Longarm and the Yuma Prison

by Tabor Evans

  “I’m sure that he will,” Jessica said. “Mitch isn’t about to let this new trial take place because it might expose his corruption.”

  Longarm considered all that he’d just learned. “Seems to me that I ought to meet Lang and have a little heart-to-heart talk with the man. Is he crazy enough to try and kill me outright?”

  “No,” the attorney said. “Mitch Lang is not the kind to risk his life in a gunfight. He’d rather hire others to do that sort of thing. But if he invited you to share a drink, you’d be wise to decline the invitation. Mitch is plenty capable of lacing your drink with poison.”

  “I see,” Longarm said. “He’s devious and a snake.”

  “That pretty well sums the man up,” Tom Ray said. “Just be real careful. Marshal Beeson is dangerous, but you’ll always see him coming at you. Having said that, he might order his deputies to ambush you from a rooftop.”

  “Custis,” Jessica said, “until the trial that will exonerate my father is over, we are all going to be in real danger. I’m sorry to have dragged you into this.”

  “My choice to come and my choice to stay,” Longarm told her.

  A guard peeked into the door. “Need more water?”

  “No, thanks,” Jessica said quickly. “We are about finished up in here.”

  “I lock the door from the outside. Just knock and I’ll let you out and return your father to his cell.”

  “Thank you.”

  • • •

  Five minutes later, they were walking out of the prison yard and down the barren hill toward town. The temperature was well into the nineties and the sun was a burning hole in a pale blue sky. Longarm squinted up at it and then wiped his brow with his coat sleeve. How, oh, how, he wondered, did anyone live here through the heat of summer?

  Chapter 17

  Longarm walked into the Bank of Yuma, which was a single-story building made of limestone. It had polished hardwood floors and two teller cages in the front with several desks and a private office in the back. The teller was a man in his thirties who wore spectacles and looked pale and bookish. However, when he saw the sweat pouring off Longarm’s face, the man said, “It’s going to be a scorcher today.”

  “It already is. I can’t imagine how hot it gets in July and August.”

  “It’s not so bad,” the teller assured him. “We get some rains that move up from the Gulf of Mexico and that helps cool things down a bit. Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to see Mr. Lang.”

  “Do you have—?”

  “No,” Longarm interrupted as he removed his badge and showed it to the young man, “but I’m sure he’ll want to see me.”

  “Please wait right here and I’ll see if he’s available. And your name?”

  “Custis Long. Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Longarm didn’t have to wait even a minute before the teller hurried out of the office and back to his cage. “Please step around that corner and follow me. Mr. Lang will see you at once.”

  “I thought he might,” Longarm mused aloud.

  He entered an office that was both spacious and richly appointed. Behind an oversized mahogany desk sat a man in his fifties with muttonchop whiskers. He wore an expensive gray suit and a gold-framed pince-nez perched on his hooked nose. The banker and businessman still looked strong and fierce. Lang came to his feet and extended his hand. “I have been expecting you, Marshal.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Longarm said. “I imagine that Marshal Beeson gave you a full report.”

  Lang forced a brittle smile. “The marshal isn’t too happy about you not leaving on the train. He thought you both had an agreement.”

  “Not at all,” Longarm countered. “Beeson said he wanted me to leave and I said I’d damn well leave when I felt like it.”

  “You told Jeb Beeson that?”

  “I sure did.”

  “Please sit down. Can I offer you a libation? Whiskey, perhaps?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I have some excellent scotch, if . . .”

  “I didn’t come here to have a drink with you, Mr. Lang. I came to tell you that Tom Ray is a former federal marshal and one with a distinguished record and many years of good service in Denver.”

  “Yes, of course I know that. But what Tom Ray did in Colorado has no bearing whatsoever on his behavior in the Arizona Territory. Sadly, Tom Ray became obsessed with finding gold and becoming rich. I, on the other hand, always understood that becoming financially successful is the result of years of hard work and making prudent and sometimes very difficult decisions.”

