by Tabor Evans
"I drew up all your papers and travel vouchers myself," Vail was explaining. "I didn't want that rules-and-regulations clerk of mine controlling the case records on this one. I picked you because you keep that badge of yours pinned in your wallet, and flash it only when you have to. You know how to be… dis-creet…" Vail blushed — "and, Jesus, that's what I need this time around. If word gets back to Hayes before you're ready to make an arrest…"
"First I've got to find the killer, and then I've got to find a federal angle, else all I can do is point my finger for the local law…"
"I know that!" Vail snarled. "I was making arrests when you were still wearing short pants…"
"Sorry, Chief." Longarm grinned. "Well, reckon I've got me a cattle baron's murder to solve."
"Assassination."
"Now there you go throwing that word around again, Chief." Longarm glanced at the pendulum clock hanging just above the blackboard that announced the day's blue-plate specials. He sighed and placed his still-unlit cheroot into the ashtray, where he could eye it wistfully. Still two hours before noon. "What makes you so all-fired sure Starbuck wasn't, cut down by a spurned woman, or an envious neighbor whose loan was coming due, or maybe a passing rustler or two?"
"Because Alex Starbuck had seven rounds in him, and from the looks of the spot where he'd been ambushed, at least thirty rounds had been fired." Vail's features softened with joy over the fact that he'd been able to tell Longarm something the man hadn't already known. "The Texas officials put a lid on any of this going out over the telegraph lines, again at the behest of the President. At least fifteen men had to have been involved in the ambush, and they'd been lying in wait for Starbuck to pass."
"I guess he never knew what hit him," Longarm mused as he glanced down at Starbuck's photograph.
"Guess again," Vail said. "He lived for a couple of hours afterward. Tough old buzzard."
Longarm didn't answer, but just stared down at the photograph. The print was sharp enough for him to make out Starbuck's characteristics — the sorts of things an experienced lawman could tell about a man from glancing at him. Longarm could tell that Starbuck was no greenhorn. Despite his fine clothes, he had the hard, callused-looking hands of a man who had roped his share of cattle and thumbed back his share of Colt hammers. Longarm could only wonder: What sort of soul was this who had conquered the Japans, built up an empire, and then, as dessert, tamed Texas until it had trotted at his feet like a hound at heel?
"Starbuck's daughter — her name is Jessica — was the only one at her father's bedside when he died. Maybe she'll know something. Starbuck's wife passed away long ago. Jessica is the only heir. It all belongs to her now — lock, stock, and barrel."
"Maybe she killed him." Longarm winked and reached into his pocket and came out with a match, which he struck against the table. "Her and her fifteen boyfriends." He brought the flaring tip of the match up to his cheroot, and puffed it alight.
"Well, get on to Texas and find out, dammit," Vail growled.
"On my way." Longarm smiled, grateful that Vail's usual nasty disposition was coming back. It meant the old boy was growing less worried.
"By the way, I thought you'd told me that you weren't going to smoke those two-for-a-nickel stinkweeds of yours until noontime," Vail taunted as his deputy rose from the table. "Ain't got the willpower, is that it, old son?"
"Sure I do, Billy." Longarm exhaled a great stream of blue smoke, the expression on his face blissful. "I just figured I ought to commemorate the event. It's not every day a deputy marshal gets to investigate an assassination."
* * *
Longarm left the cafe and swung around the side of the building to the alleyway behind it. Once he'd passed the long rear expanse of the courthouse building, he could save himself some time by shortcutting to yet another alley that would lead him to the livery stable, where he could collect his McClellan saddle and Mexican bridle. His plan was to gather up his gear, then haul it along to the railway station, which was just about halfway between the stable and his rooming house. Longarm's years as a deputy marshal had taught him the railroads' schedules. He knew he had little more than an hour before the Kansas Pacific's local huffed its way out of Denver toward Pueblo, the site of his first transfer — that was, if he wanted to leave today, and he did. He had just about a week, and ahead of him were several train changes and a few days of travel by rail until he reached his jumping-off point.
