Longarm and the Lusty Lady

Jasper was sitting straight up in his chair, his back not even touching the back of the seat, just sitting upright on the front half. “Well,” he said, “what’s telling you? You already knowed. In fact was you caused Mister Mull to come down. And I’ll tell you something for nothing—Mister Caster ain’t overly happy about it. Nosir.”

“That what Raoul said?”

Jasper looked prim. “I don’t never say who I heard from. But that ain’t got nothing to do with my money.”

It occurred to Longarm that he hadn’t the slightest idea what James Mull looked like, and he very much doubted that Austin Davis did, either. And Caster had said that Mull was not going to be present at the time of the final transaction. That was going to make him a little hard to arrest. But if they had someone who could identify him when he stepped down off the train, then Austin Davis could keep close tabs on the man and they’d be able to lay hands on him when the time came. But Longarm didn’t want to tell Jasper that he didn’t know Mull. He didn’t want him to see that he was in a valuable position. For all Jasper knew, Mull was known to Longarm or would be seeing him as soon as he got off the train. “Hell, Jasper,” he said offhandedly, “Mull ain’t worth no hundred dollars to me. I don’t need no introduction to him. You want to try and rob me, go and get yourself a gun.”

Jasper frowned. “That ain’t the way I figure it at all. If I hadn’t made you known to Mister Caster, then Mister Mull would not be coming down here. You paid for one and are getting two. An honest man would see that.”

Longarm picked up his beer and sipped at it thoughtfully. After a moment he said, “Well, I don’t want to cheat you, Jasper, and I don’t want folks thinking that I have. But I can’t see paying no more than fifty dollars for Mull. You got to admit I done most of that on my own. Hell, do you even know James Mull? I bet you never laid eyes on the man.”

Jasper looked outraged. “Why, damned if that be so!” he said heatedly. “I’ve met up with him twenty times. I-” He paused. “Well, maybe not that many, but I damn shore know the man. Real skinny kind of feller like Raymond, though he ain’t built nowhere the way Raymond is. Tall and skinny. An’ always wears a suit with a vest. And a derby hat. Dresses like a real big shot.”

Longarm yawned. “Well,” he said, “I’ll give you fifty for him. You reckon that to be fair? He wouldn’t even be coming it weren’t for me.”

Jasper turned the matter over in his mind. “Well,” he said finally, “I would reckon him being the boss of Mister Caster, he’d fetch a better price. Say seventy-five.”

Now Longarm frowned. “Seventy-five? For a man I caused to be fetched? Hell, Jasper, I’m beginning to think this town is full of thieves. If I give you the seventy-five it has got to be with the understanding that you don’t tell nobody about this little talk we had. I don’t want it getting around that I’m such an easy touch.”

Jasper looked insulted. “Say, maybe you didn’t hear me when I said folks tell me things when they don’t want them getting around. I can keep a secret better than any man alive.”

“You’ll tell Raymond. He’s your partner. You’ll tell him.”

“Raymond ain’t my partner in everything,” Jasper said staunchly. “Just some little business we got.”

“Yeah, you’ll tell Raymond and Raymond will tell Raoul and Raoul will tell Caster. And Caster will jump my ass and say the deal is off because I let the cat out of the bag. Ain’t nobody supposed to know that Mull is coming.”

“Well, they won’t hear it from me,” Jasper assured him. “No, sir.”

Longarm pursed his lips and appeared to be thinking. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll give you the seventy-five, but I ain’t going to give it to You until Mull actually steps down off the train.”

Jasper started to protest. “Now, what’s that got to do with me? I ain’t got no say about him actually coming or not.”

“if Mull doesn’t come, Jasper, then I ain’t getting two for one, am I?”

Jasper thought about it for a moment, frowning, working it around until it finally made sense to him. “No, I mean yeah,” he said uncertainly. “I reckon you’re right. But how am I gonna get my money? You’ll be with Caster.”

“Tell you what—My foreman, the man who’s gathering the cattle for me, he’ll be in town in the next couple of days. Soon as he gets here, Mull is supposed to come. Raoul San Diego will more than likely be the one that sends the telegram. You’ll be in the know about that, won’t you?”

Jasper looked uncertain, but he said, “I reckon I would. I can make it my bid’ness to be in the know.”

“Then there you have it. I’ll send my foreman along with you to the depot. You point out Mull to him and he’ll have instructions to hand you the money.”

Jasper peered closely at Longarm. “You wouldn’t be trying to trick me, would you?”

Longarm gave him a patient look. “Jasper, I know who your friends are. A pair of brothers who are supposed to be worse than the smallpox. I don’t figure to get myself in bad with them over a matter of seventy-five dollars. I ain’t a gunfighter and neither is the man gathering the cattle. We’re just trying to do some business.”

The doubt vanished from Jasper White’s face. “Well, so long as you understand how matters stand.” He stood up. “When are yore cattle due in?”

Longarm shrugged. “Any day now. The sooner the better, so far as I’m concerned.”

“Well, our business is finished. I point out Mister James Mull, and yore man gives me seventy-five dollars. Is that right?”

“You better point out the right one,” Longarm warned. “The man you described could be a ribbon salesman calling on general merchandise stores. I ain’t paying no money for a ribbon drummer.”

Jasper was insulted. “Long,” he said, “I ain’t never cheated nobody on my facts and I ain’t goin’ to start with you, even if I do think you tried to pull a fast one on me. Nosir. If Mister Mull is on that train, he will be pointed out to yore foreman.”

Longarm shrugged and picked up his beer. “Then we got a deal, Mister White.” He raised his mug and watched Jasper nod curtly and walk out of the bar. After the man was gone Longarm called for another large whiskey, and then he sat back and began trying to figure out how they were going to succeed in carrying off an operation that was becoming more and more complicated. One thing he did need to do was get over to a bank and make arrangements for them to receive funds in his name. He didn’t know where he was going to get such funds, or more to the point, how he was going to get such funds, but he did know that arrangements had to be made to receive the money. But it was Saturday, and the clock on the wall behind the bar showed it to be half past noon. After finding out from the bartender that the local banks definitely closed at twelve noon, Longarm relaxed. That was one thing, at least, he didn’t have to worry about today. The banks were closed and he couldn’t do a thing about that. Matters would simply have to wait until Monday. He picked up his new whiskey and began sipping at it reflectively. Then a thought hit him. “What’s the biggest bank in town?” he asked the bartender.

The bartender shrugged. “First National of Laredo, I reckon. At least they claim to be.”

Longarm got up quickly, leaving two dollars on the table. “Is there still a train going north this afternoon?” he asked.

“Yeah, San Antonio Express. But it leaves at one o’clock. You ain’t got much time.”

“Oh, I ain’t going,” Longarm said. “Just seeing a friend off.”

He hurried out of the bar and began walking as fast as he could toward the depot. Once again he was breaking his vow against walking, but he didn’t see what he could do about it.

Chapter 7

It was a long hard trip. Longarm had to ride the train over a hundred miles before they got to a town that had a telegraph office, Hondo; a little village that existed because it had once been an important jumping-off place for herds that were trailing to the far north. Now it made its living off the railroad and such businesses and ranching as were in its vicinity.

But then, once Longarm had got the telegram off to Billy Vail with instructions about the money, he realized he’d have been better off going on to San Antonio because he was stuck in Hondo until the next southbound train came through, out of San Antonio, and that wasn’t due until two in the morning. At least in San Antonio there would have been some first-rate bars and a chance at a real poker game. His disgust almost knew no bounds when he finally found a game being played in a place that was half saloon and half feed store. The game was a nickle ante, quarter limit. He barely managed to choke out “No, thanks,” when he’d been invited to sit in.

In the end he’d taken a room at a rickety hotel and, armed with a bottle of whiskey had spent the time until two A.M. drinking and dozing and feeling bitter. He was bitter because, by rights, such a job should have been handled by Austin Davis. It was a chore for the junior member of the team. But Longarm had been afraid to wait until Davis showed up. There might not have been enough time to send him off on the train to a telegraph station and time for the money to be sent. Caster was too impatient, and Longarm had no intention of giving him any excuse to slip out of the noose, especially now that he knew James Mull was coming. He had telegraphed Billy to have five thousand dollars sent by wire to the First National Bank of Laredo, to be held for C. Long. He had not used his first name because of the nagging fear that someone would recognize it. Unlikely as that was, he didn’t see any point in taking a chance.

He got back to the Hamilton Hotel just as the sun was threatening to rise, a little before six. He had breakfast in the hotel dining room and then went to his room, armed himself with a few stiff drinks, and got into bed. On top of everything else his bad tooth, seemingly aggravated by the jolting and banging of the train, had ached the whole time he was in Hondo. It was a little quieter now, but he had every intention, once he’d had a nap, of finding an apothecary open on Sunday and getting himself a supply of laudanum or morphine or anything he could find that would give him some rest from the pain.

He slept until early afternoon and then got up, slowly and sleepily and sat on the side of the bed and yawned. He was grumpy and felt ill-tempered. He hated it when his sleep pattern got all turned around. Now, more than likely, he wouldn’t be able to sleep in the night ahead and it would take him a week to get back on schedule.

After he’d had a drink or two and smoked a cigarillo, he got up, feeling creaky, and took a kind of half-bath out of the wash basin, then shaved and put on a fresh set of clothes. After that he went into the dining room and talked a waiter into getting him something to eat, even though it was long past time for serving the midday meal. The waiter managed to get him a steak and potatoes and some stewed peaches. Longarm had that with coffee and, after paying his check, gave the waiter two dollars, one for himself and one for the cook. He did not ordinarily throw money around like that, but he fully intended charging it to the U.S. Marshal Service as expenses, and Billy Vail be damned.

Sunday afternoons were when the gay blades of the town and the eligible senoritas promenaded around the plaza, the girls walking in one direction, the men in the other. Longarm wandered out to watch the young men strut and the girls try to flirt without getting caught by their severe-looking chaperones.

The Laredo plaza was a big one for a town of its size. Almost a hundred yards long and half as wide, it had a bandstand and a fountain in the middle, with benches and chairs scattered about and a pleasant sprinkling of oak, elm, and even a magnolia here and there. It was paved with flagstone and offered a nice view of the river and the International Bridge. From its center Longarm could almost see Caster’s office. Wondering where Austin Davis was, he sure as hell hoped he was getting close.

He finally took refuge under a magnolia in the northeast corner of the plaza, right at the edge. He had seen the woman named Dulcima walking at the far end, and he had retreated to the hotel side to be well out of her way. The last thing he wanted or needed was for Raoul San Diego to come gunning for him over his woman.

But she did make a striking figure, even at a distance, walking along the south side of the plaza, about midway, clad in a pink dress of some shiny material that Longarm reckoned to be silk. She was carrying a closed pink parasol over her shoulder, and her gown was of a length that now and then allowed Longarm to catch a glimpse of her trim ankles beneath the ruffled hem. But it wasn’t her ankles that drew his eyes so much as the swell of her breasts and her small waist that fed into the flare of her hips. Dulcima was, indeed, a very tasty-looking woman.

He kept watching her as she reached the eastern end of the plaza and abruptly turned north. She was no more than sixty yards off, and it appeared to Longarm that she was headed directly for him. But, of course, he knew that was nonsense. She was just walking the third leg of her promenade, and would turn back west when she got to the corner. Besides, he was in the shade of the magnolia and he doubted she could see him very well from out in the bright sunshine.

She kept walking. When she got to the point when she should have turned west, she kept straight on, walking directly toward him. Suddenly Longarm was in a panic, wondering if he’d offended her in some way by eyeing her so closely. But, hell, every other man in the plaza was doing the same thing, and that was the reason she was here, to be looked at. The other women promenading were declaring themselves to be eligible, but everyone in town knew that Dulcima wasn’t up for grabs—not unless a man wanted to lose his hands.

But she was coming straight toward him, a small smile playing over her full red lips. Ten feet away, she took the parasol off her shoulder and swung it carelessly by its handle. It seemed to Longarm that the nearer she got, the more erect and inviting her carriage became. He was thinking of bolting, turning and walking away, when she said, still a yard or so away, “You like to look at Dulcima, I theenk.”

She had a pleasant, musical voice with a slight Spanish accent, but it took the words a moment to register on Longarm’s brain. Finally he managed to stammer,“Uh, ma’am-uh, what was that?”

Now she was standing right in front of him, and once again he was very conscious of the square-cut bodice of her dress and the way her golden-hued breasts swelled out at him. Holding the pink parasol in one hand, she tapped it in the palm of the other and said, “I theenk you like to look at Dulcima, no? I theenk your eyes follow me all over the place, no?” Then she laughed lightly and ran her moist, pink tongue over her lips.

The sight excited Longarm so that he could feel his jeans getting a little tight. Trying not to stammer, he said, “Why, ma’am, I didn’t mean no offense. You are wearing such a stylish outfit that it naturally took my eye.” He took off his hat and ducked his head in a kind of bow. “I hope you didn’t take it unkindly. I shore meant no harm.”

With sparkling eyes and lips curved in a smile that was very close to a laugh, she took one hand off the parasol and shook her finger close to Longarm’s face. “Oh, no no no. Now the senor tells the lie. You like my outfit. Ha ha ha. I know what you like and it ees not the dress Dulcima ees wearing. No no no. You tell me what you were looking at, hokay?”

Longarm blushed; he couldn’t help himself. “Wh-wh-why,” he stammered, “I reckon the color and style of your clothes just seemed to catch my eye, ma’am. I can’t think of nothing else.”

She put her head back and laughed, causing her long, silky hair to cascade almost to her waist. “I theenk you are the liar, senor. I know what you were watching.” She moved the slightest bit closer to him and said, “I theenk you were admiring Dulcima’s breasts and her legs and the part of her maybe you like the best.”

It caught Longarm so off balance that he stepped back as if a flaming torch had been thrust at him. Instinctively his eyes flitted around the plaza, the image of Raoul San Diego in his mind. That would be all he needed—to have to kill Caster’s gunman right before the deal was to be completed. And there was Raymond, his brother. The Tejano Cafe wasn’t that far away. He glanced in that direction, but there was no sign of the small Mexican. And, of course, there was always Jasper. He could be anywhere. But as far as that went, anyone standing around the plaza could see him talking to Dulcima and make a beeline to tell Raoul San Diego. Longarm swallowed and tried to fight the blush off his face. “Ma’am,” he said earnestly, “I don’t reckon you ought to talk like that. I understand you are already attached to another gentleman of the town. A rather well-known gentleman. I’d as soon not get crosswise with him.”

“Raoul?” She laughed. “I doan theenk a man like you is afraid of Raoul. I have been watching you, senor. I have seen you several of the times and I say to myself, ‘Dulcima, thees is a handsome man. Very strong-looking. Very ha’some in a big, rough way.’ I say to myself that such a man would make the kind of love a woman like me would like. What you theenk of that?”

Longarm could feel himself starting to sweat under his hat. “Ma’am-” he began.

“You call me Dulcima. You know what that means in English?”

He said helplessly, “Kind of.”

“It means sweet.” She stepped up close to him, so close he could smell the musk of her body. “You taste lit, You never find nothing so sweet. You weel see.”

He took off his hat and used that as an excuse to step a little further away from her. “Ma’am,” he said, “I got to tell you that I ain’t got the slightest doubt that you are a mighty tasty dish. But the thing is, I ain’t one to go poaching on another man’s territory. Right now you are on Senor San Diego’s range, and that kind of makes it wrong to talk the way we’re talking now.”

She smiled. “I theenk you lie again. I theenk you doan care who a woman belongs to if you want her. No, you lie.” She shrugged. “I doan tell. Do you tell?”

“Ma’am,” Longarm said, “I think you ought to look around. Every eye in this plaza is on us. I don’t reckon it is going to take long for word to get back to your Raoul. And I don’t reckon he is going to be too happy.”

She snapped her fingers. “What do I care what he theenks! He ees my man so long as I weesh. But I have other men. What he going to do, keel them all? I doan theenk so.

Longarm gave a little laugh. “It’s just this one I’m worried about. Me.”

“Bah!” Dulcima said. She locked her eyes with his. “You lie. Look down at my breasts and tell me you doan lie.”

Longarm looked, instead, over her shoulder to see how much attention they were attracting. In his retreat he’d managed to keep himself hidden from the hotel porch, where a number of spectators were seated in wicker chairs. There wasn’t much behind him, but he could see a number of people to the south who appeared to be taking a considerable interest in their conversation. “No ma’am,” he told her. “I don’t reckon I’m going to do that. At least not out here on the street.”

She laughed, her voice tinkling like a bell. “You blush like a boy, but I doan theenk you do other theengs like a boy. I theenk you make love a mucho hombre.”

Longarm swallowed and tried again. “Ma’am, I reckon we ought to call off this here little talk. Or save it for some place a little less public. I can’t up and walk away from you. Wouldn’t be the gentlemanly thing to do. So I wonder if you wouldn’t mind just kind of sashaying on along.”

“Do you know where I leeve?”

“I can’t say I do.”

“I have the beeg house on the leetle hill east of town down by the river. Anyone can tell you where Dulcima leeve.”

He shifted his gaze from over her shoulder to her face. “Yeah,” he said. “Along with Mister Raoul San Diego.”

“Bah!” she said. “He leeve there when I say hokay. It ees my house. It ees my hacienda. You come see me and we weel talk and maybe then you weel want to look. No?”

“Ma’am,” Longarm said, “I assure you that if circumstances were different I’d follow you home so fast you’d need a race horse to beat me there.”

“Ha-ha! So, I theenk you like Dulcima a leetle.”

“It ain’t hard,” he admitted.

“Maybe not now, but I make it so. Ha-ha?”

Longarm said weakly, “Yeah, ha-ha. Ma’am, you are making me mighty uncomfortable. I shore wish you’d finish up your walk.”

“Not unteel you call me Dulcima.”

He let out his breath. “All right. Whatever you say. Dulcima, would you please let me out of this corner before you get me killed.”

She gave him an amused look. “You talk of being afraid. How come I doan theenk you are afraid? What is the reason for that? Huh?”

“I reckon you just never seen enough scared men.”

She laughed and twirled her parasol. “I go now. But you better come see me queek or I come see you at the hotel.” She laughed again when he gave her a quick glance. “Oh, yes. I know where you stay. Thees place does not get many han’some mens, so Dulcima keep her eye open all the time. I see you the first day and I see you seeing me, so I say myself, ‘Dulcima, there ees a good cheeken for your pot.’ So you see, eet has already been decided. I go now. Adios.”

She gave him one last smile with her sensual mouth, then turned and walked off, twirling her parasol. Longarm followed her with his eyes, thinking she made near as pretty a picture from the rear as from any other angle. But damnit if word got back to San Diego, there could be big trouble and he didn’t know a way to avoid it. If he had to, he’d kill the man, but that would more than likely make Caster that much harder to deal with. One thing for certain, he wasn’t going anywhere near her house, not until the deal was done and all parties were either dead or in custody. With his heart still beating a little rapidly, Longarm turned and walked back to the hotel. As he stepped up on the porch, he wondered if it was his imagination or did several of the railbirds give him more than just a casual eye.

He stayed close to the Hamilton the balance of that night, eating in the hotel dining room and drinking in the hotel bar. A little after nine a halfway decent poker game started up, though it was a limit game and five dollars at that. But it was something to do and his luck was just short of hot, so he managed to win about eighty dollars by midnight, when he decided to make it an early night and turn in. One of the gamblers made a remark about him quitting winners, and Longarm turned to stare at him. He hadn’t heard anything that foolish in a long time. “Why don’t you gents wise this fellow up?” he said to the rest of the players. Then he addressed the disgruntled man. “That’s the point to the game, fellow. The object is to win. It’s like coming out of a gunfight alive. You understand? Maybe nobody told you before and that’s the reason you keep losing. You don’t know no better.”

