water and eat a couple of biscuits stuffed with ham. His body seemed to have revived from the punishment he’d given it a few hours before, and he almost believed he could make a fight of it if it came to that.
A half hour later he saw a couple of dark spots lying across the white stretch of the sandy track. At first he was unable to make out what they might be, but as he got closer, he could see that they had to be bodies. But of what he wasn’t sure until he was about a quarter of a mile off. Then he could see that it was two men. As he got closer he saw that they were lying on their backs. He was going to pass just at their feet, and he took the reins in both hands and set his boots against the front of the bathtub and pulled with all his might. The mules slowed to a stiff- legged trot, but that was as slow as he could get them. As he passed the two men, Longarm recognized Ben, the driver, and the shotgun guard. In the brief glimpse he had of them he could see, judging from the blood, that both had been shot several times. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaws and relaxed his iron grip on the reins, letting the mules build back up to their high-ended lope.
He didn’t know why he was surprised, much less outraged, that they’d killed the driver and the guard. The good doctor and Rita Ann weren’t going to let anything get between them and the gold. Hell, they would have killed Longarm just as quick as they’d have swatted a fly if they hadn’t figured the desert would do for him and that he was in no position to impede them. And the doctor had been right about the business of killing federal marshals. It was bad medicine to kill a federal officer. You did it only if you wanted every other federal officer in the country to be looking for you, because that was what would happen.
He only wondered how they had done it. It would have been difficult for either of them to climb around and get at the driver or the guard. Likely they had used some sort of subterfuge, the doctor saying the woman was sick or something like that. Anything to get the driver and guard to stop and get down and be exposed to the doctor’s revolver.
But why kill them so far from the station? Longarm already knew that driving mules was no picnic, and he was just having to manage two. The doctor would be handling ten. Maybe it was a lot easier from the seat of the coach. Maybe the mules had worn down and were manageable. Who knows what the reason was. Maybe they just liked to kill for the hell of it.
And then he got his answer about half an hour later. They came flying over a slight rise and started down into a little low place in the prairie. Well off in the distance he saw the stage. It was pulling up the gradually rising grade the driver had talked about. But that wasn’t what explained the situation to him. There were three riders accompanying the coach. One was out ahead, one rode just to the right, and a third was bringing up the rear. Longarm estimated they were a good three or four miles away, but he knew he was going faster. He calculated he should come up to them in something less than a half an hour. But he figured that long before that the outriders were going to take a big interest in him, and for that he was going to need the use of both hands.
He hunted around in the bottom of the tub until he found his recently retrieved gunbelt. He looped it loosely around his chest, buckling it just under his armpits. Then he took the extra slack in the reins, ran them under and around his gunbelt, and tied them off. That way he could control the speed of the team by leaning forward or pulling back.
He was coming up on the party faster than he’d thought. He could see the last outrider stop his horse and turn in Longarm’s direction. Longarm took up his carbine, levered the chamber half open to make sure a shell was home, and then closed it and cocked the hammer with his thumb. He said to the mules, “I don’t know if you boys have ever been in a gunfight before, but you are fixing to be smack in the middle of one. But don’t worry about it. I’m an old hand at the business. Ya’ll just keep pulling the bathtub and I’ll see to the shooting.”
Now the distance was narrowing rapidly. The trailing rider had made his mind up and was starting toward Longarm at a trot. As he came on, Longarm saw him pull his rifle out of the boot and glance down to check the action. Up further the man riding by the stage also had stopped and was turning back. Longarm estimated he was no more than a half mile from the closest rider and closing fast. He watched as the man put his horse into a lope, quartering just off to Longarm’s right. It was still too far for a certain shot, but the time was getting very close.
Then, as the first man came within about four hundred yards, Longarm saw him stand up in the stirrups, lift his rifle to his shoulder, and aim. Then there came a puff of smoke, and Longarm saw a red furrow appear across the hip of the off-leader mule. It wasn’t a serious wound, and the mule did no more than jump slightly, but Longarm suddenly realized what kind of shape he’d be in if the man managed to kill one of his animals. He’d be out of business was what he’d be. His quarry would get away and he’d be stuck out in the middle of the desert. for a third time.
“The hell with that!” he said softly. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and sighted on the chest of the man riding toward him.
Chapter 9
The instant he fired, he knew that he had missed. He also knew why. He had a more stable firing platform than did the man on the horse, but he hadn’t allowed for shooting at a moving target from a moving object. It wasn’t something he got a great deal of practice at.
He quickly levered in another shell and aimed lower on the man’s chest. He was quartering in from Longarm’s right, and Longarm allowed for a touch of lead as the distance closed. Before he could fire he saw the white puff of smoke from the man’s rifle and heard the bullet sing over his head. Then the hard crump of the shot reached his ears. The man was close enough now that Longarm could see it was the big man from the relay station, the one he had hit first. He was glad to find out that he had not jumped on three innocent strangers. He was also glad to have been proved right that they were to be a part of the robbery. He squeezed the trigger, felt the kick of the rifle against his shoulder, and saw, through his own muzzle smoke, the big man throw up both his arms, his rifle being flung skyward, and go backwards off his horse. The horse kept on running, sweeping past Longarm and his mules almost before the man hit the ground and went rolling over and over and over.
But there was no time to dwell on the condition of the shot man. The second of the three riders was sweeping down on Longarm. He was the man who had been riding abreast of the coach. His path was almost straight south, bringing him directly at Longarm. Longarm knew he’d better drop the man in a hurry because he was in an ideal position to hit one of his mules. He sighted on the rider when he was still a full three hundred yards away and fired once, levered, fired again, saw the man sag in his saddle and drop his rifle, and held up as the rider tried to stay in the saddle and direct his horse away from Longarm and his mules. Longarm could not chance it. He waited patiently till the man came within fifty yards, and then zeroed in on the man’s chest and shot him out of the saddle. It was not the kind of act he was given to, but odds were the man wouldn’t have made it anyway, wounded and with no help available out on the big prairie. He swept past the man, who was no more than ten yards away, lying on his side. He could see it was the pudgy man, the one they had called Frank. That meant that the remaining rider was the smallest of the three. It would make him the hardest to hit.
Longarm glanced ahead. He could see that the third man had taken a lesson from what had happened to his two companions. He was riding south, away from the coach, but he was not closing toward Longarm. Instead Longarm heard him fire and saw the smoke and heard the sound of the bullet. The man was firing at his mules. There was no doubt about it. Longarm looked ahead. He was rapidly catching up to the coach. It could not have been more than a half a mile ahead. The wounded mule was still going strong, and neither animal seemed to have
