Read Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701) Online

Authors: Tabor Evans

Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701) (12 page)

BOOK: Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701)
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“Know where to find them now?”
DeCaro grinned and inclined his head toward the north. “Up that way somewheres,” he said and added, “Can't be but twenty or so small flocks scattered up that way.” He reined his Appaloosa into the road, Longarm following.
The first bunch of goats were within a mile of downtown Dwyer, and several others were grazing not much farther to the north. Those, Longarm figured, would belong to the herdsmen who had gathered outside the jail yesterday. And were very likely to do so again today.
“How do they manage to get away to come into town to drink or make threats to the sheriff?” Longarm asked.
DeCaro turned in his saddle to answer, but before he could do so, the Appaloosa blew up under him, bogging its head with a snort, bowing its broad back, and doing its level best to pitch that human creature off of it.
Longarm reined the dun, as steady as DeCaro had promised, off away from the impromptu rodeo and sat there admiring the young livery owner's ability to stick on board the suddenly crazy animal.
The Appaloosa leaped and twisted. Clods of dirt flew a dozen feet into the air, and dust rose in a brown cloud around the furious horse.
Anthony DeCaro stuck to his saddle like a burr on a dog's butt. This was no rodeo competition and there were no judges watching to award points. The young liveryman hung onto his saddle horn and clung tight with his legs. Longarm suspected he would have grabbed hold with his teeth too if he could have. If nothing else, that would have helped to keep his head from whipping back and forth the way it now was.
The battle went on for what seemed a very long time but surely wasn't. Longarm had time to pull out a cheroot and light it, but the little cigar scarcely built an ash before the fight was over, DeCaro being the uncontested victor.
DeCaro reined the sweating but now calm Appaloosa over beside Longarm on the dun. He was grinning but looked a little the worse for wear. His shirttail was out of his britches, and his hat, while still on his head, was somewhat askew.
“Keep that up,” Longarm said, “an' you'll be an old man before your time.”
DeCaro's grin never faded. “No doubt,” he agreed. “My spine feels like a damn accordion as it is. I suppose I really ought to sell this son of a bitch down the road, but he's tough and he's honest, and the truth is that I just plain like him.” He laughed. “Damned if I know why though.”
“I hope that ain't the horse you were gonna give me if I'd asked for something fast,” Longarm said.
DeCaro laughed again. “As a matter of fact, he is.”
Longarm leaned down to pat the thick, heavily muscled neck of the little dun horse he had been given instead.
When he leaned low over the dun's neck, he heard the sizzle of a bullet slicing through the air and immediately afterward the solid whack of lead striking dirt.
“Shit!” Longarm yelped as he spurred the dun into a run.
He was already moving before he heard the dull bark of a rifle shot from somewhere to his right.
Anthony DeCaro's Appaloosa was indeed faster than the steady little dun horse. The App proved that as DeCaro quickly caught up with Longarm and passed him.
The young hostler ran ahead for a half mile or so, then slowed to a walk. He already was halted by the time Longarm and the dun reached him. DeCaro leaned down from his saddle and plucked a grass stem that he began to chew.
Longarm was mildly surprised to find that he still had his cheroot jammed between his teeth. He reined the dun around to face toward town. He examined the hillside where the rifle shot surely must have come from, but he could see nothing. No lingering wisp of smoke or any other sign was visible there.
“Do you see where he was?” he asked.
DeCaro shook his head. “Sorry, no.”
“Me neither.” Frowning, Longarm yanked his Winchester from the boot and stepped down off the dun. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?” DeCaro asked.
“Huntin',” Longarm said with a grunt.
Chapter 33
Longarm shoved the Winchester back into his saddle scabbard, practically growling with disgust as he did so.
“Nothing?” DeCaro asked. While Longarm was prowling along the hillside, he had been joined by two goatherds, their goats grazing nearby under the watchful eyes of their dogs.
“Nothing,” Longarm confirmed. “I found the place where he shot from. Found his spent brass, plain old .44-40 like half the men in this country shoot, but of him I didn't find so much as a footprint.”
