“I will,” she promised. “Please come back to me, Custis.”
“Count on it,” he vowed. “But if something should happen to me and-“
“It won’t!”
“But if it did. You go back to the livery and get the liveryman to saddle our horses. Then ride like hell back to where you came from and never look back.”
“I’m not sure that I could leave you behind.”
“Just do it!” Longarm ordered. “You promised you’d obey my orders if I let you come along. I expect you to keep your promise just as I’ve kept mine.”
“All right.”
Longarm left their hotel room and did not walk away from the door until he heard the distinct snap of the dead bolt in its lock. Satisfied, he headed out on the town. Nogales was just as wild and lawless on one side of the border as it was on the other. Longarm knew that he would be well advised to keep his hat pulled down low and his six-gun resting light in his holster. Above all, he needed to keep his United States marshal’s badge under cover.
Chapter 19
Longarm was in a deadly frame of mind as he prowled the American side of the border. He kept thinking about Jimmy Cox and how badly he’d been tortured before being killed. And about Victoria and how Hank Bass had fed her to his men like so much meat to dogs. One thing for sure, he would have no qualms about killing Bass on sight.
Saloons and cantinas lined the shabby streets of Nogales. Whores, drunks, gamblers, pimps, and all manner of degenerates prowled the dirty streets. Longarm kept his chin down when men saw him coming; they parted so that he could pass.
His routine was always the same. He would enter a saloon, order a whiskey, and take a sip. Then he’d lay a dollar down and tell the bartender, “I’m looking for Hank Bass. There’s twenty more of these if you can help me find him.”
No one could, until Longarm asked that same question at the Blanco Bar, one of the area’s most notorious watering holes known to be frequented by cutthroats, thieves, and murderers.
“What do you want to see that bastard for?” the bartender asked under his breath.
“I have a score to settle with him,” Longarm said, pretty sure this man’s hatred for Bass was genuine.
“So do I,” the bartender replied, “but I don’t have any urge to die. Do you?”
“I can handle my own business,” Longarm said. “Just point him out to me.”
“He’s with one of our whores,” the bartender said. “He went out the back door about ten minutes ago with a girl named Rita. He should be back soon enough.”
“How is he dressed?”
“Gray Stetson hat, black shirt, and boots. Haven’t you ever seen him before?”
“Yes, but the light is poor in here.”
“You’ll be able to smell the pig,” the bartender said with contempt. “He’ll also have a bottle of whiskey in his hand and Rita’s ass in the other.”
Longarm turned toward the back of the room. “That door?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes. Now move away from here so that if he plugs you first Bass don’t get the notion that I said anything. And try not to shoot the gawdamn place up, all right?”
“I generally hit what I aim for,” Longarm told the man.
“I sure as hell hope so. That bastard beat the hell out of me and cut off my ring finger. See that?”
Longarm studied the stub. “Why?”
“He liked the ring I was wearing! I wouldn’t give it to him so he sucker punched me and cut my damn finger off to get it!”
“Why didn’t you shoot him later?”
“He’s always had a lot of friends here before. But now he’s alone. Just step in behind Bass and drill him in the back. Do whatever it takes but don’t make a mistake.”
“I won’t,” Longarm promised as he moved off toward the back of the room.
Almost ten agonizingly slow minutes passed until Hank Bass charged back inside the saloon, dragging a Mexican girl in his wake. She was sobbing and her lower lip was running with blood. Longarm stepped in between the whore and the outlaw, drawing his gun.
“You’re under arrest, Bass. Don’t move or I’ll put a slug in you quicker than you can bat your eye.”
Bass was even bigger than Longarm, but hard living and heavy drinking had ruined his appearance. Even so, there was an animal-like quality about him that Longarm had seen in only the worst types of men.
“You’re a lawman?”
“Head for the front door under your own power, or be carried out by an undertaker,” Longarm said in a low, cold voice. “Your choice, Hank.”
“Hey!” Hank shouted. “This son of a bitch that is trying to arrest me is a United States marshal! Anyone in here like lawmen?”
