Longarm on the Border l-280 by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans [Evans Tabor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: antique
Published: 0101-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

It was still dark in the jail when the sleeping prisoners were awakened by the clinking of the lock on the outside door. It swung open and the flickering light of torches blinded them briefly. Two un-shaved rurales came in, their boot soles scraping on the packed dirt floor. Marching to Lefty's cell, the rurales dragged the sleepy deputy into the corridor and through the outer door.

When they left the building, the men did not close the outside door. From their cell, by straining hard against the front bars, Longarm and his companions could see a slice of the torch-lit area outside. Captain Ramos came into view; he carried a pistol in his right hand. The rurales who'd hauled Lefty out of his cell swung the deputy around to face the captain. The distance was too great for those inside to hear what was said, they could only watch and imagine what passed between Lefty and Ramos.

Whatever the rurale captain said or asked brought only vehement headshakes from Lefty. Each time they could see Ramos's lips move, and each time the deputy's head shook in the negative. Even when Ramos slapped Lefty's face, there was no difference in the response he gave. Ramos was obviously growing angry. He brought up the pistol and shoved it hard against Lefty's forehead. Lefty tried to drop to his knees, but the men holding his arms kept him erect.

After a moment, Ramos brought the pistol down. He talked for perhaps a minute. Watching the dumb show, Longarm guessed that Ramos was trying to force Lefty into confessing to something — he couldn't figure out quite what — that would suit the rurale's private purposes, while Lefty kept pleading that it was impossible for him to do what Ramos wanted.

None of those in the cell were prepared for the finale of the pantomime. Ramos pushed the muzzle of his pistol into Lefty's neck, just under the deputy's jaw, and pulled the trigger. The shot sounded thin inside the jail, but Longarm and his cellmates could see Lefty's head shatter in a spray of blood and brains bursting from the top of his head. The deputy slumped and this time the rurales holding him let his lifeless body fall to the ground.

Even men as accustomed to violence as Longarm, Webster, and Hill, they were shaken by the brutality of the killing. They looked at one another in stunned silence, half aware that outside the two rurales who'd held Lefty were dragging away his body, leaving a wide blood trail on the hard-packed ground. The slamming of the outer door and the metal rasping of its lock brought them back to the reality of the moment.

"Jesus!" Longarm muttered. "Them rurales sure don't believe in things like courts and trials, do they?"

"Not this breed, no," Webster said soberly. "That's the Diaz way, though. Like I told you, the rurales aren't a police force anymore. They're Diaz's revenge squad, his executioners. It's one of the ways he keeps Mexico under his thumb.

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