Longarm and the Desert Damsel

The biggest trouble was with Doctor Peabody. He was insisting that the stage owed him free passage back to Phoenix since they had thrown him off in the middle of nowhere. Higgins said heatedly, “We don’t owe you nothin’. It was yore bad actin’ got you throwed off that stage. Tryin’ to look up the dresses of a bunch of hoors. So now it is three dollars on the barrel head or you can sit out thar an’ drink with them Mexicans till they throw you out. Damned if I care.”

The doctor whined that the stage was furnishing passage for the lady, Rita Ann, and their cases were similar.

“Not a bit of it!” Higgins said staunchly. “She was done wrong. You done wrong. They is a ocean full of difference ‘tween them two.”

In the end the doctor fumbled through the pockets of his soiled suit until he found three crumpled one-dollar bills. Higgins issued him a ticket and a stern warning to behave himself. “Else they is liable to throw you out in the big middle of nowhere an’ you’ll have buzzards fer company.”

Longarm went back outside and watched the Mexicans putting the new team in place. They harnessed up the mules a span at a time, and they did it with a sureness and quickness he had to admire. Really, he thought, it took a good Mexican to work with Spanish mules. They seemed to have an understanding of the brutes that nobody else did. Finally the team was in the traces and ready to go. The mules that had just finished their run were in the corral, lathered up and still mixing around nervously, unable to settle down.

Finally it was time to go. Longarm hugged Mrs. Higgins and thanked her for all her help. He shook Higgins’s hand and promised the old man he’d be hearing from him. He gave him a wink that no one else could see and said, “I’ll see that you get all the news.”

They climbed aboard. Rita Ann went in first, and she went all the way to the front and sat on the left-hand bench. The doctor went in and sat midway down on the right-hand side. Longarm sat at the tail end on the left, over his Winchester carbine.

Before he climbed up to his seat, Ben, the driver, stuck his head in the coach to tell them he’d be taking it kind of slow at first. “That is,” he said, “if I can hold these damn mules. They is a pretty good grade starts about ten miles this side of the next station, an’ if I let these mules run right off they won’t have a blame thing left to pull that grade. They is mules in this string that have made that very same mistake, but you can’t learn a derned mule nothin’. So don’t get fretty if it seems like we are pokin’ along. We’ll get there.”

They pulled out at three-thirty under a hot afternoon sun. The stage jerked as the mules were let go by the Mexicans holding their heads. Longarm could feel the run in them, almost see the driver straining against the reins to hold them back. And at first, it didn’t seem like he would be able. As Longarm leaned out and waved to Mr. and Mrs. Higgins the landscape was passing at an alarming rate. But gradually, the driver got control and brought the mules down to a slow trot. Longarm could hear him swearing over the crunch and swish of the iron-rimmed tires.

Longarm looked around. The doctor had his head on his chest, swaying with the motion of the coach, seeming to be catching a quick nap. Longarm looked down the bench at Rita Ann. She was half facing forward, looking out the side of the coach. She had had very little to say to him after the episode of the night before. Some moments after he’d said good night and closed his eyes, she had slipped away back to her bed on the divan. In the morning she had been as pleasant as she was supposed to be in front of the Higginses. There had been no opportunity for him to get her alone to talk and see how she liked having someone else call the tune. The doctor had come in a little before noon and had been given some lunch with them, and then there had been the business of packing and getting ready. Higgins had called him aside and held an earnest and long conversation about what help he could be if anything unlawful came up. So between one thing and another, Longarm and Rita Ann had not really spoken. He thought she was acting cool toward him, but then she always had been cool. Perhaps she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of acting like something unusual had happened. Well, he thought, she could just sit up in front of the stage and keep to herself. It made no difference to him. He was only grateful to finally be moving and somewhat on the trail of Carl Lowe. And then there was the matter of the three riders from the day before. He couldn’t shake it out of his mind that they were somewhere up ahead, waiting. It didn’t make any sense that three gunmen would be riding across the Arizona badlands with no purpose in mind, and he figured he was riding in a coach that contained a few hundred thousand purposes. He looked out the back of the coach and saw that the relay station had dropped below the horizon. In spite of the driver’s best efforts, they were moving right along. But it was still going to be a long ride to Buckeye and the railroad and a serious effort to track Carl Lowe. He settled back, wishing he had a cigar. He had a bottle of whiskey, but that was in his saddlebags and his saddlebags were on top of the coach in the luggage rack.

They rode on, the heat really making itself felt now. The mules had been slowed down to a walk in anticipation of the pull up the grade that lay ahead. Longarm yawned and looked out his side. When he brought his eyes back into the coach the doctor was apparently awake. He smiled at Longarm. “Nice day, wouldn’t you say, sir?”

Longarm yawned again. “Yeah, if we were under a shade tree. Could do with a little rain.”

The doctor had his little black bag at his feet. He said, “I believe it is time for a light libation.”

Longarm said, “That stuff will kill you in this heat.”

The doctor said, “Not as fast as this.” When he brought his hand out of the bag he was holding a large-caliber revolver. He said, “Wouldn’t you agree that a bullet is faster than whiskey, Marshal Long? Or should I say, Longarm?”

Longarm stiffened. He had his arms stretched out on either side along the tops of the seat-back. His legs were crossed at the ankles and out in front of him. He was in no position to make any moves, sudden or otherwise. He said slowly, “Doc, I reckon you know that guns are dangerous. When you been drinkin’ you sure don’t want to be fooling around with one.”

The doctor smiled. Longarm noticed that he had repaired the bent frames of his glasses. Then the doctor said, “Marshal, that is excellent advice. I want you to reach to your side and grasp the butt of your revolver with two fingers. Just two. I want you to very carefully pull it out of your holster and throw it out of the coach. You are closest to the back, so I suggest you just pitch it out there.”

Longarm did not move his hands or his arms. He said, “That would leave you with a gun and I wouldn’t have one.”

The doctor smiled again and cocked the hammer back on the revolver. “Don’t make me get careless, Marshal. This gun doesn’t have a particularly fine-tuned hair trigger on it, but this coach is jolting about. A wrong bump and this pistol could go off. I don’t think I could miss at this range. Do you? You don’t want to bet your life on the nerves of an old drunk. That wouldn’t be wise.”

Then Longarm saw what had bothered him about the doctor’s eyes. “Hell, you ain’t no old drunk! Dammit, I should have seen before.”

“Whatever are you talking about, sir?”

“Your eyes, dammit, your eyes! The whites of your damn eyes.”

“And what is wrong with the whites of my ‘damn’ eyes, as you choose to call them?”

Longarm was furious with himself. “They are white, that’s what the hell is wrong with them. Dammit! If you were an old drunk they’d be bloodshot! I saw it and it bothered me, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Hell, you’ve been acting. Your eyes are whiter than mine.”

The doctor smiled genially. “Well, all that aside, Marshal, this coach continues to jolt its way along and the business end of this revolver is still pointed at your chest. I want you to throw your side arm out of the coach.”

Longarm looked down the bench at Rita Ann. She was sitting quietly, serenely, her hands holding her cloth purse in her lap. She seemed detached from what was happening. Longarm figured she was scared. Well, for that matter, so was he. He never had cared to have men he didn’t know or understand point loaded pistols at him.

He said, “You’re not going to shoot me, Doc. The driver will hear the noise and he’ll pull up his team and come to have a look.”

The doctor nodded. “That’s probably quite true, Marshal. And then you would have a dead driver and a dead guard. Something I am not anxious to have happen. But if I have to shoot you I will have to shoot them also.”

“You couldn’t drive this team.”

The doctor showed a fine set of teeth in a smile. “I’m a very resourceful man, Marshal. You’d be surprised at what I can do if I have to. For that matter I have no desire to shoot a federal marshal. Having the federal service hot after me is nothing I care to add to my troubles. But I am a man with serious business to tend to and you are in the way. I command you one last time to take your revolver out of the holster and throw it overboard.”

Longarm calculated his chances. They didn’t look good. The hand that was holding the pistol was steady as a rock, and the doctor looked like a man very willing and capable of pulling a trigger and shooting another man. He glanced again at Rita Ann, surprised she had been so quiet. He thought of the one brief moment of contact they had had that day. It hadn’t told him much about her feelings. Not too long before the stage arrived he had gone into the kitchen looking for Mrs. Higgins. She hadn’t been there, but Rita Ann had come in immediately and hugged him around the waist. She’d kissed him and put her hand down inside his waistband so that he’d thought they were going to have a repeat of their previous kitchen scene. But she’d just kissed him again and left as quickly as she’d come. She was, he’d decided, a very strange woman.

The doctor said, “Marshal, nothing you can think to do is going to help. Meanwhile you are getting further and further from the relay station. It will be a long, hot walk as it is. The longer you delay…” The doctor shrugged. “You could die without water.”

Longarm nodded. It made sense. Without moving he reached carefully to his side and pulled out his revolver as he had been instructed. He held it in the air, dangling from his thumb and forefinger. “Now what?”

The doctor nodded. “Throw it out the opening to your side.”

Longarm did as he was told, but it hurt him to see a fine instrument like his revolver thrown into the sand. But now he had to begin working a plan. There was his derringer in his gunbelt buckle, and he had to get the doctor to relax and point his gun somewhere else long enough to get it out and perhaps shoot the man.

But the doctor had further instructions. He said, “Now the Winchester under your seat. Just lean down, pick it up by the barrel, and pitch it out the back over the tailgate. Do it in one motion.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say it makes me nervous to have surplus weapons about. I’d hurry. I would guess we’ve come at least two miles from the relay station, if not farther. Now the Winchester.”

Longarm shrugged. He sat up straight on the bench and bent low, and with his right hand grasped his carbine by the barrel. For an instant he thought about plunging to the floor and trying for one quick shot, but he quickly dismissed the thought. It hadn’t come to that kind of desperate measure yet. The derringer was still his best bet. But he needed to get the doctor talking, get him distracted. He flung the rifle in one smooth motion out the back of the coach, sailing it over the tailgate. He saw it hit in the sandy dirt and bounce and roll and finally stop. It was going to take him forever to get it cleaned up.

He turned back to the doctor and leaned back as if settling in for a long ride. But the doctor said, “You go next, Marshal. I’m fairly certain that I have rendered you harmless. There is no way for you to chase us from the relay station. I’ve made certain of that. So I think we can do without your company.”

But Longarm didn’t move. He had dropped his right hand casually into his lap and was working it slowly up toward the top of his buckle. He said, “Doc, one thing I don’t understand. The lenses in your glasses look different. How come?”

The doctor smiled slightly. “Oh, that is probably because I’m careless and because I only wear glasses as a sort of disguise. You’d be surprised at the number of people who only remember you as a man wearing glasses. When they see you later without glasses they don’t recognize you. These are plain glass. No more magnification than a window glass. But that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. If you don’t mind I’d like you to make your way to the end of the coach and slip quietly over the tailgate. At the speed we’re making it should be quite safe. As I say, I have no wish to harm you, Marshal, but you are interfering with my business. And I’d remind you, if you call out to the driver, you will surely cause his death. Do I make myself clear?”

Longarm had gotten his thumb inside his belt buckle and was frantically searching for his derringer. He thought it might have escaped from its clip and fallen down, but he couldn’t feel anything.

Rita Ann said distinctly, “Lose something?”

Startled, he turned his head and glanced her way. “What?”

She reached in her bag and came out holding his derringer. “Looking for this?”

He stared. “Son of a bitch,” he said slowly. He shook his head. “You sure as hell took me in. I’ll be … go to hell.”

The doctor laughed quietly. He said, “Gulled by a woman. Is there anything that is a worse blow to the male pride? Oh, me. I wish you could see the expression on your face, sir. It is a sight. Yessir, it is a sight.” The doctor laughed again. “Oh, I know the feeling, sir, and I sympathize with you. But better you than me, I say.”

Longarm looked at Rita Ann, sitting serenely with the derringer dangling from her hand. He said, “Well, the laugh is on me. You sure took me in all right. I didn’t think you were a whore and you turned out to be one after all. I guess I didn’t know there were different kinds.” He nodded toward the doctor. “This the gambler who left you high and dry in Phoenix, Rita Ann?”

“You can drop the Ann,” she said. “I only use that on the rubes.”

“Aaah,” Longarm said. “There’s more and more to you every time I look. Now I’m a rube. Well, I reckon I’d rather be a rube than what you are.”

A little edge came to her voice. “Save the sermons for somebody who gives a damn, Mr. Long. Talk about acting. You make me laugh. A rich businessman. You gave yourself away so bad in that fight that it was downright stupid.”

The doctor said, “Now, now, Rita. No use being unkind. The marshal is like us, only doing his job.”

She said, “It burns me up somebody tries to play me for a fool.” She gave Longarm a hard look. “Poor little girl in her mousy dress. Get her fixed up and feel like a big man.” She made a motion with the derringer. “Go on. Get the hell out of here while you are still in one piece. I ain’t as charitable as Doc. I’d like to put a couple of holes in you.”

Longarm turned away from her. He said to Peabody, “What’s your game, Doc? You ain’t planning on robbing this stage, are you? I ain’t familiar with this particular line, but I hear they got a pretty good record of foiling robberies.”

The doctor gave him a slight smile. “Marshal, I’m sure you will forgive me if I choose not to discuss my business with a federal officer. I’m sure you can understand that.” He motioned with the revolver. “You have already caused us a little inconvenience and I think it is time you took your leave. Just slip quietly over the tailgate.

Longarm looked at him. He shifted his weight on the seat, putting it forward on the balls of his feet. “Doc, I don’t think you will shoot me. I’ve stayed alive just on these kind of decisions and I don’t think you’ll pull that trigger. Like you said, killing a federal officer is a losing game.”

From the head of the coach Rita said, coolly, “He may not, but I will.”

As he turned his head and looked at her, she pulled back the hammers of the two-shot derringer. He knew they were a hard pull, and he was surprised at the strength in her thumb. She said, “You got about five seconds.”

The doctor said, “Marshal Long, you will be endangering the guard and the driver.” There was an urgency in his voice. “I cannot always control her. I advise you to go and go quickly.”

Longarm looked at the doctor, and then he looked at Rita. He got slowly to his feet, nodding his head. He said quietly, “All right. I’ll get off here.”

As he made his way to the end of the coach the doctor said, “Don’t call out to the driver, Marshal. You know what will happen.”

Longarm climbed over the tailgate, standing on the fender. He looked back into the coach. “Maybe that I’ll see you two again.”

The doctor said, “One other piece of advice, Marshal. I wouldn’t risk my health by running back to the relay station in order to send a telegram on ahead. Won’t do any good. The lines have been cut.”

Longarm nodded. He would like to have said something about Carl Lowe and about what he knew, if for no other reason than to wipe the smug look off their faces. But he knew better than that. The less they knew about what he knew, the better off he was. As it was, things weren’t looking all that well. He said, “I’m much obliged for the advice, Doctor. And I wish you good luck. That she-cat you are running with and you are going to need it.”

