Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (2 page)

“Look, I just do my job as best I know how. Sacramento says your badge don't mean shit on this side of the Sierras and, damn it, it was your own idea to go and shoot the Calico Kid!”

“Come on, the silly son of a bitch was trying to murder me!”

“Maybe. Well see about it at your trial.”

“My
what?
What the hell charges are you holding me on, God damn it?”

The constable holstered his six-gun. “Don't know. Maybe murder. Maybe manslaughter. That'll be up to the district attorney, won't it?”

Longarm laughed, still more puzzled than alarmed, and said, “Lovejoy, this ain't going to work. I know you old boys up here in the Mother Lode play rough, but we're not talking about jumping some greenhorn's claim or robbing a Mexican. We're talking about over a dozen gold shipments sidetracked between here and the mint. You don't seem to grasp that it's federal gold we're talking about!”

Lovejoy shrugged and turned away. One of the townies came to the door and yelled in something about the undertaker. Lovejoy said, “I'll talk to him. Keep an eye on the jail, will you?”

As Lovejoy left, Longarm called out, “They'll send someone else, you damned fool! Even if you kill me, you're going to be combing U.S. deputies out of your hair until Justice finds out where all that ore's been shipped!”

And then the constable was gone. The man he'd deputized to take his place went over to the desk and sat down with his back to the lockup. He put his feet up on the desk and lit a smoke. Longarm asked, “You mind telling me something, friend?”

The man didn't answer. Longarm swore softly and turned away from the bars. The Indian on the floor said, “I am not a bad person. Don't hurt me.”

Longarm went over to the fold-down bunk and sat down, saying, “I'm not a bad person, either. What are you in for?”

“My name is Bitter Water. I am a Miwok. What you Saltu call a Digger Indian.”

Longarm had recently come to know and respect these groups of foraging Indians contemptuously called Diggers. They were peaceable, graceful, and intelligent peoples who were often ruthlessly exterminated or driven from their lands by avaricious whites. He had recently had occasion to help a group of Paiutes in eastern Nevada whose stores of their staple food—pinyon nuts—were being destroyed by uncontrolled, illegal logging. Longarm extended a large, callused hand toward Bitter Water, and the small Indian shook it firmly. “Well, I'm Custis Long,” he said, “and I'll call you a Miwok. You didn't say why they arrested you.”

“Yes I did. I told you I was an Indian.”

“Is that against the law?”

“In this county? Yes. Some. Saltu came to the valley where my people have always gathered acorns. They said it was
their
valley now. They said they had a paper from Wa Sentan telling them they could keep cows there. When I asked to see the paper, they hit me. So I ran away.”

“I'm sorry, Bitter Water. I hope you don't think all of my people are like that. But how'd you wind up in this jail if you got away?”

“You have a good heart, but you do not listen. I said I ran away. I did not say I
got
away. While I was running from the men with cows, I crossed some other Saltus' mining claim. They caught me with a rope and brought me here. They say I have been stealing gold. Someone has been stealing gold around here, and, as I said, I am an Indian.” Bitter Water shrugged as he added, “I think they will hang both of us as soon as it gets dark.”

Longarm shot a glance out front. Lovejoy had taken his watch along with his badge, gun, and last three smokes, but he could see it was still early afternoon. Turning back to the Indian, he said, “Lovejoy said something about a trial. How often does the circuit judge come over from the county seat?”

“I don't know. It does not matter. They will not hear of us over in San Andreas. The men in Manzanita who hang people call themselves vigilantes. It is said nobody knows who they are, but I think this is a lie.”

Longarm frowned thoughtfully. Then he got up and went over to the bars again, calling out, “Hey, this fellow says you have a vigilance committee in this town. I thought that sort of thing went out with the forty-niners.”

The deputy, if that was what he was, didn't answer. Longarm insisted, “Look, I don't know if Lovejoy told you boys the facts of life, but I am a federal officer. You just try lynching a federal man and you won't have to worry about the Justice Department. You'll have the U.S. army up here asking all sorts of questions.”

