by Evans, Tabor
Chapter 16
Longarm knew they weren’t friendly.
If they were friendly, they wouldn’t be out tramping around the Organ Range in the middle of the night. Unless they were lawmen like him, of course. Or cowpunchers.
But he hadn’t seen any cows, and he doubted there were any other lawmen as foolish as he was to be stalking badmen alone out here. He’d known badge-toters who’d tracked owlhoots on this backside of the devil’s ass, and they’d always told him with a sharp glint in their eyes that the Organs were no place for a lawman to venture without a sizable, gun-savvy posse.
“Ain’t that a coincidence,” he called, grabbing his rifle and stepping wide of the fire. “I’m friendly, too. Ride in slow and keep your hands where I can see ’em till we get to know each other.”
On the far side of the narrow brook, shadows jostled. Hooves clacked on stones, brush crackled, and tack squawked. Longarm could see the occasional flash of silver saddle trimmings and what was most likely gun steel. There must have been a trail down the opposite canyon wall that he hadn’t seen in the darkness, because the shadows seemed to materialize out of the darkness over there and somewhere above.
Then the lead rider drew rein on the far side of the stream. Two more came up to stop slightly behind him. Longarm couldn’t tell much about them except that they wore battered hats and chaps and one man had his chaps decked out with silver conchos. He had them on his shell belt, too. Rifles jutted from saddle boots.
“Seen your fire,” said the lead man, his face dark beneath his hat brim. “Figured we might as well pull in. We got grub enough to share.”
“Already ate,” Longarm said. “But you’re welcome to the fire. Come on over.”
He’d have preferred to bivouac alone, but now that they were here, he had little choice but to invite them into his camp. If he sent them on, they might take offense and try to pink him from the darkness.
“You’re not Shanley, are ya?” asked the lead rider as he booted his white-socked black horse across the creek. The others eased their own mounts down the opposite bank and came across, too, water splashing, the horse snorting.
“Nope,” Longarm said. “I ain’t Shanley.”
“Figured you weren’t,” said the lead rider as his horse lunged up the near bank and stopped, giving its head a fierce toss. “We’re supposed to meet a man named Shanley. Been lookin’ for him three nights in a row.”
“That’s enough, Jake,” said the man stopping his zebra dun off the lead rider’s right stirrup. “Don’t be so goddamned chatty. Can’t you see you’re borin’ him.”
Jake chuckled and shook his head. He was short and stocky, with a sandy spade beard jutting off his chin. “That’s me—a real gasser. Out here, you get that way . . . if you’re out here long enough. Everything’s so damn quiet, you wanna talk and talk!” He chuckled again.
The dark, mustached man to his right said, “Mind if we picket our hosses with yours, mister?”
“As long as they’re friendly.” Uneasily, Longarm sat down against the tree. His rifle was leaning against the tree on his right, within easy reach if he needed it.
“Obliged,” said Jake, swinging down from his saddle. The all led their horses off toward where the buckskin nickered curiously, cautiously, shuffling around and snorting.
Longarm sipped his coffee, keeping the three strangers in the corner of his right eye as they unsaddled and rubbed down their horses. When they were finished, they came over grunting and toting their saddles and bedrolls, their rifle scabbards still attached to the saddles. They plopped their gear down around the fire, one to each side of Longarm, and Jake on the fire’s far side. The air around the camp was rife now with the smell of horse and man sweat and pine and the fish Longarm had roasted over the fire.
The man to his left was tall, lanky, and dark, while the man to his right was of medium height and long-haired, with a stiff, brushy mustache curving down over his mouth. He kept his eyes off Longarm. Jake chuckled in a habitually nervous, affable way, letting his own quick eyes dart across the fire at the lawman. The tall, lanky man who appeared not yet twenty looked grim, insolent, brooding, perpetually angry.
Owlhoots, Longarm thought. On the dodge and looking for a man named Shanley to throw in with for another job, maybe. Or maybe Shanley would give them a place to hole up quietly until their dust settled and they could hightail it to Mexico with fresh horses.
