Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories (6 page)

Boland came up with the gun. He did it without thinking; and now, as he leveled it in Red's face he looked at Virginia with disbelief in his wide-open eyes. They followed her as she moved across the room, replaced the coffeepot on the stove and re
turned to stand awkwardly near the cot. She bit her lower lip nervously, watching the man.

The violent motion had ripped open his wound and now it was bleeding again. He hugged his arm to his side, groaning, with his scalded hand held limply in front of him.

Virginia's head lowered closer to his and she said, “I'm sorry,” embarrassedly.

For another moment Boland continued to stare at her, but now with curiosity in place of surprise, as if he wasn't quite sure he knew this woman he had married.

He handed her the pistol. “Want me to cock it?”

“I can do that.”

“If he budges, shoot him quick.”

He moved toward the door and hesitated momentarily before turning back to Virginia. He kissed her mouth softly and looking into her face as he drew away, her features seemed not so sharp and pointed. And there was more color to her skin. He moved to the door anxiously, but glanced at her again before going out.

The rain had worn itself to a cold drizzle and there was no moon to make shadows in the blackness. He moved around the house slowly, cautiously, and hugged the adobe as he passed the garden. His pistol was in the saddlebag hanging in the barn-shed and now he thought: why in hell didn't I bring it in!
No, then Jeffy would have it now. But he wouldn't know it was in the saddlebag. I've to get the gun—and then Jeffy. But where is he?

He reached the back of the house and crouched down in the dead silence, looking in the direction of the barn-shed. He waited, listening for a sound, and after a few minutes he could make out an oblong, hazy outline. He thought of Virginia now and he didn't feel so alone. Even the business of the afternoon, when it crept into his mind, didn't cause a sinking feeling, and he went over everything calmly. It puzzled him, because he was used to feeling alone. He thought of the reward again….

He arose abruptly and sprinted across the back section toward the barn. He ran half-crouched, even though it was dark. At the side of the doorway, he pressed his back to the wall and listened. He waited again, then slowly inched his head past the opening. It was darker within. He stepped inside quickly and as he did, felt the gun barrel jab into his spine.

“You must be dumber than I thought you were,” Jeffy said.

 

V
IRGINIA BACKED
toward the table slowly, her free hand feeling for the edge, and when her fingers touched the smooth oilcloth she moved around it so that now the table was between her and the man on
the cot. She did not take her eyes from the sprawled figure as she reached behind for the chair. There was a flutter of movement within her and she held the pistol with both hands, sitting down quickly. She trained the front sight on the man and saw it tremble slightly against the background of his body.

He closed his eyes suddenly, grinding his teeth together, and when he opened them they were dark hollows in his bloodless face. His mouth opened as if he would say something, but he blew his breath out wearily and moved a boot until it slid off the cot to the floor. His teeth clenched as it hit the flooring.

He brought his left hand over to the wound, his face tightening as his fingers touched the blood-smear of shirt that was stuck fast to the wound. It was still bleeding and now a dark stain was forming on the light wool blanket that covered the mattress.

She watched the stain spreading on the blanket where it touched his side and again she felt the squirm of life within her. She felt suddenly faint.

She remembered the afternoon her mother had given her the blanket and how she'd folded it into the chest with her linens and materials. She had seated herself on the chest then and clasped her hands contentedly, listing her possessions in her mind and thinking, smiling: now all I need is a husband. She had giggled then, she remembered.

For the bed, they used Dave's heavy army blankets. The cot served as a sofa and deserved something bright and dressy enough for the front room.

Red lifted his boot to the cot, and stretched it out tensely, and as the heel slid over the blanket a streak of sand-colored clay followed the heel in a thin crumbling line.

And then she no longer recognized the blanket. It became something else with this man sprawled on top of it. It became part of him with his blood staining it. And she saw the man and the blanketed cot as one. The wound was in the center. It was the focal point.

His face grimaced again with the pain and he groaned.

She said softly, “Haven't you done anything for it?”

He was breathing through his mouth as if his lungs were worn out and there was a pause before he said, “I stuffed my bandanna inside till it got soaked through, then I threw it away.”

She stared at the bloodstain without speaking. Then, suddenly, she laid the pistol on the table and went over to the stove.

Red watched her pour water from a kettle into a shallow, porcelain pan before reaching for a towel that hung from a wall rack. His eyes drifted to the gun on the table and his body strained as if he
would rise, but as Virginia turned and moved toward him, he relaxed.

