Longarm 242: Red-light (7 page)

They had reached the livery stable where Longarm had left the dun the night before. He stopped and turned to Day, extending his hand. “I've enjoyed meeting you, Marshal,” he said, “and I'm much obliged for all your help.”

Day shook hands with Longarm and sighed. “I got to admit, there's a big part of me wishing I could go along with you, Longarm. I'd like to see Ben Mallory and his boys get what's coming to them.”

So that was it. Day didn't particularly want Longarm to stay in Virginia City; he just wished he could go along with the federal man. Longarm nodded and said, “Mallory and his gang will get what's coming to them, all right. You can count on that.”

“You know,” said Day, “I believe I can.”

 

The trail from Virginia City to Galena City was narrow but not too small to accommodate stagecoaches, so anyone who wanted to ship silver from Galena City could send it to Virginia City on one of Bat Thompson's coaches and then on to Carson City. From there, the railroad linked Carson City to the rest of the country.

Longarm wondered if Mallory's gang had carried out any robberies in these parts. The gang had hit the stages traveling between Virginia City and Carson City several times, according to Everett Day, but the local lawman hadn't said anything about trouble in this direction, other than the fact that Galena City was supposed to be a pretty wild place.

Which meant it might make a good headquarters for a bunch like Mallory's, reflected Longarm. Some of these boomtowns came and went so fast that no real law ever had a chance to be established. There might not be any badge-toters in Galena City to represent a threat to Mallory, not even a vigilante group.

But he was getting ahead of himself, he supposed. Since it was impossible to eat an apple more than one bite at a time, he'd just have to wait until he reached Galena City to find out what the situation was there.

Thick gray clouds scudded through the sky above Longarm, and sometimes he had trouble determining where the clouds began and the craggy mountain peaks ended. The ride took several hours, and it was well past noon by the time he came in sight of Galena City. His stomach was rumbling from hunger, but he decided it would be better to wait and get something to eat in the settlement. Ironically, considering what he had been told about the place, the first thing he saw was the spire of a church steeple. So there was a little bit of heaven to be found here, to go along with all the hell.

The town was built at the end of a valley that opened up to east and west at its northern tip, so it was laid out in the shape of a large T. The road Longarm was on turned into the main north-south street, which he saw from a sign tacked onto a post as he was entering the settlement was called Greenwood Avenue. The church was at the southern end of this street, on the right, and as Longarm rode past, he saw that the building was rather dilapidated. It might still be in use, or it might be just a vestige of the town's Mormon origins. Longarm couldn't tell.

The rest of Galena City was bustling, though. Many of the buildings were new, and even the older ones had fresh coats of paint. New boards had replaced older, rotted ones in the sidewalks in front of the buildings. Several wagons were parked along both sides of the street, and horses were tied up at most of the hitch racks. People hurried along the boardwalks and went in and out of stores, and none of them paid much attention at all to the tall stranger riding down Greenwood Avenue. Longarm figured that the sight of a newcomer was nothing unusual to them. Folks came and went all the time in a boomtown.

He saw several general mercantiles, a hardware store, the stagecoach station, a saddle shop, a gunsmith and a blacksmith, an apothecary, even a newspaper office where the Galena City
Bugle
was published. But he didn't see a marshal's office or a jail, which confirmed his guess that this incarnation of Galena City was too new to have any real law and order. The citizens here would have to solve their own problems as they arose.

Though most of the people he saw were roughly dressed men, there were a few females on the boardwalks, too, and he could tell from their dark, sober dresses and coats and bonnets that they were respectable women, probably the wives and daughters of mine superintendents or owners. If he had been married, thought Longarm, he wouldn't have brought his wife to a place like this. But since it was pretty damned unlikely he would ever settle down and get hitched, he supposed he didn't have any right to make a judgment like that. He'd had enough experience with women to know that it was pretty near impossible to say no to them once they had their mind made up.

Amelia Loftus, for example.

