We got back to the hotel about eleven. I said, “Let’s get to bed.” I looked around grimly. “Tomorrow we’re going to make something happen. I don’t know what, but something.”
Jack said, “Go slow, Justa. Remember what I said earlier.”
“I remember,” I said.
4
Obregon’s clerk said we’d have to wait, but I wasn’t in a waiting mood. We shouldered him out of the way and Jack and I opened the door to the lawyer’s office and went in. Obregon was leaning over a mirror on his desk, a pair of scissors in his hand, trimming his mustache. He looked up in astonishment as we came in. “Perdone ustedes.” That was kind of a strange thing to say considering it was us doing the busting in and, by rights, us who ought to be asking his pardon.
But right then I wasn’t in any mood to worry about the niceties of the situation. I put my hands on his desk and leaned into his face. I said, “Señor Obregon, where is my brother? He should have been released yesterday.”
Wasn’t no need for Jack to translate. I reckon the good señor had been expecting us. He said, “Es complicaciones. Muy malo.”
I said, “It’s gonna get much more than very bad if you don’t produce my brother. You got my money, now keep your word. Tell him, Jack.”
I’m sure Jack did it a good deal more diplomatically than I’d stated the case. Señor Obregon just leaned back in his chair and then made a short reply.
Jack said to me, “Would you like some coffee?”
“Hell no! I want my brother.” I was having a good deal of trouble keeping my temper in check.
Jack said, “Well, Señor Obregon generally has some ’bout this time. He hopes you’ll forgive him if he goes ahead.”
Sure enough, about then the clerk came in with a pot of coffee and three of those small cups they drink that stuff out of. I waved him away, but Jack took a cup. I said, “Jack, get after his ass.”
He gave me a warning look and said, quietly, “Take it easy, Justa.”
I finally sat down and waited for them to finish their coffee. and get to talking. Jack said, “Señor Obregon says he’s sorry ’bout the hold up, but Davilla is giving him some trouble.”
“I’ll bet,” I said dryly. “What comes next?”
“Wahl,” Jack said, “he claims Davilla has done got his honor upset again because we ain’t come across with all the money.”
“I’ll bet on that, too.”
“That’s what he claims.”
“Ask him when he saw Davilla.”
When he came back to me he said, “He says him and Davilla had a long talk yesterday afternoon and then again last night at Davilla’s place.”
“Davilla is supposed to have come here?”
Jack pulled a face. “That’s what he claims.”
“Then this place must have a back door we don’t know nothing about.” I looked around the whitewashed walls. “I don’t see a back door, nor a side door. You see one, Jack?”
He was giving me a kind of strained look. He said, “Justa, take it easy. Don’t call him no liar. We on a little muddy ground right now. Listen, he says if you fork over another five hunnert he’s purty sure he can deliver Norris this afternoon.”
“He was sure yesterday. What about that?”
Jack was still talking low, trying to get me not to make any disturbance. He said, “Don’t go to challengin’ him, Justa. This ain’t the time er the place fer it. I’ll tell him you’ll thank it over.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m going to give him the five hundred.” I dug in my pocket and handed Jack a wad of peso notes. “Count off the right amount and hand it over to him. You know how to figure it better than I do.”
Jack did as he was bade. The lawyer picked up the money and counted it. Then he looked at me and said, “Hokay.”
I didn’t say anything.
And this time I didn’t bother with the hand-shaking. I let Jack handle that chore. I was already out in the street by the time he caught up with me. I said, “Jack, I got a hard job for you. I want you to find out where this Davilla feller lives. Or where he is. I want a look at him.”
“You want me to start now?”
“Yeah. Make up some story that ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
“All right,” he said. He veered off and started back toward the police station while I continued on toward the hotel.
The minute I walked into the room Ben said, “Well? What’d the son of a bitch have to say?”
“Shut up,” I said. I sat down at the table we had in the middle of the room and poured myself out a shot of whiskey. While I sipped it I let my mind run. An idea was starting to come into my mind, but the first thing I needed was someone who spoke Spanish like a Mex and who looked enough like a Mex to get by except on close inspection. I said to Ben, “I want you to go down to the telegraph office. I reckon it’s at the train depot. Get off a wire to Lew Vara. Tell him I need him in Monterrey and I need him right now.”
Ben got up. He said, “What good is a Texas sheriff down here?”
I said, “Just do it.”
Then I turned to Hays. “Ray, I want you to go find whatever passes for a mercantile store in this place and buy about ten pounds of black powder. I also want you to get about ten feet of primer cord and a hammer and a handful of tenpenny nails.”
Ben was standing with his hand on the doorknob. He said, “What the hell are you up to?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’m taking out a little insurance. Now go on and telegraph Lew.”
He said, “What makes you think he can just up and come down here? Leave the town without a sheriff for three or four days.”
“Be the same if he got the grippe or a bad cold.” I lit a cigarillo. “Now get going. Both of you. I may have some more errands when you get back.”
