Hombre
ELMORE
LEONARD
Contents
At first I wasn’t sure at all where to begin.
Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Books by Elmore Leonard
Copyright
About the Publisher
At first I wasn’t sure at all where to begin. When I asked advice, this man from the Florence Enterprise said begin at the beginning, the day the coach departed from Sweetmary with everybody aboard. Which sounded fine until I got to doing it. Then I saw it wasn’t the beginning at all. There was too much to explain at one time. Who the people were, where they were going and all. Also, starting there didn’t tell enough about John Russell.
He is the person this story is mainly about. If it had not been for him, we would all be dead and there wouldn’t be anybody telling this. So I will begin with the first time I ever saw John Russell. I think you will see why after you learn a few things about him. Three weeks went by before I saw him again and that was the day the coach left Sweetmary. It was in the afternoon, right after they had brought the McLaren girl over from Fort Thomas.
Some things, especially concerning the McLaren girl and also some of my ideas about John Russell at the time, are embarrassing to put on paper. But I was advised to imagine I was telling it to a good friend and not worry about what other people might think. Which is what I have done. If there’s anything anybody wants to skip, like innermost thoughts in places, just go ahead.
As for the title, it could be called any one of John Russell’s names; he had more than one as you will see. But I think Hombre, which Henry Mendez and others called him sometimes and just means man, is maybe the best.
For the record, the day the coach left Sweetmary was Tuesday, August 12, 1884. Figure back three weeks if you want to know what day I first met John Russell. It was not at Sweetmary, but at Delgado’s Station.
Carl Everett Allen
Contention, Arizona
1
Here is where I think it begins—with Mr. Henry Mendez, the Hatch & Hodges Division Manager at Sweetmary and still my boss at the time, asking me to ride the sixteen miles down to Delgado’s with him in the mud wagon. I suspected the trip had to do with the company shutting down this section of the stage line; Mr. Mendez would see Delgado about closing his station and take an inventory of company property. But that was only part of the reason.
It turned out I was the one had to take the inventory. Mr. Mendez had something else on his mind. As soon as we got to the station, he sent one of Delgado’s boys out to John Russell’s place to get him.
Until that day John Russell was just a name I had written in the Division account book a few times during the past year. So many dollars paid to John Russell for so many stage horses. He was a mustanger. He would chase down green horses and harness-break them; then Mr. Mendez would buy what he wanted, and Russell and two White Mountain Apaches who rode for him would deliver the horses to Delgado’s or one of the other relay stations on the way south to Benson.
Mr. Mendez had bought maybe twenty-five or thirty from him during the past year. Now, I suspected, he wanted to tell Russell not to bring in any more since we were shutting down. I asked Mr. Mendez if that was so. He said no, he had already done that. This was about something else.
Like it was a secret. That was the trouble with Mr. Mendez when I worked for him. From a distance you could never tell he was Mexican. He never dressed like one, everything white like their clothes were made out of bedsheets. He didn’t usually act like one. Except that his face, with those tobacco-stained looking eyes and drooping mustache, was always the same and you never knew what he was thinking. When he looked at you, it was like he knew something he wasn’t telling, or was laughing at you, no matter what it was he said. That’s when you could tell Henry Mendez was Mexican. He wasn’t old. Not fifty anyway.
Delgado’s boy got back while we were having some coffee and said Russell would be here. A little while later we heard horses, so we went outside.
As we stood there seeing these three riders coming toward the adobe with the dust rising behind them, Mr. Mendez said to me, “Take a good look at Russell. You will never see another one like him as long as you live.”
I will swear to the truth of that right now. Though it was not just his appearance.
The three riders came on, but giving the feeling that they were holding back some, not anxious to ride right up until they made sure everything was keno. When Russell pulled up, the two White Mountain Apaches with him slowed to a walk and came up on either side of him. Not close, out a ways, as if giving themselves room to move around in. All three of them were armed; I mean armed, with revolvers, with cartridge belts over their shoulder and carbines, which looked like Springfields at first.
As he sat there, that’s when I got my first real look at John Russell.
Picture the belt down across his chest with the sun glinting on the bullets that filled most of the loops. Picture a stained, dirty looking straight-brim hat worn almost Indian-fashion, that is, un-creased and not cocked to either side, except his brim was curled some and there was a little dent down the crown.
Picture his face half shadowed by the hat. First you just saw how dark it was. Dark as his arms with the sleeves rolled above his elbows. Dark—I swear—as the faces of the two White Mountain boys. Then you saw how long his hair was, almost covering his ears, and how clean-shaved looking his face was. Right then you suspected he was more to those Apaches than a friend or a boss. I mean he could be a blood relation, no matter what his name was, and nobody in the world would bet he wasn’t.
When Mr. Mendez spoke to him you believed it all the more. He stepped closer to John Russell’s roan horse, and I remember the first thing he said.
He said, “Hombre.”
Russell didn’t say anything. He just looked at Mr. Mendez, though you couldn’t see his eyes in the shadow of his hat brim.
“Which name today?” Mr. Mendez said. “Which do you want?”
