The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [175]
Hyatt grinned. “Honey, I did.”
“I think I’m glad they’re hanging you,” she said.
Hyatt shrugged. One of the possemen took Mitchell’s arm. He looked at the woman and their eyes held lingeringly. Come on, he thought. You couldn’t say it in minutes, so don’t say it at all. He turned and followed Hyatt across the clearing and he knew that the woman was watching him.
“Get ’em up,” Dyke ordered.
THEY WERE LIFTED onto the horses and a mounted man rode between them and adjusted the riata loops over their heads. Dyke looked up at them. “Mr. Rady seems to’ve lost his fight.”
Hyatt grinned. “He’s turned honest.”
Mitchell looked at him. “You proved your point. Now you’re wearing it out.”
Hyatt’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he was silent and he watched Mitchell curiously. “You ever see a hanging?” he asked then.
Mitchell shook his head. “No.”
“If your neck don’t bust, you strangle awhile.” His eyes stayed on Mitchell. “You scared?”
Mitchell shrugged. “Probably, the same as you are.”
A bewildered look crossed Hyatt’s face. Apparently he had expected Mitchell to panic now, to lose control of himself pleading for his life, but he was at ease and he sat the sorrel without moving. He leaned closer so that only Mitchell could hear him say, “Rady’s ten miles away by now; but in another minute he’ll be legally, officially dead.”
“I’d say I was doing him some favor,” Mitchell answered.
Hyatt hesitated, and the cloud of uncertainty clouded his face again. He wanted to whisper, but his voice rasped. “You’re going to hang! You understand that? Hang!”
Mitchell nodded. “The same as you are.”
Hyatt’s teeth clenched. He was about to say more, but he stopped.
Mitchell looked down at Dyke. “He’s going to foam at the mouth in a minute.”
Dyke shook his head. “He don’t have that long.”
But now Hyatt was looking at Mitchell calmly, without bewilderment, and without the brooding anger that had been a knife edge inside of him since the fight. That had started to die as they sat by the wagon. He had tried to bring it back by taunting Mitchell, but it was no use. His anger was dead and even the memory of it seemed senseless and unimportant. Mitchell was a man. Give him credit for it.
That’s how it happened. That’s what caused Hyatt to say, unexpectedly, “Reach in the side of my boot; the right one.”
Dyke looked at him. “What for?”
“Just do it!”
Hyatt’s eyes returned to Mitchell. “You either got more guts than any man I ever saw… or else you’re the dumbest.”
Dyke’s two fingers came out of the boot lifting the folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and his eyes went over it slowly.
The two granite-faced men, at the very gates of a hot and waiting hell, stared stonily down at the executioner.
Dyke read it completely: the formal phrasing of the discharge order, the written-in-ink portion that described the soldier, and the scrawled, illegible signature at the bottom. He looked at the date again. Then, and only then, did he look at Mitchell.
Their eyes met briefly before Dyke turned away. He said to the men near him, “Take him down and untie him,” and started toward the edge of the trees, walking with his head down. He stopped then and turned. “Hyatt Earl too. We’re taking him to Mojave.”
When his hands were cut loose, Mitchell walked over to Dyke. “Can I have my order now?”
Dyke handed it to him. “Listen, if I tried to tell you I’m sorry—”
Mitchell turned away. Don’t listen to that, he thought. You might hit him. Don’t even think of Hyatt. He looked over at the woman and saw her watching him. Then stopped. He’d have plenty of time to talk to her. And he thought, feeling the relief, but still holding himself calm: You’ve carried it this far. Hang on one more minute.
He turned back to Dyke and said, “Don’t take it so hard, we all make mistakes.”
21
The Rancher’s Lady
Original Title: The Woman from Tascosa
Western Magazine, September 1955
THEY CAME TO Anton Chico on the morning stage, Willis Calender and his son, Jim; the man getting out of the coach first, stretching the stiffness from his back and squaring the curled-brim