He was halfway back to the hotel when out of a clear sky the image of the girl in the feather-trimmed wrapper popped into his mind. He stopped for a long moment, thinking, and then he smiled wryly and went on.
He was pretty sure he knew her.
It did not sweeten him any when he got back to his room and found she had helped herself from the towel rack beside his washstand. He cut himself shaving, wiped his face on the tail of a dirty shirt, and went back to the jail in such a foul mood that even Stumpy let him alone.
All the rest of that day nothing happened.
SIX
It was night again, and still nothing had happened.
Dude had come in off the road at sunset. He had eaten about three mouthfuls of Consuela’s good beans and washed them down with so much beer that Chance expected to see it slosh out of his ears when he walked. Then he had slept for a while in one of the cells, moaning and twitching in his sleep, crying out sometimes as though he was afraid or in pain. When he did this Stumpy would speak to him with a kind of rough gentleness and Dude would quiet down. Joe Burdette watched with a curled lip, but he didn’t say anything. There was a bucket of water beside Stumpy’s chair handy for throwing.
Now Dude was awake again and the three of them were in the office. Chance sat at the desk shuffling through a mass of dodgers, some of them pretty crumpled up from having been lost in the bottom drawers of the desk. Stumpy leaned in the barred doorway, puffing an old black pipe. They both pretended not to notice Dude.
Dude was unable to sit still. He had tried two or three times to roll himself a smoke but he was only wasting the tobacco, scattering it on the floor instead of in the paper. Finally he asked Chance to build him one. He took a few drags on it and went to coughing and ground it out under his boot. A muscle kept jumping under his right eye. He put his hand up to stop it and then went over and leaned his elbows hard on the high sill of a window.
He stood there with his back to them, looking out. Chance studied him from under the tilted brim of his hat. He glanced at Stumpy. The old man shrugged.
Chance went on shuffling the dodgers.
Dude looked out into the street. It was quiet. Lights showed in the saloons. Down the way in the Rio Bravo, Raton was playing the piano. The music drifted along the street, now flat and loud, now muted when a gust of wind blew. Dude pressed his hand against his cheek. He could feel the muscle there twitching, and he could not make it stop.
“Figure they’ll try anything tonight?” he said.
Chance shrugged. “Hard to say. Nathan was a good Indian fighter. He learned a lot of tricks, and he’ll do anything that seems good to him. But I can’t quite see him rushing the jail until he’s been inside it for a look around. He’ll want to know how we’re set up here. At least, I would.”
Dude said, “I wish he’d come.”
“Me too.” Chance threw some old yellowed handbills into the box in the corner. A couple of the men wanted on them he knew were dead. “Want a beer?”
“I’m full of it. Doesn’t do much good.”
Stumpy said, “Stay with it. It’ll take hold in a day or two.”
Dude said acidly, “Think I’ll last that long?”
Chance said, “You think any of us will?” He got up, shoving one of the dodgers into his pocket, and took his rifle from the rack. “Stumpy, we’re going to take a look around. Can you hold the fort?”
“Sure,” said Stumpy. “Sure, I can hold it till hell freezes over.” He went inside the barred door and locked it. He grinned at Chance. “But I don’t see why you want to leave a nice warm jail. Don’t seem real bright to me.” He raised the shotgun and flourished it. “When you come back, holler before you open that door. I’m liable to blast just for the fun of it.”
Chance said, “We’ll holler. Come on, Dude.”
He went to the door and unbolted it, opening it a cautious crack. Dude joined him, looking over his shoulder.
“I couldn’t see anybody out there,” he said, “except the ones that’ve been there all day.” He paused. “You got a particular reason for going out?”
“I’d rather go out and see what’s coming than just sit here and wait till it comes. I never was any good at just sitting around.”
Dude said, “Or maybe you saw I wasn’t doing so good at it.”
Chance turned and looked at him. “What makes you think you’re so goddamn special?”
