When finally he saw Early coming this way from Mill Street, Maurice Dumas felt almost overwhelming relief. In the time it took Early to reach him-Early looking neat and fresh though it was quite warm this afternoon in May-Maurice Dumas had time to compose himself.
He nodded and said, “Mr. Early.”
“He arrive?”
“Yes sir, on the noon shuttle from Benson.”
“Alone?”
“I believe there was a Mexican gentleman with him.”
It was something to stand close to this man and watch him in unguarded moments, watch him think and make decisions that would become news stories-like watching history being made.
“They went up to the mine office first and then to the hotel,” Maurice said. “I guess where he's staying. Everybody thinks you're there, too, I guess. Or will come there. So they expect the hotel is where it'll happen-if it's gonna.”
Bren Early thought a little more before saying, “Go see him. Tell him you spoke to me.” He paused. “Tell him I'll be in this quiet place out of the sun if he wants to have a word with me.”
It was the Mexican, Ruben Vega, who came to the Chinaman's place. He greeted Early, nodding and smiling as he joined him at a back table, away from the sun glare on the windows. They could have been two old friends meeting here in the empty restaurant, though Bren Early said nothing at first because he was surprised. He felt it strange that he was glad to see this man who was smiling warmly and telling him he had not changed one bit since that time at the wall in Sonora. It was strange, too, Bren felt, that he recognized the man immediately and could tell that the man had changed; he was older and looked older, with a beard now that was streaked with gray.
“Man,” Ruben Vega said, “the most intelligent thing I ever did in my life, I didn't walk up to the wall with them…You not drinking nothing?”
“Is he coming?” asked Bren.
“No, he's not coming. He sent me to tell you he isn't angry, it was too long ago.” The Mexican looked around, saying then, “Don't they have nothing to drink in this place?”
They sent Maurice Dumas out to get a bottle of mescal, which the Mexican said he was thirsty for. Bren had beer, served by the Chinaman, and drank several glasses of it while they talked, allowing Maurice to sit with them but not paying any attention to him until he tried the mescal and made a terrible face and the Mexican said to Bren, “Your friend don't know what's good.”
“If you like a drink that tastes like poison candy,” Bren said, though he tried a short glass of it to see if it was still as bad as he remembered it was the first time he drank it in the sutler's store at Huachuca. “That could kill you,” he said.
“No, but walking up to the wall where you and the other one stood, that would have,” Ruben Vega said.
“You might have made the difference,” Bren said.
“Maybe I would have shot one of you, I don't know. But something told me it would be my last day on earth.”
“How did you keep him alive?”
The Mexican shrugged. “Tied him to a horse. He kept himself alive to Morelos. Then in the infirmary they cleaned him, sewed him together. He has a hole here,” Ruben Vega said, touching his cheek, “some teeth missing”-he grinned-“part of his ear. But he's no more ugly than he was before. See, the ugliness is inside him. I say to him, ‘Man, what is it like to be you? To live inside your body?’ He don't know what I'm talking about. I say to him, ‘Why don't you be tranquil and enjoy life more instead of rubbing against it?’ He still don't know what I'm talking about, so I leave him alone…Well, let me think. Why didn't he die? I don't know. From Morelos I took him to my old home at Bavispe, then down to Hermosillo…Guaymas, we looked at the sea and ate fish…a long way around to come back here, but only in the beginning he was anxious to go back and saying what he's going to do to you when he finds you.”
“Others tried,” Bren said.
“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.”