by Tabor Evans
She said she'd left her trotter and shay at the livery across the way, and quietly added, "I could drive you over to Bohunk Hill and introduce you to some of the more respectable miners' wives, if you have the time."
He asked how far from the center of town they were talking about. When she said about halfway to the coal seams up the river a few miles, he sighed and said he didn't.
When he added the eastbound he meant to transfer to would be pulling out within half an hour, she softly replied, "There will always be another train on that same track, and I'd be proud to put you up for the night out at our place later."
He was so tempted it hurt. But he somehow managed to decline her tempting offer, and so they shook hands and parted friendly on the walk out front. As he turned back inside Longarm grumbled, "Next time Billy Vail accuses me of placing pleasure before duty, I'll have a wistful answer for him indeed. But of course, nobody would ever believe I just spoiled such a lovely evening for all concerned without anyone holding a gun to my head!"
CHAPTER 5
Old Billy Vail had known what he was picking when he'd picked Fort Sill as an out-of-the-way place to send a rider. It was after midnight when Longarm had to get off the one train and board another running closer to due east along the Saint Lou line. He had enough time between trains to send a wire to his home office at night rates. So he did, knowing Billy Vail was still going to have a fit, but that as soon as he calmed down to take a breath, he'd see the deputy who'd disregarded his orders to avoid Trinidad had made it on to Amarillo without incident and would have made it to Fort Sill, his own way, by the time Western Union got around to delivering a night letter.
Only the fancier varnish express trains passing through the Texas Panhandle sported those new Pullman dining cars, and no such on-board facilities would be open after midnight in any case. But Mister Fred Harvey, Lord love him, had opened one of his round-the-clock depot restaurants at Amarillo. So after Longarm had sent his night letter, he saw he had just enough time for a hasty but warm and rib-sticking late-night snack.
He sat at the counter, along with the few others grabbing a bite at that hour. The fellow traveler to his left was a trim-waisted gal in a tan whipcord travel duster and big veiled summer boater. It was tougher to judge a woman's age under a travel-dusted veil. But she had a handsome profile for a gal of any age. The Harvey gal who came to take orders down at their end was more certainly around eighteen.
She was pleasantly plain, with her chestnut hair pulled up in a neat bun and the white linen apron over her coffee-brown uniform as starched as if she'd been on the day shift.
Longarm naturally waited till the lady to his left ordered herself a Spanish omelet with a mug of hot chocolate. Longarm asked for chili con carne with black coffee. You didn't have to say you wanted your black coffee strong at a Harvey. He knew they made their chili right too. The Harvey gal was back in no time with everything piping hot.
Too hot, Longarm feared, if he was supposed to catch that other train at the top of the hour. He mushed more oyster crackers into his chili than he'd really wanted. He resisted the temptation to pour coffee into the saucer and blow on it, knowing how country the gal seated next to him might consider that.
As he was stirring like hell and she was pouring extra cream from the counter into her hot chocolate, a somewhat more country boy under a dove-gray Texas hat took the last seat at their end of the counter, to the left of the gal in the tan duster. It was none of Longarm's business until the rustic asked the lady if she'd like him to saucer and blow her hot chocolate.
The lady naturally didn't answer. Longarm put away some warm grub and washed it down with scalding java before the pest asked her how come she was so stuck up. The lady had already paid for her order on delivery, that being the Harvey way in a world where folks had a heap of trains to catch. So she only had to rise from the counter, pick up her overnight bag, and head for the door without even looking at the fool kid.
Longarm still didn't care. But then the pest jumped up to follow after her, asking if she needed help with her bag. It wasn't until he made a grab for it, causing the lady to trip and almost fall, that Longarm swung off his own stool to his considerable height and firmly announced, "That's enough, cowboy. You've rode past flirty into scary, and I want you to leave that lady be."
The Harvey gal behind him moaned, "Oh, Lordy!" and went to get someone bigger from the kitchen as the lout in the big hat kept clinging to the traveling gal's baggage, growling, "If I was you I'd be down on my knees in my sissy suit, praying for my life right now. For they call me Pronto, and the name is well deserved. You see what I'm packing in this tie-down holster, hero?"
