Bob Valdez smiled a little. 'You can point that gun some other way.'
'Well . . .' the Negro said, 'if everybody's friends.' He lowered the Walker to his side.
The wagon was in the willow trees by the creek. Off to the right. But Bob Valdez did not turn right away in that direction. He backed away, watching Orlando Rincon for no reason that he knew of. Maybe because the man was holding a gun and that was reason enough.
He had backed off six or seven feet when Orlando Rincon shoved the Walker down into his belt. Bob Valdez turned and started for the trees. This was when he looked across the pasture. He saw Mr. Tanner and R. L. Davis at the edge of the scrub trees but wasn't sure it was them.
Something tried to tell him it was them, but he did not accept it until he was off to the right, out of the line of fire, and by then the time to yell at them or run toward them was past, for R. L. Davis had the Winchester up and was firing.
They say R. L. Davis was drunk or he would have pinned him square.
As it was the bullet shaved Rincon and plowed past him into the hut.
Bob Valdez saw him half turn, either to go inside or look inside, and as he came around again saw the man's eyes on him and his hand pulling the Walker from his belt.
'They weren't supposed to,' Bob Valdez said, holding one hand out as if to stop Rincon. 'Listen, they weren't supposed to do that!'
The Walker was out of Rincon's belt and he was cocking it. 'Don't!'
Bob Valdez yelled. 'Don't!' Looking right in the man's eyes and seeing it was no use and suddenly hurrying, jerking the shotgun up and pulling both triggers so that the explosions came out in one big blast and Orlando Rincon was spun and thrown back inside.
They came out across the pasture to have a look at the carcass, some going inside where they found the woman also dead, killed by a rifle bullet. They noticed she would have had a child in a few months. Those by the doorway made room as Mr. Tanner and R. L. Davis approached.
Diego Luz came over by Bob Valdez, who had not moved. Valdez stood watching them and he saw Mr. Tanner look down at Rincon and after a moment shake his head.
'It looked like him,' Mr. Tanner said. 'It sure looked like him.'
He saw R. L. Davis squint at Mr. Tanner. 'It ain't the one you said?'
Mr. Tanner shook his head again. 'I've seen him before, though.
Know I've seen him somewheres.'
Valdez saw R. L. Davis shrug. 'You ask me, they all look alike.' He was yawning then, fooling with his hat, and then his eyes swiveled over at Bob Valdez standing with the empty shotgun.
'Constable,' R. L. Davis said, 'you went and killed the wrong coon.'
Bob Valdez started for him, raising the shotgun to swing it like a club, but Diego Luz drew his revolver and came down with it and Valdez dropped to the ground.
Some three years later there was a piece in the paper about a Robert Eladio Valdez who had been hanged for murder in Tularosa, New Mexico. He had shot a man coming out of the Regent Hotel, called him an unprintable name, and shot him four times. This Valdez had previously killed a man in Contention and two in Sands during a bank holdup, had been caught once, escaped from the jail in Mesilla before trial, and identified another time during a holdup near Lordsburg.
'If it is the same Bob Valdez used to live here,' Mr. Beaudry said, 'it's good we got rid of him.'
'Well, it could be,' Mr. Malsom said. 'But I guess there are Bob Valdezes all over.'
'You wonder what gets into them,' Mr. Beaudry said.
