Trail of the Apache and Other Stories Read online

  he’s lived up north of town a few months. Him and

  the woman.’ ‘Well, I know him,’ Mr. Tanner said.

  ‘That man’s an army deserter wanted for murder.’ I

  said, ‘Well, let’s go get him.’ He had a start on us

  and that’s how he got to the hut before we could

  grab on to him. He’s been holed up ever since.”

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  Mr. Malsom said, “Then you didn’t talk to him.”

  “Listen,” Mr. Tanner said, “I’ve kept that man’s

  face before my eyes this past year.”

  Bob Valdez, somewhat behind Mr. Tanner and to

  the side, moved in a little closer. “You know this is

  the same man, uh?”

  Mr. Tanner looked around. He stared at Valdez.

  That’s all he did—just stared.

  “I mean, we have to be sure,” Bob Valdez said.

  “It’s a serious thing.”

  Now Mr. Malsom and Mr. Beaudry were looking up at him. “We,” Mr. Beaudry said. “I’ll tell

  you what, Roberto. We need help we’ll call you. All

  right?”

  “You hired me,” Bob Valdez said, standing alone

  above them. He was serious but he shrugged and

  smiled a little to take the edge off the words.

  “What did you hire me for?”

  “Well,” Mr. Beaudry said, acting it out, looking

  past Bob Valdez and along the road both ways, “I

  was to see some drunk Mexicans I’d point them out.”

  A person can be in two different places and he

  will be two different people. Maybe if you think of

  some more places the person will be more people,

  but don’t take it too far. This is Bob Valdez standing by himself with the shotgun and having only

  the shotgun to hold on to. This is one Bob Valdez.

  About twenty years old. Mr. Beaudry and others

  could try and think of a time when Bob Valdez

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  might have drunk too much or swaggered or had a

  certain smart look on his face, but they would

  never recall such a time. This Bob Valdez was all

  right.

  Another Bob Valdez inside the Bob Valdez at the

  pasture that day worked for the army one time and

  was a guide when Crook chased Chato and Chihuahua down into the Madres. He was seventeen

  then, with a Springfield and Apache moccasins that

  came up to his knees. He would sit at night with the

  Apache scouts from San Carlos, eating with them

  and talking some as he learned Chiricahua. He

  would keep up with them all day and shoot the

  Springfield one hell of a lot better than any of them

  could shoot. He came home with a scalp but never

  showed it to anyone and had thrown it away by the

  time he went to work for Maricopa. Shortly after

  that he was named town constable at twenty-five

  dollars a month, getting the job because he got

  along with people: the Mexicans in town who

  drank too much on Saturday night liked him and

  that was the main thing.

  The men with the whiskey bottle had forgotten

  Valdez. They stayed in the hollow where the shade

  was cool watching the line shack and waiting for the

  army deserter to realize it was all up with him. He

  would realize it and open the door and be cut down

  as he came outside. It was a matter of time only.

  Bob Valdez stayed on the open part of the slope

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  189

  that was turning to shade, sitting now like an

  Apache and every once in a while making a cigarette and smoking it slowly as he thought about

  himself and Mr. Tanner and the others, then thinking about the army deserter.

  Diego Luz came and squatted next to him, his

  arms on his knees and his big hands that he used

  for breaking horses hanging in front of him.

  “Stay near if they want you for something,”

  Valdez said. He was watching Beaudry tilt the bottle up. Diego Luz said nothing.

  “One of them bends over,” Bob Valdez said then,

  “you kiss it, uh?”

  Diego Luz looked at him, patient about it. Not

  mad or even stirred up. “Why don’t you go home?”

  “He says Get me a bottle, you run.”

  “I get it. I don’t run.”

  “Smile and hold your hat, uh?”

  “And don’t talk so much.”

  “Not unless they talk to you first.”

  “You better go home,” Diego said.

  Bob Valdez said, “That’s why you hit the

  horses.”

  “Listen,” Diego Luz said, scowling a bit now.

