been Mexico-bred and bought from legitimate ranchers in the Mexican states of Chili Cohuila, or Nuevo Leon. Then, driven south, the rustled herds were taken back across the river at Laredo and sold there to buyers. Laredo was the only point along the Texas-Mexico border where railroad shipments crossed. It had long been a center for livestock sales. Even with Mexican cattle selling well below the market price for Texas beef, the profits were huge. Nate Webster’s investigation had led him to Los Perros, where he’d been heading when he reported to ranger headquarters in Austin. That had been in July. He hadn’t been heard from since.
About a month before the ranger made his last report, the two troopers from the all-black 10th Cavalry— the “buffalo soldiers,” as they’d been named by the Indians, who saw in the blacks’ hair a resemblance to buffalo manes—had deserted from Fort Lancaster.
Lancaster was an outpost of Fort Stockton; it was one of a string of such small posts dotted along the El Paso-San Antonio road. The men had left a trail that the Cimarron Scout summoned from Fort Stockton had no trouble following. He followed it to Los Perros. Captain John Hill, the Charley Troop commander, had gone with the scout. The captain had sent the Cimarron back to report and had himself followed the deserters’ trail across the Rio Grande. Like Webster, like the deserting troopers, Hill had vanished on the other side of the river after leaving Los Perros.
“Dogtown” Longarm muttered to himself, drawing on four-year-old memories of the last case that had taken him to Texas. “Los Perros. Mouth of the Pecos. Wild country. Big enough and rough enough to swallow up four hundred men, let alone four, without much trace left. Hope I ain’t forgotten what little bit of the local lingo I learned.”
Then, because it was his philosophy that a man Shouldn’t cross rivers before he tested them to see how deep and cold they ran, Longarm ratcheted back the rubbed plush daycoach seat, and went to sleep with the smell of old and acrid coal dust in his nostrils. A little stored-up shuteye might come in handy after he hit the trail on horseback from San Antonio to the Rio Grande.
At the I-GN depot in San Antonio, Longarm swung Off the daycoach and walked up to the baggage car to claim his gear. He’d left everything except his rifle to the baggage handlers, but it would have been tempting fate to leave a finely tuned.44-40 Winchester unwatched in a baggage car or on a depot platform between trains. The rifle had ridden beside him all the waY from Denver, leaning between the coach seat and the wall.
AS always, he was traveling light. He swung the bedroll that contained his spare clothing as well as a blanket and groundcloth over one shoulder, draped his saddlebags over the other, and picked up his well-worn McClellan saddle in his left hand. Then he set out to find a hack to carry him from the station to the quartermaster depot.
“To the quartermaster depot?” the hackman echoed when Longarm asked how much the fare would be. “That’s a long way, mister. Cost you 1-50 to go way out there. It’s plumb on the other side of town and out in the country.”
“We got to go by Market Plaza to get there, don’t we?” Longarm asked. When the hackman nodded, he went on, “I’ll pay the fare, even if it does seem a mite high, provided you’ll stop there long enough for me to eat a bowl of chili. I got to get rid of the taste of them stale butcher-boy sandwiches I been eating the last few days.”
“Hop in,” the hackman said. “It’s my dinnertime, too. Won’t charge you extra for stopping.”
Counting time taken for eating, the ride down Commerce Street and then north on Broadway to the army installation took just over an hour. The place was buzzing with activity. After more than five years of debating, the high brass in Washington had finally decided to turn the quartermaster depot into a large permanent incampment, and everywhere Longarm looked there were men at work. Masons were erecting thick walls of quarry stone to serve as offices, others were busy with red brick putting up quarters for the officers. A few carpenters were building barracks for the enlisted men on a flat area beyond the stables, where the hackman had pulled up at Longarm’s direction.
Not until he’d been watching the scene for several minutes did Longarm realize that there was something odd. There was only a handful of soldiers among the men working around the quadrangle the buildings would enclose when all of them were completed. The hackie lifted Longarm’s saddle and saddlebags out Of the front of his carriage. Longarm got out and paid the man. He stood with his gear on the ground around his feet until the hack drove off. Then he slung his saddlebags and bedroll over his shoulders, picked up the saddle, and started for the nearest uniforms he saw, a clump of soldiers gathered around a smithy’s forge a few yards away from the stable buildings.
Longarm singled out the highest-ranking of the group, a tall, lantern-jawed sergeant. “I’m looking for the remount duty noncom,” he told the man.
“You found him, mister. Name’s Flanders.”
“My name’s Long, Custis Long. Deputy U.S. Marshal outta the Denver office. I need to requisition a good saddle horse for a case I’m on.”
“Well, now. You wanta show me your badge or something, so I’ll know you’re who you say you are?”
Wordlessly, Longarm took his wallet from the pocket of his frock coat and flipped it open to let the sergeant see the silver badge pinned between its folds. The sergeant studied it for a moment, then nodded. He measured Longarm with his eyes.
“How far you gonna be travelling?”
“To the border.”
“You’re a sizeable man, Mr. Long. You plan to pack any more gear than what you’ve got here?”
“Nope. This is all I need.”
“Follow along, then. I guess we can fix you UP.”
Longarm followed the sergeant around the stable to a small corral where a dozen or so horses were milling. The rat-a-tat of carpenters’ hammers nearby was obviously making a few of the animals nervous; they were walking around the corral’s inner perimeter. The others stood in a fairly compact group near the center of the enclosure. Most of them were roans and chestnuts, but there was one dappled gray a hand taller than the rest who stood out like a peacock among sparrows.
“Don’t try to palm off any of them walking ones on me,” Longarm warned the sergeant. “Last thing I need’s a nervous nag.”
“Maybe you’d rather do your own picking, Mr. Long.?” the sergeant suggested.
