by Evans, Tabor
“Call me Custis. And yes, you’re right. It is shocking.”
“So what are you doing with the boy?”
“He’s at a hotel close by. I wanted to get a jump on this case today, and then in the morning we’ll take a stagecoach up to Virginia City, where I was going to try to find out what I could about the murder of his mother.”
“I met the Burlingtons,” Katie said quietly. “Does the boy know the history of his mother?”
“Yes. But the last letter that she wrote, the one with bloodstains, was filled with happiness. She had found religion and a good husband. If the letter is to be believed, Ruby had changed and her new husband had completely forgiven her sordid past.”
“Does the boy forgive his mother’s past?”
“I honestly don’t know. What I am sure of is that he will want to visit her grave, and he wants me to find out and bring to justice the one who killed his mother.”
Katie drank and signaled a different waiter to bring another refill and their sandwiches. When the food came, they talked about Hugh Parker, and Longarm had the distinct impression that Katie had dumped the marshal the very night he was murdered.
“Hugh was handsome and fun, but he was a rogue and he was always flirting with other young women. Even when we were together. I could see that he was not the kind of man that I should ever fall in love with.”
“That’s pretty much in line with what Sheriff Bolden said about Hugh Parker.”
“I’d like to meet the boy if you spend any time in Reno.”
“Why?” Longarm asked bluntly.
“Because when I was a teenager I had a miscarriage and lost a son.” Katie’s words were a little slurred and sad. “And so I have a huge hole in my heart for boys, especially ones who didn’t really have a decent mother.”
“Bodie is hard,” Longarm warned. “I think the only thing he cares about is his huge dog, Homer.”
“He brought a dog all the way from Denver?”
“Yeah,” Longarm said between bites of sandwich. “I could tell you a lot of stories about our trip out here on the train.”
“I didn’t even know you could take a dog on a train.”
“If you’re a federal marshal you can sometimes get things arranged that ordinarily wouldn’t happen.”
“Could I meet Bodie after we leave here?”
“Sure. But, Katie, you have to come at him real easy or he’ll turn away. He doesn’t trust anyone.”
“Not even you?”
“Probably not even me,” Longarm confessed.
Katie reached across the table and laid a hand on his forearm, then squeezed it. “Custis, let’s have another round because you’re buying, and then let’s go see the boy and his dog. I like dogs almost as well as boys.”
“That might change when you lay eyes on Homer. He’s a wolf dog and he’s not real friendly.”
“Dogs and cats take to me right off,” Katie promised. “They understand when a person is good or bad. That’s another reason why I was getting rid of Hugh—he hated animals, and the feeling was mutual. Do you like dogs?”
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
“That’s important,” Katie said. “Very important.”
Longarm was lost as to what that meant, but he had a feeling that Katie Lund had never gotten over the loss of her unborn child, and that she was a good person who probably led her life with her heart instead of her head. Much more importantly, she might remember a thing or two that Hugh Parker had told her the last time they’d been drinking Irish whiskey together here in this saloon.
Something that would bring this murder mystery full circle.
Chapter 16
Longarm asked Clancy to make up a sandwich and some fried and deliciously seasoned potato slices for Bodie, along with any meat scraps he had for Homer, while they had one more generous shot of Brannigan’s Best.
By the time they arrived back at the Mapes Hotel, it was almost eleven o’clock and Longarm was feeling anxious about having left the boy and his dog alone so late. But he needn’t have worried, because both were asleep and their door was locked.
“Bodie,” Longarm said, “this is Miss Katie Lund. She knew your mother and stepfather and is going to help me find out what happened to them up in Virginia City.”
Bodie rubbed his eyes, glanced at Custis, and said, “I thought we were going to have something to eat.”
“I brought you and Homer a sack of food. I think you’ll like what you find.”
“Thanks,” Bodie said without much enthusiasm. “Can we go up to Virginia City tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Hey, miss, don’t get close to that dog!”
But Katie was already kneeling down and petting the huge animal. To everyone’s surprise, Homer seemed to be enjoying the woman’s attention, and when she reached into the bag and started feeding him scraps of fat and corned beef, Homer slobbered all over her hand and his big tail began to thump the floor.
“Well I’ll be jingoes!” Bodie said. “I’ve never seen him take to a stranger like that before.”
“Dogs like me because I like them. All of them. Big and small. Fierce and friendly. I own two dogs and three cats.”
“You do?” Bodie was chewing furiously on his sandwich. “Big dogs or little?”
“Both, although my biggest dog isn’t nearly as big as your Homer.”
“Homer doesn’t like other dogs, and he’ll kill cats.”
“Then I’ll never have him over to my house,” Katie said. “But I have a pen where he could stay while I make you and Custis a home-cooked steak some evening when you return from Virginia City.”
“Or I could just tie him to a tree or something strong,” Bodie offered. “He doesn’t mind being tied up as long as I’m around.”
“That would be fine too,” Katie said. “Custis tells me that you lived most of your life in Bodie. I’ve never been there. Is it nice?”
