Longarm and the Great Divide

by Tabor Evans

  And Custis Long was acting town marshal for both sides, enforcing the laws of Wyoming Territory and of the state of Nebraska. Worse, the divided community had no town laws of its own. None.

  It was a wonder, he thought, that the cowboys from nearby outfits hadn’t been riding roughshod over the whole shebang.

  He sat, rocking back and forth and thinking, until he finished his cigar. Then he flipped the butt into the darkness. It hit the ground in a cascade of flying sparks.

  Longarm stood, paused for another quiet moment to enjoy the night, then stepped down off Liz’s porch and walked across the wide street to Stella’s whorehouse and the comfort of his bed.

  Chapter 32

  “Good morning, Marshal.”

  “Good morning, Otis.”

  “What can I do for you, Marshal?”

  “I just came t’ get my horse.”

  “Lordy, you aren’t leaving us, are you?”

  “No, Otis. Just taking a ride.”

  “Oh. Right. Let me get that horse for you, marshal. You just set and relax. I’ll saddle him and fetch him to you.”

  “That’s mighty nice o’ you, Otis.”

  “Happy to oblige, Marshal.”

  Ten minutes later Longarm was heading at an easy jog north of town. The day was a pleasant one with a few puffy clouds floating overhead and the sound of songbirds trilling in the brush he passed through.

  He was comfortable, a hot breakfast behind his belt and the sun warm on his face. The gray horse moved at an easy pace. It seemed a shame that all days could not be like this.

  He almost regretted arriving at his destination. It took only a scant few minutes to reach the water that was responsible for the presence of both Valmere and Stonecipher. Surprising, too.

  Longarm was expecting to see a pond. This was a small lake, covering probably eight or ten acres and rimmed with cattails. He had no idea how deep the water might be, but it was obvious there was plenty of it even if it turned out to be shallow water.

  He stepped down off the gray and squatted on the top of a low rise to light a cheroot and enjoy the feel of the day.

  While he watched, a wagon approached pulled by a pair of cobs and carrying four barrels. The driver carefully backed his outfit down to the water’s edge, then climbed down and used a bucket to begin filling the barrels.

  It was a slow and cumbersome process but the burly fellow—Longarm was sure he had seen the man in town on the Nebraska side—seemed to know what he was doing and went at it with dogged determination.

  After several minutes Longarm mounted the gray and rode down to the lakeside where the gent continued to work at filling his barrels.

  “Mornin’.” Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson.

  “Good morning yourself.” The man with the bucket continued to work at his task.

  “Could I ask what you’re doing?” Longarm said.

  The fellow gave him a look that was just short of disgust. “Filling these barrels, of course.” His tone of voice suggested that Longarm must be daft if he could not see what he was doing.

  Longarm smiled. “No, sir, I mean why are you doin’ this hard work.”

  “Everybody needs water, mister. To drink, to wash with, whatever, everybody needs water one way or another. I sell it to them. Wallace Waterman, they call me. That ain’t my right name, but it’s what everybody calls me. And you would be that marshal from down Denver way, name of Long.” He nodded as if affirming his own statement but continued to dip his bucket into the edge of the lake and empty it into one of his barrels.

  “How long does it take you to fill all four of those barrels?” Longarm asked.

  “Oh, couple hours, I suppose. I can make two, sometimes three trips out here each day. Only one on Sundays. Sunday mornings I rest. Sundays the folks in town have to use less water.”

  “Can’t they come get it for themselves?”

  Wallace the Water Man grinned. “They ain’t allowed to.”

  “How’s that?” Longarm asked.

  “’Cause I filed on this land. Own it legal and clear. Or anyhow will once I’ve been on it long enough to prove up.”

  “Wise,” Longarm commented.

  “I ain’t no scholar,” Wallace said, “but I ain’t maybe as dumb as I look.” With pride in his voice he added, “I can read and cipher, you know.” He splashed another bucket of lake water into a barrel.

