Hombre Read online

  “You can get another on,” he said. Telling me, not asking.

  “Well, I don’t see how.”

  “On top.”

  “No one’s allowed to ride with the driver. That’s a company rule. I was just telling these boys here, certain people can ride inside, certain people outside.”

  “You say they’re going?” He nodded toward the bench.

  “Yessir. Both of them.”

  He turned without another word and walked over to John Russell with that soft ching-ing spur sound.

  He said, “That boy at the counter said you got a stage ticket.”

  John Russell opened his hand on his lap. “This?”

  “That’s it. You give it to me and you can take the next stage.”

  “I have to take this one,” Russell said.

  “No, you want to is all. But it would be better if you waited. You can get drunk tonight. How does that sound?”

  “I have to take this one,” John Russell said. “I have to take it and I want to take it.”

  “Leave him alone,” the ex-soldier said then. “You come late, you find your own way.”

  Frank Braden looked at him. “What did you say?”

  “I said why don’t you leave him alone.” His tone changed. All of a sudden it sounded friendlier, more reasonable. “He wants to take this stage, let him take it,” the ex-soldier said.

  You heard that ching sound again as Frank Braden shifted around to face the ex-soldier. He stared at him and said, “I guess I’ll use your ticket instead.”

  The ex-soldier hadn’t moved, his big hands resting on his knees, his feet still propped on the canvas bag. “You just walk in,” he said, “and take somebody else’s seat?”

  Braden’s pointed hat brim moved up and down. “That’s the way it is.”

  The ex-soldier glanced at John Russell, then over at me. “Somebody’s pulling a joke on somebody,” he said.

  Russell didn’t say anything. He had made a cigarette and now he lit it, looking at Braden as he blew the smoke up in the air.

  “You think I come in here to kid?” Braden asked the ex-soldier.

  “Look here, this boy is going to Contention,” the ex-soldier explained, “and I’m going to Bisbee to get married after twelve years of Army. We got places to go and no reason to give up our seats.”

  “All this we,” Braden said. “I’m talking to you.”

  The ex-soldier didn’t know what to say. And, even with his size, he didn’t know what to do with Braden standing over him and not giving an inch. He glanced at John Russell again, then over to me like he’d thought of something. “What kind of a business you run?” he said. “You let a man walk in here and say he’s taking your seat—after paying your fare and all—and the company doesn’t do a thing about it?”

  “Maybe I better get Mr. Mendez,” I said. “He’s upstairs.”

  “I think he ought to know about this,” the ex-soldier said and started to rise. Braden stepped in closer and the ex-soldier looked up, almost straight up, and you could see then that he was afraid but trying hard not to show it.

  “This is our business,” Braden said. “You don’t want somebody else’s nose stuck in.”

  The ex-soldier seemed to get his nerve back—I guess because he realized he had to do something—and he said, “We better settle this right now.”

  Braden didn’t budge. He said, “Are you wearing a gun?”

  “Now wait a minute.”

  “If you aren’t,” Braden said, “you better get one.”

  “You can’t just threaten a man like that,” the ex-soldier said. “There are witnesses here seeing you threaten me.”

  Braden shook his head. “No, they heard you call me a dirty name.”

  “I never called you anything.”

  “Even if they didn’t hear it,” Braden said, “I did.”

  “I never said a word!”

  “I’m going to walk out on the street,” Braden said. “If you don’t come out inside a minute, I’ll have to come back in.”

  That’s all there was to it. The ex-soldier stared up at Braden, the cords in his neck standing out, his hands spread and clamped on his knees. And even as he gave up, as he let himself lean back against the wall, he was holding on, knowing he had backed down and it was over, but doing it gradually so we wouldn’t see the change come over him. Braden held out his hand. The ex-soldier gave him his ticket. Then he picked up his bag and walked out.

