Chapter 5
They stood in front of the whitewashed lumber-and-adobe building. A sign hung from the porch announcing the place as the offices of the United States Customs and Tariff Service. The building, about the size of a small house, wasn’t near as grand as its title. Off to their left stretched the holding pens, crowded with cattle. Longarm could see half a dozen hired hands working in among the steers, feeding, watering, haying, moving the steers, slapping paint on some. Not too far from where he and White stood was a slim man in a brown uniform. “Which one is that?” Longarm asked.
“That be Rudy Thomas.”
“He not in on it?”
Jasper shook his head. “I couldn’t say about that. But if he is, I ain’t heard.”
“How the hell does Caster operate without him catching on?”
Jasper gave Longarm a worried look. “You shore ask a lot of questions, mister. Was I you, I’d worry about my cattle getting across and not how Mister Caster runs his business.”
Longarm shrugged. “You got a good point. Where you reckon Caster is?”
Jasper bent over and peered through one of the big windows that was covered by a screen. “He be in there. I can see him sitting at his desk. C’mon and I’ll take you in.”
Longarm put out a hand and stayed him for a moment. “Now, you’re going to tell him I’m an all right fellow, ain’t you?”
Jasper gave him a long look. “I never heard that was part of the bargain.”
Longarm looked disgusted. “Well, hell, I’ll just be another yahoo if you just walk me in there and say my name. I need the man to have some trust in me so we can do business. Them cattle I’ve bought are due in here any day.”
Jasper blinked and frowned. “Well I don’t know that you’re all right. Hell, I don’t want to get crosswise with Mister Caster. What if you don’t pay him?”
“Thought you said he had this mean Mexican worked for him. Thought he was supposed to keep the business straightened out.”
“Raoul?” Jasper’s face brightened. “Yeah. I forgot about Raoul. Don’t nobody cheat Mister Caster. Not as walks away.”
“Hell, I’ll pay the man in advance. C’mon, Jasper, you got to fix me up with this hombre. I already figured you get a cut.”
Jasper glared at Longarm. “You better not believe everything you hear,” he said.
Longarm slapped him on the back. “You’re already a hundred up on the day. Now usher me in there and set me up with Jay Caster and I’ll take it from there. You can’t lose.”
Jasper looked doubtful, but he stepped up on the porch and pulled back the screen door. Longarm followed right behind him. Inside he saw a thickset man in a brown khaki suit sitting at a back desk. The fellow glanced up as they entered. “Jasper,” he said, “what the hell you doing up and around this early? You liable to get heatstroke, boy.”
“Howdy, Mister Caster. How you be?”
“Pretty good,” Caster said, but he had switched his attention to Longarm. “Who you got with you, Jasper?”
“Cattleman, Mister Caster. Feller name of Long. From Oklahoma. Looking to have a little visit with you.”
Caster frowned. He had a heavy mustache that covered his top lip. “I’m pretty busy right now, Jasper. Another time might be better.”
“Well,” Jasper said, “he’s an obliging feller, Mister Caster. I wouldn’t reckon he’d take up much of your time.”
Listening, Longarm felt sure that Caster was doing more than saying he was busy. He was asking Jasper if he, Longarm, was worth the trouble.
Jay Caster leaned back in his swivel chair. “So, you be saying he wouldn’t be wasting my time.”
Now Longarm was sure they were talking in a kind of code. “Pretty shore, Mister Caster. He done right by me.” Jay Caster looked back at Longarm, giving him a slow going over. Finally he nodded and said, “You run along, Jasper, and I’ll spare the man what time I can.”
“Yessir,” White said, and was out the door in three strides. Longarm turned to watch him go. When he turned back around, Jay Caster was staring at him.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Long. Out of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Oklahoma Territory.”
Jay Caster hooked his fingers behind his head. “Pretty wild country, that, ain’t it?”
“oh, it’s calmed down a little.” Longarm was still five or six feet from Caster’s desk and wondering if he was going to be invited to sit down.
“What can I be doing for you today, Mister Long?”
Unbidden, Longarm took two steps forward and said, “I’m in the cattle business, Mister Caster. I’m expecting a herd of about a thousand cattle in here in the next day or two.”
“Mexican cattle, I assume.”
“Yessir, from the interior. The deep interior.” He added delicately, “Where they ain’t got no tick fever. Cattle are
