Valdez Is Coming

by Elmore Leonard

  Frank Tanner had left De Spain's over two hours ago. Now, the next one to come in, just a little while after the Maricopa rider, was Bob Valdez.

  The houseman saw him and nudged Mr. Malson under the table. Mr. Malson looked at him funny, frowning -- What was the little bald-headed son of a bitch up to? -- then saw the houseman looking toward the door. Bob Valdez was coming directly toward their table, his gaze already picking out Mr. Malson, who looked at him and away from him and back again, and Bob Valdez was still looking right at him.

  "I buried him," Valdez said.

  Mr. Malson nodded. "Good. There were enough witnesses, I didn't see any need for an inquest." He looked up at Bob Valdez. "Everybody knows how he died."

  "Unless his wife wants him buried at home," Valdez said.

  Mr. Beaudry said, "Let her move him if she wants. Phew, driving that team in the sun with him on the back. How'd you like to do that?"

  R. L. Davis, who had moved over from the bar, said, "I guess that boy stunk enough when he was alive." He looked around and got a couple of the riders to laugh at it.

  "I haven't asked her if she wants to," Valdez said. "It's something she'll think about later when she's home. But I told her one thing," he said then. "I told her we'd pay her for killing her husband."

  There was a silence at the table. Mr. Beaudry fooled with the end of his moustache, twisting it, and Mr. Malson cleared his throat before he said, "We? Who's we?"

  "I thought everybody who was there," Bob Valdez said. "Or everybody who wants to give something."

  Mr. Malson said, "You mean take up a collection? Pass the hat around?"

  Valdez nodded. "Yes sir."

  "Well, I suppose we could do that." He looked at Beaudry. "What do you think, Earl?"

  Mr. Beaudry shrugged. "I don't care. I guess it would be all right. Give her a few dollars for a stake."

  Mr. Malson nodded. "Enough to get home. Where does she live?"

  "Their place is north of here," Valdez said.

  "No, I mean where is she from?"

  "I don't know."

  "Probably across the border," Mr. Beaudry said. "She could collect about ten dollars and it'd be more than any of her kin had ever seen before."

  Mr. Malson said, "I suppose we could do it."

  "I was thinking of more than ten dollars," Valdez said.

  Mr. Malson looked up at him. "How much more?"

  Bob Valdez cleared his throat. He said, "I was thinking five hundred dollars."

  The silence followed again. This time R. L. Davis broke it. He moved, shifting his weight, and there was a chinging sound of his spurs. He said, "I would like to know something. I would like to know why we're listening to this greaser. It was him killed the nigger. What's he coming to us for?"

  "R. L.," Mr. Malson said, "keep your mouth closed, all right?"

  "Why can't I say what I want?" R. L. Davis said, drunk enough to tell the manager of Maricopa to his face, "He killed him. Not us."

  Mr. Malson said, "Shut up or go to bed." He took his time shifting his gaze to Bob Valdez, then holding it there, staring at him. "That's a lot of money, five hundred dollars."

  "Yes sir," Bob Valdez nodded, speaking quietly. "I guess it is, but she needs it. What does she have now? I mean, we take her husband from her and now she doesn't have anything. So I thought five hundred dollars." He smiled a little. "It just came to me. That much."

  Mr. Beaudry said, "That's as much as most men make in a year."

  "Yes sir," Bob Valdez said. "But her husband won't earn anything anymore. Not this year or any year. So maybe five hundred is not so much."

  Mr. Beaudry said, "Giving that much is different than giving her a few dollars. I don't mean the difference in the amount. I mean you give her a sum like five hundred dollars it's like admitting we owe it to her. Like we're to blame."

  "Well?" Bob Valdez said. "Who else is to blame?"

  Mr. Beaudry said, "Now wait a minute. If you're anxious to fix blame then I'll have to go along with what this man said." He nodded toward R. L. Davis. "You killed him. We didn't. We were there to help flush him out, a suspected murderer. We weren't there to kill anybody unless we had to. But you took it on yourself to go down and talk to him and it was you that killed him. Am I right or wrong?"

