“How much he give you?”
“Ask him,” Russell said.
“I just wondered, that’s all.”
“Ask him,” Russell said again.
Why bother? I thought, and went on making out the list. I put all the names down but the ex-soldier’s because I didn’t know his. I just put down Ex-Soldier and never did change it, even when he came in a couple of minutes later with this canvas bag on his shoulder. He swung it down, bouncing it off the counter, and reached into his coat pocket.
“What’s the fare?”
“I guess you saw Mendez,” I said, and told him how much.
“I don’t know the whyfor,” he said. “But I’m for it.”
He waited while I tore off one of the orange-colored tickets, then another one. “If any stops are open on the way, show this for meals. Drinks are extra. You hand it in when you reach your destination. The other one’s for him.” I nodded to Russell. “You want to hand it to him?”
The ex-soldier looked at the ticket as he walked over to the bench. He was a heavy man and his coat was tight-smooth across the back. I would judge him to have been about thirty-seven or -eight. “I see you’re going to Contention,” he said, handing the ticket to Russell. “I change there for Bisbee. Yesterday I was in the Army. Next week I’m a mining man and the week after I’ll have a wife, one already arranged for and waiting. What do you think of that?”
John Russell pulled the blanket roll toward him as the man sat down, propping his feet on his canvas bag. “You saving your lamp oil?” the ex-soldier said to me.
“I guess we can spare some.” I came around and put a match to the Rochester lamp that hung from the ceiling. Just then I heard the coach and I said, “Here it comes, boys.”
You could hear the jingling, rattling sound coming from the equipment yard next door. Then through the window you could see it-smaller than a Concord and almost completely open with its canvas side-curtains rolled up and fastened-just turning out of the yard, and the next moment the jingling, rattling sound was right out front. Four horses were pulling the mud wagon; two spares were on twenty-foot lines tied to the back end.
The ex-soldier said, “I wouldn’t complain if it was an ore wagon all loaded.”
“It’s mainly just for rainy spells,” I explained. “Sometimes a heavy Concord gets mired down; but three teams can pull a mud wagon through about anything.”
The Mexican boy and his father were both up on the boot. Then Mendez, who must have just crossed the street, was standing there. “Everybody’s going,” he said. Then looked at John Russell. “Your saddle is on the coach. Now I go up and get myself ready.”
I waited till we heard him on the stairs, then told them how I had offered to drive this run, but now that I was a passenger it would be against the rules. “There’s rules about who can ride up with the driver,” I said, looking at John Russell and wondering if he had any ideas. But that was all the farther I got.
The man who came in was wearing range clothes and carrying a saddle which he let go of just inside the door and came on, looking straight at me, but not smiling like he was ready to say something friendly.
He was tall by the time he reached the counter, with that thin, stringy look of a rider and the ching-ching sound of spurs. Even the dust and horse-smell seemed to be still with him, and he reminded you of Lamarr Dean and Early and almost every one of them you ever saw: all made of the same leather and hardly ever smiling unless they were with their own look-alike brothers. Then they were always loud, loud talking and loud laughing. This one had a .44 Colt on his hip and his hat tipped forward with the brim curled almost to a point, the hat loose on his head but seeming to be part of him.
“Frank Braden,” he said. His hands spread out along the edge of the counter.
I said, “Yessir?” as if I still worked for Hatch & Hodges.
“Write it down for that coach out front.”
“That’s a special run.”
“I heard. That’s why I’m going on it.”
I looked down at the four orange cards on the counter, lining them up evenly. “I’m afraid that one’s full-up. Four here and those two. That is all the coach holds.”
“You can get another on,” he said. Telling me, not asking.
“Well, I don’t see how.”
“On top.”
“No one’s allowed to ride with the driver. That’s a company rule. I was just telling these boys here, certain people can ride inside, certain people outside.”
“You say they’re going?” He nodded toward the bench.
“Yessir. Both of them.”
He turned without another word and walked over to John Russell with that soft ching-ing spur sound.
He said, “That boy at the counter said you got a stage ticket.”
John Russell opened his hand on his lap. “This?”
“That’s it. You give it to me and you can take the next stage.”
“I have to take this one,” Russell said.
“No, you want to is all. But it would be better if you waited. You can get drunk tonight. How does that sound?”
“I have to take this one,” John Russell said. “I have to take it and I want to take it.”
“Leave him alone,” the ex-soldier said then. “You come late, you find your own way.”
Frank Braden looked at him. “What did you say?”
