boxes stacked one on the other. It contained a tangle of clothing, cartridge boxes and five or six bottles of whiskey.
The two men watched De Sana shove his extra pistol into a holster that hung next to the cupboard. The other was on his hip. He took a halffilled bottle from the shelf and went to the table.
'Looks like I'm just in time.' Rondo was standing in the doorway, grinning, with a canteen hanging from his hand. 'Give me a little fill, jefe, to ease sitting on that eagle's nest.'
De Sana's head came up and he moved around the table threateningly, his eyes pinned on the man in the doorway. 'Get back to the pass!' His hand dropped to the pistol on his hip in a natural movement. 'You watch! You get paid to watch! And if you miss anything going through that pass . . .' His voice trailed off, but for a moment it shook with excitement.
'Hell, Lew. Nobody's going to find us way up here,' Rondo argued half-heartedly.
Patman looked at him surprised. 'Cima Quaine's blood-dogs could track a man all the way to China.' 'Aw, San Carlos's a hundred miles away. Ain't nobody going to track us that far, not even 'Pache Police.'
De Sana said, 'I'm not telling you again, Rondo.' Rondo glanced at the hand on the pistol butt and moved out of the doorway.
But as he walked through the pines toward the canyon edge, he held the canteen up to his face and shook it a few times. He could hear the whiskey inside sloshing around sounding as if it were still a good one-third full. Rondo smiled and his mind erased the scowling yellow face. Lew De Sana could go take a whistlin' dive at the moon for all he cared.
The girl's fingers were crooked through the handles of the three enamel cups, and she kept her eyes lowered to the table as she set the coffeepot down with her other hand, placing the cups next to it.
'Looks good,' Patman said.
She said nothing, but her eyes lifted to him briefly, then darted to the opposite side of the table where Fallis stood and then lowered just as quickly. She had turned her head slightly, enough for Fallis to see the bruise on her cheekbone. A deep blue beneath her eye that spread into a yellowish caste in the soft hollow of her cheek. There was a lifelessness in the dark eyes and perhaps fear. Fallis kept staring at the girl, seeing the utter resignation that showed in her face and was there even in the way she moved her small body. Like a person who has given up and doesn't much care what happens next. He noticed the eyes when her glance wandered to him again, dark and tired, yet with a certain hungriness in their deepness. No, it wasn't fear. De Sana picked up the first cup as she filled it and poured a heavy shot from the bottle into it. He set the bottle down and lifted the coffee cup to his mouth. His lips moved, as if tasting, and he said, 'It's cold,' looking at the girl in a way that didn't need the support of other words. He turned the cup upside down and poured the dark liquid on the floor.
Fallis thought, What a damn fool. Who's he trying to impress? He glanced at Patman but the excorporal was looking at De Sana as if pouring coffee on the floor was the most normal thing in the world. As the girl picked up the big coffeepot, her hand shook with the weight and before her other hand could close on the spout, she dropped it back on the table.
'Here, I'll give you a hand,' Fallis offered. 'That's a big jug.'
But just as he took it from the girl's hands, he heard De Sana say, 'Leave that pot alone!'
He looked at De Sana in bewilderment. 'What? I just want to help her out with the coffeepot.'
'She can do her own chores.' De Sana's voice was unhurried. 'Just put it down.'
Dave Fallis felt heat rise up over his face. When he was angry, he always wondered if it showed. And sometimes, as, for instance, now, he didn't care. His heart started going faster with the rise of the heat that tingled the hair on the back of his head and made the words come to his mouth. And he had to spit the words out hard because it would make him feel better.
'Who the hell are you talking to? Do I look like somebody you can give orders to?' Fallis stopped but kept on looking at the thin, sallow face, wishing he could think of something good to say while the anger was up.
Patman moved closer to the younger man. 'Slow down, Dave,' he said with a laugh that sounded forced. 'A man's got a right to run things like he wants in his own house.'