  “Thanks for the information, Wallace. Mind if I water my horse here?”

  “That will be all right if he bends down and drinks, him or you either one, but you can’t lift it up to him. That’s the law. Water rights. I know about them,” Wallace said proudly. “I read all about it in one of those gummint brochures.”

  “Right you are,” Longarm said. He led the gray to the edge of the lake, but the horse had no interest in drinking at the moment. “Thank you again, sir.” He stepped onto the horse, nodded good-bye to Wallace Waterman, and reined the gray back toward the twin towns.

  It was time for him to get back to the nearly complete jail. And to see that Dave Ashford was fed and had a trip to the outhouse.

  Chapter 33

  Longarm had to keep everything in balance. Two carpenters from Valmere; two carpenters from Stonecipher. One man with pick and shovel from Wyoming; one man with pick and shovel from Nebraska. And never mind that only one man at a time could work in the hole that would serve as the latrine. Balance between the twin towns, always balance.

  “When you’re finished putting that last wall in place,” he told them, “start on the outhouse. An’ after that, build me some stools, a cot for inside the cell, stuff like that. We can’t afford t’ buy ready-made furniture so’s we’ll just build what we need. Oh, an’ make me a desk, too, please. An’ some shelves to go on that wall there. I’ll need someplace t’ file the records.” He sighed. “Two pairs o’ shelves, I suppose, since the records will have t’ be kept separate for the two towns.”

  “That will keep us busy another two, maybe three days,” carpenter Tom Faroe said.

  “Whatever it takes,” Longarm told the man. Faroe was a good worker, sent by Cal Bonham, the Stonecipher storekeeper; Longarm liked Faroe. Liked Bonham too for that matter.

  “Are you leaving already, Marshal?”

  “Just t’ see to my prisoner. I figure to take him for lunch, then back here so’s he can have the honor of bein’ the first prisoner in that brand-new jail cell. For a few days anyhow till the Wyoming circuit judge gets here. Then I s’pose you boys will have to come back an’ build us a gallows.”

  “Whatever you say, Marshal,” Faroe said.

  Longarm headed across the wide street to Garrett Franz’s general mercantile, where Dave Ashford was chained to a post. When he got there the prisoner was curled up into a tight ball, lying with his back to the store.

  “Wake up, Ashford. It’s time I can take you for a shit an’ a wash and something to eat. Personally I’m hungry, so rattle your bones an’ get around, man.”

  Ashford did not move. Longarm nudged him in the butt with the toe of his boot. Still the man did not so much as quiver.

  “Uh-oh!” Longarm knelt behind the man, wary lest Ashford was trying to pull a fast one and make a break for freedom.

  Dave Ashford was already free. Free from bondage, free from pain, free from life.

  “Well, shit,” Longarm said, rising to his feet. He removed his Stetson and wiped his forehead.

  He turned to Franz and asked, “Is there a doctor hereabouts?”

  “Over in Lusk there’s a pretty good man. I don’t know as he’d be willing to come here, but we’ve sent a few of our really sick folks over to him. The drive only takes a day and a half,” Franz said.

  “We’re not gonna go t’ all that trouble,” Longarm said. He knelt again, rolled Ashford onto his back, and began unbuttoning the man’s
shirt.

  Chapter 34

  There was a small, a very small, puncture wound high in the man’s belly, just below his rib cage. Apparently someone had stuck Ashford with . . . Longarm did not know what sort of implement might have been used. An ice pick probably or at least something very similar.

  The general store was full of utilitarian objects that could have been used, or the killer could have brought his own.

  When one got right down to it, Longarm thought, it did not all that much matter what had been used to kill David Ashford. The question that mattered was why?

  Longarm stood and rolled Ashford back onto his side, facing away from the store as he had been when Longarm got there. He walked to the front of the place, where Garrett Franz was waiting on a customer, a woman Longarm recognized as being the wife of one of the townsfolk.

