“It’s going to be Rufus. I know that Rufus has a scar on his jaw, so they aren’t going to try and fool me that way. Rufus and Fisher can come back a mile or two or they can find a shady tree somewhere along the way. The only point is that we want to make sure that I get on back without catching a cold or something else going wrong with me, don’t we.”
“Custis, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m telling you that all they want is to get straight with the law. They’ve got a lot of folks that they are going to put in your hands so that they can make it right.”
Longarm said, “Well, you just deliver the instructions that I gave you. We’ll be at that line tomorrow afternoon. If they want to play, tell them to be there also and we’ll make a swap. Rufus comes into New Mexico and I’ll go into Oklahoma.”
She furrowed her brow again. “They don’t much like to leave Oklahoma.”
Longarm nodded. “I know all about that, Lily Gail. I’m not going to ask them to come around law, and I’m not going to ask them to put themselves in some sort of jeopardy, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stick my head into some sort of bear trap without somebody having a damn good hold on the bear. I’m not saying that I don’t trust the Gallaghers. It’s just that it’s a hell of a coincidence to have a bunch of other folks going around robbing and killing and burning down houses and using their name. Kind of makes me suspicious. Explain it to them that way. Right now, it seems like they have something that I may be able to use, but it also appears that I have something they really want and for all I know, what they really want is me and I want to make sure that ain’t so. Now, you go back to the room and get yourself ready to go. We need to start for the train depot real quick.”
Just before eleven o’clock, Longarm knocked on the door of Fisher Lee’s room above the adobe saloon. He’d seen Lily Gail on her train, and watched as it had pulled out for Raton, some seventy miles up the line. It took several knocks before a whiskered, tasseled-haired, and sleepy-looking Fisher Lee finally opened the door. He stood there in summer long underwear, yawning and looking like he’d only had about two hours’ sleep.
Longarm said, “My God, man. Do you sleep in those swaddling clothes?”
Fisher Lee blinked his eyes. “What?”
Longarm gestured and said, “That set of underwear you have on. Do you wear that as a regular thing?”
“Hell, Longarm. I don’t have much meat on my bones. I get cold.”
Longarm asked, “How were you last night? Cold?”
Fisher Lee tried to smooth his hair. “Oh, middling. I probably won a couple hundred, but it wasn’t worth the effort. I stayed up until near daybreak.”
“Well, that’s better wages than sheriffing.”
“Yeah, but the hours are longer and the work is harder.”
Longarm said, “You ready to talk or do you need a couple more hours of sleep?”
Fisher Lee yawned. “Go on down to that cafe down the street. Let me freshen up and shave and then I’ll be on over there as soon as I gather myself up.”
Longarm said, “It’ll be lunch by then.”
“Hell, Longarm, a meal is a meal. It don’t make a damn what you call it.”
Longarm laughed and said, “My God, Fish, you’ve turned philosopher in your old age.”
“Just go on along and I’ll be over there shortly.”
Longarm jabbed out a finger. “For God’s sakes, change that underwear you’re wearing. It’s starting to turn green.”
Fisher said, “I don’t comment on your personal business. I’d take it mighty kindly if you’d do the same for me.”
“Hurry up.”
Longarm clumped down the stairs and went out the door of the saloon.
Fisher Lee ate a half-dozen fried eggs with grits and biscuits while Longarm had a steak and potatoes and some green beans. Longarm said, “Fish, no wonder your head ain’t latched on tight with the hours that you keep. You’re eating breakfast in the middle of the day. That would be enough to confuse a well man, and you’ve always just barely been across the border on that score.”
Fisher Lee didn’t look up. “If there was a body that came up to this table and looked at the both of us and said that one of us had a heavy load on his shoulders, I don’t reckon he’d choose me as the one that needed help.” He looked up. “And as you are coming to me for help, I’d be a mite slow on those personal criticisms that you have been aiming my way, since I drug my body out of bed for your benefit. Now, would you like to tell me what the situation is and where we’re at?”
Longarm said, “Let’s get done eating. I never could chew and talk at the same time. This damn situation is more complicated than it seems.”
“That woman’s involved, ain’t she?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I don’t reckon I need to say anymore. You said it was complicated. That automatically means there’s a woman involved.”
“Just finish your breakfast.”
“You eat your lunch.”
They both ate in silence for another fifteen minutes. Longarm pushed his plate away, pulled out a small cigar, and lit it.
Chapter 4
Longarm said, “Well, it’s this way. Let me tell you what I know, what I think, what I’m planning, and see how much of it you go along with.” After that, he told Fish about his idea of having one brother come over while he crossed into Oklahoma to talk to the other one. He said, “I know we talked about it before and we both agreed that we didn’t know what the Gallaghers looked like. But I’m willing to trust the description that Lily Gail gave me about the scar on Rufus’s jaw.”
Fish gave him a skeptical look. “You feel real certain about that, do you?”
“I’m not saying that she is not capable of lying. I’m saying that she couldn’t have come up with it that fast and seen the intent behind my questions. I was pretty sly about it.”
Fish smiled slowly with his long face. “Yeah, there’s been many a man who thought he was sly until he measured his slyness against a woman’s slyness. A man’s going to come up short every time on that one.”
“Well, hell. It’s the best that I’ve got. I don’t have any other choice.”
“Yeah, you do. You can leave the whole damn situation alone.”
Longarm shook his head. “I almost wish I could, Fish, but something inside me won’t let me do it.”
Fisher Lee shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s your neck. If you want to risk it, that’s your business. I’ll be glad to ride herd on the one that comes over. If it’s Rufus, so much the better. Of course, you still don’t know if they’re going to take your deal, do you?”
Longarm shook his head again. “No, and I won’t know until this afternoon. As soon as Lily Gail gets the word, she is to telegraph me and the business is supposed to happen tomorrow afternoon. I figured that we would have to leave out of here sometime tomorrow morning to get near to the border. We can take the mining company’s little train to Springer. That’ll knock forty miles off the ride.”
“There ain’t nothing going to happen unless you hear from Lily Gail?”
“Nothing that I’m going to go along with. If I don’t get a hedge on my bet, I’m not about to go along with this scheme, not even if it means a chance to capture the whole damn bunch of them.”
Fisher Lee lit a cigarette and shook out the match. “By and by, there’s one matter that you’ve not given all that much thought to. You’re going over there and you’re not just going to have truck with one of the Gallaghers. There’s liable to be a dozen or two of that wild bunch there. What if a few of them have enough of a grudge against you that they don’t give a damn what happens to the one that I’m holding? What if they decide to have a party with you, what then?”
Longarm took a sip of the beer that he had allowed to go flat while he ate lunch. “Well, I reckon that I’m a blown-up sucker.”