Elmore Leonard - Hombre

I was still there at the window when the McLaren girl and Dr. Favor reached the shack. She came inside and went out again with the canteen and gave it to Dr. Favor who drank until she yanked it away from his mouth. He yanked back, held onto it and handed it to Russell. I think he could tell from looking at Russell that saving him had been just the McLaren girl’s idea. He seemed to be smiling some, like the joke was on Russell.

“You will learn something about white people,” he said to Russell. “They stick together.”

“They better,” Mendez said. “We all better.”

Just for a second there was the old tell-nothing Henry Mendez talking. It sounded good after seeing the other side of him for two days. He wasn’t looking at Dr. Favor. I noticed then Russell was looking off down the slope too.

Like they had been following Dr. Favor (and no doubt they had), there came the Mexican on foot, Frank Braden and the Favor woman each on a horse, this little procession coming down out of the south pass, keeping close to the other side and in no hurry at all. The Mexican raised his arm up and waved.

We were all back together again. Right back where we had started. Except now we were up on that shelf of rock, looking down and seeing them moving up canyon and dismounting in front of the company building that was straight across from us and drawing their rifles.

You think about an awful lot of things at once. That we should be doing something; getting out of there or doing something. That this never should have happened. That if it wasn’t for the McLaren girl and her act of kindness to a man who didn’t deserve it, they never would have found us; they would have looked up at that bare unmarked slope and gone right on. Maybe you would like to have said something to the McLaren girl. It was a temptation. But only Mendez did.

He said, “You see?” looking at Dr. Favor and then at the McLaren girl in the doorway. “You see?” he said again, wanting to say more, but just shaking his head as he thought of everything at once.

The McLaren girl had been quiet, but I think Mendez made her mad. She said, “I’d do it again. Knowing they were there I’d do it again. What do you think of that!”

“He’s not worth it!” Mendez said, keeping his teeth together so he wouldn’t scream it at her. Still it was loud.

“Who are you to say who’s worth it!” When she got mad, she spoke out, as you have seen.

Dr. Favor didn’t get into it. He was running his tongue over his swollen lips, I think still tasting the water.

And Russell. Russell, still outside squatted down, sitting back on his heels. He was smoking a cigarette, gazing over across the canyon. Russell didn’t look at the McLaren girl (not then) or say anything to anybody. Russell was Russell.

He just smoked the cigarette as he watched Braden and the others over in front of the company building, watching them take the two horses into the shade of the built-up, second-story veranda, watching the Mexican come out again in the sunlight and walk up and down in a show-offy way, his hands on his hips and looking up toward where we were.

That’s when Russell came inside the shack. Next thing I knew he was at the other window with the Spencer at his shoulder. I doubt the Mexican saw him. I’m sure he didn’t else he would have done something before Russell fired.

With the sound of the shot and dust kicking up in front of him, the Mexican stopped dead. Russell fired again and this time the Mexican jumped back into the veranda shade. Russell was not taking anything off that Mexican.

“What do you start that for?” Mendez said, sounding pained.

Russell must have thought there was an awful lot of dumb questions asked. He said to Mendez, “So they’d see us.”

Nobody down there returned the fire, but we kept expecting it. Everybody was inside by then. Russell was already piling those bags of concentrate on his window sill. I started building up the other one then, the McLaren girl helping. Mendez brought a few over to Russell, but Dr. Favor didn’t lift a hand. He was doing his thinking now, I guess, and eying the saddlebags. Since Russell didn’t say anything to him, I didn’t either. Hell.

Next Russell pulled the loading tube out of his Spencer and stuck two more cartridges in it from his belt. I kept by the other window wondering if this little revolver I had would do any good.

The minutes went by but the awful nervous feeling I had and tried not to show didn’t ease up any. I remember wondering if Russell was scared. He had taken his hat off and I could see the side of his face good. As I have said before, he looked so much younger with his hat off and his hair pressed down on his forehead. He would swallow or scratch his nose, things everybody did, and he didn’t seem any different than the rest of us.

Only he was different. As Braden was about to learn first hand.

Frank Braden’s idea was to let us worry some, I suppose. About a half hour passed before we heard from him. Then it came all of a sudden.

He yelled out from across the way, “You hear me!” He waited. “I’m coming up to talk! You hold your fire!” He waited and yelled again. Maybe a minute passed.

Then Braden appeared at the edge of the veranda shade. Early and the Mexican were behind him. They waited there as Braden moved out from them carrying a Winchester rifle and a white cloth or something tied to the end of it. Frank Braden’s idea of a truce flag.

Russell watched him. As Braden came across the open, out in the sunlight and without any cover close by, Russell raised the Spencer and eared back the hammer.

“He wants to talk,” Mendez said. “You heard him. It’s no trick. He’s got something to say to us!”

Russell didn’t bother with Mendez or even look up. He steadied the Spencer on the ore-sample bags and put the front sight on Braden.

Frank Braden had nerve. You can put that under his name big. A man does not hold up stagecoaches without nerve, or walk up an open grade in plain sight of people he knows are armed.