As he headed for the corrals, the O.D. ordered the sergeant of the guard to do something about all those bodies before the colonel’s lady saw them and had a fit. Then he chased after Longarm, caught up, and said, “We’ll have to issue you a fresh mount if you’re going after them again. What was that about a timetable?”
Longarm said, “I can get me and both saddles back to town aboard the livery nag I have to return in any case. That magic act gone bad won’t be planning on riding out on horseback. They know he’d attract less attention aboard a train, and I think there’s an eastbound express coming through this side of noon.”
Chapter 18
The timetable Longarm found in his recovered coat confirmed his thoughts. The eastbound flier was due to stop for water and whatever in El Paso at ten-fifty-five, pull out at eleven, and not stop until it had another drink at the Pecos.
Longarm had plenty of time to get into town, even aboard the overloaded stable nag. But he suspected they’d have members of the magicians guild watching for him and, worse yet, he had no idea where they were holed up in downtown El Paso. So he didn’t go there.
He rode into Mex Town, short of his goal, and when he reined in by a herreria and told the Mex blacksmith he was a friend of El Gato, they said they’d be proud to guard both saddles and the tired old nag to the death.
He took advantage of their hospitality to put on a more sensible hat, and gave the charro jacket to a grinning kid who looked like he’d always wanted one. Then he walked on, in shirt sleeves and vest, with the Winchester from his McClellen cradled in one elbow, and his .44-40 still riding his left hip, cross-draw.
Since Mex Town lay on the less fashionable side of the tracks, Longarm saw no need to approach the depot via its front entrance, and legged it across the yards from the south. Nobody challenged him but a big desert locust buzzing atop a rail, as if it thought he’d take it for a rattlesnake. When he didn’t, it flew off on its undersized butterfly wings and cussed him some more from a safer distance. He’d forecasted the weather right for a change. The sun was glaring down with hellish glee and it wasn’t near noon yet.
He climbed up on the deserted sun-baked loading platform and entered the depot from the less expected side. The waiting room was empty. The blackboard above the ticket window agreed with his printed timetable. He went over to the window and asked the white-haired and bearded gent behind the brass bars if he’d sold a mess of railroad tickets in recent memory. The old-timer didn’t bother to look up as he muttered, “I just came on duty. You’re the first customer I’ve had so far.”
Longarm said, “I ain’t a customer, I’m the law. I’m hunting a sort of vaudeville troupe, in a hurry to move on. I figure, let’s see, half a dozen gals and four men left.”
The old-timer on the far side of the bars shook his white head and said, “Ain’t seen even one good-looking gal so far today.”
Longarm hauled out his watch and muttered, “Damn, it’s even later than I figured. If someone was in too great a hurry to buy tickets from you, they could just get on and work it out with the conductor, though, right?”
The old-timer shrugged and said, “Sure. Why not?”
Longarm put his watch away, saying, “Well, for one thing it’s not the way I’d do it if I wanted to travel without attracting much attention. If I was a bunch, I reckon I’d get on sort of separate, with tickets in all my hands, and sort of sit spread out like I didn’t know me at all.”
The old goat in the ticket booth didn’t have any suggestions to offer about that. Longarm thanked him and made his way over to the front entrance. The sun-baked street out front was empty, save for a dust devil swirling up the sunny side like an officious ghost. Everyone at this hour would be at work, until lunch time at least. Morning deliveries had all been made and nobody with a lick of sense brought fresh produce into town under a Texican summer sun.
So how come three distant figures were coming down the center of the street from the north, as if they’d never heard of shade?
Longarm stepped out under the depot’s overhang to study them as they came toward him. The one in the middle was short, wearing a big Mex sombrero and charro jacket. The gun rig he had strapped on looked less familiar. He was walking, with a slight limp, between a matching pair of female travel dusters and, though they both had sunbonnets on, the red hair down to their shoulders matched, too. He couldn’t tell, yet, if they were true identical twins, or just close enough to look the same at any distance. Longarm waited until all three of them were about a hundred feet away, midway between either shaded walk, before he stepped out into the sunlight and called out, “Howdy. I see you still have someone watching my hotel and stable. But, as you see, there’s more than one way to get to El Paso, and I fear you won’t be leaving it as planned, neither.”
The two more feminine figures moved away to either side as their old man gave them stage cues Longarm couldn’t make out. He let that go, for now. Gunning women was considered sort of sissy, and the Great Costello had said all the killing had been done by the male members of his troupe.
Longarm called out, “You’re doing fine, so far. Now I’d like you to unbuckle that gun rig, slow and polite, and let that hog leg fall anywhere it has a mind to.”
The other man didn’t seem to admire that notion. He called back, in an oddly strangled tone, “Damn it, we made a deal!”
Longarm shook his head and said, “This wasn’t it, Costello. I might have gone along with your loco notion, south of the border where U.S. laws ain’t binding, but you was the one who chose to pull a fast one. So all bets are off and I’m still waiting for you to unbuckle that gun.”
The other man’s big sombrero swung sort of comic as he shook his head and insisted, “If you had any sense of honor at all you’d put aside that Winchester and have it out with me man to man, damn it!”
Longarm snorted in mingled disgust and surprise. The only two gals in sight to comment on his honor were the sunbonnet twins, now well clear of his field of fire to either side of the street. But then a window opened across the way and another gal stuck her head out to see what all the fussing was about.
Longarm called back, “It’s as tempting to let you have it your own dumb way than to simply gun you if you won’t do as I say. So how about it, Costello? Are you willing to come quiet or do I have to take you noisy?”
The lonely little figure took a step backwards but didn’t look any more cooperative as he jeered, “I dare you, big man. What’s the matter, are you afraid of me?”
Longarm swore softly in disbelief. Then he hunkered to lean his Winchester against the steps, straightened up with a puzzled but determined smile, and stalked forward, growling, “All right, if that’s the way you
