Caster looked up quickly. “You asked him for a receipt?”
“Hell, yes. That’s a wad of money I was passing him.”
“What’d he say about the receipt?”
“Said for me to go to hell. Not in those words, but it came to the same thing. Mostly he just give me a look like I’d been eating loco weed.”
“What then?”
“Nothing. I got on my horse and left. You’d told me to give him the twenty-five hundred, so I did. When it was clear he wouldn’t give me anything in writing saying he got it, I give up and come on back to town. Say, what is this all about? Is something wrong?”
Caster gave him an irritable look. “There you go, asking questions again. This is none of yore affair.”
Longarm leaned forward again. “The hell it ain’t. I got twenty-five hundred dollars invested here. I reckon that gives me the right to ask a few questions about what’s going on.”
Caster waved his arm dismissively. “Ain’t nothing going on. Now get up and get on out of here.”
That afternoon Raymond San Diego came to see Longarm. He found him in the hotel bar having a solitary drink at a back table. Longarm watched the dapper little man as he picked his way between the tables. He was wearing a light tan linen suit with a starched white shirt and a brown foulard tie. He was, Longarm reckoned, about the neatest man outside of the banking profession that he’d ever seen. As San Diego approached, Longarm looked him over carefully for a weapon. Austin Davis had said he carried a pistol under his coat, but Longarm couldn’t figure out where.
San Diego came straight to the table and stopped, looking down and not saying a word. Longarm nodded his head. “Howdy. Whyn’t you set down and have a drink?”
San Diego ignored the invitation. “When you see my brother?” he said.
Longarm gave him a slow look, trying to give the impression of a man who is just slightly offended. “Well,” he said, “I can’t see where that would be any of your business, Senor San Diego. But if you want to know, why don’t you ask your brother yourself?”
“Caster say you saw him yesterday morning at the hacienda.”
Longarm nodded. “If you’re getting your information from Mister Caster, then you ain’t got nothing to talk to me about. I told him all I knew about the situation. Now, how about you answer me a question? Something going on with your brother? Has he gotten out of pocket?”
Raymond San Diego was still staring down at him. “I hear you have a long talk with hees woman, Dulcima.”
Longarm shook his head. “I don’t talk about a lady’s business, Senor San Diego. I had a conversation, a mighty short conversation, with her, out yonder on the plaza. That took place in front of half the town. If that’s what you are referring to.”
“You doan see her again?”
Longarm tried to look irritated. “Look here,” he said, “what is all this? I’m a cattle broker in town trying to do a little business. My dealings are my own and I don’t give a minute’s thought to the business of others. You and Mister Caster are both starting to make me think something ain’t quite right with your brother, and that is fixing to make me nervous. Why are you walking in here and asking me questions about him? You ain’t never done that before. Now what is going on?”
Abruptly, and without another word, Raymond San Diego turned on his heel and marched out of the bar. Longarm watched him go, laughing to himself. It appeared that Raymond’s disappearance had them churning around. Longarm was almost willing to bet that someone had seen Austin Davis and Dulcima cross the bridge, the day before, and word had got back to either Caster or Raymond that Raoul had been seen leaving for Mexico. Presumably with twenty-five hundred dollars that didn’t belong to him. What would be coming next? Obviously, Caster had asked Raymond about Raoul, told him what he knew, and Raymond had started his own line of inquiry. Longarm imagined that Austin Davis would enjoy the confusion. He hoped, however, that that was all Austin Davis was enjoying. As far as Longarm was concerned, he hadn’t more than got started on Dulcima and he damn sure didn’t want somebody else stirring around and leaving tracks in his pie.
With the new information provided by Raymond’s visit Longarm considered going over and bracing Caster and asking what in the hell was going on with Raoul. But finally he decided to let the pot just simmer along.
It was late the next afternoon before Longarm got another summons from Jay Caster. Longarm reflected that Austin Davis had been gone better than forty-eight hours and there had been no word from him. It was bothersome trying to play the hand without knowing whether he could count on help from the other lawman. But then, that was the way it was. It was another reason Longarm preferred to work alone. If you never had any help, then you never expected any. Still, he would have liked to hear from Davis. The man wasn’t all that bad, though the situation he was in, with Dulcima, wasn’t the kind Longarm believed he could be trusted with. The woman required a man with a special kind of strength and Longarm didn’t think Austin, as good an opinion as he had of himself where the ladies were concerned, measured up.
Before Longarm could even sit down, Jay Caster said, “I’m turning yore cattle out tomorrow. You better have some drovers there to handle them unless you want them scattered all over hell and back.”
Longarm cocked his head questioningly. “You mean I’m ready for the trail. You ain’t going to make me wait a week?”
Caster snorted. “Hell no, I don’t mean that. I mean yore cows are going back to Mexico. The deal is off. Get the hell out of here.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Longarm said heatedly. “What the hell are you talking about, the deal is off? Like hell it is. I paid you twenty-five hundred dollars and you ain’t pulling no plug on me!”
Caster leaned back in his chair and looked at Longarm from a long way off. “Let’s me and you get one thing straight,” he said. “You ain’t paid me a dime. And you go around saying you did and I’ll have yore ass in court.”
Longarm stood up and leaned over Caster’s desk. “I give the money to your man, Raoul,” he said, “and you know damn good and well I did. Look here, Caster, you can’t pull this on me. You ain’t got the right! By what right do you plan to turn my cattle out?”
Caster yawned, then leaned over and spit in the bucket. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Yore cattle are showing signs of tick fever. Law says I got to turn ‘em back to Mexico.”
Longarm tried to sound angry. “Don’t give me that, Caster. Hell, them cattle ain’t been in your pens but three days. They ain’t had time to show no signs of tick fe ver!”
“They do to me. And I’m the one makes the rules. You don’t like it, go to Brownsville and talk to the boss, James Mull.”
Longarm was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Look, what the hell is this all about? We had a deal.”
“Not that I know about.”
“Damnit, Caster, you can’t do this. You’ll ruin me. I’ve got near eight thousand dollars in those cattle. Plus that twenty-five hundred I give San Diego. I can’t take a loss like that. That’s better than ten thousand.”
“That ain’t my lookout. Sell ‘em back in Mexico.” Longarm made a disgusted sound. “Hell, you know I’d be lucky to get four dollars a head back there. Especially if word got around I’d been turned back at the border.”
“Drive ‘em a couple of hundred miles into the interior.”
“Then I’d get three a head and be out the cost of a long drive.” Longarm paused to stare at Caster, then demanded once again, “Mister Caster, what is all this about? I’ve done what you asked, right along. What the hell caused this switch? At least you could tell me that much.”
Caster seemed to be thinking. Finally he heaved his shoulders and said, “I reckon I could give you that much. The short and long of it is it was that damn woman. Raoul never was no good once he got his nose in under her skirt.”