“Coffee?” Longarm set his own cup down to keep one hand free, and used a leather swatch to hold up the coffeepot.
“Don’t mind if we do,” said Jake.
They already had their tin cups out, and they extended them around the fire to Longarm. He filled them using his left hand and keeping a mild expression on his face. When all the cups were filled, the strangers sat back and sipped the hot brew, as did Longarm.
No one said anything for a time, and then Jake said, “Sure is chilly. Me, I’ll be happy to crawl into the ole hotroll tonight. Just wish I had a woman.” He gave a soft whoop of anticipated glee. “Ain’t had me one for a month of Sundays. Don’t see many out here.”
He looked at his friends as though expecting them to say something. The tall, brooding kid just stared into his cup as he drank it.
The dark man sat back against his saddle with one knee up. He had a pistol positioned over his belly, the handle jutting up toward his chest. Occasionally, he slid short, cunning glances toward Longarm. And then the brooding kid started glancing at him, too, and the cold, pointed nails of witches’ fingers began tickling Longarm behind his ears.
He’d play a hunch.
“Yeah, not too many women out here,” he said, blowing ripples on his coffee and sipping. “Especially not many like ole Laughing Lyle’s gal, huh?”
Silence.
The three owlhoots looked at him. Jake still had that affable grin, but it was dwindling slowly, his blue eyes acquiring a faintly nervous edge.
“Uh . . . who’s that?” he asked.
“You know—the hombre you ran into up the trail. The one with the pretty blonde. The one who offered you a sizable amount of cash to scour his backtrail for Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long.” Longarm stared across the fire at Jake, but he could see the other two very clearly in the periphery of his vision. “Me.”
A silence followed, so heavy that it was as if a twenty-ton boulder were suspended over the camp by a slender string. The fire popped and sparked.
The dark man to Longarm’s left flicked his hand toward the handle of the hogleg over his belly. Longarm pulled his Frontier Colt from its cross-draw holster and shot the dark man just as he clicked his pistol’s hammer back.
At the same time, Jake gave a yell and clawed for his own two six-shooters, but the kid to Longarm’s right was a hair faster, so Longarm shot him next. And then, just as Jake’s own pistols roared, Jake was punched straight back by the .44 slug that Longarm had, an eye wink before, sent hurling toward his chest, to tear his heart in two before ricocheting off his spine and exiting his back under his left shoulder blade.
When Longarm swung his pistol back to his left, the lanky kid was up and running and stumbling off through the brush toward the creek. Arms and legs flopping, he looked like a giant scarecrow blowing away on a cyclone.
“Stop or take it in the back, son!”
The kid bellowed and disappeared, brush thrashing and crackling, and there was a splash as his boots plunged into the stream.
Longarm looked at Jake and then at the other man. They both lay still. Cursing, he stepped over the dead man beside him and strode purposefully toward the stream. The kid gave another bellow as he stumbled up the opposite bank and turned back toward the camp. In the starlight, Longarm could see the large, dark stain on his shirt, beneath his open rat-hair coat. His wet leather chaps glistened.
The kid had a long-ba
rreled Colt in his hand, and as he swung around toward Longarm, he shouted, “You kilt me, you bastard!”
Standing at the lip of the near bank, Longarm extended his Colt straight out from his shoulder. The pistol exploded twice, leaping and flashing. The lanky kid grunted twice, stumbling back before twisting around, sobbing, and dropping to his knees. The kid gave another sob, then fell forward on his face. His spurs flashed in the starlight as his feet spasmed.
Longarm lowered the smoking Colt. He immediately flicked open the loading gate, plucked out the empty shell casings, and filled the chambers with fresh lead. As he walked back over toward the fire, he spun the cylinder, then held the gun low by his side and dropped to a knee beside Jake.
The owlhoot stared straight up at the sky as Longarm reached into his wool-lined denim coat and pulled a small wad of greenbacks from the man’s right front shirt pocket. Longarm spread the bills in his gloved left hand, counting them.
“Fifty dollars,” he said, scowling, shaking his head.