The gambler, a sharp-faced little ferret of a man who looked like a storekeeper, replied, “Maybe not, feller. But I know better’n to hold a conversation with Raoul San Diego’s woman right in the big middle of town.”

Another of the players said sharply, “Keep your mouth shut, Hurley.”

Longarm gave Hurley a long look. “And,” he said, “another thing you don’t seem to know is when to mind your own business.”

The man who had spoken sharply looked up at Longarm. “He don’t mean nothing, mister. He just runs off at the mouth sometimes. He didn’t mean to be butting into your business. No offense meant.”

Longarm stared at Hurley for a long moment. The little man kept his attention fixed on his cards. Finally Longarm let his breath out slowly, then he reached in his pocket, fished out a five-dollar gold piece, and flung it on the table. “No offense taken,” he said. “You gents have a drink on me.”

He had given the little storekeeper a hard look, but as he turned away and headed out of the bar, his heart was beating a little faster. If his encounter with Dulcima could be remarked upon so readily by a stranger in a bar, then heaven only knew how far the news had traveled around the town. Longarm had little doubt that unless Caster had sent him off on another errand, Raoul San Diego already knew about the long conversation that had taken place under the magnolia tree. And if not Raoul, then his brother, and if not his brother, then certainly Jasper White, and if Jasper White knew, it was a cinch that Raoul would know as soon as word could be carried to him. As he walked to his room Longarm resolved that he would have to regard Raoul San Diego in the same way he would a rattlesnake. Expect him to strike at any instant. He would have to walk a very devilish tightrope, watching San Diego with one eye, while keeping the other one on Caster and Mull. What he’d first expected to be a pretty straight-forward piece of business—catching and arresting a corrupt official—was rapidly getting more and more complicated. He wished to hell that Austin Davis would get back with the cattle and they could complete the deal and get the hell out of Laredo before somebody got killed. He had breakfast the next morning in the dining room and then sat around the lobby, watching the various characters come and go, until the banks opened. At nine o’clock he walked the two blocks to the First National Bank of Laredo, which was up from the river and in the center of town. As luck would have it, there was an apothecary in the same block, and with his tooth acting up again, Longarm swerved in at the door and asked for laudanum. The young man behind the counter took his money and handed over a small glass-stoppered bottle containing a milky white liquid. When the clerk asked if he’d ever taken laudanum before, Longarm hesitated. “Well, yeah, but it’s been a spell. I got shot accidentally once. Broke a bone and it hurt considerable.”

“What are you taking it for this time?”

Longarm pointed toward his mouth. “Toothache.”

“Why don’t you go to a dentist? We got some good ones in town. A few even speak English.”

“Right now I ain’t got the time.”

“Well,” the clerk said, “I don’t reckon I need to warn you about the laudanum. Don’t take any whiskey with it. It’s powerful stuff—and it might make you a little groggy if you take too much.”

“How much is too much?”

“Don’t take over half a teaspoonful. Teaspoonful at the most. Was I you, I’d try and work it up around the gums where the tooth is hurting. I wouldn’t swallow any more than I had to.” Just as Longarm was leaving, the clerk called after him, “And don’t do no dangerous work while you’re taking it. It kind of slows you down.”

Longarm stopped and looked back, his mind suddenly on Raoul San Diego. “What do you mean by dangerous work?”

“Oh, anything. I wouldn’t work wild cattle or ride a bucking horse.”

Longarm started to say, What about a gunfight? but he kept the words to himself and just nodded and went on out the door and then next door to the bank. He put the little bottle in his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap. He’d been planning on taking a quick dose, but as careful as the apothecary had said he ought to be, he figured he’d wait until he was back in his room at the hotel.

The matter at the bank did not take long. It was a routine transaction for a bank in cattle country. There was nothing unusual about it except for the fact that he was using only his initial, and the bank, to Longarm’s surprise, charged him a fifty-dollar fee. Longarm was a little irritated by the transaction fee, and told the bank manager as much. But the manager, a sleek-looking portly man, assured him it was the custom and had been for some time. That had shut him up, since transferring cattle money was not in his normal line of business. Privately, Longarm thought, it was the custom, all right, but only in Laredo, since it was in line with the border practice of helping themselves to your socks once they’d stolen your boots. He’d very nearly come to grief when the manager had asked what bank would be wiring the money. For a moment he’d fumbled and hemmed and hawed before saying, “Well, it’s my new partner. I reckon he’ll be using his bank. Thing is I don’t know which bank that might be. He does business with several. But I’d reckon it will be one in Colorado.”

He’d ducked the business about not using a first name by simply declaring, “Never cared for it, so I don’t use it much. ‘Long’ suits most folks well enough. Does me.”

Then he’d paid the manager fifty dollars out of his own pocket and gone back to the hotel. The toothache had come back full force and he was hurrying to get to his room so he could use some of the laudanum. It seemed as if there hadn’t been a moment in the last month that he hadn’t been hurting.

But as Longarm hurried through the hotel lobby, it seemed to him that a lot of eyes were following him and that more than one man lowered his newspaper to cast a look his way. He could almost hear them whispering to each other. “That there is the feller was talking to Dulcima yesterday. Yessir, right out there on the plaza. Big as life. Damn near had his head down in her tits. Seen it myself. Wonder when San Diego is coming to settle his hash? Wouldn’t care to be in his boots. But anybody foolish enough to carry on like that, and I mean right there in front of the preacher and ever’body, near about deserves what he gets.”

He let himself into his room and sat down on the side of the bed, took his hat off and then unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out the little bottle filled with the milky liquid. He removed the glass stopper and smelled it. It didn’t smell like much of anything. He held the bottle out at arm’s length. It looked harmless enough, but the apothecary had cautioned him as if he were dealing with nitroglycerine. And maybe he was. If San Diego came around, all he’d have to be was about a heartbeat too slow and there wouldn’t be any more heartbeats.

But the toothache was pounding by now, and he decided, the hell with it. What were the chances of San Diego coming around in the next few hours? Damned slim, he thought. And if he didn’t get some relief from the pain, he was liable to get to yelling. Not having a teaspoon to measure it out with, he tried to imagine how much half a teaspoonful might be. Maybe just as much as would go on the tip of his tongue. Not much more than that.

He drew the bottle from his lips and put it down, resting his arm on his knee. Hell, he was scared to take the damn stuff. Sure as shooting, the minute he took a swig, there’d come a knock on his door and it would be Raoul San Diego wanting to know what the hell was going on with Dulcima. And when that moment came, he had to be at his best. It was a hell of a quandary. He reached over and set the still-open bottle on the bedside table, laying the stopper beside it. Maybe, he thought, he ought to just pour it out and put temptation out of his way, especially with his toothache screaming down the clouds. For a good few minutes he sat there staring at the little bottle, letting the ache in his tooth wash over him like a wave. The apothecary had said something about rubbing some on the gum around the tooth. Hell, that couldn’t do much harm. He reached over, got the bottle, and held it for a moment in his left hand. Finally he put his index finger over the mouth of the bottle and tipped it over. There was a little of the white liquid on the ball of his finger. As quickly as he could, he reached up into his mouth, trying to find the exact place where the pain was coming from.

It wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. He scraped a little of the laudanum off on his lip trying to maneuver his finger into his mouth. Then he had to feel for the right spot, and that used up quite a bit more of the laudanum. By the time he’d located the bad tooth, there seemed to be nothing left on his finger.

He took his finger out of his mouth and waited. After a moment or two he felt his lip going a little numb. Then part of his mouth seemed to be numbing up also, but not the right part. Damn, he thought, the stuff was strong as hell. He didn’t remember it having such an effect. But then he’d been hurting so bad the last time he used it he hadn’t noticed much of anything. Now he not only had his toothache to worry about, there was this new element that he didn’t know what to make of. He set the bottle back on the night stand and sat still for a moment, wondering if he’d done any harm to himself. Suddenly, like he hadn’t planned it, he made a quick move with his right hand toward the butt of his revolver. He sat, and was very still for a second. Then he did it again, and then again a few seconds later. “Damn!” he said aloud. He couldn’t tell if he was slower or not. He made an abrupt turn toward the door, leading with his left eye, seeing how fast the door came into view. ” Damnit!” he said, “damnit damnit!”

And damn that sonofabitch Austin Davis. If the man was back, he could take care of Longarm, like a partner ought to, and Longarm could drink some of that painkiller and get a little relief. As it was, he was scared to take it and scared he wouldn’t be able to keep from taking it. What he ought to do, he thought, was get himself lodged in the jail by punching a deputy sheriff. That way at least he could down a good dose of the stuff and get some rest from the pain. But, Laredo being what it was, they’d probably just fine him the money in his pocket and put him back out on the street. He sat there thinking and hurting and getting angrier by the moment. It was one hell of a mess, to find himself practically hiding out in his hotel room, avoiding some cheap nickel-plated gunslinger and having to live with a toothache because he couldn’t afford to mess up an arrest of corrupt officials that some damn junior marshal he didn’t even like was hoping to bring off to make himself look good. And that same damn junior marshal didn’t even have the decency to show up when he was needed. Longarm was thoroughly disgusted. He wasn’t worried about being able to handle San Diego, laudanum or not. The problem was he couldn’t risk any trouble with the man until the trap was sprung. He couldn’t think of a time he’d ever got himself into a more ridiculous situation and, damnit, it was all Austin Davis’s fault. He hadn’t as yet figured out how, or why, but the sonofabitch ought to be around when he was needed. Davis could take on San Diego and it wouldn’t cause an upset in the plans. Davis was supposedly the stock contractor Longarm had hired to bring up cattle to the border, and what he did once he’d delivered the cattle had nothing to do with Longarm. Hell, Davis could pick a fight with Raoul San Diego and kill him and it wouldn’t make no difference to the plan Longarm had set up. He could say, and act quite righteous about it, that he couldn’t be held responsible for what some tequila-crazy border stomper got up to. He’d hired the man to deliver cattle and he was quits with him after that. He was damn sorry about Mister Caster’s number one man, but that kind of thing could happen any time to anybody.

Except Davis wasn’t in Laredo and Longarm had no clear idea when he would show, and there was only a few more days, less than that really, to deliver the money to Caster—or worse, to put it in San Diego’s hands. That, Longarm thought, ought to be some meeting. That is if they didn’t have another one before that. He shook his head and sighed and reached over and got the whiskey bottle. The apothecary had said not to mix the two, so once he set in on the whiskey, the laudanum was out the window for the time being. He took the cork out of the bottle and tilted it up and rolled some into his mouth. Then he leaned his head to the side so the whiskey could get over and drown the sore tooth. It was a damned slow process and one that Longarm knew from experience wouldn’t keep on working but for now it was all he had.

He could have taken the laudanum. He wasn’t afraid of San Diego. He didn’t figure it would be much trouble to kill the Mexican gunman. He’d observed that men who went around with hard faces and tried to put a look in their eyes that said they were dangerous, were, as a rule, not as bad-ass or tough as they acted. He even felt confident that Austin Davis could take San Diego in anything even resembling a fair fight. But that wasn’t the point. He couldn’t afford to kill San Diego until the right time. Until then he had to handle him, and that was considerably tougher than just gunning the sonofabitch down.

Longarm shook his head. Things had come to a sorry pass when a man of his experience and resources was forced to hide out in his hotel room to avoid some tinhorn shooter. Who also happened to have a woman who looked to Longarm like about the most delicious pie he’d ever eaten. Lord, could he do with some of that! And maybe it might be available once all the cards had fallen out. But, for the time being, he reckoned he needed to stay as far away from Miss Dulcima as possible. He swallowed the whiskey he’d been holding in his mouth and reached for the bottle again. Meanwhile three dollars worth of painkiller was going to waste sitting on a bedside table.

Chapter 8

It was early afternoon Tuesday, just after lunch, when Austin Davis finally showed up at the hotel. By chance Longarm was waiting around in the lobby when Davis, dusty and looking tired and trail-worn, came walking in. Davis had come in the door heading for the desk, but he swerved when he saw Longarm, and headed his way. Keeping a straight face and speaking loud enough for the onlookers to hear, he said, “Mister Long? Mister Long? Is that you?”

Longarm gave him a look warning him not to get cute. “Yes, Mister Davis,” he said. “Something wrong with your eyes? It hasn’t been that long since you’ve seen me.”

“I reckon it is,” Davis replied, “because you’re clean and your clothes are clean. I haven’t seen anybody cleaned up in about a month.”

“I didn’t realize you had been gone that long, Mister Davis.” Longarm put out his hand as Davis came up, and they shook. “Have a successful trip, I hope?”

“I got your cattle. Right at a thousand head. We’ll have to get a head count, but it won’t miss what you ordered by ten cows. Lord, I’m mighty glad to be back in civilization. I want a bath and some hot food and a barbershop shave.

Longarm was studying him closely, trying to get the information across to Davis that they needed to talk, and soon. “Then I reckon you ought to get you a room and maybe a bath. Where is the herd?”

Austin Davis was returning his look. Longarm could tell from his face that he knew something had changed since he’d left. Davis said, “They’re being held just across the river. Few miles east. I was able to rent a pasture for a couple of days. The cattle are in good shape. Yeah, I’ll get a room and have a bath. You staying here?”

“Yeah,” Longarm said, giving Davis his room number. “I’ve got to run over to the bank for a minute, but I’ll be back shortly. Why don’t you knock on my door soon as you get fixed up.”

“I’ll do that, Mister Long. I’ll be as quick as I can and then we’ll get down to business. Glad to hear you’re going to the bank.”

Longarm could see that the loafers in the lobby had lost interest in them. But he said, for the benefit of anyone listening, “Yeah, I reckon I owe you some money.”

“Soon enough for that.”

“All right,” Longarm said as he stepped toward the door, “I’ll see you quick as you can get yourself shaped UP.”

He went out the door, thinking of all he had to tell Austin Davis and hoping the deputy would understand how delicate the situation was. But Longarm was feeling better than he had in days. He’d suffered with his tooth all through the previous day and into the night. But then, when it had come eleven o’clock and time for bed, he’d given in and taken a dose of the laudanum. The effect had been miraculous and he had gotten an excellent night’s sleep and awakened for the first time in a week without the toothache dragging him to the edge of consciousness. It had done wonders for his frame of mind. He didn’t know how long the relief would last, but he was going to enjoy it while he could. He knew it was just a temporary condition of his mind but, right then, he felt he would rather have the absence of pain than a woman.

As luck would have it, the money had come. He directed the bank to hold it on deposit for him and to have it ready in big bills.

Coming out of the bank, he saw Jasper White standing across the street, seeming to look his way. Longarm raised his hand in salutation, but White made no response. Longarm wondered if Jasper was following him, either on orders from Caster or San Diego or just on his own hook. It didn’t matter. Whatever Longarm would be doing in the immediate future wasn’t anything he cared if Jasper saw. He and Austin Davis would act and talk in public just as if they were, indeed, a stock gatherer and a contractor.

He went back to the hotel and went directly to his room. There was a small round table at one end of the room and he pulled it out a little, drew up two chairs, and set out a bottle of whiskey, a jug of water, and two glasses. After making sure the door was unlatched, he lit a cigarillo, sat down at the table, and poured himself a drink of the Maryland whiskey that was so smooth it was a jailable offense in that state for anyone caught gulping it down. He took a small drink and let it slide down his throat. It was a real pleasure to be able to drink again like a normal man without first watering the whiskey down with spit while he swished it around to comfort the damn tooth. He sat, smoking and drinking, letting the whole scheme revolve through his mind as he went over it step by step. It seemed pretty good to him, although he doubted that Austin Davis would think so. But then, James Mull had been just a “maybe” in Davis’s plan, with no sure way to rope him in.

Longarm had been sitting like that for close on to half an hour when there was a tapping at the door. He Swiveled slightly to his right so his holster would be clear and he’d be facing toward the door. He expected it was Austin Davis, but he hadn’t stayed alive as long as he had by not allowing for the occasional surprise. “Come in,” he said. The door swung open and it was indeed Austin Davis, looking considerably cleaner and better dressed than when Longarm had last seen him. “Shut the door behind you and come have a drink,” Longarm said. “I’m sorry to say all I got is whiskey. No sody POP.”

“Then I reckon whiskey will have to do,” Davis said, “though I shore hope my old mother don’t hear I’ve gone bad.”

Longarm poured out a drink for both of them, and they made a toast to good horses and bad women, and drank down a satisfying amount of the smooth liquor. “Well?” Davis asked after a short pause.

“A well is a hole in the ground,” Longarm replied.

Austin Davis waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah. Turn it sideways and you got a tunnel. You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, what the hell has happened? Have you managed to really foul my deal up?”

“Your deal?” Longarm looked at him mildly. “When did we go to giving out title on arrests? I’ll have to wire Billy Vail about that one. Never had it come up before.”

Davis gave him a sour look. “You know what I mean. Tell me.”

Longarm talked for a quarter of an hour, laying out the proposition as he saw it and relating everything that had happened or been said with the exception of his conversation with Dulcima. When he was through he sat back, drew on his cigarillo and looked at his partner. “Well?” he said.

Davis looked thoughtful for a moment. “It sounds pretty good,” he said guardedly. “Though I think you took one hell of a risk going after Mull straight out like that. They might have thought it was fishy. Still might as far as that goes. And what makes you think Jasper White won’t tell Caster about the deal you made with him? By the way, I did just like you. I got to Caster through Jasper White.” He laughed a little. “Though I didn’t give him but twenty dollars. Reckon he thinks you looked easy.”

Longarm shrugged. “Forget about that. You say you think I took a risk. I did, and it might still be a risk. They might be sucking me in. I don’t know. But I started out on this job taking risks and it ain’t let up yet. A marshal’s job is about risks. That’s what we do. And I didn’t see where it would have done a bit of good putting the iron on Caster without taking down his boss. Caster is like a .44 cartridge, easily replaced with an other one.”

Davis rubbed his chin. “I guess …” he said slowly. “I just hadn’t run it out this way in my mind. I had figured to get Caster in hand and then have him ring Mull in.”

“Implicate Mull? How?”

“Why, on his say-so. What else?”

Longarm laughed. “That would last about five minutes in a court of law. As long as you’re getting him to implicate Mull, why stop there? Hell, get him to point a finger at the President of the United States. That old dog won’t hunt, Austin. Mull has got to implicate himself. He has got to be involved. And you were talking about Jasper White playing me for a sucker—Do you know what James Mull looks like? Do you?”

Austin Davis slowly shook his head. “No. Reckon I don’t.”

“So whether it’s a risk or not, I got to use Jasper White and the only way I had of getting him to help me was with money. I’ll take it away from him when I’m done and offer him a jail cell if he complains, but for the time being, I have to play the cards I was dealt. Caster has made it clear I ain’t ever going to set eyes on Mull. What would you have done?”

Davis shrugged and took a drink of whiskey. “I reckon what you did, I just might not have thought it up is all.”

Longarm gave him a long look. “Be careful, Austin,” he said. “You come damn near to paying me a compliment. You want to be leery of that.”

Davis smiled faintly. “Sorry. It slipped out.” It was clear to Longarm that the junior deputy had his mind busy trying to take in all the new information. Davis studied the floor for a moment, then looked up at Longarm. “And you say you got the bribe money right here?”

“In the bank, ready to go.”

“Well,” Davis said, “that means I don’t have to wire that cattleman’s association. Of course I hadn’t counted on you going as far as you did. I’d told them I figured to get the cattle through for three dollars, maybe two a head.” He paused and took a moment to light a small cigar. “I still feel like we’re riding over icy ground. This thing is going to be touchy as hell to bring off.”

Longarm drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s going to be dicey.” He hesitated. It was about time to tell Austin Davis something he wasn’t going to want to hear. Longarm blew out a breath and looked at a far corner of the room. Then said, “And on account of that, you can’t be here. As soon as you move the cattle across the bridge I want you to head back for Mexico.” He detached his gaze from the corner and looked around at Davis.

