they were entering the town lockup, where Purvis allowed he had a jar of corn squeezings filed under R, for Refreshments.
As Longarm's eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom, he saw they had no current customers in the three holding cells along the back wall.
As the lawman who ran the place got the jar and a couple of shot glasses from his filing cabinet, motioning Longarm to one of the bentwood chairs between the desk and a gun rack, he explained how both Deputy Gilbert and that federal want, Clay Baldwin, were out at that Coast Guard station to the north of town now.
Handing Longarm a perilously generous drink, Purvis continued. 'they've both been taking turns, like everyone else, with that off-and-on-again fever. Seems every time your prisoner was well enough your deputy took sick, and vice versa. Young Gilbert told us someone like you would be coming, and meanwhile he felt he'd be able to hold Baldwin more secure in the Coast Guard brig whilst he lay sick or not so sick in their dispensary out yonder.'
As they clinked, drank up, and gaped in mutual agony, the older lawman recovered his voice first. 'If you ask me, your man is full of shit. We was holding Baldwin secure enough here. Why do you reckon he felt them Coast Guardsmen would be better at it?'
Longarm's tongue still felt numb, that corn liquor running close to two hundred proof, but he still managed to reply, 'I don't know. I mean to ask him. I'd have thought both of 'em would be under the care of that lady doctor, Norma Richards, here in town. I just saw the cadaver of the pharmacist's mate they say was in charge out at that Coast Guard station.'
Constable Purvis took a more cautious sip and replied, 'We heard he'd come down with it too. I reckon it's the patent cell they got out yonder that's admired so much by young Gilbert. It wasn't that dead Coast Guardsman who was treating your deputy and your prisoner. That bossy sawbones you just mentioned has commandeered quarters out to the Coast Guard station, her being some sort of federal personage too fancy for the one hotel in town, and the Coast Guard station only standing a mile outside of town.'
'You mean she rides back and forth between that federal post and her fever ward here in town?' Longarm asked before he'd had time to consider the obvious reasons.
Since he had, he was already back on his feet and saying something about having many another chore ahead before everyone who could holed up for la siesta. So Constable Purvis never got to fully explain how tough it might be to squeeze a whole town's worth of fever victims into the officers' quarters out at that Coast Guard station.
First things coming first, Longarm retraced his steps to that Mexican-owned chandlery on the waterfront. He wasn't surprised to see the team and rig he'd borrowed from La Bruja no longer stood out front.
When he went inside, he wasn't surprised to hear the fat chandler deny any knowledge of the property El Senor had left outside his door of his own free gringo will.
Longarm said, 'I ain't worried about La Bruja getting her property back one way or another if you know what's good for you. I've come back to talk about some gunplay just up your side street. I reckon you never noticed that neither?'
The chandler shrugged his fat shoulders and replied he'd heard the shots, and that someone had told him an Anglo muchacho had been murdered by some person or persons unknown. When he added he paid little attention to such matters, since los gringos always seemed to be fighting among themselves, Longarm muttered, 'Touche. Now why don't we try her another way. How are you called, amigo?'
The fat man smiled coldly and replied, 'Gomez. For some reason a lot of my customers call me Gordo Gomez. I reserve the right to say whether I am anyone's amigo or not.'
Since Gordo translated almost literally as 'Fatso,' Longarm felt free to call him that whether they were to be pals or not. He smiled thinly at the fat Mexican and said, 'Bueno, Gordo mio. The pendejo who shot that kid in the head not far from here was aiming at my back. He fired from cover after trailing me as far as the main street from guess where?'
Gordo returned his stare innocently and replied, 'Not from here, if that is what you mean.'
Longarm said, 'That's exactly what I mean. I hadn't told a soul in town I was coming your way with La Bruja's rig and mule team. So how do you reckon that back-shooter knew just where to wait for me?'
Gordo shrugged and sounded sincerely innocent as he simply asked, 'Quien sabe? El Senor was openly driving through town in a vehicle even he describes as the property of some witch, no?'
Longarm started to object, saw he had no sensible objection to the fat man's simple logic, and said, 'Mierditas, you could have one apt to Plot murder with a lady might know her mules and covered box-wagon on sight!'
Gordo stared up at a strip of fly paper as if debating with himself whether to change it for a fresh one as he told Longarm in the same politely firm tone he had no idea what they were talking about.
So Longarm nodded, suggested Gordo cut down on sweets at least, and headed back up the quay toward old Norma's improvised fever ward, his spine feeling itchy even though he kept looking behind him all the way.
Nobody seemed out for a second crack at him, and so he made it to the icehouse without further incident.
Inside, he found the Mexican farmer he'd brought in holding court on a corner cot, surrounded by other admiring farm folks as well as the kin who'd come in with him. It seemed that while alligators weren't unheard of along the Fever Coast, man-eating alligators were rare indeed.
He found the farmer's slim young daughter on the far side of the icehouse, translating for Norma Richards as the two of them tried to dose a flushed and sweaty Mexican kid with quinine sulfate. Longarm knew how bitter the shit-brown pills tasted. But it was the motherly Norma who decided, 'Oh, fiddle, just give him ice water, Consuela. Lord knows this stuff doesn't seem to be helping any of the others, and the poor boy's sick enough without a broken jaw!'
She spotted Longarm and straightened up, saying wearily, 'We heard about the shooting, Custis. You certainly do lead a very interesting life!'
Longarm sighed and said, 'So do you, Miss Norma. You say quinine don't seem to work, even when you're sure it's real?'
She shook her head, brushed that same loose strand from her brow with the back of her hand, and explained. 'We have to give the poor dears something. My sweet young volunteer here thinks we ought to call in some witch doctors she knows, and you've no idea how tempting that seems as this day wears on. Lord knows, I may as well be dancing naked in paint and shaking a rattle for all the good I've been able to do anyone!'
