Hombre

“Only we’re not his braves,” Dr. Favor said, and he was serious, his face close to mine and staring right at me.

“If somebody has another idea,” I said, “I’ll listen.”

“I’ve got one,” he said. “We leave right now.”

He’d force you right up against a wall like that; then you’d have to try and wiggle out.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Let me have my gun then.”

He said it all of a sudden and I didn’t have any idea in the world what to say back. What I finally said was something like, “Well, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Because he said so?”

“No, not just because of him.”

“Because of the others?”

“We’re all in this together.”

“But not going by his rules anymore.”

“Just the water.”

“What’s more important than that?”

“I’m holding it,” I said. “He’s the one took it.”

“Now that doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Dr. Favor said. “What you’re doing, you’re keeping something that doesn’t belong to you.”

I couldn’t tell the man to his face I thought he was a thief. That’s why I had so much trouble thinking of something to say. Even with the gun in my belt, or maybe because it was there, I felt awkward and dumb. He just kept staring at me.

“Maybe I should take it away from you,” he said.

When I hesitated, not knowing what to say or do, the McLaren girl got into it. She said, looking at me, “Are you going to let him?”

She pushed up to a sitting position, about ten or twelve feet away from us. “You know what he wants,” she said.

“What’s mine,” Dr. Favor said. “If you think anything else, you’re imagining things.”

“I know one thing,” the McLaren girl said. “I wouldn’t give you the gun if I had it. And if you tried to take it, I’d shoot you.”

“For hardly more than a little girl,” Dr. Favor said, “you certainly have strong opinions.”

“When I know I’m right,” the McLaren girl said.

Dr. Favor stood up. He lit a cigar and for a while stood there looking out over the slope and smoking. Time crept along. I laid down with one arm on the saddlebags and my head on my arm. I don’t think I have ever been so tired, and it was easy to close my eyes and fall asleep. I fought it for a while, dozing, opening my eyes. Once when I opened them, I saw Dr. Favor sitting by Mendez and Mendez was smoking a cigar too.

I heard Dr. Favor say, “You did fine. It took more nerve than most have to lie there waiting for them.”

“He shouldn’t have made me do it,” Mendez said.

“You didn’t have to, you know.”

“Listen, he makes sense,” Mendez said. “Whether you agree with him or not.”

“He makes sense even if it kills you,” Dr. Favor said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“It’s just I had never shot at a man before,” Mendez said. “It isn’t an easy thing.”

“It seems easy to him,” Dr. Favor said. “And if you can kill one person, you can kill four.”

“For what reason?”

“My money,” Dr. Favor said.

Mendez shook his head. “I know him better than that.”

“Where money is concerned,” Dr. Favor said, “you don’t know anybody.”

Within the next quarter of an hour Dr. Favor proved those words.

I should have taken them as a warning, but I had not for a minute thought he would ever use force. By the time I woke up (I mean actually woke up, for I had dozed off again) it was too late. Dr. Favor was standing over me with Mendez’s shotgun pointed right at my head.

Mendez sat there with his legs crossed and his shoulders hunched as if he didn’t care what was happening-as if Dr. Favor had just taken the gun and Mendez hadn’t lifted an eyebrow to stop him.

The McLaren girl was watching too. She had been lying on her side, but now pushed herself up on one arm as Dr. Favor took the revolver from me first and then the saddlebags. He went over to the waterskin next and filled up the two-quart canteen from it, leaving hardly anything in the skin.

That’s when the McLaren girl finally spoke. She said, “Maybe you’ll leave us your blessing since you’re taking everything else.”

Dr. Favor was past arguing with anybody. He didn’t say a word. He opened the canvas grainsack, looked at the meat and biscuits inside like he was going to take some out, but he pulled the neck closed and swung it over his shoulder with the saddlebags.

He was standing like that, ready to move off, when John Russell appeared out of the pinyon.

They stood facing each other about twenty feet apart, Russell holding the Spencer against his leg and pointed down; Favor holding the sawed-off shotgun the same way.

“You got everything?” Russell said.

“What’s mine,” Favor answered.

“You better put it down,” Russell said. It sounded like he meant the shotgun.

Mendez must have felt fu

Dr. Favor shook his head slowly. “Like I’m against everybody. Like I was ru

“You sure had us fooled then,” the McLaren girl said, her voice dry and sharp enough to pierce right through him.

“Believe what you like,” Dr. Favor said. “I was going to get help. One man can travel faster than five. With food and water he could make it out of here in no time and have help back in less than a day.”

“So you elected yourself,” the McLaren girl said.

“I’ve tried to reason with you people before,” Dr. Favor said. “I decided it was time to do something besides waste my breath.”

Russell’s eyes never left Dr. Favor. “Put it down or else use it,” he said. “You have two ways to go.” His tone seemed to say he didn’t care which Favor did. One way would be as easy as the other.

“There’s no talking to a man who relies only on force,” Dr. Favor said. He shrugged, hesitating, holding on by his fingernails for a moment, waiting for Russell to drop his guard for one second. Maybe he could beat Russell, he was probably thinking. But if he didn’t beat him, he would be dead. If he tied Russell, he could also be dead.

Maybe that was the way he thought and he didn’t like the odds. Maybe if he gave in now he would get a better chance later on. I guess he knew nobody believed his story about getting help, but he didn’t care what we thought. Whatever he was thinking, it told him today wasn’t the day. He let the shotgun and revolver fall, then lifted off the grainsack and saddlebags.

No, it didn’t bother him at all what we thought. He turned his back on us and strolled over by the cliffrose bushes to look down the grade. As if telling us he knew we wouldn’t do anything to him, so what did he care what we thought?

But that’s where he was wrong. John Russell did not just think things.

As Dr. Favor stood there, Russell said, “Keep going.”

All we saw was his back for a minute. Dr. Favor seemed to be waiting for the rest of it: “-if you ever try that again.” Or “-if you don’t behave yourself.” You know.

But there wasn’t any rest of it. Russell had said it all.

When Dr. Favor realized this, he turned around to look at Russell. His face had lost a little of its calm cocksureness. Not all, just some. But maybe at that point he half believed Russell might be bluffing.

Maybe, he thought, if he could just pass a little time it would blow over.

He said, “You’re betting my money I won’t survive all alone.”

“You could do it,” Russell said. “With some luck.”

“If I don’t, it’s the same as murder.”

“Like the way you killed those people at San Carlos.”

“This is a new one,” Dr. Favor said. “First I’m accused of stealing my own money. Now murder.”

“Without enough to eat,” Russell said, “people sicken and die. I saw that at Whiteriver and also I heard things, how the agent had money to buy more beef, but he had a way of keeping the money to himself.”

“A way,” Dr. Favor said. “You figure the way and then prove it.”

“That one called Dean said enough.”