After a while he suggested that Fish go down and check on the horses. He said, “I don’t figure there’s any water around here, although that crew might have enough. Why don’t you cinch them both up and ride over and see if you can get some water and any kind of feed that they might have. You might also see if you can fetch a fresh bag of ice.”
Fish said, “I’m for that.”
“Then I reckon when you bring the horses back into the grove of trees that you might leave them saddled and bridled.”
“You mean in case we need to get out of here in a hurry?”
Longarm looked annoyed. “No. In case we have to give chase.”
Fish said, “Oh, yeah. Nothing I’d like better than to give chase to about two dozen heavily armed bandits.”
“Go on down, you skinny bastard, and see to those horses and make short work of it. It’s getting on up into the day. It must be around seven-thirty now.”
“I’m on my way.”
While Fisher Lee was gone, Longarm carefully opened the tops of the canvas ice-filled sacks. He brushed away the top layer of the chopped ice. Halfway down in each one he found two ice-filled oilskin packets. With great care, he drew one out. It was dripping ice water. He opened the flap and looked inside. Nestled inside their private bed of crushed ice were two very innocent-looking small glass flasks full of clear white liquid. It was, he thought, a very nice arrangement that would allow him to take the nitro out a packet at a time, with two vials in each packet to use as needed.
He carefully replaced the oilskin packet back into the slit that the solidifying ice had created. The ice had not melted as much as he’d thought it would. It appeared to him that both sides were at least three-quarters full. He closed the sacks up and then looked at Pedro.
Longarm said to the burro, “Pedro, I’m sorry. I ain’t got a thing for you. No water, no feed, no hay, nothing. Unless you want to eat rock, there’s nothing.”
The patient animal, who didn’t seem to have moved an inch the entire night, looked at him with those big sad brown eyes and flicked an ear in recognition of Longarm’s words.
Longarm said, “I wish most folks that I work with were as easy to work with as you are and as easy to please. Pedro, you’re a credit to the U.S. marshals service.”
He went back to the row of rocks along the edge of the ledge and looked as far as he could to the east. The terrain remained empty. In the still air, he could hear the men grunting and the scrape of the shovels as they prepared the roadbed in the rocky, sandy soil. Soon, they would start laying cross-ties, and after that would come the rails. He wondered what time the raiders would come.
In a few minutes, as he watched, he saw Fisher emerge from the top of the trees and head toward the train. It was amusing to see the workers look up, stare for a moment, drop their tools, and then carefully make their way quickly back to the engine. Even the engineer, who had been idling along the drive wheels, oiling this and that, immediately went up into the cab.
As Fisher neared waving his hat, they saw that it was just one man. Perhaps they had been told to expect some protection, perhaps they had not. At any rate, they seemed to receive Fisher without too much alarm. Longarm watched as Fisher dismounted and talked with the engineer and a member of the work crew who Longarm took to be the foreman. Finally, four men jumped up on one of the flat cars and wrestled down a big barrel. The way the horses crowded around, he could tell It was water. He didn’t know if it was the men’s water, but the horses didn’t care. Unfortunately, there was no feed to be had, but after a while, one of the men came out of the coal tender lugging a canvas sack. He and Fisher arranged it over Longarm’s saddle and then tied it in place. Longarm took it to be the extra ice he’d asked for.
After some more talk, Fisher wheeled and brought the horses back at a much slower pace. He disappeared from Longarm’s view as he came around the back side of the butte. The one thing that had Longarm puzzled was that Fisher had somehow acquired a bucket of something heavy. He was carrying it in his right hand and reining with his left. Longarm assumed that sooner or later, Fisher would let him know. He also had a quiet smile to himself at the frustration of his friend when he, Longarm, had managed to win back most of his money. He’d even told Fisher, “Listen, if you sit there long enough, I’ll not only have all my money back, but all of yours too.”
Fisher had said, “There ain’t no such day and there ain’t never going to be such a day. You sit there long enough and I’ll own everything you have including all the lies you’ve told about women.”
It wasn’t long before Longarm could hear grunts and scrambling noises from behind him. He figured it was Fisher losing more weight and having trouble with his slick-soled boots on the hard, rocky, angled sides of the butte. Then Fisher came into view, struggling along with the big bucket in his hand.
Longarm asked, “What do you have there? Some hot soup?”
Fisher was still out of breath, and it took him a moment before he could reply. “No, I’ve got some water for the only really necessary element of this organization, old Pedro.”
Longarm smiled. “Now, that’s damn thoughtful of you, Fisher. I’m really sorry that I’ve said the things that I’ve said about you around town.”
Fisher said, “Go to hell.” He took the water over to the grateful burro, who immediately plunged half his head into the bucket.
Longarm said, “Naturally, you didn’t bring him any grain.”
“Why …” Fisher stopped. “They didn’t happen to have any grain, Mister Deputy Marshal Custis Long. They were not even aware of our presence. I did improvise on the spot, and I did try to get the horses fed. But I have them over in a better place than that little bit of woods and with some halfway decent grass. They’re cinched up, but I took the bits out of their mouths so that they could graze. It shouldn’t take us but a second or two to rebridle them.”
“Well, I reckon that’s all right. You done good, Fish, for a man of your capabilities.”
Fisher kneeled down beside him and looked to his carbine. He said, “Any sign of anything?”
“No, nothing, just a lot of view. How did that train crew take to you coming up on them?”
Fish smiled. “Well, they were a mite apprehensive at first. I told them that we were just out here scouting the country for the surveyor.”
“That was quick thinking. What did they say?”
“They warned me about the bandits.”
“nat was thoughtful of them.”
“I didn’t tell them there was already one up there on that butte, wearing a badge but a bandit just the same. I swear, Longarm, you cheated sometime in that card game. You had to have. There ain’t no way you can beat me straight up.”
“If anybody cheated, it was you. By the way, where is the ice that you brought from the train? That nitro is starting to sweat.”
Fish jumped to his feet. “Oh, hell, I forgot it. It’s down by the horses. I’m going after it now.”
Longarm yelled after him, “Bring our canteens. It’s getting warm up here and I don’t know how long we are going to have to wait.”
Fisher’s voice came from around the curve on the trail. Longarm could hear him scrambling. Fish said, “Anything else?”