“Oh, Jimmy,” he said with a deep sigh of sadness, “I don’t give you much in the way of odds as for being alive. I’ll bet anything that I find your bones somewhere around close. Or maybe your killers took the time and trouble to cover you up just like I did to the ambusher.”
Longarm spent a quarter of An hour in the cave. By then, he was convinced that he could find nothing else that would give him any useful information about Jimmy Cox. So he retreated from the cave as his candle flickered low and went back to tell Dan about his findings.
When he was finished, Dan said, “It does sound pretty grim. But, Marshal, we can’t just give up on Jimmy. He could still be alive.”
“No,” Longarm said. “They followed and then obviously murdered him somewhere around here. I just wish I hadn’t used my shotgun on the one that was left behind. If he were still alive, we’d have all our answers to this riddle. We’d know the real story about what happened to Jimmy.”
“What do you think the chances are of others returning?”
Longarm eased his wounded leg out before him and sat down heavily. He felt a little unsteady and realized that he was going to have to go slower for the next couple of days, if he was to get strong again.
“I think that whoever did this hasn’t found what they wanted. Or maybe they did find all the Spanish treasure but, for some reason, believe that there is still more. Jimmy might have played that card, hoping to keep himself alive.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Dan said.
“Yes. Let’s suppose that you were Jimmy Cox.”
“I’d rather not,” Dan said. “He was a godless man.”
“Never mind the moral judgments for now, Preacher. Just suppose that you were Jimmy and had found the Spanish coins here. You had used some of them to pay off your doctor and other medical bills, then had come back out to collect the rest of the treasure but had been followed.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be followed,” Dan said. “I mean, wouldn’t he have expected something like that to happen, given the greed of most men?”
“Sure,” Longarm said. “And if he had been followed by just one or two killers, he probably would have been able to shake them and reach this place without anyone knowing it. However, if there were a good number of killers …”
“You mean a gang of outlaws.”
“That’s right, Dan. I mean a gang like Hank Bass used to have.”
“I see.”
“it fits,” Longarm said. “Bass is the most likely candidate for this job. He’d have had enough men to scatter them across this part of the desert so that one or two of them would have seen Jimmy coming. And Jimmy would have been looking back not forward. Anyway, I think that is what happened. They watched Jimmy come straight to these caves. After that, they would have caught and probably tied him up, then sent for the rest of the Bass gang.”
“And then they would have tried to force Jimmy to tell them where he’d found the Spanish coins.”
“Exactly,” Longarm said. “And we both know how mule stubborn Jimmy was. He’d have fought to the last breath and held his secret to the end.”
“But what if …”
“If what?” Longarm asked.
“What if there was no more Spanish treasure?”
“That’s possible,” Longarm said. “But put yourself in Jimmy’s shoes. If there was no treasure left to be found, why would you risk your life to return, knowing that everyone in this part of Arizona would be trying to follow you?”
“Good point,” Dan admitted. “So you do think that there is still some treasure.”
“Yes. But what I think doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s what Jimmy thought that was important and what he managed to convince his captors.”
“And he’d want to convince them that he knew the location of more treasure. That would be his only hope.”
“Sure,” Longarm agreed. “It was his only card to play. He’d have had to keep silent, yet give his captors hints that he knew something.”
“But how long could he play that sort of game?”
“Not long, I’m afraid. Bass and his gang—or maybe some other bunch—would have tired of the game very quickly. And they wouldn’t have been sitting still waiting either. No sir. They’d have been tearing these caves up. Scattering conquistador bones and poking and picking into every crevasse, hoping to find more gold coins.”
“But they didn’t.”
Longarm shrugged. “Who knows. If they did find a few more coins, it would have fueled their already mountainous greed. If they didn’t find any coins, that too would have been fuel to their fire and increased their frustration and anger until …”
“Until they killed poor Jimmy.”
“That’s right,” Longarm grimly replied. “The kind of men that would cut Eli’s throat would not have been long on patience. I’ll bet that Jimmy didn’t last a week and that whatever time he last had here was hell on earth.”
“God forgive them,” Preacher Dan breathed.
“Well,” Longarm said, “I think I’ve killed them all except Hank Bass. And, unless I’m badly mistaken, he’ll be coming back here.”
“Alone?”
“Maybe, maybe not. He might recruit a few other cutthroats. I expect that he will.”
“And how will we stand up against them?”
“I don’t know that answer either,” Longarm replied. “But the good news is that this time we’ll be the ones up here on the high ground and ready to spring the surprise.”
Longarm laced his fingers behind his head. “But I got to know something, Preacher.”
“Yes?”
“Am I going to be doing this all alone, or can I count on your help?”
“I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t believe that I have the right to take a human life.”
“What about in the name of self-defense?”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“You had better come up with the right answers,” Longarm said, unable to hide his growing exasperation. “Because, if Hank Bass does bring friends, I’m going to need your help.”
“I would be more than willing to help you capture them alive.”
“Not much chance of that, I’m afraid. Because when they come—and they will come—it will be a fight to the death. We don’t have horses, remember? Your damned horses broke free and ran away. So we’ve got to take their horses in order to get the hell back to Wickenburg.”
“We could walk.”
“Not a chance. I got a bad leg and you got a bad shoulder. So we’ll wait for whoever killed Jimmy Cox to return and then we’ll take their horses. They’re not going to want us to do that, Preacher. And they’re going to try and stop us with bullets. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Of course I do. You’re saying that we have to kill in order not to be killed.”
“That’s right,” Longarm said. “Now, can you shoot straight or have you always been a damned pacifist?”
Dan flushed with anger. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been in some pretty rough fights during my younger days. In fact, I shot …”
The words trailed off like smoke in the desert wind. “What have you shot, Preacher?”
Dan turned away, and when he spoke, his voice was low and strained. “I’ve shot men too. Killed them.”
“Good!” Longarm pronounced. “Then you’re up to the task and that’s what I’ll expect when it comes time to do what must be done.”
Dan muttered something in reply, but Longarm couldn’t and really didn’t want to hear what else the wounded man had to say.
“I’m ready for another nap,” he said, glancing out at the sun. “Getting hot again.”
When Dan still didn’t bother to reply, Longarm stretched out in the cool dust of the cave floor and went right to sleep.