good one. Yeah, I’d rather a long prison sentence than a short rope. But if you turn me in in New Mexico, the governor of Arizona will write to the governor of New Mexico and back I’ll go. They got a name for that. I can’t call it to mind.”
“Extradition.”
“Yeah, extradition. I can’t see no advantage to that.”
“I’ll find a pluperfect ambitious sheriff in New Mexico. He’ll fight like a wildcat to keep you, Jack. Hell, you’re big political medicine. You got a big name. You got the kind of name they put it in the paper folks will recognize it.”
Shaw got a pleased tone in his voice. “You really reckon?”
“Hell, I know so. Listen, Jack, more than one political career has been built on catching a lot smaller fish than you. I can’t see New Mexico letting you go back to Arizona without a fight. And that will take time, time that you are alive, time that you might can figure out a way to make a break, escape. Hell, Jack, anything is better than waiting here for them Rangers to arrive. Crazy as they are. You know what kind of mood they will be in after four or five days of hunting through them crags and gullies for the sign I left. Hell, they might hang me.” Shaw said slowly, “Weeell, maybe you got a point there, Longarm. Maybe it would be better. Hell, maybe I could escape from you before you delivered me in Lordsburg.”
Longarm said dryly, “I wouldn’t count on that, Jack. I have gone to considerable trouble over you. Wouldn’t look too good on my report.”
“What’s in this for you, Custis?”
Longarm laughed. “That’s easy. Get in out of this damn sun. Get a good drink of water. Get a meal. Drink some whiskey.”
“That horse startin’ to smell?”
“Not yet, but I ain’t kidding myself that he won’t. But I think them Arizona Rangers will be here before then. You better make up your mind, Jack.”
Longarm could hear Shaw thinking. Finally the bandit said, “I stay here and the Arizona Rangers will come. Longarm, will you give me your word of honor that they are coming?”
“Why, hell, no, I won’t. I can’t give you my word of honor on what another man will do. I will give it to you that wires were sent to them and that I left enough sign on the trail that a blind man could damn near follow it, much less that bunch who knows this country a hell of a lot better than you or me.”
“Your word of honor on that?”
“Yes, dammit, I just said so.”
“Damn!” Shaw said. Longarm could hear him sigh. “I know what a power you set by your word. I reckon that means they will be coming. The other way is to let you take me to New Mexico. That means a prison where most folks would rather be dead. There is that other choice, though.”
“Trying to make a break out the back? Right under my nose? Hell, Jack, you might as well shoot yourself and save me the cartridges.”
Shaw said thoughtfully, “I don’t know. You been curing out in that sun for quite some time. You right shore your hand will still point and your eye follow? I got to figure you are pretty well wore down.”
Longarm laughed. “You are talking like a man with a paper asshole, Jack. Hell, at the worst it would be a shot of thirty to fifty yards with a good rifle. I ain’t going to miss at that distance.”
“I recollect your rifle was fouled not that long ago.”
Longarm thumbed back the hammer of his rifle and fired a shot into the side of the cabin. Splinters flew from the rock face and the shot boomed loud in the dry, still air. When the echoes had died, Longarm said, “That sound like it’s fouled, Jack?” He levered another shell into the chamber, listening with his ear close to his rifle for the sound of any grit.
Shaw said, “Naw, I reckon yore rifle works. Course I ain’t so sure about you. You hit the side of the cabin. That don’t tell me much.”
“You got a empty whiskey bottle in there?”
“Oh, I reckon I could find one. That or a can of tomatoes.”
“Well, throw one of them out far enough so I can see it from where I’m at.”
A moment passed, and then a clear, empty bottle came flying out of the cabin and landed ten yards short of the ditch, bouncing and rolling.
Longarm had it in his sights before it had stopped moving. His shot exploded the bottle into a thousand pieces. He said, “You satisfied, Jack?”
But just as he was about to lever a shell into the chamber of his rifle he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a rifle come around the back end of the house. He whirled and dropped flat behind his horse as Shaw’s rifle boomed and a shot sailed over his head. Without aiming he fired with his rifle resting on the hindquarter of the horse. The slug chipped rock at the exact spot the other rifle had just disappeared from.
It made Longarm angry. He said, “All right, dammit, Shaw. We were negotiating. If that is the way you want to play it, I’m content to let the Rangers have you. And to hell with you!”
“Hell, Longarm, what did you expect? I reckon if you was in this spot I’m in, you’d try anything you could.”
“Well, you just run me clean out of patience, Shaw. I’m tired of fooling with you. I’ve been patient and straight, but all that is over with. You got two chances the way I see it, slim and none. And Slim left town.”
Chapter 5
Shaw said, “You plannin’ on trussin’ me up like a market pig, Custis?”
Longarm laughed without much humor. “Well, I can’t take your word if that is what you are getting at, Jack. I
