After that he went looking around the livery stable to see what kind of horses they had for sale. He didn’t see anything that looked much better than what he had. The man at the livery stable told him there was a horse trader out a mile, but Longarm decided he’d save that for later.
Right then he wanted a drink and he wanted it in a glass and in a saloon. He also wanted a couple of beers to go with it. He wanted to sit in a cool, dim saloon for about two hours and have a few quiet drinks and rest his spirit as best he could. It had been a hard assignment that had taken longer than he’d thought, and was not having anywhere near as good a result as he’d expected.
He stopped in at a general mercantile store and considered buying another rifle. In the end all he purchased was a box of cartridges for his pistol. Jack Shaw had his rifle, and he intended on getting it back. He was used to that rifle, and it was a weapon that had seen him through some tight places. He was damned if he was going to lay out forty-five dollars for another one when his was only half a hundred miles from him. Besides, he didn’t think the showdown with Shaw was going to take place at long range. He wanted the man alive, and that didn’t call for rifle work. What he wanted the most was to get close enough to get his hands on Shaw. The man had caused him considerable trouble, and he had every intention of beating the billy blue hell out of him.
Longarm went to bed at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and slept until eight that night. He got up and ate a big supper at the same cafe, and then came back and went to sleep again, and slept until a little after one in the morning. Sitting, yawning, and still groggy, he forced himself to his feet and went sleepily down to the livery stable, his saddlebags over his shoulder. He woke the night man, who helped him rig up, and then was on his way by two o’clock in the morning. He would have at least five hours of cool traveling during the night before the blazing sun got up enough to do real damage.
Fortunately, there was a stage and wagon road to Douglas, so he didn’t have to go cross-country over the rough, barren terrain which seemed capable only of supporting sand and rocks and where every growing thing seemed compelled to armor itself in stickers or thorns.
He was riding the roan and leading the little black. He had not been satisfied with any trade he could make, either with the quality of the horseflesh or the price of the animal. In the end he’d decided to try to make it on the two he had left. Both seemed to have benefitted by the day of rest and the feed.
It wasn’t as cold as it had been up on the high prairie. Still, Longarm could see his breath and the breath of the horses as he left the dark town behind and set out on his trip.
He figured to travel for six hours and then look for a place to lay up during the hottest part of the day. After that, if the horses were up to it, he intended to push on for Douglas, hoping to arrive sometime in the early night hours. The biggest problem was that there was no water on the way. He was carrying enough for himself, of course, but the horses would have to make it through again dry. As weakened as they were, it was not a situation he much relished. The livery man had said he might get lucky and run across a freighter who’d have a barrel of water for his own stock and who might let Longarm refresh his stock for a price. Other than that, he’d found no way to carry water that wouldn’t defeat its own purpose by being more of a load than it was worth. Most riders heading to Douglas were riding fresh, rested, and well-fed animals who were strong enough for the task, and the travelers pushed straight on through, making the fifty-mile jump in one stretch.
And a man could do that if he had a horse capable of sustaining seven or eight miles an hour, but Longarm was afraid to push his mounts at a pace much faster than a man could walk.
At least there was the road. As the moon commenced to get down and it got darker and darker, Longarm was more and more grateful for the rough but recognizable road. He would have hated to be traveling without one across such rough country in such darkness. It was a quick way to break a horse’s leg.
He had restocked his whiskey and cigars, and as he rode along he would, from time to time, turn in the saddle and fetch out a bottle of whiskey. Of course he hadn’t been able to find any of his Maryland whiskey in such an outpost as Benson, but the pop-skull he’d obtained would make you just as drunk and leave you with just as bad a head the next morning. But he was drinking purely for medicinal purposes, to ward off the cold.
As he rode, he deliberately did not let himself dwell on Jack Shaw, or try and imagine what the situation might be that he would have to face when he finally ran the man to ground. He’d learned the hard way not to scale mountains or swim rivers until you got to them. You could visualize what a situation was going to be, make plans to overcome it, and then find out all your imagination had been for naught when you finally got to the scene and found it was nothing like you’d expected.
He’d just handle the situation, whatever it might be, when he got to it.
Dawn took a long time to arrive, and Longarm was thoroughly tired of the unchanging dark as they plodded through it. He wondered if Shaw was using the night cover to cross over from the U.S. to his ranch in Mexico. Maybe he’d already made the crossing. Longarm didn’t know and didn’t care. All of that could wait until they met. At least now, he wouldn’t be burdened by trying to find out where Shaw had hidden the money. But in many ways, he wished he hadn’t found out. It made him feel like a damn fool. He remembered with a twinge how Shaw had been so eager to fill the water bags from the pipe and fill the coffeepot. He hadn’t wanted Longarm anywhere near that barrel. And yet Longarm had drunk from that pipe, but he’d never thought to poke around in the dark water of the barrel. Well, it was all just as well. Longarm had been needing a good bringing down for some time, and Shaw was doing a good job of handling the task.
Finally it was good daylight. The road ahead and behind was empty.
Longarm would have to wait for several hours if he was to have any hope of meeting a wagoneer who might have extra water to sell. He could see, by looking behind him, that the terrain was continuin to slope downwards the further south he went. It was ugly, bleak country, even less inviting than the high prairie, which at least grew greasewood and bunchgrass. Nothing appeared to grow in this desolate country except snakes and sagebrush and spiders and cactus. Off to his left he could see a small range of mountains, but he knew the jagged crests were at least fifty miles away, if not further. He figured they were probably part of the Sierra Madre range in northern Mexico.
It got to be eight in the morning. Since the sun had been up good, Longarm had begun looking around for someplace to shelter during the heat of the day. The only thing he’d seen had been some cactus about four feet tall. There was no sign of a tree, much less a grove of trees. Naturally, there was no sign of any kind of building. Why would anyone build a dwelling or a barn or any other sort of structure in such a place? You couldn’t grow a crop in such a place, so you didn’t need a farmhouse. And you damn sure couldn’t raise cattle or horses or even goats, so you didn’t need a ranch headquarters. He’d been an idiot to have expected to find shelter in such a terrain and country. He should have let the horses rest all night and started about noon. That way they would have only gotten six or seven hours of the worst of the sun and he could have pushed on at night. But it was too late for such thinking.
He kept on until nine and then ten, going slower and slower. He could tell by the saliva flecking around the bit of the roan that the horse badly needed water. Dry spit was a bad sign in a horse.
An hour later, with no sign of shelter and no sign of a wagon, either coming or going, Longarm had about reached the decision to stop and rest the horses, shade or no shade, when he felt the first tremor between his legs. He did not hesitate. He immediately pulled the roan to a halt and leapt to the ground. But even in that short a time the horse was already beginning to shake all over. Longarm had seen it before, and it was a sight he hated. As quickly as he could, he undid the saddle cinch and let it swing free below the horse’s belly. By now the horse had spraddled out his legs in an effort to stay erect.