Rio Bravo

by Leigh Brackett

  Colorado took one look at him and went back into the kitchen. Consuela was sobbing aloud. He untied her first and she flung herself on Carlos, clinging to him so that Colorado had a hard time getting him freed. Neither one of them was hurt. Chance came back in and walked past them all without seeing them. Colorado heard him cross the dining room and go heavily up the stairs. His shirt was all bloody down the back.

  Carlos sat on the floor with his arms around Consuela. It seemed that he was going to spend the rest of his life that way, holding her.

  Colorado said, “What happened to Dude?”

  “They took him away,” said Carlos, “as soon as they heard the shots.”

  Consuela wept with her head buried against Carlos’s chest. Her skirts were in disarray and the red lace ruffles of her drawers made a gay spot of color, very bright and cheerful in the room.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Chance sat humped over on the edge of the desk. He was hatless and naked to the waist. Stumpy had the lantern up close behind him, and he was cleaning the long furrow that Varney’s bullet had plowed across the muscle of Chance’s back. The wound burned like fury and it would hurt when it stiffened, but Chance knew he was not going to die of it, and so he forgot it.

  He watched the man who sat in the chair in front of him. This was the man that Colorado had shot so carefully. He had two wounds to Chance’s one but nothing was being done about them. He was a light-built wiry man, dark-haired and sallow, with the marks of a lot of hard, bad years on his face. He sat and watched himself bleed.

  Stumpy worked away, splashing water and some stinking antiseptic from a basin. Colorado stood by the window, watching the street. The front door was shut and bolted. There were some new scars on it. The porch outside had had some buckets of water sluiced over it but it would need scrubbing and even then the deep stains would take a long time to fade. Varney’s head had been blown half off him. The men immediately behind him had died less spectacularly but just as finally.

  Chance was glad they were dead. He wished that there had been more of them to pile up in Bert Pegram’s back room under the dusty sheets. He watched the man bleeding in the chair and his face was utterly without mercy.

  The man said finally, as though he could no longer hold the words back, “Aren’t you going to do something?”

  Chance said, “I told you what you had to do to get fixed up.”

  The man shut his mouth again, tight and hard.

  Stumpy patched lint and plaster across Chance’s back. He fetched a shirt from somewhere. “Ain’t very clean,” he said, “but it’s better’n what I took off you.”

  Chance put the shirt on. He stood up, buttoning it.

  Stumpy picked up the basin and started away.

  The man’s mouth crumpled and became weak. There was a gray color coming around it, and a gray pinched look around his nostrils. He looked at Stumpy with bitter, hating, suffering eyes.

  “You can’t just let me sit here and bleed to death,” he said.

  “That’s up to the sheriff,” Stumpy said, and Chance smiled.

  “Oh yes I can,” the sheriff said.

  The gray color spread faster over the man’s face. Chance picked up the whisky bottle that Stumpy had brought for him. He went over and poured some into the man’s mouth. He drank some himself while the man gagged and choked and came back from the edge of fainting. Colorado glanced over his shoulder at what was going on. He looked sick but he did not say anything.

  “Don’t wait too long,” Chance said. “It might be too late to change your mind.”

  He sat down behind the desk, leaning forward in the chair, and rolled a smoke. Stumpy moved slowly away toward the back of the jail.

  The man cursed. He did this briefly and viciously, watching the life running out of him in two little oozing streams, and then he shut his eyes and said, “Oh hell, of course it was Nathan Burdette sent for us and paid us, and the hell with him and his goddamn brother, the hell with all of you.” His voice rose. “Can’t you stop me bleeding?”

  “In a minute,” Chance said. He got up and stood over the man. “Where did they take Dude?”

  “To Burdette’s ranch.” The man rolled his head from side to side. “Hurry up, can’t you hurry?”

  “What did they take him for?” Chance reached out and slapped the man and he sat up and opened his eyes. “What’s Burdette going to do with him?”

