But it was as good a way as any to refresh himself. He swung around and eased his body into the half-full tub, carefully keeping his stocking feet out of the water. By putting his feet on the top of the lower end he could slide down into the tub to where the water was halfway between his waist and his chest. It felt wonderfully cool. Mrs. Higgins brought him his glass of cool milk with the eggs and sugar mixed in, and he sat there savoring it, sipping it at first and then taking long drinks. All it needed, he decided, was a little whiskey to make it maybe the best drink he’d ever had in his entire life. Even with it only half drunk he could feel strength returning. All of a sudden he remembered the time. He put his hand in his right-hand shirt pocket and jerked out his watch. The time read forty minutes after four. He mulled it over in his mind. He’d actually made pretty good time on his run. Only an hour or less had passed since the good doctor had drawn his gun. He did some calculations in his head, though his mind was still a little groggy. If the mule team was making five or six miles an hour, that meant they would have gone on another five miles or so from where he had gotten off the stage. Figure he had been three miles from the station, that made eight miles. The team still had twelve miles to go to reach the next relay station, and that up a bad grade where they would more than likely slow down to something under four miles an hour. He had a chance. It wasn’t a good one, but if he could find something to ride that the mules could pull at a fast clip, he might just catch the stage.
He put his head back and stared up at the ceiling, reliving the run he had just made. He shuddered. He didn’t know how he’d done it and he’d never do it again, even if it meant a raise in pay and the right to every woman in Denver.
Lying back, he let his skin absorb the water. He doubted if his pores were -actually drinking it in, but he knew he didn’t feel so dried out, and it hadn’t been much more than a quarter of an hour ago when he figured he could have passed for a big chunk of beef jerky.
He finished his milk and eggs and set the jar on the floor next to the tub. He worked his body down as far as he could. He’d thought his shoulders wouldn’t fit the width of the tub, but it was wider than he’d thought. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to think of how he was going to catch up to the stage. If he could just think of something he could hitch the mules to. It made him want to shake his head in disbelief that a place as out of the way as a relay station wouldn’t at least have a buckboard or a buggy, never mind a saddle horse. What in hell were the residents supposed to do if they had to get around or go for help or needed to borrow some sugar or salt from the nearest neighbors? Well, he could understand it from the stage company’s viewpoint. It kept your stationkeepers in place, but he didn’t think it was very humane.
A thought suddenly came to him. He let it lay for a moment, just floating around in his head, and then brought it forward and gave it serious consideration. Abruptly, he sat up and turned around and looked at the back of the bathtub, the way it curved up, like the prow of a ship. The foot of the tub was the same. It curved upward. He suddenly scrambled out of the tub, excited, dripping water all over the place. He could clearly see that the tub was curved upwards in all parts of it, including the sides. The only flat part was the very bottom, and it was only about two feet wide. There wasn’t a single angle to snag or dig into the dirt. He ran out of the bathroom, yelling. He shouted, “Mrs. Higgins! Mrs. Higgins!”
The matronly lady came huffing in from the front room looking alarmed. She said, “Marsha—I mean, Cust—I mean, Mr. Long, is something wrong?”
“No, everything is fine. Listen, I need to stay out of the sun as much as I can. Will you run outside and tell Herman to come and to bring his Mexicans with him.”
She stared at him. “Why, yes, of course. Is something wrong?”
He pointed back at the bathtub. “How do you get the water out of this thing?”
She said, “Why you just pull that little black rubber plug there. It will run out. The floor slopes to the back.”
“Well, would you please get Mister Higgins. I’ve got to get moving, Sylvia.”
She frowned slightly. “Now you’re sure you are all right? You had a good bit of that sun, you know.”
“I know I did, Sylvia, but I’m all right. I’m just in a hurry. And when you get around to it, I wish you’d fill me a big canteen of water and maybe put any bread or biscuits you got left over in a bag. Piece of ham or something to go with it.” She said, “I’ll get Mr. Higgins right away.”
Chapter 8
Higgins stood in the bathroom and stared at Longarm. He said, “You want to do what with my wife’s bathtub?”
“Use it as a sled, a kind of sleigh. It’s the only thing around here I can think of that will work. See how rounded it is on the bottom? See how the sides slope outward? Be like riding in a soup dish. This thing will go skimming over that flat desert faster than if it had wheels.”
Higgins blinked. “But that’s Sylvie’s bathtub! You want to have some mules drag that thing across the desert? Mister Long, she ain’t had it six months yet. Was the desire of her heart. She’d been takin’ baths in a number-two washtub fer years. An’ now you want to, to, to-” He stopped, unable to go on, and rolled his eyes in his head.
Longarm said briskly, “Herman, time is wasting. I got to get hitched up and get going. I’ll see she gets this one back or another one.”
Higgins said, “It would break her heart, Marshal. She-“
A voice behind him said, “Herman, if the marshal needs that bathtub, you let him take it on. My goodness, he’s after shore-‘nough criminals. He could get hisself kilt and I don’t know what else. Marshal, you are more than welcome to that tub. I can get by without it.”
Longarm said, “Thank you, Sylvia.” Then he turned to Higgins. “Herman, get your Mexicans in here to get this thing outside. Have them put it in front of the station. That’s where I figure to leave from.”
Higgins shrugged. “Shoot, Marshal, me an’ you can tote it. It don’t weigh all that much. Sixty, eighty pounds.”
Longarm shook his head. “Herman, I got just so much energy left, and I can’t spare an ounce for anything except trying to catch up with that stage.”
“Go on, Mr. Higgins, like he says,” said Mrs. Higgins. “Marshall, I guess it be all right to call you that now, seem’ as how we are a-chasin’ an evil bunch together. I got yore firearms cleaned up as best I can, though I never took on to put the bullets back in ‘em.”
Longarm thanked her. “I’ll be doing that while Mr. Higgins is getting the bathtub out front. What about the harness, Herman? You get it cut down?”
Higgins was nearly out of the bathroom. He said, “Yeah, I reckon.” Then he glanced at the bathtub. “Though it beats the hell outten me how we gonna hook up that thing.” He heaved a sigh. “But I reckon I’ll think of somethin’. Sylvie always said I was a figgerin’ man.”
“Oh, he is, Marshal. My Mr. Higgins will sit an’ study on somethin’ you think they ain’t no way to fix or make right or get built or any of that. Pretty soon he’ll get up an’ he’ll have her figgered out and it’ll work too.”
Longarm said, “Herman, don’t forget that box of forty-four cartridges. When I come out the front door I don’t want to come back in. I’m heading north as soon as I step out of here.”
Mrs. Higgins said, “I’ll sack you up somethin’ to eat and fill you a canteen.”
Longarm sat in the bathroom on the side of the tub and pulled on his boots. His clothes were soaked from his ankles to his shoulders, but he knew they’d dry in five minutes once he got out the door.
He was out in the common room drinking water with a little whiskey in it when the Mexicans, followed by Mister Higgins, walked past him carrying the bathtub. He picked up his weapons, the sack of food Mrs. Higgins had fixed, the box of cartridges, and the big two-quart canteen, and followed them outside, still sipping at the glass of whiskey water. The Mexicans set the bathtub down and then stepped back and looked at Higgins. Higgins looked at Longarm. He said, “She pointin’ in the right direction? I mean, you want to hitch to the low end or the high one?”