Longarm - Longarm. Part 23

SPECIAL PREVIEW.

Here are the opening scenes from LONGARM ON THE BORDER, second novel in the bold LONGARM series from Jove.

CHAPTER 1.

Even before he opened his eyes, in that instant between sleep and waking, Longarm knew it had snowed during the night. Like the hunter whose senses guide him to prey, like the hunted whose senses keep him from becoming prey, Longarm was attuned to the subtlest changes in his surroundings. The light that struck his closed eyelids wasn't the usual soft gray that brightens the sky just before dawn. It had the harsh brileance that comes only from the pre-sunrise skyglow being reflected from snow-covered ground.

opening his eyes, Longarm confirmed what he already knew. He didn't see much point in walking across the room to raise a shade at one of the twin windows. The light seeping around the edges of the opaque shades had that cold, hard quality he'd sensed when he'd snapped awake.

Longarm swore, then grunted. He didn't believe in cussing the weather or anything else he was powerless to change. He was a man who believed swearing just wasted energy unless it did something besides relieving his own dissatisfaction.

Last night, when he'd swung off the narrow-gauge railroad after a long, slow, swaying trip up from Santa Fe to Denver, he'd noted the nip in the air, but his usually reliable weather sense hadn't warned him it might snow. It was just too early in the year. It was still fall, with the Rocky Mountains' winter still a couple of months away. Longarm hadn't been thinking too much about the weather last night, though. All that had been in his mind was getting to his room, taking a nightcap from the bottle of Maryland rye that stood waiting on his dresser, and falling into bed. On another night, he'd probably have followed his habit of dropping in at the Black Cat or one of the other saloons on his way home, to buck the faro bank for a few cards until he relaxed. He'd started to cut across the freightyard to Colfax instead of taking the easier way along Wynekoop Street. What he'd seen happen in New Mexico Territory had left a sour taste in his mouth that the three or four drinks he'd downed on the train couldn't wash away.

There was little light in the freightyard. The acetylene flares mounted on high standards here and there created small pools of brightness, but intensified the darkness between them. Longarm was s.p.a.cing his steps economically as he crossed the maze of tracks, sighting along the wheel-polished surface of the rails to orient himself, when he sensed rather than saw the man off to his left. He couldn't see much in the gloom, just the interruption of the light reflected on the rail along which he was sighting.

"Casey!?" Longarm called. He didn't think it was Casey, who was the yard's night superintendent, and more likely to be in his office, but if it was one of Casey's yard bulls on patrol, using the boss's name would tell the man at once that Longarm wasn't a freightyard thief.

A shot was his answer. A muzzle-flash and the whistle of lead uncomfortably close to his chest. Longarm drew as he was dropping and snap-shot when he rolled, firing at the place where he'd seen the orange blast. He didn't know whether or not he'd connected. He hadn't had a target; his shot was the equivalent of the warning buzz a rattlesnake gives when a foot comes too close to its coils.

Faintly, the sound of running footsteps gritting on cinders gave him the answer. Whoever had tried the bushwhacking wasn't going to hang around and argue.

For several seconds, Longarm lay on the rough, gritty earth, trying to stab through the darkness with his eyes, using his ears to hear some giveaway sound that would spot his target for him. Except for the distant chugging of a yard-mule cutting cars at the shunt, there was nothing to hear.

Longarm didn't waste time trying to prowl the yard. Being the target of a grudge shot from the dark wasn't anything new to him, or to any of the other men serving as Deputy U.S. Marshals in the unreconstructed West of the 1880s. Longarm guessed that whoever had been responsible for the drygulching attempt had been sitting in another car of the narrow-gauge on the trip up from New Mexico. G.o.d knows, he'd stepped on enough toes during his month there to have become a prime target for any one of a half dozen merciless, powerful men. Any of them could've sent a gunslick to waylay him in Denver. The attack had to originate in New Mexico Teritory, he decided, because n.o.body in Denver had known when he'd be arriving.

