by Evans, Tabor
He spent a full quarter of an hour in the place, and the best he could figure was that if someone lived there, they did so in only one room. That was the only place where he found a bed and a chest of drawers and some clothes in a closet. The other room seemed vacant, bare. He couldn’t understand why anyone would build such a structure and only use one room. But it was certain that he wasn’t going to find the answer while standing there in the dark with a rifle pointed at nothing.
He went back out through the door, stepping into the night. It seemed almost light after the gloom of the interior of the stone building. Now, he began to walk toward Ashton’s castle. He was coming up on the side. He could see that there was a long, low stone wall that surrounded the immediate property, at least on his side of the house. If he recollected correctly from his first visit, he had passed through sort of an opening. The wall wasn’t very tall, perhaps three feet or three and a half. It wouldn’t keep anybody out.
Longarm walked slowly toward the house, studying its every aspect, wondering how he was going to get in without shooting out a lock. He was about ten yards from the low wall when he heard a dry little chuckle. He snapped his eyes to the left. There, standing just behind the wall and just behind a little post that was conveniently placed, was Early. The man chuckled again. He was holding a shotgun pointed directly at Longarm. Longarm had instinctively jerked his rifle up, but now he held it very still.
Early said, “Well, I see you’ve come back to pay us another visit, Mr.... is it Long? I don’t recollect exactly. It’s Long or Lang or something like that.”
Longarm didn’t say anything. He watched the man with the shotgun. He was at a bad range to face a double-barreled shotgun. There was no way he could whip his rifle around before Early could let him have both barrels.
Early chuckled again. “Well, let’s just call you Mr. Long. We’re glad to welcome you back, Mr. Long, though I can’t quite understand what your business is here. You keep coming around telling us you are in the horse business, but Mr. Ashton didn’t think so.”
Longarm said, “What is this all about, Early? What do you mean, pointing that shotgun at me?”
Early laughed delightedly. “Mr. Long, you are quite the cutup, aren’t you? Here you are on our property at four o’clock in the morning with a rifle in your hands, and you want to know why I am pointing a shotgun at you? Don’t you reckon you can guess the answer to that one?”
Longarm said with a little edge in his voice, “If I’m disturbing anybody, I can always leave.”
Early said, “Oh, I reckon you’re going to be leaving, Mr. Long. I have very little doubt about that. I’m just amazed, though, that you have come to trade horses in the middle of the night. That is what you’ve come for, is it not? To sell us some horses?”
Longarm was watching the man steadily, his mind frantically trying to think of something he could do. “I’m here doing whatever you think I’m doing. Early.”
“By the way, you wouldn’t know anything about dynamite, would you?”
“I heard it will blow you up if you’re not careful,” Longarm said.
It made Early laugh again. “Oh, and by the way, I think it would be a lot better if you’d put that rifle down on the ground. Just let the stock rest on the ground and then just turn the barrel loose. Do you reckon you can do that, Mr. Long? This shotgun is awful heavy and it’s pulling against my finger. You know how that will make a shotgun go off—your finger right there on the trigger and your finger getting heavy.”
Longarm said quickly, “I’m dropping my rifle.”
He let his carbine go until it dropped flat. It made a dull sound on the hardpan of the yard just short of the castle fence. Early said, “Now, that’s right handsome of you, Mr. Long. Gives me a more secure feeling, if you take my meaning. I’m not really happy having a man of what I reckon your caliber might be holding a rifle that close to me, especially at this hour of the morning and with no other help around.”
Longarm said, “You don’t look like you’d need any help.”
“Yeah, but I think you’ve figured out it would be better if everybody left. Was that you, Mr. Long, celebrating the Fourth of July a little early this year by setting off those dynamite charges up yonder? You know, you spooked some of the boys right bad. It was a good plan. But it didn’t allow for one thing. You still had to come and you still had to get by me and you have to get to Mr. Ashton. Now, I don’t know what it is that you’re after, but I think we’re going in the house here in a minute and talk about it. I think we’re going to get you tied down in a chair somehow where we can have a real good conversation. What do you think about that, Mr. Long?”
Longarm knew one thing for certain. He was never going in that house at the point of a shotgun. Once they got him inside with a gun on him, he was as good as finished. Once they got him roped and tied down, he was definitely finished. A man could only take so much pain, and after a while, he would probably tell them nearly anything they wanted to know. He’d make up what he could, but eventually, they would just keep on because they had nothing to lose until he was whistling like the wind. He said, “Mr. Early, you are acting mighty suspicious. What do you folks have to hide here? I thought Mr. Ashton was just a rich, eccentric man who didn’t like folks coming around and who liked his privacy. Do you all have something that you’re doing here, that you’re hiding?”
“Well, Mr. Long, I don’t know that we need to discuss that much. In fact, I’ll tell you what we ought to be doing right now. We ought to be getting in the house. Let’s do that by you putting your hands right straight up in the air right now, Mr. Long.”
Longarm put his hands slowly up to his hips. He said, “I’m not so sure that I’m comfortable with my arms up in the air. I’ve got a shoulder bothering me.” While he was talking, he was easing his right hand around his back, enclosing it on the butt of his spare revolver.
