Free Hombre by Elmore Leonard Page B

Dr. Favor must have thought of that.
    Then why didn’t he do it? Or at least talk about it. When you got down to it, though, it was his business. I mean we had no right to remind him of what he should do. That was his business. I don’t mean to sound hard or callous; that’s just the way it was. We had enough on our minds without worrying about his wife.
    We just sat there until Dr. Favor said he was going. When he started off, the McLaren girl started after him, so Mendez and I did too. I guess we had to follow somebody.
    From then on I don’t know where we were or even what direction we went.
    By then there wasn’t much talk among us. Once in a while Dr. Favor said something, usually about what way to go. One time though he brought up the subject again of us hiding somewhere and him going on alone.
    Mendez said it was all right with him, not caring one way or the other. But neither the McLaren girl nor I would agree to it. I kept picturing Braden somewhere behind us waiting for morning so he could get on our sign and run us down. Who would want to just sit there waiting for him?
    The McLaren girl looked at it another way. She said right to Dr. Favor’s face, “That money’s been stolen enough. Don’t worry about one of us trying to take it.”
    “As if I’d distrust you people,” Dr. Favor said. “The things you think about.”
    “I’d like to know what you think about,” the McLaren girl said. “Since it sure isn’t your wife.”
    Dr. Favor didn’t say anything and we went on.
    If you were to ask me who was the best one, who took it the best and never once complained, who even walked with hardly any trouble, I would say the McLaren girl. If you are surprised, remember she had been held by wild Apaches over a month. She had traveled with them as they kept on the move, keeping up with them else they would have killed her. You looked at her and wondered how something like that could have happened to a young girl and still not see it on her face.
    Once she offered to take the grainsack or blanket roll I was carrying, but I wouldn’t hear of it.
    She even said we should still keep going when finally Dr. Favor led us off into a gully and announced we would camp there. He said if we stopped now we would have a better chance of finding Russell when daylight came. I’m not sure what he meant by that and think it was just an excuse, the real reason for his wanting to stop being his tiredness. The McLaren girl argued we shoulduse the darkness while we had it—it was still a few hours before sunup—but gave in when she saw how tired Mendez was. So tired he could hardly stand up.
    We had already eaten some of the biscuits and dried meat from the grainsack. Now there was nothing to do but sleep. I was the only one with a blanket, so I offered it to the McLaren girl. She said no, for me to use it. I did, finally, but all rolled up as a pillow. (Somebody might think this was dumb, but I couldn’t cover myself with it being the only one. It would have felt good too, I can tell you that.)
    It was only a few hours before sunup when we stopped here; so there wasn’t much time to sleep, and it was hard getting to sleep, even as tired as I felt. But finally I did.
    In the morning there weren’t two words said by anyone. You know how it can be in the morning anyway: on top of having slept no more than two and a half hours on the ground and in the cold after walking almost all night. (Yes, it was cold. Even though during the day it was blistering hot.) And on top of that not knowing where you were and Braden coming after us on horseback.
    The only thing we were sure of in the morning was the direction north and that was the way we went, having eaten a little more of the dried beefand biscuits and taken a few swallows of water each.
    Going toward the north does not mean we went in a straight line. Unless you wanted to climb steep slopes all the time, and maybe get up there and find no way down, you had to follow the washes