Elmore Leonard - Hombre

A little while after he was gone, Dr. Favor went over to where the waterskin and canteen and provisions were. He picked up the canteen and was drinking from it before anyone had time to yell stop. It was the McLaren girl who yelled it.

She jumped up, and Dr. Favor held the canteen out to her. “Your turn,” he said.

“We’re not to drink till tonight. You know that.”

“I forget,” Dr. Favor said. She could believe him or not; he didn’t care.

Mendez, still sitting down, said, “Maybe we should all take one, to keep it even.”

“To keep it even!” the McLaren girl said. “What about later when we don’t have any. What good does keeping it even do?”

“I’m thinking of now,” Mendez said, rising. “You can think of any time you want.”

“All right,” the girl said. “And what about Russell?”

“Look”-Mendez had this surprised sound to his voice-“if he wants to wait till dark, all right. That’s up to him. We drink when we want.”

“He doesn’t even have to know,” Dr. Favor said. He saw Mendez liked this idea so he put it out there again. “If you’re worried about Russell, why would he even have to know?”

“And you think that would be fair,” the McLaren girl said.

“It’s his rule,” Dr. Favor said. “If it’s unfair, he brought it on himself.”

“Look,” Mendez said, making it sound simple, “if you want to wait, you wait. If you want a drink now, then you take it.”

That was when he grabbed the canteen from Dr. Favor and took a good drink, more even than Favor had, so that Dr. Favor reached for it and pulled it out of Mendez’s mouth.

“You said keep it even.”

Then he handed the canteen to the McLaren girl.

She took it, her eyes right on Dr. Favor and hesitating just a little before she put it to her mouth. If this surprises you, look at it this way: they could drink it all while you sat there obeying Russell’s rule. All right, if they were going to have some, a person would be dumb not to take his share. That’s why I took a drink right after she did. I’m sure she was thinking the same way.

Dr. Favor was still looking at her, more sure of himself than ever now. He said, “If you want to tell him when he gets back, you just go right ahead.” He was even smiling then.

What could she say? On the other hand, knowing her, she might have said something at that. But she didn’t.

Everybody settled down again. For a little while there was peace. Then Dr. Favor came over to me.

Right away he said, “That’s some Indian chief we got,” meaning Russell of course.

“Well,” I said, “I guess he knows what he’s doing.”

“He knows what he wants. That much is sure.”

If he thought Russell wanted the money, that was his business. But why talk about something you couldn’t prove? I just said, “Maybe he’s the best chief we got,” kind of joking about it.

“Only we’re not his braves,” Dr. Favor said, and he was serious, his face close to mine and staring right at me.

“If somebody has another idea,” I said, “I’ll listen.”

“I’ve got one,” he said. “We leave right now.”

He’d force you right up against a wall like that; then you’d have to try and wiggle out.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Let me have my gun then.”

He said it all of a sudden and I didn’t have any idea in the world what to say back. What I finally said was something like, “Well, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Because he said so?”

“No, not just because of him.”

“Because of the others?”

“We’re all in this together.”

“But not going by his rules anymore.”

“Just the water.”

“What’s more important than that?”

“I’m holding it,” I said. “He’s the one took it.”

“Now that doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Dr. Favor said. “What you’re doing, you’re keeping something that doesn’t belong to you.”

I couldn’t tell the man to his face I thought he was a thief. That’s why I had so much trouble thinking of something to say. Even with the gun in my belt, or maybe because it was there, I felt awkward and dumb. He just kept staring at me.

“Maybe I should take it away from you,” he said.

When I hesitated, not knowing what to say or do, the McLaren girl got into it. She said, looking at me, “Are you going to let him?”

She pushed up to a sitting position, about ten or twelve feet away from us. “You know what he wants,” she said.

“What’s mine,” Dr. Favor said. “If you think anything else, you’re imagining things.”

“I know one thing,” the McLaren girl said. “I wouldn’t give you the gun if I had it. And if you tried to take it, I’d shoot you.”

“For hardly more than a little girl,” Dr. Favor said, “you certainly have strong opinions.”

“When I know I’m right,” the McLaren girl said.

Dr. Favor stood up. He lit a cigar and for a while stood there looking out over the slope and smoking. Time crept along. I laid down with one arm on the saddlebags and my head on my arm. I don’t think I have ever been so tired, and it was easy to close my eyes and fall asleep. I fought it for a while, dozing, opening my eyes. Once when I opened them, I saw Dr. Favor sitting by Mendez and Mendez was smoking a cigar too.

I heard Dr. Favor say, “You did fine. It took more nerve than most have to lie there waiting for them.”

“He shouldn’t have made me do it,” Mendez said.

“You didn’t have to, you know.”

“Listen, he makes sense,” Mendez said. “Whether you agree with him or not.”

“He makes sense even if it kills you,” Dr. Favor said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“It’s just I had never shot at a man before,” Mendez said. “It isn’t an easy thing.”

“It seems easy to him,” Dr. Favor said. “And if you can kill one person, you can kill four.”

“For what reason?”

“My money,” Dr. Favor said.

Mendez shook his head. “I know him better than that.”

“Where money is concerned,” Dr. Favor said, “you don’t know anybody.”

Within the next quarter of an hour Dr. Favor proved those words.

I should have taken them as a warning, but I had not for a minute thought he would ever use force. By the time I woke up (I mean actually woke up, for I had dozed off again) it was too late. Dr. Favor was standing over me with Mendez’s shotgun pointed right at my head.

Mendez sat there with his legs crossed and his shoulders hunched as if he didn’t care what was happening-as if Dr. Favor had just taken the gun and Mendez hadn’t lifted an eyebrow to stop him.

The McLaren girl was watching too. She had been lying on her side, but now pushed herself up on one arm as Dr. Favor took the revolver from me first and then the saddlebags. He went over to the waterskin next and filled up the two-quart canteen from it, leaving hardly anything in the skin.

That’s when the McLaren girl finally spoke. She said, “Maybe you’ll leave us your blessing since you’re taking everything else.”

Dr. Favor was past arguing with anybody. He didn’t say a word. He opened the canvas grainsack, looked at the meat and biscuits inside like he was going to take some out, but he pulled the neck closed and swung it over his shoulder with the saddlebags.

He was standing like that, ready to move off, when John Russell appeared out of the pinyon.

They stood facing each other about twenty feet apart, Russell holding the Spencer against his leg and pointed down; Favor holding the sawed-off shotgun the same way.

“You got everything?” Russell said.

“What’s mine,” Favor answered.