The Mexicans asked something and DeCaro responded at some length. When he was done speaking, the two nodded their understanding of what had happened and spoke some more.
“I already asked them if they saw anything,” DeCaro said. “They didn't. Sorry.”
“Are these some of the fellas you wanted to run into today?” Longarm asked.
“No, they aren't, but they told me where I can find one of those men anyway.”
“Then let's go there.”
“Uh, not just yet,” DeCaro said.
Longarm lifted an eyebrow.
“It's a matter of hospitality. These fellows will be insulted if we don't at least have a cup of coffee with them.” He laughed. “Longarm, by the time this day is over, I'll be surprised if you haven't pissed a dozen times and still have a bladder that full near about to bursting.”
Longarm glanced back in the direction that rifle shot had come from, but he said, “Coffee it will be then. But I'm betting these fellas don't make it as good as Nell Tyler does.”
DeCaro was right. Longarm felt positively waterlogged by the time they rode back into Dwyer.
Instead of putting the dun back into John Tyler's barn, he left it and his tack at the livery stable and walked back to the jail in the courthouse basement.
He was weary and discouraged after a day of talking with one goatherd after another. They must have spoken with a dozen or more of the Mexican herders, but they'd learned nothing, or anyway close to it.
All of them said they only intended to defend themselves from the Basques, who according to the Mexicans had threatened to kill the goats and the goatherds alike.
While ruffling his dog behind the ears, one fellow from Sonora chuckled and, as translated by Anthony DeCaro, said, “But there is good news. They do not wish to kill our dogs too.”
“Yeah. That's real encouraging.”
“Yes, but we are ready for them,” the Mexican said, hefting a beat-up trapdoor Springfield.
Now Longarm yawned and trudged back to the courthouse. He was tired and faced another long night of standing guard in the jail. The good news there was that he could bolt the door and stretch out on the bunk in the vacant cell.
Just what the rest of Dwyer was doing in the way of law enforcement he had no idea as both he and John Tyler were fully occupied by the needs of the moment.
There would be hell to pay if a shooting war broke out between the Basques and the Mexicans, so that had to be the first priority. Any petty crimes that might be occurring in the town would just have to bide their time until after the crisis was past and Tyler could get back to the probably dull routine of enforcing the laws of Dwyer and of McConnell County.
Longarm was pleased to see there was no group of disgruntled herdsmen, neither Basques nor Mexicans, loitering in the vicinity of the jailhouse steps. He hoped that was a sign that things were cooling off at least a little. If so, he would give himself some of the credit, for closing down both Rosie's and Doris's saloon. Men, even angry men, tend to act much more rationally when they are sober.
He yawned again and started down the steps into the courthouse basement.
He stopped short on the third step.
His Colt slid smoothly out of the leather and into his hand.
The jailhouse door was standing open, and there was no glow of lamplight coming from inside.
Chapter 34
“Damn them.
God damn them!
” Longarm howled. He meant it literally and not merely as a common vulgarity.
Whoever did this, he thought, truly should be damned.
John Tyler, sheriff of McConnell County, Wyoming Territory, lay on the stone floor with a bullet hole in his forehead and the back of his head blown off. Blood and gray brains flooded the floor beneath him. His eyes stared sightlessly toward the ceiling. His sawed-off shotgun lay on the floor half a dozen feet away.
“I told you, dammit,” Longarm groaned. “I told you. Don't open the door till I come back. Why, John? Why the hell did you open up? And who was it done this to you?”
He stepped around the corpse, trying not to get any blood on his boots, and looked into the back room where the cells were. If Altameira was gone, he figured, it would be the goatherds who killed John Tyler, and if the man lay dead in his cell it was likely the sheepmen.
Julio Altameira was still locked inside his cell, just as dead as Tyler. He had been shot several times in the upper torso. Longarm did not have to enter the cell to make sure the man was gone from the husk that was his body. The flies that swarmed over his face and fed on his blood were sure enough indication of that.