The baggage clerk would watch his gear while Longarm went back to his rooming house to get his saddle bags, bedroll, and Winchester. He'd be back at the station, waiting for his train, in plenty of time. All of his travel papers were already tucked away in his frock coat, along with his authorization to borrow an army mount. He'd pick up the horse at an army remount station located on the New Mexico side of the border. It would cost the Justice Department a bit more for Longarm to transport the mount via the railroad, but that was better than sparking curiosity inside Texas by flashing his badge and papers at some Ranger post.
Be discreet, Vail had warned him. Well, Texas Rangers were fine men, but they considered any business in Texas their business.
He could ride the railroad all the way to Sarah, one of the newest cow towns in that region. Starbuck had built the town, persuaded the railroad to run a spur into it, and contracted with cattle buyers in the East to have holding pens built. Sarah was the place where the Old West's cattle drive jumped into the next century, where drovers wearing chaps came in from the range to turn their cows over to men wearing ties, who kept their herds in ledger books. Sarah was the site upon which Alex Starbuck had built his empire.
Overhead, the sun had poked holes through the fuzzy gray blanket of clouds, so that the sky now looked like an old bedroll that had been worn out by hard use on the trail. It was just a little after ten, but the air was already stifling and still. It was going to be a true Denver dog day.
But it wasn't the heat that was making Longarm feel uncomfortable; it wasn't the breakfast in his belly that was causing that flutter in the pit of his stomach.
Longarm continued on his way down the deserted alley. He ambled — quick, but easy — his boots making hardly a sound on the hard-packed dirt beneath them. He was channeling all of his awareness into his sense of hearing now. and any sound he himself made might just muffle the crucial sound.
As he passed a clapboard building, the front of which housed a stationery store, a crow loitering in the building's eaves squawked in outrage over being disturbed. A covert glance told Longarm that the crow was no longer watching him but had focused its beady, sideways glare on the alleyway behind him.
The crow squawked again, and as it did, Longarm used the distraction to casually brush back the left side of his frock coat, clearing the bun of his Colt. But he kept on walking, resisting the urge to look back over his shoulder.
The crow had been confirmation, but Longarm had already known he was being followed — and had been, since he'd left the cafe. The real question was by whom. And why?
The end of the alley loomed before him. When he cut over, he'd only have a short stretch of the second alley to go before he reached the street, where there would be people, where the stable was located. If his shadow was planning on doing some shooting, now was the time.
Still, Longarm kept on walking, not looking back, trusting instincts born of long years at this sort of work to get him through, it just didn't feel like a gunplay situation to him, and Longarm didn't want to be the one to provoke gunplay by spooking his tail. For one thing, Vail would hit the roof if his deputy had to spend the rest of his morning filling out papers on a corpse, thereby missing his train.
That he would be the one standing over a corpse, and not the corpse himself, Longarm had no doubts. He knew that he could take whoever it was. Hell, if the fellow was twice as good with a gun as he was at trying to follow somebody inconspicuously, he'd still be tenderfoot-lousy.
The end of the second alley loomed before him. Longarm concentrated
, ears straining for the faint metallic click of gun mechanism, which would be all the warning he'd have before it was time to get out of a bullet's path. Then he was out of the alley.
The tail hung back as Longarm crossed the street, dodging the weekday traffic as he did so. Inside the livery stable it was dark and still cool, the air fragrant with the honest, pleasant smell of oiled leather and healthy horseflesh. Several horses whickered in their stalls as he walked by them to the rear of the building and the storage shelves.
"Morning, Deputy Long," the stable boy beamed. He was a gangling fourteen-year-old, looking like a scarecrow in his baggy union-suit shirt and too-short, obviously hand-me-down britches.
"Morning, son, fetch me my gear, would you? I've got a train to catch." Longarm flipped the boy a shiny dime, which the youngster caught even as he headed off to do the deputy's bidding.
