living could keep from being killed if the man who wanted to kill him had enough determination and was willing to die himself in the attempt.
Dawn was about three hours away when he heard footsteps coming up the stone stairs from the street. Sundance turned down the light, picked up the scattergun and thumbed back the twin hammers. Then he moved to one side of the door and waited for the footsteps to get to the top of the stairs.
There was no mistaking the voice outside when he heard it. It was a distinctive voice: Chief Police Luis Montoya had a sort of rattle in his throat when he talked, and the sound would have been hard to imitate.
‘What do you want?’ Sundance said without opening the door.
‘Open the door,’ Montoya ordered. ‘I have something to tell you.’
Sundance had his hand on the bolt. ‘You’d better be Luis Montoya and you better not have any of Bannerman’s men with you.’
Montoya said, ‘I am alone. Now open the door.’
When the door was open and Montoya saw the shotgun he said angrily, ‘There is no need for that. I am Chief of Police of this town and you will not threaten me with guns of any kind.’
‘Nobody’s threatening you,’ Sundance said, holding the shotgun steady as Montoya came in and looked around. ‘What do you want?’
Montoya took a deep breath. ‘The Indian is dead. The one called Silvestra is dead.’
Jorge woke up when he heard Silvestra’s name. He threw the blanket aside and got up with difficulty. His face was slick with sweat and his hair was matted and streaky. ‘What’s this about Silvestra?’ he said. ‘What were you saying about my friend?’
Jorge’s eyes were so crazed that the police chief took a step backward before he remembered who he was. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘Your friend the Indian is dead. I came to tell you.’
Jorge yelled, ‘You’re a liar.’
‘Let him talk,’ Sundance said, pushing Jorge back with the flat of his hand. ‘Say the rest of it, Chief. If he’s dead, where is he?’
He knew Montoya wasn’t lying, wasn’t part of a plan to lead them into a trap. The truth was in Montoya’s voice and in his eyes.
‘He’s down in the street roped to his horse. I was at home sleeping when one of my men came banging on the door with news of a dead Indian tied to a horse in the plaza. When I got there I knew his face and his name, so I brought him here.’
Jorge lunged at Montoya. Sundance pushed him away and kept him away while the police chief told what he knew. ‘All I know is that Indian is dead. I don’t know who did it, or where it happened—what good would it do if I did? No court would hang the men who did it or even send them to prison. You blame me for not knowing what to do, but I will tell you what you should have done. You should have gone back to Morelos and stayed there. The Indian was here after you left and no one harmed him. No one harmed him because you were gone and it looked like the trouble was over. Then for your own crazy reasons you came back—and the Indian is dead. You spout from your damned law books—and it is the Indian who is dead.’
Jorge looked at the floor in silence. Sundance said, ‘How did he die?’
‘The worst way a man can die. In all my life—and I have been a soldier—I have seen nothing like it. Madre de Dios, such a way for a man to die. I ask you again: do you want to claim the body?’
The three men went down to the dark street to look at what had once been a man. The body lay across the saddle, wrists roped to ankles, covered with a blanket. Sundance guessed the blanket was Montoya’s idea. The corpse smelled very bad.
The body began to slide when Sundance cut the ropes. He grabbed it before it hit the ground. When he took his hands away, they were slick with congealing blood. He wiped his hands on the blanket and knelt beside what was left of Silvestra. Jorge leaned against the wall of the building and vomited until nothing came up but air. Montoya didn’t say anything until after he lit a cigar to kill some of the smell.
Then he said, ‘That’s what they did to him. You are as much to blame as the lawyer, Señor Sundance.’
Sundance didn’t answer and Montoya didn’t offer to help with the body. It was hard to know what to make of the Mexican policeman. Maybe he was an honest man after all. Time might tell what he was, but right then he was just an aging lawman blowing out clouds of cigar smoke to hide the stink.
In the dim light of the street, Sundance saw that Montoya was right about one thing—Silvestra had died in the worst possible way. The fingers and toes had been burned off and they hadn’t stopped after they castrated him. Someone with a razor sharp knife had opened his belly from hip to hip. In his chest were many bullet holes, but Sundance decided the shooting had been done after he was dead.
They hadn’t touched the face. There wasn’t a mark on it, but even now it was contorted in agony, as if the corpse could still feel unbearable pain.
Sundance stood up and turned away from the body. It wasn’t his place to say what should be done. Montoya was still puffing on the cigar, looking at nothing. Jorge was still close to the wall, pressing his forehead against the cool stone. A few Mexicans stood in the gloom of a doorway, watching silently. When a mongrel came sniffing its way to the body, Montoya kicked it savagely and it ran away howling. It was the police chief’s only display of emotion.
Jorge’s back was still turned. Sundance said, ‘What do you want to do? Bury him as he is? It doesn’t make any difference.’
‘No, we will not bury him as he is!’ Jorge’s voice began loud and shrill. ‘We will bury him properly as a man should be buried.’ Jorge looked at Sundance and didn’t seem to know him. ‘I will bury him myself if I have to.’
Sundance nodded and Jorge threw a silver dollar at one of the Mexicans in the doorway. ‘Here, you.’ His voice was stronger now. �
��Go and tell Camacho the undertaker to bring a coffin here.’ He came over and looked down at Silvestra’s mutilated body. The smell didn’t bother him.
‘I knew that man, that damned Indian,’ he said to no one. ‘And now he’s dead and I the one who should be dead am still alive.’ Jorge began to tremble again but now it was anger instead of sickness.
‘You better go easy, Jorge,’ Sundance said, coming close.
Jorge shook off Sundance’s arm and continued to stare at the body. ‘No, I won’t go easy. The man who did this will pay for it. On my dead mother’s grave, he will pay for this.’
Montoya spoke quietly to Sundance. ‘Listen to how he talks. If you are his friend, why don’t you take him away from this town? Make him see that what he’s thinking won’t do any good. It can only get him killed.’
‘Is that what you think, Montoya?’
‘I’m saying it can only get him killed.’
‘You know Bannerman ordered this?’
The chief of police shrugged and threw his cigar away. Then he lit another. ‘What does it matter what I know? There is no way he can get close to Bannerman, and even if he did manage to kill him, he would hang for it.’
‘Maybe he thinks it’s worth it.’
‘And what do you think?’
Sundance said, ‘I think it might be worth it.’
‘Worth it to you,’ Montoya said angrily.
‘Worth it to Jorge. He has nothing to lose and at least Bannerman would be dead. The Indian was his closest friend, maybe his only real friend. I know how he feels.’
‘Then you won’t make him leave Las Piedras?’
‘I wouldn’t make him even if I could.’
Down the street an ancient hearse creaked out of a stable. The stableman, Camacho, made coffins and buried people when he wasn’t tending to horses. The battered hearse was pulled by two mules and in the back of it was a cheap, brightly varnished coffin. As a stableman, Camacho wore a torn palm leaf hat; now he wore a rusty topper with crepe twisted around it. He was old and sleepy, with a soggy cigar in his mouth. He reined in the mules and climbed down from the driver’s seat. The coffin was so cheap and light that he was able to lift it out of the hearse without any help. The mules stood patiently, their long ears twitching away flies.
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