Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701) (3 page)

That intention went by the boards, though.

The winner of the shoot-out cocked his revolver and raised it. The man took deliberate aim and carefully squeezed off a shot into the chest of the man who was already down.

That gentleman cried out and was driven back down onto the ground. He probably was dead by the time his head bounced off the hard-packed dirt.

The shooter looked around before wheeling about and trotting away down the street and into an alley.

“Son of a bitch,” Longarm mumbled. He looked around himself, expecting to see a Cheyenne law dog come running. After all, there had been more than enough shooting to attract the attention of one, and generally Cheyenne police were quick to respond to trouble. This time there was no one.

With a sigh of resignation, Longarm stepped down off the sidewalk and went to see if the man who was down might still somehow be alive and in need of help.

As expected, though, the only help the fellow needed would be provided by an undertaker. He was gone, his eyes open wide in the shock of his final moments, staring sightlessly now toward a clear blue sky.

Drying blood was visible high on the dead man's right shoulder. That would have been the first bullet he took, the one that knocked him down onto the street. A smaller stain was visible on his chest, directly over his heart. That would have been the murderous, deliberate killing shot when he was already down and out of the fight, his pistol lying several feet away.

He had been young, barely old enough to shave, and handsome, with curly blond hair and downy cheeks. Tonight some mother would likely be grieving for her boy and some girl weeping for a love that might have been.

The detail that made Longarm's blood run cold, though, was where that second bullet had been so precisely placed.

The young man wore a six-pointed star on his chest.

The bullet hole was in the exact center of that badge of office.

The dead boy had been an officer on the Cheyenne police force.

“Of course I'd recognize the son of a bitch was I to see him again,” Longarm told the Cheyenne police lieutenant, a man named Walters. He had not given a first name when he introduced himself. “He has dark hair, drooping dark brown or black mustache. 'Bout five-foot-nine or -ten. Dark eyes kinda wide set. Ears set close to his head. Red and white checked shirt and calfskin vest. Brown corduroy britches. Knee-high muleskinner boots. Remington revolver worn high on his right hip. Wasn't wearing a hat when I saw him. Neither was your man, which suggests to me that the two o' them was indoors someplace not real far from this spot when they stepped outside and drawed on one another. What else d' you want to know?”

“Ever see him before?” Walters asked.

Longarm shook his head. “Nope. Not in person nor on any wanted poster. I'm pretty sure about that.”

“Look, Long, I realize you have no jurisdiction about this and no responsibility, but it bothers me that you just stood there and let someone murder one of my people in cold blood.”

“Well, fuck you,” Longarm snapped. “Like you said, this ain't my jurisdiction. Far as I knew it was a personal matter between two civilians, an' you folks would take care of it. When I found out the boy was one o' yours, I came and found you so's you,” he stared Walters in the eye, “so's you could finally figure out that one o' your people was dead. And now you're gonna piss in my face like some part of it was my fault. You go to hell, Walters, and all your kith and kin along with you.”

For a moment Walters bristled. Then the tension went out of his shoulders as he visibly got control of his emotions. “You're right. Of course you are right, Long. It is just . . . Lawrence had such promise. He was so proud of his badge. He wasn't on duty this morning. He is . . . I mean was . . . a night officer.”

“So where would he have been to get into this dust-up this morning?” Longarm asked. “Find that place and it might go a long way toward finding out what happened. And who the shooter is.”

“Yes. Of course. I . . .” Walters looked like he had no idea which way to turn next.

“Did the boy drink heavy or maybe was he the sort to fight over a whore?” Longarm asked.

“I . . . I don't know.”

“Boss,” a shout interrupted. “Hey, Lieutenant. Over here,” called a police officer wearing a brass-buttoned blue coat, tan trousers, and a blue cap like a railroad conductor's but with a brass medallion on the front. “We found something.”

Walters turned away and hustled over to his man. Longarm trailed along close behind out of simple curiosity.

“Jimmy was in Sol Heidrich's saloon, Lieutenant. Him and some other fellow got into a squabble over which of them would go upstairs with that redheaded new girl. The guy saw her first, but she was sweet on Jimmy and wanted to go with him. The two of them argued about it and the fellow called Jimmy out. Insulted him pretty bad, I guess. He didn't have no choice but to walk outside with this fellow.”

“Who was the man?” Walters asked.

The officer shook his head. “No one in there knows, Lieutenant. Far as anybody could tell he was just some horny fellow passing through. Drover maybe or some bummer off the trains. Passenger or the like, but he wasn't a regular and nobody in there heard him give a name.”

“The girl? What does she say?”

“That's Skinny Sally, Lieutenant. You remember her. Tall and, well, skinny. She says Jimmy Lawrence was a regular. Says she was sweet on him too. Let him have her for half price. But she doesn't want us to let Sol know about that or he'll give her a hiding so she won't be able to sit for a week. She never seen the other guy before.”

“All right, thanks.” Walters turned and almost bumped into Longarm before he saw the tall marshal standing immediately behind him. “You? What are you doing here? This is none of your business, Long.”

“Of course it isn't,” Longarm agreed, “but I thought you might find it helpful if you had hold of somebody that could identify the killer.” He shrugged. “Reckon I was wrong about that.” He politely touched the brim of his Stetson and turned away.

“Wait,” Walters said. “You're right, and if we catch somebody, we will get you to identify him as Lawrence's murderer.”

Longarm grunted. “I'll be in that place 'cross the street or else at the Carter House until tomorrow morning. Then I'm taking a stage out of here.”

“I may want you to stay over until we catch up with this individual,” Walters said.

“Sorry, but that ain't gonna happen. I got my own duties to attend to. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got half a whiskey an' a bowl o' peanuts waiting for me over there.”

