The three of them nodded glumly. None of them spoke. Finally, Flem said in his soft easy drawl, "I wish the stage'd come in. Bring the Judge and the Marshal. I'd feel better about it."
(Don Pedo the grand terrible Mexican he is raising up the bandanna on his fat nose, concealing his gold-tooth smile. He gives a spur to the flank of his decrepit pinto and wobbles down into the path of the speeding stagecoach. The driver, growing white, pulls hard on the reins. The dust makes clouds in the dry air, while the stagecoach with abandon she skids to a halt. Bang! Bang bang! pop the guns of the Mexican. Just for fun. Hee hee hee! The horses they rear like goats and whinny in sweaty excitation. "Ain't c-c-carryin' m-much, Don Puh-Puh-Pedo, suh!" exclaims the driver making water in his pantalones. "J-jist this!" And the stagecoach driver magnanimously (ah, this is indeed a land of magnanimity!) he extracts a box from under his seat and throws it down to Pedo. The little bandido catches the strongbox with the agility that always amazes and into one of his fat saddlebags it goes like from the arts of magic. "Eh, amigo! Who you got in dere?" he laughs, indicating a fat brown finger to the coach. "You bring Pedo calentitas fresquitas from beeg city, I think?" The driver is commencing to laugh helplessly through pressed-together teeth. "They's a — - hee hee! — — Judge, Pedo, and the Marshal and summa his — - hoo hah! wheeze! — — kin!" The Mexican he fires one shot into the air. "Hey! Allabody out! You wanna die like peegs! Ŕndale!" Two men, a woman, and a young girl creep like mouses from the coach. The happy Mexican he takes down his bandanna and he smiles his smile of thick lips and gold teeth. Ay! It is ever a thing to see! One of the men he is fat like a pear with a big black hat and curls of white hair on top and soft lips that tremble. Without explanation he too must commence to weep and laugh through his nose at the smile of Don Pedo the Mexican. The other man, the Marshal it must be, is tall and erect, unmoving, with eyes of smoked glass. Eh, mierda, the Mexican he disdains to not look at this bad milk. He observes rather and of course the woman and the little girl. The seńora of the Marshal she is noble and grandly bosomed with long much-speaking lashes. The child is a tender thing, and she holds to her mama with fear and temblores. The famous belly of Don Pedo he vibrates and bright gleams his mouth of golden teeth. There is a sound like of tent stakes being placed and in the air a remembering of circuses. Shyly then she smiles the little one up at the friendly Mexican. Ah! the childrens, how they all love Don — - The hand of the Marshal she flicks toward the holster. The Mexican is firing and the hand of the Marshal she is ripping away — - spluf! — — at the wrist. The driver and the pear — - or, one wishes to say, the Judge — - cannot it would seem stop laughing like tontos. Perhaps it is the look on the face of the Marshal that is so comic. It is as like he has lost something but he knows not still what. The Mexican now provides certain instructions, and in consequence, the Marshal he sits himself in blind estupor on the road behind the coach, while the Judge ties his feet with a rope to the behind — - how you say? ax-le, no? sí — - to the behind ax-le. Then the Judge he himself attaches in the same manner, tee-hee-hee-ing all the time like a plump imbécil bird. "Tu, la primera," smiles Don Pedo the adored to the timid chiquita. He displays with a glory that cannot be denied his luminous golden teeth. "You good one only time." Ay, Pedo! A man of genius! A man of arts! A man of quantity and resolution! The driver and the Judge they possess tears in their eyes from such dolorous laughter. Finally, to the deception of all the world, the Mexican he uprises and draws on his pantalones, though as always he forgets them to button. "Hey! Giddap!" he shouts, and the driver in a laughing terror cracks the whip over the unquiet horses. The stagecoach she is launching herself off like a lighted-up puppy into the distance, snapping the Judge and the Marshal behind like a forked tail of the devil. The warm-blooded Mexican lover he uplifts now with jubilation the grandly bosomed Seńora the Marshal upon his escabrous pinto, smiling with the Mexican hospitality that it is his custom. His breath is perhaps not pure, but the blushing lady she seems not to notice. She has twice the grandness of little Pedo, but for that the globous bandit he smiles the more proudly. The pinto is clapping wearily under his magnificent cargo up into the inviting hills. The limp little girl on the road, alas, too delicate after all, she cannot see them go.)
