“Tonight ain’t necessarily out. It just might be somewhere else.”
She pulled the door to behind her and locked it. He sat down on the bed. Now came the hardest part of all. The wait to see if she could successfully return with one of the pistoleros. If she couldn’t, then all of his planning would have been in vain.
It was about time to put the final touches on his bomb, if it could be called that. He got the whiskey bottle out and held it up. It was above the neck of the bottle with kerosene and the powder lay about half an inch thick at the bottom, though some of it was floating around near the top. He took the candle she had brought him and got his penknife out. The idea was to get the fuse inserted into the bottle and then plug it with a solid piece of wax and then drip more wax on that to seal it tight. He cut a piece about an inch long off the bottom of the candle with his pocketknife. He tried it in the mouth of the bottle, but it was too big. He carefully wittled it down, making it taper toward the end he was going to shove into the bottle. After several tries, he had it so the piece of wax would slide down snugly into the mouth of the bottle. After that, he took his knife and very carefully cut a small channel along the length of the candle cork. That was to accommodate the fuse. Being careful not to lose any of the ground-up match heads, he stuck the fuse down until it just touched the kerosene and began to wick up some of the flammable liquid. Then he took the candle stopper, positioning the little vee he’d cut into the wax over the fuse and shoved it down hard. If his plans went as they should, the wax should allow the fuse fire to pass through, igniting the kerosene, which would ignite the powder and explode the whole bottle. Slugs and brass casings and glass would fly every which way and there would be a lot of smoke, noise, and confusion.
That was if it worked.
He struck a match and lit the rest of the candle where the wick was sticking out. Holding it carefully away so as not to set the bomb off too soon, he began to drip the melted wax around the fuse hole and all around the sides where the candle stopper met with the glass of the bottle. He did it slowly and carefully, and when he was through he was certain that the bomb, at least, was airtight, which was necessary to create an explosion. He held it up to the light and looked at it carefully. It looked lethal enough with the eight lead slugs and the eight brass casings and the kerosene and the powder, but he hadn’t the slightest idea in the world if it would work. Maybe it would be nothing but a loud fizzle, but even if it just smoked a little, it might give him the chance, the brief instant he needed, to get his hands on a gun.
There was nothing more he could do. He walked over to the door and placed the bomb against the wall about a foot from the doorway entrance. The fuse hung down about two feet and, because the paper was stiff, it did not touch the floor but just drooped over slightly. The idea was that he was going to light the fuse and hope that it burned fast enough to catch whichever pistolero came in and explode before the man could see the danger. The problem was that he had no idea how fast the fuse was going to burn. It should burn very quickly. Of course, if it burned too quickly, it wouldn’t allow him to get to safety on the other side of the bed or Sarah to get to safety underneath the bed. But he would simply have to guess. He didn’t have another fuse to test and wasn’t likely to get one. It was the kind of experiment that would have to work on the first try.
Now time hung heavy on his hands. He paced about the room, looked at himself in the mirror, thought about shaving, discarded the idea, put his hat on, looked in the mirror again, had a drink, and finally sat down on the bed with one of the two-week-old newspapers to see what had been happening in San Antonio.
It got to be four o’clock by his watch and then five, and finally, six. All he could think about was how intricate, how delicate, how very improbable his plan was. It depended on too many things that were out of his control. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He thought that maybe the best thing to do would be to rush whoever was at the door—throw a picture at him or whatever. Anything but this infernal weapon that he had created in an empty whiskey bottle.
But then it was probably all for naught anyway. Most likely Sarah wouldn’t succeed in getting one of the pistoleros to come back with her. If she complained he was trying to get the keys away from her, they would probably just laugh. It wouldn’t make any difference to them if he got out of his particular cell. He wouldn’t make it through the hall door anyway.
Finally he tried to put all thoughts out of his head. Whatever was going to happen would. He’d at least done his best and he couldn’t do any more. After that, he settled down to wait with an easy mind.
When the time came, he was almost caught off guard. As the key was turned in the doorway, he was on the wrong side of the bed without any matches in his hand. He instantly jumped up from the bed, rushed forward just as the door began to open, and threw himself up against the wall next to the bottle.
At that instant, Sarah threw the door wide and came in. Longarm had struck a match that was burning in his hand. He could see the outline of someone’s boots. He leaned down and lit the fuse and in two steps was on the other side of the bed. Miguel was in the doorway, the older of the two pistoleros who had first taken him prisoner. He saw the Mexican glance at him, saw the surprised look on his face, and then he saw Sarah trip, throw the tray, and then heard her scream. Longarm was watching Miguel’s face. He saw the Mexican advance toward the woman. He saw the man take two steps inside the room. Longarm yelled “Hey!” at Miguel.
The Mexican whipped his head toward Longarm. His hand went toward his holster. Longarm went limp and let himself fall below the bed. out of the corner of his eye, as he had fallen, he had seen that the fuse was racing toward the bottle. After that, he didn’t know what had happened. There was a sudden boom and the room was full of whizzing objects and full of noise.
Longarm was on his feet in an instant. He raced around the bed, looking for Miguel in the white smoke that filled the room. The pistolero was down on the floor. Longarm dove toward him, but as he grabbed the man, he realized there was no rush. The smoke was lifting and he could see blood coming from several places in the man’s abdomen and chest.
Longarm turned his head and looked for Sarah. He could see her, half under the bed. She glanced back at him as if to say she was all right. He was reaching for Miguel’s pistol that lay on the floor beside him when he heard the sound of the lock being turned in the hall door. He grabbed the pistol, cocking it as he rose. He could see the door beginning to open. He yelled for Sarah to stay down and then he took one, two, three steps and dove forward, sliding down the slick hard tiles as Chulo came around the end of the open door. He had his pistol in his hand as Longarm fired off a snap shot at him. He saw the slug take the Mexican in the right shoulder, knocking him backward and away from the door. He didn’t go down. He was struggling to bring his gun up. Longarm cocked his pistol and fired again. This time, the bullet took the Mexican in the middle of his chest, knocking him backward and flat on his back. Longarm didn’t pause. There would be more coming through the door any second. He jumped up. Sarah was still down but she was facing the door.
He yelled at her, “Come on! Come on! Get up.” He reached down, grabbed her by the hand and started running toward the door at the end of the hallway.
She said, “I’m afraid … the noise scared me.”
Longarm said, “There’s a lot more waiting out there that scares me. Now come on!”