Russell answered Mr. Mendez in Spanish then, just a few words, and Mr. Mendez said, in English, “We use John Russell. No symbol names. No Apache names. All right?” When Russell just nodded, Mr. Mendez said, “I was wondering what you decided. You said you would come to Sweetmary in two days.”
Russell used Spanish again, more this time, evidently explaining something.
“Maybe it would look different to you if you thought about it in English,” Mr. Mendez said and watched him closely. “Or if you spoke about it now in English.”
“It’s the same,” Russell said, all of a sudden in English. In good English that had only a speck of accent, just a faint edge that you would wonder every time you heard him if it really was some kind of accent.
“But it’s a big something to think about,” Mr. Mendez said. “Going to Contention. Going there to live among white men. To live as a white man on land a white man has given you. To have to speak English to people no matter what language you think in.”
“There it is,” Russell said. “I’m still thinking all the different ways.”
“Sure,” Mr. Mendez said. “You could sell the land. Buy a horse and a new gun with some of the money. Give the rest to the hungry ones at the San Carlos Indian agency. Then you got nothing.”
Russell shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“Or you sell only the herd and grow corn on the land and make tizwin, enough to keep you drunk for seven years.”
“Even that,” Russell said.
“Or you can work the herd and watch it grow,” Mr. Mendez said. “You can marry and raise a famil
y. You can live there the rest of your life.” He waited a little. “You want some more ways to picture it?”
“I have too many ways now,” Russell said. But he didn’t sound worried about it.
That didn’t satisfy Mr. Mendez. He was trying to convince him of something and kept at it. He said then, “I hear it’s a good house.”
Russell nodded. “If living there is worth it to you.”
“Man,” Mendez said, like something good was staring at Russell and he didn’t know enough to take it. “What do you want?”
Russell looked down at him. In that unhurried easy way he said, “Maybe a mescal if there’s some inside, uh?”
Delgado laughed and said something in Spanish. Mr. Mendez shrugged and both of them turned to the adobe.
I was watching Russell though. He dismounted, still holding his carbine, which I now saw was an old .56-56 Spencer, and came right toward me looking at the ground, then looking up quick as he must have sensed me. For a second we were close and I saw his eyes. They had that same tell-nothing-but-know-everything expression as Henry Mendez’s eyes. That same Mexican, Indian look. Only John Russell’s eyes were blue, light-blue looking in his Indian-dark face. Maybe that doesn’t sound like anything, but I’ll tell you it gave me the strangest feeling.
The two Apaches carried Springfields, as I had guessed. They held them cradled across one arm and even with the bullet belts and all, they looked kind of funny. Mainly because of their vests and straw hats that were very narrow and turned up all around. They went inside too and I followed.
Only I didn’t stay long. Mr. Mendez sent me out to the equipment shed to start the inventory. Then over to see about the feed stores. So it was maybe a half hour before I got back to the main adobe. Five saddle horses along with the mud wagon were standing in front now instead of three.
Inside, I saw Mr. Mendez and John Russell at one end of the long table the stage passengers sat at. Russell’s carbine lay on the table, like he never went far without it; another thing that was just like an Apache.
At the bar along the right wall stood his two Apache riders. Down from them were two more men. I didn’t look at them good till I sat down next to Mr. Mendez. Right away then I got the feeling something was going on. It was too quiet. Mendez was looking over at the bar; Russell down at his drink, as if thinking or listening.
So I looked at the two men again. I recognized them as hands who rode for a Mr. Wolgast who supplied beef to the reservation up at San Carlos. I would see them in Sweetmary every once in a while and they would most always be drunk. But it was a minute or two before I remembered their names. One was Lamarr Dean, who was about my age, maybe a year older. The other one’s name was Early; he was said to have served time at Yuma Prison.
Delgado poured them a whisky like he’d rather be doing something else. Early, who wore his hat funneled down over his eyes and ordinarily didn’t talk much, said, “I guess anybody can come in here.”
“If they allow Indians,” this Lamarr Dean said. He was looking at the two Apaches. They heard him, you could tell, but didn’t pay any attention. Of course not, I realized; they didn’t know any English.
The one named Early asked Delgado, “When did they start letting Indians drink?” I didn’t hear what Delgado answered.
Lamarr Dean stood with his side against the bar so that he was facing the first Apache. “Maybe they have been drinking tizwin,” he said. “Maybe that’s where they bought the nerve to come in here.”
Early said, “It would take a week with tizwin.”
“They got time,” Dean said. “What else do they do?”
“That’s mescal,” Early said then.
Lamarr Dean went on staring. “I guess,” he said. He moved toward the first Apache, holding his drink, his elbow sliding along the edge of the bar until he was right next to the Apache. Early stayed where he was.
“Mescal,” Lamarr Dean said. “But it’s still not allowed. Not even sticky-sweet Mex drinks.”
The first Apache, not even knowing what was going on, raised his glass. It was right up to his mouth when Lamarr Dean nudged him, reaching out and pushing him a little, and the mescal spilled over the Apache’s chin and down the front of his vest. He looked at Lamarr Dean then, not understanding, I guess not sure if it was an accident or what.
