Less than fifteen minutes had passed by the time Longarm and Coffin were mounted up in front of the hotel, ready to ride. Haggard, his face still drawn from shock and worry, Don Alfredo shook hands with both of them.
“Vaya con Dios,” he said. “Bring my daughter back to me, my friends.”
“You got our word on that,” Coffin swore. Longarm just nodded and didn’t say anything.
He hated to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.
The moon was high in the sky, a great Cyclopean eye gazing down on the Rio Grande as the two riders crossed the border river a little later. Siie by side, they moved up ooto the southern bank and started across the flat, semi-arid plain. Within a matter of moments, they were out of sight of the river.
That was why neither Longarm nor Lazarus Coffin saw the man who crossed the river behind them a few minutes later. He was a tall figure in the moonlight, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat and riding a black stallion. As the horse’s hooves splashed quietly in the waters of the Rio Grande, the man leaned forward slightly in the saddle, patted the magnificent animal on the shoulder, and said, “Well, here we go again, Phantom. Reckon one of these days, our luck’s going to run out. I just hope it’s not any time soon.”
Chapter 10
Any hopes that Longarm and Coffin had harbored of catching up quickly to El Aguila’s gang had faded by morning. The rising of the sun found them many miles deep into Mexico. Lack of sleep had made both men bone weary, and when Longarm suggested they call a short halt, Coffin made no objection.
“Leastways they ain’t tryin’ to hide their trail,” said Coffin as he lowered his canteen from his mouth. He gestured at the tracks they were following, which were plainly visible in the reddish glare of the rising sun.
“I guess they figure they’re not in much danger over here on this side of the border,” Longarm replied. He pulled the cork from his own canteen, lifted it to his mouth, and took a short sip of the tepid liquid inside. While this part of the country wasn’t exactly a desert, water holes weren’t very common either. A man who wasted water around here might pay a very high price for such foolishness.
Horses had to drink too, so Longarm and Coffin dismounted and used their hats to water their mounts. Both Longarm’s bay and Coffin’s steel-dust gelding stuck their muzzles in the head-gear and appreciatively sucked up the liquid.
“El Aguila and his men probably aren’t very afraid of the rurales,” Longarm went on, picking up the thread of their earlier comments, “and they know you and me ain’t supposed to be over here chasing after them.”
Coffin snorted in contempt. “I wouldn’t be scared of rurales neither.
That bunch is the sorriest excuse for lawmen-“
“They’re not all bad,” Longarm pointed out. “It’s just that a lot of their officers are corrupt, and they’re spread way too thin. True, most of ‘em don’t really give a damn, but some of them try to do their job.”
Coffin looked like he would just as soon believe that a fella could flap his arms and fly to the moon. He took up the reins of the steel-dust and started walking so that the horse could rest. Longarm followed suit with the bay mare.
After a few minutes, Coffin said, “I done told you how come I’m wearin’ this badge, Long. How’d you come to be a lawman?”
“It’s something I sort of just drifted into,” Longarm replied. That wasn’t completely the truth, but it would do. “I came out West after the war and did some cowboying for a while, then figured out that was a good way to wind up old, stove up, and broke.”
A grin spread across Coffin’s bearded face. “So you took up a nice, safe, high-payin’ job like man-huntin’.”
“Yep, and wound up breaking a few bones and wearing out a few saddles anyway. But I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I’ve lived this long anyway.”
“I had no notion I’d ever be a lawman. Hell, if anything, I figured I’d be ridin’ the other side of the trail.” Coffin shrugged his massive shoulders. “But I’m wearin’ the badge now, and I plan to be the best Ranger I can be. I’ve met a bunch of ‘em since I joined up, and they’re good men.”
Longarm thought about Billy Vail and nodded. “Yeah, they are ... most of ‘em.” Coffin let that pass. The two men walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then he asked, “You get any lovin’ from Senorita Guiterrez?” The bluntness of the question made Longarm frown in surprise. He slid a cheroot from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth, then clenched it unlit between his teeth and said, “A gentleman don’t talk about such things, old son.”
Coffin laughed. “I didn’t figure you’d got in her pants. She’s the type that just likes to lead a fella on, get him all hot and bothered, then cut the legs out from under him.” He shook his head. “She gave me all sorts of looks and even said some pretty bold things to me, but when it came time for her to actually do somethin’ about it, she didn’t want no part of it. No, sir, then she was just an innocent again.”
Longarm chewed on the cheroot and didn’t say anything. Coffin seemed as much amused as he was bothered by Sonia’s teasing behavior, but Longarm figured that the Ranger probably wouldn’t want to hear about what had been going on in that alley just before El Aguila’s bunch had raided Del Rio again.
Instead of commenting, Longarm looked around, studying their surroundings. They were still traveling through flat land, but ranges of hills had risen to the east and west of them and appeared to gradually be drawing closer together. There were probably plenty of good hiding places in those hills, but the tracks of El Aguila’s gang didn’t veer off from their continued southerly direction.
Suddenly, as Longarm looked at the hills to the west, movement caught his eye. He turned his head so that he could look directly at the rocky upthrusts, and after a moment he asked casually, “You don’t happen to have a pair of field glasses in those saddlebags of yours, do you, Coffin?”“Nope. What is it you want to look at?”
Without stopping, Longarm nodded toward the hills he had been watching. “Take a look over yonder in those hills. See anything?”
For a long moment, Coffin didn’t say anything as he squinted toward the distant heights. Then he growled, “Son of a bitch. Are those Yaquis?”
“That’d be my guess. I think I caught a flash of color a time or two from those bandannas they wear tied around their heads.”
“Son of a bitch,” Coffin said again. “We best make a run for it.” He turned toward his horse, ready to mount up.
“Hold on,” Longarm said quickly. “They’re still a ways off, and they’re just riding along through the hills, heading south like we are. Maybe they’re not even interested in us.”“You ever dealt with Yaquis before?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Longarm.
“Then you know it ain’t smart to fool around with ‘em. They like killin’ better’n just about anything, and they like killin’ white men best of all. I heard stories about how they caught a party of prospectors who’d come over here and tortured all of ‘em to death.”
Longarm had heard similar stories, and knew that they had a basis in fact. The Yaquis, native to northern Mexico, were a fierce breed of people, and the Mexican government and military had had as much trouble with them over the years as the Americans had had with the Apaches and Comanches. Maybe even more, because as far as Longarm knew, none of the Yaquis were on reservations. They were all still living free in the mountains and foothills.