Elmore Leonard: Gunsights

“They traded shots,” Bren Early said and paused, thinking, Then what? “If they wanted the horses, why didn't they take 'em?”

Which was about where Moon was in his own mind. “Say they did, and left somebody with the herd. How many you count, Bo?”

“Ten,” Bo Catlett said. “Coulda been another one.”

“And they saw you for sure.”

“Couldn't miss us-time I got the lady turned around.”

“They're cowhands,” the McKean girl said, with that edge to her tone again, not feeling very rescued crowded into this adobe room with four men and animals. She had moved up by Moon's window and stood close to him, seeing the hard bump in his jaw, wondering if he would ever spit; then would look over at Bren Early, maybe admiring his long wavy hair, or the tight, shrunk-looking suit molded to his tall frame. Squinting out the window, she said, “You can tell by the look of them, the way they ride.”

Still, the McKean girl had to admit-without saying it aloud-it was a bunch of riders for not having any cows, and moving south at that, not like they were heading home from a drive.

“There was a man used to sell us beef at San Carlos,” Moon said. “I believe the name was Sundeen.” Still watching through his glasses, seeing the riders at four hundred yards now, spreading out more as they came at a choppy walk, not a sound from them yet.

“I used to know him,” the McKean girl said, a little surprised.

Maybe they didn't hear her. Bo Catlett said, “The same man supplied meat to Huachuca. Look in his war-bag you see a running iron, it's Phil Sundeen. Used to bring his beef in vented every which way; cows look like somebody was learning to write on 'em.”

Moon said, “If I remember-hired vaqueros he paid twenty a month and feed. And we see some Mexican hats, don't we?”

“Which one's Sundeen?” Bren Early asked.

As Moon studied the bunch through his glasses, the McKean girl, squinting, said, “That stringy one on the sorrel-I bet he's got a hatband made of silver conchas.”

“Something there's catching the light,” Moon said.

“And forty-fours in crossed belts with silver buckles?”

“You got him,” Moon said.

“Don't anybody listen to me,” the McKean girl said. “I used to know him when his dad was still running things, before they sent Phil Sundeen to Yuma prison.”

“That's the one,” Moon said. “You knew him, huh?”

“I was acquainted with him,” the McKean girl said. “I wasn't to have nothing to do with him and that was fine with me. He was cheeky, loud and had ugly ways about him.”

Bren Early said, “What was he in prison for?”

“As this colored man said, for using his running iron freely,” the McKean girl answered. “It might be he run a herd down here to the Mexicans. On the way home he sees One-Eye here and decides to go for the bounty trade. Ask the Indian. He wouldn't have given himself up otherwise, would he?”

The men in the adobe room looked at this girl who seemed to know what she was talking about. How old? Still in her twenties, a healthy-looking girl, though dirty and sunburned at the moment. Yes, she knew a few hard facts of life.

Bren Early, leaning against the wall by his window, looked from the girl to Loco. “You must be worth plenty, all these people coming to see you.”

“Make 'em bid high,” the McKean girl said, “and look at the scrip before you hand him over, or that son of a bitch Sundeen will try and cheat you.”

The men in the room had to look at that girl again.

Moon saw the waiting expression in Loco's eye and said, “He ain't going with them, he's going home.”

“I know he's going home,” Bren Early said. “I didn't come six days for the ride.”

“If it means an argument, what difference does it make who takes him?” the McKean girl asked. She was serious.

Bren Early said, “Because he belongs to me, that's why.”

And Moon said to her, going over to his horse, “I'll try and explain it to you sometime.”

Bren Early was watching the riders, two hundred yards now, still coming spread out. “We got blind sides in here,” he said. “Let's get out to the wall.”

Moon was bringing a spare revolver out of his saddle bag, a Smith & Wesson .38 double-action model. He said, “You don't mean everybody.”

Bren Early looked at him. “I'm referring to you and me only. Shouldn't that do the job?”

Moon pulled his sawed-off Greener from inside his blanket roll. Coming back to the window he handed the .38 to the McKean girl, saying, “You don't have to cock it, just keep pulling on the trigger's the way it works. But let me tell you something.” Moon paused, looking at the Apache only a few feet away. “He's with us, you understand? He's ours. Nobody else's.” Moon looked at Bo Catlett then and said, “Bo, give him his gun. Soon as it's over, take it back.”

Walking out to the adobe wall, carrying their firearms, they watched the riders coming on, the riders looking this way but cutting an angle toward the stock tank.

“We'll let 'em water,” Bren Early said.

“You give 'em too much they'll camp there,” Moon said.

“We got no choice but have a talk first, do we?”

“No,” Moon said.

“So they'll water and stretch first, take a pee and look the situation over. I hope they don't use dirty language and offend the girl's ears.”

“Don't worry about her,” Moon said.

He laid his Greener on the chest-high crumbling wall, leaned the Sharps against it, cocked, in front of him, loosened the Colt's in his shoulder rig, then decided to take his coat off: folded it neatly and laid it on the wall a few feet away.

“They're watching us,” he said.

“I hope so,” Bren Early said.

Bren had leaned his Spencer against the adobe wall. Now he drew his big .44 S & W Russians, broke each one open to slide a bullet into the empty sixth chamber and reholstered his guns.

Sundeen's bunch was at the stock tank now, fifty yards off, stepping down from the saddles.

Bren Early said, “At Chancellorsville, a Major Peter Keenan took his Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry, four hundred men and-buying time for the artillery to set up-charged them full against ten thousand Confederate infantry. Talk about odds.”

Moon turned his head a little. “What happened to 'em?”

“They all got killed.”

The Mexican in the straw Chihuahua hat who came over to talk looked at first like he was out for a stroll, squinting up at the sky and off at the haze of mountains, inspecting a cholla bush, looking everywhere but at Moon and Early until he was about thirty feet from the adobe wall, then giving them a surprised look: like, what're you doing here?

The riders back of him, small figures, stood around while their horses watered in the corrugated tank and in the slough that had formed from seepage. One of the figures-it looked to be Sundeen-had his peter out and was taking a leak facing this way: telling them what he thought of the situation.

The Mexican touched his hat, loosening it and setting it again. Even with the revolver on his leg and the cartridge belt across his chest he seemed friendly standing there.

He said, “Good afternoon. How are you today?”

Moon and Bren Early watched him, Bren murmuring, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath.

“It's good to reach water on a hot day,” the Mexican said. “Have you been here very long?”

Moon and Bren Early seemed patient, waiting for him to get to it.

“We looking for friends of ours,” the Mexican said. “We wonder if you see anybody ride by here the past hour.”

Bren Early said, “Haven't seen a soul.”

The Mexican took time to look past them and study the adobes, seeing the white smoke rising from the first chimney and vanishing in the glare.