Valdez Is Coming Read Free

was working with some Indians. The nigger thought Erin would tell the Army people, so he shot him and ran off with a woman.”
    “And you saw him this morning.”
    “I had come in last night to see this gentleman,” Mr. Tanner said, nodding toward Malson. “This morning I was getting ready to leave when I saw him, him and the woman.”
    “I was right there,” R. L. Davis said. “Right, Mr. Tanner? Him and I was on the porch by the Republic Hotel and Rincón goes by in the wagon. Mr. Tanner said, ‘You know that man?’ I said, ‘Only that he’s lived up north of town a few months. Him and his woman.’ ‘Well, I know him,’ Mr. Tanner said. ‘That man’s an Army deserter wanted for murder.’ I said, ‘Well let’s go get him.’ He had a start on us and that’s how he got to the hut before we could grab on to him. He’s been holed up ever since.”
    Mr. Malson said, “Then you didn’t talk to him.”
    “Listen,” Mr. Tanner said, “I’ve kept that man’s face before my eyes this past year.”
    Bob Valdez, somewhat behind Mr. Tanner and to the side, moved in a little closer. “You know this is the same man?”
    Mr. Tanner looked around. He stared at Valdez. That’s all he did, just stared.
    “I mean, we have to be sure,” Bob Valdez said. “It’s a serious thing.”
    Now Mr. Malson and Mr. Beaudry were looking up at him. “We,” Mr. Beaudry said. “I’ll tell you what, Roberto. We need help we’ll call you. All right?”
    “You hired me,” Bob Valdez said, standing alone above them. He was serious, but he shrugged and smiled a little to take the edge off the words. “What did you hire me for?”
    “Well,” Mr. Beaudry said, acting it out, looking up past Bob Valdez and along the road both ways. “I was to see some drunk Mexicans, I’d point them out.”
    After that, for a while, the men with the whiskey bottle forgot Bob Valdez. They stayed in the shade of the hollow watching the line shack, waiting for the Army deserter to realize it was all over for him. He would realize it and open the door and be cut down as he came outside. It was a matter of time only.
    Bob Valdez stayed on the open part of the slope that was turning to shade, sitting now like an Apache with a suit on and every once in a while making a cigarette and smoking it slowly and thinking about himself and Mr. Tanner and the others, then thinking about the Army deserter, then thinking about himself again.
    He didn’t have to stay here. He didn’t have to be a town constable. He didn’t have to work for the stage company. He didn’t have to listen to Mr. Beaudry and Mr. Malson and smile when they said those things. He didn’t have a wife or any kids. He didn’t have land that he owned. He could go anywhere he wanted.
    Diego Luz was coming over. Diego Luz had a wife and a daughter almost grown and some little kids and he had to stay, sure.
    Diego Luz squatted next to him, his arms on his knees and his big hands that he used for breaking horses hanging in front of him.
    “Stay near if they want you for something,” Bob Valdez said. He was watching Beaudry tilt the bottle up. Diego Luz said nothing.
    “One of them bends over,” Bob Valdez said then, “you kiss it, uh?”
    Diego Luz looked at him, patient about it. Not angry or stirred. “Why don’t you go home?”
    “He says get me a bottle, you run.”
    “I get it. I don’t run.”
    “Smile and hold your hat, uh?”
    “And don’t talk so much.”
    “Not unless they talk to you first.”
    “You better go home,” Diego said.
    Bob Valdez said, “That’s why you hit the horses.”
    “Listen,” Diego Luz said. “They pay me to break horses. They pay you to talk to drunks and keep them from killing somebody. They don’t pay you for what you think or how you feel. So if you take their money keep your mouth shut. All right?”
    Bob Valdez smiled. “I’m kidding you.”
    Diego Luz got up and walked away, down toward the hollow. The hell with him, he was