Longarm on the Overland Trail

by Tabor Evans

  "That could have been took more brutal. I figured I owed a pretty lady a proper parting of the ways," he told her.

  She looked blank at first. Then she smiled radiantly. "I'll be damned if I don't think you meant that, and you've made my day in more ways than one, even if the night ahead promises to be an awful letdown. God bless you, Custis Long, and try to remember me the next time you're back this way. For I doubt I'll ever forget you and the all-too-short time you made me feel so young and pretty again."

  He leaned across to kiss her and promised to visit, should he ever pass through Julesburg again. Then he got away before she could blubber up on him. He knew that last part had been a lie, even if it had been a white lie. He passed through Julesburg often enough on more serious business. But he knew it was best to break clean, with even good-looking women, if one wanted a clear conscience and pleasant memories. He figured a lot of good old gals he recalled wistfully enjoyed their soft place in his heart because he'd had to move on before they'd felt free to nag him about the way he just was. He wanted to remember Myrtle as a sweet old gal So it was just as well there were other places to stay in Julesburg, if he ever got stuck here overnight again.

  He'd memorized the local timetable, so he wasn't surprised when he heard a distant locomotive moan at a crossing off to the east. He legged it to the depot, put his saddle on an empty baggage cart and started to light a cheroot as he noticed there were seven other gents on the platform with him. He took them for fellow travelers until his match light glinted on the dress sword one of them had hanging down his blue pants. The same match lit Longarm's face, of course, so the one with the sword marched over to say, "They told us we might find you here, Deputy Long. You can forget about that westbound train."

  Longarm shook out his light and said, "Evening, Colonel Walthers. Ain't your corporal's squad two men short?"

  Lieutenant Colonel Walthers, U.S. Army Military Police, was a man about Longarm's age and shape, in an army where fifty-year-old captains were not considered rare. Walthers was said to boot-lick his superiors with the same enthusiasm he bullied his inferiors, which included ninety-nine percent of the human race, to hear old Walthers talk. "You have to come back to Fort Halleck with us, Long. We're holding a board of inquiry on the death of Sergeant Fagan," he said.

  Longarm said, "That's the army's business, not mine. I was nowhere near the idjet when he decided to commit suicide by slapping leather on a man I'd hate to mess with that way. There ain't no mystery for the army to solve. Your sergeant went down in front of a saloon full of witnesses, and the gent who gunned him has owned up to it. I'm headed for Scott's Bluff on a more important and less lawful shooting. So don't mess with me. I mean it."

  But the officer told him, "I'm holding you responsible for Sergeant Fagan's death. I mean that, too."

  Longarm snorted in disgust. "You know, every time I figure I know just how dumb you are, you have to prove me wrong by acting even dumber. This ain't a beauty contest between you and me. You'd be pretty as hell if You wiped that constant smirk off your fool face. We're both after a man who kills soldiers a lot more regular than old Dutch. He just murdered a civilian, for a change, in Scott's Bluff. If you and your boys would rather pick nits about an open-and-shut case that can only go one way, that's up to you. I see my train coming in now. It's been nice talking to you."

  He picked up his saddle with his left hand and took a step toward the tracks. Walthers stepped into his path, stuck his chest out at him, and snapped, "If you won't come willingly we'll just have to disarm and handcuff you. Lieutenant Parsons, arrest this civilian!"

  The U.P. westbound combo was rolling to a stop behind Walthers. Longarm clamped down on his cheroot with bared teeth, balled up his right fist, and planted it in Walther's superior smile, hard.

  The short-colonel went down, his face a bloody ruin, as the nearest shave-tail gasped in awe and said, "You can't do that!"

  Longarm drew his six-gun with the same lethal fist. "I just did. Before anyone else gets hurt, I want you boys to add up the odds here and... Keep that gun hand polite, Trooper. I mean it!"

  The enlisted man who'd just unstrapped the flap of his holster had noticed Longarm seemed to be a man who meant it, when he said he meant it. So he froze, looking sort of sick.

