Longarm and the Great Divide (4 page)

“We aren't open yet, mister. Just you keep it in your pants for another little while. We be open by and by.”

“This is a different kind of business I have in mind,” Longarm said. He showed his badge and explained the problem. “So what I'm looking for is room an' board. The government will pay,” he concluded, peering down at the plump little black woman who had opened the door.

She brightened when she saw the badge. “You here to throw those bastards out? Well, you just come in and set yourself down. Take any room you want. You say your name is Long? Well, welcome, Marshal Long. You stay here long as you like. My name is Hettie and I take good care of you, me and my girls will. Then when you ready we go over to the saloon. You meet everybody. They be as happy to see you as I is.”

Hettie grabbed at his bag, practically wrestling him for it, then scampered ahead of him up the staircase.

“This our best room,” she said, pausing at a door. “If it be all right, you move in. Stay long as you like.”

Up and down the corridor doors were being opened and heads were poking out to see who was there. Female heads, the girls with tousled hair and without makeup. Without the gaudy face paint and ribbons they looked like a bunch of schoolgirls.

Hettie deposited Longarm's carpetbag on the foot of a low, sturdy bed and said, “Come downstairs when you ready. I take you over to the saloon. Introduce you to everybody. All right?”

“Just fine,” he assured her.

Hettie bobbed her head and backed out of the room, closing the door as she went.

Longarm shrugged and looked around the accommodation. It was not exactly a high-class hotel room, but it would do. There was no wardrobe, just a series of hooks on the wall, and a washstand beneath them.

He moved his bag to the floor and unfastened the straps that held it closed, the act being enough to make him feel that he had moved in.

With another shrug he went back downstairs to find Hettie and meet “everybody” in Val . . . uh . . . Valstone, Wyobraska.

“Welcome, Marshal, welcome indeed. We all heard you were here.” The gentleman laughed and said, “We knew Hettie would bring you over to meet us, so we all got together so we could meet you, you see. This is, um, this is every single resident of Valmere, Wyoming. Every one. Not counting the cowhands who come and go, of course.”

“And not counting wives,” someone put in from the back of the bunch. “Some of us do have wives here.”

“And some of us probably have wives back East, but we don't talk about them,” another voice said, prompting a round of laughter from the others.

There were not a dozen men—and Hettie, of course—in the place. The permanent population of the town. Or at least representing the Wyoming half of the town, Longarm noted.

“I'm Jacob Potts,” the first gent said, extending his hand.

“And I'm George Griner. I'm Jake's bartender,” another offered.

“You already met me. Well, sort of,” the blacksmith said. “I'm Otis Reed.”

They moved in close to introduce themselves, shake hands and fade back again, one by one until Longarm had met every businessman—businessperson, that is, including Hettie—in Valmere, Wyoming Territory. But not a soul from across the street in Stonecipher, Nebraska.

Longarm was beginning to wonder if there
were
people who lived on the Nebraska side of this borderline burg. He had yet to meet any of them.

“What we want,” Potts the saloon owner said, “is for you to send those bastards packing.” He motioned to George Griner, who hurried around behind the bar and drew a beer for their guest.

Longarm tasted the beer. It was sour and a little bit flat. “There's a lot o' bastards in the world,” he said. “Which particular ones are you wantin' me to get rid of for you?”

It was posed as a question, but he felt sure he already knew the answer to it.

“Why, those sons o' bitches across the way,” Potts said.

“We was here first,” put in a weasel-faced little man whose name Longarm did not remember.

“We cleaned out the spring,” another said.

“We all draw from the same water. It's why the town was put here.”

“Uh-huh,” Longarm said, sipping at the truly awful brew in his mug.

“They got no business using that water after we're the ones cleaned the spring.”

“That government survey crew came through. They ran the territorial boundary right up the middle of our main street,” someone complained.

“Right through the middle of the spring, too.”

“So now Nebraska claims that water as theirs.”

“But everybody knows it's really ours.”

It seemed like everyone in the room had an opinion. Not only had one, they all wanted Longarm to hear those opinions.

