A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams Page A

that
we got off the smugglers and go down to Mexico somewhere like I'm going
to do.”
    I was telling Bama something that I hadn't even admitted to myself. I
was telling him that I was tired of being alone, that I was even afraid
of being alone. I was asking him to ride with me. God knows why a man
like me would want Bama with him. He would be no earthly good, and his
drinking would probably cause trouble wherever we went.
    Then it hit me that maybe I could feel the day coming when I would
look around me and discover how far down I had gone. When that day did
come I would want somebody around that I could still look down on. And
that somebody was Bama.
    I think he could see the way my mind was working, but there was no
anger in his eyes, except possibly an old anger at himself. He started
to say something, but he changed his mind at the last moment and had
another drink.
    “Think it over,” I said. “Maybe I could use some company if you want
to ride along.”
    Looking at the bottle, he said, “Do you really think you'll get out
of Ocotillo?”
    “Why shouldn't I? I've got enough money coming to keep me below the
border for a while. After that, something will show up.” Then I said,
“Speaking of money, I think I'll go down and pick up my cut from
Basset. Do you want to come along?”
    He reached for the bottle again. “I think I'll just sit here for a
while, if you don't mind. Anyway, I got my cut last night.”
    So I left him sitting there, getting an early start on the road to
nowhere.
    The bartender was leaning on a broom, contemplating a dark brown
splotch on the saloon floor, when I came in. I said, “I want to see
Basset,” and his head snapped up as if he had never seen me before.
    “Sure. Sure,” he said. “Wait a minute, I'll see if Basset's up yet.”
    He went back to the rear of the saloon, where I guessed Basset had a
sleeping room next to his office—he struck me as being the kind of man
that wouldn't like to get too far away from his business. After a
minute the bartender came back.
    “It's all right. He's in the office.” He was still sitting, fat and
sweaty, behind his desk when I went in, looking exactly the same as the
last time I had seen him. “Well,” he wheezed, “I guess you came by your
reputation honest. You can handle guns, I'll say that for you. You've
got a bad temper, though. You'll have to learn to hold onto that if
you're going to work for me.”
    “I'm not going to work for you,” I said. He sat back, blinking folds
of fat over those buckshot eyes. “Now, look here,” he panted. “What's
the matter?”
    “I don't like wholesale murder and I don't like robbing people,” I
said. “I just want to get out, like I told you. Now if you'll just
figure out my cut of the silver...”
    He lurched his hulk over in the chair and sat there blinking those
eyes at me, breathing through his mouth. “Well,” he said. “If that's
the way you feel about it. Sure, you can have your cut. No hard
feelings.”
    He pulled out the big bottom drawer of his desk and opened a
strongbox with a key. He took out a heavy-looking, clanking canvas bag
and shoved it across the desk toward me.
    “Here it is,” he said. “You sure you don't want to change your mind?”
    “I'm sure,” I said. I didn't bother to count the silver. I just
picked it up and walked out, hoping that I had seen the fat man for the
last time.
    I went back up to my room and Bama was still there, drunk, as I had
expected. I heard him talking to somebody as I came up the hall, and
when I got to the door I saw that it was Marta.
    “What's she doing here?”
    Bama shrugged, “Maybe she's in love with you,” he said, waving his
arms. “Maybe she can't bear to have you out of her sight.”
    “She'd better start getting used to it, because I'm going to put
Ocotillo behind me.”
    I threw the sack of silver on the bed and she stood there looking at
me. She seemed to come and go like