A spark of humor came into Dude’s eyes and lightened the sullen lines of his face. For a brief moment he looked almost as he had used to, in the days when he could drink and laugh at the same time and still be on his feet when he was through.
He said meekly, “All right, Daddy. And now could we get out of this lighted doorway before somebody takes a shot at us?”
They went out fast and Chance covered Dude while he locked the jail door. The wind was blowing harder now. It was cold, and it sent the dust up in whirling clouds, driving it into Chance’s eyes and nose. He blinked and pulled his hat lower over his face. The street was practically deserted, but he did not trust it even so. He held his rifle cocked and his finger on the trigger, and his gaze probed the darkness that lay between the buildings, in the doorways, under the porch roofs. He nodded to Dude.
“You take that side.”
Dude crossed the street, walking quick and light in his broken boots, his hand swinging loose over the butt of his gun. Chance waited till he was in position and then started to walk. Dude paced him on the other side. They went slowly, taking their time.
Chance’s nerves jumped, sending alternate waves of cold and prickling warmth over him. He had started this patrol only partly for Dude’s sake. Another hour cooped up in the jail and he would have been biting his own paws himself.
He hated sitting and waiting. He hated with a vicious intensity the business of being forced to wait, with an endless succession of guesses and wonderings going round and round in his head and getting nowhere. Perhaps Nathan will do this. Or maybe he’ll do that. And if he doesn’t, then it could be the other. But you didn’t know and so there was no way to guard against whatever Nathan might do, no plans to make, nothing to work on. And in the meantime you could not let down, not for a moment. You could not rest. And you got jaggeder and jumpier and redder in the eyes, and your reflexes slowed down and your anger built up so you were in danger of letting it take you over, and if you ever did that you were finished.
Chance saluted Nathan. He admired him. If you wanted to whittle an enemy down to nothing this was the way to do it, but only someone like Nathan would have the patience and the self-control. Chance knew that he himself would not. But Nathan had a cold dark heavy streak in him like a seam of rock.
They left the sound of the piano behind them, and the lights of the hotel. Dimmer gleams came from the low doors of the cantinas, along with the sounds of voices and the occasional sweet thrumming of a guitar. There was less laughter than usual, Chance thought, except where Wheeler’s teamsters were busy breaking their long haul. Rio Bravo was a town under siege and the people knew it. They had panicked today when Wheeler’s wagons came in, expecting Burdette men to pour out from under the tilts and start the lead to flying. They were not personally involved in the question of Joe Burdette. But they knew that a bullet in a hurry does not pause to ask a man, or a woman or a kid either, whether he deserves to be shot.
Between the cantinas the fronts of the ’dobe houses were dark and blind, the shutters closed against the wind. Only one girl, wrapped in a rebosa, sat in a window and laughed with a boy who stood on the street and leaned against the bars that kept him from her. The plaza was deserted. The black bulk of the church looked bigger than it really was at the far side of it. Behind the bell tower the cliffs rose in a wall of darkness. Chance squinted at the ragged line where the ridge stood against the stars, but it was impossible to see whether the riders, or others like them, were still there. Chance felt that they were. He looked out the other way, between the buildings, to where the land sloped
away and down and away again, so far away that the eye lost the edges of it in mirage by day and starshine by night. Silver Spur land, most of it. And somewhere out there—perhaps at the little old ’dobe ranch house that was still the only house there, or perhaps mounted on his blue roan horse and with Matt Harris riding beside him—Nathan Burdette watched and bided his time.
The idea of carrying the fight to Nathan—riding out to Silver Spur and having a showdown with him—came into Chance’s mind and was determinedly stamped down. That idea had been coming oftener and stronger all day and Chance did not like it. That was his anger talking and if he listened to it he would never have to worry about what happened to Joe Burdette, or Rio Bravo. Nathan would know what to do with him.
He and Dude walked on, and the street was very peaceful, very still.
They had almost reached the end of it when Chance passed an abandoned one-room house and heard a quick, stealthy sound inside it.
