The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [143]
“Come ahead,” Fisher said quietly.
“It’ll be dark in a few minutes,” Corsen said. “You’d better give us our guns.”
“I’ll take my chances for a while.”
“You won’t be able to watch us in the dark—and you’re not going to use a lamp with Bonito outside.”
Fisher was silent. Then, “I’m trying to think it out,” he said wearily.
“You don’t have a choice,” Corsen told him. “Those are Mescaleros. You’re old enough to know how they behave when they’re up.”
“No, I don’t. Not the way I know what would happen if you people had guns. Buz and I would turn our backs once—”
“All right,” Corsen said. “Then give back all the money you took.”
“Tell them I was just kiddin’, eh?”
“I’m thinking about two women being here,” Corsen said, “and a hundred Mescaleros out there. Make up your mind one way or the other—but do it before it’s too late.”
THE SOUND CAME to them gradually. It came faintly, growing out of the darkness, at first a muffled sound, now the unmistakable clop of a horse moving at a slow walk. A chair scraped in the room. Fisher’s voice rasped, “Quiet!”
In the stillness Fisher cocked his head, listening, then whispered close to Corsen’s cheek, “It’s stopped.”
Corsen waited. “At the gate,” he said.
“It’s a trick.” Fisher was talking to himself. “A damn Apache trick.”
“Maybe it is.” Corsen paused. “And maybe it isn’t, Ed,” he said quietly. “If I was to go out there, would you hold your gun that way?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Let’s find out.” Corsen pushed through the screen door without a sound and was moving across the yard. He walked unhurriedly, because if Bonito was behind the wall, running would not make a difference; the yard was open, and gray with moonlight. He reached the gate and stood with his hand on the heavy latch.
Fisher watched him tensely. He felt someone close to him and glanced to see the girl. Billy Teachout was behind her. They looked at Fisher, then out toward the gate, and they did not speak.
In the darkness someone said, “What is it?” excitedly.
At a window Ernie Ball’s voice hissed. “Shhhhh!”
They watched Corsen lift the iron latch. Then the shadowy figure pushed against the gate and the squeak of the hinges was a mournful screech with no other sounds in the night. Corsen went through the opening, and for the moment he was out of sight Katie held her breath. Then the gate swung wide and he was there again, leading the larger, darker shadow of a horse. A rider was atop the horse, head down, swaying gently with the movement of the horse’s shoulders and flanks. Corsen closed the gate and came on, holding the horse close under the muzzle by a hackamore.
“Who is it?” from inside the doorway.
Fisher was in the yard now. He looked at Corsen, then toward the rider, questioningly.
Corsen went to the rider, raised his arms, and said gently, “Come, viejo.” The small figure toppled hesitantly, stiffly, into Corsen’s arms.
He heard someone behind him say, “Delgado—”
They carried him inside to a bedroom and eased him down onto the bed. And when the lamp was lighted next to the bed, no one recognized Delgado.
“Mary, Virgin and Mother,” Ygenia said, close to Delgado’s cheek, kneeling on the floor and stroking her hand gently over his head. When Katie came in with a basin of water, she mopped his face, washing the blood away. She moved the cloth over his eyes very gently and when she took it away she gasped and uttered the name of the Mother of God again.
Delgado’s face was knife scarred, small marks crisscrossing his cheeks. His nose was broken, that was evident, and his right eye was no longer in the socket.
His head came off the blanket, then fell back as the thin lines of his face tightened. He said, almost inaudibly, “Ross.”
“I’m here,” Corsen said close to his cheek. “Don’t talk now. Say it in the morning.”
Delgado breathed. “Bonito did this to me. There were others who beat at me and stuck me with their knives, but it was Bonito