Chapter 4
It was a risk, but then that was why the Marshals Service paid such good wages. Near as much in a month as he could make in a moderate-stakes game of poker. He glanced toward the cabin. There was just no way of knowing if Jack Shaw was alert and on watch. If Longarm decided to make the move he’d have to take his chances. That was what it came down to. Chances. He calculated the moon would be down in less than an hour, but he doubted that would make much difference. In the twenty yards he’d have to run, in high-heeled boots over sandy, rocky ground, he’d make a shadow against the light sky as clear as a cut-out cardboard silhouette. If Jack Shaw was on watch, the outlaw would have time enough to get off a shot, and Longarm doubted if Jack would miss. The man was a good shot. Longarm had seen evidence of it, and he knew enough to know that a man in Jack’s line of work didn’t last very long if he couldn’t make a shot when he had to.
With his eye Longarm judged the distance over and over, looking for pitfalls in the prairie. It wouldn’t be a time for a body to lose his footing or fall. Stumble and fall on that run and a man would be falling for a long time. Might as well fall off the highest mountain.
He looked at the moon again. It was partially covered by some low-hanging clouds just above the horizon. Longarm couldn’t tell if it was any darker. Instead, now that the idea of jumping out into the open was in his mind, it seemed to have gotten brighter. He looked back in the direction of the cabin, but there wasn’t anything there to see. He glanced at the horse. He was lying very still. Longarm thought that it would be one hell of a bad joke if the horse suddenly got to his feet just as he, Longarm, left the safety of the wash and was about halfway across. Be one hell of a bad joke. He might die laughing from it.
He lay there, cold, glancing back and forth and weighing the risk. Was it worth it? Hell, he couldn’t be sure. For all he knew the Arizona Rangers might show up for lunch and he’d have run a hell of a risk for nothing. Or else it might take them three more days to arrive. Could he hold out for three more days? He had water for part of one. And what would he do then?
If he got to the commanding position behind the horse, he could make Shaw understand that he was cut off from escape and then he could tell him about the Rangers. It would put a whole new complexion on the matter. Shaw might be willing to strike some kind of deal. Longarm had one in mind, but it wasn’t worth a damn unless he could convince Jack Shaw there was no other way out.
The moon was about as low as it was going to get before it went down.
Longarm felt around in the dirt until he found the fist-sized rock he’d had before. He got his hat and the canteen strap in his left hand and had his carbine ready to his right. Carefully, slowly, he bunched his legs under him. He’d been lying for so long in one position, he had no idea what kind of spring might be left in his legs. He might jump to his feet and start to run and they’d collapse. Well, he needed a second or two of distraction. All he could do was hope it worked. With his right hand he grasped the rock, and then half crouched and drew back his right arm. He hurled the rock high in the sky, arcing it to land on the roof. The instant the rock left his hand he reached down, grabbed his carbine, and then jumped to his feet, sprang out of the wash, and started running toward the horse.
It felt like he was running in thigh-high mud. His legs were dead. He felt as if he was going nowhere. He had traveled perhaps five or six yards, stumbling and lurching, when he heard the bang! of the rock on top of the metal roof. For a second his heart almost stopped at the sound, it had sounded so much like a gunshot. But then his heart got out of his throat and he kept lumbering toward the horse. The horse came nearer. He was ten yards away, and then five, and then two, and then Longarm half stumbled, half dove over the animal’s front legs and landed tucked up against the poor creature’s belly. It seemed he was hearing a voice in his ears, but his breath was coming so hard and fierce that he couldn’t hear.
It was a minute or two before he got himself squared around and facing the cabin. The horse was dead, all right, though as yet Longarm had no idea what had killed him. He laid his rifle over the side of the animal. It was the side that had the load of corn, so it was even higher than just the flanks of the horse would have been. He could hear Jack Shaw shouting.
“Damnit, Longarm! What in hell did you want to go and chunk rocks on top of this damn cabin for? Hell, what business is it of yours if I’m sleeping or not! You got you some goddamn nerve, I’ll tell you that. You done made me mad an’ I don’t like it! Don’t do that no more, you sonofabitch, or I’ll plow up that ditch of yours with rifle bullets. I got plenty!” He said, “Settle down, Jack. Hell, I got bored. Had to do something to stay awake.”
“What’s that?” There was a pause. “Say, where in hell are you? Your voice sounds funny.” Longarm said, “You’re hearing things, Jack. Go on back to sleep. I’ll chunk another rock about dawn. Wake you in time for coffee.”
“Say, you sonofabitch, you ain’t in that ditch no more! Where in hell are you?”
Longarm looked over at the corral with satisfaction. He could see the whole pen and every horse. He counted five. He could see the barrel, he could see the pipe running out of the windmill, and he could even see a little of the back door. He said, “I don’t want to talk no more right now, Jack. This morning air ain’t good for my throat.”
Dawn just happened. One second the prairie world was a dingy gray, and the next it was as alight as if someone had struck a big match in a room full of mirrors. Just beyond the front of the cabin, Longarm could see the sun crowding its way over the far horizon. It didn’t look nearly as big as the golden moon the night before, but Longarm knew it packed a hell of a lot more wallop. While he could, he relished the warming rays as they drove the chill out of his bones from the cold night. But he knew it was short-lived comfort. There appeared to be about a solid hour out of the twenty-four when a man could be somewhere near to comfort in this harsh country. One thing about such country, he had often reflected, when you found cheap land you didn’t have to wonder what the catch was. It was his personal opinion that they ought to give the damn stuff away to anyone who was fool enough to live on it and try and make a living.
He took a swig out of his canteen for breakfast, and then settled down to be on the alert. There was one large advantage to hunkering in behind the dead packhorse; he didn’t have to lay frozen in one position for fear of exposing himself. To get a shot at him, Jack Shaw was going to have to sneak down to one corner or the other of the cabin. If he stayed alert Longarm would have enough of a warning when Shaw tried to sneak a rifle barrel around the corner to take good cover. Now, with the sun up good, Longarm stood up and stretched and worked his arms and legs back and forth, trying to get out some of the kinks from the long, stationary concealment. As he started to get back down behind the horse he saw what had killed the animal. The big burlap bag that had been on the horse’s right side, full of corn, had somehow gotten ripped about halfway down. There had been sixty pounds of corn in the sack, and Longarm estimated that at least a third of it had spilled out. He glanced over toward the corral. He could see a jagged crack in one of the boards of the fence.
The horse, in working and straining his way toward the water barrel, must have snagged the sack and then ripped it as he’d pulled away.
Looking closely, Longarm could see a little flattened pile of golden kernels. It was clear that the horse had filled up on water and then discovered the corn. He had eaten and drunk all night. The corn, being bone dry, had absorbed the water as fast as the horse could drink, and had swollen and swollen until the horse had foundered himself. Just looking, Longarm could see how bloated the horse was.