Elmore Leonard: Hombre

“Change them for these.”

“You got a stage?”

“A long story,” Mendez said. “Get your woman to make coffee.”

Delgado was frowning. He wore pants with striped suspenders over his underwear. “How do I know you’re coming?”

“Just move your people,” Mendez said. He turned to the coach again. “You wash at the bench by the door. You follow the path around back for other things.” He offered his hand and Mrs. Favor got out. Then the McLaren girl.

“Twice in one night,” Delgado said. “An hour ago we are in bed and three men come by.”

“You should have stayed up,” Mendez said.

Mr. Favor was just getting out of the coach. “Did you know them?” he asked.

“Some riders.”

“But did you know them?”

Delgado looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. I think they work for Mr. Wolgast.”

“Is that usual,” Dr. Favor said, “them coming by this time of night?”

“Man, it happens,” Delgado said. “People go by here.”

By the time I went around back and came out again, just Mendez and Russell were standing there. Mendez took a bottle that looked like brandy out of his leather bag and both of them had a long drink.

Two boys, in shirts and pants but barefooted, came out of the adobe. Both of them smiled at Mendez and one of them called, “Hey, Tio, what have you got?”

“Something for your grease pails,” Mendez said, “and the need of clean horses.” The boys ran off again, around the adobe, and Mendez turned to John Russell again.

“How do you like a mud wagon?”

Russell said something in Spanish.

“How do you like it in English?” Mendez said.

“That again,” Russell said.

“Practice, uh? Then you get good.”

“Maybe if I don’t speak it’s better.”

“And what does that mean?” Mendez asked.

Russell didn’t say anything. One of the boys came running out again with a bucket and Mendez said, “Paint them good, chico.”

“This costs more at night,” the boy said, still smiling, as if still smiling from before.

“I’ll pay you with something,” Mendez said. He took a swipe at the boy with the leather bag, but the boy got past him. Then he offered the brandy to Russell again. “For the dust,” he said. “Or whatever reason you want.”

While Russell was taking a drink, Mendez saw me and offered me one, so I joined them and had a swallow. It was all right, except it was so hot. I don’t know how they took the big swigs they did. Mendez took his turn then handed the bottle to Russell and went into the adobe.

The Mexican boy with the grease pail was working on the front wheels now. The other boy had unhitched the lead team and was taking the horses off. We watched them a while. Then I said, “How come you didn’t tell them?”

He looked at me, holding the bottle. “Tell them what?”

“That you’re not what they think.”

His eyes looked at me another second. Then he took a drink of the brandy.

“You want to go in?” I said. He just shrugged.

We went in then-into a low-ceilinged room that was lighted by one lantern hanging from a beam; the lantern had smoked and there was still the oil smell of it in the room.

The Favors and the McLaren girl and Braden were sitting at the main table, a long plank one in the middle of the room. Mendez stood there like he had been talking to them. But he moved away as we came in and motioned us over to a table by the kitchen door. Delgado’s wife came out with a pot of coffee, but went over to the main table before pouring us some. Mendez waited, looking at Russell all the while, until she went out to the kitchen again.

“They think you’re Apache,” he said.

Russell didn’t say anything. He was looking at the brandy bottle as if reading the small print. Mendez picked up the brandy and poured some of it in his coffee.

“You hear what I said?”

“Does it make a difference?” Russell said then.

“Dr. Favor says you shouldn’t ride in the coach,” Mendez said. “That’s the difference.”

Russell’s eyes raised to Mendez. “They all say that?”

“Listen, you wanted to ride with me before.”

“Do they all say I shouldn’t be in the coach?”

Mendez nodded. “Dr. Favor said they agreed to it. I said this boy isn’t Apache, did you ask if he was? Did you ask him anything? But this Favor says he isn’t going to argue about it.”

Russell kept looking at Mendez. “What did you say?”

“Well-I don’t know,” Mendez said. “Why have people unhappy? Why not just”-he shrugged-“let them have their way? It isn’t a big thing. I mean I don’t know if it’s something worth making trouble about. He’s got this in his mind now and we don’t have time to convince him of the truth. So why should we let it worry us, uh?”

“What if I want to ride in the coach?” Russell said.

“Listen, you wanted to ride with me before. Why all of a sudden you like it inside now?”

It was the first time I ever saw Mendez look worried, like something was happening that he couldn’t handle or have an answer for. He drank some of his coffee, but looked up quickly, holding the cup, as Braden and Dr. Favor rose from the table. Braden went outside. Dr. Favor went over to the bar where Delgado was, and Mendez seemed to relax a little and sip his coffee.

“Is it worth arguing about?” Mendez said. “Getting people upset and angry? Sure, they’re wrong. But is it easier to convince them of it or just forget about it? You understand that?”

“I’m learning,” Russell said.

Right there, again, I’d like to have seen what was going on in his mind, because you certainly couldn’t tell from his tone. He had such a quiet way of speaking you got the feeling nothing in the world would ever bother him.

While we were still sitting there, Dr. Favor motioned Mendez over to the bar where he and Delgado were. Mendez stood there talking to them for a long time, while we finished our coffee and had another. Finally Mendez came back. He didn’t sit down but took a drink of the brandy.

“Dr. Favor wants to go another way,” Mendez said. “The road down past the old San Pete Mine.”

It was a road Hatch & Hodges had used years before when the mine was still in operation. It ran fifteen or so miles east of the main road, through foothills and on up into high country past the mine, then it joined the present main road again on the way to Benson. But I had never heard of anyone taking it these days. The country through there was wild and climbing, harder to travel over. That’s why the new road had been put through after the mine shut down. The only thing you could say about the old road was it was shorter.

But was that reason to take it?

Mendez said why not? Delgado was sure the rest of the stations along the main road had already shut down. At least all their change horses had been moved south by now. Delgado was the only one left with any and his would be gone in a few days. If we have only six horses and there are no more stations, Mendez said. Why not go the short way?

That made sense. We’d have to bring extra food and water, though. Mendez agreed to that. He said as long as Dr. Favor was paying for most of this, why not keep him happy? (Henry Mendez seemed very anxious to keep people happy.)

“Maybe he’s a little worried too,” Mendez said. “He was talking to Delgado again about those people who came by here. What did they look like? Did they say where they were going? Things like that.”

“If he thinks they plan to hold us up,” I said, “they couldn’t. They wouldn’t know a stage was coming by here tonight.”

“I told him that,” Mendez said. “He said, ‘If there is a possibility of being stopped, we should take precautions.’ I said, ‘Maybe, but, if this was the regular stage, we wouldn’t even be talking about it.’ ”