  Braden didn’t even offer to pay him for the ticket. He watched the ex-soldier till he was gone, then walked over to his saddle and carried it out to the coach. I could feel him right outside, but it bothered me that I hadn’t done anything. Or Russell hadn’t. I motioned him over to the counter and he came, taking his time and stepping out his cigarette.

  “Listen,” I said, “shouldn’t we have done something?”

  “It wasn’t my business,” Russell said.

  “But what if he had taken your ticket?” I stared at him and this close you could see that he was young. His face was thin and you saw those strange blue-colored eyes set in the darkness of his skin.

  Russell said, “You would have to be sure he was making it something to kill over.”

  “He made it plain enough,” I said.

  “If you were sure,” Russell said, “and if the ticket was worth it to you, then you’d do something to keep it.”

  “But I don’t think that soldier even had a gun.”

  Russell said, “That’s up to him if he doesn’t carry one.” Even the way he said it made me mad; so calm about it.

  “He would have helped you and you know it,” I said.

  “I don’t know it,” Russell said. “If he did, it would be up to him. But it wouldn’t be any of his business.”

  Just like that. He walked back to the bench and just then Mendez came in. Now he was wearing a coat and hat and carrying a maleta bag and a sawed-off shotgun.

  “Time,” Mendez said, sounding almost happy about it. He came through the gate to get something from his desk. That gave me the chance to tell what Braden had done, sounding disgusted as I told it so Mendez would have no doubt what I thought about Braden’s trick.

  “Then we still have six,” Mendez said. That was all.

  And that was the six—seven counting Mendez—who left Sweetmary that Tuesday, August 12.

  Nothing much happened just before we left. Russell asked to ride up with Mendez, saying they could talk about things.

  “Talk,” Mendez said. “You can’t hear yourself.” He pushed Russell toward the coach. “Go on. See what it’s like.”

  Then there was a talk between Mendez and Dr. Favor. Probably about all the other people in what was supposed to be a hired coach. I heard Mendez say, “I haven’t seen any money yet.” They talked a while and finally must have settled it.

  The seating inside was as follows: Russell, the McLaren girl, and I riding backwards, across from Braden, Mrs. Favor, and Dr. Favor. Which was perfect. We sat there a while, almost dark inside after Mendez dropped the side curtains, not saying anything, feeling the coach move up and down on its leather thorough braces as the boy who worked for us put the traveling bags in the rear end boot and covered them with a canvas.

  I tried to think of something to say to the McLaren girl, hardly believing she was next to me. But I decided to wait a while before speaking. Let her get comfortable and used to everybody.

  So I just started picturing her. She was too close to look right at. But I could feel her there. You had the feeling, when you pictured her, that she looked like a boy more than a woman. Not her face. It was a girl’s face with a girl’s eyes. It was her body and the way she moved; the thinness of her body and the way she had walked up the hotel steps. You had the feeling she would run and swim. I could almost see her come out of the water with her short hair glistening wet and pressed to her forehead. I could see her smiling too, for some reason.

  Mrs. Favor was watching the McLaren girl, staring right a
t her, so I had a chance to look at Mrs. Favor. Audra was her name, and she was nice looking all right: thin, but still very womanly looking, if you understand me. That was the thing about her. If anybody ever says woman to me, like “You should have seen that woman,” or, “Now there was a woman for you,” I would think of Audra Favor, thinking of her as Audra, too, not as Mrs. Favor, the Indian Agent’s wife.

  That was because one got the feeling she was not with her husband. Dr. Favor was older than she was, at least fifteen years older, which put her about thirty, and he could have been just another man sitting there. That would be something to watch, I decided. To see if she paid any attention to him.

  Frank Braden, I noticed, looked right at Mrs. Favor. With his head turned his face was close to hers and he stared right at her, maybe thinking nobody could see him in the dimness, or maybe not caring if they did.

  Just before we left, I raised up to straighten my coat and sneaked a look at the McLaren girl. Her eyes were lowered, not closed, but looking down at her hands. Russell, his hat tilted forward a little, was looking at his hands too. They were folded on his lap.

