by Tabor Evans
The intruder was holding a wicked-looking knife.
Longarm yanked his .45 out of its leather and triggered a quick shot.
He heard a grunt of shock and pain, and the would-be assassin tumbled to the floor with a bullet in his leg.
Longarm threw himself on the man and clubbed him with the butt of his .45. The fellow continued to struggle so Longarm bashed him again then wrestled the knife away from him and tossed it harmlessly to the other side of the room.
The intruder had a bullet in his leg and a bloody gash in his scalp but he continued to buck and struggle underneath Longarm anyway.
“Hold still, dammit, or I’m gonna have to hit you again,” Longarm warned.
The man continued to fight so Longarm hit him again, slamming the butt of his .45 hard against the fellow’s temple. That did the job. He went limp.
Longarm sat up, breathing hard from the unexpected exertion. He fumbled in the dark for a match, struck it, and used it to light the candle that had been provided in the room.
In the faint light from the lone candle, he saw that the man who had come into the room was an Indian.
Longarm handcuffed the intruder and quickly dressed. It was not lost on him that the gunshot and sounds of a fight had not drawn any interest from other guests in the hotel. No one had come to see what the problem was. But then perhaps they were accustomed to such goings-on in the night.
By the time Longarm was dressed, the Indian was beginning to regain consciousness.
Longarm used the fellow’s own sash to make a wrap around the bullet hole in his leg then dragged him to his feet.
He was not entirely sure what he should do with a prisoner on the reservation. Surely they had a jail, but he did not know where it was. He settled for hauling the Indian over to the agency headquarters.
“This’un needs to go behind bars for a spell,” he said, dragging the man up the steps and into the headquarters building.
“We have a jail cell over at the army post. I can take him there if you like,” the night clerk said when Longarm told him what was going on.
“Fine but first I want t’ know who hired him to kill me,” Longarm said, “an’ why.”
There was a lengthy exchange in the Indian’s native tongue, then finally the clerk said, “The answer to why he came at you is simple. He was hired to do it. He would have been allowed to take your hair as a trophy, but that was just a bonus. He was paid fifty dollars in gold and promised another fifty after you were dead.”
“I’m not ’specially sorry to deprive him of that second fifty,” Longarm drawled, reaching for a cheroot. “Now the big question. Who hired him?”
“That he refuses to say.” The clerk, a man named Jerrity, smiled. “But he is wondering if he can keep the fifty dollars he was paid up front.”
Despite the circumstances, Longarm tipped his head back and laughed out loud. “Shit yes, let him keep it. But I still want t’ know who’s behind it.”
“I wish I could tell you, but I doubt he would say even if you tortured him. Which is what he is expecting, by the way.”
“Then let him an’ his fifty dollars rot for a spell behind bars,” Longarm said. “Can you have him taken care of from here?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then please do that. Bastard interrupted my sleep. I was right in the middle of a good dream when he woke me, an’ I want t’ get back to it.” Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson toward the night clerk, turned, and headed back to the hotel in search of that elusive good sleep.
Chapter 58
Longarm woke up groggy and growling after a very poor night of sleep. He rubbed his chin but said the hell with shaving. That could wait a day. Or two.
He dressed slowly and checked on Beth. Her door was bolted shut. He did not try to wake her. He walked over to the sutler’s complex and bought a slab of squaw bread and a can of beans for breakfast. Johnson had a pot of coffee warming on the potbelly so he helped himself to a cup.
He carried his purchases over to the side of the store and perched on a bale of dried coyote hides to enjoy his meal. While he was there, he idly watched the flow of commerce in the store.
Something he noticed almost at once was that there seemed to be two sets of prices for items—one price for the white men, mostly soldiers, who came in, the other for Indians of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes. The Indians paid four and sometimes five times the amount that the soldiers were charged.
That was unfair. But not illegal. Johnson could charge what he damn pleased. There was no law against it.
Longarm finished eating but carried his cup over to the stove for a refill. Whatever was in the brown bean seemed to help a man wake up. And this morning Longarm needed that help. He yawned and ambled over to the counter to buy another handful of cigars, as he was getting a little low.
“Penny apiece,” Pierre told him. “You got, let’s see, you got seven of them there.”
Longarm forked over two three-cent pieces and a penny. Pierre dropped the coins into a metal box that was kept under the counter.
“I just saw an old Indian come in and buy one cigar. You charged him a nickel. D’you know the quality of a smoke I could buy in Denver for a nickel?” he said.
“Then I suggest you buy your cigars in Denver,” Pierre said, scowling.
Longarm grunted. But there was no point in getting into a pissing contest about it. He just thought it was wrong, that was all. “All right. Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
A young soldier wearing a red sash, which probably meant something although Longarm did not know what, came in. “Marshal Long?”
“Here,” Longarm called.
The soldier presented himself and snapped to attention. “Sir, Agent Payne would like to see you. At your convenience, sir.”
“All right,” Longarm said, putting his coffee cup down. “Any idea what for?”
