Longarm and "Kid" Bodie (9781101622001) (11 page)

“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 platter, 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 time 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.”

“Give a figure, damn you!”

The owner jumped back and started to say something, but after taking a look into Longarm's eyes, he changed his mind and wrote a figure down, then handed it to Longarm.

Longarm paid the man and left in a hurry. He had bought a pint bottle of whiskey, a loaf of sourdough bread, cheese and some crackers, and a can of sardines. Mostly, though, when he thought of Bodie and Homer, he thirsted for the whiskey.

Chapter 20

Darnell Burlington despised horses, dirt, dust heat, or anything to do with the outdoors. But now, in a rented buggy with the last two of his trusted henchmen riding at his side, he was headed off the Comstock Lode. He was hot on the trail of a boy who, if he lived, could rob him of what should have been his very large inheritance.

Darnell was tired and irritable. When news had swept into town that Bodie had shot Charlie Singleton to death up by the burned-down Burlington mansion, Darnell was drunk and about to screw one of the town's most popular prostitutes, Sally Slide.

“We've got to go,” Rafe Ward said, filling the doorway of Sally's hotel room.

“Get the hell out of here!” Darnell shouted.

“Boss, get your pants on and get your ass out of Sally's bed! Bodie gunned down Charlie and that kid is on the run. And you can bet that federal marshal will be taking up his trail in the morning. If we don't get to the kid before the marshal, it's all over.”

“Shut up! I'll be along in a minute. Now close the damned door and get me a buggy.”

Rafe gaped. “You want me to rent you a damned buggy?”

“That's right. You know I can't ride worth a shit.”

“But we can't track . . .”

“Get moving!” Darnell bellowed, reaching for his pants.

“What's going on?” Sally Slide, also quite drunk, asked with a yawn as she squeezed her sweaty thighs together.

“Never you mind.”

Sally's hand shot out, and she playfully cupped Darnell's balls. “What could be so important that you can't finish what you started, darlin'? I was just gettin' juicy.”

“It's none of your business,” Darnell hissed.

Sally's mood suddenly turned belligerent. “Well, dammit, Darnell, I expect to be paid even if you didn't finish.”

Darnell slapped Sally Slide hard, splitting her lower lip and causing it to bleed.

“Damn you! I didn't do nothin' to deserve bein' hit in the face like that!”

“If you don't shut that big yap of yours,” Darnell warned, “I'll slap your pretty face so hard it'll look like raw meat and nobody will want to screw you for the next month.”

Sally Slide pulled a sheet over her exposed and still lovely body and dabbed at her bleeding lip with a dirty and stained corner. Her voice took on a whine. “Darnell, you never hit me before. You've cussed me out and did some hurtful things to my hole, but you never hit me in the face.”

Darnell started to hit her again, but Sally Slide screamed so he tossed her a couple of dollars and headed for the door still half-undressed.

“You gonna kill that kid?” Sally yelled.

Darnell paused, one hand on the doorknob. “What did you say?”

Sally swallowed hard. “I said take care of yourself, Darnell. I forgive you for hittin' me just now, and I'll be waitin' when you return, and you won't have to pay for it.”

“Smart girl,” Darnell replied. “Real smart.”

Darnell had left Virginia City within the hour, with Rafe Ward and Bull Halsey riding on either side of the buggy. They had passed through Gold Hill hearing the tinkling of piano music and the riotous laughter of drunken miners and saloon girls.

Darnell couldn't hold the buggy horse to a fast trot, and he was already getting tired whipping the old buckskin. “This gawdamn horse is so slow we'll be lucky to reach Carson City by dawn!”

“Sorry, Boss. These horses were all that Mike Meeker had to rent on such short notice.”

“You can buy a better horse to pull that damned thing once we reach Carson City,” Bull Halsey offered.

“How do we even know the kid is headed for Carson City?” Rafe Ward asked. “Maybe he struck out down this mountain headed for Reno.”

“He doesn't know anyone in Reno,” Darnell irritably explained, feeling hungover. “Did either of you dumb bastards think to bring a bottle?”

Their silence told Darnell that they had not.

“Well, when we reach Carson City, we'll buy something to drink.”

“I still don't understand how we gonna find the kid,” Rafe persisted.

“We'll wait and ambush him just south of town. I'm bettin' everything that the kid is headed for Bodie because he probably has a few friends there. All we have to do is be waiting.”

“But if we don't find him then . . .”

“Then you and Bull will just keep ridin' until you
do
find him—and kill him.” Darnell's mouth tasted like a shithouse and his stomach was giving him fits.

“How the hell did he manage to gun down Charlie?” Bull wanted to know.

“I have no idea,” Darnell admitted. “But that ought to be a fair warning to us. When we find the kid, we move in close and shoot him down without any talk or hesitation.”

“I never shot a kid before,” Rafe said quietly. “Not sure that I want to start now.”