Brus.h.i.+ng himself off, Longarm had hurried on across the freightyard and on to his room. Bone-tired, he'd hit the sack without lighting a lamp, dropping his clothes as he shed then!

On the dresser, the half full bottle of Maryland rye gleamed in the light that was trickling in from the window. Its invitation was more attractive than the idea of staying in the warm bed. Longarm swung his bare feet to the floor, crossed the worn gray carpet in two long strides and let a trickle of warmth slip down his throat. As he stood there, the tarnished mirror over the dresser showed his tanned skin tightening as the chilly air of the unheated room raised gooseb.u.mps.

Crossing the room to its inside corner, Longarm pulled aside a sagging curtain to get to his wardrobe. Garments hung on a pegged board behind the curtain. He grabbed a cleaner s.h.i.+rt than the one he'd taken off, and a pair of britches that weren't grimed with cinders from his roll in the freightyard last night.

He wasted no time in dressing. The cold air encouraged speed. Longjohns and flannel s.h.i.+rt, britches, woolen socks, and he was ready to stamp into his stovepipe cavalry boots. Another snort from the bottle and he turned to check his tools. From its usual night resting place, hanging by its belt from the bedpost on the left above his pillow, Longarm took his.44-40 Colt double-action out of its open-toed holster. Quickly and methodically, his fingers working with blurring speed, he swung out the Colt's cylinder, dumped its cartridges on the bed, and strapped on the gunbelt.

He returned the unloaded pistol to the holster and drew three or four times, triggering the revolver with each draw, but always catching the hammer with his thumb instead of letting it snap on an empty chamber, which could break the firing pin. When Longarm had returned the Colt to its holster after each draw, he made the tiny adjustments that were needed to put the waxed, heat-hardened leather at the precise angle and position he wanted, just above his left hip.

Satisfied now, he reloaded the Colt, checking each cartridge before sliding it into the cylinder. Then he checked out the.44 double-barrelled derringer that was soldered to the chain that held his railroad Ingersoll on the other end. He put on his vest, dropping the watch into his left-hand breast pocket, the derringer into the right-hand one. Longarm always antic.i.p.ated that trouble might look him up, as it had in the freightyard last night. If it did, he intended to be ready.

Longarm's stomach was growling by now. He quieted it temporarily with a short sip of rye before completing his methodical preparations to leave his room for the day. These were simple and routine, but it was a routine he never varied while in civilized surroundings. Black string tie in place, frock coat settled on his broad shoulders, Stetson at its forward-tilted angle on his close-cropped head, he picked up his necessaries from the top of the bureau and stowed them into their accustomed pockets. Change went in one pants pocket and his jackknife in the other; his wallet with the silver federal badge pinned inside was slid into an inside breast pocket. Extra cartridges went into his right-hand coat pocket, handcuffs and a small bundle of waterproof matches into the pocket on the left.

As he left the room, he kicked the soiled clothing that still lay on the floor out into the hallway ahead of him. He'd leave word for his Chinese laundryman, Ho Quah, to pick it up and have it back that evening. He closed the door and between door and jamb inserted a broken matchstick at about the level of his belt. His landlady wasn't due to clean up his room until Thursday, and Longarm wanted to know the instant he came home if an uninvited stranger might be waiting inside: for instance, the unknown shadow who'd thrown down on him last night. Anybody who knew his name was Custis Long could find out where Longarm lived.

Not only the rooming house, but the entire section of the unfas.h.i.+onable side of Cherry Creek where it stood was still asleep, Longarm decided, after he'd moved on light feet down the silent hallway and stopped to look over the street before stepping out the door. The night's unexpected snowfall, though only an inch or less, made it easy for him to see whether anyone had been prowling around. He took a cheroot from his breast pocket and champed it in his teeth, but didn't light it, while he studied the white surface outside.

There was only one set of tracks. They came from the house across the way, and the toes were pointed in the safe direction--for Longarm--away from the house, toward Cherry Creek. Just the same, he stopped on the narrow porch long enough to flick his gunmetal-blue eyes into the long, slanting shadows. He didn't really expect to see anyone, though. The kind of gunhand who'd picked the safety of darkness once for his attack would be likely to wait for the gloomy cover of hoot-owl time before making a second try.