With that he dropped off the coach. It was going slow enough that he was able to stay on his feet by lumbering along in a kind of run for a few seconds. Finally he was able to slow to a walk and then stop. He could just barely see the top of the hats of the driver and the guard as they sat on their perch in front of the box. He realized he didn’t know the whole story, but he felt he knew enough that he could still stop it from happening.

But he was once again out in the middle of the Arizona badlands, afoot and with no water.

Chapter 7

For a moment he stared after the stage as if he could stop its progress by sheer will of mind. But the coach kept rolling and there wasn’t much time. If he was going to stop the robbery he was going to have to hurry. He turned and started back toward the south, walking fast. But after a few strides he stopped. Walking wasn’t going to be fast enough. He calculated he was somewhere between two and three miles from Higgins’s relay station. He was going to have to find a way to run. He sat down and pulled off his boots. He didn’t know how many rocks or sharp objects there were between where he was and the station, but he’d just have to try and miss them.

He figured to run along the road made by the broad wheels of the coach. He took off the belt to his jeans, which he really didn’t need anyway, and ran it through the pull-ups on the sides of his boots. He buckled the belt and then put it around his neck, slinging his boots to his back. His gunbelt was heavy, so he unbuckled it and let it fall to the ground. He might get it back later and he might not. He reckoned not was the more likely.

Finally there was nothing to do but strike a trot. He didn’t reckon he’d ever run further than a hundred yards since he’d been a boy, but he was about to find out how much stamina he had.

It seemed the further he ran the hotter the sun got. He could almost feel it getting hotter with every stride. On top of the heat outside, he was making heat inside. The only good part to the whole matter was that the air was so dry he didn’t sweat. That was good. With no water he could ill afford to lose any more body liquid than he had to.

Within ten minutes he saw his Winchester carbine ahead. He scooped it up without stopping, shaking it as he ran, trying to get the sand out of the gun’s action. It probably didn’t matter anyway. His chances of catching up with Doc and Rita and the stage were not very good, he calculated. He figured he had a better chance of dying from heatstroke.

The stations were twenty miles apart. If indeed he was a little over two miles from Higgins’s station, that meant that the stage had seventeen or eighteen miles to go. He didn’t know how long it would take him to reach Higgins’s place, or how much progress the stage would make while he was bursting his lungs and frying his brains. There was that long grade and maybe that would slow the stage down, but he had to figure some way of rigging up some sort of conveyance to carry him on his chase. Maybe, he thought, the three gunmen might have returned. If they had, he could take their horses and set out in hot pursuit. If they hadn’t, or if there wasn’t anyone else there with a horse, he didn’t have the slightest idea what he could do. Maybe they could fix the telegraph wires and wire ahead to warn the next station. But he had a feeling that that station was already in Doc’s control. He had no way of knowing such a thing for certain, but he had the feeling.

Maybe, he thought, he could find some way to hook two mules together and put some sort of wide sling between them that he could sit on. The thought would have made him laugh if he hadn’t needed the breath.

He had to keep switching his rifle from hand to hand. It was too heavy and too cumbersome to carry with any ease. And his boots kept beating a tattoo on his back. He thought of discarding the rifle in hopes that Higgins might have one at the station, but he couldn’t chance it. If he was successful in catching the stage he was going to need the rifle and need it bad.

Fortunately the ground was turning out to be easier going than he’d expected. So long as he kept to the tracks of the stage, all the rocks and other painful things had been mashed down into the soft sand and did him no harm. Even his legs were holding up fairly well.

But it was his breathing that was about to do him in. He couldn’t seem to take in enough air to fill his bursting lungs. And with every stride, he could feel the effects of every cigar he’d ever smoked and every drink he’d ever downed. He vowed, if he lived through the run, to live a pure life from that hour forward.

He ran, his eyes fixed on the horizon, praying for the tops of the station buildings to miraculously appear. But he knew he had a long way to go. Dishearteningly, when he thought he must have covered at least a mile, he came across his revolver. He knew the stage hadn’t covered a mile since he’d thrown it out. He scooped it up without stopping. He dared not stop. If he stopped he wasn’t sure he could start again.

At first he put the revolver in his waistband, but it irritated him and kept trying to slip down. Finally he ended up carrying the rifle in one hand and the revolver in the other. They seemed to balance each other.

He thought of Rita and gritted his teeth. They were sandy. She had pulled a nice little trick on him with that last hug she’d given him. When she’d made as if to put her hand inside his jeans, she’d been reaching for a gun, all right, but it hadn’t been the one he’d thought. She’d taken his damn derringer. Well, he would have it back from her and no mistake. He didn’t know if he was more angry at her or at himself for the easy way she’d worked him. He reckoned she’d known he was a marshal almost from the first, Either she’d overheard the Higginses talking or she’d found his badge in his shirt pocket.

He kept running, gasping for air, the gasps coming closer and closer together. He couldn’t get enough air, and what he could was as dry and hot as a prairie fire. He wanted to stop. He desperately wanted to stop. His legs were starting to get heavy and his arms and shoulders were aching from carrying the weapons. You needed air to breathe and he wasn’t sure he was getting enough, or if he was, he was using up more than he was getting. The pain in his throat and chest was intense. He did not think he could go on, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other and taking turns switching the rifle and the revolver from one hand to the other.

He had to find something to hitch a team of mules to. A sled of some kind or a skid. Hell, maybe a bedstead. No, not a bedstead, but what about a mattress ticking? No, that would tear to pieces in the first mile. Maybe the Higginses’ little dining room table. Turn it upside down and he’d have the legs to hang on to.

He ran, turning ideas over and over in his mind, trying not to think of his body, which was crying out for him to cease torturing it. He tried thinking of lovers from his past, but that didn’t work mainly because he was hurting so bad that he couldn’t concentrate, but also because he couldn’t get the devious bitch Rita Ann out of his mind. With every stride he said in his head, “The day will come, woman, the day will come. The day with me and you alone and then matters will get settled. The day will come when you will rue you ever heard my name, much less met me, much less used me, much less overpowered me in a way no woman ever has before.”

But it was no good. Thinking of her made him angry, and he didn’t have any extra energy to waste on anything other than keeping his legs moving. His shirt was too tight across the chest. It felt as if it was constricting him, closing off his lungs. With the hand holding the revolver he made several attempts to rip open the buttons. He finally succeeded on the third try, but the effort was such that it made him stumble and almost fall. That scared him. If he ever fell he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up.

He tried to think about how he would organize matters once he got to the station, what he’d have Higgins looking for to make him some sort of conveyance that could be pulled behind two or four or more mules. Then how to repair the wires. But again, he couldn’t concentrate.

And where were the three gunmen? The three he’d sent packing. They had to be part of the plan, but they had not met the stage. Maybe they had gone ahead and taken control of the station the stage was bound for.

It was all too much. He finally quit trying to think at all. He ran. He ran with his head down, looking ahead no more than three or four yards. He ran, staring at the brown, ugly, sandy dirt. He ran with the sound of his own gasping sounding like the roaring surf he’d once heard out in California. He could feel his pulse beating in his temple. It was going like a trip-hammer. The only time it ever did that, as best he could remember, was in the heat of passion. Well, this sure as hell wasn’t the heat of passion. There was heat, heat enough to bake bread and fry steaks, but no passion.

Ripping open his shirt hadn’t helped. What was constricting him, he discovered, was not his shirt but the skin of his own chest. And underneath that his ribs were choking him. For the first time he began to think about failure. His body was telling him that it couldn’t go on, not for any reason.

Finally he got to the point where he said to himself that he would take just ten more strides and then he would stop. He counted them off in his head, his puffing and gasping coming faster than the count. When he reached ten, he told himself he would just go ten more and then definitely stop. But when that ten was up he made a deal with himself that he would run ten more strides and then he would look up. If he could not see some little part of the relay station he would stop. Maybe he would keep on walking, but he would stop running. He counted off the ten strides and then very slowly raised his eyes. Nothing but desolate badlands met his eyes. There was nothing in sight that looked like the hand of man had ever touched it with the exception of the coach tracks. He could stop now, he thought, with honor. He should stop. He was going to die if he didn’t stop. He wanted, he needed, it was necessary to stop.

He kept running. Now, burning his mind like an image that would never fade was every laugh that damn woman had had on him. Well, he would have the last laugh or he would die in worn-out socks.

He raised his eyes. There, directly ahead, he could see the buildings of the relay station. Not just the tops of the buildings, but all of them. All of them and the front yard. Somehow he had struggled up some sort of rise in the prairie and topped it and then there, right in front of him, was the relay station. It was downhill all the way to the front door.

But he was starting to stagger. His legs felt like they were made of lead and not really connected to him. Of their own choice they seemed to want to go wandering off in different and odd directions that had nothing to do with his intentions for them. He didn’t know how far away the buildings were. Between the film of exhaustion over his eyes and the shimmering heat waves, he couldn’t tell if they were a half mile away or a week. All he could do was keep on the way he’d come, putting one foot in front of the other.

He put his head down and went back to staring at the ground, guiding his steps by the tracks of the stage. His legs were getting limp and his shoulders were aching so bad from carrying the guns that he didn’t think he could stand it much longer. For some reason he had started breathing easier. It was as if something had finally burst under the pressure and he had a greater capacity to suck in the dry, hot air.

He raised his eyes, concentrating on the main building of the station. It seemed he could see someone standing under the porch, very near the front door. He looked down at the sand again and did not raise his eyes again until he’d counted off thirty strides. Yes, there was definitely someone there. If his vision had been normal he felt almost certain he would have been able to see the figure clearly. Then a distant noise seemed to come to his ears, like someone shouting. Through his squinted eyes he saw the figure come out of the shade of the porch and start toward him. It was Higgins. He was waving his arms and yelling, but Longarm couldn’t make out the words for the roaring in his ears and the sound of his gasping breaths. Then he saw that Higgins had broken into a kind of trot, running to meet him. He wanted to make some sort of signal, but he couldn’t raise either hand, not and hold on to his weapons.

Now he could see clearly that he was not that far from the station. Desert air was known for playing tricks on your vision, but he could tell it was no more than two hundred yards away. And Higgins was coming on, the distance between them narrowing. Then he finally heard Higgins’s voice. He was yelling as he bounced up and down in his peculiar run, “Marshal Long! Longarm! Mister Long! Marshal! What’s wrong? What happened?”

Longarm slogged along grimly, thinking that Higgins must have never been out of breath if he thought you could run and yell at the same time. At least after you’d run better than two miles under the desert sun. He was dying to know what time it was, but he couldn’t look at his watch. He’d had one look at it just before the doctor had pulled out his pistol. It was about a mile after they’d left the station. His watch had said forty minutes after three. But then he didn’t know how much time had elapsed before he’d finally gotten out of the coach. It couldn’t have been much, not a great deal more than five minutes. Perhaps ten at the most. He had to remember to look at the time when he got to the station. It was very important that he know what kind of a lead the stage had.

Then Higgins reached him. For a moment the old man danced around in front of Longarm like the runner was going to stop. Finally, when Longarm had to go to the trouble to circle him, he fell in stride to Longarm’s left asking what had happened, what was going on, what and where was the trouble, and why was Longarm running.

Longarm knew he didn’t have much breath to spare, but he thought if he could get the old man to run ahead and have something prepared for him, it would save trouble. He got the words out one at a time, between gasping breaths, each one coming out as slowly and painfully from his parched throat as if they were being pulled from him with red-hot tongs. He said, “Hurry … to … station … fix … me … big … glass … water. Put … some … whiskey … in … it. Hurry.”

But Higgins didn’t go. He said, “But what’s it all about, Marshal? What’s happened?”

The world was starting to turn dim, even in the blinding sunlight. “Can’t … talk. No … breath. Hurry … dying … of … thirst.”

Finally the old man seemed to get the message. He said, “You want me to run on ahead and get you a big glass of water and put a little whiskey in it?”

All Longarm could do was nod mutely. But he did hold out his rifle to the old man. Higgins stared at it for a second and then took it. He said, “Yessir, I’m going to run fast as I can an’ fix yore water. Longarm, it ain’t healthy running in this sun.”

Longarm turned blazing eyes on him. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes said a lot.

Higgins nodded his head. “Yessir! I’m a-goin’! An’ right now!”

He put his head down as Higgins, surprisingly agile, raced on ahead. When he looked up after twenty strides the man was out of sight. But by now he could distinctly see the shade cast by the porch roof. It was the most inviting sight he thought he’d ever seen. He kept running. It was odd, but even though he’d given his carbine to Higgins, he could still feel the weight of the weapon in his hand and arm and shoulder. He kept running, starting now to stagger more than just a little. Sometimes he had trouble finding and following the coach track. The whole world seemed to be going gray.

And then he suddenly felt cool. He blinked and looked up. He had run under the porch and was about to run into the wall of the station. He stopped. At least he stopped moving his legs, though they felt as if they were still in motion. The door to the station was just a few feet to his left. With the last of his strength he took the few strides to it and then turned into the incredibly dim and cool interior of the station. Higgins was coming toward him holding out a quart jar full of what looked to be water colored with a little whiskey. Longarm made it as far as the bench by the front door and then he collapsed. Higgins said in alarm, “My laws, Marshal, I believe you have overdone yoreself.”

When he could he gasped out the main elements of what had happened. Mrs. Higgins stood alongside her husband looking very upset and concerned. Her only reaction was to say, “Oh, not Rita Ann! Not that sweet girl! Oh, no, I can’t believe it!”

He drank down the first jar of water and whiskey very carefully, taking it in small sips, forcing himself to take it slow when his whole body was screaming out for him to dump the precious stuff down his throat. But he persevered. It took him perhaps five minutes. Then Higgins brought him another jar with a little more whiskey, He sipped at it slowly while he tried to tell them as much as he could. The water and whiskey were helping, but he could tell just how done in his body was. He hurt all over, and he knew it would only get worse. But all that didn’t matter. Right then time was the most important factor. When he had told Higgins about the plan to rob the stage, the stationkeeper wanted to run to telegraph the news to his company. When Longarm said the wires had been cut, Higgins insisted on going in and trying his key. It didn’t matter, since Longarm was going to need at least half an hour to recover. He gave his rifle to Mrs. Higgins and told her she needed to eject the cartridges and clean the sand off whatever she could. Then Higgins came back looking glum. He said, “Yep. You be right. Wires is cut both north and south. My key is as dead as a doornail. What the hell we gonna do, Marshal?”

Longarm’s breathing was almost back to normal. Mrs. Higgins brought him some cooking grease and he greased his feet and put his boots back on. But they were a snug fit, and he took them off again. His feet had swelled and his socks, even worn out as they were, were too thick. Mrs. Higgins brought him a pair of her husband’s thin white cotton socks. He put them on and then his boots fit better.

He said to both of them, “Look, I don’t have much time. Mrs. Higgins, you see to my guns and fix me something easy to eat. Stir up some eggs in some milk with some sugar. That ought to work. Half a dozen eggs in a quart of milk. Mister Higgins, you’ve got to go out and get your Mexicans to harness the most reliable span of mules you’ve got. The easiest to handle.”

