by Evans, Tabor
Longarm completely forgot about anything beyond the moment.
Chapter 40
Longarm woke well before dawn, Helen snug against his side. He eased slowly out of the bed, careful to not disturb her. Last night, between bouts of vigorous lovemaking, she had mentioned that she had not had a day off in years, so his forced closing of the saloons in town had served to give her a vacation, and she intended to make the most of it by sleeping in.
He picked up his clothing and carried it into the kitchen, where he washed with the still slightly warm water in the oven reservoir. He could find nothing more substantial than a handful of bar rags to dry off with, but they served the purpose well enough.
Once dressed, he left through the alley, emerging onto the streets of Dwyer in the soft light of the coming dawn. It was chilly and Longarm shivered, then headed for the only light he could see in the business district.
The shade was up at the café window and he could see someone working in there. It was not the usual fellow, but then patrons would be coming by to eat both early and late. It only made sense for several people to work in shifts.
Longarm tapped on the glass to get the man’s attention.
The fellow came to the door and through the glass said, “What do you want?”
“In,” Longarm told him. “I’m hungry.”
“I’m not open yet.”
“Trust me,” Longarm told him. “Yes, you are.” He reached for his wallet to display his badge, but the man said, “I know who you are.”
“Then let me in, will you? Please?”
“Oh, all right, but I got work to do here. I got biscuits to bake.” He turned the lock and slid a bolt back, then opened the door for Longarm to enter.
“You got coffee?”
“Does a dog have ticks? Of course I got coffee.”
“Coffee and some of your biscuits would be good enough for me,” Longarm said.
“All right then, but sit at the counter. I don’t have time to be running back and forth to a table.”
“That’s fine with me. By the way, I’m Long.” He stuck his hand out to shake.
The café man laughed, then shook.
“Did I say something funny?” Longarm asked.
Shoulders heaving up and down from barely contained laughter the café man managed to say, “Yeah. You did.”
Longarm’s eyebrows went up.
“You’re Long. I’m Short. Johnny Short.”
Longarm grinned. “I see what you mean. Pleasure t’ meet you, Johnny.”
“Likewise. Sit over there and I’ll bring you that coffee.” Still chuckling, he added, “Maybe I can find something more than just coffee and biscuits for you too. Ham, maybe a few eggs?”
“Sounds perfect.” Longarm was smiling when he sat down at the counter.
Twenty minutes later, with most of a fine breakfast warming Longarm’s belly from the inside out, a tiny bell over the door tinkled and two men dressed for hard travel came in. They chose seats at the counter one stool down from Longarm.
“Good morning. You gents are up early,” he said.
“Yeah, dammit. We expected to get here yesterday. Wired the customer that we would be. But we busted a wheel. Ran over a damn rock and busted it clean. Then we had a bitch of a time trying to get the wagon jacked up so we could get that one off and a new one on. Haven’t had a chance to get hardly any sleep as we’re already late on this delivery.”
“You’re freighters?” Longarm asked.
“Yep. We’re making a special haul up from Cheyenne. Rush order and heavy as hell.” He looked around as if he could visualize the grasslands of McConnell County through the walls of the little café. “Damned if I understand why, though. I mean, what’s so special about the hunting up here that anyone would want all this shit?”
“What shit do you mean?” Longarm asked, taking a swallow of coffee.
“Cartridges,” the freighter said. “Cases of .45-60 cartridges and shotgun shells, and those sons of bitches weigh a ton. We got a whole wagonload of them. And now we get here and the consignee isn’t open. What can we do? We left the wagon at the loading dock and walked our mules over to the livery. Now we’re hungry as bears and about as ornery.”
“Can’t say as I blame you,” Longarm said. He leaned forward and looked at the other of the two, most likely the swamper, while the talkative gent would be the driver. That other one had not said a word. He was certainly interested in the coffee Johnny Short set in front of him though.
“Can we have another of those?” the driver asked, motioning toward Longarm’s plate.
“Coming right up,” Johnny told him.
The driver sighed, leaned back a little, stretched with his arms over his head. He looked back at Longarm and said, “You would think somebody was fixing to go to war up here with all that ammunition on hand.”
“Yeah,” Longarm mused. “Wouldn’t you.” He quickly finished his breakfast and dropped a quarter on the counter, casting a wary eye and wondering who they were selling all that ammo to. “Thanks, Johnny.” To the freighters he said, “Take it easy, fellas. I hope the rest o’ your day goes better for you.”
Chapter 41
On his way out Longarm met the barber, Bert, who was just coming into the café.
“Good morning, Johnny,” Bert said, taking his cap off and draping it onto a peg on the coat rack by the door. “And good morning to you, Marshal.”
“Mornin’,” Longarm agreed. “Have you finished with the bodies yet?” There was no need to specify exactly which bodies he meant. There would not be so very many of them at any one time in a town the size of Dwyer. At least he hoped there would not be a surplus of them anytime in the near future.
“Oh, yes.” Bert sat at a table and motioned to the chair opposite his. “Join me?”
“I just finished my breakfast,” Longarm said.
“Then have some coffee with me. I hate to eat alone.”
