by Tabor Evans
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, "I didn't treat you so mean. I exposed you as a cardsharp after I caught you dealing dirty to a lady. Nobody killed you. Nobody even arrested you. You and your pals were allowed to leave town in peace, as long as you left sudden."
Deacon Knox nodded soberly and said, "Then it's established we left peacefully. I told you at the time I didn't want to catch any north-bound trains because I'd met up with a rougher crowd up this way. But your pals gave me no choice and so that's what happened. I was sitting there minding my own business with a faro shoe in a back room when Texas Tom Taylor, who was really named Hatfield, caught up with me the night before last. Texas Tom and I went back to a summer on a Missouri road gang. We had little else in common. But he knew I knew you on sight. So he offered to let me in on a good thing if I'd be willing to point you out when you came to town."
Longarm nodded and said, "I can see you pointed me out. What was the deal he offered for my demise, thirty pieces of silver?"
Deacon Knox blew smoke out both nostrils and gasped, "Be fair! I never played Judas on nobody! Lord knows you've never been no pal of mine! You damn near got me killed, myself, when you exposed the way I'd got so lucky at Slapjack in that dinky Nebraska trail town. But I was never out to get you or anybody else shot in the back. They told me they were out to avoid you, not to murder a federal lawman! I like to shit my pants when I heard how you'd shot it out with Texas Tom. I could have told him how safe it was to shoot at you, had he asked me. But he never! I swear to God!"
Longarm said, "Keep your voice down. Let's keep this private. You said they told you fibs about me. I only got Texas Tom. Who else am I gunning for?"
The tinhorn told him, "Ram Rogers and vice versa. Taller than you but twice as skinny. Dark hair, dark complexion, dresses dark, and some say he has some colored blood, but he says it's Cherokee. Soft spoken and slow moving, until he tenses up to slap leather. He's said to move like spit on a hot stove when he has to. I've never seen him kill anybody. I didn't even know he had that rep when I first fell in with the two of them, Dear Lord, just a few short days ago that seem like years!"
Longarm said, "Time flies when you're having fun and drags when you have a toothache. I know Ram Rogers by rep as well. His real first name is Melvin. That could account for the chip on his shoulder. I'd like more on that deal you mentioned, now."
Deacon Knox said, "You've heard of the Big Rock Candy Mountains beyond the Seven Cities of Cibola, and naked hula-hula dancers of the Sandwich Islands who just can't do enough for doods off whaling ships? Well, there's this one crossroads cow town up along the North Platte run by a ladies' sewing circle with even the town law in skirts!"
Longarm didn't grin back as he said, "Keller's Crossing. What about it?"
The tinhorn scowled and said, "I just told you. There's hardly any menfolk guarding the two banks in town, the stagecoach terminal, the railroad freight and passenger office and Lord knows what all. The town's on an all-season ford across the changeable North Platte, where a railroad spurhead connects with stagecoach traffic coming down from the Montana gold fields along the old Bozeman Trail, now that the army's reopened the same after putting Mister Lo, the poor Indian, in his proper place."
"I know about rich passengers and gold dust changing to the railroad at Keller's Crossing." Longarm cut in, adding, "Are you saying they offered to cut you in on armed robbery in exchange for my ass?"
Deacon Knox shook his head and answered, "You know I do my robbing with a deck of cards. Texas Tom told me the gang him and Ram Rogers were riding with planned to take the whole township over, lock, stock and barrel, see?"
Longarm said, "I don't. Other menfolk would never allow it. They may or may not share your views on the qualifications of the weaker sex to hold public office. But I just can't see a gang of big tough boys busting in on a sewing bee to simply take the premises over. A good loud scream from just one of the upset shemales would surely bring other boys running. The county, if not troops from Fort Laramie, would be moving in on your pals before the dust settled."
