Free Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747) by Ralph W. Cotton Page B

have broken no law. I only delivered a message for the Frenchman, Defoe.” He held her close.
    She smiled intently at the glittering coin as she turned it in her small hand, as if it were her salvation.
    â€œThese gringos who have come to our border lands bring so much money,” Hector said. “They throw it around like a handful of sand. I will take all of it I can get, for you, and for our hijo. ” He placed his hand down on the boy’s head.
    â€œBut the Frenchman, the Torres brothers, the Gun Killers, are they not all lawbreakers, desperados, thieves, murderers?” Ana asked.
    â€œLook at me, Ana,” Hector said. “If I must break laws to put food in our mouths, to keep us alive, who will judge me. God? Man? I don’t know. But if a law starves a man and his wife, what kind of man will live by that law?”
    â€œThese men ride both sides of the border, robbing and killing,” Ana said. “Will you cross the border with them when that time comes?” She stared into his dark eyes, the coin still in her palm.
    Hector closed her hand over the coin and said quietly, “I must go back to the cantina now. When I am gone, take the boy and walk to the old store at the edge of town where this one will not see me and call out to me.” He looked down at the boy’s large dark eyes and smiled.
    Ana said, “It is not good that a man must keep his wife and son a secret because he is afraid of what his compañeros will think of him.”
    â€œYou are right it is not good,” Hector said. “But for now it is how things must be. I do what I must do , to keep us fed.”
    â€œ Sí , to keep us fed. Life is hard for the poor, isn’t it?” she said.
    â€œIt will not always be so,” Hector said. “I swear by the saints that someday I will take this world in my fists and make it my own.” He clenched his fists tight as he spoke.
    â€œ Sí , someday,” Ana said with finality, and she looked away toward the distant hills, as if they held a secret for her.

Chapter 10

    Hector watered his horse at a small trough and kissed Ana good-bye, pulling both her and his son in to his chest.
    â€œThis time I will be gone a little longer,” he said. “But when I come home, I will have more money for us.” He tapped the side of his head with a finger and said, “I will make Defoe see the value of having me as his right-hand man.”
    â€œOh? And what will you be doing for the Frenchman?” Ana asked.
    â€œI will start by tending bar at the Perros Malos Cantina, but I am prepared to do whatever the Frenchman will have me do for him,” Hector said, the shotgun hanging in his hand now that he was ready to mount up and ride.
    â€œThe Perros Malos,” she said with contempt. “What sort of man names his cantina that?”
    â€œA loco man, that’s what kind.” Hector gave a tired smile and said, “But for now, I work for him. His Bad Dogs are my Bad Dogs, eh?”
    Ana managed a thin smile and pushed a strand of hair from her face.
    â€œTell me, husband, do the putas at the Bad Dogs Cantina offer themselves to you?”
    â€œNow that I am the bartender, of course they will offer themselves to me,” Hector said. “But I will turn them down.”
    â€œAre you sure?” Ana asked.
    â€œThe day that I cannot look you or my son in the eye, you will know that I have taken what the putas offer me,” Hector said. “But that is enough talk,” he added. “Now I must go to work.”
    From the front of the adobe, Ana and the boy watched Hector ride away, back toward Wild Roses. The boy stood at his mother’s side, her arm down around his thin shoulders holding him against her leg.
    â€œWhy is Papá leaving so soon?” the boy asked.
    â€œHe goes to attend his job in Wild Roses,” Ana said, waving as Hector looked back from a hundred yards away.
    â€œWill he