“All right.” He turned back toward the counter and said, “Johnny, I have a change o’ plans here, so don’t toss my coffee cup into the dish pail just yet.”
“You want a refill I take it?”
“I do indeed. But only ’cause you make such good coffee,” he said with a smile.
“Hell, for that this refill will be free.”
Longarm laughed. “All your refills are free.”
“Yes, and this one is too.”
“And I’ll have my usual,” Bert said, using his foot to push a chair away from the table for Longarm.
Longarm noticed that a flood of soft light coming in through the windows showed that it was coming dawn. Out on the street people were beginning to stir, starting their daily routines. More townspeople began to drift into the café.
Johnny brought two cups of coffee and a bowl of porridge for Bert, along with a can of condensed milk and a bowl of sugar. The morning cook went back behind the counter and removed another pan of biscuits from the oven, shoved a fresh pan in to bake, and started cracking eggs into a huge frying pan. His day was well under way now.
“Anything unusual about those bodies?” Longarm asked.
“Sure. They’re dead.”
“I meant . . .”
“I know what you meant, Marshal. I was just funning a little. If it matters to you, I’d say they were both shot with the same gun. It was a pistol and somewhat unusual in this day and age. They were shot with round ball, not modern cartridge.”
“Round shot could be from a shotgun,” Longarm said.
Bert nodded. “You’d think so. Double-ought is about the same size as a .36 Navy. But these had to come from a cap-and-ball revolver. Anything fired from a shotgun would’ve done even more damage than what there was.”
“Jesus,” Longarm said, shuddering at the memory of what John Tyler’s corpse had looked like. “You mean it could’ve got worse?”
“Believe me. It would have been even worse from a shotgun. There wouldn’t have been much of anything left of the back
of Tyler’s skull. And the Mexican . . . what was his name?”
“Altameira. Julio Altameira.”
“You’ll have to write that down for me so I can put it on his marker. Anyway, this Altameira was locked in his cell. The shooter couldn’t have been more than eight feet from him. He was hit four times, the shots spaced fairly close together but not like they would have been from a shotgun. A shotgun fired that close up would have hit almost like solid shot. Damn near like a cannonball. I recovered all the bullets from the body and went back later to look inside the cell. Looked on the wall for bullet strikes. On the floor to make sure none were lost there. There were only the four balls, and they all found their mark.”
Longarm nodded. “And a shotgun would’ve left . . . what does a twelve-gauge shell carry? Nine balls that size, isn’t it?”
“Right. And there were only four. So the weapon had to be a pistol.”
“Bert, you would make one hell of a fine detective, d’ you know that?”
The barber beamed at the compliment.
“More coffee, gentlemen?” Johnny asked on his rounds among the now busy tables. He was carrying the pot with him and filling cups and taking orders as he went.
“Not for me, thanks,” Longarm said, “and I’d best get out o’ here to make room for your customers.” He laughed. “I don’t think just everybody likes to set with the law so early in the morning.” To Bert he said, “Thanks for that information. It could be important.”
“If there is anything I can do . . .”
“I’ll ask. And thank you for that too.”
He tipped his hat toward Johnny Short, who by then was on the far side of the room, and again to Bert, then headed out to see what he could see.
What he wanted to see was an answer to the murder of Sheriff John Tyler and Julio Altameira.
Chapter 42
“Oh, shit,” Longarm mumbled under his breath. It was barely dawn and the Mexicans were gathering in front of the courthouse. They looked like it would take little provocation to turn them into a mob. All of them were armed. There seemed to be an awful lot of them. Apparently they had turned their goats over to the protective care of their herding dogs while all the humans headed for town to seek redress for the murder of Julio Altameira.
Longarm grabbed the attention of a pair of boys on their way to school—at least they were carrying book bags—and motioned them to him.
“How’d you fellows like to earn a dime apiece?”
The taller and presumably older of the two eyed him with suspicion, while the little guy, nine or ten years old, lit up with eagerness.
“What do we got to do, Marshal?” the young one asked.
“I want you to run over to the livery and tell Mr. DeCaro that I need him here in front of the courthouse.” He reached into his pocket and brought out some change, looked at it and announced, “I don’t have two dimes, so how’s about I give the two o’ you a quarter. You can figure out how to split it later. But first you go get Mr. DeCaro.”
Now it was the older boy who looked happy about the deal. Longarm suspected he would give his brother the short end of the stick when they got change for their quarter.
“That’s a deal, Marshal,” the older one said.
Longarm handed over the quarter, and the two boys raced away in the direction of the livery.
He started toward the Mexicans, only to be brought up short by the sight of fifteen or twenty Basques coming down the street, Eli Cruikshank leading the way. They too were armed. Much better armed than the Mexicans in fact. Their rifles were far more modern than the outmoded shotguns and single-shot weapons of the Mexicans.
Longarm changed direction and met the Basques head-on.
“I don’t need this shit today, Eli. Turn your boys around and head ’em back to the sheep camps.”
“We’ve been accused . . .”
