Watching him, nobody said a word, waiting to see if he remembered the waterskin.
Alongside one of the buildings was a trough with a hand pump at one end of it. When Dr. Favor saw it, he ran over and started pumping. He fell on his knees and kept on pumping, his shoulders and arms moving up and down, up and down, keeping at it even when he must have known he wasn’t going to get any water. After a few minutes he was pumping slower and slower. Finally he fell over the pump and held on there, not moving.
Inside the shack it was quiet as could be.
I remember when the McLaren girl spoke it was hardly above a whisper. I was by the other window with Mendez; Russell was by the door; but we all heard her. “He doesn’t remember it,” she said.
None of the others spoke.
“We have to tell him,” she said then, calm and quiet about it, stating a fact, not just giving in to pity at the sight of him.
“We don’t do anything,” Russell said from the door. He kept his gaze on Dr. Favor who had sat down now, one arm still on the pump handle.
“You can look at that man,” the McLaren girl said, “and not want to help him?” She was staring at Russell now.
“He’ll move off,” Russell said. “Then you won’t have to look at him.”
“But he’s dying of thirst. You can see he is!”
“What did you think would happen?” Russell said. He looked at her then. “You didn’t think you’d see him again. So yesterday was all right, uh?”
“If I didn’t speak up yesterday,” the McLaren girl said, “I was wrong.”
“You’d feel better if he had run off with the water?”
“That has nothing to do with him down there now.”
“But if you were down there,” Russell said, “and he was up here.”
“You just don’t understand, do you?” the McLaren girl said.
Russell kept staring at her. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to help him!” She raised her voice a little, like she was running out of patience.
It didn’t seem to bother Russell any. He said, “You want to go down to him? Make tracks on that slope that hasn’t been touched in five years? You want to make signs pointing up where we are?”
“The man’s dying of thirst!” She screamed it at Russell. She had run clean out of patience and threw the words right at him.
I don’t mean she screamed so loud Dr. Favor heard her. He had now got up from the pump and was moving along the front of the company buildings, reaching the one we had stopped at the day before yesterday and looking up at it.
I held my breath again. Maybe he’d remembered the waterskin. But no, he went on by.
The next thing I knew the McLaren girl was out the window and running down the slope. Russell was out the door but too late to stop her. He stood there in front of the shack, Mendez and I by the window, and watched her raising little dust trails down the grade, seeing her getting smaller and smaller.
Near the bottom the McLaren girl called out. We saw Dr. Favor stop and look around. (He must have been surprised out of his shoes.) He started toward her, but she was yelling something at him now, motioning to the company building.
He stood there a second, then was almost running in his hurry to get to the building, the McLaren girl waiting now to see if he’d find the waterskin.
We were watching all this. We saw him reach the front of the place, just out from the shade formed by the veranda, and that’s where he stopped. Right away he started backing off, like edging away. Next thing he had turned and was running toward the McLaren girl who didn’t know what was going on anymore than we did and stood there watching him.
As he got close he must have said something. The McLaren girl started up the grade, looking back at the company building as she did.
About then was when he appeared. It was Early. He came out of the veranda shade, to the edge of it, and stood there with a Colt gun in one hand and a canteen in the other-evidently the canteen with whisky in it which the Mexican had mentioned to John Russell, for I think Early was drunk or close to it. The way he stood, his boots wide apart, looked like he was steadying himself. I won’t swear to it because there wasn’t time to get a good look at him.
He started firing his Colt, waving it toward us or at the McLaren girl and Dr. Favor as they came up the grade, causing Mendez and me to duck down, and firing until his gun was empty. He started yelling then, but we couldn’t make out any of it.
I kept waiting for Braden and the others to appear, but they didn’t. Not right then. Evidently Early had been sent on ahead, Braden figuring we would come this way.
I was still there at the window when the McLaren girl and Dr. Favor reached the shack. She came inside and went out again with the canteen and gave it to Dr. Favor who drank until she yanked it away from his mouth. He yanked back, held onto it and handed it to Russell. I think he could tell from looking at Russell that saving him had been just the McLaren girl’s idea. He seemed to be smiling some, like the joke was on Russell.
“You will learn something about white people,” he said to Russell. “They stick together.”
“They better,” Mendez said. “We all better.”
Just for a second there was the old tell-nothing Henry Mendez talking. It sounded good after seeing the other side of him for two days. He wasn’t looking at Dr. Favor. I noticed then Russell was looking off down the slope too.
Like they had been following Dr. Favor (and no doubt they had), there came the Mexican on foot, Frank Braden and the Favor woman each on a horse, this little procession coming down out of the south pass, keeping close to the other side and in no hurry at all. The Mexican raised his arm up and waved.
We were all back together again. Right back where we had started. Except now we were up on that shelf of rock, looking down and seeing them moving up canyon and dismounting in front of the company building that was straight across from us and drawing their rifles.
You think about an awful lot of things at once. That we should be doing something; getting out of there or doing something. That this never should have happened. That if it wasn’t for the McLaren girl and her act of kindness to a man who didn’t deserve it, they never would have found us; they would have looked up at that bare unmarked slope and gone right on. Maybe you would like to have said something to the McLaren girl. It was a temptation. But only Mendez did.
He said, “You see?” looking at Dr. Favor and then at the McLaren girl in the doorway. “You see?” he said again, wanting to say more, but just shaking his head as he thought of everything at once.
The McLaren girl had been quiet, but I think Mendez made her mad. She said, “I’d do it again. Knowing they were there I’d do it again. What do you think of that!”
“He’s not worth it!” Mendez said, keeping his teeth together so he wouldn’t scream it at her. Still it was loud.
“Who are you to say who’s worth it!” When she got mad, she spoke out, as you have seen.
Dr. Favor didn’t get into it. He was running his tongue over his swollen lips, I think still tasting the water.
And Russell. Russell, still outside squatted down, sitting back on his heels. He was smoking a cigarette, gazing over across the canyon. Russell didn’t look at the McLaren girl (not then) or say anything to anybody. Russell was Russell.
He just smoked the cigarette as he watched Braden and the others over in front of the company building, watching them take the two horses into the shade of the built-up, second-story veranda, watching the Mexican come out again in the sunlight and walk up and down in a show-offy way, his hands on his hips and looking up toward where we were.
That’s when Russell came inside the shack. Next thing I knew he was at the other window with the Spencer at his shoulder. I doubt the Mexican saw him. I’m sure he didn’t else he would have done something before Russell fired.