Longarm realized his mistake at once. He should have pistol-whipped or even shot Hank Bass the moment he came through the back door. Now he was about to pay for his mistake.
“We’re going out back,” Longarm hissed, grabbing Bass by the shirt and dragging him toward the rear door. “Come on!”
But the outlaw wasn’t about to be pulled out into the rear alley. He struggled and would have broken free if Longarm hadn’t pistol-whipped him across the forehead so hard that his eyes crossed and his legs buckled.
“Stay back!” Longarm shouted as the mean-spirited crowd edged forward. “I mean it!”
Longarm wrapped his left arm right around Hank Bass’s neck and held off the crowd with his six-gun as he struggled out the back door. But no sooner was he outside than the crowd charged the door, and Longarm had no choice but to haul Bass up on his toes and open fire.
He didn’t know how many men fell under his gun, but it must have been several. Longarm did know that Bass took a fusillade of bullets to his chest and belly and was leaking like a sieve by the time he could drag him around the building and empty his pockets of whatever Spanish gold coins remained. There weren’t many, maybe twenty or so, but Longarm collected them as best he could in the darkness, then he sprinted off hearing shouts and more gunfire.
He wasted no more time and took no more chances. With a half dozen good lawmen, he might have stood a chance of cleaning out this festering hole of humanity. But by himself Longarm knew that he stood no chance at all. So he circled around to the front of the hotel, sprinted to their room, and pounded on the door.
“Victoria, it’s me! We’ve got to get out of here!”
She had the door open and was instantly in his arms. Longarm rushed into the room, grabbed his rifle and shotgun, then his saddlebags, and they took off running from the hotel.
Nogales was such a lawless town that a few gunshots did not arouse much attention. And maybe some of the Spanish gold coins were lying spilled around Hank Bass’s riddled body. Whatever the reason, Longarm and Victoria had no trouble getting to the livery and then riding hard out of town.
At daybreak, they stopped on a high, windswept ridge and gazed across twenty or thirty miles of desert toward Nogales and then on to Mexico.
Only then did Victoria ask, “What about the golden coins?”
“I was able to fill my pockets, but that’s all.” Longarm dug out one pocketful but kept the other. “Do what you want with them.”
“And what will you do with the ones you keep?” Victoria asked.
Longarm’s mind drifted back to Denver, and to Dolly. He recalled making a promise to that woman and said, “I think I’ll spend ‘em all in New Orleans.”
“I could go with you,” Victoria offered hopefully.
“Maybe next year, if you’re not married by then,” he said with a half smile as he reined north and put his horse into an easy gallop. “There’s always next year.”