Longarm set the mug aside still half full. He had not tasted anything this bad in years. “You wouldn't happen t' have any rye whiskey, would you, Jake?”

“Rye whis . . . what does that have to do with anything?” Potts snapped. Then he blanched and gave Longarm a worried look as if fearful he might have offended the marshal and ruined their chances to get rid of the Nebraska interlopers. “Oh! Rye whiskey,” he said, as if he was just now hearing that there was such a thing. “No, sorry, no rye.”

“What we have is jug whiskey,” Griner said from behind the bar. “Would you like a taste?”

“Jug whiskey? Like you, um, make it here yourselves?” Longarm returned.

“Yes, but the alcohol is all tax paid,” Potts quickly said.

“No snake heads?” Longarm asked.

“Oh, no. A little molasses, gunpowder. Water and of course the alcohol. Everything has to be freighted in from Cheyenne and the charges to get distillery whiskey here . . . you wouldn't believe how much that costs.” Potts brightened. “Besides, the cowboys who trade here don't seem to mind the difference.”

“I'll try a little,” Longarm said, skeptical but willing. He for damn sure did not want any more of that cheap beer that Potts was selling.

Hettie tugged at his sleeve and he bent down so she could whisper in his ear, “I have some good whiskey over at the house. I'll give you some of that when you come over for supper.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“So anyway, Marshal,” Potts said, returning to the business at hand, “those bastards across the way are stealing our water. We figure we got rights to that water, and we figure our federal government should see that we get our proper rights.”

“That's right,” a chorus of approving voices agreed.

Longarm absently picked up the shot glass George Griner pushed in his direction. As he had begun to half expect, Jacob Potts's so-called jug whiskey was every bit as bad as the man's beer.

He was commencing to sorely miss Denver's many delightful pubs.

“Thank you for the hospitality, gents, but I need t' go across the street an' talk to those folks now,” Longarm said to the room at large. Silently to himself he added: And see if they have any decent beer or rye whiskey.

His announcement drew a round of smiles and great joy.

“You're gonna kick the bastards out, right?”

“Go get them, Marshal.”

“Tell them that water is ours.”

“Just keep them away from our spring. That will send them packing.”

“Great job, Marshal.”

Great job? he thought. He hadn't done anything yet. Moreover, he had no idea what he was going to do or even what it was possible to do. All he wanted to do across the street was to meet those folks and see what their side of the story might be.

But it seemed a poor idea to mention any of that to the good folk of Valmere.

Longarm let himself out of the saloon with a chorus of well-wishes following at his backside.

It was a considerable hike across to the Nebraska side of things, each half of the divided street being wide enough for three wagons to pass abreast.

A line of stakes had been pounded into the hard prairie soil smack down the center of the street. To keep delivery wagons from straying over to the “enemy” side? Or cattle? He had no idea what the purpose was. Perhaps it was only to make the residents on either side feel better about it all.

Whatever the purpose it was no barrier. Longarm walked across to the Stonecipher side and stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the Nebraska saloon.

“Welcome, Deputy Long,” someone immediately greeted.

Longarm grinned. It seemed someone in Nebraska was spying on the Wyoming contingent because there was not a familiar face among the—he paused to count—fifteen people in the place.

Those fifteen, however, certainly seemed to know who he was. And the reason he was there.

“Now let us tell you what the truth is,” a tall, nearly bald gent said, extending his hand to shake.

“My name is Potts, deputy. Jason Potts. I own the saloon here.” Potts was grinning like he had a secret that Longarm was not privy to.

“Potts. You aren't . . .”

Potts laughed out loud, a deep, hearty belly laugh. And Longarm caught on.

“You and Jacob are brothers,” he said, thinking about the saloon owner from across the street on the Wyoming side of things.

“That's right,” Jason Potts said, laughing again. “Our pap ran a saloon back in Kentucky. You could say we grew up in the business.”

“Then why . . . ?”

“This feud between us?” Potts shrugged. “It just happened.” He laughed again. “Sort of.”

“How's come you two can't share? I understand it's the spring that you're feuding over, so why can't you just call it a draw and share that water?” Longarm asked.