  Longarm threw his saddle aboard the nearest rail car's loading platform, but kept them all covered. He smiled thinly and said, "That's better. I know it's six of you to five rounds in this wheel. So I know at least one of you would surely nail me no matter how the other five made out. I'm only human. For all we know, I might not take all five down with me. So place your bets and let the game commence."

  Nobody moved or said a word, save for Walthers himself, who was rolling about on the platform with both hands to his face, demanding they arrest his attacker.

  Longarm climbed the steps backward, gun muzzle trained on the sullen but smart soldiers. After a few tense, awkward seconds the locomotive up ahead sounded its whistle, the platform under him jerked into motion, and Longarm was on his way west.

  As he holstered his gun and picked up his saddle, a conductor Longarm knew came out to join him, saying, "Evening, Longarm. You don't have to show me your U.P. pass. I've seen it often enough. What was that all about back there? It sounded sort of serious."

  Longarm shrugged. "I reckon they weren't as serious as me, after all."

  CHAPTER 9

  Following the Overland or any other old wagon trail by rail was complicated. Rolling west the hard way, the pioneers had been more anxious about getting there alive than getting there in a hurry. The old trails had been laid out with water and easy pulling in mind, following streambeds and avoiding steep grades as often as possible.

  The stage lines that followed the first covered wagons had tried to sell more speed to both passengers and the post office. So while the Overland Trail had to more or less follow the trend of the earlier Oregon and Mormon trails, it tended to cut across river bends and top more rises with its lighter coaches.

  The railroad builders had wanted to sell even more speed and, having machinery and black powder to work with, they'd taken even more direct routes, bridging, grading, and tunneling to beeline where nothing pulled by draft animals could have gone. The U.P. had saved on miles of expensive steel tracks by using cheaper immigrant labor to bull through the Rockies well south of the easier, traditional passes. The older stage route had of course made the wider swing to the north. So, when his train got to Sidney, Longarm and his gear got off to catch the short line up to Northport, Nebraska, and catch another U.P. the thirty-odd miles northwest to Scott's Bluff.

  You couldn't see the cliffs the town was named after this late at night. It was hard to see much of the town, now that the oil lamps along the main street were all that seemed awake enough to matter. He left his modest luggage checked in at the depot and headed for the local branch of the sheriff's department. Despite its name and former fame, Scott's Bluff had lost out when they'd got around to choosing the county seat. So the sheriff's office there was run by a senior deputy, while the elected official he ran it for got to sleep in Gering on the far side of the North Platte.

  The senior deputy had gone home for the night, too. But the crusty old gent left to mind the office and keep an eye on the drunks in the tank knew Longarm by reputation and got up out of his rocking chair to shake and say, "We was expecting some federal men. Did you know the army has just sworn out a warrant on you and wired us to arrest you on sight?"

  "I didn't. But it don't surprise me. Are you figuring on arresting me, sir?" Longarm asked.

  "Call me Jeff. Hell, no. You never beat up no short-colonels in Nebraska. You'd think a man smart enough to make short-colonel would know better than to ask Nebraska to arrest a man on a Colorado fistfight."

  Longarm chuckled. "Old Walthers ain't smart enough to make assistant squad leader. But I come up here to talk about more important pests, if it's all the same with you."

  Old Jeff nodded and said, "I'd be p
roud to show you the scene of the crime. It's just down the way, across from a saloon that stays open late. We let the dead man's kin carry his body home to wake, once the doc who fills in for the coroner here examined it some, of course. There was no mystery about the cause of death. He'd been shot direct in the center of his forehead, at close range. Lord knows how the undertaker means to get them powder burns off, if they mean to hold an open-casket service. The horse has been impounded as evidence. Meaning it's in the corral out back. They didn't require us to talk so fancy in the old days, and we still hung the right gents, most of the time."

  "I've noticed that. You say you have a horse for me to look at?" Longarm asked.

  Old Jeff shrugged. "You can if you like. I doubt it will be able to tell you much. Horses don't talk, you know."

  Longarm said they'd see about that and the old town law led him out back where, sure enough, a big part-thoroughbred bay was alone in the smaller pole corral next to the bigger one the town law used for its own remuda.

