Longarm and the Train Robbers (16 page)

The entire
operation took less than twenty minutes.  When it was over, Ida
heaved an obvious sigh of relief and said, "Mr. Fergus, how are
you?"

"I've been
better," he whispered.  "Help me sit up."

"It would be good
for you to keep lying down."

"I want to sit up,
damn you!"

Longarm stepped
forward.  He grabbed Fergus by the hair and yanked his head off
the table.  "Don't you dare talk like that to a woman who
probably saved your life!"

"It's all right,"
Ida said.  "Please let him go."

Longarm released
the man's hair.  Fergus's jaw bounced on the table, and then the
man pushed himself into a sitting position.

For a moment, all
eyes were on Longarm, who was clearly struggling with his anger. 
And in that moment, Fergus happened to glance down and see the
bloody surgical instruments.  Without warning, his right hand
grabbed the scalpel and his left hand fisted Ida's
hair.

Before Longarm
could move, the scalpel was pressed to Ida's throat.  Luke made a
tortured sound in his throat.  He took a step forward and cried,
"Please don't kill her!"

Fergus was woozy
from blood loss and whiskey.  He licked his lips and his eyes
radiated hatred as he stared at Longarm.  "You pull that big gun
of yours and try to shoot me again," he choked, "and this lady is
a dead Samaritan! You understand me?"

"I understand you
perfectly."

Fergus giggled. 
"No surgeon in the world is fast enough to keep this woman from
bleeding to death once I cut her throat from ear to
ear."

"You'd do that
after what Mrs. Friedlander did to save your worthless
life?"

"Deputy, I'll kill
her in a heartbeat if that's what it takes!  Now, with your left
hand, ease that gun out of your holster."

Longarm was still
shaking; only it was no longer from the cold--it was with fury. 
He knew without a doubt that once Fergus had his gun, the man
would shoot him and the rest of them to death.  Handing Fergus a
loaded six-gun was not even a remote consideration.

"You should think
this out again," Longarm warned.  "It's the whiskey that's made
you crazy."

"Oh, no!" Fergus
cried.  "It's the fact that I was at Laramie Summit and so was
Ned Rowe.  You'd have gotten someone to squeal and say that
sooner or later, and I'd have been sentenced to hang.  That's why
I'm getting out of here now!"

Fergus motioned to
the large sliding door.  "Tell the clerk to open it
wide."

"Open it," Longarm
said, not daring to move.

The clerk rushed
over to the door, threw the latch, and pushed the door open.  All
the heat that had been generated by the fire was lost as cold air
blasted into the mail car.  Mail still unsorted and resting in
trays took flight in a blizzard of paper that swirled in the
air.  Outside, the rain was still falling and the higher
sage-covered hills were dusted with a blanket of glistening
snow.

"Give me your
gun," Fergus repeated.  "Hand it over now!"

"And then
what?"

Fergus actually
giggled.  "Then you're going to jump off the train.  If you're
lucky, you'll live.  If not, well, no one lives
forever."

"And the
others?"

"I'll lock them in
this room and they won't be harmed."

"Don't believe
him!" Luke cried.  "In my heart I now understand that this man is
a killer!  He is possessed by Satan!"

Longarm pretended
to disagree.  "He'll keep his word because there is no reason to
kill you folks."

"But a man
possessed by the Devil needs no reason!"

"Shut up!" Fergus
cried.  "Old man, you shut up or I'll slit your woman's
throat!"

A trickle of blood
seeped down Ida's throat and stained her collar.  But Ida
Friedlander was a marvel of control.  She didn't even
whimper.

"For the last
time, give me your gun!" Fergus shrieked.

Longarm slowly
extracted his gun and laid it on the table.  His mind was
spinning like the wheels of a slot machine, but there was no hope
of a payoff.

"Push the gun over
here!"