Deacon Knox said, "Nobody said nothing about taking the township over the way the Cheyenne took and held Julesburg a few hours, that time. The bunch Texas Tom and Ram Rogers told me about mean to take over just the running of the township for keeps. They've seen it's an inbred clique of four or five widow women who've managed to squat on all the lily pads in a modest pool. Most of the men just working in and about Keller's Crossing have been too busy to worry about who's running the town, as long as it's been running smooth. I was told the plan was to buy out or scare off a few helpless widow women and replace them with men who share the views of the gang and the late Sheriff Henry Plummer, up Montana way."
Longarm whistled softly as that pragmatic approach to wealth sank in. For the notorious Sheriff Henry Plummer and his deputized stage robbers had almost gotten away with it!
The wild career of Henry Plummer had begun around Nevada City, California, when he'd gunned the man of a woman he admired, back in the early days of the California gold rush. He beat that charge but got arrested soon after for killing another man while he was robbing a stagecoach. But he busted out before they could hang him, and the next anyone heard of him he was a vaguely sinister young man with no visible means of support around Lewiston, Idaho. Before his past could catch up with him, he'd moved on to the new Montana gold fields and run for sheriff during the confusion of the war back East.
Longarm fished out a smoke of his own as he told the tinhorn he was starting to worry about his wild tale. He said, "If Henry Plummer could get elected sheriff while more responsible men were too busy to bother with local politics, anybody could do it. Plummer was wanted on every charge but farting in church. But they elected him, and in less time than it takes to tell, he'd gathered close to two hundred outlaws from all over to rob the stages he earmarked with chalk after asking the management, in his capacity as sheriff, which ones were most worth robbing."
Longarm lit his cheroot and added, "Had he been content just to get rich, he might have gotten away with it. But once you rob so much that business comes to a standstill, folk commence to study their neighbors harder. Once the vigilantes whupped a full confession out of one member of the Montana Innocents, as the gang was called, old Plummer and ten or twelve other ringleaders were invited to the same evening rope dance. But they'd sure lived high before they'd hung high, and some would-be mastermind is always trying to repeat the past performances of some earlier mastermind who might have gotten away with it--if only."
Longarm took a thoughtful drag on his smoke, let it out, and demanded, "Where do I find said mastermind so's I can ask him?"
Deacon Knox shook his head and said, "You shot my main contact with the outfit. Texas Tom knew me well enough to tell me where we'd be meeting next. I suspect Ram Rogers and the gal he has holding his horse, or his dick, depending, must have been spooked as me when you nailed Texas Tom with a head-shot, blind, at that range!
Longarm shrugged modestly and said, "It just takes practice. Let's talk about why Texas Tom was up on that roof to begin with. Have you any notion why my arrival in Cheyenne made them so morose?"
Deacon Knox shook his head and said, "I told you they never told me they meant to kill you. The deal was for me to point you out so's they could steer clear of you."
"Didn't anybody say why they wanted to steer clear of me?" Longarm insisted.
The tinhorn thought back, then tried, "Ram Rogers said something about you being there when Rusty Mansfield was gunned, down Denver way. He said you'd had the chance to talk to any number of witnesses, and there was just no telling what you'd heard or how warm you might be."
Longarm grimaced and said, "I'm flattered as hell. But I purely wish I had the least notion what he suspected I might know. Because all I know for certain is that I'm missing something about all this!"
CHAPTER 12
Longarm had long since learned not to warn a suspect of a possible slip by following up on i
t too tight. Every time he'd pressed Deacon Knox about his own intended assassination, the tinhorn had insisted neither the late Texas Tom nor the still armed and dangerous Ram Rogers had taken them into their full confidence. So in the end he'd told the slippery Deacon they were square and advised him to get out of Wyoming Territory while he was ahead.
After he'd done that he'd circled back to tail the white-suited sneak in the tricky flickersome night-lights of downtown Cheyenne. But while it was easy enough to keep an eye on that linen suit and big white hat from a discreet ways back in the early evening street life, Deacon Knox spoiled it all by having a couple of stiff drinks at a saloon near the depot and then going on to the same to pay his way out of town aboard the next westbound U.P. as if he'd been paying attention to Longarm's fatherly advice.
