After breakfast the next morning, Longarm went back up to his room on the second floor. His room faced onto Main Street, and he looked out onto the scene below him, watching horsemen and wagons and carriages going back and forth. There was also considerable foot traffic up and down on the sidewalks in front of the stores. Little Rock was a busy town during the day and the early evenings, but it seemed to come to a trickling halt as the night wore on. At least, that had been his observation through two evenings and nights.
After a while, he left the window, sat down on the bed, poured himself a short drink of whiskey, and lit a cigarillo. Things were going much slower than he had expected, and he could see time stretching out in a long, boring span with no sign of light on the horizon. Thus far, he not only hadn't found out anything about the whiskey, but he hadn't been able to find a good poker game and he hadn't seen a girl he could even halfway describe as pretty.
His mind turned over and over any plan of attack that would shorten his time in Little Rock. Nothing presented itself. All he could see were boring days and worse nights in one of the worst towns he had ever been in. He would have much preferred to be in one of the little towns on the Tex-Mex border than to be in this strange place where there seemed to be a tremendous undercurrent somewhere below the surface with nothing going on above the top. He was pretty certain that if he was forced to spend more than a week in Little Rock, he would shortly either quit the service and turn in his badge or else go completely insane.
There didn't seem to be much point in repeating his endeavors in circulating around among the saloons, so he had contented himself with walking around the different stores and then going back to the hotel for lunch. After that, he went down to a livery stable and rented a horse and saddle to take a ride out into the surrounding countryside. The horse was about on caliber with his impressions of the city: slow and dull. He had asked for the best animal they had, but the chestnut gelding they had given him was about as listless and tired an animal as Longarm could remember ever riding in many a day. Hell, he thought, the horse acted like he was on the last mile of a thirty-mile trip across the desert without feed or water.
Out of pity for the poor beast, he cut his ride down to a couple of hours and headed back into town. There hadn't been much to see, anyway. Just some chopped-up rocky ground and some poor one-mule farms and little else. He hadn't expected to see any smoke rising from any stills, and he hadn't been disappointed. As a consequence, he was back into town by four o'clock in the afternoon, turned the horse back, and had returned to the hotel.
He walked out a little after five, planning on making the rounds of the saloons. Frank Carson didn't show back up and Longarm was disappointed. Hell, he thought, he was actually feeling lonely. He didn't recall ever being in a town where the people were so unfriendly, suspicious, and silent. As near as he could figure, in the three days he had been in Little Rock, he hadn't really had any conversation with more than two or three people, and none of them were female.
He soon got discouraged hitting the saloons. It was the same story all over again: blank faces and shut mouths. He turned and headed back for the hotel. It was coming on toward dusk, that time of the evening when the sun mellows and the air softens and you know that night is not too far away. Even the patrons and the traffic in the downtown area had slowed so that there were only a few people on the sidewalks and fewer still going down the main road running through the middle of the little city. Everyone, Longarm supposed, had headed home for their supper. It was a shade early for his taste, but without anything else to do, he figured he might as well make his way to the hotel and join the crowd in the dining room.
He was walking down the sidewalk opposite the hotel, about half a block away, and was almost ready to cross the street when his attention was caught by two men hurrying toward him. They were both young, strong-looking men wearing khaki shirts. The khaki only served to make the deputy sheriff's badges more visible on their chests. Some instinct caused Longarm to pause. He wasn't sure that they were heading for him, but they were moving in a very purposeful way, and they were coming in his direction. He glanced behind himself. The sidewalk was empty. As he turned his face forward, the men were upon him.
The nearest said, 'Hold it right there, mister. Don't you move.'
Longarm stared at him. He said, 'Who the hell do you think you're talking to, buster?'
The one closest to him grabbed him by the arm. He said in a hard, young man's voice, 'I'm talking to you. Keep your hands still and don't make no sudden moves.'
The suddenness of the encounter had taken Longarm off guard. He was amazed at himself that badges had caused him to believe that the men might be approaching him on official business, one law officer to another. For an instant, he had forgotten that he was not presenting himself as a United States deputy marshal.
He said, 'What the hell is this all about?'
The other deputy had come around and taken his other arm. They were both holding him with tight hands.
The bigger of the two, who had been doing the speaking from the beginning, said, 'You're under arrest, mister. You're going to jail.'
Longarm gave him a mild look. He said, 'What the hell are you going to arrest me for? Using the sidewalk?'
'Never mind what we're arresting you for. You're just under arrest. You got that?'
Longarm said, 'You're making a mistake.'
The deputy leered at him. He said, 'No, you're the one that made the mistake. Now, come on.'
They jerked him forward along the sidewalk. Longarm glanced around, but no one else was in sight. He walked willingly enough because he had no choice, and his mind was racing as he wondered if he was going to have to expose himself to get out of whatever supposed charge was being brought against him. He preferred not to tell the two deputies that he was a federal officer. He doubted that it would be much safer to tell the sheriff, since this didn't seem to be the kind of town where a federal officer would be very respected or well received, but at least, talking to the sheriff in private would be better than arguing with two young gorillas out in the middle of town.
They suddenly surprised him. An alley yawned just a few feet ahead, and before he could realize what was happening, they were steering him into its opening. The buildings on each side suddenly cut the last of the sunlight off and he had to blink his eyes in the dimness of the alley. He said, 'What in the hell is going on here? I thought you said you were taking me to jail. The jail ain't this way.'
The bigger of the two deputies jerked on his arm and said, 'Move along. We'll decide where you be a-going, mister.'
Longarm tried to stop by digging his heels in the dirt. He said, 'Listen, you two boys are making a hell of a mistake. I don't know what you have in mind, but you better turn me loose.'
