by Tabor Evans
Meanwhile, the man operating the "coffee grinder" was trying his best to cut Longarm down by sending a steady stream of fire after him. The bullets nipped at the lawman's heels like a pack of hungry wolves. The weapon fired fast, all right; what Longarm was hoping was that the hellish thing fired too fast.
The rifleman realized what was happening, and dropped his gun to wave in panic at his crony across the road, but it was too dark for the other man to see clearly. As Longarm veered sideways to dive into the brush, the hail of bullets continued along the trajectory he'd set.
"No! Stop!" wailed the rifleman as he zigged and zagged, trying to get out of the other's arc of fire, but he was too late, as was the gunner, who immediately stopped cranking his gun but not before several rounds had peppered his partner's torso. The man fell backwards to lay spread-eagled on the ground.
Longarm listened to the rattle coming from the shot man's chest, and had no doubt that the fellow was just moments away from dying. That left the gunner across the road.
Longarm prepared to move for his life as he called out. "Give it up!" He waited tensely, fully expecting to have to dodge another barrage, but none came. "I'm a federal marshal. You're alone now, and you're wounded! Let me help you!"
Longarm slid sideways to wait for an answer, but none came. Damn, he thought, hope the poor bastard hasn't gone and died on me.
Off to his left, he heard his horse. The animal had trotted back the way they'd come at the first sound of gunfire. Now it was about fifty feet away. Longarm, his eyes grown accustomed to the darkness, could make out the horse's silhouette against the trail so fitfully lit by that miserly portion of moon. The horse seemed to have calmed a bit. It was beginning to browse the tender shoots beneath the trees that bordered the road.
The horse seemed no longer to feel the tension it had shown just before the gun battle had started. Sometimes an animal knew better than a man when the fight was all over and done with.
Longarm found splatters of blood where the gunner had been. He'd managed to drag himself and his "coffee grinder" off into the woods on his side of the road, but from the quantity of blood the man was losing, he wasn't going to get far. Longarm traced the man's path by following the trail of bent and crushed grass and undergrowth. The fellow was crawling, but Longarm kept his Colt ready and his concentration focused. A man didn't need much life left in him to let the hammer down on a revolver. More than one lawman had gotten himself killed by blundering into a dying outlaw's gunsights.
On the other hand, Longarm couldn't afford to close in on the man too slowly. The fellow might get to his horse and make a break for it, or he might curl up and die before Longarm had a chance to question him.
When he finally caught up to him, the fellow was sitting propped against a tree. He was wrapped in that same sort of canvas duster worn by the riders who'd attacked the town. The long coat didn't make the man look nearly as menacing as it had those others. This poor bastard looked like a collapsed rag doll. His knees were drawn up and his head was lowered, his hat tipped forward over his eyes, just like one of those Mexican fellows who liked to take a noontime siesta. Except that this man's siesta was going to last a long, long time.
The ambusher had lost his "coffee grinder." but he held a revolver loosely clasped in his right hand. At the sound of Longarm's approach, he raised the handgun to wave it in the marshal's general direction.
Throw it away, old son," Longarm told him gently. He kept his Colt centered on the huddled form.
The man did throw it away, quickly and briskly, as if getting rid of his gun had been a great idea he'd been waiting for somebody to suggest. "Good riddance…" he began to grumble, but whatever else he wanted to say was lost in a fit of coughing and groaning.
Longarm crouched down beside the man, and quickly checked him over for hidden weapons. To do that, he had to open the man's duster, and that revealed the full extent of his gunshot wound. The .44 slug had caught the man full in the belly. He was as good as buried.
"How am I, lawman?" the ambusher asked craftily. "Am I going to make it?"
"I'd say so." Longarm nodded. "You'll be fine."
"Then I'd say you're a fool or a liar." The man turned his head to spit out a mouthful of blood. "And from the way you foxed me and Terry, you sure ain't a fool…"
"Neither are you, old son."
"My name's Lucas Conrad," the man said. "Make sure they get it right on my stone." He peered up at Longarm's face. "Just who the hell are you that killed both me and Terry?"
