From back inside the cabin Shaw said, with a laugh in his voice, “You got to load them things, Custis, else they don’t work worth a damn.”
Longarm levered all six shells out, working to free the hammer and firing pin. As best he could he blew into the mechanism, hoping he had cleared it out enough that it would work. It had been just the worst kind of luck—there was no other name for it. Longarm had dragged rifles through the dirt for a hundred yards and they’d never misfired. Until now. He rolled back over against the face of the wash and began reloading his rifle. He said, “Naw, Jack, it was loaded. Must have been some dust or dirt got in the firing mechanism.
“That will happen to you in the desert. Course I’m kind of glad it did. You had me cold.”
“Yeah, I shore thought so.”
“Got to give you credit, Custis. You suckered me on that one. I’m a lucky duck to be all in one piece. Don’t believe I’ll be trying any such tricks on you again anyways soon.”
Staying as low as he could, Longarm reached over and got the stump of the cigar. It had gone out. He had no plans to relight it, but he carefully put it back in his shirt. He said, “Well, Jack, you’ll be glad to know that little stunt cost me half a cigar. I reckon that will go on your bill.”
“Be glad to pay it, Custis. Why don’t you step on up to the pay window right now.”
Longarm had carefully loaded his rifle so that the shell that had not fired was in the chamber. He carefully worked the hammer back, dulling the clitch-clatch sound it made as he cocked it slowly. When the rifle was ready to fire he took a cautious look over the edge of his hole.
There was no sign of Jack Shaw. Longarm would have liked to have had at least a boot toe to shoot at, but there was nothing. Next he glanced toward the packhorse. To his amazement the horse had somehow stretched his neck over the fence, bending the top board of the corral as he did, until he had managed to get his muzzle into the huge barrel that caught the water pumped up by the windmill. Apparently the few light breezes that had sprung up had been sufficient to fill the barrel to the brim so that the packhorse was able to just reach some moisture with his lips and suck it down. Longarm envied him. He took another careful swig out of his own canteen, being judicious and stingy with himself. The night might not be so bad, but the next day, he knew, was going to be hell.
Glad now that he didn’t feel the need to kill the packhorse, he readied himself to test his rifle. He was able to draw his legs up without exposing himself so that he could come to his knees quickly. He took one more peek to make sure his enemy was not visible, and then came up swiftly and fired at the window. The hammer fell, the firing pin worked, and the bullet exploded. He was already facedown back in the wash as he heard the bullet go into the cabin and the whine and sing as it ricocheted around the inside walls of the rock shack.
He heard Shaw let loose with a volley of oaths. It didn’t last long.
Finally Shaw said, “What the hell you reckon you be doing?”
“Hell, Jack, I had to test my rifle, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t need to shoot in here. One of them goddamn rock splinters hit me in the ear and cut it. Dammit, you’ve drawed my blood.”
“They say a good bleeding clears a man’s system out, Jack.”
“Yeah, well, I can do without no such foolishness. Hell, if you was going to waste a shell, how come you didn’t shoot that damn packhorse you was so worried about?”
“Now, Jack, you know that would have caused me to expose myself while I took careful aim. If you’d seen me like that, I reckon there would have been more than the horse got taken down.”
The sun was starting to flatten itself on the horizon. It would be dark soon, but it was no less hot for all of that. Longarm knew, of course, that sometime after midnight it would commence to get cold, and not just cold but freezing. That was the damned high prairie for you.
Roast in the daytime and freeze at night. Shaw said, “Be dark pretty soon.”
“Yeah.”
“I reckon to give you a little trouble tonight, Longarm.”
“Aw, yeah, how’s that?”
“Nothing you can’t handle. Man like you.”
“Well, what is it?”
“You’re a gambling man. At least you were. You still of the same bent?”
“I still play at cards now and then if the stakes ain’t too high.”
“Stakes gonna be mighty high this time, Custis, mighty high.”
“Tell me about it. I ain’t got nothing else to occupy my mind.”
Chapter 3
“Well,” Shaw said, “it’s a pretty simple little game. Sometime before dawn I’m going to open the corral gate. You can’t see that from where you are. And some of these horses are going to get out. I’ll make sure you hear that. Now the game for you is going to be to decide if I’m on one of them horses, riding off and making my escape, or not.
Maybe I’m just running the horses out of the corral and then waiting for you to jump out of your hidey-hole and run toward the back to see if that is me waving adios to you. See the game?”
Longarm thought about it. It had actually been worrying him most of the day. He had wished his position had been much more to the side of the cabin so that he could see all of the corral. As it was, he figured he only had a view of not quite half, and the gate was obviously on the other side. All that day he had subconsciously studied the terrain, looking for someplace he could run to that would give him protection where he could see the side of the house and the corral. But the land had been flat as a griddle cake, with not even a semblance of a place to hole up. His only chance had been to shoot the packhorse, but the animal had not stayed in the proper position long enough. The horse he’d ridden in on was too far back, and would have afforded him no better view than he had. Shaw was right. It was a very chancy proposition. If he thought Shaw was making a break and left cover to stop him, Shaw could be still in the cabin with a rifle trained his way. And of course, the other side of that coin was that Shaw might really be riding off. If he did, Longarm would have no way to catch him. He’d make the border easily. Longarm was glad now that he hadn’t mentioned anything about wiring the Arizona Rangers to Shaw.
Longarm said, “You ain’t going to open that gate and let your horses out, Jack. You’d be crazy.”
Shaw let out a whoop of laughter. “Longarm, I thought you knew a little something about cayuses. How far you reckon these old ponies are going to go away from this water? Hell, I’ll probably have trouble keeping them out long enough to fool you.”
He was right, Longarm thought. Shaw could drive the horses out of the corral, but they wouldn’t stay out long. He said, “You got a point, Jack. But that old knife cuts two ways. If I tell you right now I’m going to take the bait, you ain’t going to know whether to believe me or not. So that means you won’t try to break out tonight. And if I’m convinced of that, then I won’t show myself. But if you are of a mind to try it, it might be you chewing up some of this prairie. Might be a gamble either way you look at it.”
Shaw laughed softly. “Got to hand it to you, Custis, you still play a hell of a hand of poker.”