After they’d left I sat and smoked and drank and thought. I wasn’t a man who came to anger easy, but when I did I was prone to take a pretty steady stand on it. And I wasn’t a man who allowed people to break their promises to me or to play fast and loose with my family’s welfare or my family’s money. And I was starting to get the idea that I had run into some gentlemen who had that very thought in mind. In fact I was beginning to get the firm impression that I might be dealing with some thieves and scoundrels.
And I didn’t like that.
Obregon hadn’t kept his word about anything so far and I was already out $1740, not counting expenses and what I’d spent on petty bribes. I figured I’d better go to making some plans that didn’t depend so heavily on Señor Obregon.
I didn’t know for certain, in detail, what those plans was going to be, but I was sort of beginning to marshal my personnel and ordnance for whatever might come to mind.
Of course I realized that the odds were way against me and that I was operating in a strange country where I didn’t know all the rules and style of play and couldn’t expect any help, but sometimes you get so fed up you don’t pay much attention to the conditions.
I was about at that point.
Of course they might release Norris the next day and then all my planning would have been in vain, but Dad had always said that the brain was just another muscle and needed exercise just like your pecker.
I’d always taken those words to heart.
So even if I didn’t need my plan, my brain would have got a good workout just thinking it up.
Hays was back first. He came in carrying the black powder and the other materials like he was lugging a newborn baby. He set it down carefully on the table and said, “Boss, I reckon you know that black powder is dangerous. Especially the older it gits. An’ I reckon this is some old. Hell, ain’t nobody uses that stuff no more. What the hell you goin’ to do with it?”
I just said, “I forgot something. You reckon you can find some kerosene?”
He looked at me slack-mouthed. “Coal oil? Hell, boss, we got some of that in the lamps. They gettin’ low? Hotel supposed to handle that.”
I s
aid, “I figure to need about a gallon.”
“A gallon of coal oil?”
“Yeah. Now.”
He went out the door shaking his head. The last I heard him say was, “Well, if that don’t beat all.”
Ray was a man who needed things explained to him in some detail. I didn’t feel like it right then.
Ben got back a little bit later. He lounged in a chair, eyeing the stuff on the table. Finally he took a look in the cloth sack holding the black powder. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy his curiosity. He had a to get a dab out with his fingers and smell it and taste it. He said, “You planning on loading up a cannon and putting a ball through the walls of that jail?”
“Maybe,” I said.
He poured himself out a drink of whiskey. “Well,” he said, “let’s do something. Even if it’s wrong. This sittin’ around waitin’ on some fucking crooked lawyer to do something is making me jumpy.”
I said, “We’ll see what happens this afternoon. We’ll go that far. When Hays and Jack Cole get back we’ll go eat.”
Hays came back not long afterwards carrying a gallon can of kerosene. He set it against the wall and said to Ben, “You know what thet is?”
Ben put his nose up in the air. “Well, judgin’ from the smell of it I’d say kerosene.”
“Coal oil. Lamp oil. Yore brother sent me fer it. Now what do you make of that?”
Ben shrugged. “I reckon,” he said, “he was afraid we’d run short.”
“Short?” Hays looked at him. “Heve you both lost yore minds? I never heered of fetchin’ in yore own coal oil.”
Ben said, “You supposed to in Mexico.”
Hays looked at him hard for a moment. Then he said, “Aw, you joshin’ me.” But he looked back and forth from me and Ben, unsure. That was the problem with Hays; he was too easy to kid. He said, “Bet you it’s got somethin’ to do with that black powder, ain’t it, boss?”
“No,” I said. Then, “I wonder where the hell Jack is?”
We waited another hour, but there was no sign of Jack. Neither did any word come from Obregon. The latter didn’t surprise me because I’d already made my mind up that Senor Obregon had his own plans. But I was getting considerably worried about Jack. Finding out about Davilla shouldn’t have taken him as many hours as he’d been gone.
We passed the afternoon drinking, smoking, pacing, and looking out the window that faced on the main street. If you craned your neck out far enough and looked southeast you could just see the jail sticking up like a rock amidst the adobe and stucco houses and huts that surrounded it. Monterrey was like a rabbit’s warren with little streets running every which way. Some of them led to a destination, some of them led nowhere. Seldom was one straight its entire length. Most of them curved around a house or a tree or a wall or just curved for no good reason.
By seven that night nothing had happened—no sign, no signal from Obregon. We went down and ate dinner. Didn’t seem like the menu ever changed. You always had beans and you always had peppers and you always had tortillas. About the only choice you had was whether you wanted the tough, stringy beef raw or half-raw. Ben said, “I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but this swill almost makes me homesick for Buttercup’s cooking.”
Jack came back at about half past eight. He said, “Any word from Obregon?”
I shook my head.
He said, “Wahl, I ain’t surprised. I figured this matter was gonna take a week at the rate of about five hunnert a day. Wonder what his excuse will be in the morning?”
I said, “What about you? I was getting a little worried.”
He sat down and poured himself out a drink of whiskey. He’d taken in the supplies I’d sent Hays for, but he hadn’t said anything. He said, “Wahl, it took some little doin’. Most folks around here don’t like to talk ’bout Davilla. They more or less afeered of him. I finally found me a charro who’d worked on his ranchero and got him about half drunk and give him ten dollars and got a little help. Davilla lives on a small place about two miles south of town. Pretty poor-looking place. Seems to keep mostly horses and I don’t reckon he’s got enough land for cattle. I rode out there with this here charro. He was nearly scairt to death. But we got up close enough fer me to peek in the winder. Davilla was there, all right. Jest sittin’ in a chair havin’ a drink. Had his uniform on.”