His booted feet cut through the thin, soft snow and crunched on the cinder pathway as Longarm walked unhurriedly to the Colfax Avenue bridge. He turned east on the avenue; ahead, the golden dome of the Colorado capitol building was just picking up the first rays of the rising sun.

George Masters's barbershop wasn't open yet, and Longarm needed food more than a shave. He didn't fancy the cold free-lunch items he knew he'd find in any of the saloons close by, so he went on past the barbershop corner another block and stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall diner for hotcakes, fried eggs, ham, and coffee. He stowed away the cheroot while he ate. The longer he held off lighting it, the easier it would be for him to keep from lighting the next one.

Leaving the restaurant, twenty-five cents poorer, but with a satisfactorily full stomach, Longarm squinted at the sun. Plenty of time for a shave before reporting in at the office. He walked at ease along the avenue, which was just coming to life. The day might not be so bad in spite of the snow, he decided, feeling the warmth from his breakfast spreading through his lean, sinewy body.

He grinned at the bright sun, glowing golden in a blue, crystal sky. Deliberately, he took a match from the bundle in his pocket, flicked it into flame with his thumbnail, and lighted his cheroot.

Smelling of bay rum, his overnight stubble removed and his brown mustache now combed to the angle and spread of the horns on a Texas steer, Longarm walked into Marshal Billy Vail's office before eight o'clock. It gave him a virtuous feeling to be the first one to show up, and even Vail's pink-cheeked, citified clerk-stenographer wasn't at the outside desk to challenge him. The Chief Marshal was already on the job, of course, fighting the ever-losing battle he waged with the paperwork that kept coming from Was.h.i.+ngton in a mounting flood. Vail looked pointedly at the banjo clock on the wall.

"This'll be the day the world ends," he growled.

"What in h.e.l.l happened to get you here on time, for once?"

Longarm didn't bother answering. He was used to Vail's b.i.t.c.hing. He felt his chief was ent.i.tled, bound as he was now to a desk and swivel chair, going bald and getting lardy. Desk work, after an active career in the field, seemed to bring out the granny in a man, and Longarm felt that he might b.i.t.c.h about life, too, under the same circ.u.mstances.

Vail shoved a pile of telegraph forms across the desk. "I guess you know you raised a real s.h.i.+t-stink down in New Mexico. You'd better have a good story to back up your play down there. I've got wires here from everybody except President Hayes."

"Chances are the word ain't got to him, yet," Longarm replied mildly. "Don't be feeling disappointed. You might get one from him too, before the day's out. You want me to tell you how it was?"

"No. In fact, I'm not sure I want a long report in the file telling exactly what happened. Think you can write one like the one you handed in after that Short Creek fracas a few years back?"

Vail was referring to a report Longarm had turned in about his handling of another political hot potato that had consumed a month of time, resulted in eight deaths, and upset a hundred square miles of Idaho Territory. The report had simply read, "a.s.signed to case on May 23. Completed a.s.signment and closed case July 2."

"Don't see why not." Longarm considered for a moment before he went on. "I figured things might be hottening up down around Santa Fe, at the capitol. Some gunslick tried to bushwhack me when I got off the narrow-gauge last night."

"The h.e.l.l you say." Vail's tone showed no surprise. "You get him?"

"Too dark. He ran before I could sight on him."

"Well, keep your report short. I won't have to explain things I don't know about. Besides, I want you out of this office before that pot down there boils over clear to Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Suits me, chief, right to a tee. There's snow on the ground and a smell of more in the air, and you know how I feel about that d.a.m.ned white stuff."

"If it'll cheer you up any, the place you'll be going to is just a little cooler than the hinges of h.e.l.l, this time of the year." Vail pawed through the untidy stacks of doc.u.ments on his desk until he uncovered the papers he was after. "Texas is Yelling for us to give them a hand. So is the army."

