Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John - Страница 19

“It’s Vern’s move, not mine.”

“Like a chess game.”

“Look,” Cable said patiently. “You’re asking me to shoot the man down in cold blood and that’s what I can’t do. Not for any reason.”

“Even though you left your family and rode a thousand miles to fight the Yankees.” Janroe watched him closely, making sure he held Cable’s attention.

“Now you’re home and you got Yankees right in your front yard. But now, for some reason, it’s different. They’re supplying cavalry horses to use against the same boys you were in uniform with. They’re using your land to graze those horses. But now it’s different. Now you sit and wait because it’s the Yankees’ turn to move.”

“A lot of things don’t sound sensible,” Cable said, “when you put them into words.”

“Or when you cover one ear,” Janroe said. “You don’t hear the guns or the screams and the moans of the wounded. You even have yourself believing the war’s over.”

“I told you once, it’s over as far as I’m concerned.”

Janroe nodded. “Yes, you’ve told me and you’ve told yourself. Now go tell Vern Kidston and his brother.”

End it, Cable thought. Tell him to shut up and mind his own business. But he thought of Martha and the children. They were here in the safety of this man’s house, living here now because Janroe had agreed to it. He was obligated to Janroe, and the sudden awareness of it checked him, dissolving the bald, blunt words that were clear in his mind and almost on his tongue.

He said simply, “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

Janroe’s expression remained coldly impassive; still his eyes clung to Cable. He watched him intently, almost as if he were trying to read Cable’s thoughts.

“You might think about it though,” Janroe said. His eyes dropped briefly. He pulled the Walker from his waist and handed it butt-forward to Cable.

“Within a few days, I’m told, Bill Dancey and the rest of them will start bringing all the horses in from pasture. That means Duane and maybe even Vern will be home alone. Just the two of them there.” Janroe lifted the lantern from the wall. Before blowing it out, he added, “You might think about that, too.”

They moved out of the cellar into the abrupt sun glare of the yard, and there Janroe waited while Cable went inside to tell Martha goodbye. Within a few minutes Cable reappeared. Janroe watched him kneel down to kiss his children; he watched him mount the sorrel and ride out. He watched him until he was out of sight, and still he lingered in the yard, staring out through the sun haze to the willows that lined the river.

He isn’t mad enough, Janroe was thinking. And Vern seems to want to wait and sweat him out. If he waits, Cable waits and nothing happens. And it will go on like this until you bring them together. You know that, don’t you? Somehow you have to knock their heads together.

Manuel Acaso reached Cable’s house in the late evening. The sky was still light, with traces of sun reflection above the pine slope, but the glare was gone and the trees had darkened and seemed more silent.

Manuel moved through the streaked shadows of the aspen grove, through the scattered pale-white trees, hearing only the sound of his own horse in the leaves. He stopped at the edge of the trees, his eyes on the silent, empty-appearing adobe; then he moved on.

Halfway across the yard he called out, “Paul!”

Cable parted the hanging willow branches with the barrel of the Spencer and stepped into the open. Manuel was facing the house, sitting motionless in the saddle with his body in profile as Cable approached, his face turned away and his eyes on the door of the house.

He looks the same, Cable thought. Perhaps heavier, but not much; and he still looks as if he’s part of the saddle and the horse, all three of them one, even when he just sits resting.

Softly he said, “Manuel-”

The dark lean face in the shadow of the straw hat turned to Cable without a trace of surprise, but with a smile that was real and warmly relaxed. His eyes raised to the willows, then dropped to Cable again.

“Still hiding in trees,” Manuel said. “Like when the Apache would come. Never be where they think you are.”

Cable was smiling. “We learned that, Manolo.”

“Now to be used on a man named Kidston,” Manuel said. “Did you think I was him coming?”

“You could have been.”

“Always something, uh?”

“Why didn’t you run him when he first came?”

Manuel shrugged. “Why? It’s not my land.”

“You skinny Mexican, you were too busy running something else.”

The trace of a smile left Manuel’s face. “I didn’t think Janroe would have told you so soon.”

“You haven’t seen him this evening?”

“No, I didn’t stop.”

“But you knew I was here.”

“A man I know visited the store yesterday. Luz told him,” Manuel said. “I almost stopped to see Martha and the little kids, but I thought, no, talk to him first, about Janroe.”

“He wants me to join you, but I told him I had my own troubles.”

“He must see something in you.” Manuel leaned forward, resting his arms one over the other on the saddle horn, watching Cable closely. “What do you think of him?”

Cable hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“He told you how he came and how he’s helping with the guns?”

“That he was in the war before and wounded.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t have a reason not to. But I don’t understand him.”

“That’s the way I felt about him; and still do.”

“Did you check on him?”

“Sure. I asked the people I work with. They said of course he’s all right, or he wouldn’t have been sent here.”

Looking up at Manuel, Cable smiled. It was good to see him, good to talk to him again, in the open or anywhere, and for the first time in three days Cable felt more sure of himself. The feeling came over him quietly with the calm, unhurried look of this man who lounged easily in his saddle and seemed a part of it-this thin-faced, slim-bodied man who looked like a boy and always would, who had worked his cattle with him and fought the Apache with him and helped him build his home. They had learned to know each other well, and there was much between them that didn’t have to be spoken.

“Do you feel someone watching you?”

“This standing in the open,” Manuel nodded. “Like being naked.”

“We’d better go somewhere else.”

“In the trees.” Manuel smiled.

He took his horse to the barn and came back, walking with a slow, stiff-legged stride, his hand lightly on the Colt that was holstered low on his right side, holding it to his leg. He followed Cable into the willows. Then, sitting down next to him at the edge of the cutback, Manuel noticed the horse herd far out in the meadow beyond the river.

“You let Vern’s horses stay?”

“I ran them once,” Cable said. “Duane brought them back.”

“So you run them again.”

“Tomorrow. You want to come?”

“Tonight I’m back to my gun business.”

Denaman, Cable thought. The old man’s face appeared suddenly in his mind with the mention of the gunrunning. He told Manuel what Janroe had said about John Denaman’s death. That he was worried about his business. “But I suppose that meant worried about the guns,” Cable said. “Having to sit on them and act natural.”

“I think the man was just old,” Manuel said. “I think he would have died anyway. Perhaps this gun business caused him to die a little sooner, but not much sooner.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Thank you,” Manuel said, with understanding, as if Denaman had been his own father.

“At first,” Cable said, “I couldn’t picture John fooling with something like this-living out here, far away from the war.”

“Why?” Manuel’s eyebrows rose. “You lived here and you went to fight.”

“It seems different.”

“Because he was old? John could have had the same feeling you did.”

“I suppose.”