Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401)
Page 1
Lying in Ambush…
The mare’s slight hesitation of movement and the snort that exploded from her nostrils caused Longarm to glance from side to side just as the man he instantly recognized as Carl Whitfield and another smaller man jumped up with rifles.
“Ya!” Longarm shouted, bending low in the saddle and sending the mare into a hard run in order to escape this death trap. “Ya!”
The mare shot forward like a cannonball, ears flattening against her head, neck stretched out, and legs reaching out to cover ground. The ambushers were caught by surprise, unprepared for the mare’s explosive burst of speed. They both fired and missed.
Longarm drew his six-gun and opened fire, emptying his gun at the closer and larger target, Carl Whitfield. The liveryman staggered, dropped his rifle, and collapsed even as his partner fired a shot that struck Longarm high up in the back and nearly knocked him from his saddle.
“Ya!” Longarm shouted, dropping his gun and desperately grabbing for his saddle horn.
The buckskin mare ran like the wind and Longarm heard one last rifle shot, then he was out of range and hanging on for his life.
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FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him…the Gunsmith.
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J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.
TABOR EVANS
LONGARM
AND THE GRAND
CNAYON MURDERS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
LONGARM AND THE GRAND CANYON MURDERS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / February 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Cover illustration by Milo Sinovcic.
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EISBN: 9781101554401
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Table of Contents
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
Chapter 1
Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long stepped into the office of his boss and friend, Chief Marshal Billy Vail, and said, “Whatever it is you want me to do…I’m unavailable.”
Billy was of medium size and today exhibited an unflappable and sunny disposition, no doubt due to the fact that he was now in charge of their federal office and mostly handled paperwork and personnel assignments. “Have a chair, Custis.”
Longarm knew that he was being baited into a trap and shook his head. “Billy, I just returned from a month in the damned desert near Yuma, where I was stuck by cactus, bit by a scorpion…twice…and damned near died of thirst and heat exhaustion. The killer I was after somehow managed to get a rattlesnake in my boot while I slept; I barely escaped getting bitten before I shot the snake and the demented killer who was waiting to see me die of snakebite. I’m telling you that my last assignment was a nightmare, so unless you have something easy for me to do in the cool mountains, I’m unavailable.”
“Would you like a really good cigar? I have a few special Cubans.”
Longarm groaned. “This is looking worse by the minute. But I won’t be bribed so easily, because I just met a really interesting lady that I’m very interested in spending a lot of time with.”
“You’re always meeting an interesting lady, aren’t you?” Billy grinned and gave his favorite deputy a manly wink. “A new flame every week or two. Always lovely, always passionate, a
lways a brief love affair. Custis, you need to find a woman that is like my wife. Solid. Dependable. Not flashy or witty, but just salt of the earth and one that will stand by you through thick and thin.”
“Given the pittance this office pays me as an excuse for a salary,” Longarm muttered grumpily, “for me times are always thin.”
“Oh now, it isn’t that bad. So cheer up, because I’ve just heard that we’re going to get a federal pay raise this fall.”
“I’ve heard that from you every year I’ve worked here, and it ain’t happened yet.”
“Ahh,” Billy said, raising a forefinger from behind his massive walnut desk. “But I am considering you for a field promotion.”
“And I’ve heard that before too.”
Billy smiled and shook his head as if it were a trial to deal with such a gifted but obstinate deputy marshal. “Sit down, Custis. And do take one of these Cubans and enjoy yourself with me for a little while. We have something very exciting and important on our plate.”
Longarm took a seat in front of Billy’s desk and snatched a long, black cigar from the humidor. His eyes fell on the cigar and he sniffed it with suspicion, knowing that sometimes Billy claimed he smoked Cubans but they were actually cheap Mexican imitations. “All right,” Longarm said, satisfied that the cigar was as claimed, “what is it you’re trying to hook me into this time?”
“We have a disappearance,” Billy said. “A strange and troubling one…actually two disappearances.”
“People disappear all the time. Sometimes they have very good and rational reasons to disappear. Too much debt. A nagging wife. A lovely mistress or an enemy that is trying to put them in the ground. Why, I once even heard of a man who disappeared because he couldn’t stand all of his wife’s cats.”
“Those are trivial reasons for disappearing. I’m talking about two very important and responsible people,” Billy said, striking a match and then lighting both of their cigars. “And their disappearances took place in an extremely unique setting.”
“Don’t tell me…They disappeared in Death Valley.”
“No,” Billy said with a chuckle. “Some place even more remote and dangerous.”
“Alaska Territory?” It would be good to go there now, Longarm thought, before wintertime set in up in that cold, lonesome country.
“Uh-uh. The location I’m talking about is much, much closer to us here in Denver. But it’s a place that few have seen. A landscape filled with extreme danger and great mystery.”
Longarm realized he was leaning forward in his chair, eager to learn about this mystery. But he wasn’t one to be taken in easily, so he leaned back, puffed on his cigar, and said, “The new woman in my life is named Heidi…Miss Heidi Zalstra.”
“Irish?” Billy asked, trying to be humorous.
“No,” Longarm scoffed. “She’s a Scandinavian beauty.”
“A Swedish girl?”
“Dutch. I believe that is from Holland, where they have those funny windmills everywhere and lots of dikes to hold back water from the sea.”
Billy grinned. “Does she wear wooden shoes and say ‘Ya’ to everything you say?”
Longarm scowled. “Hell, no! She talks like the rest of us and hasn’t said ‘Ya’ to anything I’ve asked…but that is about to change starting tonight.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Billy said, clucking his tongue. “I just can’t imagine you and some poor Dutch girl having a lasting relationship. You’re not a bit interested in dikes or windmills…are you?”
