Longarm - Longarm On The Fever Coast Part 4

Longarm didn't hear that, which was just as well. For he already felt sort of guilty about it being such a beautiful morning. All that wind from the sea had left the coastal plain smelling cool and clean as a whistle, with the salt gra.s.s dewy and lightly grazed this far out of town. He spied a few widely scattered sea lions, as longhorns grazing the swampy coast ranges were called by Texicans. Some of them stared back at him wall-eyed, but none of them shied off at the sight of a mule-drawn wagon. Longarm felt a moment of concern for the Mexican kid he'd just dropped off afoot this close to any kind of free-ranging beef critters. For your average longhorn was as likely to charge a man afoot as it was to flee anyone on a cow pony. But while a dude could get in a heap of trouble around cows, mounted as well as afoot, most Mexicans found dancing the fandango with beef on the run an interesting challenge. Most of them were good at it. It didn't take a college degree to tell when a beef critter was fixing to charge with murderous intent. They never really meant it unless their four hooves came together under their centers of balance as their tails went up and their heads went down so they could sort of fall towards YOU With Most of their weight before they commenced to play Express Train. So once you were sure they were coming at you, h.e.l.l bent and head down, the idea was to get the h.e.l.l off the tracks.

He spied more cows grazing on shorter salt gra.s.s as he rolled closer to the rooftops of the awakening town with the sun in his eyes. He knew that steamer he'd come north on had just picked up a load of freshly slaughtered beef in Escondrijo. So that was likely why they were spread so thin on heavily grazed range. The sea lions that had been spared looked a tad lean but healthy enough. So they'd likely been pa.s.sed over for now to fatten up a mite before they wound up refrigerated.

"Enjoy life whilst you can, cows," he called out aloud, although not without any sympathy at all. It was hard not to feel just a tad sorry for any critter whose only purpose in life was to be slaughtered and butchered for human consumption. But as soon as you studied on it, you could see there'd have never been a tenth as many domestic brutes, from cows to chickens, if humankind had never learned how swell they tasted.

Some cows tasted more tender than Texas longhorns, although few other breeds enjoyed the taste of Texas gra.s.s. It took a tough cow to thrive on such tough range, although both the gra.s.s and beef grew just a tad more tender within the salty smell of the Texas sh.o.r.es. The long-horned sea lions all about might have had a better hold on the beef market if it hadn't been for the fevers that seemed to go with such green and muggy grazing.

The Fever Coast seemed to be the breeding grounds for more than one mean ague. One of the meanest was a spleen-rotting cow plague known as Spanish fever in Texas and Texas fever everywhere else.

Longhorns in general and the coastal sea lions in particular seemed immune to Texas fever, which made them about as welcome as a lit cigar in a hayloft in other parts, where folks were trying to raise shorthorn or dairy breeds that just curled up and died when they caught it.

Whether they cottoned to Kansas views on Texas fever or not, the ranchers raising Texas beef along this Fever Coast were maybe twice as firm about the hoof-and-mouth plague carried by healthy-looking cows out of Old Mexico. n.o.body was sure about the causes of either. But as in the case of Texas fever, hoof-and-mouth seemed to hide out in immune stock between disastrous outbreaks that could slaughter whole herds and make them unfit to even skin for hides. Stock known to have either highly contagious disease had to be shot and buried deep. That was the law, state or federal. n.o.body with a lick of sense wanted to risk the whole Western cattle industry with the price of beef rising ever higher back in the booming East.

By the time he was within three miles, or an easy hour's walk on foot, of those rooftops along the lagoon, he saw more corn, beans, and peppers growing all around than cows. Most such milpas or small truck fields in these parts were tilled by Mexican hoe farmers. That seemed the way most Mexican folks liked to farm, living in close-knit villages or their own barios of larger towns so they could walk out to their scattered milpas. He wasn't sure whether Mexicans stuck to such habits because they were backward or because it made a certain sort of sense. The Anglo Homestead Act had never been tried in Old Mexico, and a Mexican played h.e.l.l trying to file a homestead claim with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management unless he brushed up on his English or, failing that, convinced some land office clerk he was a dumb Dutchman or Swede. So that was a likely reason you seldom saw isolated Mexican farmhouses off on some lonely quarter section. And there was something to be said for having one's cash crops scattered among, say, half a dozen smaller holdings. For even as he pa.s.sed some corn milpas flattened by the recent storm, he spied others where, from some natural whim, the green young cornstalks still stood proud in the morning sun. Mexican hoe farmers were independent thinkers when it came to what they had growing in a particular plot too. So unlike many a homesteader with all his seed money tied up in one cash crop, his more casual Mexican compet.i.tor, growing all sorts of stuff in modest amounts, could neither make a killing on a rising market in, say, popcorn or get wiped out in, say, a corn-borer plague.

