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. This rotten, maggoty mess of filth and corruption and death that I call brains, I'd splatter them all over these filthy walls!” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm and almost fell.
“Come on,” I said. “You need that drink worse than I thought.”
He was better after he'd had a couple of glasses of the stuff. His eyes cleared, his hands became steady.
“How do you feel?” I said.
He looked at me. “How do I feel? I can't tell you, Tall Cameron, but maybe by sundown you'll know.” He took the bottle off the bar and walked out of the place swinging it in his hand. He was the goddamnedest guy I ever saw.
We went around to the livery barn where our horses were, and as the liveryman saddled up for us he slipped boxes of cartridges into our saddlebags.
“Compliments of Basset,” Bama said dryly. He swigged from the neck of his bottle and then put it in his saddlebag with the ammunition. As we rode out of town he began to sing in that thick, black drawl of his:
“Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me,
For I'm goin' to Alabama with a banjo on my knee.”
“But her name wasn't Susanna,” he said. “It was Myra. And I won't be going to Alabama, with anything.”
It wasn't a long ride to the foothills of the Huachucas. Bama knew all the short cuts, and before long the town was far behind and there were just those naked, dark hills of rocks and boulders and cactus and greasewood. We climbed higher and higher until we got into the mountains themselves, and the going got slower.
“We won't be able to make it today,” Bama said. “It'll be near sundown before we'll meet Joseph and Kreyler and the rest of Basset's army. The battle won't start before tomorrow, I guess.”
I wondered if it was going to be as bad as Bama made it out to be. I doubted it. But something kept me from asking questions.
We rode for a long while without saying anything. Every half hour or so Bama would take a belt at the bottle.
“You know,” he said finally, “this stuff doesn't really do any good unless you've got enough to make you sleep the deep and dreamless sleep of the dead.” He shook the bottle thoughtfully. “There's not enough here for that.”
“Then why do you drink it?”
He smiled sadly. “I'm afraid,” he said mildly.
“You're also crazy.”
He bobbed his head up and down, soberly, as if I had just said something very profound.
“It's surprising how much of the stuff you can drink when you're afraid,” he went on. “For instance,” he said abruptly, “I was awake last night when hell broke loose in that room of yours. I heard the girl in there and I thought to myself, Well, there's one more scalp the Indian can hang on his belt. Of course, I didn't know at the time that my neighbor was the famous Tall Cameron. He'll kill you, you know. The first chance he gets.”
“He can go to hell,” I said. “I don't want any part of his girl. She's crazy, like everybody else in this Godforsaken place. Last night she tried to kill me.”
For a moment Bama looked at me. Then he threw his head back and howled with laughter. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!” he said when he got his breath. “No, my friend, I'm afraid your days are numbered. If the Indian doesn't kill you, there's always Kreyler. To get that girl, Kreyler would kill you in a minute, if Black Joseph was out of the way.”
“I tell you I don't want anything to do with her. Joseph or Kreyler can have her.”
There was another long silence while Bama studied the contents of his bottle. He allowed himself a short drink, corked it good and tight, and put it away. “Why don't you tell me about her?” he said finally. “Maybe it will do you good to get it off your chest.”
“Tell you about who?”