Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401)
Read Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) Online
Authors: Tabor Evans
The mare’s slight hesitation of movement and the snort that exploded from her nostrils caused Longarm to glance from side to side just as the man he instantly recognized as Carl Whitfield and another smaller man jumped up with rifles.
“Ya!” Longarm shouted, bending low in the saddle and sending the mare into a hard run in order to escape this death trap. “Ya!”
The mare shot forward like a cannonball, ears flattening against her head, neck stretched out, and legs reaching out to cover ground. The ambushers were caught by surprise, unprepared for the mare’s explosive burst of speed. They both fired and missed.
Longarm drew his six-gun and opened fire, emptying his gun at the closer and larger target, Carl Whitfield. The liveryman staggered, dropped his rifle, and collapsed even as his partner fired a shot that struck Longarm high up in the back and nearly knocked him from his saddle.
“Ya!” Longarm shouted, dropping his gun and desperately grabbing for his saddle horn.
The buckskin mare ran like the wind and Longarm heard one last rifle shot, then he was out of range and hanging on for his life.
ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES
FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts
Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him…the Gunsmith.
LONGARM by Tabor Evans
The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.
SLOCUM by Jake Logan
Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan
An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.
DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer
Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex…
WILDGUN by Jack Hanson
The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!
TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun
J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.
TABOR EVANS 
AND THE GRAND
CNAYON MURDERS
JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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 GRAND CANYON MURDERS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / February 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Cover illustration by Milo Sinovcic.
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EISBN: 9781101554401
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Table of Contents
Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long stepped into the office of his boss and friend, Chief Marshal Billy Vail, and said, “Whatever it is you want me to do…I’m unavailable.”
Billy was of medium size and today exhibited an unflappable and sunny disposition, no doubt due to the fact that he was now in charge of their federal office and mostly handled paperwork and personnel assignments. “Have a chair, Custis.”
Longarm knew that he was being baited into a trap and shook his head. “Billy, I just returned from a month in the damned desert near Yuma, where I was stuck by cactus, bit by a scorpion…twice…and damned near died of thirst and heat exhaustion. The killer I was after somehow managed to get a rattlesnake in my boot while I slept; I barely escaped getting bitten before I shot the snake
and
the demented killer who was waiting to see me die of snakebite. I’m telling you that my last assignment was a nightmare, so unless you have something easy for me to do in the cool mountains, I’m unavailable.”
“Would you like a really good cigar? I have a few special Cubans.”
Longarm groaned. “This is looking worse by the minute. But I won’t be bribed so easily, because I just met a really interesting lady that I’m very interested in spending a lot of time with.”
“You’re
always
meeting an interesting lady, aren’t you?” Billy grinned and gave his favorite deputy a manly wink. “A new flame every week or two. Always lovely, always passionate, always a brief love affair. Custis, you need to find a woman that is like my wife. Solid. Dependable. Not flashy or witty, but just salt of the earth and one that will stand by you through thick and thin.”
“Given the pittance this office pays me as an excuse for a salary,” Longarm muttered grumpily, “for me times are always thin.”
“Oh now, it isn’t that bad. So cheer up, because I’ve just heard that we’re going to get a federal pay raise this fall.”
“I’ve heard that from you every year I’ve worked here, and it ain’t happened yet.”
“Ahh,” Billy said, raising a forefinger from behind his massive walnut desk. “But I am considering you for a
field promotion
.”
“And I’ve heard that before too.”
Billy smiled and shook his head as if it were a trial to deal with such a gifted but obstinate deputy marshal. “Sit down, Custis. And do take one of these Cubans and enjoy yourself with me for a little while. We have something very exciting and important on our plate.”
Longarm took a seat in front of Billy’s desk and snatched a long, black cigar from the humidor. His eyes fell on the cigar and he sniffed it with suspicion, knowing that sometimes Billy claimed he smoked Cubans but
they were actually cheap Mexican imitations. “All right,” Longarm said, satisfied that the cigar was as claimed, “what is it you’re trying to hook me into this time?”
“We have a disappearance,” Billy said. “A strange and troubling one…actually
two
disappearances.”
“People disappear all the time. Sometimes they have very good and rational reasons to disappear. Too much debt. A nagging wife. A lovely mistress or an enemy that is trying to put them in the ground. Why, I once even heard of a man who disappeared because he couldn’t stand all of his wife’s cats.”
“Those are trivial reasons for disappearing. I’m talking about two very important and responsible people,” Billy said, striking a match and then lighting both of their cigars. “And their disappearances took place in an extremely unique setting.”
“Don’t tell me…They disappeared in Death Valley.”
“No,” Billy said with a chuckle. “Some place even more remote and dangerous.”
“Alaska Territory?” It would be good to go there now, Longarm thought, before wintertime set in up in that cold, lonesome country.
“Uh-uh. The location I’m talking about is much, much closer to us here in Denver. But it’s a place that few have seen. A landscape filled with extreme danger and great mystery.”