Higgins scratched his head. “Wa’l, that be fine. I got just the mules, but we ain’t got no harness fer just the one span.”

Longarm stifled the urge to scream. He said calmly, “Mister Higgins, Herman, I ain’t got but a little time. You’ll have to cut some harness down to fit one span.”

“Cut company harness?”

Then Longarm couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Dammit, Herman, a bunch of robbers is fixing to steal how many thousands of dollars in gold from your company and you are talking to me about cutting up some damned harness!” He suddenly stopped and took a breath. Mrs. Higgins was coming in with his rifle. He said, “Look here, I’m sorry I yelled, but I ain’t got a lot of time or strength. I’m nearly done in. So you got to do what I tell you without explaining or arguing.”

Higgins said, “My stars, Marshal, I don’t know what went through my mind. Sylvie, I’m losing my reason. Course we can cut a harness down to fit a span of mules, but what you gonna hitch them up to?”

Longarm shook his head. “I don’t know. Some kind of sled. I thought about your little table, but I’m scared it would just dig in the dirt and flip over. I’ll think of something, Right now run out and get those Mexicans busy hooking me up a team.” As Higgins started out of the room, Longarm took the Winchester from Mrs. Higgins and ejected the cartridges by working the lever action. It hurt him to hear the gritty sound of the action as he worked the receiver chamber back and forth. But it made him think of something. He said to Higgins, “Herman, you ain’t got any forty-four-caliber shells by any chance, do you?”

Higgins stopped and nodded. “Happens I do. Got a fairly fresh box of ‘em. Got an old rifle myself, though the sights need straightening.”

“Don’t let me forget them,” Longarm said. Both his revolver and rifle fired .44 cartridges, but all his extra ammunition was in his saddlebags, which were on top of the stage. He said, “Hurry those Mexicans up. Every minute that stage is getting closer and closer to the next station.”

Mrs. Higgins had picked up the cartridges. She said, “I’ll clean these right up and do what I can for your guns. But hadn’t I better bring you your eggs and milk first?”

Longarm slumped back on the bench. “Yeah, I reckon. Faster I get it down the faster it will help me get some strength back. But what I’d like to do is get out back and pump a bucket of water and douse myself down. Don’t know if I got the strength, though.”

Mrs. Higgins said, “Why, I can do better than that. Why don’t you go in there and get in our Sears and Roebuck galvanized bathtub and turn on the tap from that pipe that runs up to the cistern on the roof. You can be resting and soaking the heat out of your poor body while you are at it. And you don’t even have to take your clothes off. Maybe yore boots. Wouldn’t want to get them wet. And I can bring you your milk and eggs right there and you can rest and soak and eat all the same time.”

“Sylvia,” he said, “that’s a damn good idea.” He heaved himself to his feet, doing it quickly to catch his body off guard. For a second he stood swaying, the room moving around him. He still had the sensation he was running. He stood a moment until he was certain he wasn’t going to fall, and then followed Mrs. Higgins through their private quarters and back to the curtained-off bathroom and its bathtub.

There was a little rubber plug in the bottom of the tub. Mrs. Higgins put it in place, saying that they just let the tub drain out on the floor and then the slope of the floor took it outside. She turned the tap and slightly brownish water began running into the tub. He sat on the edge and took his boots off, relishing the idea of cooling off his still-overheated body. The tub wasn’t all that deep, maybe two feet or a little more at its lowest point. But it curved up toward the other end to make a backrest where you could lean back and put your legs out straight and kind of soak the lower part of your body. But since the tub wasn’t much more than four feet long, he reckoned if you wanted to soak the upper half of yourself you’d have to slide down and kind of put your legs in the air. It wasn’t all that wide either, at least not down toward the bottom, and he wasn’t sure if his shoulders would fit in the bottom.

But it was as good a way as any to refresh himself. He swung around and eased his body into the half-full tub, carefully keeping his stocking feet out of the water. By putting his feet on the top of the lower end he could slide down into the tub to where the water was halfway between his waist and his chest. It felt wonderfully cool. Mrs. Higgins brought him his glass of cool milk with the eggs and sugar mixed in, and he sat there savoring it, sipping it at first and then taking long drinks. All it needed, he decided, was a little whiskey to make it maybe the best drink he’d ever had in his entire life. Even with it only half drunk he could feel strength returning. All of a sudden he remembered the time. He put his hand in his right-hand shirt pocket and jerked out his watch. The time read forty minutes after four. He mulled it over in his mind. He’d actually made pretty good time on his run. Only an hour or less had passed since the good doctor had drawn his gun. He did some calculations in his head, though his mind was still a little groggy. If the mule team was making five or six miles an hour, that meant they would have gone on another five miles or so from where he had gotten off the stage. Figure he had been three miles from the station, that made eight miles. The team still had twelve miles to go to reach the next relay station, and that up a bad grade where they would more than likely slow down to something under four miles an hour. He had a chance. It wasn’t a good one, but if he could find something to ride that the mules could pull at a fast clip, he might just catch the stage.

He put his head back and stared up at the ceiling, reliving the run he had just made. He shuddered. He didn’t know how he’d done it and he’d never do it again, even if it meant a raise in pay and the right to every woman in Denver.

Lying back, he let his skin absorb the water. He doubted if his pores were -actually drinking it in, but he knew he didn’t feel so dried out, and it hadn’t been much more than a quarter of an hour ago when he figured he could have passed for a big chunk of beef jerky.

He finished his milk and eggs and set the jar on the floor next to the tub. He worked his body down as far as he could. He’d thought his shoulders wouldn’t fit the width of the tub, but it was wider than he’d thought. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to think of how he was going to catch up to the stage. If he could just think of something he could hitch the mules to. It made him want to shake his head in disbelief that a place as out of the way as a relay station wouldn’t at least have a buckboard or a buggy, never mind a saddle horse. What in hell were the residents supposed to do if they had to get around or go for help or needed to borrow some sugar or salt from the nearest neighbors? Well, he could understand it from the stage company’s viewpoint. It kept your stationkeepers in place, but he didn’t think it was very humane.

A thought suddenly came to him. He let it lay for a moment, just floating around in his head, and then brought it forward and gave it serious consideration. Abruptly, he sat up and turned around and looked at the back of the bathtub, the way it curved up, like the prow of a ship. The foot of the tub was the same. It curved upward. He suddenly scrambled out of the tub, excited, dripping water all over the place. He could clearly see that the tub was curved upwards in all parts of it, including the sides. The only flat part was the very bottom, and it was only about two feet wide. There wasn’t a single angle to snag or dig into the dirt. He ran out of the bathroom, yelling. He shouted, “Mrs. Higgins! Mrs. Higgins!”

The matronly lady came huffing in from the front room looking alarmed. She said, “Marsha—I mean, Cust—I mean, Mr. Long, is something wrong?”

“No, everything is fine. Listen, I need to stay out of the sun as much as I can. Will you run outside and tell Herman to come and to bring his Mexicans with him.”

She stared at him. “Why, yes, of course. Is something wrong?”

He pointed back at the bathtub. “How do you get the water out of this thing?”

She said, “Why you just pull that little black rubber plug there. It will run out. The floor slopes to the back.”

“Well, would you please get Mister Higgins. I’ve got to get moving, Sylvia.”

She frowned slightly. “Now you’re sure you are all right? You had a good bit of that sun, you know.”

“I know I did, Sylvia, but I’m all right. I’m just in a hurry. And when you get around to it, I wish you’d fill me a big canteen of water and maybe put any bread or biscuits you got left over in a bag. Piece of ham or something to go with it.” She said, “I’ll get Mr. Higgins right away.”

Chapter 8

Higgins stood in the bathroom and stared at Longarm. He said, “You want to do what with my wife’s bathtub?”

“Use it as a sled, a kind of sleigh. It’s the only thing around here I can think of that will work. See how rounded it is on the bottom? See how the sides slope outward? Be like riding in a soup dish. This thing will go skimming over that flat desert faster than if it had wheels.”

Higgins blinked. “But that’s Sylvie’s bathtub! You want to have some mules drag that thing across the desert? Mister Long, she ain’t had it six months yet. Was the desire of her heart. She’d been takin’ baths in a number-two washtub fer years. An’ now you want to, to, to-” He stopped, unable to go on, and rolled his eyes in his head.

Longarm said briskly, “Herman, time is wasting. I got to get hitched up and get going. I’ll see she gets this one back or another one.”

Higgins said, “It would break her heart, Marshal. She-“

A voice behind him said, “Herman, if the marshal needs that bathtub, you let him take it on. My goodness, he’s after shore-‘nough criminals. He could get hisself kilt and I don’t know what else. Marshal, you are more than welcome to that tub. I can get by without it.”

Longarm said, “Thank you, Sylvia.” Then he turned to Higgins. “Herman, get your Mexicans in here to get this thing outside. Have them put it in front of the station. That’s where I figure to leave from.”

Higgins shrugged. “Shoot, Marshal, me an’ you can tote it. It don’t weigh all that much. Sixty, eighty pounds.”

Longarm shook his head. “Herman, I got just so much energy left, and I can’t spare an ounce for anything except trying to catch up with that stage.”

“Go on, Mr. Higgins, like he says,” said Mrs. Higgins. “Marshall, I guess it be all right to call you that now, seem’ as how we are a-chasin’ an evil bunch together. I got yore firearms cleaned up as best I can, though I never took on to put the bullets back in ‘em.”

Longarm thanked her. “I’ll be doing that while Mr. Higgins is getting the bathtub out front. What about the harness, Herman? You get it cut down?”

Higgins was nearly out of the bathroom. He said, “Yeah, I reckon.” Then he glanced at the bathtub. “Though it beats the hell outten me how we gonna hook up that thing.” He heaved a sigh. “But I reckon I’ll think of somethin’. Sylvie always said I was a figgerin’ man.”

“Oh, he is, Marshal. My Mr. Higgins will sit an’ study on somethin’ you think they ain’t no way to fix or make right or get built or any of that. Pretty soon he’ll get up an’ he’ll have her figgered out and it’ll work too.”

Longarm said, “Herman, don’t forget that box of forty-four cartridges. When I come out the front door I don’t want to come back in. I’m heading north as soon as I step out of here.”

Mrs. Higgins said, “I’ll sack you up somethin’ to eat and fill you a canteen.”

Longarm sat in the bathroom on the side of the tub and pulled on his boots. His clothes were soaked from his ankles to his shoulders, but he knew they’d dry in five minutes once he got out the door.

He was out in the common room drinking water with a little whiskey in it when the Mexicans, followed by Mister Higgins, walked past him carrying the bathtub. He picked up his weapons, the sack of food Mrs. Higgins had fixed, the box of cartridges, and the big two-quart canteen, and followed them outside, still sipping at the glass of whiskey water. The Mexicans set the bathtub down and then stepped back and looked at Higgins. Higgins looked at Longarm. He said, “She pointin’ in the right direction? I mean, you want to hitch to the low end or the high one?”

Longarm carefully placed his load in the bottom of the tub and stepped back and sipped at his drink. He still felt thirsty, though he thought it was more in his mind than his body. He said, “Looks about right to me. I figure to hitch to the low end, however we do it. And I want to snub it up pretty close so the front end will actually rise up a little. Won’t be as much drag that way. So, yeah, I’d say it’s sitting about right. Might swing that front end a little more toward the stage tracks. I got an idea that when we leave here those mules ain’t going to be all that easy to guide.”

Higgins rolled his eyes and said, “You ain’t jus’ whistlin’ Dixie, Marshal. I don’t quite know how those mules are gonna take to this contraption.” But then he spoke to the Mexicans, and they swiveled the bathtub around so it was lined up with the stage tracks.

“Where are the mules?” Longarm asked.

Higgins jerked his head. “The boys got them tied to the corral fence.”

“They rested?”

Higgins leveled his eyes on Longarm. “Them mules is got as much go in ‘em as a steam locomotive leavin’ a lumberyard. I ain’t envyin’ you this little ride you are fixing to take.”

“Well, have you figured out a way to hitch them up?”

Higgins frowned and crossed his arms and stared at the tub. He said, “First thang that come to my mind was we might’s well forget ‘bout the trace straps. Ain’t no place to hook ‘em. Best I can figure is knock a little hole in the front of that tub with a hammer and chisel. Then take and run the trace chain through it and stick a big nail or bolt through a link of the chain so it can’t go back out the hole.”

Longarm said, “Hell, Herman, you are a figgerin’ man. That will work. Hell, yes, that will work. Let’s get it done. By the way, I want you to put a spade bit in at least one of them mules’ mouth.”

Mister Higgins nodded and spat. “Done thought of it. Be your near mule. The mule on yore left-hand side.” He spat again and looked at the tub and shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me what a man gets up to in the law bid’ness.” He turned and gave the Mexicans a volley of instructions in Spanish. They immediately took off for the back.

Longarm said, “I know how much your wife is giving up here. But I’ll see she gets a new bathtub.”

Higgins snorted. “I didn’t know what I was sayin’ thar in the bathroom. Hell, yes, we want to catch them crooks. I taken a look at my telegraph wahr. Hell, they done tore it all to pieces. Gonna take some fixin’ to get it back up an’ workin’. I tell you, Marshal, it makes me feel plumb lonesome with that telegraph wahr cut. Never knowed how much I depended on it. Was like a neighbor to me.”

Longarm said, “I forgot a bottle of whiskey. I guess I better take some.”

“Snakes out thar,” Higgins said.

When Longarm came back, the Mexicans had brought the team around. The mules looked contrary and suspicious and spooky. A Mexican had one each by the head harness, but they were still having trouble controlling them. They got the mules up in front of the bathtub, and then tried to back them into place, but the mules weren’t having any of it. They snorted and reared and kicked out with their hind legs.

Higgins said matter-of-factly, “Them mules ain’t never seen no bathtub before, let alone set in to pull one. Mules as a general rule don’t like new thangs, and that bathtub is mighty new to them.”

Longarm could see bandannas hanging out of the Mexicans’ pockets. He said to Higgins, “Tell them to blindfold them.”

Higgins spoke to them in Spanish and they nodded in agreement and said, “Si, si. Es bueno.”

Working with one mule at a time, they were able to cover their eyes with their big handkerchiefs. As soon as the mules couldn’t see, they got quiet. Higgins laughed. “You must be an old mule man yoreself.”

Longarm shook his head. “Never handled one in my life. This will be the first, heaven help me. But it works with horses.” He nodded at the hammer and chisel one of the Mexicans had given Higgins. “Hadn’t you better knock a hole in the front before we get the mules too close?”

“That’s good thinkin’, Marshal. Right good thinkin’.” He stepped to the front of the tub and measured with his eye. “Say you want the front to ride off the ground a mite?”

“I think that would be good,” Longarm said. “But I think we are guessing here. You ain’t never hooked mules up to a bathtub and I never drove mules before, bathtub or not.”

