The door on the other side of the car was shut and another guy was kneeling close to it and next to my opened saddlebags. He was grinning at me and holding the S&W top-break. He wore a baseball cap over a stringy growth of hair that hung down to his collar.
“Good goddamn riddance,” he said. “I was awful tired of Weldon’s company. Same dumbshit stories all the time, you know what I mean?” He turned the gun in his hand, examining it from different angles. “Aint this a pretty thing, though? Aint seen one of these in a coon’s age.”
“Yeah, it’s an old one,” I said, slowly sitting up and making a big show of the pain from the kicks I’d taken, probing my ribs gingerly and then easing a hand behind me and wincing big. “Christ almighty, he like to broke my back.”
The tramp pointed the gun at me but hadn’t cocked it. “Young fella like yourself don’t need no gun to defend hisself as much as a old fella like me. Reckon I’ll just hold on to it.”
“Sure. Keep it.”
“Well thankee, son. You real generous. Now do me just one more kindness and jump offa this train. I appreciate we’re moving along right quick now but you hit the ground running and then roll just right you probly won’t get busted up too bad.”
“Can I at least have my bedroll,” I said. “My last two dollars are in there.”
He turned to look at the bedroll and I pulled the Mexican Colt from my waistband under the back of my jacket, cocking it as I brought it around. He heard the racheting hammer and snapped his attention back to me just in time to see me shoot him through the wishbone. The gunblast was loud but got swallowed almost instantly in the rumbling of the train. He flopped backward and against the closed door and fell over on his side with his legs in a twist.
I got up and stood over him with the .44 cocked and pointed at his head and he looked at me without expression as the light drained out of his eyes and he died. I took the top-break from his hand and put it back in the saddlebag. I snugged the .44 at the small of my back again and then opened the door a little way. There was nothing to see but passing desert. I sat and cooled myself in the rushing air and watched the country go clacking by.
The sun had set and a dull orange twilight was closing around us when the train made a whistle stop at some nowhere station. I peeked out the door on the depot side and saw the engineer leaning out of the chugging locomotive and talking to a guy in shirtsleeves on the platform. The town consisted of fewer than a dozen buildings and even at that early hour of the evening there were more darkened windows than any with light showing in them. On the other side of the train there was only open country. I shoved the dead guy out the door on that side and then jumped down and positioned him so that his head was under the boxcar and his chest wound was centered on the rail. I tossed his cap under the car and then I got back inside and closed the door. A minute later the train got rolling again.
We pulled up into Del Rio before dawn. I hunkered in the darkest corner of the boxcar and kept alert for the yard bulls, having heard stories about what rough old boys they were. I was ready to show them what rough was. But the only guys to peek into the car were a couple of kids about thirteen or fourteen who asked if anybody was in there and when I said yeah they asked if they could share the car with me. I told them to get in and keep quiet and they tossed their bindles in and helped each other aboard and then I eased the door to till it was almost closed. They said they were brothers, Charlie and Fred, and as we passed the miles together I came to learn that they’d had enough of their damn stepdaddy and were going to Houston to live with their uncle Stephen. The uncle didn’t know they were coming but they were sure he would be glad to see them, him and Aunt Beulah both.
They each had a half-dozen peanut butter sandwiches in their bindles and they were quick to offer me one. I was so hungry I took it down in about four bites and they insisted I have another. I said it was a long way to Houston and they were going to need all the food they had but they said ah hell, we was hobo buddies, wasn’t we. So I took the sandwich. I asked if they had any money and they said they sure did, they had four bits apiece. I gave them two dollars, which they refused until I convinced them I wasn’t paying for the sandwiches, I was only helping out some hobo buddies who could use a little dough on their long trip. I said they could pay me back next time we ran into each other. “Well…in that case,” Charlie the older one said, “all right then.”
We went through Spofford, Uvalde, Hondo, the floor of the car vibrating so hard it was tough to get any sleep. When the train began to slow on its approach to the San Antonio yard, I shook hands with the boys and wished them luck. I secretly hoped they wouldn’t get robbed and maybe worse by the first wolves they ran into.
The train didn’t seem to be going all that fast now, but I didn’t know how deceptive train speed could be.
“They say you supposed to try and hit the ground running,” young Fred said.
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me.”
I tossed out my saddlebags and bedroll, then crouched low at the edge of the car floor—and then jumped and tried to hit the ground running.
I went tumbling and flapping every which way and it was a wonder I didn’t crack my skull. I gashed a cheek and banged up a knee and cut my elbows and pretty much felt like I’d been stomped by a herd of horses. I sat up and saw Fred and Charlie looking back at me from the boxcar. I waved like the landing had gone just perfect and they waved back.
The knee was bloody and hurt like a sonofabitch and at first I was afraid I’d broken it. But I could stand up and hobble around so I knew it was just badly bruised. I picked up my hat and went back and got my saddlebags and roll and then gimped on out to the nearest road and found a bus stop. About an hour later a bus came along with a sign saying DOWNTOWN. I got aboard and went into San Antonio, where I hadn’t been since shortly after I was born.
I’d picked San Antonio because it was far enough from Presidio County that I didn’t think anybody would hunt me there and big enough to hide in if anybody did. I checked into a residential hotel called Los Nopales a few blocks over from the river. The room was on the second floor and the ancient elevator took forever, but at least I didn’t have to take the stairs, which would’ve been hard labor on my bad knee. The carpeting was worn and the walls were water-stained and the room smelled of bug spray, but it was cheap and would do just fine. It was a good thing I had enough money from the sale of the horse to see me through for a while because I could hardly walk and I knew the knee would stiffen up and hurt even worse before it even began to get better. The place had one bellhop, a Mex kid, and I paid him to bring me a bottle of alcohol and bandages and, in the days to follow, to keep me in cigarettes and sandwiches and magazines.
I didn’t do much of anything during the next two weeks except sleep and read and let the knee heal up. When I wasn’t reading I’d sit in the tattered armchair by the window and smoke and watch the street and sidewalk traffic passing by. For exercise I’d do sitting pushups off the arms of the chair, raising and lowering myself till my arms were burning and about to cramp, then I’d rest a bit and then do another set until I couldn’t raise myself off the chair at all. Then I’d sleep some more. I kept both revolvers under the pillow.
I wanted to know how things were at the YB but I didn’t think it was a good idea to write to Aunt Ava directly. Even if I didn’t put a return address on the envelope, somebody at the post office could be keeping an eye on her mail, with instructions to let the sheriff know about any letter that looked suspicious. It wasn’t really very likely they’d go to all that trouble but I didn’t want to take any chances. It was even less likely, though, that they’d be watching the vaqueros’ mail, and after lying low for more than a month I finally wrote a note to Esteban. I asked how things stood and how my aunt was doing and said to tell her I was all right. I didn’t tell him where I was living but said to write me back in care of general delivery at the post office on Commerce, which was two blocks from the Nopales.