Valdez Is Coming

Valdez’s eyes shifted to the man, hung there, and returned to Ta

Ta

“I’m going to give the word,” Ta

“Wait a minute!” R. L. Davis said. “I’m no part of this.” He saw Ta

“I give you mine,” the segundo said.

“I don’t want one!” Davis was edging back, taking himself out of the group, his eyes holding on the Remington at Valdez’s side. “I don’t have any fight with him.”

In Spanish, the segundo said to the young Mexican on Ta

The young man wasn’t sure. “I work for him,” he said.

“Not anymore. I let you go.”

Ta

“That she’s your woman,” the segundo said easily. “A man holds his woman or he doesn’t. It’s up to him, a personal thing between him and the man who took the woman. All these men are thinking, What have we got to do with it?”

“You do what I tell you. That’s what you’ve got to do with it.” Ta

He looked at his men again, not believing it, seeing them standing watching him, none of them ready to make a move.

“You hear me – I said shoot him!”

Valdez waited in the silence that followed. He waited as Ta

As Ta

Ta

But he’s not looking at himself, Valdez was thinking, and it isn’t an easy thing to raise and fire a Colt at someone. So he jabbed at Ta

Ta

“Let me say it to you this way,” Valdez said. “You give me money for the Lipan woman whose husband was killed or you use the gun. One or the other, right now. Make up your mind.”

Ta

“Not today,” Ta

Valdez shook his head slowly. “No, that was your time. You get one time, mister, to prove who you are.”

“I should have killed you three days ago,” Ta

“No” – the segundo started past him toward the horses, pausing to take the Colt from Ta

“Or paid the Lipan woman,” Valdez said. “It wouldn’t have cost you so much.”