Longarm and the Deadwood Shoot-out (9781101619209)

by Evans, Tabor

  “Exactly,” Halley said.

  Longarm brought the pair of handsome sorrels to a halt and set the brake.

  “I tossed the strongbox down on that side there, and the one in front of me stepped aside and waved me on. Later the strongbox was found. It had been broke open and the contents taken.”

  “Where was it found?” Longarm asked. “Was it there in the road where you dropped it?”

  Halley shook his head. “Not mine.”

  “Mine, neither,” Sensabaugh said. “It was dragged into the brush and left there.”

  “Were there horse tracks that you could tell had anything to do with the robbers?” Longarm asked.

  Both men shook their heads. “Two things,” John Halley said. “Firstly is the loose sand in the wash there. It doesn’t take prints that you can tell anything from, just depressions in the sand if there is anything at all. The other is that this is the only road through Lead and into Deadwood. There’s horse and mule and ox outfits coming through here all the time leaving all manner of prints wherever there’s ground that will take them. You wouldn’t be able to get a thing in the way of hoofprints here.”

  “That’s true,” Sensabaugh put in. “I know. I looked around myself the next time I was through. Couldn’t see a damn thing.”

  Longarm grunted and pulled the phaeton off the road. He stepped down and walked the ground. He did not know what he was looking for exactly. He just knew that he wanted to look, wanted to try to get some idea of what these robbers were like and how they operated.

  They had chosen a good spot for the robberies. The coaches would have been slowed by the deep sand in the wash. There was thick brush on one side of the road. On the other side, a hundred yards or so distant, there was a sheer bluff. Just on the other side of the wash the road curved around a stand of very old cottonwoods that blocked the line of sight from that direction. A coach coming in from the west would not be able to see what was ahead.

  Longarm turned to the stagecoach drivers and asked, “Do you know if any outbound coaches have been robbed or any gold shipments?”

  Both men shook their heads. “There would be no sense in robbing an outbound,” Sensabaugh said.

  “They ship ore,” Halley explained, “not processed gold. That ore hasn’t been refined yet so it would take a heap of the stuff to be worth anything at all. Most of it around here assays…what, Clo…thirty dollars to the ton or thereabouts?”

  “Something like that, I think,” Sensabaugh added. “For sure it wouldn’t be worth robbing.”

  “And passengers leaving the district might or might not have anything in their pockets.”

  “But those payrolls, now that is something else.”

  Longarm grunted. He pondered for a moment. Then he nodded and returned to the phaeton.

  He never heard the gunshot until after the bullet sizzled past practically beneath his nose.

  Chapter 45

  Longarm threw himself backward off the driving seat of the phaeton and into the passenger box. By the time he bounced off the front seat and onto the floor he had his Colt in hand.

  Not that he expected the short gun to be of much use. The lapse of time between when he heard the bullet’s passage and when he finally heard the report of the rifle—it almost had to be a rifle, he realized—was proof enough that the shooter was some distance away.

  Worse, he could not tell which direction the shot came from. The sound of the gunshot could have reached him from the top of the bluff to his left. Or just as easily the rifle could have been fired from the more open country to his right and the sound bounced off the bluff. Either way it sounded like it was fired from his left, and there was no way he could know for certain.

  Yet.

  He peered over the side of the phaeton just as the rifleman fired again. This time he saw the faint puff of white smoke that even so-called smokeless powder gives off. It came from the top of the bluff. The shooter was not at the very closest point to the road, instead was firing from close to two hundred yards away.

  This time instead of hearing the bullet pass close to him he heard the moist, meaty thump of a bullet striking flesh and one of the sorrels screamed as it went down in the traces.

  The son of a bitch was nailing the phaeton in place.

  Long enough to make a leisurely getaway? Probably, Longarm guessed.

  Perhaps the son of a bitch thought he had killed Longarm. Perhaps he thought Longarm’s dive for concealment was reaction to a mortal wound.