De Sana's eyes moved from one to the other, then back to the girl and said, 'What are you waiting for?' He kept his eyes on her until she passed through the doorway. Then he said, 'Mister, you better have a talk with your boy.'
Fallis heard Patman say, 'That's just his Irish, Lew. You know, young and gets hot easy.' He stared at the old cavalryman--not really old, but twice his own age--and tried to see through the sad face with the drooping mustache because he knew that wasn't Virg Patman talking, calling him by his first name as if they were old friends. What was the matter with Virg? He felt the anger draining and in its place was bewilderment. It made him feel uneasy and kind of foolish standing there, with his big hands planted on the table, trying to stare down the skeletal- looking gunman who looked at him as if he were a kid and would be just wasting his time talking. It made him madder, but the things he wanted to say sounded too loudmouth in his mind. The words seemed blustering, hot air, compared to the cold, slow-spoken words of De Sana.
Now De Sana said, 'I don't care what his nationality is. But I think you better tell him the facts of life.'
Fallis felt the heat again, but Patman broke in with his laugh before he could say anything.
'Hell, Lew,' Patman said. 'Let's get back to what we come for. Nobody meant any harm.'
De Sana fingered the dark shadow of his mustache thoughtfully, and finally said, hurriedly, 'Yeah. All right.' Then he added, 'Now that you're here, you might as well stay the night and leave in the morning. If you have any stores with you, break them out. This isn't any street mission. And remember, first light you leave.'
Later, during the meal, he spoke little, occasionally answering Patman in monosyllables. He never spoke directly to Fallis and only answered Patman when he had to. Finally he pushed from the table before he had finished. He rolled a cigarette moving toward the door. 'I'm going out to relieve Rondo,' he said. 'Don't wander off.'
Fallis watched him walk across the clearing and when the figure disappeared into the pines he turned abruptly to Patman sitting next to him.
'What's the matter with you, Virg?'
Patman put his hand up. 'Now just slow it down. You're too damn jumpy.'
'Jumpy? Honest to God, Virg, you never sucked up to the first sergeant like you did to that little rooster. Back in the pass you read him out when he started jumping to conclusions. Now you're buttering up like you were scared to death.'
'Wait a minute.' Patman passed his fingers through his thinning hair, his elbow on the table. He looked very tired and his long face seemed to sag loosely in sadness. 'If you're going to play brave, you got to pick the right time, else your bravery don't mean a damn thing. These hills are full of heroes, and nobody even knows where to plant the flowers over them. Then you come across a man fresh out of Yuma--out the hard way, too--' he added, 'a man who probably shoots holes in his shadow every night and can't trust anybody because it might mean going back to an adobe cell block. He got sent there in the first place because he shot an Indian agent in a hold-up. He didn't kill him, but don't think he couldn't have--and don't think he hasn't killed before.'
Patman exhaled and drew tobacco from his pocket. 'You run into a man like that, a man who counts his breaths like you count your blessings, and you pick a fight because you don't like the way he treats his woman.'
'A man can't get his toes stepped on and just smile,' Fallis said testily.
Patman blew smoke out wearily. 'Maybe your hitch in the Army was kind of a sheltered life. Brass bands and not having to think. Trailing a dust cloud that used to be Apaches isn't facing Lew De Sana across a three foot table. I think you were lucky.' Fallis picked up his hat and walked toward the door. 'We'll see,' he answered.
'Wait a minute, Dave.' Fallis turned in the doorway.
'Sometimes you got to pick the lesser of evils,' the older man said. 'Like choosing between a sore toe or lead in your belly. Remember, Dave, he's a man with a price on his head. He's spooky. And remember this. A little while ago he could have shot both of your eyes out while he was drinking his coffee.'
Patience wasn't something Dave Fallis came by naturally. Standing idle ate at his nerves and made him move restlessly like a penned animal. The Army hitch had grated on him this way. Petty routines and idleness. Idleness in the barracks and idleness even in the dust-smothering parade during the hours of drill. Routine that
