The stranger laughed slightly. “Well, I don’t know how you feel about making money. Some folks find it kind of exciting,” he said.
Longarm gave the man a level look. “Making money? How?”
The stranger fluttered his hand slightly. He said, “Oh, nothing too illegal. Matter of fact, I don’t reckon that you could call it illegal at all. It’s an easy job.”
“Doing what?” Longarm asked.
The stranger said, “Shouldn’t that be ‘Paying how much?’”
Longarm smiled slightly. He said, “All right. Paying how much?”
The stranger leaned forward and adjusted his frock coat. “A hundred dollars. Spot cash. Gold coins. What do you think of that now?”
Longarm half smiled. He was on the point of telling the man that he very often bet that amount of money on a middling hand of poker, but something stayed his speech. He was curious as to what a stranger would be willing to pay a hundred dollars to another stranger to do. It wasn’t so much the lawman in him that was curious as it was just a man sitting in a saloon. “A hundred dollars? Is that a fact? Say, that’s a pile of money.”
The stranger leaned forward eagerly. He said, “Yep, and it’s all in gold.” With one hand he reached into the pocket of his frock coat and pulled out five twenty-dollar gold pieces. He let them clink down on the table. “Take a look at that. Oro puro. Pure gold. Yellow as butter.” He pushed two of the coins to one side and pulled three back toward himself. He said, “Forty now and sixty when you do the job.”
Longarm looked at him curiously. He asked, “What the hell am I supposed to do? I’m not going to kill anybody if that’s what you got in mind.”
The stranger laughed. “Oh, nothing quite that extreme. Actually, it’s a simple job that shouldn’t take you more than maybe three or four hours.” He leaned forward again. “I’m sure a man in your position could make good use of a hundred dollars.”
Longarm wasn’t sure he cared for that kind of talk. True, he must look a little shopworn and hard used after three days on a train with a maniac, but he was still wearing a $40 hat and an $80 pair of boots and a $100 concave silver buckle on his belt that usually concealed a .38-caliber derringer in its concave shape.
He asked, “You mean, you’re just going to give me forty dollars and let me walk out of here with it?”
The man nodded. “Yep. Just like that.”
“What makes you so sure that I’ll come back?”
The stranger said, tapping his head, “I’m a man as knows people, neighbor. Name is Jenkins. I make it my business to know what folks will do and you look like a good honest hired hand to me.”
Longarm barely controlled a slight twinge of temper. He personally didn’t think he looked much like a hired hand and about the only person he allowed to talk to him in such a manner was Billy Vail and the only reason for that was Billy Vail was his boss. Now here was a complete stranger talking to him as if he was a trail hand, not that he had anything against trail hands. It was just that he would have to be about the oldest one on the trail, with the average age of such cowhands being between nineteen and twenty, and at his age he would have been a failed trail hand.
He looked at the stranger. “Well, Mr. Jenkins. As I understand it, I’m to get forty dollars for going out and doing something and another sixty dollars when I get back. Now, what exactly is it you want me to do?”
Mr. Jenkins looked carefully around, though there wasn’t another ear within fifteen feet. Still, he leaned forward and in a hushed voice said, “Well, it’s really fairly simple. All I want you to do is go across the border about three or four miles on the other side of Nuevo Laredo where you are going to find a horse. A good-looking, high-blooded Arabian horse. I want you to bring that horse back to me right here in this saloon. That’s all there is to it.”
Longarm pulled his head back slightly as if he hadn’t quite heard. He asked, “You want me to go four miles deep into Mexico and fetch you back a horse?”
“You heard correctly. I didn’t quite get your name, by the way.”
Longarm said, “You didn’t get it because I didn’t send it. Name is … well, let’s just say my name is Jones.”
Mr. Jenkins nodded. “Fine with me, Mr. Jones, or whatever you want it to be. That’s good enough for me.”
Longarm asked, “And when I bring the horse back here to you in the saloon, what then?”
Mr. Jenkins said, “Why, then I give you the other sixty dollars.” With his hand, he motioned to the three coins he had pulled toward himself. “Making a round hundred dollars you’ve earned for about four hours’ work. Tell me where you can do better than that?”
“Well, I can’t think of any place right off outside of the United States Senate,” Longarm said.
Mr. Jenkins chuckled like a man not quite used to laughing. He said, “Oh, that’s a good one. Will you do it?”
Longarm rubbed his jaw reflectively. He couldn’t quite figure out what Mr. Jenkins’s game was but he knew it was crooked because Mr. Jenkins now began to look crooked. He said, “Well, I don’t know, Mr. Jenkins. It sounds way too easy. Just going and fetching a horse? A hundred dollars? That must be some horse. You got trouble getting across the border through the custom inspectors? That horse got some kind of quarantine problems?”
“No, no, no,” Mr. Jenkins said. He put his hands out. “That horse will have his proper quarantine papers. You’ll have no trouble crossing with the horse.”
Longarm said, “Well, to begin with, you want me to go four miles across into Mexico. I ain’t going to walk and I’m afoot right now.”
Mr. Jenkins said, shaking his head, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got a good saddle horse hitched right outside. You just get on him and you’re on your way. Now, what do you say to the deal?”
Longarm didn’t know quite what to say. His body was begging him to go to bed, but his mind was intrigued to know what kind of crime Mr. Jenkins was trying to involve him in. He didn’t know for certain that Mr. Jenkins had crime in mind, but the idea of paying someone a hundred dollars simply to fetch a horse four miles into Mexico
