Longarm and the Train Robbers (21 page)

Longarm glanced up
from his plate.  "You know, you can still back out. Just give me
the loan of your shotgun and go on back to Donner
Pass."

"Oh, no!"
Pettibone said.  "Besides, you've already got a six-gun on your
hip and a Model '73 Winchester.  I imagine that you're also
packing some kind of hideout gun.  So I just don't see that you
need any more weapons.  What you need is more hands, and mine
will have to do."

"They'll do fine,"
Longarm said with a smile.

When they finished
breakfast and packed their gear, they laced on the snowshoes and
headed on down the trail.  In less than an hour they saw the
lake, shimmering like an emerald in the early morning
sun.

"It's beautiful,"
Pettibone said.  "I swear it's the prettiest sight that I've ever
laid eyes upon--except for my wife."

"Of course." 
Longarm shielded his eyes against the rising sun.  "Where is
Agate Bay and the cabin?"

"Straight ahead."
Pettibone replied.

Longarm followed
the man on down into the volcanic basin that cupped Lake Tahoe. 
It was still very early and, if they were in luck, it was even
possible that they could yet catch the gang asleep.  Such men
lived hard, and would stay up half the night drinking, playing
cards, and whoring, and sleep late the next day.

Longarm hoped that
was the case now.  Otherwise, things were going to become very
exciting indeed in the next hour.

CHAPTER
18

It was too fine a
morning to die.  Much too fine, Longarm decided as he advanced
silently toward the cabin.  He and Pettibone had already circled
the hideout and discovered the outlaws' horses corralled back in
the trees.  Now it was just a matter of getting the drop on this
bunch before they had time to wake up and mount any form of
resistance.

Pettibone was
advancing on the cabin from the opposite side, and it was decided
that Longarm would be the first one through the door, going low,
while the railroad detective would come in standing up with his
double-barreled shotgun ready to roar.

Longarm's heart
was pounding as he stepped up to the cabin and placed his hand on
the doorknob.  He listened for any sign that the gang was awake,
but heard nothing but snoring.

"Are you ready?"
he whispered to Pettibone.

Pettibone gripped
the shotgun in his fists and nodded.

Longarm turned the
knob in his left hand, and when it was open a crack, he hefted
his Winchester in his left hand while his right hand clenched his
six-gun.  Very slowly, he eased the door open, took a quick step
inside, and dropped to one knee.

"Everyone freeze!"
he bellowed.  "You're under arrest!"

It was dim in the
cabin.  Too dim to see anything but shadows and silhouettes.  But
not too dim to detect movement.  The outlaws all went for their
guns.  The entire room exploded with panic and gunfire.  Longarm
felt a bullet graze his neck and he flattened, gun belching
bullets and fire.  Behind him he heard Pettibone grunt, and knew
the man was hit even as the shotgun boomed twice.  Pettibone
tumbled back outside, and the hammer of Longarm's gun struck an
empty.  He dropped the weapon, dragged his Winchester up, and
began to pound heavy lead into the darkness.

In moments, the
interior of the cabin was filled with gunsmoke and the wails of
wounded and dying men.  When the return fire died, Longarm
scrambled back out the door and hurried to Pettibone's side.  The
railroad detective had been hit by a bullet across his temple
which had also ripped away the top half of his right ear. 
Pettibone was bleeding, but more dazed than anything.

"Don't let all
that blood buffalo you," Longarm said.  "You're going to live to
earn a railroad citation for bravery.  Reload that shotgun
because we might not be finished."

Even as Longarm
was speaking, Eli Wheat crashed through the cabin's lone front
window.  He rolled in the snow, then jumped up and sprinted
toward the trees.

"Stop!" Longarm
shouted, dragging his Winchester to his shoulder.  "Damn you,
Eli, freeze!"

But Eli didn't
freeze.  He spun around and fired back at Longarm, narrowly
missing, probably because snow or even blood was fouling his
vision. Cursing, Eli whirled and vanished into the forest running
hard.  Longarm had no chance to drop the killer before he
disappeared.

"Listen to me,
Pettibone!" Longarm yelled.  "If there's anyone left alive in
this cabin with a mind to escape, you've got to drop them with
that shotgun.  Do you understand me?"

"Yeah," Pettibone
said, lowering a bloody hand from where the top of his ear had
been.

When the railroad
man began to reload, Longarm knew that Pettibone was going to be
able to guard the cabin door and take care of himself.

"I'll be right
back," he vowed before he whirled and raced after Eli.

Eli was fast and
he was desperate.  Wherever he crossed patches of snow, Eli left
a crimson stain.  Longarm knew that the man would never be taken
alive.  His tracks angled to the lake's shoreline.  In some
places, the shore was soft with mud and Eli had sunk deep but
kept running.  Just ahead there was a small peninsula where the
pines crowded the edge of the water.  When Longarm was within
fifty yards of that place, Eli jumped out of the trees and opened
fire.

Longarm felt a
bullet whine past his face.  He dove into the moss and muck
alongside the lake and tried to bring his rifle to bear on Eli,
but the man was gone again.

"Damn!" Longarm
shouted, jumping up covered with mud and half-frozen muck.  He
slogged onward knowing that he made a great target.

