The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [241]
“I’m not sure I’ve had the pleasure,” Sarah Isham said. “Why does he stand there?”
“I don’t know,” Ruben Vega said. “He seems worried about something.”
“I’ve warned you,” Mr. Isham said. “You can walk out or be dragged out.”
Ruben Vega said, “He has something about wanting to drag people.
Why is that?” And again heard Sarah’s laugh, a giggle now that she covered with her hand. Then she looked up at her husband, her face with its blue tribal lines raised to the soft light of the dining room.
She said, “John, look at me. …Won’t you please sit with us?”
Now it was as if the man had to make a moral decision, first consult his conscience, then consider the manner in which he would pull the chair out—the center of attention. When finally he was seated, upright on the chair and somewhat away from the table, Ruben Vega thought, All that to sit down. He felt sorry for the man now, because the man was not the kind who could say what he felt.
Sarah said, “John, can you look at me?”
He said, “Of course I can.”
“Then do it. I’m right here.”
“We’ll talk later,” her husband said.
She said, “When? Is there a visitor’s day?”
“You’ll be coming to the house, soon.”
“You mean to see it?”
“To live there.”
She looked at Ruben Vega with just the trace of a smile, a sad one. Then said to her husband, “I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know you. So I don’t know if I want to be married to you. Can you understand that?”
Ruben Vega was nodding as she spoke. He could understand it. He heard the man say, “But we are married. I have an obligation to you and I respect it. Don’t I provide for you?”
Sarah said, “Oh, my God—” and looked at Ruben Vega. “Did you hear that? He provides for me.” She smiled again, not able to hide it, while her husband began to frown, confused.
“He’s a generous man,” Ruben Vega said, pushing up from the table. He saw her smile fade, though something warm remained in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I have to leave. I’m going on a trip tonight, south, and first I have to pick up a few things.” He moved around the table to take one of her hands in his, not caring what the husband thought. He said, “You’ll do all right, whatever you decide. Just keep in mind there’s no one else in the world like you.”
She said, “I can always charge admission. Do you think ten cents a look is too high?”
“At least that,” Ruben Vega said. “But you’ll think of something better.”
He left her there in the dining room of the Charles Crooker Hotel in Benson, Arizona—maybe to see her again sometime, maybe not—and went out with a good conscience to take some of her husband’s cattle.
30
“Hurrah for Captain Early!„
New Trails, New York, Doubleday, 1994
(Western Writers of America Anthology)
THE SECOND BANNER said HERO OF SAN JUAN HILL. Both were tied to the upstairs balcony of the Congress Hotel and looked down on La Salle Street in Sweetmary, a town named for a coppermine. The banners read across the building as a single statement. This day that Captain Early was expected home from the war in Cuba, over now these two months, was October 10, 1898.
The manager of the hotel and one of his desk clerks were the first to observe the colored man who entered the lobby and dropped his bedroll on the red velvet settee where it seemed he was about to sit down. Bold as brass. A tall, well-built colored man wearing a suit of clothes that looked new and appeared to fit him as though it might possibly be his own and not one handed down to him. He wore the suit, a stiff collar, and a necktie. With the manager nearby but not yet aware of the intruder, the young desk clerk spoke up, raised his voice to tell the person, “You can’t sit down there.”
The colored man turned his attention to the desk, taking a moment before he said, “Why is that?”
His quiet tone caused the desk clerk to hesitate and look over at the manager, who stood holding the day’s mail, letters that had arrived on the El Paso & Southwestern morning run along with several guests now registered at the hotel and, apparently, this colored person. It was hard to tell his age, other