Last Stand at Saber River

by Elmore Leonard

  It had happened at Chancellorsville, during Duane’s first and only taste of battle. His artillery company was thrown in to support Von Gilsa’s exposed flank, south of the town and in the path of Stonewall Jackson’s advance. When Von Gilsa’s brigade broke and came running back, Duane opened fire on them and killed more Union soldiers than Jackson had been able to in his attack.

  Duane, of course, gave his version. It was an understandable mistake. There had been no communication with Von Gilsa. They were running toward his position and he ordered the firing almost as a reflex action, the way a soldier is trained to react. It happened frequently; naturally mistakes were made in the heat of battle. It was expected. But Chancellorsville had been a Union defeat. That was why they forced him to resign his commission. A number of able commanders were relieved simply because the Army of the Potomac had suffered a setback.

  Vern accepted his explanation and even felt somewhat sorry for him. But when Duane went on pretending he was a soldier and hired four new riders for his “scouts,” as he called them, you could take just so much of that. What was it? Kidston’s Guard, Scouts for Colonel J. H. Carleton, Military Department of Arizona. It was one thing to feel sympathy for Duane. It was another to let Duane assume so much importance just to soothe his injured pride.

  And Lorraine, spoiled and bored and overly sure of herself. The worst combination you could find in a woman. Both she and her comic-opera officer of a father living under one roof. Still, it seemed there were some things you just had to put up with.

  Though that didn’t include a home-coming Confederate squeezing him off the river. Not after the years and the sweat, and breaking his back for every dollar he earned….

  That had been his reaction to Cable before he saw Cable face to face, before he talked to him. Since then, a gnawing doubt had crept into his mind. Cable had worked and sweated and fought, too. What about that?

  Duane’s logic at least simplified the question: Cable was an enemy of the Federal government in Federal territory. As such he had no rights. Take his land and good damn riddance.

  “His family is his worry.” Duane’s words. “But in these times, Vern, and I’ll testify to it, men with families are dying every day. We are a thousand miles from the fighting, but right here is an extension of the war. Sweep down on him! Drive him out! Burn him out if you have to!”

  Still, Vern wished with all his strength that there was a way of driving Cable out without fighting him. He was not afraid of Cable. He respected him. And he respected his wife.

  Vern found himself picturing the way Martha had walked out from the house with the shotgun under her arm. Cable was a lucky man to have a woman like that, a woman who could keep up with him and who had already given him three healthy children. A woman, Kidston felt, who thoroughly enjoyed being a woman and living with the man she loved.

  He had thought that Luz Acaso was that kind exactly. In fact he had been sure of it. But ever since Janroe’s coming she seemed a different person. That was something else to think about. Why would a woman as warm and openly affectionate as Luz change almost overnight? It concerned Janroe’s presence, that much Kidston was sure of. But was Luz in love with him or mortally afraid of him? That was another question.

  He heard steps behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Lorraine crossing the porch. She smiled at him pleasantly.

  “Cabe makes you stop and think, doesn’t he?”

  “You’re on familiar terms for only one meeting,” Vern said.

  “That’s what his wife calls him.” Lorraine watched her uncle lean against the support post. He looked away from her, out over the yard. “Don’t you think that’s unusual, a wife calling her husband by his last name?”

  “Maybe that’s what everybody calls him,” Vern answered.

  “Like calling you ‘Kid.’ ” Lorraine smiled, then laughed. “No, I think she made up the name. I think it’s her name for him. Hers only.” Lorraine waited, letting the silence lengthen before asking, “What do you think of her?”

  “I haven’t thought.”

  “I thought you might have given Martha careful consideration.”

  “Why?”

  “As a way of getting at her husband.”

  Vern looked at her now.

  “What do you mean?”

  Lorraine smiled. “You seem reluctant to use force. I doubt if you can buy him off. So what remains?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Strike at Cable from within.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  Lorraine sighed. “Vern, you’re never a surprise. You’re as predictable as Duane, though you don’t call nearly as much attention to yourself.”

  “Lorraine, if you have something to say—”

  “I’ve said it. Go after him through Martha. Turn her against him. Break up his home. Then see how long he stays in that house.”

  “And if such a thing was possible—”

  “It’s very possible.”

  “How?”

  “The other woman, Vern. How else?”

  He watched her calmly. “And that’s you.”

