Shaw gave him a faint smile. “I know you don’t. I can’t think of another man I’d of trusted in that situation. But I knew you’d stick to the bargain.”
“Jack, you talk a hell of a lot. You know that? You don’t have to say everything you know like some damn woman.” Shaw said, “I thought you was gonna stick there for a moment on the loot.”
Longarm grimaced. “Don’t remind me. Dammit, I am going to look bad about this.”
Shaw laughed. “You haven’t got a thing to worry about, Custis. I’m going to give you all the details about that cache that you need.”
Longarm shrugged philosophically. “Well, Jack, if you’re playing me false, there is nothing I can do about it. But that money isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good. I know you figure to break out of jail or prison or wherever and go back and get that money, but I don’t think that is going to be the way the stick floats.”
The sun was burning hotter than ever, it seemed to Longarm. He had soaked his hat and shirt and bandanna under the water, getting them as wet as he deemed possible. They had felt like the cool touch of a virgin when he’d put them on, but they’d dried out in half an hour and now there was no relief. He was heading toward where he hoped would be another line cabin, about fifteen miles distant from the other one. It was no certainty, however, as the cabin they’d used might have been the last in the line.
But Longarm desperately wanted to find some shelter and more water for the horses. He and Shaw had ample water with the water bags, but they were a long way from any natural water. Longarm could only hope that there would be another line cabin, that they would find it in the trackless wastes, and that it would have a working water well.
As they trailed over the plains, it was clear that they were on a part of the range that was closed until the autumn. There wasn’t a cow in sight. In fact, except for a jackrabbit now and again, or a skulking coyote, there was nothing else alive that Longarm could see.
Shaw had not wanted to make for the line cabin. He’d feared that the Rangers would pick up their trail at the first cabin and run them down. Longarm had assured him that the Rangers couldn’t possibly reach the first cabin before dark and they’d be in no mood to trail anyone anywhere. He’d said, “They’ll be as give-out as I was, and their horses about the same. All they’ll want to do is get everybody well watered and then get some grub and cover their backs with their bellies and have a rest.
Shaw had argued that fifteen miles wasn’t much of a lead. Longarm had said, “They can’t go no faster than we can. You want to duck south? That’s exactly what they’d figure you to do and that’s where they’ll go to cutting for sign. Besides, as chewed up as this country is, it is damn hard to pick up and cut out any one set of tracks. By tomorrow morning our tracks will be blowed over likely as not. All they are going to figure is that you are cutting for the border and they will concentrate on that.” Shaw had said, “Yeah, but what happens when they see you ain’t leavin’ no tell-tales like you had been?”
Longarm had smiled. “They’ll reckon you done me in. But one thing we got to get straight, Jack. We ain’t partners and the decisions ain’t open to argument. Your job is not to fall off your horse and not to irritate me no more than is absolutely necessary. Other than that, you are along for the ride.”
They had gotten away, by Longarm’s watch, which he thought was still telling the correct time, at three o’clock. Sundown, he reckoned, would come around seven o’clock. If the line shack was no more than fifteen miles away, they should make that with time to spare and without pushing the horses. Before they had left he’d worked the grain sack loose from the dead packhorse and spread the corn around for the five horses. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the dead bunchgrass that was all there was else for them to eat. But it wasn’t feed he worried about for the horses. It was water. Lack of feed would only make them skinny; lack of water would kill them.
They had been riding about three hours when Jack Shaw said, “Longarm, how come you don’t hate my guts?”
It surprised Longarm. It was not something he’d given much thought to, not in the case of Jack Shaw or most of the outlaws he dealt with. He said, “I don’t know what you mean, Jack. Why should I hate your guts?”
“Well, for openers I’ve pulled every dirty trick on you I could think of, all the way from talkin’ you into lighting up so I could get a shot at you to concealing two guns in my boots.”
Longarm laughed. “Hell, Jack, that’s your job. I would have been surprised if you hadn’t pulled something. Hell, you’re a bandit, an outlaw, a robber. I ain’t ever likely to take you for no circuit preacher. But one little item, you didn’t exactly fool me with that cigar business. I had my own plans for that.”
Shaw nodded. “Yeah, that one kind of misfires on me. Or at least your rifle did. Yeah, you really suckered me on that one. I wasn’t near as smart as I thought I was. Naw, what I reckon I mean is I’m just about as opposite of you as you can get. I ain’t got no notions ‘bout myself being anything other than what I am. But a man like you ought to despise me. I would if I was you.”
Longarm shook his head. “Ain’t no profit in it, Jack. You’re like you are because, well, just because you are. I do my job by not letting you do yours. Or at least not letting you get away with it.” He suddenly paused and laughed. “When you think about it, Jack, I’m kind of beholden to you. If it wasn’t for you and your kind I’d be out of a job.”
Shaw swung his head around, frowning. “That’s a hell of a thing to say. What do you mean, me and my kind? Ain’t nobody like me. Hell, don’t be lumpin’ me in there with the rest of that trash don’t know how to eat with a fork or when to spit and when to holler and can’t read nor write even their own names. I come from a good family and I had eight years’ schoolin’. I was even married once.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Longarm said. “I didn’t know you was touchy on the situation. I also didn’t know you’d ever been married. What happened?”
Now it was Shaw’s turn to laugh. “Damnedest thing. I married her whilst I was the high sheriff in Brownsville. Only white woman in the county, I think. Things was a little wild back then. That devil Cortina, the one that called himself the Red Bandito, was cutting up pretty good and trying to steal everything that wasn’t tied down. She quit me and went back up to Houston. Said I was in too dangerous a line of work.”
Longarm smiled. “If she could see you now. Only about ten miles from a party of Rangers every one of whom has a rope and the urge to use it.”
Shaw looked annoyed. “That ain’t a damn bit funny, Custis.”
“Aw, take it easy, Jack. You’re well away from them.”
They rode a little further, and Jack Shaw said, “Naw, I mainly meant you ought to hate my guts because I used to be a lawman, like yourself, and I turned. I meant that as the reason. Like you might see me as a traitor.”
Longarm said lightly, “First off, Jack, you ain’t never been and never was gonna be a lawman like me. Like yourself, they is some comparisons I don’t care for. If you’d been a lawman like me you still would be one. Savy?”
Shaw glanced back, his lip curling a little. “Yeah, if that’s the way you’ll have it. Ain’t no matter to me. Though I reckon I ain’t the first has swapped sides of the badge.”
“Lord, no!” Longarm said. “When I first come out here as a deputy U.S. marshal, it was about as catch-as-catch-can an outfit as you ever saw. We all worked for a federal judge. I was under one out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and worked the Oklahoma Territory. Hell, you never knew from one day to the next whether you was gonna be drinkin’ whiskey with your fellow marshals or looking to hang them. I tell you them was some uncertain times. And I wasn’t much more than a young sprat hardly dry behind the ears. Was plenty of chances to take a wrong turning in the road.”