by Evans, Tabor
Brown nodded, satisfied, and the three men passed the time in inconsequential pleasantries while they waited for the mayor to join them. Norm sat with them in an ordinary chair, his jail cell door standing open at the back of the room.
In fifteen or twenty minutes they heard Jeremy and the mayor puffing their way up the stairs. Well, Chesman was doing some puffing anyway. At his age Jeremy probably wouldn’t have recognized what a lack of breath meant. Longarm could remember being that vigorous. A while back.
“Thanks for joining us, Mr. Mayor,” Brown said, welcoming Chesman. “Did Jeremy tell you what we wanted to talk to you about?”
“Not really. He did say Longarm has some interesting news for us.”
Without explaining any of that, the sheriff asked, “Do you recall a conversation you had with our friend Longarm about that boy Dinky?”
“Certainly do,” the mayor said, reaching into a pocket for a stubby, rather dark cigar. Longarm sat there wishing the mayor would offer some smokes around to the others, like himself for starters, but the man either did not have enough to go around, or simply didn’t think about passing the stogies out. In any event, he lited up alone, while Longarm sat there sniffing the aroma and wishing for this to get over with so he could go buy himself some cheroots. Damn but he did want a smoke right now, despite the fact that he’d had more than enough of the stuff in his lungs not too many hours back. “What is it you want to know, Jonas?” Chesman asked once his cigar was burning nicely and his head was wreathed in circles of pale smoke.
“I believe you had a conversation with our friend about Dinky’s clothing?”
“That’s right,” the mayor confirmed. “He got me to remembering some things I hadn’t rightly paid mind to at the time. Like Dinky’s spare pants. Old horse-soldier stable fatigues, they were. You know them. Plain, unbleached canvas, ugly as sin and tough as iron. These pants Dinky had were so old they’d started to take on some color just from all the stains piled one on top of another, but you could still see what they’d been to start with.”
The sheriff looked at Norm Wold and nodded, then grinned. “That sounds mighty good, Norman,” he said.
“Was what I just told you important, Jonas?” the mayor asked.
“More than you know,” Brown told him. “Longarm found those fatigue pants this morning.”
“He found the place Dinky kept his personal things? I’m sure that is all very fine, but what makes it so important?” Chesman asked.
“Dinky’s clothes were in the same place where we found the things that were used to set the courthouse fire. We’d seen them there at the time, of course, but nobody connected them with Dinky. We just thought they were some cast-off rags being used to cover over the other stuff.”
“Are you telling me you think now that Dinky Dinklemann set that fire, Jonas?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Norman here is as innocent as the ugly old sonuvabitch said he was. And I will confess to you right here and now that I’m downright glad to be able to say that. It hasn’t pleased me, not the least little bit, to have a friend sitting in my jail. This one in particular.”
Chesman grinned and got up, stepping over to grab Norm Wold’s hand and pump it enthusiastically. “By God, Norm, that’s wonderful. Now you can go home ... oh.” For a moment he looked embarrassed. “I guess you can’t go home at that. Lord, I’m sorry about your loss. Pretty much everything you owned was in that fire, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what they tell me. Still, it will feel pretty good to get out of here soon.”
Chesman looked at the sheriff. “Can we all go to lunch to celebrate this turn of events?”
“Not yet, Marvin. Technically speaking I can’t turn Norman loose until a judge says so. I need a writ before I can release him. Which reminds me. Jeremy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to go over to the livery and take one of the mayor’s driving rigs.” He turned to Chesman and added, “This will be at the county’s expense, of course. You can bill us at your regular rate.”
“Bill you nothing. For this the buggy and horse are on me. And I’m damn glad to do it too.” Chesman was still grinning.
“Be that as it may, Marvin, we’ll worry about the details later.” He turned back to Jeremy. “Right now what I want you to do, son, is take a rig and go over to Jasonville. I believe court is in session there this week. I want you to find Judge Meyers or Justice of the Peace Cumberland, whichever of them has the time available. But you’re to get one or the other of them even if you have to grab them by the coattails and drag them away, you hear?”
