They advanced upon the lone rider with the loose horse trotting before them and Boyd trailing the Bailey horse behind by the catchrope. The young vaquero watched them come. Then he turned his horse off the road and out onto the grass swales and there he sat watching them pass. Billy looked off across the cameo for the other rider but he had dropped from sight behind a rise. He slowed his horse and called out to the vaquero.
Adónde se fué su compadre?
The young vaquero did not answer.
He put the horse forward again, the shotgun upright against his shoulder. He looked back at the horses grazing by the roadside and he looked again at the vaquero and then he fell in alongside Boyd and they rode on. A quarter mile on when he looked back the vaquero was in the road riding slowly behind them. A little way more he stopped and sat the horse quarterwise in the road with the shotgun on his knee. The vaquero stopped also. When they rode on again he rode as well.
Well we’re in it now.
We were in it when we left home, Boyd said.
The other old boy’s gone for help.
I know it.
Old Niño aint been rode much, has he.
Not much.
He looked at Boyd. Dirty and ragged with his hat forward against the sun and his face enshadowed. He looked some new breed of child horseman left in the wake of war or plague or famine in that country.
At noon with the low walls of the hacienda at Boquilla shimmering in the distance five riders appeared in the road before them. Four of them had rifles which they carried across the bow of their saddles or held loosely in one hand. They curbed their horses sharply ‑and the animals stamped and sidled in the road and the riders called loudly back and forth although they were none at any distance from another.
The two brothers checked their horses. The Tom horse went trotting forward with its ears up. Billy turned in the saddle and looked back. There were three more riders in the road behind them. He looked at Boyd. The dog walked over to the edge of the road and sat down. Boyd leaned and spat and looked south across the unfenced grasslands, the shape of the lake in the distance palely blown where it mirrored the cloudcover overhead. Five or six lean duncolored steers had raised their heads to stare at the horses in the road. He looked back at the riders behind and he looked at Billy.
You want to make a run for it?
No.
We got the fresher horses.
You dont know what kind of horses they got. Bird couldnt keep up with Niño anyways.
He studied the advancing horsemen. He handed the shotgun across to Boyd. Put this up, he said. Find the papers.
Boyd reached back and began to unwrap the thong from the rosette on the saddlebag pocket.
Dont set there with that thing, said Billy. Put it up.
He sheathed the shotgun in the scabbard. You got a lot more confidence in papers than what I got, he said.
Billy didnt answer. He was watching the riders advance along the road all five abreast now with their rifles upright save one. The Tom horse stood at the side of the road and neighed at the approaching horses. One of the riders scabbarded his rifle and took down his rope. The Tom horse watched him approach and then turned and started out of the road but the rider spurred forward and swung his loop and dropped it over the horse’s neck. The horse stopped and stood just off the road and the rider let the coil of rope fall in the road and all came on.
Boyd handed Billy the brown envelope with Niño’s papers and Billy sat holding them and holding the hackamore rope loosely in his other hand. The insides of his legs were wet from the horse and he could smell him and the horse stamped and nodded and whinnied at the approaching riders.
They halted a few feet out. The older man among them looked them over and nodded. Bueno, he said. Bueno. He was one‑armed and his right shirtsleeve was pressed and pinned to his shoulder. He rode his horse with the reins tied and he wore a pistol at his belt and a plain flatcrowned hat of a type no longer much seen in that country and he wore tooled boots to his knees and carried a quirt. He looked at Boyd and he looked again at Billy and at the envelope he was holding.
Déme sus papeles, he said.
Dont give him them papers, Boyd said.
How else is he goin to see em?
Los papeles, said the man.
Billy nudged the horse forward and leaned and handed the envelope over and then backed the horse and sat. The man put the envelope in his teeth and undid the tieclasp and then took out the papers and unfolded them and examined the seals and held them to the light. He looked through the papers and then refolded them and took the envelope from his armpit and put thepapers back in the envelope and handed the envelope to the rider on his right.
Billy asked him if he could read the papers for they were in english but the man didnt answer. He leaned slightly to better see the horse that Boyd was riding. He said that the papers were of no value. He said that in consideration of their youth he would not bring charges against them. He said that if they wished to pursue the matter further they could see señor Lopez at Babícora. Then he turned and spoke to the man on his right and this man put the envelope inside his shirt and he and another man rode forward with their rifles upright in their left hands. Boyd looked at Billy.