He pa.s.sed a cactus-fenced field where a small ragged-a.s.s kid was overseeing a half-dozen young hogs, likely from the same litter, as they rooted in a wind-flattened and rain-flooded bean field for such value as that storm had left. A few fence lines along he saw some goats, tethered on long lines, already starting to tidy up a ruined corn milpa by consuming the still-green stalks so they could wind up as goat cheese or gamy meat. Mexicans liked both more than your average Anglo did, but n.o.body could eat smashed and sun-dried cornstalks unless he or she was a goat.

Longarm didn't see any serious stock, Or serious stockmen, on the modest Mexican milpas this close to Escondrijo. But he didn't find that odd. You had to get out of Denver a ways, maybe a half a day by produce wagon, before you came to more spread-out cattle spreads.

He didn't know whether such outfits in these parts would turn out to be Mexican or not. He knew anyone owning a big enough beef operation to matter would have to be Anglo-Texican, for the same reasons it was risky to one's health to spread out across much range in Old Mexico unless one was an Old Mexican. But while one seldom saw Anglo buckaroos riding for Mexican outfits to the south, a lot of big Texas outfits hired Mexican vaqueros, who worked cheaper as well as better than many an Anglo top hand.

Thinking about that led Longarm into thinking about various Texas cow towns of a surly nature on your average Sat.u.r.day night. But Billy Vail hadn't sent him all this way to see how the local Mexican and Anglo cowhands got along. He just had to see whether Deputy Gilbert and their prisoner, wanted in Colorado, were fit to get on back there.

He'd have to track down old Norma Richards and give her this old Saratoga, of course, and maybe by now the Rangers had some notion as to why some a.s.shole up in Corpus Christi had such a hard-on for an out-of-state lawman only trying to do his job.

He hoped they had. He was cursed with a curious nature, and he knew Billy Vail would never abide him wasting enough time to matter if Rod Gilbert and Clay Baldwin were fit to travel.

The wagon trace rumbled him onto a simple plank bridge across a tidal creek half choked with tall spartina reeds. He could see some windows under the rooftops ahead now. He'd have doubtless felt a bit closer to town if it hadn't been for a swamping cactus hedge on the far side of the creek. Then a skinny young gal of the Mexican persuasion ran out onto the wagon trace, long black hair unkempt, white cotton frills aflutter, and bare feet really moving, until she spied Longarm and reversed direction toward him coming with that wagon an screaming for help, a lot of help, in a hurry.

Longarm let the mules haul him on to meet her as he called out to her, "Que pasa? En que puedo servirle, senorita?"

To which she replied in English no worse than his Spanish, "Is my father. He has been bitten by a beast and we cannot stop the bleeding!"

Longarm reined in long enough to extend a strong hand and haul the small but nubile young gal up beside him. She likely didn't notice, and so he never commented on the one tawny t.i.t the two of them managed to expose getting her aboard. As she sat down beside him, Longarm already had the mules swinging through the opening in the cactus she'd just popped out of. But as he headed for the rambling row of brushwood jacales and corrals across eight or ten acres of beans and corn, his distraught guide pointed off to their west, telling him, "Me padre is over that way, closer to the water."

Longarm saw no water. But an older and fatter version of the gal beside him was huddled with two younger boys over something or somebody down in the knee-high peppers they had growing in that corner to his right. So he looked for a good way through their modest crops, and then, as the worried gal beside him said not to worry about the d.a.m.ned old beans, he drove right over.

