by Tabor Evans
“Don’t worry, John,” Longarm said, tossing down several coins then rising and plucking his half-smoked cigar from the table. “You got the job . . . if you’ll do it for five dollars a day.”
Longarm flicked his cigar to life on his thumbail.
John clapped his hands loudly and laughed as he gained his feet. “I do tend to go on a bit. Five’s right stingy for Uncle Sam, but I don’t have nothin’ else goin’. Say, you all outfitted, are ye?”
“I just have to pick up my horses at the Occidental. You?”
“I stabled mine with an old half-breed outta town aways. Why don’t you go on ahead? I got a little business to tend here in town. I’ll pick up my cayuses and meet you up trail in an hour or so.”
“Sounds right as rain to me, John,” Longarm said before turning and heading for the door, while puffing his cigar. He’d enjoy the hell out of that one quiet hour. It was bound to be a long trip up canyon with this blow-nasty uncle of Merle’s. But if Comanche John knew the canyon as well as he claimed, he’d no doubt be worth a couple of sore eardrums.
“Uh . . . Longarm?”
The lawman turned with one hand on the doorknob. Comanche John stood on the other side of the table, adjusting his eye patch, his beard lifting with a buttery grin. “You reckon you could advance me . . . say . . . uh . . . one silver cartwheel? I got some notes comin’ due.”
Longarm tucked the cigar in the far right corner of his mouth to cover a wince. He plucked a gold eagle from his denims pocket and flipped it to Comanche John, whose meaty right paw snapped it out of the air like the practiced beak of a mud hen snatching a junebug in mid-flight.
“Gracias, amigo!” intoned Comanche John.
Longarm made a mental note to add the eagle to his expense sheet, then turned, went out, and set his hat for the Occidental Livery and Feed Barn.
Maybe the son of a bitch would prove more annoying than handy after all. But once you’ve fucked the niece, you’re pretty much stuck with the uncle.
Chapter 8
Longarm was rigged up and moseying out of town, the pack mule following on a long lead rope, by the time the huge, liquid red sun had risen like a giant fire balloon out of the sage-pocked eastern prairie.
He’d started out wearing his sheepskin vest, as the nights and mornings were brisk most of the year at this altitude. But by the time he’d swung both horses along the low, cottonwood-stippled southern bank of the Diamondback River, the sun was branding his back and neck.
He stopped to roll the vest into his soogan and rain slicker. When he’d let both mounts draw water from a rocky ford, from which they’d scared up a good hundred barking and quarreling Canada geese, he mounted up and booted the muscular sorrel toward the mouth of Diamondback Canyon, a wedge-shaped gap in the sandstone and granite scarps rising in the west, at the base of higher, purple green peaks shouldering back against the far horizon.
Longarm was well within those high, crenelated walls pushing shade a good ways into the narrow canyon and over the frothy, tea-colored river, before he caught a glimpse of a rider galloping behind him—a big man in buckskins on a tall dun and trailing a black pack mule. Longarm continued walking the sorrel along the rushing stream, following the deep-carved wagon trail through scattered aspens and cottonwoods, until the pounding of hooves rose above the river’s rush.
He stopped the sorrel and looked behind.
Comanche John galloped toward him through the dappled shade of sprawling cottonwoods. He held his reins up high against his chest, the brim of his sombrero shading his face. The big man’s buckskins were sweat-stained, and both his dun and the beefy mule were lathered and dusty.
“Hold up, John!” Longarm called, scowling. “No point in faggin’ your animals. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Comanche John drew up abreast of Longarm, laughing. “I was afraid you might get lost.” He snapped a quick look over his left shoulder. “Besides, old Roberta and Matthew been stabled too much of late, and need to get the juices flowin’.” Again, he peered over his left shoulder to look behind with a cautious air, then turned back to Longarm. “We best get movin’. It’s a good fifty miles to the pass.”
He booted the dun mare forward, jerking the black mule along behind.
Longarm stared after the graybeard for a time, frowning, then hipped around in his saddle to peer back over the wagon trail cleaving the sun-splashed cottonwood copse. Spying only John’s sifting dust and mountain jays and woodpeckers among the trees, he spurred the sorrel forward and caught up to John as the big man traced a long bend in the rocky-banked river.