Longarm nodded,
and his free hand brushed his vest, thumb hooking into his watch
chain.  To everyone in the mail car it appeared as a thoughtless
move, but as Fergus reached for the six-gun, Longarm's hand dug
into his vest pocket and instead of a watch fob, out came his
solid-brass twin-barreled .44-caliber derringer.

Ida bit Fergus's
wrist.  The scalpel clattered on the table and Ida threw herself
over backward, spilling across the floor.  Luke jumped to cover
her body with his own.

Fergus lunged for
the Colt resting only inches from his grasp.  His fingers closed
on the big weapon as the derringer in Longarm's fist bucked
solidly and a blue hole appeared just over Fergus's right eye. 
Fergus's eyes rolled upward as a dribble of blood crested the
bridge of his nose and splashed to the table.  Fergus's fingers
drummed on the table and then quivered.

CHAPTER
13

"Dammit anyway!"
Longarm swore.  "Why'd Fergus have to go and do a fool thing like
that for?"

Longarm peered
closely at the woman who had almost had her neck slit open.  "Are
you all right, Ida?"

"Why... I think
so."

Luke helped his
wife to her feet.  There was a smear of blood on her throat, but
it was clearly just a superficial wound.  Ida was visibly shaken,
but then, Longarm knew that anyone would have been upset after
such a harrowing ordeal.

"Ida,
honey?"

"I'm all right,
Luke," she whispered as her husband pulled a clean handkerchief
out of his back pocket and pressed it to the scalpel cut at her
neck.

"I'm going to take
her back to the coach," Luke said after Ida appeared to regain
her composure.

"Good idea,"
Longarm said in agreement.

"What about the
body?" the mail clerk demanded when the couple had exited the
mail car.  "Deputy, you ain't just going to leave it lying there
on the floor with him staring up at the ceiling.  Are
you?"

"What do you want
me to do?" Longarm asked with rising annoyance.  "Kick Fergus out
the door and feed the coyotes and the buzzards?"

"Well, no, sir! 
But you can't just leave him lying there staring that
way!"

"The hell I
can't," Longarm said, pulling the sliding door shut and slamming
the latch down hard.  "I imagine that you have a lot of work to
do. So do it!"

Longarm left the
mail car for another coach, seeking warmth and whiskey and maybe
even a pretty woman to remind him that there was still beauty in
the world.  He found two of the three fairly quickly.

"Excuse me, miss,
but would you mind if I sat down here close to the stove?  I'm so
cold that I'm about to shake my teeth out."

The woman turned
and stared at Longarm with unconcealed apprehension. She was
obviously taken aback by his rough, unshaven, and unwashed
appearance.

"Miss, my name is
Custis Long.  I'm a federal officer of the law."

Longarm reached
into his pocket, rummaged around for a moment, and brought out
his badge.  "See?"

"Yes, I see," she
said, finding her tongue and relaxing.  "And you do look damp and
very cold."

"I'm the fella
that stopped this train a while back," Longarm explained, easing
into the seat beside her.

"But where is your
prisoner?"

"Well, ma'am, he
died real suddenly of poisoning."

"Poisoning?"

"Yep.  Took us all
by surprise."

"How terrible!" 
The woman leaned forward and studied him intently.  "Was it
something he ate or drank?"

"I would rather
not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"I'm sorry.  My
name is Veronica Greenwald.  I'm a schoolteacher and I'm on my
way to Reno.  I've accepted a teaching position
there."

"Reno is a nice
town."

"Have you been
there often?"

"Four or five
times.  I'm on my way there now, as a matter of fact."

"How
nice."

The woman smiled
and Longarm felt warmed inside.  Veronica appeared to be in her
early thirties.  She wore wire-rimmed glasses, and her blond hair
was pulled back into a severe bun.  Even so, she was very
pretty.  She had classic features, and her starched white blouse
could not hide the fact that she was exceedingly well
endowed.

"I suppose,"
Veronica said, "that you'll have all kinds of reports and things
to write concerning the death of your prisoner."

"I
suppose."

"Was he...  was he
really awful?"