Scowling, Longarm went back into the outer office. He knelt beside Tyler's body and felt of his throat. He had no expectation of finding vestiges of life there . . . hardly that, after his brains had been blown out of the back of his head . . . but he wanted to check for any remaining warmth in the body.
There was none. Tyler had been dead for some hours, probably since not long after Longarm and Anthony DeCaro rode out in the morning.
Some low-life son of a bitch had come in and murdered both men.
The name of Eli Cruikshank came to mind. Cruikshank had every appearance of a man who not only could use a gun but did so, swiftly and with deadly result.
Longarm tucked his suspicions away for the time being. There were other, more pressing things that had to be taken care of.
He left the sheriff's office and walked over to the barbershop, where Bert was sitting in his own chair with a newspaper opened before him. He looked up when Longarm came in.
“Why, hello, Marshal. Ready for another shave so soon? Or a trim, perhaps? I have a tub in the back where a man can get a bath, but that room has, um, a body in it. Some folks mind that sort of thing.”
“That room is fixing to have two more bodies in it,” Longarm said. He told the barber/surgeon/undertaker where to find his next projects. “The one of 'em is locked inside a cell. You'll find the keys hanging on the wall in the outer room.”
“Sheriff Tyler, you say?”
“I do say. Unfortunately.”
“So sad for his pretty little wife. Sad for the whole county for that matter.”
“I damn sure agree with that,” Longarm said with feeling. “John was a good man. A better man than whoever done this deed.”
“I couldn't agree more. Uh, pardon me for asking, but who will be paying for my services?”
“The county, I reckon. Check with them about it.”
“Of course. But burials on the county's dime don't come with any extras.”
“Take it up with the clerk.” Longarm turned and left the barbershop.
He stopped next in the courthouse, mounting the stone steps and going inside to the clerk's office, where he informed Benjamin Laffler of the shooting and asked, “You didn't hear anything this morning? Any gunshots? Anything at all?”
“No, I did not, Marshal, and I think I would have. It is usually quiet in Dwyer and I've had the windows open all day, ever since I got here.”
“When d' you get to work, Mr. Laffler?” Longarm asked.
“Eight thirty. Promptly every day at that time.”
“All right, thanks.” That meant Tyler and the goatherd were very likely shot after Longarm left and before Laffler arrived upstairs, call it eight o'clock give or take a few minutes. “I expect you'll have to hire someone to clean up down there soon as Bert has the bodies removed. And you can expect him to come talk to you about the county payin' for their burying.”
Laffler shrugged. “Bert is something of a cheapskate, all the time fretting about money, but he does good enough work.” Laffler chuckled. “He hasn't had any complaints from his undertaking customers anyway.”
“Yeah, sure.” Longarm was not in much of a mood for Laffler's humor or anyone else's. Not considering the chore that remained for him to do.
He left the courthouse and headed up the street toward John Tyler's house, where a lovely young woman did not yet know that she was now a widow.
Lordy, he hated to have to do this sort of thing.
Chapter 35
Word about the murders must have spread through Dwyer faster than a telegraph could have carried it. When Longarm arrived at the Tyler house, there was already a gaggle of church women there, half a dozen of them in the parlor comforting a pale and stricken Nell Tyler while more of the church ladies were in Nell's kitchen preparing tea and whatever.
Longarm figured he would offer his condolences at a better time. He quietly slipped upstairs and gathered his things. It would not be proper for him to stay in the house now that John was dead and Nell would be alone.
He was on his way out—he wasn't sure exactly where he was out to—when one of the church women stopped him. “You are that marshal who was supposed to help John, aren't you?”
“Yes, ma'am,” he said, quickly setting his carpetbag down and removing his hat. “I am that.”
The woman sniffed loudly and said, “If you had done your job properly, that dear child over there would still have her husband.” She was practically aquiver with indignation and looked like she wanted to slap his face.
BOOK: Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701)
4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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