Longarm's mouth tightened at that thought. He looked more closely at the men he was passing on the street. He had only a rough description of Ben Mallory, and almost any of the men he saw in Galena City could have been the outlaw leader.

When he drew even with the newspaper office, Longarm veered his horse to the side of the street and reined to a stop. He swung down and looped the reins over the hitch rack. If the editor was in the office, that ink-stained wretch would be as good a place as any to start.

“Afternoon,” Longarm said as he stepped into the newspaper office and shut the door behind him. A short wooden fence with a gate in it divided the single large room. A man stood on the other side of the fence next to a printing press. Judging from the angry expression on his face and the hammer he clutched tightly in his hand, he was having trouble with the press.

The man confirmed that by striking the machine a ringing blow with the hammer. “Damned thing!” he said. “I ought to load you in a wagon and tumble you off into a ravine somewhere!” He glanced at Longarm. “What do you want?”

Well, that wasn't the friendliest greeting he'd ever gotten, Longarm thought. He said, “I reckon you're the editor here?”

“Publisher, editor, salesman, and I sweep out the place and empty the slops jar.” The man hit the press again with the hammer. “And wrestle weekly with this ungodly piece of the Devil's machinery.” He threw the hammer aside in disgust and turned to face Longarm. “J. Emerson Dupree at your service, sir.”

“Name's Custis,” said Longarm, leaving off the second half of his handle just in case this fella Dupree was another one who had heard of him. “I need a little information, I reckon.”

“Then why in the name of all that's holy would you come to a newspaper? You'd be better off inquiring of the lowest drunk writhing in the gutter.”

Longarm couldn't help but chuckle. Some folks were so bitter and cynical that he couldn't quite take them seriously. J. Emerson Dupree appeared to fall into that category.

The newspaperman was short and stocky, with gray hair and a neatly pointed beard. He wore black trousers and a black vest over a white shirt, and the clothes were protected by a long, ink-stained canvas apron. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up over muscular forearms. His hands had splotches of ink on them, too. His bushy eyebrows were drawn down in a frown as he glowered at Longarm and demanded, “Do you find me amusing, sir?”

“Nope,” Longarm lied, “it's just that I've had to handle mules that were just as balky as that printing press of yours, Mr. Dupree. I reckon I know how you must feel right about now. You want the loan of my Colt so's you can shoot that infernal machine a time or two?”

Dupree sighed. “No, I suppose that wouldn't do any good. I can get the damned contraption working again with a little time and patience—two items of which I'm in short supply. So whatever you want, spit it out, man.”

“I'm told there's silver in these parts,” said Longarm. “Is that true?”

Dupree rolled his eyes. “Didn't you see the headframes of the mines on the slopes above the settlement as you rode in? I wouldn't go so far as to say this field will be another Comstock Lode, but yes, there is silver to be had in this area.”

“Good. I thought I might try my hand at mining.” Longarm put a worried frown on his face. “But I've heard tell that some gang of robbers has been stealing a lot of the silver shipments. What about that? Any truth to the rumor?”

Instantly, Dupree's expression changed. Longarm saw the nervousness come into the man's eyes. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said gruffly.

“You being a newspaperman, I figured you'd have heard the stories—”

“Well, I haven't,” Dupree cut in. He flapped his ink-stained hands. “Nothing to it, as far as I know. Now, if that's all ...” He turned back toward the press, clearly dismissing Longarm from his thoughts.

Longarm wasn't going to give up that easily. He said, “What about the law? Is there a marshal or sheriff around here?”

Without looking around, Dupree snorted in contempt. “This was a ghost town until six months ago, mister. The nearest law is in either Virginia City or Reno, depending on which direction you want to go.”

“You mean there's not even a vigilance committee?”

“People are too busy to worry themselves with such nonsense.”

“Well,” said Longarm, “I don't know if I want to settle here or not. I'm the mild-mannered sort, you know. Don't care for trouble.”

