"Getting warmer, Mr. Patterson," he said. Which is what he always said.
"Have you seen the boy?" I asked. And was a little surprised when he nodded right away.
"Saw him this morning."
"How so?"
"Well," Terry said, "I was over to Dos Fuegos last week, and you know that big black-haired lieutenant, the married one with the little boy?" I nodded. "He sold me one of his son"s shirts. A red one from St. Louis."
"And you gave it to the boy."
Terry nodded. "Regalo."
"You rode all the way over to Dos Fuegos to buy a shirt for the boy."
"A red one-"
"From St. Louis. How"d he like it?"
181 181 "He liked it fine."
"How"d Repper like it?"
"He was in the shack."
Terry asked me if I"d seen the boy and I told him no. Repper had kept to his horse camp since the first time he brought the boy in. Terry said the boy looked all right in body, but not in his eyes.
Later on, after I"d closed up, the three of us were sitting in back having something to eat-Deelie showing off what a good cook she was-when I heard someone at the front door.
Everyone in Banderas knows what time I close; still, it could have been something special, so I walked up front through the dark store and opened the door.
Maybe you"ve guessed it. I sure didn"t. It was the boy, Regalo. He just stood there and I had to take him by the arm and bring him inside. Then, when we reached the light, I saw what was the matter.
He had on the red shirt but the back of it was almost in shreds, and crisscrossing his bare skin were raw welts, ugly red-looking burns like a length of manila had been sanded across his back a couple of dozen times.
Terry was up out of the chair and we eased the boy into it and made him lean forward over the table. Terry knelt down close to him and started to talk in Spanish. Ordinarily I know some, but not the way Terry was running the words together. Then the boy spoke. While he did, Deelie went out and came back with some cocoa b.u.t.ter and she spread it over his back gently without batting an eye. I think right then she advanced seven hundred feet in Terry McNeil"s estimation.
The boy said, Terry told us, that Repper had come out of the house and when he saw the new shirt he tried to rip it off the boy, but Regalo ran. That made Repper mad and when he caught him at the barn he reached a hackamore line off a nail and laid it across the boy"s back until his arm got tired.
Leaning over the table, the boy didn"t cry or whimper, but you knew his back stung like fire.
Terry was saying, let"s fix him some eggs, when we heard the door again...then heavy footsteps and there was Max Repper in the doorway with his Henry rifle square on us.
"The boy"s coming with me." That"s all he said. He took Regalo by the arm, yanked him out of the chair, marched him through the front part, and out the door. It happened so fast, I hardly realized Max had been there.
Terry was in the doorway looking up toward the 183 183 front door. He didn"t say a word. Probably he was thinking he should have done something, even if it had happened fast and Max was holding a Henry. Whatever he was thinking, he made up his mind fast. Terry took one last glance at Deelie and was gone.
Of course we knew where he was going. First to the boardinghouse for his gun, then to the livery, then to Repper"s place. We didn"t want him to do it ...but at the same time, we did. The only thing was, someone else should be there. I figured whatever was going to happen ought to have a witness. So I saddled up and rode out about fifteen minutes behind Terry.
I thought I might catch him on the road, but didn"t see a soul and finally I cut off to Repper"s. There was Terry"s claybank and just over the rump a cigarette glow where Terry was leaning next to the front door.
"He"s not here?"
Terry shook his head.
"But we would have pa.s.sed him on the road," I said.
"Well," Terry said, "he"s got to come sooner or later."
As it turned out, it was just after daybreak when we heard the wagon.
Crossing the yard Max looked at us, but he kept on heading the team for the barn. We walked toward him, approaching broadside, then Max turned the team straight on toward the barn door and we could see the wagon bed. Regalo wasn"t in it.
Max stepped off the wagon and waited for us with his hands on his hips.
"He ain"t here."
Terry asked him, "What happened?"
"He jumped off the wagon and I lost him in the dark."
"And you"ve been looking for him."
Max grinned that ugly grin of his. "Sure," he said. "A man don"t like to lose his top hand."
Then, glancing at Terry, seeing a look on the boy"s face I"d never witnessed before, I knew Max Repper was about to lose his top teeth.
