Martha came away from the door. “You’re asking my husband to commit murder!”
Janroe glared at her. “Like any soldier murders.”
“This isn’t war-he isn’t a soldier now!”
“We’ve been all through that,” Janroe said. “Whether it bothers his conscience or not, your husband doesn’t have a choice. He’s got to kill them before they kill him.”
That evening, as soon as it was dark, Janroe slipped under the platform and let himself into the locked storeroom. He measured three strides to the crates of Enfield rifles stacked against the back wall, then stood in the darkness, wondering if there would be room for the wagon-load of rifles due to arrive later that night. The rifles that were here should have been picked up days ago.
You can worry about it, Janroe thought, or you can forget it and ask Luz when she comes. She should be here within two hours. Perhaps they told her in Hidalgo why the rifles had not been picked up. Perhaps not. Either way, there was something more immediate to think about. Something raw and galling, because it was fresh in his mind and seemed to have happened only moments before though it had been this afternoon, hours ago.
He had almost convinced Cable. No, not almost or maybe. He had convinced him. He had handed the man his gun and told him to kill the Kidstons or be killed himself, and Cable had seen the pure reality of this. If he had left at that moment, he would have gone straight to the Kidston place. Janroe was sure of it.
But Martha had interfered. She talked to her husband, soothing the welts on his face with a damp cloth while she soothed his anger with the calm, controlled tone of her voice. And finally Cable had nodded and agreed not to do anything that day. He would go home and watch the house-that much he had to do-but he would not carry the fight to the Kidstons; at least not while he felt the way he did. He agreed to this grudgingly, wearily, part by part, while Martha reasoned in that quiet, firm, insisting, never-varying tone.
Perhaps if he went out to see Cable now? No, the guns were coming and he would have to be here. In the morning then; though by that time the sting would be gone from the welts on Cable’s face and that solid patience would have settled in him again.
He had convinced Cable-that was the absolute truth of it-until the woman had started in with her moral, monotonous reasoning-
Janroe straightened. He stood listening, hearing the faint sound of a horse approaching. The hoofbeats grew louder, but not closer, and when the sound stopped, he knew the horse had reached the back of the store.
Luz? No, it was too early for her. He left the storeroom, carefully, quietly padlocking the door, came out into the open and took his time mounting to the platform and passing through the darkened store. He saw Martha first, standing in the kitchen, then Luz, and saw the girl’s eyes raise to his as he moved toward them.
“You’re early.”
“They’re not coming,” Luz said.
“What do you mean they’re not coming?”
“Not anymore.”
“All right,” Janroe said. “Tell me what you know.”
“The war’s over.”
She said it simply, in the same tone, and for a moment Janroe only stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s true,” Martha said. “They told her as soon as she reached Hidalgo.”
He looked at Martha then, seeing her face no longer composed but for the first time flushed and alive and with a smile that was warm and genuine and seemed to include even him, simply because he was here to share the news with them.
He turned to Luz again. “Who told you?”
“Everyone knows it. They told me to come back and tell you.”
“But how do they know? How can they be sure?”
“They know, that’s all.”
“Listen, wars don’t just end like that.”
“How do they end?” Martha asked, not smiling now.
“There’s some warning-days, weeks before, that it’s going to end.”
“You know how news travels out here,” Martha said.
“No”-Janroe shook his head-“we would have heard something. It’s a false alarm, or a Yankee trick. It’s something else because a war just doesn’t end like that.”
“We’re telling you that the war is over,” Martha said. “Whether you believe it or not it ended five days ago, the day we came home.”
“And they’re just finding out now?” Janroe shook his head again. “Uh-unh, you don’t sell me any of that.”
“Would they have lied to Luz?”
“I don’t even know what they told her! How do I know she even went there?”
Martha was staring at him. “You don’t want to believe it.”
“What am I supposed to believe-everything this girl comes in and tells me?”
“Luz”-Martha glanced at the girl-“can I take your horse?”
Janroe saw Luz nodding and he said anxiously, “What for?”
“To tell my husband,” Martha answered, looking at him again.
“You think you should?” Janroe asked. It was moving too fast again, rushing at him again, not giving him time to think, and already it was the next step, telling her husband. They would not just stand and talk about it and see how ridiculous the news was; they would bring Cable into it, and if he argued about the sense of her going she would go all the quicker.
“I mean riding out alone at night,” Janroe said. He shook his head. “I couldn’t see you doing that.”
“I think my husband should know,” Martha began.