  “He said not to come back empty-handed. He said bring back Joe or else bring back you or Dude or both of you. He said he’d pay, hell, enough gold to bust your pockets, but he’d shoot the man that came back empty-handed. That’s why Luke kept Dude back just in case. He figured …”

  “What did he figure?”

  “He figured to get Joe out and then kill you both.” The man’s voice trailed off. He moaned and said, “Please!”

  Chance said to Stumpy, “All right, take care of him.” He went back to the desk and sat down again and put his head in his hands.

  Stumpy worked quickly, not bothering to be gentle. When he was through he gave the man the bottle and let him drink. “Give me a hand,” he said to Colorado, and Colorado left the window. Between them they took the man and laid him on a cell bunk and locked him in.

  “Well,” said Colorado, “we’ve got our witness against Burdette.”

  His voice had in it a curious note of doubt. And in the next cell Joe Burdette laughed out loud.

  “You got a witness,” he said. “And I got pretty good ears and I hear my brother’s got Dude. So you figure out how much good that witness is going to do you.” He laughed again. “I’ll be out of here by morning.”

  Stumpy said, “The hell you will.” But his voice, like Colorado’s, lacked conviction. He walked away and Colorado followed him, back into the office.

  Chance had unpinned the sheriff’s star from the bloody shirt Stumpy had taken off him. He was sitting with it in his hands, frowning at it. Colorado returned to the window. Stumpy stayed by the barred door. He rammed tobacco into his pipe and lighted it, watching Chance.

  Chance continued to scowl at the badge. Finally he pinned it on his shirt.

  “Well,” said Stumpy heartily. “I’m glad you made up your mind.” His eyes were as shrewd and doubtful as ever. Chance shrugged, wincing when the pain caught him. He reached out and drew the whisky bottle to him.

  “You better turn in your badges now,” he said to Stumpy and Colorado. He did not look at them, but only at the bottle between his hands.

  “What’re you talking about?” Stumpy demanded. “Why would we want to do a thing like that, right when we got Nathan Burdette where we want him, when all we got to do—”

  Chance banged his hand flat on the desk. “I’m cutting you loose. You got no more duty or obligation to me.”

  “I ain’t going to argue with you right now,” the old man said softly. “You sit and think awhile.”

  Chance did not answer. He sat, red-eyed and heavy-browed, drinking a little from time to time, his face settling into lines of granite stubbornness. Stumpy watched him, and whatever hope the old man had had faded gradually away and was replaced by a bitter anger. Over by the window Colorado began to sweat.

  The rapid drumming of hoofs sounded faintly in the distance, coming closer.

  Chance heard them before Colorado did. He came to the window, thrusting the boy aside.

  The rider came galloping up the street and stopped just out of the line of sight from the jail windows.

  “Sheriff!” he yelled. “Hey, Sheriff!”

  “I’m here.”

  “I got a message for you—about Dude. Will you listen?”

  “I’ll listen.”

  The man rode up in front of the jail, in the light of a late moon. It was the weasel-faced man who had stayed behind with Dude, laughing as Varney left him. Chance curled his fingers around the bars. He had not brought his rifle with him to the window. He had left it far out of reach.

  “There’s a big building out at the w
est edge of town, kind of a warehouse. You know it?”

  Chance said, “I know it.”

  “Dude’ll be there at sunup. You’ll have thirty minutes after that to bring Joe Burdette out there and make a trade. If you don’t come, Dude hangs from the loft tackle. And there’ll be plenty of men there to see that nobody objects.”

  “I’ll be there,” Chance said.

  The man reined his horse around and went quickly away.

  Chance turned from the window.

  “And I thought you was a man,” Stumpy said. “I thought you was a sheriff. I thought you had some decent guts.”

  “I told you to get out.” Chance looked at Stumpy, not angry, not defensive or sad, merely immovable. “You’d better do it now. Both of you. Nathan will be pulling all his men in to the warehouse. If you watch your chance you can get away while they’re busy with Dude and me.”

  “You know what you’re doing?” Stumpy said. He was almost crying. “You know what you got here if you stay and hang onto it? You know what you’re throwing away if you give Joe back to them?”