  What would these people think, I wondered, if they knew he’d been living like an Apache most of his life, right up until a little while ago? Would it make a difference to them? I had a feeling it would. I didn’t think of myself as one of them, then; now I don’t see why I should have left myself out. To tell the truth, I wasn’t at all pleased about Russell sitting in the same coach with us.

  When the coach started to roll I said, “Well, I guess we’ll be together for a while.”

  2

  There wasn’t much talking at all until Mrs. Favor started after the McLaren girl. I saw her watching the girl for the longest time and finally she said, “Are those Indian beads?”

  The McLaren girl looked up. “It’s a rosary.”

  “I don’t know why I thought they were Indian beads,” Mrs. Favor said. Her voice soft and sort of lazy sounding, the kind of voice that most of the time you aren’t sure if the person is kidding or being serious.

  “You might say they are Indian beads,” the girl said. “I made them.”

  “During your experience?”

  Dr. Favor said, “Audra,” very low, meaning for her to keep quiet.

  “I hope I didn’t remind you of something unpleasant,” Mrs. Favor said.

  Braden, I noticed, was looking at the McLaren girl too. “What happened?” he said.

  The McLaren girl did not answer right away, and Mrs. Favor leaned toward the girl. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I can understand.”

  “I don’t mind,” the McLaren girl said.

  Braden was still looking at her. He said again, “What happened?”

  “I thought everybody knew,” the McLaren girl said.

  “Well,” Braden said. “I guess I’ve been away.”

  “She was taken by Apaches,” Mrs. Favor said. “With them, how long, a month?”

  The McLaren girl nodded. “It seemed longer.”

  “I can imagine,” Mrs. Favor said. “Did they treat you all right?”

  “As well as you could expect, I guess.”

  “I suppose they kept you with the women.”

  “Well, we were on the move most of the time.”

  “I mean when you camped.”

  “No, not all the time.”

  “Did they—bother you?”

  “Well,” the McLaren girl said, “I guess the whole thing was kind of a bother, but I hadn’t thought of it that way. One of the women cut my hair off. I don’t know why. It’s just now starting to grow back.”

  “I meant did they bother you?” Mrs. Favor said.

  Braden was looking right at her. “You can talk plainer than that,” he said.

  Mrs. Favor pretended she didn’t hear him. She kept her eyes on the McLaren girl and you could see what she was trying to get at. Finally she said, “You hear so many stories about what Indians do to white women.”

  “They do the same thing to them they do to Indian women,” Braden said, and after that no one spoke for a minute. All the sounds, the rattling and the wind hissing by, were outside. Inside it was quiet.

  I kept thinking that somebody ought to say something to change the subject. In the first place I felt uneasy with the talk about Apaches and John Russell sitting there. Second, I thought Braden certainly shouldn’t have said what he did with ladies present, even if Mrs. Favor had started it. I thought Dr. Favor would say something to her again, but he didn’t. He could have been seven hundred miles away, his hand holding the side curtain open a little and staring out at the darkness.

  I would like to have said that I thought Mr. Braden should be reminded that there were ladies present, but instead I said, “I don’t know if the ladies enjoy this kind of talk very much.” That was a mistake.

  Braden said, “What kind of talk?”

  “I mean about Apache Indians and all.”

  “That’s not what you meant,” Braden said.

  “Mr. Braden.” The McLaren girl, her hands folded in her lap, was looking directly at him. “Why don’t you just be quiet for a while?”

  Braden was surprised, as all of us were, I suppose. He said, “You speak right up, don’t you?”

  “I don’t see any other way,” she said.

  “I was talking to that boy next to you.”

  “But it concerned me,” the McLaren girl said. “So if you’d be so kind as to shut up, I’d appreciate it.”

