Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Teaser chapter
“DON’T MOVE, YOU SON OF A BITCH,” HE WARNED”.
He hoped to hell the sound of his growl was menacing enough to freeze whoever was waiting in ambush.
Because the plain truth was that, taken unaware and thinking about the bed rather than any possible danger, he’d let his night vision be lost to the flare of the match.
At least for the next few treacherously long heartbeats, Longarm was bat-blind and defenseless.
He just hoped to hell he was the only one who realized it.
Off in the direction of Norm’s parlor he heard the scrape of a shoe sole on wood. Longarm’s heart jumped into his throat, and he blinked furiously in a useless attempt to force his eyes to readjust to the darkness.
“Try anything an’ I’ll shoot,” he snarled.
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THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts
Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him ... the Gunsmith.
LONGARM by Tabor Evans
The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.
SLOCUM by Jake Logan
Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
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An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.
LONGARM AND THE KANSAS JAILBIRD
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with
the author
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Jove edition / March 1999
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Chapter 1
Longarm was tired. Bone weary. He had been on the road, what, three weeks? A little more? Something like that. And he’d been rushing from hither to yon—wherever the hell Hither and Yon were—the whole damn time.
Still, it was worth it. The Baines boys were securely ensconced behind bars down at the Denver city jail waiting arraignment before a federal magistrate, and the postal officials in northeastern Wyoming were happy as hell to know that the mail had a pretty good chance of getting from one place to another again without the Brothers Baines first browsing through it all to see if there was anything they wanted for themselves.
So, yeah, the effort had been worthwhile. But now Longarm was worn down and ready for some rest. Which he intended to get starting right about... right about now, he thought.
After all, the United States marshal for the Denver district was gone for the day, busy doing the bullshit political stuff that seemed to be the bane of every administrative employee of the United States. Politics and paperwork. Between them it was a wonder they didn’t drive Billy Vail crazy. For sure Longarm couldn’t have put up with it. Good thing he didn’t have to.
A little paperwork—as little as possible, actually—and that was more than enough for him.
And right now, dammit, his report on the Baines chase was done, signed, and in two shakes would be delivered. After that, he intended to disappear for the rest of the day. Maybe longer.
He stood, a sharp pain in his lower back from bending over the writing desk and a cramp in his fingers from holding a pen too long, and pushed the six pages of his report into a more or less tidy pile that he carried over to Billy Vail’s clerk Henry. Longarm tossed the report onto Henry’s desk and announced, “I’m gonna go get myself a haircut, Henry. Then a drink. And then I’m gonna crawl into a nice soft bed an’ stay there for a couple, three days or so.”
“After which,” Henry said dryly, “you may find time to get some sleep, right?”
“This may amaze you, old son,” Longarm told him, “but right now I’ m so damn tired I intend to sleep first. The ladies will just hafta wait an’ suffer along without me.” He winked. “For a little while anyhow.”
Henry gave Longarm a look of open disbelief, but did not bother to comment. “Drop by tomorrow if you can find the time,” Henry said. “The boss may have something for you.”
“If you get the chance, pard, try an’ talk him out of it. I need some serious rest.”
“I’ll mention it,” Henry promised. “Not that I see anything for you to worry about. We aren’t all that busy at the moment. In fact, I don’t know of anything on the schedule that you would have to be involved in until the Baines arraignments. That hearing will be next Monday or Tuesday.”
“I might stagger in again by that time. If I sleep real fast,” Longarm said with a grin.
Henry smiled and told him good-bye, and Longarm headed for the street, grabbing his flat-crowned Stetson hat off the coat rack on his way out.
He paused at the top of the granite steps leading up to the handsomely massive front doors of Denver’s Federal Building, cupping a match in his palm and lighting one of the slim, dark cheroots that he favored.
Marshal Billy Vail’s best deputy was a tall man, standing in excess of six feet, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. He had the born horseman’s powerful legs and a carriage that conveyed self-assurance but that stopped short of being cocky. Custis Long had no need for displays of bravado, false or otherwise. He knew how good he was and was comfortable with the knowledge.
The one thing that he failed to fully appreciate about himself was why women so often found him of interest. Not that he minded it. Not hardly. But he did not really understand it. When he looked in the mirror to shave each morning, all he saw was an ordinary male countenance, a little too wrinkled and craggy if anything. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and a huge sweep of brown mustache that like his hair was overdue for some
trimming.
