Longarm and "Kid" Bodie (9781101622001) (12 page)

Chapter 21

“Have you seen a tall, dirty, and thin boy with long hair walking around town early this morning?” Longarm began to ask everyone he saw.

“There are a few of those kind around,” one man replied. “I ain't seen any of 'em this morning, though.”

“Thanks.”

Longarm rode the sorrel over to a water tank and let it drink sparingly. He'd learned the hard way not to allow an overheated horse to drink too much cold water all at once. After a few minutes, he led the horse over to a hitching rail and tied it up and loosened its cinch. A few minutes later he walked over to the sheriff's office, which was closed. He was about to return to his horse and start circling the town looking for Bodie when the sheriff hailed him.

“Hey, mister, how can I help you this morning?”

Carson City's sheriff was a rugged-looking man probably in his early sixties. He had silver hair and a matching mustache and wore a friendly smile on his face.

“I'm a deputy United States marshal from Denver, looking for a runaway boy about fourteen or fifteen years old. He is tall, dirty, and unkempt, with a gun strapped on his hip, resting in a black leather holster.”

“Sounds like you're looking for trouble.”

“His name is Bodie. His mother and stepfather were murdered up on the Comstock Lode. Their last name was Burlington.”

The lawman's smile evaporated. “You'd be talking about Chester Burlington and his new wife, Ruby, I reckon.”

“That's right.”

“What's the boy got to do with them?”

“He's Ruby's son. I believe the boy is due to inherit quite a lot of money, but I think Chester's son, Darnell, is trying to make sure that never happens.”

“By doing what?”

“Murdering Bodie just like I think that he did the Burlington couple.”

“Are you saying that Darnell shot his own father and then burned his body in that mansion fire?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying.”

The sheriff shook his head. “I've met Darnell a few times, and once I even had to part his hair with the barrel of my pistol and toss him in jail for being so drunk and disorderly. He beat up on a whore and pulled a gun on a man he accused of cheating him at cards. Darnell is nothing like his father.”

“So I've heard. Bodie was attacked last night by one of Darnell's men. A fella named Charlie Singleton. Somehow, Bodie killed Singleton and probably thought that he'd hang for it, so he went on the run.”

“Him and that wolf dog of his?”

“Singleton shot the wolf dog but not before it tore a hunk out of his throat, and then the kid finished Singleton off with a couple of bullets through the center of his forehead.”

“That kid sounds pretty hard.”

“He is that, but I also think that he's salvageable,” Longarm replied. “But if I don't find him before Darnell and his hunters do, none of it matters, because he'll be shot on sight.”

“I don't envy you the job. Ruby came from the town of Bodie. Is that where you're bound?”

“It is if I don't find the boy named Bodie hiding out around here. He's on foot and maybe hurt.”

“I'll keep my eyes peeled for him. You stayin' around awhile?”

“Just long enough to rest my horse and make sure that Bodie doesn't show up.” Longarm hesitated. “Sheriff, I'm dead broke. Any chance I could borrow ten dollars from you until I get Denver to cough up some more travel money?”

“I can do that.”

“You have a telegraph office here?”

“Sure do.”

“I'll wire for some money this morning before I leave Carson City.”

“Fair enough. And if you're still in town this evening, stay with me and my wife. Alice is a great cook and we have a spare bedroom.”

“Much obliged,” Longarm said. “But if Bodie is lurking around here, I'll find him before then.”

“What about Darnell and his boys?”

“If I run across them here in Carson City, I may call on your help.”

The sheriff nodded. “I'll stand with you.”

“I never doubted that for a moment,” Longarm replied. “Now I'm going to get back on that sorrel and start riding around a little.”

“If you need help . . . need anything, you just come runnin' and I'll do what I can. I'm not as quick with a gun as I used to be, but I'm still a damned good shot.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

Longarm returned to his horse, tightened the cinch, and mounted up. He rode the gelding back to the water trough, let it drink a few more long swallows, and then he reined it toward the river. If he were Bodie, that's where he'd be hiding right now.

Chapter 22

Longarm rode down near the Carson River, then followed it out a mile or two eastward, toward the little town of Dayton. He didn't see Bodie, yet he felt the boy must be nearby, unless he'd bought or stolen a horse. Bodie did have a few left of those gold nuggets he'd been given in Denver, and any one of them would have bought him a fast and saddled horse.

And then Longarm saw the kid moving at a crouch along the banks of the river. Longarm touched his heels to the sorrel, sending it forward at a gallop.

“Bodie!”

Bodie whirled at the sound of the voice, just as a rifle's shot rang out. The kid took off running fast along the riverbank as two mounted riders angled to cut off his escape. Longarm leaned forward in his saddle and drew his gun. He had never had much success shooting accurately from a running horse, and he didn't want to waste any bullets. But the horsemen were much closer to Bodie than he was, and they were about to overtake the kid and shoot him in the back.