She caught the slight movement and stopped halfway to the cot, her eyes going from the man to the table. She hesitated for a moment, then went on to the cot where she kneeled down, placing the pan on the floor.

She poured water on the wound and pulled at the shirt gently, working it loose. When it was free she tore the shirt up to the armpit, exposing the raw wound. It looked swollen and tender, fire-red around the puncture then darkening into a surrounding purplish-blue.

She looked into his face briefly. “Didn't your
friend
offer to help you?”

“He had to worry about getting us out.”

“After he got you in.”

Red said, irritably, “I've got a mind of my own.”

She held the wet cloth to the wound then took it away, wringing the stained water from it. “Then why don't you use it?” she said calmly.

Red looked at her hard, then flared, “Maybe Jeffy was right. Maybe since you quit swingin' your tail in a hash-house, all of a sudden you're somebody else.”

Virginia's head remained lowered over the pan as she rinsed out the cloth, squeezing it into the water. “You don't have any cause to talk like that.”

She went to the wall rack and brought back a dry
cloth and neither of them spoke as she folded it and pressed it gently against the wound.

And as she did this, Red's eyes lowered to the streak of clay on the blanket and he brushed it off carefully. He looked at the bloodstain and said in a low voice, “I'm sorry about your cover.” He was silent for a moment then said, almost dazedly, “I'm going to die—”

She made no answer and now his eyes lifted to her faded blond hair and then over her head to roam about the room. He was thinking about the soiled blanket and now he saw the raveling poplin curtains that looked flimsy and ridiculous next to the drab adobe. On the board partition there was a print of a girl in a ballet costume, soft-shadowed color against the rough boards. And over by the far wall was the grotesquely fat stove, its flue reaching up through the low ceiling.

He said, “You got it pretty hard, haven't you?”

She hesitated before saying, “We get by.”

“Well,” he said, glancing around again, “I wouldn't say you had the world by the tail.”

Virginia looked up quickly. There was a rattling of knocks on the door and from outside she heard, “Honey, give that gun back to Red like a good girl.”

 

J
EFFY CAME THROUGH
the doorway prodding Boland before him. He glared at Red who was
holding his gun on his lap carelessly. “You're some watchdog.”

Red said nothing, but then he gagged as if he would be sick. He breathed hard with his mouth open to catch his breath and then seemed to sag within himself. His eyes were open, but lifeless.

“It's a good thing I tested you out, Red.”

Red was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Jeffy, did I shoot that man in Dodge?”

“I told you you did.” He looked at Red curiously.

“But I don't remember doing it.”

“How many things you ever done do you remember?”

“I thought I'd remember killing a man.”

Jeffy rolled the tobacco on his tongue, looking around the room. Then he shrugged and sent a stream of it to the floor. “I'm not going to argue with you, Red. I don't have time.” He glanced at Virginia. “Honey, how'd you like to go for a ride?”

There was a silence then, and Jeffy laughed to fill it. “You don't think I'm riding out of here without some protection!” He looked at Boland. “Davie, would you take a pot at me with your woman hangin' onto my cantle?”

Boland's face was white. For a moment there had been a fury inside of him, but his brain had fought it and now he felt only panic. There was a plea in
his voice when he said, “My wife's going to have a baby.”

Jeffy grinned at him. “All the more reason.”

“Jeffy.”

He glanced at Red who seemed suddenly wide awake.

“Jeffy, you're just scaring, aren't you?”

“What do you think?”

He looked at him, squinting, as if he were trying to read his mind. “You'd take that girl on horseback the way she is?”

“Red, if I had a violin I'd accompany you.” He started toward Virginia.

And with his movement the gun turned in Red's lap, and the room filled with the roar as it went off. He cocked to fire again, but there was no need. He looked at Jeffy lying facedown on the floor and said incredulously, “He would have done it!”

He let the pistol fall to the floor. “There,” he said to Virginia. “Keep your coffeepot away from here.”

Boland looked at Jeffy and then picked up the pistol. Virginia smiled at him wearily and sat down at the table, propping her elbows on it. He said to her, “Maybe you better get some sleep.”

“Dave.”

He turned to Red.

“I'm going to die, Dave.”

Boland remained silent.

“Do me a favor and don't holler law until the morning. Then it won't matter.”