His partner was staring at him, not blinking. Finally he said slowly, “What?”

Longarm sighed. “Yeah, you heard right. I want you to get clear of the area. It can’t be done with both of us. If you were a legitimate stock gatherer, you’d see the cattle into the quarantine pens and then you’d be on your way once you were paid off by me, the man that contracted with you to get the cattle in the first place. What would go on between me and Caster wouldn’t be none of your concern. And if you hang around, it ain’t going to seem natural. Your business with me is done.”

Austin Davis started slowly, but his voice rose with heat as he spoke. “Now you wait just a damn minute! You talking about what old dog won’t hunt? Well, that old dog just drug out from under the porch not only won’t hunt, that sonofabitch can’t move! This here is my deal, Longarm, and you ain’t going to cut me out of it. I got some little time invested in this proposition and I ain’t going to go sit with the Sunday school class while you get to preach.”

Longarm sighed. He truly felt sorry for Austin Davis, and not just a little guilty. He wished then that he hadn’t made such a big commotion about coming to the border to work with the man. This was going to make it seem like he’d cut him out just out of meanness. “Austin,” he said, “it can’t be any other way. I’ve thought and thought on this, dreading having to tell you, but I can’t see no other way. You were talking about fish—well, it would seem fishy as hell, us just doing some business, for you to be around. Oh, hell, I don’t mean you got to take straight off for Mexico. They would expect you to stay on this side for a while, drinking and whoring and whatnot. But I cannot see any way that you can be present when I put the iron on Caster and Mull. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

Austin Davis was staring at him stiffly. “I suppose it makes sense for you to come down here and take over the job?”

Longarm shook his head. “Nobody is coming down here and taking over the job. Damnit, Austin, you’ll get just as much credit doing it this way as if you actually done the arresting yourself. You and I will both write the report and we’ll put it anyway you want. I know you got time in on this and so does Billy Vail. You’ll get the recognition you got coming. Ain’t nobody going to cheat you.”

“You sonofabitch,” Davis said with cold heat. “Who the hell cares about credit or recognition? Maybe that’s the way your mind runs, but mine don’t.” He leaned forward. “I want to catch the sonofabitches and I want to see their eyes when I do. I want to put the iron on them. And you ain’t going to stop me, short of getting word here from Billy Vail. Or are you pulling rank on me right here and now?”

“I ain’t pulling any rank, Austin. All I got on you is a little more time behind the badge. And I ain’t trying to shove you aside. I’m just saying the way I see it.”

Davis’s face had colored slightly. With an edge in his voice he said, “Well, it ain’t the way I see it, and this is a proposition that I’ve got a little more time on than you. And, mister, you ain’t shooting the birds I’ve flushed. You take all the credit you want. Write the damn report anyway you want. You be the hero or whatever. I don’t care nothing about that, but I took some guff off of Caster and I want it to be known to him who it is putting him behind a wall.”

Longarm felt the short hairs on his neck bristle at Davis’s hard words. With an effort he controlled his temper. He said, as evenly as he could, “Well, you know, you kind of flushed your birds a little quick. That is, if you were intending on doing any shooting. Caster told me that the man who was gathering my stock come at him with a proposition about rising the price of the bribe and splitting the money. He told me I had better keep an eye on you.”

Davis flushed. The anger went out of his face and he looked down at his half empty glass of whiskey. “Damn!” he said. “I never thought that would come back to haunt me.”

Longarm leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his glass. “You reckon how it would look if I had you along after what you proposed to Caster? I’d look like a rare jackass. Talk about smelling fish. Caster is jumpy as it is. I get the impression that he and Mull are fixing to wind the business up. I think that’s the reason he’s raising his prices. I can’t back it up, but that’s the feeling I get.”

Davis looked away. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “I reckon I ain’t got no kick coming. I had my reason for doing what I done. I made that proposition to Caster early on in the game in hopes of getting his confidence. I figured that if I appeared to be crooked, he’d be that much more willing to trust me. Birds of a feather.”

Longarm nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I can see that. And if you’d been playing a lone hand or had known what your man was up to, it might have worked. But you can see how it is now.”

Davis nodded slowly and sighed. “Yeah, I reckon I can.” He looked away. “Damn, Longarm, I can’t just walk away from this business now. I got too much in it. Hell, got to be something I can do.”

“It appears to me you’ve done a pretty good piece of work already. Hell, all I’m doing is sweeping up your shavings. You done the whittling.”

“Yeah, but you’re going to need somebody to watch your back. I know you’ve run across this Raoul San Diego and his brother too. But that is a couple of bad hombres. You say you got to hand the money over to Raoul. Or Caster said you do. Ain’t a damn thing to keep him from popping you off once he’s got his hands on the cash.”

Longarm smiled slowly. “I think it won’t take no cash to get Mister San Diego hot at me. I got a real good idea he already is.”

“What are you talking about?”

As briefly as he could, Longarm told Davis about how Dulcima had approached him on the plaza. As he talked, Davis’s eyes got wider and his mouth dropped open. “The hell you say!” he exclaimed.

Longarm nodded. “Right out there in front of the mayor and his horse and anybody who happened to come by. And she went on for about five minutes, with me backing up inch by inch and begging for her to leave me the hell alone.”

“Dulcima! Hot damn. Ain’t that about the most mouth-watering piece you ever run across? I’d like to have been in your shoes.”

“Yeah? And what would you have done?”

“I’d of had her in this hotel room and out of that dress before the dust could settle on the tracks we’d of left behind.”

“And what about Raoul San Diego? What would you have done about him?”

“I wouldn’t have shot holes in him if he hadn’t bothered us.”

“I don’t think he’d of left you alone. I think you’d of had to turn him into Swiss cheese.”

“Well, that could have been arranged. Man don’t get many chances at a woman like her.”

“Uh-huh. And how you reckon you would have stood in with Mister Caster after you’d killed his number one man and main gunhand? How you reckon he’d of taken that part of the business?”

Davis looked at the glowing end of the cigarillo he was smoking. “Probably not right kindly,” he said. “In fact he might not have wanted to do no more business with me.” He shook his head slowly from side to side. “Guess you were thinking ahead of me on that one, Longarm.”

“Listen, I holed up in this hotel for two days to keep from running into the sonofabitch and having trouble. You reckon I liked that?”

“No, but I don’t see how you could have known for sure he’d been told.”

“I couldn’t. But I couldn’t take the chance of getting in a fight with San Diego. I knew half the town had seen us talking, and if I know anything about a puffed-up Mexican, I know they will kill you over a woman, or honor, or any combination of the two faster than they will holler if you steal their horse. And if word had got back to him about the little social me and his senorita was having, he’d have to do something.”

“He ain’t but half Mex.”

“Well, I hear he’s right-handed and the Mex half is on that side, same as his pistols. Whatever he is, I didn’t figure to take the chance. Not after all the work you done put in.”

The junior deputy lifted his head and gave Longarm a mocking smile. “All the work I put in? Somebody is shoveling bullshit around here and it ain’t me. All my work, and you’re sending me to the barn. Come on, Longarm, that thought never crossed your mind.”

“I give you my word that that is what I was thinking.”

Davis gave a little laugh. “And you said that the woman called you handsome?”

“That is exactly what the lady said. Her very word.”

Davis put his head back and laughed out loud. “I’ll never believe another word you say, Longarm. If Dulcima said that, then that means the woman is near blind—and I never seen nobody leading her around.”

Longarm leaned back and folded his arms. “I did not intend to tell you about all that for the very way that you are now acting. I told you what happened. You can believe it or not.”

Davis reached out for the whiskey bottle and poured more of the amber liquid in both their glasses. “Right now,” he said, “I ain’t real interested in that. What I got my mind on is what I can do here at the tail end of the business. I’m the one throwed the loop, I’d shore like to be there to see what it snares.”

Longarm held his hands out helplessly. “Hell, Austin, I’ve laid it out for you. How in hell am I supposed to explain you being around?”

“That ain’t fair, Longarm,” Davis said quietly.

Longarm stared at him. “Fair? Fair? You sound like some schoolboy. The only thing I know about fair is that every county has one, but that ain’t until fall. Fair. You are in the wrong business you looking for fair. We got a job and we do it fair or not. You savvy?”

“How’d you like it if the shoe was on the other foot?”

“I wouldn’t. I’d be mad as hell. But I’d do what had to be done to get the job done.”

Davis looked away and shook his head. “Sheeeeet!” he said in a long, peeling burst. “Damnit damnit damnit!”

“I’m sorry, Austin—I don’t see no other way for it.”

Davis shrugged. “It can’t be helped. What you say makes sense. When you want me to clear out?”

“Well, not right away. You still got to move those cattle from the Mexican side over here to the quarantine pens. I reckon that would be in the morning. Can you manage that by then?”

“I don’t see why not. We’re holding them close-herded on some good grass.”

“What kind of shape are they in?”

Davis glanced at him. “What the hell do you care! These ain’t your cattle, Longarm. Remember?”

Longarm laughed slightly. “Guess I got carried away.” He lifted his glass to his lips and took a drink. “I guess the next step is for me to go see Caster and let him know the cattle have arrived. We’re going to have an argument. He’s going to want me to give him the money right now, and I ain’t willing to do it before the cattle are in his pens.”

“He ain’t going to want the money before then.”

“Why not?”

“Because. Once he’s got your cattle in his pens, he knows damn good and well that you have to pay him.”

“I reckon you’re right,” Longarm agreed. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He lifted his glass and finished the rest of the whiskey. He stood up. “I reckon I better get on over and see him.”

“You better watch out for San Diego. Either one of them. I hear that little one who acts like a dandy is meaner than his brother. Raymond? Is that his name? I hear he’s a back-alley bushwhacker. Uses a shotgun.”

“Right now I ain’t too worried about either one of the San Diego brothers. I figure Caster don’t want nothing to happen to me until he’s got my cash in his hands. Say, I got the feeling that the cafe owner, Raymond, and Jasper White are on some kind of dodge. Are they smuggling?”

Davis shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. But if it’s illegal, they’re doing it. I heard they were smuggling gold. But then I also heard they were smuggling peons up to big cities like Chicago and New York City to work as street cleaners at two bits a day. You can get nearly any kind of gossip around this town that you’re looking for. I ain’t really been concentrating on them.”

“I reckon I better get,” Longarm said. He put on his hat and walked across the room. With his hand on the knob he stopped and said, “By the way, what did you have to pay for those cattle? Jay Caster might ask. And if they were my cattle, I’d know.”

“Right close to seven dollars a head, depending on the final count. I spent six thousand nine hundred and some odd dollars for the herd, buying it in different lots, first one place and then the other. By the time I’m through, I’ll have spent about seventy-five hundred of the coastal cattlemen’s money.”

“Are the cattle worth it?”

Davis shook his head. “Not within a mile. They won’t bring them in like they are now, and they sure as hell ain’t going to want to pay to take them through regular quarantine. The only thing they can do is turn them back and sell them in Mexico. They’ll lose two or three dollars a head doing that.”

“It appears they’re buying justice pretty dearly.”

Davis disagreed. “Not when you figure it costs them a fortune when they lose a herd of beef worth thirty dollars a head to Mexican tick fever. We get this operation shut down, or run clean, and it will have been worth the price. Though I do think it is a poor comment on the state of government when a citizen has to go out and pay to have the law enforced.”

Longarm smiled thinly. “You mean you don’t think it’s fair, Austin?”

“Go to hell, Longarm. Just go straight to hell. I hope that half-breed blows a hole through you that a small horse could get his head into. Just get on out of here. Go collect your glory. Go set it up so you look like the hero.”

“Now you can go to hell, Mister Davis.” Longarm started for the door.

“Wait a minute,” Davis said, putting up his hand. “You never said if you’d figured out how Caster gets one herd through in a week’s time. After coding them with that paint. Paint looks mighty permanent to me. How does he get red paint to turn to green?”

“I never even tried to find out. I told you all I’d been doing. How he does it is a question we can ask him once we got him in jail.”

“Oh? You mean I’m going to get to see him behind bars?”

Longarm gave him a sour look and stepped out into the hall, pulling the door to behind him. Davis had said that he’d taken some guff off of Caster and hadn’t liked it. Well, so had he. He hadn’t mentioned it because there’d been other things to say, but he was going to take some personal satisfaction in putting the spurs to the smart-mouthed Caster. Saying he was an officer of the law. Yeah, he was an officer of the law all right, an outlaw officer.

Jay Caster was wearing sleeve garters. He was seated behind his desk with some kind of a ledger in front of him and a nub pen in his hand. Once again Longarm took a seat unbidden. Caster looked at him silently for a long time, slowly chewing his plug of tobacco. Finally he leaned over and spit in the bucket by his desk, hitched up his sleeves so as to protect his cuffs from the ink on the pages of the ledger, and then went back to his work, all the while not saying a word to Longarm.

Longarm crossed his legs and put his hat on his knee, got out a cigarillo and lit it. His tooth was starting to ache again, though very mildly. He put that down to the upset Austin Davis had caused him. He looked at Caster. The man was wearing a white shirt with a stiff collar and a foulard tie. A gray suit coat was hung over the back of his chair. Longarm figured he had business later that day. Maybe James Mull was coming in to ask after matters. That seemed doubtful, but one thing Longarm didn’t doubt: he wasn’t going to sit there all day and watch Jay Caster scribble figures in a book. He cleared his throat. Caster didn’t look up. “Uh, Mister Caster,” Longarm began, “I reckon you ought to know that I-“

Without glancing up, Caster said, “Hold it, will you? This is important and I got to get it right.”

Longarm subsided, but it put him on slow boil. He sat there smoking and watching Caster. He could bide his time. Hell, if he had to, he could wait on this sonofabitch a week, a month, six months if he had to. But, in the end, Jay Caster would be doing something else besides making marks in a ledger.

Finally Caster put his pen down and, after carefully blotting his last entry, closed the ledger. He sat back in his chair, raised his arms over his head, and stretched and yawned. Then he put his arms down, reached in his desk drawer, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. A glass followed and Caster poured himself out a drink. He made no move to offer one to Longarm. He corked the bottle, put it back in the drawer, then lifted the glass and drank off half of it. After that he belched and put a wooden toothpick in his mouth. Finally he looked at Longarm. “Whata you want, Long?”

Your hide nailed to the barn door, Longarm wanted to tell him. Instead he fiddled with his hat for a moment, then said, “I reckoned to let you know that the money I wired for has come in.”

“You got it with you?”

Longarm pulled his head back. “Walk around with five thousand dollars in this town? Not very damn likely. No, it’s at the bank. Besides, I thought I wasn’t supposed to give you the money.”

“You ain’t. What about yore cattle?”

“Them too. My cattle gatherer come in just after noon. He’s holding the herd in Mexico, down by the river.”

“How many?”

“A thousand head, give or take a dozen. Won’t know until we count them into your pens.”

“You ain’t paid him yet?”

Longarm shook his head. “I ain’t likely to pay him until I see what I got. Would you?”

Caster ignored the question. “You brace him about that proposition he made to me?”

“About raising the price and him taking a piece of the money?”

“Him cheating you. Yeah. You ask him about that?”

“Mister Caster, I don’t know how you do business, but I’ve found it’s a good idea to keep matters friendly until you get what you want. Right now he’s still got the cattle. Besides, what you told me didn’t come as no surprise. I told you I knowed the man before. I wouldn’t be the first one he’s tried to cheat and I won’t be the last.”

“You seem to take it pretty well. You scairt of the man?”

Longarm frowned. “I don’t look at it like that. It’s business. I’ve said I’m not a gunhand, and I’m not. I don’t know whether he is or not. Frankly I don’t intend to find out. Now, tell me how you want to do it about the cattle and the money. Can we bring the cattle over in the morning?”

Caster looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yep. I reckon you can. I’ll send a man across to Mexico to meet yore contractor and clear the way to bring the cattle over the bridge.”

“What about the money? You want it the same time? I want to get shut of it as quick as I can once I pull it out of the bank.”

Caster showed his brown-stained teeth. “My, my,” he said. “Ain’t you the jumpy one. You must be scairt of yore own shadow.”

Longarm stared at him and didn’t say anything. He did think, however, that Jay Caster was nearly as big a fool as he’d ever met. He certainly had a fool’s mouth.

“Don’t worry about the money,” the customs man said. “When I’ve got yore cattle in my pens we’ll make arrangements about the money. Now go on and get out of here. I’ve got serious work to do.”

Longarm stood up slowly, trying to keep it fixed in his mind that he was a cattle buyer making a crooked deal and worrying about it. “Excuse me,” he said, “but what about Mister Mull? Is he going to be there when the money changes hands?”

Caster suddenly slammed the palm of his hand down on the top of the desk. His eyes got small in his fleshy face. “Listen, Long,” he shouted. “When in the hell you going to learn to tend to yore own bid’ness? Maybe you’d like to keep them cattle in Mexico. That can be arranged if you keep on with that mouth of yours.”

Longarm swallowed and reminded himself that his day was coming, one way or the other. “Well,” he said, “I figure this is my business, Mister Caster. After what I’ve paid for these cattle and what I’ve got to pay you and Mister Mull, I got to be able to drive them through the coastal plains and you know what that depends on. I got to have Mister Mull’s seal and signature on them road papers.”

“You been told, I don’t know how many times, that you ain’t going to see Mull. Get that clear in yore head.”

“Just take your word?”

“That’s the way it is, Long. Now get out of here.”

But before Longarm could walk the length of the long office, Caster called to him, “How much you pay for them cattle, anyway?”

Longarm didn’t bother to think. “A little over eight dollars a head.”

Caster laughed. It was a malicious sound. “He done it to you again, that drover you hired. I bet he never give more than seven dollars for a single head and more likely less than that. But he’ll have him a bunch of bills of sale and you’ll have to pay him off on that.” Caster shook his head and spit in the bucket. “I’d like to do bid’ness with you, Long, as long as yore money lasts. Which I’d reckon ain’t going to be very long as dumb as you are.”

“You think he cheated me?”

“Oh, hell, feller, of course he cheated you. And will probably cheat you again before it’s all over. Next time you want some cattle gathered, you need to get in touch with Raymond San Diego over at the Tejano Cafe. He’s the brother to the man works for me, Raoul San Diego.”

“The one I’m supposed to give the money to.”

“That’s right, Long. Now, have yore cattle at the bridge as early as you can tomorrow morning.”

Longarm left Caster’s office in a very thoughtful mood. He and Austin Davis both wanted a piece of Caster to take home for a keepsake, but the man was being mighty leery and careful. As far as Longarm was concerned, if they didn’t get Mull the operation would have been a failure. He couldn’t visualize exactly how the final action would play out, but there had to be some way to get Caster and Mull in the same place with both their hands in the cookie jar. And meanwhile, there was Raoul San Diego to think about. Longarm had gone to Caster’s halfway expecting the man to be there. He wondered what he’d do if San Diego did create a ruckus before the job could be completed. He reckoned he’d just have to do a good imitation of a man crawfishing and begging pardon and making excuses. San Diego was one more reason it was best to have Austin Davis out of the way. Longarm didn’t believe the young deputy had the control to take dirt off a man. He’d kill him first. Well, at least Caster had done him the favor of driving another wedge, supposedly, between himself and Davis. So long as Caster thought he was dealing with a fool, so much less on guard he’d be.

Longarm’s room was empty, though he noticed that the half-full bottle of Maryland whiskey was missing. For a man who expressed no particular preference for the hard-to-get stuff, Austin Davis seemed to guzzle it at every opportunity. He made fun of Longarm for not drinking the local whiskey, but he never passed up a glass of the Maryland corn squeezings. Longarm went on down the hall to Davis’s room. The door was ajar, and Longarm felt a brief twinge of worry, but when he pushed the door all the way open he found Davis sitting cross-legged in his stocking feet in the middle of his bed, playing solitaire with a greasy deck of cards. He looked up as Longarm came in. “You get all the doings done?”