“I said why don’t you leave him alone.” His tone changed. All of a sudden it sounded friendlier, more reasonable. “He wants to take this stage, let him take it,” the ex-soldier said.
You heard that ching sound again as Frank Braden shifted around to face the ex-soldier. He stared at him and said, “I guess I’ll use your ticket instead.”
The ex-soldier hadn’t moved, his big hands resting on his knees, his feet still propped on the canvas bag. “You just walk in,” he said, “and take somebody else’s seat?”
Braden’s pointed hat brim moved up and down. “That’s the way it is.”
The ex-soldier glanced at John Russell, then over at me. “Somebody’s pulling a joke on somebody,” he said.
Russell didn’t say anything. He had made a cigarette and now he lit it, looking at Braden as he blew the smoke up in the air.
“You think I come in here to kid?” Braden asked the ex-soldier.
“Look here, this boy is going to Contention,” the ex-soldier explained, “and I’m going to Bisbee to get married after twelve years of Army. We got places to go and no reason to give up our seats.”
“All this we,” Braden said. “I’m talking to you.”
The ex-soldier didn’t know what to say. And, even with his size, he didn’t know what to do with Braden standing over him and not giving an inch. He glanced at John Russell again, then over to me like he’d thought of something. “What kind of a business you run?” he said. “You let a man walk in here and say he’s taking your seat-after paying your fare and all-and the company doesn’t do a thing about it?”
“Maybe I better get Mr. Mendez,” I said. “He’s upstairs.”
“I think he ought to know about this,” the ex-soldier said and started to rise. Braden stepped in closer and the ex-soldier looked up, almost straight up, and you could see then that he was afraid but trying hard not to show it.
“This is our business,” Braden said. “You don’t want somebody else’s nose stuck in.”
The ex-soldier seemed to get his nerve back-I guess because he realized he had to do something-and he said, “We better settle this right now.”
Braden didn’t budge. He said, “Are you wearing a gun?”
“Now wait a minute.”
“If you aren’t,” Braden said, “you better get one.”
“You can’t just threaten a man like that,” the ex-soldier said. “There are witnesses here seeing you threaten me.”
Braden shook his head. “No, they heard you call me a dirty name.”
“I never called you anything.”
“Even if they didn’t hear it,” Braden said, “I did.”
“I never said a word!”
“I’m going to walk out on the street,” Braden said. “If you don’t come out inside a minute, I’ll have to come back in.”
That’s all there was to it. The ex-soldier stared up at Braden, the cords in his neck standing out, his hands spread and clamped on his knees. And even as he gave up, as he let himself lean back against the wall, he was holding on, knowing he had backed down and it was over, but doing it gradually so we wouldn’t see the change come over him. Braden held out his hand. The ex-soldier gave him his ticket. Then he picked up his bag and walked out.
Braden didn’t even offer to pay him for the ticket. He watched the ex-soldier till he was gone, then walked over to his saddle and carried it out to the coach. I could feel him right outside, but it bothered me that I hadn’t done anything. Or Russell hadn’t. I motioned him over to the counter and he came, taking his time and stepping out his cigarette.
“Listen,” I said, “shouldn’t we have done something?”
“It wasn’t my business,” Russell said.
“But what if he had taken your ticket?” I stared at him and this close you could see that he was young. His face was thin and you saw those strange blue-colored eyes set in the darkness of his skin.
Russell said, “You would have to be sure he was making it something to kill over.”
“He made it plain enough,” I said.
“If you were sure,” Russell said, “and if the ticket was worth it to you, then you’d do something to keep it.”
“But I don’t think that soldier even had a gun.”
Russell said, “That’s up to him if he doesn’t carry one.” Even the way he said it made me mad; so calm about it.
“He would have helped you and you know it,” I said.
“I don’t know it,” Russell said. “If he did, it would be up to him. But it wouldn’t be any of his business.”
Just like that. He walked back to the bench and just then Mendez came in. Now he was wearing a coat and hat and carrying a maleta bag and a sawed-off shotgun.
“Time,” Mendez said, sounding almost happy about it. He came through the gate to get something from his desk. That gave me the chance to tell what Braden had done, sounding disgusted as I told it so Mendez would have no doubt what I thought about Braden’s trick.
“Then we still have six,” Mendez said. That was all.
And that was the six-seven counting Mendez-who left Sweetmary that Tuesday, August 12.
Nothing much happened just before we left. Russell asked to ride up with Mendez, saying they could talk about things.
“Talk,” Mendez said. “You can’t hear yourself.” He pushed Russell toward the coach. “Go on. See what it’s like.”