“All right, Red.” Then he said, “I don't want to sound like a gravepicker, but how much have you and Jeffy got on your heads?”

Red looked at him, surprised. “Reward?”

Boland nodded.

“Why, nothin'. What made you think so?”

“You said somebody identified you in Clovis.”

“Well, it was probably somebody used to know us.”

Now that he had asked him, Boland was embarrassed. But, strangely, there was no disappointment and at that moment it surprised him. He grinned at Virginia. “I guess you don't get anything for nothing.”

She smiled back at him and didn't look so tired. “You should know that by now.”

For a few minutes there was silence. They could hear Red's breathing, but it was soft and even. Suddenly, Boland said, “Ginny, you know I haven't been home more'n an hour!”

Virginia nodded. “And it seemed like the whole, long night.” Her eyes smiled at him and she said, softly, “When you're telling our grandchildren about it, maybe you can stretch it a little bit.”

Chapter One

H
E COULD HEAR
the stagecoach, the faraway creaking and the muffled rumble of it, and he was thinking: It's almost an hour early. Why should it be if it left Contention on schedule?

His name was Pat Brennan. He was lean and almost tall, with a deeply tanned, pleasant face beneath the straight hat brim low over his eyes, and he
stood next to his saddle, which was on the ground, with the easy, hip-shot slouch of a rider. A Henry rifle was in his right hand and he was squinting into the sun glare, looking up the grade to the rutted road that came curving down through the spidery Joshua trees.

He lowered the Henry rifle, stock down, and let it fall across the saddle, and kept his hand away from the Colt holstered on his right leg. A man could get shot standing next to a stage road out in the middle of nowhere with a rifle in his hand.

Then, seeing the coach suddenly against the sky, billowing dust hanging over it, he felt relief and smiled to himself and raised his arm to wave as the coach passed through the Joshuas.

As the pounding wood, iron, and three-team racket of it came swaying toward him, he raised both arms and felt a sudden helplessness as he saw that the driver was making no effort to stop the teams. Brennan stepped back quickly, and the coach rushed past him, the driver, alone on the boot, bending forward and down to look at him.

Brennan cupped his hands and called,
“Rintoooon!”

The driver leaned back with the reins high and through his fingers, his boot pushing against the brake lever, and his body half turned to look back over the top of the Concord. Brennan swung the
saddle up over his shoulder and started after the coach as it ground to a stop.

He saw the company name,
HATCH
&
HODGES
, and just below it,
Number 42
stenciled on the varnished door; then from a side window, he saw a man staring at him irritably as he approached. Behind the man he caught a glimpse of a woman with soft features and a small, plumed hat and eyes that looked away quickly as Brennan's gaze passed them going up to Ed Rintoon, the driver.

“Ed, for a minute I didn't think you were going to stop.”

Rintoon, a leathery, beard-stubbled man in his mid-forties, stood with one knee on the seat and looked down at Brennan with only faint surprise.

“I took you for being up to no good, standing there waving your arms.”

“I'm only looking for a lift a ways.”

“What happened to you?”

Brennan grinned and his thumb pointed back vaguely over his shoulder. “I was visiting Tenvoorde to see about buying some yearling stock and I lost my horse to him on a bet.”

“Driver!”

Brennan turned. The man who had been at the window was now leaning halfway out of the door and looking up at Rintoon.

“I'm not paying you to pass the time of day
with”—he glanced at Brennan—“with everybody we meet.”

Rintoon leaned over to look down at him. “Willard, you ain't even part right, since you ain't the man that pays me.”

“I chartered this coach, and you along with it!” He was a young man, hatless, his long hair mussed from the wind. Strands of it hung over his ears, and his face was flushed as he glared at Rintoon. “When I pay for a coach I expect the service that goes with it.”

Rintoon said, “Willard, you calm down now.”

“Mr. Mims!”

Rintoon smiled faintly, glancing at Brennan. “Pat, I'd like you to meet Mr. Mims.” He paused, adding, “He's a bookkeeper.”

Brennan touched the brim of his hat toward the coach, seeing the woman again. She looked to be in her late twenties and her eyes now were wide and frightened and not looking at him.

His glance went to Willard Mims. Mims came out of the doorway and stood pointing a finger up at Rintoon.

“Brother, you're through! I swear to God this is your last run on any line in the Territory!”

