right?”
“Wrong. They know Don Julio has many yanqui friends. By now they have to know he never got away from them without any help. If they grab a strange gringo on the trail, and he does not know how to answer them, well … los rurales are hardly famous for their saintly patience, even with people who can talk to them.”
“He rode down with us. He’s heard all you just now said. You may have noticed he knows how to move sneaky, a Cut above your average border jumper.”
As Longarm rose from the mat, stooping some, El Gato said, “In that case I shall go with you.”
“Don’t you dare,” Longarm protested. “I never hung by one hand off the side of a six-story building just to see Don Julio caught again. You got to get him out of here to another hideout. Fast. Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know. They might catch me as well as Costello. He could be spilling the beans this very minute. So this is it and you’re on your own, pard. I done all I can for you and now it’s time I got back to my own chores.”
El Gato and Rosalinda wished him via con Dios as he ducked out the door, knowing he’d need some help from the Lord. He sure wasn’t getting much cooperation from anyone else.
He made it down the back stairs without incident, meaning the sneaky little son of a bitch hadn’t been picked up yet. As Longarm made his way out to the front street, he knew Costello would have done the same. Whether their big hats and charro jackets worked or not in dim light, neither would have been able to thread all the way to the posada via the inky back alleyways of a strange town without getting hopelessly lost.
The streets of downtown Juarez weren’t as crowded now, cuss all sleepy heads, but they weren’t yet deserted enough for even a taller-than-usual-looking vaquero to draw much interest. As he got closer to the bullring a shabby young gal popped out of a doorway to ask if he was lonely. When he said he wasn’t, in as good a Mexican accent as he could manage, she cursed him and said her baby brother was available, but didn’t follow him.
He didn’t think it would be a good notion to stroll into the posada by way of the front door. He was close enough, now, to work his way around to the back without getting lost. As he stood there in the darkness, trying to figure a way into the stable, a back door opened and a familiar plump figure splashed his boots with the contents of a wash basin before she spotted him and sucked in her breath. Before she could let it out with a scream he moved closer and assured her, “It’s me, Felicidad. Has anyone else been by, asking about us?”
She made the sign of the cross with her free hand and told him, “Not you by name, querido. But a short time ago la policia and some rurales lined us all up out front and Made us tell them the stories of our lives. They took a man away who had no papers.”
Longarm groaned and asked, “The short clubfooted hombre who was here, earlier, with El Gato and me?”
“No. He was just here, for to get his horse. Didn’t you know that?”
He muttered, “I do now. El Gato was right, he’s acting dumb as hell. Can you sneak me into the stable from back here, Felicidad?”
She could and did. They encountered no one as she led him through the kitchen and showed him a side door into the stable.
There was nobody there but the horses. He struck a match and commenced to cuss a blue streak. When the plump mestiza cowered away and asked him why he was so angry, he told her, “It ain’t you. It’s him. The dirty little polecat took the fine army mount I was riding and left me ten dollars worth of crow-bait. He’s even ridden off with my possibles, Winchester, private saddle, and my favorite hat and coat!”
She suggested, “Can you not catch up with him riding El Gato’s big black caballo?”
“Don’t tempt me. El Gato may need to do some serious riding before long, and a man who’d stick a pal with a poor mount would lick up spit. That’s what I mean to make the Great Costello do when I catch up with him. I might not let him lick up anything as nice as my spit, neither.”
He led the livery nag from its stall and began to saddle it with the borrowed saddle that was no doubt worth more. Felicidad said, “If you ride out, now, you are sure to run into a roadblock. I heard los rurales talking about that. Why don’t you spend the rest of the night with me? I have finished all of my work and this time I will not have to ask you to stop, eh?”
He told her she had no idea how tempting her suggestion was, kissed her, and led the uglier critter out front to mount up and ride. Behind him, Felicidad wailed that he was surely going to get himself killed. He hoped she was wrong, but what she said made a lot of sense.
Chapter 17
The best way to avoid roadblocks was by avoiding roads. There was no moon, and the stars, while bright as stars could get away from city lights, didn’t light up the cross-country brush and cactus worth mention. Longarm’s only consolation was that it hardly seemed likely anyone could see him at any distance when he couldn’t see as far as his mount’s ears without squinting. He knew there were no serious cliffs between them and the Rio Bravo, and horses were said to see their way in the dark a lot better than humans. He found out how cat-eyed the old stable plug was when he hooked a tweed-clad knee on cholla, and missed his long johns Considerable.
He swore, reined in, and scraped the cactus pads off with his knife, muttering, “I ought to be carrying you, you bat-blind waste of your mother’s oats.” But he would have found it even harder to find his way north on foot, of course. So he heeled the nag into further slow but steady progress, saying, “Pay attention, damn it.”
Since Juarez was a border town, the border wasn’t far enough to matter. As he walked his mount slowly, which was about all it could manage, Longarm kept an ear cocked for the sound of running water and an eye peeled for night fires. He was hoping bored border guards would be considerate enough to light one, once they’d been stuck long enough in one place to feel how cold the desert night could get this close to sunrise.
He failed to see anything but stars above a dull, black blanket of nothingness. One place was as good as another to cross the river, this far east of the more sensible as well as official ford between Juarez and El Paso. He figured by this time the Great Costello would have made it across, if he hadn’t drowned or been picked up. Neither Mexicans nor Americans were dumb enough to plant street lamps near a river that couldn’t make up its mind whether it was Cherry Creek or the wide Missouri from time to time. But now he could see pinpoints of light off to the north-west. They told him he was maybe three or four miles east of El Paso, and just south of Fort Bliss, if they hadn’t moved it. He didn’t think the Great Costello would want to aim for the military post, as his best chance would be a beeline for downtown El Paso and another hole-up with his gang. Once he was out of sight with that clubbed foot, the game would start from scratch with a fresh deck.
He forged on for the river. Then he heard the hammer of a repeating rifle click in front of him and, worse yet, someone levered a round behind as a sinister voice between him and the country of his birth asked, “Quien
