Longarm 241: Longarm and the Colorado Counterfeiter (6 page)

Longarm thought fleetingly about the badge he had left back at the hotel. He didn't think he should be completely straight with these gentlemen. He took his revolver out of his holster and handed it over. Then he turned in the saddle, opened one side of the saddlebags, took out the other revolver, and handed that over. He said, “Will that do it?”

“Is that all of them?”

Longarm didn't expect that the derringer in his buckle counted. “Ain't that enough?” he said.

The hard-faced man walked around to the left side of Longarm's horse. “Why don't you just step down and let's be sure you haven't forgotten something,” he said. “It's real easy, as hot as this weather has been, to forget a gun or a knife. You might start by taking off your boots. Many a man forgets he's got a pistol in his boot.”

Longarm stepped down and then sat down on the ground. He took off his boots, one at a time, and showed that they were empty. “This is the silliest damned thing I've ever seen,” he said. “I'm going to talk business and you have me taking off my clothes.”

“Well, put your boots back on and stand up. Put your hands over your head.”

“What for?”

“You'll see.”

While Longarm stood there with his hands over his head, the man patted him down for any concealed weapon. Thankfully, he didn't find the derringer inside Longarm's belt buckle.

Finally, the man motioned for Longarm to drop his arms. “All right. You look like you've passed the test. Mount up and ride on ahead.”

“Where am I headed?”

The man nodded his head toward the long end of the pasture. He said, “You are headed that way. You don't have to worry about getting exact directions. You'll have somebody to help you out before you've gone too much further.”

To emphasize the point, he gave Longarm's mare a slight slap on the rump with his hat. The horse started forward, but she was far too calm and too trail-wise to bolt. Longarm supposed it was the man's idea of a joke. He was just glad that the man didn't know that he had two .38-caliber shells that he might find good use for, maybe on the gentleman who liked to slap horses on their rump with his hat.

But it did make one thing clear to him—this was not going to be an easy place to slip up on. There had been guards on the southern side of the range in the rocks and the mountains and crevasses. He was willing to bet that, far across the pasture on the other side bordered by mountain peaks, there were an equal number of guards. He expected company at nearly any time. He expected that there were roaming guards all over the place. It made him angry just to think about it. Billy Vail was so damned free and easy with his assignments. It was just a shame that his boss didn't get to come along on such an assignment. And that damned fool of a Treasury Department man... Longarm decided that he would rather have the Treasury man riding alongside of him than to have his dressmaker lady friend, Pauline, in bed next to him. And that was saying a hell of a lot.

Longarm kept to the small wagon path that swept away from the mountainside and cut over into the center of the pasture. Very shortly, he could see several dots swinging his way from the northern side of the pasture. He was heading east, and he veered even further toward the north so it would appear to the gentlemen that were headed to intercept him that he was just as cooperative as all hell. The last thing he wanted was for anybody in that place where he was so badly outgunned to get the idea that he wasn't cooperating. The guards were not long in reaching his side. Two came in first, hard-looking young men who wore their revolvers set up for business. They also carried carbines and shotguns. Longarm wondered if the place had a few cannons just in case they got into a large-scale war. The two men were both very similar, but one was riding a pinto horse.

He said, “All right, mister, and what's your business?”

“My name is Curtis Long. I was passing through this area, and I heard that the gentleman that owns this spread was usually in the market for some good horseflesh. I thought I'd go and talk to him and see if we can do some business. I hadn't planned on being stopped and searched and generally hindered in my business.”

A third man rode up. He sat back silently behind the other two and watched. Longarm had the feeling that he was some sort of foreman. He wore a black flat-crowned hat with a stiff flat brim.

The man on the pinto said, “We ain't hindering you, mister, but we've got our job to do, which is to make damned sure you've got real business on this spread and that you're not just here to cause mischief.”

Longarm gave him a frankly amazed look. “So far, I've counted about five or six of you. You're all as well armed as if you were in the army. Now, would you mind telling me how in hell I could cause any mischief? I have the feeling that there's more of you out there.”

The man wearing the flat-crowned hat said, “You've got that right, mister.”

Longarm looked past the other two at him. “Got what right? That I ain't going to cause no mischief? Or that you all are well armed? There seems to be enough of you to fight off an army.”

The man smiled coldly and without humor. “Whichever,” he said.

The man riding the pinto turned around and looked at him. “What shall I do, Clay?”

The man in the black hat gave a small shrug. “Take him on up the line. Let Early decide if he should see the boss.”

The man on the pinto nodded. He looked at Longarm and said, “Let's go, mister. Head it right in that direction.” He pointed, and Longarm could just barely make out the dim outline of some buildings toward the east.

They rode, Longarm in the middle, and one of the two men on each side. The man on the pinto was on his left. Longarm said, “Where are we headed?”

“Well, we are headed to find out if you're going to see Mr. Ashton. The straw boss will make that decision.”

“Why? Ain't that guy in the black hat the foreman?”

“He's one of them. But the man that he's talking about, Mr. Early, is higher than he is.”

“What do you all have? Ranks like you do in the army?”

The man on the pinto gave Longarm a hard long look. “You sure ask a lot of questions, mister,” he said.

The outlines of the house and the outbuildings that had been so dim in the distance were now becoming clear. Longarm was not particularly surprised at the size of the house. He had never seen a castle except in pictures in books, but he felt like he was looking at one as they rode closer and closer. He didn't know why a man needed that big a place to live in, except if he had a lot of wives. But since this wasn't Mormon country and he didn't figure that Brigham Young was who he was going to see, it still left him puzzled as to why a man would want to sink that much money into just a house. You could only sleep in one room and one bed at a time. You could only sit in one room and you could only eat in one room. So what he wanted with the rest of them, Longarm couldn't figure.