Sure enough. Terry took two steps and a little shuffle dance and hit Max square in the mouth. Max went back, but didn"t go down and now he came at Terry. Terry had his right c.o.c.ked, waiting, and he started to throw it. Max put up his guard and Terry held the right, but his left came around wide and clobbered Max on the ear. Then the right followed through, straightening him up, and the left swung wide again and smacked solid against his cheekbone. Max didn"t throw a punch. He wanted to at first, then he was kept too busy trying to cover up. I thought Terry"s arms would 185 185 drop off before Max caved in. Then, there it was, for a split second-Max"s chin up like he was posing for a profile-and Terry found it with the best-timed, widest-swung roundhouse I"ve ever seen.
Max went down and he didn"t move. Terry stepped inside the barn and came out with a hackamore. He looked down at Max and started to roll him over with his boot. But then he must have thought, What good will it do- He turned away, dropping the hackamore on top of Repper.
All Terry said was "Long as the boy got away . . . that"s the main thing."
After that everything was quiet for a while. Of course what had happened made good conversation, and wherever you"d go somebody would be talking about the half-wild white boy who"d lived with Apaches. And they talked about Max Repper and Terry. Everybody agreed that was a fine thing Terry did, loosening Max"s teeth...but Terry better watch himself, the way Max holds on to a grudge with both hands and both feet.
Terry went back to his diggings and Deelie wore her tragic look like he was off to the wars. Max would come in about once a week still, but now he didn"t talk so much. Ordered what he wanted and got out.
Then one day a man named Jim Hughes came in and told how he"d seen the boy.
Jim had a one-loop outfit a few miles beyond Repper"s place. I told him it was probably just a stray reservation buck, but he said no, he came through the willows to the creek off back of his place and there was the boy lying belly down at the side of the creek. The boy jumped up surprised not ten feet away from him, scrambled for his horse, and was gone. And Jim said the boy was wearing a red shirt, the back of it all ripped.
Max heard about it too. The next day he was in asking whether I"d seen the boy. He talked about it like he was just making conversation, but Max wasn"t cut out to be an actor. He wanted to find that boy so bad, he could taste it, and it showed through soon as he started talking.
Within the next few days the boy was seen two more times. First by a neighbor of Jim Hughes"s who lived this side of him, then a day later by a cavalry patrol out of Dos Fuegos. They gave chase, but the boy ran for high timber and got away. Both times the boy"s red shirt was described.
Now there was something to talk about again; everybody speculating what the boy was up to. The cavalry station received orders from the commandant at Fort Huachuca to bring the boy in and be pretty d.a.m.n quick about it. It didn"t look good to 187 187 have a boy running around who"d been stolen by the Indians. This was something for the authorities. Down at the State House Saloon they were betting five to one the cavalry would never find him, and they had some takers.
Most people figured the boy was out to get Max Repper and was sneaking around waiting for the right time.
I had the hunch the boy was looking for Terry McNeil. And when Terry finally came in again (it had been almost a month), I told him so.
He was surprised to hear the boy had been seen around here and said he couldn"t figure it out. Thought the boy would be glad to get away.
"Why would he want to go back to Apaches?" I asked him.
"He lived with them," Terry said.
"That doesn"t mean he liked them," I said. "I could see him going back to those Mexican people, but Sahuaripa"s an awful long way off and probably he couldn"t find his way back."
Terry shook his head. "But why would he be hanging around here?"
"I still say he"s looking for you."
"What for?"
"Maybe he likes you."
Terry said, "That doesn"t make sense."
"Maybe he likes red shirts."
"Well," Terry said, "I could look for him."
"It would be easier to let him find you," I said.
"If that"s what he wants to do."
"Why don"t you just sit here for a while," I suggested. "The boy knows you come here. If he wants you, then sooner or later he"ll show up."
Terry thought about it, making a cigarette, then agreed finally that he wouldn"t lose anything by staying.
Right in front of me Deelie threw her arms around his neck and kissed him about twelve times. I thought: If that"s what having him around just a little while will do, what would happen if he agreed to stay on for life?