The stagecoach arrived grotesquely at 12:05. Sheriff Harmon left Slough and Gentry vomiting miserably, foolishly, at the sight and strode in a rage toward the town saloon. He batted through the swinging doors. Empty. He peered over the bar. No one. Not even the goddamn bartender. He slapped the doors open again and stepped out onto the one main street. It stretched off east and west toward the distant horizon, a hot unbroken line. The street was banked here by ramshackle frame buildings, mostly false storefronts, their windows all shrouded. Seemed to be telling Hank something. The futility of it all maybe. He sighed. He was alone. Alone with the Mexican. But: where was the Mexican?
The Sheriff of Gentry's Junction, tall, lean, proud, his cold blue eyes squinting into the glare of the noon sun, walked silently, utterly alone, down the dusty Main Street, the jingle of his spurs muffled only slightly by the puffs of dust kicked up by his high heels. Sun straight overhead. He hauled out his pocket watch. Just a couple of minutes now to 12:10. It was on. Like it or not. He slid the watch back into his pocket as though dropping anchor. He felt his right hand sweat and itch.
A foul insulting odor reached his nostrils. He spun, hands at the ready. Pedo the notorious Mexican bandit sat on an old overturned bucket about ten feet back of him in the middle of the dusty street, idly picking his teeth with a splinter of wood. He was smiling broadly around the splinter, that fat-lipped sonuvabitch, and his gold teeth gleamed blindingly in the midday sun. Hank returned icily the Mexican's hot gaze. The stinking little runt. Now that he had him here, he wasn't scared of him. With cool measured steps, aware of the multitude of hidden eyes on him, the Sheriff approached the Mexican. The Mex had something in his hands. Something that shone in the sun. Knife? Gun? A watch! The Mex was grinning and holding up a gold goddamn pocket watch! Henry recognized it. It was his own. Warily, the Sheriff accepted it. He looked: 12:09. Too soon, but to hell with it, he couldn't hold himself back. He reached down toward the Mexican to disarm him. Everything seemed wrong, but he reached down. Felt like he was reaching down into death. The goddamn Mex had let one that smelled like a tomb. Still, the bastard offered no resistance. Harmon drew the Mex's six-shooters out of their moldy holsters. Rusty old relics. One of them didn't even have a goddamn hammer. He pitched them away. Easy as that. He grunted. Old fraud after all. He turned to signal for Flem and the others to bring the rope. Heard a soft click. Hand flicked: holster was empty! Henry Harmon the Sheriff of Gentry's Junction spun and met the silver bullet from his own gun square in his handsome suntanned face.
(Don Pedo the grand Mexican bandit away he is riding on his little pinto into the setting sun, the silver star of the Sheriff" pinned on his bouncing barriga like a jewel, his saddlebags full to the top, his gold teeth capturing the last gleams of the dying red sun. Clop clop clop clop. Adiós to Gentry's Junction! Behind him, the little town he is in the most festive of roar-ups. Ay! A moment for always to remember! The storekeeper, the banker, the preacher, they swing with soft felicity from scaffolds and the whiskey he is running like blood. Flames leap into the obscuring sky and the womans scream merrily. A remarkable scene! A glorious scene! Ay de mí! How sad to depart it, eh, little pinto? But these are the things of the life, no? Pues — - hee hee! — — adiós! Clop clop clop clop. Red red gleams the little five-pointed star in the ultimate light of the western sun.)