Early said, “Mr. Long, I’m going to give you to the count of three to get your hands up in the air. I might ought to tell you that I count by twos—”
At that instant, Longarm launched himself forward in a dive, jerking out the revolver as he went. In the air, he heard the boom of the shotgun and felt the wind of the pellets going over his head. There had been only one barrel. He had his gun up now, and just before he hit the ground, he thumbed off a shot at Early, seeing the bullet taking the man in the chest. The man staggered backward. Longarm hit the ground, pulling back the hammer again. This time, he raised up slightly and fired off a second shot, hitting almost the same spot as the first one.
Early was a bigger man than Longarm had noticed the first time around, but he was also wearing a big leather coat against the cool mountain night air. He staggered back another step after the second shot, but he was still holding the shotgun. Longarm got to his knees, holding the revolver on the big man. Early was struggling. Longarm could see the effort in his face as he brought the shotgun up to his face to fire the other barrel. Just as he almost got it above the level of the wall, Longarm shot him a third time, dead center in the chest. This time, the man staggered back three steps and fell over. He fell heavily, landing with a thud. Longarm got up and walked over to the wall, his .44 cocked and held out in front of him, pointing at where the big dark figure of Early lay on the ground.
Longarm stepped over the low stone wall and walked near to where the man was lying. He kicked the shotgun a little further away. He was amazed to see that the man with three heavy slugs in his chest was still breathing. Early said, “Wha ... Who ... are...”
Longarm said, “Does it really matter, Mr. Early, who I am? You’re going fast, so I reckon you don’t need to know all that bad. You just made a bad mistake. You should have shot me when you had the chance.”
He hadn’t finished speaking when Early closed his eyes and stopped breathing. Longarm jumped back across the wall to retrieve his rifle. He took a moment to reload the empty chambers of the spare gun he had been using. He stuck it back inside his waistband at th
e small of his back. It was a position that seemed to work out fairly well.
Longarm took a long moment to study the big stone mansion in front of him. He knew that the shots would have been heard, but he doubted that it would make much difference. He was certain that Early had come out of the mansion when he’d been aware of Longarm’s presence. Now, he was fairly certain that Ashton was alert and was preparing for his entrance. The only question was how could he best get into the castle and get at him? He wondered if Ashton had any idea what Longarm was doing and what he was after. He wondered if Ashton thought of him as someone investigating the counterfeiting. If he did, then the odds were that he would already be destroying the evidence.
But for some reason, Longarm didn’t think that that was the case. Rather, Longarm figured that Ashton had him pegged as a robber, a man who had come to take some of Ashton’s wealth. Longarm hadn’t played the game the way a law officer would, and he didn’t believe that Ashton would expect one lone United States marshal to try to infiltrate his fortress. And he certainly wouldn’t have expected a federal marshal to use the methods that Longarm had used, blowing up the sides of his mountains, and especially shooting down his men. No, he had to figure that Longarm was a desperado who was after some gold or cash and didn’t much care how he got it.
The one thing Longarm couldn’t know for certain was whether there were any other gunmen in the house. He’d been told that there was no one else left but the women and Early. Of course, Early was no longer in the game. But Longarm doubted that Ashton could face him one against one. For that reason, he was going to be especially careful.
Longarm went back across the wall, passing Early’s body, and got up next to the stone mansion. He was looking for a window or any sort of opening that would allow him to see any part of the house inside. He began skirting the place to his left. It was rectangular. He got to the comer and turned south. He came to a door, and assumed it was the back door off the kitchen. He very gently tried the knob. It felt locked. He tried no further, but kept going down the line of the building. There were any number of windows, but they were higher up than he could comfortably reach. They were all covered with some kind of curtains on the inside. The back had no other door but the kitchen door.
He turned the comer of the south side, and started down the short side of the rectangle. He was a little surprised to see a stairwell halfway down. They were white wooden steps, and they ran up to the second story to a door. He had not expected that. For the moment, he had no intention of climbing up to the door. But it was there, and he knew it was there, and it looked like a way to get in. The only question was whether it was too obvious a way to get in.
He turned a comer again, and went down the front of the house. The first part was very much like the back, blank walls with high windows. But then he got to the porch, a big stone and concrete porch, with a good high concrete railing around it. Naturally, that led to the front door. He had been through there. The size of the door being what it was, he doubted that he could shoot his way into such a place. He did not bother to go up on the porch. Instead, he backed away from the house to get a clear view of the flat roof, to see if perhaps anyone was surveying his movements from on high. But there was nothing there, just the dark outline of the house against the dark sky.
He stood for a moment in thoughtful contemplation of the situation. Then he walked toward the south end of the mansion. He walked cautiously, looking behind him every step or two and to his open side. When he got to the end of the building, he stopped and looked carefully for a moment, searching for any sign of movement. He had decided that the stairway up to the second floor was perhaps his best method of entry. He felt pretty sure that the door at the top of the stairs would be locked. But if he had to break a door in, it was probably going to be the least conspicuous and perhaps the furtherest away from wherever Ashton and whoever was with him were located.
