The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [152]
couldn’t get an honest job… so what was a young man supposed to do?
The way he described it made Lyall Quinlan shake his head and say it was a shame.
Wednesday night Bobby Valdez only nodded to Lyall when he came on duty. The Mexican was sitting on the edge of the bunk, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands as he washed them together absently.
He’s finally realizing he’s going to die, Lyall thought. You have to leave a man alone when he’s doing that. So for over an hour no one spoke.
When Lyall did speak it was because he wanted to make it little easier for Valdez. He said, “All people have to die. That’s the best way to look at it.”
Valdez looked up, then nodded thoughtfully.
“You got to look at it,” Lyall went on, “like, well, just something that happens to everybody.”
“I’ve done that,” the Mexican said. “What torments me now is that I have not confessed.”
“You didn’t have to,” Lyall said. “Judge Metairie found out the facts without you confessing.”
“No, I mean to a priest.”
“Oh.”
“It is a terrible thing to die without absolution.”
“Oh.”
It was quiet then, Lyall frowning, the Mexican looking at his hands. But suddenly Bobby Valdez looked up, his face brightening, and he said, as if it had just occurred to him, “My friend, would you bring a priest to me?”
“Well—I’ll tell Mr. Bohannon in the morning. I’m sure he’ll—”
“No!” Valdez stood up quickly. “I cannot take the chance of letting him know!” His voice calmed as he said, “You know how he makes fun of things spiritual—that about the holy water, and calling me ‘Brother.’ What if he should refuse this request? Then I would die in the state of mortal sin just because he does not understand. My friend,” he said just above a whisper, “surely you can see that he must not know.”
“Well—” Lyall said.
“In White Sands,” Valdez said quickly, “there is a man called Sixto Henriquez who knows the priest well. At the mescal shop they’ll tell you where he lives. Now, all you would have to do is tell Sixto to send the priest late Friday night after it is very quiet, and then it will be accomplished.”
Lyall hesitated.
“Then,” Valdez said solemnly, “I would not die in sin.”
Lyall thought about it some more and finally he nodded.
He woke up at noon for the ride to White Sands. He’d have to hurry to be back in time to go on duty; but he would have hurried anyway because he didn’t feel right about what he was doing, as if it was something sneaky. At the mescal shop the proprietor directed him, in as few words as were necessary, to the adobe of Sixto Henriquez. Lyall was half afraid and half hoping Sixto wouldn’t be home. But there he was, a thin little man in a striped shirt who didn’t open the door all the way until Lyall mentioned Valdez.
After Lyall had told why he was there, Henriquez took his time rolling a cigarette. He lit it and blew out smoke and then said, “All right.”
Lyall rode back to Tularosa feeling a lot better. That hadn’t been hard at all.
When he went on duty that night he said to Bobby Valdez, “You’re all set,” and would just as soon have let it go at that, but Valdez insisted that he tell him everything. He told him. There wasn’t much to it—how the man just said, “All right.” But Valdez seemed to be satisfied.
Friday morning Lyall stopped at the Regent Café for his breakfast. Elodie was serving the counter. She was frowning and muttering about being switched to mornings just the day before Bobby Valdez’s hanging.
Lyall told her, “A nice girl like you don’t want to see a hanging.”
“It’s the principle of it,” she pouted. The principle being everybody in Tularosa was excited about Bobby Valdez hanging whether they had a stomach for it or not.
“Lyall, don’t you get scared up there alone with him?” she said with a little shiver that might have been partly real.
“What’s there to be scared of? He’s locked in a cell.”
“What if one of his friends should come to help him?