  Old Jeff called to it and it came over to have its muzzle patted. "He's a friendly critter, considering who rid him into town from Lord knows where," Jeff remarked. "Our riders wasn't able to read sign on the baked prairie. We got the saddle and bridle in the tack room. Both army. Like the horse. The boss says that don't prove it's the officer's mount the kid stole. But the brute is packing an army remount service brand and I can't come up with a better notion where he might have picked it up. Come on, I'll show you where the murderous little bastard abandoned it."

  They cut through a vacant lot, back to the main street, and the scene of the crime was only a few doors down. The interior of the open-front smithy was dark until Jeff lit an oil lamp hanging above the anvil by the cold forge. Longarm saw that the more portable tools of the dead blacksmith's trade had been put away for safe keeping, kids being kids, and some grownups being worse.

  Old Jeff pointed with his chin. "The smith was a-hind the anvil and the killer was standing just this side of it, as we put it together. The kid must have shoved his.45 across the anvil direct in the smith's poor face and pulled the trigger, once."

  Longarm grimaced. "Where did you find his army mount?" he asked.

  The older lawman said, "Outside, running loose, after. But it left hoofmarks in here, first. It reads that young Slade led it in, got into some sort of fuss with the smith, and blowed his brains out."

  Longarm asked, "Has anyone thought to examine the feet of that witness?"

  The answer was, "Sure. We may be small-town, but we ain't stupid. That couldn't have been what they was arguing about. The critter is still wearing well-nailed iron, as shows the same trail wear. Aside from that, the wagon spring the smith was fixing when he died was still too hot to pick up when someone tried. It sure do make one wonder. But then, the fliers we got on the fugitive said he was crazy. So there's just no way us saner gents can figure what they was arguing about."

  Longarm nodded and said, "The wire I got said the killer was seen by local witnesses. That hardly jibes with what you just told me, no offense."

  "None taken. Nobody witnessed the exact killing, but they sure heard the gunshot across the street. At that time of evening there was nothing open around here but the smithy, open late, and the saloon across the way. The sound attracted the attention of the serious drinkers at the bar, and most of 'em stepped out on the boardwalk for a look-see. What they seen was a stubby little cuss in flapping fur chaps and black Texas hat coming their way, waving two guns and saying mean things about all their mothers. So they went back inside, sudden."

  Longarm said that sounded reasonable. "What happened then?"

  Old Jeff said, "What happened was that Clovis Sinclair as rides for the X Slash X lost a fifty-dollar saddle and a fifteen-dollar pony. The stubby-legged killer must not have felt up to chasing the horse he rid in on. So he helped hisself to the cow pony and lit out of town, crowing like a rooster and shooting at the stars. Old Clovis is mad as hell. Aside from losing his show-off saddle, he has to pay for the pony the X Slash X let him ride to town. Them's the rules, when you lose your employer's stock."

  Longarm said he knew that and asked what the more recently stolen horseflesh looked like. Old Jeff replied, "Scrub buckskin with no blazes and a black mane and tail. Branded X Slash X, of course. The saddle would be easier to I.D. from a distance. It's a black double-rig Vadelia, mounted with what Clovis says is silver. He wouldn't know real silver from German-silver, but then, neither would I from a dozen yards off. By now the little fool as stole it could be showing it off most anywhere."

  "I hope not. I've reason to suspect he's riding the old Overland Trail on a lunatic's quest. The big question is whether he means to leave it east of the South Pass and head north to get lynched some more, or follow the trail west to Salt Lake City and put flowers on his own grave."

  Old Jeff said, "What you just said might make sense to you, old son, but it sounds sort of silly to me, unless I missed something."

  Longarm said, "That's fair. Black Jack Junior has been thinking mighty silly. But, either way, he'd have to follow the old trail, some."

  "Well, he has a good lead on you, but it's a good week or ten days' ride to the south pass country, and that long-legged army mount he left here looks a lot faster than the scrub buckskin he swapped it for," Jeff observed. "So if you want to impound it as your own federal evidence..."

