Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  "You didn't do what?" Tetley asked him gently.

  "No, I didn't, I tell you. I didn't." Then his wet wreck of a face seemed to light up with an idea.

  "He done it," he asserted. "He done it."

  "Who did it?" said Tetley, still quietly, but slowly and distinctly.

  "He did," burbled the old man, "Juan did. He told me so. No, he didn't; I saw him do it. If I saw him do it," he inquired cutely, "I know, don't I? I couldn't have done it if I saw him do it, could I?"

  The Mex didn't stir. Farnley was watching the Mex, and even his hard grin was gone. He was holding his breath, and then breathing by snorts.

  Martin spoke. "Juan couldn't have done anything. I was with him all the time."

  "Yes, he did too do it, Mr. Martin. He was asleep; he didn't mean to tell me, but I was awake and I heard him talking about it. He told me when he was asleep."

  "The old man is feeble-minded," Martin said, slowly and quietly, trying to speak so the old man wouldn't hear him. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's dreamt something." He looked down; either it hurt him to say this or he was doing a better job of acting than his condition made probable. "You can't trust anything he says. He dreams constantly; when he's awake he invents things. After a little while he really believes they have happened. He's a good old man; you've scared him and he's inventing things he thinks will save him."

  Then he flared, "If you've got to go on with your filthy comedy you can let him alone, can't you?"

  "You keep out of this." Mapes shouted, stepping quickly past the Mexican and standing in front of Martin.

  "You've had your say. Now shut up."

  Martin stared down at him. "Then let the old man alone," he said.

  Mapes suddenly struck him across the face so hard it would have knocked him over if he hadn't been tied to the others. As it was, one knee buckled under him, and he ducked his head down to shake off the sting or block another slap if it was coming.

  "Lay off Mapes," somebody shouted, and Moore said,

  "You've got no call for that sort of thing, Mapes."

  First he wouldn't talk, and now he talks too damned much," Mapes said, but let Martin alone.

  We had closed the circle as much as the fire would let us. Tetley moved closer to Martin, and Mapes made room for him, though strutting because of the yelling at him.

  "You mean actually feeble-minded?" Tetley asked. "Yes."

  "What's his name?"

  "Alva Hardwick."

  "And the other sneaks no English?" Martin didn't reply.

  "What's his name?"

  "Juan Martinez."

  "No, it isn't," old Bartlett said.

  Tetley turned and looked at old Bartlett. "You seem to know something about this man?" he asked.

  "I've been trying to tell you ever since this fool questioning started," Bartlett told him, "but you've got to be so damned regular,"

  "All right, all right," Tetley said impatiently. "What is it?"

  Bartlett suddenly became cautious. "I don't want to say until' I'm sure," he said. He went up to the Mex.

  "Remember me?" he asked. "At Driver's, last September?"

  The Mex wouldn't know he was being talked to. Bartlett got angry; when he got angry his loose jowls trembled.

  "I'm talking to you, greaser" he said.

  The Mex looked at him, tool quick and narrow for not understanding, but then all he did was shake his head and say, "No sabbey," again.

  "The devil you don't," Bartlett told him. "Your name's Francisco Morez, and the vigilantes would still like to get hold of you."

  The Mex wouldn't understand.

  "He talks English better than I do," Bartlett told Tetley. "He was a gambler, and claimed to be a rancher from down Sonora way somewhere. They wanted him for murder."

  "What about that?" Tetley asked Martin.

  "I don't know," the kid said hopelessly. "Does he speak English?"

  The kid looked at the Mex and said, "Yes."

  The Mex didn't bat an eye.

  "How long's he been with you?"

  "He joined us in Carson." Martin looked up at Tetley again. "I don't know anything about him," he said. "He told me that he was a rider, and that he knew this country, and that he'd like to tie up with me. That's all I know."

  "They stick together nice, don't they?" Smith said. "You picked him up on nothing more than that?"

  Tetley asked Martin.

  "Why don't you come to the point?" Martin asked. "Why ask me all these questions if you don't believe anything I tell you?"

