‘You want a ticket fer the next coach?’
‘Just one,’ said Azul. ‘When’s it leave?’
‘Be three days afore the next.’ The oldster chewed his wad. ‘Sell you a seat now if you want to go to Lordsburg. If you want to go to Deming, that’ll be a week. Other places take longer.’
‘Lordsburg’ll do,’ said Azul. ‘How much?’
‘Fifteen dollars,’ said the old man. ‘An’ twenty cents fer each item o’ baggage on top.’
Cal Backenhauser shrugged and sighed: ‘All right. I guess I can afford that.’
‘How much baggage you got?’ asked the old man. ‘I gotta know so I can fix the register.’
‘Just saddlebags,’ said Azul. ‘Nothing more.’
‘Forty cents then,’ said the oldster. ‘Twenty fer each bag.’
Backenhauser paid over the money and collected his tickets.
When they got outside, he asked Azul, ‘What about my horse? And the saddle?’
‘Sell them,’ said the half-breed. ‘You could even make a profit.’
‘Only prophet I heard lately has been you,’ said the artist. ‘And you’re pretty doomy.’
‘You’re still alive,’ said Azul. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Just.’ The Englishman sneezed. ‘I still think I got pneumonia.’
‘Better than a bullet in your head,’ said Azul. ‘Best you get out before Dumfries comes looking.’
‘You think he will?’ asked Backenhauser. ‘Will he really follow us this far?’
‘Maybe,’ answered the half-breed. ‘There’s no way of telling, not with a man like that. So it’s best to leave the questions unanswered and ride away alive.’
‘You won’t do that, though,’ said the artist. ‘Will you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Azul said. ‘Why ask anyway? You’re safe now, so go away.’
‘Spotting the character,’ said Backenhauser, ‘like I told you I get the feeling you’re the kind of man who doesn’t run from anything. So you won’t run from Dumfries.’
‘Maybe not,’ said the half-breed, ‘but that doesn’t stop you from doing the sensible thing.’
‘No,’ said Backenhauser, ‘I guess it doesn’t. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to paint a great picture either.’
‘You stay around me,’ said Azul, ‘and you could get hurt.’
‘A man’s got to put a bit of himself into everything he does,’ said the artist. ‘Even if it’s his own blood.’
Chapter Six
AZUL WAS NOT the kind of man to spend time analyzing his actions. He reacted to a situation, usually in the most direct way, allowing instinct to dictate his movements. Had he been forced to define the motivation of his life; he might well have answered simply: Staying alive. So he felt no compunction, no pangs of conscience about killing the two cowboys back on the ridge. Nor any for the two men shot in San Jacinto. In both cases a situation had arisen in which his life had been threatened, and he had reacted in the only way he knew how: by striking back. He had never thought to wonder just what had prompted him to help Cal Backenhauser in the saloon; had simply reacted. He had given the two men the chance to put down their guns and walk away, but they had chosen to push the fight, thus bringing about their own deaths. And again, at the mountain meadow, he had given Amos Dumfries and his men the chance to ride away free — and alive. That they, too, had chosen to fight was a confrontation of their own making. His conscience was clear.
What did confuse him was the reluctance he felt to leave Placeras, to leave Backenhauser to the dangers of Dumfries’s anger.
He knew that the most sensible thing was to ride on; lose himself in the mountainous country of his boyhood. Forget about the English artist and the vengeance-bent rancher. But when he got ready to go, he changed his mind. If Dumfries had managed to get remounted, he could reach Placeras before the stage left. Even if he had walked all the way back to San Jacinto he could still reach the town — riding hard and using relays of horses in time to catch Backenhauser. And if he did catch up, Azul had little doubt what would happen to the artist.
He grunted, annoyed with himself; and began to unsaddle the gray.
‘I thought you were going,’ said the Englishman.
‘I was,’ said the half-breed.
‘But now you’re not?’
‘No:
‘You changed your mind?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘You talk too much. I’ll buy you a drink.’
‘Thanks.’
The interior of the Silver Dollar was bright with the light of kerosene lanterns and gloomy with a fug of smoke. The air was thick with the reek of cheap whiskey, tobacco, and sweat. There was a faint, pungent odor of horse dung. The single room had a plank bar running down the right-hand side, pine planks nailed to barrels, with rickety shelves behind supporting the bottles. There were tables and chairs spaced out around the sawdust-covered floor, and dented brass spittoons at opportune intervals. It was full, the hum of conversation dulling out the tinkling of the piano at the far end, where a Negro in a striped shirt and a black derby was sweating and sipping beer as he fingered the keys.
