by Tabor Evans
Longarm arched an eyebrow. “Why poor woman?”
“Huh?”
“You called her a ‘poor’ woman. Why poor? Has she become a widow recently?”
The stony mask returned to the woman’s face. “Mister, you need to mind your own business just like the good folks of this town do. Mrs. Rainey don’t wanna talk to you any more than anyone else does. In Diamondback, we take care of our own—private-like. We don’t need any help from the likes of you and your government badge!”
“What happened to Sheriff Rainey, Mrs . . . ?”
“Fletcher. Missus Fletcher. And your guess is as good as mine!” She swung around to pluck a key from one of the pigeonholes behind her and slapped it down on the register book. “Room fourteen.”
“Does room fourteen face the street?”
“It does.”
“Good. Since I’m takin’ over the lawdoggin’ duties in this little perdition, I’ll be needing a room from where I can keep an eye on things.” Longarm saw no reason to hide his frustration. He swept the key off the register book with an angry flourish, grabbed his rifle, and headed for the stairs carpeted in a rich, deep burgundy floral pattern at the lobby’s rear.
His room was sparsely furnished but clean. He closed the door, set his rifle against the wall near the dresser, and set his saddlebags on the bed. He fished his bottle out of one of the pouches and poured several fingers into one of the two water glasses upended on the side of the marble-topped washstand.
He hung his dusty hat on a brass peg by the door and then walked over to the room’s single window, flanking the bed. He opened the window a foot to get some fresh air into the hot, musty room and sipped the good rye as he looked down into the street.
The bearded man and the mustached man were just now being helped across the street toward a little, white-painted frame building with a large sign near its roof announcing: DOCTOR SIMON BAKER, M.D. A smaller sign near the door read: SUNDRY COMPLAINTS AND TOOTH EXTRACTIONS.
Each injured man was being guided by another—first the bearded gent and then the mustached gent. Both were limping, hatless heads hanging. A short, older, potbellied man in a vest and white shirt, likely Baker, came out of the doctor’s office to stand on the stoop, watching the men angling toward him.
Longarm’s keen memory reminded him that Baker had been one of the names that Melvin had mentioned when Longarm had asked the fill-in sheriff who made up the Diamondback town council. The doctor shook his head as the two injured men approached. Longarm heard him say in the otherwise quiet street, “I hope you boys got money, ’cause I don’t work for free.”
The bearded man was in no condition to say anything. The man guiding him led him past the sawbones and into the shack. The mustached man spat a gob of blood to one side and said, “Send the bill to Richmond.”
Then he, too, was led past the doctor and into the office. The doctor followed him inside and closed the door behind him.
“Richmond,” Longarm said as he lifted the glass to his lips again. That was another name that Little had mentioned.
The lawman looked around the street. Still not many folks out in the heat of the day, though shadows were beginning to bleed out from the buildings as the sun angled toward the brooding Wind River Range in the west. There were more people outside than before, however—a few clumps of men out front of the saloons, talking and drinking and casting glances toward the hotel.
Longarm threw back the last of the whiskey, set his glass on the dresser, and slid his Colt from its cross-draw holster. He flicked open the loading gate and turned the cylinder until he could see the black maw of the single empty chamber.
He always kept that chamber beneath the hammer empty so he didn’t shoot himself in the leg or somewhere even more crippling. He slipped a brass-cased .44 cartridge from his shell belt, thumbed it into the chamber, flicked the loading gate closed, and spun the cylinder.
He heard voices and footsteps growing louder in the hall. Someone threw his door open without knocking. It was Mrs. Fletcher and a chubby, young Indian woman in a white apron.
Mrs. Fletcher was carrying a copper tub. She came in, announcing, “Here’s your bath! Hope you’re decent!”
Sitting the tub down near the door, she looked at the pistol in the lawman’s hand and shook her head, her face flushed from exertion.
