Longarm grimaced. “I hate to not know about Mull. Like I said, this is the most snarled up, complicated damn job I was ever on in my life. I had an easier time of it when I was courting five women at the same time in Denver one year. And killing San Diego has just snarled it up more. Hell! I had counted on us knowing Mull when we seen him.”
“I still don’t think you can depend on Jasper White.”
“I ain’t got no intention of depending on Jasper White. We’ll just have to think of something else.” He scratched his head, realizing he still hadn’t put his hat on. “Though I don’t know what, right now. You really think I ought to tell Caster that I gave San Diego the money?”
“I give you my reasons for that, but you do like you want on the matter.”
“We better get back in there with Miss Dulcima. I didn’t know there was an outside door before.”
“You scared she’ll run off?”
“Listen, Austin—The lady is now your problem.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to keep her over there a week. I’m serious, Longarm. She acts like a woman who bores easy.”
“You can’t let her back here.”
“You want me to shoot her in the leg?”
Longarm shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. Like you say, this is your barn dance. She gets back over here, it could burn the barn down.”
“Oh, now it’s my party. I see how you think, Longarm, and I don’t much like it.”
“If you see you’re going to be settled in one place for a few days, wire me where I can wire you. I’ll try and let you know what’s happening. But you better get a move on.”
Longarm pulled up a quarter of a mile short and watched as Austin Davis, with Dulcima seated beside him and the body of Raoul San Diego in the back, drove to the main southbound road, took a left, and then drove the remaining three or four hundred yards to the bridge.
Austin had the matched team going at a good high trot and, with his horse and San Diego’s tied to the back of the buckboard, struck the bridge and then crossed it in a matter of a few minutes. The last Longarm could see of the buckboard was a thin trail of dust as it headed into Nuevo Laredo on the Mexico side. As near as he could tell, no one had shown any interest except for what might naturally be expected at the sight of a flying buckboard with a beautiful woman up front and a pair of good-looking horses, one with a silver-mounted saddle. Davis’s route had taken him within fifty yards of the Tejano Cafe, but Longarm hadn’t seen Raoul’s brother or Jasper White or anyone for that matter who seemed overly interested. He was satisfied that anyone who had seen the wagon and the pair on the driver’s seat would have thought it was who it was supposed to be.
He looked across toward where the customs office was, but decided it wasn’t the right time to see Jay Caster. Instead he wheeled his horse around and loped him slowly back to the hotel livery. There he untied his saddlebags, turned his horse over to a stableboy, and then walked back to the hotel, the saddlebags over his shoulder. He didn’t know what to do with the twenty-five hundred that was in the saddlebags. It was too bulky to carry around on his person and he sure as hell wasn’t going to take it back to the bank, in case Caster had a spy there. He couldn’t ask the clerk to put it in the safe for the same reason, so in the end he heaved up the mattress on the bed in his room, cut a slit in the bottom with his pocketknife, stuffed the money in, and then remade the bed, making it look as if he’d laid down for an afternoon nap.
After that he went down to the dining room for a late lunch. It was already after one o’clock. His tooth wasn’t acting up, for which he was grateful, but he was careful to eat mostly soft food and nothing too hot or cold.
After his meal of chicken and dumplings, sliced tomatoes, and caramel pudding, Longarm returned to his room, took off his hat, and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He was of two minds about going over to see Caster, wondering if maybe he ought to wait and see if Caster sent for him when San Diego didn’t show up to deliver the money. In the end he decided that the best course was just to lay low and wait. He figured a little stewing might do Caster some good.
In the evening he went quietly down to the quarantine pens just before dark and moved from corral to corral, looking over the cattle and trying to figure out how Caster jumped one herd in front of the others. Nothing came to his attention. The paint on the cattle’s sides was as it should be, in that it corresponded with their progress toward the end set of pens, the green area where they were to be released. He did notice that his cattle, or the cattle that were supposed to belong to him, appeared to be in good flesh and were being well taken care of. They were also all wearing that red splotch of paint. He was able to locate two of the five cattle he’d chosen to watch with either an odd color pattern or cockeyed horns. He was sure the other three were there also. They just didn’t come to eye in the gathering twilight and with all the cattle milling about. In fact, of the two he’d managed to spot it seemed as if the red paint was not quite as bright as on some other of the cattle. Of course that could have been the light, but Longarm guessed it was due more to the animals rubbing up against each other.
As he was riding back to the hotel, he thought about Austin Davis and Dulcima, wondering how they were getting on and whether or not Dulcima had gotten interested in Davis yet. Then he frowned, thinking about Davis. The young deputy had hit him a pretty good shot after they’d loaded Raoul San Diego in the bed of the buckboard and covered him over with a piece of canvas so he looked like luggage. As Davis finished cutting off a piece of rope they’d used to secure the canvas, he’d said, “Well just tell me one thing, Mister Long … If the lady is so preferential toward you, how come she didn’t ask why it wasn’t you taking her over to Mexico? She ain’t supposed to know you’ve got to be here to deal with Caster. Not unless you told her, which I don’t think you’d do.”
It had stumped Longarm, leaving him temporarily speechless. Davis had been all too right. How come Dulcima hadn’t asked, at least once, why he, Longarm, couldn’t take her over?
But she hadn’t. Longarm considered it down right insulting. Worse, he knew he’d never hear the end of it from Austin Davis.
Chapter 11
In the morning, word was sent to Longarm at the hotel that Jay Caster wanted to see him. He let an hour pass and then fetched his horse from the livery stable and rode slowly over to the customs office. Caster was sitting behind his desk with a slight frown on his face. You’d have had to have been looking for it, for the frown to be noticeable. But Longarm had been looking. “You see Raoul yesterday?” the customs inspector asked.
“Oh, yes. Sure did.” Longarm eased himself into a chair. He looked at Caster expectantly, as if waiting for him to go on. Caster wrinkled his brow. “it go all right?”
Longarm nodded. “Yeah. Why shouldn’t it have?”
Caster leaned over and spit in his bucket. “What time you see him?”
“Oh, little after mid-morning. Can’t say to the minute, but I’d reckon sometime between ten-thirty and eleven.
“See him out at that house?”
“Yeah. Just like you told me.” Longarm took off his hat and leaned forward. “Why? Is something wrong?”
Caster didn’t answer. Instead he spit again. “Was she there?”
“Who?”
“Who, hell! Dulcima.”
Longarm acted as if he was giving it some thought. “I think so. Yes, I caught a glimpse of her off that big room downstairs. Toward the kitchen, I guess you’d say. And maybe she came out and went upstairs. I wasn’t noticing. But I wasn’t there that long. I just give the money to San Diego and he give it a quick count. Then we had a little argument about a receipt.”