by Tabor Evans
His hammer fell on an empty chamber. In the heat of the moment he had forgotten that he was carrying only five cartridges in his Colt, this in case the livery horse gave him grief and made his .45 fall out of the leather.
Men have been known to shoot themselves—sometimes fatally—in just that manner, a revolver hammer striking the ground and in turn hitting the cartridge primer. That can be funny when the accidental shot hits no one; it can be tragic when the errant bullet strikes flesh.
Now Longarm had an empty gun and a pissed-off opponent not twenty feet away.
The man in the derby hat and black sack coat blasted nervously in Longarm’s general direction, his bullets flying high until his gun, too, was empty.
Derby looked at Longarm, saw the lawman was out of ammunition, and reached for a knife.
Longarm also hauled a knife out, his a folding lockblade that he kept sharp enough for the occasional shave. He snapped it open and stepped around behind the brown horse.
“You killed my partner, you son of a bitch,” Derby snapped, his face contorting like he was close to breaking out in tears.
Longarm stood his ground, waiting to see if Derby was any better with a knife than with a gun.
Unfortunately he was. He dropped into a crouch and crept crabwise toward Longarm, staying low with his knife hand extended and a wide grin splitting his face.
It would have been a fine time to have a cartridge or three remaining in the Colt but what he had was a folding pocketknife and a determination that this grinning piece of shit was not going to gut him and leave his body beside a shallow creek in eastern Wyoming Territory.
Beside Longarm the brown horse coughed and went down to its knees. He would have gone to it to see if there was any way he could give it ease, but his attention was—and had to be—fixed on Derby. And on the man’s wicked knife blade.
Derby came in closer, still grinning, still crouched low, still with blood in his eye.
Longarm waited. Weighed the familiar heft of his knife. Knew it came up short against the belt knife Derby wielded.
The thing about a knife fight is that they are sudden things, over almost as quickly as they begin. Longarm expected this one to be no different. He would pit his speed and determination against that of Derby.
And one of them would die.
Derby shuffled closer. Closer still.
The man’s knife hand lashed out toward Longarm’s belly.
And in less than a second the fight was over.
Chapter 10
“You black-hearted, cocksucking bastard,” Derby groaned. “You’ve killed me, haven’t you.”
Longarm hunkered down beside the man. He took out a cheroot and lighted it, remembering to offer it first to the man on the ground. Finally he nodded. “Ayuh, reckon I have.”
The haft of Longarm’s knife protruded just beneath Derby’s breastplate. The blade extended up under the ribs and probably pierced the lower end of the man’s heart.
Longarm had suffered a razor-thin cut on the inside of his left bicep. If he had been wearing his coat, he thought, he would have escaped injury completely.
“How . . . how long?” Derby asked.
“Not long,” Longarm said. “Couple minutes maybe. Are you wanted for anything?”
“No, this . . . this was our first stickup.”
“You should’ve stuck to herding cows.”
“Will you have us buried proper?” Derby asked.
“I’m on official business, but I’ll leave word. D’you have paper an’ pencil?”
“I do. In my right-hand saddlebag. Will you see that we have markers, me and my pard?”
“That I will. It’s why I asked for paper an’ pencil.”
“My name is Chester Thomas Teegarten. My partner there is Wil Canby. That’s Wilford.”
Teegarten was growing pale as the blood leaked from him, and his voice was weak. The man was still in his right mind, but he only had moments left, Longarm thought.
Longarm stayed beside him, smoking his cheroot, until Teegarten drew his last breath.
Then Longarm stood and went to the horses Teegarten and Canby had ridden to this spot. He rummaged through their saddlebags until he found the promised paper and pencil and wrote out a note saying he had killed them in the line of duty and they should be buried at government expense. He gave their names and a brief description so each body could be properly identified—not that he supposed it really made much of a difference now which marker went over which grave—and tucked the note into Teegarten’s pocket.
He took a few more moments to drag the bodies to the side of the road where the next coach through would see them.
There was nothing he could do for the hired brown horse. The next time he was through Lusk he would give the livery man a voucher to pay for the miserable beast. Then he unsaddled and turned loose the poorer of the horses Teegarten and Canby had been riding. He tightened the cinch on the better of the two, a likely looking gray with good butt and wide stance in front, and transferred his gear to that horse.
He stepped onto the gray and touched it with his heels, guiding the animal onto the thin track left by the wagon that came once a week to collect the mail pouch for Valmere, Wyoming Territory. The horse splashed across the shallow stream that might—or might not—have been Hat Creek and headed east at a comfortable lope.
Chapter 11
“What the fuck?” Longarm blurted aloud when he saw the signs that flanked the road.
A hundred yards or so back the track had taken a sharp turn to the north. Now he was confronted by this pair of signs. The one on the left read VALMERE, WYO. TERR. and the sign on the right read STONECIPHER, NEBRASKA.
The town that lay beyond them was equally split, left and right. One general mercantile on the left and another, almost-identical store facing it across the wide road. The false front of a saloon was on the left and another, almost-identical saloon facing it across the road on the right side.