  Bob Valdez said, "Everybody was shooting--"

  Mr. Beaudry held up his hand. "Wait just a minute. Shooting isn't killing. Nobody's shot killed him but yours and there are ninety, a hundred witnesses will testify to it."

  "I said it before," R. L. Davis said. "He killed the coon. Nobody else. The wrong coon at that."

  A few of them laughed and Bob Valdez looked over at R. L. Davis standing with his funneled hat over his eyes and his thumbs hooked in his belt trying to stand straight but swaying a little. He was good and drunk, his eyes watery looking and the corners of his mouth sticky. But it would be good to hit him anyway, Bob Valdez was thinking. Come in from the side and get his cheek and rip into his nose without hitting those ugly teeth and maybe cut your hand. With gloves on hit the mouth, but not without gloves. He could see R. L. Davis sitting on the floor of De Spain's saloon with his nose bleeding and blood down the front of him. That would be all right.

  And who else? No, he should be able to talk to Mr. Malson and Mr. Beaudry, the manager of a cattle company and a government land agent, but he was having one son of a bitch of a hard time because they didn't see it, what he meant, or they didn't want to see it.

  He said, "I mean this way. What if she went to court--"

  "Jesus Christ," R. L. Davis said, shaking his head.

  "What if she went there" -- Valdez kept his eyes on Mr. Beaudry now -- "with a lawyer and said she wanted to sue everybody that was out there, or this city?"

  "Bob," Mr. Beaudry said, "that woman doesn't know what a lawyer is."

  "But if she did and they went to court, wouldn't she get some money?"

  The houseman said, "I thought we were playing cards."

  "Since she's never heard of a lawyer or a county seat," Mr. Beaudry said, "you're talking straight into the wind, aren't you?"

  "I mean if she did. Like if you drive cattle over a man's property and damage something," Bob Valdez went on, holding on, "and the man goes to court, then the cattle company has to pay him for the damage. Isn't that right?"

  Mr. Malson smiled. He said, "That doesn't sound like much of a cattle company to me," and the others laughed. "I was to get involved in court suits, a man would be out from Chicago and I'd be out of a job."

  "But it's happened," Valdez said, staying with it. "The person or persons responsible have had to pay."

  Mr. Beaudry said, "I wouldn't worry about it, Bob."

  "The person has to stand up and prove damage," Mr. Malson said. "You don't go to court, even if you know where it is, without a case. And by that I mean evidence."

  "All right," Valdez said. "That's what I mean. The woman doesn't know anything about court, but we know about the evidence, uh? Because we were there. If we weren't there her husband would be alive."

  "Or if he hadn't opened the door," Mr. Beaudry said. "Or if you hadn't pulled the trigger."

  "Or," Mr. Malson said, "if he hadn't come to town this morning and if Frank Tanner hadn't seen him."

  "Goddam, I was there," R. L. Davis said. "We was on the steps of the Republic."

  "There you are," Mr. Beaudry said. "If Frank Tanner hadn't been here this morning it never would have happened. So maybe it's his fault. Tanner's."

  Somebody in the group behind Mr. Beaudry said, "Go tell him that," and some of the men laughed, picturing it.

  "Now that's not so funny," Mr. Beaudry said. "If this happened because of Frank Tanner, then maybe he's to blame. What do you think, Bob?" he asked him seriously, patiently, as he would ask a stupid, thick-headed person.

  "I guess so," Bob Valdez said.

  "Well, if you think he's to blame," Mr. Beaudry said, "why don't you ask him for the money? And I'll tell you what. If he agrees to the five
hundred dollars, we will too. How's that?"

  Valdez kept his eyes on Mr. Beaudry. "I don't know where he is."