  Furious, Longarm cocked his double-action .45, took very careful aim at the spot where he saw the puff of smoke making allowance for the distance and squeezed off five shots, reloaded, and fired another six.

  He doubted his bullets came anywhere near the shooter. But he felt better about being able to shoot back anyway.

  Finally he sat up and looked around. There was no sign of either Sensabaugh or Halley. And the near sorrel was down, the other animal stamping its feet and rolling its eyes in distress, probably at the smell of blood from its sorely wounded companion.

  Longarm reloaded with the last of the cartridges he carried in his pockets, then risked standing in the phaeton. When no one shot at him again he stepped down to the ground and went to see to the wounded animal. It had been shot through the lungs and was dying in agony, its feet churning helplessly. Longarm put the beast out of its pain with another round from his .45, then he looked around and called, “Where are you boys? Come on in. We have work t’ do.”

  He knelt and began the difficult process of pulling the harness off a dead horse.

  Chapter 46

  “Rig something up t’ pull this dead horse off the road, will you please,” he said to the two obviously unhappy stagecoach drivers. It had taken him several minutes to find them. Both men had been hiding well off the road and were not especially inclined to come out of their concealment even after he did locate them.

  They stayed where they were until Longarm assured them that the hidden rifleman was gone. Not that he really knew, but it was a pretty good guess.

  “What are you going to be doing while we do all the work?” John Halley asked.

  Longarm glared at the man for a moment before he said, “First off, I’m the one as did all the work of getting that harness free. Secondly, I need t’ hike up on top o’ that bluff and see what I can see.”

  “You can’t climb that face,” Sensabaugh put in.

  “No,” Longarm told him, “but about a half mile down the hill ain’t so steep. I can get up there, I think.”

  “That’s a long way to walk,” Halley said.

  “An’ you ain’t the one as has t’ walk it,” Longarm told him. “I am. An’ it’s gotta be done, so you two take care o’ this horse while I go take a look up there.”

  “I don’t like this,” Halley said. “I think we should head back to Deadwood right away.”

  “Well shit, man, I don’t like it, neither, but we’ll all do what we got t’ do. I won’t be too awful long.” He grinned. “Assuming we don’t all of us get shot dead by whoever was up there. An’ still could be.”

  He rather liked the way Halley’s face went pale at the thought that the shooter could still be lying in wait up there.

  Longarm fortified himself with a cheroot burning between his teeth, then started hiking. He had a long way to go.

  Longarm grunted softly to himself. He had found the spot where the rifleman lay hidden. It was close to the rim of the bluff and avoided the prickly bed of juniper needles that would otherwise have seemed an even better location.

  A pair of empty .44-40 cartridge cases gleamed in the midday sunlight. He cussed a little at that. The .44-40 was probably the most common chambering there was in all the popular rifles, Winchester, Kennedy, Marlin, and any other.

  Out of habit he bent and picked them up. Just to make sure these were the shooter’s brass and not something left behind by a gent out in search of some venison for supper, he sniffed them. The sharp, acrid scent of burned
gunpowder was strong in Longarm’s nostrils. The cartridges had been fired very recently. He slipped the empties into the coat pocket where his spare .45s had been.

  He had not really expected to find anything of interest up here. And he had not. But he had had to look. Had to try.

  Longarm turned and began the long walk back to where the very unhappy stagecoach jehus were waiting.

  Come to think of it, he realized, the livery outfit was not going to like it much, either, what with losing a perfectly good horse in the deal. And the sorrels had been matched as to size and color, too. It would be a hard horse to replace.

  He wondered if he could get one of the stagecoach lines to pay for the loss. If he had to put it on his expense report, some bean counter back east in Washington city would likely blow his top about it. Might get so agitated that he popped a sleeve garter, and wouldn’t that be a tragedy.

  Longarm smiled a little at the thought. He pushed his Stetson back on his head to allow a little air to reach his scalp and slowed his pace. There was no hurry now. Unfortunately.