“It’s okay. Bad water. Lots of dust and wind. I like Reno and Denver a lot better. In Bodie there were no trees, because even the foul-tasting water had to be hauled a long way to the town.”
“I see.”
Longarm sat back, and for the next half hour, he just enjoyed listening to the pair talk about small things. He appreciated the fact that Katie didn’t mention Ruby or her death or any other sad things that might upset Bodie. And all the time, Homer laid his massive head on Katie’s lap and gazed fondly up into her kind brown but slightly bloodshot eyes.
* * *
Longarm hadn’t expected Katie to accompany him next door to his hotel room, or to boldly step inside and begin to kiss his lips. He hadn’t expected her body to be so luscious, either. But when they climbed into bed still slightly drunk and belching vapors of corned beef, he thought that he had just become the luckiest man in Reno.
Longarm made slow, passionate love to Katie, and their session ended with her on top, back arched, hair swinging from side to side as she laughed and then groaned with pleasure. When she finally reached orgasm, he rolled her over onto her hands and knees and entered her from behind. He thrust until his big hands stiffened on her narrow hips and he growled and gasped with release.
“I take it that was as good for you as it was for me,” Katie said a few minutes later, while they were lying on their backs regaining their breath.
“Oh yeah,” Longarm assured her. “It was.”
Katie turned on her side and studied his face. “Custis?”
“Huh?”
“Hugh was a hard, dangerous man, but they killed him all the same. Please be very careful up in Virginia City and down here in Reno. Whoever killed Hugh might already know that you and the boy are here and determined to get to the bottom of the murders. If that’s true, they’ll make every effort to kill you and
also Bodie.”
“I know.”
She kissed his face. “So, do you like Reno as well as Denver?”
“Reno is a very picturesque and enjoyable town.”
“Do you think you might like to stay here for a while?”
He turned to look into her eyes. “Katie, I’m not the man for you. Please don’t start thinking about things that aren’t going to happen.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her, and then they lay back on their pillows and went to sleep.
Chapter 17
“Well, here we are,” Longarm said, stepping down from the stagecoach in Virginia City. “Twenty years ago this place was a magnet for every starry-eyed dreamer and gold-fevered prospector in the world.”
Bodie climbed out of the stagecoach. His dog had not been allowed inside, so Homer had trotted after the coach all the way from Reno. He still looked fresh, and because the weather was cool, Homer hadn’t suffered.
“The cemetery is out there,” Longarm said, pointing to the east. “Would you like to see if we can find your mother’s grave?”
Bodie just nodded his head.
“All right, let’s stretch our legs, and I’m sure that it won’t be hard to find the gravesites of your mother and her husband.”
Longarm’s prediction proved correct. In less than thirty minutes, they were standing in front of two impressive headstones and what were clearly recently dug graves. There were even some wilted flowers strewn across Ruby’s raised mound of dirt.
“I’ll just wander around for a few minutes, and when you’re done here, let out a shout and we’ll go back into town and get rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
Longarm had always had a bit of a fascination for graveyards. He wasn’t morbid about them, but he liked reading the epitaphs, always hoping he could get a little insight into the person who was lying still and cold almost under his feet. As he wandered around the cemetery, he saw that the graves dated back to 1860, which was right around the time that the Comstock Lode ore had first been discovered. The town itself had been named after James “Old Virginny” Fennimore, and the story was that in 1859 “Old Virginny” had gotten roaring drunk and ridden up Gold Canyon only to topple off his horse and smash his last bottle of whiskey. Staggering to his feet, he had the great presence of mind to brush himself off, survey the dark stain of his bad whiskey, and shout to his equally drunken companions, “There dammit, I have just christened this place in my own gall-darned honor as Virginia City!”
Longarm didn’t know if that was a true story or not, but he sure thought it was a good one.
“I’m ready now,” Bodie said, joining him. “There are a lot of graves here.”
“Yes. And most of them belong to Welsh hard-rock miners, and the main cause of their death was pneumonia.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m far from an expert on deep, hard-rock mining, but I do know that some of these mines went a thousand feet deep. And that far down the temperature is very hot . . . maybe as hot as one hundred and fifty degrees. I’m told that the miner’s union made sure that its members were paid three dollars a day and received a hundred pounds of ice per shift in those deepest and hottest levels.”
“It must have been like working down in hell,” Bodie opined.
“I think it was,” Longarm agreed. “But three dollars a day was double what a cowboy would make and more than I make today as a federal marshal, so there were always men willing to risk their lives. But when they were brought up in cages dangling from cables, they were often overheated, and when they were hit by icy winter blasts, it was almost a certainty that they would catch pneumonia, and that’s why so many died young up here on the Comstock Lode, so far away from their families.”
Bodie nodded with understanding. “They have plenty of gold mines in Bodie, but none that go more than a hundred feet underground. I vowed I’d never work down in a deep mine. I’d rather shovel horseshit than risk being buried alive.”
