by Evans, Tabor
“Maybe you should write a book.”
The editor, a tall, thin man in his early sixties, with gray muttonchop whiskers, laughed. “I am writing a book! One about wild Indians and brave cavalry soldiers and damsels in distress. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I’ll bet my hack fiction sells a whole lot more copies than my newspaper.”
They both laughed, and then Longarm said, “I’m here to investigate the Burlington murders and the torching of their mansion.”
“Why?” Elder asked with his characteristic bluntness. “You’re a federal marshal and this isn’t a federal issue.”
“It became one when United States Marshal Hugh Parker got involved and then was murdered for his trouble.”
Elder raised a bony finger to the ceiling. “Oh, yes! Marshal Parker was found beaten to death behind a saloon down in Reno.”
“That’s right.”
“And you think,” the editor asked, “that the Burlington murders and the fatal beating of Marshal Parker are somehow . . . related?”
“I’m almost certain of it.”
The editor of the Territorial Enterprise rubbed his pointy chin, and his eyes began to dance with excitement. “I’m feeling that maybe we’ve got a great story here! How about we go have a couple of beers and you tell me everything you know? I’ll write a fine piece on it and it will stir the pot up to a boil.”
“I’d rather you told me everything you know and think might have happened regarding the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Burlington and then I do some legwork. When the time comes, I’ll be happy to tell you what I’ve found out and hopefully that I’m ready to make an arrest.”
Paul Elder deflated a little but nodded. “All right. Let’s go into my office where my typesetter can’t overhear us. With Dan on vacation I’m the only writer, but I’m between stories . . . in fact, I’m pretty desperate to find any story.”
“I’ll give you one,” Longarm promised, “and it’ll come pretty soon. But now we need to talk in private.”
Back in the editor’s crowded office covered with old newspapers and odds and ends, they found two chairs and sat down across from each other.
“To begin with,” the editor said, “we don’t have any law enforcement up here. Our sheriff was laid off, and so when Marshal Parker arrived one day out of the blue to investigate the murders, everyone was surprised and happy. The Burlingtons, especially Chester, were much admired because they were generous in giving to the local charities.”
“Go on.”
“My first impression on the morning after the fire had died down enough to allow people to bring out the charred bodies was that it was an accidental death. Chester Burlington loved his cigars and his drinks. It happens all the time.”
“But then the mortician found bullet holes in the skulls.”
“Yes,” Elder said. “And that changed everything. The town went from mourning over the deaths of two of its most popular citizens into a state of anger and confusion.”
“And suspicion?”
“That too,” Elder admitted. “There were many in this dying town who thought that perhaps the couple had gotten drunk together and into a fight. One or the other killed their spouse, then—filled with sudden remorse—shot themselves.”
“Squarely in the back of their own head?”
Elder shrugged his narrow shoulders. “The bullet holes were small-caliber. Possibly made by a little derringer.” Elder reached behind his own head. “I could do it and so could either one of them.”
“I suppose, but that just doesn’t seem likely.”
“No,” the editor agreed, “it doesn’t to me either. The most likely cause of death was that someone robbed the pair and shot them and torched their mansion to hide all evidence.”
“And I understand that their safe was hanging open.”
“Yes,” Elder said. “And that supports the murder theory.”
“All right,” Longarm said, “let’s assume that one of them did not shoot the other and then shoot themselves. That only leave us with a murderer.”
“That’s the way I see it and so did Marshal Parker. He wasn’t an easy man to tolerate, that one, but he was smart and he was relentless in pursuit of the truth.”
“I think he found it,” Longarm said, “but before he could act on what he’d found, the true murderer or murderers got to him and tried to make his death appear to be just a common mugging that proved fatal.”
“Yes, that is quite right.”
“So do you have any suspicions as to who did kill the Burlingtons and then Marshal Hugh Parker?”
“Of course if have my suspicions. Who wouldn’t?”
“And they are?”
“If I tell you, then you must not tell anyone else.” Paul Elder wearily passed a hand across his eyes. “The one who had the most to gain . . . in fact, everything to gain, by the deaths of Chester and Ruby Burlington is Darnell Burlington.”
Longarm leaned a little forward in his chair. “That would be Chester Burlington’s only son?”
“Yes. Darnell is a dangerous, greedy, and devious young man. His father bought his love with a mine that once was quite valuable but is now about to be closed because it no longer produces enough ore to pay for its operating costs. Darnell has steadily watched his worth plummet, like most other mine and business owners here on the Comstock Lode.”
“I understand he is also a gambler?”
“A very inept one. Darnell usually drinks too much and gambles foolishly.”
“It sounds as if he is on the verge of becoming penniless.”
“That’s right. Penniless, reckless, and desperate.”
“All motives for murder.”
The editor nodded. “Within a few days of Marshal Hugh Parker’s arrival, he had decided that Darnell was the prime suspect. He even confronted him in front in the Bucket of Blood Saloon one evening, and the two men got into a fistfight. I guess it was quite a battle, and when it ended, both men were bloody.”
“But the marshal couldn’t arrest Darnell without concrete proof that the man had murdered his own father and stepmother for his inheritance.”
