As though it were a social Sunday picnic the young Shelby had named all of them for her. Somehow the names had lodged; it was a habit she had developed on purpose as a schoolteacher. Each term on the first day of class she asked each new student his name, and had a way of fixing her stare on the pupil’s face so as to memorize it and associate the name with it. Dear Lord, that classroom was in another world.
The sky was red to the west. The little one, Cesar Menendez, had walked out onto the point of rock with Provo and she heard Provo’s toneless voice. “Coming right along.” Provo lowered the telescope and pushed it shut.
Menendez said, “Burgade with them?”
“Too far away to tell. But he’s got to be. Wild horses couldn’t hold the bastard back.” Provo turned on his heel and came back toward them. His cold stare flicked across Susan; for a moment she closed her eyes, trying to shut it all out, but a twanging voice which she identified as Portugee Shiraz’s said, “I got to take a leak.” She opened her eyes and saw Portugee, unbuttoning his fly, walk off into the rocks, the bad teeth showing in his vulpine face. His skin was dark as George Weed’s but his features were not as heavily Negroid. They were a strange mixture of races, these convicts—only two of them. Will Gant and young Mike Shelby, were (or at least appeared to be) white men; Provo had a leathery Indian face, Portugee Shiraz was at least part black, George Weed was the color of a charred steak, Taco Riva appeared to be Mexican-Indian, Menendez of the same stock, and the silent Joaquim Quesada, big-faced and half bald, probably had as much mestizo blood as Spanish conquistador in him.
In some way, keeping them all sorted out this way seemed a necessary exercise in the preservation of sanity. Identifying them by color and cheekbone-shape was an arbitrary way to classify them but it kept her brain busy; as she heard them speak more, she would start sorting them out by personality and talents.… What was this madness? They weren’t fourth-grade pupils! You have got to get a grip on yourself.
When Portugee came back she saw Zach Provo pick up the reins of his horse. “Mount up.”
“Aw, Jesus, Zach,” said Portugee, “I’m tard.”
“Posse down there,” Menendez told him in a casual way. “You want to es-sleep till they get here and arres’ you, Portugee?”
“Hell, they got to keep their distance long as we got her.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Will Gant, and came around from the far side of his horse to face Portugee and Zach Provo.
Portugee said, “Then what’d we brang her for?”
“Because Zach wants to sweat old Sam Burgade.”
Portugee scowled and bit a hangnail on his thumb. She saw Mike Shelby turn to watch the byplay. Will Gant said, “Time we got one or two thangs straight, Zach.”
“No time for that now.”
Mike Shelby said, “Maybe let him get it off his chest. He’s lookin’ as unhappy as a soaked cat.” He smiled in a friendly way. Quesada looked on, mute; Taco Riva was holding his horse by the bit chains, murmuring to it, indifferent to the others.
Will Gant shifted his stance. He seemed to realize he had thrown raw meat on the ground. He cleared his throat and said irresolutely, “Look, all I mean is, we come all the way down here on Zach’s say-so to git us a heap of money, and what’d we end up with? A few dollars pocket change. All’s we want now is get shet of that posse. Maybe as long as we hang onto this girl we keep them at arm’s length, but ain’t nothing stopping them from tracking us, don’t matter where we go. We can’t hide out with them ten mile behint us. We keep going like this and sooner or later they going to rail us, girl or no girl. We can’t all stand in a line behint her when the bullets start flying. What I say, we ought to split up soon as we get acrosst these mountains. Everbody go their own way. Posse can’t chase all of us if we all go different ways.”
Provo said, “You’re talking out of turn, Will.”
“No. You ain’t my warden, Zach. Look, you want to get Sam Burgade hogtied and sweatin’, that’s your lookout. But we ain’t forgetting Sam Burgade would like to see you right where you’d like to see him. You was born to get hung, Zach, and I don’t rightly see no reason why the rest of us got to get hung alongside of you. You go ahead and play out your string with Burgade, that’s your binness, ain’t nobody trying to stop you. But I don’t cotton to it myself. I’m fixin’ to go my own way once we over the top.”
“You’re wasting wind,” Provo said. “Are you fool enough to think that’s the only posse in Arizona? By now they’ve got those cross-country wires spliced together and they’ve sent word on us out to every hick town in the state. I’m the only thing in the world that’s keeping you out of their hands, Will—me and missy, here. You go busting off on your own and they’ll hunt you down in no time flat.”
“I guess I’ll just take that chance.”
Susan glanced toward Menendez. His sharp little face was watchful and immobile. She looked away, chilled, and plucked at the frayed seams of her ripped sunbonnet. Provo had ripped a big piece of it off to hang on a twig down in Rose Canyon where her father couldn’t miss seeing it. Poisoned, she thought—His mind’s poisoned She was beginning to wake up, she realized; her body was going rigid, starting to tremble.
Portugee said in his high-pitched twang, “He’s rat, Zach. No hard feelings, now, but you got us this far on yo’ promise that we was gonna get a lot of money out of that smelter. Maybe it wasn’t yo’ fault, maybe lak you said it was Burgade put them up to it, but all the same we just as broke as we was before. I reckon I got as good a chance my own self as I got stickin’ with you-all.”
“No,” Provo said. “We stay together. All of us.”
Will Gant moved wider away from Portugee, snapped a glance at Menendez, and said, “What the hell for, Zach? Why you so damn set on keepin’ us together?”
“It’s for your own good, Will.” But even to Susan it sounded lame; she looked at Provo in bewilderment. She saw his eyes flicker, shifting from face to face, and knew what he was doing—he was measuring each one of them, sizing them up. Probably trying to decide how many were on his side. She hadn’t sorted out all their loyalties and knew nothing of their motives, but it was clear that for whatever reason, Menendez was Provo’s ally. As for the rest, it was impossible for her to tell. She had a feeling Shelby was willing to go along with Provo, but not to the extent of fighting the others over it. Taco Riva didn’t seem to care about much of anything except the horses. Quesada was unfathomable. George Weed had not spoken ten words in her hearing and she had no idea of his sentiments—until now, when Weed stirred and spoke:
“Maybe you better spell out whatever it is you got in mind, Zach. Then we can decide.”
Provo seemed indignant. “I’ve pulled all of you through this far, haven’t I? You know what happened to the rest of the cons that busted out with us, don’t you? Every one of them ended up back in Yuma. All except you men—because I took you under my wing. You’re still loose because I’m the only one with brains enough to keep you loose. And you want to walk out on me. All right, walk. See how far you get.” He wheeled to his horse in anger and gathered the reins to mount.
It was Quesada, strangely, who spoke: “That’s not enough anymore, Zach.”
It turned Provo around. “What?”
The big bald-headed man had a slow, apologetic way of talking. He looked like a drunk, with his purplish face and big red nose and shifty eyes. “You had a plan, before. We was gonna get enough money to get out of the country. Like Portugee said, maybe it wasn’t your fault the money wasn’t there. But at least we had it to shoot for. What we got to shoot for now? What are you offering us?”
Provo snorted. “Your skins.”