“Wait,” Walters ordered. “I am requiring you to stay here as a witness. I can lock you up if necessary. I can get a judge to issue an order.”

“Like I said before,” Longarm said with a smile, “fuck you, mister.” He walked away without offering any argument about it.

By then an ambulance had arrived, pulled by a handsome pair of bay cobs. The attendants were placing the young police officer onto a stretcher to carry him away somewhere. Longarm again thought of the boy's mother and how terrible her day was about to become.

Longarm finished his whiskey and another one just like it, then had lunch and a stroll around town—halfway keeping an eye out for the man who had shot Officer Jimmy Lawrence—then wiled the rest of the day away with a selection of newspapers from back east.

He ended the day with another few whiskeys and a long, sound sleep. In the morning he had time for a leisurely breakfast and a shave in a friendly barbershop before heading over to the stagecoach depot. He did not hear from Lieutenant Walters or anyone else from the Cheyenne Police Department. If any local judge had issued an order for him to remain in Cheyenne, he did not know about it. Not that he'd really expected to hear anything, but it would have been good if they could have caught the shooter. Longarm hated the idea of any lawman being gunned down like Jimmy Lawrence was. As Walters had pointed out more than once yesterday, though, young Lawrence's death was not in Longarm's jurisdiction.

He reclaimed his saddle and other gear from the stage station and headed out the door.

“Wait, mister,” the ticket agent called after him.

Longarm stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

“Your ticket. You don't have a ticket.”

With a sigh, Longarm set his carpetbag down to free a hand. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to the badge there. “Deputy U.S. marshal,” he said, “travelin' on official business.”

Part of the line's mail contract required that federal officers have unfettered use of the coaches.

“Sorry, sir. You go right ahead.”

When the time came, the coach turned out to be a rather tired and rickety army surplus mud wagon pulled by a four-up of little Spanish mules. There was no luggage shelf, and the roof was not stout enough to carry any serious weight, so luggage had to be piled at the front of the coach. Longarm tossed his things in with those of the other three passengers and climbed inside.

The seats were nothing fancier than a hard, wooden bench along each side of the coach and facing inward, toward the other bench. Entry and exit were from the rear.

A young couple sat pressed tight together on one bench. They had the look of a pair of youngsters traveling on a honeymoon, the girl probably still in her teens and the boy not much older. Whoever they were and wherever they were bound, Longarm wished them long life and happiness. He nodded and touched the brim of his Stetson when he climbed into the coach from the open doorway at the rear.

He chose a seat as far as he could get from a very obviously unwashed “gentleman” on the other bench. The man smelled. Of sweat and puke and Lord knew what else. He had the appearance of a man who was at the ass end of a weeklong drunk. Longarm hoped the fellow would not turn out to be a talkative sort.

The jehu and the station agent stopped at the back of the coach and peered in. “Everybody settled and comfortable?” the jehu asked. He was a middle-aged fellow, slender as a whip and probably as tough as one too. He had a long, jagged scar that ran from the corner of his left eye down onto his neck. “We'll be stopping every twenty miles or so. We'll be moving fast, so hang on tight, folks.”

The station agent said nothing, but he did check his watch and said something to the driver, who nodded and came forward. The coach shifted on its leather slings when the jehu climbed onto the driving box and took up his lines.

“Turn them loose, Johnny,” he called out, so apparently there was a helper who was holding the mules for him. Longarm had not noticed the third fellow until the coach lurched into motion and they passed within a foot or so of a raggedy man wearing a cloth cap and coveralls.

The coach was not three miles out of town before the jehu shouted, “Whoa there. Whoa, you sons of bitches.”

The young bride pretended not to have heard, while her husband scowled. Longarm suspected the young man would be having a word with the driver about his language, never mind that the girl had probably been hearing that and far worse for most of her life.

The coach came to a rocking halt, and someone pitched a pair of saddlebags in through the side, by the young couple. Longarm could see the shoulders and torso of whoever it was, but the dust curtains on that side of the wagon prevented him from seeing the face of the newcomer until he reached the back of the coach and began to climb in.

“Oh, shit,” the newcomer said then.

The man who had hailed the stagecoach was the fellow who had gunned down Officer Jimmy Lawrence.

He obviously recognized Longarm as the man who had stood watching not thirty feet away when he murdered Constable Lawrence the previous day. But then the two had made eye contact before the shooter turned and ran, before Longarm knew the fight was something other than a private matter.

“This is your unlucky day,” the shooter snarled. “Crawl your ass out of there, mister. You're just going to have to take the next coach north. If you're still alive and kicking, that is. Now get out. I'm on the prod and you know I mean business. You seen what I can do and I'm willing to do it again.”

With that young bride sitting so close by inside the narrow mud wagon, Longarm did not want to start a gun battle.

Besides, he would rather simply arrest the shooter.

While that asshole Walters was absolutely correct that Longarm had no jurisdiction over municipal offenses—and murder was not a federal crime—any citizen had the right to make an arrest in the absence of lawful authority.

Well, Custis Long was a citizen. So he had as much right as anyone to make a citizen's arrest.

He crawled his ass out of the coach, just like the gunman demanded.

“You being right in the neighborhood and everything,” the shooter said once Longarm had his feet on the ground behind the coach, “you might just as well hand over your wallet to me. Let me see what kind of roll you're carrying.”

The gunman chuckled and looked smug, mighty pleased with himself for the way this seemed to be turning out.

Longarm shuffled sideways. He wanted to make sure the coach, and the young couple inside it, was out of the line of fire if things went south from here on out.

“Funny you should mention it,” he said, “I was just fixing to reach for my wallet.”

“Fine. Drag it out here. I'll relieve you of the burden and you can start walking back to town. Time you get there to report anything, I'll be miles and miles away from here. Those stupid coppers won't never catch me.”