Gunsights Page 9

“Yes, we hear that. Then time pass, he stop talking about it. We do some work in New Mexico for a mine company, bring them beef. Then do other work for them, make more money than before.” The Mexican shrugged again. “He's not so ugly inside now.”

  “He must've paid you pretty well,” Bren said. “You stay with him.”

  “I'll tell you the truth, I almost left him by the wall in Sonora, but I work for his family, his father before him. Yes, Sundeen always pay me pretty well as segundo. If I'm going to be in that business, stealing cows, running them across the border, I'm not very particular who I work with, uh? But he isn't so bad now. He doesn't talk so much as he use to.”

  Bren said, “How's he look at this job he's got?”

  “Well, we just come here. He has some men coming the company hired. I guess we go up and drive those people off. What else?” He raised his mescal glass, then paused. “But we hear your friend is up there too, the other one from the wall. How is it you're here and he's up there, your friend?”

  “It's the way it is, that's all,” Bren said. “This land situation, who owns what, is none of my business.”

  “You don't care then,” Ruben Vega said, “we go up there and run him off.”

  Maurice Dumas' gaze moved from the Mexican to Bren Early and waited for the answer.

  “You say run him off and make it sound easy,” Bren said. “It isn't a question of whether I care or not, have an interest, it's whether you can do it and come back in one piece. I'm like Maurice here and all the rest. Just a spectator.”

  3

  It was after five o'clock when Ruben Vega returned to the Congress Hotel. The men who had been pointed out to him as journalists and not a part of a business convention were still on the front porch and in the lobby. They stopped talking when he came in, but no one called to him or said anything.

  He mentioned it to Sundeen who stood at the full-length mirror in his room, bare to the waist, turning his head slowly, studying himself as he trimmed his beard.

  “They know I come with you, but they don't ask me anything. You know why?”

  “Why?” Sundeen said to himself in the mirror.

  “Because they think I shine your shoes, run errands for you.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes, I talk to him, tell him you're not mad no more.”

  “Wavy-haired son of a bitch. He look down his nose at you?”

  “A little, holding back, not saying much. But he's all right. Maybe the same as you are.”

  Sundeen trimmed carefully with the scissors, using a comb to cover the deep scar in his left cheek where hair did not grow and was like an indentation made with a finger that remained when the finger was withdrawn, the skin around the hole tight and shiny.

  “Instead of what you think,” Sundeen said, “tell me what he had to say.”

  “He say it's none of his business. He's going to watch.”

  “You believe it?”

  “Now you want to know what I think. Make up your mind.”

  Sundeen half-turned to the mirror to study his profile, smoothing his beard with the back of his hand. “His partner's up there, but he's gonna keep his nose out of it, huh?”

  Yes, they may be somewhat alike, Ruben Vega thought. He said, “The company pay him to work here, whatever he does, not to go up there and help his friend. So maybe he doesn't have the choice to make.”

  “What does he say about Moon?”

  “Nothing. I ask, do you see him? No. I say, why don't they leave instead of causing this trouble? He say, ask them. I say well, he likes to live on a mountain-there plenty other mountains. He don't say anything. I say, what about the other people up there, they live with him? He say, you find out.”

  Sundeen looked at his body, sucking in his stomach, then picked up a shirt from the chair and put it on. “I think somebody's selling somebody a bill of goods. All we have to say to them is, look here, you people don't move out, this is what happens to you. Take one of 'em, stick a gun in his mouth and count three. They'll leave.”

  “Take which one?”

  “It don't matter to me none. 'Cept it won't be Moon. Moon, I'm gonna settle with him. Early too. But I got time to think about that.”

  Ruben Vega was nodding. “Threaten them seriously-it look pretty easy, uh?”

  “Not hard or easy but a fact of life,” Sundeen said. “Nobody picks dying when there's a way not to.”

  Ruben Vega would agree to that. He could say to his boss, And it works both ways, for you as well as them. But why argue about it with a man who did not know how to get outside of himself to look at something? It had happened to him at the wall. It could happen to him again. Ruben Vega said, “Well, I hope you get enough men to do it.”

  Sundeen said, “Wait and see what's coming.”

  It was already arranged, since his meeting with Vandozen in Las Cruces, Vandozen asking how many men he'd need. Sundeen saying he'd wait and see. Vandozen then saying it was his custom to know things in advance, not wait and see. So he had already recruited some twenty men, among them several former Yuma prison guards, a few railroad bulls and a good number of strike-breakers from the coal fields of Pennsylvania: all hired at twenty dollars a week and looking forward to a tour of duty out in the fresh air and wide open spaces.

  Today was Tuesday. A message waiting for Sundeen when he reported to the company stated his bunch would all arrive in Benson by rail on Friday. Fine. Let them get drunk and laid on Saturday, rest Sunday and they ride up into the mountains on Monday.

  Sundeen said to the Mexican, “If that's all you got, you didn't learn much.”

  “He thought you were dead,” Ruben Vega said. “I told him you should be, but you stayed alive and now you're much wiser.”

  Looking at him Sundeen said, “The fence-sitter. You gonna sit on the fence and watch this one too? Man, that time in Sonora-I swore I was gonna kill you after, if I hadn't been shot up.”

