Valdez hanging whether they had a stomach for it or not.
'Lyall, don't you get scared up there alone with him?' she said with a little shiver that might have been partly real.
'What's there to be scared of? He's locked in a cell.'
'What if one of his friends should come to help him?' Elodie said.
'How could a man like that have friends?'
'Well I worry about you, Lyall.'
Lyall stopped being calm, his whole face grinning. 'Do you, Elodie?'
And that's what Lyall was thinking about when he went on duty Friday night. About Elodie.
Barney Groom was sitting at Bohannon's rolltop with his feet propped up, looking like he was ready to go to sleep. He said to Lyall, ' 'Night's the last night. After the hanging we can relax a little.'
Lyall went upstairs and sat down in the canebottom chair still thinking about Elodie: how she looked like a little girl when she pouted. A deputy marshal can probably support a wife, he thought.
Still, he wasn't so sure, since Bohannon hadn't mentioned salary to him yet.
Bobby Valdez said, 'This is the night the priest comes.'
Lyall looked up. 'I almost forgot. Bet you feel better already.'
'As if I have risen from the dead,' Bobby Valdez said.
Later on Lyall didn't have a timepiece on him but he estimated it was shortly after midnight he heard the noise downstairs. Not a strange noise; it was just that it came unexpectedly in the quiet. He looked over at Bobby Valdez. Still asleep. For the next few minutes it was quiet again.
Then he heard footsteps on the stairs. It must be the priest, Lyall thought, getting up. He'd told the man to tell the priest to just walk by Barney, who'd probably be asleep, and if he wasn't, just explain the whole thing. So Barney was either asleep or had agreed.
Lyall wasn't prepared for the robed figure that stepped into the hallway. He'd expected a priest in a regular black suit; but then he remembered the priest at White Sands was the kind who wore a long robe and sandals.
Lyall said, 'Father?'
That end of the hallway was darker and Lyall couldn't see him very well, and now as he came forward, Lyall still couldn't see his face because the cowl, the hood part of the robe, was up over his head. His arms were folded, with his hands up in the big sleeves.
'Father?'
'My son.'
Lyall turned to the cell. 'He's right here, Father.'
Valdez was standing at the bars and it struck Lyall suddenly that he hadn't heard Valdez get up. He turned his head to look at the priest and felt the gun barrel jab against his back.
'Place your weapon on the floor,' the voice behind him said.
Bobby Valdez added, 'My son,' smiling now.
The man behind Lyall reached past him to hand the ring of jail keys to Valdez. As he did, the cowl fell back and Lyall saw the man he'd talked to in White Sands. Sixto Henriquez.
Valdez said, 'Whether you could get a robe was the thing that bothered me.'
'A gift,' Sixto said. 'Hanging from his clothesline.'
Lyall heard them, but he wouldn't let himself believe it. He wanted to say, 'Wait a minute! Come on, now, this wasn't supposed to happen!'
Thinking of Bohannon and Elodie and the nights walking in the hallway, suddenly knowing he'd done the wrong thing, and too late to do anything about it. 'Wait a minute . . . I was trying to help you!' But not saying it because it had been his own damn, stupid fault, and he was so aware of it now, he had to bite his lip to keep from yelling like a kid.
Valdez came out of the cell and picked up the shotgun Lyall had dropped. He said to Lyall, 'Now my soul feels better.'
He motioned Sixto toward the stairs. 'Go first and see how it is with the old one.'
'He sleep,' Sixto said, and patted the barrel of his pistol.
'Let's be sure,' Bobby Valdez said. He watched Sixto go through the doorway and listened to him start down the stairs. He looked at Lyall again, smiling. 'You can mark this to experience.'
If Valdez had backed out, holding the gun on Lyall, it wouldn't have happened. Even if he had just warned Lyall not to yell out or follow them but he just turned and started walking out, know ing Lyall wouldn't dare try to stop him. And that's where Bobby Valdez made his mistake.
Lyall saw the man's back like a slap in the face.
Even though he was scared, all of a sudden the knots inside him got too tight to stand. No thinking now about how it happened or what might happen just an overpowering urge to get him!
He lunged at the back that was moving away.
Three long strides and his arms were around Valdez's neck, jerking, swinging him off his feet.
He heard the shotgun clatter against the wall and hit the floor.
Tight against him, Bobby Valdez was turning his body. Lyall let go with one arm, brought it down quick, and drove it as hard as he could into the stomach almost against him. Valdez gasped and started to sag. Then footsteps on the stairs. Lyall scrambled for the shotgun, came up with it, and was at the doorway in time to see Sixto partway up the stairs, but as he raised the shotgun there was a swirl of robes and Sixto was at the bottom again.
There was the sound of him running through the office, then nothing. Lyall came around fast. Valdez was almost on him, coming in low, diving for Lyall's legs and he dove right into the shotgun barrel swung hard against his skull.
Lyall just stood there breathing for a minute before he dragged Bobby Valdez back to the cell and hefted him onto the bunk.
'Mr. Valdez,' Lyall said out loud, 'that's one you can mark to experience.'
He went downstairs after that. Barney Groom was slouched in his chair, out cold. Lyall went to the doorway; he stepped outside to have a look around, and there was the friar's robe. It was in the road over by the hitch rack. Lyall gathered it up quick. He brought it back in the office and hung it beneath his rain slicker that was hooked on a peg.
Then he breathed easier.
Elodie turned away from the window. 'It's over, Lyall,' she said gravely. 'They're starting to come out on the street.'
Lyall glanced at her. 'Is that right, Elodie?' he said, then put a little more ketchup on his eggs.
Scrambled eggs were good that way; this morning they tasted even better. He ate them, half smiling, remembering Bohannon coming that morning. Bohannon frowning at Barney Groom, Barney trying to figure how he got his head bumped when he was sound asleep.
Then when they went upstairs that was really something. Bohannon saying, 'Maybe he's sick,' seeing Valdez's white face and the side of his head swollen like a lopsided melon. And Barney Groom saying, 'Maybe the same bug bit me, bit him.'
Then what Bohannon said to him when they went downstairs again that was the best.
'Now, Lyall, you done a fair job, though just sitting up there trying to keep awake wasn't much of a test. Tell you what'
Bohannon pulled a folded sheet of paper from his vest pocket 'last night I got a note from the White Sands marshal telling about the padre there getting his outfit stolen off the clothesline and would I assign a man to it since he's busy collecting taxes.' Bohannon chuckled.
'Have to keep the padres happy. Now, Lyall, if you could prove to me you're smart enough to get that padre's robe back for him, I'll see you're made a permanent deputy. And that's my solemn word.'
Lyall pretended he didn't see Bohannon wink at Barney Groom. He said, 'Yes, sir, I'll sure try.' Just as serious as he could.
Man with the Iron Arm
