Caster had let Longarm sweat for two days before he’d sent for him to give him instructions about the money and let him know he’d go through with the deal. Longarm wasn’t sure if that was because Caster had had to clear the situation with Mull or if he was just being suspicious and careful. But it didn’t matter, not now when it appeared he was going through with it. And Longarm liked the fact that Caster himself would be handling the money. He hadn’t admitted to it, but Longarm greatly doubted that there’d be anyone else going into his room.
He let himself in, went straight to the bed, and slipped the canvas sack in between the mattress and the coil springs. He was on the point of leaving when he noticed that the window curtains were pulled back and the window itself was halfway up. His room was on the ground floor, at the back of the hotel. Looking out his window, you could see a pasture, and beyond that, part of the town. But anyone walking behind the hotel could see in through the ground-floor windows, and Longarm didn’t think that Jay Caster would want to be seen in a hotel room fetching out twenty-five hundred dollars from somebody else’s mattress. He put the sash down even though a nice breeze was blowing through, and then pulled the curtains to. After that he took a quick look around, let himself out, and walked down the hall and across the lobby to the bar. He didn’t see Caster, but then he didn’t expect to.
As he sat down at a table his mind turned to Austin Davis. Austin had been gone four days and once again Longarm wondered how he was doing with Dulcima. Either he’d won her over or she’d killed him. She didn’t seem like a woman who went in for halfway measures. Longarm sat there, sipping at a whiskey and dreading the thought of going to see Raymond San Diego. But he would need eight or ten vaqueros the next morning when Caster turned his cattle loose, and Caster had suggested San Diego as someone who could round him up a crew. Of course Longarm had no intention of trailing the herd north, but he had to keep on acting like he was.
He took his time finishing his drink, then got up, paid his score, and went back to his room. He could see that the bedclothes and spread had been disturbed and, when he looked under the mattress, the canvas sack of cash was gone. Turning around, he sat down on the bed and rummaged around in his pocket until he found a cigarillo and a match. When he got the cigarillo lit and drawing he sat there, blowing out clouds of blue smoke, giving the whole proposition a good thinking over. As far as he was concerned, Caster had taken the bait. Now all that remained was to gather him and Mull up in the same sack and the job was done.
That afternoon he rode over to the quarantine pens and looked across the sprawling mass of cattle. As best he could tell, his cattle had not been moved. It was difficult, however, since he had only the five head he had marked in his mind to watch for. They did not brand cattle in Mexico, which made the job a good deal harder, but Longarm couldn’t see any changes. Perhaps Caster and his crew did their work by a falling moon. If so, they had to work at a pretty good clip to get nearly a thousand cattle up to the release pens, which were almost a quarter of a mile away. He still couldn’t figure out how they did it, but that part really made no difference. Caster would tell him when the time was right, if he was still curious about the matter.
When he got back to the hotel he went into the dining room and made a supper of beef stew and chocolate cake. He was still being careful of his bad tooth, which so far had not been bothering him. He intended to return the favor by not eating anything that would irritate it. Coming out of the dining room, he started to make for the bar, which was just off the lobby, but when he realized it was too early to find a poker game, he veered off, crossed the lobby, and headed down the first-floor hall to his room. He used his key on the door, which was unusual because most places he stayed the key wasn’t much use, since the lock seldom worked. But the Hamilton was different. Using his key was also unusual because Longarm seldom locked his door, seldom having anything in his room worth stealing. But now he had twenty-five hundred dollars in the mattress and he guessed that was worth stealing. He swung the door open and there was Austin Davis stretched out on the bed with a glass of Longarm’s whiskey resting on his stomach. He looked tired and grimy, but he held up a hand in greeting.
Longarm shut the door behind him. “How the hell did you get in here?” he said.
Davis waved vaguely behind him. “Came in through the window. Them sashes ain’t nothing to raise up and open. Ain’t got no lock on them.”
“How’d you know which window?”
Davis sat up, swung his legs around, and sat on the side of the bed. He yawned. “I knew your room number, so all I had to do was count down from the lobby. Wasn’t hard.”
“Huh,” Longarm said. He walked to the bedside table, poured himself half a glass of the Maryland whiskey, noting the bottle had taken a pretty good beating since he’d last seen it, then pulled up a chair, turned it front to back, and sat down astraddle. He took a drink of whiskey. “What,” he said, “are you doing back here? I’m glad as hell you are, but what happened?”
Austin Davis’s face fell. He grimaced. “She ran out on me, Longarm. Got away. Last night. I don’t know what time ‘cause I didn’t wake up. But when I did, she was gone. I nearly killed two horses getting back here. I ain’t been here long.”
“Hmmmm,” Longarm said, and took another sip of his drink. “I take it you rushed back because you figure she don’t mean us no good. Is that it?”
Davis shook his head. “I don’t know. But I figured you ought to know. I mean, she did slip off. Took Raoul’s horse, the best I can figure. I know she bribed a couple of the peons working on my friends’ hacienda to help her saddle up and get away. We determined that much.”
“How was she to you?”
The young deputy wrinkled his brow in thought. “Kind of calculating I’d say. She asked me a bunch of questions about you, but I just stuck to my part as a cattle contractor. Told her you was a cattle broker, and that was all I knowed. That you was dealing with Caster and your business with him had brought you out to see Raoul. Said it was damn unfortunate about him, but them things happened.”
“What’d she say to that?”
Davis shook his head. “Not much of anything. If she was feeling any loss about Raoul, she kept it damn well hidden from me. It took us two days to get to these folks’ place. They knew I was a deputy marshal, but I tipped them not to let on and I’m sure they didn’t. I got rid of the body along the way, though Dulcima never knew about it. We spent the first night in a little hotel, and I slipped out when it was good and dark and found a canyon in some wild country and buried Raoul at the bottom of it.”
Longarm rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about the woman,” he said, “except she is strong-willed as hell and wants her way. Did you do any good with her?”
Davis shook his head again. “No. And it was a damn big disappointment. But you remember she’d said she’d do the touching if it come to it. So I waited and it never happened. We slept in separate rooms, though they was side by side and had a connecting door. I slept mighty light and kept a check on her through the night. That’s how I come to find out she was gone as soon as I did. I reckon it was around two in the morning. Hell, it was this morning. So I’ve come forty miles just about as fast as you can without being on a train. You reckon she means to make trouble for us here?”
Longarm took a drink and looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Women are a strange breed and she’s one of the strangest I ever run across. Maybe it took her a few days, but it might have occurred to her I killed her lover right there in her house and that was a slap to her. If she takes it that way, then yes, I got to figure she means trouble. And then her slipping off like that. Got to be something in it.”