Trail Of the Apache and Other Stories (1951) (19 page)

They stood ten feet apart looking at each other, close enough so that no one could fire from the slope.

I can kill you first, the Negro said, if you raise that.

With his free hand, the left one, Bob Valdez motioned back over his shoulder. There's a man there said you killed somebody a year ago.

What man?

Said his name is Tanner.

The Negro shook his head, once each way.

Said your name is Johnson.

You know my name.

I'm telling you what he said.

Where'd I kill this man?

Huachuca.

The Negro hesitated. That was some time ago I
w
as in the Tenth. More than a year.

You a deserter?

I served it out.

Then you got something that says so.

Only Good Ones In the wagon, there's a bag there my things are in.

Will you talk to this man Tanner?

If I can hold from hitting him one.

Listen, why did you run this morning?

They come chasing. I don't know what they want. He lowered the gun a little, his brownstained-looking tired eyes staring intently at Bob Valdez. What would you do? They came on the run. Next thing I know they a-firing at us. So I pop in this place.

Will you come with me and talk to him?

The Negro hesitated again. Then shook his head.

I don't know him.

Then he won't know you, uh?

He didn't know me this morning.

All right, Bob Valdez said. I'll get your paper says you were discharged. Then we'll show it to this man, uh?

The Negro thought it over before he nodded, very slowly, as if still thinking. All right. Bring him here, I'll say a few words to him.

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 Only Good Ones 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 rin1/4ee 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
g
uess there are Bob Valdezes all over.

You wonder what gets into them, Mr. Beaudry said.

The stories contained in this volume originally appeared in the following publications:

Trail of the Apache, Argosy, December

You Never See Apaches . . . , Dime Western Magazine, September

The Colonel's Lady, Zane Grey's Western, November

The Rustlers, Zane Grey's Western, February

The Big Hunt, Western Magazine, April

The Boy Who Smiled, Gunsmoke, June

Only Good Ones, Western Roundup, New York, Macmillan, ( Western Writers of America Anthology)

About the Author has written more than forty novels during his highly successful career, including the bestsellers The Hot Kid, Mr.

Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch, and the critically acclaimed collection of short stories When the Women Come Out to Dance, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of . Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

Visit www. AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Resounding praise for the incomparable western fiction of New York Times bestselling Grand Master

Leonard began his career telling western stories. He knows his way onto a horse and out of a gun fight as well as he knows the special King's English spoken by his patented, not-so-lovable urban lowlifes.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel In cowboy writing, Leonard belongs in the same A-list shelf as Louis L'Amour, Owen Wister, and Zane Grey.

New York Daily News Leonard wrote westerns, very good westerns . . . the way he imagined Hemingway, his mentor, might write westerns.

Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate A master . . . Etching a harsh, haunting landscape with razorsharp prose, Leonard shows in [his] brilliant stories why he has become the American poet laureate of the desperate and the bold . . . In stories that burn with passion, treachery, and heroism, the frontier comes vividly, magnificently to life.

Tulsa World [Leonard's stories] transcend the genre to work as well as any serious fiction of the era or any era.

Chicago Tribune Books by Elmore Leonard Trail of the Apache and Freaky Deaky Other Stories Touch Three-Ten to Yuma and Bandits Other Stories Glitz Blood Money and Other LaBrava Stories Stick Moment of Vengeance and Cat Chaser Other Stories Split Images The Complete Western City Primeval Stories of Elmore Gold Coast Leonard Gunsights Mr. Paradise The Switch When the Women Come The Hunted Out to Dance Unknown Man No.

Tishomingo Blues Swag Pagan Babies Fifty-two Pickup Be Cool Mr. Majestyk The Tonto Woman &

Forty Lashes Less One Other Western Stories Valdez Is Coming Cuba Libre The Moonshine War Out of Sight The Big Bounce Riding the Rap Hombre Pronto Last Stand at Saber River Rum Punch Escape from Five Shadows Maximum Bob The Law at Randado Get Shorty The Bounty Hunters Killshot Credits Map designed by Jane S. Kim Copyright This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

TRAIL OF THE APACHE. Copyright -! by Elmore Leonard, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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ttp://www.harpercollinsebooks.com Document Outline Cover Image Title Page Contents Map Chapter One: Trail of the Apache Chapter Two: You Never See Apaches...

Chapter
Three: The Coloneln++s Lady Chapter Four: The Rustlers Chapter Five: The Big Hunt Chapter Six: The Boy Who Smiled Chapter Seven: Only Good Ones About the Author Praise Books by Elmore Leonard Credits Copyright Notice About the Publisher