Elmore Leonard - Last Stand at Saber River

“Did I interrupt something?”

“Nothing important.” Martha turned from the sink to face him. “You’re going out?”

“I thought I would.” He watched her with an expression of faint amusement. “Wondering if I’m going to see your husband?”

“Yes, I was.”

“I might see him.”

“If you’re going that way, would you mind stopping by the house?”

“Why?”

“Why do you think, Mr. Janroe?”

“Maybe he’s not so anxious to let you know what he’s doing.”

Now a new side of him, Martha thought wearily. She said nothing.

“I mean, considering how he dropped you here and ran off so quick.” Janroe hooked his hat on the back of the nearest chair. Unhurriedly he started around the table, saying now, “A man is away from his wife for two years or more, then soon as he gets home he leaves her again. What kind of business is that?”

Martha watched him still coming toward her. “We know the reason, Mr. Janroe.”

“The reason he gives. Worried about his wife and kids.”

“What other reason is there?”

“It wouldn’t be my business to know.”

“You seem to be making it your business.”

“I was just wondering if you believed him.”

He was close to her now. Martha stood unmoving, feeling the wooden sink against her back. “I believe him,” she said calmly. “I believe anything he tells me.”

“Did he tell you he led a saintly life the years he was away?”

“I never questioned him about it.”

“Want me to tell you what a man does when he’s away from home?”

“And even if I said no-”

“They have a time for themselves,” Janroe went on. “They carry on like young bucks with the first smell of spring. Though they expect their wives to sit home and be as good as gold.”

“You know this from experience?”

“I’ve seen them.” His voice was low and confiding. “Some of them come home with the habit of their wild ways still inside them, and they go wandering off again.”

He watched her closely, his head lowered and within inches of hers. “Then there’s some women who aren’t fooled by it and they say, ‘If he can fool around and have a time, then so can I.’ Those women do it, too. They start having a time for themselves and it serves their husbands right.”

Martha did not move. She was looking at him, at his heavy mustache and the hard, bony angles of his face, feeling the almost oppressive nearness of him. She said nothing.

Janroe asked, almost a whisper, “You know what I mean?”

“If I were to tell my husband what you just said,” Martha answered quietly, “I honestly believe he would kill you.”

Janroe’s expression did not change. “I don’t think so. Your husband needs me. He needs a place for you and the kids to stay.”

“Are you telling me that I’m part of the agreement between you and my husband?”

“Well now, nothing so blunt as all that.” Janroe smiled. “We’re white men.”

“We’ll be out of here within an hour,” Martha said coldly.

“Now wait a minute. You don’t kid very well, do you?”

“Not about that.”

He backed away from her, reaching for his hat. “I don’t even think you know what I was talking about.”

“Let’s say that I didn’t,” Martha said. “For your sake.”

Janroe shrugged. “You think whatever you want.” He put his hat on and walked out. In front of the store, he mounted a saddled buckskin and rode off.

He could still see the calm expression of Martha Cable’s face as he forded the shallow river, as he kicked the buckskin up the bank and started across the meadow that rolled gradually up into the pines that covered the crest of the slope. Then he was spurring, running the buckskin, crossing the sweep of meadow, in the open sunlight now with the hot breeze hissing past his face. But even then Martha was before him.

She stared at him coldly. And the harder he ran-holding the reins short to keep the buckskin climbing, feeling the brute strength of the horse’s response, hearing the hoofs and the wind and trying to be aware of nothing else-the more he was aware of Martha’s contempt for him.

Some time later, following the trail that ribboned through the pines, the irritating feeling that he had made a fool of himself began to subside. It was as if here in the silence, in the soft shadows of the pines, he was hidden from her eyes.

He told himself to forget about her. The incident in the kitchen had been a mistake. He had seen her and started talking and one thing had led to another; not planned, just something suddenly happening that moment. He would have to be more careful. She was an attractive woman and her husband was miles away, but there were matters at hand more important than Martha Cable. She would wait until later, when there were no Kidstons…and no Paul Cable.

Still, telling himself this, her calmness and the indifference grated on his pride and he was sure that she had held him off because of his missing arm, because he was something repulsive to her. Only part of a man.

He jerked his mind back to the reason he was here. First, to talk to Cable, to hammer away at him until he consented to go after the Kidstons. Then, to scout around and see what was going on.

The latter had become a habit: riding this ridge trail, then bearing off toward the Kidston place and sometimes approaching within view of the house. He did this every few days and sometimes at night, because if you kept your eyes open you learned things. Like Duane’s habit of sitting on the veranda at night-perhaps every night-for a last cigar. Or Vern visiting his grazes once a week and sometimes not returning until the next morning. But always there had been people around the house while Duane sat and smoked on the veranda; and almost invariably Vern made his inspections with Bill Dancey along. Knowing that Kidston’s riders would be off on a horse gather in a few days was the same kind of useful intelligence to keep in mind. He had already told Cable about the riders being away. Perhaps he would tell him everything-every bit of information he knew about Vern and Duane Kidston. Lay it all out on the table and make it look easy.

High on the slope, but now even with Cable’s house, Janroe reined in. There was no sign of life below. No sounds, no movement, no chimney smoke. But Cable could still be home, Janroe decided.

Then, descending the path, keeping his eyes on the shingled roof and the open area of the front yard, he began to think: But what if he isn’t home?

Then you talk to him another time.

No, wait. What if he isn’t home and isn’t even close by?

Reaching the back of the adobe, he sat for a moment, listening thoughtfully to the silence.

And what if something happened to his house while he was away? Janroe began to feel the excitement of it building inside of him.

But be careful, he thought.

He rode around to the front and called Cable’s name.

No answer.

He waited; called again, but still the house stood silent and showed no signs of life.

Janroe reined the buckskin around and crossed the yard to the willows. His gaze went to the horse herd out on the meadow and he studied the herd for some moments. No, Cable wasn’t there. No one was.

He was about to turn back to the house, but he hesitated. No one anywhere. What does that say?

No, it’s too good. When a thing looks too good there’s something wrong with it. Still, he knew that all at once he was looking at an almost foolproof way to jab Cable into action. He sat motionless, looking at the horse herd, making sure no riders were out beyond the farthest grazing horses, and thinking it all over carefully.

Would he be suspected? No. He’d tell Martha and Luz he went to Fort Buchanan on business and no one was home when he passed here. He could even head up toward Buchanan, spend the night on the trail and double back to the store in the morning.