“You can put that away, mister. I don’t care if you are calling yourself our new lawman, you won’t be shootin’ that hogleg in here. You do an’ you can sleep out in the livery barn!”
Mrs. Fletcher turned around and walked past the portly, round-faced Indian woman, who set her steaming water buckets down and then, not looking at Longarm, her face barren of any expression whatever, dragged the tub deeper into the room. She filled it with both buckets and left, closing the door behind her.
Longarm got undressed, piled his clothes by the door, and stepped into the tub. The water was hot but not scalding, though it had promptly fogged the dresser mirror. He sat down in the water, sucking a sharp breath through his teeth as the steaming liquid seared him.
He could also feel it cut through the sweat and grit coating him. When he was good and wet, he stood, grabbed a cake of lye off the washstand, sniffed it—not overly scented, good—and lathered himself from head to toe.
In the hall, footsteps approached his door.
“Hold on a second,” he said, still standing in the tub.
Too late. The Indian woman opened the door and came in with two more buckets, one steaming, one not. Longarm looked at her. She stopped in the doorway, looked at him, her almond-shaped, chocolate-dark eyes flicking up and down his brawny, soapy frame. Her eyes lingered at his crotch and then rose to his, her mouth corners quirking slightly as she set one bucket down.
She brought the other one forward and said, “Sit.”
Longarm sat down in the tub.
The Indian woman poured the water over his head.
He cursed through his teeth as what felt like three layers of skin peeled off his bones.
“Mrs. Fletcher—she said to make it good an’ hot,” the Indian woman said. Longarm didn’t look up at her, but he thought she was enjoying this. “Get the soap off. Hold on.”
Longarm braced himself for the next bucket. This one was as cold as snowmelt. It must have come from one hell of a deep well.
It felt like an ice pick driven through the top of his head. It squeezed his heart like a strong, clenched fist. The ticker seemed to stop for about five seconds. When he could feel it beating again, he slid lower in the tub. The water was about right now—not too cold, not too hot.
He turned to the Indian woman, who was picking up the bucket and heading for the open door.
“Much obliged,” he said through a growl.
She pointed at his clothes on the floor by the door. “Wash?”
“Please but don’t let Mrs. Fletcher get her hands on ’em. She’ll likely shred ’em an’ that’s my favorite shirt.”
The Indian woman glanced over her shoulder at him, quirked another grin, and went out.
Longarm reached into the saddlebags on his bed, hauled out a little deer-hide sack containing extra smokes, and withdrew a three-for-a-nickel cheroot and a box of matches. He ran the cheroot beneath his nose, giving it a sniff, and then lit the cigar. He sagged back in the tub, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs and blowing it out at the door over his raised knees.
Smoking and lounging in the gradually cooling water, he considered the situation here in Diamondback.
It was a vexing reflection. Longarm had been sent here in response to a call for help, and the man who’d sent the missive was nowhere to be found. And no one in Diamondback would tell Longarm where he was or what had happened to him.
That meant the very worst had likely happened to Sheriff Des Rainey. The man was probably dead, and whoever had killed him had th
e entire town in his iron fist. No one wanted to speak out against him. Or them.
That mean the killer had to be someone with power.
Usually, members of town councils were the most powerful men in any given town. Longarm had learned the names of the three men who sat on the Diamondback council, and he’d seen one of them a few minutes ago—Doc Baker. The others were Mulligan and Richmond. He’d look both up tomorrow. Something told him that if he sought them out today, he’d be favored with the same cold stares he’d been given since he’d first ridden into town.
All three council members likely knew Longarm was here and why. Let them stew in that for a while. Then, if Longarm was still alive in the morning—it did seem as though he was up against the whole damn town—he’d run all three men down and see what oozings he could squeeze from their hides.
Maybe nothing, but he had to try. So far, he had absolutely no clue as to why Rainey had sent that telegram to Billy Vail, or what had happened to the sheriff after he’d sent it.
