Longarm on the Overland Trail

by Tabor Evans

  A younger cowhand, who wasn't old enough to tell tales like that without getting called on them, told Longarm he distinctly recalled the Overland coaches passing by his home spread down by Bitter Creek when he was just a lad of six or seven. Longarm thanked him gravely for the information. He was too polite to point out that the railroad town of Bitter Creek couldn't have been there earlier than Sixty-eight or -nine, or that when his informant could have been six or seven the Shoshone still owned that part of the world.

  He went back to the hotel to find Ann already undressed and under the covers. He told her not to look so hurt, because he'd only had two beers in the line of duty.

  She forgave him, and then some, once he'd shucked his own duds and climbed in with her. She blushed all over when he tossed the covers away to do it right, with a pillow shoved under her pretty little rump. As he got atop her she protested, "You could have at least trimmed the lamp, you wicked boy! We're both stark naked and I feel sure it can't be proper to watch what we're doing and... Oh, watch what you're doing! It's too deep this way, and I feel so embarrassed in this position with the lamp lit and, and, yesssss! That feels so marvelous, even if it does look just awful!"

  He didn't think she looked awful at all. He'd thought he'd gotten to know her soft sweet body, even though a lot of textile had been in his line of vision. But her thin summer dress hadn't followed half as many delightful curves as she'd been hiding under them. She was in fine shape because of honest work, with just enough female larding under her soft, smooth skin to keep her from looking muscular.

  Later, when he finally trimmed the lamp and they were cuddled up like old pals under the top sheet, she nuzzled her pert nose against his collar bone and confessed, "I've always wondered what it would feel like to do it right out and natural, like a whore."

  He patted her bare shoulder. "Whores don't do it natural. What we just done was natural, not nasty or wicked. Just the way natural folk was made to do it. What sense would there have been for the Lord to make us look so nice to one another in our birthday duds if He hadn't intended us ever to peek?"

  She giggled and confided, "In my rounds as a midwife I've heard other women confess to worse than fornicating with the lamp lit."

  He said, "We'd best try for some sleep. We've had a long day, with no sleep the night before, and come morning the judge's sure to make us fill out fine-print depositions about the Hogan case."

  She brightened. "Oh, do you think we'll get to bear witness at Dan's trial?"

  "I don't see why," he said. "Neither of us ever saw him beat her, and they'll have his confession as well as the boy's testimony."

  She said, "Oh," in a small hurt voice.

  He didn't have to ask her why. "I'd like to spend a month or more in this bed with you, honey," he said. "But I told you in the beginning I was trailing that killer and though it pains me, too, I just have to move on, come morning."

  She snuggled closer, sighed, and said, "I know. I'd have never let you have it so soon if I'd thought you might stick around long enough for a proper romance. Do you reckon we'll ever get a chance to be like this together again, darling?"

  He said he didn't know. She heaved a defeated sigh and said, "I doubt it, too. So this is another situation I've often wondered about. I get to read a lot, living alone, since the Shoshone caught my man alone in the hills. I've always wondered what it would be like to spend just one night of love with a handsome stranger."

  He rolled on his side to run his hand down her soft belly as he told her, "I wouldn't want a friend to feel frustrated." But, as he proceeded to finger her friendly, she said, "Wait. Knowing this may be the last time I'll meet such an understanding gent, I've been thinking of a book I have among my medical texts. It ain't sold to the general public. It's put out as a warning about how folk get to acting when they go sex-mad, and I suspect that's what's just happened to me."

  "You're more likely just curious. A warm-natured gal who'd never done it with all her duds off would have a right to be. But I'm game for anything that doesn't hurt."

  She began to fondle him back as she shyly confessed, "I could never do half those awful things. But there's this one illustration... Lord knows how they ever got anyone to pose in such a position."

  She made him relight the lamp and adjust the mirror on the dresser as well. And it did calm her down enough for Longarm to get a little sleep, at last.