“I believe he wants you to fill out some forms, sir,” the youngster said, his voice as stiff and formal as his posture.
“You can tell Agent Payne that I’ll be right over there, soon as I finish my breakfast.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The soldier executed an about-face and hurried away.
Longarm picked up his coffee cup again and took it with him back to the fur bale. He was not inclined to rush anywhere just for the sake of paperwork.
Chapter 59
Once the coffee flushed the mush out of his brain, he had a third cup and then, again sitting on the bale of fur, got thinking.
These assassination attempts, or at least this last one, were directed at him, not Beth Bacon.
They were able to get two hotel rooms this time, and Beth was safe in hers with the door bolted. He knew that for a fact because he had tried her door on his way out this morning.
But the idiot with the knife had slipped into his room last night, not Beth’s. The murder attempt was clearly directed at him.
But why?
He could understand someone giving up on trying to kill Beth once her husband’s body was found. After that, if indeed keeping her from knowing about the murder was the original purpose, there was no sense in killing her.
Now the target was one United States Marshal Custis Long. Clearly.
Longarm could almost understand that. Hank Bacon’s killing had taken place on Federal land and just as clearly was a Federal crime.
So someone was trying to keep the long arm of the law from snatching him up and sending him to the gallows. That made sense. So far.
The thing that really did not make sense to him was the burning of Hank Bacon’s ledger.
Someone had hunkered down by that fire with his own murder victim lying right there beside him and taken the time to tear pages out of that heavy, canvas-bound ledger and burn them.
They’d even tried, with less success
, to burn the end boards.
It took so long that they used up Bacon’s entire overnight supply of firewood in the process. All of it.
Obviously this had been a long process, tearing pages out a few at a time, burning everything they could.
Now why in hell would a man go through all that?
It made no sense to Longarm.
But it most assuredly made good sense to someone.
Longarm bought a chunk of jerky to chew on while he sat on the fur bale and chewed on his thoughts and his confusion.
Then finally he stood, brushed himself off, and headed for the agency headquarters to see what Agent Payne had in mind this morning.
Chapter 60
“He won’t be but a minute, Marshal,” the day clerk, a man named Dowdell, told him.
Longarm nodded, yawned, took a seat on one of the chairs outside the agent’s office. He was still chewing on the idea that he was the intended target of the assassination attempts. It really made no sense to him. He was certainly no threat to anything or anybody around this agency.
He wished he was a threat to somebody, but the sad fact was that he had no idea why he was being targeted for murder. Or by whom.
He smoked a cigar. Wished anew that he had thought to bring a bottle of whiskey with him to the dry reservation. Well, supposedly dry. Probably a man could at least buy tizwin here if he knew the right person to approach and the right things to say when he got there.
He made a mental note to ask Bull Mathers about that. Very likely Bull would know where a man could find a drink.
He finished the cigar. Yawned again. Looked up hopefully when Payne stepped out of his office with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
Payne, however, was not greeting Longarm but leaning over his clerk’s desk.
“Dammit, Harry, they’ve raised the prices again. Do you know how much he is charging for a beef now? A hundred twenty dollars. Just two months ago it was an even hundred. Now he wants a twenty percent increase. Not just for the beef either. Twenty percent across the board, he says.”
Dowdell took several of the papers from his boss, adjusted the spectacles that perched on the bridge of his rather large nose, and said, “It’s all in order, sir. It does seem a lot to pay for one scrawny animal, but we have no choice. Not unless we want to stop issuing beef. We could, um, perhaps we could find some other source?”
“There is no other, dammit,” the agent growled.
Payne looked up and noticed Longarm sitting there. “Can you believe it?” he said, grateful for this new audience to his troubles. “The prices go up practically every month. As it is, I shall have to petition the Bureau for an increase in the budget. If they don’t grant the money, I don’t know what we will do to feed the tribes.”
“Twenty percent,” Longarm said. “That seems a lot.”
“Oh, it is. Believe me. Do you know how much we pay for flour? Plain, ordinary wheat flour. He charges three hundred dollars a barrel. Do you know how much the tribes consume? Especially in winter when the hunting is bad. They come in and expect to be fed. They were promised they would be fed. Promised, I tell you, by our own government. And I don’t know that I can afford to feed them through the winter this year.”
“Don’t you have any choice?” Longarm asked, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair.
“None,” Payne said. The agent moved closer, ignoring Dowdell and giving his attention to this newcomer who would not already be familiar with his rant. “Johnson has a lock on the supply situation here. Has had since before I was appointed to the agency. And he is charging unconscionable prices for barely satisfactory goods.
“Why, you should see the cattle that he sells us. He has them driven in twice a year, scrawny, emaciated things. The tribes prefer to slaughter their own, you understand. We issue beef on the hoof and they mount their ponies and chase the poor creatures down with bows and lances and who-knows-what. It is like hunting and they prefer it. But . . . such poor, miserable beasts. And he charges so much for them.