"Seems to me like they both got enough hands so they wouldn't need to come running to us. What is wrong with the Rangers? They gone to pot these days?"

Vail bristled. As a one-time Texas Ranger, he automatically resented any hints that his old outfit wasn't up to snuff. Huffily, he said, "The Rangers have got more sense than to bust into something that might stir up trouble in Mexico. Here's what Bert Matthews wrote me from Austin." He read from one of the papers he'd uncovered. "He says, 'You see what a bind we're in on this, Billy. If one of my boys sets foot across the border and gets crossways of Diaz's Rurales, we'd risk starting another War with them. Whoever goes looking for Nate Webster's got to have Federal authority back of him and can't be tied to Texas. That's why I'm looking to YOU to give us a hand.'"

Longarm rubbed his freshly shaved chin and nodded slowly. "I hadn't looked at it that way. Makes sense, I suppose. What'd this Nate Webster do?"

"As far as Bert knows, he didn't do anything except droP out of sight somewhere on the other side of the Rio Grande. So did two black troopers who deserted from the 10th Cavalry, and a captain from the same outfit who went off on his own to bring them back."

"Wait a minute, now. That Rio Grande's a d.a.m.n long river," Longarm Observed. "It's going to take a while, prowling it all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. I got to have a place to start looking."

"You have, so settle down. I wouldn't be so apt to send you if it wasn't that all four of them disappeared from the same place. Little town called Los Perros. Dogtown I guess that'd translate into. You ever hear of it? I sure as h.e.l.l never did, but it's been a spell since I left Texas."

Longarm shook his head. "Name don't ring a bell with me, either. Where's this Los Perros place at, in general?"

"It's to be close to where the Pecos River goes into the Rio Grande."

"Rough country in that part," Longarm said. "if it's there, I reckon I can find it, though. I aim to circle around New Mexico instead of going there the straightest way. If I show my face in old Senator Abeyet's country before the old man wears his mad off, I'd have to fight my way from Santa Fe clear to El Paso."

"You steer clear of New Mexico Territory, and that's an order," Vail agreed. "You've stirred up enough h.e.l.l there to last a while."

"Now, don't get your bowels riled up, Chief. I'll figure me out a route. Just let me think a minute." He leaned back in the red morocco-leather chair, the most comfortable piece of furniture in the marshal's office, and began aloud. "Let's see, now. I take the KP outa here tonight and switch to the MT at Pueblo. That gets me to Wichita, and I'll make a connection there with the I-GN or the SP to San Antone. Pick me up a horse and some army field rations at the quartermaster depot there and ride to Fort Stockton. That'll beat jarring my a.s.s on the b.u.t.terfield stage, and it'll get me to spittin' distance of the border a lot faster."

"Tell my clerk," Vail said impatiently. "He'll write Your travel vouchers and requisition your expense money. Here. Take these letters and read them on the train. They'll give you the whole story as good as I can. Now, get the h.e.l.l outta this office before I get a wire from the attorney-general or the president telling me to suspend you or fire you outright."

"Which you can't do if I ain't here." Longarm grinned. "All right, chief. Time I close this case and get back, things ought to've cooled down enough to get me off the political s.h.i.+tlist."

During the three train changes and four days and nights it took Longarm to reach his jumping-off Place deep in Texas, he spent his time catching up with lost sleep and studying the letters Marshal Vail had gotten from the Texas Ranger captain and the post adjutant at Fort Stockton. He was looking for some sort of connection that might tie the four disappearances together, but couldn't see any.

Ranger Nate Webster had been working on a fresh outbreak of the style of rustling along the Texas border that had come to be called the "Laredo Loop." Cattle stolen from ranches in central Texas were hustled across the Rio Grande's northern stretches, their brands altered, and with false bills of sale forged to show that the steers had been Mexico-bred and bought from legitimate ranchers in the Mexican states of Chili Cohuila, or Nuevo Leon. Then, driven south, the rustled herds were taken back across the river at Laredo and sold there to buyers. Laredo was the only point along the Texas-Mexico border where railroad s.h.i.+pments crossed. It had long been a center for livestock sales. Even with Mexican cattle selling well below the market price for Texas beef, the profits were huge. Nate Webster's investigation had led him to Los Perros, where he'd been heading when he reported to ranger headquarters in Austin. That had been in July. He hadn't been heard from since.