  The day started out just fine. They made love by the dawn's early light, and enjoyed a hearty breakfast to restore their strength before they went to see how long the judge meant to keep them in town.

  That was where things started to go wrong, for Longarm, at least. Ann didn't look as upset when the crusty old district judge told them that while he meant to offer Dan Hogan a fair and speedy trial, he expected them to appear as witnesses.

  Longarm protested, "I never saw the fool kill his woman, Your Honor, and, hell, he's confessed he beat her to death, and I got more important places to be!"

  The judge said, "if you cuss again I'll have to hold you in contempt of court, Deputy. I know you're more used to the big city and its hasty ways. I know you feel I'm just a glorified J.P. in a one-horse town. But let me tell you, son, we do things right in this man's court of justice!"

  "Then let me go on after that more ominous killer," said Longarm. "You don't need my testimony, even if I could swear I saw the man beat his women. His boy did, and he's owned up to it."

  The stubborn old judge shook his head. "The boy is a minor. His testimony counts, but not as much as that of a grown man or even a woman, no offense, Miss Ann. The accused is an adult, sort of, but should he retract his confession in open court we'll need the two of you to back the prosecution's word that he confessed to both of you as well."

  Longarm groaned. "I know full well how often a gent facing hard time considers telling it another way after he's had some words with a slick defense lawyer, Your Honor. But you still have this lady and the boy, and I can leave a sworn deposition for the court, can't I?"

  "Nope. As a known peace officer with a good rep, who heard the words of both the dying woman and the man who killed her, your testimony will carry the most weight. If you won't stay willing for the trial I'll just have to hold you in another cell as a material witness. So what's it going to be?"

  Longarm shot a look at the blushing Ann and decided "I'd as soon stay willing, at the hotel. But how much time are we talking about, Your Honor?"

  The judge thought before he said, "Oh, we can start the trial as soon as we get the boy up here by rail. Let's say day after tomorrow, to be safe. The trial shouldn't take more than two or three days if he decides to make a fight of it. Way less than that if he don't go back on his confession. So, all in all, you should be able to go on after that outlaw by the end of the week."

  Longarm took a deep breath and tried to keep from snarling as he said, "Your Honor, by that time my want may have made it over the mountains to Lord knows where."

  But the judge insisted, "Joseph Slade is not the one being tried by this district court. Dan Hogan is. So, like the Indian chief said, I have spoken."

  He meant it. By that afternoon Longarm had gotten Billy Vail and even the judge of the Denver District Court to wire that the mule-headed cuss in Lander was obstructing justice. But he wouldn't budge. So, while the next few nights were delightful, the days wore on tedious as hell.

  Longarm spent a lot of time at the Western Union, trying to trap that other killer by wire if they wouldn't let him chase after him personal. It was sort of surprising how much a lawman could learn that way, even when he couldn't do anything. Longarm began to suspect that once they had those new Bell telephones strung everywhere, he as well as the men he got to chase figured to be out of business. Even having to wait for answers, he was able to establish that he might not have caught the rascal even had he been allowed to follow his original plan. For tiny town after town in the high country to the west reported back that, no, they hadn't spied any strangers of any descrip
tion trying to get over the mountains by any trail, in open country, where a rider on a rise could see for miles in all directions.

  By the afternoon the judge finally got around to throwing twenty years for manslaughter at the weeping Dan Hogan, it was too late for serious riding, even had Longarm known where to ride, now. So he took Ann and a bottle of rye to bed at the hotel early. As they were making love she suddenly blurted, "It's over between us, isn't it, darling?"

  He kissed her. "Not until the cruel gray dawn. I'm sorry if I seem distracted tonight, honey. It ain't you. It's that loco little Black Jack Junior. I think I've lost him for good."

  They knew one another well enough to talk and make love at the same time. So she hugged him reassuringly with her thighs and said, "I'm sure you'll pick up his trail when he acts crazy some more, dear."