Instantly he ducked below the dark hole of the window and then made a lunge for the corner and got around it. Dude saw him and stopped. Chance swung his arm in a signal. Dude went back up the street a little way and then crossed it, fast and quiet. He disappeared. Chance waited, his shoulder pressed against the mud brick wall. It was still warm from the day’s sun. Somebody moved again inside, making a small rustling. Chance breathed slow and deep. His eyes shone. His hands were light and steady on the rifle.
A night bird called from behind the house. Chance moved. He hardly felt the impact of the rotten door as his shoulder struck it.
It let him through with a rattle and a dusty grunt. Dude came in at the same moment through the back wall, which had half fallen away. Part of the roof was gone too, and there was light enough to see by. Something humped and shadowy was there. Chance leveled his rifle at it and a face turned toward him, at about the height of his waist, a long dark face with a whitish nose and two light rings around the mildly curious eyes. Chance said, “What the …?” and then Dude said, “Hell, it’s only a burro looking for a place out of the wind.”
The burro let its head down again. Its long ears drooped placidly. One small hoof made a scraping sound on the dirt floor. Chance began to shake. Then he began to laugh. In a minute Dude was laughing too. They laughed like fools, getting some of the tension out of them, and then Chance was talking.
“Stumpy was right. Halfway down the street I got to thinking about his nice warm jail.”
“Next time don’t be in such a hurry to get us out of it,” Dude said. He ran his forearm over his face and shook all over like a dog. “I could use that beer now.”
Chance needed one himself. They left the burro to its interrupted nap and walked back up to the hotel. The edge was gone. Chance could not take any danger seriously now, not after that mild inquiring gaze that seemed to ask why he and Dude had to play such noisy games. And yet he knew that this was folly, and he forced himself to watch as sharply as he had on the way down.
There was no sign of Nathan’s men gathering the town.
He was glad when they were inside the hotel. The lights and the familiar bunch of men gambling or drinking, or both, gave Chance a feeling of safety. The lights might make you a better target, but at least you could see to shoot back. He looked over the room carefully, and then went with Dude to one end of the bar where he could stand with his back to a solid wall and keep an eye on the whole room. Dude ordered beer for both of them and the bartender went to draw it.
There was a poker game going on at one of the tables. Wheeler, flushed and loud, was playing—Pat never got quarrelsome when he was drinking, but you could hear him a long block away, letting out curses or war whoops depending on how his cards were running. The blond-haired kid, Colorado, was sitting beside him, playing his cards close and quiet. There were three or four other men that Chance knew, and one he did not except that he had come on the stage and been stranded with it—a fat dark-jowled man in a flashy checkered vest. Chance pegged him for a professional and made a mental note to be sure he got on the stage in the morning.
Next to Wheeler and looking perfectly at ease in a barroom full of men, the girl sat slapping down cards and making her bets like a veteran. She was wearing a dress now, the kind of dress that a lady would wear, and her hair was done up smooth and shiny, with a feather ornament in it. Some of the men kept looking at her sidelong, not used to having a female there and being kind of uncomfortable about it.
Chance was not surprised to see her there at all.
The bartender did not bring the beers. Carlos brought them himself. He set them down and spoke in a low voice, so that no one would overhear.
“Chance,” he said, “I am worried. There is something very bad.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the poker table, where Wheeler had let out a bellow like a wounded steer. The girl was raking in the pot.
SEVEN
Chance said, “What’s the matter, Carlos? What’s wrong?”
“Your friend Señor Wheeler.” Carlos shook his head. “He is a good friend, but not a wise one. He wishes to help you, and so he talks. From one to another he goes, saying that you should have help, asking what kind of men are here who will not help you. He talks very loud and he does not care who it is that listens. Twice I have seen him telling men who work for the Burdettes that they should go and become your deputies.”
Chance groaned and took a long drink of his beer. “I might have known,” he said.
“This is not all,” said Carlos. “You know the señor when he drinks. He swears that if no one else will stand by you he himself will do it, with his men.”
