Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1

by Elmore Leonard

  When he finished Bo Catlett said, “It seem that way,” and looked at Bren Early. “Captain, Red say, do these people want to die? Or is it us want to die?”

  “Tell him,” Bren said, “these people will never stop hunting him as long as they live, or we let them live.”

  “He knows all about that,” Bo Catlett said. “He wants to know, what is this standing and waiting for your enemy to come at you?”

  “Tell him it's the way white men face each other with honor. I mean civilized people,” Bren said to Bo. “It's the way we've always done it.”

  “Tell him that?” Bo Catlett said, glancing at Moon and back to Bren. “You gonna have to explain it to me first. Lest you plan to bushwack him in the draw. We got seven hundred pounds of dynamite could help.”

  “Artillery,” Bren said, and was thoughtful a moment. “I told him he could bring his men up. Gave him my word on that.”

  Bo Catlett translated into Spanish and Moon watched Red and his Mimbres as they looked at one another.

  “They think you must be drunk,” Moon said to Bren. “Let me make a speech for a minute.”

  He spoke in Spanish, for the benefit of the Apaches and the Mexican farmers, though Bo Catlett's people were included. Moon said that some of this business with Sundeen was personal and he didn't expect anyone to fight because of something that happened a long time ago in Sonora. But Sundeen and his people also represented the company and the company wanted this land.

  “Tell them it's a question of honor,” Bren said. “Oh-nohr.”

  “It's a question of how you want to live,” Moon said in Spanish. “My business isn't to hide and shoot at them the rest of my life. I have other things I want to do.” He looked at Kate. “But I can't do them until I finish this. Can we win? I believe so. I believe the company will look at us and decide it isn't worth all the time and money and they'll go somewhere else for their copper.” Moon's gaze moved to Bren. “In fact, I'm surprised the company hasn't sent somebody to talk to us—”

  Bren didn't move; then shrugged; then tried to think of something to say.

  “—but I believe the company will when they see we're determined to stay.”

  “That's it,” Bren said. “This is the company's final show of strength. And when they see it fail, they'll cave in.”

  Moon seemed to accept this. He said, “Will some of us die?” And looked at Eladio and Alfonso. “Some of us already have. But I would rather face them now than risk being shot in the back planting corn. Maybe you don't like to fight this way. I don't blame you. But this is the way it is.”

  When Moon appeared finished, Bren said, “Did you mention honor? It didn't sound very inspiring.”

  Moon said, “It's their lives. It's up to them.”

  Following the trail down from the ranchería, Moon close to Kate, he wanted to talk to her, be near her. But Bren rode a length behind and told how Sooy Smith had entered Okolona and captured a big bunch of Rebel officers and men on furlough, February 17, 1864—Bren full of war again—February 20, 3:00 P.M., reached a point south of Prairie Station with two brigades and learned that Nathan Bedford Forrest was facing him with a force of 7,000. You know what Sooy did?

  “What?” Moon said, interested.

  “God—” Kate said.

  Maurice Dumas watched and listened, fascinated.

  Later in the morning the mountain people began to arrive at the stone house with the charred furniture in the yard:

  Bo Catlett, Thomas Jefferson and two more in “US” braces and worn cavalry boots. Bo said they had flipped coins and the ones who lost had to stay home with the families and the herds. They had a talk with Moon and Bren Early, got Bren to agree to an idea and the 10th Cavalry veterans went down into the barranca with two fifty-pound cases of dynamite.

  Young Eladio Duro, Alfonso with his cartridge belts, and six farmers carrying old Ballards and Remingtons represented their families. (Others were scattered and could not be notified.) Eladio wore a green sash, a sword and a caplock Dragoon pistol his grandfather had carried at Resaca de la Palma. Everyone full of war.

  Red and his seven Mimbres squatted in the yard with a clay pot of ochre paint; with bowls of atole, the flour gruel they would eat as their last meal before battle; with small leather sacks of hod-dentin, the magic powder that would protect them from bullets; with cigars and tulapai, the corn-beer, and chants that reminded them they were the Shis-Inday, the invincible Apache…the chosen ones. Those not chosen for this—another twenty in Red's band—were in the thicket behind the house, up on the escarpment and watching the back trails. (Sundeen would have to come straight at them up the barranca, and not pull any sneaky tricks.)