  “Thanks for the insight.” He waved his hand overhead. “Nice bank, and that’s quite a big mercantile you own.”

  “I try to provide the people here with everything they need.”

  “I’m sure that you do,” Longarm said, “especially those that do your bidding.”

  The banker smoothed his muttonchops. “You have a very direct and unfriendly manner about you, Marshal Long. But I am sure that I’m not the first to make this observation.”

  “I’m not in the business of making friends, and I know that you pretty much own this town.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go nearly that far,” Lang said modestly. “There a number of other very successful businessmen in Yuma, and more arrive each year seeking opportunity in the desert. But I’m sure you’re not here to discuss the town’s entrepreneurs.”

  “No, I’m not,” Longarm said. “I thought I’d tell you that I’m staying until Tom Ray is released from the penitentiary.”

  “Ha!” Mitch Lang leaned back in his office chair and barked a sharp laugh. “Well, if that is true, then you are going to be here a very long while. In case you didn’t know it, Tom Ray gunned down two men in the Cactus Saloon and was sentenced to life in prison.”

  “I hear that those two men were card cheats and that he drew his gun after they drew first. So where I come from, that is self-defense and not punishable by any judge or jury.”

  “You have your facts wrong,” Lang insisted. “There was a trial, and the jurors as well as the judge ruled Tom Lang guilty of not one . . . but two murders. It is regrettable, but a reality. Tom Ray was actually quite popular, but you know how some men change when they’ve had too much to drink or are losing all their money at cards.”

  Longarm listened a few minutes longer while the banker talked and then he abruptly came to his feet. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Mr. Lang. None of it is good. I’m here to inform you that I am going to see that Tom Ray is freed from prison and in the process it is very likely that the corruption that you and Marshal Beeson are engaged in will be exposed.”

  “You are sadly mistaken,” Lang said, coming to his own feet with color rising in his cheeks. “And I would urge you very strongly to tell young Kent Hamilton that he is walking on thin ice. He has just married Miss Ray and now you and they should leave Yuma while . . . well, before it gets even hotter in these parts.”

  “For a minute there I thought you were going to threaten me.”

  “No threat,” Lang said, managing a tight smile. “But this is a hard and unforgiving country and newcomers often make fatal mistakes.”

  Longarm had already decided not to tell this man that Kent Hamilton’s oldest brother was going to be arriving in Yuma in a few days and would preside over a new trial. Why give the banker any more information or advantages than he already had?

  “I guess we’ve about said all we needed to say to each other,” Longarm told the man. “Oh, did your toadies tell you that Mr. Hamilton, his bride, and I visited Tom Ray this afternoon at the prison?”

  The banker couldn’t hide his surprise. “But it’s not Sunday visiting day.”

  “That’s true, but Warden Gates made an exception for us.”

 
“I’ll have to speak to the warden,” Lang warned. “Rules are rules, and if he doesn’t understand that, then—”

  “If I were you,” Longarm interrupted, “I’d stay out of the warden’s business because you’re soon going to have an awful lot of problems of your own.”

  “What on earth are you talking about!”

  “Well, for one thing that mining claim just north on the river where you have men illegally working. The gold that you’ve extracted belongs to Tom Ray and his daughter.”

  “Not anymore it doesn’t. I bought that claim and I have the papers to prove it.”

  “And I suppose they are locked up in your vault where they can’t be examined by anyone other than yourself.”

  Lang folded his thick arms across his chest. “Marshal Beeson told me that you were an arrogant fool. You come into this town with Jessica Ray on your arm and you get adjoining rooms at the hotel. Then, Miss Ray throws you over like a piece of garbage, but you don’t just leave Yuma a jilted and pathetic man. Instead, you mend your fences with the young woman and align yourself with a killer that is serving his time behind bars. Marshal Long, you need to return to Denver before you embarrass yourself or your office further.”

