“Get the hell out of here,” I said.
She was leaning against the wardrobe laughing at me, and with the red light from the fireplace playing on her face. She must have found my tobacco and corn-shuck papers in my shirt, because there was a thin brown cigarette dangling from one corner of her mouth. That shook me, because I had never seen a woman smoke before, except for the fancy girls in Abilene or Dodge or one of the other trail towns.
I saw that she wasn't going to get out until she got good and ready. I couldn't figure her out. One minute she seemed to be a simple Mexican girl, almost a child, with a straightforward eagerness to help a stranger out; and the next minute she was voluptuous and cynical and as wise as Eve. I didn't know enough about women to know what to do with her. I had looked into big-eyed muzzles of .44's without feeling as helpless as I did when I looked at her.
“All right,” I said, “you've looked. Now how about getting my clothes?”
She dragged deep on the cigarette and let it drop to the packed clay floor. “Sure, gringo.”
She went into the other room and threw my pants through the doorway. They were still damp, but I didn't care. I put them on. She came in with my shirt, threw it at me, and leaned against the wardrobe again.
“You look better after shave.”
“I feel better.”
She must have brushed her hair or combed it while I was taking the bath. It shone as black as the devil's heart in the red light of the fire, and it was pulled back tight away from her face and rolled in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her mouth was ripe and red and those eyes of hers seemed to be laughing at something.
“What are you looking at?” I said.
“I thought you was man,” she said. “With beard gone you're just boy.”
I thought quickly that maybe I should have left the mustache on. Maybe I should have left the beard on too. “I'll grow up,” I said. I fished in my pocket and found a silver dollar and flipped it at her. “That's for the bath and shave.”
I had my shirt and boots on now, and was buckling on my guns. I didn't know where I was going exactly. I just wanted to go out and look at people and see if I couldn't get to feel like a human being again. I picked up my rifle and got as far as the door.
“I hope you shoot good,” she said. “It is bad to die young.”
That stopped me. “What are you talking about?”
“The man in the street, by your horse,” she said calmly. “I think maybe he shoot you. If you don't shoot first.”
I felt my stomach flip over. Could it be possible that the federal marshals had trailed me all the way from Texas? I went out the back door, across the walled-in yard, and through the gate. There was a lot of singing somewhere, and some drunken yelling and laughing. Fiesta was still going on. The adobe huts seemed jammed closer together in the darkness, but the Mexicans had a bonfire going out in the street, so I could see enough to pick my way between them. A dog barked. Somewhere in the night a girl giggled and a man made soft crooning noises. After a while I could stand in the shadows and see my horse across the street. Sure enough, a man was there.
He wasn't Mexican and he wasn't anybody I had ever seen before. He was a big man with flabby features and he didn't seem to be much interested in the fiesta or anything else, except that big black horse of mine. Then somebody came up behind me. It was the girl. “Who is he?” I said. “I never saw him before.” She seemed surprised. She seemed suddenly to scrap all the opinions that she had formed about me and start making brand- new ones. “You sure?” she asked after a pause.
“I tell you I never laid eyes on him before. What is he, somebody's hired gunny?”
She did some quick thinking. “I think Marta make big mistake,” she said.
“Are you Marta?”
You come with me, gringo.”
“Si.
She stepped out into the street, in the dancing firelight, but I didn't move. She crossed the street, waving her arms and yelling something to the big guy. I saw the man nod. Then she motioned for me to come on.
The man didn't look very dangerous to me. He had the usual pistol on his hip, but I figured that he was too old and too fat to be very fast with it. Anyway, I was curious, so I walked across the street.
The man didn't miss a thing, not even a flick of an eyelash, as I came toward him. As I got closer I began to change my estimate of him—he could be dangerous, plenty dangerous. It showed in his flat eyes, the aggressive way he stood. It showed on the well-worn butt of his .44. He wore a battered, wide-brimmed Texas hat with a rawhide thong under his chin to keep it on. His shirt was buckskin and had been pretty fancy in its day, but now it was almost black and slick with dirt and wear. He kept his hand well away from his pistol to show that he wasn't asking for trouble. I did the same.
The girl was standing spraddle-legged, hands on hips, grinning at us, but under that grin I had a feeling that there was disappointment. The man jerked his head, dismissing her, as I stepped up to the dirt walk. She melted away in the darkness somewhere.
“This your horse?” the man said, nodding his head at the black.
“That's right.”
“I was thinking maybe I'd seen him somewhere before. Texas, maybe.”
“You've had time to make up your mind, the way you've been standing here gawking at him.”
He blinked his eyes. He was used to getting more respect than that, especially from boys not out of their teens yet. “A tough punk,” he said flatly. “If there's anything I can't stand it's a tough punk.”
The way he said it went all over me. It was like cursing a man, knowing that he was listening and not having enough respect for him to lower your voice. Before he knew what hit him I had the barrel of my pistol rammed in his