Higgins said, “I figure about here.” He put his finger on a spot about five to six inches down from the top of the lower end.

“Looks fine to me,” Longarm said. “Like I say, I think we are guessing.”

Higgins set his chisel point and then struck the other end with the hammer. The galvanized tin dented, but it didn’t break. “Tougher than it looks.”

He set the point of the chisel in the dent and then hit it another blow. A small hole appeared in the surface of the bathtub. Higgins leaned around to look inside. ‘Bout one more ought to do her.”

With the next blow, a hole about the size of a quarter appeared on the inside wall of the bathtub. Higgins looked at it. “That ought to ‘bout do it. Trace chain will go through there right snug like.”

Longarm watched as he took the end of the trace chain, a linked chain with links about an inch and a half long and three quarters of an inch wide, and ran it through the hole. When he had about a foot inside the tub he looked at Longarm. “Now you got to say how close you want the front of this tub to the end of them mules.”

Longarm frowned. “Hell, Herman, I ain’t got the slightest idea. Have your men start backing the mules up and you take up the slack while I see.”

Higgins spoke to the Mexicans, and they urged the mules backwards. The animals stepped backward trembling and reluctant. As they came closer, Higgins pulled on the trace chain that ran to the singletree, a wooden device that kept the mules spaced apart, taking up the slack and letting it lay in the bottom of the tub. Ordinarily, if they had been hitching a wagon or a buckboard, it would have been done with leather straps. The trace chain was only a safety measure in case one of the traces, or leather straps, should break. But since there was no other way to attach the bathtub, they were using the chain only, which gave Longarm very limited control over the team.

When the mules were about three feet from the front of the tub, Higgins told the Mexicans to stop. He said, “I wouldn’t jam ‘em up any tighter than that.”

“Have they got room to run snubbed up that close?” Longarm asked.

Higgins spat. He’d said he always got a mouthful of saliva when he was nervous and the entire affair was making him nervous. “Most folks get a dry mouth when they get jittery. I get spit.”

Now he said, “They got just about the right amount of room to run. You get any further back and they likely to sling you around like a turnip on the end of a string.”

Longarm shrugged. “Hell, I’d rather go by train, but it don’t look like I got much choice. Hook ‘em up.”

Higgins took a big nail out of his pocket and ran it through the link just inside the hole in the tub. Then he took a pair of pliers out of his back pocket and bent the nail so it couldn’t slip out of the link. He gave a yank on the chain from the outside of the tub and pronounced it solid. “That chain won’t break and that tub won’t break. These here mules is hitched to this tub until somebody comes along and unhitches ‘em.” He peered at Longarm. “Course I ain’t promising that you is gonna stay part of the outfit. Right now these mules don’t know what they hitched to. I ain’t right shore how they gonna react once they find out. You better go ahead and get in there and I’ll hand you the reins.”

One of the Mexicans said something to Higgins, and he nodded. “Bueno, muy bueno. Vamoose!”

The Mexican tore off for the barn, and Longarm asked what all that was about. Higgins said, “We got an old coach whip in the feed house. Miguel thought you might make good use of it.”

“What’s a coach whip?” Longarm thought he knew, but he wanted to be sure.

“Aw, it’s a little thin pole ‘bout six feet long with about a three-foot leather snapper on the end. See, I don’t think you goin’ to be able to steer these here mules as much as you’d like to think. So I reckon you are gonna have to lean forward and slap one of ‘em on the jaw opposite the way you want to go. You gonna have four reins, but you likely to pull yore arms outten the sockets tryin’ to get these here cold-jawed sonsabitches to gee and haw.”

Longarm stepped gingerly into the bathtub and worked his way into a sitting position. He was up close to the front of the tub with his legs sort of crossed under him. Higgins walked down by the side of the mules, straightening the harness and letting out the reins. He handed them to Longarm. There were four, two for each mule. Longarm said, “I ain’t all that sure I know how to handle this bunch of leather.”

Higgins shook his head sorrowfully. “Unfortunately, Marshal, ain’t nobody can teach you. Not in that getup you be in. I reckon you are gonna learn on the job. Here comes yore coach whip.”

He took the leather-wrapped thin wand from the Mexican and handed it to Longarm. He said, “Try that on for size. See if you can reach them mules’ heads.”

Longarm extended the coach whip. It went very easily up to where he could pop either mule on either side of his head. He said, “Yeah. I can reach them. I just hope I know what to do at the time I’m supposed to do it.”

“You got everything?”

Longarm looked around. His guns and ammunition and food and water were aboard, as well as the little sack of food and the bottle of whiskey. He said, “Let me get in a quick drink before you turn them loose.”

“Better make it a good one. Might be the last you have for a time.”

Longarm took a hard pull of the bottle and then corked it. He laid it down beside him in the bathtub and then nodded his head. He had one set of reins in one hand and another in the other. He had the whip in his right hand. He pulled his hat on tighter and nodded. He said, “Take off the blindfolds.”

The Mexicans untied the hankerchiefs and whipped them away, stepping back quickly. For a moment the mules stood stock still. They both switched their ears back and forth and trembled, but other than that, didn’t move. Higgins said, “Shake the reins at ‘em. But gently.”

Longarm was about to do that, or thinking about doing it, when the off leader turned his head to the inside and walleyed the strange-looking contraption right at his heels. In that instant Higgins yelled, “Don’t let ‘em look back! It’ll spook ‘em. Use the whip!”

But it was too late. With a squeal of irritation from the off leader the team suddenly broke into a stampede. One second they were standing there, and the next they seemed to be at a dead run. If he hadn’t been holding the reins with both hands Longarm would have tumbled over on his back. As it was, it was all he could do to keep his balance and keep his hat on his head. He had reins in both hands and was set back against them as hard as he could pull, but it made the mules not the slightest bit of difference. Outside the bathtub the desert was whizzing by, and the tub itself was making a sound like bacon frying as it flew over the crusty sand and bits of grass and the occasional rock and cactus.

From behind Longarm heard Higgins yelling, “Rein ‘em in! Rein ‘em in!”

He wished Higgins was sitting where he was sitting, in the bottom of a bathtub with two runaway mules in front of him. He wouldn’t have been so quick to yell, “Rein ‘em in! Rein ‘em in!”

There was no reining the mules in. Fortunately, they were sticking to the stage tracks, so they were going where Longarm wanted to go, except they were going a little faster than he cared for. He was afraid they would play out before he caught the stage at the pace they were setting. But for the time being, he thought the best thing to do was just let them get their run out. Maybe when they tired a little they’d become slightly more manageable.

As they raced along he took stock of the situation. Looking back, he could see the station receeding rapidly in the distance. Already the horizon was cutting off Higgins and his two Mexicans at the waist, and in another moment they’d be swallowed up. All the stuff he had brought along was rattling around, but it seemed to be doing all right. It was a strange sensation to him to be sitting so close to the ground at such a speed.

The tub seemed to be pulling all right. As it raced across uneven ground it would sway and bump, but it was hitched too close to the mules to have much play, even on the single trace. Occasionally the tub would go over a rise or a clump of grass and actually get off the ground, landing with a bump, but mostly it seemed to stick pretty close to the ground, remaining stable and acting as he’d envisioned.

But it was bothering the mules. From time to time one or the other would take a wild-eyed look back at this monstrous thing that was dogging their heels and redouble its efforts. Finally, Longarm got comfortable enough to reach forward with the coachman’s whip and slap the mules on the cheek to keep them from looking back.

He knew he had to find some way to slow the animals down. Neither horse nor mule nor dog could run as fast as they were running for very long, and he figured he had at least fifteen miles to go to catch up with the coach. He started by bracing his boots against the front of the tub and pulling as hard as he could against the headlong flight of the mules. It made them bow their necks a little, but it didn’t slow them down. Their ears were still flicking back and forth in all directions.

Then they suddenly spooked to the right and started off to the east. The move caught Longarm so off guard that he almost fell out of the tub. When he regained his balance he saw that they were heading rapidly away from his intended track. He pulled hard on the rein of the near leader, trying to pull him back to the left, to the west, back toward the stage road. The result only got him a very grudging turn in that direction that might, if given enough time, bring them back on track just before they reached Phoenix. But he couldn’t wait that long. He reached forward and slapped the off leader on the right cheek. That brought quick results. The mule turned back to his left, taking his mate with him. Only they were turning too far. As they were crossing the northern line that Longarm wanted, he reached out again and tapped the near leader on the left cheek. The mules broke to the right. He kept that up until he finally had them back on the stage road and heading where he wanted them to go.

And it seemed as if they had slowed down. He gave a healthy pull on both reins, and the mules responded by settling back into a reasonable gallop. It was still too fast, but he thought they would slow down naturally as they tired.

He saw something ahead in the road, brown against the whitish sand. He doubted that it could be, but it looked like his gunbelt, the gunbelt he’d dropped when he’d started his run. If it was, it would give him a pretty good idea of how far he’d come and how far he had to go.

The brown spot turned into a gunbelt and came up very fast. The mules were on a perfect line, so Longarm did nothing to turn them. He leaned over the side of the tub as they whizzed by and reached down and scooped up his gunbelt. It was impossible to believe, and he didn’t think he would ever tell the story about the time he’d retrieved his gunbelt while sitting in a bathtub being pulled by a pair of mules across the Arizona desert. There were some tales you told and some you didn’t. Not if you wanted to maintain any sort of reputation as a halfway truthful person.

He got his watch out and looked at it. It was six-fifteen. He figured he’d covered five or six miles, maybe more. The mules had settled down to a steady lope and he figured they were making about seven miles an hour. That meant that if he didn’t come up to the coach in the next two hours, he wouldn’t catch them before they got to the station and got forted up. That would make his job a lot more difficult. Also, it would be starting to get dark in less than two hours, and the only way he had of finding his way was by the tracks of the stage, and he wouldn’t be able to see them in the lowering light. He settled down for the ride, grimly hoping the mules would hold out, that something would delay the coach, that he would catch them in time. He wanted Carl Lowe, but even more, he wanted Doctor Peabody, if that was his name, and especially Miss Rita Ann. He did not normally take a personal approach to his business as a lawman, but this time he was going to make an exception.

He sped on. The mules seemed to have adjusted to their roles as pullers of a bathtub, and were even responding moderately well to the reins. Without too much tugging and pulling he could keep them on the path whenever the coach tracks curved or went around a patch of rough ground. He dared not completely let go of the reins, but he was able to hold them in one hand while he used the other to have a drink of whiskey and a pull of water and eat a couple of biscuits stuffed with ham. His body seemed to have revived from the punishment he’d given it a few hours before, and he almost believed he could make a fight of it if it came to that.

A half hour later he saw a couple of dark spots lying across the white stretch of the sandy track. At first he was unable to make out what they might be, but as he got closer, he could see that they had to be bodies. But of what he wasn’t sure until he was about a quarter of a mile off. Then he could see that it was two men. As he got closer he saw that they were lying on their backs. He was going to pass just at their feet, and he took the reins in both hands and set his boots against the front of the bathtub and pulled with all his might. The mules slowed to a stiff-legged trot, but that was as slow as he could get them. As he passed the two men, Longarm recognized Ben, the driver, and the shotgun guard. In the brief glimpse he had of them he could see, judging from the blood, that both had been shot several times. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaws and relaxed his iron grip on the reins, letting the mules build back up to their high-ended lope.

He didn’t know why he was surprised, much less outraged, that they’d killed the driver and the guard. The good doctor and Rita Ann weren’t going to let anything get between them and the gold. Hell, they would have killed Longarm just as quick as they’d have swatted a fly if they hadn’t figured the desert would do for him and that he was in no position to impede them. And the doctor had been right about the business of killing federal marshals. It was bad medicine to kill a federal officer. You did it only if you wanted every other federal officer in the country to be looking for you, because that was what would happen.

He only wondered how they had done it. It would have been difficult for either of them to climb around and get at the driver or the guard. Likely they had used some sort of subterfuge, the doctor saying the woman was sick or something like that. Anything to get the driver and guard to stop and get down and be exposed to the doctor’s revolver.

But why kill them so far from the station? Longarm already knew that driving mules was no picnic, and he was just having to manage two. The doctor would be handling ten. Maybe it was a lot easier from the seat of the coach. Maybe the mules had worn down and were manageable. Who knows what the reason was. Maybe they just liked to kill for the hell of it.

And then he got his answer about half an hour later. They came flying over a slight rise and started down into a little low place in the prairie. Well off in the distance he saw the stage. It was pulling up the gradually rising grade the driver had talked about. But that wasn’t what explained the situation to him. There were three riders accompanying the coach. One was out ahead, one rode just to the right, and a third was bringing up the rear. Longarm estimated they were a good three or four miles away, but he knew he was going faster. He calculated he should come up to them in something less than a half an hour. But he figured that long before that the outriders were going to take a big interest in him, and for that he was going to need the use of both hands.

He hunted around in the bottom of the tub until he found his recently retrieved gunbelt. He looped it loosely around his chest, buckling it just under his armpits. Then he took the extra slack in the reins, ran them under and around his gunbelt, and tied them off. That way he could control the speed of the team by leaning forward or pulling back.

He was coming up on the party faster than he’d thought. He could see the last outrider stop his horse and turn in Longarm’s direction. Longarm took up his carbine, levered the chamber half open to make sure a shell was home, and then closed it and cocked the hammer with his thumb. He said to the mules, “I don’t know if you boys have ever been in a gunfight before, but you are fixing to be smack in the middle of one. But don’t worry about it. I’m an old hand at the business. Ya’ll just keep pulling the bathtub and I’ll see to the shooting.”

Now the distance was narrowing rapidly. The trailing rider had made his mind up and was starting toward Longarm at a trot. As he came on, Longarm saw him pull his rifle out of the boot and glance down to check the action. Up further the man riding by the stage also had stopped and was turning back. Longarm estimated he was no more than a half mile from the closest rider and closing fast. He watched as the man put his horse into a lope, quartering just off to Longarm’s right. It was still too far for a certain shot, but the time was getting very close.

Then, as the first man came within about four hundred yards, Longarm saw him stand up in the stirrups, lift his rifle to his shoulder, and aim. Then there came a puff of smoke, and Longarm saw a red furrow appear across the hip of the off-leader mule. It wasn’t a serious wound, and the mule did no more than jump slightly, but Longarm suddenly realized what kind of shape he’d be in if the man managed to kill one of his animals. He’d be out of business was what he’d be. His quarry would get away and he’d be stuck out in the middle of the desert. for a third time.

“The hell with that!” he said softly. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and sighted on the chest of the man riding toward him.

Chapter 9

The instant he fired, he knew that he had missed. He also knew why. He had a more stable firing platform than did the man on the horse, but he hadn’t allowed for shooting at a moving target from a moving object. It wasn’t something he got a great deal of practice at.