“I agree,” Longarm said. “I remember reading that Dan DeQuille, a famous reporter who worked here on the Territorial Enterprise, said that if all the Comstock Lode mines were linked up in a straight line, they would stretch from here to San Francisco.”
Bodie blinked with surprise. “Do you really believe that?”
“I do. Hard-rock miners been digging underneath our feet for over twenty-five years, and the earth below is now riddled with caverns and tunnels. I was told once that some of the bigger mines, like the Ophir, were so extensive that a person could get lost and wander around for weeks.”
“My mother has a real nice headstone and so does her husband. Side by side. I’m glad I got to visit this cemetery, but I never want to return.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” Longarm assured the boy. “Now, let’s go find a room and get something to eat.”
As they walked back into town, Bodie asked, “How are you going to start findin’ out who murdered my ma and her husband?”
“I’m going to do what I always do,” Longarm replied. “I’ll go by the newspaper office and read their past issues on the deaths. I’ll also belly-up at bars and casually ask questions. The thing of it is, Bodie, most people fear death but they hold a fascination for it and want to talk endlessly about it. I’ll go from one place and person to another and I’ll find out plenty.”
“I’d like to see where their mansion stood, even if it is just a pile of ashes.”
“All right. We can visit it tomorrow.”
“I’d rather visit it right away.”
“Okay, just as soon as we get rooms and something to eat. I’m so hungry I could eat a sow and nine piglets and then chase their boar a half mile.”
“Ha!” Bodie cried. “That’s pretty danged hungry all right.”
* * *
They had no trouble finding rooms cheap, because business was so poor; the dinner they ate didn’t cost very much either, considering its quantity and quality.
When they walked out of the restaurant, Longarm said, “Bodie, that meal for both of us cost only seventy-five cents. When Virginia City was booming, a meal like that would have cost two dollars or more.”
“Two dollars?”
“That’s right. Everything costs more than it should in a boomtown. But now that its bust, the prices have gotten cheap.”
“Let’s go find the burned down mansion,” Bodie said.
They found the ruins of the Burlington Mansion at the very end of A Street, overlooking miles of sagebrush-covered hills and valleys. The only things left standing were two opposing brick chimneys that marked where the master bedroom had stood, at the opposite end of the home from the living room, and a collapsed and heat-twisted iron staircase now leading to nowhere. There was evidence that some effort had been made by the local volunteer fire department to save the mansion, but the fire must have spread so quickly and with such intensity that their work had been futile.
“It was a huge house,” Longarm said, as they stood by a stone staircase leading into the rubble. “A showpiece of a home.”
“I wish I’d have been able to go inside it when my ma lived here and seen how fine it was.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said, “she must have been very proud of her new status in life.”
Bodie walked right into the charred rubble. “I wonder if I can find anything important or valuable in all of this.”
“I doubt it,” Longarm told the boy. “There have probably already been some people searching for anything of value.”
“I think I’ll poke around all the same.”
“Sure. But if you’re going to search through all this, you’ll need to take a bath and change clothes before we go out to dinner.”
Bodie didn’t hear him. The kid had picked up a piece of blackened iron and begun to
poke through the deep bed of ashes.
“Homer, I hope you stay out of there,” Longarm said. “With your thick coat you’d be impossible to clean up if you went in there with Bodie.”
In answer, Homer trotted into the sea of ashes, and when he reached Bodie, he lay down with his head on his paws.
* * *
Longarm watched the pair for a few moments, then turned and headed back into town. His first stop would be the Territorial Enterprise newspaper office and he hoped to meet his old friend the reporter Dan DeQuille.
“No,” the editor, whose name was Paul Elder, replied, “Dan has taken a short vacation and gone up to Lake Tahoe. I had to practically fire the man to get him to leave here for a few restful days. Dan really needed a break because being a newspaper reporter in a dying town isn’t easy or pleasant work. Everyone up here is desperate, and all they talk about is when one of the few operating mines might make a big strike to get the money flowing again.”
“Do you really expect that to happen?”
“No,” Elder admitted, “I don’t. This isn’t the first mining town I’ve opened a newspaper in, and it probably won’t be the last. But I’m still eking out a living and paying my bills, so I’ll hang on until the very end . . . just like Dan. You know, I love this city, and I just can’t stand to give up and abandon her to die.”
“I admire your perseverance but question your good sense.”
“I’m an old-time, died-in-the-wool newspaper editor, and instead of blood my veins flow with ink,” the man said with a wry smile. “Nobody gets rich in this business, and you’re always rocking the boat to keep up reader interest, so you make a lot of enemies. Did you know that the last editor down in Bodie wrote such an inflammatory article that the man who felt his name was tarnished charged into the newspaper office down there and shot the Bodie editor dead?”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“It happens all the time! If you only write good and happy stories and never criticize or point out corruption and injustice, pretty soon nobody wants to read your rag. But if you attack people and constantly stir the pot, people hang on your every word and some get mad enough to kill.”