“You’ve been accused of nothing,” Longarm said sharply. “Not a damn thing. I’m in the middle of investigating what happened, and at least at this point it don’t have anything to do with you or your Basques. If I find out different, you’ll be one of the first to know. In the meantime I want you to take your people right back out of town. I got troubles enough without you putting your oar in the water.”
Cruikshank turned and spoke to the Basques, several of whom responded with gestures that spoke clearly enough that they did not like what Eli was telling them. Longarm did not need to know their language to understand that much.
The Basques glared at Longarm. He glared right back at them. Be damned if he was going to be intimidated by them. He was the law here and they would by damn abide by what he said.
Eli spoke to them again, and they seemed to relax at least a little bit. Then Eli turned to Longarm and said, “I told them they have to go back to camp but that you’ll be sending those cocksuckers,” he inclined his head toward the Mexicans milling around in front of the courthouse, “back to their camps too.” Cruikshank’s eyes narrowed slightly when he said, “Isn’t that right, Marshal?”
“It’s right,” Longarm said. “I’ll be dispersing them quick as I get DeCaro here so’s I got somebody to translate for me.”
“I speak Spanish,” Eli said.
Longarm grinned. “I’ll bet you do, neighbor, but damned if I’m gonna trust you to do my talking. No offense, mind you.”
“None taken.”
“Good. Now turn your boys around and get them well outa town before I send the Mexicans packing in that same direction. I wouldn’t want you all to bump into each other on your way home.”
Cruikshank paused for a moment, then turned and spoke to the Basques. Somewhat reluctantly—but obediently, that was the important thing—they complied with the order to disperse.
Longarm breathed a little easier once it was the backsides of the Basques that he was seeing going down the street.
The Basques had barely cleared the block when Anthony DeCaro came hustling down the street looking like he was not yet fully awake.
“Sorry to take so long, Longarm. I had a mare go colicky last night and spent most of the night walking her.”
“Did she make it?”
“I think so. Might be a little soon to tell.”
While they spoke, they walked in the direction of the crowd of goatherds. Taking up a position between the Mexicans and the front of the courthouse steps, Longarm said, “Tell them their presence here ain’t necessary. Tell them I’m lookin’ for whoever it was that gunned down their friend Altameira. Tell them that person will face the full weight of the law when I do catch up with him. Which I will for damn certain sure. Tell them to go back to their camps and leave me to get on with what I got to do. Tell them it only makes things harder if I got to be worrying about them when I oughta be going about getting my work done.”
Anthony gave the group a longish spiel in Spanish. Longer, Longarm thought, than a simple translation would have required, but that was all right. Just so it got the message across.
Several of the goatherds had questions. DeCaro was able to answer most of them, but once he turned to Longarm and said, “They want to know if Julio will receive Yankee justice even though he was nothing but a greaser to you . . . to us, I should say . . . to us gringos.”
“Tell them I guaran-damn-tee it,” Longarm said.
Anthony spoke some more, and slowly the anger on the faces of the Mexicans seemed to recede. They held their shotguns lower, letting the weapons dangle from one hand instead of carrying them high with both hands. That was a good sign, Longarm thought.
“They’ll go,” Anthony said, “but they have some shopping to do in town, so they won’t be leaving just yet. If, uh, if that is all right with you.”
“Sure. Just so’s they don’t cause no trouble. Fact is, it’s probably a good thing to let the Basques get well clear of town before these boys head out.”
Anthony relayed that message in Spanish, and the Mexicans began moving as a body toward the businesses along the main stree
t of Dwyer.
Longarm watched them on their way, the opposite direction from the Basques, then he walked around to the back of the courthouse.
Chapter 43
The very messy aftermath of the murders was still there, dark red and lumpy, on the sheriff’s office floor. Longarm was pissed off. He hustled back outside and around to the front of the handsome courthouse building, then stormed up the steps and inside.
County clerk Benjamin Laffler physically recoiled when Longarm charged toward him, eyes as cold as a rattlesnake’s. “What . . . ?”
“Don’t give me no ‘what’ bullshit,” Longarm snapped. “You know damn good and well what has me riled.”
“It is early in the morning and . . .”
“I don’t care if it’s the middle of the damn night. Now you either get a clean-up crew down there in that office to put things right or you’ll grab a mop and go down to do it yourself, I don’t much care which. But right now I’m gonna make the rounds around this town. When I get done with that, that office better be suitable for folks to come in and out of. Do you understand me, Laffler? Do you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Longarm spun on his heels and left the clerk’s office, still fuming to the point it was a wonder there wasn’t steam coming out of his ears.
He walked around to a side street and down it for a few paces, to the mouth of the alley that led to the back of Helen Birch’s saloon.
There was no sign of the Mexicans, who seemed to have disappeared off the streets of Dwyer, and the Basques were well on their way back to their sheep camps.
Trouble seemed to have been averted.
For now.
He let himself into the back of Helen’s place and tiptoed into the kitchen, where as quietly as he could he added some chunks of coal to the stove and moved the coffeepot to the front to heat.
“Good morning.”
He turned to see Helen standing in the doorway to her tiny bedroom. Her hair was tousled, her face was blotchy with patches of red where she had been lying on a pillow, and she was bare-ass naked.
