At a hundred feet or less, some of the buckshot could have found the Mexican, but Mendez hurried and didn’t aim at all. The Mexican straightened and fired three times, faster than I’ve ever seen a man thumb and fire a Colt revolver, with all three shots zinging off the rocks Mendez had flattened himself behind. Then you saw the Mexican twist in the saddle, like something had pushed him, and grab his side right above the belt.
Russell had fired.
He fired again as the Mexican rolled out of the saddle and into cover. He fired again and the Mexican’s horse threw up its head, shaking it, and sunk on its forelegs and fell over.
Early was already off and in cover. You saw him reach up to grab his horse’s reins as it reared around and started off down the draw. Early missed. Russell didn’t though. He fired twice again, quick, and I swear you heard both shots smack into that horse. The horse went down, rolled on its side and got up again and kept going, following Braden and the Favor woman-Braden holding her horse’s reins close at the bit ring and leading it as they rode back down the draw, all the way down to the bottom and around the outcrop of rocks into a little patch of scrubby woods. Even after they were out of sight you heard the horses in the thicket. Then everything was quiet.
It was quiet for the longest time. Mendez kept looking over to about where Russell was, not knowing at all what to do and maybe expecting some signal from him.
Russell didn’t move. You could see he had learned a lot from the Apaches, a kind of patience few white men could ever command. He lay there sighting, I think, on the place where Early had gone into the brush, waiting for a movement. He lay like that, I swear, for about two hours, all the while this stand-off lasted.
Not much happened during that time. The Mexican started calling out either to Russell or Mendez in Spanish. I didn’t know what he was saying, but they were questions, and there was a sound to his voice like the questions were meant to be funny. Not funny, exactly, but like insults or inviting Mendez to step out and show himself, things you wouldn’t expect to hear coming out of that draw. You had to give that Mexican something. There was no doubt he had been shot. Still he could yell at Russell and Mendez, trying to draw them out.
Once there was a quick glimpse of Early. He was there and then gone, off behind a scatter of rocks a little farther down the draw. Russell must have been waiting for the Mexican because he didn’t fire. We never did see the Mexican squirm out of there and Early only that one time.
Both of them worked their way down though. They stood out in the open for a second, way down at the bottom of the draw. The Mexican, holding his side with one hand, waved to us. Then they were gone into the thicket.
Just for a few minutes we had time to rest, not wondering where they were or worrying about them coming. They would have to think things over and maybe wait until dark to come up that draw again. Though we couldn’t count on it. We couldn’t sit here for long either. One of them could circle around, even though it would take time, and we wouldn’t ever be able to move.
So we had to get out of there. When Russell and Mendez came up, I opened the canteen. Nobody had had any water since this morning. But Russell shook his head. “Tonight,” he said. “Not while the sun is out.” Meaning, I guess, you would sweat it out right away and be thirsty again before you knew it.
That was all he said, with not one word to Mendez about shooting too soon and spoiling the ambush. That was over as far as he was concerned; he was not the kind of man who would stew over something finished and past fixing. He just picked up his blanket roll and that meant it was time to go.
Maybe we had showed them it wasn’t going to be easy, as Russell had said we might. But look at it another way. We might have finished it in the draw, but we didn’t and maybe never would. The only good to come out of the ambush was now they had one less horse-maybe two.
But now they were close. Now they knew where we were. And now there was no doubt they would come with guns out and shoot on sight.
We sat there only a few minutes. That’s all the longer our rest time lasted, and it was starting again. Only not the way we expected it to. We didn’t go right then. We were about to when the McLaren girl said, “Look-” pointing down the draw.
We looked, but we all crouched down at the same time. There, way down at the bottom, was the Mexican again, his straw hat bright in the sunlight so that you knew it was the Mexican and not one of the others. But we could not tell at first what he was carrying. He had to get up a ways-taking his time, his face raised, his one hand holding his side-before we saw it was a stick with something white tied to the end of it.
He seemed careful, but not scared, keeping his eyes on the ridge, not sure we would honor his white truce flag, I guess, and ready to dive for cover if we let go at him. He was armed with both his revolvers.
Nobody said anything. We just watched. He kept coming, almost reaching the place where Mendez had been during the ambush.
Russell stood up holding his carbine in one hand, pointed down, and the Mexican stopped.
Russell said, “You come to give up?”
The Mexican stood at ease, letting his truce flag dip down to the ground. I think he smiled when Russell said that, but I’m not sure.
I know he shook his head. He said, “When you learn to shoot better.” He raised his hand from his side and there was blood on it.
“You didn’t do so good.”
“I tried to do better,” Russell said. “I think you moved.”
“Moved,” the Mexican said. “How do you like them, tied to a tree?”
“On a horse,” Russell said. “Like your friend.”
The Mexican grinned. “You like to pull the trigger.”
“I can do it again for you,” Russell said.
“You could,” the Mexican agreed, staring up at Russell, studying him and judging the distance between them. “I have to talk to this other one first. This Favor.”
He pronounced it Fa-vor, like it was a Spanish word.
“He can hear you,” Russell said.
“If he can’t you tell him,” the Mexican said. “This. He gives us the money…and some of the water. We give him his wife and everyone goes home. Ask him how he likes that.”
“You’re out of water?”
“Almost.” The Mexican grinned. “That Early. He put whisky in his canteen. He thought it would be easy.”
Russell shook his head. “It will get even harder.”
“Not if this Fa vor gives us the money.”
“He doesn’t have it,” Russell said.
The Mexican grinned again. “Tell me he hid it.”
Russell shook his head. “He gave it to me.”
The Mexican nodded, looking up at Russell like he was admiring him. “So now you steal the money.” He shrugged his shoulders. “All right, we trade with you then.”
“She’s not my woman,” Russell said.
“We give her to you.”
“What else?”
“Your life. How’s that?”
“Tell Braden how things are now,” Russell said.
“What’s the difference who has the money?” the Mexican said. “You give it to us or we shoot that woman.”
“All right,” Russell said. “You shoot her.”
The Mexican kept staring at him. “What about the rest of them? What do they say?”
“They say what they want,” Russell said. “I say what I want. Do you see that now?”
He didn’t see it. He didn’t know what to think, so he just stood there, one hand on his side, the other holding that truce flag.
“Tell Braden how it is,” Russell said. “Tell him to think some more.”
“He’ll say the same thing.”
“Tell him anyway.”
The Mexican hadn’t taken his eyes off Russell for a second, sizing him up all the while they talked. “Maybe you and I finish something first,” he said. “Maybe you come down here a little.”