  "He's south of town," Mr. Beaudry said. "Probably at the relay station for the night if his cattle got that far. Or he might have gone on."

  "He mentioned stopping there," Mr. Malson said.

  "All right," Valdez said because there was nothing else he could say. "I'll go talk to him."

  "Do that," Mr. Beaudry said.

  Mr. Malson waited until Bob Valdez was turning and the men who had crowded in were stepping aside. "Bob," he said, "that Apache woman -- somebody said she was over to the hotel trying to get a room."

  "No." Valdez shook his head. "The manager said they were full up."

  "Uh-huh," Mr. Malson said. "Well, where is she now?"

  "I took her to Inez's place," Valdez said. "She's staying there tonight."

  Nobody said anything until he was gone. Then R. L. Davis, as drunk as he was, said, "Je-sus H. Christ. Now he's turned that Indin creature into a whore."

  He went unarmed, riding south through the darkness, feeling the chill of night settling on the land. He didn't want to go; he was tired. He had come up this road this morning from St. David on the bouncing, bucking, creaking boot of the Hatch and Hodges stage, throwing gravel at the wheelers and yelling, urging the horses on as the driver held the heavy reins and snapped them over the teams. Sun and dust this morning, and sweat soaking his body under the dark suit; now cold darkness over the same ruts that stretched across the mesquite flats and climbed through barrancas to crest a hill and drop curving into the endless flats again, forever, it seemed, on the boot or now in the saddle of a stage company horse.

  He said in his mind, Mr. Tanner, I'm Bob Valdez. You remember, I was out at the pasture today when the man was killed.

  When the man was killed. When you killed him, he said to himself.

  We were talking about doing something for his wife and Mr. Beaudry, the land agent, said---

  He said go out and try to get it from Frank Tanner; you dumb Mexican son of a bitch. That's what he said. Do you know it?

  He knew it. Sure. But what was he supposed to do? Forget about the woman? He had told her they would give her money. God, it would be easy to forget about her. No, it would be good, but it wouldn't be easy. But with all of them watching him he had had to walk out and get a horse and he would have to ride the ten goddam miles or more to the goddam swing station and, getting it over with, smile and be respectful and ask Mr. Tanner if he would please like to give something for this fat squaw who had lived with Rincon and was having his child.

  And Frank Tanner, like the rest of them, would say---

  No, they said this Tanner had a lot of money. Maybe he would say, "Sure, I'll give you something for her. How much do you want?" Maybe it would be easy to talk to him. Maybe now, at night, after it was over and the man had had time to think about it, maybe he would talk a little and say yes.

  A mile or a little more from the stage station he saw low shapes out among the brush patches, cattle grazing, bedded for the night, and among them, the taller shape of a rider. But they were well off from the stage road and none of the cattle he saw or the mounted man came near him. During the last mile he was certain a rider was behind him, but he didn't stop or slow down to let the horse sound catch up with him. It could be somebody on the road, anybody, or one of Tanner's men watching him; but he had nothing to say to whoever it was. His words were for Tanner, even if he didn't know how to put the words to convince the man. It would be easier to say it in Spanish. Or in Chiricahua.

  Now, coming over a low rise, he could see the glow of their fires, three of them, where the swing station would be in the darkness. Gradually then, as he approached, he could make out the adobe building, the fires reflecting on pale walls in the night. The front of the building, beneath the mesquite-pole ramada, was in deep shadow. Closer now and he could see the low adobe outer wall across the front yard, shielding the well and the horse corral from open country.

  Valdez listened as he approached. He could hear the men by the fire, the thin sound of voices coming across the yard. He could hear horses moving in the corral and a shrill whinnying sound. He was aware of horses closer to him, off in the darkness, but moving in with the heavy muffled sound of hooves on the packed sand. He did not look toward the sound but continued on, coming to the wall and walking his horse through the open gate, feeling the riders out of the darkness close behind him as he entered the yard.

