Elmore Leonard - Last Stand at Saber River

“This used to be a storeroom,” Janroe muttered. He pushed the door open and moved aside. “Go on; there’s a lantern in there.”

Cable hesitated, then stepped past him, glancing back to make sure Janroe was coming.

Janroe followed, saying, “Feel along the wall, you’ll find it.”

Cable turned, raising his left hand. He heard the door swing closed and he was in abrupt total darkness.

He heard Janroe’s steps and felt him move close behind him. Too close! Cable tried to turn, reaching for the Walker at the same time; but his hand twisted behind him and pulled painfully up between his shoulder blades. He tried to lunge forward, tried to twist himself free, but as he did Janroe’s foot scissored about his ankles and Cable fell forward, landing heavily on the hard-packed floor with Janroe on top of him.

Now there was silence.

With Janroe’s full weight on top of him and the cool hardness of the floor flat against his cheek, Cable did not move. He felt Janroe’s chest pressing heavily against his back. His right arm, twisted and held between their bodies, sent tight, muscle-straining pain up into his shoulder. Janroe had pulled his own hand free as they struck the floor. It gripped the handle of Cable’s revolver, then tightened on it as the boards creaked above them.

Faint footsteps moved through the store and faded again into silence. Cable waited, listening, and making his body relax even with the weight pressing against him. He was thinking: It could be Martha, gone out to call the children. Martha not twenty feet away.

He felt the Walker slide from its holster. Janroe’s weight shifted, grinding heavily into his back. The cocking action of the Walker was loud and close to him before the barrel burrowed into the pit of his arm.

“Don’t spoil it,” Janroe whispered.

They waited. In the darkness, in the silence, neither spoke. Moments later the floor creaked again and the soft footsteps crossed back through the store. Cable let his breath out slowly.

Janroe murmured, “I could have pulled the trigger. A minute ago I was unarmed; but just then I could have killed you.”

Cable said nothing. Janroe’s elbow pressed into his back. The pressure eased and he felt Janroe push himself to his feet. Still Cable waited. He heard Janroe adjust a lantern. A match scratched down the wall. Its flare died almost to nothing, then abruptly the floor in front of Cable’s face took form. His eyes raised from his own shadow and in the dull light he saw four oblong wooden cases stacked against the wall close in front of him.

“Now you can get up,” Janroe said.

Cable rose. He stretched the stiffness from his body, working his shoulder to relieve the sharp muscle strain, his eyes returning to Janroe now and seeing the Walker in Janroe’s belt, tight against his stomach.

“Did you prove something by that?”

“I want you to know,” Janroe said, “that I’m not just passing the time of day.”

“There’s probably an easier way.”

“No.” Janroe shook his head slowly. “I want you to realize that I could have killed you. That I’d do it in a minute if I thought I had to. I want that to sink into your head.”

“You wouldn’t have a reason.”

“The reason’s behind you. Four cases of Enfield rifles. They’re more important than any one man’s life. More important than yours-”

Cable stopped him. “You’re not making much sense.”

“Or more important than the lives of Vern and Duane Kidston,” Janroe finished. “Does that make sense?”

“My hunting license.” Cable watched him thoughtfully. “Isn’t that what you called it? If I was in the gunrunning business, I could kill them with a clear conscience.”

“I’ll tell it to you again,” Janroe said. “If you worked for me, I’d order you to kill them.”

“I remember.”

“But it still hasn’t made any impression.”

“I told you a little while ago, now it’s up to the Kidstons.”

“All right, what do you think they’re doing right this minute?”

“Maybe burying their dead,” Cable said. “And realizing something.”

“And Joe Bob’s brothers-do you think they’re just going to bury him and forget all about it?”

“That’s something else,” Cable said.

“No it isn’t, because Vern will use them. He’ll sic them on you like a pair of mad dogs.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got a feeling Vern’s the kind of man who has to handle something like this himself, his own way.”

“And you’d bet the lives of your family on it,” Janroe said dryly.

“It’s Vern’s move, not mine.”

“Like a chess game.”

“Look,” Cable said patiently. “You’re asking me to shoot the man down in cold blood and that’s what I can’t do. Not for any reason.”

“Even though you left your family and rode a thousand miles to fight the Yankees.” Janroe watched him closely, making sure he held Cable’s attention.

“Now you’re home and you got Yankees right in your front yard. But now, for some reason, it’s different. They’re supplying cavalry horses to use against the same boys you were in uniform with. They’re using your land to graze those horses. But now it’s different. Now you sit and wait because it’s the Yankees’ turn to move.”

“A lot of things don’t sound sensible,” Cable said, “when you put them into words.”

“Or when you cover one ear,” Janroe said. “You don’t hear the guns or the screams and the moans of the wounded. You even have yourself believing the war’s over.”

“I told you once, it’s over as far as I’m concerned.”

Janroe nodded. “Yes, you’ve told me and you’ve told yourself. Now go tell Vern Kidston and his brother.”

End it, Cable thought. Tell him to shut up and mind his own business. But he thought of Martha and the children. They were here in the safety of this man’s house, living here now because Janroe had agreed to it. He was obligated to Janroe, and the sudden awareness of it checked him, dissolving the bald, blunt words that were clear in his mind and almost on his tongue.

He said simply, “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

Janroe’s expression remained coldly impassive; still his eyes clung to Cable. He watched him intently, almost as if he were trying to read Cable’s thoughts.

“You might think about it though,” Janroe said. His eyes dropped briefly. He pulled the Walker from his waist and handed it butt-forward to Cable.

“Within a few days, I’m told, Bill Dancey and the rest of them will start bringing all the horses in from pasture. That means Duane and maybe even Vern will be home alone. Just the two of them there.” Janroe lifted the lantern from the wall. Before blowing it out, he added, “You might think about that, too.”

They moved out of the cellar into the abrupt sun glare of the yard, and there Janroe waited while Cable went inside to tell Martha goodbye. Within a few minutes Cable reappeared. Janroe watched him kneel down to kiss his children; he watched him mount the sorrel and ride out. He watched him until he was out of sight, and still he lingered in the yard, staring out through the sun haze to the willows that lined the river.

He isn’t mad enough, Janroe was thinking. And Vern seems to want to wait and sweat him out. If he waits, Cable waits and nothing happens. And it will go on like this until you bring them together. You know that, don’t you? Somehow you have to knock their heads together.

Manuel Acaso reached Cable’s house in the late evening. The sky was still light, with traces of sun reflection above the pine slope, but the glare was gone and the trees had darkened and seemed more silent.