Longarm found a wooden chair, turned it backwards, and straddled it so he was facing his partner. “Yeah, I reckon so. You know, you said you’d taken some guff off Caster. I’m willing to bet he ain’t talked to you nowhere near as corn-mouthed as he has me. The sonofabitch has done everything but call me an idiot. He says you’re cheating me on the price paid for the cattle, that you’ve got some phony bills of sale, and that if I believe you for more than the time of day with the town clock to check you by, I’m the biggest ignoramus in the county.”

Davis chuckled quietly. “I’m glad to see I ain’t getting all his business out of that particular store.” He jerked his head toward the table beside the bed. “Help yourself to some of your whiskey. Is it kind of getting under your skin having him talk to you like a schoolboy?”

“I’m not partial to it, I’ll say that. But I’m taking it with the expectation of better days to come.”

“That’s what I done.” Davis gave him a look. “But I guess them better days won’t come for me.”

Longarm shot him a glance and got up and poured himself a glass of whiskey out of his own bottle. “Cattle have got to be brought over as soon as possible. I reckon that means you roll out mighty early.”

“What about the bribe?”

“I don’t know. Caster said he’d tell me in the morning. I reckon I’m to hand the money over to Raoul San Diego. Twenty-five hundred. Half of it.”

“And you give him the other half when he turns the cattle loose, is that it?”

“so far. But he may change his mind. He’s acting mighty skittish.” Longarm thought a moment, then said, “Austin, I’ve been forgetting something. Jasper White is supposed to point out Mull to somebody when he steps off the train. I ain’t sure that can be me. Maybe you better stick around.”

“You mean I can come to my own party now?” Davis said sarcastically.

“Hold up, now. I ain’t saying you can be in on the transaction, the business when Caster and Mull go one step too far.”

Davis put a black queen on a red king. “Let’s see how it goes. I’ll do whatever you think is right. Though I’m damned if I can see how you’re going to get Mull and Caster hemmed up in the same corner. Not from the way you say Caster is acting about it.”

Longarm had been thinking about something. “You know,” he said, “Jasper is supposed to point out Mull, but he could point out anyone getting off that train. Could be a drummer or a banker for all we’d know.”

Davis paused with the deck in his hand, looking down at the cards laid out before him. “That’s true,” he agreed. “But what are you going to do about it?”

Longarm rubbed his jaw. “Maybe you ought to take a quick train ride to Brownsville and take a look at Mister Mull. Just go up there and then turn straight around and get on back.”

“Me see him without him seeing me?”

“Something like that.”

Davis shrugged and put a red six on a black seven. “I don’t see why not. Soon as I get the cattle crossed and counted out and penned. You reckon I ought to try and give you a phony count? Give Caster some ammunition that I’m a crook.”

Longarm rubbed his jaw again. “Let’s don’t complicate this damn mess anymore than we have to. It already looks like a set of mule harness the kids have gotten hold of. Snarled up and tangled.”

“Your tooth bothering you again?”

Longarm grimaced. “It flares up from time to time. I got some laudanum in my room, but that stuff makes you kind of goofy. Raoul San Diego has already got enough advantage on his side with me not knowing what he’s liable to pull. I’d just as soon have my wits about me.”

“How you see it falling out?”

Longarm shook his head. “I ain’t got the slightest idea, to tell you the truth. I’m just drawing all the cards the dealer will give me and waiting to see who raises the pot.”

“But he’s definitely going to put the cattle through in a week?”

Longarm sighed and stood up. “That’s what he said.” He turned to face Davis and pointed his finger. “One thing I forgot. Caster said today that the next time I wanted any cattle gathered in Mexico I’d do well to contact Raoul’s brother, Raymond San Diego. Him, and probably Jasper, are mixed up in this deal in some way. Beats the hell out of me exactly how. But I think we ought to be damn careful about them from now on.”

Davis gave him a look. “I have been. Wasn’t me hired Jasper to spot Mull when he gets off the train. I reckon that one might come back to haunt you.”

Longarm gave him a look. “I’m going out and get some supper,” was all he said. “I reckon it’s best we not be seen socializing together.”

“That your way of getting out of playing me poker?”

“Yeah, Austin. Of course. You just go right on believing that.” Longarm let himself out of the room and walked on down the hall toward the lobby.

Chapter 9

The final count came to 981 head of cattle that Austin Davis had brought across the bridge and delivered into the quarantine pens at the customs station. Jay Caster said, “It’s still five thousand.”

He and Longarm were sitting horseback at the far end of the pens, watching the cattle as they were herded in by the vaqueros hired by Austin Davis and the hands who worked for the customs inspector. Longarm just shrugged at Caster’s words. “Why not?” he said wearily. “Hell, what’s another ninety-five dollars.”

Just then Austin Davis rode up and spoke to Longarm. “Mister Long, I don’t understand it. I swear they was a thousand and eight head of cattle. I got the sales vouchers to prove it. Somebody must have cut them twenty-seven head out when I had them on the grass over in Mexico.”

“Yeah,” Longarm said. He deliberately did not look at Davis, looking instead at the herd. “I’m sure that’s what happened.” His voice was flat and toneless.

“Well, I can’t explain it no other way,” Davis went on. “But I guarantee you that I laid out the money for one thousand and fifteen head and got here with that one thousand and eight. I don’t know what happened to them last nineteen. I told you we lost seven head on the trail and you said that was to be expected.”

Longarm shook his head slowly. He was trying to play the part of an honest man stoically accepting his fate at the hands of swindlers and thieves. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Them things happen.”

“Well,” Davis offered, “I’m willing to split the difference with you. Let’s just say you owe me for nine hundred and ninety head. How’s that sound? Poor as I am, I’ll take the loss on them other ten head.”

Longarm kept looking past Austin Davis. “We’ll worry about that when we settle up,” he said. “Right now I wish you’d get back to the cattle and see that they get settled in. It appears to me that I’m in danger of losing more than just nineteen head to some rough handling. I see a dozen steers fighting, and them damn hired hands in the pens act like they never saw cattle before.”

“Well, it’s not my boys,” Austin Davis said. He gave Caster an accusing look. “They been gentling that herd right along like they was made out of glass.”

“Then how about getting on back and supervising the work.” Now Longarm looked at Davis. “Your job ain’t over, you know. You’re getting paid to get them in the pens in one piece.”

Davis replied in a hurry voice, “I ain’t responsible for the work done by folks that don’t work for me. No, sir. And I ain’t to be held accountable for it either.”

But he reined his horse around before Longarm could speak again, and loped off toward the pens where the cattle were being corralled.

Longarm hadn’t realized how extensive the network of big, wooden-railed pens was. Each would hold about 200 head of cattle and they stretched from a quarter mile of the bridge to the east, at least, he calculated, another quarter of a mile and they were at least that wide. He figured he was looking at somewhere between six and eight thousand head of cattle, crowded in as thick as a busy anthill. He’d seen the stockyards in Chicago, which weren’t a hell of a lot bigger and handled herds of cattle from all over. Of course they did a much faster turnover than the quarantine pens. They’d get cattle in that would be shipped out within forty-eight hours. But still it was a lot of cattle and he said so to Jay Caster.

Caster seemed amused. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Sounds to me like you ought to be worrying about the cattle you’re missing. And them phony bills of sale your contractor is going to hand you.”

Longarm didn’t answer. He was too busy watching the cattle being marked. As each head went single file through a short chute formed by two fences, a worker would slap a daub of paint on the cow’s side. In this case it was red paint, to designate cattle that had just arrived. Jay Caster had told him that in thirty days the paint would have just about worn off as the cattle rubbed up against each other. “That’s when they get a coat of white to show they’re in their second thirty days,” he’d said. “After that they get slapped with green and that’s the end of the line.”

Longarm had wanted to know how his cattle were going to be released in a week if they were still marked with the red paint. Caster had glared at him. “That’s something you ain’t ever going to know.”

“Well, I ain’t setting out on the trail with a bunch of red-marked cattle. I’m sure those ranchers along the coast know all about that.”

“Yore cattle won’t have no red on them. You better learn to keep that mouth of yours shut, Long. Especially when it’s got a question in it.”

Watching the herd intently as it was strung out to be driven into the pens, Longarm had been trying to pick out individual cattle that had some easily distinguishable mark, like an odd color pattern or a twisted or broken horn. Thus far he had spotted five and was trying to keep them in his head while he’d been talked at by Jay Caster and then by Austin Davis. He wanted to remember the marked cattle so he could come back the next day and see if his herd had been worked forward in the milling sprawl of cattle that made up the pens. It seemed like an impossible thing to do, but maybe Caster had some method Longarm couldn’t even imagine. He had to keep reminding himself that he knew a great deal more about cattle thieves than he did cattle. He was a deputy marshal, not a cattle broker.

The mocking tone still in his voice, the customs man said, “You that easy to run over, feller? Hell, that drover is cheating you blind. He got something on you? He take care of your wife for you when you ain’t there?” Caster laughed.

Longarm looked around at him. “I ain’t married,” he said stiffly. “But then that ain’t none of your business. You keep telling me what ain’t none of my business, I reckon it’s time I started making you aware of when you get to crowding me.”

Caster let out a hoot. “Aw now, Mister Long,” he said, “it be a little late to start getting tough. You ain’t got the reputation for it.”

“I reckon you ought to quit worrying about who else is cheating me and just concentrate on your own gouging. You seem to be doing a pretty fair job.”

Caster laughed again. “Oh, I ain’t through. When you think I’m finished, I’m going to have Raoul San Diego grab you up by yore ankles and hang you upside down and shake out any loose change we might of missed.”

“Let’s get that business over with,” Longarm said, still stiffly. “You want twenty-five hundred dollars as payment in half. You said you want me to give it to this San Diego. All right, I’m ready. Where is he and how do I get there? Or is this the wrong time? You got my cattle. I’d like to start in buying them out of those pens.”

Caster shrugged. “Then go see San Diego.”

“Raoul?”

Caster looked at him curiously. “You heered me speak of another one?”

“There are two of them. For all I know, they both work for you.”

Caster said flatly, “You’ll find San Diego about two miles east of town. That’s Raoul San Diego. He stays at a hacienda out that way. Big house. Middle part is two-story. It sits up on the only hill anywhere near the river. You can’t miss it. At least you ought not to miss it.”

It sounded disturbingly similar to the place where Dulcima said she lived. “Is that his place?” Longarm said, with a little hesitation in his voice.

“What the hell do you care? No, as it happens it ain’t. Belongs to a woman that he stays with. But it might as well be his.”

“His woman wouldn’t happen to be somebody named Dulcima, would it?”

Caster grinned, his teeth outlined in tobacco juice. “So you been watching her, have you? She likes to sashay around the plaza and get all the boys on the prod showing them what they can’t have. Yeah, I can tell by the look on yore face you seen her. Probably had yore tongue hangin’ out like the rest of them.”

Longarm shook his head. “It ain’t that. Yes, I’ve seen the lady. Even spoke to her. But from what I heard about this Raoul, he might not take kindly to being disturbed at home. Couldn’t I give him the money in your office or somewhere else?”

“In my office? Say, are you a little slow? I don’t want no connection to that money. Do you get it? Now turn yore horse around and go and find San Diego. It’s not half past nine yet. He’s probably still in bed. Get going and you’re sure to catch him. He don’t get up and get around until late in the day. Spends most of his nights playing with that woman, I expect. Can’t say that I blame him.”

“All right,” Longarm said. “But I want to have a word with that drover first. Then I’ll stop at the bank and then head out.”

“You better make it snappy. San Diego ain’t going to want you trying to pass him a wad of money in a crowded place. You better catch him to home.”

Longarm nodded and touched his horse with his spurs. He rode down past the end line of cattle pens, where Austin Davis was directing several vaqueros in getting a knot of steers bedded down. He turned in the saddle as Longarm rode up. “How’s the big boss up yonder? He sent you for his lunch yet?”

Longarm pulled his horse up beside Davis. “Any minute I reckon. But right now he wants me to deliver the twenty-five hundred to San Diego. And guess where? To Dulcima’s house. That is liable to get a little ticklish.”

“Damn!” Davis said. “You reckon that’s wise? A woman like her will give you away to San Diego just to amuse herself. She’ll think you’ll crawfish.”

Longarm grimaced. “I may have to,” he said. He looked over the younger man’s shoulder. “I swear,” he said, “I have had to swallow more manure on this job than any I can remember. Remind me to thank you for that sometime.”

“You ain’t the only one got the taste of shit in his mouth. I don’t think you ought to go up to her house. Can’t you hand him the money someplace else?”

Longarm shook his head. “No. Caster has got his mind set on me doing it this way. He may have heard about me and Dulcima having that little talk on the square and this appeals to his sense of humor. I’ve been acting the part of the businessman who don’t see no profit in fighting. Maybe he’s got it in mind for San Diego to throw a good scare into me.”

Davis looked thoughtful. “Or he could be setting you up. It might not be in fun. You think on that? I noticed you haven’t been wearing a cutaway holster like you usually do.”

“Didn’t seem to fit the part of the cattleman. But I got the cutaway in my saddlebags. No, I don’t think he’s trying to get me killed. I still owe him too much money.”

“Yeah, but he’s got your cattle. Who claims them if you get killed? He don’t know they belong to the South Texas coastal plains ranchers association. Or whatever it is.”

Longarm shrugged. “Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll just have to try and talk my way out of any trouble I get into. I don’t want to kill San Diego, but I reckon you can guess what choice I’ll make if it comes to it.”

“I reckon I better bird-dog you.”

Longarm rubbed his jaw. His tooth had picked a hell of a time to start gnawing at him again. He shook his head. “I reckon you better not, Austin. Caster liable to see you and there’d be hell to pay and not much way to explain it. Besides, San Diego might spot you.”

“I can look like a tree when I’ve a mind to. No, I won’t get too close. Besides, you ain’t paid me off. Most natural thing in the world is for me not to want to let you out of my sight.”

Longarm grimaced. “Well, do what you think is best.” He gave Davis a crooked smile. “After all, this is your scheme.”

“You pick the damndest times to remember it.”

“Don’t I?” Longarm wheeled his horse around. “I’ll see you.”

He rode back into town, making a quick stop at the bank, and then started out a little road that led to the east and down toward the river. The twenty-five hundred was in his saddlebags in big bills, twenties and over.

A half mile out of town he could clearly see the house sitting up on a solitary hill in the featureless terrain. It was painted a startling white, made even more so by the drab brown of the surrounding countryside. Longarm kicked his horse up into a slow lope, eager to have the chance to see Dulcima again even though he knew it might be a dangerous encounter and certainly one that could not lead to anything. But he was also curious to have a closer look at, and perhaps a few words with, the cold and venomous-appearing Raoul San Diego. He wasn’t worried about his ability to handle the man, not so long as he didn’t turn his back.

He rounded a grove of mesquite trees, and the road rose up straight toward the house. Now he could see that it was fairly big, with three or four rooms on the bottom story and then, in the middle, a second story perched atop the bottom like a child’s building block. As he rode closer, he could see that the lower story had small, casement-like windows and that the house was constructed of half lumber and half concrete or adobe. There were a few small outbuildings behind the house and a small corral, but it was clear the place was a town house that had wound up in the country. Nowhere was there a sign of any ranching or other working activity.

A porch ran the entire length of the lower story, with a roof that jutted out from the body of the house and a floor raised about six inches off the ground, made of heavy lumber planks. There were several tables and quite a few chairs scattered around on the porch. The roof of the porch, just like the roof of the house, was constructed of the red clay tiles found on houses of quality all over Mexico and along the border.

When Longarm was within a hundred yards of the place, the road dipped off to the left and a little driveway continued on toward the house. He veered to his right, pulling his horse down to a walk. It was time to start getting cautious. He looked back, thinking he might see some sign of Austin Davis tailing him, but the country was too thick with brush and groves of mesquite and stunted post oak. Austin Davis could have been within shouting range and Longarm wouldn’t have seen him. Besides, he wasn’t even sure that Davis was coming.

There was a hitching rail right in front of the porch, and he stopped his horse just short of it and sat the saddle for a moment, studying the house, especially the windows and the upper story. As he’d neared the place, he’d seen a few women working around the back, but they appeared to be intent on the wash and a kitchen garden. There had been a couple of horses in the corral, but they’d looked as if they been there for some time. Both had been standing three-legged, resting one leg, their heads down, baking in the sun. Other than that, Longarm had seen no movement about the place. If Raoul San Diego was at home, he was either still in bed or not at all curious about who might be approaching. Neither he nor anyone else had appeared in any of the windows. For that matter, Longarm wondered if Dulcima was around. He didn’t know what the custom was at this particular house, but if he’d lived here, with the reputation that Raoul San Diego had, one of the women working out back had better have come in and announced that someone was approaching or she’d have been out of a job. Yet none of the servants had paid Longarm the slightest attention, and, he figured, if he could see them, they could see him.

He climbed slowly out of the saddle and took a second to loosen his revolver in the much bigger, cutaway holster he was wearing. Then he tied his horse to the rail, took three strides and stepped up on the porch.

The front door was a large, wooden affair without a screen. It was ornate, and Longarm took it to be mahogany or some other exotic wood. He lifted the brass knocker and gave a light tap or two on the door. He waited a moment and no one came. He lifted the knocker again and was about to bang harder, when the door was suddenly pulled wide open. For a second he couldn’t see into the dim interior. He knew someone was standing right in front of him, and he could tell it was a woman by the shape and the faint scent of perfume, but he couldn’t see clearly. “I’ve come to see Raoul San Diego,” he said. “I’ve got business.”

“That ees right. You have beesness, but your beesness ees with me.”

Then Longarm’s eyes adjusted and he could clearly see that it was Dulcima. For a moment he was so startled by the way she was dressed that he opened his mouth but couldn’t think of a thing to say. She stood before him, in her bare feet, with a serape around her neck. It was highly colored and gay, with tassels, and it came down to just below her knees. It covered her breasts and the left and right of her front, but it was open in the middle revealing her nude body. He could see the shining blackness of her thick pubic hair, could see the faintly dusky silk of her inner thighs, the faint rise of her belly with its small navel. He swallowed and stammered out something and was about to step back, when, with a quick motion, she took the serape off over head and flipped it around his neck. The next thing he knew she was pulling him into the house as neatly as a roped calf. He said, still stammering, “Dulcima, wha-What the hell, uh, are you doing?”

“You have come to see me, no?” she said.

He stared at her. He couldn’t help himself. She was one of those small-boned, small-waisted women with outsized breasts. Hers were as big as grapefruits, each crowned by a nipple as big as a strawberry and as brown as a ripe fig. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman’s body so lavish and luscious, so inviting, so made for love. “Dulcima,” he said hoarsely, “you trying to get me killed? I’m standing under San Diego’s roof and his woman is standing in front of me naked.”

She had come to a stop after pulling him into the middle of a big tiled room. She let go of the serape so that it fell around his sides. “Bah,” she said. “I am not hees woman and theese ees not hees roof. This ees my house.”

Longarm was having trouble with his breathing and his jeans had gotten far too tight. He knew he should look away, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. They roved between her big, erect breasts and the fascinating, glistening patch of hair that grew at the apex of her legs. Wanting to back away, he said, “Listen, what is going on here? Where is San Diego?”

She shrugged. “He has gone across the river. He does hees business there. So he say to me. I doan care where he ees. I like you the first time I see you. I theenk we go make love now.”

He reached up and quickly took the serape from around his neck and returned it to hers. “I think I better get the hell out of here,” he said, “while I still can. I got a feeling San Diego is liable to come walking in any second with a gun in each fist.”