  That was something for her to say. The only trouble was, it egged Braden on. “A nice girl talking like that,” he said, watching her. “Maybe you lived with them too long. Maybe that’s it. You live with them a while and you forget how a white person talks.”

  I couldn’t see Russell’s face or his reaction to all this. But a minute later I could see what was going to happen, and I began thinking every which way of how to change the subject.

  “A white woman,” Mrs. Favor said, “couldn’t live the way they do. The Apache woman rubbing skins and grinding corn, their hair greasy and full of vermin. The men no better. All of them standing around or squatting, picking at themselves and the dogs sniffing them. They even eat the dogs sometimes.”

  She was watching the McLaren girl again, leading up to something, but I wasn’t sure what. “I wonder,” she said, “if a woman could fall into their ways and after a while it wouldn’t bother her. Like eating with your fingers. Or do you suppose you could eat a dog and not think anything of it?”

  Here’s where you could see it coming.

  John Russell said, “What if you didn’t have anything else to eat?” This was the first time he’d spoken since we left Sweetmary. His voice was calm, but still there was an edge to it.

  Mrs. Favor looked from the McLaren girl to Russell.

  “I don’t care how hungry I got. I know I wouldn’t eat one of those camp dogs.”

  “I think,” John Russell said, “you have to know the hunger they feel before you can be sure.”

  “The government supplies them with meat,” Mrs. Favor said. “Every week or so I’d see them come in for their beef ration. And they’re allowed to hunt. They can hunt whenever their rations are low.”

  “But they are always low,” Russell said. “Or used up, and there’s not game enough to take care of everybody.”

  “You hear all kinds of stories of how the Indian is oppressed by the white man,” Dr. Favor said. I was surprised that he had been listening and seemed interested now.

  He said, “I suppose you will always hear those stories as long as there is sympathy for the Indian’s plight, and that’s a good thing. But you have to live on a reservation for a time, like San Carlos, to see that caring for Indians is not a simple matter of giving them food and clothing.”

  He was watching John Russell all the while and seemed to be picking his words carefully. “You see all the problems then that the Interior Department is faced with,” he said. “The natural resentment on the part of the Indian
s, their distrust, their reluctance to cultivate the soil.”

  “Having to live where they don’t want to live,” John Russell said.

  “That too,” Dr. Favor agreed. “Which can’t be helped for the time being.” His eyes were still on Russell. “Do you happen to know someone at San Carlos?”

  “Many of them,” Russell said.

  “You’ve visited the agency?”

  “I lived there. For three years.”

  “I didn’t think I recognized you,” Dr. Favor said. “Did you work for one of the suppliers?”

  “On the police,” Russell said.

  Dr. Favor didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see his expression in the dimness, only that he was still looking at Russell.

  Then his wife said, “But the police are all Apaches.”

  She stopped there, and all you heard was the rattling and creaking and wind rushing past and the muffled pounding of the horses.

  I thought, Now he’ll explain it. Whether he thinks they’ll believe him or not, at least he’ll say something.

  But John Russell didn’t say a word. Not one single word. Maybe he’s thinking how to explain it, I thought. There was no way of knowing that. But he must have been thinking something and I would have given anything to know what it was. How he could just sit there in that silence was the hardest thing I have ever tried to figure out.

  Finally Mrs. Favor said, “Well, I guess you never know.”

  You never know what? I thought. You never know a lot of things. Still, it was pretty plain what she meant.

  Braden was looking at me. He said, “You let anybody on your stage?”

  “I don’t work for the company anymore,” I answered. I’ll admit, it was a weak-sister thing to say, but why should I stick up for Russell?

  This wasn’t any of my business. He couldn’t help the ex-soldier, saying it was none of his business. All right, this was none of my business. If he wanted to act like an uncivilized person—which is what he must be and you could see it clearer all the time—then let him alone. Let him act any way he wanted.

  I wasn’t his father. He was full grown. So let him talk for himself if he had anything to say.