that I rode into Ocotillo and Marta had taken me to her house and fixed me up with the stuff to shave and take a bath with. I remembered the shock I'd got when I looked into that mirror. The face I'd seen was a stranger's face, and I guess I was experiencing the same thing all over again.
Except that I was looking deeper. Maybe I had a hold of that dark, illusive thing that they call a soul. But I turned loose of it in a hurry, just as I had looked away from the mirror.
Chapter Seven
IT'S FUNNY HOW everything seems different in the light of day. Most of your doubts and fears go with the darkness, and after a while you forget about them completely.
The kid, Johnny Rayburn, got back to Ocotillo late the next day. I came out of the office and there he was standing at the bar, gagging on a shot of tequila.
I said, “You made a quick ride. Did things work out all right in Tucson?”
“Sure, Mr. Cameron.”
Then Kreyler came into the saloon and I said, “Wait a minute. All this is for the Marshal's benefit, so he might as well hear about it.”
The three of us went back to the office, and I could feel Kreyler's eyes on my back, looking for a soft spot to sink a knife in. But he didn't bother me now. I had him where I wanted him and he knew it. Or he would know it pretty soon.
I said, “All right, kid, let's have it. Tell Mr. Kreyler just exactly what you've been doing for the past day and night.”
The Marshal gave the kid a quick look. Then he sat in a chair and waited, and he might as well have been wearing a mask, for all the expression you could read on his face.
“Well,” the kid said, “I rode into Tucson, like you said, and I gave the ledger to—to the man Bama told me about. I gave him five hundred dollars and asked him if he would hold onto the book as long as I kept coming back every month to give him another hundred, and he said sure, he'd be glad to. Then I came back to Ocotillo.”
I said, “Tell us what's going to happen if we miss giving him the hundred dollars every month.”
“He'll turn the book over to the U.S. marshal's office,” the kid said.
I expected Kreyler to do something then, but he didn't. He just sat there with that slab face not telling me a thing.
“Well,” I said, “it looks like you're working for me, Kreyler, whether you like it or not.”
“It would seem that way,” he said flatly.
“It doesn't seem any way. You're working for me and you'll keep on working for me until I get tired of having you around.”
“All right, I'm working for you.”
I didn't like the way things were going. I had expected a hell of a racket about that ledger, but there he was sitting there as if he didn't care about it one way or the other. There was something going on behind those eyes of his, and I thought I knew what it was.
He kept looking at the kid, and then I realized that just three of us knew where that ledger was, me, Bama, and Johnny Rayburn, and if Kreyler wanted to find out where it was he would have to get it out of one of us. I didn't have to do much figuring to guess which one he would work on.
I jerked my head at the kid and said, “Go somewhere and get some sleep.” Then it hit me that just “somewhere” wouldn't be good enough. He had to be someplace where Kreyler wouldn't have a chance to work on him. So I said, “Get your stuff and bring it down here. We'll put up a cot or something and you can bunk with me until we figure out something better.”
“Well, gosh,” the kid said. “Sure, if you want me to, Mr. Cameron.” As he went out of the place he seemed to be walking about a foot off the floor, and he had suddenly developed a curious kind of toe-heel way of walking that reminded me of a cat with sore feet. It wasn't until later that I realized that I walked the same way, because I had learned that it was the quietest way to walk. And with a gunman, the quietest way of doing a thing is the safest way.
It began to dawn on me that Johnny Rayburn was imitating me. A thing like that had never happened before. I had never thought of myself as much of a hero, and it had never occurred to me that anybody would want to pattern his life after mine. But there it was, and there was something about it that pleased me—the same way, I guess, that a man is pleased to have some bawling, yelling brat named after him. It was something like being assured that a part of me would go on living, no matter what happened to Talbert Cameron.
I thought about that, and then I became aware of Kreyler sitting across the desk from me, watching me, reading the thoughts going around in my mind.
“There's something we'd better get straight right now,” I said. “If anything happens to that kid, I'll kill you. All the cavalry and United States marshals in Arizona won't be able to save you.”
He sat there for a while, half smiling. Then he got up and walked out.
It took Bama and the two scouts eight days to make the kind of map I wanted, but when they finally got back and put the finished product on my desk I saw that they had done a good job. The chart was drawn in six different sections, but Bama had the pieces lettered and numbered and the whole thing made sense when he put it together. There were almost a dozen natural traps that Bama had already marked, and there wasn't much for me to do except to post scouts along the various canyons and wait until a smuggler train was spotted.
“And what do we do,” Bama asked, “if the Mexicans decide not to use one of these particular canyons?”
“We'll wait. They'll take one of them sooner or later, and when they do, they won't have a chance.”
“No,” he said wearily, “I guess not. Do you want a drink?”
