was red paint, to designate cattle that had just arrived. Jay Caster had told him that in thirty days the paint would have just about worn off as the cattle rubbed up against each other. “That’s when they get a coat of white to show they’re in their second thirty days,” he’d said. “After that they get slapped with green and that’s the end of the line.”
Longarm had wanted to know how his cattle were going to be released in a week if they were still marked with the red paint. Caster had glared at him. “That’s something you ain’t ever going to know.”
“Well, I ain’t setting out on the trail with a bunch of red-marked cattle. I’m sure those ranchers along the coast know all about that.”
“Yore cattle won’t have no red on them. You better learn to keep that mouth of yours shut, Long. Especially when it’s got a question in it.”
Watching the herd intently as it was strung out to be driven into the pens, Longarm had been trying to pick out individual cattle that had some easily distinguishable mark, like an odd color pattern or a twisted or broken horn. Thus far he had spotted five and was trying to keep them in his head while he’d been talked at by Jay Caster and then by Austin Davis. He wanted to remember the marked cattle so he could come back the next day and see if his herd had been worked forward in the milling sprawl of cattle that made up the pens. It seemed like an impossible thing to do, but maybe Caster had some method Longarm couldn’t even imagine. He had to keep reminding himself that he knew a great deal more about cattle thieves than he did cattle. He was a deputy marshal, not a cattle broker.
The mocking tone still in his voice, the customs man said, “You that easy to run over, feller? Hell, that drover is cheating you blind. He got something on you? He take care of your wife for you when you ain’t there?” Caster laughed.
Longarm looked around at him. “I ain’t married,” he said stiffly. “But then that ain’t none of your business. You keep telling me what ain’t none of my business, I reckon it’s time I started making you aware of when you get to crowding me.”
Caster let out a hoot. “Aw now, Mister Long,” he said, “it be a little late to start getting tough. You ain’t got the reputation for it.”
“I reckon you ought to quit worrying about who else is cheating me and just concentrate on your own gouging. You seem to be doing a pretty fair job.”
Caster laughed again. “Oh, I ain’t through. When you think I’m finished, I’m going to have Raoul San Diego grab you up by yore ankles and hang you upside down and shake out any loose change we might of missed.”
“Let’s get that business over with,” Longarm said, still stiffly. “You want twenty-five hundred dollars as payment in half. You said you want me to give it to this San Diego. All right, I’m ready. Where is he and how do I get there? Or is this the wrong time? You got my cattle. I’d like to start in buying them out of those pens.”
Caster shrugged. “Then go see San Diego.”
“Raoul?”
Caster looked at him curiously. “You heered me speak of another one?”
“There are two of them. For all I know, they both work for you.”
Caster said flatly, “You’ll find San Diego about two miles east of town. That’s Raoul San Diego. He stays at a hacienda out that way. Big house. Middle part is two-story. It sits up on the only hill anywhere near the river. You can’t miss it. At least you ought not to miss it.”
It sounded disturbingly similar to the place where Dulcima said she lived. “Is that his place?” Longarm said, with a little hesitation in his voice.
“What the hell do you care? No, as it happens it ain’t. Belongs to a woman that he stays with. But it might as well be his.”
“His woman wouldn’t happen to be somebody named Dulcima, would it?”
Caster grinned, his teeth outlined in tobacco juice. “So you been watching her, have you? She likes to sashay around the plaza and get all the boys on the prod showing them what they can’t have. Yeah, I can tell by the look on yore face you seen her. Probably had yore tongue hangin’ out like the rest of them.”
Longarm shook his head. “It ain’t that. Yes, I’ve seen the lady. Even spoke to her. But from what I heard about this Raoul, he might not take kindly to being disturbed at home. Couldn’t I give him the money in your office or somewhere else?”
“In my office? Say, are you a little slow? I don’t want no connection to that money. Do you get it? Now turn yore horse around and go and find San Diego. It’s not half past nine yet. He’s probably still in bed. Get going and you’re sure to catch him. He don’t get up and get around until late in the day. Spends most of his nights playing with that woman, I expect. Can’t say that I blame him.”
“All right,” Longarm said. “But I want to have a word with that drover first. Then I’ll stop at the bank and then head out.”
“You better make it snappy. San Diego ain’t going to want you trying to pass him a wad of money in a crowded place. You better catch him to home.”
Longarm nodded and touched his horse with his spurs. He rode down past the end line of cattle pens, where Austin Davis was directing several vaqueros in getting a knot of steers bedded down. He turned in the saddle as Longarm rode up. “How’s the big boss up yonder? He sent you for his lunch yet?”
Longarm pulled his horse up beside Davis. “Any minute I reckon. But right now he wants me to deliver the twenty-five hundred to San Diego. And guess where? To Dulcima’s house. That is liable to get a little ticklish.”
“Damn!” Davis said. “You reckon that’s wise? A woman like her will give you away to San Diego just to amuse herself. She’ll think you’ll crawfish.”
Longarm grimaced. “I may have to,” he said. He looked over the younger man’s shoulder. “I swear,” he said, “I have had to swallow more manure on this job than any I can remember. Remind me to thank you for that sometime.”
“You ain’t the only one got the taste of shit in his mouth. I don’t think you ought to go up to her house. Can’t you hand him the money someplace else?”
