was just a matter of time before he picked up a splinter from the rough floor.
He took his drink to the table, and was just settling down to enjoy it and the stump of the cigar Higgins had given him when the door of the living quarters burst open and Higgins said excitedly, “It come. I got you a answer. All the way from Yuma.”
Longarm waved his hand in a downward motion, and Higgins clamped his hand over his mouth. Longarm got up and walked across the room. Higgins said, “I’m right sorry. I jes’ got so excited it burst right out.”
“You got to watch that, Herman. Bursting out ain’t no way to keep secrets.”
“I got the message wrote down in here. I write a fair hand so you ought to be able to figure it Out. Sounds mighty, mighty serious to me. This law work is deadly stuff, ain’t it.”
“Yes,” Longarm said dryly. He followed Higgins into his front room and over to the desk. Higgins handed him a piece of paper with some words printed on it in pencil. The message said:
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL CUSTIS LONG
ALL ESCAPED PRISONERS ACCOUNTED FOR EXCEPT CARL LOWE. BELIEVE ONE OR TWO OF THOSE WHO AIDED ESCAPE MAY ALSO HAVE ILLUDED ARREST. RANGERS CONTINUING SEARCH, BELIEVE LOWE MAY HAVE FLED TO THE SOUTH. ADVISE ANY DETAILS YOU MAY HAVE.
It was signed by the warden of the Yuma territorialprison. “Damn!” Longarm said. “Damn, damn, damn! I was afraid of that!” He wadded the piece of paper up and pitched it back on Higgins’s little desk. “I told them he wouldn’t head south! He’s got no business in Mexico. That wasn’t why they broke him out of prison!”
Higgins was standing by with his mouth open and his eyes wide. He said, “It’s bad, is it, Marshal? Real bad?”
Longarm seemed to realize where he was. He looked at the little old man. He said, “Nothing for You to worry about, Herman. It’s just law work. Law work gone wrong.”
“Is they anything I can do?”
Longarm grimaced. “Not unless you can figure a way for me to get up in the Phoenix area. That’s where I think I need to be.”
“But didn’t it say the chase was to the south?”
Longarm laughed. “Yeah, The chase. They’re chasing their tails is the only chase they are involved with.”
Higgins scratched his head. “I shore don’t know no way for you to get north till the stage comes through.”
Longarm shook his head. “You said something about grease, Herman. I need to try and get my boots back on.”
Higgins frowned. “Might be yore feet need ‘nother dose of lye water.”
“Oh, I think I can do without that.”
A little later he wandered outside to stand against the front wall of the stage station and stare out across the wasted prairie and think. His boots felt a little awkward and his feet were tender, but he felt nearly back to normal after his two-day trek across the barren plain. It was still hot enough to fry a bald man’s brains, but the sun was heading down. In a couple of hours it would be twilight and cool.
Try as he would he could not think of any way to get hot on Carl Lowe’s trail. The damn Arizona Rangers had insisted on hunting to the south. Otherwise, if they had taken Longarm’s advice, Carl Lowe would be back in prison, But that was the damn Arizona Rangers for you. They figured every fugitive that was loose was going to break south for Mexico, especially in that part of the territory. Ordinarily that might be right, but Carl Lowe was no average outlaw. And the folks who had gone to some trouble to break him out of prison weren’t going to take him to Mexico either. His skills would be wanted where there were some rich banks or railroad mail cars full of gold and cash. Longarm figured that had to be up north somewhere around Phoenix. That whoever had done it had broken Carl Lowe out for a purpose. Longarm had no doubt about that, and he had no doubt that the purpose involved a safe or a strongbox somewhere. And every hour Longarm sat out in the middle of the desert in a damned relay station was just that much more time he was getting behind.
He hunkered down, picked up a little stick, and began drawing a map in the sand showing where he was, where he had last seen Lowe, and the location of Phoenix and other places of opportunity. He was busy thinking of possibilities when Higgins came out. He looked ruffled and confused. Longarm asked him what was the matter. He said, “My wife says that hoor is a-workin’ fer you. I told her the sun had got to her. But I thought I’d come ask you.”
Longarm laughed slightly. “It’s a fact, Herman. Rita is my, uh—oh, I don’t know—assistant I guess you’d call it.”
Higgins looked slightly hurt. “I kind of thought me an’ you was pretty much on top of thangs, Marshal Longarm. I didn’t figure you to need other hired help.”
Now Longarm did laugh. “You got it all wrong, Herman. She ain’t working for me like you think.”
But Higgins wasn’t mollified. “I didn’t see where we needed a hoor in the outfit. Was a woman needed, why, Sylvie would have fit right in.”
Longarm frowned. He said, “You keep calling her a ‘hoor,’ Herman. You don’t know that she is.”
Higgins squatted in the sand across from Longarm. “Wa’l, she was in with a passel of hoors an’ they run her off. What else I supposed to think?”
“You could have a horse in with a herd of cattle, but that wouldn’t make a cow out of the horse, would it?”
Higgins reluctantly studied the question. Finally he took off his hat and scratched his head. “Wa’l, no, I reckon not.”
Longarm said, “Look here, Herman, you got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The girl needed some help. She was weak because she hadn’t eaten. I couldn’t just walk up and hand her some money. She’d of thrown it back in my face. So I kind of made her up a job. She’s my fetch-and-carry assistant.” He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “You’re my thinking-and-action assistant. There’s quite a bit of difference there.”
Higgins’s face brightened. “Aw, yeah. I see what you mean. Yeah, she is just yore fetch-and-carry girl. I get it