  "There's as much truth to be sifted out of lies as anything else," Tetley said, "if you get enough lies. Is his name Morez?" he went on.

  "I tell you I don't know. He told me his name was Martinez. That's all I know."

  Without warning Tetley shifted his questioning to the old man. "What did he do?" he asked sharply.

  "He did," mumbled the old man. "Yes, he did too; I saw him."

  "What did he do?"

  "He said that -he said." The old man lost what he was trying to tell.

  "He said . . ." encouraged Tetley.

  "I don't know. I didn't do it. You wouldn't kill an old man, Mister. I'm very old man, Mister, very old man."

  He assumed his expression of cunning again. "I wouldn't live very long anyway," he said argumentatively.

  "You're a big help," Bartlett said.

  "Yeah," said Farnley, grinning at Tetley, "he makes it all clear, don't he?"

  "What do you know about the old man?" Tetley asked Martin patiently.

  "He's all right; he wouldn't hurt anything if he could help it."

  "And he's been with you how long?"

  "Three years."

  "As a rider?"

  "I'd rather not talk about this here," Martin said. "Can't you take me in the cabin, or somewhere?"

  "It's a better check on the stories if they don't hear each other, at that," Winder put in.

  "What stories?" Farnley asked. "One of them don't talk and the other don't make sense. There's only one story."

  "We'll do well enough here," Tetley said. "Does the old man here ride for you?"

  "Only ordinary driving. He's not a cowboy. He's a good worker if he understands, but you have to tell him just what to do."

  "Not much use in this business, then, is he?" Tetley spoke absent-mindedly, as if just settling the point for himself, but he was watching Martin. Martin didn't slip.

  "He's a good worker."

  "Why did you take him on, if he's what you say?"

  Martin was embarrassed. Finally he said, "You would have too."

  Tetley smiled. "What did he do before he came to you?"

  "He was in the army. I don't know which army; he doesn't seem to be clear about it himself. Maybe he was in both at different times; I've thought so sometimes, from things he's said. Or that might be just his way of imagining. You can't always tell what's been real with him."

  "I know," said Tetley, still smiling. "You've made a point of that. But you're sure he was in the army?"

  "He was in one of them. Something started him thinking that way."

  "A half-wit in the army?" Tetley asked, tilting his head to one side.

  Martin swallowed and wet his lips again. "He must have been," he insisted.

  "Still you say he wouldn't hurt anything?"

  "No," Martin said, "he wouldn't. He's foolish, but he's always gentle."

  Tetley just stood and smiled at him and shook his head.

  "I believe," Martin persisted, "some experience in the war must have injured his mind. There's one he always talks about, and never finishes. He must have been all right before, and something in the war did it to him."

  Tetley considered the old man. Then suddenly he drew himself up stiffly and clicked his heels together, and barked out, "Attention," with all the emphasis on the last syllable.

  Old Hardwick just looked around at all of us with a scared face, more nervous and vacant than ever because he knew we were all
watching him.

  Tetley relaxed. "I don't think so," he said to Martin.

  "He's forgotten. He forgets everything."

  Tetley shook his head, still smiling. "Not that," he said.

  "You still don't talk English?" he asked the Mex. The Mex was silent.

  Tetley sent two riders to help the Bartlett boys shag in the cattle they'd been holding. At the edge of the clearing, seeing the fire, and the men and horses, and being wild with this unusual night hazing anyway, they milled. But they didn't have to come any closer. As they turned, with the firelight on them enough, we could see Drew's brand and his notches.

  "Anything you haven't said that you want to say?" Tetley asked Martin.

  Martin drew a deep breath to steady himself. He could feel the set against him that one look at those cattle had brought on if all the talk hadn't.

  "I've told you how I got them," he said.

  "We heard that," Tetley agreed.

  "You have the steers, haven't you?" Martin asked. He was short of breath. "Well, you haven't lost anything then, have you? You could wait to hang us until you talk to Drew, couldn't you?"

  "It's not the first time," Tetley said. "We waited before."

  He studied Martin for a moment.

