There was a pause. “Without what?”
“Without a conscience. Hell, Jack, you don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Punishing you for robbery and murder and various other crimes would be like whipping a schoolboy for liking pie over potatoes.”
There was a longer pause. Then Jack Shaw said, “You ain’t nowhere near as funny as you think, Longarm. Meanwhile, that sun is going to get higher and higher, and you are going to get hotter and hotter and drier and drier. How much of this do you think you can take?”
Longarm calculated for a moment. Then he made up his mind and said, “Jack, there is something we need to talk on.”
“What?”
“Well, Hank Jelkco really done you a harm when he didn’t cut that telegraph wire. The last thing I did before I left the train and started after you and your bunch was to get off a wire to the commander of the Arizona Rangers company in Phoenix. They could show up today.
Or they could show up tomorrow. I figure they can’t be more than two days behind me at the most and likely making a hell of a lot better time than I did.” Shaw said, “Aw, bullshit, Longarm, you expect me to believe that kind of trifling talk? Hell! Pull my other leg, it’s longer.”
Longarm shook his head even though he knew Shaw couldn’t see him.
“Naw, naw, Jack. Listen to the sound of my voice. Do I sound like I’m shoveling it up? I tell you there was a wire got off to that headquarters detachment of Arizona Rangers in Phoenix. And I can guarantee you that I marked the trail I was tracking you over. I broke off limbs and I scuffed up the sand. At one point I took a five-dollar shirt out of my saddlebags and tore it into strips to mark the way.
They will still have to go through all those jumps and dodges you led me through, but they will get here.”
Shaw was still skeptical. “Yeah? How come you just now bringing this up? How come you didn’t tell me yesterday? How come you waited until you seen you couldn’t get me on your own, and figured you’d better invent you some story? Ain’t that about the size of it?”
“No, it ain’t. I didn’t tell you yesterday because you might have taken off on me. I couldn’t tell you until I was in this position where I knew for certain I could stop YOU.”
Shaw had a little worried note in his voice. “You are funnin’ me about them damn Arizona boys, ain’t you? Them damn Rangers don’t like me one little bit. I done made ‘em look bad too many times.”
“I know that, Jack.”
“Hell, they likely to not even take me back into town. They likely to drag me behind a horse, drag all the hide off me. Who would have custody?
Hell, you’re a federal officer, Custis.”
“Yeah, but we are in Arizona Territory and there will be a bunch of them and only one of me. Custody is something you argue about later in court. If a squabble starts over it on the spot, it’s generally the strongest side that wins. But I do believe a court would later rule that I, by rights of being a deputy U.S. marshal, would have custody. Or should have had custody.”
“Goddammit!” Shaw said bitterly. “That’s small comfort, Longarm, damn small comfort. Hell, that bunch is about half outlaws they ownselves. And they is a bunch of Mex’s in with them. They liable to skin me alive.”
Longarm nodded. “There is that chance, Jack.”
There was a troubled silence. Longarm could hear Shaw sigh and curse softly to himself. After a moment he said, “Well, Custis, I appreciate you putting me on to this fact. I reckon now I’ll have to take my chances with you. I don’t figure you can last. I’m about halfway willing to bet my neck that that sun gets you before it is good and dark tonight. And I’m willing to bet that you might even pass out from that heat. Or go out of your head. What do you reckon?”
Longarm hated to tell him. He was afraid it might make Jack Shaw do something rash. Of course that wouldn’t be so bad either. Get this affair over with and get on back to town. Longarm was promising himself as fine a time as a man ever treated himself to if he ever got off this high prairie and back to civilization. He was going to lie in a cold tub of water and drink cold beer and eat one steak right after another. But first he had to give Jack Shaw the bad news. He said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, Jack, but matters ain’t going to go in that direction. If I feel I can’t hold on until the Rangers get here, I’m going to start shooting your horses, and I’ll kill every one of them and leave you in the same shape I’m in. On foot. Out here in the big middle of nowhere. I reckon they’ll find you, Jack, no matter what happens to me.”
There was silence, and then Jack Shaw said, sounding amazed, “Why, goddamn, Custis, that is just downright mean. Cruel! Shoot a man’s horses?
Leave him afoot in this kind of country? Don’t you know it was for just such reasoning that we started hanging horse thieves?”
“Jack,” Longarm said calmly, “I am a lawman. And you did rob a train and kill several of the occupants. We take that kind of serious also.”
There was a silence. A little breeze stirred the morning coolness. The windmill blades creaked around, and water poured out of the little pipe and into the water barrel. Longarm looked over at it longingly. It was so close, yet so far away. Even if he was standing at the fence, he didn’t have a long enough neck and head like the horse to reach the water that was flooding out of the barrel.
Shaw said, “You shore you wouldn’t take some money and let me ride on out, Custis? Hell, I could leave you ten, maybe fifteen thousand dollars American. I’m talking money here, Custis. I know you are square as a preacher’s dice, but I ain’t Worth all this trouble. Hell, you are sufferin’ out there, Custis. Whyn’t you look the other way for about ten minutes and you’ll have you a nice little nest egg to hatch.”
Longarm let him talk, waiting for him to run down. When, by the silence, he figured Shaw was through, he said, “Jack, you are starting to run out of time. At least you are gambling with your time. When you are able to see those Rangers coming across the prairie, it will be too late for me to have any control over the situation. You ought to give yourself up now.”
“I can’t do that, Custis.” There was a pause. “I reckon I’m going to have to take my chances on what kind of shot you are. If you last out the day, I reckon sometime tonight I’ll mix in with the horses and try and make a getaway for the border.”
“You convince me of that and I might have to start shooting horses right now.”
“Hell, Custis, you don’t understand. I got enough I ain’t going to cut up wild no more. I’m heading straight for Mexico and I’m never coming back across that line again. You’ve seen the last of me. What good will it do you to see me rot in prison or swing at the end of a rope?”
“I’m glad to say I don’t have to think ‘bout such things, Jack. My orders are just to go out and catch ‘em. I don’t have to decide if they be guilty or set their punishment.” Shaw said morosely, “I know you ain’t bulling about them Arizona Rangers. Bulling never was your style, Custis. Not when it come to serious matters. I hate like hell the situation has come down to this. Hell, Custis, it has got damn serious.”
At a little after noon they began talking again. Longarm thought Shaw was starting to weaken enough that he might give serious attention to a proposal Longarm had. He said, “Jack, what kind of wanted paper they got on you in New Mexico Territory? I figure they got some, ain’t they?” Shaw said, the irritation plain in his voice, “You trying to crack a joke, Longarm? Hell, yes, they got wanted paper on me.”
“For what?”
Longarm could almost see Shaw shrug. “Oh, little cattle rustling. Robbed a couple of banks. I never done much business there. That’s a mighty poor piece of country next to Texas and Arizona. Hell, I figured go where they had the most to steal.”