Rintoon eased himself down until he was half sitting on the seat. “You wouldn't kid me.”

“You'll see if I'm kidding!”

Rintoon shook his head. “After ten years of faithful service the boss will be sorry to see me go.”

Willard Mims stared at him in silence. Then he said, his voice calmer, “You won't be so sure of yourself after we get to Bisbee.”

Ignoring him, Rintoon turned to Brennan. “Swing that saddle up here.”

“You hear what I said?” Willard Mims flared.

Reaching down for the saddle horn as Brennan lifted it, Rintoon answered, “You said I'd be sorry when we got to Bisbee.”

“You remember that!”

“I sure will. Now you get back inside, Willard.” He glanced at Brennan. “You get in there, too, Pat.”

Willard Mims stiffened. “I'll remind you again—this is
not
the passenger coach.”

Brennan was momentarily angry, but he saw the way Rintoon was taking this and he said calmly, “You want me to walk? It's only fifteen miles to Sasabe.”

“I didn't say that,” Mims answered, moving to the coach door. “If you want to come, get up on the boot.” He turned to look at Brennan as he pulled himself up on the foot rung. “If we'd wanted company we'd have taken the scheduled run. That clear enough for you?”

Glancing at Rintoon, Brennan swung the Henry rifle up to him and said, “Yes, sir,” not looking at
Mims; and he winked at Rintoon as he climbed the wheel to the driver's seat.

A moment later they were moving, slowly at first, bumping and swaying; then the road seemed to become smoother as the teams pulled faster.

Brennan leaned toward Rintoon and said, in the noise, close to the driver's grizzled face, “I wondered why the regular stage would be almost an hour early, Ed, I'm obliged to you.”

Rintoon glanced at him. “Thank Mr. Mims.”

“Who is he, anyway?”

“Old man Gateway's son-in-law. Married the boss's daughter. Married into the biggest copper claim in the country.”

“The girl with him his wife?”

“Doretta,” Rintoon answered. “That's Gateway's daughter. She was scheduled to be an old maid till Willard come along and saved her from spinsterhood. She's plain as a 'dobe wall.”

Brennan said, “But not too plain for Willard, eh?”

Rintoon gave him a side glance. “Patrick, there ain't nothing plain about old man Gateway's holdings. That's the thing. Four years ago he bought a half interest in the Montezuma Copper Mine for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he's got it back triple since then. Can you imagine anyone having that much money?”

Brennan shook his head. “Where'd he get it, to start?”

“They say he come from money and made more by using the brains God gave him, investing it.”

Brennan shook his head again. “That's too much money, Ed. Too much to have to worry about.”

“Not for Willard, it ain't,” Rintoon said. “He started out as a bookkeeper with the company. Now he's general manager—since the wedding. The old man picked Willard because he was the only one around he thought had any polish, and he knew if he waited much longer he'd have an old maid on his hands. And, Pat”—Rintoon leaned closer—“Willard don't talk to the old man like he does to other people.”

“She didn't look so bad to me,” Brennan said.

“You been down on Sasabe Creek too long.” Rintoon glanced at him again. “What were you saying about losing your horse to Tenvoorde?”

“Oh, I went to see him about buying some yearlings—”

“On credit,” Rintoon said.

Brennan nodded. “Though I was going to pay him some of it cash. I told him to name a fair interest rate and he'd have it in two years. But he said no. Cash on the line. No cash, no yearlings. I needed three hundred to make the deal, but I only had fifty. Then when I was going he said, ‘Patrick'—
you know how he talks—‘I'll give you a chance to get your yearlings free,' and all the time he's eyeing this claybank mare I had along. He said, ‘You bet your mare and your fifty dollars cash, I'll put up what yearlings you need, and we'll race your mare against one of my string for the winner.'”

Ed Rintoon said, “And you lost.”

“By a country mile.”

“Pat, that don't sound like you. Why didn't you take what your fifty would buy and get on home?”

“Because I needed these yearlings plus a good seed bull. I could've bought the bull, but I wouldn't have had the yearlings to build on. That's what I told Mr. Tenvoorde. I said, ‘This deal's as good as the stock you're selling me. If you're taking that kind of money for a seed bull and yearlings, then you know they can produce. You're sure of getting your money.'”

“You got stock down on your Sasabe place,” Rintoon said.

“Not like you think. They wintered poorly and I got a lot of building to do.”

