that horse.” Jenkins reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out two sheets of paper and handed both of them over to Longarm. One was a bill of sale and the other was a letter of quarantine, describing the horse in detail and the brand he wore.
Longarm looked over the papers carefully. They certainly looked authentic enough. He asked, “And this is the horse that I will find across the border?”
Mr. Jenkins nodded his head up and down and said, “Yes, that is the horse.”
Longarm could not fight his curiosity down. He swore softly to himself for being such a damn fool. The four hours that he was going to waste doing this was four hours that he needed for sleep. He didn’t want or need $140; though $140 for four hours’ work was considerably better than he did in the marshal’s office. He slowly folded the papers and put them on the table in front of him. He asked, “What if I do it in the morning, Mr. Jenkins? Will that suit you?”
Jenkins shook his head violently from side to side. “No, sir. I want to be out of this country before nightfall. I’d like to see that horse back over here and me on my way, even before dark. Please, Mr. Jones, I’m begging you.”
Longarm sighed. “Oh, what the hell. Mr. Jenkins, I want to tell you, though, that you may be the one who gets a surprise in this deal.”
A slight smile pricked at the corners of Mr. Jenkins’s mouth. He said, “Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr. Jones. Everybody gets a surprise every once in a while.”
Longarm looked at the small man. “Yeah, but not quite the way they expect.”
Longarm and Mr. Jenkins stood outside on the street in front of the saloon beside an average-looking roan saddle horse. Longarm had looked the animal over and found him to be sound. He wasn’t anything he would write home about, but he figured the horse would make it four miles over there and four miles back.
“Now, let me get these directions straight again, Mr. Jenkins. I go through Nuevo Laredo, and once I’ve gone through good and clear, I ride on for a couple or three miles and I’ll see a small white adobe shack with red tile on the roof. Is that right?”
Mr. Jenkins nodded again. “Yes, sir. That’s the fact of the matter.”
“Do you have any idea how many adobe shacks with red tile roofs there are in this part of the country?” asked Longarm.
“But this will be one of the first that you’ll see on your way. There are two Mexican fellows holding the horse for me. There is a corral out back with a barn made out of lumber, kind of gray-looking, sitting back off the road a piece.”
Longarm asked, “And that’s the road to Monterrey, correct?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve got it right.”
Longarm put a foot in the stirrup of the roan and swung easily aboard. The reins were already looped over the saddle horn. He took them in hand as he looked down at Mr. Jenkins. He said, “Well, sir. I hope that I don’t have any trouble finding this horse. Do you realize that I am nearly dead for sleep?”
“Mr. Jones, I consider this a mighty fine favor that you are doing me and I certainly will appreciate it,” said Mr. Jenkins.
Longarm nodded. He was about to say “So long” when Mr. Jenkins suddenly shoved his hand in his pocket. It came out holding three twenty-dollar gold pieces.
“Mr. Jones, you are about to forget your money.”
Longarm looked down at the gold coins in the man’s hand. He said, “Well, let’s do it this way, Mr. Jenkins. If I get your horse back over here, you can pay me the whole thing at one time.” He gave Mr. Jenkins a significant look. “But if I run into trouble I won’t feel like I am beholden to you in any way. In other words, I won’t be working for you, Mr. Jenkins, until I get back over here with the horse. Do you understand me?”
Mr. Jenkins assumed an innocent look. He said, “Why, I don’t have any idea what you are a-talkin’ about, Mr. Jones.”
Longarm grinned and reined the horse away from the hitching post. “Well, if everything goes right, then you don’t need to know what I am talking about, Mr. Jenkins. If anything goes wrong, you won’t have time to wonder what I’m talking about. Do you understand that?”
Mr. Jenkins looked puzzled. “No, I can’t say that I do, but then I don’t reckon that it matters because I can’t see what can go wrong.” His face suddenly looked perplexed. He snapped his fingers. He said, “Oh, one thing I forgot to tell you. There will be a man wearing a white shirt standing out somewhere around that house. At least that’s what they told me. That’s the man I don’t want to deal with, so if you have any trouble, it could be with that man. He’s expecting someone coming to fetch that horse.”
Longarm said, “White shirt, white house, red roof, gray barn. All right, Mr. Jenkins, you take it easy.” Without another look he began spurring his horse down the road toward the International Bridge that led to Mexico.
As Longarm rode out of Nuevo Laredo toward the Monterrey Road, his mind was busy trying to guess exactly what Mr. Jenkins was up to. It wasn’t the horse as he had previously thought. On the way across the bridge, he had stopped at the U.S. Customs Service and shown the papers to the officer on duty. He had confirmed that the certificates were genuine. So if it wasn’t the horse, was it contraband of some kind, such as gold or silver or some other item that drew a high duty? But then, Mr. Jenkins had said that he, Longarm, could feel free to cast aside anything that he found in the saddle or the bags. So if it wasn’t the horse and it wasn’t contraband, what in hell was Jenkins trying to smuggle across? Longarm shook his head and smiled to himself. He guessed he had been a lawman for too long. Maybe the situation was just as Mr. Jenkins had said—he was a timid little fellow who was afraid of the ruffian he had bought the horse from and he didn’t want to confront him again. It could be that simple.
But then, Longarm thought to himself, that had to be one hell of a horse to pay $140 in delivery charges. He didn’t know many horses outside of the Kentucky racing horses that fetched the kind of price that you could add on $140. He shook his head. Well, there was one way to find out, and that was to go and fetch the horse, bring him back and then see what happened. Hell, he even reckoned he’d take the $140. It wouldn’t make up for the hours of sleep he lost but at least it would be something.
He hit the outskirts of the little Mexican town and began looking for the Monterrey Road. It wasn’t difficult to
