Elmore Leonard - Hombre

“You better put it down,” Russell said. It sounded like he meant the shotgun.

Mendez must have felt funny about Dr. Favor holding it. He said, “He just took it. I closed my eyes and he had it.”

Dr. Favor shook his head slowly. “Like I’m against everybody. Like I was running off on my own.”

“You sure had us fooled then,” the McLaren girl said, her voice dry and sharp enough to pierce right through him.

“Believe what you like,” Dr. Favor said. “I was going to get help. One man can travel faster than five. With food and water he could make it out of here in no time and have help back in less than a day.”

“So you elected yourself,” the McLaren girl said.

“I’ve tried to reason with you people before,” Dr. Favor said. “I decided it was time to do something besides waste my breath.”

Russell’s eyes never left Dr. Favor. “Put it down or else use it,” he said. “You have two ways to go.” His tone seemed to say he didn’t care which Favor did. One way would be as easy as the other.

“There’s no talking to a man who relies only on force,” Dr. Favor said. He shrugged, hesitating, holding on by his fingernails for a moment, waiting for Russell to drop his guard for one second. Maybe he could beat Russell, he was probably thinking. But if he didn’t beat him, he would be dead. If he tied Russell, he could also be dead.

Maybe that was the way he thought and he didn’t like the odds. Maybe if he gave in now he would get a better chance later on. I guess he knew nobody believed his story about getting help, but he didn’t care what we thought. Whatever he was thinking, it told him today wasn’t the day. He let the shotgun and revolver fall, then lifted off the grainsack and saddlebags.

No, it didn’t bother him at all what we thought. He turned his back on us and strolled over by the cliffrose bushes to look down the grade. As if telling us he knew we wouldn’t do anything to him, so what did he care what we thought?

But that’s where he was wrong. John Russell did not just think things.

As Dr. Favor stood there, Russell said, “Keep going.”

All we saw was his back for a minute. Dr. Favor seemed to be waiting for the rest of it: “-if you ever try that again.” Or “-if you don’t behave yourself.” You know.

But there wasn’t any rest of it. Russell had said it all.

When Dr. Favor realized this, he turned around to look at Russell. His face had lost a little of its calm cocksureness. Not all, just some. But maybe at that point he half believed Russell might be bluffing.

Maybe, he thought, if he could just pass a little time it would blow over.

He said, “You’re betting my money I won’t survive all alone.”

“You could do it,” Russell said. “With some luck.”

“If I don’t, it’s the same as murder.”

“Like the way you killed those people at San Carlos.”

“This is a new one,” Dr. Favor said. “First I’m accused of stealing my own money. Now murder.”

“Without enough to eat,” Russell said, “people sicken and die. I saw that at Whiteriver and also I heard things, how the agent had money to buy more beef, but he had a way of keeping the money to himself.”

“A way,” Dr. Favor said. “You figure the way and then prove it.”

“That one called Dean said enough.”

Dr. Favor seemed to smile. “But you went and killed our witness.”

“You think I need one?” Russell said.

We weren’t in any court. We were fifty miles out in high desert country, and John Russell was standing there with a.56-56 Spencer in his hand. All he had to do was raise it and Dr. Favor was gone forever.

There wasn’t any question, Dr. Favor knew it.

It is hard to try and imagine what was going on in his mind then, because I never did learn much about this Dr. Alexander Favor.

Look at him for a minute. A heavyset man, both in his body and in his opinion of himself. He did what he wanted and did not take much pushing from others. He had been Indian Agent at San Carlos about two years, having come from somewhere in Ohio. The “Doctor” part of his name was not medicine. I have learned that he was a Doctor of the Faith Reform Church. But I had never heard him preaching anything, so you cannot accuse him of not practicing it.

Evidently he got into that profession to make money and for that reason only, thinking it would be an easy way: the same reason he applied to the government to become an Indian Agent and got sent to San Carlos. Though he could have just made up the divinity title and got the appointment through some friend in the Interior Department. I would not like to think that he had ever honestly been a preacher.

He must have started withholding government funds soon after he got to San Carlos to build up the amount in the saddlebags. About twelve thousand dollars. He probably made some of it off supply contractors who paid him in order to get the government business. So you know one thing for sure; he was dishonest. A thief no matter what he hid behind.

You can also say he was a man who cared more about his money than his wife. But maybe he always did. I mean maybe she was just a woman to him. Someone to have around, but not feeling about her the way most men felt about their wives. I mean liking them along with having them there.

Maybe he did like her, but she never liked him and didn’t care if he knew it. I think that is the way it was, judging from the way she didn’t pay any attention to him on the stagecoach and fooled with Frank Braden right in front of him. I think even then Dr. Favor had finally had enough of her. Leaving her was a good way to pay her back.

You knew good and well he wasn’t thinking about her right now. I doubt he was even thinking about the money. Right now he just had his life to worry about. Russell wasn’t letting him take anything else.

There was that little space of silence where he must have been digging in his mind to say something more to Russell, to scare him or put him in his place or something. But he must have thought what was the use? Why waste breath?

He looked at Mendez though, then at the McLaren girl and said, “You take care of yourselves now. Do everything he tells you.” He was turning then to go. “And remember, don’t drink any water till tonight.”

We watched him step through the cliffrose bushes and he was gone. Russell went over to the edge, but the McLaren girl and Mendez and I didn’t move. Not for a moment anyway. Maybe we were afraid Favor would look back up and see us watching him and laugh or say something else about the water.

When I walked over finally and looked down the grade, he was past the steepest part but having an awful time, skidding and raising dust all the way. We watched him down at the bottom, standing there for a minute, looking up canyon to the flat country that opened up there. He crossed the canyon to the other side and started up a little wash (he had learned something from Russell) and after a minute you couldn’t see him for the brush and the steepness of the cutbank.

Nobody said a word.

Without Russell I know we could never have sat there in that place until dark. It was too easy to imagine them sneaking up on you, knowing they were out there somewhere and drawing closer all the time. Russell sat watching the slope. Then he’d move off into the trees for a time. He never said anything. He smoked a little, maybe twice. Most of the time though he sat watching; watching and I think listening. But all that time there was no sign of them.

As it started to get dark in the trees, we ate again and Russell held up the canteen and handed it to the McLaren girl.

“Finally, uh?” he said.

She didn’t look at him. She took a drink and passed the canteen to me. Mendez was next. Then Russell took his turn. The McLaren girl watched him drink, holding the water in his mouth before swallowing it, and I kept thinking: She’s going to tell him.