During the next four days nothing happened. There weren"t even claims of seeing the boy. Terry said, well, the boy"s probably a hundred miles away now. And I said, Either that or else he"s closing in now and playing it more careful. Repper came in once and when he saw Terry he got suspicious and hung around a long time, though acting like Terry wasn"t even there.
The night of the sixth day we were sitting out on the porch talking and smoking, like we"d been doing every evening, and I remember saying something about working up energy to go to bed, when Terry"s 189 189 hand touched my arm. He said, "Somebody"s standing between those two buildings across the street."
I looked hard, but all I saw was the narrow deep shadow between the two adobes. And I was about to tell Terry he was mistaken when this figure appeared out of the shadows. He stood there for a minute close to one of the adobes, then started across the street, walking slowly.
He came to the steps and hesitated; but when Terry stood up and said, "Regalo," softly, the boy came up on the porch.
Deelie turned the lamp up as we went inside and I heard Terry asking the boy if he was hungry. The boy shook his head. Then we all just stood there not knowing what to say, trying not to stare at the boy. He was wearing the torn red shirt and looking at Terry like he had something to tell him but didn"t know the right words.
Then he reached into his shirt, suddenly starting to talk in Spanish. He pulled something out wrapped in buckskin, still talking, and handed it to Terry. Then he stopped and just watched as Terry, looking embarra.s.sed, unwrapped the little square of buckskin.
Terry looked at the boy and then at me, his eyes about to pop out of his head, and I saw what he was holding ...a raw gold nugget.
It must have been the size of two shot gla.s.ses; way, way bigger than any I"d ever had the pleasure of seeing. Terry put it on the counter, stepped back, and looked at it like he was beholding the palace of the king of China.
He just stared, and the boy started talking again in that rapid-fire Spanish like he was trying to say everything at once. Terry looked at the boy and he stared some more until the boy stopped talking.
"What"d he say?" I asked him.
Terry took a minute to look over at me. "He says this is mine and that he"ll show me a lot more. A place n.o.body knows about . . ."
I could believe that. You don"t find nuggets that size out in the road. And it made sense the boy might know of a mine. It was common talk that any Apache could be a rich man, the way he knew the country-the whereabouts of mines worked by the Spanish two and three hundred years ago. Sure Indians knew about them, but they weren"t going to tell whites and be crowded off their land quicker than it was already happening. In three years with Chiricahuas, Regalo could have learned plenty.
I said, "Terrence, you and that red shirt have made a valuable friendship."
Terry was still about three feet off the ground. He said then, "But he claims he wants to live with me!"
191 191 "Well, taking him in is the least you can do, considering-"
"But I can"t-"
He stopped there. I turned around to see what Terry was looking at and there was Max Repper in the doorway, with his Henry. Max was grinning, which he hadn"t done in a month, and he came forward keeping the barrel trained at Terry.
"I knew he"d show," Repper said, "soon as I saw you hanging around. I came for two things. Him"-he swung the barrel to indicate the boy- "and my nugget."
"Yours?" I said.
"The boy stole it from me."
"You never saw it before you peeked in that window."
"That"s your say," Repper answered.
Terry said, "What do you want with the boy?"
"I got work for him till the reservation people take him away."
"He doesn"t belong on a reservation," Terry said.
"That"s not my worry." Repper shrugged. "That"s what they"re saying at Dos Fuegos will happen to him."
Terry shook his head slowly, saying, "That wouldn"t be right."
Repper lifted the Henry a little higher. "Just hand me the nugget."
Terry hesitated. Then he said, "You come and take it."
"I can do that too," Repper said. He was concentrating on Terry and started to move toward him. His eyes went to the nugget momentarily, two seconds at best, and as they did the boy went for him. He was at Repper"s throat in one lunge, dragging him down. Terry moved then, pushing the rifle barrel up and against Repper"s face. Repper went down, the boy on top of him, and then a knife was in Regalo"s hand.
Deelie screamed and Terry lifted the boy off of Repper, saying, "Wait a minute!" Then, in Spanish, he was talking more quietly, calming the boy.
Repper sat up with his hand to his face. He had a welt across his forehead where the rifle barrel hit, but he was more mad than hurt. He said, "You think I"m going to let you get away with this?"
Terry was himself again. He said, "I don"t think you got a choice."