Elmore Leonard: Hombre

If he was afraid at all, he never showed it. The way his hat was funneled and tipped forward over his eyes he had to raise his head to look up. He kept watching, but it did not make him hesitate. He came across the open from the company building like nothing in the world bothered him, the Winchester raised a little and the white truce flag tied to the end of it.

He was putting his faith in that truce flag and the fact that the Mexican had done the same thing yesterday without drawing fire. It showed he still didn’t know John Russell very well.

Russell was letting him come. He never took the Spencer away from his shoulder, but the barrel kept lowering a hair at a time as Braden came closer. Anyone else might have been covering Braden; but somehow you knew Russell meant to fire on him, else he never would have raised the gun. The question was how close Braden would get.

“Listen-he just wants to talk,” Mendez said, moving toward Russell as you would approach a bronc with your hand out to gentle it. “You can see it’s no trick. The man is coming to talk. Can’t you see that? You want to start something when there’s no need to?

“Look at me!”

Russell’s head raised up a little, interrupted from what he was concentrating on. But he kept his eyes on Braden who had now reached some ore-cart tracks that came across from the crushing mill and past a little shack on out into the open a ways. On this side of the tracks Braden was less than a hundred yards off. He kept coming.

“Just see what he wants,” Mendez said. “You don’t have to talk to him. You don’t want to, one of us will.” Mendez looked outside, seeing Braden on the grade now and starting up.

“You don’t know what he wants. Man, you got to find out what he wants,” Mendez kept saying. “Listen to him. He trusts us…we have to trust him and see what he wants. Doesn’t that make sense to you?” Mendez said it all fast. If it didn’t convince Russell, it bothered him enough so he couldn’t concentrate on Braden.

By that time Braden was part way up the grade. He stopped there and yelled out, “Anybody home?”

Mendez saw the opportunity looking at him and he grabbed a hold of it. “We hear you!” he yelled back.

“Come on out of that boar’s nest,” Braden called. “We’ll talk some.”

“Say what you want,” Mendez answered.

“I thought maybe you’d like to go home.”

“Say something,” Mendez said.

“It’s looking at you,” Braden said back. “We can sit here long as we want. I can send a man for more water and chuck, but you people can’t move. You only move if we let you. You see that?”

“What else?”

“There doesn’t have to be much else.”

“All right, what do you want?”

“You leave the money, we leave the woman.”

“And everybody goes home?”

“Everybody goes home.”

“We’ll have to talk about it.”

“You do that.” Braden held the Winchester cradled over one arm, the truce flag hanging limp. He stood with his feet spread some, posing, it looked like, confident he knew what he was doing.

“We’ll let you look at the woman while you talk,” Braden said. “Then when you’re ready you bring the money down and take the woman.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Mendez said again. He glanced over at Dr. Favor who was at the other window, then down at Braden again.

“What if,” he said “-well, what if nobody wants this woman?”

“Wait a while,” Braden answered, “before you think anything like that.”

“I just want to make sure what you mean, that’s all.”

“You just have to be sure of one thing,” Braden said. “You don’t leave here with the money. You see that?”

Mendez didn’t answer. Frank Braden waited a minute then started to go.

“Hey,” Russell called out to him and Braden stopped, half way around so that he was looking back over his shoulder.

“I got a question,” Russell said.

Braden was squinting to make out Russell in the window. “Ask it,” he said.

“How you going to get down that hill?”

Braden knew what he meant. He stood there a moment, then came around slowly to face the shack again, showing us he wasn’t afraid.

“Look, I come up here to tell you how things are. I’m making it easy on you.”

“We didn’t ask you,” Russell said. “You walk up here yourself. You come and say we’re not leaving with the money…uh?”

“You heard what I said.” Braden was tenser, you could tell.

“We give you the money or you kill us.”

“I said you wouldn’t leave here.”

“But it’s the same thing, uh?…Maybe we give up the money and you still kill us.”

“You better talk to your friends.”

“I think,” Russell kept on, “you want to leave dead people who can’t tell things.”

“If that was so, we’d have killed you at the stagecoach.”

“You tried to,” Russell said, “taking the water. But it came back to us.”

“You think what you want,” Braden said, meaning to end it.

Russell nodded. He nodded up and down very slowly two or three times. “I’ve already thought,” he said in that mild way, so calm you did not suspect what he meant until he raised the Spencer. Then there was no doubt what he meant.

“You hold on, boy!” Braden said. “I’m walking down the same way I come up.” But he was backing off, keeping his gaze fixed on the window.

Russell had the Spencer at his shoulder, but his head up as he watched Braden.

“You hear me!” Braden yelled. “You hold on!”

It was like Russell was letting out rope, giving Braden a little slack before he yanked it tight. It was coming. We knew it and Braden, still backing away, knew it. But only Russell knew when. That’s what finally spooked Braden. He might have had seven miles of nerve inside of him, but all of a sudden he found it all let out and there was only one thing left to do.

He started running, starting so fast across the slope toward the crushing mill that he fell within four or five steps, falling just as Russell pressed his face to that Spencer and fired. Maybe that fall saved Braden’s life; for certain it hurried Russell’s second shot, trying to get Braden while he was down, but that one kicked sand right in front of Braden who was lunging to his feet, running again, getting some distance as Russell took his time and aimed and when he fired again Braden twisted and rolled a ways down the slope. That’s when the gunfire opened up from the company building as the Mexican and Early woke up and started giving Braden some cover. Braden was crawling, then up on his feet and running again, limping-running, favoring one leg-and bam, the Spencer went off and Braden was knocked down again, down on his hands and knees, but somehow kept going, clawing the ground and half running half crawling, the Winchester truce flag behind him now and forgotten. Russell fired again, hurrying it because Braden was close to the crushing mill by then and that was Russell’s last one; Braden made it, reaching the corner of the building, about forty yards over from us, as the sound of Russell’s shot sang off down canyon.

It was the Mexican who got Braden out of there. He came up over on the other side of the crushing mill and brought Braden down the same way, keeping the crushing mill between us and them so they wouldn’t get shot at.

Early came out of the veranda shade to help the Mexican take Braden inside: Early looking back like he was afraid Russell would open up again, and Braden walking but dragging his legs and leaning on the two men. He had been shot up good.

Mr. Braden, I thought to myself. Meet John Russell.

But was our situation any better?

Maybe. Depending on Braden. If he was hurt bad enough, they would have to get him to a bed or a doctor. So for a while we watched with that hope. But the hope kept getting smaller and smaller as time passed and nobody rode out from the company building.