  “They pay me to break horses. They pay you to

  talk to drunks on Saturday night and keep them

  from killing somebody. They don’t pay you for

  what you think or how you feel, so if you take their

  money, keep your mouth shut. All right?”

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  Diego Luz got up and walked away, down toward the hollow. The hell with this kid, he was

  thinking. He’ll learn or he won’t learn, but the hell

  with him. He was also thinking that maybe he

  could get a drink from that bottle. Maybe there’d

  be a half inch left nobody wanted and Mr. Malsom

  would tell him to kill it.

  But it was already finished. R. L. Davis was playing with the bottle, holding it by the neck and flipping it up and catching it as it came down. Beaudry

  was saying, “What about after dark?” Looking at

  Mr. Tanner, who was thinking about something

  else and didn’t notice. R L. Davis stopped flipping

  the bottle. He said, “Put some men on the rise right

  above the hut; he comes out, bust him.”

  “Well, they should get the men over there,” Mr.

  Beaudry said, looking at the sky. “It won’t be long

  till dark.”

  “Where’s he going?” Mr. Malsom said.

  The others looked up, stopped in whatever they

  were doing or thinking by the suddenness of Mr.

  Malsom’s voice.

  “Hey, Valdez!” R. L. Davis yelled out. “Where

  do you think you’re going?”

  Bob Valdez had circled them and was already

  below them on the slope, leaving the pines now

  and entering the scrub brush. He didn’t stop or

  look back.

  “Valdez!”

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  191

  Mr. Tanner raised one hand to silence R. L.

  Davis, all the time watching Bob Valdez getting

  smaller, going straight through the scrub, not just

  walking or passing the time but going right out to

  the pasture.

  “Look at him,” Mr. Malsom said. There was

  some admiration in the voice.

  “He’s dumber than he looks,” R. L. Davis said.

  Then jumped a little as Mr. Tanner touched his arm.

  “Come on,” Mr. Tanner said. “With a rifle.”

  And started down the slope, hurrying and not

  seeming to care if he might stumble on the loose

  gravel.

  Bob Valdez was now halfway across the pasture,

  the shotgun pointed down at his side, his eyes not

  leaving the door of the line shack. The door was

  probably already open enough for a rifle barrel to

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bsp; poke through. He guessed the army deserter was

  covering him, letting him get as close as he wanted;

  the closer he came, the easier to hit him.

  Now he could see all the bullet marks in the door

  and the clean inner wood where the door was splintered. Two people in that little bake-oven of a

  place. He saw the door move.

  He saw the rag doll on the ground. It was a

  strange thing, the woman having a doll. Valdez

  hardly glanced at it but was aware of the button

  eyes looking up and the discomforted twist of the

  red wool mouth. Then, just past the doll, when he

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  was wondering if he would go right up to the door

  and knock on it and wouldn’t that be a crazy thing,

  like visiting somebody, the door opened and the

  Negro was in the doorway, filling it, standing there

  in pants and boots but without a shirt in that hot

  place and holding a long-barreled Walker that was

  already cocked.

  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

  was in the Tenth. More than a year.”

  “You a deserter?”

  “I served it out.”

  “Then you got something that says so.”

  Only Good Ones

  193

  “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

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  ELMORE LEONARD

  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

  195

  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.

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  ELMORE LEONARD

  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

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sp; said.

  The stories contained in this volume originally appeared in the

  following publications:

  “Trail of the Apache,” Argosy, December 1951

  “You Never See Apaches . . . ,” Dime Western Magazine, September 1952

  “The Colonel’s Lady,” Zane Grey’s Western, November 1952

  “The Rustlers,” Zane Grey’s Western, February 1953

  “The Big Hunt,” Western Magazine, April 1953

  “The Boy Who Smiled,” Gunsmoke, June 1953

  “Only Good Ones,” Western Roundup, New York, Macmillan, 1961 ( Western Writers of America Anthology)

  About the Author

  ELMORE LEONARD 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 2003. 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

  ELMORE LEONARD

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  “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.”