Trail of the Apache and Other Stories
Page 17
he’s lived up north of town a few months. Him and
the woman.’ ‘Well, I know him,’ Mr. Tanner said.
‘That man’s an army deserter wanted for murder.’ I
said, ‘Well, let’s go get him.’ He had a start on us
and that’s how he got to the hut before we could
grab on to him. He’s been holed up ever since.”
Only Good Ones
187
Mr. Malsom said, “Then you didn’t talk to him.”
“Listen,” Mr. Tanner said, “I’ve kept that man’s
face before my eyes this past year.”
Bob Valdez, somewhat behind Mr. Tanner and to
the side, moved in a little closer. “You know this is
the same man, uh?”
Mr. Tanner looked around. He stared at Valdez.
That’s all he did—just stared.
“I mean, we have to be sure,” Bob Valdez said.
“It’s a serious thing.”
Now Mr. Malsom and Mr. Beaudry were looking up at him. “We,” Mr. Beaudry said. “I’ll tell
you what, Roberto. We need help we’ll call you. All
right?”
“You hired me,” Bob Valdez said, standing alone
above them. He was serious but he shrugged and
smiled a little to take the edge off the words.
“What did you hire me for?”
“Well,” Mr. Beaudry said, acting it out, looking
past Bob Valdez and along the road both ways, “I
was to see some drunk Mexicans I’d point them out.”
A person can be in two different places and he
will be two different people. Maybe if you think of
some more places the person will be more people,
but don’t take it too far. This is Bob Valdez standing by himself with the shotgun and having only
the shotgun to hold on to. This is one Bob Valdez.
About twenty years old. Mr. Beaudry and others
could try and think of a time when Bob Valdez
188
ELMORE LEONARD
might have drunk too much or swaggered or had a
certain smart look on his face, but they would
never recall such a time. This Bob Valdez was all
right.
Another Bob Valdez inside the Bob Valdez at the
pasture that day worked for the army one time and
was a guide when Crook chased Chato and Chihuahua down into the Madres. He was seventeen
then, with a Springfield and Apache moccasins that
came up to his knees. He would sit at night with the
Apache scouts from San Carlos, eating with them
and talking some as he learned Chiricahua. He
would keep up with them all day and shoot the
Springfield one hell of a lot better than any of them
could shoot. He came home with a scalp but never
showed it to anyone and had thrown it away by the
time he went to work for Maricopa. Shortly after
that he was named town constable at twenty-five
dollars a month, getting the job because he got
along with people: the Mexicans in town who
drank too much on Saturday night liked him and
that was the main thing.
The men with the whiskey bottle had forgotten
Valdez. They stayed in the hollow where the shade
was cool watching the line shack and waiting for the
army deserter to realize it was all up with him. He
would realize it and open the door and be cut down
as he came outside. It was a matter of time only.
Bob Valdez stayed on the open part of the slope
Only Good Ones
189
that was turning to shade, sitting now like an
Apache and every once in a while making a cigarette and smoking it slowly as he thought about
himself and Mr. Tanner and the others, then thinking about the army deserter.
Diego Luz came and squatted next to him, his
arms on his knees and his big hands that he used
for breaking horses hanging in front of him.
“Stay near if they want you for something,”
Valdez said. He was watching Beaudry tilt the bottle up. Diego Luz said nothing.
“One of them bends over,” Bob Valdez said then,
“you kiss it, uh?”
Diego Luz looked at him, patient about it. Not
mad or even stirred up. “Why don’t you go home?”
“He says Get me a bottle, you run.”
“I get it. I don’t run.”
“Smile and hold your hat, uh?”
“And don’t talk so much.”
“Not unless they talk to you first.”
“You better go home,” Diego said.
Bob Valdez said, “That’s why you hit the
horses.”
“Listen,” Diego Luz said, scowling a bit now.
“They pay me to break horses. They pay you to
talk to drunks on Saturday night and keep them
from killing somebody. They don’t pay you for
what you think or how you feel, so if you take their
money, keep your mouth shut. All right?”
190
ELMORE LEONARD
Diego Luz got up and walked away, down toward the hollow. The hell with this kid, he was
thinking. He’ll learn or he won’t learn, but the hell
with him. He was also thinking that maybe he
could get a drink from that bottle. Maybe there’d
be a half inch left nobody wanted and Mr. Malsom
would tell him to kill it.
But it was already finished. R. L. Davis was playing with the bottle, holding it by the neck and flipping it up and catching it as it came down. Beaudry
was saying, “What about after dark?” Looking at
Mr. Tanner, who was thinking about something
else and didn’t notice. R L. Davis stopped flipping
the bottle. He said, “Put some men on the rise right
above the hut; he comes out, bust him.”