Then there was a talk between Mendez and Dr. Favor. Probably about all the other people in what was supposed to be a hired coach. I heard Mendez say, “I haven’t seen any money yet.” They talked a while and finally must have settled it.
The seating inside was as follows: Russell, the McLaren girl, and I riding backwards, across from Braden, Mrs. Favor, and Dr. Favor. Which was perfect. We sat there a while, almost dark inside after Mendez dropped the side curtains, not saying anything, feeling the coach move up and down on its leather thorough braces as the boy who worked for us put the traveling bags in the rear end boot and covered them with a canvas.
I tried to think of something to say to the McLaren girl, hardly believing she was next to me. But I decided to wait a while before speaking. Let her get comfortable and used to everybody.
So I just started picturing her. She was too close to look right at. But I could feel her there. You had the feeling, when you pictured her, that she looked like a boy more than a woman. Not her face. It was a girl’s face with a girl’s eyes. It was her body and the way she moved; the thinness of her body and the way she had walked up the hotel steps. You had the feeling she would run and swim. I could almost see her come out of the water with her short hair glistening wet and pressed to her forehead. I could see her smiling too, for some reason.
Mrs. Favor was watching the McLaren girl, staring right at her, so I had a chance to look at Mrs. Favor. Audra was her name, and she was nice looking all right: thin, but still very womanly looking, if you understand me. That was the thing about her. If anybody ever says woman to me, like “You should have seen that woman,” or, “Now there was a woman for you,” I would think of Audra Favor, thinking of her as Audra, too, not as Mrs. Favor, the Indian Agent’s wife.
That was because one got the feeling she was not with her husband. Dr. Favor was older than she was, at least fifteen years older, which put her about thirty, and he could have been just another man sitting there. That would be something to watch, I decided. To see if she paid any attention to him.
Frank Braden, I noticed, looked right at Mrs. Favor. With his head turned his face was close to hers and he stared right at her, maybe thinking nobody could see him in the dimness, or maybe not caring if they did.
Just before we left, I raised up to straighten my coat and sneaked a look at the McLaren girl. Her eyes were lowered, not closed, but looking down at her hands. Russell, his hat tilted forward a little, was looking at his hands too. They were folded on his lap.
What would these people think, I wondered, if they knew he’d been living like an Apache most of his life, right up until a little while ago? Would it make a difference to them? I had a feeling it would. I didn’t think of myself as one of them, then; now I don’t see why I should have left myself out. To tell the truth, I wasn’t at all pleased about Russell sitting in the same coach with us.
When the coach started to roll I said, “Well, I guess we’ll be together for a while.”
2
There wasn’t much talking at all until Mrs. Favor started after the McLaren girl. I saw her watching the girl for the longest time and finally she said, “Are those Indian beads?”
The McLaren girl looked up. “It’s a rosary.”
“I don’t know why I thought they were Indian beads,” Mrs. Favor said. Her voice soft and sort of lazy sounding, the kind of voice that most of the time you aren’t sure if the person is kidding or being serious.
“You might say they are Indian beads,” the girl said. “I made them.”
“During your experience?”
Dr. Favor said, “Audra,” very low, meaning for her to keep quiet.
“I hope I didn’t remind you of something unpleasant,” Mrs. Favor said.
Braden, I noticed, was looking at the McLaren girl too. “What happened?” he said.
The McLaren girl did not answer right away, and Mrs. Favor leaned toward the girl. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I can understand.”
“I don’t mind,” the McLaren girl said.
Braden was still looking at her. He said again, “What happened?”
“I thought everybody knew,” the McLaren girl said.
“Well,” Braden said. “I guess I’ve been away.”
“She was taken by Apaches,” Mrs. Favor said. “With them, how long, a month?”
The McLaren girl nodded. “It seemed longer.”
“I can imagine,” Mrs. Favor said. “Did they treat you all right?”
“As well as you could expect, I guess.”
“I suppose they kept you with the women.”
“Well, we were on the move most of the time.”
“I mean when you camped.”
“No, not all the time.”
“Did they-bother you?”
“Well,” the McLaren girl said, “I guess the whole thing was kind of a bother, but I hadn’t thought of it that way. One of the women cut my hair off. I don’t know why. It’s just now starting to grow back.”
“I meant did they bother you?” Mrs. Favor said.
Braden was looking right at her. “You can talk plainer than that,” he said.
Mrs. Favor pretended she didn’t hear him. She kept her eyes on the McLaren girl and you could see what she was trying to get at. Finally she said, “You hear so many stories about what Indians do to white women.”