Gunsights

by Elmore Leonard

  Ed O'Day, who wore the same expression drawing a pair of aces he did picking his teeth, said, “Is this the bet we been talking about all along?”

  “I'm cutting out the only-if's and what-if's,” Bren said. “Sundeen comes back for any reason after he leaves-if it's just to go to the toilet, this check is yours. But when he doesn't, and you learn he's dead, you pay off ten to one. Which is what?”

  “Comes to seventy thousand,” Ed O'Day answered, like it was no more than a day's take.

  “This man here is our witness,” Bren said.

  “Have him write his name on the check somewhere.”

  The miner looked from Bren to Ed O'Day with his mouth partly open. “You're paying him seventy thousand dollars if Sundeen gets killed?”

  “No different'n writing life insurance,” Ed O'Day said and winked at Bren-

  Who felt good now and didn't mind at all the man's cocksure coyness.

  “I'll even pay double if he gets struck by lightning,” Ed O'Day said.

  Bren let an easy grin form, as if in appreciation, though there was more grin inside him than out.

  He said, “You never can tell.”

  2

  “All the people,” a reporter sitting on the Congress front porch said. You would think the circus was in town. It is, another reporter said; featuring Phil Sundeen and his wild animal show. Christ, look at them. Bunch of range bums and bushwackers trying to pass as Quantrill's guerrillas.

  Bren found Maurice Dumas sitting in the lobby staring at nothing. When he asked what was the matter, Maurice said he was thinking of going home; watching innocent people get shot was not his idea of covering a war. Bren said, no, when men fought without honor it was a sorry business.

  “But we're gonna teach them a lesson, partner, and I sure hope you're here to see it.”

  Maurice perked up. “You're getting into it?”

  Bren nodded.

  “When?”

  “I'll tell you,” Bren said, “this looks like it's gonna be my busy night. If you could help me out some I guarantee you'll be in the front row when the fireworks go off.”

  “Get what things done?”

  “Find Sundeen first. Tell him I'll meet him at the Chinaman's, the Oriental in about an hour.”

  “You mean-”

  “Unh-unh,” Bren said, “that's what I don't want to happen by mistake, ahead of time. Tell him I got something important to say. No guns. you'll inspect him and he can have somebody inspect me if he wants. Tell him it's the answer to how to end this deal and that he's gonna like it.”

  “I don't know if I can stand to speak to him,” Maurice said.

  “Listen, you write this story they'll make you the editor. Don't let personal feelings get in your way. The other thing-” Bren paused, looking around the lobby. He said, “Come on,” and led Maurice to the back hall where the first-floor rooms were located. The light from the wall fixtures was dim, but it was quiet here, private. Bren took a thick envelope from his pocket and handed it to Maurice.

  “List of some things I'm gonna need and the money to buy 'em with. Open it.”

  Maurice did.

  “Put the money in your pocket.”

  “Looks like a lot.”

  “Two hundred dollars is all.”

  Maurice unfolded a sheet of paper. It was Moon's “wanted” dodger.

  “You'll see the notes on there I've written.”

  “Yeah?” Maurice read them, then gave Bren a funny look, frowning. “You serious? You want this printed?”

  “Trust me and don't ask questions, it's part of the scheme,” Bren said. “You'll see where to get everything; it's all on the list. The case of whiskey, buy something good. The pack animal and cross-buck, I wouldn't pay more than fifty dollars. What else? It's going on seven o'clock, how about we meet at the livery stable eleven thirty, quarter of twelve. Sound good?”

  “I don't know if I can have everything by then.” Maurice looked worried now.

  But not Bren. He said, “Hey, are you kidding me? Anybody rises as early as you is a natural-born go-getter.”

  3

  Vandozen, seated in the middle of the settee, seemed to blend with the room, belong: formal but relaxed in his light-gray business suit and wing collar; pinch-nose glasses hanging from a black ribbon, resting on his vest.