  Bren unloaded and reloaded his .44 Russians and his fancy Merwin & Hulberts and shoved a seven-cartridge tube into the stock of his polished Spencer…ready for war, brimming over with it, telling Moon how Sooy Smith had dug in to make a stand at Ivey's Farm against Barteau who had taken over for Tyree Bell, see, when Tyree Bell had become sick…confusing but, to Moon, a good sound; it matched the excitement he felt.

  Maurice Dumas spent some time inside the smoke-blackened house with Kate, helping her as she baked about a dozen loaves of bread, but most of the time looking out the window at the Apaches and the Mexican farmers, at Moon and Early out by the adobe wall.

  It was exciting and it was scary, too. Maurice wondered if he was the only one who felt it. Everyone else seemed so calm, or resigned. He said to Kate, “The thing is, they don't have to do this.”

  “Yes, they do,” Kate said. “They believe they do, which is the same thing.”

  “Twenty-two,” Maurice said, “against however many Sundeen brings. Probably twice as many.”

  “Twenty-three,” Kate said, finished with the bread, loading a Henry now with .44's.

  “You're gonna take part in this?”

  “It's my house too,” Kate said.

  In a little while Moon sent Maurice Dumas down to White Tanks to tell Sundeen he could come any time he wanted.

  2

  Someone had brought the Capt. Brendan Early dodger, “…wanted for the killing of P.Sundeen,” and showed it around. Sundeen read it and shook his head, pretending to be amused, but did not think it was funny. The news reporters at White Tanks quoted him as saying, “I hope there is money on that son of a—'s head, for I am sure as—going to collect it.”

  Yes, the news reporters had finally come to the field, brought by the message Maurice Dumas had left displayed in the hotel lobby: Come to White Tanks for final showdown, Rincon Mountains War. Scheduled to begin around noon today! Bren Early's idea. (“Why do you want all them?” Maurice had asked him. Bren's answer: “The more people there are who sympathize with our fight against the giant company, the more likely the company is to back off.” Now it was our fight.)

  When Maurice came down the mountain to White Tanks and saw the crowd, he couldn't believe it. Riders, wagons, buggies, Indians, a few women, little kids playing on the fence around the stock pen—there must have been two hundred people or more. When he reached the agency buildings and began sorting everybody out, Maurice found that maybe half were spectators, gawkers, and the rest were in the pay of Sundeen…something like a hundred armed men!

  Had Bren Early counted on that many opposing them? Not by half, Maurice recalled. Perhaps forty men at the most.

  But one hundred—all hard-eyed cutthroats in a variety of getups: derbies, straws, sombreros, dusty business suits and batwing chaps…shotguns, rifles, six-shooters, all were armed with at least two guns; they stood about talking, drinking whiskey, checking and fooling with their weapons…talking in loud, confident voices and finding, it seemed, a great deal to laugh about.

  My God.

  C.S. Fly was not present. Maurice learned the famed photographer had declined the invitation, saying he had pictures enough for a fools' gallery as is. However there were others—among them A. Frank Randall of Willcox and someone representing Beuhman & Hartwell of Tucson—bus
y taking pictures of Sundeen, groups of his cutthroats holding rifles and revolvers, and some of the White Tanks reservation Indians who posed, not having any idea what was going on.

  Maurice had to push through a crowd on the porch of the agency office to get to Sundeen inside, sitting with his boots propped up on Moon's desk and telling the news reporters his riders would “bite shallow” else they would eat those people up in two minutes. Maurice waited for Sundeen to notice him, then said, “They're ready for you.”

  Sundeen eyed him. “How many people's he got?”

  “I'm not at liberty to say.”

  “At liberty,” Sundeen said, drawing up out of the swivel chair. “You little squirt, I'll free your soul for you.”

  “About twenty,” Maurice said.

  He turned and walked out. Should he have told?

  Did he have a choice?

  The least he could do was ride back up there and tell how many Sundeen had. God—and watch their faces drop.

