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

Table of Contents

 

 

“You're under arrest,” Longarm said. “Now shuck that gunbelt and turn around with your hands behind your back. We'll all take a nice little ride and I'll send you back to Cheyenne direc'ly.”

The shooter did not have sense enough to leave a bad situation alone. He had to make it worse.

He went for his gun.

It was the last mistake he would ever make.

Longarm's hand flashed and his Colt belched lead, flame, and smoke.

The .45 bucked in Longarm's hand once, twice, a third time.

The gunman was driven backward with each shot. Then his legs buckled and he pitched forward, facedown in the dirt beneath his feet.

“I wish you hadn't done that,” Longarm muttered.

“What the hell is going on back there?” the jehu shouted.

“Just taking care of business,” Longarm said.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

 

LONGARM AND THE RANGE WAR

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / January 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Cover illustration by Milo Sinovcic.

 

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ISBN : 978-1-101-55370-1

 

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Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long stepped around behind Marshal William Vail's broad desk and pulled the roller blind down about halfway, peered back at his boss for a moment, and tugged it about six inches lower.

The United States marshal for the Department of Justice's Denver District watched Longarm throughout this odd sequence, then spun around in his swivel chair to follow Longarm until his best deputy had resumed his seat with a grunt and a nod.

“Mind if I ask what that was all about?” Vail inquired.

“The light, Billy.”

“What about the light?”

“It was reflectin' off your pate.”

“My
pate
?”

“Right. Pate. It's—”

“Dammit, Long, I know what a pate is.”

“Right. Well the light was shinin' off yours. Got in my eyes. That kinda hurt, you see an' . . .”

Billy Vail, it was true, was bald as a hard-boiled egg. In fact he looked as innocent as a cherub, with his pink complexion and round face. The truth was that he was as hard-boiled as any of his deputies and more so than most, having come up in the lawing business first as a town constable, then a town marshal, and later a Texas Ranger. A good one too by all accounts. Now he sat behind a desk in a comfortable chair and issued orders to other men with one hand, while dealing politics with the other. Custis Long, better known as Longarm to friend and foe alike, would not have traded places with Billy for love or money.

“Shut up, Long. I didn't call you in here to tell me jokes.”

“Bein' blinded ain't no joke, Billy. Why, I recollect a time—”

“Will you please be quiet and listen to me?”

Longarm took the hint—a rather broad hint—and clammed up. He crossed his long legs, reached inside his coat for a slender, dark brown cheroot, and proceeded to prepare it to smoke. He nipped the twist off with his teeth and spat the bit of tobacco into his palm, then struck a Lucifer on his boot sole before carefully lighting the cheroot.

While Longarm was so occupied, Billy Vail explained, “I got a wire this morning from Sheriff John Tyler of McConnell County, Wyoming Territory. Do you know it?”

“I know the county. It's prett' nigh due north from here, almost to Montana. I been through there a time or two. Don't know any Sheriff Tyler, though. He any kin?”

“Kin to whom?”

“President Tyler, of course.”

“Dammit, Long . . .”

“Sorry, Billy. I'm just in a good mood, that's all.” He had won almost fifty dollars playing poker the previous evening and felt rather good about that.

Vail shook his head. “Sometimes, Custis, I think I like you better when you're in a shitty humor.”

Custis. The boss had called him Custis. Longarm knew that was a sure sign that he better straighten up and be quiet. So thinking, he physically straightened himself on the office chair, planting both boots on the floor and holding the smoldering cheroot down at lap level. “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“The problem in Dwyer . . . Before you ask, Dwyer is the county seat up there . . .”

Longarm indeed had already known that, but he had no intention of speaking up to say so.

“The problem is a range war that seems to be developing among the stockmen in McConnell County.”

“Sheepmen and cattlemen, I suppose,” Longarm drawled, smoothing the ends of his dark brown handlebar mustache.

“Actually, smart aleck, it is
not
along the normal lines of these things. This time it is between sheepmen and goatherds.”

“Goatherds? You're shitting me,” Longarm said, his eyes going wide and his jaw dropping just the least little bit.

“It sounds like that, I know, but according to Tyler they are deadly serious about this. I don't know the specifics, but the man's wire, brief though it is, claims there could be blood shed by the bucketful if something isn't done, and he just is not capable of doing it. He did not say why, but he makes it clear he is powerless to stop the war.”

“Any idea how many are involved in this thing?” Longarm asked.

“No idea, but it must be serious for him to call on us.”

Longarm leaned back and stared at the ceiling in deep thought, then dropped his chin and looked at the boss again. “There's no train up that way so's I'd best take the night train to Cheyenne an' a stagecoach north from there.”

“Good. Henry can give you travel vouchers, of course.”

“Uh, one thing, Boss.”

“Yes?”

“Who's going with me?”

“Do you see anybody else in this room, Custis?”

“No, sir.”

“That's right. The reason you don't is that I have no one else to send with you. You'll have to do this on your own.”

“Shit, Boss, I was hoping for some backup this time. Besides, I thought it was just you Texas Ranger boys that had the ‘one riot, one Ranger' policy. When did we go an' adopt that?”

“When the attorney general asked me to take charge of this office.” Billy snorted, then stood and gathered some papers out of his top drawer. “Now if you will excuse me, the district attorney and Don Fenster are waiting upstairs to chew me out.”