  When the lady had made her purchases as left, Longarm approached Franz.

  “I need t’ ask you a few things, Garrett,” he said.

  “Of course, Marshal. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about the prisoner there. Has he been arguin’ with anybody?”

  “Not that I saw. In fact he has been very quiet this morning. Why?”

  “The reason the man’s been quiet, Garrett, is ’cause he’s dead,” Longarm said, reaching for a cheroot.

  “Dead! My God! How? Why?” Franz blurted.

  “I was thinkin’ you might have some answers to them very questions,” Longarm said, flicking a match aflame with his thumbnail and using it to light his cigar. “The man was right there in plain sight, after all. In your store. Practically under your nose. You must’ve saw something, heard something.” He blew a cloud of pale smoke between them. “So what is it that you know about this?”

  “Nothing. I swear to you, I neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary this morning. The prisoner has been . . . that is, I thought he was sleeping late this morning. I didn’t want to disturb him.”

  “And last night?”

  “The store was busy last night. You yourself gave him supper. After he ate it I collected the empty dishes and took them over to the café where they belonged. That part was later, of course. I got busy with waiting on customers and didn’t really pay any attention to Ashford. Didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Not that I can recall.”

  “There was no fight? No hot words or low whispering with someone?” Longarm asked.

  “No, not that I noticed. But to tell you the truth, my hearing is not everything it used to be. It helps if I can watch a man’s lips move. The way I’m doing with you right now. But sounds behind my back . . .” Franz shrugged. “They would have to be loud. Last night I heard nothing.”

  Longarm grunted. He was not satisfied, certainly was not happy with the storekeeper’s responses. But then if the man had heard nothing . . . or would not admit to anything . . . there was little that Longarm could do about it.

  “All right. Thanks.” Longarm turned and started out.

  “Wait,” Franz called.

  Longarm stopped. Turned back to face the man. “Yes?”

  “The, um, the body. You can’t just leave a dead person on my floor there.”

  “My advice,” Longarm said, “would be t’ have him removed an’ buried wherever you do such of a thing around here.” He gave Franz a solemn nod. “But you do whatever ’tis you think best.”

  Then he turned and proceeded out of the store to the street beyond.

  Chapter 35

  Late that morning the two men with the picks and shovels came to him. “Marshal, unless you want us to dig until we come out the other side, I think your shit pit is done. You want to come take a look?”

  He did. The sump was a good eight or nine feet down and plenty wide. The soil underground looked like it would provide more than adequate drainage for the liquids. Longarm nodded his satisfaction.

  “Thanks for your help, fellas. You can go back to your regular jobs now.”

  “You don’t need us swinging a hammer?” the Nebraska man offered.

  “No, I think things are pretty much under control now. We have two working on the outhouse an’ two making furniture. Things are lookin’ good here, so go on an’ thank you.”

  The pick and shovel brigade went back to their respective sides of the twin towns. Longarm turned to the other four and told them to take their lunch break. When they did, he noticed, they took their lunch pails and sat well apart from each other. He had been hoping that the work, of necessity in close quarters, would have led to something approaching friendship. It had not. He regretted the lack of camaraderie among them but knew there was no way to force it.

  “If you need me, I’m gonna go have me something to eat, too. I’ll be at McPhail’s Café over yonder.”

  “You go ahead, Marshal,” one of the Wyoming boys said.

  Longarm walked across the wide street to Harrison McPhail’s café on the Nebraska side for a quick lunch, then went back across to the Wyoming side for a drink in Jacob Potts’s saloon. He was trying to show impartiality in his movements.

  “My Lord, Jake, is this horse piss the best you have?” He had forgotten how very bad Potts’s whiskey was.

  Potts wiped an imaginary spot off the bar and grunted. “It’s what there is, Long. Sorry if you don’t like it, but you take it or leave it. It don’t make no nevermind to me. The cowboys around here will drink what I give them or go thirsty. So will you.”

