Nepomuceno puts his hand on the butt of his pistol at the thirty-sixth second. Copying him, Shears grabs his gun with his right hand (since he is holding the barrel of his pistol in his left) — thirty-seven, thirty-eight, all the way up to forty-four and he still hasn’t got a good grip on it. You can tell from his pale hands with their scaly skin, which look like floppy fish, that he’s a terrible carpenter.
Nepomuceno’s eyes widen, his eyelids lifting slowly — his long lashes make him look like a wolf — now his fiery gaze lands on Shears.
The star on Shears’ vest is trembling; it looks like it might fall off any second. Shears doesn’t even attempt to mirror Nepomuceno’s look; his eyes are two slits, no fire and no spark.
Nepomuceno’s men form a semicircle behind him, ready to draw their guns. Esteban makes a sign to Fernando, the one who looks after the horses; no need to speak: if he moves his head to the left it means “watch out on your right;” if he purses his lips it means “you’re about to get bitten by a snake.” (Fernando’s uncle is Hector, the cart-owner; they have the same round face.)
Shears, on the other hand, is alone like a stray dog, he’s got no backup. They gave him this job because someone has to walk around town wearing the star.
A couple more seconds pass, it’s like time has stopped. Fernando unfastens the reins tied to the Café Ronsard’s hitching post and gathers them in both hands; the horses are ready.
Far away someone shouts, “Teencha! Your bread is burning!”
In a split second Nepomuceno draws his gun, he cocks it while he aims and pulls the trigger; Shears has just started to search for his gun’s trigger when Nepomuceno’s shot penetrates his right inner thigh, where it won’t cause much bleeding but will hurt like the dickens.
With a surgeon’s precision, it misses the vein. Nepomuceno could easily have shot him through the head or the heart, but prudence prevailed.
Shears and his Colt hit the floor.
The five-pointed star lies beside him, face down.
Nepomuceno prepares to save his own hide and those of his men, he knows he’s got to throw caution to the wind and be bold, or he’s a goner. Now it’s the Rangers’ turn to be cautious; some of these gringos work for Judge White (“Whatshisname”) and lawyer Stealman, others make their living on the prairie, using their weapons to protect livestock from bands of cattle thieves.
These gringo gunmen are calm, they only fire their pistols for money; their hands rest on their Colts.
The Rangers have just returned from visiting Neals when they hear the shot; Ranger Phil smoothes his hair; Ranger Ralph picks his teeth with a fingernail; Ranger Bob examines the heel of his boot.
More than one of them (they double as both hired guns and Rangers) has the urge to riddle this greaser with bullets, but this isn’t the moment.
At the shot, some onlookers scurry away. Not that it’s out of the ordinary, these things happen in Bruneville with some regularity.
Everyone else: the old folks, pretty Sandy, two madmen (Connecticut, who only says, “I’m from Connecticut,” and the Scot, who says lots but in his country’s strange accent it’s impossible to understand, which is just as well, because his babbling is full of obscenities), two yokels, and a few others are frozen stiff.
Now’s not the time for us to pause and take in Sandy’s revealing neckline, but it’s important to note that among those in the know she’s called Eagle Zero.
Carlos, the Cuban, hears the shot when he’s passing through the swinging doors of the Café Ronsard. In his role as Eagle One he was waiting for Nepomuceno to leave, and as soon as he saw him get up from his chair he slowly picked up his canvas bag and the violin he plays in the evenings — alone or with his close friends, he’s no cowboy or some travelling minstrel who goes around making his violin screech tunelessly — and casually follows Nepomuceno, intending to have a few words with him when he mounts his horse (the Eagles’ top secret business is handled with utmost discretion), so no one notices.
The matter is urgent, but he must exercise caution. The rules of espionage require it. That’s why he doesn’t follow him immediately out of the Café Ronsard; he hears the shot, looks up, and sees Nepomuceno holster his Colt. He doesn’t move, stuck between the two half-doors, holding them so they don’t swing. He didn’t hear the insult that provoked Nepomuceno and doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. No matter what happened, for the good of the Eagles — Nepomuceno would agree — he should hang back. He doesn’t take a step or make a sign. He raises his eyes, pretending to look at the sky, and half closes them; out of the corner of his eye he observes what’s happening in the Market Square and does his best to breathe calmly.
The only person who notices Carlos stop dead in his tracks is Dimitri. He’ll remember this later. But for the moment he watches Carlos and finds satisfaction in the fact that he appears to be a coward.
Inside the Café Ronsard are: Wild, the buffalo hunter recently arrived from the prairie (a shameless and violent opportunist); handsome Trust, his side-kick; and their three slaves (One, Two, and Three), all with.50-caliber Sharps rifles on their shoulders. Wild hears the shot in the Market Square but doesn’t move from his chair. Teresa runs upstairs to see what’s happening from the balcony of her room. She’s done this before; the view from up there is excellent. The bartender begins to hide most of his bottles under the bar in case bullets start flying. Wild makes a sign to handsome Trust with his head.
Trust motions to One, Two, and Three to follow him, and they file out into the street, pushing past Carlos the Cuban. They pass through the saloon doors and leave them swinging.
Dimitri (who’s from the steppe) watches them from his table and observes that Carlos appears not to notice either being pushed or the stench of Wild and his men (who all reek of blood). Dimitri takes all this in as if he sees straight through Carlos — it’s because of the differences in the climates where they come from, which have forged them differently: the flat light of the tropics, and the darkness and veiled light of the north. The climate and luminosity of the tropics have made Carlos a good actor, skilled at pretending (though this is a contradiction), while the darkness of the Northern Hemisphere has made Dimitri adept at seeing things. But Carlos doesn’t understand the blinding light that shines on the stage, while veiled light has taught Dimitri to observe carefully, though he can’t stand bright light. Trust walks along the north side of the Market Square without approaching the scene of the crime. He nearly bumps into Nepomuceno’s servant, Fernando, the one with the round face.
By the time Trust returns with the news, Wild already knows everything. His boss rebuffs and insults him: “Thanks for nothing, slowpoke.”
(Trust is like the buffalo-hunter’s shadow, resentment building inside him. He was so young when he began hunting some say his very bones are made of dead bison. Handsome Trust — there’s something graceful, even sensual, in his melancholy and strange docility — has the same dream every night that he sodomizes a buffalo, or the buffalo sodomizes him. When he can’t sleep the dream haunts him, bewildering and shameful. The pleasure he feels when he’s asleep is dark and powerful, and when he recalls it upon awakening the muscles of his thighs contract, his chest and his abdomen throb; his pleasure is more intense when he penetrates the buffalo.)
After unhitching the horses and approaching Nepomuceno, Fernando the servant was the second to flee. Alicia, Captain Boyle’s wife, was the first. It’s not that she’s jumpy, just this morning as it was getting light out the Captain urged in his broken Spanish:
“You run if pistol smokes.”
“Why are you speaking to me like an Apache all of a sudden, my Captain?” She uses his title as a term of endearment.