“That’s right.”
“Where can I find Darnell?”
“If he is in Virginia City, and he often leaves for weeks at a time to visit San Francisco’s wild Barbary Coast, then you can usually find him at the Silver Dollar Saloon or the Bucket of Blood.”
“I’ll find him even if I have to go to San Francisco, and I’ll find out what evidence Marshal Parker had finally gotten on Darnell.”
“Do that and you’ll do Virginia City a big favor. Darnell is as poison and deadly as a rattlesnake. He needs to be put behind bars.”
“Or six feet under.”
“Yes,” Paul Elder agreed, “that too.”
* * *
Longarm left the Territorial Enterprise ten minutes later. He didn’t have a shred of evidence with which to arrest Darnell Burlington . . . but he knew that was his man, and one way or the other he was going to bring him to a gallows or shoot him stone dead.
Chapter 18
Out of the deep bed of ashes, Bodie had discovered a heavy silver platter and a foot-tall statue of a mounted warrior carved from a single piece of green stone. He’d spotted the rider’s helmeted head just barely poking out of the ashes near one of the fireplaces, and Bodie’s initial impression of it was that it represented some ancient, oriental fighter galloping into battle. When he’d spit on the statue and scrubbed it with the tattered cuff of his sleeve to remove a layer of grime, Bodie was surprised to see that both horse and rider were intricately carved.
Bodie decided that the statue was unlike anything he’d ever seen before and no doubt quite valuable. He set the horse and warrior beside the silver pl
atter, then batted at his pants and shirt, which were coated with ash. There was a gusting wind and his face was masked by soot and his nostrils were plugged tight. Bodie put a thumb to one nostril and blew hard. Black snot streaked from his nose, and then he noisily cleared his other clogged nostril.
“So,” a tall man said, stepping out from behind a nearby building, “you found a silver plate and that jade statue. Nice work, boy.”
Bodie’s head jerked around in surprise. The man was fifty feet away and moving toward him when Homer began to growl. Bodie heard himself say, “Mister, this place belonged to my mother and her husband. I’m not stealin’ anything.”
The man paused, placed his hands on his hips, and laughed. “Of course you are!”
Bodie felt his mouth go dry and his heart pound. “I ain’t! I just told you that this place belonged to my mother, whose name was Mrs. Ruby Burlington.”
“I’ll have to check on that, but you need to come with me.”
“Where to?”
He considered the question for a moment. “Jail.”
“You’re a lawman?” Bodie asked, eyes looking for a badge.
“Yeah. That’s right. I’m a federal marshal from San Francisco and you’re nothing but a thief.”
Bodie swallowed hard. His hand moved closer to the gun strapped just above his narrow hips. “Mister, I tell you I ain’t stealin’!”
The rumble in Homer’s throat was getting louder.
“Your wolf dog better not charge me or I’ll shoot him dead.”
Panicked by the threat of his dog being shot, Bodie glanced down at Homer. The hair of the massive dog’s shoulders was standing straight up and his teeth were bared. “Mister, don’t you . . .”
Bodie’s voice froze as Homer attacked.
The lawman whipped out a gun and fired at Homer, striking him in the shoulder and knocking him sideways. Bodie went for his pistol as Homer somehow found it within himself to roll over twice, then regain his feet and lunge up from the ashes, going for the shooter’s throat.
“No!” Bodie screamed as his hand clawed for his gun.
For a single terrifying split second, Bodie had no doubt that he was about to die. But then Homer was knocking the tall man onto his back and tearing at the lawman’s throat. The man shrieked and thrashed under the weight of the huge animal and Bodie heard two muffled shots and Homer went still with his jaws clamped on the lawman’s severed jugular vein.
The lawman was still alive and he fired again into the dog’s body, so Bodie shot the gunman twice in the head without taking deliberate aim.
“Oh no!” Bodie howled, grabbing his dog and pulling him away from the lawman. He hugged Homer’s massive head to his chest and began to rock back and forth on his knees. “Homer. Homer!”
Perhaps a minute or two had passed when Bodie heard shouts from the town below. He crawled to his feet, staring at the grisly sight of the lawman’s ripped open throat and the two bullet holes still spouting blood from his forehead.
Bodie bitterly whispered, “This time they’ll hang me for sure.”
“Hey!”
Bodie jumped up and twisted around to see a knot of shouting men struggling up the steep hill toward him.
It was all that Bodie could do to tear himself away from his dog, but he had to run and run fast. He grabbed the jade horse and warrior and the silver platter, then took off racing over rocks and sage. Bodie decided that he would run until his lungs or legs gave out, whichever failed first. It was almost sundown, and if he could get away from those men, he’d find a way off the Comstock Lode in the dark.
Bodie still had a couple of bullets in his gun and more in his cartridge belt; he would use them dearly if it came to a choice between dying in a gun battle or swinging from a rope. He also had two treasures that had belonged to his mother, and he was sure he could sell them someplace for at least a hundred dollars.