Dude looked at Chance. “That’s a bright one. Real bright.”
Chance said “Thanks” to Carlos, and went over to the table. A new hand had been dealt and Wheeler was complaining in good-natured disgust about what fate had given him. Chance nodded to Colorado and the men he knew around the table. The girl glanced up, gave him a brief bright smile, and returned instantly to her hand. Chance bent over Wheeler.
“Can I see you a minute, Pat?”
“Sure,” said Wheeler. “Sure you can. I can’t win for losing anyway.” He threw his cards down and got up. “Deal me out,” he said to Checkered Vest, and went back with Chance to the bar, where Dude had finished his beer and was starting on the half of one that Chance had left. Wheeler ignored Dude, but he said to Chance, “I’m glad you showed up. I been wanting to talk to you.”
“You’ve been talking too much,” Chance said.
“What do you mean?” Wheeler demanded. “I—”
Chance cut him short. “Look, Pat. If I wanted deputies I could ask for them myself.”
“Then why don’t you? Honest to God, Chance, I can’t figure you at all. I always thought you was pretty level-headed.” Wheeler’s broad brown weather-worn face was flushed with emotion. “I just hate to see a good man fixing to kill himself, specially when there ain’t any reason for it. Why, damn it, it’s their town you’re protecting, and there ought to be some men in it with guts enough to …”
Chance said gently, “Pat.”
Wheeler stopped with his mouth open, between words.
“There are men with guts enough, Pat. They’ve already offered their help, and I’ve already turned it down.”
“You’ve turned it down,” Wheeler repeated, staring at him. “You mean men have come up and offered to stand with you, and you’ve sent them away.”
“That’s right.”
“Can you give me a reason?” Wheeler said, still staring at him in bewilderment and blank dismay.
“I can give you two,” Chance said. “Maybe more. First place, anybody who takes sides with me is going to find himself up to his ears in trouble.”
“Well,” said Wheeler, “sure.”
“All right. Now is there any sense letting a man in for that kind of trouble when I know he can’t handle it himself, which means I’d have to try and do it for him—and when I knew he’s not going to do me one bit of good anyway?”
Wheeler tried hard to follow that. “Yeah,” he said, “but—”
“I know this town a hell of a lot better than you do, Pat. It ain’t very big when you count out the Mexicans, and you can count them out of this, it’s no quarrel of theirs and they wouldn’t get into it if you paid them. All right. Take the Americans. All the young bucks who can handle a gun, or think they can, are riding for Burdette. What’s left is storekeepers with nice pot bellies, the old men, the kids and the preacher. On the outside you’ve got some small ranchers that are already shaking in their boots hoping the Burdettes won’t notice ’em, and a bunch of working cowhands who only like to fight when they’re drunk.”
“But it’s their town,” said Wheeler stubbornly. “They’d ought to—”
“Bull,” said Chance. “I arrested a killer. That’s what they pay me to do. Anyways, I don’t need deputies, I need an army. That’s the only way I could match Burdette man for man. He’s got thirty to forty riders—probably more by now—all picked gunhands. I go sticking stars on people around town, I’m just setting up more targets for his boys to shoot at. Probably wind up with half the men in Rio Bravo dead, and it wouldn’t bother Nathan one little bit.”
Chance pushed his hat back to ease the knot on his forehead, looking thoughtful.
“And you know what? Their widows wouldn’t blame Nathan Burdette as much as they’d blame me.”
“Well,” Wheeler said, scowling, “maybe you’re right. But listen here, Chance, what about me and my boys? There’s enough of us to …”
“There’s enough of you to get killed just like the rest. Your boys are teamsters, not gunfighters. I know they can be plenty tough in a scrap, but then nearly anybody is tough when it’s his own hide he’s fighting for. This is different. They didn’t hire out to be deputies in a town they’ve only seen a couple of times. They’re working men. They got families at home. They take chances enough just doing their job. Or did they tell you they wanted to work for me?”
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