Harding said, “Ain’t working out like you’d planned, is it, Longarm? I could have told you that. Little Miss Sarah ain’t got the backbone of a turnip. She’s too sweet, she’s too nice. I had a lot of fun, playing with her. She never did learn how to fuck though, Longarm. I don’t guess you found that out being the gentleman that you are. She didn’t know how.”
Longarm said savagely, “Shut your damn mouth, Harding.” He looked back around at Sarah. She had blushed scarlet. He said, “Doesn’t that make you want to give him a little of what he gave you? Doesn’t that make you want to help him out? Give him a thrill or two?”
Sarah just shook her head again. “I couldn’t, Custis. I couldn’t hurt someone just to be hurting them. I don’t ever want to be like him. I know that I should, but I can’t.”
Longarm was frustrated and nettled. He said, “Damn it, Sarah. I went to considerable trouble to bring this son of a bitch up here to let you get yours back at him and now you’re telling me no. That don’t make a lick of sense. If he’d done to me what he done to you, I’d take him outside and bury him up to his nose and leave him there for about a month.”
She said, “I know you’re trying to help me and you are doing this for my own good. But I can’t do it.”
“You’ll end up spending your hate on him the rest of your life. Get it out right now. Get it out, take it out on him.”
“I don’t even really hate him.”
Longarm looked up at the ceiling and sighed. He said, “That don’t make no sense, Sarah. Here, take this cigarillo and go over there and put a hole in his back.” He was holding the cigarillo out toward her, motioning for her to take it from him.
Suddenly, Sarah let out a scream and shoved him. For an instant, he didn’t realize what had happened. She had shoved him hard enough so that he stumbled backward. As he stumbled, there was the sudden roar of a gunshot. Instinctively, Longarm’s hand whipped down to his own revolver. He was falling backward, turning to his left and drawing at the same time. As he came around, he saw Harding at the end of the room. He had found the gun that had belonged to Chulo that Longarm had left on the table near the window. He had it thrust out in front of him in both hands. He was cocking it for another shot as Longarm cleared leather with his revolver. He hit the floor on his left side, his right arm going straight out. He thumbed the hammer back on the .44-caliber pistol, and aiming straight at the center of Harding’s chest, he fired an instant before Harding could get off a second shot. The impact of the bullet knocked Harding backward into the window shade. Longarm could vaguely hear glass breaking. He thumbed the hammer again and fired as Harding pitched forward. The second slug caught him high in the shoulder, knocking him back against the sill of the window. Harding slowly rolled forward and then was still.
Through the haze and the noise, Longarm looked up from the floor, searching for Sarah. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been standing by the little wash table. He raised up and saw her lying on the floor. He dropped his gun and hurried to her as quickly as he could. Her robe was light blue and he looked carefully for the dreaded crimson stain. There was none. He began rapidly to unbutton the robe. She was white, pale. Her eyes were closed. He got the robe unbuttoned all the way down the front and opened it up. Then he saw the blood. It was on her upper arm. Because she was still wearing her nightgown, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had broken bone or not. He took her nightgown by the neck and ripped it down the left side. To his relief, he could see that the bullet had hit her shoulder, tearing through the soft flesh, but it had obviously missed the bone. The impact had knocked her down and the pain and the fright had made her faint.
Longarm cursed himself for being such a damned fool as to have turned his back on a man like Harding, but then he’d been so cocky, so confident that he had the situation in hand that he had forgotten all about the gun. If Sarah hadn’t seen Harding aim the gun and shoved him aside, it would have been he, Longarm, who would have taken the bullet squarely in the back. He caressed Sarah’s hair for just a second before getting to his feet. She needed a doctor. She wasn’t losing much blood, but she was losing some. He was about to rise when there came a sudden knocking on the door and a babble of voices.
He yelled, “Get a doctor! Now! Get a doctor!”
While he waited for the doctor, he got up and walked over and looked down at Richard Harding. The man had caused trouble and violence and evil for the last time. Longarm was furious that he had gotten off so lightly, with just a bullet. He couldn’t help himself. He drew back his leg and kicked Harding in the ribs as hard as he could, knowing the man was far past feeling anything. Somehow, though, it made him feel better. Then he quickly went back to Sarah’s side. She was beginning to stir and moan. He smoothed her hair and talked softly to her, waiting for the doctor to come.
Chapter 13
It took the better part of a week for Longarm to get the whole business wound up and all the loose ends tied down. By the end of that time, he felt he was about as sick of Laredo and its environs as any place he had ever been. It seemed like a year ago since he’d taken the train to Mexico City to bring Earl Combs back. It seemed like a month since he’d walked Richard Harding in to face his wife. He guessed Sarah’s attitude toward revenge made her a better person than he was. It still made him angry that Richard Harding had gotten out so easy with a bullet. Longarm would have much preferred for him to have spent the rest of his life breaking rocks in a federal prison in Arizona.
The biggest chore of all had been the examiners and the investigators from the federal banking system who had come down at his signal that the matter was finally ending. He had gotten the key to the safety-deposit box from Earl Combs and had gone himself and made certain that the money was in box 509 before he telegraphed the proper authorities. It had been there, although it was short ten thousand dollars. Combs at first refused to admit that he had taken the money, citing some imaginary partner. But they both knew better, and in the end, Combs admitted that he had taken the money to live on until the trail had cooled and he could come back for the rest of the money some distant day in the future. Longarm had been surprised that he had left the money in Laredo, but Combs had given him an astonished look. He said, “You certainly didn’t think I was going to take that amount of cash outside of the United States, did you?”
Longarm stared at him and nodded. He said, “No, I reckon not.”
Combs said, “Why, do you have any idea how many thieves there are in Mexico? How many highwaymen? How many robbers?”
Longarm had smiled and said, “No, but I do know there is one less now that you’re in jail on this side of the river.”
About five investigators and examiners had descended on him. When they counted the money, they’d given him suspicious looks and asked what did he reckon went with that extra ten thousand dollars. Longarm explained over and over again about the entire matter. He reckoned, in total, he told the story from when he picked up Combs to when he killed Richard Harding over half a dozen times. Sarah, who was one of the main witnesses, was spared most of the questioning because of her wound.
It had turned out that Billy Vail’s telegram had not quite worked. It had taken another telegram from the chief marshal to a couple of senators who were friends of his to force the Treasury officials into turning Combs over to Federal Judge Richard Harding. The most curious part of the matter to Longarm was the investigators’ and examiners’ apparent disbelief that Judge Harding had been up to any kind of criminal activity. It was only after they had gone through his court docket, interviewed his court clerks, and interviewed a number of the citizens around Laredo that they found out the extent of his deviousness and chicanery and plain out-and-out criminality. That he had kept his wife a virtual hostage had no significance to the bank examiners and investigators, They were more concerned with ledgers and figures and cash amounts than what had happened to a twenty-seven-year-old and her good heart and blithe spirit.