  “Thanks for the lecture and advice,” Longarm told the man. “And I’m sure you’d like nothing more than for me to walk away and leave you to plunder that gold mine while its owner rots up on Prison Hill. But that just isn’t about to happen.”

  “Marshal,” Lang said, his voice trembling with anger, “I believe we have finished this conversation.”

  Longarm snorted with derision. “In truth, we’re going to have a lot more to talk about before I’m done in Yuma. Good day.”

  Longarm left the bank without saying a word. But one thing he had learned from the visit was that Mitch Lang was going to stop at nothing in order to serve his own ruthless ambitions.

  Chapter 18

  Longarm was in his room preparing for a good night’s sleep when he heard a pounding on his door. He picked up his pistol and yelled, “Who is it!”

  “It’s Kent! We were ambushed and Jessica was shot!”

  Longarm threw open the door to see the attorney standing shirtless in the hallway with a bloodstained bandage on his upper arm. Longarm pulled the man inside and sat him in a chair. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Jessica and I were standing on our front porch when two shots were fired from across the street. I heard Jessica scream and then I was knocked sideways by the impact of a bullet to my arm.”

  “Where is your wife now?”

  “She’s with a doctor and his wife over on Second Street.”

  “How bad is she?”

  Tears were streaming from the young attorney’s eyes and he choked with anger and frustration. “Jessica is fighting for her life. She took a slug in the side. I picked her up and carried her over to Doc Kelly’s house, which was nearby. He got the bleeding stopped and the bullet out, but . . .”

  Longarm had a bottle and he poured a generous amount of whiskey in a glass and handed it to the man, who was shaking violently. “Did you see who did it?”

  “I couldn’t clearly see their faces, but I’m almost sure it was Marshal Beeson’s deputies. They took off running a few seconds after the ambush.”

  “Drink that whiskey while I get dressed and then I want you to take me to where the shots were fired,” Longarm said, his expression grim.

  Longarm dressed quickly. He had expected that he might be the target of an ambush, but he’d never thought that Lang and the marshal would be so low as to ambush the newlyweds. Still, it made perfectly good sense. With Kent and Jessica dead, it would be unlikely that Tom Ray would ever be freed from the Yuma Territorial Prison. And his brother, the federal judge, would probably be so overcome with grief that he’d be consumed with the details of a burial and then leave at once for New Mexico.

  • • •

  Twenty minutes later, Longarm and the attorney were holding up lanterns and studying the site where the ambushers had lain in wait until they had a good shot at the Hamilton house and its front porch.

  “Just don’t mess up the tracks,” Longarm said, placing his lantern down on the ground and studying the footprints. “One man was wearing cowboy boots with pointed toes and the other was wearing round-toed shoes. Both men had small feet and you can see the cigarette butts scattered around.”

  “Anything else?” Kent asked.

  “There are a lot of tracks here so I think the ambushers spent quite a bit of time in wait.” Longarm studied the surroundings. They were standing in the front yard of a small, darkened house with a falling-down fence and high weeds in the yard. “Who lives here?”

  “Nobody. The house is for sale and has been vacant for months.”

  Longarm picked up his lamp and moved up onto the porch where two rickety rocking chairs sat near the front door. He tried the door and found that the lock had been broken. Stepping into the house, he discovered more cigarette butts in a clay bowl half-filled with water.

  “Kent, have you ever seen lights on in here at night?”

  “No, but then Jessie and I didn’t spend much time out on the porch. We were only there tonight for a few minutes admiring the full moon when the shots rang out. I thought Jessie was dead.”

  “Do you know what kind of shoes the deputies wear?”

  “Never paid attention. But I do know they both roll their own cigarettes and you rarely see them without one in their mouths.”

  “Well,” Longarm said, “we can say for sure that they spent more than one evening in this house, and when it got dark they snuck outside and waited for an opportunity to kill you and Jessica.”

  “And they almost succeeded.”