He quickly levered in another shell and aimed lower on the man’s chest. He was quartering in from Longarm’s right, and Longarm allowed for a touch of lead as the distance closed. Before he could fire he saw the white puff of smoke from the man’s rifle and heard the bullet sing over his head. Then the hard crump of the shot reached his ears. The man was close enough now that Longarm could see it was the big man from the relay station, the one he had hit first. He was glad to find out that he had not jumped on three innocent strangers. He was also glad to have been proved right that they were to be a part of the robbery. He squeezed the trigger, felt the kick of the rifle against his shoulder, and saw, through his own muzzle smoke, the big man throw up both his arms, his rifle being flung skyward, and go backwards off his horse. The horse kept on running, sweeping past Longarm and his mules almost before the man hit the ground and went rolling over and over and over.

But there was no time to dwell on the condition of the shot man. The second of the three riders was sweeping down on Longarm. He was the man who had been riding abreast of the coach. His path was almost straight south, bringing him directly at Longarm. Longarm knew he’d better drop the man in a hurry because he was in an ideal position to hit one of his mules. He sighted on the rider when he was still a full three hundred yards away and fired once, levered, fired again, saw the man sag in his saddle and drop his rifle, and held up as the rider tried to stay in the saddle and direct his horse away from Longarm and his mules. Longarm could not chance it. He waited patiently till the man came within fifty yards, and then zeroed in on the man’s chest and shot him out of the saddle. It was not the kind of act he was given to, but odds were the man wouldn’t have made it anyway, wounded and with no help available out on the big prairie. He swept past the man, who was no more than ten yards away, lying on his side. He could see it was the pudgy man, the one they had called Frank. That meant that the remaining rider was the smallest of the three. It would make him the hardest to hit.

Longarm glanced ahead. He could see that the third man had taken a lesson from what had happened to his two companions. He was riding south, away from the coach, but he was not closing toward Longarm. Instead Longarm heard him fire and saw the smoke and heard the sound of the bullet. The man was firing at his mules. There was no doubt about it. Longarm looked ahead. He was rapidly catching up to the coach. It could not have been more than a half a mile ahead. The wounded mule was still going strong, and neither animal seemed to have been bothered by the gunshots. He saw the man, riding parallel to him, raise up for another shot. With a quick move Longarm reached up with the coach whip in his left hand and slapped the near leader on the left side of his face. The team instantly veered to the right.

The riding suddenly got rougher, but it completely took the rider by surprise. He had been shooting from a comfortable distance, and now all of a sudden, his quarry had turned into the hunter and was racing toward him at a fearsome speed. Longarm got his rifle up to his shoulder and waited. He saw the rider wheel his horse and start back toward the coach. It was too long a shot to try to hit the man. The distance was easily three hundred yards. Longarm led the man a trifle and fired. He hoped to hit the man but he knew, more likely, that he was going to hit the horse. He hated it, but there was no choice.

An instant after he fired he saw the horse stumble, but the rider pulled him back up by the reins. Longarm’s rifle was empty. Watching the rider, he felt down in the tub until he located the box of cartridges and then rapidly loaded three into the chamber. He cocked the rifle with the lever action and then sighted down on the man, who was now riding away from him. It was a quartering shot, but he had a good piece of the man’s back to shoot at. He fired and saw the man slump forward in the saddle. He quickly levered in another cartridge and fired again. This time the horse went down hard, landing almost on his head and rolling over. The man was not flung free.

But Longarm had no time to observe his handiwork. He had to get the mules pointed back north. He figured they’d covered a half mile running almost due east. With his right hand he reached forward with the coach whip and lightly tapped the off leader on the right cheek. The team swerved around to the left, although not quite enough. He pulled on the left reins, and the team swung into the tracks of the coach. He was close enough now that he could see into the interior of the stage even though it was shaded by the canvas covering. Since they’d let him off someone had put down the canvas on both sides. From his distance he peered into the coach, but couldn’t make out any figures. He supposed that the doctor was driving the stage. There were no trailing horses to indicate that a fourth man had joined them. He supposed it was the three men who had killed the driver and the guard. Likely they had thought it necessary, though, Longarm thought grimly, they most likely wouldn’t have agreed that their own deaths were necessary. He didn’t feel so bad about shooting the wounded bandit when he thought of the unnecessary killing of the guard and driver.

He was rapidly overtaking the stage—too rapidly. He saw a wink of light from inside the shaded stage and heard a wind-shattering shot go over his head. Someone from inside was firing at him. He had to assume it was Rita Ann. She was probably shooting at him with his own derringer since, so far as he knew, they did not have a rifle. He immediately swung the team out to the left. The mules pulling the coach were struggling to make it up the grade, barely able to keep a trot. But Longarm’s mules, with their light load, paid it scarcely any mind. He kept going left until he was a full hundred yards to the side of the coach. The going was rougher, but it was better than getting a mule shot.

With every step his team was gaining on the coach. Soon he was near enough that he could see a small part of the figure up on the driver’s seat. As he had expected it was the doctor. As he drew abreast of the coach, the doctor shot him a frantic look and pulled a revolver out of his pants. With his right hand he fired across his body, snapping off two quick shots. They were well wide, and at such a distance there was little chance of the doctor being able to do much damage with a revolver. But Longarm didn’t want to leave even that much to chance. He calculated they didn’t have much further to go to the relay station, and he wanted control of the stage before they got there. Regretfully he took up his rifle and aimed toward the stage. He had the pleasure of seeing the doctor throw his arm over his head and duck down.

But Longarm wasn’t going to shoot the doctor. Unfortunately, he was necessary to the capture of Carl Lowe. Racing along parallel to the coach Longarm sighted carefully, and shot the near leader in the head. The mule dropped instantly, causing the other nine mules to become entangled in the harness and each other and bringing the stage to an almost immediate stop. Longarm drove on, dropping them a safe distance behind him. He could see mules kicking and rearing in the traces and see the fool of a doctor standing up in the driver’s box and lashing at them with the reins as if they were supposed to untangle themselves, get rid of the dead mule, and start up again.

Longarm, using just the reins, was able to circle his team back to his right. He drove a big arc around the stage, watching the doctor, watching the back to see if Rita got out, watching to see if there was anyone on board with a rifle. He knew they had a shotgun because the guard carried one, but he wasn’t worried about a shotgun.

And now was to come the hardest part of his trip as he circled behind the stage and commenced to once again come up on the coach’s left. He was going to have to bring his team to a stop, and he wasn’t sure he altogether knew how to do that. It was going to require some serious cooperation from the mules, and he wasn’t sure that such a commodity existed in a mule.

With the mules going in an easy lope, he got hold of the reins and untied them from his gunbelt to have better control, then gradually began to apply backward pressure. To his amazement the mules responded almost as if they weren’t half wild and crazy. By the time he came abreast of the stage they were at a slow walk, and with just a little more pressure he brought them to a halt.

After more than two hours of speeding along in the bathtub, the sensation of being motionless was nearly confusing. Most of him still felt like he was moving, though it was plain to his eyes and his senses that he had stopped. He looked off across the desert, through the shimmering heat, at the coach. He calculated it was about a hundred yards away, perhaps a little less. There was no sign of the doctor or Rita Ann, or anyone else for that matter. The mules pulling the stage had quieted down and were simply standing, snarled in the harness, most of them with their heads down, their flanks heaving. His own mules were standing restlessly, stamping a foot now and again and mouthing their bits around. He kept a little back pressure in their mouths to let them know that he was content to be stopped for the time being.

He said in a loud voice, “Doc! Doc! How will you have it?”

There was no answer.

He said again, his voice carrying in the thin, dry air, “Don’t be shy, Doc. I’m a man willing to listen to reason. You ain’t going anywhere because you can’t. Not unless you care to walk. And I’m not going anywhere because I don’t want to. Now, you want to talk a little business and see if we can’t work out something here? I can wait all day if that is what you have a mind to. Or I can limber up this rifle of mine and start punching holes in that wagon. Maybe I can’t see you, but I got plenty of ammunition. Speak up, Doc. Don’t be shy.”

A moment passed, and then the voice of the doctor came across the distance. He said, “Well, Marshal Long, you are to be congratulated on your reappearance. Rather Lazarus-like, I’d have to say. Quite a conveyance you are transporting yourself in.”

“Doc, we can have a good conversation some other time. Right now I want to know what you are ready to do.”

He heard the doctor clear his throat. “Ah, what exactly would be my options, Marshal Long?”

Longarm said, “You can surrender right now, or stay out here and die in the sun.”

There was a pause. Longarm could barely hear the sound of a whispered conversation. The doctor said, “You don’t propose very attractive terms, Marshal. There is a lady present. Why not come over and let us discuss this under more amenable surroundings. I have some brandy here.”

“Don’t care for it. Look, Doc, I ain’t got all day. The sun is getting kind of low in the sky, and I don’t want to get caught out here on this freezing-ass desert after dark. Now I know where Carl Lowe is and I’m going to capture him. He may have a few guns protecting him, but that won’t make much difference. I’ll deal with them just as I dealt with the ones as just left your service. Now, what’s it to be?”

“I’m going to have to give this some thought, Marshal. I believe there are other options. I think I still have one or two cards left to play.”

“The gold? Hell, you’re not going anywhere with that. You’ve already got one mule down. Before I leave I’ll drop a couple more. Won’t be any way you can get that team untangled, and even if you could, the ones that are left couldn’t pull the load. So what it comes down to is you either decide to surrender to me right now, or figure to die out here in the desert or die trying to walk out. I know the gold ain’t going no place, and I got just as easy a time taking Carl Lowe with or without the pair of you. You’re out of aces, Doc. Take it or leave it.”

“You are making this extremely difficult. There must be a little more give on your part. You are asking for complete and abject surrender.”

Longarm picked up his carbine, thumbed the hammer back, aimed and fired a shot through the canvas siding, just high enough so that it would miss anyone sitting down. He heard a screech that sounded very feminine. He said, “You want me to give, I’ll give you a few more of these.”

The doctor yelled, panic in his voice, “Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a moment, Marshal. All right. Have it your way. Call it a surrender. Whatever you want.”

“You giving up?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Of course we are. If you’re going to sit out there and shoot us like fish in a barrel, what chance do we have! But let me say it is a disgrace to the federal authority that you serve that you’d bully people in such a fashion.”

“Oh, bullshit, Doc. I’m tired of fooling with you. If you surrender, the first thing I want you to do is roll up those canvas sides. let’s get a little light on the interior. See what we got in there.”

“But I’ll have to come outside to do that.”

“You’ll be outside soon enough. You might as well tell ol’ Rita Ann to get down also. She can be drawing the curtains up on the other side. Just be damn quick about it or I’m going to be obliged to start firing again. My mules are getting restless.”

He watched, as impatient as his mules, who were champing their bits and stamping their feet, while the doctor and Rita slowly emerged from the stage and began rolling up the canvas sides. He could see them talking between themselves, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. It took them a good five minutes to get both sides rolled up so he could see into the coach. There could have still been someone lying in the well between the two benches inside, but other than that it appeared empty. The doctor turned and faced him. He said, “Now what is your pleasure, Marshal?”

“I want to see all the guns in that stage laying out this way on the sand. And that includes the weapons you took from the driver and the guard when you killed them.”

The doctor said, “I’ll not have their deaths on my head! No, sir! Was not me! And it was not Rita either.”

Longarm said in disgust, “We can argue out all that later. Right now you let me see them weapons. And take your coat and vest off while you’re about it and tell Rita to leave her purse on the ground.”

“I take it you’re afraid of a lady and an old man.”

“You ain’t an old man and she damn sure ain’t no lady. Now, let’s see the firearms and be damn quick about it. You overlook one and you’ll be the loser for it. And tell your lady friend there that my derringer had damn well better be in her purse.”

The doctor said, “My, my, Marshal. Don’t you feel you are taking caution to the extreme? We had a chance to kill you before and didn’t. Why should we now?”

“You go ahead and act ignorant if you want to, Doc. Just don’t expect me to buy into that particular pot. Now get it done.”

He watched with a sense of growing urgency as the doctor went back into the stage and finally emerged. He was carrying three revolvers, a shotgun, and Rita’s purse. At Longarm’s directions he walked ten yards away from the wagon, toward Longarm, and laid the weapons and the purse on the ground. He straightened up. “Now what would you have us do, Marshal? Search each other? Bind and gag each other?”

The mules were wanting to go. Longarm said, “That ain’t such a bad idea, Doc. But right now I want the both of you to walk about a hundred yards south. Just follow the tracks of the stage. Stay apart and keep walking until I tell you to stop.”

As soon as they were a distance from the stage, he gingerly let up on the reins and clucked softly to the mules. Half expecting them to bolt, he was pleasantly surprised when they started off slowly, taking one step at a time. He pulled gently on the right rein and the mules came around, heading for the stage. He eased up on the reins a little more and they suddenly wanted to go. It took a great deal of his strength to hold them. He finally got them stopped again, and made the distance over to the stage in a series of stops and starts. The mules were content to walk for a few paces, but after that they figured enough was enough and it was time to run again.

Finally he arrived at the stage. He took a quick look to his right. The doctor and Rita had stopped some distance away in the desert and were watching him intently. They probably didn’t understand why he was being so careful with his mules, but he knew. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a team of nine mules, the nine still hitched to the stage. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he could even get their harness untangled. So the mules he was driving were his only assurance of being able to get off the desert again without walking. He was certain of one thing, and that was he’d walked, and run, across the damned desert for the last time.

With his mules standing at the back of the stage he got carefully out of the bathtub. It was going to be a very tricky moment or two. His legs were a little rubbery from sitting on them so long, but they were just going to have to work for a while longer. He walked carefully beside the near leader, holding the reins, pulling them along the mule’s backs, hoping like hell he wouldn’t strike a sensitive spot. Finally, moving carefully, he reached the left rear wheel of the stage. The mules were looking walleyed and switching their ears back and forth. He could see the restlessness building in them. As gently as he could he ran the four reins around one of the canopy posts, and quickly tied them off in one big, hard knot. Only then did he take a breath. The mules could kick and squawl, but unless they could pull the wagon and ten other mules, one of them being dead, they weren’t going anywhere.

He looked out toward where the doctor and Rita were. The doctor waved, but Rita had sat down. He noticed she was wearing the skirt and blouse she’d worn the day before. It was funny but he hadn’t noticed anything about her when they’d first left the stage station. The doctor called, “What now, Marshal? This sun is quite hot.”

Longarm said, “Stay where you are. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for you.”

He walked around to the front of the stage and looked at the mess. The first thing to do was clear the dead mule out of the way. He got out his big clasp knife, stepped in among the harness, and carefully cut the straps that appeared to apply to the near leader. When he was through, the whole mess seemed to have miraculously straightened itself out. The harness was straight and in place. The only problem was that he had reins coming from the off leader, but none from the near leader, because the mule in that position was now one row back. It became clear he would have to take the other mule out of the lead span and rig the next two as leaders. It took him a quarter of an hour, working with his eye and his knife, to finally end up with an eight-mule team and reins running from the two new leaders. The extra mule he simply turned loose. After that he walked toward the end of the stage and waved at the doctor and Rita. “All right. Come on in. Get a move on, I ain’t got much time.”