  “All I know,” Chance said, “is what’ll happen to Dude if I don’t give Joe back to them.”

  “What makes you think Dude would want you to do it? He sent you over here, didn’t he? He knew what I’d do to anybody that came in here with you, and he sent you over so’s you could keep hold of Joe.”

  “And I came because that way there was just a chance of getting us both off the hook, and the other way there wasn’t any. All right.” Chance made a wide, flat gesture with his hands. “It didn’t work out. And I ain’t going to sit here while Dude hangs.”

  He sat down again behind the desk and drank from the bottle. He was not getting drunk. All the whisky in Rio Bravo would not have made him drunk tonight. It only gave him a kind of strength, an unnatural strength perhaps but good enough to serve the need. And it would last him as long as he expected to have any use for it.

  He turned suddenly on Colorado. “You been keeping mighty quiet. What have you got to say for yourself?”

  “Stumpy’s right,” Colorado said. He looked at the floor and shook his head. “But I guess I couldn’t let ’em hang Dude either.”

  Stumpy swore. “I ain’t going to say any more. I won’t waste my breath even mentioning that a sheriff’s got certain sworn duties, and that he don’t have any right to give up a prisoner no matter who they hang. I’m just going to ask you one simple little question, Chance. How long do you think you and Dude will stay alive after you make the trade?”

  Chance looked at him. Then he opened a bottom drawer of the desk and lifted out the fancy belt and two fine guns he had taken from Joe Burdette. The gun that had killed Gurney Hayes he left untouched, but he took out the other one, spun the cylinder, then broke it and emptied the chambers. He tested the action and found it fast.

  “Just as long,” Chance said, “as we damned well can.”

  He set to work to clean the gun and oil it, ready for Dude’s hand.

  Stumpy sat down in a chair on the other side of the room. He stared gloomily at the small barred window until it showed a square of gray against the black.

  “It’s almost sunup,” Stumpy said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Chance rose up stiffly from behind the desk. He thrust the gun into the waistband of his trousers, put on a jacket and filled all his pockets methodically with shells. He took down his rifle from the rack and checked it, and put on his hat.

  Stumpy swung the twin barrels of his shotgun around and centered them on Chance’s belly.

  “I could let this thing go off here and now,” he said, “and at least you’d still have your good name to take with you.” He sighed and heaved himself out of the chair. “Oh, hell. Shall I bring Joe out or do you want to do that yourself?”

  “I’ll bring him,” Chance said. “I don’t want anyone else responsible.” He reached down a coiled saddle rope from a peg and started toward the back of the jail. Over his shoulder he said, “Time’s running out on you. Whatever you’re going to do you’d better do fast.”

  He took the keys off the nail where Stumpy had hung them and went to the door of Joe’s cell.

  Joe was ready and waiting. He had not slept all night and his eyes were alight with excitement and triumph. He could hardly wait for Chance to unlock the door.

  “I told you,” he said, laughing as he stepped out. “I told you.”

  Chance whipped the coiled rope across his face. Joe sucked in his breath and was quiet. Chance shoved the rope into his hands.

  “Make a loop,” he said.

  Joe made a loop.

  “Put it around your neck.”

  A quick terror showed in Joe’s eyes. Chance said, “Put it around your neck.” He reached with his free hand and grasped the rope. “Walk ten feet ahead of me all the way and keep the rope taut. Just taut, Joe. If I pull on it, stop.”

  “I’m not going to try anything,” Joe said. “Jesus, why would I—?”

  Chance brought the rifle up impatiently. “I’m tired, Joe. I’ve had some hard days. Don’t argue with me.”

  Joe put the loop hastily around his neck. It was as though he understood, or believed, that Chance was not entirely sane and not to be trusted to act according to reason.

  “Sure,” he said. “Anything you say. But you don’t have to worry.”

  He walked ahead of Chance to the front of the jail, keeping the rope taut.

