Longarm 241: Longarm and the Colorado Counterfeiter (12 page)

Once he drew it out on the paper he had gotten at the desk, he looked at it a long time until he had committed it to memory. He struck a match and then burned the paper, dropping it into a wastebasket. Later in the afternoon, he took his saddlebags and went over to the hardware store. He picked up the second box of dynamite he had already paid for, only this time instead of carrying it on his shoulders, he got the hardware store owner to open the box and put the dynamite and blasting caps and some fuse cord into his saddlebags. It nearly filled them up, and made a little bit of a load as he walked back to the livery stable with the saddlebags over his shoulder. He figured it would be safer, less conspicuous, and less likely to be seen there in the livery stable in the stall of the mare. He put it up at her head, took some spare hay, and covered the saddlebags with that. Now, at least, when he left the hotel to go on his next assignment, he wouldn't be carrying the dynamite where people might notice. This way, all he would have to do was go to the livery stable, saddle up his horse, and then tie the saddlebags in place, and he would be in business.

He had already begun to realize that there were too many busybodies around town who stood ready to nose into any business that might seem, in any way, connected with what had happened to Vernon Ashton and his men. So far as that went, he figured they hadn't seen anything yet. He intended to give Ashton's hired hands a little more of the same. Nobody would be fool enough to keep a job, even if they were paying him a hundred dollars a month, if there was an excellent chance that he was going to be killed the next day.

He ended up that night at the saloon, and sat in a poker game. He had been playing about an hour and a half when Finley came in. A chair happened to come open about that time, and Finley took it. He gave Longarm a friendly nod as he sat down, and Longarm returned it.

Finley said, “Well, how are the cards running this evening, Mr. Long?”

“Just middling,” Longarm said. “Just middling.”

“Well, you have enough chips stacked up in front of you. I figured you must be making it warm for these other fellows.”

“These ain't exactly sheep. In fact, you might say that there are more wolves in here than there are sheep. Now, I think we just got one more.”

Finley gave a lighthearted chuckle. He said, “Oh, Mr. Long. I think we know who wears the long teeth.”

They played without anything particularly interesting happening for the next several hands. Then, in a hand of five-card draw, Longarm went into the discard with three queens. He opened for ten dollars. Two of the other players and Finley called him. Longarm threw away two cards and took two. The two cards he took turned out to be a pair of nines. He had a full house, queens over nines, a very strong hand.

Finley sweated his cards in one at a time, looking at them carefully. He glanced across at Longarm and said, “Opener's bet.”

Longarm said to the dealer, “How many cards did Mr. Finley take?”

“He took one.”

Longarm nodded. “Drawing for a full house, Mr. Finley?”

“Well, I don't think a straight is going to be good enough to beat you, so I was trying for a full house, yes. Of course, this is poker and you're supposed to tell the truth at all times.”

“Oh, yes,” Longarm said. He counted out fifty dollars and made the bet. The first man to his left dropped out. Finley called the fifty dollars and raised it fifty. That made it a hundred dollars to the fourth player. He threw his hand in as fast as he could.

The man said, “Hell, I've got a child's hand. What are you boys playing at?”

Longarm thought about it for a moment. Then he called Finley's fifty and raised him back another hundred. A hush fell over the table. This was serious poker. This was poker designed for other places. It didn't get played in this saloon, in this casino. It was high-stakes poker.

Finley looked at his cards for a long time, and then at the pile of money in front of him. He said, almost as if he were speaking to no one, “You know, you can buy a pretty good saddle horse for a hundred dollars. You ought to know that, you being a horse trader, Mr. Long.”

“Mr. Finley, right now, I am not a horse trader. Right now, I am a poker player with three of a kind, hoping you don't have that flush or straight.”

“Oh, I've got that flush or straight. I'm just hoping you ain't full or made four of a kind.”

“Well, if I had a flush or straight and I was in your shoes, I'd raise me back a hundred.”