While they were trudging toward him, he went quickly to where the doctor had put down the weapons and Rita’s purse. He picked up the lot and loaded them in the bathtub, taking time to open Rita’s purse and see that his derringer was indeed inside. He took up his gunbelt and strapped it on, and then rammed his Colt revolver home in the holster. It felt good, it felt right, it felt complete again. He took the derringer and broke it open. One cartridge had been fired. He reckoned that was the little wink he’d seen from the darkness of the interior of the stage when he’d been traveling right behind them. Fortunately the shot had missed, but that would have been something if the shot had gone home into one of his mules and pulled him up dead in the ground. Stopped by a woman firing his own derringer!

He closed the derringer and slipped it under the clip in his big buckle. He had spare ammunition for it, but it was in his saddlebags and they were still on top of the stage. Meanwhile he had more important business to attend to. He took the bottle of whiskey out of the tub and set it inside the stage as the doctor and Rita came up. He said, “Hold up. I want to make sure you ain’t carrying anything besides bad intentions.”

He searched them both very thoroughly, even making Rita raise up her dress so he could feel about in her underwear for any concealed weapons. All during the search she kept up a steady stream of abuse, to which he paid not the slightest bit of attention. When he was satisfied they were clean, he motioned toward the coach.

“All right. Get on in there. It’s time we had a little conversation.”

The doctor went to the back and sat in the right rear corner. Rita sat a little down from him toward the rear. Longarm sat almost where he had before they’d put him off. He had the bottle of whiskey between his feet, and he took it up and pulled the cork home and had a long swallow. When he was through, he rammed the cork and set the bottle on the bench beside him. He made no offer of a drink to the others. “Now then,” he said, talking to both of them, “let’s get down to the business at hand. I’m going to want to know who is waiting at that relay station and just who they are and what kind of gunhands they will be. I’m going to want to know what they are expecting to show up and when. Now I need this information and I intend to get it. I don’t have a lot of time, so you can expect me to be pretty quick at getting down to ways to make you tell me what I want to know. I also want to know if ya’ll intend to cooperate at all. I don’t have to tell you it will make it easier on you if you do. But just remember, I have already got this particular business figured out and you can’t save this scheme. It’s already finished. And I will have Carl Lowe back in prison. You can depend on that. Now who wants to start talking first?”

He glanced at the doctor and then he glanced at Rita. Neither said anything. Rita was staring out at the desert; the doctor had a pleasant smile on his face. As Longarm looked at him directly, the doctor smiled broadly and said, “Looks like it is going to be a particularly beautiful sunset.”

Longarm nodded. “All right, if that is the way you’ll have it.” He looked from Rita to the doctor and back to Rita. To the doctor he said, pointing at Rita, “Now I already know she is about as tough as a hoe handle, so I can’t afford to waste a lot of time on her. But Doc, I got you figured for a man with lace on his underwear. I figure you’ll tell me what I need to know the quickest. You just get up and make your way down to this end of the coach, and me and you will get outside where I’ll have more room to work. Don’t make me come get you. That would just embarrass you worse. So get up and come along.”

The doctor nodded. “As you say.” He stood up, and was starting to walk toward the end of the coach when Rita suddenly put up her hand as if to shove him back. She said to Longarm, “Wait!”

Longarm was about to stand. He eased back on the bench. The doctor had been walking forward, stooping a little under the canvas top. Longarm realized again that the man seemed to get bigger each time he saw him. He looked at Rita. “You got something to say?”

She was talking to Longarm, but she looked at the doctor. She said, “You got it all wrong. You could pull off his fingers one by one and he’d never do anything but smile. You don’t know who you are dealing with here.”

The doctor said, “Rita, please, dear. Don’t talk anymore.”

She said to the doctor, “Anson, I have to. I couldn’t stand to see you hurt.” She turned to Longarm with almost a triumphant air. “You are wrong, Mr. Marshal Longarm. This man is tougher than you are. He can stand anything. You could roast him over a fire and he’d never tell you anything.” Her voice broke just perceptibly. “But I couldn’t take it. I wouldn’t be able to stand to see him hurt.”

“All right,” Longarm said. “I don’t care how I get it. Sit down, Doc. The lady will do the talking.”

Rita said proudly, “He’s not a doctor. He’s an actor. One of the finest actors in the country.”

Longarm glanced back and forth between them. “Yeah? Who does he act with, John Wilkes Booth?”

She flared up. “You make jokes! You don’t understand what a great man he is. He had one of the finest acting troupes in California. He was the toast of San Francisco. I should know. I’ve been with him for five years.”

Longarm said, “He’s such a great actor, how come he took up stage-robbing? Wasn’t drawing much at the gate?”

“He’s a genius!” she said proudly. “His mind is restless. He has to be constantly challenging himself. Look at what he did back at the relay station. For three days he played the part of a drunken, shriveled-up, ruined man. He looked small, he acted small. And yet he is physically the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

Longarm looked down the coach. “Yeah, how about that, Doc? Or Anson, or whatever it is. You look all different now. How’d you do that?”

The man said with a small smile, “That would be something it takes years to learn, Marshal. Right now I am concerned with Rita talking too much. You’d spoil everything if you did that, dear. I know it looks black right now, but one never knows what prospects might emerge from the dim gloom.”

She said, pointing at Longarm, “Anson, you don’t know this man. He is mean as anything. You already know how he hurt Frank and Wayne and Potts. And I told you how he treated me that second night. Like I was nothing but a piece of meat!”

Longarm said, “Thought you might like to know how it felt. At least I didn’t steal your derringer while I was at it.”

She gave Longarm a fierce glance. “You are a savage. And I cannot allow you to hurt this man, this great actor.”

Longarm laughed slightly. He said, “You ain’t so bad yourself. You fooled the hell out of me, I’ll give you that.”

Anson said, “Rita, I prefer you not to say anything.”

Longarm turned and looked at him. He said, “Anson, you sit back down there. Let’s let the lady talk. Otherwise we are going out of the wagon and I damn well may see how many fingers I have to pull off before you tell me what you know.”

Anson said, “I never have complimented you on your manner of conveyance. I have been chased before, but never by a man riding in a mule-drawn bathtub. Very ingenious. It also means I wasted my time with those miserable Mexicans finding out everything I could about that station. I was assured by them there were no vehicles of any kind you could use to chase us. Most inventive.”

“Let’s get on with it,” Longarm said. “I’m in a hurry.” He turned to Rita. “Who is at that station? How many are waiting for you two?”

Instead of answering she looked at the actor. “Anson? Please?”

He shook his head and folded his arms. “I’d rather you didn’t, my dear. I have not yet given up hope. The game is still afoot. I don’t mind the pain and I think I can hold out until well after dark. By then help might well arrive when they realize we could have had trouble.”

She said, talking in front of Longarm as if he didn’t exist, “I’m not sure it would work. You should have seen him when he beat the hell out of Wayne and them. And you just saw how he can shoot. Anson, I’m afraid we have to cooperate. Perhaps he’ll make us a deal, let us go.” She turned to Longarm. “Marshal, if we help you get what you want will you be fair with us? Will you turn your head long enough for us to get away?”

Anson said instantly, “You can’t bargain with the devil, Rita. No, don’t expect any mercy from him.”

Longarm said, “You might be surprised, Mr. Actor, what I might be willing to do. It’s Carl Lowe I am after. I calculate it was you got the party together and bore the expense to break him out of prison. That right?”

Anson nodded his head modestly. “I think I could say with some degree of fairness that I engineered most of the plot, though I did not finance the project with my own money. Others were involved. By the way, as a sap to your ego, Carl warned us about you from the beginning. He said you had to be thrown off the scent. He appears to fear you more than the rest of the law put together.”

Rita said eagerly, “What will you do for us, Longarm, if we assist you in capturing Carl Lowe?”

Longarm shook his head. “I can’t get over the way you talk so different than you did back at the station. And what you and I did … I mean, was that part of it?”

The actor suddenly laughed. He said, “Don’t disconcert yourself, Marshal. I can assure you that Rita was not acting that part, if I understand you correctly.”

Longarm said to both of them, making his voice firm and earnest, “Look, I got no real interest in the two of you. Carl Lowe is who I want. It looks bad I let him get away from me out there on the desert. You play straight with me and I don’t see any reason why either one of you has to get hurt. In fact I’ll guarantee it.”

Rita looked down the coach at the actor. “Anson? I heard he is a man of his word. They say he is mean as hell, but he keeps his word.”

Anson studied Longarm’s face for a moment. “You propose a deal of some sort, Marshal?”

Longarm studied the man. He had discarded the glasses and his face looked much younger, firmer. And without the tight-fitting coat and vest he was a good deal more broad-shouldered and broad-chested than he had appeared. “I’m after Carl Lowe. I’ve said there is no need for you or Rita to get hurt in the deal, not unless you cause trouble. But I got to know one thing first. Who shot the driver and the guard?”

“That,” Rita said quickly, “was Wayne’s work. And Frank’s. They never even give them men a chance to surrender. Rode up and blazed away. Next thing we had two dead men riding in the driver’s box on a runaway coach. Frank and Wayne got it stopped, and then Anson did the driving from then on.”

Longarm looked down toward the actor. “You handled that team pretty good, Anson. Where’d you learn that?”

Anson smiled smugly. “I once served as the coachman for a rich family in Saint Louis. Drove a four-in-hand.”

“What’d you do that for? No acting jobs available?”

Anson chuckled. “It was the best way to learn the layout of their house and their comings and goings. It was where I met Rita. She did the robbery while I was driving the Mister and Madame around.” He laughed briefly.

“And you didn’t have anything to do with killing that guard and driver?”

Anson shook his head emphatically. “That is not my style. I do not care for bloodshed at all. Only if it is necessary. Absolutely necessary.”

“Then I reckon we can deal.”

Anson glanced at Rita and then at Longarm. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you help me capture or kill whoever is waiting at that station, and as far as I’m concerned you can write your own ticket.”

Anson looked at him hard. “You will let us go?”

“I’m saying I don’t care what you do or where you go. You need it any plainer than that?”

Rita said, “They say he keeps his word. They say he’s tough as hell, but fair.”

Anson said, “Yes, I know.” He pondered for a moment, and then shrugged. “I guess that means we have to pass on the gold. Is that right, Marshal?”

Longarm laughed lightly. “I think we got to draw the line somewhere.”

Anson sighed. “Dammit, I invested a lot of time and not a little money in this venture.”

Rita said, “But we can start all over again, Anson. We’ll be free. The plan is ruined anyway.”

Longarm said, “That’s enough talk. What’s it to be?”

Chapter 10

Rita said, “Besides Carl, there are only two men there. There would have been five, not counting Anson and Carl, but you killed the other three. They were to have ridden out, taken control of the coach, and put the driver and guard afoot.” She looked down. “You saw where it went wrong.”

From the front of the coach Anson said, “And I can tell you who made it go wrong.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Never mind for now. Go ahead, Rita.”

“Anyway, that’s all that is at that station. We were suppose to arrive there early this evening, switch the gold to a special wagon that has been built, and then head south for Mexico. We figured to have at least a two-day head start, and did not believe anyone could find us. And if they did, we would have enough guns to fight them off. Of course we would have had more if so many of the damn fools who broke Carl out hadn’t gotten themselves killed or captured.”

Longarm said, “The two at the relay station … gunmen?”

“One is for certain.” She looked up the coach to Anson. “What should I say about the other?”

Anson laughed shortly. “He’s someone whose name you will know, Marshal. You decide if he’s a gunman. Riley Hanks.”

Longarm blinked in spite of himself. It was a name well known to him. Riley Hanks had been suspected of planning and benefiting from the robbery of his own bank in Tucson. Nothing had ever been proved against him, but he had been shut down by territorial and federal officers. That had been three years past. In the intervening time he was thought to have been involved, usually behind the scenes, in several bank and several train robberies. He had been a particularly elusive fugitive because he was seldom a part of the actual robbery itself. But yes, Longarm thought, you could call the man a gunman. He was tough and smart and utterly ruthless. He turned to Anson. “I see what you mean about who made it go wrong. Hanks wanted the driver and guard killed. Yeah, he likes blood. Being a businessman was too tame for him.”

For some time Longarm had been watching one of the horses—he thought it was the animal the big man had been riding—slowly working his way toward the stage. Now the horse was only about a hundred yards away, standing, his reins drooping to the ground, staring at the coach and the mules. He obviously wanted company. He’d wandered around and smelled the dead horse and smelled the dead men. It was clear he wanted to come in where there might be feed and water. The desert was still fearfully hot, and Longarm reckoned the horse hadn’t had a drink in some time. He knew there was a barrel of water strapped to the side of the coach along with a fair-sized bucket. He said to Rita, “I don’t know if you are as good with horses as you are with men, but I want you to dip up a bucket of water out of that barrel and go out and fetch that horse in. Don’t try and ride him. I will be standing here with a Winchester and you are well within range. So don’t look at it as an opportunity to escape. Just go fetch the horse.”

The actor said, “I protest, sir. That is not proper work for a woman. If the horse must be had, let me go.”

Longarm shook his head. “You set right still, Mister Anson. I like you in close view.” He said to Rita, “Get moving. Just take the bridle and lead him in. If he smells the water he’d likely come to you. Let him have a drink.

They both watched as she walked across the desert carrying the gallon bucket. She carried it lightly as if it were no burden at all. Longarm had gotten down and gone to the bathtub to fetch his rifle in case she got any ideas. Anson said, “You wouldn’t actually shoot a woman, would you, Marshal?”

“She’s not a woman right now. She’s a prisoner.”

The man sounded amused. “But if you are planning on letting us go, why would you care if she took French leave now?”

Longarm looked around at the coach where Anson was sitting. He said, “You better get out and go take a look at the team you’ll be driving. You will be short two mules and I had to do some guesswork on the harness.”

“I’m to be driving?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you have driven in if things had gone according to plan?”

Anson came down from the coach. “I’m not sure. I suppose so.”

They both watched as the horse nickered, catching scent of the water, and came trotting toward Rita. He came up to her and she let him drink out of the bucket while she patted his head. Anson said, “A most remarkable woman.”

“She’s something else, all right. Just what I’m not sure.” He glanced at the man. “She told you what she and I did. It doesn’t make you jealous?”

Anson shook his head. “Rita has her own tastes. I don’t try and control them anymore than she tries to control mine.”

Longarm said, “You better get up in the driver’s box and get ready. Here she comes.” As the man turned away Longarm said, “I don’t guess I have to warn you, do I?”

Anson turned around and smiled. “Not to give you away? I think I understand you well enough to know that I would be the first one killed.”

“And Rita. Probably at the same time.”

Anson nodded. “I think we understand each other.”

“Good,” Longarm said evenly. “Was I you, I’d make this one of my better performances, Doc.”