Longarm doubted it would be prudent to pussyfoot any closer to the railyards, recalling what Deacon Knox had let slip about others guessing he was bound for Keller's Crossing and knowing which night train was most likely to get him there. The tinhorn was likely on the level about not wanting to be mixed up in the killing of any man who rode for Billy Vail and the attorney general of the whole U.S. of A. But it would have been expecting too much of a born crook to ask for the finger-pointing rascal to point a finger at his erstwhile chain-gang mate. Old Deacon had doubtless described Ram Rogers the same as the wanted fliers posted on the surly breed because he'd known the lawman he was talking to had surely read at least one.
But since he only knew Ram Rogers by description and ill repute, and had even less on the shemale accomplice who could be staked out most anywhere, Longarm had to reconsider his immediate travel plans.
A stranger in town didn't lay low in waiting rooms, saloons, or an all-night chili parlor. As he drifted back from the part of town those rascals would expect to see him in, he considered returning to that hotel across from the Pilgrim to see whether little Sue still liked him. But parting was a sweet pain in the ass when you only had to do it once and he wasn't sure he could get it up again with a block and tackle if Sue had stopped cussing him.
He'd missed his supper during all the earlier excitement, and now that he found himself and his Winchester hugging the shadows with nothing better to do, he felt hungry as a bitch wolf hunting prairie dogs.
But all the places he passed that served grub were lit up inside like display cases for the perusal of any gunslick shopping for a target along the darker walks. So there had to be a better way.
It came to him as he'd circled aimlessly, or so it had seemed, to the stretch of Central Avenue where he'd had that shootout with the late Texas Tom.
He'd already decided not to hole up with any other lawmen there in Cheyenne before he was certain where those gunslicks Deacon Knox had been with knew anyone else with an ear to the neighborhood gossip. He'd never told anyone he'd been told to stop over in Cheyenne for some courtesy calls on other lawmen. Whatever the gang's leaders had heard about him being in the Parthenon Saloon in Denver at the time of Rusty Mansfield's death by gunfire, they should have expected him to arrive that afternoon on the passenger varnish and lay over by the depot just long enough to catch the earlier local he'd been forced to miss. Not the night freight that only went as far as Fort Laramie.
As he stood on the plank walk in front of Covina Rivers's notions shop, dark and shuttered at this hour, it came to him she and little Daisy were no more than a door knock away. So he moved to the side door betwixt the shuttered front window and that now half-empty rain barrel to knock on it.
A familiar voice from inside called out, "We're closed for the night. You'll have to come back in the mornin'."
Longarm called back that he didn't want to buy any ribbon bows or yard goods, and his voice must have seemed familiar, too. Because old Covina opened up to greet him at the bottom of the stairs in a flannel robe with a candlestick in one hand and her long gray hair down.
She said, "Daisy and me have been pulling taffy in our nighties. What on earth brings you here at this hour? You told us you'd be out of town aboard that late local."
Longarm replied, "I noticed. Since last we discussed my travel plans, I've changed them some, and even worse, it seems somebody out to gun me knows my next move by the time I can manage to make it."
She told him to come inside before somebody saw her talking to a man in her nightgown with her hair down, land's sakes.
As he stepped inside, he could smell hot buttered taffy, and he'd never known he liked the sticky sweet shit that much as his empty stomach rumbled.
She led him up the narrow stairs as he told her what he'd been up to since that afternoon, leaving out his friendly meeting with the Lakota nation but telling her what Deacon Knox had said about hired killers hiring others to finger him there in Cheyenne.
She gasped. "Heavens, you say you even suspect your fellow lawmen, Custis?"
To which he replied, "Not all of 'em. Maybe none of 'em told any drinking pals that much about me with any malice aforethought. You know how idle gossip makes its rounds until somebody with way more interest overhears it. I know neither you nor Daisy could have told Deacon Knox and his pals I was planning on missing that last afternoon local up to Keller's Crossing because I thought I'd make it, as I was leaving here, earlier. I had time to catch my intended train when I found out someone had been acting cute and could be laying for me at the Pilgrim Hotel. Their tinhorn scout gave up when I hadn't shown up by the time I should have left town. When he rejoined his pals, they told him they'd been watching at the depot and I still had to be in town. So they figured I meant to catch the later train tonight and sent him back to the Pilgrim to see what else he could find out."