Finley laughed, but without much humor. “That's the difference in us, Mr. Long. You ain't in my shoes and I ain't in yours. I'll just call.”

Longarm showed his full house. Finley nodded and said, “That's good.” Then, without showing his cards, he threw them in the discard pile and stood up. “I reckon I've had about all the cards I can stand for one evening.”

Without another word, Finley gathered up his money and walked out of the saloon, not even bothering to stop for a drink. Longarm watched him as he left. There was something about Finley that was bothering him, and he couldn't place it. He was almost certain that he had some connection with Ashton and didn't want anyone to know. Perhaps he was Ashton's spy to see what law might be coming into the town of Silverton. Maybe he was lookout. Maybe his job was to spot strangers and find out their business and relay that information to Ashton. Maybe that was what had given Longarm away.

Longarm played on for about another hour, and then stretched and got up and left the game. He was a solid two hundred dollars ahead, and he figured that was enough. He had lost a few hands at the last just to sweeten up the local players, doing it deliberately and allowing himself to be caught bluffing. It always made everyone feel better if the big winner lost a little something just before he walked away.

To make things even better, he stopped by the bar on his way, bought a bottle of whiskey, and had it sent to the table. He was out the door before they could even shout their thanks.

It was coming close to midnight by the look of the moon, and he walked slowly back to the hotel. The moon was coming full. It was going to be a good one to work by if he could get his business in order while it was still up. He went to his room and had a couple of drinks of Maryland whiskey before turning in and sleeping the sleep of the just.

He woke early, and was ready for breakfast by six-thirty. Strangely enough, even though he dawdled, Finley did not come in. There were other cafes in town, and he supposed the man might have chosen another, but it did seem odd.

He lazed around the rest of the day. He took the bay gelding out for some exercise and some schooling. The bay was not four years old, and not as smart as he ought to be. He was also still a little spooky. Longarm showed him his shadow every now and then just to see if he would jump. He spooked at some sagebrush that rustled, and then nearly turned inside out when a rabbit suddenly jumped up out of the prairie in front of them. For a few seconds, Longarm was hard pressed to stay on the back of the horse. Just so the gelding wouldn't forget what his job was, Longarm gave him a good long ten-mile ride, circling far out to the north and the west and then coming back into town.

He was late for lunch at the hotel, and the dining room was closed by the time he'd put the gelding up and come in and cleaned up. There was a free lunch at the saloon, but a man had to be pretty damned hungry to take part in that. He finally found a chili place run by a Mexican and his wife. He sat there eating chili with corn tortillas and drinking cold beer. It might have been the best meal he'd had since he'd been in town. But they didn't serve breakfast, so this hadn't been the place where Finley had taken his morning meal. Longarm shut down that line of thought. He was starting to see buggers under the bed like some old maid. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred, or even more than that, Finley was exactly what he said he was, a man who just didn't want to see any trouble come to the mountain valley. Longarm couldn't blame him. If he was going to be in a peaceful business, he wouldn't want to see explosions and gunfights and gunshot victims.

Longarm hung around the saloon that afternoon. He had a reason, and at about four o'clock, he was not surprised to see the two hard, young strangers with their guns set up like they knew how to use them standing at the bar looking bitter and taking straight shots of whiskey without bothering to sip at it.

No one was going near them. In fact, the other patrons were keeping a respectful distance. Longarm asked one man who they might be, and the man whispered back that they were riders for Vernon Ashton and that it looked like they were clearing out. It seemed like they were mad as hornets, the man said.

Longarm ambled forward like a man with nothing much on his mind, and got up next to the bar close to the two men. He ordered a bottle of the best from the bartender and poured himself out a shot. The two men scarcely glanced at him. He offered the bottle down to them. He said, “Care for a drink, boys?” Their glasses were both empty, and they hadn't had time to refill them.

They both glared at him, but one of them made a slight condescending nod with his head. Longarm slopped whiskey into both of their shot glasses, and then held his own up and said, “Well, here's to luck.”

