Elmore Leonard - Escape from Five Shadows

If you planned a break with one of the convicts, he wouldn’t think of you, would he? He’d think of himself. And you’d think of your self. That’s what it comes down to. She’s as much a prisoner as anyone else. So if she wants to get out, even needing somebody else, she’ll be thinking of herself. It’s not surprising now, is it? Suddenly it’s not surprising. Your mistake was thinking of her as a woman instead of as another convict.

So forget she’s a woman and just listen to whatever she has to say. Forget she’s supposed to think like a woman, however women are supposed to think. She’s another convict. Put a convict’s shirt on her and numbered pants if that makes it any easier.

He began to picture Lizann in a man’s shirt, not doing it intentionally, but because it was already in his mind; but suddenly the woman was no longer Lizann and he was picturing Karla Demery in a faded blue chambray shirt, the one she had been wearing that day three weeks ago.

As the trail began to climb, Bowen watched Brazil come up almost to their wagon before turning his horse from the trail. He rode even with them then, but off beyond the twisted, shaggy-barked cliff rose bushes that grew close along the wagon ruts. Renda remained behind, though he seemed to be closer to the wagon now. The three Mimbres who had trailed him were no longer there.

Then, watching Renda, Bowen thought of Karla Demery again-picturing her with Renda in the station yard. Then later, when he had been close to her-

Her short black hair making her look almost like a boy yet, strangely, more feminine because of it. A slim body. Small even features. Clean-scrubbed, clean-smelling and dark from the sun, though you knew some of the warm brown was Mexican blood and you could see it in the eyes-one quarter from her mother’s side. Not more than one quarter. In the eyes that were alive and didn’t move from your face as you spoke, though not the way Lizann Falvey’s had not moved.

Read Karla, Bowen thought. Not the giving you the clothes and the horse and the talking about the lawyer. Read what was behind her eyes the way you did Lizann’s. If you can do that, you’ll understand the horse and the clothes and the other thing. But it isn’t as easy, is it? You don’t just label her and say, There, that’s why she’s doing it.

Which one would you rather be with?

For what?

For anything!

You almost kissed her.

You almost kissed both of them.

No…Karla. You almost climbed right off the horse to kiss her. Not for what she had done but because you wanted to. The other was different. Lizann was trying to make you kiss her. But you didn’t.

Maybe you should’ve gotten off the horse.

The wagons followed a dry wash down through rock-strewn, pinyon-studded talus to the wide floor of a canyon and here intersected the new road that, following the canyon, came down from the north. The wagons moved down canyon a good three hundred yards before halting at the end of construction.

Bowen waited his turn, then jumped down from the wagon. Pryde followed him. They started for the equipment wagon as Brazil rode up.

“You two unhitch the team.”

Pryde looked up at him. “We’re going to pull stumps?”

Brazil grinned. “Till your back breaks.”

They watched Brazil ride on to the equipment wagon. “I knew we’d be pulling stumps,” Pryde said.

“One job’s as bad as another,” Bowen said. He looked back along the new road. “We didn’t miss very much. That needle rock back there. We were even with it three weeks ago.”

Pryde squinted along the canyon. “Maybe two and a half miles.”

“Renda’s making it last,” Bowen said.

Pryde nodded. “Four months to come about twelve miles and not doing much more than cutting a path.”

“With another four miles to go,” Bowen said. He turned to look down the canyon. “The hardest four. Up over the rocks, then down to come out somewhere behind the stagecoach station. Renda can make that last a good two months.”

“He must know somebody,” Pryde said.

Bowen nodded. “He’d have to. He doesn’t know anything about road building.”

“The government must have lots of money,” Pryde said thoughtfully. “Six months to build sixteen miles of road through the mountains to save one day’s travel from Willcox to San Carlos.”

“To save a half day,” Bowen corrected. “You know Renda knows somebody.”

Brazil motioned to them and they brought the team up past the equipment wagon where two convicts stood waiting for them. One, a Mexican, with a twelve-foot length of chain over his shoulder; the other leaning on a long-handled shovel. Bowen nodded to them.

The convict with the shovel squinted as if he needed glasses and the lines of his face formed a nervous, half-smiling expression. He was a small man, perhaps forty. His straw hat was cocked over one eye and his shirt collar was buttoned, though it hung loosely, at least three sizes too large for him, and he gave the impression that even in convict clothes he was trying to keep up his appearance-the white collar, coat and tie appearance of a man who had been an assistant cashier at the Wickenburg bank until the day he stole five hundred and fifty dollars to cover a gambling debt. His name was Chick Miller; the man who had described the supply wagon trip to Bowen.

“Corey,” he said now, “I’m sorry you didn’t make it.” When Bowen said nothing, he added, “I hope you don’t hold it against me.”

“Why should I?”

“I mean since I was the one told you to try it.”

“I made up my own mind,” Bowen said.

Chick grinned. “Brazil came riding like hell through here to gather the trackers and we thought for certain you’d made it.”

“Chick, did you tell Earl I was going to try it?”

The question came unexpectedly and Chick Miller straightened, his hands sliding down the handle of the shovel. “Why would you think that?”

“Just tell me if you did.”

“Of course not!”

“Chick, I don’t care if you did.”

“Maybe he saw us talking.”

Bowen nodded. “Or maybe you suggested he try it.”

“I might have done that.”

“Then told him I was going to.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Chick, I’m not holding it against you if you did. I just want to know.”

“I might’ve mentioned you were thinking about it.” Chick Miller shook his head then. “But I wouldn’t have come right out and told!”

The Mexican, a young, clean-shaven, dark-skinned man, said, “That’s why I don’t even think about it. You get it in your mind to run and everyone knows about it.”

Chick Miller looked at the Mexican. “You keep out of what don’t concern you.” He stopped then, seeing Brazil riding toward them.

Brazil pulled up, his Winchester across his lap and pointing at them. “Just passing the time of day?”

Chick Miller grinned. “We’re waiting for the axe crew to give us some work.”

Brazil nodded to a tree stump just beyond them. “There’s one left from Saturday. Start on it.”

“That one won’t be in the roadway,” Chick Miller said.

Brazil studied him. “You going to argue over it?”

“I just thought, why pull her out if she’s going to be off the road anyway.” He saw Brazil start to dismount and the half-smiling, squinting expression came over Chick’s face. “I mean it’s not going to be in the way.”

Brazil swung down and started for him. He waved the barrel of the Winchester at the other three men and said, “Get out of the way,” not taking his eyes from Chick.

“We’ll take her out,” Chick said. He glanced at the Mexican, seeing him move away; then to Bowen and Pryde who were watching Brazil and now he saw them back away slowly. As he turned to Brazil again the Winchester barrel was swinging toward him. He threw up his arms and fell back stumbling but keeping his feet and the barrel slashed past his head. Chick started to run.