“I believe that,” Janroe said. The words were coming easier now. “But I think I better be the one to go tell him.”
Martha hesitated. Before she could say anything, Janroe had turned and was gone. She looked at Luz, but neither of them spoke, hearing Janroe just in the next room.
When he came into the kitchen again he was wearing a hat and a coat, the armless sleeve flat and ending abruptly in the pocket, but bulging somewhat with the shape of a shoulder holster beneath the coat.
“You will see him?” Martha said. “I mean make sure he finds out?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“And you promise to tell him everything?”
“I won’t be long.” Janroe went out the back door and mounted Luz Acaso’s dun mare.
He crossed the river and hurried the dun up the slope to the horse trail, following it north, almost blindly in the night darkness of the trees, brushing branches in his haste and kicking the dun. He moved along the ridge, though with no intention of visiting Cable.
He knew only that there was no time for Cable now. He could admit that to himself without admitting the other, that the war was over. Certainly it could be at the very edge of the end. This could be the last day. It might very well be the last day. All right, it was the last day and now there was no time for Cable. The war was not over yet, he told himself, but there was time to do only one thing now.
Four, raging, uninterrupted years of war did not end with two women standing in a kitchen and saying that it was over. You would expect that of women. It was typical. A woman would tell you anything. Lies became truth to them because they felt justified in using any means at hand to hold life to a sweet-smelling, creeping pace; to make this a woman’s existence with no room for war or fighting or so many of the things that men did and liked to do and only really proved themselves as men when they were doing them.
If he had not entered the kitchen he wouldn’t have heard anything. A man couldn’t wait and plan for eight months and know what he had to do, and then see it all canceled by walking into a kitchen. That couldn’t be.
So the two women had lied and it was stupid to think about it. And even if it was not a matter of their lying, then it was something else, something equally untrue; and whether the something was a lie from the women or a trick or an untruth from another source was beside the point.
He was hurrying, as if to keep up with time, so that not another moment of it would go by before he reached the Kidston place. But even after half admitting this was impossible he told himself that right now was part of a whole time, not a time before or a time after something. It was a time which started the day he came to live at the store and would end the day he saw the Kidstons dead. So this was part of the time of war. But almost as he thought this, it became more than that. Now, right now, was the whole of the war, the everything of a war that would not end until the Kidstons were dead.
It took him less than an hour altogether. By the time he left the horse trail he had cleared his mind of everything but the Kidstons. Winding, moving more slowly through the sandstone country, he was able to calm himself and think about what he would do after, what he would do about Cable, what he would tell Martha and Luz. Martha…
By the time he reached the edge of the timber stand bordering the Kidston place, looking across the open area to the house and outbuildings, he was composed and ready. He was Edward Janroe who happened to be riding by, say, on his way to Fort Buchanan. He was a man they had seen at least once a week for the past eight months. He was the one-armed man who owned the store now and didn’t say much. He was nothing to be afraid of or even wonder about. Which was exactly the way Janroe wanted it.
6
Janroe came out of the trees, letting the dun mare move at its own pace toward the house. He was aware of someone on the veranda, certain that it was Duane when he saw the pinpoint glow of a cigar.
There was no hurry now. Janroe’s eyes rose from the veranda to the lighted second-story window, then beyond the corner of the house, past the corral where a dull square of light showed the open door of the bunkhouse. There were no sounds from that end of the yard, none from the big adobe that was pale gray and solid looking in the darkness. The cigar glowed again and now Janroe was close.
“Good evening, Major.”
Duane leaned forward, the wicker chair squeaking. “Who is it?”
“Edward Janroe.” Now, almost at the veranda, Janroe brought the dun to a halt. He saw Duane rise and come close to the railing, touching it with his stomach.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Janroe said.
“You didn’t startle me.” There was indignation in Duane’s tone.
“I meant you sitting here by yourself…Is Vern about?”
“No, he’s up at his pastures. You wanted to see him?”
“I’d like to have. But I guess you can’t have everything.”
“What?”
“Where’s Vern, out on the horse drive?”
“Getting it started. He’s been gone all day.”
“You alone?”
“My daughter’s in the house.”
“And somebody’s out in the bunkhouse.”
Duane seemed annoyed, but he said, “A couple of the men.”
“I thought everybody went out on the drives,” Janroe said.
“We always keep one man here.”
“You said a couple of men were there.”
As if remembering something, Duane’s frown of annoyance vanished. “The second man rode in a while ago to tell us the news. I’ve been sitting here ever since thinking about it.” Duane paused solemnly. “Mr. Janroe, the war is over. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant on April ninth.”