He pocketed the Stoneville loot and had just started walking over toward the other man when a rifle cracked upstream. The report echoed shrilly around the canyon. Heavy foot thuds followed, and a man stumbled out of the darkness from a tangle of piñons and junipers. He was an older gent with curly gray hair puffing out around his derby hat. He wore a long black coat and gloves with the fingers cut off. A black, fist-sized hole gaped in his forehead, and blood and white brain matter oozed out over his left eye and cheek. Both eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped the rifle in his hands before he himself gave a grunt and fell on top of it.
Longarm stood crouching, Colt extended, heart thudding as he looked around skeptically.
“Halloo the camp,” a young woman’s voice called from the darkness behind the most recently dead man.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” said Longarm dryly. “You’re friendly.”
Beyond the sphere of flickering firelight, a shadow jostled and then Jenny May walked into the light and stared down at the dead gray-haired man. She wore a long wool coat and a black hat, and she held a Winchester carbine down in her gloved right hand. Gray smoke curled from the barrel. Her tawny hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
Lifting her gaze to Longarm’s, she said, “Seen him moving around out here and figured he wasn’t up to much good. Guess he was s’posed to bushwhack you while the others kept you distracted.”
“Where in the hell did you come from?”
“Nowhere. After I got myself settled down, I decided I’d follow you, show you a shortcut to the May ranch first thing tomorrow.”
He glanced at the rifle in her hand and indicated it with his Colt’s barrel. “You’re the second young lady I’ve run into today who’s right handy with a long gun.”
“Make you nervous?”
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“If I wasn’t, this fella’d be pickin’ your pockets about now and drinkin’ your coffee.” Jenny looked at her Winchester. “A girl growin’ up out here has to learn early how to shoot and shoot well if she wants to hold off all the long-coulee riding sons of bitches who haunt these mountains. I can’t tell you how many have tried to get me on my back, and not all of ’em cared if I was still breathin’ when they did it.”
Longarm holstered his pistol, poked his hat brim off his forehead, and jerked his head toward the coffeepot. “Cup o’ mud, Miss May?”
Chapter 17
Jenny May led her horse into the camp. She picketed the skewbald paint with the others, then filled the coffeepot at the creek and started a fresh batch brewing on the built-up fire.
Meanwhile, Longarm took from the other two dead men the stolen money Laughing Lyle had paid them to clean him off his backtrail, then dragged their bodies a hundred yards upstream, where he’d leave it up to the coyotes and bobcats to do the final interring. Wasting time on the formal burial of men who’d tried to kill him just wasn’t Longarm’s style, and he doubted that Billy Vail would fault him for it even if the chief marshal ever found out about it, which wasn’t likely.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help,” Longarm told Jenny as he walked back into the camp, “but you shouldn’t be out here. I’m here, risking my own life and my horse’s, because I have to be.”
“Same here.” Jenny cracked a branch over her knee and dropped it onto the fire, on which the coffeepot gurgled and chugged. “I have to help you run my brother down and kill him like the dog he is . . . before he kills Pa, which he’ll likely have to do if he tries takin’ horses out of our corral.”
“He’s only allowed back if he’s dead. That it?”
“That’s right. I should have killed him myself, stopped the whole charade he was puttin’ on at Doc Bell’s.”
“You know it was a charade?”
“Now I do. Don’t you?”
Longarm stared down at the fire, thumbs hooked behind his cartridge belt. “Bell knew, didn’t he? That’s what he was trying to tell me just before he died?”
“That’s how I see it.”
“Lyle was wounded bad enough to pose no real threat to me, or to ride out of Nowhere right away, but he was pretendin’ to be at death’s door, and the doctor corroborated his story because Lyle promised him a cut of the money that Bethany hid along the trail somewhere. And who in hell wouldn’t believe a doctor . . . especially when he’s such a damn good liar?”
Longarm chuckled and ran a gloved hand across his nose. “This morning I saw a breakfast plate beside Lyle’s bed. The doc said it was his. But I remember now that I’d seen another plate on Bell’s desk when Butter and I first entered the office.”
