by Evans, Tabor
Longarm watched as he topped the slight rise and then went over on the other side. He said casually, “He seemed to be in a hell of a hurry.”
“Oh, I don’t reckon he’s hurrying. He would just like to get on back and get some vittles, just like I would. It’s getting on about that time. You’ll probably make your noon meal in town, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I reckon I will,” Longarm said. His eyes were shifting back and forth, seeing where the different men were, wondering what was coming next. He was down to one derringer and two cartridges. He didn’t like the odds with so many people around. He also could not shake the feeling that something very definitely was going on that meant him no good. He thought it had started with Ashton when he’d called the one named Steve back in the house and given him some kind of message. That message was now being carried on to the two men who had initially disarmed him.
He could not imagine what mistake he had made, but something had given him away. Maybe the man had recognized his name, that of Custis Long. But if he’d been a real federal marshal, the real Custis Long, he wouldn’t have gone in there giving his correct name. Not many people knew him by anything except Longarm. Not many of the wrong kind of people, that is.
They were making a pretty good time of it, jogging along at a high trot. Now, Longarm could see that George was coming back his way. He just nodded at Steve as he came up. “I’m heading back into the camp house,” he said. “The boys up ahead are ready for you.”
Steve said, “Go on ahead.”
As George rode off, Longarm glanced sideways at the rider. “What did he mean, they are ready for me?”
Steve shrugged innocently. “Hell, I don’t know what he meant by it. Got your guns ready for you, near as I could tell. Why, are you worried about something?”
“No, should I be?”
Steve spat over the side of his horse. “Not that I know of.”
In a few minutes, Longarm could see ahead that the two men who had been on guard up in the rocks had now come down and were mounted on horses. They rode slowly forward as Longarm and Steve came up. When they got within a few yards, the bigger of the two men, a broad-shouldered man wearing a gray slouch hat and a checkered shirt, said to Steve, “You can go on back now. We’ll see him out.”
Longarm said mildly, “Where did you get the horses?”
The man in the checkered shirt said carelessly, “Why, you don’t reckon we go around here on foot, do you? Plenty of places around here to tie up a horse in the shade. No need for you to worry about that. You just ride on along with us and we’ll show you off the property.”
Longarm glanced back to see Steve heading back to the ranch headquarters at a fast clip. He said, “What about my firearms? When do I get my guns back?”
“Oh, we are going to see to that right soon. Ain’t we, Ernie?”
Ernie was the man on Longarm’s right. He said, “Yep, good fellow like this here horse trader, can’t be too nice to a man like that. Can we, Charlie? We’re going to give him his guns back. Maybe even a little something besides.”
Longarm said, “You fellows seem to be in a mighty good humor this morning.”
The man in the checkered shirt said, “How come we shouldn’t be in a good humor? Good pay, light work, and the vittles are good. Do you know anything else a man needs besides that?”
Ernie said with a laugh, “That and an occasional visit to town to see the ladies over at the saloon.”
Charlie snickered. “Yeah, there is that,” he said.
They had passed the place where Longarm had been disarmed, and were now approaching the cleft in the wall that seemed to separate the ranch. The ground was rising slowly as they headed that way.
Longarm said, “If you boys just want to give me my weapons, I can see my way out of here without much trouble.”
Charlie said, “Oh, that’s all right. We’ll go on just a little bit further with you.”
Longarm said, “I hate to see you go through this much trouble.”
Charlie said, “Like I said, that’s all right.” A few yards further on, Longarm was conscious that the men who had been riding with him had pulled back. He was suddenly alone. He immediately stopped, and whirled his horse around. The two men were behind him, perhaps ten yards away. They were both holding revolvers.
Longarm said, “What the hell is this all about?”
Charlie dismounted, never letting his gun waver from Longarm’s chest. He said, “Well, we thought you might enjoy climbing up the side of this mountain and we’re going to help you do it.”
“I don’t see the point of that,” Longarm said.