“What does he look like?”
“Aw, he’s a pretty well set up feller. Couldn’t tell how tall he was ’cause he never stood up whilst I was thar an’ my charro was gettin’ mighty anxious. Got a little mustache. Supposed to be plenty mean.”
I smoked for a moment, thinking. Then I said, “Jack, in the morning I want you and Ben to saddle up and ride down to that little village that Señor Elizandro comes from. Find his ranch and go talk to his men. Tell them he’s in jail and wants them to come to me. See how many you can bring back with you. Ben, you look them over carefully. I got the impression from Elizandro that they might be pistoleros. Look ’em over carefully. Don’t bring no peons back.”
Jack looked around and then said, carefully, “What are you planning, Justa?”
“I don’t know,” I said, just as carefully. “But I’m getting tired of this foolishness and I’m getting tired of my brother in jail.”
Jack said, “I wouldn’t get too rash. They say it ain’t real smart to play against a stacked deck.”
“I got to play what I been dealt, Jack. Look, I ain’t asking you to take part in anything you can’t handle. We already got an understanding about that. I’m just asking you to go with Ben because you speak the lingo.”
“What about Obregon?”
“Oh, I’m going to see him in the morning.”
“How you going to get along without me?”
“That clerk of his speaks considerable English.”
“Yeah, but you cain’t depend on how he might inter-pet.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. I ain’t goin’ to Obregon for results. I done found out how much good that does. I’m just going because he’d expect me to show up. I could probably tell you right now what he’s going to say. ‘There’s been complications and give me some more money.’ ”
“I would reckon,” Jack said. “It’d be the same in any language.”
I didn’t sleep good that night. For one thing, I was uncertain if I was doing the right thing. It was my bet that Obregon had gotten on to how much money we had. I could probably settle the whole thing by just turning over to him every cent.
Except that went against my grain. I’d been prepared to buy Norris out, but I hadn’t been prepared to be played for a fool. I didn’t like that one little bit.
And there was the matter of my marriage, which was getting closer and closer. I was afraid to count the days, scared there might not be enough time. I’d disappointed Nora so many times before I doubted she’d stand for another time. She might not run off with another Kansas City drummer, but she’d run off from me.
And I couldn’t have that.
I was in Senor Obregon’s office at promptly ten o’clock. Ben and Jack had ridden out early and I’d left Hays with instructions to meet every train coming in from the general direction of Blessing and to find Lew. I didn’t really expect him too soon, but there was a chance he might make it by nightfall.
Obregon’s clerk, in his heavily accented English, told me I’d have to wait. It was about what I’d expected so I took a chair and studied the clerk behind his little desk. He looked about like a law clerk ought to look. He was thin and nervous, in his early twenties, and wore a shiny suit with a foulard tie. I figured Obregon paid him damn aught little, but he didn’t need to worry. He’d make it all up later in what he could learn about deceit and corruption and thievery from his boss.
After about half an hour Obregon opened the door and let me into his office. I had been curious as to how he was going to play it. This day he was contrite and worried and full of solicitude for the worry and trouble and anxiety the whole mat
ter had caused me and my family. Not to mention the money.
I took his apology in the spirit it was given and then explained, as best I could, that Jack had been called away and that it would be necessary for his clerk to interpret for us.
Well, that was just pie for him. Anything he could do to accommodate the Senor Williams was way too little. And would I like coffee?
We talked and it was a sad tale he had to tell me and no mistake. It had all been perfect, it had been arranged down almost to the last detail. At no later than five o’clock the previous evening he, himself, Obregon, the lawyer, had, by his own hands, had my brother, Norris Williams, at the very front door of the jail. Ready to step into the street a free man, ready to be welcomed back into the embrace of his family, ready to forgive and to be forgotten. And then . . .
Señor Obregon had spread his arms expressively.
But what had happened?
“Ah . . .” he’d said. “Ches. Wha’ hoppen? Ches.”
Turned out that, at the very last second, the chief of police had intervened and demanded that his office be recognized in the arrangement. It was truly a very bad state of affairs, but what could one do?
Naturally, I was as sympathetic as all get-out. I asked what it would cost to satisfy the chief’s office and, not too surprisingly, turned out it was another five hundred dollars.
I already had the peso notes counted out in my pocket. I just took them and slid them across to Obregon. But before he could reach out his delicate little fat fingers I asked about seeing my brother.
Well, that took a little more negotiating, but in the end I let loose of my end of the packet of peso notes and Senor Obregon swooped them up. We exchanged “hokays” and then I left, with the understanding that I could see Norris right away. Indeed, Señor Obregon’s clerk would accompany me at that very moment. The only thing the señor was curious about was why would I want to see my brother when it was almost a certainty he’d be out that very afternoon, God willing.
I said, wryly, “I just want to be the first to give him the good news.”
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