It was not until
Longarm had crossed the peninsula and broken back into the open
that he saw the fugitive had commandeered a rowboat and was madly
rowing across the big lake.  Tahoe, unlike the much smaller and
shallower Donner Lake, had not frozen, although it was rimmed by
shore ice.  Longarm searched in vain for another boat, and when
he saw that Eli would escape, dropped to one knee and took aim at
the rowboat's hull.

"Eli!" he
shouted.  "Turn around and row back!"

Longarm's voice
carried strongly across the freezing, choppy water.  "You hear
me!" he yelled.  "This is Deputy Custis Long and you're not
getting away from me again!  Now stop and row back!"

"Go to hell!" Eli
screamed, oars flashing in the morning sun.

Longarm could have
shot Eli, but he wanted him alive.  The man was still less than
three hundred yards out, but he was pulling away fast.  Longarm
had no choice.  He fired, and saw the hull of the wooden rowboat
splinter at the water line.

"Aim lower!" he
muttered to himself.

His next bullet
struck the waterline, ricocheted like a flat rock, and then
exploded through the wooden hull.  Longarm heard Eli scream as
much in fury as in fear.  Eli yanked off his jacket and
desperately tried to plug the hole.

Longarm began to
methodically riddle the rowboat.  Each bullet ripped through the
hull right at the waterline.  He was careful not to hit Eli
because he was sure that the killer would leap into the water and
swim back resigned to face that Denver hangman.

But Eli fooled
him.  The man just kept rowing even as his boat took on more
water and began to sink.

"You can't make
it!" Longarm yelled.  "Jump and swim back!"

"Go to hell!" Eli
screamed.  "I can't swim!"

Longarm lowered
his rifle and came to his feet.  He stood rooted to the muddy
shore as Eli spun the oars and the rowboat slowly sank.  Longarm
felt sure that the outlaw would leap into the water and attempt
to cling to the wooden hull, and maybe that was Eli's intention. 
But the rowboat was old and water-logged, so the thing just
sank.

"Help!  Help me,
Deputy Long!" Eli screamed, hanging onto an oar and trying to
make it support his weight.  The oar, however, was too
light.

The corners of
Longarm's mouth twisted down as he watched the drowning. Eli
Wheat fought the freezing water for several minutes, and then he
disappeared in a swirl of bubbles.

When Longarm
returned to the cabin, he found Bruce Pettibone inside, attending
to the wounded and the dying.

"How many are
going to make it?"

"Big Tom Canyon is
dead.  Hawk Jenkins is too.  Two-Fingered Earl is lung-shot and
he just drowned in his own blood.  Indian Red Lopez won't last
through the next hour."

"Who does that
leave?"

"Hamilton and
Orr.  Both are wounded but they're going to live."

"Good.  We'll need
confessions and evidence against Senator Howard."

"I've already
gotten it.  They're so spooked that I didn't even have to ask
about the senator.  They volunteered the information."

"How are you
doing?"

"I thought I was a
goner," Pettibone admitted.  "I saw my entire life flash before
my eyes."

"For a
fact?"

"No," Pettibone
said, "but it sounded good.  I'll be fine.  Maybe I'll look a
little funny with just half a right ear, but I'm not
complaining."

"And neither will
your wife and children," Longarm said.

"What happened to
the one that came out through the window and you chased
after?"

"He drowned in the
lake."

"Drowned?"

"That's right.  If
they manage to fish out his body, they won't find any bullet
holes.  At least none that proved fatal."

Pettibone looked
around at the slaughterhouse filled with dead and dying men.  He
shook his head.  "I won't ever forget what happened
here."

"Me neither,"
Longarm said, stepping out of the cabin and dragging in some
clean, cold air.

The next day there
wasn't much else that people in northern Nevada talked or read
about other than how Longarm and Bruce Pettibone had survived a
terrible gun battle with the notorious train-robbing gang at Lake
Tahoe, and how the only two surviving outlaws would turn state's
evidence against Senator Howard in exchange for their
lives.

Longarm had sent a
telegram to Billy Vail telling his boss that the reign of terror
against the Union Pacific and its innocent passengers was over.
Billy's answering telegram had come back within the
hour.

NICE WORK STOP NED
ROWE CAUGHT IN CHEYENNE BY FEDERAL AGENTS STOP RETURN TO DENVER
FOR CELEBRATION STOP GLAD TO HEAR THAT TAHOE FISHES WILL EAT
WHEAT STOP

The last line of
the telegraph gave Longarm a belly laugh.  The first he'd enjoyed
in a good long while.  He briefly considered visiting Veronica
Greenwald, but changed his mind.  Betsy would take care of
Veronica, who'd probably be married or teaching kids the next
time that Longarm passed through Reno.

Besides, Longarm
thought as he boarded the eastbound transcontinental, he wanted
to stay a few days in Laramie with Milly, and then another couple
days in Cheyenne to make sure that Wyoming's newest lady attorney
was off to a successful start.

By then, Billy
would be fit to be tied and have canceled the celebration. That
would be a shame, but Longarm figured that a man could only
spread himself around just so much.

The End