  A figure by the wall with a rifle said, "Hold it there," and a voice behind him, in English also but with an accent said, "We have him." The man with the rifle came toward him, raising the barrel of a Henry or a Winchester -- Valdez wasn't sure in the dimness.

  He said in Spanish, "I have no gun."

  And the voice behind him said, also in Spanish, "Get down and show us."

  Valdez swung down. He dropped the reins and opened his coat as the man with the rifle, a Winchester, came up to him.

  "The saddle," the voice behind him said in English.

  Not looking around Valdez said, "You make sure, don't you?" The man behind him didn't answer. He walked his horse forward and dismounted close to Valdez, looking into his face.

  "You go where?"

  "Here," Valdez said. "To speak to Senor Tanner."

  "About what?"

  "Money," Valdez said.

  The man who had dismounted continued to study him for a moment. He handed his reins to the one with the rifle and walked off toward the adobe. Valdez watched him and saw the men by the fires, on the side of the adobe, looking out toward him. It was quiet now except for the stirring of the horses in the corral. He saw the light in the doorway as the man went inside. The door remained open, but he could see nothing within.

  There was a bar inside the room and two long tables. The station man, Gregorio Sanza, would be behind the bar maybe, serving Tanner. He remembered Tanner did not take anything to drink at the pasture.

  He said to the one with the rifle, "The company I work for owns that building. The Hatch and Hodges."

  The man said nothing. Beyond him now two figures appeared in the doorway, in the light for a moment and out of it into darkness. Not Tanner, neither of them. The one who had gone inside called out, "Bring him over." The two men in shadow came out a few steps and the second one, also with an accent, said, "Against the wall," motioning with a nod of his head to the side.

  Some of the men by the fires had stood up or were rising as Valdez walked toward them. Others sat and lounged on their sides -- dark faces, dark leather, firelight reflecting on cartridge belts and mess tins -- and Valdez had to walk around them to reach the wall. As he turned, the man who had come out of the house walked over to stand across the fire from him, the men standing or sitting there quickly making room for him.

  The segundo, Valdez thought. They move.

  He was a big man, almost as big as Diego Luz, with a straw Sonora hat and a heavy moustache that gave him a solemn expression and a strip of beard beneath his mouth. The segundo, with one cartridge bandolier and two long-barreled .44s on his legs.

  Valdez nodded to him and said in Spanish, "Good evening," almost smiling.

  "I don't know you," the segundo said.

  "Because we have never met."

  "I know everyone who does business with Senor Tanner."

  "I have no business with him. A private matter."

  "You told them business."

  "I told them money."

  The segundo was silent, watching him. "He doesn't know you," he said then.

  "Senor Tanner? Sure, I met him today. I killed a man for him."

  The segundo hesitated again, undecided or taking his own time, watching him. He motioned with his hand then, and the Mexican who had gone into the house before moved away, turning the corner. The segundo continued to stare. Valdez shifted his gaze to the left and to the right and saw all of them watching him in the light of the fires. There were Americans and Mexic
ans, some of them bearded, most of them with their hats on, all of them armed. He counted, looking about idly, and decided there were at least twelve of them here. More of them out in the darkness.

  He said in his mind, Mr. Tanner, do you remember me? Bob---

  Tanner came around the corner. He took a stub of cigar out of his mouth and stood looking at Valdez.

  Now. "Mr. Tanner, do you remember me? Bob Valdez, from the pasture today."

  Tanner held the cigar in front of him. He was in his shirtsleeves and vest and without the dark hat that had hidden his eyes, his hair slanting down across his forehead, the skin pale-looking in the firelight. He seemed thinner now and smaller, but his expression was the same, the tell-nothing expression and the mouth that looked as if it had never smiled.

  "What do you want?"

  "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

  "Say it."

  "Well, it's about the man today."

  "What man?"

  "The one that was killed. You know he had a wife with him." Valdez waited.

  "Say what you want and get out of here."