Lita said, "I got to work now. You come to the baile tonight, Coos-tees?"
"Sure. It's the only dance in town, ain't it?"
"Maybe I dance with you then, if you ask me."
"Oh, I'll do that." He swallowed the last bite of the last bizcocho, drained his coffee cup, and handed Lita a quarter. "That enough money to pay for breakfast?"
"Is plenty. You pay too much, like last night."
"Well, like I told you then, anything extra's for you." Longarm touched a forefinger to his hat and said, "See you at the dance." Then he started back to the saloon. He wanted his Winchester for the scouting trip he planned to make.
When he went to the corral for Tordo, he avoided the sheriff's office. He didn't want to start the day with a run-in with Spud, and for all he knew the deputy might be on duty. Going directly to the corral, he saddled Tordo and started south along the river channel. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but knowing the lay of the land was often an insurance of survival. Longarm intended to survive.
* * *
By midafternoon, he'd covered the area near Los Perros on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande as well as the bank of the channel along which he'd started. That left the northern, upstream, end of the sandspit. He was forced to ride back almost to the center of town in order to avoid the lagoon formed by the backwater where the sandspit split the river. Going north on the spit, the houses of Los Perros straggled to an occasional lonely shanty more quickly than he'd realized they would. He'd thought there would be dwellings all the way to the northern end of the spit that rose like a whale's humped back above the river; the south end was thickly built up. Beyond the northernmost of the hovels, though, the sandspit stretched for at least two miles. He saw why when he'd left the last of the dwellings behind. High-water marks began to show almost at once.
Longarm continued to the point where the river split. Here, the Rio Grande now ran wide and sluggish at low water, over a sandy bottom. Might even be some quicksand here and there, he thought as he surveyed the point from the height of Tordo's back. He recalled that Texas rivers running in sandy beds were notorious for their quicksand. At the place where he'd pulled up the dapple, there was water on both sides of him: the lagoon on his right, the channel on the left. On the Mexican side of the channel the bank began a steep rise that quickly became a steep bluff; under the bluff the water deepened and the current ran as fast as it did along the downstream end of the sandspit.
Longarm could easily see why Los Perros was a no-man's-land, a place where an unscrupulous pusher like Ed Tucker could set himself up a miniature kingdom. In the rainy season, when the Rio Grande ran in flood, Los Perros stood as an island that could be claimed — or disclaimed — by the U.S. or Mexico. It was, he thought, like places he'd encountered elsewhere in the West. He remembered spots in Indian Territory where there were similar no-man's-lands, created by careless or inexpert surveyors who'd mistaken a natural landmark or guessed at longitude and latitude lines instead of making a star sighting to establish them correctly.
Anyhow, Longarm told himself, there wasn't going to be any argument about which country had jurisdiction when the time came for him to produce his badge, as long as there was dry land on the U.S. side of Los Perros.
Tordo tossed his head and snorted, and Longarm read the message; the horse was thirsty. Stopping to let him drink every time there was a wet spot on the ride from San Antonio had imprinted in the animal's mind the notion that he had to drink every time he saw water. Longarm slacked the reins and touched the dapple's side with his toe to wade him out into the river where he could drink easily. The gray waded out, testing the sand underfoot before each step, his instinct telling him that such bottoms could be treacherous. Tordo stopped in knee-deep water to drink.
There was no current to ripple the surface; the river's rushing water passed to Longarm's left. Idly, he looked over the dapple's bent head and gazed at the bottom, clearly visible through the shallow water. For a moment, he didn't take in what he was seeing. Then it sank home that the sand under the surface was covered with a pattern of dents that could have been caused by only one thing: the hooves of steers being waded across the stream.
Waiting until the dapple had drunk his fill, Longarm nudged the horse ahead. The bottom dropped gradually for a distance of at least two hundred yards. Until it started there to slant, Longarm's stirrups had stayed several inches above the surface. He went on until he felt wavelets slapping his boot soles, then reined in. The water wasn't as clear here, roiled a bit by the current, but he could still make out hoofprints in the sand.
To his left, the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande was low. The upward slope began at a point opposite the sandspit's end. To his right, the calm surface of the lagoon lapped at land that was almost level with the water. There were no hoofprints in the sand that stretched back from the lagoon; its surface rippled in windswept ridges.
To Longarm's trailwise eyes, the story was completely clear. Even a light breeze would smooth the loose, soft sand, and beyond it the baked soil was too hard to take prints. The bank on the Mexican side shelved gently from the water, here. At this one point, there seemed to be no quicksand. Driving a herd of cattle across, even at night, would be no trick at all.
Old son, Longarm told himself as he sat on Tordo's back surrounded by the green sun-dappled water, looks like you just fell headfirst into the place where the new Laredo Loop starts out.
Chapter 8
Standing on the veranda of Baskin's saloon, Longarm looked out across the plaza. Los Perros had turned out in full for the fiesta. He was sure that every man, woman, and child was crowded into the irregular circle that served as the town's public arena.
Music from a mariachi band in front of the saloon almost drowned that from a banda Guadalajara tapatia on the other side. The twanging of the strings and bell-like marimba notes of the mariachis at times clashed sourly against the brasses and cymbals of the Guadalajarenos, but if there were discords where the music blended in the plaza's center, this didn't seem to bother the dancers. They twirled and stomped to the rhythm of the music that was being played closest to them.
"I really do like to see my people having a good time," said a voice at Longarm's elbow.
He turned. Sheriff Tucker had come out of the saloon behind him. Longarm agreed, "They're whooping it up, all right."
"Didn't see you at the barbecue at noon today," Tucker said.
"Maybe that's because I didn't know there was one."
"Well, doggone that Lefty! I told him to make sure you got a special invitation. Man like you, Custis, comin' from outside, don't generally find much t'do in a little place like this."
"Oh, I manage to fill up the time. Tell me something, Sheriff. How many ranches would you say there are in a day's ride to the north, up along the Pecos on both sides?"
Tucker pursed his thin lips. "Not too many, that close. There's such poor range hereabouts that most of the spreads have got to be so big it'd take you a day just to ride across one of' em."
"That's about the way I figured," Longarm nodded. "There sure as hell ain't much grass anyplace I looked at around here so far."
"Sounds like you been sizin' up the range, Custis. You lookin' for anything special?"
"No. Just interested in seeing the lay of the land around these parts, is all."
"You interested in ranchin', then? Funny. I didn't take you for a cattle rancher. Guess I'm goin' to have to change my mind again."
Longarm finally realized that Tucker's sudden expansiveness didn't mean he was getting friendly. The sheriff was drunker than usual. He asked, "How's that? I didn't know you'd made up your mind about me in the first place."