Again, there was no reply. Apparently the man at the desk knew how hard it is not to give anything away, once you start talking. The people behind this had their henchmen well-trained.

All right
, he decided,
let's take as gloomy a look at this mess as possible and see where that leaves everyone
. His investigation had been nipped in the bud, either by some very clever plotting indeed or just a bit of quick thinking on the part of a skunk wearing a badge. It didn't matter whether the late Calico Kid had been in on it or not. By shooting the inept gunman, he'd delivered himself into their hands. The Indian's idea made sense, too, damn it. Longarm knew there was no way they'd ever hang a murder charge on him in open court. On the other hand, if he and Bitter Water were killed, by vigilantes, friends of the Calico Kid, Or simply “trying to escape” . . .

“It still won't work,” he called out, adding, “My office knows I'm here in Calaveras County. The Lost Chinaman is fixing to ship another carload of high-grade ore down to the stamping mills, and if I don't ride in with the gold, they'll send in another team.”

No answer.

Longarm insisted, “Sure, you and your pals might steal at least one more shipment, but then what? You're spreading yourselves a mite thin already, you know. I figure even if we're talking about the highest grade of ore, it still can't run more than a few thousand dollars a trainload, before it's refined. I can see you've bought your own law all the way down to the state capital, but, like I said, there's only so much gold and there are a lot of palms to grease.”

Hoping the silent man was at least listening, he insisted, “Look, you can bribe almost anyone to look the other way about a trainload of ore. But the rates go up as soon as you start killing folks, and a deputy U.S. marshal comes high as hell. I know you won't answer, but I want you to study on my words. Up to now, I don't have a thing on anyone. But once the government starts getting serious about you boys, it's all over. You have too many people in on it. One of you, only one, just has to get worried about his own hide, or maybe pissed off because he thinks he should have had a bigger share and—”

The man at the desk swung his boots to the floor and turned around to snap, “You just
hush
, mister! You don't know what you're talking about!”

Longarm was a bit relieved to see that the man wasn't deaf. “The hell I don't. I'm talking about a U.S. deputy being hindered, or worse. You're not going to like it in Leavenworth, boy.”

“God damn it, you got no call to say I'm a thief. I've never stole a penny in my born days. Me and every other honest man in the county is as riled as you are about them jaspers robbing the ore trains, and I'll not be tarred with the same brush as them!”

Longarm saw that the man was young and rather simple-looking. He smiled and asked, “Why are you holding me, then? Can't you see you're helping the high-graders, even if you're not in on it?”

The guard shook his head and said, “Don't fun with me, mister. You know you shot the Calico Kid.”

“Then you must be one of
his
friends, right?” Longarm prodded him.

“Hell, I just said I was an honest man. I got no truck with them wild gunslicks Calico used to ride with.”

Longarm shook his head wearily and marveled, “Loco. The whole bunch has busted out to nibble locoweed, unless I missed a turn a ways back. If you and Lovejoy ain't with the high-graders, and you ain't with the Calico Kid's bunch, what in thunder am I doing behind these bars?”

“You're in jail 'cause it's where you belong, damn it. You had no call to come here and stir up trouble.”

“I'd say the trouble sort of came my way. I was only trying to do my job.”

“No, you wasn't. You don't belong in these parts, mister. We got a town constable and a county sheriff. We got our own federal marshals down to Sacramento. You're just a durned old carpetbagger! Nobody around here ever asked you to stick your nose into our business, did they?”

“I hate to call such an honest man a liar, but you are purely full of shit. I
was
asked to investigate those gold robberies. Uncle Sam asked me, real polite. Are you saying Calaveras County's not part of these United States?”

The youth hesitated. Then he said, “You're trying to mix me up,” and turned away again. This time he meant it. Longarm tried reason. He tried argument. He tried saying mean things about the man's mother. Nothing worked. After a while he got tired of talking to the back of an obviously thick skull and went back to the bunk. As he sat down again, the Indian muttered, “We have nothing to worry about as long as they are guarding us.”

