He climbed out of the pool and went naked around it and entered the pine stand, then went to the horses and searched through the packs and bundles until he found the binoculars. They were Gino’s, a fine old pair, and he went back to the pool with them, chilled a little in the dry air, and climbed back into bubbling warm water beside the falling cylinder. Then he lifted the glasses and searched the arroyo once again. The men were dreaming in the pool now, eyes closed, Larry asleep at the rim, the others listlessly bobbing in place, their arms hanging suspended below the surface, and only Alma was aware of the tenseness in Carlos’s shoulders as he concentrated.
Then he found them again, two riders, faceless at this distance, but he could see their hats and leather-dressed bodies and the scabbards strapped to the horses’ haunches at their legs and the butts of the rifles in them, and he thought he could see the shine of a pistol in a holster at the hip of one rider. They passed out of sight at a turning, then appeared again, their horses pressed together, slipping on the uncertain ground, and he thought he saw one reach across and touch the other. Their hats tilted back, and they seemed to be gazing up the arroyo to where Carlos was watching them, naked in the pool. Then they were entering an edge of shadow under the rock wall and soon they were out of sight. Carlos lowered the glasses and looked across the surface of the water to where Alma was, watching him, then he climbed out of the pool again and moved down the brief pathway through the trees and across open ground until he was standing at the edge of the arroyo’s emptying. He could feel a breeze at the lip. The hair at his groin stiffened, and he lifted the glasses again and found them immediately. They’d reached a place where the arroyo opened and the ascent was less steep, and their horses stepped ahead with more certainty, though slowly, and their figures were distinct in the glass as he spied them passing among branches of scrub oak and poplar, leaves casting mottled shadows over their clothing and faces. They seemed much closer than he would have imagined, and when he lowered the binoculars for a moment he found he could see them quite well without them, no more than two hundred yards away. Then he looked back through the tree-lined pathway to the pool. The men were there as before, but Alma was nowhere to be found, and he turned back and lifted the glasses once again.
The one on the left wore a leather vest over a dark shirt buttoned at the wrists and a stained Stetson, and when they came out from under the leaf shadows and into a brief clearing, Carlos saw him reach among objects tethered to the saddle and find the scabbard. He pulled the weapon free, its barrel glinting in the sun, and Carlos saw his fingers near the chamber and trigger housing, checking or arranging something. Then he was working to get the rifle back in place and was having trouble, and Carlos saw the other figure, in leather shirt and breeches, fringe along the sleeves and legs, listing to the side, his body shaking, racked by some malady. The one holding the rifle had his head down, face invisible under his hat’s dark circle, as he struggled, the barrel hitting among hanging objects as he searched for the scabbard’s mouth. There were pots and pans there, sacks and awkward satchels, some thick and quilted, and Carlos saw what he thought was a pink cosmetics case, square and made of plastic, and behind the saddle, over the bedroll secured there, other objects were tied with leather thongs, a set of skewers and a cooking grate, what might have been the sections of a fishing pole, a bundle made of wood utensils, a black skillet, and a net bag full of what seemed dirty laundry.
The rifle barrel disappeared as he found the sheath, and his partner must have called out then, for his head jerked in that direction, and Carlos saw his hand reach out and grasp the listing figure’s arm. The horses pulled up, almost touching, and the falling figure leaned into the other, who put his arm around him and reached across with his free hand and fumbled with the straps of a beaded purse that hung from the saddle horn beside a long machete and what may have been a short shotgun. Then his hand was in the purse up to his forearm, rummaging around in it. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, and Carlos saw the hand of the other come up to his own throat. He wore a Stetson too, sweat-stained at the brim, which vibrated in his coughing or choking, and the other, in seeming desperation at their travail, leaned to the off side of his horse, dragging his partner from the saddle, across the rump of his own mount, legs tangled in fishing pole and laundry, until they both slipped, gathered in one another’s arms, down along the loose and flapping stirrup strap, and fell to the rocky ground.
Their progress had slowed dramatically, and though their dark dress remained ominous and their weapons, slung among the various burdens their horses carried, were serious ones, they now seemed harmless and ineffectual as they rolled in the rocks and pebbles, working to disentangle themselves and gain footing, and Carlos lowered the glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, then lifted them again and searched them out.
Once again, they were mounted and moving up the twisting riverbed, and Carlos saw the wave of the red bandanna as it was handed across and coughed or sneezed into, and then the figure was falling again, this time to the far side and they were pulling up, the man lifting his leg and throwing it across the horse’s rump while they still moved, then hopping around at the horses’ heads, which lurched up in surprise at his quick passage, and he was reaching out to catch his partner before he reached the earth, and once again they were tangled together, then were sitting at the horses’ feet, and the one was tending the other, rubbing his back and dabbing at his brow with the red handkerchief. Then, in a while, they managed to mount up again and then were moving, their horses tightly pressed together, and were coming up with a different urgency, though slowly, the coughing and retching continuing, as well as the listing, as the one held the other’s arm firmly, keeping him somewhat steady in the saddle.
Carlos lowered the glasses and turned back to the pool and saw the men stirring. Larry was at the edge still, but his eyes were open now and he was standing, chest and shoulders in the air, water cupped in his thin hands and lifted up to flood over his bald head and down his neck. Frank and John were beside each other, near the falling cylinder, only their heads above the water, disembodied, as they watched Gino, who was showing them the dead man’s float, lying face down on the surface, knotty arms and legs extended, the splotches of scar tissue on his back like red lichen, still as some drowned animal after a flood. Carlos heard a shuffling, and when he looked up and to the pool’s left, he saw Alma in the higher branches of an oak tree, above the descending watercourse. He was standing in the branches, leaning out and to the side for good vantage, sighting down the arroyo, and Carlos saw the primitive club strapped at his naked waist.