and Rocca was that way now. Not that I blamed him. It is all very easy to say trouble can be avoided, but these men were not going to be avoided. They were looking for trouble, they wanted it.
'Si, senor.' Rocca said gently, 'I am honored to call John J. Battles my friend.'
'Then I guess we'll just kill you, Mex, seein' as how we can't find him.'
Well, I just looked up at the man and I said, 'I'm a friend of his, too,' and I said it sort of off-hand as if it didn't matter much, but they knew it did.
They turned their eyes on me, and I just sat there, a tall, lonely man in a wore-out buckskin shirt and a beat-up hat.
'You want part of this?' Walrus-mustache was speaking again.
'A man can ride many a long mile in Texas,' I said, 'and see nothing but grass and sky. There's streams down there, and a man could raise some cows. Here in Arizona there's timber country with fine, beautiful meadows and cold mountain streams -- '
'What're you talkin' about?' Handle-bar mustache broke in. 'Are you crazy?'
'I was just thinking a man would have to be an awful fool to throw all that away to prove how mean he was. I mean you boys got a choice. You walk back over there and drink your liquor and ride out to those mountain streams where the tall grass grows.'
'Or -- ?'
'Or you stay here, and tomorrow you'll be pushin' grass from the under side.'
They stared at me. They were trying to figure whether I was all talk, or whether I was tough. Now, I'm a patient man. Had they been talking to Tyrel, folks would have been laying out the bodies by now. Me, I'm not backward about giving a man a chance. Many a time a man with whiskey in him is apt to talk too much, and suddenly realize he wished he was somewhere else. I was giving them this chance.
They didn't take it.
The long-geared man with the handle-bar mustache looked at me and said, 'I'm Arch Hadden,' as if he expected me to show scare at the name.
'Glad to meet you, Mr. Hadden,' I said gently. 'I'll carve the slab myself.'
He kind of flushed up, and I could see he was off his step, somehow. He'd come walking up to fight, and my talk had put him off. Also, that name meant nothing to me, and I never was one to put much stock in reputatations, anyway.
Rocca had let me talk, he just sat quiet, but I'd come up the trail from Yuma with Tampico Rocca, and knew he was no man to buy trouble with. Arch Hadden had lost step, and he tried to get back again.
'I came to kill this greaser, an' I aim to do it.' Rocca came to his feet in one smooth, easy movement. 'Then why not get started?'
The man with the walrus mustache had had more to drink, and he wasn't being bluffed. He went for his gun, and I straightened my leg with a snap. The chair slammed into his legs and he fell against Hadden, and I shot the man on the end while they were falling. I heard another gun boom and then Rocca and me were standing there looking down at Hadden and his brother, one of them in a half-crouch but off balance, the other on one knee.
'You boys brought it to us,' I said. 'We didn't ask for it. You brought it, and now two of you are dead.'
They hadn't looked at their companions until then, and when they did I saw they were suddenly cold sober.
'Arch,' I said, 'you may be a tough man where you come from, but you're a long way from home. You take my advice and go back.'
Rocca was holding a gun on them, as I was. He reached around with his other hand and picked up his beer, and drank it, watching them.
Foster was standing across the room, his back to the bar. 'Why don't you boys pack it up before the law gets here?' he suggested. 'I don't want any more shooting in here. It's bad for business.'
'Sure,' I said, and holstered my gun. Deliberately I started for the door.
Tampico Rocca had been called a greaser, so he took his time. He put his glass down gently and he smiled at them. 'Keep your guns,' he said, 'I want to meet you again, senores.'
Outside in the street we ducked into an alley and stood listening for footsteps, but hearing none, we walked away.
At the corral we stopped and leaned on the bars, and Rocca built a cigarette.
'Gracias, amigo,' he said. And then he added, 'You are quick, amigo. You are very quick.'
Chapter 4
Come daybreak, and worry was upon me. It was a real, old-fashioned attack of the dismals.
The shooting of the night before was bad enough, although I never gave much time to worry over those who came asking for trouble. When a man packed a gun he was supposed to give some thought to his actions and his manner of speech, for folks weren't much inclined to set back and let a body run over them.
It was that youngster who was worrying me. There was a small boy, a prisoner of the Apaches, or maybe already killed by them. And he was my blood kin.
Nobody knew better than me the distance I'd have to cover and the way I'd have to live for the next month or more. It was a hard country, almost empty of people, scarce of food, and rare of water that was fit to drink. The fact that Tampico Rocca was coming along sort of made it better. Two men can't move as quiet as one, except when one of them is Rocca. But his coming also made it worse, because if anything happened to him it would be because of me.
Now the first thing I needed was a horse, and I could find none for sale.
Meantime I sort of sauntered around and let folks know I needed a saddle, and finally bought a beat-up old Spanish single-rig saddle with a mochila, or housing, to throw over it, and oxbow stirrups. It was almighty old, but in good shape, and a lot of hard use had worn comfort into it. That saddle set me back eighteen dollars, and I picked up some old saddlebags for three dollars more. An old Army canteen cost me twenty-five cents. Little by little I put an outfit together, and by the time I'd bought a spare cartridge belt, a bridle, and a few other odds and ends I'd spent more than fifty dollars of what little I had. And still no horse. Whilst I went around the town of Tucson I kept a careful eye open for Arch and Wolf Madden. It turned out that one of those boys shot the night before wasn't dead. He'd been hit hard, but he was going to pull through.
They planted the other one, wrapped in his blankets, out on Boot Hill.
By noontime I had most of what I would need, but was still shy a horse. Dropping in at the Shoo-Fly I figured to have myself a bite of grub, and maybe I could find somebody with a horse to spare.
So I shaved myself with a broken triangle of glass for a mirror, stuck in the fork of a mesquite tree, while Rocca slept with his head on his saddle close by.
We were a mite out of town among some rocks and mesquite, and we'd been there a while when I heard somebody singing 'Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,' and Rocca pushed his hat back off his eyes. 'Don't shoot,' he said, grinning at me.
'That's John J.'
And it was. Battles came up through the brush and looked us over, and we told him what the score was.
'Where's Spanish?' he wanted to know, and Rocca told him.
'He found himself a gal down yonder. Her name is Conchita, and if she gets mad at him the Apaches will be a relief. But don't you worry none about Spanish.
When the time comes he'll fork his saddle and come with us.'
When I'd shaved we talked things over a mite and Rocca headed for Mexican town to roust out Spanish Murphy, whilst Battles went back into the brush to keep out of sight. Somehow or other, neither of us thought to tell him about the Hadden outfit.
The Shoo-Fly was crowded when I came in, but I tamed some heads. I don't know if it was the gun battle the night before or the whiskey I'd used for shave lotion, but they looked me over some. I'd been sort of sidestepping the marshal, not wanting to be ordered out of town yet, and not wanting trouble, if he was so inclined. When it came to eating, I was always a good feeder and always ready to set up and partake. Likely this would be the last woman-cooked food I'd have for a while, and even any hot meals I'd cook myself would be almighty scarce on that trek down into Sonora and over into Chihuahua. When a man is fighting shy of Apaches he doesn't go around sending up smoke.