Ernie also dismounted, and walked forward a few paces, holding his revolver in his hand. He said, “Well, son, I don’t think you got much choice. We don’t think you are a horse trader. We don’t know what your business was here, but Mr. Ashton didn’t care for it. Now, we’re going to have to take you out of here the hard way. Now, get down off that mare and let’s get started up the side of this bunch of rocks here.”
Longarm watched them narrowly. They both handled their revolvers as if they knew how to use them. But they were too far away for him to use his only weapon, the derringer. He let his horse close a little more of the distance before he pulled the mare to a stop.
Charlie said, “Now, do you understand? Get down off that horse, son. We’re liable to have to let some light into you right here and now. I don’t think you’d care for that. If you get up there amongst those rocks, you might have a chance on getting away from us.”
“Are you planning on doing what I think you are going to do?”
“This ain’t nothing to do with us, understand? This is just orders. We take orders from the man who pays us, and you’ve gotten wrong with him.”
Longarm still sat his horse. “Well, do me one favor then, if you can. Would you mind telling me what I did that got him so convinced that I’m not a horse trader?”
The two men half smiled at each other. “What do you say, Charlie? Do you reckon it would be all right to tell him?”
“I don’t see why not. I don’t reckon he’s going to be using that trick much longer.”
Ernie said, “We’ll tell you if you’ll tell us who you really are.”
Longarm said, “That’s a square deal.”
“Well, who are you? What is your real business?”
“After a fashion, I am in the horse business. I’m a horse thief and I wanted on to this place to look it over and see what I could make off with.”
It seemed to strike the two riders as very funny. They both laughed and slapped their legs. Ernie said, “Well, that does make sense. That beats all. Comes in here pretending to be a horse trader, going to take off with our stock. You were going to trade, all right, but you weren’t going to give us nothing.”
“That was about the size of it.”
“And now you want to know what you done, is that it?”
“Yeah.”
Ernie said, “Well, you made one slipup. There ain’t no such thing as a Morgan and a thoroughbred crossed. I don’t know what kind of horse you’d get out of it, but Mr. Ashton doesn’t believe he wants one. Now, why don’t you just step on down off that horse and let’s get on with the business at hand?”
Longarm was judging the distance between them. Once he was on the ground, there would be no more than five yards separating him from the pair. He felt comfortable with the distance, but he thought he could make it even better. Very carefully, with his right hand working under his belt buckle, he swung his leg over the rump of the horse and stepped down to the ground, taking his left foot out of the stirrup as he did. He released his left hand from the saddle horn and slowly turned. The derringer was already in his hand and he cocked the hammer as he coughed slightly. He was holding the hand just behind his right leg. With a nonchalant air, he stepped with his left leg toward the two men and then seemed to stumble. He was not stumbling, though, he was simply going to his knee. As he did, he brought his
right arm up swiftly, the derringer buried in his hand. Before they realized their danger, he had shot Ernie in the chest with the top barrel, and then fired and hit Charlie in the stomach.
They both went down with surprised looks on their faces. The pistols tumbled from their hands. Longarm knew he had to work fast. The shots would have been noticed—there were too many riders not to have heard them. He stooped quickly and grabbed up the two revolvers the men had been holding, and shoved them in his belt. Until he found his own, he needed to be armed. He went to the saddlebags of Charlie’s horse and swiftly lifted up the flap. Both of his revolvers were inside. He could see that the boot on Ernie’s horse contained his Winchester. There was a boot on both sides that carried a shotgun in one side and a rifle in the other. As quickly as he could, he took his two revolvers, holding them in one hand by the trigger guards, and then ran around and pulled his Winchester from the boot.
He looked back over his shoulder. He could see riders in the distance, but they were too far away to tell if they were headed toward him or were simply patroling. He wasted no time. As fast as he could, he went back to his horse and shoved the Winchester home in its own boot. He pitched the two revolvers of the two men down on the ground. Then he put his spare back in his saddlebags and swung aboard the mare. He could tell that one of the men was dead. The one he had shot in the stomach, Charlie, was still alive. He was moaning for help.