Suddenly, Bodie veered hard up the riverbank, disappeared behind a fallen tree, and opened fire. Longarm did the same, and his surprise attack caught the two horsemen off guard. Flanked on both the front and the back, the hired gunmen were caught in deadly cross fire. They tried to make a run for it, but Bodie and Longarm emptied their pistols and knocked them out of their saddles. One man splashed into the river and the other was thrown off his mount and smashed into a dead tree. Their frightened horses stampeded through the cottonwoods and disappeared.

“Bodie!” Longarm shouted. “It's me, Marshal Long!”

The kid hadn't seen the federal marshal on a horse before, and he was so rattled that he almost turned his gun on Longarm.

“Bodie,” Longarm said, drawing the sorrel to a stop at the edge of the river and dismounting. “Settle down, it's all right now.”

But Bodie kept his gun up. “Marshal, I'm not going to hang for shooting that man in the head up in Virginia City. He killed Homer and he was going to shoot me next. So if that's—”

“I know that you killed Charlie Singleton in self-defense,” Longarm answered. “Holster that pistol, kid. This fight is over.”

Longarm threw an arm across the Bodie's shoulders. “I don't know which one of us shot those two, but I'm glad we got it settled in our favor.”

“Who are they?” Bodie asked.

Before Longarm could answer, a rifle's shot boomed from a distance and the kid was knocked halfway around to collapse beside the Carson River. Longarm whirled and saw a man standing about a hundred yards downriver beside a buggy. The rifleman took careful aim and fired again, and this time Longarm felt the impact of a bullet slice deeply across his upper arm. He scooped Bodie up and charged deeper into the cottonwoods as more bullets tracked his desperate escape into hiding. Longarm's sorrel had already taken off, leaving him without a rifle.

Two more shots and Longarm had Bodie safely hidden behind cover. “How bad are you?”

“I dunno,” the kid whispered. “I'm body shot and maybe I'll die.”

Longarm tore off the kid's shirt and saw that the rifle's slug had entered just under a rib and exited through the kid's back. It was a bad wound and one that would bleed the boy out unless Longarm could get the hole plugged up in a real hurry.

He tore Bodie's shirt into patches and used them to bandage both the entry and exit holes. He then used his belt to bind the patches tightly to the kid's skinny body. “Bodie, I've got to get you into Carson City, to a doctor.”

Bodie was still conscious. “First, you have to shoot that rifleman, Marshal. You try to take me out of here, he's gonna pick us both off.”

“You're right.”

“Kill him,” Bodie hissed. “Kill him before he kills us!”

“I'm going after him, but I won't be long. Right now I'm going to reload both of our guns. If I don't make it back, Darnell will come to finish you off because he can't have any witnesses.”

“Are you sure it's Darnell?”

“Yeah,” Longarm said. “I only caught a glimpse of him, but it fit the description.”

“Darnell murdered my ma and now he's almost killed me too.”

“We'll get through this,” Longarm vowed. “Just try to stay conscious in case he gets past me and comes to finish you off. You're the one standing between him and a lot of money.”

“Money don't mean anything right now,” Bodie said, teeth gritted in pain. “But I'll kill Darnell if he comes for me.”

Longarm handed Bodie his reloaded pistol. “Stay down and don't move or make a sound unless you hear Darnell.”

“Good luck, Marshal.”

“Thanks, I'll need it.”

Longarm left the kid and crawled deeper into the grove of cottonwoods. He peered around the trunk of a tree and saw the buggy clearly, as well as the two dead men.

But where was Darnell and his damned rifle!

Longarm had learned from hard experience that sometimes great patience was required even when patience was most difficult to summon. Darnell had a repeating rifle, so it was to his advantage to wait and make a long-range killing shot. Longarm had a bloody arm to prove that the gambler and mine owner was a fairly accurate shot.

“Wait for him to come for you,” Longarm told himself. “Stay down and wait for him to get into the range of your pistol.”

So Longarm waited, although he knew that Bodie was still losing a little of his precious blood with every passing minute. Finally, Longarm heard a sound and almost shot his horse, which had wandered back to the river and was drinking. Longarm watched the horse's ears, and when the sorrel raised its head suddenly and turned to stare, Longarm followed the animal's line of vision and caught a glimpse of Darnell slipping in closer.

“Wait until he comes to you,” Longarm whispered softly to himself.

Agonizingly slow minutes passed. A pair of crows were squawking in the higher limbs of a nearby tree. Longarm glanced up at them and they seemed to be irritated by something down below.

Darnell.

