Longarm and the Missing Husband (11 page)

On the way back to the White River Agency, they spoke very little. Beth was grieving for her husband. Longarm was worrying that there was a murderer somewhere on this reservation.

“What did Hank write down in that ledger?” he asked at one point, reining his mule in so he was side by side with Beth while usually she followed to the rear of the pack mule.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it makes no sense that someone would go to all the trouble of burning it. An' not just tossing the thing on the fire either. That wouldn't have burned it up as complete as it was. Somebody took a lot o' time with it to get it to burn so complete. There was a lot o' ash in that pit but no wood piled anywhere, and I'm betting an experienced traveler like your husband would've collected wood enough to last him through the night before he ever built his fire. Whoever killed him wanted that ledger gone, too, an' stayed there long enough t' use up all the wood that Hank would've gathered.”

“I hadn't thought . . . Hank wrote down all of his elevations and compass sightings from the day, and he made copious notes. When he was done with a job, he would refer back to those notes when he was making his final report. He was very meticulous in what he put down in his ledgers, and he would keep them afterward. His office back home has a whole shelf of nothing but ledgers from past jobs so he could go back to them if he ever needed to.”

Longarm grunted and said, “Thanks.”

Then he was off, lost in his thoughts. He absently pulled out a cheroot, bit the twist, spat it out, then lit the slender cigar. By then he had resumed his lead position while Beth drifted back to the tail end of their tiny train.

They returned to the agency as dusk was gathering.

Longarm first took care of the animals, saw Beth to their hotel room, then walked over to the agency headquarters to report Hank Bacon's death.

“Where'd you say it happened?”

Longarm told the clerk who seemed to be in charge at night.

“That's on reservation land, all right.”

“Exactly,” Longarm said. “It's Federal land an' a Federal crime. First thing tomorrow I want a wagon out there t' collect the remains an' any evidence they can come up with.”

“Oh, I'm not sure we can do—”

“You damn well can,” Longarm snapped. “I'm telling you that you can, an' I'm telling you that you're gonna do it. Do you understand me?” His voice was hard and grating as a steel file.

“Yes, sir. First light tomorrow,” the clerk said. The man was soft, a little pudgy, a desk person not accustomed to action or to being spoken to like that. Probably, Longarm guessed, he was used to lording it over the Indians who inhabited the reservation.

Longarm was giving orders, not asking favors.

“I'll want the wagon, a two-horse hitch to pull it, an' a couple young men who want to make a few dollars. Make it clear we'll be gone overnight. One day there an' another day back.

“While we're out collectin' the body and the evidence, you can have a coffin made. Something sturdy. It's gotta be shipped all the way back East someplace, and I don't want it coming apart along the way.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now get Bull Mathers over here. I need for him t' take me to see Washakie again.”

“Yes, sir. I'll, uh, I'll do it right away.”

Longarm lit a cheroot and stood there waiting while the clerk hurried to find Mathers and to make arrangements for the wagon and the young men to do the work that Longarm wanted.

The buckskin-clad mountain man joined him fifteen minutes or so later.

“Jimmy tells me you want to see Washakie again,” Mathers said.

Longarm nodded. “That's right. Did he tell you why?”

“He said that surveyor's body was found. He died a natural death?”

“A bullet in the back of the head means a man is naturally gonna die,” Longarm said. “Does that count?”

Mathers grunted and said, “Let's go see the chief. Maybe he's heard something though I doubt it. A bullet to the back of the head doesn't sound like one of his people.”

“That's what I think, too,” Longarm told him, “but I have t' ask.”

“Right. Let's go.”

On their way out, Longarm saw the clerk—Jimmy, Mathers had called him—making himself inconspicuous at the side of the building. Apparently Longarm intimidated the poor fellow.

Longarm dragged himself back to the hotel late. He did not look at his watch but guessed the time to be ten or later. He had not taken time for supper and was ravenously hungry but even wearier after a marathon session with Bull Mathers and Chief Washakie.

There were enough rooms available this time that Longarm and Beth could each have their own, but he wanted to check on her before he slept. Or ate. Or whatever he could manage.

He knocked on her room door. She opened it almost immediately.

Beth was wearing her nightshirt, and it was obvious that she wore nothing underneath it. Her nipples poked at the cloth and made themselves known, and her tits jiggled when she walked. Horny as he was, the sight did not even elicit a hard-on.

A lamp burned on the nightstand and the bed had been turned back, but it was obvious it had not been slept in.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I'm fine, but you look a mess,” Beth said. “Would you like to come in?”

“No need for that. I just wanted t' look in on you before I turn in.”

“Let me rephrase that, Marshal. Would you please come in?”

His eyebrow went up in inquiry. “Something wrong?”

Beth hesitated, then said, “Yes. Please come in.”

“Sure.” He removed his hat and entered her room. There was a trunk at the foot of the bed. She must have been sitting there in order to leave the bed so undisturbed. “What's wrong, Miz Bacon?”

“Nothing.” Tears began to flow from her eyes. “I miss him, Marshal.”

“O' course you do. I reckon you always will. But you need t' go on anyway.”

“Yes. Of course.” She fabricated a smile that she obviously did not feel. “Please. Sit down. Uh, there, I suppose.” She pointed toward the bed.