Longarm regarded the other man's six-gun with detachment as he quietly replied, "Looks like a single-action John Adams. I've always admired well-preserved antiques."
Then he nodded at the lady in the tan travel duster and added, "You just go on and catch your train, ma'am. Ain't nothing but some schoolyard bluster likely to take place around here. Let go her bag, cowboy. I mean it."
The well-armed cuss let go of the overnight bag, but not as if it was because he'd been asked to. He dropped into a gunfighter's crouch as the lady lugged her baggage for the door. She was unable to keep from asking in a jeering tone, "Do you boys stage this scene for all the girls, or just the ones from out of town?"
Then she was sweeping out the doorway, nose in the air, and only Longarm laughed. The would-be Texas badman who still seemed willing to fight over her asked uncertainly, "What's she jawing about? Are we supposed to be up to something I never knew we were up to?"
Longarm nodded and said, "Yep. She thought we took turns insulting gals in railroad depots so's we could take turns rescuing 'em. I can see how that might be a good way to meet women, once you study on it."
The younger and obviously less -experienced cuss scowled at Longarm and insisted, "Hold on! I never agreed to let you rescue her from me. I don't even know you. I thought I was out to rescue her from you!"
Longarm shrugged and said, "Either way, she's gone and I got my own train to catch. So it's been nice talking to you, but like I said..."
"What about our showdown?" the depot desperado asked in a plaintive tone.
Longarm said, "I'm sure you could find plenty of other young gents willing to shoot it out with you at this hour for no good reason. But the only quarrel betwixt us just dismissed us both as a pair of unskilled country boys, if we ever had a quarrel to begin with. Fighting over a woman is sort of dumb. Fighting over a woman who doesn't like you is just plain stupid."
Longarm didn't wait to hear any counterargument. The depot loiterer wasn't crouched as tensely now, and while Longarm kept an eye on everyone as he circled for that same doorway, he was really more worried about the older-looking cuss who'd come from the kitchen in a cook's apron carrying a foot of carving knife.
Nobody drew or threw as he got out of range in the steamy light of the big depot. He'd only polished off a third of his chili and maybe half his coffee. But sure enough, his Saint Lou night train was fixing to pull out as he hurried along Track Number Four in the tricky light. Way down the platform, he saw that pretty but sort of snotty gal in the tan duster boarding one of the Pullman sleeping cars and staring his way, as if worried he was fixing to lope after her all the way to Saint Lou. He had no call to go on down and assure her he'd be getting off in the wee small hours. So he never did. He boarded a coach car carrying no more than that bulky manila envelope, and took a seat under an oil lamp to catch up on all those onionskins Henry had typed up for him not a full twelve hours earlier. Time sure could drag when you weren't having any fun.
As his train pulled out of the depot the Harvey night manager, who'd been watching through a door crack, came out from the back and said, "That was close. I thought we had your word you'd start no more trouble if we let you have free coffee, Pronto."
The kid with a hat and gun a mite big for him returned to the counter with a smirk, saying, "I wasn't looking for t
rouble. I was courting a lady fair when that jasper in the sissy suit horned in."
The night manager said, "That was no jasper in a sissy suit, you romantic young cuss. He's passed this way before. So I'm sure it was that deputy marshal they call Longarm!"
Pronto grinned and said, "I backed him down, no matter who he thought he was. Polly here heard him say he didn't want to fight me and saw him go around me!"
The Harvey girl just looked confused. The manager said, "I saw it all from the kitchen too. You're lucky to be alive, Pronto. Had he been anxious as some to run up his score, you'd have never stood a chance. For they say Longarm's taken on some of the fastest guns in both the East and West, and won easy!"
Pronto sneered, "Don't care what anyone says about him. All I know is that I made him crawfish! Wait till I tell all the boys I backed down the famous Longarm in the flesh! Mayhaps then I'll get me some respect around Amarillo!"
The cook headed back for his kitchen with a snort of disgust. The night manager sighed and said, "I wish you wouldn't brag too loud, Pronto. We try to run a decent place here, and gunfire can play bob with a customer's appetite!"