Longarm waited until Rita came up with the saddle horse. The animal looked to be in good condition. Longarm wanted him just in case he needed to get off on his own in a hurry. He checked the horse’s girth, let him have some more water, and then tied him to the end of the coach away from the mules. His last task was to go to the bathtub, find the box of cartridges, and reload his rifle and check the loads in his revolver. Finally he climbed up in the back of the stage and yelled to Anson to move out. After a moment he felt the stage creak and then start forward. It was a far cry from the jolting beginning that had begun the trip back at the relay station. Rita had gone up to the very end of the coach, and was huddled in a corner against the wooden box that held the safe. Longarm made no attempt to speak to her.

He got out his watch and looked at it. It was just seven-thirty. The sun was already beginning to flatten itself against the far horizon. Longarm desperately wanted to reach the relay station with a little light left. He was not sure of what to expect, in spite of what Anson and Rita had said, and he needed light for the work ahead. He said to Rita, “What condition are the relay stationkeeper and his mule hustlers likely to be in?”

She said in a dull voice, “You figure it out. You know the kind of man you are dealing with. I begged Anson not to get involved with Hanks. Didn’t do any good.”

Longarm didn’t say anything. Instead he looked out the side of the coach at the desert that seemed to be moving by with agonizing slowness. Either the mules were having a hard time with the grade, or the actor was taking his own time for his own reasons. Longarm stuck his head and shoulders out the side of the coach and yelled forward. “Get them damn mules moving, Doc, or all deals are off. Slap the reins on their backs!”

After that they seemed to go a little faster. Longarm did not think the station would be much further. He made no attempt to conceive any sort of plan since he didn’t have the slightest idea what might be waiting for him. About all he had resolved was that his call for surrender would almost instantly be followed by a bullet. He did not believe that he was dealing with anyone that could be trusted, and that included the two in the coach with him.

At the rear of the coach the saddle horse and the mule team pulling the bathtub were following along docilely, although Longarm thought he detected a look of mutiny in the eyes of his mules. For himself, he was tired and irritated and burning with a slow, hot anger. This was one job he was ready to be finished with. But he intended to make certain he finished the people who had caused it. If things went his way, Carl Lowe was going to wish he’d never left his prison cell and Riley Hanks would gladly give a fortune just to clerk in a bank again.

The stage slowly creaked to a halt. Longarm heard Anson calling his name. He jumped out the back, carrying his rifle, and mindful of the heels of his mules, went around to the front of the coach and looked up at the driver’s box. Anson motioned. “There it is.”

They had reached the top of the grade. Down a gentle slope, perhaps a half a mile away, were a cluster of small buildings. It wasn’t as big a place as the Higginses’ station. Longarm counted only two outbuildings beside the main one, which he reckoned to be the station. He could see a couple of corrals crowded with what he took to be mules, but it appeared that, back of the main building, were two or three horses. The distance was too great to be certain.Anson said, “I am at your order, oh, captain, my captain.” He gave a mocking smile. “A little poetry for the occasion.”

Longarm looked up at him, considering. If the man chose to go counter to what Longarm instructed, he’d be signing his own death warrant, but he would also be putting Longarm in a bind. He said, “Doc, you planning on carrying through on this, or do you want to get shot?”

The actor laughed. “You seem to require some convincing, Marshal. Give me your orders. I’ll carry them out.”

Longarm said, “I want you to point this team of mules right at that station and I want you to get them moving. When we are about a couple of hundred yards from the place I want you to whomp ‘em up as fast as they can go.”

“I may not be able to stop them.”

“Oh, you’ll stop them all right,” Longarm said. “I’m going to get you some help. But just point them straight at the front door of the station and I guarantee you they will stop. Now whip them up.”

As the stage began to move, Longarm hopped up on the right side, crouching on the water barrel which was just back of the driver’s box. He said, loud enough for Anson to hear, “I’m right here, Doc. Keep that in mind.”

They were moving. The mules, through some frantic strength that only mules knew how to summon, were digging in and pulling the heavy load down the slope at a trot and trying to stretch it to a lope. In the open coach Longarm could crane his head around and just catch sight of the station. It was coming closer and closer as the mules picked up speed.

Now they had come off the slope and were on a flat piece of prairie that would run to the front of the station. Looking from the coach was no help since the station was more ahead of them than toward the side. With the coach jouncing and rumbling along, Longarm cautiously stood up on the water barrel, clutching the overhead luggage rack with his left hand, and looked over the top of the stage. He figured they were within a hundred yards of the station. He watched the distance, gauging his timing, and then began yelling. He said in a loud voice, “HELP! HELP! I CAN’T STOP! HELP! HEAD THESE MULES!”

He saw Anson glance back at him in annoyance. Longarm said to him, “Start pulling up, you damn fool!”

Below him he saw the brake go on against the front wheel, and saw Anson set back against the reins. The mules were slowing, but they were still traveling at a clip a little faster than a trot and the station was scarcely fifty yards away. As he watched, Longarm saw three men come running out of the front of the station. One he instantly recognized as Carl Lowe, and another he thought was Riley Hanks. The third he didn’t recognize personally, but he recognized the type. The man was there for his gun. All three men came running toward the stage, grabbing the lead mules by the head and slowing them down. By the time they got into the station yard the mules were walking and about to stop. Longarm had ducked down when the men had neared, and now he dropped off the stage as it came to a halt. He drew his revolver, cocking it, and walked around the end of the coach. The three men were standing just back from the lead mules. As he walked toward them they stepped further away from the mules, backing toward the station. They had not seen him. The gunman was the first in the line, Carl Lowe was second and a little back, and Riley Hanks was at the far end. The light was starting to fail, but the men stood out in clear outline against the lighter stone of the relay station. Longarm was about five yards away, but they had not glanced his way. Riley Hanks seemed to be looking up at the driver’s box, saying something to the actor. Longarm had his revolver down by his side. He stopped and said sharply, “Hold it! Hands up!”

As he had expected, the gunman was the first to react. He immediately wheeled toward Longarm, his hand going for his pistol. Longarm brought up his revolver and fired, catching the man at the top of the chest. He was aware of the man staggering backwards and of Carl Lowe immediately dropping to the ground and covering his head with his hands, but his attention was on Riley Hanks. Hanks was a big man with a white linen duster over a good suit of clothes. He had gotten his hand under the duster and was starting to draw his weapon when Longarm came around on him. Longarm said, “Hold it! You’re under arrest!”

But then the linen duster flared out as Riley Hanks finished his draw. Longarm fired, hitting the man in the left side of the chest. He saw the sudden crimson stain on the white of the duster. But Hanks didn’t fall. He was a big man, stout, with heavy shoulders and a big girth. He took a step forward, struggling to bring his gun up.

Longarm aimed carefully and shot him two inches under the left collarbone. He flopped over backwards, the pistol falling from his lifeless fingers.

It was all over. Longarm felt suddenly tired. It seemed the chase had gone on for months or years. He walked slowly forward, his revolver at the ready. It was clear that Hanks was finished, but Longarm wasn’t so sure about the gunman. He walked to where the man lay sprawled in the dust. There was blood coming out of his nose and mouth. Longarm could see his slug had taken the man just above the heart. He’d gone down dead.

But there was still Carl Lowe cowering on the ground. Longarm said tiredly, “Get up, Carl. It’s all over. Get up, dammit!”

His attention was solely on the locksmith cowering on the ground when he was suddenly hit from behind and above by a blow that knocked him flat on his face on the ground and sent his revolver spinning out of his hand. For an instant the power of the attack had stunned him so that he wasn’t sure what was happening. Then he realized that someone had his arms wrapped around his neck and was pulling his head back, trying to snap it. Whoever it was was sitting astride him in such a way that he couldn’t rise or twist his body. He tried grabbing at the forearms that were clutched around his neck, but it took him only an instant to realize he would not be able to pry them loose that way. Whoever had him was incredibly strong. And then Longarm remembered what Rita had said about Anson’s strength. It was clear that the man had leapt out of the driver’s box, landing on Longarm’s back and driving him to the ground. He could hear Anson making little grunting sounds as he twisted and pulled at Longarm’s head.

For a few seconds Longarm tried to strike backwards with his elbows, but his foe was too well positioned for him to get in a solid hit. But he was going to have to do something quick. Anson had pulled his head back so far that his back was swayed and his chest was completely off the ground. When there was no more give that way, then his neck would have to break. He could feel a vague grayness behind his eyes, and he realized he was being suffocated. And to make matters worse, he saw Carl Lowe raise his head and look at the pistol that had flown out of Longarm’s hand and fallen very near him.

In desperation Longarm managed to get his hand down inside his belt buckle. He could just touch the derringer with his fingers, but he couldn’t quite reach it because of the way the actor was pulling him back. With all his strength, and knowing it would choke him more, he forced his head down. In one swift instant he was able to grab the little gun. He knew there wasn’t but one shot in it and he couldn’t miss. As Anson pulled him back up again, bending him almost backwards at the waist, Longarm reached across his own chest, curved the gun under his left arm until it was pointing upward and backward, and fired.

He heard a woman scream, but most importantly he felt the arms loosen around his neck. He sucked air into his lungs and gave a hard roll to his left. He felt the weight of the actor leave him. Gasping, he struggled to his hands and knees and then, slowly, stood up. Carl Lowe had almost crawled to within reach of Longarm’s revolver. Longarm took two steps and kicked the man hard under the chin. The little locksmith rose up in the air and then settled back, his arms out-flung, his body limp.

The screaming went on, but Longarm was conscious only of Rita in the coach and the guns he had in the bathtub. He made his way past the mules and then sat down on the side of the tub, still gasping. All of a sudden Rita limped out of the back of the stage and ran to where Anson was lying. She knelt down beside him, rubbing his face with her hands and kissing him feverishly. He didn’t move. She turned and screamed at Longarm, “You’ve killed him, you bastard! You’ve killed him!”

It came out a croak, but it came out. Longarm said, “Guess that was his last role. He didn’t do it too good.”

His strength was coming back, but he was still unsure of his footing as he made it to the back of the stage and hunted up the bottle of whiskey he’d left there. He took down two good swallows and then corked the bottle. There was still a lot of work to be done before he could rest. He walked out from the stage. Carl Lowe was sitting up, shaking his head. Rita had walked away from Anson’s body and was hugging herself and crying. Longarm said, “Carl, get the hell up. And you too, Rita Ann. These mules have got to get unhitched and put away. So put your cares and woes aside and get over here and help.”

Chapter 11

That first night, after a little something to eat and drink, all he could do was bind both of them hand and foot. Lowe he bound with leather thongs, his hands behind his back. He knew the man could open safes, and he might also be able to open knots. He tied up Rita with less severity, allowing her to have her hands in front of her. The only leather he used on her was around her ankles when he secured her to a post in the common room of the station. Through it all Rita had been stoic and silent, not having spoken a word to him since he’d killed Anson. Lowe had been submissive and frightened. He seemed grateful that all Longarm was going to do was tie him up in an extremely uncomfortable position for the entire night. Longarm had made it clear from the first that he wasn’t fond of either one of them and the less trouble they gave him the easier they would find life.

It had taken half the night, but they’d finally managed to get all the mules unhitched, the bathtub mules as well, and into the corral for water and hay. Longarm had turned the four saddle horses, the one he’d brought and the three the men who’d ridden to the station had brought, in with the mules. It had caused some kicking and squealing among the mules, but they had gradually settled down and accepted the horses.

There was nothing he could do about the bodies. Rita had slipped out while they were making a kind of supper and put a blanket over Anson, but nothing else had been done. As best he could figure it, the next stage was not due until about thirty-six hours after they had arrived. Until that stage came, or somebody showed up who knew how to work a telegraph, there was really nothing he could do. He knew that he was not up to the task of harnessing a team of mules that could pull the stage, and he had no intention of breaking his fingers trying.

But he had to figure some way to handle his prisoners. He didn’t want to watch them every moment, and there were firearms and horses all about. There was no good place to lock them up, either together or separately, and he wasn’t sure there was a lock on the place that would hold Carl Lowe. In the end he gathered up all the ammunition from all the firearms, and there were quite a few, and took it out in the desert and hid it. He did the same with all but one of the bridles and saddles for the horses. He didn’t figure either Carl Lowe or Rita could ride a horse without either one of those necessary articles.

But by noon of the next day he had discovered the bodies of the stationkeeper, who had been a bachelor, and the two mule hustlers who had worked for him. Longarm put Carl Lowe to work with a shovel and pick burying them in individual graves. After that he felt the necessity of doing something about the three bodies lying in front of the station. He saddled the best of the horses, led him around to the front, and got a rope around Riley Hanks and the gunmen. Then he mounted up and dragged them a mile or two out in the desert, and left them for the coyotes and the buzzards. He took the identification from both men, noting that Hanks had been carrying almost a thousand dollars in cash. That was probably intended for use on their trip to Mexico with the gold.

When he returned, he gave Rita the choice of taking a shovel and burying Anson. When she just folded her arms and walked away, he roped the actor’s ankles together and dragged him off to join his collaborators.

After that he put the horse away and hid the bridle in a stack of hay. There was a small, stout wagon parked at the back of the station, and Longarm asked Rita if that had been the vehicle they had intended to transport the gold to Mexico in. She refused to answer him. He said, “You were all suckers, you just didn’t know it. And that includes that actor fellow you were so fond of. At least I got some respect for him. Once Riley Hanks got his hands on that gold you were all dead anyway. Riley Hanks, or any of his kind, don’t share. So you ain’t lost nothing.”

She rounded on him. “That’s all you know! Anson had it all figured. It would have been Riley and his gunmen who would have perished. We’d have been the ones took the gold to Mexico.”

He laughed. “How the hell were you and Doc going to do away with four gunmen, figuring that I wouldn’t have killed three of them for you, and Riley Hanks and Carl Lowe?”

“Poison,” she said. “Their first meal here would have been their last.”

Longarm shook his head. “You two were a pair of sweethearts, weren’t you. Remind me to keep you out of the kitchen.”

She put on a pout. “Don’t worry. Doc threw away the poison when you captured us. He knew the game was up.”

“He damn sure didn’t go out like it.” He rubbed his neck. “Strong sonofabitch. Like to have broke my head off.”

“Yes, and you had to shoot him. Like a coward!”

Longarm shook his head and walked out to check on Carl. He stood, watching the plodding, methodical way the man worked. Carl Lowe was fairly small, fairly ordinary-looking, and completely indistinguishable from any one of a thousand men. Longarm realized that he could stare at Carl’s face for fifteen minutes and then look away and not be able to give an accurate description of the man.

Carl was more than willing to talk about the robbery and how it had come about. He seemed very anxious to please Longarm. Longarm thought he’d always been anxious to please anyone with power over him. Carl said that the original idea had been Anson’s. His real name was Anson Burke and he really hadn’t been that much of an actor. Carl gave a shy smile. “He was good, all right, you understand, but he preferred other ways to gettin’ his supper. He liked to make fools out of folks and he figured the best way to do that was steal their money. Anson wasn’t a man cared much for folks. Thought he was a good deal superior.”