Dulcima cocked her head and looked at him. “Why you want to make theese kind of talk? You are not escared of Raoul. I doan theenk you are escared of anybody. Why you talk like that? Who you trying to fool? You doan fool Dulcima.”

He looked around. The room they were in was big and furnished with heavy Mexican furniture. A door to his right obviously led to some kind of dining room and on into a kitchen. The door to his left was closed. A staircase along the right-hand wall led up to a small landing on the second floor. “Who is in this house?” he asked her.

She reached out and took his hand and pulled it to her, laying it between her breasts and holding it there with both her hands. “There ees nobody in theese house except for us. Mi mozos, my servants, are working outside. I have been watching for you since theese morning.”

He looked at her, feeling the almost electric heat of her body through his hand. “You couldn’t have known I was coming out here.”

“I look for you every morning. Since we talk in the plaza, I knew you would come.”

“But I came to see San Diego.”

“Fah on San Diego!” She stamped her bare foot on the smooth tiles. “I throw heem out! He does not leeve at theese place no more.”

“I thought you said he was gone to Mexico?”

“He ees gone to Mexico. Fah! He ees not here. What you care where ees theese man named Raoul San Diego? He look like a man, he act like a man, but he not really a man. He fool all the people, but he no fool Dulcima.” She grasped Longarm’s wrist with both hands and started walking backwards, pulling him along, toward the stairs. “You come with Dulcima. I much want to play with all of your body.”

He went reluctantly. His breath was coming rapidly and he was aroused so that his heart was going fast enough for him to feel it. But he was suspicious and worried that it might be a trap of some kind. “What do you want with me, Dulcima?” he asked. “You could have your pick of the men in town. Hell, in the county. Maybe in the whole state.”

She held his eyes with hers. She was on the first step and stepping backwards for the second. “I theenk you are mucho hombre. Much man. I am never wrong about theese theengs. You come with Dulcima and we will feel good.”

He glanced behind him, but she was already a third of the way up the stairs and he was about to mount the second step. He looked at her soft, warm, inviting body and thought that if she was the cheese he was one mouse that was ready to be caught.

He followed her up the stairs to the small landing at the top. She had turned her back to him, but was still holding his hand with one of hers. Her round, firm buttocks were as sensual as her breasts; the sight of them made his breath catch. There was only one door on the landing, a big, dark wooden one that was almost a match to the front door. She opened it, shoving it wide, and he could see past her enough to tell it was a large bedroom with another room leading off to his right. She led him over the threshold and then turned to shut the door. He looked to see if it had a latch or a sliding bolt, but there was just the knob. He was going to ask her if there wasn’t some way to lock it, but she didn’t give him time. She led him straight to the biggest bed he’d ever seen, then turned and started unbuttoning his shirt. Longarm could feel his legs beginning to tremble. He unbuckled his gun belt, being careful not to dislodge the derringer hidden in the concave buckle, and then lowered the rig slowly to the floor, bending over so that his lips and hers naturally came together. Her mouth was already opening as he bent his head over her. He could feel the sudden flush of her warmth on his mouth and then the sensual darting and stabbing of her tongue. Her arms were around his neck and he raised her up, lifting her off her feet. She was smaller and lighter than she had seemed that day in the plaza. Her feet dangled as she held on with just her arms around his neck. Finally he eased her back to the floor, took her around the waist, and lifted her onto the bed, laying her across it. The bed covering was white, accentuating her musky darkness. For half a moment he just looked at her lying there, legs open and inviting, breasts heaving with passion, lips parted as she looked at him with her big, luminous eyes.

In frantic haste he ripped his shirt off, then sat down on the side of the bed and yanked his boots off and then his jeans. Austin Davis had made fun of his not wearing underwear. Well, here was a good example of the usefulness of such a practice.

Behind him she said, “Arriba arriba. Pronto!” Hurry hurry hurry.

He turned quickly, and crept across the bed to her on his hands and knees. As he went between her legs, they came up to encircle him around the chest. Longarm feared it would make her too far away for his penis to reach and penetrate her, but then she did something with her hips as her arms encircled his neck, and he almost cried out as he felt himself slide into her hot, throbbing body. He stayed on his hands and knees as her mouth came up and her tongue went inside his mouth to complete the circle. Holding him around the neck, she thrust herself into him rhythmically, over and over, faster and faster, her breath coming in gasps.

Now she was biting him on the lips and the cheek and the ears. Longarm was trying to hold back, give her time, but the heat she’d generated in him with the first sight of her in nothing but the serape, had fanned into a flame that he could not turn down. He lifted his right arm and cradled her back in his big hand. He knew he would collapse on her when he exploded.

And then her mouth was back on his, her hips still pulsating into his groin. Longarm could feel the firmness and heat of her buttocks as they slapped into him. But he could also feel the power of his own, final passion rising. He knew he could not hold back for another half a moment. And then came a low, keening sound from deep in Dulcima’s throat. She began to gasp, and then the gasp became a soft wail that grew and grew until her wet lips and tongue were all over his face and her hips were working faster than he would have thought possible. Her lips left his face and she put her head back, arching her neck and her body, and he could feel the quiver run all through her as she began to scream and to dig her fingers into his back, clawing at him.

And then he knew no more, for he exploded in a cascade of pent-up fever and excitement and release. Some giant wind seemed to be tumbling him end over end across a misty plain. He was a tumbleweed swept up in a tornado. The world went black as he was buffeted and toppled over again and again.

Then it was over and, gasping, trying to hold his weight off Dulcima’s tender body, he collapsed as his arms gave way and his legs betrayed him. He fell full length on her, feeling her softness, her arms around him and her hands in her hair, but not being aware of much else.

After a moment he felt her squirm slightly beneath him and he knew his dead weight was probably suffocating her. As gently as he could, he slid off her, toward the edge of the bed, and rolled over on his back. For the moment, he was as satisfied as he reckoned he’d ever been in his life. Even his aching tooth was at peace. For a long moment he lay with his eyes closed, letting his body sink into the cushiony softness of the bedclothes. He could feel her moving around beside him, but he had no intention of opening his eyes until he recovered. The sight of her body was sure to arouse him all over again, and he didn’t want to start anything that he wouldn’t be able to finish. But then he felt her soft little hand on his hard belly, felt that hand work its way down until she was stroking his member. His emotions began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. She had propped a couple of pillows behind her back so that she was almost sitting up, making it easier to reach him. As he lay still, she squirmed around and leaned over and he could feel her smooth, hot tongue working its way down his belly, kissing and licking and leaving streaks of heat in its wake. He groaned, feeling himself coming erect. Then he felt her slip him inside her mouth, and it was like being dipped in a churning bucket of hot liquid. He could feel his member stretching its head to touch the back of her throat, feel her taking so much of him inside her, he wouldn’t have thought it possible. His groans were coming faster and faster as she worked her mouth over his throbbing penis. Then she suddenly stopped. His eyes fluttered open. She was sitting straight up on the bed, and staring toward the door. Her eyes had gone wide, and her face was suffused with fear. Longarm didn’t hear anything, only felt a presence. He did not hesitate. Without thought or plan he pushed Dulcima hard with his right hand shoving her toward the far side of the bed. In the same instant he rolled to his left, rolled off the bed and landed on the floor, his hand frantically seeking his revolver. In the instant he pushed her and started his roll he was aware of a thud against the wall, the back wall, and the crack of a gunshot.

But now he was on the floor, and the butt of his revolver was in his hand. He cocked the hammer as he raised it to aim at the figure in the wide-open door. He did not bother trying to jerk the gun out of the big cut away holster. There was no time. The figure at the door, having missed him in the bed, was now turning his gun toward him on the floor. Knowing his first shot was going to have to count, Longarm fired an instant before a second crack from the intruder’s gun resounded.

Chapter 10

He saw his bullet take Raoul San Diego square in the chest. The force of the slug knocked the man backwards just enough so that his second shot was jerked up and went harmlessly over Longarm’s head.

But Longarm was leaving nothing to chance. As San Diego was falling, Longarm cocked his revolver and fired again. The second slug took the gunman in the side of the chest, sending him sprawling to his left, the gun falling from his lifeless fingers.

After a long moment Longarm slowly raised himself to his knees, his ears still ringing with the sound of the gunshots echoing in the room. He had finally shaken the holster and belt off the revolver and it was naked in his hand. He could see San Diego’s boots and most of his left leg, but the rest of his body was hidden from view. He looked to his right, toward where Dulcima had last been. She’d gone off the bed on the other side, but now, she too, was up on her knees staring toward the bedroom door. Longarm watched her, not sure of what her reaction would be to him shooting her lover. She had been critical of San Diego and said she didn’t care, but that was when he was still alive. Now she slowly turned to look at Longarm, saying, with just a slight tremble in her voice, “Yeah, you chure escared of heem. Yes, I theenk I was right about you.” She gestured toward the door. “He make the beeg mistake. He should have been escared of you, not you heem.” Longarm listened to her, not saying anything.

She pointed toward the wall. About a foot and a half up from the head of the bed, Longarm could see where San Diego’s first bullet had plowed into the whitewashed masonry, burying itself in the soft concrete and leaving what looked to be a big black eye in the white plaster.

“I doan know who he chooting at,” Dulcima said, “you or me. I theenk maybe he doan care, but I theenk you save my life when you push me so hard that I fly off the bed.”

Longarm looked at her, standing there naked. Nothing stirred in him, which he could well understand. “He got home a little faster than you said, didn’t he?”

She shrugged and put out her hands philosophically. “He comes, he goes. I doan always know. But, yes, he come back faster. I tol’ heem I didn’t want heem to come back, but he come back anyway. Beeg surprise for me.”

He still looked at her. “Yeah, I guess you were surprised.” He swung his eyes to where the slug had hit the wall and to where she had been sitting on the bed just before San Diego had fired. The trajectory of the bullet had been too high to have hit Longarm, because he’d been lying flat on his back. But it would have caught her neatly right between her lovely breasts. “Still,” he said, “we could have locked the door. Might have saved us a surprise. And his life.”

Dulcima crawled slowly back up onto the bed. “I was een too much of the hurry. I din’t theenk of the door. Maybe you din’t theenk of it also.”

He shrugged and sat down on the bed and started pulling on his jeans. Behind him he heard her say, “Why for you get dressed? We jus’ start, no?”

He looked around at her. “There’s a dead man out there just beyond the door. I killed him. You really think I feel like making love right now?” He stood up, walked past the foot of the bed, and crossed to the door. There he could see the remains of Raoul San Diego. He lay halfway down the stairs with just his boots and part of his left leg on the small landing. Longarm knew he didn’t have to go down and touch him to make sure he was dead. There was not a great deal of blood. The first slug had taken him so flush in the chest that Longarm reckoned the second shot had been wasted. But it was reflex and he had gotten it off so closely on the heels of the first that San Diego hadn’t fallen very far before the second bullet twisted him to his left, taking what life remained in him. Longarm looked down and shook his head and sighed. He had escaped San Diego’s bullet, but he still had a hell of a mess on his hands. The very thing he’d tried to avoid had happened; he’d killed Caster’s go-between and gunhand. And Caster wasn’t going to like that. As he walked back into the bedroom, Longarm debated his options. There didn’t seem to be many, unless he could somehow persuade Dulcima to help him drop San Diego’s body in the Rio Grande and then to forget what she’d seen and be ready to swear the man had left her and gone to Mexico and that was that.

But he had the uneasy feeling that the volatile and voluptuous Dulcima would not be willing to go along with the idea. It was clear that she wasn’t very upset about San Diego getting killed. And maybe she really had been through with him. But she didn’t seem to Longarm like a woman who could keep a secret, or even wanted to. He had an idea she would want him to cut the man’s ears off and go parading around town with them like he’d seen a matador do in a corrida he’d once been to in Mexico City. That would be more her style. He went over to the bed and looked at her, trying to think of how to broach the subject. Just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard a sound from downstairs. He instantly put his finger to his lips, warning Dulcima to be quiet. But she said, “That ees just one of my servants coming een. Maybe they hear the chooting.”

And that was another problem; the servants. If they got a look at Raoul San Diego, there would be no way at all to keep the news of his death from reaching Caster’s ears. Or, worse his brother’s.

Longarm turned toward the door, still signaling Dulcima to be quiet. He’d stuck his revolver in the waistband of his jeans, and he drew it out and softly pulled back the hammer as he moved to the door. He stood just inside the bedroom, mostly covered by the left side of the door frame. He could see the landing and most of the way down the stairs. He could hear a voice, either speaking to someone or calling something out in low tones. Longarm stepped through the doorway, crossed the landing, and plastered himself up against the wall next to the stairs. He peeked around the corner, his revolver at the ready. He could see down into the main room at the foot of the stairs. He heard the voice again and, just as he recognized the words, Austin Davis suddenly stepped into view, his revolver in his hand. He moved slowly, looking around, calling out, “Mister Long? Mister Long?”

Longarm relaxed and shoved his gun back in his waistband. “Austin, up here,” he said, “Here, at the top of the stairs.” He stepped out, standing over San Diego’s body.

Davis looked up, relief on his face. “Longarm, wh-“

“Watch that.”

“Mister Long, what the hell are you doing? I heard gunshots.” Then Davis came near enough to the stairs to see the body. “Who the hell you got there? Looks like he come in second in a two-man race.”

“Never mind. Get up here. We got some figuring out to do.”

Longarm watched as his partner came slowly up the stairs, staring at the body. Halfway up, he cocked his head around so he could see into the face of the dead man. “Hell, that’s Raoul himself,” he said. “Had a gun in his hand. There it is. And he’s got two holes in him that he didn’t have before.” Davis glanced up at Longarm. “This your work?”

Longarm nodded. He stepped to the door of the bedroom to give Davis room to come up. “He didn’t give me no choice,” he explained to Davis. “He come through the door shooting. I’m lucky he either missed me or wasn’t shooting for me.”

Davis got to the landing and looked down at San Diego. “I thought you didn’t want to kill him.”

“Damnit, Austin, of course I didn’t want to kill him. I told you he didn’t give me no choice. Hell, I wasn’t going to take a bullet myself or let him shoot somebody else. No, I didn’t want to shoot him. Right now I’m trying to figure out what to do. Caster ain’t going to like this one little bit.”

The young deputy was standing just back from the door. “You said shoot somebody else?” he asked. “What else? Who else? And, by the way, what the hell are you doing up here? This his office, or something?” And with that, he stepped in front of Longarm and into the doorway. The move caught Longarm off guard and all he could do was turn with Davis so as to see what Davis did.

Dulcima was standing on the far side of the bed, near the foot. She had put on some sort of thin silk robe that barely came below her knees—but she had not bothered to close it, much less tie the wide sash. She was standing there, her feet a little apart, all of her left breast showing and some of her right, and her lustrous pubic hairs shining against her pale tan skin.

Austin Davis stopped short at the sight of her. “GREAT HORNED FROGS!” he exclaimed, and his mouth fell open. Almost involuntarily he took a step backwards, as if he had intruded upon a private scene.

Longarm moved into the room, saying, a trifle sharply, “Dulcima, cover yourself!”

“Why? He look like a beeg boy who has seen eet before.”

“Damnit, just cover yourself! This is a mess.”

Austin Davis turned to him. “I see who else you was talking about. That is some kind of an ‘else’. What happened, San Diego catch you stealing his cookies?”

Longarm gave him a weary look. “How long you figure you’ll have to go on about this before we can get down to the real problem? I mean, how much talk you got to make about it? I can understand you can’t just let it go for what it appears like.”

Davis shrugged, then turned and glanced at Dulcima. She had closed the robe, but the thin material did very little to hide her nakedness. He said, to Longarm, “I don’t have to say nothing. But it’s kind of hard not to. I don’t reckon the second man on the scene after somebody had just struck gold could keep his mouth shut either.” He nodded his head toward Dulcima. “I call that oro puro. And if you dipped your biscuit in that gravy, all I can say is that I wish it had been me and you’d had a feather up your ass and we’d have both been tickled.”

Longarm sighed. “All right, all right. Get it out of your system.”

Davis grinned. “I’m just jealous. You come out here to deliver a man some money and instead you wind up taking some of his pie. You got my admiration. I’d call that some pretty slick work.”

“Listen,” Longarm said as patiently as he could, “I come out here like I was supposed to. Dulcima said he’d gone to Mexico, and one thing led to another and we ended up here in the bed without our clothes on. Next thing I know I seen a look on her face that told me somebody else had come to the party. I had my back to the door at the time, but I didn’t bother to look. I rolled off the bed and come up shooting. I got to tell you I was blind lucky, because I hadn’t left my revolver in a handy place. I’d been too busy at the time. But I somehow landed with it near my hand and I fired through the holster.” He pointed toward the back wall. “You can see yonder he got one off that missed one of us by a cat’s whisker. I don’t know who he meant to kill.”

Davis shook his head, and let out a low whistle as he looked at the bullet hole. “I’d say you got double lucky, partner. I take it you weren’t exactly set up for action at the time.”

“Not that kind,” Longarm said dryly.

Davis glanced at Dulcima. She was sitting on the bed, examining her fingernails, not seeming to pay the two men any mind. Davis jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go take another look at the situation outside,” he said.

“What?”

Davis jerked his head again and then stepped through the doorway. Longarm followed him. Davis drew the door to, but didn’t latch it. He walked past Longarm and went halfway down the stairs, motioning his partner to follow. “C’mon down here.”

Longarm descended the few steps. “What?”

“I don’t think we ought to be talking in front of her.”

Longarm frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t think you’re going to be telling Caster about San Diego.”

“What have you got in mind? He’s a little large to hide. And I don’t see how we can bury him, with Dulcima’s hired hands working out in the back. I’m sure they didn’t mistake them gunshots for firecrackers.”

“I would imagine they hear gunshots around here all the time.”

“You got some kind of idea how we can not tell Caster anything?”

Austin Davis nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

“Who the hell am I supposed to have given the money to?”

“How about you gave it to San Diego and the last time you saw him he was striking out for Mexico with the girlfriend right by his side.”

Longarm turned and glanced at the closed door. “You talking about taking his body across the river?”

Davis nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know no place around here to get rid of him without risk of being seen or him being found too soon. I got some friends about twenty-five, thirty miles south of here ought to be willing to do me a favor.”

“Mexicans?”

“Yeah. Ranchers. In fact I bought some of that herd from them. Not many, about a hundred head. But the way I see it is you’ve got to be able to tell Caster that you gave San Diego the money and you don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“Why do I have to have given him the money? How come I can’t say I couldn’t find him?”

“Because Caster ain’t going to take the money from you,” Davis explained, “and I doubt if he’s got another go-between lined up. And that would just delay matters. Right now that ain’t what we need. On account of her. Dulcima.”

“What about her?”

Austin Davis pushed his hat up. “Well, I figure she’s got to go to Mexico with me. Either that or we got to shut her mouth some other way. She seen you kill San Diego. You willing to bet your hide she won’t go and tell Caster or tell somebody so word gets back to him?”

Longarm looked at the door again. When he turned back to Davis, he said, “No, I reckon not. But seems to me you are making plans mighty fast here. You sure you’re thinking good?”

Davis gave him a small smile. “At least I’m thinking with the right head. I’d say you been through a rodeo here just lately.”

“What if the lady don’t want to go to Mexico? She’s got this nice house here. What makes you think she’ll be willing to go off with you to some damn small rancho where they’re still eating tortillas and beans out of the same pot?”

“I’m counting on you to talk her into it. You seem to have a way with her.”

Longarm looked at the bedroom door once again. “I wouldn’t be counting on that. That’s a lady got a mind of her own.”

“Hell, she can’t say no to a big, handsome man like YOU.”