Longarm started to ask what Bitter Water meant. Then he nodded in sick understanding. He'd investigated enough lynchings to know the form.

If that was indeed the plan, Constable Lovejoy would go through the motions for the rest of the day. A rural community like Manzanita went to bed early. Or at least, the honest elements did. Later, in the dark of the moon, Lovejoy would probably be called away from the jail on some obscure mission. That was when the night riders would arrive.

Later, some luckier lawman might put it all together and they'd know at last whether the late Custis Long had been lynched by men in the pay of the gold thieves, by pals of the Calico Kid, or by someone he hadn't figured out yet. Yeah, they'd get to the bottom of it, in time. You don't steal federal gold and murder federal marshals and hope to get away with it forever. But he didn't have forever. He had maybe eight or ten hours if he intended to crack the case himself. It wasn't a bit comforting to think some other lawmen might track down the answers, after he was dead.

The Indian's voice was soft as he asked, “Would you get mad at me if I made a suggestion?”

Longarm smiled and said, “No. I think it's a good idea.”

Bitter Water looked puzzled as he asked, “Do you read my words before they are spoken?”

“Hell, if you're thinking about anything
but
busting out of here you must be loco, too. What's your plan?”

Bitter Water suddenly looked even more dejected. “I was hoping
you
had one. All I know is that we can't stay here overnight. Right after dark would be the best time, don't you think?”

Longarm shook his head and said, “That's when they'll be expecting us to try and bust out. One of the oldest tricks around is to leave a prisoner unguarded and sort of let him think he's escaping.”

Morosely, Bitter Water studied the floor between his knees for a time before he sighed, “Heya! Waiting outside with rifles. Forgive me for being stupid. I have spent little time in Saltu jails. When do
you
think we should get away?”

“Right about now would suit me just fine. It's mid-afternoon and hot as hell out there. Half the town'll be taking a siesta, and the restless souls are likely holding a funeral for the cuss I just shot.”

“I agree. But I don't see how we can get out of this place. If I had a knife I could dig through the adobe wall, but—”

“It'd take too long,” Longarm interrupted. “I think we'd better try an old trick and hope that jasper out front is as dumb as he looks. The old prison fight would never work on anyone who's worked as a guard for six weeks, but he might not have heard of it.”

“He does look stupid,” Bitter Water agreed. “But what is this trick you speak of?”

“Oh, you're going to start beating me up. I don't think he'd care if
I
started slapping
you
around, but—”

The suggestion caused a flicker of enthusiasm to brighten the Indian's features. “Yes. No Saltu is going to stand by and allow a brother to be bested by a dirty Indian. But what are we supposed to be fighting about?”

“Hmmm, we'll have to make it look a mite serious, won't we? Let's see now. What's a good old boy likely to have strong feelings about? I'll tell you what, Bitter Water. Take off your pants.”

The Indian looked thunderstruck and muttered, “You are making a joke. What do you take me for?”

“That ain't important. It's what we want
him
to take you for. I want you to act like a wild, crazy Indian with a hard-on. Come on, old son, I know you ain't a jail-wolf.”

Bitter Water shrugged and stood up, turning out to be taller than the lawman had expected. The Indian dropped his ragged britches and stepped out of them, naked from the waist down. Longarm shouted, “You ain't gonna do no such thing, you crazy red bastard!” and then he grabbed the startled Indian by the shirt and pulled him against his own frame, crying out, “Help! This crazy Digger's after my white ass!”

The guard swung around to stare openmouthed as the two men rolled over and over on the floor. Then he sprang to his feet and shouted, “Hey, what the hell kind of jail do you think we're running here? We don't allow that sort of thing in Manzanita, boys!”

Longarm whimpered, “Get him off me, then! He's as strong as a goddamned elephant and I reckon he'd fuck one, given the chance!”

The guard fished a key from his ring and fumbled with the lock, saying, “Hit back, damn it! You're a white man!”

“He's killing me! He must have been chewing that crazy Indian medicine they use to get riled up!”