Jeremy grinned and nodded. Longarm hoped the boy knew better than to take his boss seriously about that little instruction. But then surely he did. Of course he did. Didn’t he?
“You’re to explain what we need here and have one or the other of them come back with you. It’s ... let me see.” The sheriff checked his watch. “It’s almost noon now. I expect by the time you hitch up a rig and drive over to Jasonville, it should be fairly late tonight before you can nab one of the judges and have them back here.” The sheriff turned to the others. “Let’s plan to handle this first thing tomorrow morning. Is that all right with you?”
The mayor nodded, so did Longarm.
“Fine,” Brown said. “Norman, I hope you don’t mind staying over as my guest for one more night.”
“Hell, Jonas, I don’t have any better place to sleep tonight.”
“That, unfortunately, is true enough,” the sheriff agreed. “Anyway, we’ll all convene here again first thing tomorrow. I’ll stop in this afternoon and ask Mrs. Bertrand to come act as our amanuensis. We’ll need depositions from you, Longarm, and another from you, Mr. Mayor. I can have a writ prepared this afternoon. Then, as soon as your depositions as to the facts are duly taken and sworn to, we will ask his honor the judge, whichever of the old farts shows up, to sign the writ.” Brown grinned. “And Norman, you old son of a bitch, you’ll be a free man again.”
Longarm felt pretty good when he heard that. It was, after all, what he’d come to Kansas to do.
He only wished he had finished the job while he was at it.
Sure, he was convinced now that Dinky was the arsonist who’d actually set the fire downstairs.
But knowing that did nothing to explain who in town had put the half-wit boy up to that crime, or to the attempt he’d made on Longarm’s life afterward. Nor did it explain away the arson at Norm’s house this morning. Poor, dumb, dead Dinky hadn’t set that fire, that was for certain sure.
There were an awful lot of loose ends still lying around for folks to trip over. And if nothing else, it just graveled Longarm’s gut to know that somewhere there was an arsonist and would-be murderer walking around loose.
Still, that was something Norm Wold and Jonas Brown could look into—and he was sure they would—at their leisure. They would still be here, both of them entirely capable and competent. Longarm’s presence was not exactly required. The proper thing ... no, not just the proper thing, the only thing ... for him to do now was to get his scrawny pale ass back to Denver where he belonged.
But that would be tomorrow, when all the i’s were dotted and all the t’s crossed and Norm was free to walk downstairs into the sunshine and fresh air again. Longarm wasn’t going to worry about any of it until then.
Except, that is, for getting something to eat and doing the shopping that needed done. Here it was lunchtime already, and he hadn’t yet had a chance to surround a breakfast. He stood, stretched, and stomped the sit-too-long out of his legs. “Gents, if you would excuse me, I have some things to do.”
“First thing tomorrow,” the sheriff reminded him.
“Longarm...,” Norm began, then stopped, quite obviously at a loss for words. Longarm had rushed to his defense, dropped everything and come all the way from Denver. And now Norm would be a free man once again thanks to their long-standing friendship.
Longarm grinned at him. “Just
promise me you won’t get no uglier. You already hurt my feelings every time I have to look at you.”
“Only because it reminds you that ugly as I am, I’m better looking than you,” Norm returned with a huge grin.
Longarm waved brusquely. Hell, if he hung around here any longer, things were gonna turn maudlin. He could as good as see it coming.
He turned and got out of there, his boots clattering loudly on his way down the stairs.
Chapter 35
Longarm treated himself to an easy afternoon. With a cheroot clamped between his teeth and a good meal spreading warmth through his belly—pork chops, eggs, and greasy fried potatoes, one of his favorites—Longarm felt pretty damn good.
On a whim he ambled over to Luke Baldwin’s shop for a hot-towel shave and a trim.