That decided, Longarm reached over and grabbed his bottle off the dresser. He took a pull from the bottle, set the bottle down beside the tub, and continued to loll in the water as he smoked his cigar. The lolling must have been a soporific, because he suddenly realized that his eyes were closed.
He opened them. The room was darker, the water considerably cooler. He raised his right hand from where it had dropped down over the side of the tub.
No cigar.
He looked over the edge of the tub. The cigar had dropped onto Mrs. Fletcher’s rug. It had gone out, leaving a half inch of gray ash at its tip and a small, oval-shaped charred spot in the rug.
Damn, the old biddy would likely make him pay for that—in more ways than one.
Something by the door caught his eye. Something white lay on the floor in front of it. A small scrap of paper must have been slipped beneath the door while he’d slept.
A note?
Chapter 9
Longarm frowned at the paper on the floor.
The lawman rose from the cool water, stepped out of the tub, and walked over to the small envelope that lay in front of the door. Obviously, someone had slipped it through the crack beneath the door while he’d slept.
He picked it up and shook out the piece of paper tucked inside. It was a small slip of cream-colored parchment—the kind that ladies used to send thank-you notes. He opened it.
There were two sentences inked beautifully in flowing, feminine cursive: “Come to room nineteen after midnight and your questions will be answered. Do not tell a soul.”
Longarm sniffed the paper. It smelled like lavender and lilac.
He tapped the note on the envelope as he thought about it, and then slipped the note back into the envelope, set it on the dresser, and pulled a clean change of clothes out of his saddlebags.
A trap? Nah, not in Mrs. Fletcher’s hotel. Not entirely out of the question, but he was more likely to get bushwhacked outside after dark.
His change of clothes consisted of an outfit identical to the one the chubby Indian girl had hauled away—frock coat, blue chambray shirt, string tie, fawn-gold vest, and skintight tweed trousers. The duds were a little wrinkled from riding folded up in his saddlebags, but the wrinkles would plane out the longer he walked around.
And walk was just what he intended to do tonight. Not only to kill time before knocking on the door of the mysterious room 19, but to get the general lay of the land. A man never knew what he could learn just by walking around a town.
He’d have supper, a few drinks, and then he’d walk around some more.
Besides, he’d deemed himself the local law in Des Rainey’s stead, so it was more or less his job to keep an eye on things, maybe turn the jailhouse key on a few drunks. True, he was likely to attract trouble, but he wasn’t going to learn anything about Rainey by hiding under his bed. And anyway, he had a pretty good sense about trouble.
He’d be keeping that cylinder under his gun hammer filled with brass even at the risk of shooting his pecker off. And he’d haul his Winchester around even at risk of looking like an asshole.
He brushed the trail dust from his hat and set it on his head, tipping it down over his right eye, cavalry style. He stuffed three cheroots into his shirt pocket, grabbed his rifle, and headed out.
Since over the last few hours his belly had been getting far too friendly with his backbone, he walked east along the street until he saw the two-story wood-frame building he’d seen on his way into town earlier. Half the place belonged to a saddle, harness, and gun shop while the other half wore a shingle over its front door announcing ABIGAILE’S CAFÉ.
The sun was not yet down, but smoke puffed from the tin chimney pipe poking up out of the café’s roof, rife with the smell of roasting meat and burning pine. Three horses stood at the hitchrack fronting the place, and that was more than were now parked in front of any of the saloons.
That told Longarm that Abigaile’s was likely a favorite local feed sack. The Diamondback Hotel had a restaurant, but Longarm wanted to check out another place by way of getting his boots wet in the mysterious little town obviously brimming with nasty secrets.
He went inside, and the three cowboys sitting at a table in the room’s center looked at him and grew as quiet as church mice.
