the truth. Things like that ate at Longarm’s vitals. He couldn’t stand to be fooled like that. He’d known the day before that the money was at the cabin, but he just couldn’t figure out where. It hadn’t made any sense that Shaw would have hidden that amount of cash up in the mountains somewhere. Too many things could happen to it. Hell, squirrels could come along and chew it up to make a nest. Anybody could accidentally find it. No, you didn’t rob that much money and then walk away without having it near your side.
It was a long day. Longarm had plenty of water out of the canvas bag Shaw had left for him, but nothing besides that except half a cigar, and water and cigar smoke weren’t all that filling. The horses were looking gaunt, and there was no reason for them not to be. Being an outlaw’s mount was not a good job in the general scheme of horse business. There were better jobs, like working as a carriage horse for a banker, or maybe being a lady’s pleasure horse and working every other Sunday. There was the hardship of the sidesaddle, but ladies didn’t weigh very much and you had plenty of time to stand around in the pasture and eat and get your strength up.
Longarm did not ordinarily dwell on such matters as what job was best for a horse. He figured maybe the sun was getting to him. But then, anything was better than thinking about the report he’d have to write if he didn’t recapture Shaw. As it was, he’d been on sticky ground about transporting a prisoner from one territory to another, but that part could be made understandable with the culprit in hand and given the circumstances. But if he lost both the prisoner and the stolen money, it was going to put a far different perspective on the situation. And he wasn’t just talking about handing Billy Vail a good laugh for his mistakes. This was serious business and might well lead to a reprimand or worse. Anyway you looked at it, it wasn’t going to look good on either his record or his reputation. There’d be no excuses either. He’d had the prisoner in hand. His only job, besides recovering the money had been to get Shaw behind bars. He’d failed at that. Shaw had outsmarted him, and that was a matter no lawman could have against him.
He had the faint hope that Shaw really had hidden the stolen money in a canyon in the last foothills he’d traveled through before reaching the high prairie. If that was the case, Longarm would be in an ideal spot to cut the outlaw off after he had retrieved the money and turned south again toward Mexico. But it was becoming clearer and clearer, as the day wore out and the tracks of the three horses headed relentlessly west, that Shaw was heading for the cabin. Had he been going north toward his canyon, he would have bent off to the right some time back.
It got hotter. Longarm had planned to ride one horse half of the distance and then switch. But he had further decided, at the pace he was making, that he’d wait and ride the other animal the next day.
They were both about equal, with nothing outstanding to choose between them. The horse he was on was a little bigger, but he was also a little fatter than the tough-looking pony that Longarm had on a lead rope. But not fat enough. The lard was rapidly melting off him under the desert sun. The horse had been standing in somebody’s barn or feed lot for too long. He was soft and not used to such work. Longarm was taking it especially slow because he couldn’t afford to have the horse quit on him. The only thing worse than having two such horses in such country was having only one.
By his watch it was closing on four o’clock when he sighted the cabin. He didn’t have to look for it. If he’d kept his head down and done nothing more than watch the tracks of Shaw’s horses, he would have run right into the thing. As best he could figure, he was about three or four hours behind Shaw, maybe more. But he had no intention of setting in to chase the outlaw. For one thing, the horses wouldn’t have lasted, and for another, he was pretty sure he knew where Shaw was heading. After the horses had rested and drunk some water, he’d reconnoiter. He felt sure he’d find Shaw heading in exactly the direction he expected him to be.
There was a dead horse in the corral behind the cabin. It was the muscled-up dun that Shaw had been riding. There wasn’t a mark on him.
It was clear he had just gone sour from the work and the pace Shaw had set. Probably Shaw had let all three of his hot, worn-out horses drink their fill at the barrel, and the horse least likely to stand it had foundered and rolled over and died.
The reason Shaw hadn’t waited and let his animals cool out before allowing them to drink was quickly clear to Longarm’s eyes. What he saw made him want to jump up and down and gnash his teeth and bang his head against the stone wall of the cabin.
The big five-foot-high barrel was lying on its side. Longarm could see several bullet holes through it about midway up. Apparently the barrel had been too heavy to tip over when it was brimful of water, so Shaw had drained it by knocking some holes in it with .44 slugs. Longarm stood on the wet, muddy ground and shook his head, cursing himself.
The money, mostly gold, had been at the bottom of the barrel. Hell, he’d drunk from the pipe coming from the windmill that had flowed into the barrel. Now, with the barrel on its side, the water was spilling out of the pipe in a thin stream onto the ground. Longarm righted the barrel and looked down to its bottom. No doubt Shaw had had some kind of oilskin covering he could wrap the money in, maybe his slicker. But it really didn’t make much difference. It wasn’t going to hurt the gold at all, and all it would do to paper currency was get it wet, even if Shaw had just dropped it into the barrel in the original canvas bags it had come in.
Longarm shook his head. His horses were standing outside the corral, nickering to get in and get at the water. He moved the big barrel back under the stream. It wouldn’t fill back up again because of the holes halfway up its sides, but it didn’t matter. The water would be close to three feet deep, and that would be plenty good enough for his horses.
While he waited for the barrel to fill, Longarm took a walk south of the cabin, cutting a wide circle. The first set of tracks he came across were headed due south. But there were way too many of them, at least twelve to fifteen horses as near as he could figure. That, of course, would be the Arizona Rangers heading dead straight for the border just as Shaw had predicted they would. Still on foot, he completed his circuit around the cabin, and was surprised to find no more tracks leaving, not in any direction. it puzzled him for a time, but then he smiled to himself and went to see to watering his horses.
It was dark by half past six. Longarm had spent the last half hour of light tearing what wood he could off the fence. Since it was all board, he was able to get a surprising amount of wood and still leave the fence intact. Shaw had, either on purpose or through forgetfulness, left Longarm’s coffee intact. Even the sugar was still there, though the little bag was almost empty. He figured to have a pot of coffee before supper and then one afterwards. For supper he would smoke a cigar. But he had a more pressing need for the coffee than just for himself. Just before he went to bed he would brew up a pot, making it very strong. The next morning he would give it to both of his horses. Coffee sometimes gave him an extra burst of energy, and it would do the same for his horses. He had used the trick many times in the past and it had always worked, though it was dangerous because it caused a worn-out horse to do more than he naturally would. You didn’t want to do it to the same horse very often, and you didn’t want to do it to a valuable animal because it could cause a mount to not give you the clues he normally would when he was playing out. The first you’d know about it was when your horse was keeling over. Longarm’s two dead horses were still where they’d fallen, except the buzzards had been at them, as well as coyotes, and they were pretty well stripped down.
That night, a little before eight, he built up a fire, made a pot of coffee, and then sat in front of the blaze drinking coffee and whiskey and smoking a cigar.