“That is why I was so hopeful when that surveyor came through.” Payne turned to his clerk. “What was that man’s name again. Harry? The surveyor?”
“Hank Bacon, sir. His widow is here now to take his body home.”
“Oh, yes. Bacon. How could I have forgotten that? I had hoped that he would bring us some bacon. And potatoes and a thousand other things. He was here on behalf of a railroad, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Longarm said.
“Pity he was killed. That is the sort of thing that can happen to a man traveling alone in wild country.”
“That’s right,” Longarm said. “If, uh, if a railroad were to come here, you would be able to buy your goods almost at city prices, wouldn’t you? Ordinary prices plus a little for transportation.”
“Exactly,” Payne said with enthusiasm. “That is why I so hoped the railroad would be coming through on its way north.”
“Right,” Longarm said. “Well, sir, if you will excuse me, there’s something I have t’ do.”
“No, wait. I need you to fill out these arrest forms after that incident last night.”
But Payne was speaking to Longarm’s back as the tall marshal headed out the door.
Chapter 61
“Pierre!” Longarm said, entering the sutler’s store and politely standing aside for a trio of young Indian women who were on their way out.
“Yes, Marshal? Did you forget something earlier?”
“More like I didn’t know something earlier,” Longarm told the man.
“Sorry. I don’t understand,” Pierre said.
“Tell me something, friend. How are you with a rifle?” Longarm asked.
“Marshal, to tell you the truth, I’m a terrible shot with any kind of gun.” He laughed. “That is a large part of the reason why I became a clerk instead of a hunter or a trapper. My people are mostly trappers, but not me, as you can plainly see from this apron I’m wearing.”
“But you are a very loyal employee, Pierre.”
“Why, thank you, Marshal. I appreciate that.”
“Is your boss in?” Longarm asked.
“He’s out back taking inventory on some things. We have to order our merchandise awfully far ahead of actual need, you see, because of the time it takes to transport goods up here.”
“Expensive, too, I would think,” Longarm said.
“Very,” Pierre agreed.
“So a railroad would make things convenient. But also much less expensive, isn’t that so?”
“Perhaps. Is, uh, is there a point to all this, Marshal?”
“You know there is, Pierre. Your boss . . . and you . . . have been worried that a railroad would come along and give you competition, cut deep into your profits because of that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the clerk said.
“Sure y’ do,” Longarm told him, his voice no longer carrying a tone of friendly banter. “Point is, so do I. I finally know what the problem has been all along. First Hank Bacon. Then his widow. An’ now me. We all of us, one way or another, threatened the cozy setup you an’ Johnson have had here.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Pierre insisted.
“I think you do. I think it so strongly that I’m gonna put you under arrest. We’ll have t’ arm wrestle to see who tries you, U.S. district court or a Shoshone tribal court. But we can work out little details like that later. Right now I want you t’ turn around an’ put your hands behind your back.”
Instead of his hands going behind his back, Pierre reached underneath his apron.
Chapter 62
At the last second Pierre saw that he was going to be too late. He got his pistol out quickly. Longarm got his .45 even quicker.
Pierre’s eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. He probably saw the puff of smoke and the lance of f
lame that preceded the bullet that smashed into his breastbone. He may have had time enough to realize that the marshal had just killed him. The last thing he saw in this life may well have been the dirty, mud-caked floorboards in Johnson’s store.
The smoke from Longarm’s gunshot boiled up between them and partially obscured Longarm’s vision, but he could see well enough that Pierre had dropped his .455 Webley and fallen facedown onto the floor.
In the closed quarters the sound of the shot reverberated from the ceiling and fell like a heavy weight onto Longarm’s sense of hearing. He shook his head trying to clear it and held his nose and tried to blow through it, popping his ears against the sudden pressure.
Pierre’s blood flowed onto the floor. Off to the side of the big room a handful of shoppers, four Indians and a pair of off-duty soldiers, tried to make themselves look inconspicuous as they hurried out of the place.
Longarm gave the shoppers a hard look, but none of them mounted any challenge. When he was sure the store was clear except for himself and Pierre’s body, he flipped open the loading gate at the back of his .45’s cylinder and ejected the spent cartridge. His hearing was still impaired and he did not hear the tink of the empty brass hitting the floor.
He felt in his coat pocket and produced a fresh cartridge. He dropped it into the empty chamber and closed the loading gate then returned the Colt to its leather.
That cuts off the tail, he thought. Now to find the head of this particular serpent and chop that off, too.
Chapter 63
Outside the sutler’s store he saw one of the soldiers who had just left the place.
“You. Corporal. Have you seen the sutler this morning?”
“Yes, sir. Just a couple minutes ago I seen him jump on a horse. Don’t think it was his but he got on and started off at a larrupin’ run.”
“Which way’d he go?” Longarm asked.
The soldier pointed toward the northeast, a direction Longarm sincerely doubted since there was so little to be found there. Apparently the man was trying to throw him off the scent.