He slipped around the comer of the building, and went to the middle of the end wall, looking at the flight of stairs that rose up. The steps were painted white. They stood out in sharp contrast to the darker rock that made up the walls on either side. The door, he could see, did not enter straight ahead, but rather to his left. As he entered, he would be entering toward the front of the mansion. He had no idea what he would find if he were able to get the door open. He didn’t know if he would be entering a bedroom, a storage room, a counterfeiting operation, or a room with more shotguns. All he knew was that he had to do something.
He started up, taking slow steps, one at a time. Surprisingly, the stair steps were wooden, but they were big heavy planks, so that they didn’t creak or give. Nevertheless, he went slowly and carefully, his rifle at the ready, watching the door at the top of the landing. Every step or two, he looked behind him. If someone wanted to trap him, this was an ideal place to do it. If a figure suddenly appeared in the opening at the bottom of the stairs with a gun in his hands, he didn’t much know what he could do, just try to be a little faster.
Halfway up, he could see that the door was not like the others. It was not a big, heavy, varnished affair. Rather, it too was painted white and, as near as he could make out, was made out of ordinary wood. It looked like a door you might see in a house in town. Longarm kept walking, climbing until he reached the landing. Except for the door, there was nothing else around him, just the rock of the building. The door was just there. A blank white expanse of wood. It didn’t look particularly reinforced. He reached out with his right hand, holding his rifle in his left, and tentatively touched the knob. It was just a knob. With his fingers, he gave it a gentle, partial twist to the right. It went easily enough. He quickly stopped and knelt down. The door might be thin enough to fire through, and if someone saw the knob turning, they could fire through the frame of the door and kill themselves one dumb U.S. deputy marshal.
It was clear what had to be done, and he got himself ready to do it. He cocked the rifle hammer and rose from his knees so that he was on the toes of both feet. Then he made himself into as small a ball as he could. Then he reached up, turned the doorknob, and pushed the door hard.
It swung wide. The room before him was black dark. But as he looked, there suddenly came two explosions so close together that they sounded like one. There were muzzle flashes. He could hear the bullets sing over his head. Two men, two shots about four feet apart. Without aiming, he fired the rifle from his hip at where he had seen the first flash, and then levered a shell into the chamber and fired where he had seen the second muzzle flash. He dropped the rifle, drew his revolver, and fired, double-actioned, four shots, aiming low into the room. After that, he scuttled forward as fast as he could and flung himself flat.
Without further movement, he reached behind him, took the spare gun out of his waistband, and stuck the one he was using into his holster so that he had a handful of loaded gun. He had heard the distinct sound of bullet slugs hitting flesh. He had heard that sound too many times to be mistaken. It was a dull thump that only a bullet hitting something firm yet soft would give. Longarm lay quietly, holding his breath, listening as hard as he could. There was not a sound in the room. Eventually, he was going to have to find out what had happened to the men who had fired the guns at him.
Very cautiously, he got to one knee, the revolver pointed in the general direction where he had seen the guns fired. He reached into his shirt pocket and got out one of the big matches he had been using to light the dynamite. He felt the floor. It was hardwood. Longarm pulled back the hammer on his revolver. When he struck the match, he wouldn’t have much time to think about what to do.
In the sudden blaze of light that the match made, he saw one man lying flat on his face, a gun held loosely in his hand. He wasn’t moving or breathing. There was a door on the other side of the room that was half open. There was no one else there. Longarm did not believe that the man on the floor had fired one shot and then jumped four feet to the other side and fired another. He walked across the little room, looking. Sure enou
gh, leading through the door he could see a pattern of bloodstains that someone had left from a wound that was leaking, most likely, from a .44 cartridge.
Longarm struck another match and looked down at the dead man. He was just ordinary-looking. He could have been one of those that had met him and had been sent to kill him. He looked like all the rest of those young, hard ranch hands that Ashton had hired.
The only problem was that he wasn’t supposed to be there. According to the men he’d talked to, there was nobody left but Early, but there was one and there was one that had gotten away. The question was, how many more of them were between him and Ashton and the counterfeiting?
Longarm pushed the half-open door open fully. Again, there was the dark. He crouched swiftly, but no gunshots rang out. Instead, he noticed a pencil-thin line of light running along the floor a few feet to his right. From other speckles of light running up toward the ceiling, he could tell it was a door into a lighted room. It gave him pause. He had no idea what opening that door was going to uncover. For a moment he stood in the anteroom that lay between the two rooms. Finally, he shrugged. With his revolver at the ready and the rifle in his hand, cocked and loaded, he reached out and felt around gingerly until he located the knob. It too turned easily to his touch. He shoved at the door with a quick hard motion, leaning hard up against the wall as he did so as to be as much out of the line of fire as possible. Nothing happened.
He carefully put his eye around the doorjamb. Just across the room, some fourteen feet by fourteen feet, he saw a man lying on his back, propped up against the wall next to yet another door. The man had a grimace on his face and both of his hands were clutching his thigh. Longarm could see the trail of blood on the floor that led out of the room he had just left and to under the man’s leg where he lay. He had a gun, but it was a few feet away on the floor. Longarm moved in swiftly, holding his rifle at the ready. The man just glanced up at him and grimaced.