The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [145]
Down the carbine barrel Corsen squinted at three warriors coming zigzagging toward the shed. Then the outside two were out of vision and he fired. The Mescalero fell in his tracks. As he levered, the other two tuned abruptly and were back to the wall as he aimed again. One of them was on the wall, and he brought the barrel up an inch and squeezed the trigger, and the warrior dropped to the other side. The third one was over, out of sight. And as suddenly as the firing had started, it stopped.
Corsen glanced both ways, surprised. Two, three, four of them were down and the rest had retreated. They’re feeling us out, he thought. Seeing how many guns we have.
Fisher exhaled a long sigh. “We drove them off.”
“The first time,” Corsen said. “Now Bonito knows what we have and he’ll scratch his head till something comes out of it.”
Fisher looked up suddenly. “There!”
It was the Apache Corsen had hit first, now crawling toward the wall, dragging his left leg. Fisher raised his pistol.
“Hold it!” Corsen squinted hard at the Apache. “That’s Bil-Clin’s boy!”
Corsen waited until Sunshine reached the wall. Then, as the Apache raised himself slowly, painfully, with his weight on his right leg, Corsen raised the carbine and fired.
The bullet sang, ricocheting off the wall, and white dust spattered above the boy’s head as he sank down.
Corsen levered a shell into the breech, his eyes on Sunshine. Watch
him. Watch him like a hawk. He’s got a broken leg, but he can be over that wall in one jump.
The next moment Sunshine was pushing up with his arms and his one good leg. But it was a feint, for he lunged suddenly to the side. Corsen was ready. He swung the barrel and placed the next shot a foot in front of Sunshine. Pieces of adobe splattered on the Apache’s hair, and now he sat down and stared toward the shed.
Corsen said, “Watch along the wall, Ed. I’m going out. You edge toward the house.”
Fisher said, “What?”
“If this works,” Corsen said hurriedly, “I’ll give you a signal. When I do, bring the men out. Just the men!”
Sunshine had not moved, and now Corsen said, “Here we go.” He handed the Winchester to Fisher and pushed over the straw bales. Going over them, he drew his pistol and walked out into the open yard with the handgun pointed toward Sunshine. When he was in the middle of the yard he stopped.
“Bil-Clin!”
There was no answer, though he knew they were on the other side of the wall.
He shouted again, “Bil-Clin!” Then he said in Spanish, “My gun is on your son!” His eyes shifted above Sunshine. Stillness. A bare line of adobe—and then Bil-Clin was standing a dozen paces to the left, head and shoulders above the wall. Corsen’s eyes went to him.
“Come over the wall.”
Bil-Clin’s arms came up and he raised himself to the top of the wall and dropped to the inside. He did not look at his son, but approached Corsen.
“Bil-Clin,” Corsen said, “call Bonito and the others.”
The Apache said a word in Mescalero and suddenly his warriors were at the wall. They had stood up and were now a line of bare chests and war paint and thick blue-black hair with cloth bands over the foreheads. Bonito stood among them, but he was alone. He lifted his Maynard and rested it on the wall.
“Come in, Bonito,” Corsen said. And when the renegade did not
move he glanced at Bil-Clin, then cocked his pistol. “Order him to come in—if you’re still the chief.”
Bil-Clin looked at his son now, for the first time. The boy’s eyes, between stripes of yellow paint, were on Corsen. Bil-Clin spoke again in Mescalero and it was evident that his words were for Bonito. But Bonito did not answer.
Corsen tightened. He could feel it in his stomach, but he made his voice sound calm. “Bonito, you are now chief?”
Still the Apache said nothing.
“Yesterday you told me that chieftainship of the Mescalero is not a thing of