Beyond the stores were equally similar smithies, each with a public corral attached. Aside from those there were a scant few houses on either side of the road.
The road itself widened here so there was room for normal traffic to pass on either side of a line of stakes that were driven down the middle of the roadway.
“What the fuck?” Longarm repeated to himself as he entered . . . he was not entirely sure if he was riding into Valmere, Wyoming Territory . . . or Stonecipher, Nebraska. Or both.
Valstone, the message back in Billy Vail’s office said it was from. Valstone. Valmere plus Stonecipher apparently equaled Valstone.
Longarm rode into town—or the towns, plural—on the Wyoming side of the markers, past the storefronts to the blacksmith’s shop. He reined to a halt and dismounted there.
The smithy, a smallish, wiry man with dark hair and powerful arms, stepped out to make a very obvious inspection of the gray horse. After a moment he said, “You ride a Cutrell horse but you don’t dress like no Cutrell man. Who are you and what are you doing on this side of the divide?”
“Pardon me?”
“I said . . .”
“Oh, I heard you, mister, but I don’t understand what you’re sayin’,” Longarm explained. “First off, I don’t know anybody named Cutrell. The horse is one I was left with after the fella that had been on it killed my animal. An’ who I ride for is the U.S. government. I’m the deputy marshal someone here sent for.”
The blacksmith broke into a broad smile. He snapped his fingers and did a little jig. “Hot damn. We’re finally going to settle this thing. We’ll finally get rid of those sons o’ bitches.”
“Uh, exactly what sons o’ bitches would you be talkin’ about?” Longarm asked.
“Why, them sons o’ bitches across the way, of course.” The blacksmith waved in the general direction of Nebraska.
�
��The sons . . .”
“Bastards stole our town. Stole the location, anyhow. As you can plainly see for your own self.” Again the smith waved across the broad street toward Nebraska. “This here is a Wyoming town. We want you to make those Cutrell and Sagamore and Gleason bastards take their town someplace else.”
“Look, this is all kinda confusing,” Longarm said. “How’s about I unsaddle this Cutrell horse . . . whatever that’s s’posed to mean . . . an’ find a place for both him an’ me to stay for a spell. Can you board this horse for me, mister? Even if it is a Cutrell horse?”
“Oh, sure, I can do that. He can stand in my corral along with the others.” The smith grunted. “I expect the horses won’t know the difference when I put him in among them.”
Longarm unstrapped his carpetbag from behind the cantle of what had been Chester Teegarten’s saddle and loosened the cinch of the gray. He draped the saddle over a rail of the corral fence and led the gray inside to get at the hay and water available there.
“Any idea where I might put up?” he asked the smith.
The man seemed to find the question amusing but after a moment he said, “Generally the fellas who show up here want mostly two things. And sleep ain’t either one of them. But maybe you could have a bed in Stella’s whorehouse yonder. It’s the biggest house this side of the street.” He pointed and grinned. “God knows they got beds there but I doubt there’s ever been anybody using one of them just to sleep in.”
“There’s noplace else?” Longarm asked.
“Not that I can think of,” the blacksmith said. “They’re nice folks at Stella’s, though. Give them a try. Then get about the business of kicking out those sons o’ bitches across the street.”
Longarm picked up his bag and headed off in the direction the smith had indicated, still not sure just what the hell he was doing here.
Chapter 12
“We aren’t open yet, mister. Just you keep it in your pants for another little while. We be open by and by.”
“This is a different kind of business I have in mind,” Longarm said. He showed his badge and explained the problem. “So what I’m looking for is room an’ board. The government will pay,” he concluded, peering down at the plump little black woman who had opened the door.
She brightened when she saw the badge. “You here to throw those bastards out? Well, you just come in and set yourself down. Take any room you want. You say your name is Long? Well, welcome, Marshal Long. You stay here long as you like. My name is Hettie and I take good care of you, me and my girls will. Then when you ready we go over to the saloon. You meet everybody. They be as happy to see you as I is.”
Hettie grabbed at his bag, practically wrestling him for it, then scampered ahead of him up the staircase.
“This our best room,” she said, pausing at a door. “If it be all right, you move in. Stay long as you like.”
Up and down the corridor doors were being opened and heads were poking out to see who was there. Female heads, the girls with tousled hair and without makeup. Without the gaudy face paint and ribbons they looked like a bunch of schoolgirls.
Hettie deposited Longarm’s carpetbag on the foot of a low, sturdy bed and said, “Come downstairs when you ready. I take you over to the saloon. Introduce you to everybody. All right?”
“Just fine,” he assured her.
Hettie bobbed her head and backed out of the room, closing the door as she went.
Longarm shrugged and looked around the accommodation. It was not exactly a high-class hotel room, but it would do. There was no wardrobe, just a series of hooks on the wall, and a washstand beneath them.
He moved his bag to the floor and unfastened the straps that held it closed, the act being enough to make him feel that he had moved in.
