The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [129]
Then McKelway and Mission volunteered to bring Ford Harlan down. McKelway tied a white neckerchief to the end of his Sharps for a truce flag and they went up. Freehouser had said if you want to get Ford, you might as well go a few more steps and ask the rest if they want to give up. They were almost to the body when the pistol fire broke from above. They scrambled down fast and when they reached the posse, Freehouser was smiling.
They were all up there, Eugene and Deke and the Mexican and Rich Miller. One of them had lost his nerve and opened up. You could see it on Freehouser’s face. The self-satisfaction. They were trapped in an old assay shack with a sheer sandstone wall towering behind it—thin shadow lines of crevices reaching to slender pinnacles—and only one way to come down. The original mine opening was on the same shelf; probably they’d hid their horses there.
Freehouser was a contented man; he had all the time in the world to figure how to pry them out of the ’dobe. He even listened to McKelway and admitted that maybe the kid, Rich Miller, shouldn’t be hung with the others—if he didn’t get shot first.
Some of the posse went back home, because they had jobs to hold down, but the next day, others came out from Asunción and Four Tanks to see the fun.
IT SEEMED NATURAL that Deke should take over as boss. There was no discussing it; no one gave it a thought. Ford was dead. Eugene was indifferent. Sonny Navarez was Mexican, and Rich Miller was a kid.
The boy had wondered why Deke wasn’t the boss even before. Maybe Deke didn’t have Ford’s nerve, but he had it over him in age and learning. Still, a man gets old and he thinks of too many what-ifs. And sometimes Deke was scary the way he talked about fate and God pulling little strings to steer men around where they didn’t want to go.
He was at the window on the right side of the doorway, which was open because there was no door. Eugene and Deke were at the left front window. He could hear Sonny Navarez behind him moving gear around, but the boy did not take his eyes from the slope.
Deke lounged against the wall, his face close to the window frame, his carbine balanced on the sill. Eugene was a step behind him. He was a heavy-boned man, shoulders stretching his shirt tight, and tall, though Deke was taller when he wasn’t lounging. Eugene pulled at his shirt, sticking to his body with perspiration. The sun was straight overhead and the heat pushed into the canyon without first being deflected by the rimrock.
The Mexican drew his carbine from his bedroll and moved up next to Rich Miller, and now the four of them were looking down the slope, all thinking pretty much the same thing, though in different ways.
Eugene Harlan broke the silence. “I shouldn’t of fired at them.”
It could have gone unsaid. Deke shrugged. “That’s under the bridge.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
Deke did not bother to look at him. “Well, you better start.”
“It wasn’t my fault. Ford led ’em here!”
“Nobody’s blaming you for anything. They’d a got us anyway, sooner or later. It was on the wall.”
Eugene was silent, and then he said, “What happens if we give ourselves up?”
Deke glanced at him now. “What do you think?”
Sonny Navarez grinned. “I think they would invite us to the rope dance.”
“Ford’s the one shot that boy in the bank,” Eugene protested. “They already got him.”
“How would they know he’s the one?” Deke said.
“We’ll tell them.”
Deke shook his head. “Get a drink and you’ll be doing your nerves a favor.”
Sonny Navarez and Rich Miller looked at Deke and both of them grinned, but they said nothing and after a moment they looked away again, down the slope, which