Cattle broker now, Valdez said.
The case was dismissed.
Its getting better.
Inez turned the page. Ah, heres the picture. You see him there? Inez turned the book halfway toward Valdez and he leaned in, recognizing Tanner standing with a group of Army officers in front of an adobe building.
Inez read the caption. It says he has a contract with the government to supply remounts to the Tenth United States Cavalry at Fort Huachuca. She turned a few more pages. I think thats all.
Nothing about him now, uh?
Theres something else sticks in my mind about Huachuca, Inez said, but I dont see it. Unless sure, it would be in the other book. She sat back in her chair looking up over her shoulder. Polly?
Valdez watched the girl straighten and draw the robe together.
Should I take this one? the girl asked.
Inez was turning pages again. No, I want to show Bob something.
What have you got now? he asked her.
Coming to a page, she pressed it flat and turned the book to him. You remember?
Valdez smiled a little. That one.
It was a photograph of Bob Valdez taken at Fort Apache, Arizona, September 7, 1884: Bob Valdez standing among small trees and cactus plants the photographer had placed in his studio shed as a background: Bob Valdez with a Sharps.50 cradled in one arm and a long-barreled Walker Colt on his leg. He was wearing a hat, with a bandana
beneath it that covered half of his forehead, a belt of cartridges for the Sharps, and knee-length Apache moccasins. The caption beneath the picture described Roberto Valdez as chief of scouts with Major General George Crook, Department of Arizona, during his expedition into Sonora against hostile Apaches.
Thats the way I still picture you, Inez said. When someone says Bob Valdez, this is the one I see. Not the one that wears a suit and a collar.
Valdez was concentrating on the book, looking now at a photograph of a young Apache scout in buckskins and holding a rifle, standing against the same background used in the photo of himself. He remembered the photographer, a man named Fly. And the day the pictures were taken at Fort Apache. He remembered the scout washing himself and brushing his hair and putting on the buckskin shirt he had bought and had never worn before.
Peaches, Valdez said. General Crooks guide. His real name was Tso-ay, but the soldiers and the general called him Peaches. His skin. Valdez continued to study the photograph. He said, Theyd put a suit and a collar on him too, if they ever took his picture again.
Inez looked up as Polly came in with the other scrapbook. She took it from her and held it over the table.
I dont know where he is now, Valdez was saying. Maybe Fort Sill, Oklahoma, with the rest of them. Planting corn. He shook his head. Man, I would like to see that sometime. Those people growing things in a garden.
Inez opened the book and laid it over the page Valdez was studying. He sat back as she turned a few pages and raised his gaze to Polly, who was looking over Inezs shoulder again, letting her robe come open. She was built very well and had very white skin.
Here it is, Inez said. Sutler murdered at Fort Huachuca. James C. Erin was found shot to death a few miles from the fort today-
Valdez stopped her. When was this?
Inez looked at the date on the clipping. March. Six months ago.
Thats the one Orlando Rincon was supposed to have killed.
It says he was found by some soldiers and her finger moved down the column heres the part. Held for questioning was Frank J. Tanner of Mimbreno, said to be the last person to have seen Erin alive. Mr. Tanner stated he had spent the previous evening with Mr. and Mrs. Erin at the fort, but had left for a business appointment in Nogales and had not seen Erin on the day he was reported to have been killed.
He was sure it was Rincon, Valdez said. And that his name was Johnson.
Inez nodded, looking at the book. They mention a Johnson, listed as a deserter and also a suspect. A trooper with the Tenth Cavalry.
Maybe they know this Johnson did it now, Valdez said.
Inez looked over the pages facing her. I dont see anything more about it.
Valdez raised his eyes from the open robe to the nice-looking face of the dark-haired girl. Its too bad he doesnt come here, he said.
Inez closed the book. He never has and I would guess he knows where it is.
If he did, Valdez said, his gaze still on Polly. I could wait for him.
Diego Luz had a dream in which he saw himself sitting on a corral fence watching his men working green horses in the enclosure. In the dream, which he would look at during the day as well as at night, Diego Luz was manager of the Maricopa Cattle Company. He lived with his family in the whitewashed adobe off beyond the corral, where the cedars stood against the sky: a house with trees and a stone well in the yard and a porch to sit on in the evening. Sometimes he would picture himself on the porch with his family about him, his three sons and two daughters, his wife and his wifes mother and whatever relatives might be visiting them. But his favorite dream was to see himself on the corral fence with his eldest son, who was almost a man, sitting next to him.