At the moment he was wearing a tweed coat and calfskin vest, with a slim gold chain connecting the two watch pockets, one of which held the expected pocket watch, but with the other end of the chain attached to a .44-caliber derringer. He had on dark brown corduroy trousers tucked into a pair of tall, stovepipe cavalry boots, and a gunbelt snug at his waist with the butt of a double-action Colt revolver slanted for a cross draw and worn just to the left of his belt buckle.
All in all a rather ordinary appearance in Longarm’s opinion, although a fair percentage of the female population tended to take exception to that modest viewpoint.
He drew deep of the pale, refreshing smoke from his cheroot, and exhaled slowly, then ambled down the stairs and turned west on Colfax Avenue toward Lloyd’s Tonsorial Emporium, where he sometimes enjoyed stopping in for a haircut and shave. Lloyd charged more than most barbers, but he had a magician’s deft touch with a razor, a litany of jokes that would keep a man in fresh material for a month of conversations with friends, and the best-smelling bay rum to be found anywhere in Denver. Maybe anywhere in Colorado, come to think of it. Anyway, this morning Longarm felt like treating himself to Lloyd’s and the hell with saving a nickel.
Longarm enjoyed the stroll to the barbershop, feeling relaxed and unhurried now that he was out of the office and free for the rest of the day.
It was just short of noon when he reached Lloyd’s. It was no particular surprise for him to see that there were five other customers waiting in line ahead of him. Obviously there were plenty of others who appreciated exceptional service and good company.
And anyway, Longarm was in no hurry for a change. He nodded to Lloyd and received a smile in return, then settled into one of the chairs to begin his wait. He crossed his legs, made sure there was an ashtray within easy reach, and bent forward to pick up the latest edition of the Rocky Mountain News. Even if it weren’t the latest edition, Longarm wouldn’t have cared, having been away from the city for the past several weeks.
He opened the newspaper in his lap, yawned without bothering to try to stifle the impulse, and began to read.
Less than a minute later Longarm was on his feet, sudden alarm creasing his forehead and bringing a frown to his lips.
He whirled and dashed out of the barbershop, the rumpled newspaper still in his hand. Once on the sidewalk he broke into a run, loping back the same way he had just come. His haircut, and his fatigue, were quite forgotten.
Chapter 2
“You’re going where?” an incredulous Henry yelped.
“Kansas, dammit. I already told you that.”
“But ...”
“Crow’s Point, Kansas, if it matters.”
“And just what is it I’m supposed to tell the marshal when he asks where you’ve flown off to and why you up and went there, Custis?”
“Tell him... shit, I dunno ... tell him I’m gone to see an ailing sister.”
“Custis, you don’t have a sister. Not in Kansas or any other place. I know that. So does Marshal Vail.”
“So tell him anyway. Damn, Henry, I don’t care. Tell him anything you like.”
“How about if I tell him the truth.”
“If you want to, go ahead.”
“It would help if I knew what the truth was in this case, Custis,” Henry said, belaboring the obvious.
Longarm sighed and rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. He hesitated. But only for a moment. Hell, if he couldn’t trust Henry... and for that matter Billy Vail too... then he was in a lot of trouble. “Look, it’s... you might say that I’m takin’ personal time off. You know?”
“Tell me,” Henry prompted.
“It’s this newspaper article that put a bee up my ass.” He waved the crumpled paper at Henry as if the man could tell from that what the problem was. “You ever hear of a man named Norman Wold, Henry?”
Henry shook his head and removed his glasses to polish them with a handkerchief he extracted from a coat pocket—Henry religiously maintained proper attire, even inside a stifling office at the height of summer—and carefully unfolded the handkerchief before giving every appearance of total concentration on that homely task, as if Longarm’s story was of little interest indeed.
“Norm Wold is . . . more’n a friend,” Longarm haltingly tried to explain. “He’s what you might call a... mentor. Yeah, mentor. It fits.”
“Yours?” Henry asked.
“Uh-huh. From a long time back. There was a time, see... I don’t talk about it much... there was a time I coulda taken a different road from what I done. A time I coulda wound up in the wrong place with the wrong people doing some wrong things. If you know what I mean.”
Henry grunted noncommittally, and continued to pay attention only to the cleanliness of his spectacles. It occurred to Longarm that Henry looked slightly owlish and—it took him a moment to figure it out—sort of incomplete without the familiar glasses in place on his nose.
