The suspicion on the old man’s face was stronger than ever. He said, “You were out to the fort, hanging around them soldier boys?”
Longarm said, “Well, the fact of the matter is I had an invoice against the United States Cavalry for some horses I had sold them, and I either want my horses back or I want my money. Part of them horses are here at this fort. I came here trying to get justice. So far, I haven’t got it. That’s what I am doing in this country. I do like this country and I’ve been thinking about locating a little ranch here.”
The old man nodded slowly. He said, “So them bluecoats ain’t been doing you right?”
Longarm said, “Well, if you consider stealing a man’s property and his money doing him right, then they’ve been doing real right with me. I’ve been to Fort Mason, Fort Stockton, and now here. I’ve found my horses at every one of them. I’ve got this warrant from the Quartermaster Corps to be paid for seventy-five head of horses and I ain’t seen a penny, so I don’t really calculate that as being right.”
The old man spat into the dust off the edge of the porch. He said, “Why don’t you step on down off of your horse and come on in and drink a cup of coffee with me?”
Longarm said, “Well, that would be mighty hospitable of you. I’d like that.”
He swung his leg over, dismounted, and dropped the reins knowing that his bay mare would ground-rein and impress the old man. He said, “But more than the coffee, I would be mighty obliged to a man who I reckon would know this country about as well as anybody.”
Clell Martin said, “Well, man and boy, pushing fifty years. I’ve been around here just about as close as a man can stick. I went off to a war and went off to some foolishness with the Texas Rangers, but other than that, I’ve been pretty well right around here close at hand.”
Longarm stepped up onto the porch and followed the old man through the door and into the house. He noticed that Clell Martin sort of dragged a leg as he walked. He said, “I see you’ve got a bum leg there, Mr. Martin. Anything sudden, or does that go back a ways?” They were turning left out of the tiny sitting room into a cluttered kitchen.
Martin said, “Sit yourself down there at the kitchen table. I’ll hot this coffee up and we’ll have a cup.” While he busied himself with the coffeepot and some tin cups, the old man said, “I caught a ball in the hip about twenty years ago. It’s plagued me ever since. Some days are worse than others.”
Longarm said, “Depends on the weather, I take it?”
“Yeah, though sometimes lately it seems like it’s nearly all the time.”
Longarm was looking around the cluttered room. He could tell that it hadn’t had a woman’s touch in many a year. He said, “Heard tell that you were with the Texas Rangers, Mr. Martin.”
At the stove, the old man shrugged his shoulders. “Well, not so’s that you could notice. Was right after the Confederacy. Them Yankee carpetbaggers that came down here talking about Reconstruction made out that they were reforming the Texas Rangers, but it was just a bunch of hoorah. Turned out that they just wanted us to do their dirty deeds for them. I got a bullet between my scalp and my skull for my troubles. I wasn’t with them more than six months. I came on back here and tried to scratch what living I could out of dry dirt and scrawny cattle.”
“You running any cattle now?”
“Oh, I have about a hundred head. They’re scattered all over.”
Longarm said, “Well, it’s as good a time a year to have your cattle out. I guess what water there is, they’ll find.”
Martin said disgustedly, “Yeah, what water there is. Them damn Castles got most of the water, and naturally them damn soldier boys got what’s left.”
He poured up two steaming cups of coffee out of a tin pot and brought them on over to the table. He set one in front of Longarm and then eased himself into a chair, wincing slightly with his hip.
Longarm said, “You don’t care much for them Castles, do you?”
“Well, if you care for highfalutin, smart-aleck, stingy neighbors who try to take a man’s property, I guess you could say that I care about them. About the same way you care about them thieving army boys. How come they won’t give you your money for those horses?”
Longarm said, “I don’t know. Some kind of paperwork. Seems like it’s all confused. I go to one quartermaster and he says I have the wrong set of papers, that I have got to go to some other place to get the other set of papers. All I know is that I delivered seventy-five horses, I got a bill of sale for them, but I don’t have no damn money for them. I came down to get either my horses or my money. But I ain’t having much luck.”
The old man smiled knowingly. “That’s those damned bluecoats for ya. They ain’t worth a damn. Half of them are fer’ners, you know, they don’t even come from this country. Can you imagine anything worse than a Yankee fer’ner? Ha!”
Longarm looked at him for a second. He said, “What outfit were you with, Mr. Martin?”
Old Man Martin seemed to grow a foot in his chair as he said proudly, “I was with Hood’s brigade. The A- number-one outfit out of Texas. I was a sergeant, by golly, and damn proud of it. There is a few of them blue bellies pushing up daisies, tried to cross that Red River and didn’t quite make it. Yes, sir. I was very proud to be a member of Hood’s brigade.” A thought was growing in Longarm’s mind but it needed time to develop. He said, “The Castles are trying to push you off this land, aren’t they?”
The old man looked up in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“Well, Mr. Martin, part of the job of being a horse trader is being able to see things in folks. I have a feeling that you ain’t got clear title to this property, and it ain’t as if the Castles ain’t got enough, but they are trying to push you off what little bit you’ve got.”
Clell Martin slammed his hand down on the kitchen table hard enough to make the dishes rattle. He said, “There, by God, sir. You have the bite of it. That’s the truth and the facts. Them low-down, no-good sonofabitches. Yes, sir, trying to push an old man off his property. A man who fought for his country, a man who took a ball for his country, a man that was even in the service of the state.”
Longarm said, “You know, I’d like to play a dirty trick on the Castles. Would there be any chance that