  She nodded once, politely. “Lorraine Kidston as”—she paused—“I need a more provocative name for this role.”

  Vern continued to watch her closely. “And if he happens to love his wife?”

  “Of course he loves her. Martha’s an attractive woman if you like them strong, capable and somewhat on the plain side. But that has nothing to do with it. He’s a man, Vern. And right now he’s in that place all alone.”

  “You’ve got a wild mind,” Vern said quietly. “I’d hate to live with it inside me.” He turned away from her and walked down the steps and across the yard.

  You shocked him, Lorraine thought amusedly, watching him go. But wait until the shock wears off. Wait until his conscience stops choking him. Vern would agree. He would have it understood that such methods went against his grain; but in the end he would agree. Lorraine was sure of it and she was smiling now.

  Cable passed through the store and climbed the stairs to the bedroom where Martha was unpacking. He watched her removing linens and towels from the trunk at the foot of the bed, turning to place them in the open dresser drawer an arm’s length away.

  “The children will be in here?”

  Martha looked up. “Clare and Dave. Sandy will sleep with me.”

  “With Luz here, I think you’ll get along with Janroe all right.”

  “As long as the children eat in the kitchen.”

  “Martha, I’m sorry.”

  She saw his frown deepen the tightly drawn lines of his bruised face. “Someday I’m going to bite my tongue off. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I can’t blame you,” Cable said.

  “But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “If you weren’t here,” Cable said, “it wouldn’t even be possible.” He moved close to her and put his arms around her as she straightened.

  “I want to say something like ‘It’ll be over soon,’ or ‘Soon we’ll be going back and there won’t be any more waiting, any more holding your breath not knowing what’s going to happen.’ But I can’t. I can’t promise anything.”

  “Cabe, I don’t need promises. Just so long as you’re here with us, that’s all we need.”

  “Do you want to leave? Right this minute get in the wagon and go back to Sudan?”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. You say it and we’ll leave.”

  For a moment Martha was silent, standing close to him, close to his bruised cheekbone and his lips that were swollen and cut. “If we went back,” Martha said, “I don’t think you’d be an easy man to live with. You’d be nice and sometimes you’d smile, but I don’t think you’d ever say very much, and it would be as if your mind was always on something else.” A smile touched her mouth and showed warmly in her eyes. “We’ll stay, Cabe.”

  She lifted her face to be kissed and when they looked at each other again
she saw his smile and he seemed more at ease.

  “Are you going back right now?”

  “I have to talk to Janroe first.” He kissed her again before stepping away. “I’ll be up in a little while.”

  Janroe was sitting in the kitchen, his chair half turned from the table so that he could look directly out through the screen door. He paid no attention to Luz who was clearing the table, carrying the dishes to the wooden sink. He was thinking of the war, seeing himself during that afternoon of August 30, in the fields near Richmond, Kentucky.

  If that day had never happened, or if it had happened differently; if he had not lost his arm—no, losing his arm was only an indirect reason for his being here. But it had led to this. It had been the beginning of the end.

  After his wound had healed, seven months later, with his sleeve in his belt and even somewhat proud of it but not showing his pride, he had returned to his unit and served almost another full year before they removed him from active duty. His discharge was sudden. It came shortly after he had had the Yankee prisoners shot. They said he would have to resign his commission because of his arm; but he knew that was not the reason and he had pleaded with them to let him stay, pestering General Kirby Smith’s staff; but it came to nothing, and in the end he was sent home a civilian.

  He had not told Cable about that year or about anything that had happened after August 30, after his arm was blown from his body. But Cable didn’t have to know everything. Like soldiers before an engagement with the enemy—it was better not to tell them too much.

  Stir them up, yes. Make them hate and be hungry to kill; but don’t tell them things they didn’t have to know, because that would start them thinking and soldiers in combat shouldn’t think. You could scare them though. Sometimes that was all right. Get them scared for their own skins. Pour it into their heads that the enemy was ruthless and knew what he was doing and that he would kill them if they didn’t kill him. Beat them if they wouldn’t fight!