  Janet Pierson said, “Mr. Vandozen is here.” Saying it as Bren came through the kitchen and the two men were already face to face. “He's been waiting for you. I asked him if he'd like some coffee-”

  “How about cognac?” Bren said.

  Vandozen nodded. “A small one. Mrs. Pierson was kind enough to let me wait.”

  “I didn't know you were in town.” Bren glanced at Janet.

  Vandozen watched her go out to the kitchen as he said, “I built a place near Lordsburg, to be close to our New Mexico operations, some good ones just getting started.” His gaze returned to Bren who was seated now in an easy chair, his hat off, coat open. “I can be here overnight on the Southern Pacific, but I hadn't planned on coming as often as I have.”

  “No, this kind of business,” Bren said, “you don't plan its twists and turns, do you?”

  “We're going to end it,” Vandozen said. “I want you to go out, talk to this Moon. Tell him we'll make a deal with him.”

  “What kind of deal?” Bren said, taken by surprise. Jesus Christ, he didn't want any deal. Not now. He stared at Vandozen sitting on that velvet settee like it was his throne.

  “You're going to arrange a meeting between this Moon and myself.” Vandozen paused, his gaze moving as Janet came in with a decanter and two brandy snifters, and watched her as she served them, saying, “Very nice. Thank you.”

  Bren remained silent, edgy now. Damn. Seeing his plan coming apart. He said, “It's dark in here. Why don't you turn up the lamps?”

  “It's fine,” Vandozen said. “Though you can close that front window if you don't mind.”

  There were occasional sounds from outside, men's voices in the street: first-shift miners returning to their quarters, some of them a little drunk.

  Jesus Christ, whose house was it? Bren said, “What do you want to talk for? Your man's going out again; he'll get it done.”

  “He's not getting it done,” Vandozen said, with emphasis but more quietly than Bren had spoken. “This business should have been handled quickly with a show of force. Offer one choice, leave, that's all. What does he do, stumbles around, can't even find them. When he does, he ties up three Mexicans and shoots them with a newspaperman as a witness. Which is going to take some countering, not to mention money.”

  “It's gonna be over soon,” Bren said.

  “I know it is. You bring this Moon to me and we'll make a deal.”

  “His name's Dana…Dana Moon,” Bren said.

  “That's fine. Go get him. Tell him we'll meet at his office or mine, I don't care. Criminal charges against him will be dropped. We'll pay for-no, we'll work out some plan of assistance for anyone whose home or crops were damaged. Tell him any future survey work will be done in isolated areas.”

  Bren said, “Ah, now we're getting to it. You haven't found the copper you thought you would, huh?”

  “I can say test samples have been misleading, promising more than the locations would ever yield,” Vandozen said. “But that's beside the point. I made an error in judgment, this business going on; allowed it to take on far more prominence-considerably more of my time than it's worth. So you and I are going to bring it to a halt.”

  “I don't believe it's part of my job,” Bren said, “since I'm not a messenger boy.”

  Vandozen looked at him for what seemed a long time, though perhaps only ten seconds. “What is your job?” he asked.

  “I don't know. Tell me.”

  “Isn't this Moon a friend of yours?”

  “Dana Moon.”

  “You two, I understand, used to be close friends?”

  “What's that got to do with it?”

  “D
on't you want to help him?”

  “Dana can handle it himself.”

  “For God's sake-” Janet Pierson said.

  The two men looked at her seated in the straight chair, away from them.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

  “Mrs. Pierson understands,” Vandozen said. “Or, I should say, she doesn't understand why you don't want to help your friend.” Still with the quiet tone.

  “I didn't say I wouldn't help him.”

  “Or why you don't want to help the company. You're a stockholder…making, what?, ten thousand dollars a year. Why would you knowingly act in violation of your contract?”

  “Knowing what?”

  “Well, doing anything that's not in the company's best interest. That's standard in any employee contract.”

  “The fine print, huh?”

  “You don't recall reading that?”

  Bren didn't answer. He sat with his cognac, looking at Vandozen, a question in his mind, but afraid Vandozen's answer would destroy his plan completely. Still he had to ask it.