While they were talking, a brakeman off a night freight came in to take a seat at the far end of the counter. Pronto had that effect on the regulars around the Amarillo depot. The burly brakeman was a decent tipper who never got too fresh. So Polly moved quickly up the counter to serve him.
The newcomer naturally asked the Harvey gal what the argument at the far end might be about. Polly told him, "Pronto's filled with himself just now because he thinks he backed down the famous lawman Longarm. You know how Pronto likes to glare at smoother-shaven gents. His victim was as likely a whiskey drummer as a famous gunfighter."
The brakeman frowned thoughtfully and muttered "Longarm, you say it might have been? That's funny. Someone on that night rattler crew from the north was just jawing about some little squirt in seersucker chasing that same Longarm out of the Denver depot at a dead run!"
Polly looked unconcerned as she replied, "We all have to grow up sometime. What if the famous Longarm has just gotten tired of silly showdowns?"
The brakeman flatly stated, "Then he's as good as dead. Once a man has established a rep as a gunfighter, he can't afford to lose his nerve."
Polly said, "The customer Pronto just had words with didn't seem all that terrified. He just walked away from a silly fight with a silly kid, if you want to know what it looked like to me."
The brakeman shook his head and explained, "Nobody's likely to ask what it looked like to you, Miss Polly. Your point's well taken that a serious gunfighter may take pity on an occasional squirt. But should word get about that a man of Longarm's rep backed down within the same twenty-tour hours from not one but two untested nobodies... well, do I have to go on?"
He did, because Polly said she didn't understand what on earth he was talking about. So the brakeman said, "They all seem to lose that edge it takes after they've been through enough gunfights. That's all greener gunfighters, who still feel immortal, have to hear. The most famous but far from the only example would be Wild Bill Hickok up in Deadwood. He'd taken to drinking more and practicing with his pistols less, and Cockeyed Jack McCall wasn't the only one who'd noticed. So if McCall hadn't gunned Wild Bill in the Number Ten Saloon, it would have been some other gun waddy in some other saloon." He paused. "I reckon I'll have ham and eggs," he said casually.
CHAPTER 6
Longarm had been studying his railroad timetables, and so he'd seen that if he rode on down the line to Cruces, he'd be better than forty miles further from Fort Sill and there wouldn't be a northbound for the next two days.
On the other hand, a body getting off at Spanish Flats in the chill before dawn might hire a livery mount and make it on up to Fort Sill by the time that weekly combination serving the Indian Territory ever left Cruces.
So as the moon still hung high, Longarm got off at Spanish Flats, due south of Fort Sill, thankful to be packing so little baggage for a change. Since he hadn't been planning on getting off there before he'd consulted his timetable after midnight, Longarm felt no call to worry about the few other passengers getting off at the same stop in the tricky light. He could still taste his midnight snack back in Amarillo, and he knew he'd sleep lighter if he quit while he was ahead. He knew they'd expect him to pay in advance at that hotel across the way whether he arrived with his usual McClellan and saddlebags or just this fool envelope. So he did, and in no time at all he was sound asleep in his small but tidy hired room.
It felt as if he'd slept less than an hour, but the sun was up outside as somebody commenced to pound on his locked door with a heap of authority and what sounded like a pistol barrel.
Longarm rolled out of bed in his underdrawers and grabbed for the.44-40 slung from a handy bedpost as he rose and called out, "I hear you, damn it. Who is it and what do you want?"
The pounding was replaced by: "Clovis Mason of the Texas Rangers, and we've had a complaint about you, stranger. Where did you get off signing the register downstairs as a federal deputy, by the way?"
Longarm held his own weapon politely pointed at the floor as he cracked the door, nodded at the badge on the other gent's freshly laundered white shirt, and opened wider, saying, "I signed in under my right name because that's who I am and I have nothing to hide. I am Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long, and I'm bound for the Indian Agency up at Fort Sill on government beeswax. I've barely talked to a soul here in Spanish Flats, and you say someone's made a complaint about that?"
