Valdez Is Coming

When they were in the shade and had lighted cigarettes, Diego Luz said, “There’s something different about you. What is it?”

Valdez shrugged. “I’m the same. What are you talking about?”

“Your face is the same.” Diego Luz squinted, studying him. Slowly then his face relaxed. “I know what it is. You don’t have your collar on.”

Valdez’s hand went to his neck where he had tied a bandana.

“Or your suit. What is this, you’re not dressed up?”

“It’s too hot,” Valdez said.

“It’s always hot,” Diego Luz said. His gaze dropped to Valdez’s waist. “No gun though.”

Valdez frowned. “What’s the matter with you? I don’t have a coat on, that’s all.”

“And you’re going to see Mr. Ta

“Just to say a few things to him.”

“My son rode to Lanoria yesterday. He heard about the few things you said the other night.”

Valdez shook his head. “People don’t have anything to talk about.”

“Listen, the woman doesn’t need any money. She doesn’t know what it is.”

“But we know,” Valdez said. “I just want to ask you something about Ta

Diego Luz drew on his cigarette and squinted out into the sunlight, down the slope to the horse corral. “I know what others know. That’s all.”

“He lives in Mimbreno?”

“For about two years maybe.”

“How do the people like him?”

“There are no people. Most of them left at the time of the Apache. The rest of them left when Frank Ta

“How many men?”

“At least thirty. Sometimes more.”

“Do they ever come here?”

“Sometimes they pass by.”

“What do they do, anything?”

“They have a drink of water and go on.”

“They never make any trouble?”

“No, they don’t bother me. Never.”

“Maybe because you work for Maricopa.”

Diego Luz shrugged. “What do I have they would want?”

“Horses,” Valdez said.

“Once they asked to buy a string. I told them to see Mr. Malson.”

“Did Ta

“No, his segundo and some others.”

“Do you know any of them?”

“No, I don’t think any of them are from around here.”

“Do you think that’s strange?”

“No, these are guns he hires, not hands. I think they hear of Ta

“He pays good, uh?”

“You see them sometimes in St. David,” Diego Luz said. “They spend the money. But you see different ones each time, so maybe he lose some in Mexico or they get a stomach full of it and quit.”

“What, driving cattle?”

“Cattle and guns. He gets the guns somewhere and sneaks them over the border to people who are against Diaz and want to start a revolution. So over there the rurales and federal soldiers look for him and try to stop him. Everybody knows that.”

“I’ve been learning the stageline business,” Valdez said.

“Keep doing it,” Diego Luz said, “and live to be an old man.”

“Sometimes I feel old now.” He watched the chickens pecking the hard ground and heard Diego Luz’s children calling out something and laughing as they played somewhere on the other side of the house. What do you need besides this? he was thinking. To have a place, a family. Very quiet except for the children sometimes, and no trouble. No Apaches. No bandits raiding from across the border. Trees and water and a good house. The house could be fixed up better. A little work, that’s all. He said, “I’ll trade you. I become the horsebreaker, you work for the stage company.”

Diego Luz was looking out at the yard. “You want this?”

“Why not? It’s a good place.”

“If I had something to do I wouldn’t be here.”

“You do all right,” Valdez said.

“Do it forever,” Diego Luz said. “See how you like it.”

“Maybe sometime. After I see this Ta

Diego Luz was studying Valdez’s horse. “You don’t have a rifle either.”

“What do I need it for?”

“Maybe you meet a couple of them on a trail, they don’t like your face.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Valdez said.

“Maybe they don’t let you talk.”

“Come on, they know who I am. I’m going there to talk, that’s all.”

“You talk better with a rifle,” Diego Luz said. “I give you mine.”

From habit, approaching the top of the rise – before he would be outlined for a moment against the sky – Bob Valdez looked back the way he had come, his eyes, half-closed in the sun’s glare, holding on the rock shapes and darker patches of brush at the bottom of the draw. He sat motionless until he was sure of the movement, then dismounted and led his claybank mare off the trail to one side, up into young pinon pines.

For a few moments he did not think of the rider coming up behind him; he thought of his own reaction, the caution that had stopped him from topping the rise. There were no more Chiricahuas or White Mountain bands around here. There was nothing to worry about to keep him alert and listening and looking back as well as to the sides and ahead. But he had stopped. Sure, habit, he thought. Something hanging on of no use to him now.

What difference did it make who the man was? The man wasn’t following him. The man was riding southeast from the St. David road and must have left the road not far back to cut cross-country toward Mimbreno maybe, or to a village across the border. Sure, it could be one of Ta

Now, as the man drew nearer, for some reason he was sure it was one of the Maricopa riders: the slouched, round-shouldered way the man sat his saddle, the fu

Maybe he had known all the time who it was going to be. That was a fu

He let him go by, up over the rise and out of sight, while he stayed in the pines to shape a cigarette and light it, wondering where the man was going, curious because it was this one and not someone else, and glad now of the habit that had made him look around when he did. He was sure the man had not been following him. The man would have been anxious and looking around and would have stopped before he topped the rise. But the question remained, Where was he going?

When Valdez moved out, keeping to the trees over the crest of the rise, he hung back and let the distance between them stretch to a hundred yards. He followed R. L. Davis this way for several miles until the trail came to open grazing land, and as R. L. Davis crossed toward the scrub trees and hills beyond the flats, a column of dust came down the slope toward him.

You look around, Bob Valdez thought. That habit stays with you. But you don’t bring the field glasses.

He remained in the cover of the trees and, in the distance, watched three riders meet R. L. Davis and stand close to him for some time, forming a single shape until the group came apart and the riders, strung out now, one in front of Davis and two behind, rode with him into the deep shadow at the base of the far hills. He saw them briefly again up on the slope and at the crest of the hill.

They wonder about him too, Valdez thought. What do you want? Who do you want to see? They ask questions and take their jobs very seriously because they feel they’re important. They should relax more, Valdez thought. He mounted the claybank again and rode out into the sunlight, holding the horse to a walk, keeping his eyes on the slope the riders came down and wondering if they had left someone there to watch.