  The photographer from Beuhman & Hartwell caught him outside on the steps and said, “If you're going back up, I'm going with you.” Then Bill Wells of the St. Louis paper and several other reporters said they were going too. Then a man Maurice had never seen before came up and said, “Maurice, I've been looking for you. I'll be in your debt if you'll present me to Dana Moon and Captain Early.”

  Maurice was certain he had never seen the man before this. For how could he have forgotten him? The gleaming store teeth and waxed guardsman mustache twirled to dagger points—

  “Colonel Billy Washington, at your service, Maurice.”

  —the pure-white Stetson, the tailored buckskin coat with white fringe, the black polished boots with gold tassels in front—

  “You've heard of me, have you?”

  “Yes sir, I certainly have,” Maurice said. God, all this happening at once. “I just have never seen you in person before.”

  “Well, you see me now,” Colonel Washington said.

  3

  Bo Catlett rode up out of the barranca and crossed the open ground to the wall. He said to the people standing behind it, “They on the way.”

  “How many?” asked Bren.

  “Say a hundred, give or take.” Bo Catlett rode into the yard before stepping down, pulled his carbine from the boot and slapped his mount toward the smell of feed and water over in the corral.

  “Five to one,” Bren said, sounding pleased.

  Kate looked at him, her Henry resting on the wall. Moon gazed down the slope, past the open ground to the trough of the barranca. He could see figures now, a line of tiny dark specks coming up the switchback trail, through the field of saguaro.

  Bren raised the field glasses hanging from his neck and studied the enemy approaching. “Straggling…close it up there!”

  Moon looked at his Apaches. They looked at him, faces painted now with streaks of ochre. He turned to look at the Mexicans lining the wall: Eladio with his sword and green sash among the farmers in white cotton.

  “Tell 'em to get ready,” Bren said, field glasses at his face.

  “You don't have to stay,” Moon said in Spanish. “No one is asked to fight one hundred men.”

  The Indians and the Mexicans remained at the wall, looking from Moon to the slope. They saw another of the colored men now, Thomas Jefferson, coming across the open ground and through the gate space in the wall.

  “They dismounting, like to come as skirmishers.”

  Bren lowered his glasses and called out, “Come on! Take your medicine like little men!…Christ, what're they fooling around down there for?”

  Moon said to Bo Catlett, “They'd do better to stay mounted and run at us.”

  “Man never soldiered,” Bo said. “Can see he don't know doodly shit what he's doing.”

  The sound of firing came from down the slope now…the tiny figures spreading out, moving up slowly, dropping down to fire, waiting, moving up again.

  “Christ, it'll take 'em till tomorrow,” Bren said. The Mexican farmers were raising their rifles. “Not yet,” Moon said in Spanish. “If you shoot now I think they won't come close enough. We want them up there on the open ground.”

  “We get them up,” Bo said.

  “What's your signal?” Moon asked him.

  “Three quick ones. My boys'll light the fuses and get.”

  Moon held his hand out. In a moment Bren noticed and handed him the glasses. Moon studied the figures coming up through the brush and fencepost saguaros. He raised his gaze to a high point on one side of the barranca, then moved across to the other side where the barranca, narrowed and Bo Catlett's powdermen had planted the charges. The tiny figures dotting the slope were coming up through the narrowing of the trough and spreading out again, more of them firing now, the closest nearing two hundred yards. They could blow the charges now and wipe out about a quarter of Sundeen's men and send the rest running. But that wasn't the plan. No, Bren had promised Sundeen safe passage—one general to another. That was all right. Because the plan was to get them all up on high ground, in the open, then blow the narrows and cut off their retreat, prevent them from falling back to cover. Get them milling around in the open and shoot the spirit right out of them, blow Sundeen to his reward and close the book. That was the plan.

  The first skirmishers were approaching a hundred and fifty yards now, snapping shots and moving up, feeling the excitement of it probably, feeling braver and with no one shooting back. Moon moved his glasses over them to pick out Sundeen. Not in the first bunch…there he was with his funneled hat and silver buckles, crossed gunbelts and a six-shooter in each hand, waving his men to come on, goddamn it, get up there.

  Moon set the glasses on the wall and raised his Big-Fifty Sharps.

