He filled his glass and drained it, using the bottle I had brought because he had already emptied his. “May the best man win, senorita,” he said, nodding in mock politeness. “And may it be entertaining and bloody. Most of all, let it be bloody.”
Marta sat stone-faced while I poured a round. “Don't you ever sober up?” I said.
“Not if I can help it. Tequila is good for the soul. It reverts man back to the jungle from whence he came, as they say, back to the vicious, lewd, wild beast that he was before somebody told him that he had a soul. Remember the old camp-meeting hymn that backwoods preachers used to bellow at the top of their lungs? 'I'm Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.' Blood with a mile-high capital B. Did it ever occur to you that the Bible is one of the bloodiest manuscripts ever written? Most of its heroes either are killers or died violent deaths themselves. Blood, I've seen enough of it. I'll wash my soul in the clean, destroying liquid of tequila.”
“You're crazy,” I said.
He chuckled. “See what I mean?”
Marta was watching him strangely, almost fearfully. Bama slouched back in his chair and smiled at her, his eyes flat and empty. I drank my tequila down, poured another glass, and downed that. My insides began to settle down and I began to feel better. I could feel Bama watching me. Without interest, without feeling.
Pretty soon I began to notice things that I hadn't noticed before. Basset's customers had given us a whole corner of the saloon to ourselves. The area around our table was quiet, as if some kind of invisible wall had been put up around us.
“You can't blame them for moving out of the line of fire,” Bama drawled. “As long as you're with that girl we're poison. Have another drink?”
Until now I hadn't really believed that men would kill over a girl like Marta—over money, or pride, or almost anything else, but not over a girl like that. But I saw that I was wrong. Everybody in the place accepted it as a fact that before long either the Indian or I would be dead. The talking and laughing and drinking and gambling went on as usual, but there was a nervous sound to it, a tight feel in the air.
I already had my limit of two drinks, but I took the third one that Bama poured and downed it. I tried to reason with myself. What was the good in taking a chance on getting killed over a Mexican hellcat that was no better than a common doxie? All I had to do was tell her to get away from me, and tomorrow after I got my cut of the silver I'd get out of Ocotillo for good.
But I couldn't do it. I'd never backed down from an Indian or anybody else in my life. In this business you took one step back and you were done for, the whole howling hungry pack would be on you.
So I sat there while Bama smiled that crooked smile of his. But he seemed more interested in the girl than in me. He watched her steadily, and all the time a change was taking place in Malta's eyes. First fear, then uncertainty gave way to a brighter fire of self-satisfaction and conquest. It struck me then that she was actually enjoying this! She wanted to be fought over. She wanted blood at her feet. At every sound her head would turn, her eyes would dart this way and that in excitement. I began to understand why most men wanted no part of her.
Bama took another drink and lifted himself unsteadily to his feet. “Like the darky says,” he said, “I'm tired of livin' but 'fraid of dyin'. You don't mind if I just step over to the bar until this is all over, do you?”
I didn't say anything. Bama drunkenly doffed his Confederate hat in Marta's direction, turned, and weaved across the floor.
She was actually smiling now. She reached across the table to take my hand and I pulled away as if she had been a coiled rattler.
“Just let me alone,” I said tightly. “There's no way of stopping this thing now, but there's one thing you'd better understand. I'm not getting into any trouble on account of you. And when it's over, I'm telling you for the last time, let me alone.”
I don't think she even heard me. Her eyes were darting from one side to the other, and her mind was so hopped up with excitement that she couldn't sit still.
I could feel the change in the place the minute he walked in. It was nothing you could put your finger on at first—there was no change in the way people acted, or in the noise, but I had the feeling that somewhere a grave had been opened and Death itself had walked into the saloon.
In a minute the others felt it, and their heads turned toward the door as if they had been jerked on a string. Saloon sounds—the rattle of a roulette wheel, the chanting of the blackjack dealer, the muffled slap of cards on felt, the clank of glasses behind the bar—all went on for a few seconds and then suddenly played out. I shoved my chair back and there he was standing in front of the batwings. He was looking at me. For him there was no one in the saloon but me.
I didn't know whether to get up or stay where I was. If I had been smart I would have had my right-hand gun pulled around in my lap for a saddle draw—but I hadn't been smart, and it was too late to worry about it now. He started forward, and I could feel the customers pushing back out of the line of fire. This is a hell of a thing, I thought. Here's a man I never saw but once in my life, a man I've never as much as said “Go to hell!” to, and now he's after my hide!
He came forward slowly, in that curious toe-heel gait that Indians have, as if he had a long way to go and was in no particular hurry to get there. Just so he got there. Well, anyway, I was glad the waiting was over. Now that I could look at him, he didn't look so damned tough. He looked like any other Indian, except maybe a little dirtier and a little uglier, with eyes a little more deadly. He had just two hands, like anybody else, and he had blood in his veins that would run out when a bullet went in. That first feeling of doom passed away and I was ready for him.
The smart guys along the bar and against the wall were grinning as if they expected me to fall on my knees and start begging him not to shoot me. They would have loved that. There's nothing that would make them happier than to see me spill my guts. There wasn't a man in the place, with the possible exception of Bama, who wouldn't have taken a shot at me if that had happened.
That's a pleasure they'll be a long time seeing, I thought grimly.
I stood up carefully as he stopped at the table, beside Marta.
“There's something you want?” I said.
For a minute he just looked at me. Or through me. There was no way of telling about those eyes of his. Not a
