He said in a loud voice, “Doc! Doc! How will you have it?”
There was no answer.
He said again, his voice carrying in the thin, dry air, “Don’t be shy, Doc. I’m a man willing to listen to reason. You ain’t going anywhere because you can’t. Not unless you care to walk. And I’m not going anywhere because I don’t want to. Now, you want to talk a little business and see if we can’t work out something here? I can wait all day if that is what you have a mind to. Or I can limber up this rifle of mine and start punching holes in that wagon. Maybe I can’t see you, but I got plenty of ammunition. Speak up, Doc. Don’t be shy.”
A moment passed, and then the voice of the doctor came across the distance. He said, “Well, Marshal Long, you are to be congratulated on your reappearance. Rather Lazarus-like, I’d have to say. Quite a conveyance you are transporting yourself in.”
“Doc, we can have a good conversation some other time. Right now I want to know what you are ready to do.”
He heard the doctor clear his throat. “Ah, what exactly would be my options, Marshal Long?”
Longarm said, “You can surrender right now, or stay out here and die in the sun.”
There was a pause. Longarm could barely hear the sound of a whispered conversation. The doctor said, “You don’t propose very attractive terms, Marshal. There is a lady present. Why not come over and let us discuss this under more amenable surroundings. I have some brandy here.”
“Don’t care for it. Look, Doc, I ain’t got all day. The sun is getting kind of low in the sky, and I don’t want to get caught out here on this freezing-ass desert after dark. Now I know where Carl Lowe is and I’m going to capture him. He may have a few guns protecting him, but that won’t make much difference. I’ll deal with them just as I dealt with the ones as just left your service. Now, what’s it to be?”
“I’m going to have to give this some thought, Marshal. I believe there are other options. I think I still have one or two cards left to play.”
“The gold? Hell, you’re not going anywhere with that. You’ve already got one mule down. Before I leave I’ll drop a couple more. Won’t be any way you can get that team untangled, and even if you could, the ones that are left couldn’t pull the load. So what it comes down to is you either decide to surrender to me right now, or figure to die out here in the desert or die trying to walk out. I know the gold ain’t going no place, and I got just as easy a time taking Carl Lowe with or without the pair of you. You’re out of aces, Doc. Take it or leave it.”
“You are making this extremely difficult. There must be a little more give on your part. You are asking for complete and abject surrender.”
Longarm picked up his carbine, thumbed the hammer back, aimed and fired a shot through the canvas siding, just high enough so that it would miss anyone sitting down. He heard a screech that sounded very feminine. He said, “You want me to give, I’ll give you a few more of these.”
The doctor yelled, panic in his voice, “Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a moment, Marshal. All right. Have it your way. Call it a surrender. Whatever you want.”
“You giving up?”
“Yes, yes, yes! Of course we are. If you’re going to sit out there and shoot us like fish in a barrel, what chance do we have! But let me say it is a disgrace to the federal authority that you serve that you’d bully people in such a fashion.”
“Oh, bullshit, Doc. I’m tired of fooling with you. If you surrender, the first thing I want you to do is roll up those canvas sides. let’s get a little light on the interior. See what we got in there.”
“But I’ll have to come outside to do that.”
“You’ll be outside soon enough. You might as well tell ol’ Rita Ann to get down also. She can be drawing the curtains up on the other side. Just be damn quick about it or I’m going to be obliged to start firing again. My mules are getting restless.”
He watched, as impatient as his mules, who were champing their bits and stamping their feet, while the doctor and Rita slowly emerged from the stage and began rolling up the canvas sides. He could see them talking between themselves, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. It took them a good five minutes to get both sides rolled up so he could see into the coach. There could have still been someone lying in the well between the two benches inside, but other than that it appeared empty. The doctor turned and faced him. He said, “Now what is your pleasure, Marshal?”
“I want to see all the guns in that stage laying out this way on the sand. And that includes the weapons you took from the driver and the guard when you killed them.”
The doctor said, “I’ll not have their deaths on my head! No, sir! Was not me! And it was not Rita either.”
Longarm said in disgust, “We can argue out all that later. Right now you let me see them weapons. And take your coat and vest off while you’re about it and tell Rita to leave her purse on the ground.”
“I take it you’re afraid of a lady and an old man.”
“You ain’t an old man and she damn sure ain’t no lady. Now, let’s see the firearms and be damn quick about it. You overlook one and you’ll be the loser for it. And tell your lady friend there that my derringer had damn well better be in her purse.”
The doctor said, “My, my, Marshal. Don’t you feel you are taking caution to the extreme? We had a chance to kill you before and didn’t. Why should we now?”
“You go ahead and act ignorant if you want to, Doc. Just don’t expect me to buy into that particular pot. Now get it done.”
He watched with a sense of growing urgency as the doctor went back into the stage and finally emerged. He was carrying three revolvers, a shotgun, and Rita’s purse. At Longarm’s directions he walked ten yards away from the wagon, toward Longarm, and laid the weapons and the purse on the ground. He straightened up. “Now what would you have us do, Marshal? Search each other? Bind and gag each other?”
The mules were wanting to go. Longarm said, “That ain’t such a bad idea, Doc. But right now I want the both of you to walk about a hundred yards south. Just follow the tracks of the stage. Stay apart and keep walking until I tell you to stop.”
As soon as they were a distance from the stage, he gingerly let up on the reins and clucked softly to the mules. Half expecting them to bolt, he was pleasantly surprised when they started off slowly, taking one step at a time. He pulled gently on the right rein and the mules came around, heading for the stage. He eased up on the reins a little more and they suddenly wanted to go. It took a great deal of his strength to hold them. He finally got them stopped again, and made the distance over to the stage in a series of stops and starts. The mules were content to walk for a few paces, but after that they figured enough was enough and it was time to run again.
Finally he arrived at the stage. He took a quick look to his right. The doctor and Rita had stopped some distance away in the desert and were watching him intently. They probably didn’t understand why he was being so careful with his mules, but he knew. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a team of nine mules, the nine still hitched to the stage. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he could even get their harness untangled. So the mules he was driving were his only assurance of being able to get off the desert again without walking. He was certain of one thing, and that was he’d walked, and run, across the damned desert for the last time.