  "I'll make you a deal, though," he offered. "Tell us which of you shot Kinkaid, and the other two can wait."

  Martin half-way glanced at the Mex, but if he was going to say anything he changed his mind. He shook his head before he spoke, as if at some thought of his own. "None of us killed anybody," he said in that tired voice again. "We were all three together all the time."

  "That's all, I guess," Tetley said regretfully. He motioned toward the biggest tree on the edge of the clearing.

  "My God," Martin said huskily, "you aren't going to, really! You wouldn't really! You can't do it," he wailed, and started fighting his bonds, jerking the other two prisoners about. The old man stumbled and fell to his knees and got up again as if it were a desperate necessity to be on his feet, but as clumsily as a cow because of his bound wrists.

  "Tie them separately, Mapes," Tetley ordered.

  Many ropes were offered. Smith and Winder helped Mapes. Only Martin was hard to tie. He'd lost his head, and it took two men to hold him while he was bound. Then the three were standing there separately, each with his arms held flat to his sides by a half-dozen turns of rope. Their feet were left free to walk them into position. Each of them had a noose around his neck too, and a man holding it.

  In spite of Mapes trying to hold him up, Martin slumped down to his knees. We couldn't understand what he was babbling. When Mapes pulled him up again he managed to stand, but waving like a tree in a shifting wind. Then we could understand part of what he was saying. "One of them's just a baby," he was saying, "just a baby. They haven't got anything to go on, not a thing. They're alone; they haven't got anything to go on, and they're alone."

  "Take them over," Tetley ordered, indicating the tree again. It was a big pine with its top shot away by lightning. It had a long branch that stuck out straight on the clearing side, about fifteen feet from the ground. We'd all spotted that branch.

  "The Mex is mine," Farnley said. Tetley nodded and told some others to get the rustlers' horses.

  Martin kept hanging back, and when he was shoved along kept begging, "Give us some time, it's not even decent; give us some time."

  Old Hardwick stumbled and buckled, but didn't fall. He was silent, but his mouth hung open, and his eyes were protruding enormously. The Mex, however, walked steadily, showing only a wry grin, as if he had expected nothing else from the first.

  When the three of them were lined up in a row under the limb, waiting for their horses, Martin said, "I've got to write a letter. If you're even human you'll give me time for that, anyway." His breath whistled when he talked, but he seemed to know what he was saying again.

  "We can't wait all night," Mapes told him, getting ready to throw up the end of the rope, which had a heavy knot tied in it to carry it over.

  "He's not asking much, Tetley," Davies said.

  Old Hardwick seemed to have caught the idea. He burbled about being afraid of the dark, that he didn't want to die in the dark, that in the dark he saw things.

  "He's really afraid of the dark," Martin said. "Can't this wait till sunrise? It's customary anyway, isn't it?"

  Men were holding the three horses just off to the side now. Farnley was holding the hang rope on the Mex. He spoke to Tetley angrily.

  "Now what are you dreaming about, Tetley? They're trying to put it off, that's all; they're scared, and they're trying to put it off. Do you want Tyler and the sheriff to get us here, and the job not done?" As if he had settled it himself, he threw the end of the Mex's rope over the limb.

  "They won't come in this snow," Davies said.

  "I believe you're right," Tetley told Davies. "Though I doubt if you want to be." He asked Bartlett,

  "What time is it?" Bartlett drew a thick silver watch from his waistcoat pocket and looked at it.

  "Five minutes after two," he said.

  "All right," Tetley said after a moment, "we'll wait till daylight."

  Farnley stood holding the end of the rope and glaring at Tetley. Then slowly he grinned up one side of his face and tossed down the rope, like he was all done. "Why not?" he said. "It will give the bastard time to think about it." Then he walked down to the fire and stood there by himself. He was wild inside; you could tell that Just by looking at his back.

  In a way none of us liked the wait, when we'd have to go through the whole thing over again anyway. But you couldn't refuse men in a spot like that three or four hours if they thought they wanted them.

  "Reverend," Tetley said to Sparks, "you can settle your business at leisure."

