He blinked. His little buckshot eyes looked watery and weak behind the folds of fat. “That depends,” he said. “Whatever the smuggler train is carrying, all the boys get a cut, fair and square. Share and share alike.”
“Including yourself?”
He blinked again. “Now look here, I'm the man that organized everything here. I see that you boys don't get bothered by the federal marshals, and keep the Cavalry off our backs. Everything's free and easy here in Ocotillo, thanks to me. I take half of whatever you get from the Mexicans. The rest you split among yourselves, fair and square, like I say.” He paused for a few minutes to catch his breath. “Now, do you want the job or don't you.”
“I have to take it whether I want it or not. You knew that to start with.”
“Ha-ha. Well, all right. That's more like it. There's something I'd better tell you, though. Joseph didn't want me to hire you, even when I told him who you were. I'll tell you the truth, I wouldn't hire you if I wasn't short on men. The last raid cut us down. I want to tell you here and now that it's no fancy tea party you're going on, robbing smuggler trains. What has Black Joseph got against you?”
“I don't know.”
Basset clawed at his fat face, looking faintly worried. “The Indian's a good man,” he said. “Fastest shot with a pistol I ever saw. Dead shot with a rifle, too. He'd as soon kill a man as look at him—maybe he'd rather. I think he actually enjoys killing.”
He sounded like a man who had a tiger by the tail and didn't know how to let go. He was afraid of the Indian. It showed in his watery eyes, on his sweaty face. It showed in the way his hands shook when he reached for a cigar.
He was afraid of the Indian and he wanted me to get rid of him. He wanted
I remembered those deadly Indian eyes and the way they had looked at me. It occurred to me that maybe Basset had already started dropping hints that I was making a play for Joseph's girl. That would throw us together, all right, if the Indian ever got wind of it.
And then Basset saw what I was thinking, and he didn't like that much. He changed the subject.
“Our scouts have spotted a smuggler train coming up from Sonora,” he said. “So you'll be able to earn your money quicker than you thought. Have you got a good horse?”
“His ribs stick out a little, but he's all right.”
“Good. That's one thing you need, is a good horse. And a good rifle.”
“I've got them.”
“Good,” he said again. He sat back and breathed through his mouth. “You can start for the hills as soon as you get your horse ready. The boys pull out of town one or two at a time and meet in the hills with Joseph and Kreyler. We have to keep it as quiet as we can. You can't tell about these damn Mexicans. One of them might try to get to the smugglers and warn them.”
He sat back and panted after the speech. “You can ride out with Bama and he'll show you where the meeting place is. You met Bama, didn't you?”
“I met him.”
“All right, I guess that's all, then. You'll get your cut when you get back.”
Everything was very businesslike, like sending a bunch of coolies out to lay a few miles of railroad. It was hard to believe that Basset had just explained his plans for wholesale murder.
I went out of the office, collared the bartender, and found out where Bama, the gentleman of the old South, slept off his drunks. It turned out that he was a neighbor of mine. He bunked over the saloon in a cigar-box room just like mine, except that it was dirtier.
He was asleep on the bed when I found him, one boot off and one on, the dead bottle still in his hands. I got the front of his shirt and shook him.
“Wake up, Bama!”
He grunted and tried to fight me off, being careful not to drop the empty bottle. The whisky smell in the room was thick enough to carry out in buckets.
“Wake up. Basset says we've got to earn our keep.”
He came out of it slowly and stared vaguely around the room. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the windows of a deserted house. After a while he brought me into focus, reached out like a sleepwalker, and took my shoulders.
“Ah, the famous Tall Cameron!” He smiled crookedly. “Welcome to my humble...”
“Snap out of it,” I said. “We've got a little job of robbing to do.”
“Robbing?” He thought about it for a while. “Oh, you mean another raid. God, I need a drink.”
“Your bottle's empty. Get your stuff together and we'll get a drink downstairs.”
That brought him out of it. He pulled himself up, then went unsteadily over to the washstand and poured a pitcher of water over his head.
“All the damn stuff's good for,” he said thickly. “Where's my other boot?”
I found the boot for him and helped him put it on. His pistol was under the bed. I found it and buckled it on him.
“Are you ready?”
He licked his dry lips with a coated tongue. “God,” he said, “I wish I had the guts, I'd blow my brains out.