Longarm said, “I hope you get some, neighbor. Just like you gave me. No hard feelings, by the way. I was just following the orders of the man who pays me. Wasn’t that what you said? You were just doing your job. You were just going to march me up there in those rocks and shoot me in the back of the head. Wasn’t that about it?”
On the ground, Charlie looked up at him with pleading eyes, his hands holding the spreading blood from his stomach wound. In a croaking voice, he said, “Need water. Water.”
Longarm glanced back toward the horsemen. He couldn’t see any headed directly toward him. He rode over to the first horse he saw with a canteen and took it off the saddle horn. He unscrewed the cap and then leaning down, lowered it to Charlie, who caught it with one hand. He poured it in his mouth.
Longarm watched him. “You know, you ain’t supposed to do that when you get shot in the stomach,” he said, “But then, in your case, I don’t reckon it matters much. I’ve got to tell you something, Charlie. You all have pretty well pissed me off. So has Ashton. I don’t take kindly to the way you have treated me, the whole bunch of you. And when it comes down to it, I might not forgive and forget, if you catch my drift.”
Charlie made a gurgling sound. The water that was bubbling out of his mouth seemed stained with pink. Longarm wondered if the shot from the derringer had nicked a lung. It was amazing how much power that little gun had. It didn’t jump much in your hand, but it did slam back. You could hide the whole thing in your hands, fire between your fingers, and the man on the receiving end wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was too late.
Longarm lifted his reins and said, “Well, Charlie, I’ve got to get going. I hope somebody finds you in time. I don’t reckon there will be anybody to tell the law that you and Ernie got shot by a man like me, but if there is, we’re going to have to have an investigation. I don’t think Ashton wants this place investigated too close, do you?”
Charlie’s eyes were starting to glaze over. Longarm gave him a salute, not knowing whether he could see it or not. He touched the spurs to his mare and put her into a fast walk as he entered the little break in the rocks and began picking his way off Ashton’s property.
When Longarm was clear of the mountain, he was out onto the level plain that he had crossed before. In the distance, he could see the town. He could see the smoke curling out of the chimneys and from the cooking houses. He put the mare into a trot, and then into a slow lope. She’d had about fifteen miles of work that day, and didn’t need to be used too hard. She also had not had any water. So far as that went, he hadn’t had anything to drink himself. He had not brought any of his Maryland whiskey along for the very good reason that he was afraid that he might have lost it—either getting spilled or shot, he didn’t know which.
As he rode, he speculated on the chances of someone from the ranch lodging a complaint with the sheriff—if the town of Silverton even had a sheriff or any kind of law. For the reasons he’d told Charlie, he doubted such a thing would happen. There would have to be an investigation. If it came to that, he’d pull out his marshal’s badge and put a stop to any foolishness. But he didn’t think it would come to that. He thought Ashton would be perfectly willing to write off two gunhands rather than ask for more trouble.
Longarm had not lied about the situation making him angry. Ashton had just carelessly and callously and casually sent word to have him killed. Longarm had known men who would kill, had known men who had killed. But he had never seen one quite as cool about it as Ashton. Longarm might as well have been a spider or an ant or some other kind of insect the way Ashton had gone about stamping a boot on him. It made him mad as hell. He wasn’t a man who let anger affect his job or any of his emotions so far as that went. He had come into this assignment reluctantly, and he was still reluctant in some ways, but now he was personally involved. He was determined to get Vernon Ashton. The very nerve of the man made him angry and determined to even the score. He was interested in seeing how Ashton acted when he was personally threatened. Longarm intended to give how to do that a great deal of thought.
He rode his horse to the hotel livery stable, then turned the mare over to the stable boy and walked on down to the front of the hotel. He was surprised to see, by the clock in the lobby, that it was no more than a quarter to one. So much had happened that it seemed that it should have been much later. His stomach was reminding him that it had not been attended to in some while, so he headed in to the dining room. He had intended to do some hard thinking while he ate, but he saw Finley sitting alone at a window table, and he made his way there and pulled out a chair.
