The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [29]
The trail dipped abruptly into a dry creek basin that slanted down from between rocky humps looming close to the right. Angsman reined his mount diagonally down the bank, then at the bottom kicked hard to send the mare into a fast start up the opposite bank. The gravel loosened and fell away as hooves dug through the dry crust to clink against the sandy rock. Momentarily the horse began to fall back, but Angsman spurred again and grunted something close to her ear to make the mare heave and kick up over the bank.
He rode on a few yards before turning to wait for the others.
Billy Guay reached the creek bank and yelled across, without hesitating, “Hey, Angsman, you tryin’ to pick the roughest damn trail you can find?”
The scout winced as the voice slammed against the towering rock walls and drifted over the flats, vibrating and repeating far off in the distance. He threw off and ran to the creek bank. Billy Guay began to laugh as the echo came back to him. “Damn, Ed. You hear that!” His voice carried clear and loud across the arroyo. Angsman put a finger to his mouth and shook his head repeatedly when he saw Ed Hyde looking his way. Then Hyde leaned close and said something to the boy. He heard Billy Guay swear, but not so loud, and then there was silence.
Now, ten days from the time the message had brought him to the hotel in Willcox, he wasn’t so sure it was worth it.
In the hotel room Hyde had come to the point immediately. Anxiety showed on his face, but he smiled when he asked the point-blank question “How’d you like to be worth half a hundred thousand dollars?” With that he waved the piece of dirty paper in front of Angsman’s face. “It’s right here. Find us the picture of a Spanish sombrero and we’re rich.” That simply.
Angsman had all the time in the world. He smoked a cigarette and thought. Then he asked, “Why me? There’re a lot of prospectors around here.”
Hyde did something with his eye that resembled a wink. “You’re well recommended here in Willcox. They say you know the country better than most. And the Apaches better than anybody,” Hyde said with a hint of self-pride for knowing so much about the scout. “Billy here and I’ll give you an equal share of everything we find if you can guide us to one little X on a piece of paper.”
Billy Guay had said little that first meeting. He half-sat on the small window ledge trying to stare Angsman down when the scout looked at him. And Angsman smiled when he noticed the boy’s two low-slung pistols, thinking a man must be a pretty poor shot with one pistol that he’d have to carry another. And when Billy Guay tried to stare him down, he stared back with the half smile and it made the boy all the madder; so mad that often, then, he interrupted Hyde to let somebody know that he had something to say about the business at hand.
Ed Hyde told a story of a lost mine and a prospector who had found the mine, but was unable to take any gold out because of Indians, and who was lucky to get out with just his skin. He referred to the prospector always as “my friend,” and finally it turned out that “my friend” was buffalo hunting out of Tascosa in the Panhandle, along with Ed Hyde, raising a stake to try the mine again, when he “took sick and died.” The two of them were out on a hunt when it happened and he left the map to Hyde, “since I saw him through his sickness.” Ed Hyde remained silent for a considerable length of time after telling of the death of his friend.
Then he added, “I met Billy here later on and took to him ’cause he’s got the nerve for this kind of business.” He looked at Billy Guay as a man looks at a younger man and sees his own youth. “Just one thing more, mister,” he added. “If you say yes and look at the map, you don’t leave our sight.”
In the Southwest, lost-mine stories are common. Angsman had heard many, and knew even more prospectors who chased the legends. He