Longarm took the actions of his sorrel horse and the pair of cawing crows to be good and important signs. Animals had sharper senses than he, and they were giving him a warning and directions toward his enemy.

“Closer. You got to come closer.”

Ten minutes and the crows kept up their angry squawking until they flew away, and that's when Longarm knew that Darnell was right under their tree and possibly their nest.

Longarm stretched out on the ground, extended his gun in front of him, and laid it across a fallen limb. The gun was steady, and the air was hot and fetid with all the decaying wood and riverbank debris. Mosquitoes buzzed overhead and began to bite, and big flies, smelling fresh blood leaking from Longarm's upper arm, began to torment him even more.

But Longarm didn't move a muscle until Darnell finally stuck his head out to take a look. When the man didn't see a target, his upper body slowly emerged from cover, and that's when Longarm squeezed off a shot that punched Darnell squarely in the chest and sent him backpedaling and then crashing down into the deep, dead carpet of rotting leaves.

Longarm jumped up and ran forward firing, but it was wasted lead because Darnell had been shot through the heart.

* * * 

The old buckskin hitched to the Meeker buggy wasn't able to run, but Longarm beat the animal into a trot while Bodie lay on the seat beside him hanging onto life by a thread.

“Where's the nearest doctor!” Longarm yelled as they entered Carson City.

“Just up the street!”

Longarm saw the doctor's sign, and the buckskin barely had time to come to a complete stop before Longarm jumped down, grabbed Bodie up into his arms, and rushed him inside.

“He's shot through the body, Doc! And he's lost a lot of blood.”

“Bring him into my examining room!”

The next hour was one of the slowest that Longarm could ever remember. He paced back and forth in the waiting room like a caged animal, until the doctor emerged to say, “I think he's going to pull through this.”

“Are you sure?” Longarm anxiously asked.

“Yes. The bullet passed through his body cleanly and didn't damage any organs. He's in shock from the loss of blood, but he's young and strong. Now I'd better take a look at that arm of yours,” the doctor added. “You're not so young anymore.”

“No,” Longarm agreed, “but at least I'm still alive.”

Epilogue

Almost five weeks later, Longarm and Bodie stepped down onto Denver's crowded railroad platform and met Billy Vail, along with Bodie's grandmother and aunt. While the two women hugged, fussed over, and even cried with happiness over the Kid from Bodie, Longarm and Billy stepped aside to have a private word.

“Custis, you look far more rested than you did when you left here with Bodie.”

“I had a month to loaf around in Virginia City and Carson City waiting for a federal judge at the territorial capital to settle all the legal and financial issues relating to the Burlingtons' last will and testament. It was locked up in a bank vault, but Darnell Burlington had paid to have a very good forgery made giving him his estranged father's full inheritance. If John Stock hadn't arrived here with Bodie and that bloodstained letter we found, I'm pretty sure that Darnell Burlington would have gotten away with a double murder and inherited his father's fortune.”

“I see.” Billy glanced over at Bodie and his doting relatives. “So I take it that the kid inherits
everything
?”

“Yes. We sold the mine for a song just to be rid of it. Maybe one day it will become productive again, but that's doubtful.”

“So,” Billy said, trying to understand, “if the mine was worthless and the family mansion located in Virginia City was nothing but a pile of ashes, what was left for him to inherit?”

“About forty-five thousand dollars and a real nice city lot in Reno that he's going to hang on to until its value goes up even more than now.”

Billy Vail's eyes widened. “So Bodie is rich!”

“Yes, he is,” Longarm agreed. “And all the way back from Reno on the train I talked to him about how to save and invest his money rather than squander it on foolish pleasures.”

Billy burst into laughter. “Custis, you're the
last
person who could give anyone financial advice or warn him of expensive pleasures!”

Longarm grinned. “Well, that might be true, but I'm pretty sure that between his grandma Ida and aunt Rose, they'll keep a tight rein on Bodie.”

“Is he going to live with those two doting women?”

“As long as he can stand it. Bodie is a smart kid, and he knows he needs to learn to read and write much better than he can now. He's also too old to go back to school and learn without the embarrassment of being surrounded by kids half his age. So I told him that his grandmother and aunt would almost certainly be willing to tutor him.”

Billy glanced over at the fawning women. “I'll tell you this much: Bodie might be rich, but if I was him I'd rather strike out on my own than put up with those two overly protective women.”

“My guess is that he just might do that.”

“Where are you going?” Billy asked.

“I'm going to buy some flowers and visit Gloria's grave.”

“But what about Bodie?”

“One thing I know for certain,” Longarm called over his shoulder, “is Bodie can handle anything that comes his way all on his own.”

And with that, Longarm grabbed up his bag and walked back into the city that he most loved.