About a month before the ranger made his last report, the two troopers from the all-black 10th Cavalry--the "buffalo soldiers," as they'd been named by the Indians, who saw in the blacks' hair a resemblance to buffalo manes--had deserted from Fort Lancaster.

Lancaster was an outpost of Fort Stockton; it was one of a string of such small posts dotted along the El Paso-San Antonio road. The men had left a trail that the Cimarron Scout summoned from Fort Stockton had no trouble following. He followed it to Los Perros. Captain John Hill, the Charley Troop commander, had gone with the scout. The captain had sent the Cimarron back to report and had himself followed the deserters' trail across the Rio Grande. Like Webster, like the deserting troopers, Hill had vanished on the other side of the river after leaving Los Perros.

"Dogtown" Longarm muttered to himself, drawing on four-year-old memories of the last case that had taken him to Texas. "Los Perros. Mouth of the Pecos. Wild country. Big enough and rough enough to swallow up four hundred men, let alone four, without much trace left. Hope I ain't forgotten what little bit of the local lingo I learned."

Then, because it was his philosophy that a man Shouldn't cross rivers before he tested them to see how deep and cold they ran, Longarm ratcheted back the rubbed plush daycoach seat, and went to sleep with the smell of old and acrid coal dust in his nostrils. A little stored-up shuteye might come in handy after he hit the trail on horseback from San Antonio to the Rio Grande.

At the I-GN depot in San Antonio, Longarm swung Off the daycoach and walked up to the baggage car to claim his gear. He'd left everything except his rifle to the baggage handlers, but it would have been tempting fate to leave a finely tuned.44-40 Winchester unwatched in a baggage car or on a depot platform between trains. The rifle had ridden beside him all the waY from Denver, leaning between the coach seat and the wall.

AS always, he was traveling light. He swung the bedroll that contained his spare clothing as well as a blanket and groundcloth over one shoulder, draped his saddlebags over the other, and picked up his well-worn McClellan saddle in his left hand. Then he set out to find a hack to carry him from the station to the quartermaster depot.

"To the quartermaster depot?" the hackman echoed when Longarm asked how much the fare would be. "That's a long way, mister. Cost you 1-50 to go way out there. It's plumb on the other side of town and out in the country."

"We got to go by Market Plaza to get there, don't we?" Longarm asked. When the hackman nodded, he went on, "I'll pay the fare, even if it does seem a mite high, provided you'll stop there long enough for me to eat a bowl of chili. I got to get rid of the taste of them stale butcher-boy sandwiches I been eating the last few days."

"Hop in," the hackman said. "It's my dinnertime, too. Won't charge you extra for stopping."

Counting time taken for eating, the ride down Commerce Street and then north on Broadway to the army installation took just over an hour. The place was buzzing with activity. After more than five years of debating, the high bra.s.s in Was.h.i.+ngton had finally decided to turn the quartermaster depot into a large permanent incampment, and everywhere Longarm looked there were men at work. Masons were erecting thick walls of quarry stone to serve as offices, others were busy with red brick putting up quarters for the officers. A few carpenters were building barracks for the enlisted men on a flat area beyond the stables, where the hackman had pulled up at Longarm's direction.

Not until he'd been watching the scene for several minutes did Longarm realize that there was something odd. There was only a handful of soldiers among the men working around the quadrangle the buildings would enclose when all of them were completed. The hackie lifted Longarm's saddle and saddlebags out Of the front of his carriage. Longarm got out and paid the man. He stood with his gear on the ground around his feet until the hack drove off. Then he slung his saddlebags and bedroll over his shoulders, picked up the saddle, and started for the nearest uniforms he saw, a clump of soldiers gathered around a smithy's forge a few yards away from the stable buildings.