"My name's Custis Long. I'm a deputy U.S. marshal. Lucas, we both know you ain't got a lot of time left. Tell me what's happened to Jessie Starbuck. Where has she been taken?"
"U.S. marshal… Shit! They must of known… and they only left us two to stop you. They said it was going to be that Chinese fellow…"
"Japanese, half Japanese," Longarm corrected. "He's a man who deserves to be called what he is, just like you deserve your rightful name on your stone."
"Reckon so, Long, reckon so…" Lucas laughed weakly. "Or maybe a man just naturally feels generous when he knows he's dying. Say, you did kill Terry?"
"You killed him," Longarm replied.
"Maybe so," Lucas agreed resignedly. "But you tricked me into it. Them 'coffee grinders' work real good, but I reckon they ain't meant for close-in, eye-to-eye fighting."
"Where's the gun?" Longarm asked. "I wouldn't mind taking a look at it."
"Don't know," Lucas muttered. "Heavy bastard. I left it in the woods somewhere after Terry got killed. Don't matter, though. Danzig's got twenty-five of them tucked away, every one of them hand-forged by that fellow Brader…" After another coughing spasm, Lucas continued, "There's twenty-five men… well, maybe just twenty now… but all of them are gunslicks brought in from other parts of the country. Me, and Terry over yonder, we was just cowboys who got in over our heads. Maybe that's why they picked us to stay behind and cover the trail…"
"They made a bad mistake, then," Longarm said. "You leave your best, not your worst. I'll make them pay for what they did to you, Lucas." He then added politely, "And I'm rightful sorry that I've killed you like I have."
"Don't hold no grudge agin you, Long," Lucas shrugged. "A man decides to play poker, he can't go blaming the other boys for wanting to win. Say, Marshal, you got a smoke on you?"
Longarm gave him a cheroot, and struck a match to light it. As Lucas inhaled, he was again struck by a fit of coughing. This time, Longarm thought it was the end. The man's eyes fluttered, and his breathing became irregular.
"The girl," Longarm demanded. "Is she all right? Where'd they take her?"
Lucas snorted. "All right! She's a damn sight better than all right. Pretty thing, but powerful ornery. She killed two of us before we cut her horse out from under her. Danzig — he's that foreign fellow, hard to understand him — anyway, Danzig wanted her taken alive…" Lucas paused.
"Say what you've got on your mind, Lucas," Longarm coaxed. "I don't hold you responsible for none of it. Maybe if you tell me. the Lord will look favorable on you. It's His law you're going to be judged by."
"You believe in the Lord?" Lucas asked softly.
"Don't rightly know if I do, old son," Longarm answered truthfully. "But then again, I've never had a .44 slug nested in my belly."
Lucas laughed. "Lead does have a way of bringing a man around to the religious way of thinking…" The cheroot fell from his lips as he wrapped his arms about himself and squeezed tight. "Oh, Jesus, Long. It hurts something awful!"
"Say what you've got to say," Longarm urged. "Before it's too late!"
"It's that this foreign-born fellow, Danzig, hates that girl something fierce. He wanted her taken alive so that he could kill her himself. I almost don't mind dying now, 'cause I ain't sure I would've had the stomach for what's going to happen to that little lady. Danzig's got some old boys working for him who've been promised a go-round with her before Danzig kills her. Those boys don't mind cutting up an unwilling gal to mak
e her lay still, you know. Long? Hell, those kind of men like it when they can mix some serious hurting in with their loving."
"Where did they take her?" Longarm asked through clenched teeth.
"An old quarry set in among a bunch of hills. You'll hit it right enough, if you just follow along this here trail."
"Don't sound like Danzig is too worried about being tracked down," Longarm mused out loud. "Now, twenty-odd men armed with those 'coffee grinders' could most likely hold off any local opposition, but not the army…"
Longarm glanced at Lucas for his opinion, but the man was all finished talking. His breath came slowly, and then faded altogether in one long, hoarse exhalation. Longarm gently closed the dead man's eyes and stood up.