One of the boys took the reins as Longarm followed the daughter of the house over the side. He was sort of sorry he had as soon as he caught sight of the stocky middle-aged Mexican sprawled there in the mud and crud with his white cotton pants and right leg torn all to h.e.l.l. Longarm saw they'd improvised a rope tourniquet around the stocky farmer's muscular upper thigh. He could only wonder how much worse the poor cuss could bleed with nothing at all wrapped above the ghastly wounds around his busted or dislocated knee. He told the English-speaking girl, "We have to get him to a doctor in town muy p.r.o.nto. We ain't got a litter. We ain't got time to make one. So tell him this is going to hurt and ask your brother there to lower the tailgate of that wagon box."

She did, in a rapid singsong he'd have never managed on his own in a lingo he had to sort of feel his way along in. The badly injured Mexican bit his lower lip and hissed like a steam kettle, but never let on how bad it really must have felt as Longarm picked him up, with some effort, and shoved him gently as possible into the wagon behind the trunk. Then the young gal raised the tailgate and ran around to the front, calling out, "Abordos y vamonos pa'l carajo!"

So the old gal and all three kids scrambled aboard as best they could as Longarm drove back across their already battered crops.

The young gal wound up seated beside him some more as her mother in the back hung on to her injured man, sobbing at Longarm to go "mas rapido!" but also crying "cuidado!" as he did his best, without any advice, to follow the wheel ruts as fast as he safely could.

The young gal explained that the poor mamacita was upset, but that she knew how kind and thoughtful he was trying to be to people he'd never been introduced to.

He a.s.sured her he followed her mamacita's drift, and added, "She has every right to be unsettled by that fearsome bite out of Papacito's poor leg. What in thunder did he tangle with back there, a tushy old sow with a litter she was guarding amid them peppers?"

The girl shook her head. "I do not know what the beast is called in your tongue. We call aligador!"

Longarm whistled softly. "That's close enough to alligator if we're talking about the same critter. I'd heard they could be found all around the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Yucatan but... out in the middle of a pepper crop?"

She sighed. "Is a bahia pequeria, what you call a tidal creek, I think, just beyond our back seto... you say hedgerow, no?"

When he said that sounded close enough, she explained, "Las aligadoras come out on land for to sun themselves when the weather is as cool as this morning. Pero, like yourself, Papacito was surprised to find such a big one on our side of the cactus seto when he went out for to look at our poor peppers. It grabbed him before he knew it was there, and he thinks it was trying to take him home for to feed its own family. They were rolling all over when the rest of us rushed out for to see what Papacito was cursing about. My brother, Miguelito, beat la aligador many times with a hoe, a steel-bladed hoe, before it let go and slid back through the cactus into the bahia. Miguelito is only twelve, but muy macho, just like Papacito!"

Longarm smiled thinly and said, "They both must have been. I'd say that gator was unusually macho as well. They ain't supposed to act so bold as a rule. Has anyone you know been feeding 'em around here?"

"Feeding, senor? You have heard of people who would actually feed such dangerous beasts? One would have to be loco en la cabeza, no?"

He shrugged. "Greenhorns likely feel they're just out to be neighborly. But they got signs posted over Galveston way that warn folks not to do so, 'less you get them gators really dangerous."

He could see a street intersection down at the far end of their hedged-in wagon trace now as he continued. "They say gators get to coming in when they get used to hearing splashes at a particular bridge, boat dock, or whatever. Makes it more dangerous than usual should a dog, or kid, fall in. The critters aren't inclined to consider before they snap, left to their own unkindly natures. Do I have to explain further why it's not so wise to feed 'em until they lose their natural caution?"

She shuddered and reminded him she and her kin had just pulled a family member out of a sa.s.sy gator's jaws. He nodded. "That's my point. Their more usual diet would be fish, ducks, muskrats, and such. So the critter as just went for your dad must have picked up such bad habits around other humans. I don't know my way around Escondrijo. Which way do we swing when we get to that cross street ahead?"

She said the curado they usually went to dwelt down to the right.

He said, "No offense, senorita, but your old man don't need any herbs or even Prayers right now. He needs surgical st.i.tching, considerable surgical st.i.tching, by a surgical sawbones trained gringo in manner, if not a pure gringo by birth!"

She sobbed, "I never called you a gringo, senor. pero, you are the one Who brought it up, is no cirujano gringo in Escondrijo who would treat a greaser, as I think you call us."

He said, "I don't call colored folk n.i.g.g.e.rs either. But I do follow your drift. So which way might that Coast Guard station be from here?"