“If I can get off this mountain and reach the Carson River and the cover of those cottonwoods, I’ll have a chance,” he gasped as he ran. “If I can get far enough, I can sell Ma’s treasures and reach the high Sierra Nevada Mountains where no one will ever find me.”
His lungs were already on fire, and he kept dropping the silver platter, so he stopped and buried it in under some dirt and small rocks. He might live to come after it someday, and so he marked the spot and noted it well. The horse and oriental warrior were heavy, but he wasn’t going to give them up for anything as the sun began to dip behind the nearby Sierras. Bodie thought of the old mining town of Bodie. He still had a few friends there. His mother might have had hard times, but she’d helped people even worse off than herself and maybe they’d help him in turn. Help him escape a hangman’s noose.
Maybe.
Darkness finally fell on the Comstock Lode, and still Bodie ran on and on, but much slower. In the faint moonlight, he was a thin, dark wraith, a laboring shadow and one truly cursed. His mother had always been cursed and her blood was his blood. Eyes fixed on the silver ribbon of the Carson River far below, Bodie began to weep because Homer was dead and now he was all on his own.
Chapter 19
Longarm stood over the bloody remains of a tall man that he had never seen before. “Is that Darnell Burlington?”
“No,” a slack-jawed man whispered, face pale as he stared down at the horrific site, “his name was Charlie Singleton, but he worked at Darnell’s mine. I think he was his foreman.”
“That wolf dog just tore him apart before it got killed,” another man choked out.
“I didn’t like Charlie,” a third mused, “but I’d not wish that kind of death on any man.”
“Me neither.”
Longarm studied the faces of the gathering crowd then looked off to the distance. The sun was almost down, and there wasn’t going to be much of a moon tonight. Longarm knew that Bodie was out there running for his life, and he sure wished the kid had run to him for help instead.
“Anybody see what happened?”
They all shook their heads.
One man cleared his throat. “I heard screams and gunshots, but that’s all. And I saw the kid take off running. The sun was low and in my eyes, but it looked to me like he was carrying something big and shiny.”
Longarm knew that questioning anyone here was a waste of his time. “Where can I rent a good riding horse?” Longarm asked.
“Old Mike Meeker has a few he rents on the other end of town. He charges an arm and a leg, though.”
“Anybody else?”
“Just Old Meeker.”
One man edged up on the body and stared at it for a moment before exclaiming, “Charlie has two bullet holes in his face! That boy must have shot him to death. Don’t know if Charlie was already dead because of the dog at his throat, but the kid put two slugs in Charlie’s brain!”
“He and his ma were both bad blood. That kid will get hanged sooner or later.”
Longarm turned to the men who were talking, and his words were clipped and hard. “Bodie was here looking for things that belonged to his family. He had a right to be here. Charlie Singleton obviously came upon the boy and started the trouble.”
“That’s not the way I see it,” a big man with a potbelly and a dirty shirt growled.
Longarm was in a black mood, and he whirled around and stepped toward the man. “It sounds like you were a friend of Charlie Singleton.”
“One of his few,” the fat man said, suddenly looking as if he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Charlie was hard, but he was always fair to me when I worked at the mine.”
Longarm drove his hand forward, slamming the fat man in the chest and knocking him backward. “Yeah? Well he came here and he started trouble. He killed the boy’s dog and maybe he even shot Bodie, who is out there someplace in the sagebrush maybe bleeding to death as we waste tim
e here arguing about who did what.”
“You don’t have to be shovin’ me around. I heard you was a federal lawman and brought that boy and his damned dog up here. You hadn’t done that, Charlie would still be alive and—”
Longarm drove a thunderous left uppercut into the man’s solar plexus. The fat man’s mouth flew open like that of a fish tossed out of the water. He doubled over, and Longarm dropped him with a short but vicious right cross to the side of the jaw. The fat man struck the ground with his moon face, twitching and moaning.
“Jaysus, Marshal!” a businessman cried. “You didn’t need to do that!”
“Yes, I did,” Longarm growled, turning away from the crowd. At first light, he would rent a horse, toss a sack of supplies over the back of his saddle, and take up Bodie’s trail. He was pretty sure it would lead toward the Carson River and then probably south along the slope of the Sierras, perhaps all the way down to the town of Bodie.
* * *
Longarm hated like hell to leave Virginia City. He wanted to confront Darnell Burlington, and when he did, it was not going to be friendly. But Bodie was on the run, and Longarm could not even imagine the state of that boy’s mind after losing the only thing he had loved . . . Homer.
“If I don’t find and save him,” Longarm muttered as he stopped to buy a few supplies at the general store just before it was about to close, “he’s going to do something that will either get him or someone else killed.”
“So what happened up there?” the owner of the store asked. “I heard a rumor going around that that boy and his wolf dog killed somebody. You got a name for the dead man?”
“Charlie Singleton,” Longarm said, grabbing a few supplies off shelves.
“The boy killed Charlie Singleton! Charlie was a tough and dangerous man.”
“Not near tough enough,” Longarm said, tossing his supplies on the counter. “How much I owe you?”
“Well hold on while I tally ’er up. You don’t need to be snapping in my face, Marshal. Seems to me you brought someone up here that just killed a man.”