  Chapter 47

  It was nearly dark by the time the lone sorrel dragged the phaeton back to town. Longarm stopped in front of the town marshal’s office where a lamp was shining in the window to suggest that Noogie was there.

  He turned in the seat and motioned Clovis Sensabaugh up onto the driving box, then handed the driving lines to the jehu.

  “Turn this outfit in at the livery, will you? I just don’t feel like facing them tonight.”

  Sensabaugh chuckled and said, “I don’t blame you. Old man Gennovese can be hell on wheels when he gets his dander up.”

  “Tell him Fremont will pay for the dead horse, Clo.” Longarm laughed and added, “An’ I’ll tell Bastrop that Fremont is paying an’ Fremont that Bastrop is paying. That should make things interestin’ for a while.”

  Longarm stepped down off the phaeton and waited while Sensabaugh drove away. Then he crossed the street and stepped inside the marshal’s office.

  Noogie was there, seated behind his desk with a cup of coffee and a stack of wanted fliers in front of him.

  “Hello, Custis. I was just thinking about looking you up…”

  “Look me up in the hotel? Or in them wanted posters?”

  “Whichever fits,” DiNunzio came back. “Nah, in the hotel, asshole. I think my turn to buy supper.” With a wink he added, “Then we’ll go over to Terry’s place and see what we can see.”

  “You like that spot, don’t you,” Longarm said.

  “Hell, yes. What man wouldn’t. The girls are beautiful, and the price is right.”

  “I’m game,” Longarm told him.

  Over prairie dog stew and corn dodgers DiNunzio asked, “What did you find out this morning?”

  Longarm frowned. “I didn’t learn shit. But I did get shot at.”

  “Whoa! Shot? Tell me.”

  Longarm told him, then shook his head. “What I can’t understand is why. I’m damn sure no threat to anybody up here. I haven’t really learned anything, don’t really know anything. So why would anybody bother taking a shot at me?”

  “Could be unconnected with these robberies,” Noogie offered. “Could be somebody wanted for something else entirely. Could be somebody in that pile of posters I got back at the office.”

  “Could be,” Longarm grudgingly agreed. “But I doubt it.” He sighed. “Oh, well. We’ll figure it out. Or not.”

  Noogie dropped a coin onto the café table and shoved his chair back. “Are you ready? My balls are about to bust from thinking about Terry’s girls.”

  “Lead the way. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The whorehouse was a little busier this evening. Two gents were seated on the plush upholstery being fed free drinks. Probably, Longarm guessed, a policy designed to loosen the purse strings when they chose to go upstairs.

  Noogie very quickly had a perky little Mexican girl on one arm and a tall blonde on the other. The man did not seem at all intimidated by being outnumbered.

  Longarm did not have time to sit before he was approached by the same lovely redhead who had greeted him two nights earlier. “Good evening, Agnes,” he said.

  The girl smiled. “You remembered my name.”

  “How could I forget?” He kissed her hand and allowed the girl to lead him to a chair that was set a little apart from the others.

  “Rye whiskey, yes?” she asked.

  “Rye whiskey, yes,” he agreed.

  Agnes flowed away—he swore the girls walked in such a way that it somehow did not seem that they were walking, more like they glided across the floor—to the sideboard. She returned moments later with a tumbler of rye and a plate of smoked oysters.

  “Miss Theresa will be so very sorry to have missed seeing you again,” Agnes said.

  “She’s away?”

  Agnes nodded. “She and Dennis are at the casino this evening. With Miss Theresa’s friend Anne.”

  “Ah. At the Golden Pick,” he said. “I’d forgotten. Are Miss Carter and Miss Bullea partners? Or just friends?”

  “I don’t really know about their business arrangements,” Agnes said. He thought the girl was lying—and was not very good at it—but he could not see why she would bother. Surely there was no reason why he would care. “I do know they are very good friends.” She lowered her voice and whispered, “Very good friends. If you know what I mean.”

  “You mean…?”

  Agnes nodded. “Yes. But don’t tell anyone that I said so, I beg you. We aren’t supposed to know about that.”