"He was a liar, a
horse thief, and a murderer." Longarm said flatly.  "He tried to
cut a lady's throat after she saved his worthless
life."

"Oh, dear!" 
Veronica looked away.  "I know that there are men that evil, but
I've never met one."

"Consider yourself
very lucky," Longarm said with conviction.  "Where are you
from?"

"Iowa.  I was
raised on a farm.  I was raised by a farmer and fell in love with
a boy who became a farmer."

"You're
married?"

"No, Mr. Long. 
Three months ago a tornado came through our little town and
killed my fiance.  It wiped out our family farm and flattened our
school, church, and most of Grover City's main
street."

"I'm
sorry."

"It was a
disaster.  I decided to go West and try to start over again. It
was too painful to remain in Grover City.  Fortunately, I was
able to secure the promise of employment in Reno.  I understand
that the person I replace has contracted some sort of very
serious illness and must for sake the classroom at
once."

"I
see."

They chatted for a
few more moments, then lapsed into a comfortable silence. 
Longarm briskly rubbed his hands together trying to warm them. 
He leaned his head back against the seat cushion feeling angry
and even a little depressed for having lost another prisoner. 
Fergus was the fourth man he'd killed while on this case; only
Ned Rowe, of the gang members he'd encountered, had escaped with
his life.

"I think,"
Veronica observed after about an hour, "that the storm is passing
on."

Longarm gazed out
the window and then at Veronica.  "There is no doubt that the sun
is going to shine again."

"Mat's an odd way
of putting it."

"I just meant that
your eyes are as blue and lovely as a summer sky and your smile
is warmer than any sunlight."

Veronica blushed. 
"My, you are a flatterer!"

"I'm an honest
man."

"Not
entirely."

"What does that
mean?"

"It means that
just before you came, the conductor passed through saying that an
outlaw had been shot by a deputy in the mail car."

"I see.  Then why,
Miss Greenwald, did you pretend not to know?"

"I'm sorry.  I
wanted to hear you tell me what happened."  Veronica smiled. 
"Really, Mr. Long, why did you tell me that the prisoner was
poisoned?"

"Because he was! 
He died of a very sudden and severe case of lead
poisoning."

It wasn't meant as
a joke, and Veronica did not laugh or even smile.  She just
blinked, her eyes large and luminous behind her glasses as she
regarded her companion for a moment and then turned to stare out
the window.

At Rock Springs,
Longarm sent Billy Vail another telegram:

EN ROUTE TO RENO
STOP NED ROWE ESCAPED NEAR LARAMIE STOP OTHER PRISONERS ALL
CONTRACTED FATAL DOSE OF LEAD POISONING STOP REPLY TO RENO AT
ONCE STOP

"A fatal dose of
lead poisoning?" the telegraph operator asked with raised
eyebrows.

"Just send the
message, okay?"

"Sure
thing."

Once his telegram
had been sent, Longarm hurried outside.  He considered visiting
the sheriff, who was his friend, but when he passed by the man's
office, it was locked and empty.

Longarm was amazed
at how Rock Springs was growing.  The streets were filled with
wagons and pedestrians.  And while there were some ranches and
farms in the neighborhood, as evidenced by a handful of cowboys,
Rock Springs was unquestionably a railroad town.  Its coal mines,
owned by the Union Pacific, were among the largest west of the
Mississippi River and of vital importance to keeping the railroad
moving.  Because of the prominence of coal mining, there were
huge open-pit mines nearby and dozens of spur tracks leading off
to those gaping pits.

Like Laramie and
Cheyenne, Rock Springs could boast a colorful past.  In 1861, a
Pony Express rider, detouring to escape marauding Indians, had
discovered the sweet-water springs flowing out of a massive rock
formation. This had given Rock Springs its name.  Later, the site
became a stage station, and when the Union Pacific arrived, the
town had already mushroomed into one of the largest in the
territory, and boasted a growing population and evidence of
continuing prosperity.