He saw a man leave one of the barns that lay some distance from the house. The man was mounted, and he came riding directly toward them. As he neared, Longarm could see that he was a man close to forty. If anything, maybe a little over it. He was wearing a blue suit of clothes, complete with vest and a four-in-hand tie. You didn't see that very often except with preachers.

Longarm said to man at his left, “Is this going to be the man that can say yes or no to my visit? I forgot what that fellow back there called him.”

“Yes, that's Mr. Early. He can say yes or no to just about anything around here next to Mr. Ashton.”

“Well, I hope we get along all right.”

“If it were me, I'd see to it.”

By now, they had slowed their horses, and pulled them to a stop as the man in the suit came riding up. To his surprise, Longarm saw that he was slightly portly and had a genial face. His head was topped by a pearl-gray, narrow-brimmed Stetson hat. He looked like he'd be more at home behind a desk than on the deck of a cow horse.

The man to Longarm's left said respectfully, “Good day, Mr. Early. Got a visitor to the place. We've got to ask your permission about him.”

The genial-looking man glanced at Longarm and half smiled. He said, “The name is Joel Early. And who might you be, sir?”

Longarm said, “My name is Custis Long. I'm in the high-class horseflesh business. Sometimes, I even handle blooded stock. I was passing through the town of Silverton and I heard that Mr. Ashton was sometimes in the market for good horses. I've got them and I will sell them, but these gentlemen here don't want me to go directly up there.” He paused and glanced to his left and then to his right. “I don't know exactly why, but it appears that I need your permission.”

Early laughed slightly. “Aw, that's just the way these old boys are, you know. Kind of the way the boss wants it. Mr. Ashton is a busy man, and he's a wealthy man. I don't mind you knowing that, even though you're trying to sell him something. If we just let any Tom, Dick, and Harry come riding on this place, well, there would be a line out his front door and plumb on up here to where we are standing. So, I kind of make a selection of who I let go in to see him and who doesn't. Sound about right to you?”

Longarm was doing his best to appear to be a horse trader. He said, “Well, sure. You've got to keep the ribbon clerks out. I can see that. It makes sense if the man is busy and has important work to do. I figured that the people that I sell to are just as busy and just as important, and I don't have to go through a receiving line to get to see
them.
If you take my meaning.”

Early still looked congenial. “Well, you'll just have to forgive us for the way we do things. You say you've got good blooded stock, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir! I do! I've got some horses with some Kentucky blood in them, some with thoroughbred in them. I've even got some good quarter horses.”

“And where would all these horses be, Mr. Long? Was that the correct name?”

“Yes, sir. That's my name. These horses are in Oregon. I'm on my way there now. I was just passing through on the train and got off to take a rest, and heard about this roost up here and thought I'd come investigate it.”

Early nodded his head at the gray mare. He said, “Is that an example of the kind of blood stock you are talking about?”

Longarm laughed appreciatingly. “Well, no, sir. No, sir. Of course not. This is just my own personal horse, one of several that I use. She is a using horse. She's gentle and calm and, besides that, she likes to ride the train. So, when I've sold all the other horses I brought, I still have her to get around on. If I hadn't had her this morning when I got up, I'd have had to rent a horse or I'd have had to walk out here.”

Early chuckled. “Well, that makes right good sense to me. Now me, I'm not much of a horse man. I don't know the bloodlines, don't know all the finer points, if you take my meaning, Mr. Long. But I will warn you that Mr. Ashton is. From time to time, he has raised horses. So, you want to be on your toes when you talk to him about horseflesh. It's a subject he does know.”

“Does that mean that I can go and see him?”

Early looked at the two men with Longarm. He said, “I don't see why a gentleman in the horse business shouldn't be allowed to see Mr. Ashton. Do ya'll?”

Both of the men answered in unison. “No, sir. Not if you say so, Mr. Early.”

“Well then, why don't you take the gentleman up there and help him in to see Mr. Ashton?”

The man to Longarm's left said, “We'll tend to that, Mr. Early. Thank you, sir.”

They put the spurs to their horses almost simultaneously and started forward at a slow lope. Longarm glanced back. The man in the blue suit was just sitting his horse, watching them as they headed for the house. Somehow it gave him an uneasy feeling.

A Chinese man in a white coat and what looked to Longarm to be velvet shoes let him in the big wooden front door. Longarm walked into a long hall with polished floors and pictures hung on the walls. He had expected nothing less, for as they had ridden up to the front of the house, he'd been struck by its size. It was built mostly from natural rock, and appeared to be two-storied and at least a hundred and fifty feet long, maybe that much deep. Standing in the hallway, he could see a curved staircase running around the wall to the upstairs. The two men that had been with him had stayed outside, settling down on the steps to smoke and wait for him to come back out. One of them had warned him to watch his manners.

He'd added, “I wouldn't be lighting up no cigarettes or cigars without being asked to, and I wouldn't be pouring myself any of that good whiskey Mr. Ashton keeps. If he wants you to have it, he'll give it to you.”

The houseboy had disappeared, and Longarm stood cooling his heels in the big hall, looking around him. There was a set of double doors to his immediate left. It was through these that the man had disappeared. To the right, Longarm could look through a large opening and see a sitting room, and then beyond that what appeared to be a dining room, and then beyond that what appeared to be another sitting room. He reckoned the bedrooms and whatnot were upstairs. He wondered if the bathrooms were indoors. That was a luxury that very few people in the country could enjoy, but it made sense to him that somebody making his own money would probably be able to afford it.

Longarm kept sweeping his gaze around, noticing the pictures on the wall, noticing the fine drapes. The man had built a lovely place, and Longarm wondered who he enjoyed it with. A place like this couldn't very well be enjoyed by one's own self.