Longarm still wasn’t sure where Baldwin fit into this thing. If the man fit in at all. Far as Longarm could determine, the town barber had no reason to hold anything against Norm or Dinky, no motive for burning official records. If anything, he seemed unusually clean and civic-minded. Yet he’d lied about not having any kind of relationship with Dinky, hadn’t he? Mmm, maybe he had and maybe he hadn’t, actually. There could be some rational, reasonable explanation why Baldwin denied talking with Dinky even though Eleanor saw them together, saw Baldwin hand the boy a bundle that might, or might not, have been shaped like a pistol would be.
Shit, it was all so tenuous. Longarm wasn’t sure what to think.
He sat there in the barber chair while Baldwin ran a razor edge up and down on his cheeks and throat. Baldwin’s hand never trembled. Longarm would have sworn to that. If the man had anything to hide, he was almighty good at it.
Like if he was the one who crept near in the night, just hours back, and set fire to an entire house just in the hope of killing a man.
It seemed fairly hard to believe Baldwin could have done that under the cover of night and now be able to shave his intended victim without the least tremor of uneasiness making itself felt in the feather-delicate touch of his razor.
Longarm told himself it wasn’t his to worry about any longer. He’d done his job here. He’d come in and shown the folks that mattered that his old friend Norm was innocent of arson. Now Longarm could go home with a clear conscience and leave Crow’s Point’s problems to the people of Crow’s Point and Hirt County.
Norm and Jonas Brown could handle it just as well as Longarm could.
Well, so maybe nobody could handle things quite that well, Longarm told himself inside the privacy of his own thoughts Wouldn’t Billy Vail get a guffaw out of hearing a brag like that? Or Norm or Jonas too, for that matter? Longarm damn sure knew better than to boast out loud. It was his experience that once a man started patting his own back, he was setting himself up to take some hard licks.
Better to admit that he’d done all he really needed to do here and let it go at that. Tonight he would get a good night’s sleep; tomorrow morning he would swear out his deposition, and by evening, depending on the stage schedule, he should be on the road for Denver and the dressing-down Billy was sure to give him once he got there.
As for this afternoon, well, the rest of today he figured to loaf, eat, maybe have a few drinks. He would consider himself on vacation the rest of his time here.
Chapter 36
Longarm came awake with a start, his hand reaching for the comforting presence of the .44 Colt before he could consciously think about the reaction.
He’d heard something disturb his sleep—he did not recall exactly what—and did not intend to take any chances.
After all, he’d twice been the target of attempts on his life here. And by two different people, at that.
There were times when he had the uncharitable notion that maybe this was not really the friendliest town in Kansas as it sometimes seemed.
And if two attempts had been made, he had to conclude that it was not altogether impossible for some asshole to make a third.
The sound that had wakened him was repeated, and Longarm felt taut muscles relax.
Someone was walking through the alley that ran behind the shed where, since his things were already there anyhow, he’d bedded down for his last night in Crow’s Point.
Whoever it was, they weren’t sneaking along, weren’t tiptoeing around, didn’t seem to be making any particular attempt to hide their passage.
Longarm returned the revolver to the holster laid close beside his head. As far as he knew it wasn’t a shooting offense for someone to walk through a public alleyway after dark, so he reckoned he’d best calm down and quit being so jumpy.
Hell, he was done here, right? Wrap things up first thing in the morning and he could be on his way and never have to think about Crow’s Point again. Or about whoever it was that had tried to kill him just about twenty-four hours back.
That part didn’t sit well in his belly. But he could ask Norm to be sure and let him know what they turned up when Norm and the sheriff dug their way down to the bottom of the multiple arsons.
The person whose footsteps had wakened him walked on past the open mouth of the shed. Longarm didn’t bother trying to peer out between the rails of the stall wall to see who it might be. It wasn’t any of his business.
His attention did perk up again, though, when he heard whoever it was turn off the gravel of the alley into the thick weeds at the side of the shed.
Someone stopping in the shadows to take a leak? Probably, Longarm told himself.