"Take a look at what we got in stall six, Deputy," the boy enthused as he wrestled down Longarm's McClellan saddle from its place on the wall.
Longarm did so and whistled softly in appreciation at one of the finest specimens of Virginia walking horse that he'd ever seen. "Mighty fine, boy." He reached out to lift the chin of the horse, watching the animal's muscles tremble with life beneath the sleek dappled gray of its hide. "Whose stallion is this?"
"Judge Bing had him shipped in," the boy answered, lugging Longarm's saddle to a sawhorse just a few feet away from where the lawman was standing. He set the McClellan across the sawhorse and then paused before going back for the bridle. "The judge already has himself a few fine mares, and means to get into the breeding business. He'll be taking this fella home tonight." The boy gazed with undisguised admiration at the horse. "Wouldn't you like to call him your own, sir?"
Longarm smiled. "That I would, son."
Like most working men in the West, Longarm had never owned a horse. It was a hell of lot cheaper — even if the government didn't pick up your expenses — to take the train to where you wanted to go, and rent a horse when you got there. "Hope that fool judge has more sense than to try and ride this fellow home."
The boy giggled as he headed back to the rear of the stable. "Wouldn't that be something?" he called over his shoulder. "That old judge holding on for dear life, his black robes flapping, while his fine stallion does it to the milkman's old mare…"
The stallion gave a nervous whinny, its massive head bobbing up and down as its eyes showed white and rolled toward the stable's front doors. The other mounts — geldings all — seemed undisturbed, but something was spooking the stallion. Longarm remembered his unseen follower.
He walked to the rear of the stable. "Boy, I want you to run an errand for me," he began. "Get on to my rooming house, and tell my landlady that I said to let you into my room to pick up my saddlebags, bedroll, and rifle. I keep that stuff all packed up and ready to go. Bring it all back here for me, all right?"
"Gee, Deputy… I don't know, sir. I'm supposed to watch over that stallion…"
"You git," Longarm ordered good-naturedly, handing over some more change. "Reckon that horse can't have a better guard than a federal marshal. I aim to wait right here for you."
"That's fine, then," the boy laughed, relieved that he didn't have to give up the money.
Longarm gave the boy his address. "Hold on," he called thoughtfully as the boy headed toward the front doors. "You go out the back way, son, through the corral. And shut those two old doors behind you as you go."
The boy peered up at Longarm's face. "Sir? Is there something up?"
"Go on now," Longarm said absently. "And if you should stop off for a soda on the way, I don't aim to tattle to your boss."
The stable boy ran off. Longarm waited until he was sure the kid was well away, and then began to make his way silently toward the front of the stable. The stallion was pawing the ground, huffing and snorting, as if agreeing with Longarm that the tail was hiding behind the front stable door, which was still swung closed.
Longarm considered climbing up into the hayloft, the better to get the drop on his adversary, but decided against it. It was a hot day, and this fellow's bumbling attempts at trailing him had put Longarm in a bad enough mood as it was.
Longarm leaned against the tail sawhorse that held his saddle and waited, watching. The door was nothing but a bunch of old boards nailed to a frame. Sunlight streamed in through the various chinks and knotholes. Whoever it was on the other side, creeping along to the door's edge, standing between the sun and those chinks, he was evidently too dumb to realize that Longarm could chart his progress by the way his form passed from chink to chink, blocking one sunbeam after another.
As the tail's fingers curled around the door's edge, Longarm sprang forward, locking his big hand about the other's wrist. He gave one solid yank, and almost followed the trajectory of his own arm as his adversary came flying in to tumble onto the stable floor. The jasper was sure a lightweight…
"Owww!" bawled the mysterious form, in a high, unmistakably feminine voice.
"I'll be damned." Longarm kicked open the stable door to let the sunlight flood in. Sprawled across the floor, with her skirts up around her thighs, was the waitress from the cafe!