Longarm gave him a look. “What say we let that kind of talk slide for a better time? I know I’m fair game right now, but save it.” He reached up to reposition his hat and realized that the only thing he was wearing was a pair of jeans and a revolver. “I don’t know, Austin, you are carrying me kind of fast right now.”

“What the hell you want to do? You want to go and tell Caster you were slipping San Diego’s girlfriend a little of ol’ Slick Willy and he come in and didn’t like it and you killed him? Reckon how he’d take that?”

Longarm shook his head. “Damn. This is messy. Hell, I don’t much care for doing things in this manner.”

“You shot that robber in San Antonio that come out of an alley at you. You went to the sheriff about that and damn near ruined the job. You want some more?”

Longarm shrugged. “I reckon you’re right, We can’t let San Diego’s body be found before we make the arrest. And I don’t reckon we can let Dulcima run around loose. I think it would amuse her to tell folks about these two men having a gunfight over her.” He scratched his head. “But how the hell we going to work it?”

“Ask her to go with me to Mexico. Make up some story.”

“And if she won’t go?”

Davis shrugged. “Then I reckon she’ll have to be hogtied and taken.”

Longarm gave a dry laugh. “That ain’t a job I want.”

“Well, you’re the boss. You tell me a better way.”

“Damn!” Longarm said. He looked down at the body sprawled on the stairs. “Why did the sonofabitch come in when he did? Damnit!”

“Why? You wasn’t finished?”

Longarm gave him a sour look. “That ain’t the point, Austin. Damnit, if you don’t take the worst side of a situation, I never saw anybody who did. I mean if he hadn’t come in like that, if I could have met him under different circumstances, I might not have had to kill him.”

“How about if you hadn’t been up here in the bedroom with his woman and both of you with your clothes off? Or I guess that was in the line of duty.”

“Oh, go to hell, Austin,” Longarm said. He stood there on the stairs trying to think of a better plan than the one Davis had proposed. There wasn’t one. Until the job was finished he couldn’t let it be discovered that he’d killed San Diego, and he couldn’t leave Dulcima running around loose to talk to the wrong people. But he had no idea how he was going to get her cooperation. “Well, let me go in and talk to her,” he said at last.

“Don’t you reckon I better come with you?”

“Well, hang back.”

Longarm was surprised to find that Dulcima had dressed while they had been talking. She put on a pair of blue velvet charro pants that flared at the bottom over her small, polished boots; little silver conchos ran up the outside sewn of each pants leg. A frilly white shirt with a little black string tie completed the outfit. If anything, the clothes made her look even more desirable. Behind him Longarm could hear Austin Davis let out his breath in appreciation. Dulcima turned from a chest in the corner when they came in. “Dulcima,” Longarm said, “I need to ask you a little favor.”

She looked amused. “You choot Raoul and now you are escared bad thin happen to you from his friends and his brother. So chou want to feex eet so nobody know. What chou want to do?”

“Well, what we thought…” Longarm pointed behind him. “This is Mister Davis here. He works for me. Mister Davis thought we ought to take San Diego’s body across the river and into Mexico—quite a ways into Mexico. He’s got some friends there that will help.”

She peered around Longarm and gave Austin Davis a critical look. “He’s hokay,” she said. “What you want me to do?”

“Have you got a buckboard here?”

“Chure. What you theenk?”

“Can the women who work for you get it hitched up?”

“Of course. Or the buggy. Or the carriage. What you theenk I pay them for?”

Longarm cleared his throat. “Uh, we don’t want them knowing about Mister San Diego. In fact we don’t want anybody knowing about San Diego. So I need you to tell them to hitch up the carriage or the buckboard and bring it around front. Don’t give them no explanation.”

“Buckboard would be better,” Davis put in. “Crossing the river. And a team of horses. Not just one.”

Longarm looked questioningly at Dulcima. “Can they handle that?”

She tossed her head, making her shiny black hair fly. “Chute. What you theenk?”

“Then I’d appreciate it if you would go and tell them to hitch a buckboard up and bring it around to the front. And tell them when they are done to get back to their work.”

He assumed she would go out the door they’d come in, and down the stairs past the body of San Diego, but she surprised him by crossing the room and opening another door that he’d thought led to a bathroom, or the like. She disappeared, and in a few seconds they heard her downstairs, yelling to the servants.

“That is one hell of a good-looking woman,” Davis said. “I ain’t going to mind taking her to Mexico one little bit.” He had been looking toward the door where she’d vanished, but now he turned to Longarm. “How long you figure I ought to keep her over there?”

Longarm shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on how willingly she goes. Caster has the got the cattle for a week. I’d guess five days. The thing is I might need you here. This has changed a good deal of our plans.”

“I reckon you realize I can’t go down to Brownsville now and take a gander at James Mull.”

Longarm grimaced. “Damnit,” he said. “I think this may be the most complicated job I ever went on. Hell, I wish it had been Caster and Mull that had come through the door. At least the business would be settled.”

Dulcima came back in. “They do eet pretty queek,” she said. “They leave eet in the front. I tol’ them to put the canvas cover een the wagon. I doan theenk you want that peoples chood see Raoul.”

Longarm thanked her, and then he said, “Dulcima, I need you to go along to Mexico with Mister Davis.”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Yes? Why you need that?”

Longarm cleared his throat. “Well, he don’t speak Spanish so good. He might ask you to interpret for him.”

She stared at him for a moment and then laughed her tinkling little laugh. “You make the lie, senor. You want me to go to Mexico because you know peoples will be coming to ask for Raoul and you are escared what I say. No?”

Longarm shrugged and looked around at Austin Davis.

Austin came forward. “Listen,” he told her, “We’ll have a good time. My friends got big hacienda. Maybe we’ll go on to Monterrey. How does that sound?”

She gave him an amused look and then stepped back as if to make a lengthier appraisal. She surveyed him from boots to hat for a long enough time that Davis began to look uncomfortable. Finally she shrugged. “Hokay.” Then she held up a finger and shook it at Davis. “But you no touch me. I do the touching. You unnerstan’?”

Davis gave Longarm a puzzled look. Longarm laughed, and explained, “The lady is telling you she’ll do the choosing. If and when she does.”

“Yes,” Dulcima said. “That ees the way I always do. And when I am finish, I am finish.” She looked at Longarm. “I doan theenk he is muy macho like you.”

Longarm could not keep from smiling as Davis said, “Ma’m, I’d like a chance to prove that.”

She shrugged. “How long we be gone?”

Longarm gave Austin Davis a quick look. He said, “Two or three days.”

Dulcima turned toward the clothes chest in the corner. “I must pack a valise.”

Longarm started toward the door. “Let’s get out of here, Austin. Give the lady some privacy.”

Once on the landing, he said, “You know, you and Raoul wear the same kind of hat and the same color.”

“It’s common along the border,” Davis told him. “That’s why they call it a border hat.”

“Yeah, but you’re also about the same size, except you’re maybe ten, fifteen pounds heavier, mostly in the shoulders and chest. Why don’t you wear his vest?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m thinking maybe you ought to cross at the International Bridge.”

Davis screwed up his face in concern. “Are you crazy? I don’t look like that Mex.”

“Not up close, no. I don’t mean for you to stop and visit. Is his horse outside?”

“There was two horses tied out there. I guess one of them is his. Yeah, I reckon it is. Big black saddle. Got enough silver on it to feed a family for a year.”

“All right, that’s my point. Folks will see the saddle and they’ll see Dulcima, because that is what will take their eyes. You keep the brim of your hat down low and kind of scrunch up on that buckboard seat and just brisk right on over that bridge, and more than one person will think it’s San Diego.”

Davis looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I can see where it will help your case when you tell Caster that the last you saw of Raoul was him taking off with Dulcima and your twenty-five hundred dollars. But what if somebody hails us?”

“Don’t look up and don’t stop. In that half mile or so where you’re liable to run into someone just keep your head down and the horses in a good trot or lope. Tell Dulcima to do the waving if any waving has got to be done.”

“What if I see his brother, Raymond? The Tejano Cafe ain’t that far from the bridge.”

Longarm shrugged. “I don’t know. Hope like hell you don’t, I guess. I’ll be following you, so I’ll know how it goes. Hell, Austin, it will strengthen my story.”

“Hell, why not,” Davis said. “How long you want me gone?”

“Well…” Longarm looked down the stairs, thinking. “I don’t know. I don’t know when Caster will release the cattle. He said a week. You reckon you can keep her over there for a week? We can’t arrest Caster until he turns the cattle loose. He ain’t done nothing illegal until then.”

“I don’t know if I can keep her there or not, short of, like I said, hogtieing her. But, Longarm, I’ll be back for the arrests. Don’t forget now that I can’t go to Brownsville and look Mull over.”

Longarm grimaced. “I hate to not know about Mull. Like I said, this is the most snarled up, complicated damn job I was ever on in my life. I had an easier time of it when I was courting five women at the same time in Denver one year. And killing San Diego has just snarled it up more. Hell! I had counted on us knowing Mull when we seen him.”

“I still don’t think you can depend on Jasper White.”

“I ain’t got no intention of depending on Jasper White. We’ll just have to think of something else.” He scratched his head, realizing he still hadn’t put his hat on. “Though I don’t know what, right now. You really think I ought to tell Caster that I gave San Diego the money?”

“I give you my reasons for that, but you do like you want on the matter.”

“We better get back in there with Miss Dulcima. I didn’t know there was an outside door before.”

“You scared she’ll run off?”

“Listen, Austin—The lady is now your problem.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to keep her over there a week. I’m serious, Longarm. She acts like a woman who bores easy.”

“You can’t let her back here.”

“You want me to shoot her in the leg?”

Longarm shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. Like you say, this is your barn dance. She gets back over here, it could burn the barn down.”

“Oh, now it’s my party. I see how you think, Longarm, and I don’t much like it.”

“If you see you’re going to be settled in one place for a few days, wire me where I can wire you. I’ll try and let you know what’s happening. But you better get a move on.”

Longarm pulled up a quarter of a mile short and watched as Austin Davis, with Dulcima seated beside him and the body of Raoul San Diego in the back, drove to the main southbound road, took a left, and then drove the remaining three or four hundred yards to the bridge.

Austin had the matched team going at a good high trot and, with his horse and San Diego’s tied to the back of the buckboard, struck the bridge and then crossed it in a matter of a few minutes. The last Longarm could see of the buckboard was a thin trail of dust as it headed into Nuevo Laredo on the Mexico side. As near as he could tell, no one had shown any interest except for what might naturally be expected at the sight of a flying buckboard with a beautiful woman up front and a pair of good-looking horses, one with a silver-mounted saddle. Davis’s route had taken him within fifty yards of the Tejano Cafe, but Longarm hadn’t seen Raoul’s brother or Jasper White or anyone for that matter who seemed overly interested. He was satisfied that anyone who had seen the wagon and the pair on the driver’s seat would have thought it was who it was supposed to be.

He looked across toward where the customs office was, but decided it wasn’t the right time to see Jay Caster. Instead he wheeled his horse around and loped him slowly back to the hotel livery. There he untied his saddlebags, turned his horse over to a stableboy, and then walked back to the hotel, the saddlebags over his shoulder. He didn’t know what to do with the twenty-five hundred that was in the saddlebags. It was too bulky to carry around on his person and he sure as hell wasn’t going to take it back to the bank, in case Caster had a spy there. He couldn’t ask the clerk to put it in the safe for the same reason, so in the end he heaved up the mattress on the bed in his room, cut a slit in the bottom with his pocketknife, stuffed the money in, and then remade the bed, making it look as if he’d laid down for an afternoon nap.

After that he went down to the dining room for a late lunch. It was already after one o’clock. His tooth wasn’t acting up, for which he was grateful, but he was careful to eat mostly soft food and nothing too hot or cold.

After his meal of chicken and dumplings, sliced tomatoes, and caramel pudding, Longarm returned to his room, took off his hat, and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He was of two minds about going over to see Caster, wondering if maybe he ought to wait and see if Caster sent for him when San Diego didn’t show up to deliver the money. In the end he decided that the best course was just to lay low and wait. He figured a little stewing might do Caster some good.

In the evening he went quietly down to the quarantine pens just before dark and moved from corral to corral, looking over the cattle and trying to figure out how Caster jumped one herd in front of the others. Nothing came to his attention. The paint on the cattle’s sides was as it should be, in that it corresponded with their progress toward the end set of pens, the green area where they were to be released. He did notice that his cattle, or the cattle that were supposed to belong to him, appeared to be in good flesh and were being well taken care of. They were also all wearing that red splotch of paint. He was able to locate two of the five cattle he’d chosen to watch with either an odd color pattern or cockeyed horns. He was sure the other three were there also. They just didn’t come to eye in the gathering twilight and with all the cattle milling about. In fact, of the two he’d managed to spot it seemed as if the red paint was not quite as bright as on some other of the cattle. Of course that could have been the light, but Longarm guessed it was due more to the animals rubbing up against each other.

As he was riding back to the hotel, he thought about Austin Davis and Dulcima, wondering how they were getting on and whether or not Dulcima had gotten interested in Davis yet. Then he frowned, thinking about Davis. The young deputy had hit him a pretty good shot after they’d loaded Raoul San Diego in the bed of the buckboard and covered him over with a piece of canvas so he looked like luggage. As Davis finished cutting off a piece of rope they’d used to secure the canvas, he’d said, “Well just tell me one thing, Mister Long … If the lady is so preferential toward you, how come she didn’t ask why it wasn’t you taking her over to Mexico? She ain’t supposed to know you’ve got to be here to deal with Caster. Not unless you told her, which I don’t think you’d do.”

It had stumped Longarm, leaving him temporarily speechless. Davis had been all too right. How come Dulcima hadn’t asked, at least once, why he, Longarm, couldn’t take her over?

But she hadn’t. Longarm considered it down right insulting. Worse, he knew he’d never hear the end of it from Austin Davis.

Chapter 11

In the morning, word was sent to Longarm at the hotel that Jay Caster wanted to see him. He let an hour pass and then fetched his horse from the livery stable and rode slowly over to the customs office. Caster was sitting behind his desk with a slight frown on his face. You’d have had to have been looking for it, for the frown to be noticeable. But Longarm had been looking. “You see Raoul yesterday?” the customs inspector asked.

“Oh, yes. Sure did.” Longarm eased himself into a chair. He looked at Caster expectantly, as if waiting for him to go on. Caster wrinkled his brow. “it go all right?”

Longarm nodded. “Yeah. Why shouldn’t it have?”

Caster leaned over and spit in his bucket. “What time you see him?”

“Oh, little after mid-morning. Can’t say to the minute, but I’d reckon sometime between ten-thirty and eleven.

“See him out at that house?”

“Yeah. Just like you told me.” Longarm took off his hat and leaned forward. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Caster didn’t answer. Instead he spit again. “Was she there?”

“Who?”

“Who, hell! Dulcima.”

Longarm acted as if he was giving it some thought. “I think so. Yes, I caught a glimpse of her off that big room downstairs. Toward the kitchen, I guess you’d say. And maybe she came out and went upstairs. I wasn’t noticing. But I wasn’t there that long. I just give the money to San Diego and he give it a quick count. Then we had a little argument about a receipt.”

Caster looked up quickly. “You asked him for a receipt?”

“Hell, yes. That’s a wad of money I was passing him.”

“What’d he say about the receipt?”

“Said for me to go to hell. Not in those words, but it came to the same thing. Mostly he just give me a look like I’d been eating loco weed.”

“What then?”

“Nothing. I got on my horse and left. You’d told me to give him the twenty-five hundred, so I did. When it was clear he wouldn’t give me anything in writing saying he got it, I give up and come on back to town. Say, what is this all about? Is something wrong?”

Caster gave him an irritable look. “There you go, asking questions again. This is none of yore affair.”

Longarm leaned forward again. “The hell it ain’t. I got twenty-five hundred dollars invested here. I reckon that gives me the right to ask a few questions about what’s going on.”

Caster waved his arm dismissively. “Ain’t nothing going on. Now get up and get on out of here.”

That afternoon Raymond San Diego came to see Longarm. He found him in the hotel bar having a solitary drink at a back table. Longarm watched the dapper little man as he picked his way between the tables. He was wearing a light tan linen suit with a starched white shirt and a brown foulard tie. He was, Longarm reckoned, about the neatest man outside of the banking profession that he’d ever seen. As San Diego approached, Longarm looked him over carefully for a weapon. Austin Davis had said he carried a pistol under his coat, but Longarm couldn’t figure out where.

San Diego came straight to the table and stopped, looking down and not saying a word. Longarm nodded his head. “Howdy. Whyn’t you set down and have a drink?”

San Diego ignored the invitation. “When you see my brother?” he said.

Longarm gave him a slow look, trying to give the impression of a man who is just slightly offended. “Well,” he said, “I can’t see where that would be any of your business, Senor San Diego. But if you want to know, why don’t you ask your brother yourself?”

“Caster say you saw him yesterday morning at the hacienda.”

Longarm nodded. “If you’re getting your information from Mister Caster, then you ain’t got nothing to talk to me about. I told him all I knew about the situation. Now, how about you answer me a question? Something going on with your brother? Has he gotten out of pocket?”

Raymond San Diego was still staring down at him. “I hear you have a long talk with hees woman, Dulcima.”

Longarm shook his head. “I don’t talk about a lady’s business, Senor San Diego. I had a conversation, a mighty short conversation, with her, out yonder on the plaza. That took place in front of half the town. If that’s what you are referring to.”

“You doan see her again?”

Longarm tried to look irritated. “Look here,” he said, “what is all this? I’m a cattle broker in town trying to do a little business. My dealings are my own and I don’t give a minute’s thought to the business of others. You and Mister Caster are both starting to make me think something ain’t quite right with your brother, and that is fixing to make me nervous. Why are you walking in here and asking me questions about him? You ain’t never done that before. Now what is going on?”

Abruptly, and without another word, Raymond San Diego turned on his heel and marched out of the bar. Longarm watched him go, laughing to himself. It appeared that Raymond’s disappearance had them churning around. Longarm was almost willing to bet that someone had seen Austin Davis and Dulcima cross the bridge, the day before, and word had got back to either Caster or Raymond that Raoul had been seen leaving for Mexico. Presumably with twenty-five hundred dollars that didn’t belong to him. What would be coming next? Obviously, Caster had asked Raymond about Raoul, told him what he knew, and Raymond had started his own line of inquiry. Longarm imagined that Austin Davis would enjoy the confusion. He hoped, however, that that was all Austin Davis was enjoying. As far as Longarm was concerned, he hadn’t more than got started on Dulcima and he damn sure didn’t want somebody else stirring around and leaving tracks in his pie.

With the new information provided by Raymond’s visit Longarm considered going over and bracing Caster and asking what in the hell was going on with Raoul. But finally he decided to let the pot just simmer along.

It was late the next afternoon before Longarm got another summons from Jay Caster. Longarm reflected that Austin Davis had been gone better than forty-eight hours and there had been no word from him. It was bothersome trying to play the hand without knowing whether he could count on help from the other lawman. But then, that was the way it was. It was another reason Longarm preferred to work alone. If you never had any help, then you never expected any. Still, he would have liked to hear from Davis. The man wasn’t all that bad, though the situation he was in, with Dulcima, wasn’t the kind Longarm believed he could be trusted with. The woman required a man with a special kind of strength and Longarm didn’t think Austin, as good an opinion as he had of himself where the ladies were concerned, measured up.

Before Longarm could even sit down, Jay Caster said, “I’m turning yore cattle out tomorrow. You better have some drovers there to handle them unless you want them scattered all over hell and back.”

Longarm cocked his head questioningly. “You mean I’m ready for the trail. You ain’t going to make me wait a week?”

Caster snorted. “Hell no, I don’t mean that. I mean yore cows are going back to Mexico. The deal is off. Get the hell out of here.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Longarm said heatedly. “What the hell are you talking about, the deal is off? Like hell it is. I paid you twenty-five hundred dollars and you ain’t pulling no plug on me!”