“So tell me, Longarm,” John said. “Are we huntin’ ole Magnusson and those fiendish women of his, or are we hopin’ they’ll hunt us?”
“Both.” Longarm poked his hat brim up to peer along the granite walls rising on both sides of the river. “You know where he’d hole up as well as anyone, don’t you, John?”
“I know the canyon better’n most. And I know where his cabins were as of three, four years ago. Since he went ape-crazy with killin’, he might have abandoned those shacks and found him another. Hell, he could even be holed up in a cave. There’s plenty up along the pass and around the base of Ute Peak.”
Longarm winced as he peered around. You never fully realized the depth of a country until you rode into it—and this was a deep one, indeed.
“Maybe they’ll come lookin’ for us first, and save us the time and trouble of lookin’ too long for them.”
“Want I should pull my pecker out, Longarm?” Comanche John quipped, showing his entire set of ivory white teeth. “That’d git them girls down here right quick!”
John howled, scaring finches from a rocky, pine-stippled slope.
“Not just yet, John,” Longarm said. “I’ll tell you when.”
They camped that night about fifteen miles up canyon, beyond the Diamondback Narrows, a gorge pinched down to only a few yards across, where the water spewed through the boulders and granite slabs like a geyser.
The night came early, the sun sinking down behind the unseen Skull Pass at the canyon’s far end. Wolves howled. The stars were like crystals. There was so little breeze that Longarm, sitting on a low scarp near their bivouac, puffing his cheroot and sipping coffee, his Winchester across his knees, could hear the slightest scrape of two branches, the faint rustling of burrowing creatures, and the flaps of an owl sweeping invisibly over the canyon.
The river was a constant, distant murmur over nearby shallows.
When he returned to the bivouac, Comanche John sat on a log by the fire, reaching into a burlap bag sitting at his jackbooted feet. He pulled out a bottle wrapped in deerskin and knotted twine. His eyes were glassy as he ran a thick, knobby hand down the bottle before holding it out to the fire, staring at the deep amber glow within.
“I reckon I see where that gold piece went,” Longarm said, walking over and prodding the sack with his boot toe. Another bottle rolled out of the bag’s mouth, wrapped in deerskin.
“Now, see here, Deputy,” Comanche John said, carefully shoving the bottle back into the sack. “You think I’m low enough to shake you down for ten dollars, then go off and spend it on hooch?” He gazed up at Longarm from beneath his shaggy, gray brows. “The uncle of Diamondback’s noble marshal?”
“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”
John stared up at him, brows beetled, face flushing angrily, firelight dancing in his eyes. Finally, a sheepish grin broke over his weathered, bearded features. He popped the cork from the bottle in his hands. “Pshaw! I reckon you already spied the brand on this old reprobate!” He held the bottle up. “Drink?”
Longarm extended his cup. Comanche John splashed some whiskey into Longarm’s coffee, then slid down off the log to rest his back against it, extending his buckskin-clad legs straight out toward the fire and crossing his jackboots at the ankles.
Longarm sat on a rock to John’s left. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the fire, sipped the whiskey-laced cof
fee. It wasn’t Maryland rye, but it wasn’t bad.
After a few pensive minutes staring into the burning coals, wondering how many days it would take to run old Magnusson down, then remembering he’d forgotten to cable a report to Billy before leaving Diamondback, he turned to see John regarding him like the cat who ate the canary, his teeth as well as his eyes glistening like brands in the firelight.
“Fess up, Longarm,” John said. “What was she like?”
Longarm frowned over his cup rim. “What was who like?”
“What was who like?” John mocked. “Why, Merle, of course! Are you tellin’ me you didn’t share her mattress sack? Pshaw! A man big and handsome as you? Merle keeps her knees clamped so tight you couldn’t pry ’em apart with a crowbar, but”—he slitted his eyes—“I suspicion she might’ve opened ’em fer you.”
Longarm plucked a cigar from his shirt pocket and bit off the end. “What a question for an uncle to ask of his niece.”