  “I save your life you feel you want to kill me,” Ruben Vega said. “I think you still have something to learn.”

  4

  Bren had not realized he was tense. Until walking back to the house on Mill Street he was aware of relief and was anxious to be with the woman again. He had not told her about Sundeen. He didn't like to argue with her or discuss serious matters. She was a woman and he wanted her to act like a woman, one he had selected. He did not expect continual expressions of gratitude; nor did he want her to wait on him or act as though her life was now dedicated solely to his pleasure. But she could make his life easier if she'd quit assuming she knew more about him than he did. Women were said to “know” and feel things men weren't able to because men were more blunt and practical. Bren believed that was a lot of horseshit. Women took advantage of men because they were all sitting on something men wanted. If they ever quit holding out or holding it over men's heads everybody would be a lot happier.

  Not that Janet Pierson ever bargained with him that way. She seemed always willing and eager. He only wished she would quit thinking and analyzing why he did things and saying he wanted to be like a son to her.

  Sometimes though he would bring it up, because it was on his mind, or to convince her she was wrong-as he did now, entering the front door and hearing her in the kitchen, coming up quietly behind her, pulling her into his arms, his hands moving over her body.

  “I missed you,” she said, resting against him.

  “I missed you too. You think I'd do this to my mother?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Unh-unh.” Kissing her now, brushing her cheek and finding her ear with his mouth. “No…What you feel like to me is a young girl…soft and nice-”

  She said, pressing against him, “That's what I feel. You make me aware of being a woman and it's a good feeling.” This way acknowledging and appreciating him as a man, but knowing that what he needed now was to be comforted and held. Protected from something. The little boy come home-but not telling him this.

  After they made love she wou
ld put her arms around him and hold him close to her in the silence and soon he would fall asleep. Then, as she would begin to ease her arm from beneath his shoulder, he would open his eyes for a moment, roll to his side and fall asleep again, freeing her. Though if she moved her hand over him, down over the taut muscles in his belly, they would make love again and after, this time, he would get out of bed as Bren Early: confident, the man who wore matched revolvers and loved her when it occurred to him to express it or when he felt the physical urge…not realizing the simple need to hold and be held and to believe in something other than himself.

  Sometime soon she would talk to him and find out what he believed and what was important to him. And what was important to her also.

  5

  Was it luck or was it instinct? Maurice Dumas hoped the latter. There was always something going on when he set out to get a story: this time not at the White Tanks agency but several miles up the draw at Dana Moon's place.

  The luck was running into the Apache at the agency office and letting him know through sign language-trying all kinds of motions before pointing to the office and then sticking his tongue in his cheek to resemble a wad of tobacco-that he was looking for the agent, Dana Moon.

  They climbed switchbacks up a slope swept yellow-green with brittlebush and greasewood, through young saguaros that looked like a field of fence posts and on up into the wide, yawning trough of a barranca with steep walls of shale and wind-swept white oak and cedar. They climbed to open terrain, a bare crest against the sky but not the top, not yet. A little farther and there it was, finally, a wall…first the wall, and beyond it a low stone fortress of a house with a wooden porch and a yard full of people, horses and several wagons.

  What was this, another Meat Day?

  No, Maurice Dumas found out soon enough, it was a war council.

  He felt strange riding in through the opening in the adobe wall with all eyes on him. Though there were not as many people as he originally thought-only about a dozen-they were certainly a colorful and unusual mixture: darkies, Mexicans and Indians, all standing around together and all, he observed now, armed to the teeth with revolvers, rifles and belts of cartridges. Specifically there were three hard-looking colored men; four Mexicans, one in a very large Chihuahua hat and bright yellow scarf; and the rest Apache Indians, including the one who brought him up here and who, Maurice Dumas found out, was named Red, an old compadre of Moon's.

  “I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Maurice Dumas said, as Moon came down from the porch to greet him, “but there is something I think you better know about.”

  “Sundeen's arrival?” said Moon, who almost smiled then at the young reporter's look of surprise. “There are things we better know about if we intend to stay here. Have his men arrived yet?”

  Maurice Dumas, again surprised, said, “What men?”

  “You'd know if they had,” Moon said. “So we still have some time. Step down and I'll introduce you to some of the main characters of the story you're gonna be writing.”

  The man seemed so aware and alert for someone who moved the way Moon did, hands in his pockets, in no hurry, big chew of tobacco in his jaw: just a plain country fellow among this colorful group of heavily armed neighbors.

  First, Maurice Dumas met Mrs. Moon, Kate, and felt he must have appeared stupid when he looked up and saw a good-looking lady and not the washed-out, sodbuster woman he'd expected. When she learned where he was from, Mrs. Moon said, “Chicago, huh? I'll bet you're glad to get away from the stockyards and breathe fresh air for a change.”

  The news reporter said he didn't live near the yards, fortunately, and noticed Moon looking at his wife with an amused expression and then shaking his head; just a faint movement. The man seemed to get a kick out of her. He said, “What do you know about Chicago stockyards?” She answered him, “I visited there with my dad when I was little and have never felt the urge to go back.” Strange, having a conversation like that in front of everyone.