  “What about Sundeen? You call him off?”

  “Not yet.”

  Bren let his breath out slowly. “When you gonna see him?”

  “He's to see me first thing in the morning.”

  “So he doesn't know about this yet.”

  “He'll be fired five minutes after he walks in the office.”

  Bren sat in the deep chair another moment, comfortable, beginning to feel pretty good, yes, confident again. He finished his cognac and pulled himself out of the chair.

  “Well, I might as well get going. You'll know something tomorrow.”

  Janet Pierson said, “Do you mind? It's stuffy in here.”

  Vandozen watched her raise the window and stand looking out, her back to him.

  “Why does he have to go tonight?”

  “Because he's childish,” Vandozen said. “He has to go out and kick rocks, or run his horse till it lathers.” He reached over to place his glass on the end table and sat back again.

  “He is like a little boy,” Janet said.

  “Yes, he is…Why don't you come over here?” Vandozen watched her turn from the window. “Come on…sit here.”

  When she was next to him, on the edge of the settee, he put his hand on her shoulder and brought her gently back against the cushion. His hand remained as he said, “Tell him you're leaving.”

  She looked at his face that was lined but not weathered, the skin on his neck loose, crepe-like, in the starched white collar.

  “I admired you when you admitted you'd made a mistake.”

  “Not a mistake, a misjudgment. Come to Lordsburg with me.”

  “Don't you have a wife?”

  “In New Jersey. Not in New Mexico, Colorado or Arizona.”

  “I admired the way you never raised your voice, even when you said things with feeling.”

  “Yes,” Vandozen said, drawing her against his shoulder, “in certain areas I have firm convictions and feelings.”

  4

  Bren sat at a corner table in the Oriental. He let Sundeen take his time and look around. When Sundeen finally came over he pulled out the chair across from Bren and sat down.

  “Now then,” Sundeen said, “where were we?”

  “They're trying to call the game.” Bren sat with his hands flat on the table. “Vandozen says he's had enough of your monkeyshines. He's gonna fire you tomorrow, and all those hoboes you got riding for you.”

  Sundeen nodded, not surprised. “You would think he had something personal to do with this.” He sat back in his Douglas chair saying, “Shit.”

  “There's hope,” Bren said, “if you can get your misfits out of town before morning. He can't find you, he can't fire you, can he?”

  “I don't know-don't many of 'em snap to as they should,” Sundeen said. “There's some mean Turks, but most of 'em ain't worth cow shit.”

  “How many you need?…How many does Moon have?”

  “Who in the hell knows? All I seen was women and little kids.”

  “Some Mexicans with their hands tied, I understand.”

  “And their eyes open. They knew what they were doing. I cut the ropes, let 'em hold their old cap-n-balls, they'd still be dead, wouldn't they? I lost men blown to hell from a distance. Are we talking about rules of some kind or what?”

  “We're getting off track,” Bren said.

  “You're the one called this,” Sundeen said, his snarly, ugly nature peeking through. “We can settle up right now, you want, and quit talking about it.”

  “You got spirit,” Bren said, “but save it and let's do this show with a little style. You don't want to meet in some back alley; you got a reputation to think of-as poor as it is.”

  “Jesus,” Sundeen said, on the edge now, hands gripping the arms of his chair.

  Like working a wild stallion, hold him on the line, but don't let him break his neck. Bren said, “If you're big enough to handle your men, gather 'em and head up to White Tanks. I'll get Moon, whatever people he's got…You come up the draw and we'll meet at his place.”

  Sundeen said, “Through that steep-sided chute? You must believe I'm dumb.”

  “Scout it. Turn all the rocks over, you want. I'm talking about we meet at the top, have a stand-up battle like we had in Sonora. Quit this tracking around and do the thing right.” Bren paused. Sundeen remained silent. “Unless you lack the gristle.”

  Sundeen said, “You don't need to prod, if that's what you're doing. I'm thinking.” And said then, “Why don't we meet at White Tanks?”

