She looked uncertain. She said, “I think I can do it all except maybe the pliers. It’s not that I can’t get them in to you, but it’s just that I don’t know where I’ll find them.”
“Invent an excuse.”
She answered, “They’d never believe I needed a pair of pliers.”
“Well, try, honey, try. Tell them you got a bent bedspring on your bed. Tell them you need to work a nail out of the wall, tell them anything. But don’t tell Miguel or Martin or Chulo, tell one of the Mexican women. Just a small pair of pliers.”
She gave him a half-hearted smile and then raised her face for a kiss. He kissed her lightly and then she was gone out the door, shutting it behind her. He could hear the key turning behind her.
Now all he could do was wait. He walked thoughtfully over to the bedside table and picked up the empty whiskey bottle. There was a full one there that had been brought the night before, but it was the empty one, he thought, that would prove much more valuable than any full bottle of whiskey that he had ever seen, and he certainly didn’t think he’d ever be making such a remark as that.
The time passed slowly as he expected it would. He was getting restless, getting cabin fever, getting very tired of the white room with the thick walls and the two little bitty windows and the one light. The food was good, that was all he could say about the place—well, the female companionship wasn’t bad either—but he preferred to be able to take a long walk after making love to a beautiful woman, to sort of cool down like you would with a racehorse. You couldn’t exactly cool down in a room fifteen by eighteen feet.
But slowly the minutes crept by and turned into hours and the hours stacked up enough until it was one o’clock and he could hear her unlocking the door. The next thing he knew, she was through it in a rush, pushing it nearly shut behind her with her foot. She was wearing the bulky blanket robe. She whispered, “Quick! Reach under my robe. There’s a sack there tied with string. Get it out and throw it up under the bed. It’s got everything in it.”
He moved quickly, running his hand up underneath until he felt the cloth sack tied with string. He whipped out his penknife and cut it quickly and slung the bag under the bed. He stood up while she was busy setting his dishes out on the table. Just as he was able to straighten up, the door was pushed slightly open and Chulo stood there, his white teeth flashing, gleaming in his dark face.
“Ah, here is the lovebirds. No? Hey, senor, how you like this one? She look like a cow, don’t you think?”
Longarm sat down on the bed. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chulo said, “Hey, we send you this woman. Maybe if You don’t like her, we don’t send her no more.”
Longarm said, “You’re not being much of a gentleman, Chulo. Why are you trying to embarrass this woman?”
“Hey, this ain’t no woman. This’s just some ol’ rag that got cast off, just a stray dog.”
Sarah had finished unloading her dishes on Longarm’s table. She turned and hurried past Chulo. As she went by, he slapped her on the rear end with the back of his hand, a slap that was harder than necessary.
Longarm felt his jaw muscles tighten. He said, “Hey, don’t be bruising the goods. Do you mind?”
Chulo laughed loudly. He said, “Ho, ho. Maybe you in love, huh, senor? You want to marry this cow? This stray dog we got here? This bitch? Maybe your dick rot off, you fuck her again.” With that, still laughing, he turned on his heels, pulled the door shut behind him, and locked it.
It had unsettled Longarm slightly that the man had come after Sarah. It had not been part of his plan. He had understood why she wanted him to move quickly. He had hoped for more time to talk to her; now he was going to have to wing it, play it by ear. It could get very dangerous with her not knowing what he was going to do. Hopefully, she would be back in a couple of hours to gather up his dishes as she normally did. The pistoleros had not been accompanying her. All he could do was hope that Chulo’s visit had been casual, not planned. Perhaps he had just wanted to look in on the star boarder and see how he was doing. It was very important that he have time to explain to her what had to happen for them to reach freedom. Hope was the one commodity that he had the most of. He had eight cartridges, an empty whiskey bottle, a candle, a bunch of matches, some kerosene, a woman who was ignorant of his plans, and overlaying all of that was a big mess of hope. He smiled to himself and shook his head. Well, it didn’t much matter. He had to proceed with his part and he had plenty to do. He ducked under the bed, got the sack up, and opened it. There was a small pair of pliers, a lot of matches with big phosphorus heads, and a candle. There was no extra kerosene and that worried him. But he had to get to work just as if he knew what he was doing. He found a newspaper, one of the two-week-old ones that they had brought him. He spread a single sheet out on the bed and then took his knife and began working on the matches. He was shaving the phosphorus heads off the wood. He figured he had about a hundred matches, it was a slow and tedious job but he needed those match heads. He had been careful to hide the rest of his equipment under the bed so if the door was suddenly opened by the wrong party, he’d be able to cover up his work simply by laying another sheet of newspaper on top of what he was doing.
It took him about forty-five minutes, but he finally ended up with a nice pile of yellow and white phosphorous match heads. Now with his fingers, he began to crumble them into a substance like cornmeal. When that was done, he very carefully folded the paper over about an inch from the edge. With that creased, he took his knife and slowly made a long line of the crumbled match heads along the length of the newspaper. He was making a fuse. When the crumbled phosphorus was evenly stretched the length of the paper, he carefully cut along a line even with the edge he had turned over. Then, being careful not to lose any of the precious ignitable material, he rolled the narrow piece of newspaper into a single thin straw. To keep the contents in place, he twisted it at one-inch intervals, being careful to twist each end closed first. The result was a fuse about two and a half feet long and about the thickness of a big hay straw. He put the fuse under the bed and then got his cartridges and the pliers. Using another piece of newspaper, he gripped the lead head of each cartridge and slowly twisted the slug loose from the casing. Then with the point of his knife, he removed the thin wad that stood between the powder and the slug. When that was done, he poured the powder carefully onto the newspaper. He breathed very shallowly. He couldn’t afford to lose a single speck of it.
It took an hour to carefully get every bit of powder out of the eight cartridges. After that, he got the empty whiskey bottle and, making a funnel out of the newspaper, poured the powder carefully into the bottle. It made a disappointingly small amount but it was going to have to do. He methodically dropped all eight brass casings and all eight lead slugs into the bottle. He looked longingly at the lamp. It was only half full. He needed the bottle full. The candle still remained to be used, but he couldn’t use it or insert his fuse until, or if, he could get some more kerosene. Once again, hope was the only horse he had to ride. He carefully hid the bottle behind the bed and then sat down to wait.
It was almost three o’clock by his watch before a key turned in the door and it opened. Sarah was there and he saw that she was unaccompanied. To his relief he saw that, along with his tray, she was carrying a small tin bucket with a spout on it. He could almost smell the kerosene.
He said, “Hurry, Sarah, hurry! Shut the door.”