by Tabor Evans
"We got him. Deputy! We surely did!" he crowed as Longarm walked up the aisle, ignoring the panicked queries of the passengers.
"That we did, friend," Longarm calmly agreed. He reached out for the conductor's weapon, and then examined it. It was a diminutive .25-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. It had tape holding its grips to its butt, and deep nicks and scratches along the cylinder and barrel. It looked as if it had hammered more nails than bullets.
"Bought me that there belly-gun in a pawnshop," the conductor winked. "Did it when they transferred me to this here New Mexico-Texas run. Outlaws, boy! I knew there'd be outlaws, and I was right! Shot this one dead, I did!''
Longarm decided not to spoil the old man's fun by reminding him that the outlaw most likely could have picked that little bitty .25 slug out of his neck like it was a thorn, and that it was the man-sized piece of lead from his own .44 that had settled the train robber's hash. "You see any other suspicious-looking passengers along the way you came, Conductor?"
"Not a soul, Deputy." He removed his cap to scratch at the gray wisps of hair plastered across his bald dome. "That's a good point, though. Did this hombre expect to hold up my train all by hisself?"
"Not hardly," Longarm muttered. "Reckon he was aiming to use his conductor's suit to bluster his way into the locomotive crew's area. Then, once his gang started riding alongside the engine, he d force the crew to stop the train. Don't imagine most men would say no to that shotgun of his."
"You mean we're going to be ambushed?" the conductor asked as Longarm handed back his little gun.
"Let's get this fellow out of sight of the ladies," Longarm suggested. "Then you and I will talk."
Two male passengers volunteered their services, and the corpse was hoisted up. As Longarm held open the coach door, the conductor said, "Throw him off the side, boys!"
"No!" Longarm said. "We'll put him in the baggage car, and leave him at the remount station in Grassy Bow. I figure that's the closest thing there is to authority in this part of New Mexico Territory."
"Damn, I forgot!" the conductor said. "The reward! You reckon there is one. Deputy?"
"If there is, it's all yours," Longarm said. "Federal lawmen ain't allowed to accept rewards."
In the baggage car, Longarm thanked the two men who'd helped, and waited until they'd left before asking the conductor to help him strip the suit jacket off the dead man's body. He explained that since the outlaw had been making his move when he died, the rest of the gang could not be far away.
As Longarm stripped off his own frock coat and replaced it with the regulation blue suit jacket, the old conductor beamed. "I get it! You're planning on taking this hombre's place!"
Longarm nodded. "It's getting dark. If we don't nab these fellows, they'll just try this stunt again. I'm hoping that being all nervous about the holdup, the gang will see what they're expecting to see. In the dark, with this man's outfit on, I ought to be able to fool them long enough to get the drop on them."
"What do you want me to do?" the conductor asked.
"Lend me your cap. The one this poor soul was wearing is a mite messy. He reached into the pocket of his folded frock coat and came out with a fresh cartridge to replace the one he'd fired. "And make sure you keep the passengers from lending a hand. Should shooting start, my two advantages will be the darkness and the fact that everything in front of me is fair game."
Patting the suit jacket's pocket, Longarm found spare shells for the shotgun. He loaded the spent barrel of the weapon, pulled off its rawhide shoulder loop, and headed for the locomotive. His badge was back in its usual place, pinned inside the fold of his wallet, which itself was tucked into his hip pocket. Not that he seriously expected that he'd have to show it. The gang would either give up when he said he was a lawman, or they'd start shooting. No, the only men who might want a look at his symbol of authority were the locomotive crew.
He spent a nervous quarter of an hour with them, the noise of the engine precluding any attempt at conversation as the four pairs of eyes — Longarm's. the engineer's, the brakeman's, and the stoker's — scanned the rapidly darkening, rugged terrain. It was Longarm who spotted the three horsemen atop a low, mesquite-studded butte, their forms silhouetted against the last glimmer of a sun that had long since dropped below the horizon.