Longarm singled out the highest-ranking of the group, a tall, lantern-jawed sergeant. "I'm looking for the remount duty noncom," he told the man.

"You found him, mister. Name's Flanders."

"My name's Long, Custis Long. Deputy U.S. Marshal outta the Denver office. I need to requisition a good saddle horse for a case I'm on."

"Well, now. You wanta show me your badge or something, so I'll know you're who you say you are?"

Wordlessly, Longarm took his wallet from the pocket of his frock coat and flipped it open to let the sergeant see the silver badge pinned between its folds. The sergeant studied it for a moment, then nodded. He measured Longarm with his eyes.

"How far you gonna be travelling?"

"To the border."

"You're a sizeable man, Mr. Long. You plan to pack any more gear than what you've got here?"

"Nope. This is all I need."

"Follow along, then. I guess we can fix you UP."

Longarm followed the sergeant around the stable to a small corral where a dozen or so horses were milling. The rat-a-tat of carpenters' hammers nearby was obviously making a few of the animals nervous; they were walking around the corral's inner perimeter. The others stood in a fairly compact group near the center of the enclosure. Most of them were roans and chestnuts, but there was one dappled gray a hand taller than the rest who stood out like a peac.o.c.k among sparrows.

"Don't try to palm off any of them walking ones on me," Longarm warned the sergeant. "Last thing I need's a nervous nag."

"Maybe you'd rather do your own picking, Mr. Long.?" the sergeant suggested.

"Maybe I better, if it's all the same to you."

Longarm was still carrying his Winchester. He tilted the muzzle skyward, levered a sh.e.l.l into the chamber and fired in the air before the sergeant knew what he intended to do. Two of the horses at the corral's center reared, three others bolted for the fence. Most of those that had been fence-walking either reared or bucked. The gray was among the handful that had not reacted to the shot. Longarm studied the dapple through slatted eyes. A light horse made a man stand out more than a roan or chestnut would, but he told himself that could be both good and bad. He pointed to the animal.

"I'll take the gray, if he stands up to a closer look. Bring him over and let me check him out," he told the sergeant.

"WelL now, I'm sorry, Mr. Long. That's the only one I can't let you have."

"Why not? Is he officer's property?"

"Well, yes and no."

"Make up your mind, Flanders. Either he is or he ain't."

"He ain't exactly officer's property, Mr. Long. Thing is, Miz Stanley, that's Lieutenant Stanley's lady, she's took a liking to Tordo, there. Rides him just about every afternoon. She'd be mighty riled if I was to..."

"This lieutenant don't own the horse?"

"No, sir. Except, we was going to s.h.i.+p Tordo up to Leavenworth for their bandsmen, seeing we got no band here, and the lieutenant stopped us because his lady'd took a s.h.i.+ne to the nag."

"I suppose Miz Stanley'd be just as well off if she got her exercise on another horse, wouldn't she?"

"No, sir. Begging your pardon, Mr. Long, she'd want Tordo."

"Happens I want him, too. He's the best-looking of that bunch out there. Bring him here and let me check him over. You can give the lieutenant's lady my regrets next time she wants to ride."

Longarm's tone carried an authority that the sergeant was quick to recognize. He opened his mouth once, as though to argue further, but the deputy's steel-blue eyes were narrowed now, and the soldier knew he was looking at a man whose mind was made up. Reluctantly, the sergeant walked over to the gray and put a hand on its army-clipped mane. He walked back to where Longarm stood waiting. The horse, obedient to the light pressure of the man's hand on its neck, walked, step for step, with the sergeant.

"Seems to be real biddable," Longarm commented.

"Tordo's a good horse, Mr. Long. Can't say I blame you for picking him out."

Longarm checked the gelding with an expert's quick, seemingly casual glances. Teeth, eyes, spine, cannons, hooves were all sound. His inspection lasted barely three minutes but when it was completed Longarm was satisfied with the choice he'd made.

"He'll do, sergeant. Make out the form for me to sign while I'm saddling him. Or is this the kind of post where I got to find a commissioned man for that?"