She didn't follow his drift before he'd repeated Guardia Costa in her own lingo. Then she said, "I thought that what You meant. Is a la izquirda, Pero very far, and even if we get there in time I do not think they will wish for to take Papacito in!"

Longarm swung the team left Onto the cross street, which seemed the Only important north-south thoroughfare in the d.i.n.ky collection of sun-silvered frame buildings as he a.s.sured the injured man's oldest child, "I don't care if they want to take him in or not. I aim to tell them they have to, I'm a U.S. deputy marshal, here on federal business, and I reckon I can say who may or may not be a federal witness under protection and hence eligible for emergency medical treatment at any infernal federal clinic I can find!"

She told him he was talking too fast for her to follow his English. He wasn't up to explaining all that in Spanish. So he just drove on, faster than folks usually drove through town and hence attracting a lot of stares and a good deal of cussing as they tore on up the dirt-paved street.

Then, as they were pa.s.sing what seemed a big whitewash warehouse, Longarm spotted a familiar figure in white and reined in to call out to Norma Richards, "Hey, Doc? I got your Saratoga trunk and a man in dire need of medical attention here. Your move!"

The motherly but sort of handsome older gal stared thunderstruck for just a bit before she called back, "Custis, is that you, with my lab equipment at last, praise the Lord."

As she dropped lightly down from the loading platform of that odd warehouse and moved toward them in her already muddy high-b.u.t.tons, she declared, "I'd just about given you and my microscope up for lost. We're in a lot of trouble here, Custis. As you see, I've been able to commandeer this empty icehouse for use as an emergency ward but without proper lab equipment-"

Then Longarm was down off the wagon to steer the educated lab technician around to the tailgate as he tersely explained, "Don't take no microscope to see what's ailing this customer I brought you. But for the record, those teeth marks all over his right knee were left by a gator, not one of Doc Finlay's mosquitos!"

When Longarm unfastened the tailgate, the well-rounded Norma got up under the canvas with surprising grace and proceeded to rip what was left of Papacito's pants off below that tourniquet. As she took in the full extent of the Mexican's injuries she whistled softly, then declared, "They do tend to overdo things here in Texas. We have to get that tourniquet off if we're to save that leg. But first we have to tie off some arteries and make a hundred and fifty st.i.tches, minimum. So we'd better get him inside, on the table, the day before yesterday!"

She added something about going inside for a pair of stretcher bearers. But Longarm was already following her with the chunky but smaller man in his arms, like an injured child. So Norma told all of them to follow and they did, like a worried line of ducklings.

It was warmer inside than out, despite the gloom under the bare wooden trusses holding up the big cork-lined roof. Longarm saw lots of the heat had to be rising from the hundred-odd folks filling most of the folding cots spread across the sawdust floor. n.o.body had more than a sheet covering them. But some were twisting like worms caught on a tile walk by a baleful rising sun. The smell was disgusting as well. Pine oil and fresh linens could only do so much when folks took to puking and s.h.i.tting all over themselves and a sawdust floor.

As Norma led the newcomers through some hanging sheets and into a corner she'd improvised as a sort of lab and autopsy or operating room, Longarm glanced up through the gloom and said, "You say this here is supposed to be an icehouse, Doc?"

Norma pointed at two kitchen tables with a door across them. "Make him as comfortable as you can there while I scrub up again. They tell me they used to store ice from New England in here, before that meat packer down the other way installed ice-making machinery a year or so ago. I commandeered this layout as soon as they a.s.sured me it was the nearest we could get to a hospital ward here in town. That Coast Guard clinic is too small as well as too far away. This s.p.a.ce is too small for all these repeat customers we keep getting, bless their fevered brows."

Longarm told the four Mexican folks they'd best wait outside. None of them argued. But as the older daughter ducked out Norma said, "Me and my direct approach. I didn't mean every one of them. Somebody who can speak both languages might save us a wrestling match here."

Longarm allowed he could likely translate any medical jargon a hoe farmer was likely to understand, so the motherly-looking Norma swung around from her washstand with a lethal-looking load of cutlery on an enameled tin tray, saying, "I'm low on morphine to begin with, and the dosage can be tricky when a patient's in shock after losing Lord knows how much blood. So I want you to tell him it would be better if I irrigated and sutured his wounds without any anesthetic. Tell him he won't feel much more pain than... well, a whole lot of pinp.r.i.c.ks."

