“I’ve said it,” Valdez answered.

  Tanner’s eyes held on Valdez. He said, “Put this man against the wall over there and shoot him.”

  He waited and said then, “Emilio!”

  “I hear you,” the segundo said.

  “Take him.”

  The segundo did not make a move or seem about to speak.

  “Number two”—Tanner’s voice rose—“I’m telling you something!”

  The segundo looked at Tanner now, directly at him. He said, “It’s not my woman.”

  Valdez’s eyes shifted to the man, hung there, and returned to Tanner. His hand gripped the Remington lightly, feeling the weight of the gun, the sawed-off barrel hanging at his knee.

  Tanner turned his head slowly to the left, to the three men standing off from him, then to the right, to R. L. Davis and the two men beyond him.

  “I’m going to give the word,” Tanner said.

  “Wait a minute!” R. L. Davis said. “I’m no part of this.” He saw Tanner looking at him as he edged back a few steps, bumping against his horse and pushing it. “I don’t even have a gun.”

  “I give you mine,” the segundo said.

  “I don’t want one!” Davis was edging back, taking himself out of the group, his eyes holding on the Remington at Valdez’s side. “I don’t have any fight with him.”

  In Spanish, the segundo said to the young Mexican on Tanner’s left, “Tomás, go home. This isn’t yours.”

  The young man wasn’t sure. “I work for him,” he said.

  “Not anymore. I let you go.”

  Tanner’s head jerked toward the segundo. “What’re you telling him?”

  “That she’s your woman,” the segundo said easily. “A man holds his woman or he doesn’t. It’s up to him, a personal thing between him and the man who took the woman. All these men are thinking, What have we got to do with it?”

  “You do what I tell you. That’s what you’ve got to do with it.” Tanner glanced both ways and said, “I’m talking to everybody present. Everybody hears me and I’m telling you now to shoot him. Now!”

  He looked at his men again, not believing it, seeing them standing watching him, none of them ready to make a move.

  “You hear me—I said shoot him!”

  Valdez waited in the silence that followed. He waited as Tanner looked at his men, from one to the next. He drew on the cigarette, finishing it, and dropped it and said, “Hey.”

  As Tanner turned to him, Valdez said, “I got an idea, Frank,” and waited another moment. “You have a gun in your hand. Why don’t you shoot me?”

  Tanner faced him, the Colt revolver at his side. He stared at Valdez and said nothing, eyes sunken in the shadow of his hat brim, dusty and beard stubbled, still looking like he was made of gristle and hard to kill.

  But he’s not looking at himself, Valdez was thinking, and it isn’t an easy thing to raise and fire a Colt at someone. So he jabbed at Tanner saying, “See if your gun is as good as mine. What do you think of something like that? You and I, that’s all, uh? What do you need anybody else for?”

  Tanner stood stiffly, no part of him moving.

  “Let me say it to you this way,” Valdez said. “You give me money for the Lipan woman whose husband was killed or you use the gun. One or the other, right now. Make up your mind.”

  Tanner’s hand tightened on the Colt and his thumb lifted to the hammer. He could feel the move he would make and he was looking squarely at Valdez twenty feet away from him, looking at him dead center where the cartridge belt crossed his chest. The moment was there, now, but his gaze flickered to the stubby barrel of the Remington and lingered there and the moment was past. His thumb came off the hammer.

  “Not today,” Tanner said. “Another time.”

  Valdez shook his head slowly. “No, that was your time. You get one time, mister, to prove who you are.”

  “I should have killed you three days ago,” Tanner said. “I should have killed you, but I let you go.”

  “No”—the segundo started past him toward the horses, pausing to take the Colt from Tanner’s hand—“three days ago you should have started for Mexico.”

  “Or paid the Lipan woman,” Valdez said. “It wouldn’t have cost you so much.”

  About the Author

  ELMORE LEONARD has written more than three dozen books during his highly successful writing career, including the bestsellers Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He is the recipient of the Grand Master Award of the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

  Don’t miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up now for AuthorTracker by visiting www.AuthorTracker.com.

  Praise for Valdez is Coming

  “AN ESSENTIAL NOVEL…THE BEST OF ELMORE LEONARD’S WESTERNS.”

  Toronto Globe & Mail

  and the Western Fiction of Elmore Leonard

  “ALTHOUGH KNOWN FOR HIS MYSTERIES, LEONARD HAS PENNED SOME OF THE BEST WESTERN FICTION EVER.”

  USA Today

  “LEONARD WROTE WESTERNS, VERY GOOD WESTERNS…THE WAY HE IMAGINED HEMINGWAY, HIS MENTOR, MIGHT WRITE WESTERNS.”

  Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate

  “THE PROSE IS AS TAUT…AS IN SUCH LATER NOVELS AS STICK AND GET SHORTY.”

  Washington Post Book World

  “LEONARD’S SPECIAL KIND OF TOUGH GUYS WERE BORN IN THE OLD WEST, WHERE HE POLISHED HIS WISECRACKING VIEW OF VIOLENCE AND MORALITY ON THE WORKINGS OF FRONTIER JUSTICE.”

  Chicago Sun-Times

  “CLASSIC WESTERN FARE.”

  San Francisco Chronicle

  Books by Elmore Leonard

  Tishomingo Blues

  Pagan Babies

  Be Cool

  The Tonto Woman & Other Western Stories

  Cuba Libre

  Out of Sight

  Riding the Rap

  Pronto

  Rum Punch

  Maximum Bob

  Get Shorty

  Killshot

  Freaky Deaky

  Touch

  Bandits

  Glitz

  LaBrava

  Stick

  Cat Chaser

  Split Images

  City Primeval

  Gold Coast

  Gunsights

  The Switch

  The Hunted

  Unknown Man No. 89

  Swag

  Fifty-two Pickup

  Mr. Majestyk

  Forty Lashes Less One

  Valdez Is Coming

  The Moonshine War

  The Big Bounce

  Hombre

  Last Stand at Saber River

  Escape from Five Shadows

  The Law at Randado

  The Bounty Hunters

  A Coyote’s in the House

  Credits

  Front Cover art by Tim Cox (www.TimCox.com)

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  VALDEZ IS COMING. Copyright © 1970 by Elmore Leonard, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2004 ISBN: 9780061835773

  First HarperTorch paperback printing: February 2002

  06 07 08 09 10
br />
  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

  Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  Praise

  Books by Elmore Leonard

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

 


 

  Elmore Leonard, Valdez Is Coming: A Novel

 


 

 
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net

Share this book with friends