“Then you're in the wrong damned place, all right,” snapped Dupree. He bent over and picked up his hammer, then glanced over his shoulder in annoyance. “Look, I'm busy. Is there anything else?”

The rumble of Longarm's stomach reminded him that he still hadn't eaten. He asked, “Where can a fella get a good surrounding of chuck?”

Dupree gestured with the hammer. “Four doors down on the left. The Chinaman's place.” The newspaperman's surly attitude eased a little as he went on. “It's simple fare, fried steaks and potatoes for the most part, but you won't find much better around here.”

Longarm tugged on the brim of his hat. “Much obliged. I reckon I'll see you around, Mr. Dupree ... if I decide to stay in Galena City.”

“Doesn't matter to me one way or the other.” Dupree's next words were punctuated with grunts and the sound of the hammer striking the printing press. “Never—uh!—should've listened—uh!—to that damned Greeley!”

J. Emerson Dupree had been right about one thing, Longarm reflected a little later: the food in the Chinaman's place wasn't bad. The steak that the pigtailed gent set down on the counter in front of Longarm was fried up nice and tender, and the potatoes weren't swimming in grease.

But Dupree had been lying about something else, and Longarm knew it. The newspaperman was well aware of the ore-wagon robberies and stagecoach holdups that had taken place in the area. Longarm had seen that knowledge in his eyes, along with the nervousness.

What was Dupree scared of? Why hadn't he wanted to admit that he had heard about Mallory's gang?

Longarm looked up and nodded to the Chinaman. “This is good,” he said with a smile.

The place was little more than a narrow hole-in-the-wall with a counter, a couple of tables, and a kitchen in the back where a woman and several youngsters, no doubt the Chinaman's wife and kids, scurried about. The Chinaman himself delivered the platters of food to the customers. Even though it was past lunchtime, the room was full, and Longarm had been lucky to get a seat at the counter. Having sampled the fare, Longarm wasn't surprised at the popularity of the establishment.

At the moment, the Chinaman was standing behind the counter with his arms crossed, and he accepted Longarm's compliment with a curt nod. He didn't return the lawman's smile.

“Looks like you're doing a booming business,” Longarm went on. He wasn't going to give up just yet. “The whole town's pretty busy, from what I've seen of it.”

“You want more food?” asked the Chinaman.

Longarm hadn't eaten more than half of what was on his plate. “Maybe in a few minutes,” he said. “I guess that's why they call it a boomtown, ain't it, because business is booming.”

The Chinaman looked off to one side, deliberately ignoring him.

“Having a gang of bandits in the area doesn't seem to have hurt the town,” Longarm said.

He was rewarded with a flick of the Chinaman's eyes and a look of alarm that passed across the man's face so quickly that Longarm might have imagined it. He hadn't, though. For a second there, the Chinaman had looked scared, just like J. Emerson Dupree in the newspaper office down the street.

The man sitting next to Longarm wasn't as self-controlled as the Celestial behind the counter. He grunted, looked over at Longarm, and asked, “What did you say, mister?”

Longarm turned to him with a guileless smile. “I said that having a bunch of outlaws in these parts doesn't seem to have hurt Galena City any.”

“Outlaws, you say?”

Longarm nodded and said, “If you're from around here, you must have heard the stories about a fella called Mallory, or something like that.”

From the corner of his eye, Longarm saw the Chinaman react to Mallory's name. Although he quickly banished the expression again, for a second the Chinaman looked positively queasy. He didn't like all this talk about outlaws in his place. He especially didn't like the fact that Longarm had mentioned Ben Mallory.

The man sitting next to Longarm said harshly, “I've heard a lot of things I don't go around yappin' about.”

Longarm acted surprised. “I didn't mean no offense, mister. I'm just new to these parts, and I'm trying to figure out if it'd be safe to maybe settle here.”

“Keep your mouth shut and your nose out of other people's business and you'll be safe enough.” The man drained the last of the coffee from his cup, tossed a coin on the counter to pay for his meal, and started to stand up.