"Well, Lucas, what I think is this. Your ex-boss ain't worried about the army because he knows it ain't coming. I'm starting to smell a rat in this here situation, and I'm starting to think I know who it is. I'm going to need your duster, old son. I mean to get near enough to that quarry where they've got Jessie without starting an all-out shooting war…"
He stripped the man of his long canvas coat, and wiped off as much of the blood as he could with handfuls of leaves. "Lucas Conrad, I do pledge that if I live through this, I'll see to it that you get your headstone, with your name carved on it all right and proper. Rest easy, old son. You helped me right fine."
Longarm turned and walked back through the woods to gather up his Winchester. He never even paused to examine the body of the man named Terry, but simply walked on toward his horse. The duster that would be his ticket to reaching Jessica was folded over his arm.
His plan was to dress himself up in the coat and identify himself as Lucas Conrad to whatever sentries were on duty. Chances were good that he could pull the ruse off long enough — in the darkness — either to get past the guards or else take them out quietly, so as not to alert the whole camp.
As he approached his horse, the animal turned its head in the direction opposite him, the way out of the grove. Longarm, eyes narrowed, stood quietly. There couldn't be more ambushers around, he decided. They would ve gotten mixed in with the fighting by now, for chrissakes.
"You're just talking to Lucas and Terry's horses. I hope," Longarm muttered. He wished he still had the army gelding. He's spent some time with that horse, and had been learning how to read the signals it gave. This animal was still a puzzle to him.
He hauled himself up into his saddle and goaded his horse hard toward the encampment Lucas had talked about. He had to hurry. There was no telling when this Danzig character would decide to throw Jessie to his dogs. He hated her, Lucas had said. Hated her so much that he wanted to be the one to actually kill her. And Jessie was looking to kill the man who'd done in her father. What was the link between these two? Were they both just caught up in this generation-spanning feud? Was Danzig just a soldier fighting for the other side? Or did he have a personal reason for wanting her dead?
Just as Longarm reached the end of the grove, he saw the flickers of movement on either side of him in the shadows. He pulled hard on his mount's reins, twisting the horse sideways and forcing it to rear up, but it was far too late to try and make a break for it back the way he'd come.
Longarm heard the reedy whistling sound as the lariats came drifting down, their loops cinching tight around him, pinning his arms to his sides. The two cowboys dressed in canvas dusters kneed their horses out of the woods to trot backward, jerking upon their ropes as they rode. Longarm was jolted out of his saddle. He hit the ground hard, and was dragged, jouncing and jolting along behind the two, for perhaps one hundred feet before there came a shouted command for the two riders to stop.
Longarm, only half conscious, heard the sound of horses' hooves approaching. He tried to move his arms to reach his Colt, but the lariat loops were being kept tight. He was helpless.
"We will not skin him now, but save that pleasure for later," said a thickly accented voice.
Longarm stared up into a face topped with a close-cropped fringe of golden blond hair. The man's eyes were pale blue, and a thin red scar ran the length of one cheek. This man did not wear one of the canvas dusters, but instead a suit of black.
"Herr Long," the blond man began, "do you play chess Longarm let his eyes close. "You're Danzig, right?"
"At your service." Danzig straightened up to click his heels. "Do you play?"
"I have," Longarm muttered. "It ain't my favorite game. How long you been waiting for me?"
"Since you arrived. I placed my two men back there to occupy you for a while, and then lull you into thinking you were in control. I knew you'd easily defeat them."
"So you sacrificed them," Longarm said slowly. "I get it. You sacrificed a couple of pawns."
"Precisely, Herr Long!" Danzig beamed. "I have sacrificed two pawns to capture the first of Jessica Starbuck's two knights!"
"And the other?" Longarm asked.
"The Oriental," Danzig said grimly. "I have a special score to settle with him. i will take him alive, just as I have taken you."
"Why go to all that trouble?" Longarm began.
"To hurt her!" Danzig cut him off. "To make her suffer. I want her to know that everyone she cares for has been destroyed by Wulf Danzig. I want her to know that I have won, that I have wiped the scourge that is the Starbuck family from the face of the earth. Then, and only then, shall I give her to my men, before I personally slit her throat."
"Herr Danzig?"
"Ja. Herr Long?"
