Longarm figured that a man like Jelkco, who wasn’t very skillful at anything else, would have to have had a good eye for a getaway horse or else he wouldn’t have managed to get as old as he had. His mistake had been not being able to read men, especially men like Jack Shaw.
Longarm knew for a fact that many a man was eager to ride with Jack Shaw because he’d been a lawman, which to them meant he’d be straight and fair and know the secret ways to get around the law. Well, not only wasn’t Jack Shaw straight and fair, he didn’t know any secret ways around the law, mainly because there weren’t any.
Longarm found quite a quantity of revolvers and rifles, along with a good amount of ammunition, inside the cabin. Shaw had a bedroll and several big canvas water bags, but nowhere near as much grub as he’d let on to having. In the end Longarm found a canvas tarp that Shaw had been using as a groundcloth. He turned that into a pack, lacing it over one of the three remaining horses. After that he took time to get himself something to eat. He’d already drunk his fill of water, just standing on his tiptoes, bracing himself against the big, high barrel and sticking his mouth right into the stream of water that was being pumped out of the ground by the creaking, rusty blades of the windmill.
Shaw had been right about that part, at least. The water was cool and sweet, almost like artesian water, but Longarm knew that it was a shallow well that had tapped into one of the underground springs that dotted the country. After that he ate some of Shaw’s dried beef, a few stale biscuits, and a can of peaches and a can of tomatoes. It was a long way from his idea of a meal, but it beat the hell out of what he had had for the last day or two. He was inside the cabin, enjoying the cool shade, for so long that Shaw started hollering. Longarm just let him shout, and finished off his meal with a good drink of his Maryland whiskey and part of a cigar. He smoked it only a third of the way down, and then carefully tamped it out and put it back in his pocket. He was down to two cigars besides the partial one. That was getting seriously low on tobacco.
When he came out to saddle and bridle Shaw’s horse, the outlaw was fairly writhing with fear and rage. He said, “Goddammit, Longarm, are you tryin’ to get me taken up by them Arizona Rangers? Hell, Grammaw was slow but she was old. What in hell you been doin’?”
“I been having a bite, Jack. Didn’t you invite me to?”
“Hell, you can eat up the trail somewheres. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Soothe your mind, Jack. We got plenty of time.” Longarm reached in his saddlebags and came out with a short little telescope. He pulled it out to its fullest length and trained it north, toward the last few foothills and mountains where Jack Shaw had come out on the prairie. He looked the country over carefully. All he could see moving was a doe and a couple of fawns. He compressed the spyglass and put it back where it had come from. “So far no sign of them,” he said. “We ought to be out of here in about a half an hour. No more. By the way, I didn’t see your winnings from that robbery in the cabin. Where are they?”
Shaw looked up at him from where he was sitting on the ground with his hands holding the post. He said, “Why, the money ain’t here, Custis. I hid it.”
Longarm stopped pulling up the girth on Shaw’s gray. He stepped around the horse and shifted his way through two others to get to where he could look directly at the outlaw. “What are you talking about, the money’s not here?”
“I mean it’s not here.”
Longarm stared at Shaw’s eyes for a long time. “YOU are lying, Jack, and there’s no sense in it. You ain’t going to be able to come back here and claim the money. You are going to prison if you don’t catch a rope. Now where is the money?”
Shaw jerked his head toward the north. “I cached it up yonder. Right after I kilt them last two, or kilt the one who kilt the other. I wanted to make sure the coast was clear to the border. I didn’t want the money with me. I feared it might give me away.” He touched his cheek where the birthmark was. “Not everybody was going to connect me with that robbery like you done.”
“Son of a bitch!” Longarm said. He turned and walked away a few steps. “Hell! Hell and damnnation! You have throwed me in a hell of a situation. Damn!”
He stood there staring back at the small mountains, distant in the thin air.
“What the hell is the matter?” Shaw said. “What are you so riled up about?”
Longarm faced around to him. “Hell, Jack, think for a minute. I bring you in in New Mexico. And I bring you in without the money. It ain’t going to look good. It ain’t going to look good at all. Not even a little bit.” Shaw said, “Aw, hell, Longarm, ain’t nobody gonna suspect you of stealin’ that swag. Hell, they’d suspect the President first.”
Longarm went close to him. “Are you lying to me, Jack?”
“Hell, no. I swear I stashed that money back just at the foot of the mountains. And for the reason I give you.”
Longarm glanced at the far-away hills. “I ain’t sure I believe you. How much was the take?”
Shaw looked hesitant.
Longarm said, “Dammit, Shaw, I ain’t putting up with this. Now, how much was it?”
Shaw grimaced. “Little over sixty thousand, though I didn’t count it down to the last ten spot.”
“How’d it come?”
“Some paper money, but mostly gold coin. Eagles and double eagles and twenty-dollar gold pieces. Some fifty-dollar gold cartwheels.”
“Sixty thousand, huh?” He whistled. “Not bad, Jack. No wonder you didn’t want to share.”
“It’s what I meant about not ever comin’ back here again. I figured to live the rest of my life on that money in Mexico.” Longarm said with disgust, “Aw, hell, Shaw. You couldn’t have gone six months without getting up to some crookedness. Do you really think you rob and kill for the money?” He suddenly shook his head. “The hell with that. You say you ain’t got it here?”
Shaw shook his head. “I’m telling you, Custis. It’s back yonder. A good fifteen, twenty-mile ride.”
Longarm said, “We’ll see.” He went through the back door and into the dim interior of the small cabin. He looked slowly around, up and down the walls and at the ceiling. The floor was hard-packed dirt. He walked carefully over it, looking for any signs of disturbance. There were none. Neither could he find a shovel or any other digging tool.
The only tool about the place was a wooden-tined pitchfork, and he couldn’t see where much could be done with that.
He walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, looking for places in the rock where something might be secreted. But sixty thousand dollars in coin and paper was quite a little bundle to hide.
He looked toward the ceiling, toward the few rafters that stretched across the roof. There was no sign of anything or any sign that anything had been disturbed. There was a small fireplace with a rock chimney. The fireplace was empty, but Longarm got down on his hands and knees and looked up the chimney. All he saw was a square of light blue sky.
He went back outside through the front door and walked carefully around the cabin and the corral, looking for any sign of where the money could be hidden. There was nothing outside on the featureless plain and nothing he could see inside the corral that might do for a place to make a cache. Shaw was swearing and cussing with every step Longarm took. “Dammit, Longarm, we got to get out of here! You gonna git me hung. Hell, I give myself up to you to avoid that. Now you goin’ to stick around here until it be too late. If I’d of stayed in the cabin I’d of at least been able to make a fight out of it. Damn you, Longarm, the goddamn money is not here!”
Longarm didn’t bother to answer. He stood, staring. It could be on the roof, but he didn’t see a ladder or any way of climbing the sheer walls of the cabin. Still, it might have been thrown up there with the idea of coming back with some way to get up there. He could at least have a look.