The horsemen seemed only to be watching the progress of the train. Longarm wondered fleetingly if he was supposed to send them some signal that he was in control, perhaps a series of toots from the locomotive's whistle. Well, better no signal than the wrong one; that way, the gang might just figure their man on board had forgotten.
"Brakeman! Now!" Longarm commanded. The crewman pulled his levers, and the world around them erupted into sparks and one long, banshee-like scream as locked metal wheels filed shavings off the tracks. Its boiler-head bleeding steam, the big locomotive's pistons slowed until they were barely moving. The train jolted several times, then came to a stop.
Longarm watched the three riders spur their horses down the treacherous incline of the butte. As they reached the level prairie they broke into a full gallop toward the stalled train.
One of the riders was leading a saddled horse, obviously the mount that their confederate aboard the train was to use for his getaway. This rider came toward the locomotive, while the other two rode toward the baggage and mail car in the center of the train. Longarm realized he had to take out this first outlaw, then get the other two before they discovered their comrade's corpse — or else the jig would be up. Fortunately the baggage car was unattended, so no unarmed clerk would have to absorb the outlaws' wrath.
"Get your hands up!" Longarm hissed to the crew as the rider reined up beside the locomotive.
"How'd it go, Walt?" the rider asked, his own gun out.
"Fine," Longarm said, doing his best to approximate the raspy voice of the late Walt. He had his conductor's hat pulled low, and tried to keep to the shadows of the engine's interior.
The rider dismounted and reached up with his free hand for his comrade to give him some help in climbing up onto the locomotive's platform. Longarm reached out a hand and helped pull the outlaw up, at the same time slamming the butt of his shotgun into the man's face. Knocked cold, the outlaw fell back to sprawl motionless in the dust. Longarm jumped down to retrieve the fallen man's gun. It was a big old Colt Dragoon rechambered to take brass cartridges. Tossing the hogleg to the first pair of hands that appeared over the side of the engine, Longarm whispered. "Watch him, and if he comes to, keep him quiet, but don't kill him. He's unarmed."
That done, Longarm began to run in a low crouch along the length of the train, toward the baggage car. The old conductor was doing his job well, maybe too well. The passengers were acting as unconcerned as if this were a scheduled stop. With any luck it would all be over before the remaining pair realized something was fishy.
Longarm heard the squeak of the baggage car's side door sliding open. He ran faster. He had to get the drop on them before the two found that body. As he ran, he snapped back both hammers of the stubby shotgun.
The rider who was still mounted twisted in his saddle, bringing his handgun around to point in Longarm's direction. Longarm quickly straightened up, holding his shotgun to port, relying on his outline in the darkness to fool the outlaw.
The outlaw lowered his pistol. "I told you to stay up front," he shouted angrily. "And you screwed up on the whistle signal we'd agreed on. What's wrong with you, Walt?" he demanded.
The other outlaw appeared in the baggage car's open side door, his own gun in his hand. "Walt's in here dead!" he cried.
Longarm muttered a curse under his breath. It was too late to give these fellows fair warning, as he was expected to do. He just pointed the shotgun toward the car's open doorway and let fly with both barrels, blasting the outlaw back into the darkness of the car's interior.
"What the hell?" the mounted gang member swore as he shot fast three times, his gun erupting flame, his three slugs kicking up dirt where Lon
garm had been standing. Dropping the empty shotgun, Longarm had crabbed sideways, drawing his Colt as he did so. As the mounted man tried to get a bead on him, Longarm fired twice. The outlaw fell backward out of the saddle as his horse bucked in fear. He landed heavily on the ground and lay still.
Longarm checked him. Both of his rounds had taken the man in the chest. He was dead. Boosting himself into the baggage car, Longarm struck a match to check on the other one. The shotgun hadn't left much to check. Longarm flicked out the match and jumped to the ground to get away from the grisly remains, and to get a breath of fresh air. He felt a little weak-kneed now that it was over…
A deep boom came from the front of the train. Longarm had heard that boom a lot fifteen years ago, during the War. It was the sound made by an older-model sidearm — like a Colt Dragoon, for instance.