“Is that a fact?” Janroe said.
“I have been thinking of a place called Chancellorsville,” Duane said gravely. “I have been thinking of the men I knew who died there: men I campaigned with who gave their lives that this final victory might be accomplished.”
“A touching moment,” Janroe said.
Duane’s eyes rose. “If you had served, you would know the feeling.”
“I served.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that. In the Union army?”
“With Kirby Smith.”
“Oh…You lost your arm…were wounded in battle?”
“During the fight at Richmond, Kentucky.”
“Is that right? I was in Cincinnati at the time. If I hadn’t been on my way to Washington, I would have answered General Nelson’s call for volunteers.”
“That would have been something,” Janroe said, sitting easily and looking down at Duane, “if we’d fought against each other.”
Duane nodded gravely. “More terrible things than that have actually happened. Brother fighting brother, friend against friend. The wounds of our minds as well as those of our bodies will have to be healed now if we are to live together in peace.” Duane added, for effect, “The war is over.”
“You’re not just telling me that?” Janroe said.
“What?”
“That the war’s over.”
“Of course it is. The word came direct from Fort Buchanan. They learned about it this afternoon. Their rider ran into Vern, and Vern sent a man here to tell us. Vern realized I would want to know immediately.”
“I haven’t been told,” Janroe said. “Not officially, and your telling me doesn’t count.”
Duane was frowning, squinting up at Janroe in the darkness with his cigar poised a few inches from his face. “How could you learn more officially than this? The message came from Fort Buchanan, a military establishment.”
“You learned it from your side,” Janroe said. “I haven’t been told officially from mine.”
“Man, you’ve been out of the war for at least a year! Do you expect them to tell personally every veteran who served?”
“I haven’t been out of it.” Janroe paused, studying Duane’s reaction. “I’m still fighting, just like you’ve been with your saddle-tramp cavalry, like your brother’s been doing supplying Yankee remounts.”
Duane was squinting again. “You’ve been at your store every day. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Look under the store,” Janroe said. “That’s where we keep the Enfields.”
“British rifles?”
“Brought in through Mexico, then shipped east.”
“I don’t believe it.” Duane shook his head. “All this time you’ve been moving contraband arms through the store?”
“About two thousand rifles since I started.”
“Well,” Duane said, officially now, “if you have any there now, I advise you to turn them over to the people at Fort Buchanan. I presume Confederate officers will be allowed to keep their horses and sidearms, but rifles are another matter.”
Janroe shook his head slowly. “I’m not turning anything over.”
“You’d rather face arrest?”
“They can’t take me if they don’t know about the guns.”
“Mr. Janroe, if you don’t turn them in, don’t you think I would be obligated to tell them?”
“I suppose you would.”
“Then why did you tell me about them?”
“So you would know how we stand. You see, you can be obligated all you want, but you won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Duane clamped the cigar in the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got the nerve to ride in here and threaten me?”
“I guess I do.” Janroe was relaxed; he sat with his shoulders hunched loosely and his hand in his lap.
“You’re telling me that I won’t go to Buchanan?” Duane’s voice rose. “Listen, I’ll take my saddle-tramp cavalry, as you call it, and drag those guns out myself, and I’ll march you right up to the fort with them if I feel like it. So don’t go threatening me, mister; I don’t take any of it.”
Janroe watched him calmly. “It’s too bad you didn’t volunteer that time you said. That would have made this better. No, it would have made it perfect-if you had been in command of that Yankee artillery company. They were upon a ridge and we had to cross a cornfield that was trampled down and wide open to get at them. They began firing as soon as we started across. Almost right away I was hit and my arm was torn clean from my body.”
“I think we’ve discussed this enough for one evening,” Duane said stiffly.
“What if you had given that order to fire?” Janroe said. “Do you see how much better it would make this?” He shook his head then. “But that would be too much to ask; like having Vern here too. Both of you here, and no one else around.”
“I would advise you to go home,” Duane said, “and seriously consider what I told you. I don’t make idle threats.”
“I don’t either, Major.” Janroe’s hand rose to the open front of his coat. He drew the Colt from his shoulder holster and cocked it as he trained it on Duane. “Though I don’t suppose you’d call this a threat. This is past the threatening stage, isn’t it?”
“You don’t frighten me,” Duane said. He remembered something Vern had told Cable that day at Cable’s house, rephrasing it now because he was not sure of the exact words.