Valdez Is Coming by Elmore Leonard Read Free Book Online

can’t have that in front of them.” He sat close to her, staring into her face, at the gray-green eyes and the soft hair close to her cheek. His hand came up to finger the end strands of her hair. Quietly, he said, “Gay, go on in the room.”
    “I’ll finish my coffee.”
    “No, right now would be better. I’ll be there in a minute.”
    She waited until he was out of the door before rising and going into the sleeping room. In the dim lamplight she began to undress, stepping out of her dress and dropping it on the bed next to her nightgown. The light blue one. Thin and limp and patched beneath one arm. There had been a light blue one and a light green one and a pink one and a yellow one, all with the white-scrolled monogram GBE she had embroidered on the bodice when she was nineteen years old and living in Prescott, a girl about to be married. The girl, Gay Byrnes, had brought the nightgowns and her dresses and linens to Fort Huachuca to become the bride of James C. Erin. During five and a half years as his wife she discarded the nightgowns one by one and used them as dust rags. When her husband was killed six months ago, and she left Huachuca with Frank Tanner, she had only the light blue one left.
    Gay Erin slipped the nightgown over her head, brushed her hair and got into the narrow double bed, pulling the blanket up over her shoulder as she rolled to her side, her back to the low-burning lamp.
    When Tanner came in and began to undress, she remained with her back to him. She could see him from times before: removing his boots, his shirt and trousers, standing in his long cotton underwear as he unfastened the buttons. He would stand naked scratching his stomach and chest, then go to the wall hook and take his revolver from the holster, making sure the hammer was on an empty chamber as he moved toward the bed.
    She felt the mattress yield beneath his weight. The gun would be at his side, under the blanket and next to his hip. He would lie still for a few moments, then roll toward her and put his hand on her shoulder.
    “What have you got the nightgown on for?”
    “I’m cold.”
    “Well now, what do you think I’m for?”
    “Tell me,” Gay Erin said.
    “I’ll show you.”
    “As a lover or a husband?”
    Tanner groaned. “Jesus Christ, are you going to start that?”
    “Six months ago you said we’d be married in a few weeks.”
    “Most people probably think we already are. What’s the difference?”
    She started to get up, to throw back the blanket, and his hand tightened on her arm.
    “I said we’d be married, we will.”
    “When?”
    “Well not right now, all right?” His hand stroked her arm beneath the flannel. “Come on, take this thing off.”
    She lay without moving, her eyes open in the darkness, letting her hesitation stretch into silence, a long moment, before she sat up slowly and worked the nightgown out from beneath her. She pulled it over her head, turning to him.
     
3
     
    Inez was fat and took her time coming over from the stove with the coffeepot. Filling the china cup in front of Bob Valdez and then her own, Inez said, “She left early. It must have been before daybreak.”
    “You hear her?”
    “No, maybe one of the girls did. I can ask.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “I heard what you’re doing,” Inez said.
    “Well, I’m not doing very good. I wanted to tell the woman maybe it would take me a little longer.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    “Listen, I’m tired,” Valdez said. “I’m not going to argue with you, all right?”
    “Go upstairs.”
    “I said I’m tired.”
    “So are the girls. I mean take a room and go to sleep.”
    “I have a run to St. David this afternoon and don’t come back till the morning.”
    “Tell them you’re sick.”
    “No, they don’t have anybody.”
    “That Davis was in here last night. I threw him out.”
    “You can do it,” Valdez said.
    “He was in no condition. Only talk. I don’t need talk,” Inez said. She made a noise