Darnell laughed out loud and then hissed, “Rafe, you'll either shoot him or I'll pay Bull a hundred dollars to shoot the kid
and you
. How's that sound, Bull?”

The huge man riding an equally huge dun horse cackled. Rafe Ward tried to see if Bull and Darnell were serious, but it was too dark and he was pretty sure that they really
were
serious.

* * * 

Just as Darnell, Rafe, and Bull were entering Carson City, less than twenty miles to the east, Longarm was striding into Mike Meeker's stable with a pair of saddlebags slung over his shouder, a rifle in his left hand, and a sack of hurriedly gathered supplies in his right hand.

“I need a fast saddle horse in a hurry,” he said, after pounding on Meeker's barn with the butt of his rifle.

“Gawdammit, I need my sleep!”

“A horse and make it quick,” Longarm said, showing old man Meeker his federal officer's badge.

“I ain't got any rentals left right now.”

“You have horses in that corral over yonder,” Longarm said, pointing through the gloom.

“Them's my own two special horses. I don't rent 'em to anybody.”

“You're renting the best of the pair to me right now,” Longarm said. “Or selling. One way or the other, I'm taking a horse and I'm not going to jaw with you about it.”

“Those horses are both real valuable.”

“How much?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“Sold—as long as the horse I choose comes with a bridle, bit, blanket, and saddle.”

“Sixty dollars then.”

“Fifty,” Longarm insisted. “And you're robbing me blind.”

Meeker was bent and ill-tempered. “What the hell is goin' on around here? Everybody wantin' to rent horses all of a sudden.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Darnell Burlington, Rafe Ward, and Bull Halsey all were actin' like their asses were afire last night, after that shootin', and wanted rental horses. What the hell is goin' on here? The Black Death or a fire or some damn thing about to hit this town at high noon?”

“Darnell Burlington rented a horse?”

“And a buggy. His two men rented saddle horses. They were all in a hurry. Were they after that kid that shot Charlie Singleton last evening?”

“You guessed it,” Longarm admitted. “And if I don't find Bodie first, he's as good as dead.”

“Ha!” Meeker exclaimed. “It's about a big damned inheritance, isn't it!”

“You're smarter than you look, old man. Now, help me get after those men before they find the kid and kill him.”

Meeker tugged thoughtfully at his beard. “They burned down the mansion with Mr. Burlington and Mrs. Burlington in it, didn't they?”

“You missed your calling,” Longarm said. “You should have been a Pinkerton detective.”

“Sixty dollars and you're on your way, Marshal.”

Longarm had just a little less than that left in his wallet. He pulled out all the bills and shoved them into the old man's outstretched hand. “This'll have to do.”

Meeker counted the bills in the lamplight. “You're short a few dollars.”

“Too bad. I'll have to send you the rest next time I get paid.”

Meeker wasn't happy, but he nodded. “Are you a man of your word?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then take the sorrel gelding because he's the better animal,” Meeker said. “I never liked Darnell, and those men are bad ones.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Longarm started off to halter the sorrel.

“Hope you save that boy,” Meeker said, tagging along in his wake. “Ruby Burlington was a good woman. When she got lucky and married Chester Burlington, she didn't get uppity or put on any airs like you'd expect. If Darnell killed her and Chester, then I hope you kill him.”

“That's my plan,” Longarm said. “Now, if we could stop jawing, maybe I might even be able to save Ruby's boy.”

Old Man Meeker scurried off, jamming the money into his back pocket.

Five minutes later, Longarm galloped out of Virginia City on a handsome sorrel with a blaze on its face, just as the sun was lifting off the sage-covered and broken-rock eastern mountains. In less than two hours, he was down on the flats, galloping parallel to the Carson River lined by its tall, water-loving cottonwoods. Longarm knew he was starting much too late to overtake Darnell and his gunmen. They'd be in Carson City by now, and maybe they'd already found and killed Bodie. Longarm had no way of knowing, so he just kept pushing the gelding to its limit without breaking its wind.

* * * 

When he rode into Carson City at mid-morning, his horse was coated with sweat and lather even though the high desert early morning air was crisp and cool. He was looking for the buggy, horses and men Mike Meeker had told him about. He'd spot them if they were in town.

Longarm rode up and then back down the main street, where a few people were awake and moving to their jobs and daily businesses. He saw a couple of horses tied in from of the Gold Strike Saloon, but otherwise nothing.

“Where is the boy?” he kept whispering to himself. “Is Bodie hiding out in the sagebrush or maybe the cottonwoods down by the river? Or did he just bypass Carson City and keep walking? Maybe he's behind me and still up on Sun Mountain or on his way north to Reno.”

There were so many questions that Longarm couldn't possibly answer. All he knew for sure was that this was a race against Darnell and his pair of hired killers. Bodie was already better than most with a six-gun, but he was no match for the three hunters close on his backtrail.