She was wearing a dark red dress that really stood out against that old pole corral, and it looked to me like she had fixed herself up kind of special. So right away I began to wonder what it was she was after.
"No one else could have done it," she said. "It had to be you." She put her hand on my sleeve.
"Thank you for helping him."
That was sort of a leading statement, so I just said, "Ma'am, I've got to saddle my horse.
They're rounding up some mules for me."
"You're a rare man, Tell Sackett. I wish I had known you long ago."
"You think it would have made a difference? We'd have both gone the same ways we have gone."
"What are you going to do?"
"Arizona ... I'm headed back for the mines."
"Across that awful desert?" She shuddered. "I hope I shall never see another desert."
"It's the way I've got to go. If there's anything I want, it's back there."
"Is there a girl?"
Well, now, how could I answer that when I didn't know myself? There had been a girl. And then she had gone back east to visit some folks of hers, and when she was due to come back she just didn't come. Nor was there any letter that I ever got. ...
Ange ... Ange Kerry.
"No, ma'am," I said, "I don't think there's a girl. Looks to me like I'm a lonesome man riding a lonesome country, and I don't see no end to it."
"There could be, Tell."
Well, sir, I looked down into ^th big black eyes and saw those moist lips, and thinks I, if this here's a trap, they surely picked the right kind of bait.
"Ma'am," I said, "you're a lot of woman on the outside."
She stiffened up like I'd slapped her. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I sure don't cut no figure as a man knowing women, but it seems to me what you wear is a lot of feeling where it shows.
I don't think there's very much down inside. I'd be like that old man in there ... I'd as soon make love to you, ma'am, but I'd want to keep both your hands in sight. I'd never know which one held the knife."
Oh, she was mad! She started as if to slap me, her lips tightening up and her face kind of flattening out with anger. But she held herself in.
She was keeping a tight rein on her feelings, and she waited for a moment or two before she replied.
"You're wrong, you know. It's just that I've not found the right man ... I've had to hold myself in, I've had to be careful. For you I could change. I could be different."
"All right," I said suddenly, "suppose we give it a try. I'll saddle a horse for you, and you can ride back to Arizona with me. If you still feel the same way by the time we get to Prescott--was She caught my arm again, stepping up so close I could really fill my nostrils with that sweet-smelling stuff she wore. "Oh, Tell, just take me with you! I mean it! I'll do anything! I'll love you like you've never been loved! I'll even go into the desert with you. I'll ride all the way to Dallas if you suggest it."
Then Roderigo rode back in with two vaqueros and they had my mules. I'll give him this--he had gone along to be sure they were the best, and they were. Every mule of them was good ...
I'd go a long way to find their equal. These were not the little Spanish mules, but big ones from Missouri, valuable animals on the frontier.
"If you like, we will hold them, se@nor, then they will be no expense until you are prepared to load them and go."
"I'd be obliged."
He stood there, fidgeting around while I saddled up the stallion and made ready to start for town.
"Be careful," he said, "in riding across La Nopalera. Men have been killed from ambush there."
"Gracias." One last thing he had to tell me before I rode out. He came up to me as I gathered the reins and reached for the saddle horn.
"The man who was here--the slight one with the black eyes?"
"Yes."
"He was a partner ... a friend. That one was on the desert also, and he is the one who knows of your gold, amigo. I have it from them." He jerked his head to indicate the vaqueros. "There are few secrets, se@nor, if one listens well."
"Do you know his name?"
"Dyer ... Sandeman Dyer."
I knew that name ... from long ago. It stirred memories that brought with them a smell of gunsmoke and wet leather. ...
Why is it that smells are so strongly associated with memories? But it is usually the smell that inspires the recall of the memory, and not the other way, as happened to me now.
"Do you know him?" Roderigo asked.
"Maybe ... I'm not sure."
"Be careful, se@nor. It is said that he is a very dangerous man ... and he has many friends.
He rode in from the north some weeks ago, and twenty men rode with him. There have been raids and robberies since--notobody knows for sure, but it is believed that he is the one who leads them.
"He is a gunman, se@nor, very dangerous.
He has killed a man in Virginia City, and another in Pioche of whom we know."
So I swung into the saddle and looked down at my big hands resting on the pommel, work-hardened hands, used to pick handle, shovel, axe, and rope. And to guns also.
"It does not matter, amigo. If he has the gold that is mine, and that also which belongs to my friends, I shall ask him for it."
"You wish to die?"
"Nobody wishes to die."
So I turned the stallion and rode away from the ranch, and toward the pueblo.
All that remained now was to get my gold, and the man to see was Sandeman Dyer. Or ... was I too suspicious? Was this a trap? Had the information been planted, in hopes that it would reach me?
It was dark when I came again to the pueblo of Los Angeles, and there were lights in many homes and other buildings. I came into town by the old brea pits road, and left my horse at the town's best livery stable. And so I returned to the Pico House, and my room there.
A man with a flat-brimmed white hat sat in the lobby reading the Star. He looked at me over the edge of the paper, only his eyes showing between paper and hat brim.
My few things were in my room, to which I added my rifle and the gear recovered with my horses.
Only the gold was gone now.
I was tired ... bone-weary. I felt as if I had been drugged. Tonight I should search out Sandeman Dyer, but I was too tired. Tonight I would rest, at last, in a bed.
I peeled off my shirt, and filled the basin with water and washed, then combed my hair. Standing before the mirror I looked at myself, seeing the old scars, marks of old wounds from gun battles and from the war, and here or there the finer, thinner scars of knife wounds. Those scars showed me how lucky I had been.
It was not in me to believe myself fated to die at any given time. Deep within me I knew, having seen many men die, that no man is immune to death at any time at all. During every moment, walking or sleeping, we are vulnerable ... I could die tonight ... tomorrow.
Young men do not like to believe that. Each has within him that little something that says: Others may die, but not me, not me. I shall live.
Despite all those who die around him, this is what he believes. But I did not believe it, and I had never believed it from the first moment I saw a good man die, when the evil lived. I could believe in no special providence for any man. Tomorrow, when I went hunting my gold, a bullet or a knife might kill me.
But it was not in me to refrain from going. Nor could I call this bravery. My determination held none of that. It was simply because it was in me to go.
I had never learned how to hang back from what it was up to me to do.
Sitting down on the bed, I reached for a dusty boot. One hand upon the toe, the other on the heel, I waited, just a moment longer. Weariness made me sag inwardly, made me cringe at the sound of footsteps in the hall outside my door.