Elmore Leonard - The Bounty Hunters

When they left Alaejos, a man in white peon clothes was with them. He rode between two rurales and his hands were tied to the saddle horn. A middle-aged man with tired eyes that looked at nothing. Santana said he was a thief and one purpose of the patrol was to bring him back to Soyopa to be tried by Duro. "What did he steal? I don't know. What difference does it make? I have the name and this is the man who answers to it."

A few miles out of Alaejos Bowers noticed Santana nod to one of the men next to the peon. The rurale dropped back half a length and suddenly slapped the peon's mount across the rump. Santana waited, deliberately. No one had moved. Bowers looked at Santana quickly, with astonishment that turned to shock as Santana smiled, waiting, then with the smile in the tone of his voice shouted for his men to stop him.

A dozen rurales fired, and when the man was on the ground motionless some of them were still firing.

"Why do they always try to escape?" Santana had said, then shrugged. "Ley fuga. It saves the cost of a trial."

They had made camp later on and started for Soyopa again with the first light.

Now it was midmorning as they entered Las Quince Letras.

"Mescal?" Santana asked, and when Bowers nodded he said, "This time on me."

Bowers waited as Santana paid for the bottle. He was more than a little tired of Santana now, after a full day and a half of him, but if he wanted to buy a drink that was all right. After, he would go to Hilario's house and wait for Flynn. Today was supposed to be the day.

He was surprised at the amount of people in the shop and then he remembered that this was a festival day. There was a hum of talking spotted with laughter and the sounds of glasses and bottles. And going over the room his eyes hesitated on the table where the four Americans sat. The same table as before. One of them was the man who had torn the girl's dress off. God, he must live here. And with the same three friends. No, one of them wasn't here the other day. His eyes moved on and came back to the bar and Santana was coming toward him with bottle and glasses. There was a vacant table in front of them and they sat down at it.

"Good crowd," Bowers said, "for before noon."

Santana smiled. "Preparing themselves for the graves."

"Part of the festival?"

"The big part. Dia de Los Muertos lasts these three days. On this the first day, the graves of ancestors are visited. They are mourned, toasted and finally eaten over before the day is through. By the third day death is convinced that we aren't afraid of him."

Now they did not speak. As if there was nothing more in common between them which they had not already spoken of. Bowers, out of politeness, thought for something to say, but the things that occurred to him weren't worth talking about. There was the mescal to drink and many faces about and movements in the room to attract attention, so talk wasn't necessary. Bowers sank back into the cane-bottomed chair and sipped the sweet liquor, now and then thinking about the peon. "Why do they always try to escape?" Santana had said that, smiling. Bowers thought: If they were going to hang the man anyway, what difference does it make? But it did make a difference. It didn't seem right. Two men and a girl laughing at the next table and the girl saying something as she laughed, a phrase she repeated three, four times. The words had almost a musical sound and Bowers repeated the phrase in his mind trying to translate it. It's an idiom that you can't translate word for word. You have to concentrate, pick up the idioms, if you get those you've got the language. There's no reason in the world why you should think that peon was treated unfairly. He was a thief. He would have been tried and hanged. Their justice is somewhat more harsh, and they cut corners administering it. Now he heard the girl's voice at the next table again. He glanced that way, but a man's legs and stomach and chest were there. Two, three feet away, standing, and now Bowers looked up at him, recognizing the new man he had seen at the Americans' table and at the same quick moment he knew who the man was…though the first and only time he had seen him had been through field glasses focused on the man's back as he rode out of the canyon shadow.

"Where's your partner?" Frank Rellis said.

Bowers shrugged. "I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

Bowers hesitated. "That's a funny question."

"I don't see anybody laughin'."

Bowers sat up straighter, slowly. "I said before I don't know where he is. I don't see how I can help you."

Rellis was holding a glass in his left hand. He raised it, finishing what he was drinking, then moved to the bar and brought the glass down hard on the polished surface. He was half watching Bowers as he did this and now he turned, leaning his elbows on the bar behind him. He stared for long seconds, staying in this position, motionless but relaxed, then he stirred. He began making a cigarette. Behind him, the bartender filled his glass with mescal. Rellis was hatless, hair hanging low on his forehead, and he needed a shave. It was evident that he had been drinking most of the morning: it showed in his eyes, though not in his voice. He was armed: a pistol hanging low on his right hip.

Rellis said, "You shouldn't a let him out of your sight. He'd probably run for home."

Bowers had looked away. Now his eyes returned to Rellis. "I'm not worried about that."

"What are you worried about?"

"Nothing."

"Does your partner know I'm here?"

Bowers shrugged. "I don't even know your name."

"Frank Rellis."

Bowers waited. "That doesn't mean anything to me."

"He never mentioned my name to you?"

"Why should he?"

"You're a goddamn liar if you say he hasn't."

It was in Rellis' mind, planted firmly, that Flynn was in Soyopa because he had followed him down after what happened in Contention, somehow learning of his having joined Lazair. Two men coming down to locate Soldado and his band made no sense at all. That was a cover-up. Lazair had a mule's ass for brains if he believed that. Rellis turned sideways to the bar and drank off part of the mescal.

It was going through his mind that this couldn't be better: the shavetail coming in alone…don't count the rurale…yeah, that was all right, too. Teach him a lesson he won't forget.

Bowers could see it. The tone of Rellis' voice and the right hand hanging free. He was angry, watching Rellis, seeing what he was doing, but he knew it was exactly what Rellis wanted. Jump up, drawing, at an insult…and not having a chance…so he sat still and let the anger start to pass off. His own pistol was wedged between his thigh and the chair arm rest, and the holster flap was snapped. And you had to miss the table edge bringing up the gun. Rellis has done this before, you haven't. The objections were there to calm him, to make him go slow, but they brought with them a fear, a small nervous fear, and planted it in the pit of his stomach.

His voice sounded loud in his ears as he said to Rellis, "I don't keep tab on him. If you want him, go out and start looking."

Rellis dragged on his cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly.

"What's your name?"

"Bowers."

"Bowers what?"

"Lieutenant Bowers."

Rellis' lips curled, grinning. "Well goddamn…" He said then, still grinning, "I was looking for you the other day. I came back from eatin' and they said you'd run off."

"You mean I'd left."

"You heard what I said."

"Why would I run away from you?"

Rellis lowered his head and drew on the cigarette, not taking his elbow from the bar. His head raised and the fingers holding the cigarette flicked out. The cigarette shot in a low arc and landed on the table in front of Bowers.

Bowers' eyes held on the man, feeling the heat on his face, wanting to do something, but…he was conscious of stillness…a sound close to him then: Santana mumbling an obscenity in his breath…and the sound of the screen door closing, but not seeing anyone come in because his eyes were on Rellis and Rellis, elbow on the bar, his hand hanging limp above his pistol butt, was returning the stare.