By then they were up in her kitchen, where young Daisy sat grinning in her own nightgown, from the stock below, fooling with a cabbage-sized wad of sweet sticky goo.
Covina told her to put it back on the stove for now and turned back to Longarm to ask, "You say this member of the gang told you all this, Custis?"
Longarm removed his Stetson and hung it on a kitchen hook as he replied, "Not hardly. He switched sides sudden when I got the drop on him and likely scared him honest. He swore he hadn't known they had orders to gun me. He'd now have it known he was simply a poor dishonest cardsharp who fell in with the wrong companions. His conversion may be sincere. Old Deacon Knox has no rep as a gunfighter, and it must have been a sobering experience to have me nail his pal Texas Tom and get the drop on him with this Winchester, all within hours. I chose to believe his sad story because I didn't want more paperwork on my plate, and it was just as easy to run him out of town. I knew Deacon Knox ran out of town easy, and I suspect he'll keep running."
Daisy asked if he'd ever been to bed with two women at the same time.
As old Covina blushed beet red, Longarm refrained from bragging to reply, "Right now I'd rather have something to eat, no offense. I've had no sleep and barely enough grub to go with the hard day I've put in since leaving Denver a million years ago, and Lord knows when I'll ever get there at the rate I've been going!"
Covina turned to her kitchen range, allowing there were still some coals left from their taffy making, as Daisy asked why Longarm didn't spend the night with them and get an early start in the morning.
Covina hushed her but volunteered, "I do have extra rooms and so wouldn't it be a good idea to lay over here until those killers lose interest in that railroad depot?"
As she broke out a skillet and a smoked ham he could already taste, Longarm shook his head and said, "They ain't being paid to lose interest, and I'd lose yet more time in vain. My boss wants me up in Keller's Crossing. Their boss don't. They've had plenty of time to stake out the railyards, and they're likely staked out comfortable for as long a wait as they want."
As she sliced ham for her skillet and got out a basket of eggs, he continued, "I only know one of them by description and rep. He has at least one shemale with him who might be better at recognizing me in tricky light than vice versa. In sum, they have the deck stacked to the
ir advantage, and even if I won, I'd be tied up here with the paperwork too long to catch that way-freight. It'll be pulling out before ten and then where would I be?"
The gray but fine-figured Covina put the ham on to sizzle first as she calmly replied, "Safe here with us? Why do you keep calling that last train out to the north a way-freight? I know what a freight train is, but I'm not sure I've ever heard one called a way-freight."
It was Hobo Daisy who chimed in from her own perch across the table. "Silly, a way-freight is a local that makes every stop along the way. They run them when the passenger varnish and fast freights ain't using the track, which is usually single line betwixt towns, out this way."
Longarm chuckled and told Covina, "That's about the size of it. Night-crawling way-freights ain't much. But they purely beat walking, or even riding, once you're talking about any distance. The old iron horse keeps chugging long after a regular horse is through for the day."
As a heavenly smell of frying ham filled Covina's already sweet-smelling kitchen, Longarm mused, half aloud, "Already thought about hiring myself a bronc at the livery across from the depot for some serious riding. But it's too far to push a pony, or even a rider, at any speed."
Covina busted eggs over his ham as she countered, "if I understand way-freighting correctly, there's an alternate north-bound leaving later and stopping at Crow Bend, eight or ten miles up the line, and closer by beeline across the range."
Longarm nodded but said, "Already considered that, Miss Covina. But they likely have the livery staked out, along with my fool saddle in its tack room. I'd have never stored it close to the depot if I'd gotten Deacon Knox to talk earlier. I could likely beg, buy, or borrow another saddle as well as a mount to shove under it if I had more time. But, like you said, we're talking eight or ten miles, and I'd barely beat the iron horse with a real horse if I started right now!"