“Well, they should get the men over there,” Mr.
Beaudry said, looking at the sky. “It won’t be long
till dark.”
“Where’s he going?” Mr. Malsom said.
The others looked up, stopped in whatever they
were doing or thinking by the suddenness of Mr.
Malsom’s voice.
“Hey, Valdez!” R. L. Davis yelled out. “Where
do you think you’re going?”
Bob Valdez had circled them and was already
below them on the slope, leaving the pines now
and entering the scrub brush. He didn’t stop or
look back.
“Valdez!”
Only Good Ones
191
Mr. Tanner raised one hand to silence R. L.
Davis, all the time watching Bob Valdez getting
smaller, going straight through the scrub, not just
walking or passing the time but going right out to
the pasture.
“Look at him,” Mr. Malsom said. There was
some admiration in the voice.
“He’s dumber than he looks,” R. L. Davis said.
Then jumped a little as Mr. Tanner touched his arm.
“Come on,” Mr. Tanner said. “With a rifle.”
And started down the slope, hurrying and not
seeming to care if he might stumble on the loose
gravel.
Bob Valdez was now halfway across the pasture,
the shotgun pointed down at his side, his eyes not
leaving the door of the line shack. The door was
probably already open enough for a rifle barrel to
&n
bsp; poke through. He guessed the army deserter was
covering him, letting him get as close as he wanted;
the closer he came, the easier to hit him.
Now he could see all the bullet marks in the door
and the clean inner wood where the door was splintered. Two people in that little bake-oven of a
place. He saw the door move.
He saw the rag doll on the ground. It was a
strange thing, the woman having a doll. Valdez
hardly glanced at it but was aware of the button
eyes looking up and the discomforted twist of the
red wool mouth. Then, just past the doll, when he
192
ELMORE LEONARD
was wondering if he would go right up to the door
and knock on it and wouldn’t that be a crazy thing,
like visiting somebody, the door opened and the
Negro was in the doorway, filling it, standing there
in pants and boots but without a shirt in that hot
place and holding a long-barreled Walker that was
already cocked.
They stood ten feet apart looking at each other,
close enough so that no one could fire from the
slope.
“I can kill you first,” the Negro said, “if you
raise that.”
With his free hand, the left one, Bob Valdez motioned back over his shoulder. “There’s a man there
said you killed somebody a year ago.”
“What man?”
“Said his name is Tanner.”
The Negro shook his head, once each way.
“Said your name is Johnson.”
“You know my name.”
“I’m telling you what he said.”
“Where’d I kill this man?”
“Huachuca.”
The Negro hesitated. “That was some time ago I
was in the Tenth. More than a year.”
“You a deserter?”
“I served it out.”
“Then you got something that says so.”
Only Good Ones
193
“In the wagon, there’s a bag there my things
are in.”
“Will you talk to this man Tanner?”
“If I can hold from hitting him one.”
“Listen, why did you run this morning?”
“They come chasing. I don’t know what they
want.” He lowered the gun a little, his brownstained-looking tired eyes staring intently at Bob
Valdez. “What would you do? They came on the
run. Next thing I know they a-firing at us. So I pop
in this place.”
“Will you come with me and talk to him?”
The Negro hesitated again. Then shook his head.
“I don’t know him.”
“Then he won’t know you, uh?”
“He didn’t know me this morning.”
“All right,” Bob Valdez said. “I’ll get your paper
says you were discharged. Then we’ll show it to
this man, uh?”
The Negro thought it over before he nodded,
very slowly, as if still thinking. “All right. Bring
him here, I’ll say a few words to him.”
Bob Valdez smiled a little. “You can point that
gun some other way.”
“Well
.
.
.” the Negro said, “if everybody’s
friends.” He lowered the Walker to his side.
The wagon was in the willow trees by the creek.
Off to the right. But Bob Valdez did not turn right
194
ELMORE LEONARD
away in that direction. He backed away, watching
Orlando Rincon for no reason that he knew of.
Maybe because the man was holding a gun and that
was reason enough.
He had backed off six or seven feet when Orlando Rincon shoved the Walker down into his belt.
Bob Valdez turned and started for the trees.
This was when he looked across the pasture. He
saw Mr. Tanner and R. L. Davis at the edge of the
scrub trees but wasn’t sure it was them. Something
tried to tell him it was them, but he did not accept
it until he was off to the right, out of the line of fire,
and by then the time to yell at them or run toward
them was past, for R. L. Davis had the Winchester
up and was firing.
