Valdez Is Coming

“I’m grateful.”

“When are you going?”

“When Diego brings the horse.”

“You’re not taking him, are you?”

“No. One is as good as two.”

“But not as good as two dozen.”

“Maybe a little whiskey with the coffee, if you got some.”

“And some to take for your nerve,” Inez said. “When do you plan to be back?”

“Two days, three. I don’t know.”

“So if you’re not back in three days-” Inez said.

Valdez smiled. “Pray for me.”

A little while later they watched him leave to begin his war: the Valdez from another time, the Valdez in leather chivarra pants and the long-barreled Walker Colt on his right thigh, carrying his shotgun and a Sharps carbine and field glasses and a big canteen and a warbag for the ham and biscuits, the Valdez no one had seen in ten years.

He reached the birch forest before dawn, dismounting and leading his buckskin gelding through the gray shapes of the trees to the far side, to the edge of the meadow that reached to the slope where Ta

In the first light he moved along the edge of the thicket to the place where R. L. Davis had crowded his horse against him and pushed him over. Valdez did not leave the cover of the trees; he could see the cruciformed poles lying in the open; he could see, at the ends of the crosspole and in the middle, the leather thongs that had been cut by someone in the darkness, a shape close to him, an arm raising his head to give him water, hands helping him to his feet. He must have been out of his head not to remember; he must have been worse off than he imagined. Three days ago he had been lying here in the sun. Already it seemed as if it had happened in another time, years before. He moved back to a place where he would have a good view of the slopes across the meadow, and here he dropped his gear and settled down to wait, propping his field glasses on his warbag and canteen and lying behind them to hold his gaze on the slope.

About six o’clock, not quite an hour after first light, three riders appeared against the sky at the top of the slope. They came down into the deep shadows, and shortly after, a single rider passed over the crest going the other way. One at night, Valdez marked down in his mind, and three during the day. Though maybe not all day.

But it did turn out to be all day. Valdez remained in the thicket watching the slope, seeing very little movement; no one came down the trail or crossed the meadow toward the slope; the lookouts remained in dense brush most of the time, and if he did not know where to look for them through the glasses, he probably wouldn’t have noticed them. At about five o’clock in the evening a rider came over the crest of the ridge, and soon after the three lookouts climbed the switchbacks and disappeared.

There you are, Valdez said to himself. How do you like it now? It doesn’t get any better.

He had not eaten all day and had taken only a few sips of water. Now he ate some of the ham and biscuits and a handful of red peppers; he took a sip of the whiskey Inez had given him and a good drink from the canteen. Valdez was ready.

Crossing the meadow, he let his hand fall to the Walker Colt and eased the barrel in its holster. The stock of the Sharps carbine rested against the inside of his left knee, in the saddle boot; the sawed-off Remington hung on the right side, looped to the saddle horn by a short length of suspender strap. By now the lookout would have seen him and studied him and would be ready. Three of them yesterday came down to meet R. L. Davis, but one up there now would stay put and plan to take him by surprise. Valdez let the buckskin walk, but nudged his heels into its flanks as they reached the rocks and brush and started up the trail.

Now it comes, Valdez thought. When he’s ready. Any time. He let himself slouch in the saddle, his shoulders moving with the gait of the horse, a rider climbing a trail, a man relaxed and off guard, in no hurry. Surprise me, he said in his mind to the lookout. I’m nothing to be afraid of. Come out in the open and stop me. I could be one of your friends.

He was a little more than halfway up the slope when the rider appeared, fifty yards and three switchback levels above him. Valdez pretended not to see him and came on, rounding a switchback and reaching an almost level stretch of the trail before the man called out in Spanish, “Enough!”

The Mexican. Valdez recognized the voice and, as he looked up now, the shape of the man on his horse – brown man and brown horse against the evening shadows of the brush slope. The Mexican came down the trail toward him, stopping and coming on again, the sound of his horse’s hooves clear in the stillness, reaching the level above Valdez, then tight-reining, his horse moving loose shale as he came down to the stretch of trail where Bob Valdez waited. The Mexican stopped about fifty feet away, facing him on the narrow ledge of the path.

“I thought it was you, but I said no, that man carries a cross on his back.”

“I got tired of it,” Valdez said.

“Somebody found you, uh?”

“Somebody.”

“You had luck with you that time.”

“If people help you,” Valdez said, “you don’t need luck.”

“That’s it, uh? I didn’t know that.”

“Sure, like you and me,” Valdez said. “We can be friends if we want. We talk awhile. I give you a drink of whiskey. What do you think about something like that?”

“I think I see a lot of guns,” the Mexican said. “You come up here to talk and you bring all those guns?” He was at ease, smiling now.

“This little thing?” Valdez raised the cutoff Remington in his right hand, his fingers around the neck of the stock, the stubby barrels pointing straight up. “You think this could hurt somebody? It’s for rabbits.”

“For rabbits,” the Mexican said, nodding. “Sure, there are plenty of rabbits around here. That’s what you come for, uh, to hunt rabbits?”

“If I see any maybe. No, I come to ask you to do something for me.”

“Because we’re good friends,” the Mexican said.

“That’s right. As a friend I want you to go see Mr. Ta

The Mexican was silent for a moment, his head nodding slightly as he studied Valdez and thought about him. “You come to see me,” the Mexican said then. “How do you know I’m here?”

“You or somebody else,” Valdez said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You mean me and somebody else. Somebody over in the rocks behind you.”

“I’ll tell you something,” Valdez said. “I’ve been here all day. I saw three of you come and one of you leave. I saw one of you come and three of you leave. There’s no somebody else in the rocks – there’s just you in front of me. That’s all.”

The Mexican watched him, unmoving. “You’re certain of that? You’d bet your life on it?”

“It’s on the table,” Valdez said.

The Mexican gri

Valdez nodded. “I’ll be here.” He lowered the shotgun, resting it across his lap.

“Sure, stay right there. It don’t take me any time.”

The Mexican turned in his saddle and started away, his back to Valdez until he reached the end of the ledge and kicked his horse up over the shale at the switchback, and now, on the level above Valdez and seventy or eighty feet away, came back toward him.

Valdez’s right thumb eased back both hammers, his finger curled inside the guard and felt the tension of the first trigger. The Mexican was spurring his horse now, kicking it to a gallop up the low angle of the trail, holding the reins in his left hand. Valdez saw nothing but the Mexican coming and it was in his mind that the man would go past him and suddenly turn and fire from behind. But thirty feet away closing to twenty, he saw the Mexican’s right hand come up with the revolver and there it was, right now, the Mexican hunched low in the saddle, screaming Aiiiii for the horse or for himself, the revolver across the horse’s mane, the man offering only his left leg and side and shoulder, but it was enough. Valdez brought up the barrels of the Remington from his lap, and with the ten-bore explosion close in front of him, the Mexican came out of his saddle, flung back over the horse’s rump, his revolver discharging as he struck the ground, and the buckskin beneath Valdez throwing its head and trying to dance away from the man, and loose shale coming down the slope at them. The Mexican rolled to his back almost beneath the buckskin, his clothes filmed with fine dust, a dark, wet stain spreading from his side down over his thigh. His eyes were open and he had his left arm tight to his side.