The barrel of his belly and chest was distended at least two or three inches. The first time Shaw fired into the animal he was going to deflate like a full wineskin jabbed with a knife. Longarm shook his head. It was a hell of a way for the animal to die. As well as Longarm understood it, the horse’s belly had swollen so much it had pushed in on its lungs and the animal couldn’t breathe. He wished now that he had risked a shot the night before. Maybe he could have spared the poor animal a few moments of agony. He sighed. Somebody had once said that the West was all right for a particular breed of men, but it was hell on women and horses.
But at least the animal hadn’t died in vain. His death, and the place he’d chosen to fall, had been a godsend to Longarm. He figured he and Shaw were now pretty close to being on equal terms. True, Shaw had the shade and the water and the food, but he wasn’t going anywhere. All Longarm had to do was find a way to hold out until the Rangers came. A thought came to him. He reached into the burlap bag and came out with a handful of the dried corn. He tentatively tried a grain in his mouth, working at it with his teeth. In a moment he gave it up as a bad job and spat out the kernel. But then another thought came. He unscrewed the cap of his canteen and dropped a dozen of the kernels inside. They’d soak up some of the water, but maybe, with a little soaking, they’d be chewable. He was getting a little tired of desert air for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Longarm heard Shaw from the front of the cabin. “Longarm, where in hell are you? Speak up. This ain’t a damn bit funny.”
Longarm kept quiet.
Shaw’s voice got a dangerous tone. “Dammit, Longarm, you better speak up. If you are still curled up in that ditch behind that greasewood, you better either talk or get into a mighty small ball.”
Longarm got out the stump of the cigar he’d used the day before and then fished around in his pocket until he’d found a match. He struck it on the thick end of his thumbnail. It flared and he held it to the blackened end of the cigar, puffing hard to get it going through the burnt layer. The cigar was barely three inches long, but he was determined to get all he could out of it. He had damn few comforts left, and he was going to smoke the cigar until it burned his lips.
A shot suddenly rang out. Longarm glanced to his left. He could see a spurt of dirt as a bullet cut through the lip of the wash, cutting through the roots of the greasewood bramble. Another shot rang out, and then another and another, all placed at the base of the greasewood, each cutting a little more off the lip of the wash. Longarm could tell that Shaw was aiming carefully from the precise way the shots were being patterned. It was clear Shaw was cutting down the angle into the wash as much as he could. He wondered if Shaw was back up on his chair, maybe had it leaned against the wall by the door.
Longarm listened patiently and watched as Shaw emptied one magazine in his rifle, then, judging by the lack of time it took, picked up another rifle and kept on shooting. Longarm did not keep count, but he judged that Shaw must have fired somewhere between twenty and thirty shots before he paused. Longarm could see a little furrow cut into the lip of the wash, and could see that a number of the greasewood plants had been cut down at the roots. He felt very glad to be out of the wash.
As best he could judge, none Of the shots would have hit him, but some would have come closer than the shirt on his back. It would have been an uncomfortable time to be frozen there while Shaw poured in shot after shot. Longarm figured Shaw probably had four or five carbines, or as many as he’d cared to take from his illfated comrades.
Shaw said in a loud voice, “That going to make you speak up, Longarm?”
“Hell, Jack, you awake already? Damn, I was just getting breakfast on.”
There was a silence, and then Shaw said, “Longarm, you sonofabitch, where are you? You done moved, ain’t you? I thought, right after you throwed that rock, you sounded funny. You moved then, didn’t you? Only you went to not talkin’ so I wouldn’t know it while it was still dark, didn’t you?”
“You’re a hard man to fool, Jack.”
“And you let me waste all them cartridges on that damn ditch! Hell!”
“Yeah, but you shot the hell out of that ditch, Jack. If I ever seen a empty ditch get the hell shot out of it, that one did.”
There was a pause, and then Shaw said, “Where the hell are you? You’re around to the west side of the cabin, ain’t you? What the hell you doing around there? They ain’t no cover I know of. And you sound too close to be back far enough to be out of rifle shot.
“Maybe I ain’t got no cover, Jack. Why don’t you step on around and see?”
“What are you up to? I don’t much like you around there where I can’t get some sight of you.”
“That’s right, Jack. You never can tell when I’m liable to come crawling up there and snake my way over to that front window and find you sittin’ there dumb and happy eatin’ canned peaches.”
Longarm heard Shaw sigh, then say, “Well, I reckon the game done turned serious, Custis. I reckon it is going to come to a killing.”
“It don’t have to, Jack.”
“Then what are you up to?”
“I wanted to get over here where I could watch the front of the cabin, at least the side of it, but mainly I wanted a good view of the corral and your horses. I never really knew when you might take it into your head to try and break for it, grabbing a horse and taking off south. But now I can. I can see every horse. I can see every foot inside the corral. I can even see a little piece of your back door. You ain’t gonna get your hands on one of them horses. Not no way, not no how. At least not alive.”
Shaw gave a bark of brittle laughter. “Hell, Longarm, that’s all you know. I could rope me one of them ponies from inside the cabin and bring him in through the back door and have him saddled and ready to go. Come dark I could come out of here at a dead run and be gone before you could get your rifle ready.”
Longarm said mildly, “No you couldn’t, Jack. You ain’t strong enough.”
Shaw’s voice was puzzled. “Strong enough for what?”
“To drag a dead horse inside your cabin, because he’d be dead before you could tighten the noose around his neck. I can promise you that.”
“Don’t try and corner me now, Longarm. Don’t try and hem me up. I get plumb excited when that happens. I’m liable to come around one of them corners with a gun going in either hand. I know you ain’t got no cover.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“What’d you do, kill that packhorse? He get tired of drinkin’ water and come wanderin’ over placed just so?”
Longarm could picture Jack Shaw standing just inside the cabin door, a rifle in his hand, his hand to his ear, trying to place exactly where Longarm was. He said, “Naw, Jack, he foundered himself.”
“Foundered himself? On what?”
“I had a load of dried shelled corn on his back, and he ripped the pack and the corn spilled out, and between that and the water he was getting out of your windmill barrel, he managed to do the trick.”
“That would just about do it,” Shaw said. “I bet he swelled up like an old maid’s hopes.”
“He’d pop you stuck a pin in him.”
“That sun gonna be up pretty good right quick. You reckon he’s swelled up now, you let him cure under that sun for a few hours. I reckon by tonight he ain’t gonna smell so good. Reckon you can stand that?”
“Well, Jack, I been a lawman a good many years. I reckon I’ve smelled worse.”
“You ain’t meanin’ nothin’ personal by that, be you, Custis?”
“Aw, hell, no, Jack. You ain’t lowdown and rotten like some of them crooks I got to deal with. You can’t help it because you was born without.”