Finley looked up, a light smile playing on his face. He said, “Well, here’s the horse trader. Been out and about this morning, have you?”
Longarm shrugged. “You might say that. Don’t have any good whiskey on you, do you?”
“Got some in my room.”
“So do I, but I’m too damned tired to go get it,” Longarm said. “I’ll just drink what the waiter will bring us. Care for a drink?”
Finley shook his head and pointed to his coffee. “A little early in the day for me just yet.”
Longarm said, “I’ve never seen a bottle of whiskey yet that had the face of a clock on it.”
Finley chuckled. “All right. It’s a little too early in the day for my constitution. How’s that? Tell me, did you do any trading this morning?”
Just then the waiter came up, and Longarm ordered a bottle of whiskey and a steak with all the trimmings to go with it. He said, “And tell that cook that I don’t want that steak beat to death. Just put a good rope burn on it.”
When the waiter had left, Longarm said, “Oh, I scattered around a little.” He wasn’t anxious to speak of his adventures at Ashton’s place. As a matter of fact, he intended to deny that he had ever been on the place at all.
He said, “I didn’t do much good, so other than riding around a little bit looking at some of the mines, I ain’t got much to say. How about yourself?”
Finley said, “Well, I think it’s just about time for that pasture of mine. I think this next spring I’m going to be turning cattle in on it. I’m bringing some cattle up from Texas to winter. It’s going to make a mighty good grass crop.”
Longarm was about to say something, but the waiter arrived with his whiskey and his glass. He poured himself out a shot, and then held the bottle toward an empty glass in front of Finley. He said, “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
Finley frowned slightly, but then nodded. “Well, why not? Hell, I’ll just imagine that it’s later in the day than it i
s.”
Longarm poured them both out a drink, and they toasted to luck and then both knocked the whiskey back. It felt good to Longarm, going down in his stomach. It relaxed him and warmed him. Sometimes whiskey could be a good friend, nearly as good as a woman, but not quite. His mind drifted back to the woman he had seen upstairs at Ashton’s. She had been a real beauty. A little Spanish maybe. He wondered what she was to Ashton. He guessed Ashton to be about fifty years old. He would have asked Finley, but he knew the man would just say that he knew nothing about the place. That made Longarm a little more than curious. If he was a constant visitor to such a place as Silverton, and if an operation like Ashton’s was going on, he damned sure would be more than curious.
But Longarm said, “Well, I reckon then you’ll be looking to start plowing for next year. That about right?”
Finley said, “Well, I’ve got some dynamiting work to do first. A few rock ledges are in the wrong place.”
Longarm was surprised. “Dynamiting? I didn’t know that was part of the cattle business.”
Finley nodded. “Yeah, in this part of the country, a man uses dynamite damned near the same as he’d use a plow or a shovel, so it ain’t no big operation. Of course, you’ll see a few folks around here missing a finger or two or even a hand. Most folks are familiar with the stuff anyway. Haven’t you noticed the booms that go off every once in a while? Those are from the mines. They’re pretty routine.”
Longarm narrowed his eyes, thinking. He said, a little distractedly, “Yeah, I have noticed that noise. I guess they are blowing holes in these mountains at a pretty steady rate.”
“Something like that. Listen, Mr. Long, I’ve got to be running along. I’ll maybe see you tonight for poker?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Longarm.
After Finley left, Longarm sat back in his chair, lit a cigarillo, and stared at the window, thinking that he was going to get back at Vernon Ashton for certain. The only question now was how. He kind of halfway thought that dynamite might play some kind of part in it. As far as he could tell, as badly as he was outnumbered by Ashton’s men, he needed something to even up the score. Something powerful. He reckoned dynamite was about the most powerful thing near to hand. He didn’t know if the Treasury Department would approve of what he had in mind. But he didn’t think he was going to mention it to them. At least not until it was too late to matter.