Longarm repeated his run in reverse, going toward the engine. When he got there he saw, by the flickering light of a lantern, the brakeman holding the outlaw's smoking Dragoon in both of his trembling, white-knuckled hands. His face was pale and a trifle green around the edges.
"I had to, Marshal!" the young man wailed. "When he came to, I told him to lay still, like you said, but he just laughed at me. He got to his feet and went for that rifle there on his saddle!"
The other crew members nodded in agreement, and Longarm glanced at the body stretched out on the ground, a hole a half-inch across in the center of the man's back. The outlaw's horse was just a few steps away; obviously it had shied at the sound of the shot. As if in mute testimony to the brakeman's story, the outlaw's saddle gun, an old Henry repeater, was hanging half out of its boot.
"You ain't gonna arrest me, are you, Marshal?" the brakeman asked fearfully. "I didn't want to shoot…"
"Quiet now," Longarm soothed as he bolstered his Colt. "You had no choice, old son. You surely did the right thing."
The brakeman looked down at his hands, and as if surprised that he still held the revolver, he quickly tossed it to the ground. "I never killed anyone or anything before, Marshal. I was too young for the War, and…" He clamped both hands over his mouth and scrambled down from the locomotive platform. Falling to his knees, he vomited in the dust.
A crowd of passengers, led by the conductor, had gathered around the scene. "Anybody have a flask or bottle on them?" Longarm called. "This boy could surely use a drink."
One of the men approached the sobbing brakeman. From his hip pocket he pulled a silver flask. "Drink up, boy," he ordered softly. "No sense carrying on like you was the dead one."
"Well, it all happened like you said it would," the conductor told Longarm. "How'd you figure it so neatly? This sorta thing old hat to you?"
Longarm laughed. He patted the pockets of his coat for a cheroot, realized he was still wearing the phony conductor's garb, and stripped the garment off, letting it fall to the ground.
"Like I told you before," he began, "it wasn't likely that the fellow with the shotgun was going to try and keep watch over the crew for too long." He pulled the stub of a cheroot out of his vest pocket and fired it up. "And they had to make their move this side of the New Mexico-Texas border. New Mexico being only a territory, there's no real law to chase after them."
"Except for that army remount station at Grassy Bow," the conductor pointed out.
"Right, but that meant they had to make their move now. before we reached that station. We're still an hour or so away. Robbing a train in the army's backyard would've just about guaranteed them a cavalry troop riding up their asses."
The old conductor cackled with laughter. "Sure as hell wasn't their lucky day when you boarded, Deputy — what is your name, son?"
"Custis Long. Folks call me Longarm. See here, Conductor. You got your train back now. See that these bodies and horses are loaded up. We've got to drop 'em off at the remount station."
"Yessir!" Chuckling to himself, the spry old conductor snatched up the lantern and began waving it in the air as he walked the length of the train, calling out, "All aboard! Let's go, folks! We're behind schedule! All aboard!"
Longarm was the first to obey the conductor's command.
Chapter 3
That night, while Longarm slept, his train crossed the border into Texas. It paralleled the Rio Grande for some forty-odd miles before veering east to cross the Pecos River and then slice through the baked brown crust of the Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains.
A few hours after dawn, the train began its descent into the north-central plains, crossing the Colorado River. The mesquite, yucca, and their brother cacti gave way to buffalo grass and little bluestem. The buttes turned into hills, and then even softer hills, and then woodlots of pecan, walnut, and hickory, lorded over by massive oaks. And carpeting the thickly grassed prairie everywhere was a dusting of wildflowers — bluebonnet, just now giving way in early summer to asters, daisies, and goldenrod.
But most important, as the train made its way from the Staked Plains to the north-central prairie region, the mountain sheep and mule deer, the jaguamndi and bobcat, gave way to cattle. Magnificent herds of steers basked in the warm sunshine of the Lone Star State — the cow nursery of the world.