  “Except I can walk across the street there and get something decent in your brother’s place. They could, too, if they wanted to.”

  “That man is no brother to me. He’s just like all the rest of those sons o’ bitches over there, and all the hands around here know it. We don’t like those people any more than they like us, and one of these days we’ll have us a showdown. Then there won’t be but one town here, and it’ll be a Wyoming town.”

  Longarm set his whiskey glass down, the contents barely tasted. The stuff really was terrible and he remembered now that the beer was just as bad. Either one left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth. He lighted a cheroot, thinking perhaps the flavor of the smoke would take away the taste of the whiskey. It did not, not completely, but it helped.

  “I guess you heard, that MCX rider got himself murdered last night.”

  “I heard. Do you figure one of the XL Bar boys slipped in and got some payback for him killing their pard Charley?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Longarm admitted.

  “Likely,” Potts said, rubbing at his bartop some more. Longarm got the impression the man would rather talk about almost anything other than the quality of his drinks. Or talk about nothing at all, which appeared to be an even more attractive possibility to the man.

  He thought about walking back to the whorehouse where Hettie said she had a decent bottle of whiskey but decided he really should get back to work instead. There were still the desk and shelving to be built and he wanted to make sure they were constructed to his satisfaction.

  “Thanks for the drink,” he told Potts.

  “Anytime, Marshal. We all want to help any way we can.”

  Longarm gave the man a halfhearted wave and went back out into the glare of the midday sun.

  Chapter 36

  The town marshal’s office was almost complete. The shelves were up and the carpenters were busy building a desk and stools. Longarm left them to their work and went first to Cal Bonham on the Nebraska side and then to Garrett Franz in Wyoming, collecting—or begging for—paper, ink, pens, and the like.

  “I’m impressed,” Bonham said. “You’re bringing things together better than I ever thought you could.”

  “If you didn’t think I could do much good here, why’d you send for me?” Longarm asked.

  Bonham blinked. “Why, I . . . I didn’t do that. Didn’t have any part in having it done, either, Ma
rshal.”

  “Then who did?” He still wished he had gotten a look at the signature on that wire asking Billy to render assistance to the local law.

  Bonham shrugged. “Damn if I know, Marshal.”

  “That’s interestin’. Say, you wouldn’t have any o’ them pushpin things, would you? Thumbtacks, I think they’re called.”

  “I think I have some. Hold on. I’ll see if I can find them,” the Nebraska storekeeper said.

  Across the wide street—and Nebraska state line—he posed the same question to the Wyoming storekeeper.

  “No, I didn’t send it,” Franz responded. “I don’t think any of our people did.”

  “But you knew about it. When I got here everyone was expecting me. Everyone on both sides, in fact.”

  Franz peered toward the ceiling and scratched his neck. He needed a shave. After a moment he said, “No,” drawing the sound out a bit. “But I can’t remember how I came to know you would be coming. Or one of your people, that is, not you in particular.”

  “Isn’t that strange,” Longarm mused. “No one admits to sending the wire. Or the letter or whatever the hell it was. Come t’ think of it, Billy never showed me the actual paper. Could’ve been a wire. Could’ve been a letter. You do send mail from here, don’t you?”

  “Of course we do. I have a postal window in the back there. The wagon goes over to the highway once a week, every week, winter or summer. And let me tell you, getting anything through in the winter around here can be rugged.”

  “I’d think so,” Longarm said. “Do you remember anybody sending a letter to the United States marshal down in Denver? Would’ve been a month, two months ago?”

  “No, but then I don’t have to look at the mail or sort it or anything. We don’t have local service. The town is so small there’s no need to buy a stamp to send a note to the next block over. Everything that’s mailed from here is going somewhere else, so I bag it all up and send it down to Cheyenne. Incoming mail is another matter, of course. I sort that and hand it to the person the next time I see them.”