With another shrug he went back downstairs to find Hettie and meet “everybody” in Val . . . uh . . . Valstone, Wyobraska.
Chapter 13
“Welcome, Marshal, welcome indeed. We all heard you were here.” The gentleman laughed and said, “We knew Hettie would bring you over to meet us, so we all got together so we could meet you, you see. This is, um, this is every single resident of Valmere, Wyoming. Every one. Not counting the cowhands who come and go, of course.”
“And not counting wives,” someone put in from the back of the bunch. “Some of us do have wives here.”
“And some of us probably have wives back East, but we don’t talk about them,” another voice said, prompting a round of laughter from the others.
There were not a dozen men—and Hettie, of course—in the place. The permanent population of the town. Or at least representing the Wyoming half of the town, Longarm noted.
“I’m Jacob Potts,” the first gent said, extending his hand.
“And I’m George Griner. I’m Jake’s bartender,” another offered.
“You already met me. Well, sort of,” the blacksmith said. “I’m Otis Reed.”
They moved in close to introduce themselves, shake hands and fade back again, one by one until Longarm had met every businessman—businessperson, that is, including Hettie—in Valmere, Wyoming Territory. But not a soul from across the street in Stonecipher, Nebraska.
Longarm was beginning to wonder if there were people who lived on the Nebraska side of this borderline burg. He had yet to meet any of them.
“What we want,” Potts the saloon owner said, “is for you to send those bastards packing.” He motioned to George Griner, who hurried around behind the bar and drew a beer for their guest.
Longarm tasted the beer. It was sour and a little bit flat. “There’s a lot o’ bastards in the world,” he said. “Which particular ones are you wantin’ me to get rid of for you?”
It was posed as a question, but he felt sure he already knew the answer to it.
“Why, those sons o’ bitches across the way,” Potts said.
“We was here first,” put in a weasel-faced little man whose name Longarm did not remember.
“We cleaned out the spring,” another said.
“We all draw from the same water. It’s why the town was put here.”
“Uh-huh,” Longarm said, sipping at the truly awful brew in his mug.
“They got no business using that water after we’re the ones cleaned the spring.”
“That government survey crew came through. They ran the territorial boundary right up the middle of our main street,” someone complained.
“Right through the middle of the spring, too.”
“So now Nebraska claims that water as theirs.”
“But everybody knows it’s really ours.”
It seemed like everyone in the room had an opinion. Not only had one, they all wanted Longarm to hear those opinions.
Longarm set the mug aside still half full. He had not tasted anything this bad in years. “You wouldn’t happen t’ have any rye whiskey, would you, Jake?”
“Rye whis . . . what does that have to do with anything?” Potts snapped. Then he blanched and gave Longarm a worried look as if fearful he might have offended the marshal and ruined their chances to get rid of the Nebraska interlopers. “Oh! Rye whiskey,” he said, as if he was just now hearing that there was such a thing. “No, sorry, no rye.”
“What we have is jug whiskey,” Griner said from behind the bar. “Would you like a taste?”
“Jug whiskey? Like you, um, make it here yourselves?” Longarm returned.
“Yes, but the alcohol is all tax paid,” Potts quickly said.
“No snake heads?” Longarm asked.
“Oh, no. A little molasses, gunpowder. Water and of course the alcohol. Everything has to be freighted in from Cheyenne and the charges to get distillery whiskey here . . . you wouldn’t believe how much that costs.” Potts brightened. “Besides, the cowboys who trade here don’t seem to mind the difference.”
“I’ll try a little,” Longarm said, skeptical but willing. He for damn sure did not want any more of that cheap beer that Potts was selling.
Hettie tugged at his sleeve and he bent down so she could whisper in his ear, “I have some good whiskey over at the house. I’ll give you some of that when you come over for supper.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“So anyway, Marshal,” Potts said, returning to the business at hand, “those bastards across the way are stealing our water. We figure we got rights to that water, and we figure our federal government should see that we get our proper rights.”
“That’s right,” a chorus of approving voices agreed.
Longarm absently picked up the shot glass George Griner pushed in his direction. As he had begun to half expect, Jacob Potts’s so-called jug whiskey was every bit as bad as the man’s beer.
He was commencing to sorely miss Denver’s many delightful pubs.
Chapter 14
“Thank you for the hospitality, gents, but I need t’ go across the street an’ talk to those folks now,” Longarm said to the room at large. Silently to himself he added: And see if they have any decent beer or rye whiskey.
His announcement drew a round of smiles and great joy.
“You’re gonna kick the bastards out, right?”
“Go get them, Marshal.”
“Tell them that water is ours.”
“Just keep them away from our spring. That will send them packing.”
“Great job, Marshal.”
Great job? he thought. He hadn’t done anything yet. Moreover, he had no idea what he was going to do or even what it was possible to do. All he wanted to do across the street was to meet those folks and see what their side of the story might be.
But it seemed a poor idea to mention any of that to the good folk of Valmere.
Longarm let himself out of the saloon with a chorus of well-wishes following at his backside.