  Colorado stood by the front door. He had his hand on the bolt. He said, “Sheriff, I—”

  “I’m not going to ask for help,” Chance said. “Open the door, Joe.”

  Colorado stood aside. Joe pushed the heavy bolt back and opened the door. The chill clean air of early morning swept in. Chance shivered when it touched him. He breathed deep and straightened his shoulders.

  “All right,” he said to Joe, very calmly. “Walk.”

  Joe walked, out into the gray dawn streets of Rio Bravo. Chance walked behind him with his rifle in one hand and the coil of rope in the other. Between them the rope stayed taut.

  As early as it was, the whole town was awake to see them go. Chance was aware at every window of curtains being pulled aside and faces peering. He thought that people began to come into the street behind him after he had passed, but he did not turn his head to see.

  He did not look up at Feathers’ window as he passed the hotel. He could feel her there, watching him go. She had known how it was going to be ever since he had gone upstairs last night and found her bound but unhurt in her room. He had told her then that they had taken Dude alive. “To trade for Joe Burdette?” she said, and he said, “Yes.” She said, “Are you going to do it?” After a minute she whispered, “They’ll kill you both, you know that.” She turned away from him, white-faced and silent, as though he was already dead. Now he did not dare to look up and see her again.

  The sun pushed up over the eastern horizon. The sky turned blue and the cliffs above the town were touched with flame. In that sudden blaze of light the horsemen stood, looking down into the streets below them. One of them lifted his arm as though in a signal. Then together they turned and were gone.

  Chance felt the heat of the sun on his shoulders. Smells of boiling coffee and frying ham came to him on the breeze. People might eat more hastily this morning, but they would eat. He realized suddenly that he was very hungry, and he smiled at the foolishness of his body. He was far too late for breakfast.

  Joe began unconsciously to walk faster, tugging against his halter like an eager colt.

  The houses of Rio Bravo dropped behind them. Ahead on the dusty road the adobe warehouse cast a squat black shadow to the west. The beam of the loft hoist stuck out from it like the arm of a hangman’s tree. The place appeared to be deserted but Chance knew that Burdette and his men were there inside, waiting for him to choose his position. Nathan was keeping them under cover, taking no risk that Chance might somehow be startled into killing Joe. Chance pulled gently on the rope.


  “Easy,” he said. “We’re going in there.”

  He pointed to a sort of shed that stood opposite the front of the warehouse some fifty or sixty feet away from it. It was part of a tannery that the Burdettes’ father had operated once, a long time ago. Now the wooden doors at each end were gone but the mud-brick walls were still stout. Scattered over the property were the remnants of other adobe walls where the vats and the tanning floor had been. Joe went obediently toward the back of the shed, and as Chance followed him he saw off to his left the canvas tilts of Wheeler’s seven wagons gleaming almost white in the new sun. He laughed suddenly.

  Joe started nervously and turned his head. “What’re you laughing at?”

  “Nothing,” Chance said. “Nothing at all.”

  The wagons were a long gunshot away, but if lead got to straying over there they might all go out in a blaze of glory.

  He followed Joe out of the sunlight into the dim cold shed.

  “What do I do now?” Joe said.

  “Walk up beside the other door there and stand quiet.” Chance dropped the rope and brought the rifle to bear on Joe’s back, closing up on him. Joe walked with infinite care to the side of the door. He put his hand up to the rope around his neck.

  “Can I take this off now?”

  “You can take it off.”

  Chance stepped to the other side of the doorway, not showing himself. He leaned against it and shouted, “Nathan!”

  The weasel-faced man appeared in the doorway of the warehouse, under the shadow of the hangman’s beam.

  “You’re dealing with me, Sheriff,” he said. “You be rea—”

  Chance fired and the bullet clipped the word off short. The weasel-faced man spun half-around and fell on his face and lay there.

  “Nathan!” Chance yelled. “Come and make your own deal, or there won’t be any.” He looked savagely at Joe.

  There was a moment of silence. The black oblong of the warehouse door remained empty. Suddenly Joe screamed, “Nathan! For God’s sake, Nathan!”