Then Baraclough was sliding the window open and poking the 9-mm. pistol inside, elbow resting on the sill, and Walker stepped out behind him to see into the room over his shoulder. Baraclough said, to draw attention, “Don’t move, you’re whipsawed.”
It was a big comfortable room with exposed rafters and heavy Spanish furniture of dark wood and leather. The deputy was a big man gone soft, belly sagging over his belt, wearing a blue uniform and a black Sam Browne belt His hands were flat against the leather couch cushions as if to propel him to his feet but he was arrested in that strained attitude, fearful glance rolling from the Major to Baraclough.
The woman stood in the middle of the room, one foot on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Her head was turned, she was staring at Hargit. Her nostrils flared but she didn’t speak. She had walnut-brown hair and she wore it proudly, like a lion’s mane; she was encased in a vertically striped shirt with pearl buttons and a pair of bleach-blue Levi’s, long of leg, tight and round at the hips. She had a starkly sensual face-prominent bones, heavy mouth, big eyes surrounded by sun tracks.
You could see what it was that made her husband the jealous type.
The Major’s voice clacked abruptly, breaking the ugly silence: “All right, Steve.” And Baraclough put one foot over the sill and climbed in.
Walker went in after him. Baraclough had walked across the room, going around behind the woman, staying out of the Major’s line of fire; now he went behind the couch and bent over to unsnap the flap of the deputy’s holster and pluck the service revolver out of it. Then he stepped back and tossed the revolver underhand toward Walker. Walker caught it awkwardly in the air and turned it around in both hands, got his grip adjusted and pointed it vaguely in the woman’s direction.
A corded muscle rippled in her cheek. Baraclough was staring at her, frankly and obviously undressing her in his mind. His expressive lips pulled back slowly in a smile.
The woman slid her glance off Baraclough as if he were some kind of zoo animal. “All right. What do you want?”
“Keep your lip buttoned,” the Major said mildly. Hanratty came inside and closed the door behind him. The Major said, “Hanratty, find a bathroom and see if there’s any surgical tape. A few wire coat hangers. Go on, now.”
The woman said, “You’re going to tie us up?” She was controlled and angry but underneath that she was a little relieved: if they were going to tie you up they weren’t going to kill you.
Baraclough put one of his menthol cigarettes in his mouth and got a lighter from his pocket.
The deputy’s hands came together in a prayer clasp. Hanratty left the room and the deputy said, “Look, y’all ain’t got no way to get clean out of this. We got this whole area surrounded and they gon close in on you. Y’all give yosevves up to me and it mat go a whole lot easier.”
The woman said, “You’re wasting your breath, Frank.”
“Very astute.” Baraclough was standing against the wall, shoulder tilted, smiling slightly, the smoke of his cigarette making a vague suspended cloud before his long face.
The woman turned without hurry and settled on the edge of a chair. She seemed incredibly calm; she acted with complete aplomb, perfect attention, absolute control-control so rigid, in fact, it seemed quite possible to Walker that she might begin to scream at any moment.
The Major said conversationally to Baraclough, “I counted eleven horses in the barn,” and then Hanratty came into the room with a handful of coat hangers and a white roll of first-aid bandage tape.
Baraclough handed the second pistol to Walker. “Keep both eyes open.” And went over to bind the deputy’s wrists and ankles with coat-hanger wire.