Fish said, “Yeah, that would be handy if I knew where the hell we were going and what the hell we are going to do.”
Longarm said, “Fish, you play five-card stud, don’t you? Isn’t that one of your favorite games?”
“I put it on a par with draw—five-card draw—it’s all serious poker.”
“Well, what I’m getting to is that you get a card up and then you get a card down, which you bet on, and the others either call or fold, and then you have to wait for the next card, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s what you’re doing right now. You’re waiting for that next card.”
Fisher said, “I have a feeling that this trip is going to wreck my health. You know a man of my age and sensibilities needs to keep to a regular schedule. You done woke me up way early this morning and got my feeding habits out of kilter, and now here we are riding a train through the mountains to some damned town in New Mexico that I didn’t want to be in, and I’ve got a feeling that we are going to get on horseback and ride on tonight. How many other surprises am I going to get?”
Longarm said, “Well, every new card is a surprise, isn’t it, Fish?”
“Yeah, but I can fold my hand if the one I get doesn’t work and I don’t care for it.”
“That’s the difference between this and poker. You’ve got to stay until the end of the pot; you can’t fold this hand.”
Fisher yawned. “Longarm, did anybody ever tell you that you’re a circular sonofabitch?”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a circular sonofabitch?”
Fisher gave him an eye. “That’s a sonofabitch anyway you look at it.”
The train slowly made its way out of Taos and started winding through the mountains that ringed the valley where the town was located. With agonizing slowness, the train chugged its way up steep inclines and around bends that were too sharp for Longarm’s comfort. Occasionally, the train would rumble, jarring over a patch of rough roadbed, and Longarm’s senses would tingle as he thought of the eight ounces of nitro swinging in the cradle somewhere up ahead.
The roadbed, as it climbed through the mountains, was so narrow that Longarm could lean forward in the narrow stock car and see through the slats in the side to the bottom of the valley a thousand feet below. He said, “Boy, I hope this train is made out of some kind of light material.”
“How come?”
“So when we jump the tracks and fall all the way down, we won’t make such a racket when we hit.”
Fisher said, “That’s a hell of a nice thought. You got any more information that you want to give me?”
Longarm reached into the pouch of the saddlebags and brought out a bottle of his Maryland whiskey. He pulled out the plug and offered it to his friend. Fisher took a small drink, a sip, and handed it back.
Longarm asked, “You never have been much of a drinker, have you, Fish?”
“Never have seen the need. It never did much for me and I could see where it caused some folks a good deal of harm. I ain’t got nothing against it. You appear to enjoy taking a drink, but I just don’t. Have you ever eaten a raw oyster?”
Longarm said, “Yeah, but only once. I was in Baltimore for some kind of trial that I had to testify in, and this lawman got me out to dinner and insisted that I eat one of those nasty things.”
Fish said, “He probably told you that it was something that if you ate enough of you’d like, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s the way I feel about whiskey. I don’t think it’s worth the effort.”
Longarm looked out at the snow-capped mountains they were winding their way through, feeling it getting cooler and cooler with every foot they climbed. He said, “You know, Fish. You never really gave me a good reason why you quit the law business. I don’t believe it was because you could make more money playing poker.”
“No, that was never it. It wasn’t the danger, matter of fact, it was the lack of danger. What do you think of your average criminal, Longarm? Not people like the Gallaghers, but just your average idiot that sets out to rob a bank?”
Longarm shrugged. “Not a hell of a lot. Most of them ain’t a real hand with a gun.”
“Exactly. I’ve never really discussed this with anybody before, but I’ve got to tell you this, Longarm. I got to feeling ashamed. The damned fools wouldn’t admit when they were whipped, when they were in over their head. Some stupid farmer who couldn’t make a living suddenly thought he could walk into a bank with a pointed gun and they would give him all the money. Then when the law came looking for him, he thought he could beat them, but he forgot that a gun was the lawman’s stock in trade. There was just too many times, Longarm, when I felt I was committing murder. It’s just that simple.”
Longarm nodded. “I know what you mean, Fish, but if they haven’t got sense enough to drop the gun, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Hell, a blind sow can find an acorn, so you’re liable to catch a stray bullet, and a stray bullet will kill you just as quick as a well-aimed one.”
They rode on in silence for another quarter of an hour. Longarm had a good drink of whiskey, corked the bottle, and put it back into his saddlebags before lighting one of his small cigars. He said, “The Gallaghers ought to be on their way right now from Raton to somewhere on the Cimarron Strip.”
Fish looked around at him. “How do you know that?”
“Because Lily Gail showed back up unexpectedly. I sent a telegram to confirm the meeting and the time, and she damned near got back before the return telegram arrived.”
“Did she say the Gallaghers were in Raton?”
“Oh, hell, no. She said she had wired them in Quitman, Oklahoma, and that they wired her back with the details, and that they were acceptable the way I proposed that we do it.”
Fish laughed slightly. “Hell, Quitman ain’t got no telegraph office.”
“I knew that, but I didn’t mention it to her. I figure they left and she didn’t have a good reason to hang around Raton, or else they sent her back down to check on me. Anyway, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how this thing is falling out.”
Fisher gave him a grin. “So, that’s who was in there when I was knocking at your door. Right?”
Longarm said, “I don’t calculate that would be any of your business, Mister Lee.”
Fisher Lee, still grinning, said, “You were having yourself a little hair pie, weren’t you?”
Longarm gave him a glare. “I was about to have myself some hair pie until a so-called friend of mine came along and upset the kettle.”
Fisher kept grinning. “Well, I am just tore up to hear that, Mister Custis Long. That purely twists my heart to know that I caused you the hardship and the loss that you’ve suffered.”
Longarm said, “Oh, go to hell.”
After a pause Fisher said, “You know, sooner or later, you’ve got to tell me what the plan is. I’m not going to just follow, so if you’d like to enlighten me …”
Longarm said, “I wish to hell I really knew what the plan really was, but a lot of it depends on how the Gallaghers react. But I can tell you this. You and I are going to get off this train in about twenty or so minutes and unload the horses, and then take off east for ten or fifteen miles. We’re going to get on top of some high ground and bed down for the night and see what comes our way.”
Fisher Lee cursed silently and softly for a moment. “Dammit, Longarm. I vowed to myself when I had gotten out of law work that I had slept on the ground for the last time.”
“Nobody says you have to sleep on the hard ground.”
“Oh, yeah? Where in hell else am I going to sleep?”
“Well, you’ve got lots of choices. You can sleep standing up, you can sleep leaning against a rock, you can burden your poor horse and sleep in the saddle all night. Hell, what are you complaining about?”