  “Moon won't do it, I'll tell you that right now. He'll fight for his home, but not for any government layout. He doesn't look at this the way you and I do.”

  Sundeen was thoughtful again. “It would make some noise, wouldn't it?”

  “Hear it clear across the country,” Bren said. “Get your name in the history book.”

  Sundeen grinned then, tickled. “Jesus Christ, is this the way it's done?”

  “Why not? Better than maybe we meet sometime maybe we don't.”

  “Well…Moon's place then. I guess it's as good as another.”

  As Sundeen got up, Bren said, “Whatever happened to that old segundo of yours?”

  “Ruben Vega,” Sundeen said. “He tried to change sides and didn't make it.”

  “That's too bad. He seemed a good one for his age.”

  “Yeah, he was quicker than most,” Sundeen said, “but in this game there ain't any second prize, is there?”

  5

  The sound jolted Bruckner awake: something dropped on his desk. Somebody standing there.

  Maurice said, “The printer over at the paper asked me to give these to you.”

  “What?” Bruckner said. “The hell you want?”

  Maurice stepped back from the man's stale whiskey odor. “You're supposed to post them around right away. Printer said it was ordered from the county.”

  Bruckner rubbed a hand over his face, opened his eyes and the squirt reporter was gone. He looked at his watch: twenty past twelve; heard horses outside and turned to his window.

  Three horses out there…the squirt news reporter mounting and another fella already up, leading a packhorse with gear and a wood crate lashed to the cross-buck. Bruckner watched them head down LaSalle Street into darkness.

  When he turned to his desk again he frowned and said out loud, “What in the hell-” Bren Early's photo was looking at him from a stack of “wanted” dodgers that said:

  $5,000

  REWARD

  (Dead or Alive)

  for information leading to

  the arrest or seizure of

  CAPT. BRENDAN EARLY

  wanted for the killing of

  P. Sundeen (and probably others)

  Approach with utmost caution!!!

  14

  1

  Kate said to Moon, “What do you need all those enemies for when you got a friend like Bren Early
?”

  Moon said, “How long you want to live in a line-camp and cook outside in the weather? It's a way to get it done and move back in our home.”

  “If you win,” she said.

  Moon said, “I don't worry about that part till I'm there.”

  “Do you think it makes sense?”

  Moon had taken his wife aside for this chat, away from the others sitting around the tents and brush wickiups of the camp, one of the high-up Apache rancherías.

  He said to Kate, “Don't look at it as a sensible person would. Try to see it through Bren's eyes first, the chance to do battle and win some medals.”

  “Who gives him the medals?”

  “You know what I mean-add to his stature. He missed the war and he's been moaning about it ever since. Now he sees a chance to win fame and get his picture in the paper, big.”

  “At whose expense?” Kate said.

  “You got to look at it another way too,” Moon said. “Sundeen is gonna dog us till we put an end to him. I'd rather meet him across the wall than keep looking over my shoulder…worrying about you at home the times I'm gone.”

  “Now you make it sound like a just cause,” Kate said, “but I believe the idea tickles you as much as Bren.”

  “No, not that much,” Moon said, feeling itchy, excited, but trying not to show it. “Come on.”

  They walked back through the pines to the ranchería, past the children and the squat Mimbre women at the cookfires, to where Bren was sitting on his bedroll, Maurice Dumas next to him. The Apaches had sighted them early this morning and brought them up to the camp. The case of whiskey had been opened and a bottle passed around as they discussed this business of meeting Sundeen. The whiskey was good after nearly a month of sour corn-beer. The talk was good. The idea seemed good, too. But did it make sense? Or didn't it have it?

  Bo Catlett was here and another former 10th cavalryman by the name of Thomas Jefferson. Eladio Duro, the son of Armando, was here with a heavily armed farmer named Alfonso who wore three belts of bullets. Red was here-it was his camp-with seven Mimbre Apache males who remained silent and let Red speak for them-as he was doing now in halting Spanish.