Elmore Leonard: The Bounty Hunters

"Of course not. I just don't see why you'd send an inexperienced man on a job like this."

"And how do you gain this experience if you never take the field?"

"Tracking Soldado in his own element isn't exactly just taking the field."

"We're not going to debate it. You either go or you don't go."

"I'd like to speak to you alone."

"I haven't the time. Are you going?"

Flynn hesitated, then nodded his head.

"You will leave in the morning. The quartermaster sergeant will issue your ammunition if you use a Springfield; otherwise you supply your own."

"I'm aware of all that."

"Then there's no reason to detain you," Deneen said, and turned abruptly to Bowers. "Lieutenant, step into the office."

The sun had dropped below the horizon line of the Catalinas and they rode back to Contention in the silent dusk, Flynn thinking, reminding himself that he was in it now, and that was that.

"He was almost half decent for a minute," Madora said. "Then the ninety-nine percent bastard started to show."

"You've got to hand him that," Flynn said. "He's consistent." Flynn was silent, riding, following the sway of his mount. Then, "Joe, where does he get his authority for this?"

"I hadn't thought of it."

"The orders said the army wouldn't recognize us. If there was an agreement with Mexico, there'd be an expedition."

"With a lot of noise," Madora added. "And you'd never find Soldado."

"That's not the point. What does the general say about this? I don't think it's something that can be kept from him."

"Deneen's a talker," Madora said. "Maybe he can explain it so it sounds legal."

"Maybe." Flynn shrugged it off then, saying, "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm leadin' Deneen's grand tour of post inspections. With Three-cents and his Coyoteros along to add color."

"You could do worse."

"Like what?"

It was dark when they turned off Commercial Street onto Stockman, riding past the Republic House on the corner. They were both staying there and they boarded their horses at the livery stable behind the hotel, on Stockman. They dismounted in front of the wide doorway framing the darkness inside.

"I wonder where the man is?" Madora said. He stopped just inside, blinking his eyes.

Behind him, Flynn said, "Seems to me there was a lantern on a nail along the boards there."

"Over here?" Madora moved into the darkness.

"This side of the first stall."

Madora's hand went into his coat pocket and came out with a match. He scratched it against the board partition and just ahead of him Flynn saw a yellow flare and Madora's face close to the boards.

And the heavy, ringing, solid slam of the rifle report was there with the match flare. Flynn went down instinctively. The match went out and he heard Madora gasp as if he'd been hit hard in the stomach, and the sound of his weight falling against the partition.

"Joe!"

Flynn was rising. Three shots then in quick succession in the close stillness and he went down flat, hearing the horses scream, knowing they had been hit. In front of him, Madora's mare fell heavily and did not move, but his own broke away and veered out into Stockman Street. His pistol was in his hand, but there was nothing, only the darkness and the stabled mounts moving nervously, bumping the boards and nickering.

Suddenly the rear door, not more than fifty feet away, swung open with the sound of hoofs striking boards and packed earth and momentarily horse and rider were framed against the dusk, pushing through as the door swung open only part way. Flynn fired, the heavy revolver lifting in his hand, and then horse and rider were gone and he could hear the hoofbeats outside, on the street beyond the livery.

Madora was breathing with his mouth open, his chest rising and falling with a wheezing sound. Flynn's hand went over him gently until he felt the wet smear of blood just above his waist at his side.

"Joe, you'll be all right. It probably went clean through you."

Madora tried to answer, but he could not. He was breathing harder, gasping.

There were footsteps behind them.

"What happened?"

Then more steps on the packed ground and a familiar voice. It belonged to the barber, John Willet.

"Soon as I seen him I knew…tearing up Commercial like that. I didn't even hear the shots and I knew."

Someone said, "Who?"

"Who do you think!" Willet's voice was edged with nervousness. "Frank Rellis. My God, he's done it now…"

Late in the afternoon the sky changed to pale gray and there was rain in the air, the atmosphere close and stifling, and a silence clung heavily to the flat colorless plain. The distant peaks to the east, the Dragoons, rose gigantically into the grayness, seeming nearer than they were, and the towering irregular crests were lost in the hazy flat color of the sky.

The sudden threat of rain was relief after the relentless sun glare of the morning. They had traveled through it saying little, their eyes heavy-lidded against the glare. Flynn's searching, from habit swinging a slow wide arc that took in every brush clump and rise, then lifting to the rimrock and squinting for the thin wisp of smoke that would be almost transparent in the sunlight, or the mirror flashes that no white man could read, and half expecting one or the other to be there-because you never knew. There were reservations; still, you never knew.

Flynn followed the sway of his horse loosely, a dun mare that he had bought last night, listening to the squeak of saddle leather. His hat was straight across his eyebrows and he seemed tired, listless; yet his eyes never ceased the slow swing over the valley. Often he would slip his boots from the stirrups and let his legs hang free. All things become routine. Relax, and be watchful at the same time. Relax only, and in Apache country it will kill you.

He thought about Joe Madora and he could still hear the wheezing sound of his breathing. The crowd that had formed almost out of the air. First they were alone, then there were voices, dozens of voices, and one that he recognized. John Willet's voice. He had heard John Willet very clearly say the name Frank Rellis. He had told Bowers about it before they started out that morning. Bowers said he was sorry, that was about all.

Bowers wore civilian clothes now, a gray broad-cloth suit that he had worn on furlough perhaps a year or two before and now was too small for him.

The doctor had worked on Madora a long time, half the night, and stayed there the rest of it, up in the hotel room where they'd carried the wounded man. He'd stop the bleeding, then it would start again and he'd work at the wound, applying compresses. Madora was unconscious by then, his eyes closed rightly as if ready to snap open at any moment. Flynn had watched the face more than he did the doctor's hands working at the middle of Madora's body, because he expected the face to become colorless and the eyes to open. He was sure they would open, because almost every dead man he could remember had been lying with his eyes open. He had placed small stones over the eyelids when he had the time. That was a strange thing. No, that's why you remember them. There were others with eyes closed that you don't remember.

But Madora's face remained calm, and though the bearded skin was pale, it did not become drained of all its color.

Flynn slept for an hour before dawn and when he awoke and pulled on his boots and strapped on his gun, the doctor told him that the old man had a chance to live, but he wouldn't advise making any hotel reservation in his name.

They camped early because of the rain threat and rigged their ponchos into a lean-to. But the rain never came. And later on, when the moon appeared, its outline was hazy and there were few stars in the deep blackness.