"I'm starting to understand why everybody thinks you're such an asshole…"
Danzig kicked out savagely, the tip of his boot thudding against Longarm's head. He brought his foot back to kick again at the still form, but hesitated and then got control of himself.
"I must not kill him too soon," Danzig growled. "You two! Take his gunbelt and his coat. Search him carefully for hidden weapons. Hurry!" He smiled. "Jessica is waiting for her knight to arrive. We must not disappoint her!"
Chapter 17
Longarm opened his eyes to see Jessica's face just above his. She was staring down at him with concern. He was lying stretched out on the floor. Jessie was cradling his head in her lap and pressing a cool, damp cloth to his forehead.
He tried to sit up, but the pain that began throbbing in his temples forced him right back down. He tensed his neck and shoulders against the worst of it. and once it had passed, he allowed his head to nestle upon Jessie's soft, warm lap.
"Rest easy," she soothed. She dipped the cloth into a pan of water, then wrung it out before replacing it across his forehead. "You've got a bad bruise. "She traced it lightly where the discoloration ran along the front of his ear, but even that made him wince. "Sorry. There's no bleeding, but you've been unconscious since they brought you here."
"How long…" Longarm paused to clear his throat. "How…"
The whole night. It's about ten in the morning. You kept going in and out…"
"Damn." Longarm sat up again, but this time very slowly. He took the cloth from Jessie and gingerly dabbed at his head. "Owww! And my side hurts too…" He looked around. They were in the one windowless corner of what seemed to be an old supply shack. Around them, locking them in. were two floor-to-ceiling partitions of steel grating. The door to this cage was held shut by a short length of chain and a padlock. The other walls had windows, and pegs from which hung saws and rope, picks and shovels, buckets and mallets, and other tools and hardware. All of it looked rusty, as if it had been out of service for a long time.
"Any water to drink?" he asked.
Jessie pointed him toward a bucket in which a ladle floated. Longarm drank deeply, then poured a cup of the cool, fresh water over his head, to refresh himself and wash away the last of the cobwebs.
"Where are we?"
"At an abandoned stonecutting quarry," Jessie explained. "This particular building was their tool shed, and in this cage they kept the payroll and stonecutters' valuables."
"When they brought you here, were you
able to get an idea of the layout?" Longarm demanded. He'd gone to the door of the wire cage to examine the padlock.
"Well, I was knocked out when they…"
"Are you all right?" Longarm asked anxiously.
"Shhh," Jessie scolded. "I know the layout of the compound. I've been here countless times. Used to play here as a little girl, before my father got wind of it. He considered all these old buildings too dangerous. Near this building is a cookhouse with a well in back, another shack like this where they used to store blasting powder, a long, barracks-style bunkhouse, an office, and a stable. At one time this place housed fifty men, but I doubt if there are that many here now."
"Between twenty and twenty-five," Longarm said. "But most of them are professionals. Gunmen hired and brought here by Wulf Danzig." Longarm glared at her. "Just who the hell is this jasper? Why'd you chase after him in the first place?"
"Why don't I start at the beginning," Jessie said mildly. "Did Ki tell you about the things he gave me just before the meeting began?"
"No, only that they meant something to you, but he didn't know what." Longarm reached for a cheroot, and realized his coat was gone, as well as his gunbelt and derringer. His pocket knife was in his coat, as well. Its second blade, filed down into a pick, would have made short work of that padlock.
"He brought me a pistol and a newspaper clipping. The clipping was in German, and the pistol would have meant nothing to anyone but me. I've seen this model of pistol before. Have you ever heard of the Mauser brothers?"
Longarm was about to shake his head, but decided against it. "What do they have to do with Danzig?"
"Well, they're considered among the finest gunsmiths of Europe. The pistol Ki had brought me was a Mauser. It's a model of revolver called the Zig-Zag, because of a groove etched into the cylinder. A pin on the gun's frame travels along this zigzag groove, rotating the cylinder as the pistol is fired. The zig-zag is a popular gun. The Mauser brothers' designs are as common in Europe as Colt's are in America. But this particular Mauser was a special edition, commissioned by one family. When I saw the gun, there was no mistaking the special finish, the custom filigree work on the grips not to mention the family crest or the individual monogram of the owner."