“Who's tending your herd now?”

“I still got those two Mexican boys.”

“You should've known better than to go to Tenvoorde.”

“I didn't have a chance. He's the only man close enough with the stock I want.”

“But a bet like that—how could you fall into it? You know he'd have a pony to outstrip yours.”

“Well, that was the chance I had to take.”

They rode along in silence for a few minutes before Brennan asked, “Where they coming from?”

Rintoon grinned at him. “Their honeymoon. Willard made the agent put on a special run just for the two of them. Made a big fuss while Doretta tried to hide her head.”

“Then”—Brennan grinned—“I'm obliged to Mr. Mims, else I'd still be waiting back there with my saddle and my Henry.”

Later on, topping a rise that was thick with jack pine, they were suddenly in view of the Sasabe station and the creek beyond it, as they came out of the trees and started down the mesquite-dotted sweep of the hillside.

Rintoon checked his timepiece. The regular run was due here at five o'clock. He was surprised to see that it was only ten minutes after four. He remembered then, his mind picturing Willard Mims as he chartered the special coach.

Brennan said, “I'm getting off here at Sasabe.”

“How'll you get over to your place?”

“Hank'll lend me a horse.”

As they drew nearer, Rintoon was squinting, studying the three adobe houses and the corral in
back. “I don't see anybody,” he said. “Hank's usually out in the yard. Him or his boy.”

Brennan said, “They don't expect you for an hour. That's it.”

“Man, we make enough noise for somebody to come out.”

Rintoon swung the teams toward the adobes, slowing them as Brennan pushed his boot against the brake lever, and they came to a stop exactly even with the front of the main adobe.

“Hank!”

Rintoon looked from the door of the adobe out over the yard. He called the name again, but there was no answer. He frowned. “The damn place sounds deserted,” he said.

Brennan saw the driver's eyes drop to the sawed-off shotgun and Brennan's Henry on the floor of the boot, and then he was looking over the yard again.

“Where in hell would Hank've gone to?”

A sound came from the adobe. A boot scraping—that or something like it—and the next moment a man was standing in the open doorway. He was bearded, a dark beard faintly streaked with gray and in need of a trim. He was watching them calmly, almost indifferently, and leveling a Colt at them at the same time.

He moved out into the yard and now another
man, armed with a shotgun, came out of the adobe. The bearded one held his gun on the door of the coach. The shotgun was leveled at Brennan and Rintoon.

“You-all drop your guns and come on down.” He wore range clothes, soiled and sun bleached, and he held the shotgun calmly as if doing this was not something new. He was younger than the bearded one by at least ten years.

Brennan raised his revolver from its holster and the one with the shotgun said, “Gently, now,” and grinned as Brennan dropped it over the wheel.

Rintoon, not wearing a handgun, had not moved.

“If you got something down in that boot,” the one with the shotgun said to him, “haul it out.”

Rintoon muttered something under his breath. He reached down and took hold of Brennan's Henry rifle lying next to the sawed-off shotgun, his finger slipping through the trigger guard. He came up with it hesitantly, and Brennan whispered, barely moving his lips, “Don't be crazy.”

Standing up, turning, Rintoon hesitated again, then let the rifle fall. “That all you got?”

Rintoon nodded. “That's all.”

“Then come on down.”

Rintoon turned his back. He bent over to climb down, his foot reaching for the wheel below, and
his hand closed on the sawed-off shotgun. Brennan whispered, “Don't do it!”

Rintoon mumbled something that came out as a growl. Brennan leaned toward him as if to give him a hand down. “You got two shots. What if there're more than two of them?”

Rintoon grunted, “Look out, Pat!” His hand gripped the shotgun firmly.

Then he was turning, jumping from the wheel, the stubby scattergun flashing head-high—and at the same moment a single revolver shot blasted the stillness. Brennan saw Rintoon crumple to the ground, the shotgun falling next to him, and he was suddenly aware of powder smoke and a man framed in the window of the adobe.

The one with the shotgun said, “Well, that just saves some time,” and he glanced around as the third man came out of the adobe. “Chink, I swear you hit him in midair.”

“I was waiting for that old man to pull something,” said the one called Chink. He wore two low-slung, crossed cartridge belts and his second Colt was still in its holster.

Brennan jumped down and rolled Rintoon over gently, holding his head off the ground. He looked at the motionless form and then at Chink. “He's dead.”