“What I mean is, I coulda wound up on the wrong side of these law-an’-order chases, Henry. Coulda, that is, but for Norm Wold. He’s the one grabbed me by the collar one night an’ gave me some straight talk. Didn’t just talk to me, though. That wasn’t Norm’s way. Oh, he said all the usual words, sure. But then he up an’ did something about it. Backed up his mouth with his actions. You know?”
“Not, um, actually.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what he did. Norm didn’t just say he had faith in me an’ in what I could become. He showed it to me. Hired me for a part-time deputy town marshal. This was after I’d paid off from a trail crew driving a herd of mixed cows an’ steers up from Texas, me and a bunch of other wild an’ randy young assholes. We paid off an’ blew our pay in no time, an’ were thinking of ways we could all get rich again without having to go to all the bother of working for it. If you see what I mean.”
“Uh-huh.” Henry scrubbed at his already gleaming disks of glass some more, not so much as glancing toward Longarm.
“Yeah, well, Mr. Norm, he singled me out from the crowd. God only knows why, what he saw in me that he figured was worth saving. He found me drunk in an alley this one time, an’ hauled me back to his jail, but instead of whipping my ass an’ taking me before the justice of the peace like he probably ought, he let me sleep off the worst of my drunk, an’ then came in with coffee and crullers an’ sat me down for a talk, like I already told you. An’ then he went out an’ talked with the mayor an’ the judge an’ got them to let him hire me. I kinda suspect my pay come outa Mr. Norm’s own pocket ’cause that shitty little brand-new cow town didn’t have hardly any money to waste on public works at the time. Anyway, he taught me that bein’ a peace officer can be a thing a man can take pride in.
“It wasn’t much of a job, mind, an’ it didn’t last long, just long enough for me to get shut of those boys I’d been running with and get my feet back under me some. Then Norm grinned an’ fed me a big dinner an’ fired my ass so I’d get on back down the road where I belonged. But God, he taught me an awful lot in that little while, and I’m grateful to him still.
“Which he knows, of course. I’ve written to him a couple times over the years. No, don’t look at me like that, dammit, I have too written to him, real letters an’ everything. And I’ve seen him a couple times when I found myself in his part of the world. I’m still grateful to him, an’ some of the lessons Norm taught me then came back an’ helped sway me when the chance came to pin a badge on for real, riding for Billy here. So you can see that I’d be partial to Norm. That I’d feel I owe the man for what all he done for me.”
“I can see that,” Henry agreed.
“Right. Well, this article says that Marshal Norman Wold of Hirt County, Kansas, has been arrested an’ charged with arson an’ grand larceny along with malfeasance in office an’ half a dozen other damn things. Can you imagine it? Norm Wold? Why, he’s the most honest man I ever in my whole life met. Can’t be any truth to what this article says, but obviously somebody’s got it in for Norm. An’
Henry, the thing is, I appreciate what Norm did for me those years past. So now I reckon it’s my time to go do something back for him. I got to head back to Kansas, Henry. I got to. You tell Billy that. If I can’t have the time off, well, he can let me know. I’ll head for the nearest post office an’ mail my badge back to him. All right?”
Henry set his spectacles carefully onto his nose and one at a time hooked the gilt sidepieces over his ears, then took still more time to fold his handkerchief and return it to an inner pocket before he responded.
“I’ll tell him, Longarm. This town in Kansas. What did you say the name is?”
Longarm had to consult the newspaper again to be sure. “Place called Crow’s Point, it says here.”
“Any idea where that is?”
“Not the faintest. But I’ll find it, Henry. Damn me if I don’t.”
“Try and be back by ... oh, hell, never mind. We’ll make do somehow, ask for a continuance or something if the prosecutor thinks he absolutely has to have your testimony for the arraignment. We’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Henry. You’re a friend.”
“Don’t let that get out, dang it, or every one of you lazy so-and-so’s will be wanting favors from me.”
Longarm smiled. And hurried back out onto the street. He had to go by the boardinghouse to get his gear, then head to the railroad depot for the next available east-bound.
He could figure out where he was going once he was on his way.
Chapter 3
It took a train and two stagecoach transfers to get there, but Longarm was able to find Crow’s Point, seat of Hirt County, Kansas, with hardly any trouble at all. Unless you wanted to count two and a half days of hot, dusty, bone-jarring travel as trouble. If Longarm had been tired before, he was damn near a state of collapse by the time a taciturn and grumpy coach driver dumped him and his luggage onto the empty main street of the town.