“Shit, you seen her. Even an uncle can tell she’s built like a brick shithouse. And, hell, I heared her damn screams last night all the way over to Old Louis’s whore-house on the bank of the Diamondback!” John slapped his thigh, thrust his chin at the stars, and guffawed.
As if to reply, coyotes yipped and yammered on a nearby ridge.
“John, a gentleman don’t kiss and blabber . . . especially to the lady’s uncle.”
Chagrined, John furrowed his brows at him over the leaping flames.
“Now you tell me somethin’,” Longarm said, tossing his hat down beside him and running a brusque hand through his hair. “Who the hell’s trailin’ us?”
John looked stunned. “Huh?”
“I spied their dust trail a couple hours ago. Three, four riders. Just before the sun went down, I saw a sun flash off either a rifle barrel or a field glass lens.”
“Whiskey must be gettin’ to you. Better lay off, Longarm.” John took a pull.
Longarm stared at him. “You don’t know anything about ’em?”
John scowled into the fire. “Sometimes the railroad sends market hunters out thisaway when the game’s done been shot off the plains. Hell, they could be prospectors. Been some good washings in this canyon of late . . . in spite of that kill-crazy trio workin’ their evil deeds.”
“I reckon you’re right. They could be prospectors. They could also be dissatisfied creditors who spied you spending that gold eagle I gave you on whiskey instead of puttin’ it toward, say, maybe, a grocery bill or a gambling debt.”
Comanche John glared at him. “Longarm, you think I’m hock-high to a shithouse rat, don’t ya?”
“Well, you did spend the gold eagle on hooch, and you are rather interested in your niece’s bedroom habits . . .”
John corked his bottle and heaved himself to his feet, staggering a little and punching his open palm with the other fist. “Okay, goddamnit, Longarm. I just gotta know. I ain’t gonna be satisfied till I’m clear on who’s the tougher son of a bitch—you or me!”
Longarm stared up at the man from beneath his cinnamon brows. “Huh?”
John motioned for him to stand. “Come on. Git up!”
Longarm continued staring at him. John seemed to get crazier by the hour. Had Merle been pulling a practical joke, recommending the loco mossy-horn for a mountain guide?
The big graybeard kicked his empty coffee cup from the fire ring. “Come on, damnit.” Wheeling, he began unbuttoning his right shirt cuff as he ambled over to a flat boulder on the far side of the bivouac, near where the horses and mules stood grazing idly at their hitch rope. Rolling the sleeve up his arm, he knelt on the far side of the rock and stared over the rock’s flat, fissured surface at Longarm.
“Git up, now, damnit! Don’t be yalla. I gotta know which one’s tougher—you or me.”
“Give the owls in your tree a rest, John,” Longarm snorted, remaining on his own rock and tipping his coffee cup to his lips. “They’re right tuckered, and so am I.”
“Get over here, blast ya!” John was working on the other sleeve. “It’s drivin’ me crazy. I gotta know!”
Longarm looked over the fire at the crazy mountain man hunkered down on the far side of the boulder. John had both sleeves rolled up his long, pale, muscle-corded, knife-scarred arms, and he was carefully brushing sand and pine needles from atop the rock.
“You wanna arm wrestle,” Longarm said, elbows on his knees, one brow arched as he scrutinized his crazy partner.
John laughed without mirth and set his right elbow atop the rock, flexing his hand. “You’re right quick for a federal badge-toter!”
Longarm sat there for a time, feeling ridiculous. He looked around, half-expecting to spot Merle, watching from afar and snickering her pretty head off.
Finally, Longarm chuckled dryly. It was pretty plain the conversation about the men behind them was closed. He threw back the last of his coffee and whiskey and dropped the cup by the fire. He felt as though he’d slipped back about twenty-five years, and the playground bully was calling him out for the right to ask the freckle-faced girl to the barn dance.
“All right, John.”
He stood and swept his hair back from his forehead, and, strolling over to Comanche John eyeing him like a hungry bobcat, he unbuttoned his right leather shirt cuff and rolled the sleeve up above his elbow.