  It was suggested that we put the prisoners into the cabin, but Tetley said it was too cold, and no stove. The fire was fed up again, and the three men put on different sides of it. It was hard to tell where to go yourself. You wanted to stay near the fire, and still not right around those men.

  Martin asked to have his hands untied. "I can't write like this," he explained. The Mex said something too, in Spanish.

  "He wants to eat," Amigo told us. "He say," he grinned, "he ees mucho hongry from so mooch ride and so mooch mooch of the talk." The Mex grinned at us while Amigo was talking.

  "Let him ask for it himself, then," Bartlett said.

  "Untie them all," Tetley said, and appointed Smith and Moore and Winder to keep them covered. When he was freed, Martin moved to sit on a log on his side. He sat there rubbing his wrists. Then he asked for paper and a pencil. Davies had a little leather account book and a pencil in his vest. He gave them to Martin, showing him the blank pages in the back of the book. But Martin's hands were shaking so he couldn't write. Davies offered to write for him, but he said no, he'd be all right in a few minutes; he'd rather write this letter for himself.

  "Will the others want to write?" Davies asked him.

  "You can ask Juan," Martin said, looking at the Mex. Whenever he looked at the Mex he had that perplexed expression of wanting to say something and deciding not to. "It's no use with the old man, though," he said, looking up at Davies and remembering to smile to show he was grateful. "He wouldn't know what to say, or howto say it. I don't believe he has anybody to write to, for that matter. He forgets people if they're not right around him."

  When Amigo asked him, Juan said no, he didn't care to write. For some reason he seemed to think the idea of his writing to anyone was humorous.

  Ma was examining the rustlers' packs, which had been propped against the cabin wall. She was going to get a meal for the Mex. She drew articles out, naming them for everybody to hear as she removed them. There was a lot more than three men could want for a meal or two. There was a whole potato sack of very fresh beef, which had been rolled up in paper and then put in the sack, and the sack put in the lee of the cabin, half buried in an old drift. There was coffee too.

  When Ma h
ad called off part of her list Smith yelled to her to fix a spread for everybody. He explained loudly that if they had to freeze and lose sleep because somebody was afraid of the dark, they didn't have to starve too, and that it wasn't exactly robbery because by the time it was eaten that food wouldn't belong to anybody anyway. He also hinted that the beef probably belonged to some of us anyhow. He had managed to bring a bottle along, and now that there was no immediate excitement he pulled on it frequently. He was a good deal impressed with how funny he was.

  A few men looked around hard at Smith, but most pretended that they were thinking about something and hadn't heard him. Moore spoke up though, and told Ma he didn't want anything; then others of us told her the same thing. Smith called us queasy, but when nobody answered he didn't go any further. He knew what we meant. You can't eat a man's food before him and then hang him.

  When Ma set to cooking it, though, with Sparks helping her, many changed their minds. There was a belly­searching odor from that meat propped on forked sticks and dripping and scorching over the coals. None of us had had a real meal since midday, and some not then, and the air was cold and snowy and with a piny edge. It carried the meat smell very richly.

  Gil made me drink some of the coffee because my teeth were chattering. I wasn't really so cold as thinned out by the loss of blood. Coffee was better than the whisky had been, and after it I sneaked a bit of the meat too, being careful that Martin didn't see me eat it. I only chewed a little, though, and knew I didn't want it. I took more coffee.

  Sparks took meat and bread and coffee on their own plates and in their own cups to the three prisoners. The Mex ate with big mouthfuls, taking his time and enjoying it. The strong muscles in his jaws worked in and out so the firelight shone on them when he chewed. He washed it down with long draughts of coffee too hot for me to have touched, and nodded his head at Ma to show it was all good. When he was done eating he took a pull of whisky from Gil, rolled and lit a cigarette, and sat cross-legged, drawing the smoke in two streams up his nostrils and blowing it out between his lips in strong jets that bellied out into clouds at the end. He watched the fire and the smoke from his cigarette, and sometimes smiled to himself reminiscently.