Sometimes on the long, lonely trail, Matt felt the need to hear a human voice, even if it was his own. Talking to Spirit satisfied that need, and because he was talking to his horse, it didn’t seem quite as ridiculous as talking to himself.
In the Casa del Sol Cantina the next morning, Odom rolled a tortilla in his fingers and, using it like a spoon, scooped up the last of his breakfast beans. He washed it down with a drink of coffee, then lit a cigar and looked up as Emerson Bates came over to his table.
“Here’s the man I was tellin’ you about,” Bates said, indicating the man who was with him. “His name is Paco Bustamante.”
The man with Bates was short, but looked even shorter by comparison with Bates. He had obsidian eyes, a dark, brooding face, and a black mustache that curved down around either side of his mouth. He was wearing an oversized sombrero.
Odom frowned. “He’s a Mex,” he said. “I don’t work with Mexicans.”
“Paco’s a good man,” Bates insisted.
“How do you know?”
“Me an’ him have done a couple of jobs together,” Bates said. He chuckled. “Besides, you slept with his sister last night.”
Odom took a puff of his cigar, then squinted through the smoke. “Well, if you come along—Paco—you only get half a share,” he said, setting the Mexican’s name apart from the rest of the sentence.
Without a word, Paco turned and started to walk away.
“Wait a minute,” Odom called to him. “Where you goin’?”
“For half a share, Senor, I don’t do shit,” Paco said. It sounded like “sheet.”
Odom laughed. “I reckon if you got that much gumption, you might do after all.”
Paco came back to the table.
“What will you do for a full share?” Odom asked.
“Anything you say, Senor,” Paco replied.
“There might be some killin’,” Odom suggested.
“I do not want to be the one who is killed,” the Mexican said. “But I do not mind if I am the one doing the killing.”
“You’re in,” Odom said.
If Odom had expected some expression of gratitude from Paco, he was disappointed, for neither by word nor gesture did he respond. Instead, he looked at Odom with his unblinking, black eyes.
“What about Schuler?” Odom said. “Did you get him?”
“Odom, are you sure you want Schuler?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Odom said.
“He’s a drunk.”
“I know he’s a drunk. But he’s also a good powder man. The last job I pulled, the son of a bitch slammed the safe shut on me. I don’t intend to let that happen again. If I have to, I’ll blow the damn safe this time, but I want someone who can do it without killing us all. Now, go get him.”
“I already got ’im,” Bates said. “He’s out front.”
“Bring ’im in.”
With a sigh, Bates walked to the front door, pushed the beaded strings to one side, and called out.
“Schuler, get in here.”
The man who answered Bates’s call was of medium height and very thin. His face was red, though whether from a natural complexion, or from skin long unwashed and subjected to alcohol, no one knew. His eyes were so pale a gray that, at first glance they looked to be without color of any kind. He shuffled up to the table.
“You know why I asked for you?” Odom asked.
“Bates said you had a job for me.”
“I might. If you can do it.”
“I can do it.”
“How do you know you can do it?”
“You have something you want blown,” Schuler said.
“What makes you think I want something blown?”
“I’m a drunk,” Schuler replied. “You wouldn’t want me for anything unless it was for something that I was the only one who could do it. I’m a powder man. That means you want something blown.”
“Let me see your hands.”
“Why do you need to see my hands?”