* * *
Longarm had spent time in many cow towns in his day, but none had prepared him for Alex Starbuck's cow town of Sarah. Once the train had pulled into the station, he'd led the chestnut gelding he'd borrowed from the army remount station to a quiet place alongside the now-empty cattle pens and loading ramps. His gear — saddle and bridle, saddlebags and bedroll — had been carried for him by a pair of boys, just two of the multitude of young scamps who made pocket change by transporting baggage from station to hotel. The only thing Longarm carried was his Winchester. He didn't believe in letting others handle his firearms if he could help it.
Last night, for example, the old conductor had offered to clean Longarm's Colt for him. Longarm had politely thanked the man, but informed him that that was the sort of job he always did himself. As he'd tended to his weapon, using kerosene, a small brush, a soft rag, and then sperm oil for lubrication, all of which Longarm carried in a kit in his saddlebags, he'd had to suffer the curious looks of just about every passenger on the train, every one of whom just sort of happened to stroll by his seat. Never for the life of him could Longarm figure out the fascination of his fellow man for those who had the misfortune of having to kill others. Blessedly, things quieted down once they'd left Grassy Bow. Longarm had filled out a few forms for the army detailing the events that had led up to the triple shooting, sympathized with the old conductor when it was learned that there was no reward for this particular gang, and arranged to borrow his mount.
His gelding was a good one. A veteran of several shooting campaigns, the animal was not in the least fazed by the tumult of the station. Once his horse was saddled, his bags in place, and his Winchester tucked into its boot, Longarm rode the short distance to Sarah's main street.
Longarm liked to get the lay of a good-sized town, which Sarah was, before he began an investigation. Sarah's wide, regularly sprinkled Main Street had several general stores, a bakery, two gunsmiths, a bank, a telegraph office, and — obviously the showplace of the town — a magnificent, brightly painted, three-story mansion. Above the wide, golden-oak double doors, there hung a sign painted in gilt script that read: SARAH TOWNSHIP CATTLEMEN'S ASSOCIATION.
As Longarm walked his horse along the avenue, he saw raised wooden sidewalks on both sides of the street. Clustered together were several saloons and cafes, and next door to them, as if keeping watch like a stern parent, was a combination jail and office labeled TOWN MARSHAL. On the saloon side of Main Street, the buildings were more ramshackle, and were mostly devoted to the day-to-day business of tending to cowboys and their mounts. A few blocks down along this side of town, the railway holding pens and ramps began. Nearby he saw canvas tents being erected by workmen.
Walking his mount around to the residential neighborhood behind the Cattlemen's building, Longarm explored rows of brightl
y painted clapboard houses, each with a picket fence, and many with gardens, and trees planted in horse-trough-sized planters. Here there were two schools — a primary and a secondary one — and a fine church. The golden bell in its tall steeple gleamed against the deep blue, cloud-studded sky.
Longarm rode up to the one hotel in town, around the corner from Main Street, and tied his horse to a hitch rail in front. Inside, he inquired about a room. The clerk, dressed in a blue velvet suit, despite the eighty-degree heat, was polite but adamant.
"We can lodge you just for tonight, Mr." — the clerk spun the register around to read Longarm's scrawl — "Mr. Long. Beginning tomorrow, we're completely booked up. Lots of folk from the East are arriving for the round-up, you see."
Longarm nodded, sighing. "I didn't notice another hotel. I don't suppose there are any?"
"I'm afraid not," the clerk sniffed. "You might try Canvas Town…"
"Where?" Long asked.
"Oh, that's our area out by the railway spur. Every roundup, tents are set up to house and entertain the hands who sign up temporarily at the various cattle outfits hereabouts. Check at the Cattlemen's Association. You'll find bulletin boards there that carry announcements concerning who's hiring and who is not." The clerk's brow furrowed beneath the slicked-back thatch of his hair. "You are in town to work as a hand, I presume?"
"Exactly right." Longarm nodded, thinking that this clerk was indeed an imbecile to imagine that a man dressed the way he was even faintly resembled a working cowboy. "You certainly are a fine judge of character," he added.
"Thank you," the clerk replied, beaming. "It comes with the job."
"I know what you mean. Say, I've got a horse out front. Can you recommend a good stable?"
"Oh, we have our own stable," the clerk said. "For an extra charge, we'll care for your horse."