Longarm looked at her squatting there by the coffeepot—a tough, practical girl of unexpected beauty. “Speaking of Butter?” he said, posing it as a question.
Jenny shook her head, then scuttled back against her saddle, stretching out her slender legs clad in patched denims and crossing her stockmen’s boots. “I don’t know. I reckon he’s poor enough, desperate enough, like most everyone else in the town. My brother is an evil man. Most folks around him long, the weakest ones, get tainted by it.”
“Like Bethany Todd?”
“Why not?” Jenny shook her hair back. “I seen ’em together before, riding together up here in the mountains. Lyle was good with women. She was likely why he was so intent on getting back to Nowhere. He knew she’d help him.”
Longarm arched a skeptical brow. “Just a coincidence she and her father happened to find him along the trail two nights ago?”
Jenny hiked a shoulder. She paused, then changed the subject. “Pa barred him from the ranch when I was old enough to fall under his influence. Oh, he’s been back a few times, but mostly he just steals a few horses to supply his gang, laughs in that taunting way of his, and gallops on out. We hear about his depredations when we go to town.”
Longarm squatted by the fire. The pot was boiling, so he removed it from the fire with the leather swatch, opened the lid, and tossed in a handful of coffee from his Arbuckles pouch. “The town seems to harbor no ill feelings against you. It’s rare for folks not to hold family responsible for their kin’s doin’s.”
“I reckon they know how bad my pa has taken the way Lyle turned out. His only son. So devilish and enjoys bein’ devilish, like he tries his best at it. Pa said Lyle’s mother was like that—pretty but devilish—and that’s where Lyle got it, but Pa’s never been nothin’ but good and hardworking though he turned to drink because of Lyle and my ma’s death.”
“Pretty but devilish,” Longarm said as the coffee returned to a boil. “That’s sort of like Bethany Todd, ain’t it?” He couldn’t get her off his mind.
Jenny shook her head. “I told you—folks who get under Lyle’s influence for whatever reason end up as bad as him.”
When Longarm had poured them each a cup of co
ffee, Jenny said, “Oh, I forgot.” She set her cup aside, reached into her saddlebags, and pulled out some blankets and a bottle. “Ma Marcus sent you this. She said it’d keep the chill away.”
She handed the bottle over to Longarm, and he grabbed the bottle, chuckling. “Now, that there is a good woman.” He held the bottle up to Jenny. “A libation, Miss May? Chilly and gonna get chillier.”
“Couldn’t stomach the stuff after what I seen it do to Pa.”
“Understood.” Longarm popped the cork and splashed some of the whiskey into his coffee. Setting the bottle aside, he swirled his coffee around and sipped. He couldn’t have asked for a more soothing, delicious brew, except, of course, some of his own Maryland rye.
He glanced at Jenny, who sat with her blankets drawn up to her chin, arms crossed on her chest. She still wore her hat, and her brown eyes reflected the fire’s flickering glow. “You worried about your pa?”
She bunched her lips and shook her head. “Not really. Oh, Pa’ll take some shots at Lyle if he gets a chance, but Lyle probably already got there by now, stole some horses, and left. Pa probably didn’t even stir.”
“Lyle won’t kill your pa?”
She glanced at Longarm, and there was a dark hesitation in her eyes. Then she returned her gaze to the fire and shook her head once more. “He wouldn’t go that far—shoot his feeble old man.” She paused. Then she rolled onto her side and curled her legs toward her belly, snuggling in for the night. “Not even Lyle would do somethin’ as poison mean as that.”
Jenny paused again before adding, “I’ll show you a shortcut in the morning. That’ll shave an hour off the trip.”
“Sounds good, Jenny.”
Longarm sipped his coffee and whiskey. It nourished him, warmed him. But he kept his eyes skinned on the darkness beyond the fire, wary of more interlopers, though he doubted there would be anyone else out here this late.
When he finished his coffee, he checked on the horses and took a swing around the camp. He saw nothing but some coyote-sized shadows scurrying around the four dead men in the brush, and he gave a wry, satisfied grunt.