The Ranger, somewhat shorter and stouter than Longarm, stepped in to regard the half-naked hotel guest dubiously and replied, "A lady says you've been following her all the way from Amarillo after you conspired with another gent to try and move in on her. I hope you have some identification before we go on with this bullshit?"
Longarm hung on to his own pistol as he moved over to fish his wallet from the duds he'd draped over a chair. The Ranger hadn't drawn his own .45-30--rangers were like that--but he'd been eyeing Longarm through narrowed lids until he spied the federal badge and identification. As his poker face got more human he said, "I'll be switched with snakes if I don't buy you're being the one and original Longarm! But why in thunder did that newspaper gal just come over to our company to charge you with mashing and menacing her all through the night?"
Longarm put his wallet and gun away and got out a couple of his cheroots and some waterproof Mexican matches as he calmly replied, "I didn't know I was. I recall her accusing me of some diabolical plot when I told a cowboy to leave her alone back in Amarillo a few hours ago. I did see her boarding the same eastbound later. If she got off here in Spanish Flats, I can see why a pretty gal who thinks she's even prettier might think I followed her all this way to gaze upon her beauty some more. But you'd think she'd give a man half a chance to get fresh with her before she pressed charges. You say she claims to be a newspaperwoman?"
Mason said, "Our captain made her prove it. Her own identification shows she's a Miss Godiva Weaver, writing for the New England Sentinel. I can't say I've ever heard of it."
Longarm handed the Ranger a smoke and struck a light for the both of them as he wearily replied, "I have. It's one of them expose weeklies that accuses our tee-totaler first lady, Lemonade Lucy Hayes, of being a secret drinker. It's no wonder a female reporting for the rag suspects me of lusting after her fair white body."
He got his own cheroot going and asked, "Did she say what she was doing out our way, aside from being stalked by drooling maniacs?"
The Ranger took a drag on his own cheroot and replied with a thin smile, "Says she was headed home with one scoop when she got a tip on another up to the Kiowa Comanche Reserve. That's what you call a latrine rumor, a scoop. When we told her we'd heard of no Indian trouble up yonder, she handed us the usual shit about big bad palefaces screwing the buffalo and shooting the women of poor old Mister Lo, the Poor Indian."
Longarm put on his shirt as he made a wry face and said, "I to
ld you I'd read her rag. Lord knows there are rascals on both sides a just Lord would fry in Hell forever, but that New England Sentinel only knows about bad palefaces. That's doubtless why they said those three women the Ute rode off with from the White River Agency a spell back were either treated with the utmost respect or, failing that, deserved to be raped by one and all."
Mason said, "You don't have to instruct this child. I've fought Mister Lo. But fair is fair and we haven't had any trouble with the rascals since old Quanah Parker saw the light, remembered he was half white, and brung his bands in to eat more regular off the taxpaying Taibo. That's what they call us, Taibo."
Longarm sat on the bed to haul on his pants as he resisted the temptation to explain the distinctions between the Comanche words for white folks. He didn't savvy more than a few dozen words of the Uto-Aztec dialect the Comanche spoke himself. So he neither knew nor cared exactly why they called you Saltu if they were willing to parley with you and Taibo if they were out to lift your hair. He'd never figured out exactly why a Paddy got so upset if you called him a Mick, come to study on it.
Mason didn't know anything more about the news tip inspiring a mighty suspicious newspaper gal to leap off a train out West and accuse Longarm of attempted rape. The Ranger had smoked enough of the cheroot to excuse himself by saying he had to get on back and report why he hadn't arrested or shot anybody that morning. As he let himself out, Longarm reached for his own stovepipes, saying, "Hold on. I got me at least two days on the open range to Fort Sill and as you can see, I ain't even dressed right for that much riding. Where would I go if I want blue denim, a Winchester, and a couple of ponies with the gear and grub to get me there and back?"
Mason asked if he was buying or hiring. When Longarm allowed he meant to just hire the riding stock and their harness, along with a Texas toper and packsaddle, the Ranger suggested a general store down the street to the north, with a livery that wouldn't cheat him directly across the way. So Longarm rose, they shook on it, and the Ranger left him to his own devices.