“We playin’ for nickles, dimes, quarters . . . ?”
“Braggin’ rights,” said the mountain man. “Come on. Git down here and put up your paw!”
Longarm pinched his trousers up his thighs and dropped to one knee. He planted his right elbow atop the rock, locking gazes with Comanche John, and moved his elbow around a little, getting comfortable.
Comanche John set his left hand up in front of his right elbow, palm open, as if to shake. Longarm did likewise, taking the old man’s hand in his, feeling the dry, calloused fingers close around his own.
It was obvious right off the bat that John couldn’t beat him. At least, not in his inebriated state. Longarm let their locked fists swing back and forth a few times, like the pendulum on a wound-down clock. After about a minute, however, he feigned exhaustion and let his arm go limp.
John slammed his knuckles into the boulder.
“Hawwwwwwwww! By jove, you slick little river rat, I won!”
There’s your bragging rights, as if you needed them, Longarm thought.
“You’re one tough son of a bitch, John.” Longarm gained his feet. “Now, you mind if I get some shut-eye?”
“Know what you done wrong?” John said, grinning across the rock. “You done used up too much strength at the beginnin’, tryin’ to whup me right off! I seen it many a time in the overconfident. Ha!”
Longarm shook his head and headed back to the fire. “I’m gonna have to remember that.”
John said behind him, “Another thing you might do, Longarm—if’n you wanna keep arm wrastlin’, that is—is strengthen the muscles in your forearm. Guys like you, you’re all shoulders. That’s all right if you’re just tossin’ feed sacks to and fro, and if’n you’re just out to bag pussy. But that ole forearm is important, too.”
John stood, brushed sand and pinecones from his knees, and swaggered over to the fire, chin lifted like the prow of a clipper ship cleaving a smooth sea, his gaze proud as that of a young panther bringing fresh kill back to the cave.
“Yes, sir, I might be on the lee side of sixty, but I can still whup you pups. Maybe not every time. I ain’t sayin’ that. Don’t call me cocky. But every now and then I’ll surprise ye!”
Longarm took a long pull from his bottle of Maryland rye. His nerves were shot. The only thing more exhausting than a hard trail was a braggart. He kicked off his boots. “I’m done wore out, John. I’m gonna call it a night. You mind keepin’ the first watch?”
No doubt, the oldster’s swollen head would keep him awake for a couple of hours anyway.
John laughed as Longarm crawled into his soogan and drew several blankets up to his chest.
Longarm looked up at the graybeard towering over him.
“Just be glad we weren’t fightin’ with our bare-knuckled fists.” He winked, then picked up his old Spencer repeater and blustered off into the darkness.
Longarm lay his head on his saddle and tipped his hat brim low. “Mercy.”
Chapter 9
The Mexican said, “They are stopped on the trail, right side of the river. Comanche John is pointin’ at something on the ground.”
“Maybe he finally found his marbles,” said Crazy Eddie Lancer, chuckling as he raised a whiskey bottle to his thin lips.
“Shut up and cork the bottle, Eduardo,” ordered Natcho as he continued staring through the spyglass.
It was mid-afternoon of the next day, and the man known only as Natcho swept a greasy tangle of black hair from his forehead as he snugged the spyglass to his right eye, scrutinizing the two men—Comanche John and his unknown, dark-haired partner—whom Natcho and his two companions had been following for the past two days.
“What’re they lookin’ at, Natcho?” asked Wilbur Keats, sitting with Crazy Eddie in the rocks beneath Natcho.
Keats and Crazy Eddie Lancer were sitting with their backs to the black-granite scarp, passing a whiskey bottle and smoking hastily rolled quirleys. The cigarette smoke wafted up to Natcho, as did the pungent odor of the cheap strychnine whiskey the men had bought at a roadhouse outside Casper two days ago.
In the spyglass’s sphere of magnification, Comanche John rose up from his haunches and waved an arm around, indicating directions. Comanche John’s partner booted the sorrel straight up trail. Comanche John heaved himself into his own saddle, then reined his dun down the riverbank. He rode through a row of aspens, across the small rocks lining the shore, and into the water.