The one closest to him said, “Yeah. Bad luck. Sonofabitch. Worst damned luck I've ever seen.”

They all drank the whiskey straight down, and Longarm was quick with the bottle again.

This time, he said, “You boys look a little down and out. Something troubling you?”

The one closest to him turned his head and spat tobacco juice on the floor. He said, “Hell, what ain't the matter? That sonofabitch. We gave him good work. We protected him, we risked our lives, and we ask the sonofabitch to pull in the horns a little bit, and the bastard don't want to do the right thing.”

The man on the other side of him said, “Yeah, that's about the size of it. We're pulling stakes and getting the hell out of here. Two good years we wasted here. To hell with him.”

Longarm said carefully, “You would be talking about Mr. Ashton?”

The tobacco chewer spat again. He said, “Hell, no. We're talking about Mr. Early. He's the boss. We wanted to concentrate up while this little trouble was going on, but he wanted everybody to keep riding patrols like we have been doing. Hell, that's just damned foolishness. We wanted to rout out whoever this troublemaker was. We wanted to come into town in a bunch and find out who was causing the trouble. But he said no, he weren't for it. Well, the hell with him. The others out there feels the same as we do, but they just haven't moved yet.”

Longarm thought, but didn't say, that the fact that they might be getting killed fairly quickly was also a reason to leave. But if they wanted to believe they were leaving because they didn't agree with the boss, that was all right with him. He poised the bottle over their glasses and poured them full again. He said, “Can't blame you. Damn bosses, they don't ever see the workingman's side of it, do they?”

By now, Longarm's approach had emboldened the rest of the men in the saloon, and they came crowding up to the bar to talk to the two riders and to buy drinks and ask questions. Longarm slipped out as easily as he could.

The day wore on. The riders hadn't told him anything that he hadn't expected to hear. He was just surprised that only two had quit. He couldn't make a real count, but it seemed to him that he was close to halving Ashton's force. If it hadn't been for that damned Early, probably more would have left. Longarm was under no illusions that if he ever rode onto that place as a marshal with a six-gun in his hand, it would be Early that he would have to fight and that he would have to be the most wary of.

Longarm ate supper in the dining room of the hotel, and then went back to his room and played solitaire with an old deck of cards he had been carrying around a while. He didn't think he would go to the poker game that night because of the hour in which he was leaving. He had thought to catch a couple hours sleep, but about ten o'clock, he realized that would be impossible. He put his cards away and went over to the saloon.

Once again, Finley was not among those playing cards. Nor was he at the bar nor was he sitting in the casino area. Longarm was a little surprised, but then again, he almost hadn't come himself. Maybe the man was back in his room, figuring his business or writing a letter home. Hell, it was none of Longarm's business. None, except that he had a sinking suspicion about the man.

He sat in on a game without much enthusiasm, and played about the same way. At the end of an hour and a half, he'd lost about thirty dollars, and he decided that that was enough to donate to such poor poker players. He couldn't draw any cards. The rule was that the best hand won unless you could run somebody out, and they weren't playing with enough money to successfully run a bluff.

He didn't bother with a drink on the way out. He had his Maryland whiskey, and he preferred that to the bar stuff. Besides, when he stepped outside, he knew it wouldn't be long before he would be leaving. The moon was high in the sky, and he reckoned it was a little before midnight. It was good and full, a big gold orb just hanging up in a black, cloudless sky. It threw a good shooter's light. Of course, that cut both ways. It would make it easier for him to see, but it would also make it easier for him to be seen.

He went back to his room and had a couple of cigarillos and a drink or two of his whiskey. He thought over his plan, looking for holes in it. It was a simple straightforward piece of business that would either work or it wouldn't. That was all it amounted to.

At one o'clock, he stood up, checked the ammunition in his rifle, and made sure he had rifle ammunition in his shirt pockets and pistol ammunition in both pants pockets. He turned and walked out the door, heading for the livery stable. The moon was still up, still full, and it was still throwing a lot of light. By the time it went down, he ought to know something.