“It's more than water. It's . . . everything,” Potts said. Then his grin flashed again. “Jake and me haven't been able to share, not ever. When we was boys we'd have a dozen toys on the ground between us, but we'd fight over one. We've always been like that.”

“They tried to steal our business,” one of the men in the group put in. When Longarm raised an eyebrow he added, “They came over here and tried to lure our cowboys away to their side.”

“You stake a claim on a particular batch of cowboys?” Longarm asked.

The fellow nodded. “We trade with the Nebraska stockmen and their cowboys. The Double T and R Slash and the Rafter O. They're ours. They're Nebraska brands.”

“And over on that side?” Longarm asked.

“They do business with the TTL, the XOX, the MCX, and the XL Bar. They're all Wyoming brands. The thing is, um, the state of Nebraska doesn't recognize Wyoming brands. So any Wyoming beeves that wander across the line could be . . . I'm not saying they necessarily are . . . but those animals could legally be claimed over here.”

“And if your livestock wander over there?” Longarm reached for a cheroot. A thin young man in the crowd quickly snapped a match aflame and held it for him.

The question brought a chorus of scowls from the assembled gents. “Then the sons o' bitches steal them,” Potts said.

“Ah, so if your beeves stray into Wyoming, that crowd steals them. But if theirs happen t' come over here, then you're only gathering unclaimed stock if you take 'em and run 'em in with your herds.”

“Not our herds exactly. We're businessmen not stockmen,” Potts said, “but you have the general idea.”

“But you have no choice except to share the water since that's the only standing water around here,” Longarm said.

“That pretty much explains the way of things,” Potts agreed.

“And the letter to Marshal Vail?”

“What letter?” he got back from the Nebraska contingent.

“You boys don't know anything about a letter that came from a place called Valstone?”

“Not me.”

“No, sir.”

“Not none of us.”

“Do you have a post office?” Longarm asked them.

“Our general store has a mail counter in back.”

“And across the way?”

“Same thing. It's a mail counter, not exactly a post office. We talked about applying for a regular post office, but we haven't gotten around to it just yet.”

“Interesting,” Longarm said. He scratched an itch on the side of his nose and smoothed his mustache tips, then dug into his britches for a coin. “I could stand a beer,” he said. “Maybe even a beer an' a shot.”

“Here, deputy. Let us buy,” came the return, a purely lovely sentiment, Longarm thought.

And he was right about at least one thing. The beer and the whiskey in Jason Potts's Nebraska saloon were much better than in Jacob Potts's Wyoming establishment.

“Hi, everyone. I'm sorry I'm late.” The voice came from behind him as he stood with a whiskey glass raised halfway to his lips. The voice was soft and husky and very feminine, and as he turned around he thought . . .

“Oh, God. Liz?”

The lady smiled. “Hello, Custis.”

“My God, I can't believe . . . what are you doing here?”

Elizabeth Kunsler said, “Why, I came to the meeting, of course. All the merchants in Stonecipher are invited.”

“But . . . you. What are
you
doing here? In the town, I mean. The last time I saw you . . .”

“I was living in Omaha,” she finished for him. “I married. You remember James, don't you? James Stonecipher. He discovered this spot and recognized the need for stores to supply the ranches in the area. So he developed the town. Jimmy died last year . . .”

“I'm sorry 'bout that, Liz.”

“Don't be. He was a nice man but frankly not everything a woman could want. He did leave me fairly well off, though. I own all of the buildings in Stonecipher now. I live off my rents. And, Custis, when you are done here I would like to speak with you.” There was a twinkle in her bright blue eyes when she lowered her voice a notch and added, “In private.”

He had known Liz—what was it—five years ago? Six? She was quite the dame then. A handful. Pretty, vivacious, and full of fun.

On their first outing he hired a buggy and drove down along the Missouri. They found a cool, sheltered glade . . . and the first thing out of Liz's mouth was that she was going in for a swim. She did, too. Stripped herself bare as a boiled egg and splashed around in the shallows.

She admitted later that she could not swim a lick. But she did know how to have a good time.

“Soon as we're done here,” he told her. “Just tell me where.”