Valdez Is Coming

He looked different. Mr. Ta

R. L. Davis noticed this, though God Almighty, his back ached from dragging the goddam saddle all over the countryside.

“I wouldn’t mind a drink of water from somebody.”

The rider who’d brought him in was about to hand him a canteen, but Ta

“Wait’ll we’re through.”

“I haven’t had no water since last night.”

“You won’t die,” Ta

“Mr. Ta

“Where are they?”

“He let me go about four hours ago and headed south.”

“Mrs. Erin was with him?”

“Yes sir.”

“How is she?”

“She looks fine to me. I mean I don’t think he’s mistreated her any.”

“God help him,” Ta

“No, he was right there all the time. There wasn’t nothing I could say he wouldn’t’ve heard.”

“Then she didn’t say anything to you.”

“No sir. He said something he wanted me to tell you, though.”

Ta

“He said, ‘Tell him he still has to pay the Indin, but I’m not sure now I’m giving him his woman back.’ ”

Frank Ta

“I didn’t say it – he said it! Them are his words.”

“Tell it again.”

“I swear it’s what he said.”

“Tell it!”

“He said you’re to pay the Indin, but he wasn’t so sure he was going to give you your woman back. Them words exactly.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No sir, not a word, the whole time I was there.”

“He keep her tied?”

“When she was in the draw, but not when he’s around. I mean riding or when he’s made camp.”

“Why’d he let you go?” Davis hesitated and Ta

“Well, I reckon to tell you what he said. There’s no other reason I know of.”

“God help you if there is,” Ta

He was mounting his bay horse, when two riders came in with a string of fresh horses. They had walked all night back to Mimbreno from the place where they had left their dead mounts on the slope.

Ta

During the early morning the segundo, whose name was Emilio Avilar but who had been called only segundo for the past six years, found three of his men in the mountain wilderness and signaled them, gathering them in. The men were tired and their horses were worn and needed water. They were ready to head back, and Frank Almighty Ta

The segundo said, “You think he doesn’t want to sleep? Man, he has to stay awake, doesn’t he? He got to watch the woman, he got to watch for us. Man, ask him what it’s like to be tired.”

Two of the riders were American and one Mexican, the Mexican a young man who had been hired only a few months before by the segundo.

One of the Americans said it was none of their business. And the segundo said maybe not, but look, the sooner they caught this crazy man the sooner they could ride to Mexico and have a good time.

“You want some fresh water, uh?” the segundo said. “Don’t you think he want some fresh water?”

“If he know where it was,” one of the Americans said.

“Listen, when are you going to understand what kind of man he is?” the segundo said. “Sure he’s crazy, but he knows what he’s doing. You think he come down this way if he don’t know there’s water? Where it is? He’s not that crazy.”

“Well, him knowing doesn’t help us,” the other American said.

The segundo took his hat off and wiped his forehead with his sleeve and set the Sonora hat over his eyes again. He shook his head and said to the man, “Where do I get people like you? You think I work around here six years I don’t know where the goddam water is? What kind of segundo doesn’t know where the water is?”

“Well, let’s go get it,” the rider said.

Emilio Avilar, the segundo, smiled. “Sure, I thought that was what you want.”

A little later that morning, watering their horses at the pool, the cliffs and sloping canyon walls reflected in the still water, the three riders looked at the segundo and the segundo smiled again. God, there were fresh tracks all over the place close to the bank, two horses and two people: no doubt about it, a man and a woman. They filled their canteens and wiped down their horses and at this moment were willing to follow the segundo anyplace he wanted to go. Hell, let’s get him!

“Which way would you go?” the segundo asked.

“Follow their tracks.”

“But that take too long,” the segundo said. “What if we know where they going?”

“How could you figure that?”

“Two days ago,” the segundo said, “he told Senor Ta

The two American riders thought about it and nodded and one of them said, “What’s up there?”

The segundo answered, “We find out.”

This is all, he thought, watching the three men move out, slouched in their saddles, heads bobbing, sweat staining a column down their spines. No more. He watched them another moment before calling out, “Hey, Tomas!” The riders looked around and the young Mexican he had hired a few months before reined in to wait for him.

In Spanish the segundo said, “You have a ride the other way. Bring Senor Ta

The young Mexican picked up his reins, getting ready. “How will I know where to bring him?”

“You’ll hear us,” the segundo said.

9

The twin peaks reached above them, beyond the slope that was swept with owl clover and cholla brush, beyond the scrub oak and dark mass of timber, stone pi

“Up there,” Valdez said. “We go through the trees and come out in a canyon. At the end of the canyon is a little trail that goes up through the rocks and passes between the two peaks and down the other side. You stand in there and look straight up and the peaks look like they’re moving in the wind.”

The Erin woman’s eyes were half closed in the glare; she shielded her eyes with her hand.

“Once we go through there, we see if we can make a slide to block the trail,” Valdez said. “Then we don’t hurry anymore. We take our time because it takes them a few days to find a way around.”

Her gaze lowered and she looked at him now. “A few days. Is that all we’ll have?”

“It’s up to us,” Valdez said. “Or it’s up to him. We can go to Mexico. We can go to China if there’s a way to go there. Or we can go to Lanoria.”

“Where do you want to go?” she asked him.

“To Lanoria.”

“He’ll come for us.”

“If he wants to,” Valdez said. “I run today, but not forever. Today is enough.”

“Whatever you want to do,” the Erin woman said, “I want to do.”

Valdez looked at her and wanted to reach over to touch her hair and feel the skin of her sun-darkened cheek and move the tips of his fingers gently over her cracked lips. But he kept his hand in his lap, around the slender neck of the Remington.

He said, “If you want to go back now, you can. I let you go, you’re free. Go wherever you want. Tell him you got away from me.”