Hombre

“You know how to shoot this?”

“I’m not sure.” Frowning at him.

“Push the trigger guard down with your thumb. That ejects and loads…uh? Right now it’s ready and maybe you only need the one.” He added, almost under his breath, “Man, I hope you only need one.”

I said, “I’m going to shoot at them?”

“The one by the mill.” Russell looked out the window. “He’ll come across and walk past that shack by the woman and stand with his back to you, up this way from the shack a little. Then, be sure then, you keep the front sight on him.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.

“What’s there to understand?” There was just a little surprise in his voice, mostly it was quiet and patient. “If he touches his gun, you shoot him.”

“But,” I said, “in the back?”

“I’ll ask him if he’ll turn around,” Russell said.

“Look,” I said, “I just don’t understand what’s going to happen. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’ll see it,” Russell said. He thought a minute. “Maybe you have to see something else. The money-that it gets up to San Carlos.”

“Look, if you’d just explain-”

He touched my arm. “Maybe it’s you who has to take it up to San Carlos after. That’s easy, uh?”

I kept staring at him. “You never were keeping it for yourself, were you?”

He just looked at me-like he was tired-or like what was the use explaining now?

He put his hat on, straight and pulled down a little over his eyes. He picked up the grainsack, swinging it up over his left shoulder. All of us were watching him, the McLaren girl never moving.

She kept staring and said, “You’re going.” Just those two words.

Russell made a little shrugging motion. “Maybe try something.”

“What if they don’t think you’ve got the money in there?”

“They come out and see,” Russell answered.

“They might,” the McLaren girl nodded. “They just might.”

“They have to,” Russell said.

The McLaren girl kept staring at him, wanting to ask why he was doing it, I think. But Russell was looking at Mendez then. “You’ll watch this Dr. Favor. Good this time?” he said.

Mendez said something in Spanish and Russell answered also in Spanish, shrugging his shoulders. Mendez appeared like he was afraid to breathe. Russell turned to Dr. Favor. He had something for everybody.

“All that trouble you went to, uh?”

Dr. Favor didn’t answer, not caring what anybody said or thought about him now. He sat there staring up at Russell, his big face pale-looking with that reddish hair around it and with hardly any expression. He probably thought this John Russell was the biggest fool God ever made.

We were watching him, every one of us; perhaps still not certain he was going down there and having to see it to believe it.

He was at the door when the McLaren girl picked up his moccasins and threw them over to him. “Wear those,” she said. “You run faster when they start shooting.”

Do you see what she was doing? Giving it right back to him. Using the same words even that he had used before. Saying it calmly and watching to see his reaction.

And seeing his smile then; a smile you were sure he meant. Even with his hat on, at that moment he looked young and like anybody else.

Russell stood with his hand on the door, looking over his shoulder at the McLaren girl, at her only.

“Maybe we should talk more sometime,” he said.

“Maybe,” the McLaren girl answered. She was looking at him the same way, intently, like seeing something in him that was not there before. “When things calm down,” she said.

I had the feeling she wanted to say more than that, but she didn’t.

Russell nodded, his strange light-blue-colored eyes not moving from the girl’s. “When things calm down,” he said back.

He pulled the door open and stepped outside with the grainsack over his shoulder. The next time I was close enough to John Russell to see his face, he was dead.

Not long ago I was talking to a man from Benson who said they were playing a song now about Frank Braden and the woman he stole for reasons of love, and that I would appreciate it. I said are they playing a song about John Russell? He said who is John Russell?

What took place that afternoon at the San Pete mine has been written many times and different ways. (Including the song now.) Maybe you have read some of them. All I want to say is the account that appeared in the Florence Enterprise is a true one, even to the number of shots that were fired. Except even that account does not tell enough. (Which is what caused me to write this.) It describes a man named John Russell; but you still do not know John Russell after you have read it.

I am not saying anything against the Florence Enterprise. Their account was written in one hour or so, just telling what happened. I have been writing this for three months trying to tell you about John Russell as he was, so you will understand him. Yet, after three months of writing and thinking and all, I can’t truthfully say I understand him myself. I only feel I know why he walked down that slope.

I watched him from the window. I was also keeping an eye out for the Mexican. The Mexican must have seen Russell as he started down, but he did not come out from the crushing mill until Russell was about half way.

That was when Russell held up the grainsack. “Hey!” He yelled out, the same way the Mexican had been yelling at him, “I got something for you!”

The Mexican was being careful as he moved across the grade, keeping his eyes on Russell all the time. By then the Favor woman had seen him; sitting stooped over, her hair hanging and straggly, she was watching him come.

Russell did not look at the Mexican, though he must have known the Mexican was moving down and across the grade as if to head him off. By then you could see part of the Mexican’s back. I got down lower and, as Russell had instructed, put the front sight of the Spencer square on him, getting an awful feeling as I did.

At that moment, Early, up above us on the ridge, was probably putting his sights on Russell.

I kept expecting the Mexican to do something; but as he got over more by that little shack he slowed up so that he was hardly moving; not taking his eyes from Russell for a second, his right elbow bent and the elbow pressed against where he had been shot, his left hand hanging free. That was the hand I had watched, feeling the trigger of the Spencer and ready to pull it if the hand went to the Colt gun alongside it.

The Mexican stopped.

He was almost in line but a little to the left; so that from here you would look down past his right side to Russell who was nearing the Favor woman. She did not call out or appear to have said a word; she just kept staring at him, maybe not believing what she saw.

It was as Russell reached her that Frank Braden showed himself.

Braden came out of the veranda shade. He was limping some, I think trying not to show it, though he kept his left hand on his thigh, gripping it with his fingers spread.

The Mexican had not moved. I kept sighting on him, trying to watch Braden and Russell at the same time. Russell was kneeling by the woman, not paying any attention to Braden who kept coming. Braden called something, but Russell did not look up.

Braden called out again, slowing up and ready, you could tell.

Russell rose to his feet, helping the Favor woman as he did and you saw she was untied now. You also saw the grainsack lying over on the other side of the ore-cart tracks.

Russell and the Favor woman had taken only a few steps when Braden called out again. This time Russell stopped, though he motioned the Favor woman to keep going. She did, but looking back as Russell stood there watching Braden. She got up as high as the Mexican. He paid no attention to her. She was walking kind of sideways, coming up but looking back all the time.