  He shook his head. "I was supposed to catch him before he killed again, not follow a dotted line of victims as I was wasting time up here. In that courtroom, I mean. This part has been mighty fine."

  She thanked him with a teasing twist of her torso and said, "He may be in remission, you know."

  "I didn't know. What are you talking about?" he said.

  "Sometimes victims of dementia praecox just stop. They don't get better. There's no treatment for that condition. But a split personality can split again, to somebody crazy in yet another way, see?"

  He grimaced. "Oh, swell. I could be chasing a Black Jack Slade Junior who thinks he's Buffalo Bill?"

  She said, "I'm trained as a midwife, not a head doctor. But I do recall reading that the condition tends to get worse, not better. If he's still alive, sooner or later, something is sure to rub him the wrong way again and, when you rub dementia praecox the wrong way it goes off like dynamite."

  "I've noticed that about the little rascal. He may think he's someone else, now. But I'd have heard if he'd been killed, acting crazy or any other way. I even found out how his model wound up buried in Salt Lake so mysterious."

  "Does it really matter?" she asked, moving her hips faster. He decided it didn't, just then. But later, as they were cuddled calmer, he said, "It was neither a geographical mistake by an English writer nor that notion another had that his wife was a Mormon. They just put his box on the wrong train. When it got to Salt Lake City, late in July, old Jack was so stinky that they didn't want to ship him half way back to Illinois. So the railroad sprang for a handsome marker on hallowed ground, and his kin agreed not to sue them after all."

  She didn't sound interested. She snuggled closer and said, "I wish both of them were dead and buried, so you wouldn't have to leave in the morning. Oh, Custis, so soon?"

  He kissed her again and said, "I ain't kissing you because I'm horny. I'm kissing you because you just gave me a grand notion."

  CHAPTER 14

  Billy Vail gave Longarm more like general hell when he showed up in Denver at last, empty-handed. Vail said, "Longarm, it has been established that we can't win 'em all. But I've never seen you give up so soon. You didn't even go to Montana or Utah after the cuss, and we agreed he was heading for one or the other on the old Overland Trail."

  "The trail only goes to Salt Lake, not Virginia City," Longarm said, "and young Slade never meant to go to neither. We just got slickered by a slick and cunning killer, not a lunatic. Do you want to tag along and share the credit for the arrest?"

  "Sure, if you can prove Joseph Slade is here in Denver. Can you?" Vail asked.

  "Not a hundred percent, before I find him. But I expect to before this day is over. Coming, boss?"

  Vail glanced out the window before he said, "It's too hot out to chase a hunch. But I'll listen to your hunch. Where do you mean to start?"

  "The Banes house, where the killing all started. It ain't far. I may need you, if them army gents are still sore at me."

  Vail shook his head. "They ain't. They gave up on the stakeout right after they got word Slade had shot up Fort Halleck, up north. As for that stupid Colonel Walthers, I used the arrest warrant he swore out on you to prove how stupid he was to an old drinking pal in the War Department. So he won't bother you no more if he wants to keep his oak leaves. There's nobody over at the Banes house right now but the killer's elder sister."

  Longarm said, "I'd best have a word with her, then," and left alone.

  Billy had been right about the heat outside. Longarm was sorry he'd had to change back into his tobacco-brown tweeds and shoestring tie as he walked even that far with the noonday sun beating down on him.

  When he got to the house, and Flora Banes Slade came to her door, he could tell from the feather duster in one hand and the thin poplin duster she had on that, despite the heat, he'd caught the house-proud little gal hard at housekeeping. The duster she wore was oversized and shapeless, but he could still see more of her shape than she might have wanted him to, thanks to the way the thin poplin clung to damp bare skin.

  She looked surprised if not dismayed to see him. She waved him in with her feather duster, saying, "Come in. I hope you don't have news too grim about my poor brother. You wouldn't be back this soon if you hadn't caught him, I know. But please tell me you took him alive, at least."