  “Yeah.” Longarm left the house and went back to the site of the shooting. He studied the distance directly across the street.

  “What are you thinking?” Kent asked.

  “I’m thinking that they’d have killed you for sure if the light on your porch had been good or if it had been in daytime. But most likely they couldn’t risk being seen over here in the daytime and so they just rushed their shots.”

  “What can you do about it?” the attorney asked.

  “Not a damned thing.”

  “But if they smoke and you just said one has pointy-toed cowboy boots and the other round-toed shoes, then . . .”

  Longarm placed his hand on Kent Hamilton’s shoulder. “You’re an attorney. You know that lots of men smoke and wear those kinds of shoes. Could you bring the deputies to trial with only that kind of flimsy evidence?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “I can’t do anything just yet,” Longarm said. “I think we should hurry over to the doctor’s office and see how Jessica is holding up.”

  “Okay,” Kent said, bitterness high in his voice. “But if I have to, I’ll kill those murdering bastards all by myself!”

  “Don’t even try,” Longarm warned. “In the first place they are professional gunmen and they’d kill you before you could get them both. And even if you were successful, you’d be arrested by Marshal Beeson and probably be hanged or at least sent up to Prison Hill. And then what good would you do for your new wife or your ailing parents in Santa Fe?”

  “Nothing,” Kent said quietly. “I’d be of no use to anyone.”

  “Exactly,” Longarm replied. “So just let this pass for a while. I’ll go see the marshal in the morning and I’ll raise a stink, but of course he’ll tell me that his two deputies had nothing to do with this ambush. Even so, I’ll put them on notice that they’re going to pay for this bloody act . . . one way or the other.”

  Kent Hamilton nodded. “Now I’m really worried. If they shot at us once they’ll do it again.”

  “But we knew that from the start,” Longarm said as they headed for Second Street. I could tell the moment I met Mit
ch Lang, Marshal Beeson, and his two gunnies that this was going to be a fight to the finish.”

  The attorney nodded. “I’m sick with worry about my brother, too. He’s on the train and he’ll be here tomorrow. When he arrives and finds out that Jessie and I were ambushed on our front porch, I wouldn’t blame him if he got back on the train for Santa Fe as fast as possible.”

  “That’ll be his decision, Kent. But if your brother is a federal judge, he’s likely been threatened plenty of times and maybe even attacked. I’m betting that if he’s anything like you, he’ll be all the more determined to bring justice not only to Tom Ray but to this whole town.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  • • •

  Ten minutes later they were standing at Jessica’s bedside in the back of the doctor’s house. Jessica was sedated and sleeping. Dr. Kelly and his wife were cleaning up the room where they did surgery and when they were finished Longarm went to their sides. “How is she doing?”

  “She’s going to make it, but she’ll be recovering for quite some time. The slug just missed her kidney and her spine. The young woman is very, very fortunate, but she’s lost a great deal of blood.”

  “Did she say anything to you?” Longarm asked.

  “You mean before I sedated her so that I could remove the bullet?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor looked to his wife who nodded. Coming to a decision, Dr. Kelly said, “Miss Hamilton told me that she saw the shooters who were hiding behind a broken-down picket fence directly across the street.”

  Longarm waited. “And?”

  “She said she couldn’t positively identify them but she was pretty sure it was the two deputies working for Marshal Jed Beeson.”

  “Thanks,” Longarm said.

  The doctor had a stern and craggy face. His eyes were sad and it was clear that he had seen a great deal of sorrow. “I understand that you are a federal marshal from Denver here to try and see that justice is served and that Tom Ray is freed from prison.”

  “You understand right.”

  “Then understand this,” the doctor said, his voice shaking with anger, “our town is being held hostage by a few men who will stop at nothing to feather their pockets! Many of the best people in Yuma have just thrown up their hands and moved away because of Lang, Beeson, and his bully boys. Something has to be done and it has to be done soon.”