Longarm sat down at a table a little farther back of the three waddies, where he could keep an eye on them as well as the door. A penciled card on the table covered in red-and-white checked oilcloth gave him two choices—pork roast or roasted chicken. After the sullen-looking blond girl of about sixteen came out of the kitchen to take his order, looking him over skeptically—she’d obviously heard who and what he was, along with everyone else in town by now—she headed back toward the kitchen.
The cowboys hadn’t said a word since Longarm walked into the café, but they all watched the girl’s nice round ass behind her simple gray skirt as she sashayed past their table and pushed through the swing door to the kitchen. One snickered and another one pulled the hat down over the third one’s eyes.
They said nothing before they finished their meal, belched, and left. Once outside, they discussed which saloon they were going to patronize that evening, and then swung up into their saddles and gave several revelrous whoops as they galloped west.
Longarm enjoyed the pork roast with all the trimmings—mashed potatoes bathed in rich, dark gravy, green beans, a sliced tomato, a fresh-from-the-oven bun, which he broke open and liberally applied butter to, and a small dessert of peaches sliced in sugar. He washed it all down with a glass of milk and piping hot black coffee, and then sat back in his chair, belched, and loosened his belts a notch.
When the girl came back out of the kitchen to stride lazily to Longarm’s table, canting her head to one side, she said, “That’ll be two bits, mister. The advice is free.”
Longarm reached into his pants pocket as he looked up at her. “Oh? What advice might that be?”
She set her hands on the table and leaned forward. She didn’t seem to mind that her dress hung out away from her chest to give a man who was predisposed to peek a look at her creamy breasts jostling down inside her cotton chemise. “You best break a leg gettin’ outta here,” she said in a syrupy thick Southern accent.
“Why would that be, sweetheart? Everyone here seems so nice.”
“You’ll find out how nice they are.”
“Anything else you wanna tell me?”
The girl glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where someone—Abigaile?—was banging pots and pans around.
“I’d tell you where you could find me later, after Aunt Abigaile goes to bed, but you might not be around long enough to take what I’d offer.” She straightened, letting her eyes flick across his shoulders and then down toward his crotch. “Shame, too. You’re a long, tall drink of water, mister. I bet you could really stoke a lonely girl’s firebox.”<
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With that, she shoved the money Longarm had given her down her dress, picked up his plate, glass, and cup, and, giving him a coolly coquettish parting glance, swung around to sashay back into the kitchen, her round hips looking like two dogs straining at their chains.
Longarm stared at the girl’s ass. She wanted him to, after all, and he only felt it right to oblige her. Her youth and beauty reminded him of Connie. His interlude with the auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty seemed a long time ago now, but he still couldn’t help wondering, in a vague sort of way, if it had really happened or if he’d merely been dreaming.
At the moment he had too much on his plate to worry about it. Bigger fish to fry.
Returning his focus to Sheriff Rainey, he scooped his rifle off the chair beside him and rose from the table. He reached into his shirt pocket for a cheroot and stuck it between his teeth. As he stepped outside, he paused on the narrow stoop to reach into his coat pocket for a match.
The sun had gone down and this broad basin was filled with velvety darkness. The Wind Rivers were jutting black silhouettes in the west, shouldering back against the fast-fading lilac that was all that remained of the day.
All was quiet. Diamondback had settled in for the evening.
Soon, though, Longarm knew, the hands from near ranches would be making their way to the town’s saloons. Some already had, for several horses stood tied to each of the town’s watering holes, lamps from the respective saloons flashing dully off bridle bits and saddle trimmings.
Longarm fired the match on his thumbnail and cupped it to the cigar. The flame expanded and contracted as smoke wafted around his head. When the cheroot was drawing to his satisfaction, he tossed the match into the dirt beyond the stoop and continued to pull the smoke into his lungs, watching the coal glow at the end of the cigar.
The glowing coal disappeared all too suddenly. Longarm felt the cigar jerk between his lips. At the same time, he saw a wicked flash of orange-blue light to his right, and a quarter second later the blast of the rifle reached his ears, echoing shrilly.