I shook my head. I hadn't expected anything like this.
We unsaddled our horses and turned them loose with the others; then we sat down to wait. Riders came drifting in from different directions, a few of them Mexicans, but most of them were run-of-the-mine hardcases and hired gunmen. They kept coming until there must have been thirty of them. As the sun began to die in the west I helped Bama build a small fire and we cooked some bacon that he had thought to bring along. We washed it down with some greasy coffee that we boiled in a skillet. Bama's eyes were twin, silent screams for whisky, but he made no move to uncork the bottle again.
At last, when the sun disappeared, leaving a cold bloody streak along the horizon, Kreyler passed the word along to saddle up.
“I thought the Indian was supposed to be Basset's right-hand man,” I said.
Bama shook his head. “The Indian's guns keep the men in line, but Basset and Kreyler are the ones who really run things. It's a nice arrangement for Kreyler; that deputy United States marshal's badge makes him practically bulletproof. A man would think a long time before he killed a United States marshal in this country.”
I knew what he meant. There are some people that you just can't kill and get away with it, and a United States marshal is one of them. Even a crooked one like Kreyler.
Well, it didn't make any difference to me. I didn't intend to kill Kreyler, or anybody else, if he kept his nose out of my business. Anyway, after this job was over I meant to leave Kreyler and the whole business far behind.
That gave me something to think about as we started riding west again, farther up into the mountains. To get away—that was what I wanted. To go someplace where nobody knew who I was, and stay there until things in Texas cooled off. And then I'd go back.
I'd go home.
The very word was enough to turn me sick with longing. The big country of Texas, the people I knew, the kind of life I wanted to live. And Laurin....
But I knew all along that I'd never go back. Not even to die.
The night was coming down on us now and the horses stumbled along Indian file over dangerous, almost forgotten trails. The men were silent as they rode, and some of them, I guess, were thinking as I was, of home. And some of them would be counting in their minds the money that they would get from their cut of the loot. Some of them, like Bama, would be scared sick, dreading death and somehow welcoming it at the same time.
But it was Texas that I thought of. Smoky nights as still as the grave. The fierce winters of blinding snow. The blazing summers. And the little town of John's City, which was as old as the Sante Fe Trail, as old as the West. I thought of the days of the war, and the bitterness after the war—the carpetbaggers, the treasury agents, the scalawags and turncoats. The blue-suited army. The State Police.
They were all on their way out now, and before long Texas would again be the kind of place I wanted it to be —noisy with giant herds of cattle, dirty with trail drivers, rich and head-high. The strong, patient men would live to see Texas that way again. But not Tall Cameron. And not Miles Stanford Bonridge, once proud landowner in the proud state of Alabama. And not any of the other men who rode in the dark, wrapped in their own thoughts. The impatient, the money-hungry, the kill-crazy. Basset's army.
At last word passed back that the column was halting and the men were to take their positions up ahead. We dismounted and turned our animals over to men that Kreyler had appointed horse-holders; then we climbed single file up a rocky trail until we finally reached the tip of a shallow canyon.
Everything was done with army-like precision, and every man but me, it seemed, knew exactly what was expected of him.
Bama said, “You might as well follow me. It's going to be a long wait until morning.”
We picked our way along the rim of the canyon, and now I could see the war party splitting in two parts, half the men slipping silently down the wall of the canyon and up the other side. The rest of us spread out on our side at four- or five-yard intervals and got behind rocks or bushes or whatever protection we could find. Bama found a rock, and I lay down behind a clump of needle-sharp cholla not far from him.
“Now what?” I said.
“We wait,” Bama said quietly. “We wait, and we wait, and we wait. And finally the Mexicans will come down this canyon, and then we kill.”
“Just like that?”
“It's not as simple as it sounds. We've had scouting parties out for days, following the Mexicans up from Sonora. They never take the same route twice, but once they've picked themselves a trail to follow, they're stuck with it. But everything has been taken care of now. All we have to do is wait here and pretty soon they'll come along.”
“I don't get it. They must know that we're waiting for them. At least, they must
“They know,” he said. “And they'll do something about it. We'll just have to wait and see.”
So we waited, like Bama said. A pale moon came out and washed those raw mountains with a false cleanness, and a stiffening, bone-chilling cold settled down on us. I wanted a cigarette but I was afraid of striking a match. I wanted a drink, but Bama had left his bottle in his saddlebags.
“How much of this waiting have we got ahead of us?” I said.
“Only the scouts could guess at that. I'd say they'll be along in the morning sometime. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.”
I didn't think I could stand it that long. My legs became cramped from staying in one position too long. My wrist began to throb and I thought of the girl and cursed her. I checked the loading of my rifle over and over and up and down the line I could hear other nervous men doing the same thing. If this was the way wars were fought I was glad that I never had to fight in one. It wasn't so bad when it happened quickly, when you were mad at somebody or they were mad at you and all you had to do was shoot. But this waiting—that was something else.
