Elmore Leonard - Valdez Is Coming

Goddam, it didn’t sound right, hearing himself speaking with his goddam neck bent back and Tanner looking down at him like God in black boots and a black hat over his eyes.

“I mean if the woman was to go to the courthouse and say some men have killed my husband, by mistake, as an accident. So I think somebody should pay me for that – don’t you think the court would say sure and order that we pay her something?”

“Jesus Christ,” R. L. Davis said. Valdez did not look at him, but he knew it was Davis. He saw Tanner’s eyes shift to the side, slide over and back to him again.

“I’m talking about what’s fair,” Valdez said. “I’m not trying to cheat anybody – if you think I want to take the money and run off. No, you can give it to the woman yourself. I mean have one of your men do it. I don’t care who gives it to her.”

Tanner continued to stare at him until finally he said, “You don’t learn. I guess I have to keep teaching you.”

“Tell me why you don’t think she should have something,” Valdez said. “You explain it to me, I understand it.”

“No, I think there’s only one thing you’ll understand.” Tanner’s gaze went to his segundo. “You remember that one tried to run off with the horses?”

Valdez lowered his head to look at the segundo, who was nodding, picturing something. “The one who liked to walk,” the segundo said.

Valdez heard Tanner say, “That one,” and the segundo continued to nod his head, then raised it and gazed about the square.

“We can use the poles from the gate,” the segundo said, looking toward the church, “and have some more cut.”

Tanner was saying, “All right,” and the segundo was looking at Valdez now. He nodded once.

Valdez felt the hand at his shoulder, fingers clawing into his neck as the hand clutched his bandana, and his own hands went to the horn of his saddle. He felt the Mexican’s horse tight against his left leg, then moving away and the Mexican pulling him, choking him, until his hands slipped from the saddle horn and he was dragged from his horse, stumbling but not able to fall, held up by the Mexican’s fist twisted in the tight fold of his neckerchief. They were around him and someone hit him in the face with a fist. It didn’t hurt him, but it startled him; he was struck again on the back of the neck, then in the stomach, seeing the man close to him swing his fist and not being able to turn away from it. He went down and was kicked in the back, pushed over and pressed flat to the hard-packed ground. His hat was off now. A foot came down on his neck, pinning him, face turned to the side against the ground. Now they pulled his arms straight out to the sides and he felt a sharp pain through his shoulder blades as he was held in this position. Several minutes passed and he rested, breathing slowly to relax and not be tensed if they hit him again. Boots were close to his face. The boots moved and dust rose into his nostrils, but no one kicked him.

They placed a mesquite pole across his shoulders that extended almost a foot on either side beyond his outstretched hands and tied it with leather thongs to his wrists and neck. They placed another pole down the length of his back, from above his head to his heels, and lashed this one to the crosspole and also around his neck and body. When this was done the segundo told him all right, stand up.

Valdez could not press his hands to the ground. He raised his head, turning it, and pushed his forehead against the hardpack, arching against the pole down his spine, straining the muscles of his neck, and gradually, kicking and scraping the ground, worked his knees up under him.

“The other one didn’t get up so quick,” the segundo said.

Valdez was on his knees raising his body, and he was kicked hard from behind and slammed onto his face again.

“This one don’t get up either,” the Mexican said.

Valdez heard Tanner’s voice say, “Get him out of here,” and this time they let him work his way to his knees and stand up. But as he straightened, the bottom of the vertical pole struck the ground and held him in a hunched position, a man with a weight on his back, his eyes on the ground, unable to raise his head. Someone put his hat on his head, too low and tight on his forehead.

“That way,” the segundo said, nodding across the square. “The way you came.”

“My horse,” Valdez said.

“Don’t worry about the horse,” the segundo said. “We take care of.”

There was nothing more to say. Valdez turned and started off, hunched over, raising his eyes and able to see perhaps twenty feet in front of him, but not able to hold his gaze in this strained position.

The segundo called after him. “Hey, don’t fall on your back. You’ll be like a turtle.” He laughed, and some of the others laughed with him.

Frank Tanner watched the stooped figure circle the water pump and move down the street past the women who had come out of the adobes to look at him.

“You fixed him,” R. L. Davis said.

Tanner’s eyes shifted to Davis, sliding on him and away from him, as he had looked at him before. “I don’t remember asking you here,” Tanner said.

“Listen,” R. L. Davis began to say.

Tanner stopped him. “Watch your mouth, boy. I don’t listen to you. I don’t listen to anybody I don’t want to listen to.”

R. L. Davis squinted up at him. “I didn’t mean it that way. I come here to work for you.”

Tanner’s gaze dropped slowly from the bent figure down the street to Davis. “Why do you think I’d hire you?”

“You need a gun, I’m your man.”

“I didn’t see you hit anything the other day.”

“Jesus Christ, I wasn’t aiming at her. You said yourself just make her jump some.”

“Are you telling me what I said?”

“I thought that’s what it was.”

“Don’t think,” Tanner said. “Ride out.”

“Hell, you can always use another man, can’t you?”

“Maybe a man,” Tanner said. “Ride out.”

“Try me out. Put me on for a month.”

“We’ll put some poles on your back,” Tanner said, “if you want to stay here.”

“I was just asking,” R. L. Davis lifted his reins and flicked them against the neck of his sorrel, bringing the animal around and guiding it through the group of riders, trying to take his time.

Tanner watched Davis until he was beyond the pump and heading down the street. The small stooped figure was now at the far end of the adobes.

The woman, Gay Erin, who had been married to the sutler at Fort Huachuca and had been living with Frank Tanner since her husband’s death, waited for Tanner to turn and notice her in the doorway behind him. But he didn’t turn; he stood on the edge of the platform over his men.

She said, “Frank?” and waited again.

Now he looked around and came over to her, taking his time. “I didn’t know you were there,” he said.

She kept her eyes on him, waiting for him to come close. “I don’t understand you,” she said.

“I don’t need that boy. Why should I hire him?”

“The other one. He asks you a simple thing, to help someone.”

“We won’t talk about it out here,” Tanner said. They went into the dimness of the warehouse, past sacks of grain and stacked wooden cases, Tanner holding her arm and guiding her to the stairway. “I let you talk to me the way you want,” Tanner said, “but not in front of my men.”

Upstairs, in the office that had been made into a sitting room, Gay Erin looked out the window. She could see R. L. Davis at the end of the street; the hunched figure of Bob Valdez was no longer in sight.

“You better keep up here from now on,” Tanner said, “unless I call you down.”

She turned from the window. “And how long is that?”