"My God, Deputy," she pouted, her fingers gingerly rubbing her wrist. "I think you came awfully close to breaking my arm." She extended both arms to him. "Help me up!"
Longarm did as he was told. Placing a hand on each side of her slender waist, he picked her up, setting her on her feet. "Sorry about hurting you. But how was I to know it was you stalking after me like the wolf after the lamb?"
"I might have been doing the stalking, but I surely hope you've got that wolf-and-lamb stuff backward. Deputy," she laughed.
"Never mind. What are you doing following me?" Longarm asked sternly. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but as pretty as it was, with her big blue eyes blinking at him as wide and seemingly innocent as a newborn babe's, his own eyes kept wandering back to her bodice. Her breasts were rising and falling, obviously over the excitement of being hauled into the stable.
"Well, answer me!" Longarm demanded, but the waitress just smiled, and took a step closer.
"It's a long story. I'm sort of new in Denver. I only arrived here, from back East, a few weeks ago. I don't hardly know anyone," she complained, brushing a tendril of her copper-colored hair off of her face. The tight bun in which she had been wearing it had come loose during her tumble. Now wisps of her hair hung down, the strands clinging to the hot, moist nape of her neck. "Not knowing anyone really doesn't bother me, because that just means I get to save more of my salary. I intend to open up a dress shop in just a little while."
"That don't explain why you were following me."
"Hush. I'm getting to that. You see, Deputy, coming out West, leaving my parents, was a big step into a new way of life. So when I saw you in the cafe — and I knew you saw me — um, well, I have a couple of hours before if II get busy again, and so, well, I decided to come meet you and…" Here she blushed, cat-grinning at the same time, her bright white teeth flashing like a bunch of daisies in a field of pink rose blossoms. "What can I say. Deputy? A girl only lives once. This is sort of like moving West. I thought maybe you and I could…"
Now it was Longarm's turn to grin. He thought about scolding her for trailing him. about pointing out to her that those who wanted to stay healthy ought to make it a habit to approach both lawmen and outlaws from the front, but somehow this didn't seem like the right time.
"My name's Maggie Henders," she said, and then waited. "And you're Deputy… uh…?"
But Longarm seemed not to have heard her. He was still watching her breasts. Maggie smiled knowingly, as if she'd witnessed such reactions on the part of men before. "I should point out that while this is my first time out West," she continued demurely, "This will not be my first time, um, you know…"
Longarm just had to chuckle. Something about this young lady made a man feel like it was springtime. "Custis Long, ma'am. At your service."
&nb
sp; "Oh, I hope you are." Maggie's eyes glinted merrily.
"Well, now, Maggie, we've got ourselves a little problem on that score." Longarm sighed, thinking that she was a fine woman, and certainly an experienced one who knew what she wanted and how to handle it after it was given. "I've got a train to catch in about one hour, and that means there's no time to get to my rooming house between now and then."
"Well, what about right here?" Maggie challenged. "We're alone, and there's piles of nice, soft hay in the loft " She took another step closer and slid her hands around his waist, her palms caressing his buttocks beneath the tightly stretched tweed of his britches.
Brazen as she was, Longarm could feel her trembling as he pulled her to himself and found her lips with his own. Their tongues did a fine mating dance, and Longarm felt as if the crotch of his pants had suddenly shrunk in size as Maggie rubbed herself against him. He noticed that she was still wearing her waitress's apron.
"Oh, let's, Deputy Long," she breathed, pecking moist kisses up the curve of his jaw while fingering the solid bulge behind his fly.
Longarm thought about it and then decided. Why not? The stable boy was gone, and he'd told the kid to take his time.
"Folks generally call me Longarm, Maggie."
"Well. I won't," she teased. "Not until you prove it."
Longarm untangled himself from her grasp long enough to hurry to the stable door and swing it halfway closed. The light that filtered in made the stable's interior agreeably dim.
