Valdez Is Coming by Elmore Leonard Page A

she leaned over to look at the green book and then the black one. He should have stayed. It would be good to be there. It didn’t matter about the girl — later — but to be in a bed with the shades down, lying on one side and then the other and moving his arms, bending them all he wanted while he slept. He would only wake up at night when the sun was down and Brother Moon or Sister Moon or whatever the hell St. Francis called it was in the sky with its soft light, and he would drink cool water from the pitcher next to the bed. When the girl came in he would turn his head and see her face, her eyes in the darkness, close to him. She had dark hair, but he thought of her with light hair, and this didn’t make sense to him.
    He remembered turning his head against the thong holding him to the upright post, the thong cutting his neck as he strained to twist his face away from the white heat pressing him and the colors dancing in his eyes. He remembered thinking that if the thong was wet with his sweat it would shrink when it dried and perhaps strangle him to death if he was still alive. Then he wouldn’t be thirsty anymore and it wouldn’t matter if his eyes were burned out. It wouldn’t matter if Brother Wolf came to see him; he wouldn’t have to talk to any Brother Wolf and ask him to go away.
    He remembered the knife pain in his shoulders and back. He remembered feeling sick and trying to calm himself and breathe slowly so he wouldn’t vomit and drown in his own bile in a mountain meadow. He remembered the worst, the heat and the pain and the thirst, and he remembered opening his eyes to a blue sky turning gray and streaked with red. He remembered a numbness in his body, looking at his hands and unable to move them.
    He remembered darkness, opening his eyes and seeing darkness and hearing night sounds coming from the birch trees. He remembered the breeze moving the grass close to his face. He remembered pieces of the whole, sleeping and opening his eyes: the girl from Inez’s place over him, lifting his head and holding a canteen to his lips. Why would she use a canteen when the pitcher was on the table? He remembered getting up, standing and falling and the girl holding his arms, bending them carefully, working the joints and feeling a sweet pain that would have made his eyes water if he had water left in him to come out. He remembered stretching and walking and falling and walking and crawling on his hands and knees. He remembered voices, the voices of children and a voice that he knew well and an arm that he knew helping him.
    Diego Luz said, “Are you awake?”
    Valdez lay with his eyes open, his eyes moving slowly from the ceiling of the room to Diego Luz, a white figure in the dimness. “I think so,” he said. “I woke up before, I think; but I didn’t know where I was.”
    “You were saying some crazy things.”
    “How did you find me?”
    “Find you? You crawled into the yard last night. I heard the dogs; I almost shot you.”
    “I came here myself?”
    Diego Luz moved closer to the bed. “What happened to you?”
    “Maybe I’m dead,” Valdez said. “Am I dead?” He could see the children of Diego Luz behind their father, in the doorway.
    “You looked near to it. Somebody stabbed you in the back.”
    “No, a tree did that.”
    Diego Luz nodded. “A tree. What kind of a tree is it does that?”
    His daughter came into the room with a gourd and a tin cup, and the small children followed her, crowding up to the bed. Valdez smiled at them and at the girl and got up on his elbow to sip the water. He could see the wife of Diego Luz and his wife’s mother in the doorway, staying in the other room but raising their faces to look at him on the bed.
    “I don’t see your boy,” Valdez said.
    “He’s watching.”
    “For what?”
    “To see if they follow you. Or whoever it was.”
    “Don’t worry,” Valdez said. “I’m leaving when I find my pants.”
    “I don’t worry,” the horsebreaker