Ahead they could see the two men separate a little as Longarm and Fisher approached. Longarm said, “Seems like they have the same idea that we do. Let’s pull up to within a hundred yards of them and talk terms and how exactly we are going to do this.”
Fisher said, “Sounds to me like somebody has to trust somebody, and I don’t think they’re the trusting kind. I damn sure don’t feel like being trusting to folks such as them.”
Longarm said, “Let’s just see how it goes. At least they’re here.”
“Yeah, if it’s them.”
As they rode forward, the other pair of men started in their direction. They came fifty yards farther as Longarm and Fisher slowly advanced. With the distance down to about fifty or seventy-five yards, both sides pulled up. Longarm could not quite make out the features of either man, but he could see the white scar along the jaw of the man to his left. He stood up in his stirrups and yelled, “Gallagher? You be the Gallaghers?”
The one on the right said, “Yeah, are you Marshal Custis Long, the one they call Longarm?”
“That’s correct. I hear you want to talk to me. I hear you have some wrongdoers that you want to deliver into my custody. Is that correct?”
The one doing the talking said, “Well, that’s right as far as that goes, but that don’t cover the whole business of the matter. I’m willing to turn these men over to you if you’ll give us a fair ear as to how come we’re being hounded and run down and persecuted like we’ve been when me and my brother ain’t never done nothing wrong.”
Longarm asked, “Who am I talking to?”
“Hell, you’re talking to Clem Gallagher. Who did you think that you were talking to?”
“Who’s the other man?”
“That’s my brother, Rufus. Hell, don’t you recognize him? I thought you had seen both of us. God knows, you’ve deviled us long enough. I thought you’d know us both by sight.”
Longarm said, “No, just from a distance and mostly from the back.”
“Yeah, I reckon that my shoulder blades twitched a little bit. Must have been just out of range.”
“The last man I shot in the back just happened to turn at the wrong moment.”
Clem Gallagher said, “I’ll make damn sure that I don’t make that mistake.”
Longarm said, “All right. How do you want to do it? I’m not coming over there until you give me somebody over here. Is Rufus willing to come over here? This is Fisher Lee. He’s a deputy U.S. Marshal out of the Santa Fe office.”
Clem Gallagher said, “I thought them were the terms, although I didn’t know you all had an office in Santa Fe.”
“It was my understanding that you didn’t get around the New Mexico territory very much, you didn’t care for it, and you didn’t have that many kinfolk there.”
“I’m willing to go through with the agreement that we made through Lily Gail.”
Longarm said, “All right. Send Rufus over. As soon as he crosses over, I’ll cross over to you. By the way, what is that shack over there?”
Clem Gallagher turned in his saddle and looked back in the direction of the old building. He said, “Oh, just some old sodbuster that didn’t make it. He tried to make a living growing rocks and cactus. I guess he thought that corn would grow in sand. It’s just a big old falling-down house.”
Longarm said, “Where are these men that you plan to deliver to me?”
Clem said, “They are right handy. If we reach an agreement, I can promise you that no less than fourteen men will be turned over to you, maybe more.”
“How come your brother never says anything?”
“He ain’t the talking kind.”
“Start him forward and I’ll start at the same time.”
Longarm watched the other man as, for a moment, he talked to Clem Gallagher. The scar was plain as he worked his mouth.
Clem Gallagher yelled, “Rufus wants to make it damn clear that he’s not going to surrender his weapon.”
“I don’t expect him to. Neither will I surrender mine. However, Clem, if anybody else joins us, then you’re going to surrender yours.”
Clem said, “It’s just me and you, Marshal. Dammit, I told you that all I want to do is talk. How come you can’t believe an honest man?”
“I do believe honest men. Start your brother.”
Clem Gallagher nodded at the man beside him, and suddenly the man with the silver scar on his jaw started his horse toward Fisher. Longarm touched the spurs to the flanks of his dun and matched Rufus, if in fact that was who he was, stride for stride as they neared the invisible boundary between them.
Off to his left, Fisher said, “Good luck, Longarm. I hope you don’t need any.”
Without taking his eyes off either man, Longarm said, “Unlike some card players I know, I don’t depend on luck, Fisher. You’d better mind yourself.”
Fisher said, “I believe I can hold up my end.”
“Well, we ought to get this over with pretty quick.”
Then, off to his left, the man called Rufus passed across the invisible line at the same time Longarm did. Longarm touched his horse again lightly with his spurs so that he increased to a faster walk. Then, suddenly remembering he was supposed to be riding a crippled animal, he quickly slowed him again.
As he neared, Clem Gallagher said, “is he stove up bad?”
“No. He got a loose shoe at the wrong time. I think it pulled his tendon a little bit. I nailed the shoe back tight. He seems to be improving considerable, but I don’t want to stretch him. I’m a long way from home and I just as soon he not go lame out here.”
They slowly came together and for the first time in all the years that he had been hunting them, Longarm was face to face with one of the Gallagher brothers.
The man had on a black, flat-crowned, straight-brimmed hat of good quality. He had on a white linen duster that reached to his knees. Under it, Longarm could see that he was wearing a good-quality shirt and corduroy pants. Longarm could just see the hammer and the back of the handle of what he took to be a Colt .44 with horn grips. Gallagher’s face was small and mean and pinched-looking. His eyes appeared to Longarm to be just a trifle too close together. His lips were thin and he had almost no chin. He had the look that Longarm had seen before in men who were just a little too mean, too greedy, and too vicious for their own good and for the good of those who chanced to cross their path.
Longarm was surprised at the age of the man. Even with the pencil-thin mustache that decorated his lip, he couldn’t have been more than thirty, if that. Longarm noticed that he had small hands. His face was not as weathered as it should have been for a man who spent time in the open. Longarm figured that the Gallagher style was to make the plans and then send others out to do the dirty work. Probably some of the men that had been enticed into the morning attack had been just that kind, but then, they were replaceable.
Longarm could not quite figure Gallagher’s size in the saddle, but he doubted that he would be very big. At the most, he would be five-seven or five-eight and weigh around 140 pounds. Longarm hoped that he would get the chance to put his fist through that smug, selfish little face that was trying to lure him into a trap. Longarm was in no hurry, but he was looking forward to telling Clem Gallagher at the right moment what had happened to eighteen of his riders and why he wouldn’t be tearing up anymore railroad lines and why he wasn’t going to be robbing the mining office in Springer.
But all that could wait. Longarm wanted to look the situation over very carefully before he showed his hole card. That might take a little doing. He said, “All right, I’m here, Gallagher. Let’s get on with it. Where are these men that you intend to turn over to my custody?”
Clem Gallagher’s horse was facing west. He turned him to come alongside Longarm. He pointed and said, “Do you see way up yonder beyond that old shack? Well, there’s a rise that drops off right sharp. Right below that is a barranca, a crevice. I’ve got fourteen bandits down in there who we’re holding under guard who have been going around doing depredations and other bad things in my name. Every damn one of them will tell you so. I want my name cleared and I want my brother’s name cleared and I want my family’s name cleared.”