  “Don't you do it,” Bren said.

  Moon said, “I'm just seeing how easy it would be.”

  “Let him come up all the way.”

  Pretty soon now.

  The skirmishers were firing from a hundred yards and the tail end of Sundeen's men was moving through the narrows. The firing increased. Sundeen positioned a line of shooters behind cover, just across the open ground—about twenty of them—gave a signal and they all fired at once.

  Seeing this about to happen, the people behind the wall ducked down or went to one knee. All except Bren Early. After the second fusillade he said, “At Fredericksburg, where Doubleday's Iron Brigade stood up to the Rebel guns, D.H. Hill sent a flag of truce over with his compliments to General Doubleday—”

  Another volley ripped out from the brush slope. Bren tried not to hunch his shoulders.

  “—saying he had never in his experience seen infantry stand and suffer casualties under artillery fire more bravely.”

  Moon said, “You have got something in your head about having to die to win glory. If that's the deal, I pass…Bo, let's close the back door. Give your troopers the signal.”

  Bren, standing, said, “Hold there,” and picked up the glasses from the wall. “Some more are coming up behind.”

  Kate had said to Moon, “I'm not staying in the house; you know that.” He said no, he guessed not. “But if you worry out there about me instead of yourself, you'll get shot. So think of me as another hand, not as a woman or your loved one.” Moon had agreed because there was no fighting her. Though he had said, “If something happens to you, your old dad will kill me.”

  At the wall now Kate was alert, aware of being in the middle of men's business and would pick out little things that surprised or impressed her. The stoic look of the Apaches. Were they afraid? Was Eladio afraid? Yes, he looked it; but didn't leave when given the chance. Was Bren afraid, standing up to their rifle fire? Or was he beyond fear, playing his hero role? Bo Catlett and the other cavalryman—she thought of them as professional soldiers who would stand because that's what you did. Moon. Moon had good sense, he must be afraid. But his look was the same, his gaze, his unhurried moves, the hunk of tobacco in his jaw. She did not think of herself until the concentrated fire came f
rom the slope and she crouched close to the adobe, feeling the pistol in the waistband of her skirt digging into her, clutching the Henry tightly and seeing her knuckles, close to her face, standing out white and hard. There was a feeling of terrible pressure. She could die on this spot…hearing Moon say if that was the deal he'd pass, saying it so calmly…all of them appearing calm as the rifle fire cracked and sang through the air. Determined, not resigned, but quiet about it. You'd better be, huh? Was it that simple? Run and they'd shoot you in the back. It was fascinating, even with the feeling of pressure. The ultimate, a life or death situation. Bren said, “Hold there…” The firing stopped. They began to raise up from the wall.

  “They're riding through Sundeen's people,” Bren said. “They're not his. Some other bunch.”

  “That's your friend,” Moon said. “What's his name.”

  “Maurice. Christ Almighty, one of'em's leading a pack animal.”

  Kate could see the shooters who had been down in the scrub and rocks standing now, looking around, as this parade of single-file riders came through them led by Maurice Dumas…nine, ten of them, the packhorse carrying something covered with canvas, poles sticking out, bringing up the rear. They came across the open ground and now the second rider, wearing a tall white hat, drew even with Maurice in his cap. As Kate got a good look at the man she said, “My God,” and turned to Moon who was staring at them and showing the first expression of pure surprise she had ever seen on his face.

  The man in the white Stetson and fringed buckskin dismounted in the yard. Maurice, still mounted, was saying something as the others rode into the yard behind him. The man in the white hat raised his hand to stop Maurice. “No need,” he said, and walked over to Moon and Bren Early.

  “Gentlemen, I would know you anywhere. Even if I had not seen your renowned C.S. Fly photographs I would know you are the famous scout, Dana Moon…and you, sir, Captain Brendan Early.” He was taking something out of his fringed coat now—his false teeth and waxed handlebars agleam, something that looked like picture postcards in vivid colors, and said, “Gentlemen, may I present myself…Colonel Billy Washington, here to extend a personal invitation to both of you to join the world-famous Billy Washington All-American Wild West Show as star attractions and performers…if, of course, you get out of this jackpot you're in alive. What do you say, gents?”