naturally I would be pleased and I would guarantee you that I would recapture Earl Combs and I would find the money, and I would take this Mr. Brown into custody in a pretty quick time. However, it is my opinion that Mr. Brown is going to kill me whether you make the swap or not. I’m being held somewhere in the interior of Mexico, and I will give Mr. Brown credit for knowing how to lock a fellow UP without much chance Of escape. Tell Billy Vail he can have a good laugh about how I so foolishly let myself get trapped. Ya’ll can make up your own minds about what you want to do about this situation. I am going to try my best on my own to manage things at this end. That’s all I’ve got to say.
The letter was signed: “Custis Long, United States Deputy Marshal.”
When he was through, he sat back and took a moment to read what he had written. He’d made as much sense as he could out of the situation. He had told the folks at the other end what he thought. He didn’t expect Mr. Brown was going to be too pleased about his statement that he figured he was a dead man either way, swap or no, but that was the way he saw it. After he read the letter the second time, he couldn’t see anything he wanted to change, so he got up, took the sheet of paper to the door and slid it under. Then he banged hard and yelled, “Here’s your damn letter, Mr. Brown.” After that, he walked back and sat down at the table and poured himself a drink of whiskey. So far as he was concerned, matters were now out of his hands, at least in the appeal for help department.
A moment later, he heard soft footsteps and then the sound of the paper rustling. A minute or two passed and then the peephole opened. Mr. Brown said, “That’s quite a letter, Marshal Long.”
Longarm said, “Glad you liked it, Mr. Brown.”
“I rather resent your implying that I’m going to kill You one way or the other.”
“Well, ain’t you?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you can’t afford to turn me loose. You know as well as I do that I’d spend the rest of MY life looking for you.”
Mr. Brown laughed. He said, “Yes, but you wouldn’t know who or what you were looking for. You don’t know what I look like, you don’t know where I live, you don’t know what I do. you know nothing about me, so You are wrong, Marshal, that I would kill you anyway. As I’ve told you, I have no desire to have the murder of a United States deputy marshal on my hands.”
“Well, I’m not going to change the letter,” said Longarm.
Mr. Brown said, “Then so be it, but at least I have more proof that I have you alive. In fact, I couldn’t have improved upon the letter. It shows that I have you, it shows that you are in desperate straits, and it shows that You are in great danger. I think it will urge the gentlemen of the banking commission to speed their decision. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a low-down son of a bitch.”
Brown laughed again. “I’m leaving now, Marshal. Is there anything you want?”
“Not that you’ve got.”
“Well, if you think of anything, just tell one of the boys. Even a woman. You’re going to get awful lonesome and that is a very small room that is going to get a lot smaller. I’ll be glad to provide you with all the entertainment I can.”
Longarm said, “Just keep the whiskey and the good vittles coming. I’ll think about the woman, but like I said, I don’t want any of your hand-me-downs.”
“That amuses me, Marshal, that you would think you and I have the same taste in women. I think you’re rather putting on airs with that attitude.”
Longarm said, through gritted teeth, “I’d like to put some airs on you.”
“Well, I’m gone now, Marshal. Adios.”
The peephole shut and Longarm could hear footsteps receding down the hall. Longarm said, “Shit!” and slammed his hand on the table. He didn’t reckon he’d ever run across anybody so smug, so sure of himself, so irritating, so damnable as this fellow Brown and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. “Damn!” he said aloud. “Damn, damn, damn.”
At one-thirty by his watch, the woman came back bringing his lunch. She had changed out of the blue blanket-material robe into another one, It was still a robe, but it was gayer in color, pink and white. It seemed to be quilted. Also, she had combed or brushed her hair and she looked considerably better. But her face was still devoid of makeup and she still walked as if she was ashamed of herself. Longarm rose off the bed and walked over to watch her set the dishes on the table. She’d brought him steak and potatoes and green beans with what looked to be apple cobbler for dessert. He glanced toward the door. The pistolero was not there, but Longarm could see him farther down the hall standing near a door some ten yards distant. He guessed it was a door that led back into the main part of the house. He had the feeling that he was segregated off in some sort of a wing of the house and that the only way out was through the door the pistolero was standing by.
Longarm brought his attention back to the woman. He asked, “What’s your name?”
She gave him a scared look and shook her head. Then she picked up her tray and hurried out of the room with the same quick shuffling gait. She closed the door behind her and he heard the key turn in the lock, but this time he didn’t hear the bar fall into place. He wondered if they were getting careless with Mr. Brown gone. Perhaps he should begin to watch for his opportunities.
The afternoon wore along slowly, the minutes seemed to pass like miles under a mule’s feet. Longarm had eaten his lunch as slowly as he could, savoring the good food and reflecting that at least he was being fed well. He found himself looking forward to his next visit by the mysterious woman. He didn’t know what time the regular hour was for supper, but it had been a late lunch, so he didn’t calculate she’d come in with supper much before seven o’clock. He kept speculating about her, wondering who she was, where she had come from, what she was doing in such a place, wondering why she thought so little of herself. In her last visit, he had noticed that she had grayish- blue eyes. They hadn’t been dulled, they had been bright, lively and intelligent. The woman was a mystery, and no mistake. He only wondered if she was a mystery he could first solve and then make use of—he was becoming desperate. He’d been in his cell, as he thought of it, not quite twenty-four hours and already he had realized that he couldn’t take much more of it. He was careful about the whiskey. He had determined that he would drink only in the evenings, maybe one in the morning. It would be too easy to get drunk and not be able to take advantage of an opportunity when it presented itself. Lord, he thought, what he would give for a gun. Over and over, he berated himself for leaving his hideout gun in his valise. If that damned Earl Combs hadn’t been kicking up such a fuss, it
