8

Phil Sundeen looked at the notice with the big word “WARNING” at the top like it was a birthday present he had always wanted. He read it slowly, came down to Armando's name at the bottom, said, “That's the one I want,” and sent Ruben Vega out on a scout, see if the notices were “for true.”

That Monday morning Ruben Vega rode a fifteen-mile loop through the west foothills, spotting the little adobes tucked away up on the slopes; seeing the planted fields, young corn not quite belly-high to his horse; seeing the notices stuck to saguaro and white oak and three times drawing rifle fire-Ruben Vega squinting up at the high rocks as the reports faded, then shaking his head and continuing on.

He made his way up through a mesquite thicket that followed the course of a draw to a point where he could study one of the videttes crouched high in the rocks, sky-lined for all to see, a young man in white with an old single-shot Springfield, defending his land. Ruben Vega, dismounted, circled behind the vidette to within forty feet and called out, “Digame!”

The young man in white came around, saw the bearded man holding a revolver and fired his Springfield too quickly, without taking time to aim.

Ruben Vega raised his revolver. “Tell me where I can find Armando Duro.”

Thirty dollars a week to frighten this young farmer and others like him. It was a pity. Ruben Vega said to the man, who was terrified but trying to act brave, he only wanted to speak to Armando Duro and needed directions to his house. That was all. He nodded, listening to the young farmer, holstered his gun and left.

Yes, he told Sundeen, the notices were “for real.”

“They shoot at you?”

“They don't know what they're doing.”

“I know that,” Sundeen said. “I want to know if they're good for their word.” When Ruben Vega told him yes, they had fired, though not to hit him, Sundeen said, “All right, let's go.”

He paraded out his security force: his prison guards, railroad bulls and strikebreakers; most of whom wore city clothes and looked like workingmen on Sunday, not one under thirty years of age, Ruben Vega noticed. Very hard men with big fists, bellies full of beer and whiskey from their first weekend in town, armed with Winchester repeaters and revolvers stuck in their belts. Sixteen of them: two had quit by Monday saying it was too hot and dusty, the hell with it. One was dead of knife wounds and the one who had killed him was in jail. Ruben Vega knew he would never be their segundo, because these men would never do what a Mexican told them. But that was all right. They could take orders directly from Sundeen. Ruben Vega would scout for them, stay out of their way and draw his thirty dollars a week-the most he had ever made in his life-which would make these men even uglier if they were. But he didn't like this work. From the beginning he had not liked it at all.

He didn't like Sundeen waving off the few news reporters-one of them the young one who had been with Early-who had hired horses and wanted to follow. He didn't like it because it surprised him-Sundeen not wanting them along to write about him.

He asked, “Why not bring them?”

“Not this trip,” Sundeen said. “Get up there and show us the way, partner.”

Ruben Vega followed his orders and rode point, guiding Sundeen and his security force up into the hills where the WARNING notices were nailed to the saguaro and white oak. There. Now Sundeen could do what he wanted.

Looking over his crew of bulls and headbusters sweating in their Sunday suits, the crew squinting up at the high rock formations, Sundeen said, “Who wants to do the honors, chase their pickets off that high ground? I'd say there's no more'n likely two of'em up there-couple of bean farmers couldn't hit shit if they stuck their weapons up their ass. How about you, you and you?” And said to the others, “Get ready now.”

More than two, Ruben Vega thought, because they know we're coming to see Armando. Maybe all the guns they have are up there now. Guarding the pass to the man's house. Ruben Vega nudged his mount up next to Sundeen's.

“They'll have plenty guns up there,” he said quietly.

Sundeen turned in his saddle to look at him and smiled as he spoke, as though he was talking about something else. “We don't know till we see, partner. Till we draw fire, huh?” Then to the three he had picked: “Go on up past the signs.”

Another show to watch, Ruben Vega thought, seeing the three men moving their horses at a walk up through the ocotillo and yellow-flowering prickly pear, reaching the sign nailed to a saguaro…moving past the cactus…twenty feet perhaps, thirty, when the gunfire poured out of the rocks a hundred yards away: ten, a dozen rifles, Ruben Vega estimated, fired on the count, but the eruption of sound coming raggedly with puffs of smoke and followed by three single shots that chased the two riders still mounted, both of them bent low in their saddles and circling back. One man in his Sunday suit lay on the ground, out there alone now, his riderless horse running free. The one on the ground didn't move. Sundeen was yelling at his security force to commence firing. Then yelled at them to spread out as their horses began to shy and bump each other with the rifles going off close. “Spread out and rush 'em!” Sundeen yelled, pointing and then circling around to make sure they were all moving forward…Ruben Vega watching, wondering if Sundeen knew what he was doing…Sundeen pausing then as his men charged up the slope firing away…Ruben Vega impressed now that these dressed-up shitkickers would do what they were told and expose themselves to fire. Sundeen hung back, grinning as he looked over at Ruben Vega now sitting motionless in his saddle.

“Still riding the fence, huh?”

Ruben Vega said, “Well, you got a man killed.”

“Three'd be better,” Sundeen said, “but one's enough to inspire them.”

It didn't take much to push the farmers out of the rocks. They reloaded and got off a volley, hitting nothing, then fell back from the steady fire of the Winchester repeaters, some of them running, others making their way back to Armando Duro's place where they would be forced to make a stand.

Sundeen and his people circled to high ground and found good cover in a fairly deep wash rimmed with brush. From here they looked down on Armando's house and yard: a whitewashed adobe with a roof of red clay tiles that had come from an old church in Tucson, a flower garden, a latticework covered with green vines, heavy shutters with round gunports over the windows. A snug cottage with thick walls up here in the lonesome.

Sundeen said, “Well, we can starve him out or maybe set the place on fire, but we'd never get home for supper, would we?” From a saddlebag he pulled out a towel with Congress Hotel printed on it and thew it to Ruben Vega, saying, “Hey, partner, make yourself useful.”

Tied to a mesquite pole the towel was the truce flag Ruben Vega waved above the brush cover and held high in front of him as he walked down to the yard, unarmed, doing something for his thirty dollars a week.

He called to the house in Spanish, “Do I address Armando Duro?…Look, I have no gun. Will you come out, please, and talk like a gentleman? We have no fight with you. We come to talk and you begin shooting.” He paused. “Before anyone else is injured please come talk to the man sent by the company. He has something important to explain.”

“Say it now,” a voice from the house said.

“I'm not the emissary of the company,” Ruben Vega said. “Mr. Sundeen is the one. He wants to explain the company plan of making this a township…if you would honor us and agree to become the alcalde and administer the office.”