  He removed his Stetson and waited until she'd led him into her parlor and seated him on her sofa before he told her, "I never caught up with him, dead or alive. That's likely because he was never in any of the places I was led to look for him. I don't like to boast. But it has been my experience that when I can't cut a fugitive's trail he just can't be out ahead of me. So I come back to where the trail started to start looking better. I may as well begin by informing you, formally, that the federal search warrant made out by the Denver District Court to them army men is still in force until such time as your brother is found on or about these premises."

  She laughed weakly. "Good heavens, I told them and all the other lawmen who've tramped through this house that they were welcome to poke about all they liked, with or without a warrant. But before you begin, I'd better serve you some coffee and cake. For you'll surely be here some time if you expect to find Joseph in this house at this late date!"

  He thanked her for the offer but said it was too hot for such a notion. She rose anyway and said, "Speak for yourself. If you don't need some coffee to clear your head right now, I do. This heat must be getting to my poor head. I don't understand one thing you've said so far."

  She moved back to her kitchen, leaving him to stare at the four walls a spell. He was dying for a smoke, but he saw no ashtrays in sight and he doubted she shared his scientific theory that tobacco ash was hard on carpet beetles.

  He could see she'd laundered her lace curtains and gone over the wallpaper with a sponge since his last visit. But there were still cleaner patches, mostly oval in design, where less tidy stuff had once hung on the walls. He was still thinking about that when she came back in with a silver service on a silver tray and put it down on the small teak table near the sofa.

  As she took her own seat in the plush chair across from him he saw she'd filled two cups despite his disinclination. She asked if he preferred cream or sugar and he said neither. So she picked up her own cup and leaned back, toying with the buttons of her duster with her free hand as she smiled and said, "I like mine strong and black, too. Now, what was it you were saying about my poor little brother?"

  "I don't want nobody accusing me of tricking 'em later. So I'd best tell you, now, that on my way from the Union Depot to my office in the federal building I saw fit to stop at the county hall of records and the main post office just a few doors away. I have found that, even when folk don't leave a trail on the hard soil of summer, you can often get a line on them by following the paper trail we all leave filed here and there."

  She was working on another button, lower down, as she said, "I hope my brother's school records and such verified everything I told you about him."

  Longarm nodded and said, "He was more pathetic than even you or your neighbors may have been willing to tell a stranger. He was so lackluster in schoo
l that a kindly teacher had his head examined. The doctor's report was in with his poor report cards and such. It says he seemed to be stunted in growth, with poor hand and eye coordination. His brain just made it to what they writ down as dull-normal."

  She nodded and opened another button as she said, "Everyone knew he was touched in the head, poor thing."

  Longarm shook his own head. "That ain't what the doc put down. He put your brother down as a slow learner without much ambition or imagination. He never put down a thing about the kid being loco. How come you want to show me your tits again, ma'am? We established the last time you did it that you're a gal, and not a lunatic boy pretending to be his own sister."

  She hastily regathered the front of her duster as she protested, "I wasn't trying to prove anything but how hot and stuffy it is in here right now. That other time was to show you the bruise Joseph gave me when he beat me."

  Longarm nodded. "I'll take your word on the fight you must have had with him, ma'am. You were both about the same size and weight, so it was likely an even match. But we're getting way ahead of the story. I'd best start from the beginning, now that I've been pawing through old city and county records, instead of chasing shadows along a trail that ain't been used enough to matter for years."

  She leaned forward to pour more coffee in her own cup as she warned him his was getting cold. He ignored that to tell her, "In the beginning, there was a Pappa Slade, a Mamma Slade, and two little Slades, a boy and a girl, living between here and Evans Grammar School. The boy, like I just said, was puny and dim of wit and ambition. His older sister was smarter and a lot more energetic, even if her main ambition was to one day have her very own house to keep, sort of compulsed and overly tidy."

  She sniffed and said, "All right, if you must know, my mother was a dear, but a lazy and careless housekeeper. You didn't have to snoop about to find that out. Everyone knew it."