  Moon said, “Maurice, shake hands with a veteran of the War of the Rebellion and a cavalryman twenty-four years.”

  This was the young reporter's introduction to Bo Catlett, whom he had already heard about and who did not disappoint him in his appearance, with his high boots and felt campaign hat low over his eyes. Bo Catlett's expression was kindly, yet he was mean and hard-looking in that he seemed the type who would never hold his hat in his hand and stand aside or give an inch, certainly not give up his horse ranch. The other two colored men wore boots also, standing the way cavalrymen seem to pose, and appeared just as fit and ready as Bo Catlett. There were three more former members of the Tenth up with their families or tending the herds.

  Red, the little Mimbre Apache, said something in Spanish to Moon and Moon said, “He thought, when you rode up and commenced making signs, you were asking him how old he was, how many moons, till you stuck your tongue in your cheek.”

  The Apaches sat along the edge of the porch, Maurice Dumas noticed, while all the others stood around. (Did it mean Indians were lazy by nature?, Maurice wondered. Or smart enough to squat when they got the chance?)

  The news reporter wouldn't have minded sitting down himself in one of those cane rocking chairs. But first he had to meet Armando Duro-and his young son Eladio who was about eighteen-and this introduction turned into something he never expected.

  Maurice had a feeling Moon had saved Armando until last out of deference, for he seemed especially polite and careful as he addressed him in Spanish, nodding toward Maurice as Maurice caught the words Chicago Times. Was the Mexican impressed?

  The young news reporter was, for he had heard the name Armando Duro before, though he had not known this fiery champion of Mexican land rights was living in these mountains.

  Here he was now rattling off Spanish a mile a minute, his son and his companions nodding in agreement while Moon listened intently at first, then seemed to get tired of hanging on and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as Armando went on and on. When there was a pause Maurice said quickly, “I'd like to interview Señor Duro if I could.”

  Moon said, “If you can get a word in.” Armando's eyes darted from the news reporter to Moon. “And if you-si puede hablar en Español. Can you?”

  “Doesn't he speak English?”

  “When he wants to,” Moon said. “It depends if he's in one of his royal pain-in-the-ass moods or not.”

  If the Mexican could understand him, how come Moon was saying this in front of him? Evidently because Moon had only so much patience with the man and had run out.

  Following Moon's less than kind remark, Armando turned to the young news reporter and said in English, “Will you print the truth for a change if I give it to you?”

  What kind of question was that? Maurice Dumas said the Times always printed the truth.

  “The twisting of truth to fit your purpose,” Armando said, “is the same as a lie.”

  Maurice didn't know what the man was talking about because the paper had hardly ever printed anything about Armando Duro or Mexican land rights to begin with. It was an old issue, settled in court, dead and buried. But since the man did represent the Mexican community here, some eighty or ninety people living on scattered farms and sheep pastures, Maurice decided he'd better pay attention.

  He said, “Well, I suppose you see this present situation as an opportunity to air your complaints once again, bring them into the open.” Maurice heard Moon groan and knew he had said the wrong thing.

  Sure enough.

  Armando started talking, taking them back to the time of Spanish land grants and plodding on through the war with Mexico and the Gadsden Purchase to explain why their acreage, their sheep graze, their golden fields of corn and bean patches belonged to them as if by divine succession and not to a mining company from a state named for a small island in the English Channel (which Maurice Dumas had not realized before this).

  Bo Catlett and the colored troopers shuffled around or leaned against a wa
gon. Moon would continue to shift from one foot to another. His wife, what she did was shake her head and go into the house. Even Armando's son and the other Mexicans seemed ready to fall asleep. Only the Apaches, sitting along the edge of the porch, stared at Armando with rapt attention, not having any idea what he was talking about, even though Armando would lapse into fiery Spanish phrases every so often. He reminded the young news reporter of every politician he had ever heard speak, except that Armando talked in bigger circles that included God and kings.

  “How am I going to write about all that?” Maurice said to Moon, after.

  Moon said, “You picked your line of work, I didn't.”

  Armando got a rolled-up sheet of heavy paper from his wagon and came over to the news reporter opening it as you would a proclamation, which is what it was.

  “Here,” Armando said, handing it to Maurice, “show this to the mine company and print it in your newspaper so anyone who sees one of these will know it marks the boundary of our land.”

  The notice said, in large black letters:

  WARNING

  Anyone venturing onto

  this land uninvited is

  TRESPASSING

  on property granted by

  Royal Decree and witnessed

  before God. Trespassers

  are not welcome and

  will be fired on if they cross this boundary.

  Armando Duro

  and the

  People of the Mountain

  Later on, just before Maurice Dumas left to go back down the switchback trail, he said to Moon, “Does that man know what he's doing?”

  “It's his idea of the way to do it,” Moon said.

  “But that warning's not gonna do any good. You think?”

  “Warning?” Moon said. “It reads more like an invitation.”

  “Can't you stop him, shut him up?”

  “I suppose,” Moon said, “but the sooner it starts, the sooner it's over, huh?”