It had been Anson, whom Carl had worked with before, who had reached him in prison with word about the gold shipments. Carl had gotten word back that he’d be more than glad to help if he could be broken out. But money had been a problem. Carl had recommended that Anson hook up with Riley Hanks. He knew the man had money and he knew he’d bankroll a job if the payoff was big enough.

Carl said cheerfully, “My cut was to be a quarter of the take, plus bein’ broke out of prison. Anson and Riley was gonna split the balance after expenses. Them gunhands was just that, hired gunhands. They didn’t get no split.” Carl shook his head. “But I’ll tell you, Marshal, soon as I figured it was you on my tail, I knowed we didn’t have much chance. Minute I heard you yesterday evenin’ call on us to get our hands up I knowed the dance was over. I just went for the dirt and hoped you’d shoot high.”

Longarm knew that Rita believed he was not going to arrest her. He knew she believed it because she thought he had given her and Anson his word that if they cooperated with him they could write their own ticket. He knew she fully expected to go back to civilization as a free woman at the first opportunity. When he’d been tying her up the night before she’d asked why. He’d answered that he’d killed her lover and he always made it a point to tie up the girlfriends of the lovers he’d killed, especially when he was sleeping under the same roof with them. She had seemed to accept that readily enough.

The station was not a meal stop for passengers. As a consequence it was much smaller than Higgins’s station. The common room was half the size of Higgins’s, and there was no bar, makeshift or not. The stationkeeper lived in just one windowless room. The bathroom was anyplace you cared to go outdoors. There was a kind of kitchen, but it had just a small, wood-burning stove and a big washtub for the dishes and the pots. There was no inside water, just a pump outside the back door of the common room. The first night Longarm had left Carl and Rita tied up in the common room. He’d slept in the stationkeeper’s quarters, blocking the door with a chair. As tired as he had been, one of the prisoners could have gotten loose, sneaked in, and cut his throat and he would have never woken up.

The telegraph key sat on a table in the stationkeeper’s quarters. Longarm looked at it from time to time, but it was just a piece of metal as far as he was concerned. Of no more use than an empty gun.

The second evening he fried up a batch of bacon and opened some cans of tomatoes. There were some stale biscuits, and he appropriated several. He was sitting eating at the small table in the common room when Rita came up and stood behind him. She rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. He ignored her presence. She said, “I ain’t mad at you no more.”

He took a quick glance over his shoulder at her face. She was smiling down at him with that crooked little smile she used. He said, “That’s good. I don’t like folks to be mad at me.”

She began rubbing her hand along his neck, and then slipped it inside his shirt and ran her fingers through the curly hair on his chest. She said, “You feel all nice and warm. But I bet I could get you a lot warmer.”

He put his fork down and sat still. In a moment she came around his chair and leaned down with her face close to his. She let her tongue come out and ran it along her lips. “You remember this?”

He started laughing, he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Rita, I got to hand it to you, you are some piece of work. Old Anson’s bones ain’t even picked clean by the buzzards and you are already saddling your next horse. Woman, you just go whichever way the wind is blowing, don’t you?”

She straightened up. “Well, I don’t see where you got any right to get on your high and mighty. You liked it well enough before.”

He said, looking up at her, “Yeah, but that was before I knew where it had been. No thanks, miss, I don’t reckon I’ll have any more of your pie. The first few pieces didn’t altogether agree with me.”

As she stalked off, Carl Lowe came to the table with a small skillet full of bacon and beans accompanied by a hunk of stale bread and a pitcher of water. He set to work eating the beans. As he shoveled in the food he said, “This is mighty good, Marshal. A man learns to appreciate the good things when he’s done without.”

Longarm had announced that he would not be cooking for anyone else, and after hearing Rita talk about poison, he was not about to let her near the food. As a consequence he had said that everyone was on their own so far as vittles went. “Eat what you can find.”

But while he was frying bacon it had seemed just as simple to fry up some extra, and Carl Lowe had taken advantage of it. Longarm had come to feel friendly toward the little man. He seemed so innocuous, so innocent, it was hard to believe he was a robber and a thief.

Longarm said, “Carl, I hate like hell to bind you hand and foot like I done last night.”

Carl paused with his spoon in the air. “I don’t mind, Marshal. I know you got to do your job.”

“I got the bridles and saddles hidden away, but as good a horseman as you appear to be, you might mount one of those animals out there and use a piece of rope for a bridle and make a clean getaway.”

Carl stared at him blankly. “Horseman? What gives you the idea I’m any kind of horseman, Marshal? I don’t know much about horses. I’m city-bred.”

Longarm said, “Hell, Carl, I saw you break off from the main bunch and head north. I read your sign. You were pulling a packhorse. I damn near got within rifle range of you before my horse broke a leg.”

Carl chuckled. “Marshal, that there is good one on you. That wasn’t me a-horseback. And they wasn’t no packhorse. I was the pack on the horse. That was Johnny Jimbuck, one of the prisoners as broke out with me. His job was to get me loose and up to Buckeye. To meet Mr. Hanks.”

“Johnny Jimbuck?”

“Yessir. He is a Comanche Indian. They say he could ride a wildcat without a saddle if you could grow one big enough.” He took a bite of beans. “So he wuz the one got me out.” He chuckled. “I ‘ppreciate the compliment, Marshal, but I was hangin’ on was all I was doin’.”

Longarm said, “Well, if I took into account all the bother you’ve caused me, Carl, I’d take you out and hang you to a tree. Save me the trouble of taking you back to prison.”

Carl chuckled. “Ain’t no trees around here, Marshal. Besides, me and you is professionals. I reckon the trouble I caused you you just chalked up to a day’s work. And I don’t mind so much going back to prison. The warden there give me a good job and I got treated pretty good. Didn’t have to work out in all that heat breakin’ rocks.”

“What were you doing?”

Carl swallowed and tore off a piece of bread. “I worked on the locks and the keys. They was always gettin’ broke. The warden had me a little workshop set up with a steam-powered metal lathe. Wasn’t all that bad.”

Longarm laughed. When he could stop he said, “You telling me the warden turned you loose on the locks and the keys?”

Carl looked sheepish. “Yeah. I reckon I kind of took advantage of the situation.”

“That how you broke yourself and the others out?”

Carl Lowe blushed and put his head down. “Yeah, I reckon.”

A little later, when they were having coffee, Carl said, “You know, Marshal, I reckon it’s right that I’m going back to Yuma.” He looked down. “I been gettin’ tired of all this robbery. I didn’t mind openin’ the safes, you understand, but they always seemed to be killing and hard stuff went with it. I don’t like all that hard stuff. Fact is, I don’t like guns. Scared me to death all them guns goin’ off yesterday when you showed up.”

Longarm gave him a glance. “Looked to me like you were trying to get your hands on mine.”

Carl Lowe nodded. “Yessir. And I know you ain’t never goin’ to believe me, but I was gettin’ your gun to make that feller let go of your neck before he hurt you bad.”

Longarm stared at him for a long moment. Strangely enough, he did believe him. He finally said, “Well, I thank you for the thought, Carl. I reckon I’m sorry I kicked you in the chin.”

Carl Lowe reached up and rubbed his bruised chin. “Wasn’t the worst lick I ever got.” He sighed. “And probably won’t be the last. Reckon that stage will get here tomorrow?”

Longarm shrugged. “According to the way I calculate it. Ought to be in here early morning. At least I hope so.”

“But it will be southbound.”

Longarm said dryly, “We’ll find a way to turn it around. Trust me on that.”

That night he took Carl into the stationkeeper’s quarters to sleep. When he was blocking the door with a chair under the knob Carl Lowe said, “Marshal, if you are aimin’ to keep me in with that chair agin the door, you got it on the wrong side.”

“It’s to keep her out,” Longarm said.

“You ain’t scairt of that nice lady, are you?”

Longarm looked at him grimly. “Yes.”

“Why, I think she is just a sweetheart.”

“You didn’t shoot her lover and you ain’t standing in her way.”

He tied Carl’s hands in front of him with leather thongs. “Now, Carl, I’m gonna kind of loose-tie you tonight. Don’t get loose and make me chase you across that damn desert, Carl. I am sick of that desert. You understand? Sick of it.”

“Yessir,” Carl said. “You can go ahead and rest easy. Ain’t no way out of here for me. Nowhere to go. Besides, these here leather knots ain’t like regular ones.”

“Good,” Longarm said. But just as a safeguard, once he was ready for bed, he tied a long thong around Carl’s hands and then tied it to his own ankle. Carl slept on the floor. Longarm took the bed, though he split the blankets equally with the little man.

As near as he could figure Longarm hadn’t slept decently in five or six nights. Maybe more. It had been the desert during the escape, then it had been Rita at the relay station. Then, the previous night, he’d slept with one eye open, afraid one of them would get loose and get away on a horse or find a weapon and ammunition. He felt certain he would sleep this night, but no such thing happened. All night long he would come awake convinced something was wrong. But each time Carl was in his place and the door was still jammed with the chair. He awoke for the last time at dawn, haggard and worn out. He sat up on the bed and looked down. There was Carl Lowe curled up in a ball, sleeping like a puppy. “Hell!” Longarm said disgustedly. He untied the thong from around his ankle and went out to the kitchen to make coffee. Rita was sleeping on top of the table, rolled up from head to foot in blankets. It appeared that everyone had slept except himself.

At around eight in the morning the southbound stage finally pulled in. Good fortune was finally smiling. The guard, who had been a stationkeeper, could work a telegraph key, although he said he was a little rusty. Longarm hustled the man into the stationkeeper’s quarters and set him in front of the key. The situation was complicated, but he reduced it to as simple a form as he could. The guard sent the message, and a few minutes later received word back. After that he kept sending and receiving until the situation was made plain. The headquarters for the stage line ordered that the southbound coach go on with the guard driving, while the driver switched to the stage carrying the gold. He was to drive it with all dispatch to company headquarters. He would be met all along the way with fresh teams. It was assumed that Marshal Long would act as guard.

Fresh teams had to be hitched to both coaches. There were no Mexicans to help, but the driver and guard were old hands and soon made short work of the job. Just before the southbound stage was to pull out, Longarm got the driver and guard to help him load the bathtub aboard. He had written a message to the Higginses thanking them for all their help and enclosing a hundred dollars of Riley Hanks’s money with the message. He had told Mrs. Higgins it was to be used to buy a new bathtub in case her old one didn’t work anymore. The guard took the message and put it in his pocket, but he was still mystified. He said, “How in hell did Mizz Higgins’ bathtub get all the way up here? Looks like it has been drug.”

Longarm shook his head wearily. “They’ll tell you all about it. I ain’t got the time or the energy.”

They got away, heading north, at a little before eleven that morning. If all went well they should reach Buckeye and the railroad line by five or six that evening.

Longarm took his seat up in the driver’s box. He would have much rather sat in the back with his prisoners under the canvas instead of under the sun. He swore to himself that if he got back to Denver alive, he was going to get a room, pull down all the shades, and stay in the dark for a week.

They arrived in the town of Buckeye at a little after five that afternoon. Longarm was forced to spend a little time with the officials of the stage line, but as soon as he could, he headed into town with his prisoners looking for the jail. He shepherded them into a small office and told the sheriff he had two prisoners he wanted put up for the night. But before the sheriff could answer, Rita rounded on him and said, “You are not going to arrest me! You gave me your word! You sonofabitch, what are you trying to pull?”

He leaned down so he was speaking directly into her face. He said, “If you’ll remember I said that I personally didn’t care what you and Anson did. And I personally don’t. But I’m a deputy U.S. marshal and they don’t make deals. You understand the difference? You see what I mean?”

She stamped her foot. “That’s not fair!”

He straightened up. He felt like slapping her violent face. He said, “Listen, woman, you have been involved in a scheme, up to your neck in it, where seven, eight, nine, maybe more men have been killed and several hundred thousand dollars worth of gold almost got stolen. You are going before a magistrate.”

He turned to the sheriff, who had been looking on with interest. “Like I say, I need to keep these two on ice for tonight. I ain’t had no sleep for a week and I got to get a hotel room and get some.”

The sheriff looked doubtful. “Wa’l, we ain’t set up fer female guests.”

“Hang some blankets. She ain’t modest.”

The sheriff scratched his jaw. “I ain’t got but the two cells and one of ‘em is occupied.”

“What for?”

“Drunk.”

Longarm reached in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He said, “That ought to pay his fine and their keep. I’ll give you another one in the morning.”

The sheriff became more interested. “I’m shore we can he’p you. Allus like to cooperate with the federal law. I’ll get these two tucked in and get shut of that drunk.”

When the sheriff came back, Longarm was slumped against one of the desks. The sheriff said, “All done. Ain’t no back door out of this place. Marshal, you look about done in.”

“I am. That westbound train leaves here at one o’clock tomorrow?”

“Yessir.”

Longarm straightened up. “Then I’ll be over at about nine tomorrow morning. You got a magistrate here, don’t you?”

“Yessir. Judge Cull.”

“Some officials from the stage line will come along to swear out the complaint. Then I’ll be taking the man on that train to Yuma.”

“Hotel is just across the street and down about a block. Can’t miss it.”

The next morning Longarm stood looking down at the floor in the sheriff’s office. The sheriff said, holding his arms out, “Marshal, I don’t know what happened. I come in the office a little before eight and they was gone. Cell doors was wide open. Reason I didn’t come over to the hotel and wake you up was I figured you’d come and got ‘em. Changed your mind or something.”

“No,” Longarm said, “I didn’t change my mind.”

“Somebody must have let ‘em out. Only thing I can figure.” Longarm sighed. “No, nobody let them out.”

“I didn’t tell you we didn’t have a night man, did I?”

“No, no, you didn’t.”

Longarm stared back toward the empty cells. He’d had a good supper, a good night’s sleep, a shave and a bath, and a fresh change of clothes. He’d thought he was feeling pretty good until he got to the jail. It was his own fault. He must have been out on his feet to have trusted Carl Lowe in a little jail like this one. He wondered if they had gone before he was in bed. He wouldn’t have been surprised. He just hoped that Rita didn’t get the little man killed before he could get rid of her. But he doubted it.

He said, “When is the next train that would get me up to Denver?”

“Denver?” The sheriff looked at him questioningly. “I thought you was headed west.”

“I was,” Longarm said. “I was. Now I want to go to Denver.”

The sheriff said, “Well, the train to Phoenix is due in a little over an hour. I reckon you can get a train to Denver from there. Trains run all over out of Phoenix. You figure they are heading for Denver? Your prisoners?”

Longarm turned for the door. He said, “I don’t know. But that’s where I’m going to start looking.” He started toward the hotel to collect his belongings and get down to the train depot. This was one report he’d rather tell his boss, Billy Vail, in person rather than try to write it up.

The sheriff had walked out the door, following him. He said, “Marshal, what makes you think they’ll head for Denver?”

Longarm didn’t look around. He said, “For one thing, Denver ain’t got no sun nor desert nor mules.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story,” Longarm said. He shook his head. He reckoned, on balance, he’d done more good than bad. At least he hoped Billy Vail would see it that way.