“Of course not, but you can’t imagine me having a lasting relationship with any woman.”
“True.” Billy smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then abruptly changed the subject. “How do you feel about water?”
“It can ruin a good glass of whiskey.”
Billy didn’t smile. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then speak your mind plainly, Boss.”
“Can you swim?”
Longarm gave his boss a queer look. “Why are you askin’ me something like that?”
“Can you?”
“Yeah. In fact, when I was a country boy in West Virginia, we’d have a Fourth of July parade and then a picnic by the lake. I not only won the footraces, but I was always the fastest kid to swim across the lake and back. I kicked some kid’s ass for trying to pin on me the nickname the Flying Duck.”
“Yeah, I can see where that would be a bad one. But the fact that you are an excellent swimmer settles it,” Billy said with a look of satisfaction.
“Settles what?”
“You’re the only one that I’d feel comfortable sending on this extremely important assignment.”
Longarm was growing exasperated by Billy’s beating-around-the-bush tactics, but he knew better than to press the issue, so he bent his knee over his leg, leaned back in the chair, and smoked the excellent Cuban cigar as if it were the only thought on his mind.
“Well?” Billy asked. “Will you do it?”
“I told you I needed some time to rest up from that desert trip that damn near got my brains fried. Send someone else in the office. Send ole Jasper White.”
“Deputy White couldn’t even find his way to water, much less swim roaring rapids.”
“What about Clyde Hunsitter?”
“He’s afraid of water and he recently got his girlfriend pregnant. He’s going to marry Betty next week if she doesn’t drop it first. I can’t send him just now, and even if I did, he’d get himself killed on this assignment.”
“That dangerous, huh?”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “And you’re the only man in this office that has a ghost of a chance of success. Interested?”
“I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?”
“Because of that excellent cigar.”
“That too,” Longarm admitted. “So what is the assignment, or am I supposed to go out and find a swami with a crystal ball to tell me?”
“All right,” Billy said, lowering his voice as if someone could actually hear through his closed door. “This one is really, really important and special.”
“You always say that.”
“I know.” Billy held up his hands palms forward, as if making a big confession. “But this time it’s the truth.”
“Don’t matter because I ain’t goin’, but you can tell me anyway.”
“A federal judge and his wife are missing.”
Longarm just shrugged his broad shoulders. “Big deal.”
“It is a big deal! This particular federal judge is related to the President of the United States.”
“Then he’s probably retarded.”
“Dammit, Custis. Be serious!”
“I am.”
“Federal Judge Milton Quinn’s name is often brought up as a future member of the Supreme Court.”
Longarm scowled and blew a smoke ring. “Billy, I don’t care if he is the king of Siam. I ain’t goin’ anyplace for a while.”
“And,” Billy was saying, “he is rich and generous.”
“So now you’re trying to say that if I can find and save this Quinn fella and his wife, I will be richly rewarded?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know you didn’t actually say that, but that’s what you implied. Billy, you know that we can’t take money as a reward or bribe.”
“There are many ways other than money that a man as important as Judge Quinn can reward those who help him, but I’ll not talk about that right now.”
“Good,” Longarm said, “because you’d be just whistling up a creek with me.” Longarm came to his feet. “Mind if I smoke this on my way to the barbershop so I can get a fresh shave for tonight’s date with Miss Zalstra?”
“You’re not going anywhere just yet,” Billy said, the friendliness leaving his voice. “Sit back down while I tell you where you are going as soon as we can make the arrangements.”
Longarm sat, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“Judge Quinn and his new wife, a much you
nger woman, have gone to the Arizona Territory…more specifically, to the headwaters of the Grand Canyon. To some place called Lees Ferry.”
“It’s an old Mormon Colorado River crossing. I’ve been there, and at this time of the year it’ll still be hotter than hell.”
“The judge and his wife’s intentions were to spend their honeymoon on the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon.”
Longarm removed the cigar from his lips and studied it a minute. “Are you trying to tell me that the judge and his bride were planning to boat through the Grand Canyon like Major John Wesley Powell and some others that came along afterward?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,” Billy Vail said. “And guess what?”
“They capsized in wild rapids and drowned.”
“Partly right.”
Longarm sighed. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Billy?”
“Well, there isn’t much else that I know. It seems that the bride, one Mavis Henshaw now Mavis Quinn, was the daughter of a Mississippi River steamboat captain. She reportedly met the judge on a trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and they fell in love during the Christmas holidays.”
“How old is the judge?”
“Fifties, I’d expect, and his new wife is in her twenties and quite stunning. Anyway, Mrs. Quinn had early on developed a love of water and rivers, and she became quite enamored with the idea of running wild rivers. I understand that she had boated down some big rivers, but the great challenge was always the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.”
“So she talked this lovesick fool of a judge twice her age to go with her on this crazy expedition?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t doubt that Mavis Quinn can be exceedingly persuasive.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. And I’ll bet the judge has had such a hard one since he met her that it has caused a lack of blood flow to his brain, so that is why he agreed to this foolish honeymoon trip.”
Billy allowed himself a faint smile. “There might be some truth in that. However, it should be said that there are now numbers of boats that regularly take tourists through the Grand Canyon, always wearing floatation devices, and the trips are incredibly expensive and dangerous. Just the sort of combination of dangerous but exciting adventure that would attract young and well-to-do people such as Mrs. Mavis Quinn like moths to a flame.”