“Well, you just run me clean out of patience, Shaw. I’m tired of fooling with you. I’ve been patient and straight, but all that is over with. You got two chances the way I see it, slim and none. And Slim left town.”
Chapter 5
Shaw said, “You plannin’ on trussin’ me up like a market pig, Custis?”
Longarm laughed without much humor. “Well, I can’t take your word if that is what you are getting at, Jack. I reckon you’ve already made it clear that anything is fair so long as it saves your neck. I’d have to hinder you in some way. I reckon you can understand that. I don’t much care for the idea of getting myself killed by trying to do you a favor.”
“You figure taking me in is a favor, do you? Didn’t you say something about you was getting plenty sick of laying out there in the sun with no water?”
“That’s true enough. But I’m willing to do it if you’d rather wait for the Arizona law. But I can tell you, Jack, the minute them little dots appear in the distance, there ain’t no more selections. I’ll have to turn you over to them.”
“You still ain’t answered me about binding me up. Custis, I tell you, I can’t stand that. It makes me go out of my head. I get to feeling like I can’t get my breath. I’d rather be kilt than all bound up.” Longarm said, “Well, I got a set of manacles in my saddlebags. How you feel about them?”
“Wrist cuffs or leg irons?”
“Naw, they are handcuffs, some call ‘em. I could fit you out with them. That ought to keep you from being a wide-open threat. You understand, I don’t blame you for wanting to get loose. Was I in your shoes and headed where you are, I’d want it too. But Jack, you done the robbing and murdering. Now you got to pay up.” There was a pause, and then Shaw said, “I reckon I could stand the wrist manacles. But would they be in front or back? I ain’t sure I could stand to be cuffed with my hands behind me. Minute you stuck my hands behind me, I’d get an itch somewhere in the front or have to blow my nose.”
“Oh, I reckon you could keep your hands in front of you. Long as I can satisfy myself you was constrained and couldn’t do no harm. You notice I ain’t bothering to ask for your word, don’t you? Your pledge.”
“You done said it once, Longarm. You’d be a damn fool to take it.”
“Well?”
“A well is a hole in the ground, Custis. Damnit, don’t rush me.”
“Turn it sideways,” Longarm said, “and it’s a mine shaft.
“I reckon you feel like you can make jokes. Well, I don’t.”
“Jack, that sun is starting to cross overhead. We don’t get out of here pretty soon, we won’t make enough miles the balance of the day to put much ground between you and them Arizona boys. Now what is it going to be?”
At Longarm’s direction Jack Shaw came walking out the front of the cabin until he was plainly in view. Longarm said, “Move on out a little further, Jack, and kind of bend it around toward me. I want to be able to get a good look at you. And you look pretty damn silly with your hands in the air like that. If you’ve got a weapon on you and you go for it, you ain’t fool enough to think I can’t pull this trigger and fire faster than you can get it out.”
Shaw, walking as he talked, said, “Just trying to get along, Custis. Don’t want to spook you into shooting me.”
“I ain’t got no interest in shooting you unless you make me. Keep that in your heart, Jack, and we won’t have no trouble. Now take off your shirt.” Shaw said, “Aw, hell, Longarm. That’s just plain silly, tight as this shirt fits. What you reckon I could conceal? That sun could burn the hide off me in ten minutes.”
“Take your shirt off, Jack.”
With ill humor Shaw unbuttoned his shirt and then peeled his way out of it. His arms and hands and neck and face were brown and leathery, but the skin covered by his shirt was almost white in comparison with the rest of him. Longarm could see his lean, hard build. The small muscles rolled and rippled as he shucked the shirt.
Longarm said, “Now turn completely around. In a circle.”
“Hell, this is getting ridiculous, Custis. Dammit, I’ve surrendered. What more do you want?”
“You ain’t never surrendered, Jack. And you and I both know that. You are only doing my bidding because it is the best for you right now. All right, sit down on the ground, facing me, and take off your boots.”
Shaw stood there, his hands at his side, his skin looking whiter under the sun. He said, “I’ll be damned if I will.”
Longarm laughed silently. By now Shaw was only fifteen yards away from where Longarm was sheltered behind the dead horse. “All right, Jack, don’t then. Make a run for the cabin if you’d druther.”
“Dammit, Longarm, you give your word!”
“I said I’d turn you in in New Mexico. And I will if you cooperate. Now make up your mind. Either take off your boots or make a run for the cabin. I know what can be hid in a boot because I’ve done it myself.”
Jack Shaw sighed. “Let me save us both some trouble.”
He bent over and started to put his hand inside his boot.
Longarm said quickly and warningly, “Hold it right there, Jack! Don’t you move a hair. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but whatever you are reaching for without permission had better be a biscuit or a picture of your girl or something else we can all enjoy.”
From his bent-over position Shaw said disgustedly, “Hell, it’s a gun, Longarm. A revolver.”
“Then you better treat it like a fresh-laid egg. You reach in there with just your thumb and one finger and bring it out and lay it on the ground. I am going to guarantee you, Jack, that it is in your best interests not to startle me or make me nervous.”
“All right, all right.” While Longarm watched him warily, Shaw drew a large-caliber revolver out of his boot top. He carefully laid it on the ground and straightened up. He said sarcastically, “There. You happy now?”
“Take five paces backwards, Jack,” Longarm said evenly, “and then sit down on the ground and take your boots off.”
“Well, damn it all, if that don’t take the cake. Hell, Longarm, what else you want? Hell, it’s hot out here.”
“Same deal as before. Take the five steps back, sit down, and take off your boots, or break for the cabin, I’ll shoot if you don’t do one and I’ll shoot if you do the other. Your choice.”
For a moment Shaw looked undecided. Then, grumbling, he sat down awkwardly on a tuft of bunchgrass and slowly pulled off one boot and then the other. He did it carefully, never seeming to let the tops tilt downward. When he was finished he set both boots neatly before him. He said, “There. You happy?”
“Get up,” Longarm said. He motioned with the barrel of his rifle, standing up for the first time since Shaw had come out of the cabin.
“Now walk out yonder, north, forty or fifty yards.”
Shaw was already on his feet. He looked amazed, then angry. “In my damn socks? Hell, Longarm, you crazy? I’ll cut my feet to pieces. There’s all kind of rocks and whatnot, not to mention bugs and spiders and even snakes.”
Longarm motioned with his rifle again. “Watch where you put your feet. You’ll be all right. Now go on.” He came around the horse and walked toward Shaw, stopping some ten yards short.
Shaw snarled. “Hell, Longarm, you never said nothin ‘bout all this folderol. I thought we was gonna saddle up and get out of here. What’s all this about?”
Longarm smiled thinly. “I reckon you can guess, Jack. I don’t mind helping you out for old times sake. I just don’t want to get killed in the process. Would you do it any different if you was me?”
Shaw turned and started to gingerly pick his way out from the cabin. He was watching carefully where he placed his feet. “Well I damn shore wouldn’t treat a friend this way,” he said.
“You reckon we are friends, Jack?”