  God knows he had done that. He remembered again the afternoon near Richmond, coming out of the brush and starting across the open field toward the Union battery dug in on the pine ridge that was dark against the sky. He remembered screaming at his men to follow him. He remembered this, seeing himself now apart from himself, seeing Captain Edward Janroe waving a Dragoon pistol and shouting at the men who were still crouched at the edge of the brush. He saw himself running back toward them, then swinging the barrel at a man’s head. The man ducked and scrambled out into the field. Others followed him; but two men still remained, down on their knees and staring up at him wide-eyed with fear. He shot one of them from close range, cleanly through the head; and the second man was out of the brush before he could swing the Dragoon on him.

  Yes, you could frighten a man into action, scare him so that he was more afraid of you than the enemy. Janroe stopped.

  Could that apply to Cable? Could Cable be scared into direct action?

  He eased his position, looking at Luz who was standing at the sink with her back to him, then at the screen door again and the open sunlight beyond. He had given his mind the opportunity to reject these questions, to answer them negatively.

  But why not? Why couldn’t Cable be forced into killing the Kidstons? He had been a soldier—used to taking orders. No, he couldn’t be ordered. But perhaps now, with his wife and children staying here, he would be more easily persuaded. Perhaps he could be forced into doing it. Somehow.

  In Janroe’s mind it was clear, without qualifying shades of meaning, that Vern and Duane Kidston were the enemy. In uniform or not in uniform they were Yankees and this was a time of war and they had to be killed. A soldier killed. An officer ordered his men to kill. That was what it was all about and that was what Janroe knew best.

  They could close their eyes to this fact and believe they were acting as human beings—whatever the hell that meant in time of war—and relieve him of his command for what he did to those Yankee prisoners. They could send him out here to die of boredom; but he could still remember what a Yankee field piece did to his arm. He was still a soldier and he could still think like a soldier and act like a soldier and if his job was to kill—whether or not on the surface it was called gunrunning—then he would kill.

  He felt his chest rising and falling with his breathing and he glanced at Luz, calming himself then, inhaling and letting his breath out slowly.

  Still, an officer used strategy. He fought with his eyes open; not rushing blindly, unless there was no other way to do it. An officer studied a situation and used what means he had at hand. If the means was a brigade or only one man, he used that means to the best of his ability.

  Janroe looked up as Cable entered the kitchen. He glanced at Luz then, catching her eye, and the girl dried her hands and stepped out through the back door.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Janroe said.

  “I was with my wife.” Cable hesitated. “We’re grateful for what you’re doing.”

  “I guess you are.”

  Cable sat down, removing his hat and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Martha will be glad to help out with the housekeeping, and she’ll keep the children out from under your feet.”

  “I took that for granted,” Janroe said.

  “We’ll be out of your way as soon as I settle this business with the Kidstons.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Look, we’ll leave right now if you want.”

  “You lose your temper too easily,” Janroe said. “I was asking you a simple question.”

  Cable looked at him, then at his own hand curling the brim of his hat. “I don’t know; it’s up to the Kidstons.”

  “It could be up to you, if you wanted it to be.”

  “If I kill them.”

  “You didn’t have any trouble last night.”

  “Last night two men came to my home,” Cable said. “My family was in danger and I didn’t have any choice. Though I’ll tell you this: I didn’t mean to kill them. That just happened. If Vern and Duane come threatening my home, then I could kill them too because I wouldn’t be trying to kill them; I’d be trying to protect my home and my family, and there’s a difference. When you say kill them, just go out and do it; that’s something else.”

  Janroe was sitting back in his chair, his hand idly rubbing the stump of his arm; but now he leaned forward. His hand went to the edge of the table and he pushed the chair back.

  “We could argue that point for a long time.” He stood up then. “Come on, I’ll show you something.”

  Cable hesitated, then rose and followed Janroe through the store and out to the loading platform. The children were at one end, stopped in whatever they were playing or pretending by the sudden appearance of Janroe. They looked at their father, wanting to go to him, but they seemed to sense a threat in approaching Janroe and they remained where they were.

  Janroe said, “Tell them to go around back.”

  “They’re not bothering anything.” Cable moved toward the children.

  “Listen,” Janroe said patiently, “just get rid of them for a while—all right?”

  He waited while Cable talked to the three children. Finally they moved off, taking their time and looking back as they turned the corner of the adobe. When they were out of sight, Janroe went down the stairs and, to Cable’s surprise, ducked under the loading platform.

  Cable followed, lowering his head to step through the cross timbers into the confining dimness. He moved with hunched shoulders the few steps to where Janroe was removing the padlock from a door in the adobe foundation.

  “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.

  4

  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.