I said, “Bama, it will be your job to do the map. In the morning you can take two scouts into the hills and go to work on it. I don't care how long it takes, just so you get everything on it. The other two scouts can ride off toward Mexico and see what you can find in the way of smuggler trains.”
Kreyler looked up at that.
“You can't push too hard on a thing like this,” he said. “We can't attack every smuggler train trying to make its way to Tucson. They expect a few attacks, but if it happens too often they'll change their route and that will be the end of a good thing.”
I could see the scouts agreeing with him, and Bama too. “We're not going to try to get them all,” I said, “but the ones we do go after, we're going to do it right. That's the reason I want the map. If we pick our spot right, there's no reason why we should get shot up. And besides, we won't need so many men if everything is done right, and that means a bigger cut for everybody.”
They liked that, especially the scouts, and after a while we got down to details.
“How long have you been thinking about this?” Bama asked after the others had gone.
“Just since this morning. How long do you think I've been thinking about it?”
But he only shrugged and let it go.
“The next thing we've got to do is take care of this ledger,” I said. “We can't follow Kreyler around with a gun all the time, and anyway, this thing is better than a gun. It keeps the Marshal tied to us and keeps him from putting a bullet in my back at the same time.”
“You're really going into this, aren't you?” Bama said, and I tried to read some meaning into it, but there wasn't anything there but a thick, heavy drawl.
He sat there looking at me with no expression at all. At that moment he looked as if he had lived a hundred years and every year had been a hard one. “If I had the guts,” he said, “I'd tell you to go to hell. But I haven't got the guts. So if you'll get me a bottle of whisky I'll tell you what you'll have to do about Kreyler.”
I think at that moment he really hated me. But, like he said, he didn't have the guts to do anything about it. Anyway, I was getting used to his moods and the way he talked, so I slapped him on the shoulder and said, “It's not going to be as bad as all that.”
I opened the door and yelled to the bartender, and in a minute we had a bottle and a couple of tumblers on the desk.
Bama said, “I know a lawyer in Tucson who would handle the ledger for you, but I couldn't risk showing myself in a place like that. And neither could you. What you've got to have is a man who isn't wanted by the law here in Arizona. It would be better if he wasn't wanted at all, but it's not likely we'll find a man like that. I think I've got the man you want.”
I waited until Bama finished his drink, then he went on. “He's just a kid—much more of a kid than you are. He came riding into town today sometime after the shooting. From Texas, by the look of his rig. He's out in the saloon and you can talk to him if you want to.”-
“If you think he's the one we need.”
So Bama got up and went into the saloon, and after a minute he came back with a hay-haired kid who looked to be about seventeen years old. He wore blue overalls that had been patched several times around the rump and knees, and heavy brogans, and a dirty felt hat that had part of the brim torn off. He sure didn't look like much, but there was something about him that gave me kind of a shock.
It was almost like looking into a mirror and seeing myself as I had been at that age—except that I had never worn those nester's overalls and brogans. But it was his face, I guess, that got me, and his eyes. His eyes were pale blue and they were kind of bewildered and they didn't know much of anything. And maybe there was a little fear in them, and uncertainty.
“Well, son,” Bama said, reaching for a drink, “how does it feel to be in the presence of the mighty? Of course, you've heard of Talbert Cameron, desperado, killer, as they say on the 'Wanted' posters. The fastest gunman ever to come out of Texas, the scourge of lawmen, soldiers, and just plain downright honest citizens.”
I wished to hell that Bama would shut up, but he kept running on and the kid's eyes got bigger and bigger. And I couldn't get away from that feeling that the kid was myself standing there, getting my first look at a real gunman and being a little stunned and awed by it. I said, “For Christ's sake, Bama, shut up.” Bama grinned a little, sadly, and shrugged. “Go ahead and sit down, son. I don't reckon he'll bite you.”
The kid sat down on the edge of a chair and stared at me. He swallowed a couple of times and his Adam's apple flopped around while he tried to think of something to say.
I said, “Bama tells me you're from Texas. What part?” He gulped. “South,” he said faintly. “Along the Nueces River.”
I'd never been in the brush country, but by looking at the kid I got a pretty good idea of what it was like. It would be blazing sun and blistering wind and men grubbing for a living on land that was never meant to be worth a damn for anything. But those men would love the land, and they would live on it, and fight on it, and die on it. I wondered what had made the kid leave it. “Have you got a name?” I said. “Yes, sir.” He was beginning to find his voice now. “Rayburn. John Rayburn.”
Bama was sitting on the desk, soberly studying the kid, and I guessed that Bama was also seeing something of himself in this lost, bewildered-looking kid who called himself John Rayburn. After a minute he spoke quietly, with a gentleness in his voice that I had never heard before.
“Do you want to tell us about it, Johnny? We're all pretty much in the same fix here, as far as the law goes. And you are running from the law.”
“I've been doin' that, all right,” the kid said, and he looked at me and Bama, “but I sure never figured to wind up in any place like this.” His gaze settled on me. “Are you really the Tall Cameron that they talked so much about in Texas?”
I started to ask him what they were saying about me, but I changed my mind and said, “That's right. Now, who are you, besides just somebody by the name of John Rayburn?”
“Well, gosh,” he said, “I'm not anybody much. My pa owns a little brush-poppin' outfit down on the Nueces,