Longarm moved to the far side of the improvised operating table, nudged the semi-conscious Mexican, and told him they were going to have to hurt him. Since he was talking to a grown man, not a cry-baby, he felt no call to bulls.h.i.t about pinp.r.i.c.ks. The badly bitten farmer smiled gallantly up at the woman in white and croaked, "Que bella es. Quando comienza?"

Longarm said, "He thinks you're pretty and wants to know why you ain't started, Miss Norma."

So she picked up a wet sponge and wrung it out over the gory mess. The liquid rinsing blood and crud from the lacerations looked like water. Longarm suspected it was something stronger when the man on the table stared thunderstruck and shouted, "Ay, mierda! Eso es una mierda!"

So Longarm a.s.sured the old gent it was more likely alcohol than the s.h.i.t he suspected. But he doubted the Mexican heard him. As he shot a questioning glance across the table, Norma Richards a.s.sured him, "Only comatose. Just as well. I want to suture these torn arteries before I unfasten that tourniquet, and that's the part that seems to inspire unpleasant remarks about a poor old woman who means well."

As he watched her clean, skilled fingers mend the ends of what a lay man could take for b.l.o.o.d.y macaroni, he said, "Aw, you ain't so old, considering how much training it would take to get so good with that curvy needle, Miss Norma. But no offense, whatever happened to the doctors, military and civilian, in these parts?"

She irrigated the unconscious man's knee some more as she made a wry face and said, "The pharmacist's mate in command of the Coast Guard clinic is just outside, running a fever we can't get down with quinine sulfate, if that's what's in those brown bottles he issued me before he was stricken himself. Now that you've brought my own medical supplies, however limited, I may be able to get a handle on what on earth they've all been coming down with!"

He said he'd be glad to get his own possibles back, and asked what had happened to the civilian docs a town this size would surely have.

She picked up a smaller needle and began to close the wounds of the ripped-open farmer as she said simply, "There were three, they say. I never met any of them. One died and the other two skipped out before I got off that coastal steamer a million years ago. They say the local doctor who caught it and died had been the only one trying to fight whatever it is we're fighting. The other two said there was no use risking the lives of themselves and their families on something they just didn't understand."

She rinsed away more blood and made another skillful st.i.tch as she pensively added, "Maybe they had a point. The oath physicians take makes no mention of running off and leaving patients to die, but it happens. YOU should have seen the stampede we had over to the northeast in New Orleans in the last bad yellow fever outbreak."

Longarm nodded soberly. "I heard. This fever we got in Escondrijo ain't like yellow jack?"

She shook her head, either unaware of or not caring about the one soft brown strand of hair on her sweat-beaded brow, as she replied, "I'm sure it can't be that. n.o.body's been vomiting black bile, even in the last stages. It's more like the cla.s.sic plague, or malaria, save for the fact that quinine sulfate seems to have no effect at all. I'll know better as soon as I finish here and administer some quinine I know to be the real McCoy."

Longarm didn't ask any dumb questions. She'd said she'd gotten the Medicine she'd been giving them from government medical stores. But on the other hand, he'd arrested more than one son of a b.i.t.c.h for cheating the taxpayers with worthless drugs and inedible Indian rations.

Before he could ask any brighter questions, the sheeting parted and a blandly pretty gal, wearing too much face paint and red hair Mother Nature had never issued her, popped in, the butcher's ap.r.o.n over her blue calico summer frock smeared with all sorts of crud. She sobbed at old Norma, "I think the poor boy from the Coast Guard station must be dead, Doctor Richards!"

Norma went on st.i.tching as she muttered something to her self, and then asked Longarm, "Would you know, and could you make sure for us, Custis? As you see, I only have four arms."

Longarm allowed he'd seen a few dead folks in his time, and followed the mock redhead outside. As they pa.s.sed the cl.u.s.ter Of worried Mexican folks, he a.s.sured them in Spanish their Papacita was doing just fine. The older daughter still tagged along as he followed the fancy nursing sister across the cavernous icehouse between the rows of close-packed cots.