They say R. L. Davis was drunk or he would
have pinned him square. As it was the bullet shaved
Rincon and plowed past him into the hut.
Bob Valdez saw him half turn, either to go inside
or look inside, and as he came around again saw the
man’s eyes on him and his hand pulling the Walker
from his belt.
“They weren’t supposed to,” Bob Valdez said,
holding one hand out as if to stop Rincon. “Listen,
they weren’t supposed to do that!”
The Walker was out of Rincon’s belt and he was
cocking it. “Don’t!” Bob Valdez yelled. “Don’t!”
Looking right in the man’s eyes and seeing it was
no use and suddenly hurrying, jerking the shotgun
Only Good Ones
195
up and pulling both triggers so that the explosions
came out in one big blast and Orlando Rincon was
spun and thrown back inside.
They came out across the pasture to have a look
at the carcass, some going inside where they found
the woman also dead, killed by a rifle bullet. They
noticed she would have had a child in a few
months. Those by the doorway made room as Mr.
Tanner and R. L. Davis approached.
Diego Luz came over by Bob Valdez, who had
not moved. Valdez stood watching them and he saw
Mr. Tanner look down at Rincon and after a moment shake his head.
“It looked like him,” Mr. Tanner said. “It sure
looked like him.”
He saw R. L. Davis squint at Mr. Tanner. “It ain’t
the one you said?”
Mr. Tanner shook his head again. “I’ve seen him
before, though. Know I’ve seen him somewheres.”
Valdez saw R. L. Davis shrug. “You ask me, they
all look alike.” He was yawning then, fooling with
his hat, and then his eyes swiveled over at Bob
Valdez standing with the empty shotgun.
“Constable,” R. L. Davis said, “you went and
killed the wrong coon.”
Bob Valdez started for him, raising the shotgun
to swing it like a club, but Diego Luz drew his revolver and came down with it and Valdez dropped
to the ground.
196
ELMORE LEONARD
Some three years later there was a piece in the paper about a Robert Eladio Valdez who had been
hanged for murder in Tularosa, New Mexico. He
had shot a man coming out of the Regent Hotel,
called him an unprintable name, and shot him four
times. This Valdez had previously killed a man in
Contention and two in Sands during a bank
holdup, had been caught once, escaped from the
jail in Mesilla before trial, and identified another
time during a holdup near Lordsburg.
“If it is the same Bob Valdez used to live here,”
Mr. Beaudry said, “it’s good we got rid of him.”
“Well, it could be,” Mr. Malsom said. “But I
guess there are Bob Valdezes all over.”
“You wonder what gets into them,” Mr. Beaudry
&nb
sp; said.
The stories contained in this volume originally appeared in the
following publications:
“Trail of the Apache,” Argosy, December 1951
“You Never See Apaches . . . ,” Dime Western Magazine, September 1952
“The Colonel’s Lady,” Zane Grey’s Western, November 1952
“The Rustlers,” Zane Grey’s Western, February 1953
“The Big Hunt,” Western Magazine, April 1953
“The Boy Who Smiled,” Gunsmoke, June 1953
“Only Good Ones,” Western Roundup, New York, Macmillan, 1961 ( Western Writers of America Anthology)
About the Author
ELMORE LEONARD has written more than forty
novels during his highly successful career,
including the bestsellers The Hot Kid, Mr.
Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty,
and Rum Punch, and the critically acclaimed
collection of short stories When the Women Come
Out to Dance, which was named a New York
Times Notable Book of 2003. Many of his books
have been made into movies, including Get Shorty
and Out of Sight. He was named a Grand Master
by the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with
his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village,
Michigan.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive
information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Resounding praise for
the incomparable western fiction of
New York Times bestselling Grand Master
ELMORE LEONARD
✯ ✯ ✯
“Leonard began his career telling western stories. He knows his
way onto a horse and out of a gun fight as well as he knows the
special King’s English spoken by his patented, not-so-lovable
urban lowlifes.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“In cowboy writing, Leonard belongs in the same A-list shelf
as Louis L’Amour, Owen Wister, and Zane Grey.”
New York Daily News
“Leonard wrote westerns, very good westerns . . . the way he
imagined Hemingway, his mentor, might write westerns.”
Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate
“A master . . . Etching a harsh, haunting landscape with razorsharp prose, Leonard shows in [his] brilliant stories why he has
become the American poet laureate of the desperate and the
bold . . . In stories that burn with passion, treachery, and heroism, the frontier comes vividly, magnificently to life.”