As he neared, Clem Gallagher said, “is he stove up bad?”
“No. He got a loose shoe at the wrong time. I think it pulled his tendon a little bit. I nailed the shoe back tight. He seems to be improving considerable, but I don’t want to stretch him. I’m a long way from home and I just as soon he not go lame out here.”
They slowly came together and for the first time in all the years that he had been hunting them, Longarm was face to face with one of the Gallagher brothers.
The man had on a black, flat-crowned, straight-brimmed hat of good quality. He had on a white linen duster that reached to his knees. Under it, Longarm could see that he was wearing a good-quality shirt and corduroy pants. Longarm could just see the hammer and the back of the handle of what he took to be a Colt .44 with horn grips. Gallagher’s face was small and mean and pinched-looking. His eyes appeared to Longarm to be just a trifle too close together. His lips were thin and he had almost no chin. He had the look that Longarm had seen before in men who were just a little too mean, too greedy, and too vicious for their own good and for the good of those who chanced to cross their path.
Longarm was surprised at the age of the man. Even with the pencil-thin mustache that decorated his lip, he couldn’t have been more than thirty, if that. Longarm noticed that he had small hands. His face was not as weathered as it should have been for a man who spent time in the open. Longarm figured that the Gallagher style was to make the plans and then send others out to do the dirty work. Probably some of the men that had been enticed into the morning attack had been just that kind, but then, they were replaceable.
Longarm could not quite figure Gallagher’s size in the saddle, but he doubted that he would be very big. At the most, he would be five-seven or five-eight and weigh around 140 pounds. Longarm hoped that he would get the chance to put his fist through that smug, selfish little face that was trying to lure him into a trap. Longarm was in no hurry, but he was looking forward to telling Clem Gallagher at the right moment what had happened to eighteen of his riders and why he wouldn’t be tearing up anymore railroad lines and why he wasn’t going to be robbing the mining office in Springer.
But all that could wait. Longarm wanted to look the situation over very carefully before he showed his hole card. That might take a little doing. He said, “All right, I’m here, Gallagher. Let’s get on with it. Where are these men that you intend to turn over to my custody?”
Clem Gallagher’s horse was facing west. He turned him to come alongside Longarm. He pointed and said, “Do you see way up yonder beyond that old shack? Well, there’s a rise that drops off right sharp. Right below that is a barranca, a crevice. I’ve got fourteen bandits down in there who we’re holding under guard who have been going around doing depredations and other bad things in my name. Every damn one of them will tell you so. I want my name cleared and I want my brother’s name cleared and I want my family’s name cleared.”
Longarm glanced back to see how Fisher and the other man were faring. By now, they were close to a mile away, although Longarm noticed that Fisher had imperceptibly dropped back behind the other man. Not much, but just to where he had the advantage.
Longarm said, “By the way, whatever happened to your other brother, Vern?”
Gallagher’s eyes narrowed to slits. He said, “Some sonofabitch blowed him all to hell just outside of Lawton. It was at Lily Gail’s place. Damnedest thing that you ever saw. We had a man, a cousin by the name of Emmett, working there at that time. He came and told us that there was trouble and that we needed to come and help Lily Gail. Emmett led Vern and five or six others from the family, but they never came back, Marshal Custis Long. Everything exploded. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Longarm said evenly, “Listen, Gallagher. I’m only interested in one thing and that’s what kind of a deal we can make. I don’t know about your brother, I don’t know about your family, I don’t know about your old man that started this whole thing. All I know is that if you are as innocent as you claim you are, then you have nothing to worry about. If people have been going around committing, as you call it, depredations in your name, then we’d want to put a stop to all that, wouldn’t we? So, you just lead off.”
Without another word, Clem Gallagher started his horse off. He was to Longarm’s left. Longarm didn’t know if he had planned it that way, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. As featureless as the terrain was, there was very little cover to be seen, other than the old shack.
They rode along silently. Longarm’s thoughts, however, were beginning to turn to the nitroglycerin. Now it was protected by nothing but the ice in the oilskin packets. He hoped that it would be enough because by now the sun was boiling down hot enough to cook a lizard on a flat rock.
They were proceeding in a due easterly direction across the barren land. Longarm tried to keep his position slightly behind Clem Gallagher, but Gallagher seemed aware of the move and the more Longarm slowed his horse, the more Gallagher did the same, making sure they stayed abreast. Ahead and off to their right about fifty yards was the dilapidated-looking two-story house. It was bigger than the usual run of sodbusters’ homesteads. Somebody with enough money to truck enough lumber by wagon to build such a place had had a try at making a living off the barren ground. He knew that about four miles further on was the town of Quitman. Very little went on there besides drinking, gambling, whoring, and fighting. It drew the worst of a bad lot of people from a fifty-mile radius. If there was one thing that the Cimarron Strip could claim no shortage of, it was riffraff, bandits, criminals, and murderers of every ilk and every description.
They were just coming opposite the old house with its sagging porch and knocked-out windowpanes when Clem Gallagher suddenly stopped his horse. Longarm looked around at him. He said, “What’s going on, Gallagher?”
Gallagher spurred his horse and wheeled around to face Longarm. He said, “Well, Mister Deputy Marshal Custis Long. The famous Longarm who’s been dogging our tracks for years, nipping at our heels, caused our daddy an early death, killed God knows how many kin of ours. Well, now, Mister Sonofabitch, the shoe’s on the other foot and it ain’t on your horse. It’s fixing to be on your neck. Do you hear me?”
Longarm stared back at him. He said evenly, “I don’t know what kind of hand you’re playing here, Gallagher, but it’s a very dangerous one, unless you’re better with that revolver at your side than I think you are.”
“Oh, I ain’t going to need this revolver. You just glance to your right, Mister Famous Lawman. There’s five rifles trained on you out from that shack you thought was deserted.”
Longarm said, “Yeah, who says so?”
“Just have yourself a look.”
Longarm cut his eyes ever so slightly to the right. He had no difficulty spotting the rifles suddenly protruding from the broken windows. He counted five in a swift glance. At twenty-five yards they couldn’t possibly miss him.