The Mexican gal made the sign of the cross as they approached a sad scene against the far wall. Two more nurses in fancy clothes were gathered over a nice-looking half-naked corpse. There was no mistaking unconscious from dead once a person's nose turned to wax like that. As he joined the gals over the dead Coast Guardsman, Longarm declared, "At least a couple of hours. You'd best cover his face, ladies. He wouldn't want us looking at him as he commences to stiffen."

One of the gals sobbed, "He was ever so nice, even when the ague was on him, and I feel so awful about not looking at him sooner. But we thought he was asleep!"

Longarm said soothingly, "I doubt there's much any of you ladies could have done for him had you noticed sooner, No offense, but are you ladies volunteers from town?"

The three Anglo gals exchanged blushing glances. Only one burst out laughing. To cover up, the mock redhead asked, "Is rigor mortis when they get that silly grin on their dead faces, Doctor?"

Longarm grinned sort of silly himself, and replied, "I ain't no sawbones. I'm a federal marshal and, like you all, just helping out as best I know how. That wild mirthless smile you just mentioned is only part of what's called rigor mortis. It commences three to six hours after death, and you'll doubtless be glad to know they go limp and peaceful again in less than seventy-two. I have to know about such things in my line of work because sometimes it helps if we can make some educated guesses as to when somebody was killed."

He had no call to unsettle gals further with remarks about bloating, funny colors, or blowfly maggots. It made more sense to see if Norma Richards wanted the poor cuss buried before anything like that took place around here.

He said he'd tell her for them, and headed back across the icehouse. That Mexican gal in white cotton frills was still with him, which seemed reasonable seeing her kin were all gathered along that far side. He found her less reasonable when she asked him, in Spanish, if he had any notion what those painted and fancy-dressed Anglo gals really were.

He answered severely, "At the moment they seem to be acting as the only medical staff under the one Professional in this improvised fever ward. The respected physicians and no doubt a lot of the other respectable citizens of this town have all run away like rabbits. So why don't we just call those braver women nurses for now, and save ourselves the worry of what they might or might not do for a living on other occasions?"

She blushed but didn't answer, or back down as far as he could tell, as they pa.s.sed a sweat-soaked form in a bed croaking, "Agua, Por favor. Estoy mareado. Pero no puedo dormir."

Longarm nodded and told the Mexican gal, "There you go. Those ladies you've been low-rating might not know this gent's asking for a drink of water, and could likely need more help than that right now. I'll go tell Doc Richards he's feeling dizzy and restless. Why don't you go back and tell them other gals he needs some water poco tiempo?"

She said she would. Longarm continued on past her kin with a nod, ducked back inside, and said, "That redhead was right about the Coast Guardsman. There's a Mex out yonder croaking for water and complaining he's too dizzy to get up and too restless to lie down. What do you want me to do for him, Doc?"

She went on bandaging the groggy Mexican farmer's knee as she replied, "I could use some help with that heavy Saratoga, Custis. But once it's in here I can manage, if I'm right about the quinine sulfate."

As he turned to go he heard her murmur, "If I'm wrong, I don't know what I'll do."

Longarm ducked out into the bright morning sunlight, half blinded but surprised at how cool it felt next to that steamy stink inside. South Texas did tend to stay pleasant for a few days after a nasty storm. The air smelled more of sea foam than mosquito swamp right now. He wondered if that was going to rid Escondrijo of this fever outbreak. Sometimes a change in the weather helped. Sometimes it didn't. He wasn't packing a badge to worry about such matters all that much.

He untethered the mules and led them, along with the wagon, around to the slot of shade between the icehouse and a smaller warehouse to its north, explaining, "We were in a hurry with that gator victim, amigos. I know you're both anxious to get out of those traces and put yourselves around some fodder and water. I'll be dropping you off at the address La Bruja gave me in just a few more minutes. So just bear with me till I tote old Norma's trunk inside and find out where she's stored my own s.h.i.t, hear?"

Neither brute was in any position to argue as he tethered them again, reset the wagon brake, and slid the heavy trunk out the back of the wagon box.

As he carried it back inside on his back, the older of the Mexican kids came to join him, offering to help. So Longarm let him. Aside from not wanting to show off, he didn't want to insult a macho ten-year-old by implying he needed no help from such a squirt.

