The mocking tone still in his voice, the customs man said, “You that easy to run over, feller? Hell, that drover is cheating you blind. He got something on you? He take care of your wife for you when you ain’t there?” Caster laughed.
Longarm looked around at him. “I ain’t married,” he said stiffly. “But then that ain’t none of your business. You keep telling me what ain’t none of my business, I reckon it’s time I started making you aware of when you get to crowding me.”
Caster let out a hoot. “Aw now, Mister Long,” he said, “it be a little late to start getting tough. You ain’t got the reputation for it.”
“I reckon you ought to quit worrying about who else is cheating me and just concentrate on your own gouging. You seem to be doing a pretty fair job.”
Caster laughed again. “Oh, I ain’t through. When you think I’m finished, I’m going to have Raoul San Diego grab you up by yore ankles and hang you upside down and shake out any loose change we might of missed.”
“Let’s get that business over with,” Longarm said, still stiffly. “You want twenty-five hundred dollars as payment in half. You said you want me to give it to this San Diego. All right, I’m ready. Where is he and how do I get there? Or is this the wrong time? You got my cattle. I’d like to start in buying them out of those pens.”
Caster shrugged. “Then go see San Diego.”
“Raoul?”
Caster looked at him curiously. “You heered me speak of another one?”
“There are two of them. For all I know, they both work for you.”
Caster said flatly, “You’ll find San Diego about two miles east of town. That’s Raoul San Diego. He stays at a hacienda out that way. Big house. Middle part is two-story. It sits up on the only hill anywhere near the river. You can’t miss it. At least you ought not to miss it.”
It sounded disturbingly similar to the place where Dulcima said she lived. “Is that his place?” Longarm said, with a little hesitation in his voice.
“What the hell do you care? No, as it happens it ain’t. Belongs to a woman that he stays with. But it might as well be his.”
“His woman wouldn’t happen to be somebody named Dulcima, would it?”
Caster grinned, his teeth outlined in tobacco juice. “So you been watching her, have you? She likes to sashay around the plaza and get all the boys on the prod showing them what they can’t have. Yeah, I can tell by the look on yore face you seen her. Probably had yore tongue hangin’ out like the rest of them.”
Longarm shook his head. “It ain’t that. Yes, I’ve seen the lady. Even spoke to her. But from what I heard about this Raoul, he might not take kindly to being disturbed at home. Couldn’t I give him the money in your office or somewhere else?”
“In my office? Say, are you a little slow? I don’t want no connection to that money. Do you get it? Now turn yore horse around and go and find San Diego. It’s not half past nine yet. He’s probably still in bed. Get going and you’re sure to catch him. He don’t get up and get around until late in the day. Spends most of his nights playing with that woman, I expect. Can’t say that I blame him.”
“All right,” Longarm said. “But I want to have a word with that drover first. Then I’ll stop at the bank and then head out.”
“You better make it snappy. San Diego ain’t going to want you trying to pass him a wad of money in a crowded place. You better catch him to home.”
Longarm nodded and touched his horse with his spurs. He rode down past the end line of cattle pens, where Austin Davis was directing several vaqueros in getting a knot of steers bedded down. He turned in the saddle as Longarm rode up. “How’s the big boss up yonder? He sent you for his lunch yet?”
Longarm pulled his horse up beside Davis. “Any minute I reckon. But right now he wants me to deliver the twenty-five hundred to San Diego. And guess where? To Dulcima’s house. That is liable to get a little ticklish.”
“Damn!” Davis said. “You reckon that’s wise? A woman like her will give you away to San Diego just to amuse herself. She’ll think you’ll crawfish.”
Longarm grimaced. “I may have to,” he said. He looked over the younger man’s shoulder. “I swear,” he said, “I have had to swallow more manure on this job than any I can remember. Remind me to thank you for that sometime.”
“You ain’t the only one got the taste of shit in his mouth. I don’t think you ought to go up to her house. Can’t you hand him the money someplace else?”
Longarm shook his head. “No. Caster has got his mind set on me doing it this way. He may have heard about me and Dulcima having that little talk on the square and this appeals to his sense of humor. I’ve been acting the part of the businessman who don’t see no profit in fighting. Maybe he’s got it in mind for San Diego to throw a good scare into me.”
Davis looked thoughtful. “Or he could be setting you up. It might not be in fun. You think on that? I noticed you haven’t been wearing a cutaway holster like you usually do.”
“Didn’t seem to fit the part of the cattleman. But I got the cutaway in my saddlebags. No, I don’t think he’s trying to get me killed. I still owe him too much money.”
“Yeah, but he’s got your cattle. Who claims them if you get killed? He don’t know they belong to the South Texas coastal plains ranchers association. Or whatever it is.”
Longarm shrugged. “Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll just have to try and talk my way out of any trouble I get into. I don’t want to kill San Diego, but I reckon you can guess what choice I’ll make if it comes to it.”
“I reckon I better bird-dog you.”
Longarm rubbed his jaw. His tooth had picked a hell of a time to start gnawing at him again. He shook his head. “I reckon you better not, Austin. Caster liable to see you and there’d be hell to pay and not much way to explain it. Besides, San Diego might spot you.”
“I can look like a tree when I’ve a mind to. No, I won’t get too close. Besides, you ain’t paid me off. Most natural thing in the world is for me not to want to let you out of my sight.”
Longarm grimaced. “Well, do what you think is best.” He gave Davis a crooked smile. “After all, this is your scheme.”
“You pick the damndest times to remember it.”
“Don’t I?” Longarm wheeled his horse around. “I’ll see you.”
He rode back into town, making a quick stop at the bank, and then started out a little road that led to the east and down toward the river. The twenty-five hundred was in his saddlebags in big bills, twenties and over.
A half mile out of town he could clearly see the house sitting up on a solitary hill in the featureless terrain. It was painted a startling white, made even more so by the drab brown of the surrounding countryside. Longarm kicked his horse up into a slow lope, eager to have the chance to see Dulcima again even though he knew it might be a dangerous encounter and certainly one that could not lead to anything. But he was also curious to have a closer look at, and perhaps a few words with, the cold and venomous-appearing Raoul San Diego. He wasn’t worried about his ability to handle the man, not so long as he didn’t turn his back.
He rounded a grove of mesquite trees, and the road rose up straight toward the house. Now he could see that it was fairly big, with three or four rooms on the bottom story and then, in the middle, a second story perched atop the bottom like a child’s building block. As he rode closer, he could see that the lower story had small, casement-like windows and that the house was constructed of half lumber and half concrete or adobe. There were a few small outbuildings behind the house and a small corral, but it was clear the place was a town house that had wound up in the country. Nowhere was there a sign of any ranching or other working activity.