Caster leaned back in his chair and looked at Longarm from a long way off. “Let’s me and you get one thing straight,” he said. “You ain’t paid me a dime. And you go around saying you did and I’ll have yore ass in court.”

Longarm stood up and leaned over Caster’s desk. “I give the money to your man, Raoul,” he said, “and you know damn good and well I did. Look here, Caster, you can’t pull this on me. You ain’t got the right! By what right do you plan to turn my cattle out?”

Caster yawned, then leaned over and spit in the bucket. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Yore cattle are showing signs of tick fever. Law says I got to turn ‘em back to Mexico.”

Longarm tried to sound angry. “Don’t give me that, Caster. Hell, them cattle ain’t been in your pens but three days. They ain’t had time to show no signs of tick fe ver!”

“They do to me. And I’m the one makes the rules. You don’t like it, go to Brownsville and talk to the boss, James Mull.”

Longarm was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Look, what the hell is this all about? We had a deal.”

“Not that I know about.”

“Damnit, Caster, you can’t do this. You’ll ruin me. I’ve got near eight thousand dollars in those cattle. Plus that twenty-five hundred I give San Diego. I can’t take a loss like that. That’s better than ten thousand.”

“That ain’t my lookout. Sell ‘em back in Mexico.” Longarm made a disgusted sound. “Hell, you know I’d be lucky to get four dollars a head back there. Especially if word got around I’d been turned back at the border.”

“Drive ‘em a couple of hundred miles into the interior.”

“Then I’d get three a head and be out the cost of a long drive.” Longarm paused to stare at Caster, then demanded once again, “Mister Caster, what is all this about? I’ve done what you asked, right along. What the hell caused this switch? At least you could tell me that much.”

Caster seemed to be thinking. Finally he heaved his shoulders and said, “I reckon I could give you that much. The short and long of it is it was that damn woman. Raoul never was no good once he got his nose in under her skirt.”

Longarm pretended he didn’t understand. “That woman?” he said, in a puzzled voice. “I don’t get it. What woman you talking about?”

Caster gave him a sour look. “That damn Mexican woman he took up with when she moved here about a year ago. Bought that big house up on that hill. Claimed she was Spanish, Castillian Spanish. Sheeett She was a high-dressing Mexican whore was what she was. And Raoul was a man you could depend on. But once he got wrapped up in her gown tail all he did was worry about her fooling around on him. Most jealous sonofabitch I ever saw. Wasn’t good for a damn thing after that.”

Longarm let him finish and then said slowly, “Mister Caster, what has this got to do with our deal? I mean, I know the woman you speak of and I could see where she would be a temptation, but what has all this got to do with me?”

Caster snorted. “Hell, ain’t you heard? Ever’body else in town knows. Where the hell you been hiding? Raoul San Diego took off for Mexico better’n two days ago with that woman up on the buckboard seat with him. And I would reckon yore twenty-five hundred dollars was in his pocket.”

“My twenty-five hundred!” Longarm blurted. “Not very damn likely. That was your money. You told me to give it to him and I did. If he stole the money, he stole it from you. What makes you think he’s gone?”

“Hell, he drove right across the bridge. A half a dozen people saw them. And as for it being my money, well, we don’t agree about that. It never came into my hands. So the money is lost. I don’t see where we can do no business. Not the kind you want to do with James Mull.”

Longarm sat back down and glared at Caster. “Mister Caster,” he said again, “you can’t do this to me. I can’t afford this kind of loss. I’m not as well financed as I used to be. I’ve got to be able to drive those cattle to Galveston.”

Caster shrugged and looked bored. “That ain’t my lookout. Now that Raoul has took half the money, that only leaves twenty-five hundred. The last half of that five grand. I guarantee you that Mull ain’t going to do it for twelve-fifty, which would be half of the money left. And I ain’t going to give him the balance of what you’d pay and leave myself out in the cold. I don’t do nothing for free. So I reckon you better get yoreself some drovers and be ready to drive yore cattle back to Mexico. They sure as hell can’t stay on this side of the river.”

Longarm sat a moment, frowning. Then, in a hesitant tone, he said, “Look, Mister Caster, I got to salvage what I can out of this. I ain’t going to waste no breath arguing the right or wrong of your position. I can’t make you do anything. But what if I was to come up with another twenty-five hundred? What about that? Would that do the trick?”

Caster looked interested for a moment and then he pulled a face. “I might. But you ain’t got that kind of money here and I can’t wait for you to go and wire for some more. This thing has got to get done in the next couple of days. This whole mess has called too much attention to me. Too many people knew that Raoul worked for me.”

Longarm leaned forward, playing the eager businessman. “I could have it quick. I could get it off that fellow that brought my cattle up. He just got some advance money to finance him to go down to Mexico and round up another herd. He’d let me have it.”

Caster thought about it. “You right sure about that? You sure you ain’t playing for time, hoping Raoul will show back up with yore money? If you’re doing that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought. Raoul ain’t coming back. Even his own brother says that.”

“I can get another twenty-five hundred dollars. I can have it for you tomorrow.”

“You understand that still would leave you owing another twenty-five hundred when you get yore trail papers.”

Longarm nodded. “Yes, sir. I do. I know that means I will have laid out seven thousand five hundred dollars, but I got to salvage what I can. Of course that means for certain I got to have the papers signed and sealed by Mister Mull. My only chance is to drive to Galveston.”

Caster spit and looked off in the distance. Then, with a hint of hesitation in his voice, he said, “I reckon that will still work. Mister Mull don’t know about Raoul yet. And I’d just as soon he didn’t know. I was going to tell him you’d backed out on the deal. But if you’re willing to make up the extra money …”

“I am, I am.”

Caster shrugged. “Well, maybe we can still do business.”

“Who you want me to pay this sum to? Raymond? Jasper White?”

Caster looked pained. “Go on back to yore hotel now. I got to think on this. When I’ve figured it out, I’ll let you know.”

“Can you lay your hands on that money right now?” Caster said.

Longarm sank into the chair in front of Caster’s desk. “Just have to go to the bank. Ten minutes. You want me to bring it here?”

“No. And don’t bother making yoreself comfortable in that seat. You ain’t going to be here that long. Go to the bank and then go straight back to yore hotel. Lift up the mattress on yore bed and put it just in under the edge. Have it in some kind of sack.”

“How about one of them little canvas sacks the bank has?”

Caster gave an irritated motion with his head. “The hell with what kind of sack it is. Just a sack. Put the money there and then close the door to yore room. But don’t lock it. Then go stand in the lobby. Better yet, go in the bar and have a drink. Wait ten minutes before you go back to your room.”

Longarm stood up. “You going to pick it up?”

“Sonofabitch!” Caster burst out. “Won’t you never learn? Just do what you’re told. And you better get you some drovers. I’m turning your cattle loose mid-morning, tomorrow. So be sure you have that other twenty-five hundred ready.”

“You’re turning them loose for me to drive north?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“What about Mister Mull?”

“You just never mind about Mister Mull.”

“But I’m paying for-“

“I know what you’re paying for and you’ll get it. Now get the hell out of here and see to yore end. Remember, don’t waste no time.”

Longarm stopped off at the bank and picked up the remaining twenty-five hundred dollars on deposit there. He did it in case Caster had someone following him. He had them put it in a small canvas sack that had the name of the bank printed on it. He figured the other twenty-five hundred stashed inside his mattress was safe enough. He felt almost certain that Caster intended to pick up the money himself, but he still didn’t know about Mull and he was not about to trust Jasper White to make an identification for him.

Then, just as he was stepping up on the porch of the Hamilton Hotel, an idea struck him.

The daytime desk clerk was a smart young man and eagerly accommodating. Longarm risked the few moments it took him to speak with the clerk. “Look here,” he said, “there’s a man might be coming in today or tomorrow. Old friend of mine. I’d like to surprise him. Name is James Mull. He didn’t say, but I got an idea he might be staying at this hotel. Wonder if you’d tip me a wink if he checks in, without letting him know. He played a little joke on me last time and I’d like to get him back.” He slid a five-dollar gold piece across the desk.

“Why, yessir, Mister Long,” the clerk said. “I can shore handle that.” He put the five dollars in his pocket with a deft move. “As a matter of fact Mister Mull stays with us quite often. But I won’t let him know you asked after him.”

Longarm gave the clerk a wink and moved off toward his room. He couldn’t imagine such a simple solution hadn’t occurred to him before. The Hamilton was easily the best hotel in Laredo and certainly the most respectable. It was also near the customs office. Unless Mull was going to wait at the depot between trains or hang out in a saloon, he was going to need a hotel room. It would have to be the Hamilton.

Caster had let Longarm sweat for two days before he’d sent for him to give him instructions about the money and let him know he’d go through with the deal. Longarm wasn’t sure if that was because Caster had had to clear the situation with Mull or if he was just being suspicious and careful. But it didn’t matter, not now when it appeared he was going through with it. And Longarm liked the fact that Caster himself would be handling the money. He hadn’t admitted to it, but Longarm greatly doubted that there’d be anyone else going into his room.

He let himself in, went straight to the bed, and slipped the canvas sack in between the mattress and the coil springs. He was on the point of leaving when he noticed that the window curtains were pulled back and the window itself was halfway up. His room was on the ground floor, at the back of the hotel. Looking out his window, you could see a pasture, and beyond that, part of the town. But anyone walking behind the hotel could see in through the ground-floor windows, and Longarm didn’t think that Jay Caster would want to be seen in a hotel room fetching out twenty-five hundred dollars from somebody else’s mattress. He put the sash down even though a nice breeze was blowing through, and then pulled the curtains to. After that he took a quick look around, let himself out, and walked down the hall and across the lobby to the bar. He didn’t see Caster, but then he didn’t expect to.

As he sat down at a table his mind turned to Austin Davis. Austin had been gone four days and once again Longarm wondered how he was doing with Dulcima. Either he’d won her over or she’d killed him. She didn’t seem like a woman who went in for halfway measures. Longarm sat there, sipping at a whiskey and dreading the thought of going to see Raymond San Diego. But he would need eight or ten vaqueros the next morning when Caster turned his cattle loose, and Caster had suggested San Diego as someone who could round him up a crew. Of course Longarm had no intention of trailing the herd north, but he had to keep on acting like he was.

He took his time finishing his drink, then got up, paid his score, and went back to his room. He could see that the bedclothes and spread had been disturbed and, when he looked under the mattress, the canvas sack of cash was gone. Turning around, he sat down on the bed and rummaged around in his pocket until he found a cigarillo and a match. When he got the cigarillo lit and drawing he sat there, blowing out clouds of blue smoke, giving the whole proposition a good thinking over. As far as he was concerned, Caster had taken the bait. Now all that remained was to gather him and Mull up in the same sack and the job was done.

That afternoon he rode over to the quarantine pens and looked across the sprawling mass of cattle. As best he could tell, his cattle had not been moved. It was difficult, however, since he had only the five head he had marked in his mind to watch for. They did not brand cattle in Mexico, which made the job a good deal harder, but Longarm couldn’t see any changes. Perhaps Caster and his crew did their work by a falling moon. If so, they had to work at a pretty good clip to get nearly a thousand cattle up to the release pens, which were almost a quarter of a mile away. He still couldn’t figure out how they did it, but that part really made no difference. Caster would tell him when the time was right, if he was still curious about the matter.

When he got back to the hotel he went into the dining room and made a supper of beef stew and chocolate cake. He was still being careful of his bad tooth, which so far had not been bothering him. He intended to return the favor by not eating anything that would irritate it. Coming out of the dining room, he started to make for the bar, which was just off the lobby, but when he realized it was too early to find a poker game, he veered off, crossed the lobby, and headed down the first-floor hall to his room. He used his key on the door, which was unusual because most places he stayed the key wasn’t much use, since the lock seldom worked. But the Hamilton was different. Using his key was also unusual because Longarm seldom locked his door, seldom having anything in his room worth stealing. But now he had twenty-five hundred dollars in the mattress and he guessed that was worth stealing. He swung the door open and there was Austin Davis stretched out on the bed with a glass of Longarm’s whiskey resting on his stomach. He looked tired and grimy, but he held up a hand in greeting.

Longarm shut the door behind him. “How the hell did you get in here?” he said.

Davis waved vaguely behind him. “Came in through the window. Them sashes ain’t nothing to raise up and open. Ain’t got no lock on them.”

“How’d you know which window?”

Davis sat up, swung his legs around, and sat on the side of the bed. He yawned. “I knew your room number, so all I had to do was count down from the lobby. Wasn’t hard.”

“Huh,” Longarm said. He walked to the bedside table, poured himself half a glass of the Maryland whiskey, noting the bottle had taken a pretty good beating since he’d last seen it, then pulled up a chair, turned it front to back, and sat down astraddle. He took a drink of whiskey. “What,” he said, “are you doing back here? I’m glad as hell you are, but what happened?”

Austin Davis’s face fell. He grimaced. “She ran out on me, Longarm. Got away. Last night. I don’t know what time ‘cause I didn’t wake up. But when I did, she was gone. I nearly killed two horses getting back here. I ain’t been here long.”

“Hmmmm,” Longarm said, and took another sip of his drink. “I take it you rushed back because you figure she don’t mean us no good. Is that it?”

Davis shook his head. “I don’t know. But I figured you ought to know. I mean, she did slip off. Took Raoul’s horse, the best I can figure. I know she bribed a couple of the peons working on my friends’ hacienda to help her saddle up and get away. We determined that much.”

“How was she to you?”

The young deputy wrinkled his brow in thought. “Kind of calculating I’d say. She asked me a bunch of questions about you, but I just stuck to my part as a cattle contractor. Told her you was a cattle broker, and that was all I knowed. That you was dealing with Caster and your business with him had brought you out to see Raoul. Said it was damn unfortunate about him, but them things happened.”

“What’d she say to that?”

Davis shook his head. “Not much of anything. If she was feeling any loss about Raoul, she kept it damn well hidden from me. It took us two days to get to these folks’ place. They knew I was a deputy marshal, but I tipped them not to let on and I’m sure they didn’t. I got rid of the body along the way, though Dulcima never knew about it. We spent the first night in a little hotel, and I slipped out when it was good and dark and found a canyon in some wild country and buried Raoul at the bottom of it.”

Longarm rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about the woman,” he said, “except she is strong-willed as hell and wants her way. Did you do any good with her?”

Davis shook his head again. “No. And it was a damn big disappointment. But you remember she’d said she’d do the touching if it come to it. So I waited and it never happened. We slept in separate rooms, though they was side by side and had a connecting door. I slept mighty light and kept a check on her through the night. That’s how I come to find out she was gone as soon as I did. I reckon it was around two in the morning. Hell, it was this morning. So I’ve come forty miles just about as fast as you can without being on a train. You reckon she means to make trouble for us here?”

Longarm took a drink and looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Women are a strange breed and she’s one of the strangest I ever run across. Maybe it took her a few days, but it might have occurred to her I killed her lover right there in her house and that was a slap to her. If she takes it that way, then yes, I got to figure she means trouble. And then her slipping off like that. Got to be something in it.”

“Then how come she never put up no struggle about it? Why didn’t she fight me more?”

“Maybe figuring to lull you to sleep. Maybe she figured if she put up a fight, we’d of throwed her in a sack and taken her anyway. But that ain’t the important part. The important part is how fast can she get back here?”

“Ain’t any way she could have come by horseback and beat or even come close to my time. I’m saying I rode hard. Other way is to head about fifteen miles west to a little town where the rail line to Nuevo Laredo stops. If she done that, the train would get her into town sometime early tomorrow morning. But how could she know?”

Longarm shrugged. “That’s a mighty resourceful lady. She bribed the peons to help her, she might have got the information out of them. And she could have found a guide that would have helped her. I would imagine she had plenty of cash on her.” He stood up and walked over to the table to pour himself more whiskey. Austin Davis held out his glass and Longarm filled that. Then he turned and went back to his chair. “But I better tell you where we are,” he said. “We got some plans to make.”

Item by item, Longarm related everything that had transpired. “So it looks like tomorrow morning is the time. Either we catch our rabbit—or rabbits—then, or they’re going to get away. As a matter of fact, much as I hated to do it, I was going over to ask Raymond San Diego to get me up a crew of vaqueros to handle the cattle when they’re released. But now, with Dulcima a wild card in the game, I don’t reckon I care for that idea over much.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Davis told his partner. “I’ll go down to a saloon later on and hire us a crew in nothing flat. There’s a couple of places where the vaqueros hang out. In fact, I think most of the bunch I hired to go into Mexico are still in town. I’ll offer them three dollars a day for a short drive and get more takers than I can use. But it does sound like Caster is getting jittery. Now, I’m supposed to have loaned you that extra twenty-five hundred?”

“Yeah. You just got some money in to pick up another herd in Mexico.”

Davis ran a hand through his dark hair. “Boy, I’ll tell you the truth—this is one job I’ll be glad to get shut of. It’s like handling day-old fish—they’re slippery and they smell to high heaven.”

Longarm looked at him sharply. “You? Damnit, Austin, you ever involve me in anything like this again and I’ll move to Canada.”

“Oh, by the way,” Davis added, “I found out what Raymond San Diego and Jasper White been smuggling. Raoul, too. And Caster.”

“What?”

Davis grinned slyly. “Cattle.”

“Cattle? Into the U.S.? Hell, we already knew that.”

Austin Davis shook his head. “No, into Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“Yeah. When I was telling these friends about Raoul and Raymond they asked me if the San Diegos had a gringo friend, and then they described Jasper White. You said that Caster saw signs of tick fever in your cattle? Well, he sees that in about ten percent of all herds. Either that or about that many die. Only that ain’t the case. Them cattle are being herded back to Mexico. These friends of mine have bought many a one from the San Diego brothers and Jasper White. Paid around four dollars a head. And then turned around and sold them to contractors like me for six and seven dollars. A very nice little business. One of them, Jose Quinto, said there was one old yellow steer that he personally bought and sold at least four times.”

Longarm just shook his head. “You’d think one crooked sideline would be enough for Caster. No wonder he got nervous when Raoul disappeared. He knew all of Caster’s secrets.”

“How are we going to play it tomorrow?”

Longarm shrugged. “Fast and loose I would reckon. Bareback. All I can say is just keep one eye on me and be ready to jump one way or the other.” He held up his hand as Davis opened his mouth to speak. “I know. They’re your birds by right and I’ll make damn sure you’re in at the kill. One thing—I’m going to insist that Caster release the cattle before he gets any more money. I don’t know how we’re going to swap the money for the trail papers, but you get as close as you dare to that.”

Davis looked tired. “Well,” he said, “I hope we get lucky. This has been a long trail. I guess I better get a room and a bath.”

Longarm stood up. “Let me get out of here first. I’ll probably stay out a while tonight, maybe get in a poker game. I reckon you’ll be busy with hiring vaqueros.”

It was a little after ten o’clock that night when Longarm came back into the hotel. He went to the desk to collect his key and was surprised to see the day clerk on duty. The young man said he was pulling a double shift. “The night man had some business. At least that is what he say. I theenk maybe the monkey business.”

Longarm nodded and turned away. He’d gone only a few steps when the clerk called to him, and turned back. “Oh, by the way,” the young man said, “Senor Mull has checked in.”

Longarm felt his excitement rise. “Yeah?” he said.

“Yes. He is in room one ten. That is four doors down from where you are.”

Longarm nodded, trying to conceal a smile. “Thanks, amigo. Be sure and not let on you told me and I’ll see you get taken care of.”

The clerk waved his hand. “Oh, no, no. You have already been most generous, Senor Long.”

“We’ll see,” Longarm said. He was smiling to himself as he walked down the hall. If he got the chance, he was going to be especially generous to Mister James Mull. He was going to see that he got a lot of years in a small place to think about his sins.

