Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Author:Elmore Leonard [Leonard, Elmore]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Western
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

4

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.

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