Elmore Leonard - Last Stand at Saber River

And there’s always someone to fight, isn’t there?

Ten years ago he had come here from Sudan, Texas-a nineteen-year-old boy seeking his future, working at the time for a freight company that hauled between Hidalgo and Tucson-and one night when they stopped at Denaman’s Store he talked to John Denaman.

They sat on the loading platform with their legs hanging over the side, drinking coffee and now and then whiskey, drinking both from the same cups, looking north into the vast darkness of the valley. John Denaman told him about the river and the good meadow land and the timber-ponderosa pine and aspen and willows, working timber and pretty-to-look-

at timber. A man starting here young and working hard would have himself something in no time at all, Denaman had said.

But a man had to have money to buy stock with, Cable said. Something to build with.

No, Denaman said, not necessarily. He told about his man Acaso who’d died the winter before, leaving his two kids, Manuel and Luz, here and leaving the few cattle Denaman owned scattered through the hills. You’re welcome to gather and work the cattle, Denaman said. Not more than a hundred head; but something to build on and you won’t have to put up money till you market them and take your share.

That was something to think about, and all the way to Tucson Cable had pictured himself a rancher, a man with his own land, with his own stock. He thought, too, about a girl who lived in Sudan, Texas.

The first thing he did in Tucson was quit his job. The same day he bought twenty head of yearling stock, spending every last dollar he had, and drove his cattle the hundred and twenty miles back to the Saber River.

In the summer of his second year he built his own adobe, with the help of Manuel Acaso, four miles north of the store. He sold some of his full-grown beef to the army at Fort Buchanan and he continued to buy yearlings, buying them cheap from people around Tubac who’d had enough of the Apache and were willing to make a small profit or none at all just to get shed of their stock and get out of southern Arizona.

The next year he left Manuel Acaso with his herd and traveled back to Sudan. The girl, Martha Sanford, was waiting for him. They were married within the week and he brought her home to the Saber without stopping for a honeymoon. Then he worked harder than he ever imagined a man could work and he remembered thinking during those days: nothing can budge you from this place. You are taking all there is to take and if you don’t die you will make a success of it.

He was sure of it after living through the winter the Apaches came. They were Chiricahuas down out of the Dragoons and every few weeks they would raid his herd for meat. From November through April Cable lost over fifty head of cattle. But he made the Chiricahuas pay.

Lying prone high on the slope with a Sharps rifle, in the cover of the trees, he knocked two of them from their horses as they cut into his herd. The others came for him, squirming unseen through the pines, and when they rushed him he killed a third one with his revolver before they ran.

Another time that winter a war party attacked the house of Juan Toyopa, Cable’s nearest neighbor to the west, killing Juan and his family and burning the house. They reached Cable’s place at dawn-coming suddenly, screaming out of the grayness and battering against the door. He stood waiting with a revolver in each hand. Martha stood behind him with the shotgun. And when the door gave way he fired six rounds into them in half as many seconds. Two of the Apaches fell and Martha stepped over them to fire both shotgun loads at the Apaches running for the willows. One of them went down.

Then Cable rode to Denaman’s to get Manuel Acaso. They returned to the willows, found the sign of six Chiricahuas and followed it all day, up into high desert country; and at dusk, deep in a high-walled canyon, they crept up to the dry camp of the six Apaches and shot three of them before they could reach their horses. The survivors fled, at least one of them wounded, Cable was sure of that, and they never bothered him again.

Perhaps they believed his life was charmed, that he was beyond killing, and for that reason they stopped trying to take him or his cattle. And perhaps it was charmed, Cable had thought. Or else his prayers were being answered. It was a good thing to believe; it made him feel stronger and made him work even harder. That was the time he first had the thought: nothing can budge you from this land. Nothing.

The next year their first child was born. Clare. And Manuel Acaso helped him build the log addition to the house. He remembered planning it, lying here in this bed with Martha next to him and Clare, a month-old baby, in the same crib Sandy was sleeping in now; lying awake staring at the ceiling and thinking how he would build a barn after they’d completed the log room.

And now thinking about that time and not thinking about the years in between, he felt comfortable and at peace. Until the murmur of Martha’s voice, close to him, brought him fully awake.

“They’ll come today, won’t they?”

He turned to her. She was on her side, her eyes open and watching him. “I guess they will.”

“Is that what you were thinking about?”

Cable smiled. “I was thinking about the barn.”

“You’re not even worried, are you?”

“It doesn’t do any good to show it.”

“I thought you might be trying out your principle of not worrying about anything you can’t do something about.”

“Well, I thought about it.”

Martha smiled. “Cabe, I love you.”

He rolled to his side, pulling her close to him and kissed her, brushing her cheek and her mouth. His face remained close to hers. “We’ll come out of this.”

“We have to,” Martha whispered.

When Cable left the house the sun was barely above the line of trees at the river’s edge. The willow branches moved in the breeze, swaying slowly against the pale morning sky. But soon, Cable knew, there would be sun glare and deep shadows, black against yellow, and the soft movement of the trees would be remembered from another time with another feeling.

With Davis and Clare he brought the four team horses out of the barn and put them on a picket line to graze. It wouldn’t help to get them mixed with Kidston’s herd. He saddled the sorrel gelding, but let the reins hang free so it could also graze. The sorrel wouldn’t wander. After that he returned to the house.

Martha came out of the log room with Sandy. “What did you forget?”

“The Spencer,” Cable said. He picked it up, then turned sharply, hearing Clare’s voice.

The little girl ran in from the yard. “Somebody’s coming!”

Cable stepped to the doorway. Behind him Martha called, “Davis-Clare, where is he?”

“He’s all right.” Cable lowered the Spencer looking out past Davis who was in the yard watching the rider just emerging from the trees. “It’s Janroe.”

The first thing Cable noticed about Janroe was that he wore two revolvers-one in a shoulder holster, the other on his hip-in addition to a shotgun in his saddle boot.

Then, as Janroe approached, he noticed the man’s gaze. Taking it all in, Cable thought, seeing Janroe’s eyes moving from the saddled gelding to the gear-cooking utensils, clothing, curl-toed boots, bedding and the three holstered revolvers on top-that was in a pile over by the barn.

Janroe reined in, his gaze returning to the adobe. “Well, you ran them, didn’t you?” His hand touched his hat brim and he nodded to Martha, then fell away as Cable walked out to him. He made no move to dismount.

“I don’t think you expected to see us,” Cable said.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“But you were curious.”