Oakley said nothing, but instead made a big show of looking all around, squinting and gawking. “There!” he finally said. “That’s where I hid it!”
“Where?”
“Over there in those river caves and tunnels!”
Longarm followed the man’s gaze to a sandstone cliff formed by the river’s cutting. The cliff wasn’t high, only about twenty feet, but it was at least another hundred feet long. The cliff was pocked with hundreds of caves, most of which were only shallow indentations. A good number, however, would probably go back into the sandstone a dozen or more feet.
“I think that you’re lying.”
“No, I ain’t!” Ford pointed into the shadows. “You’ll find an old campsite and corral right over there in them cottonwood trees. That’s where me and the boys always camped. And when they was asleep, I climbed up that cliff and found me one of them deep caves. I crawled inside and stuffed the bank money in and then I crawled back out again.”
“How did you mark the cave?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are so many that you must have marked it somehow.”
“Hell, I … I marked it with a little cut in the rock!”
Longarm didn’t think that there was one chance in a thousand the man was telling the truth. But he was bone-tired and, if there was a corral and a camp all ready for them to spend the night in, he was game to test his theory and prove this man a liar.
“All right,” he said, “we’ll put the horses up in that makeshift corral and bed ourselves down. We can look for your money at first light.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have it tonight?” Oakley asked hopefully.
“Nope. What good would that do me out here? As a matter of fact, what good would it do me anywhere since it belongs to the people you stole it from?”
“Yeah,” Oakley said. “I guess that’s the way that an honest man could look at it.”
“It’s the only way an honest man could look at it,” Longarm said as he rode up to the corral, wearily climbed down, and unsaddled his nearly staggering mount.
“I’m mighty hungry,” Ford said as Longarm came over to untie him from the saddle. “Hungry and tired.”
“We’ll make this last camp a good one and eat everything I transferred out of the wagon,” Longarm said, untying one boot and then going around and untying the other.
He untied Ford’s wrists, which were still bound by Marshal Wheeler’s handcuffs but now also tied to the saddlehorn. Longarm was about to reach up and pull the man down when Ford kicked him in the chest and then booted his horse forward, screaming like a wild man and sending his mount plunging into the river.
“Damn!” Longarm swore, reaching for his saddle and trying to catch one of his spare horses. “This time, I am going to kill him!”
Longarm had one hell of a time catching Ford Oakley. Fortunately, the outlaw leader was riding one of the slowest horses, but it still took Longarm nearly a mile to overtake the man.
“Pull up!” Longarm shouted, drawing his six-gun and firing a warning shot.
But Oakley was in no mind to give up the chase, so Longarm just pulled even with the man and pistol-whipped him. Oakley slumped across his saddle, and Longarm grabbed the reins of the horse and pulled it to a standstill.
“Dammit,” Longarm raged. “When are you going to give up!”
Oakley raised his bloodied head. “If I’m going to hang, I’ll go to Hell fighting,” he gritted. “So why don’t you do us both a favor and shoot me?”
“Not a chance. That would be too easy for the likes of YOU.”
“I ain’t done yet,” Oakley grunted. “I ain’t givin’up the idea of killing you!”
“A man should always have his dreams,” Longarm said tightly as he flipped the reins of Oakley’s horse over its head and led it back toward their camp.
Chapter 16
Longarm figured to get no sleep that night as they made camp beside the gurgling Humboldt River. He had tied Ford Oakley to a tree, rechecked his handcuffs, and built himself a fire. There was no coffee to help him keep his long, lonely vigil, but the coyotes did a pretty good job of serenading.
“Go ahead,” Oakley said about midnight. “Close your eyes and go to sleep. What the Hell can I do handcuffed and hugging this tree all night?”
“You’d think of something,” Longarm said. “Maybe you’d even try to dig the tree up and use it to beat me to death.”
Oakley laughed outright at the thought. “You know, Marshal, I really do wish that we could have been friends. I like your sense of humor and we could have done some real damage if we’d rode the outlaw trail together.”
“We’d have probably been caught, convicted, and hanged long ago,” Longarm said, stifling a yawn.
“Probably,” Oakley admitted. “I tell you one thing. I never had any boys in my gang that were your equal. Red Kane and Willard, his half-wit brother, could give either of us a good fight, but they’re both dumb as fence posts. Deke and Gus are a couple of chicken-shit losers that I never trusted.”
Longarm poked at the fire. “I like to work alone,” he said, “and I always have.”
“You ever marry?”
Longarm shook his head. “I’ve had my share of women. Even loved a few, but I never married. In my line of work, a man is better off single.”
“I got a wife and four kids over in Arizona,” Oakley said. “I send ‘em money every time I do a bank or a train job. I don’t know what the Hell is going to become of them after I’m gone. The wife is pretty sick.”
Longarm wanted to retch. “You’re the biggest bullshitter I’ve ever known! You haven’t a wife and children. And even if you did, they’re better off without you.”
Oakley’s face hardened. “You’re one cold-hearted sonofabitch, Marshal Long.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t rape, rob, and murder. Now shut up. I’d rather listen to the coyotes than to your lies.”
Oakley leaned his forehead against the tree and closed his eyes. In five minutes, he was snoring and Longarm was fighting off sleep.
Dawn came slow over the sagebrush-covered hills. It crept in like a house burglar. One minute all was dark beyond Longarm’s campfire. The next there was a faint gray line on the eastern horizon, and then gray turned to liquid gold, washing across the far hills. Trees, the pole corral, their four horses, the slow, meandering Humboldt River, and finally the entire sweep of the empty desert itself crystallized and emerged in the strengthening sunlight.
Longarm fed his fire and stared off to the west, toward Elko. He was dog tired and his sleep-starved brain was not clear. What he did know was that he would not be spending another night sleeping on the trail. When he reached Elko, he could lock Ford Oakley up and the town marshal would allow him to sleep on a nice, comfortable cot until the next eastbound train was ready to carry him to Cheyenne. From Cheyenne, he would catch the Denver Pacific Railroad line that ran 106 miles connecting Cheyenne with Denver. Yes, Longarm thought, once I get to Elko, things are going to get better quick.
Longarm climbed to his feet and stretched, hands reaching up to the crimson of sunrise. He yawned and went over to saddle his two freshest horses.
“You’re all going to get fed well tonight,” he promised them.
When the horses were saddled and the other pair were readied to follow, Longarm finished breaking camp and then he went over and jarred Oakley into wakefulness. The outlaw started, and then he relaxed and yawned. “We’re ready to ride,” Longarm said.
“What about that bank money I stuffed into one of them river cliff caves yonder?”
“I don’t believe it exists.”
“Four thousand dollars is a lot of money! It ought to be worth a few minutes of your precious time, Marshal Long.”
“All right,” Custis agreed. “But I’m tired of beating on your wooden head. If you try something again, I’m probably going to just shoot you in the gut and let you die slow.”