Mr. Jenkins looked puzzled. “No, I can’t say that I do, but then I don’t reckon that it matters because I can’t see what can go wrong.” His face suddenly looked perplexed. He snapped his fingers. He said, “Oh, one thing I forgot to tell you. There will be a man wearing a white shirt standing out somewhere around that house. At least that’s what they told me. That’s the man I don’t want to deal with, so if you have any trouble, it could be with that man. He’s expecting someone coming to fetch that horse.”
Longarm said, “White shirt, white house, red roof, gray barn. All right, Mr. Jenkins, you take it easy.” Without another look he began spurring his horse down the road toward the International Bridge that led to Mexico.
As Longarm rode out of Nuevo Laredo toward the Monterrey Road, his mind was busy trying to guess exactly what Mr. Jenkins was up to. It wasn’t the horse as he had previously thought. On the way across the bridge, he had stopped at the U.S. Customs Service and shown the papers to the officer on duty. He had confirmed that the certificates were genuine. So if it wasn’t the horse, was it contraband of some kind, such as gold or silver or some other item that drew a high duty? But then, Mr. Jenkins had said that he, Longarm, could feel free to cast aside anything that he found in the saddle or the bags. So if it wasn’t the horse and it wasn’t contraband, what in hell was Jenkins trying to smuggle across? Longarm shook his head and smiled to himself. He guessed he had been a lawman for too long. Maybe the situation was just as Mr. Jenkins had said—he was a timid little fellow who was afraid of the ruffian he had bought the horse from and he didn’t want to confront him again. It could be that simple.
But then, Longarm thought to himself, that had to be one hell of a horse to pay $140 in delivery charges. He didn’t know many horses outside of the Kentucky racing horses that fetched the kind of price that you could add on $140. He shook his head. Well, there was one way to find out, and that was to go and fetch the horse, bring him back and then see what happened. Hell, he even reckoned he’d take the $140. It wouldn’t make up for the hours of sleep he lost but at least it would be something.
He hit the outskirts of the little Mexican town and began looking for the Monterrey Road. It wasn’t difficult to find since there weren’t that many roads leading out of the place. As he jogged out of town on the roan, he was struck by how peaceful the place looked in the early afternoon sunshine. It was in stark contrast to so many times on the border when the only peace he’d known had been when he was taking time to reload. Mostly it had been gunfire and blood. The border was a deceptively quiet area, but Longarm was willing to bet that there was more devilment per square mile along there than any other place that he could think of on earth.
Like many towns, Nuevo Laredo was bounded by tumbledown shacks, nearly every one of which was white adobe with red clay tiles for roofing. He continued on. The shacks were mostly up close to the road, but then after he had gone on for a mile or so, he noticed, in the distance off to his right, one that was set back a ways from the road, perhaps half a mile. He touched the roan with his spurs and brought the horse up to a slow lope. He could see a small corral and he could see a weathered frame barn. From what Mr. Jenkins had told him, it looked to be the place. As he neared, he could see a figure or two in the yard of the house. There was a narrow path that turned in off the road and he rounded the corner and headed straight for the hacienda, fairly certain that he had found the right place.
It suddenly occurred to him, however, that he had neglected to ask Mr. Jenkins the name of the man that he was supposed to get the horse from—all he knew was that he was a man in a white shirt. White was a very common garment color in Mexico. As he rode toward the adobe hacienda, he could see that there were two Mexican cowboys, vaqueros, in the front yard sitting on cane-bottomed chairs and drinking out of a bottle that they were passing back and forth between themselves. He didn’t much care for the sight of that. The last thing he needed was a fight with a couple of drunken Mexicans. Almost unconsciously, he put his hand to the butt of the .44 revolver at his side and lifted it slightly to loosen it from its holster.
Longarm rode into the yard. The two Mexicans stood up. Neither one of them was wearing a white shirt. He let the roan slacken to a walk, then to a slow walk, pulling him up a couple of yards short of the two Mexicans. He said to the older-looking of the two, though neither one was much over thirty, “I am looking for a man in a white shirt who has a horse.”
The younger of the two, the one on Longarm’s right, suddenly laughed. He said in good English, “Aw, senor. I have an excellent horse, but I am not wearing a white shirt. Is it necessary that I go put on a white shirt before we can do horse business?”
Longarm said, “Yeah, I reckon that did sound strange. Look here, I’ve been sent to pick up a horse. I’ve got the papers on him with the description. He’s a black horse with a white blaze on his face and two white stockings on the front. He’s branded with a big HP on his hip. Have I come to the right place?”
The younger man said, “Aw, senor, yes, you are correct in your location. Please step off your horse and we will take you to the man who owns this horse.” He suddenly smiled, flashing his teeth. He added, “Aw, yes. That man is wearing a white shirt.”
Longarm paused before stepping off the roan. He took a few seconds to look the two men over with a fine eye. There was something not quite right about them. They did not look like vaqueros. They were too well dressed and they had a certain devil-may-care air about them. Both were wearing long-barreled revolvers by their sides. Longarm wondered if they could be pistoleros, but, he thought, if they intended to rob him, they were going after slim pickings. The journey to and from Mexico City had exhausted most of his cash reserve and he was down to only about fifty or sixty dollars. Of course, such a sum in a poor country might be considered enough to kill a man, but these two didn’t appear to be that short of cash. Keeping a close eye on them, he swung his leg over the rump of the roan and stepped to the ground. The older of the two Mexicans stepped forward and took his reins. He said, in not quite the good English of the other, “I will tie up this horse for you, senor. You go see the man who owns this other horse you come to seek.”
The younger of the two, who was also the slimmer, motioned his hand toward the white adobe hacienda. He said, “The man who has charge of this horse you seek is inside. Come, we will drink a little whiskey. Then you can take the horse and go.”
Longarm walked slowly toward the white adobe building. It was an average-looking structure for that place. He figured it to be a four-room house with a cooking shack on the side. It was probably the property of someone who ran a few cows or a few horses and did moderately well on what he could earn and what he could steal. Longarm had no earthly idea why such a valuable horse would be at such a location, but then, that was what he had come to Mexico to find out.
He reached the entrance with the younger Mexican to his left and slightly behind. The man said, “Please step yourself forward into the casa, senor.”
The door was half open. Longarm pushed it the rest of the way forward and stepped into the interior. It was dim, lit only by the flickering glow of one lantern. After a moment, his eyes adjusted so he could see a table across the room from where he stood. Behind it, he could make out the dim form of a man wearing a white shirt. Looking closer, Longarm could see that the man was also wearing a broad-brimmed, flat-crowned border hat that appeared to be dark gray or white—it was difficult to tell in the light. He did note, however, that the hat supported a band of silver conchos. He could see the light reflecting off their delicate work. Just then, the younger Mexican said from behind him, “Step forward, senor, to please yourself”