But it didn’t matter to Longarm, since it had nothing to do with his job. He finished his meal and then went sauntering back toward the Hamilton Hotel and its bar. He had heard there was a fairly decent poker game there most every night. And, if his luck was bad, it wouldn’t be far to bed.
On his way to the hotel he wondered how Austin Davis was doing. He expected that the younger deputy had reached the herd by now and, if he’d gathered enough cattle, would be starting for the border in the morning.
He played until midnight on average luck and with only part of his mind on the game. He quit forty dollars ahead and didn’t receive so much as a nod or a look when he left the game. Longarm had played poker in many a border town and it had always amazed him how quiet the games were. Over the years he’d given some thought to the condition, and had come to the conclusion that border-town poker players weren’t more serious than their counterparts inland. They didn’t talk any more than was necessary because of the dangerous climate of the border and the greater chance of giving offense by some offhand remark. Most men who played poker along the border were hard cases, and it didn’t take much to get a fight started. As a consequence it was Just safer, all around, to keep Your mouth shut and your eyes open. But it did make for a fairly dull game, especially if your luck was only lukewarm.
He went to bed that night thinking about Mrs. Spinner and her amazing ability to get into such a variety of positions. She was truly a woman born to please a man. He could only hope that no circuses came to town while he was gone and that she would be there, waiting for him, when he got back to Denver.
He woke up the next morning with his tooth aching even worse, and sat on the side of the bed, soaking it in whiskey while he sourly contemplated the idea of going to a dentist in Laredo. It would probably be less painful to get it knocked out in a bar fight. Of course there was always laudanum. You could buy laudanum at the apothecary and it was guaranteed to stop pain for a while even if it did make you slightly lighthearted.
Finally his tooth let up and he was able to get up and shave and put on clean clothes. He took breakfast in the hotel dining room, doing well on the ham and eggs, but passing, reluctantly, on the hot coffee. Instead he had a lukewarm mixture of half coffee and half milk, which was almost no coffee at all but at least didn’t set his tooth to singing.
After breakfast he killed time until ten o’clock by sitting outside on the porch with the rest of the railbirds, watching the traffic heading to and from the bridge. When he figured that Jasper White would just about be in place, he went around to the hotel livery and collected the horse Austin Davis had left for him. Longarm hated to admit it, but his fellow marshal appeared to have a pretty good eye for horseflesh. The animal, a big roan gelding that was mostly quarterhorse, had a nice way about him and looked, judging by his deep chest and long legs, to have some staying power. The horse was frisky from standing in the stable for a few days, so Longarm mounted him outside and let him jump around and kick up his heels a little until he’d got the shivers out of his spine. After that he settled down and acted as if he’d been raised right with a good set of manners. Nevertheless, Longarm rode him out to the edge of town and fired off his revolver several times just to see how the horse would react. He tensed up some, but the sound of the gunshots didn’t seem to scare him over much. The gun test had been an institution with Longarm since a dozen years past, when he’d fired a rifle off the back of an animal who tried to turn himself inside out at the explosive sound. Longarm had been in the midst of a running gun battle with some cattle thieves, and the horse’s actions had come at a very bad time. It had cost him the thieves, the horse, and a broken finger when he’d bucked off into a pile of rocks. There were still a few men around who would have liked to make reference to the incident, but didn’t out of respect for the look that came into Longarm’s eyes when the conversation wandered anywhere near the subject.
Finally satisfied with the horse, Longarm rode directly over to the Tejano Cafe, dismounted, and looked around for Jasper White. The bench out front was unoccupied, and Longarm went on into the cafe. It had a small bar and he slouched up against it while he looked the place over. It contained no more than ten tables and only a few of them were occupied. The pretty Mexican girl who’d served him the night before brought him the beer he asked for. As he looked back at the tables, he asked the girl which of the men would be Jasper White. She nodded at a man seated at a small table by the window. He was drinking coffee and smoking a cheroot, and looking out the window toward the bridge. “That is the Senor White,” she said. “But he ees not welcoming to the stranger who just come up. You unnerstan’?”
Longarm reached in his pocket, took out a silver dollar, and spun it on the bar in front of her. “Why don’t you take that and put it in your pocket and go over and ask Mister White if he’s got time to talk to a cattleman from out of state. Tell him I’m buying the coffee or whatever he’d care to have.”
The girl shrugged and went around the bar. Longarm slouched against the counter while he watched her approach the table. White was younger than Longarm had expected. Usually, town “telegraphers” were older men, but Jasper White looked to be somewhere in his mid-thirties. A tall man who could have used a little filling out, there was nothing unusual about him except for a high, balding forehead. Longarm watched while the girl bent over to speak with him. After a few seconds White glanced around, his gaze directed at the bar. Longarm looked away. He wondered what White had to be so careful about. You’d of thought he was sitting on a key to Fort Knox, the way he protected himself from strangers.
Finally the girl came back and said that Senor White would spare him a few moments of his time. Longarm spun another silver dollar on the bar for the girl, took his beer, and sauntered over to the small table where White was sitting. There was an extra chair, but White did not invite Longarm to take it. “Mister White,” the deputy marshal began, “my name is Long. I’m a cattleman from Oklahoma. From what I hear around town you’re the man to talk to about getting articles from one side of the border to the other. Being a stranger and not knowing the ways of the country, I thought I’d come to you for advice.” Longarm stood there waiting, his mug of beer in his hand. White didn’t pay him the slightest bit of attention.
At last the man looked up. Longarm noticed how pale his eyes were. “So you be a Stranger to these parts,” White said. “Don’t know yore way about.”
“That’s right,” Longarm said.
“You be from Oklahoma.”
“Yep.”
“You be in the cattle business.”
“Yes,” Longarm said with a little irritation. He’d said all this before.
“And you want to know how to get some cattle across the border. Do that be it? But you don’t know how to go about it.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Jasper White nodded slowly, then played his eyes over Longarm. “Say you are new to these parts? Say yore name is Long?”
“Yes,” Longarm said, wondering if he’d come to the right man.
White was drinking black coffee. He nodded at Longarm’s beer. “I don’t hold with strong drink.”
Longarm, now more than a little irritated, said, “I don’t hold it any longer than I have to myself. Quicker I can drink it down, the more good it does.” To illustrate, he turned his beer mug up, drained it, and then signaled for the girl to bring him another.