He went on as if he hadn’t noticed anything. He passed by the front of the first barn and paused to look in. There was nothing there except some tools and bales of hay. The next building was a small shed that held harness and ropes and various other paraphernalia for handling stock. Over in the corner, he saw several pairs of sandals. The trick was to get one of them without making his own tracks into the building. He found a rake leaning up against the side of the building and, walking just on his toes, was able to snare three separate sandals. He pulled them over to him. Two of them were right-footed. One of the right-footed sandals was too small. The other was just about the right size, except it was a little broad. After that, Longarm very carefully smoothed the dirt with the other side of the rake before leaning it back in its place and continued on his way west, carrying the sandal he had stolen and leaving the telltale notched shoe print that the brothers would be counting on.
He passed the last of the outbuildings, being careful to keep them between himself and the house. He had come, he reckoned, about a mile and a half. He was trotting now, hurrying as fast as he could. It was hard going. Most of his life had been spent on horseback and he was not a good walker, much less a runner. But that all had to change now. Too much was at stake. He was still in loose sand country. Leaving an obvious trail. He badly needed a hard surface that would allow him to go undetected for at least a hundred or so yards.
Finally, as his breath was beginning to give out, he hit a rock flat. He stepped up on the first of the ledges and then began walking carefully, being certain not to leave any sign of his passing. Ahead, he could see the limestone rock extending for at least a hundred yards, maybe further. His hope was to give the impression that he had headed west. He himself wanted to cut south where he thought there was some low country, some gullies or ditches or washouts. He wanted a view of the house by seven o’clock to see which way Claude went when he left, to see which way he would choose to hunt him. He thought they would expect him to head straight for the buttes and the little hills since that was the best country for him to defend. He figured they would think he would head west in order to turn back and head toward the east. He intended for them to have that impression, but it was not exactly the way he was going to do it.
He walked approximately two hundred yards on the rocks, leaving no tracks. When he was sure he had arrived at a place where he couldn’t be trailed, he backed up on the rocks and then, still wearing the notched sandal, headed off toward the northeast, as if he was headed for the top end of the buttes, heading far enough north that he could find a rise or a piece of low ground where he could sneak past the house and get into the forward reaches of the buttes. He went a couple, three hundred yards in that direction in his notched sandal until he found some grassy prairie. After that, he went on a little further before he sat down and exchanged his right sandal for one he had gotten out of the harness shed. From there, he turned back, heading south, staying well away from his own previous track. Now, anyone pursuing him would just see one of the print tracks of one of the workers around the ranch. There would be no giveaway notch in the right heel.
Now, he walked as rapidly as he could to the south. He knew that he was out of sight of the house, unless they were watching him with a telescope, which they had promised they wouldn’t. But nevertheless, he took advantage of every bit of low ground that he could find so that at the most, all he ever saw was the top of the roof of the big house.
As he ran, he got out his watch and looked at it. He was startled to see that it was closing in on five-thirty. A feeling of panic tugged at his chest. He had wasted more time than he had thought. He didn’t know if there was going to be time for the quickly devised plan he had pieced together.
But fortunately, some three and a half miles south of the big house, he found a pretty sharply cut ravine that wandered toward the east for what he considered a considerable distance. He followed it about a mile and a half until it broke up into a little series of arroyos. He picked the biggest one of these, and kept in it until he was east of the house but with a good view of it. He figured it was about a mile and a half away. The sun was starting to go down, but he still thought he’d see Claude when he came out and could see which direction he would go. He was willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Claude would head west following his telltale sandal, then cut up north along the path that he, Longarm, had left, and then guess when the trail petered out that Longarm was headed toward the buttes to the northeast. At least, that was what had to happen if he, Longarm, was going to have a chance.
He ducked his head down and kept hurrying east along the little cuts and draws and arroyos. It was rough going, especially when he had to run bent over. He knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. He had to be in position when the first man, Claude, came looking for him.
He was gasping by now, but the thought of his badge mounted on the wall in the Nelsons’ trophy room drove him on with renewed energy. He knew he was playing in a game where the cards were stacked against him worse than any other time in his life. He had been suckered in. Not only had he allowed himself to be taken in, he hadn’t protected a fellow officer who was too young to have been entrusted with what was really his, Longarm’s, work.
He could tell from the way the sun slowed that dusk was going to hold for sometime. It did that in the desert. The sun seemed to just sit there, the bottom on the horizon and the top blazing across the hot desert. Finally, he had worked his way until he was opposite a string of little rocky ridges and buttes and little hills. It would be open ground between the hills and the ditch he’d finally crawled into, but he reckoned it was too far from the house for them to see him. He stopped to take a drink of water and to eat some of the beef and biscuits, and then he crawled out of the ditch and using what cover he could, made for the first of the rocky outcroppings. It stood some five or six feet high. The next one was higher, and the one after that was higher still. It culminated in a butte about twenty or thirty feet high, all rock, with cactus and greasewood growing out of the cracks. As he slithered through the tall grass like a lizard, he paused to look at his watch. He made it out to be five minutes until seven. Claude would be starting soon.
He got to the first of the rocky ridges and stared back toward the house. It was a long view, but he could make out a few dots working behind the house, the servants and the field hands. If he could see them, he reckoned he would be able to see Claude Nelson. Now he could move more freely since the outcroppings and the ridges blocked him off from the house. He moved on up to the next ridge and then the next, and then on to the bigger one in the middle. It was shaped somewhat like a horseshoe, and the top was about ten or twelve feet higher up. He clambered up from the outside, going slowly and carefully. It was covered with little cubbyholes and small caves. The thought of a rattlesnake or a Gila monster made his blood run cold. Longarm had never cared for things that slithered or crawled, but he had no choice but to keep pressing his body against the rock and working his way slowly to the top.
The outcropping was short of horseshoe-shaped. He arrived at the rounded top and could look back through the opening toward the house. In some places the outcropping was ten or twelve feet wide. He crawled across the top until he was behind a boulder where he could see straight down to the ground below him. The other leg of the horseshoe was not quite as high. He needed to give Claude Nelson some reason to enter the trap of the horseshoe-shaped rock formation. The shape of the horseshoe was skewed to the left, south with reference to the house. That meant that Longarm could sneak around to the south and enter the opening without fear of being seen by anyone in the house or by Claude, if he had turned to the east yet. Longarm took a moment to take a long, careful look. As he studied the front of the house, he saw a figure emerge, stand out in front for a moment, apparently searching the ground, and then begin walking away toward the west. Longarm looked at his watch. It was three minutes after seven. So far, they were keeping their word about the rules. But of course, the rules hadn’t said anything about a marked sandal. He took a moment more to watch as Claude Nelson proceeded on west, almost exactly as Longarm had gone, heading toward the big barn.