Valdez Is Coming

“You say you know where you’re going,” R. L. Davis said. “Tell us so we’ll all know.”

You don’t need him, Valdez thought. He said, “If we get there, you see it. If we don’t get there, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Listen, you know how many men he’s got?”

“Not so much anymore.”

“He’s still got enough,” R. L. Davis said. “They’re going to take you and string you up, if you aren’t shot dead before. But either way, it’s the end of old Bob Valdez.”

“How’s your head?”

“It still hurts.”

“Close your mouth or I make it hurt worse, all right?”

“I helped you,” R. L. Davis said. “You owe me something. I could have left you out there, but being a white man I went back and cut you loose.”

“What do you want?” Valdez asked.

“What do you think? I cut you loose, you cut me loose and let me go.”

Valdez nodded slowly. “All right. When we leave.”

Davis looked at him hard. “You mean it?”

Valdez felt the Erin woman looking at him also. “As you say, I owe it to you.”

“It’s not some kind of trick?”

“How could it be a trick?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t trust you.”

Valdez shrugged. “If you’re free, what difference does it make?”

“You’re cooking something up,” R. L. Davis said.

“No.” Valdez shook his head. “I only want you to do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Give Mr. Ta

He felt her staring at him again, but he looked out into the darkness thinking about what he had said, realizing that it was all much simpler in his mind now.

It was two o’clock in the morning when Valdez and the Erin woman moved out leading Davis’s bareback sorrel horse. They left Davis tied to his saddle with his own bandana knotted around his mouth. As Valdez tied it behind his head, Davis twisted his neck, pushing out his jaw.

“You gag me I won’t be able to yell for help!”

“Very good,” Valdez said.

“They might not find me!”

“What’s certain in life?” Valdez asked. He got the bandana between Davis’s teeth and tightened it, making the knot. “There. When it’s light stand up and carry your saddle down the hill. They’ll find you.”

He would have liked to hit Davis once with his fist. Maybe twice. Two good ones in the mouth. But he’d let it go; he’d cut him fairly good with the Remington. Mr. R. L. Davis was lucky.

Now a little luck of your own, Valdez thought.

They walked the horses through the darkness with ridges and shadowed rock formations above them, Valdez leading the way and taking his time, moving with the clear sound of the horses on broken rock and stopping to listen in the night silence. Once, in the hours they traveled before dawn, they heard a single gunshot, a thin sound in the distance, somewhere to the east; then an answering shot far behind them. Ta

They moved into a canyon, between walls that rose steeply and were darkly shadowed with brush. Valdez knew the place and the horses snorted and threw their heads when they smelled the water, the pool of it lying still, undercutting one side of the canyon.

The Erin woman moved around the pool while Valdez stripped off the bridles and saddles to let the horses drink and graze freely. He watched her, looking past the horses, watched her kneel down at the edge of the water and drink from her cupped hands. Valdez took off his hat and slipped the heavy Sharps cartridge belt over his head. A time to rest at dawn, before the day brought whatever it would bring. He moved around the pool toward her.

“Are you hungry?”

She looked up at him, shaking her head, then brushing her hair from her face. “No, not really. Are you?”

“I can wait.”

“Are you going to sit down?”

“If you’re not going to stand up,” Valdez said. He went down next to her, touching her hair, feeling his finger brush her cheek and seeing her eyes on him.

He said, “Gay Erin. That’s your name, uh? What was it before?”

“Gay Byrnes.”

He took her face gently, his palm covering her chin, and kissed her on the mouth. “Gay Erin. That’s a good name. You like it?”

“It’s my name because I was married to him.”

“What do you want to talk about that for?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then don’t. Do you know my name?”

“Valdez.”

“Roberto Valdez. How do you like Roberto?”

“I think it’s fine.”

“Or Bob. Which do you like better?”

“Roberto.”

“It’s Mexican.”

“I know it is.”

“Listen, I’ve been thinking about something.”

She waited.

“You heard me tell him I don’t know if I’m going to give you back or not.”

“I told you before,” the Erin woman said. “I don’t want to go back.”

“That’s what you told me.” Valdez nodded. “All right, I believe you. Do you know why? Because it’s easier if I believe you. If I think about you too much, then I don’t have time to think about other things.”

“What do you think about me?”

“I think I’d like to live with you and be married to you.”

She waited. “We’ve been together two days.”

“And two nights,” Valdez said. “How long does it take?” He could see her face more clearly now in the dawn light.

Her eyes did not leave his. “You’d marry me?”

“I think I know you well enough.”

“I killed my husband.”

“I believe you.”

“I’ve been living with Frank Ta

“I know that.”

“But you want to marry me.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Tell me why.”

“Listen, I don’t like this. I don’t feel right, but I don’t know what else to say. I believe you because I want to believe you. I say to myself, You want her? I say, Yes. Then I say, What if she’s lying? And then I say, Goddam, believe her and don’t think anymore. Listen, I couldn’t do anything to you. I mean if he says, I won’t give you the money, shoot her, you think I’d shoot you?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

“So don’t worry about that.”

“I never have,” the Erin woman said. “I may have been feeling sorry for myself, but I didn’t lie down with you just because I wanted to be held.”

“Why did you then?”

She hesitated again. “I don’t know. I wanted to be with you. I still want to be with you. If I’m in love with you then I’m in love with you. I don’t know, I’ve never loved a man before.”

“I’ve never been married,” Valdez said.

She took his hand and brought it up to her face. “I haven’t either, really.”

“Maybe we can talk about it again. When there’s time, uh?”

“I hope so,” she said.

Believe that, Valdez thought, and don’t think about it. He gave her R. L. Davis’s Colt revolver and that sealed it. If she was lying to him she could shoot him in the back. She had already killed one man.

Still, it was easier in his mind now. Much easier.

They found R. L. Davis a little after sunup, a hunched-over figure on the brush slope, dragging a saddle and a thin trail of dust. The two men who found him cut him loose. One of them took the saddle and the other pulled R. L. Davis up behind him and they rode double over to where Mr. Ta