country that he’d gotten from the army, and as near as he could tell, his best hope had been to hike it for the stage station that looked on the map to be about twenty miles north of Gila Bend. He felt fortunate it was there since there was so little else in the country. Which, of course, was one of the reasons for locating the territorial prison in Yuma. As someone had once observed, Yuma was closer to Hell than to the United States. Nobody was expected to try to escape from Yuma for the simple reason that, without the resources, a man wouldn’t last two days in such country. Yuma was in the extreme southwest corner of Arizona, very near an intersection with California and Mexico. You were in bad country at the prison, but it was a garden spot next to what you’d run into if you tried to flee in any direction. For that reason very few men ever successfully escaped. Oh, sometimes they got away from the prison itself, but the prison of heat and the wide-open empty spaces eventually executed them in a far more painful way than was ever used at the prison.
The breakout had been assisted. Depending on what you believed, and who you believed, either three or four men had been waiting for the six convicts when they had freed themselves from the prison. The breakout party had brought tools to free the prisoners of their leg irons, and had obviously been well provisioned. The Arizona Rangers had been called in to track the fugitives, and they in turn had called for Longarm’s assistance since he had caught and imprisoned the escapees’ ringleader, Carl Lowe. Longarm had taken a train down through Flagstaff, and then to Blythe, California, and then down to Yuma. By the time they’d set off in pursuit the prisoners and their accomplices had had a forty-eight-hour lead. Then there was further confusion when the Rangers had insisted that the captives would flee straight south to Mexico. Longarm had pointed out the clear sign that indicated the escapees were fleeing east, but the Rangers had been unconvinced. They’d claimed it was false sign to throw them off and further delay the pursuit. Longarm had patiently explained that the country to the immediate south was rough and uninhabited, with no water and very little in the way of fodder for the fugitives’ animals. He’d taken the position that the outlaws were going to head east for some fifty or sixty miles, and then turn south into an area of Mexico that was peopled, dotted with villages, and lush with water and grass. The Rangers had resented him telling them how to operate in their territory, and Longarm had just shrugged and advised them to go their way and he’d go his. Even though he was based in Denver, much of his business was done in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, so he knew that country as well as he did his own backyard. When someone had once asked him why he was always in such places he’d said, “Because that’s where the outlaws are. Ain’t no use hunting bandits in church, at least not the kind that carry guns.”
In the end the Rangers had agreed to follow his lead, which was just as well for him since they had the packhorses and the supplies. Four days later they’d run the crowd to ground in the Aquilla Mountains, a small range in the middle of the desert floor that the convicts and their helpers had chosen as a place to rest. In the running fight most of them had been accounted for except for three who had escaped toward the east. Longarm had followed along with the Rangers until it became clear to him that one of the men they were chasing had broken off from the others and was heading due north. There were towns in that direction and a small railroad, and Longarm had insisted the lone escapee was the most important. The Rangers had disagreed, and Longarm had taken a fresh horse, gotten him watered and fed, and then taken off in hot pursuit of the solo escapee. He had gotten close enough to see that it was a man, riding a horse and apparently pulling a pack animal. That had been when he had made the mad dash. It had come up a half a mile short. After he’d put his animal out of its misery, he’d stood for a long time staring after the small figure that was barely discernible through the shimmering heat waves. He’d felt sure it was Carl Lowe.
But there had been not a damn thing he could do about it. His first duty was to try and save government property, namely himself. He knew the Rangers wouldn’t be coming to look for him, so he’d gotten out the map and begun putting sand between himself and his dead horse.
At first he thought the station was just manned by one old codger. He’d appeared almost as soon as Longarm had slumped down on a bench in the outer room. The man was thin and gaunt and had lost most of his hair, and would have lost his pants if they hadn’t been held up by a frayed pair of red suspenders. But what he lacked in youth and flesh he more than made up in energy and talk. The instant he came into the room he said, “Say, been a-watchin’ you a-comin’ this way. Could tell right off you wasn’t much of a walkin’ man.” He gestured at Longarm’s saddle, which the marshal had dropped at his feet. “Now that thang there, case you don’t know what is, that there is a outfit you put on a horse. A man ain’t supposed to carry it like I seen you a-doin’. That there is a saddle and fits a horse’s back.” Then he cackled like he’d never had so much fun in his life.
Longarm slowly raised his head. He said, “Mister, would you have so much as a drink of water? Don’t even have to be cool. Just has to be wet. I’d like to turn this sand in my throat into mud.”
The quiet words seemed to have an instant effect on the man. His mouth dropped open and he said, “Why, bless Pat, whatever in this world be I a-thinkin’ about.” He gave his sagging trousers a quick hitch and spun on his heels. “Course you’d be wantin’ water, my stars and garters! Damn fool old man! Be right back with some fresh well water.”
Longarm just sat there, slumped on the bench, not feeling much of anything except the pleasant absence of the sun. He couldn’t be sure because such things were hard to measure, but he might be more tired than he’d ever been in his life. Of course there had been the time some years back when he’d caught a gang of low-down scoundrels who’d robbed a whorehouse and the madam, in gratitude, had given him free run of the place for as long as he could last. He’d been pretty tired then, but he’d been younger and the young tended to bounce back faster. Right now he wasn’t sure he planned to ever walk another step the rest of his life.
Then the old man was back with a wooden bucket of water and a dipper. He set it on the bench by Longarm and said, “Thar you be. Now you take some of that and then we’ll see to gettin’ you some other stuff might help. Don’t take that water down too fast. You do and it’ll cause yore stummick to dispute you.”
Longarm reached for the handle of the dipper. He said, “This ain’t the first time I been thirsty. Just the first time I’d rather have water than a woman. Or whiskey.”
The old man, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his scrawny neck, said, “My stars and garters, you do be in bad shape, mister. Well, you just nurse down a little of that well water and then we’ll take a measure of the sitshiation.”
The water tasted of alkali and was nowhere near cool, but to Longarm it was worth about a dollar a drop. He drank a careful dipper slowly, taking a small swallow at a time but never taking the dipper from his mouth until he’d drained it. After that he put the dipper back in the pail, waited a moment, and then brought it, brimming full, back to his lips.
The old man looked alarmed. He said in his high, reedy voice, “Look out! Look out! You’ll founder yoreself for shore!” But Longarm only took a short drink, and then rested the dipper on his thigh while he looked around the room he was in. The building was made of native rock and heavy timbers that appeared to Longarm to be railroad cross-ties. The room he was in was about twenty feet by twenty feet with a wooden floor and heavy timber rafters. The roof was of tin and didn’t do much to cool the sun. He thought that if somebody had had the sense to put a real ceiling in the place, it might drop the temperature at least ten degrees. But it was so much cooler than outside he was not about to complain.
There were several benches like the one he was sitting on scattered about, and a long wooden table with backless benches. He figured that was the dining table. There was also a big fireplace at one end, and a plank set across two barrels with some bottles of whiskey behind it. That, Longarm guessed, was the bar, though what a bar was doing in such a place was beyond his ability to comprehend, at least for the moment.
