pushed straight on through, making the fifty-mile jump in one stretch.
And a man could do that if he had a horse capable of sustaining seven or eight miles an hour, but Longarm was afraid to push his mounts at a pace much faster than a man could walk.
At least there was the road. As the moon commenced to get down and it got darker and darker, Longarm was more and more grateful for the rough but recognizable road. He would have hated to be traveling without one across such rough country in such darkness. It was a quick way to break a horse’s leg.
He had restocked his whiskey and cigars, and as he rode along he would, from time to time, turn in the saddle and fetch out a bottle of whiskey. Of course he hadn’t been able to find any of his Maryland whiskey in such an outpost as Benson, but the pop-skull he’d obtained would make you just as drunk and leave you with just as bad a head the next morning. But he was drinking purely for medicinal purposes, to ward off the cold.
As he rode, he deliberately did not let himself dwell on Jack Shaw, or try and imagine what the situation might be that he would have to face when he finally ran the man to ground. He’d learned the hard way not to scale mountains or swim rivers until you got to them. You could visualize what a situation was going to be, make plans to overcome it, and then find out all your imagination had been for naught when you finally got to the scene and found it was nothing like you’d expected.
He’d just handle the situation, whatever it might be, when he got to it.
Dawn took a long time to arrive, and Longarm was thoroughly tired of the unchanging dark as they plodded through it. He wondered if Shaw was using the night cover to cross over from the U.S. to his ranch in Mexico. Maybe he’d already made the crossing. Longarm didn’t know and didn’t care. All of that could wait until they met. At least now, he wouldn’t be burdened by trying to find out where Shaw had hidden the money. But in many ways, he wished he hadn’t found out. It made him feel like a damn fool. He remembered with a twinge how Shaw had been so eager to fill the water bags from the pipe and fill the coffeepot. He hadn’t wanted Longarm anywhere near that barrel. And yet Longarm had drunk from that pipe, but he’d never thought to poke around in the dark water of the barrel. Well, it was all just as well. Longarm had been needing a good bringing down for some time, and Shaw was doing a good job of handling the task.
Finally it was good daylight. The road ahead and behind was empty.
Longarm would have to wait for several hours if he was to have any hope of meeting a wagoneer who might have extra water to sell. He could see, by looking behind him, that the terrain was continuin to slope downwards the further south he went. It was ugly, bleak country, even less inviting than the high prairie, which at least grew greasewood and bunchgrass. Nothing appeared to grow in this desolate country except snakes and sagebrush and spiders and cactus. Off to his left he could see a small range of mountains, but he knew the jagged crests were at least fifty miles away, if not further. He figured they were probably part of the Sierra Madre range in northern Mexico.
It got to be eight in the morning. Since the sun had been up good, Longarm had begun looking around for someplace to shelter during the heat of the day. The only thing he’d seen had been some cactus about four feet tall. There was no sign of a tree, much less a grove of trees. Naturally, there was no sign of any kind of building. Why would anyone build a dwelling or a barn or any other sort of structure in such a place? You couldn’t grow a crop in such a place, so you didn’t need a farmhouse. And you damn sure couldn’t raise cattle or horses or even goats, so you didn’t need a ranch headquarters. He’d been an idiot to have expected to find shelter in such a terrain and country. He should have let the horses rest all night and started about noon. That way they would have only gotten six or seven hours of the worst of the sun and he could have pushed on at night. But it was too late for such thinking.
He kept on until nine and then ten, going slower and slower. He could tell by the saliva flecking around the bit of the roan that the horse badly needed water. Dry spit was a bad sign in a horse.
An hour later, with no sign of shelter and no sign of a wagon, either coming or going, Longarm had about reached the decision to stop and rest the horses, shade or no shade, when he felt the first tremor between his legs. He did not hesitate. He immediately pulled the roan to a halt and leapt to the ground. But even in that short a time the horse was already beginning to shake all over. Longarm had seen it before, and it was a sight he hated. As quickly as he could, he undid the saddle cinch and let it swing free below the horse’s belly. By now the horse had spraddled out his legs in an effort to stay erect.
Longarm took his pocketknife out and opened it. He felt for the vein at the front of the horse’s neck, and then made a quick slash with his knife.
He had tried it only once before and it hadn’t worked then, but he was willing to make any effort because, if he didn’t, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The theory was that opening a vein and allowing the horse to bleed a little cooled the animal down. At least that was what the old-timers said. He stood back, watching the blood running down the animal’s neck and dripping on the ground. The smell frightened the black, and he started running back and forth at the end of his lead rope, neighing uncertainly.
Longarm watched. For a second he thought the roan might be getting better, but then the horse started staggering sideways—the blind staggers, they called it—and then he seemed to sigh and sink down by the hindquarters. Before it could get caught under the collapsing horse, Longarm reached out, grabbed his saddle, and jerked it off the animal’s back. He stepped aside as the horse slowly crumpled to the ground, landing on his belly as Longarm’s foundered animal had. He didn’t stay backside-up long. Little by little he leaned over until he toppled onto his left side. He twitched once, and then was still.
Longarm cursed. He cursed for two or three minutes straight. He’d ridden other horses to death, and would probably ride others to death in the future, but he’d always hated it and would continue to hate it even though, in all cases, he’d never really had much choice. This horse had been misused, by himself and by others before him. The poor animal had never had a chance to recover from the nearly two weeks of bad treatment and hard usage he’d undergone. It was criminal to take horses into country where they couldn’t get feed and water, but unfortunately, the men Longarm was usually chasing were already criminals, and a horse here or there didn’t make a damn bit of difference to them.
In the end there was nothing left to do except take his bridle off the roan and put it on the black. He could see that the black had a mouth full of dry spittle also. He wouldn’t last long if Longarm kept riding.
The roan had fallen off the road. As Longarm saddled the black and adjusted his saddlebags and tied them in place, he looked down at the animal. Overhead the buzzards were already starting to circle. At least the horse wouldn’t be a complete waste. The buzzards and coyotes would see to that.
It made no sense to stop. It was just as hot standing as it was moving. But Longarm figured he could at least spare the black the extra effort of his weight. He took one of the two water bags he had, poured as much in his hat as he could, and let the horse drink what he could get down. It wasn’t much, and he spilled as much as he drank.
Longarm had about two gallons of water, and a horse could sweat five gallons in an hour, more under such a