  "No thanks," Longarm cut in. "The iron horse is even faster. As I read the timetable, I can catch a midnight combo up as far as Bonneville Junction and get there by morning. There's a mountain local from there as far south as Saint Stephens, where the tracks and me begin to disagree as to where we're headed. If I beg, borrow, or buy a mount there, I can follow Beaver Creek an easy two days' ride and beat the little rascal to the South Pass with so much time to spare I'll likely wind up bored as hell before it gets exciting."

  Old Jeff thought and said, "That sure sounds boring, it's true. Why not just take the U.P. transcontinental and get off where it crosses the South Pass?"

  "It does and it doesn't. What everyone today thinks of as the South Pass ain't what that colored mountain man, Sublette, mapped out when he was the first to find that way over the Divide. Some Indians showed him how flat their Shining Mountains got just south of Atlantic Peak. So he followed their trail and dubbed it the South Pass because it was south of the way Lewis and Clark had said they'd found the only passage. It took a spell for others to notice that whole stretch of mountains was more like rolling prairie for a good hundred miles north and south. Meanwhile, all sorts of folk had followed Sublette's map and left wagon ruts where the map said the official South Pass was. It's still the best wagon trace, if you got plenty of time, and like to stick close to water and firewood off the slopes to the north. The railroad was in more of a hurry and ran its line way south of the trail laid out by Sublette, Brigham Young, and such. The Overland coaches followed the older, longer route. Atlantic City and South Pass City, whilst hardly cities, are still in business, even if Overland Express ain't. I figure a lunatic who thinks he's a hired gun for Overland Express will follow their old route. If I took the railroad and got off, say, in Bitter Creek, I'd have to ride farther to cut him off, see?"

  Old Jeff said, "I'm sure glad you ain't trailing me. It ain't fixing to be midnight for quite a spell, and Lord knows what the Northern Division of the U.P. will be serving as food and drink by the time she shows up, with all the ice long melted. So what say we cross the street to treat our bellies better?"

  "I could sure do with some ham and eggs. But what about the prisoners back there in your tank, Jeff?" Longarm asked.

  The older lawman said, "Let 'em get their own grub. None of 'em are in for anything more serious than acting drunk and disgusting, anyway. Do they all escape, it'll save the judge the tiresome chore of cussing 'em out and letting 'em go in the morning."

  Longarm allowed it was old Jeff's town and they went across to the saloon. The boss there said he never argued with the law but asked
them if they'd mind eating in the kitchen lest the others out front want some, too.

  They agreed and were seated at a kitchen table, finishing up with apple pie washed down with beer, when it got sort of noisy out front. So they got up to go see what the fuss was all about.

  A young cowhand was orating from one end of the bar, upon which sat a black and silver mounted Vadelia show saddle. They joined him and made him start all over again. He didn't seem to mind. He struck a heroic pose and declared, "I was riding in off the Circle H when a pack of growlsome coyotes spooked my pony. As I got him back down outten the stars I seen something glinting at me from the dark, about fifty yards offen the wagon trace. I knew it had to be a coyote's eye. So I shot it. When it never even blinked I shot it again and, when it was still there, I knew either me or my saddle gun had to be wrong. So I got down and moved in on it for a closer look-see."

  He paused for dramatic effect and another swig of beer before he continued. "it was the silver horn of this here saddle I was trying to shoot for a coyote and, lucky for Clovis Sinclair, I'd only grazed it once. It was still cinched to that buckskin Clovis lost right out front the other night. Someone had shot it in the head and buried it under tumbleweed to make it look like a big old clump of brush against a bobwire fence. I had to laugh as I thought about how the posse must have rid right past it more than once."

  Old Jeff said, "You always did talk fresh to your elders. The critter was doubtless hid a lot better before them coyotes got to nosing the tumbleweed aside to get the stale meat, as coyotes tend to do. But I reckon that you're entitled to your brag. For you just saved Longarm, here, a needless as well as long train ride."

  Longarm shook his head. "Not hardly. I see no need to change my plans worth mention."

  Old Jeff frowned up at him and asked, "How come? Young Slade could hardly be meaning to follow the old Overland Trail aboard that buckskin, if he shot and hid it right outside of town."