But the party kept moving. Longarm could hear him plain enough. He left the alley, walked by the side of the shed, and seemed to be approaching the back of what used to be Norm’s house.
Longarm wondered what the hell someone would want there in the middle of the night. The fire was completely gone now, so they weren’t checking on that. There wasn’t even any smoke rising off the wreckage now, although the smell of ash and charcoal remained unpleasantly strong, to the point that Longarm was hoping there wouldn’t be a shift of wind direction during the night. As it was, the light evening breeze was carrying the stink in someone else’s direction. He would be just as pleased if things stayed like that.
He sat up, yawned, and gave in to his curiosity, sliding over against the back wall of the shed, the wall facing toward the ruins of the house. He found a gap between two of the age-warped laths that formed the wall, and peered out between them.
Someone was there, all right. He could see a formless, shadowy figure moving, faint and pale against the hard black of the burned-out house foundation. The moon had already set for the night, and there was not enough star-light for him to make out much beyond the fact that someone was there. Longarm could not see what the figure was doing.
He heard a dull clatter as something, a board probably, was dislodged. The person was entering the ruins? What the hell for? Longarm wondered.
He grunted. Some son of a bitch picking through in search of valuables, he guessed. Bastard. This place was shot all to hell and gone, but it was still Norm’s damned place. Whatever was still in that junk still belonged to Longarm’s friend. Longarm did not particularly appreciate any asshole who would come along and try to steal from a man who’d already lost just about everything he owned. That wasn’t exactly a decent way to act.
Longarm pulled his trousers on, stepped into his boots, and strapped the gunbelt snug around his waist. It might be considered un-neighborly in Crow’s Point to shoot folks in the night. But he expected no one would mind all that much if he scared the shit out of somebody.
Some damned kid, more than likely, he thought as he light-footed out of the shed and followed along the way the intruder had just gone.
Longarm figured to put the fear into some inconsiderate soul this night.
He ducked low so as to avoid being spotted before he was ready to make himself known, then crept silently toward what once had been the back of a nice little house.
“My God, Longarm, you frightened me half to death.”
“Eleanor? Is that you?�
� Damn, he expected it was. And he believed her. She sounded like she’d been scared out of ten years growth.
Well, she was a big girl. She didn’t need any more growing. Still and all ... “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, dear.”
“Yeah, but I asked first.”
“Longarm, dear!” she gently chided.
“All right. I was sleeping in the shed over there. Didn’t have any place better to go tonight.”
Eleanor snickered. “You could have come to my back door, you know.”
“Yeah, I bet your neighbors would’ve enjoyed that. It would’ve given them something to talk about the rest of this whole year.”
Eleanor made a face. He could barely see her in the darkness even though he was close to her now. She grimaced. “You are right, of course. Thank you for thinking about my reputation.”
“You haven’t told me why you’re here prowling around in the middle of the night.”
“I can’t exactly be seen doing it in daylight, can I?”
“Doing what?” he asked.
“If you must know, dear, Norman and I have exchanged some ... how shall I put this ... some rather indelicate notes. It became something of a game between us, one trying to shock the other, you see. I know Norman kept them in a metal box. And I was afraid if ... oh, little boys or who knows who else might root through all this debris ... I was afraid those notes may have survived the fire. If anyone found them, dear, I would be ruined in this town. And not only for the remainder of the year either. I might as well brand myself with a scarlet A on my forehead and take the first available transportation elsewhere. Certainly I wouldn’t have a friend left here. Norman might get away with it. After all, everyone expects men to act like little boys. Women are held to a rather more exacting standard.”
Longarm had to admit that that much was true enough. “Look,” he said, “you aren’t gonna find anything in the dark like this. I doubt you could lay hands on the box even if you knew exactly where it was. Which, by the way, do you? I mean, I might could help you find it if you tell me where to look. But underneath the surface those ashes are still too hot to touch. If you go poking around through that shit, you’re gonna end up burned and not accomplish anything in exchange for it. Do you know where to look?”