So, between them, they had the Saratoga trunk over by old Norma about the time she'd slid some of the sheeting out of the way to let everyone else at Papacito. The mangled Mexican was sitting up, though a mite green around the gills, as everyone said how brave he'd just been, unconscious Or not.

The matronly Anglo doctor fell upon her trunk with ill-disguised glee, saying, "I know for a fact I packed fresh full-strength quinine sulfate among my other Supplies. Lord knows how I'll get more, on such short notice, should that prove to be the answer."

Longarm suggested, "I could wire the Rangers in Corpus Christi for more medical supplies, seeing I got to wire in a progress report this morning in any case, Miss Norma."

She shook her head. "No, you can't. Did you think that I was on my own like this because I enjoy sweating? The wires were swept away in that storm last night. I did get off one overly optimistic report when I first arrived. I had half as many fever victims to worry about and plenty of quinine to fight it with, so I thought!"

Longarm grimaced. "Didn't have all that many answers to wire Billy Vail yet anyways. I'd best carry that borrowed rig and team over where I promised I would. You can tell me about my own saddle and such when I come back from that and mayhaps a few other morning errands."

La Bruja had written down the name and address of a small chandler's shop down the quay from the regular steamer landing. With no steamers in port the quay was nearly deserted as Longarm drove along it, the mules cropping and wheels rolling crisply on the oak-block paving. There were a dozen-odd Mexican fishing luggers tied up at the south end, with some smaller cat boats hauled up on the mud just beyond. He found a row of modest Mexican-owned shops just south of the fair-sized brick-walled edifice that proclaimed itself a meat packer in big block letters. He'd expected a larger operation. The chandler shop a few doors down was modest as well. But as soon as one studied on it, neither an outfit shipping occasional cargos of cold-storage beef nor a chandler selling ship's stores to a mess of Mexican fishermen had to look as if they belonged in Chicago.

He got down and tethered the team to a hitching rail out front. He went on in to find the chandlery poorly lit, pungent with the odors of hemp, tar, and peppers, and presided over by a big fat Mexican with a pleasant smile and deliberately stupid att.i.tude.

When Longarm introduced himself and allowed he had a rig and mule team belonging to La Bruja outside, the chandler looked confused and said, "You stole that wagon from some witch, you say, senor? Forgive me, I mean no disrespect, but you seem to have me confused with someone else. On the head of my children I know nothing of witches or stolen goods!"

Longarm said patiently, "They told me the wires were down and I don't want us endangering any kid's head. So what say I just leave that team and rig tied up out front, the way I promised La Bruja I might, and we'll just say no more about.i.t."

The chandler shrugged. "Is a free country, no? Who am I to say where an Anglo lawman parks his wagon along a public quay?"

Longarm allowed that sounded reasonable and, as long as he was there, offered to buy a box of those Mexican waterproof matches. But the fat chandler told him to just help himself to a box and go with G.o.d. So he did, certain he'd left El Bruja's property with someone smart enough to see she got it all back.

He strode over to the main street, a block inland, and asked some kids playing marbles in the still-damp street the way to their town lockup. They directed him to a brick building across from the white-washed Methodist steeple one could see for miles around.

As he strode the plank walk along the shady side of the street, he heard the kids behind him debating his station in life. They seemed divided as to whether he was a Ranger or simply some other pistol-packer with business at the town lockup.

Longarm had been a kid one time. So when one of then announced he'd just ask and jumped up to chase after him, Longarm stopped and turned with an indulgent smile.

But then his smile froze as a distant shot rang out and the kid caught a bullet aimed at Longarm's spine with the back of his poor little head!

Longarm's own gun was out and he was already running as the kid who'd taken a bullet for him beat a heavy mist of blood and brain tissue to the boardwalk with his small dead face. Longarm yelled at the other kids to get down and stay down as he tore past. The dirty white cloud of gunsmoke he'd spotted still hung shoulder-high near the corner he'd just turned. It was easy to see some son of a b.i.t.c.h had trailed him from the more open waterfront and pegged a back-shot down this other street from cover. Before Longarm could run that far he heard the receeding hoofbeats of a rapid mount. But he still caught a glimpse of a roan rump and a rider wearing an ankle-length duster of tan linen under his gray Texas hat as he tore around yet another corner with Longarm bawling after him, "Stand and fight like a human being, you yellow-bellied baby-butchering back-shooting b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"