Chapter 12

Longarm sat his horse just by the release gate where the cattle were coming out of the last quarantine pen. On the other side, Austin Davis was on horseback with a tally sheet in his hand. Which seemed unnecessary, since Jay Caster had already told him he would be getting 940 cattle. The rest, Longarm thought wryly, were probably already on their way to Mexico. Caster had said they’d die and Longarm didn’t doubt that 1 could have happened. The cattle that were coming by him were poor and looked like they’d lost considerable flesh. They didn’t look at all like the cattle he’d observed the night before and the night before that. Also, some of them seemed to have brands, and Longarm found that fairly interesting since they were supposedly all from Mexico. But if he asked, he was sure that Caster would tell him that his contractor, Austin Davis, had probably bought some stolen U.S. cattle that had been taken to Mexico, and that was none of Caster’s doing. The customs inspector had an answer for everything.

Then Longarm saw what he’d been looking for. All of the cattle were splotched with green paint, though it looked old and faded. And now he caught sight of one of his “key” cows, a brindle-colored steer with a twisted horn. He had a big splotch of bright green paint on his side, but a little trace of the original red was showing. As the steer exited the pen Longarm rode alongside the animal and leaned down and wiped his fingers across the smear of red that was showing. He straightened back up and looked at the red substance on his fingers. With his thumb he rubbed it back and forth and then smiled slightly. He said, half aloud, “So that’s how he does it.”

Just then he saw Caster riding toward him and he quickly wiped his fingers on his jeans. The red stain came off easily. He turned his horse to meet the customs official.

“You ‘bout ready to wind this up?” Caster asked sourly. “I want you and them damn cattle out of town quick as possible.”

Longarm looked over the pens. There appeared to be about a hundred cattle yet to go. “Let’s let them get clear of the corral and in the hands of my drovers. I want word from Davis on the tally.”

“The tally is going to be whatever it is,” Caster bristled. “And you better not have no ideas of that Davis tagging along with us. I don’t like that feller’s looks.”

Longarm smiled. “I’ll tell him you said that. I’ll be ready in just a moment, Mister Caster. This ought not to take long.”

“You got the money?”

Longarm turned in the saddle and slapped his saddlebags. “Got it right in here.” Though the money, in fact, was still in his mattress. “You ain’t told me how you want me to get it to you. Or who? Raymond San Diego?”

“In a moment we will ride to the hotel. I’ll tell you then.”

Longarm glanced around at Caster. It was hard to tell, since the man was so unfriendly at his best, but this morning there seemed to be a special edge to him. Then again, Longarm reflected, maybe he was just imagining it, worried as he was about Dulcima making it back and telling the interested parties what had really happened to Raoul.

He could see Austin Davis watching them across the stream of cattle, and Longarm dipped his hat brim just a fraction to let his partner know that things were still going along all right. Actually they were better than that. He now knew what he was going to arrest Caster for, and in fact, could have arrested him at that second. But he had the feeling that another fish was going to swim into his net, so he planned on being patient.

Then the last of the cattle were out of the corral, and the drovers Austin Davis had hired, fell in on the sides and behind the herd and started moving them toward the east. They’d take them in that direction until they were around the town and then turn them north. Austin Davis went along with them, casting a glance back toward Longarm. He would accompany the herd only until he saw Longarm and Caster making a definite move in one direction. Then he would cut back and find a position in which to place himself for the final moment.

“You ready to go now?” Caster asked.

“Yeah. I reckon that’s about it.”

“Then head for the hotel. I’ll ride along beside you.”

Caster didn’t speak again until they were both in front of the hotel. He dismounted and stood by his horse. “Take yore saddlebags and go to yore room,” he instructed Longarm. “Leave the money laying on top of your bed. Then walk out, leaving the door unlocked.”

“What about my papers?”

“Damnit, keep your mouth shut. You come out of that room, wait fifteen minutes, and then go back in there. Yore papers will be laying on the bed. But don’t be hanging around in the hall. Go in the bar or stay back in the lobby.”

“Just like that? I’m supposed to lay some more money down without having seen a damn thing? Why should I trust you?”

“Don’t, then,” Caster said coldly. “I don’t give a damn. See how far you get with those cattle.”

Longarm grimaced. “I don’t seem to have much choice.”

“No, you don’t. And don’t be in no rush to come out of yore room once you’ve got yore papers. Give it another quarter of an hour. Have yourself a drink to celebrate.”

“And these are Brownsville papers? Mull is going to sign and seal them?”

Caster gave him a disgusted look. “Long, I will be damn glad to see you out of town. You ain’t worth the money. I told you about Mull and it is still the same. Now get in that hotel and do like I told you.”

Longarm untied his saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder, thinking he would be glad to see Caster in jail. He couldn’t remember when he’d taken such a dislike to a quarry in all his career. Mostly he looked at it as business, but the mouth on Caster had began to personally irritate him.

He walked into the hotel and to the desk, picked up his key and went down the hall to his room and unlocked the door. Just before he went in he glanced down four doors to room 110. If things went the way he had them figured, Mister James Mull was sitting in there waiting to get a chunk of money in return for his signature.

Longarm stepped into his room and closed the door behind him. He pitched the saddlebags on the bed, then went to the window and made sure it was closed. Then he carefully drew the curtains so that some casual passerby couldn’t see what was going to be on the bed. He took a sack out of his saddlebags, an empty sack he’d gotten from the bank. Then he lifted up the mattress and held it in place with his shoulder while he removed the money and put it in the sack. When he was through he let the mattress down, smoothed the covers, and placed the sack squarely in the center of the bed. He was done. He took one last look around and then exited the room, carefully closing the door behind him but not locking it.

He walked down the hall and went into the lobby, going to the far side and shielding himself behind one of the big square support columns that rose to the ceiling. He could just see the front door. A moment passed and then another. He was starting to get jumpy. Was Caster not going to go for the cheese in the trap? Had he been forewarned by Dulcima?

Caster walked into the hotel. He looked left and right and seemed to study the faces in the lobby, but he did it quickly. Without any further hesitation he walked down the hall toward the rooms at that end, just as if he were going about official business. Longarm watched him until he disappeared. As quickly as he could, Longarm slipped over to the hall and peeked around it. He was just in time to see Caster open the door to his room and slip inside. He shut the door behind himself.

Longarm did not pause. He loosened the gun in his holster; he was now wearing his cutaway model. He walked quickly down the hall and stopped opposite his own door.

At first he stood across the hallway, his back against the wall. But after a moment had passed he decided he didn’t care what anyone might think of him standing in front of a room door. Stepping across the hallway, he stationed himself right in front of his room. He stood there, staring intently at the doorknob, waiting for it to turn. He had been waiting for this moment for what seemed like weeks, maybe months, days for certain. In his mind he ran through all the insults Caster had paid him, all the sneering remarks, all the condescension. Oh yes, he owed Mister Caster more than Mister Caster knew.

Caster had been dressed in his customary vested suit with a small tie. While they were watching the herd Longarm had taken some pains to note that he’d also been wearing a small revolver high up on his waist. The gun had appeared to be a short-barreled .38 caliber. It was strictly a belly gun, to be used at close quarters.

Longarm was gradually tensing up as he watched for the knob to turn. It seemed like half an hour had passed. Several people had come and gone down the hall. They had glanced curiously at Longarm, but hadn’t said anything.

And then he saw the knob start to turn. He raised his head to eye-level so he’d be looking directly into the customs inspector’s face when the door came open. The door opened slowly. Caster’s left shoulder came into view and then his chest and then his face. Longarm took only time enough to register the surprised look on Caster’s face before he pushed forward, knocking the door aside, and grabbing both lapels of his coat. With a heave of his shoulders he shoved the man a yard back into the room, then swung him around to the right and smashed him as hard as he could into the wall by the door. Caster let out a whoosh of air, but he tried feebly to strike at Longarm with the sack he was holding in his hand. Longarm let go of Caster’s right lapel, doubled his free hand into a fist, and then drove it hard into Caster’s stomach. The customs official went pale, his eyes opened wide, and a moan oozed out of his mouth. He would have doubled over, but Longarm was holding him upright. Without losing a moment, Longarm reached out with his right hand, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut. Then he put his forearm under Caster’s chin, pressing it against his neck, and straightened the man up on his tiptoes against the wall. Caster’s face went from white to beet-red as Longarm attempted to strangle him. His mouth worked like a fish’s but no sound came out. Longarm saw him drop the cash sack and try to bring his right hand in toward his belt. “I reckon not, Mister Caster,” he said, knocking his hand away. Reaching in under Caster’s coat with his left hand, Longarm found the little revolver, jerked it out of its holster, and threw it behind him on the bed. Then, because he felt like it, he made a fist with his left hand and slugged Caster in that side of the stomach. Caster’s face contorted with pain and he waved his arms uselessly trying to beat at Longarm’s back. He was making little gurgling sounds.

“Now,” Longarm said, “how do you like this, you sonofabitch? Why don’t you pay me an insult now? Can’t talk? Something got your tongue? You say you’re strangling? You say you can’t breathe? Right sorry to hear that, Mister Caster. You make it a habit of badmouthing U.S. deputy marshals, do you?” Longarm saw Caster’s eyes grow even wider. “Aw, hell, Caster, don’t tell me you didn’t know I was a federal marshal. Hell, I figure you went to all that trouble to tell me how dumb I was and what a hayseed, and how there wasn’t no way you could be caught, just on account of you knowed I was a U.S. deputy marshal.” He forced his forearm up even tighter against Caster’s throat, lifting up against his chin so that he was almost pulling the man off his feet.

But something was nagging at Longarm, something he’d seen when he first charged into the room. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t bring it to mind. He was going to have to turn around and look the place over, but first he needed to park Caster somewhere he couldn’t cause trouble. Longarm suddenly grasped Caster by the shirt front, releasing his forearm hold as he did. For a second Caster gasped for air, but he had little time to savor the relief. Longarm swung him around with his left arm so that he was pointing toward the far side wall, set him up, and then hit him square in the face with his big, heavy, right fist. He drove through the blow, putting his shoulder into it. He had meant to catch Caster on the jaw, perhaps breaking it, but Caster’s head had wobbled at the last instant and Longarm’s fist had taken him in the mouth. But Longarm had the satisfaction, as Caster dropped like a sack of meal, of feeling some teeth break. Caster went down, sprawling on his back. He was not unconscious, but he was so stunned that it would be a long moment before he could get up.

Longarm turned away to look at the room, shaking his hand. He saw a little blood on his knuckles and knew that one of Caster’s teeth had cut him. “Damn you, Jay Caster,” he said. “You’ve bit me. When are you going to quit doing me harm? Hell, I’d rather be bit by a mad dog.”

He took a step toward the center of the room and glanced around. Then he saw what had bothered him, what had caught in his mind’s eye. The window he’d made sure was closed and the curtains he’d pulled together so no one could see in from outside were wide open. Longarm glanced toward Caster. The man was still down, but he was starting to stir around. “You sonofabitch,” Longarm said, “What have you been up to at that window? Did you drop something out of it?” He walked over to the window and stuck his head out. He could see the ground below. It was clear of anything suspicious. He pulled his head in and shut the window and drew the curtains. “Caster, what the hell you been up to?”

Longarm walked over to the spot where Caster had dropped the sack of money. He picked it up and looked inside. It appeared to be intact. He glanced at Caster, who had hoisted himself up on his elbows and was shaking his head. His mouth was bloody. “I don’t know what you were up to, Caster, but it better not make me angry. I’m already a little put out with you. Especially now that I see I’ve injured myself on your teeth.” He hooked the sack down on his belt.

He stopped beside the bedside table and picked up the half-full bottle of Maryland whiskey, drew the cork, and poured a little on his hand. It stung. He said, “Now look what you’ve caused me to do,” he said. “Waste good whiskey pouring it on the floor. What else are you going to do to me, Caster? I swear, I don’t believe I ever met a man had less respect for a United States marshal than you.” He finished with the whiskey by taking a good pull from the bottle. It felt good going down, warming his stomach. He corked the bottle and set it back on the table, shaking his right hand in the air. Then he walked around the bed and looked at Caster. He had made it to a sitting position, but his eyes still looked dazed. He raised a hand to his mouth and touched it and then looked at the blood on his fingers. “I guess you didn’t know I’ve had a toothache this whole week,” Longarm said, “and you never said one word in sympathy about it. Well, I reckon you’ll know how I felt now. By the way, where the hell are my papers? Just because I’m a federal marshal don’t mean you can cheat me out of what I paid for. But I guess they’re down in Mister Mull’s room.” Caster glanced up in surprise. “Yeah, I knew about him. But listen, you have got to get up. You can’t lay around in here all day. We got to get this situation wrapped up. Hell, wasn’t you in a hurry a while ago? Well, what has changed? C’mon, man, you’ve got to get on your feet. What happened, you take a little too much wine with lunch? Here, let me help you.” He leaned over, grasped Caster by the shirt and coat, and jerked him to his feet. The sound of cloth tearing was loud in the room. Most of Caster’s collar came off.

“Aw, hell,” Longarm said. “Did you tear your shirt? Damn, I feel bad about that. But we’ve got to move along.” He gave Caster a shove toward the door. The customs official stumbled, but recovered his balance and leaned against the wall. Longarm came up behind him, reached around and opened the door, then shoved him out into the hall. Caster came to a stop, his hand to his mouth. Longarm shoved him forward. “Room one ten,” he said. “That’s where my papers are, right? You were going to give me my papers, weren’t you? I reckon you were. Hell, I paid enough for them. You were going to come out, go down and get the papers from Mull, leave them in my room, and then … And then what, Caster? What did you open that damn window for?”

He shoved Caster down the hall until he came to rest in front of room 110. “What say we drop in on your partner, Mister James Mull? Reckon he’ll have pie and coffee ready for us? Let’s don’t bother to knock.” He pushed Caster aside, raised his leg, and smashed the door open with his boot heel. As soon as the door flew back, Longarm grabbed Caster and threw him bodily into the room. The man stumbled and staggered, but didn’t go down.

Longarm stepped through the doorway. The room was bigger than his. There were two windows on the back wall, about six feet apart. One of them was partly open. A light breeze was fluttering the curtains. Longarm looked to his left. There was a divan against the wall and a small table in the middle of the room. The bed was to the right. A man at the table, clad in a black split-tail coat, had risen to his feet. He was wearing a starched shirt and a string tie. Longarm said, “I reckon you’d be Mister James Mull. Well, you got something belongs to me.”

The Brownsville customs officer stared at Longarm, speechless, and then shifted his gaze to Caster. “Wha-” he stammered. “What, what in hell is going on, Jay?”

Longarm said, “You’ll find out soon enough, Mister Mull.” Mull was tall and thin and younger than Longarm had expected him to be. There were a few papers on the table along with an inkwell and a nub pen. Longarm glanced at the table and then at James Mull. Caster was leaning against the bed, his hand still to his mouth. “Mister Mull,” Longarm said, “if you’re carrying a gun, you better be damn good with it or be prepared to eat it raw.”

Mull’s eyes got round. He looked over at Caster. “Jay! What is this?”

Caster just shook his head.

Longarm picked up one of the papers from the table and scanned it hurriedly. Then he looked back at James Mull. “My name is Custis Long,” he said. “I’m a United States deputy marshal. Mister Mull, you are now under arrest for malfeasance in office. I am holding an official document here, a quarantine release certifying that a herd of mine, nine hundred plus cattle, have cleared quarantine in Brownsville, Texas and are cleared for the trail. Hell, Mister Mull, you should have paid more attention in geography class. This ain’t Brownsville, this is Laredo. I ought to add a charge of being just plain stupid. Hell, you’re dumber than Caster, far as that goes. But he’ll do more time, I’m glad to say. You’ll like it in prison, Jay.”

Caster said, in muffled tones, “You haven’t got a thing on me. I haven’t signed nothing. I’m not guilty of any malfeasance in office.”

Longarm laughed. “Damn, I wish my partner was here. Name of Austin Davis. He’s the cattle contractor you thought was so dumb and crooked, Jay. He’d enjoy this. Hell, I ain’t arresting you for malfeasance; I’m arresting you for cattle theft. Those cattle you turned over to me this morning weren’t my cattle. And they damn sure weren’t yours to give away. That’s theft, Jay, cattle theft, and it carries a mighty handy little penalty.”

Caster took his hand away from his mouth and stared malevolently at Longarm. “You sorry bastard,” he said in a hard tone.

“Now, that’s no way to talk, Mister Caster. Hell, I’m doing you a favor sending you to prison. I had promised myself, after you had stuffed me full of your bad mouth, the pleasure of beating you to death. But I swore on oath to uphold the law and I don’t reckon I can-“

Longarm stopped. The twin eyes of a double-barreled twelve gauge shotgun had suddenly come thrusting through the window. The barrels were pointed straight at him. His hand had involuntarily flicked toward the revolver at his side, but then he relaxed. You couldn’t out-draw an aimed scatter gun at ten-foot range. His first thought was that it was Austin Davis, playing a prank, paying his partner back for making the arrests without him present.

But then an arm and hand, a left arm and hand, came thrusting through the window to sweep the curtains back. Longarm felt himself go cold. Framed in the window were the head and shoulders of Raymond San Diego. Longarm wouldn’t have thought he was tall enough to reach the window. Inanely he wondered what the man was standing on. He was conscious of how shiny black Raymond’s hair was, almost as shiny as the barrels of the shotgun. Sighting down the barrel of the big gun, speaking to Longarm, San Diego said, “You keel my brother. Now I going to keel you.” His voice steady in spite of the shaking inside of him, Longarm said, “Whoever said that is a liar. Dulcima killed your brother. I was there when it happened. Then she run off to Mexico with a boyfriend of hers.” It made no sense, but he was caught dead. All it would take was a slight pressure on the trigger of the shotgun to blow a good portion of him out in the hall. He went on, talking wildly, “It was Caster’s idea. This man here. He wanted Raoul out of the way so he could get a bigger cut of the money y’all made smuggling cattle back into Mexico.” He heard Caster draw a sharp breath, but he kept on talking. “Raymond, I’m not your enemy. You got it all wrong.”

For answer San Diego raised the shotgun slightly so that Longarm was staring down the twin holes that looked as big as dinner plates. “You lie,” he said. “I keel you. You gentlemens step back.”

In another instant he was going to pull the trigger. Then, from behind him, Longarm heard a word said so softly that he thought he must have imagined it. Then the word came again, this time a little more distinctly. “Drop.”

He let his legs collapse and hurled his shoulders sideways at the floor. As he fell he heard the sharp report of a revolver and then the boom of the shotgun. The noise filled the room and echoed and echoed.

As Longarm went down, he could see Raymond San Diego distinctly. Halfway to the floor, he saw a red mark suddenly appear on the little man’s forehead, right in the middle. Suddenly Raymond fell backward, the shotgun tilting up, the double load blasting up and into the ceiling. For a moment Longarm lay on the floor, deafened by the shotgun blast. Finally he turned his head toward the door and said, “You damn well took your time.”

“I figured you wanted a chance to get out of it by yourself,” Austin Davis said. “I know I would have.”

That night they were having a drink in Longarm’s room. They had trusted the local sheriff to keep Mull and Caster caged overnight, but they were taking them to San Antonio the next day, not trusting the local authorities to keep such prisoners until they could be sent before a federal judge. Longarm said thoughtfully, “That was a pretty good shot you made.”

“Pretty good?” Austin Davis was indignant. “Dead center in the forehead? An offhand shot with a partner’s life hanging in the balance? Pretty good? What the hell do you call a good shot?”

Longarm shrugged. “All right, it was a hell of a shot, a damned good shot. You saved my life.” He sighed. “And I’ll probably never hear the end of it.”