  “It don’t matter,” Longarm said. “There’s no reason I should care.”

  Nor did he. It did not matter at all to him who, or what, Theresa Bullea liked to fuck. He knew she was awfully good at it. And that she especially liked to have her pussy licked. Perhaps Anne Carter had something to do with that.

  And Dennis was with them? That conjured up all manner of interesting combinations.

  “Tell me, Marshal,” Agnes said, drawing his attention back to her. “Would you like to see our upstairs rooms? I seem to recall you didn’t go upstairs when you were here before.” She smiled and took his arm.

  Why not, he told himself. “Sure, honey. You just lead the way.”

  He looked around, but Noogie and his pair of girls had already disappeared.

  Longarm glanced down at his redhead and decided that he could make do with just one girl tonight.

  Chapter 48

  Come morning Longarm’s mouth felt like someone snuck in during the night and stuffed it with cotton. With dirty cotton, at that.

  He was almost pissed off that Agnes looked as fresh as when he arrived the evening before. He gave the girl a hug and a kiss on the forehead, having forgiven her for looking so cheerful at such an hour.

  “What time’zit?” he mumbled, looking at the daylight coming through the bedroom window.

  “Does it matter?” Agnes asked.

  Longarm thought about that for a moment but had to conclude that it really did not matter at all. “No,” he said, “reckon not.”

  “Come downstairs,” Agnes said, lifting her gown and pulling it over her head. A quick tie of her sash as she was fully dressed, or at least as much so as she needed to be. “We have breakfast, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Oh, yes. For special gentlemen only.”

  “An’ I’m a special gentleman?”

  Her smile was kittenish. “I certainly think so. Come now. Get dressed and we shall go down to see the others.”

  “Nice touch,” he said.

  “Miss Theresa says we should always treat our gentlemen as if they were our own dear fathers or brothers,” the pretty girl said.

  “I hope you didn’t…uh, never mind that thought.” He pulled on his clothes, stamped into his boots, and collected his Stetson. “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Then come. We will join the others.”

  The smell of bacon and sausage greeted them in
the stairwell. It was good enough to get his stomach to rumbling, and he was sorry now that he had not stayed over the last time he was here. Although come to think of it, he had not been invited that time. Apparently he was now officially a “special gentleman.”

  They went back to the big dining room where Noogie, Tom Bligh, and one other man were seated in comfort, surrounded by Theresa’s girls and obviously enjoying more than the hotcakes, eggs, and breakfast meats that were being offered on silver salvers.

  Theresa Bullea was seated at the head of the table. She wore a frilly gown and looked every inch the lady of the manor. “Good morning, Marshal,” she said with a smile. “I am so very sorry that I was not here to greet you last night. Did my dear Agnes make you comfortable?”

  “Very,” he said, taking the chair that was offered. Agnes held it for him although he somehow thought that was supposed to be the other way around.

  The redhead quickly served him, piling his plate first with hotcakes and eggs, then offering bacon, sausage patties, and slabs of ham.

  “What, no fried taters?” he joked.

  “Oh, I am sorry. I shall have Cook make you some at once.” She started to turn away but Longarm grabbed her by the wrist. “I was jokin’, honey. Set down an’ have your breakfast.”

  “If you are sure…”

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  “Longarm,” Noogie said. “Now aren’t you glad you came to Deadwood?”

  “Noogie, I’ll get glad when I have those stagecoach robbers behind bars where they belong.”

  “Do you have a good prospect of that, Marshal?” Bligh asked around a mouthful of biscuit and red-eye gravy.

  “Well, sir, I can’t really say about that,” Longarm told the banker.

  “Oh, really, Marshal, we are among friends here. Just us and the ladies.”

  “As you say, sir. But the truth is that I don’t know anything more now than I did when I first got here. I wish I could tell you somethin’ positive, but I just don’t have anything positive t’ tell.” Longarm reached for a biscuit and the bowl of sweet butter. Damn, but Theresa knew how to put on a feed.