“They just can’t hold it,” Lamarr Dean said. “Nobody knows why, but it’s a fact of nature.” He raised his whisky right in front of the Apache, as if daring the Apache to try the same thing on him.
That was when Russell stood up. His eyes never left Lamarr Dean, but his right hand closed on the Spencer and it was down at his side as he walked over the few steps to the bar.
Lamarr Dean was facing the Apache, starting to drink, sipping at the whisky to give the Apache all the chance he needed. Like saying come on, nudge my arm and see what happens. Then his chin raised as he started to down the whisky.
Russell was right there. But he didn’t nudge him. He didn’t ask or tell him to leave the Apache alone. Or say anything like, “If you want to pick on somebody, try me.” He didn’t give Lamarr a chance to know he was there.
He just swung the barrel of the Spencer up clean and quick and before you had a chance to believe it was happening the barrel shattered the glass right against Lamarr Dean’s mouth. Lamarr jumped back, dropping the broken pieces and with blood all over his hand and face.
I think he would have tore into Russell the next second, with his fists or his revolver, but now the Spencer was leveled at his belly, almost touching it. Early had his hand on his gun, but it had happened so fast even he couldn’t do anything.
Russell said, “No more, uh?”
Lamarr Dean didn’t say anything. I don’t think he could talk.
Russell said, “Before you leave, put money down for a mescal.”
That was John Russell, no older than I was at twenty-one and no more Apache than I was. Except he had lived with them—the wild free ones in the mountains and the wild caught ones up at San Carlos—about half his life and that made the difference. He was perhaps one-part Mexican, according to Mr. Mendez, and three-parts white. But I will go into more of that a little later. Right here I just wanted to tell about the first time I ever saw him.
Now, three weeks later, here is where I was advised to begin—with them bringing the McLaren girl over from Fort Thomas in an ambulance wagon and the lieutenant taking her right into the Alamosa Hotel.
I was out in front of the Hatch & Hodges office at the time, directly across the street, and I got a clear look at the girl even with all the people around. She was seventeen or eighteen and certainly pretty. Though maybe pretty wasn’t the word, the way her hair was cut almost as short as a boy’s and her face dark from the sun. But she looked good anyway. Even after living with Apaches over a month and after all the things they must have done to her.
Somebody said the girl had been taken by Chiricahuas on a raid and held four or five weeks before a patrol out of Fort Thomas surprised their ranchería and found her. She had stayed at Thomas a while and now this officer was to put her on a stage for home. Some place around St. David.
Only by now there weren’t any more southbound stages, and there hadn’t been for over a week. There were notices all over, but that was like the Army to bring her all the way over to Sweetmary not knowing Hatch & Hodges had shut down its stage service. They told the lieutenant over at the hotel, but he wanted to hear it directly from the company. So he sent one of the escort soldiers for Henry Mendez who went right over.
I stayed out front hoping to get another look at the girl if she came out. That’s why I was still there when John Russell appeared, which was some fifteen minutes later.
Somebody might laugh, but just for something to do I was picturing the McLaren girl and I sitting alone in the hotel café. We were talking and I heard myself say, “It must have been a very terrible experience, being with those Apaches.” Her eyes stayed on her coffee, and she didn’t say anything to that.
So we talked about other things. I heard myself speaking calmly in a low tone, telling her how I would be looking into some other business now that this office was closing. Go some place else. With no family here there was nothing to keep me. Then I pictured us traveling together. (Do you see how one thing led to another?) But what would we travel in?
That’s when I thought of the mud wagon, the light spring coach Mr. Mendez and I had taken to Delgado’s that day. It was still here.
I said to the McLaren girl, “Since you’re anxious to leave and there’s no regular stage, I wonder if you would like to ride along with me?” (Which proves that using the mud wagon was my idea; whether Mr. Mendez agrees or not.)
Then I skipped the part where she says yes and goes and gets her things and all and pictured the two of us in the coach again. It was night and we were traveling south. Above the wind and the rattle sounds I’d hear her start to cry and put my arm around her and lift her chin and say something that would calm her. She’d sniffle and nestle closer, and even with the peculiar haircut I’d know she wasn’t any boy.
We might have rode along in that coach the whole night while I just stood there in front of the office. But both the McLaren girl and the coach disappeared the second I saw John Russell. The new John Russell.
He was sitting his roan horse on this side of the street but down a ways. He was watching the hotel, sitting there like he’d always been there. Smoking a cigarette, I remember that too. But the only thing I recognized about him right away was his hat, worn straight and the brim just curled a little.
Now he had on a suit. It was a pretty worn dark gray one, but it fit him all right. You could see that his hair had been cut. Without the hair covering the ears and that shell belt and all he wasn’t someone you would stare at. At least not till you saw him close.
That was not till a few minutes later. Until Mr. Mendez came out of the hotel and Russell nudged his roan up to in front of the office. As he dismounted he looked at me over the saddle and there was that tell-nothing expression, looking at me no different than the way he had looked at Lamarr Dean the moment before he broke a whisky glass against his mouth.