Longarm perched on the edge of the cot and held his hat in his lap.

“Did you see Washakie?”

“Yeah, that's where I just been.”

“And did you learn anything?”

He shook his head. “Not a damn thing. The chief swears he hasn't heard anything about your husband. Mathers says I should believe him, that what Washakie doesn't hear his own self, one of his spies does. Mathers says there isn't a thing goes on anywhere on this reservation that he doesn't hear about. Mathers says he would swear your husband wasn't killed by any Indian. An' for other reasons, I feel the same.”

He did not want to get into a discussion about skulls and bullet holes and what that gunshot likely meant about Hank Bacon's last moments. Beth was having a hard enough time without that.

“Then the killer will get away with it?” she said.

“I hope not, but I ain't gonna tell you anything for certain sure. All I can do is poke around an' see what comes my way. In the meantime, I've hired a wagon an' a couple young Indians. We'll drive out tomorrow to where Hank camped an', uh, collect his remains. We'll be back day after tomorrow. In the meantime they're building a stout coffin that you can take with you back home.”

“You've been wonderful to me, Custis. Thank you.”

He could not remember for sure but thought that might have been the first time Beth called him by his first name. He considered that to be something of a victory.

Beth came and sat beside him on the bed. Close beside him.

She reached over and placed her hand on top of his crotch. Longarm's reaction was immediate. And vigorous.

It had been too damn long since he'd had a woman, any woman, and this woman's presence had been teasing him for days.

Now he amazed himself by saying, “You're alone an' widowed an' scared. It ain't me you want but a substitute for him. So I reckon it wouldn't be a real good idea.”

Longarm took her hand and moved it away from his dick. He leaned close and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek, then stood.

“Excuse me, Beth. I'm dead tired an' want t' go to bed. But I think it'd be better for me t' do that alone tonight. When I get back with your husband's body, if you still think it's a good idea, well, we'll talk about it then.”

He put his hat back on and headed for his own room.

Come morning, Longarm was surprised to find Beth standing outside his room along with a young Indian, a teenager perhaps.

He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes and almost managed it.

“Good morning,” Beth said, sounding as cheerful as she had been since he'd first laid eyes on her. “I brought you some squaw bread and some slices of meat. I don't know what kind it is, but it's meat.”

“Thank you. Uh, where . . .”

“I thought about it last night. I'm going with you. This is the last trip Hank will ever take, and I want to be with him,” she said.

“I s'pose you should have that right,” Longarm agreed. “You already know what it's like up there. If you've thought it over, then fine. What about you?” he asked, looking at the young Shoshone.

The boy just grinned, did not say a word.

“The wagon is already hitched and out front. There is another Indian boy out there, too. Did you ask them to help?”

“Yeah, I did. Figured I could use it.”

“All right then. They can go on ahead. I intend to have some breakfast before we leave.”

Longarm dispatched the young men with the wagon, giving them a general idea of where they should go. Once the wagon was on the way, he and Beth walked over to the sutler's to buy some boiled eggs and pickled sausages for their breakfast. After that they saddled Beth's horse and Longarm's mule and started off after the slower-moving wagon.

The boys chattered away like a pair of magpies but in their own tongue. Longarm could not understand a word they said. Not only did he understand no more than a handful of words, but they were speaking much too rapidly for him to follow even if he had had more of their language. Both seemed content, however.

Even Beth seemed in a better humor this morning.

The difference, Longarm thought, was that now she was busy. She was actively doing something toward getting Hank's body home.

They stopped to noon beside a tiny rill, ate a cold lunch, and got back on the way.

They reached Bacon's campsite late in the afternoon.

The boys seemed to have no aversion to touching Bacon's decaying remains. They piled everything they could find—body parts, bones, boots, and skull—into the dead man's sleeping bag and buttoned it closed.

Beth oversaw the operation but said little. When the boys were done and the body loaded into the light wagon, Longarm built a fire and they all settled down for the night.

He was only half asleep when he heard the distinctive
crack
of a bullet flying past and the whine of a ricochet. The bullet struck, as closely as he could tell, somewhere not far to his right, which meant the shooter—he heard the rifle shot several seconds behind the bullet strike—was on the rise to his left.

Another damn gunman was after them. The rise was not a bad choice if a little too distant for this shooter's abilities. Apparently this new son of a bitch was like the one he'd already killed—someone who toyed with his victims and wanted to watch them sweat before they died.

“Down!” Longarm shouted, taking his own good advice and rolling off his bedroll and away from the ring of light cast by the fire. “Get away from the fire.”

On the far side of the fire he could see that the Indian boys needed no urging. They'd already disappeared into the night.

Beth looked out from her bedroll and rose up on one elbow. She seemed sleepy and confused. “What—”

She barely had time to get the word out before Longarm threw himself on top of her and rolled away, taking her with him.

“Ouch, dammit.”

“You ain't s'posed to cuss,” Longarm said. “You're a lady.”

“But what—”

“It's another asshole with a rifle,” Longarm said.

He could feel Beth's heart thudding softly against his chest where he lay pressed tight against her. And he quickly got a hard-on that he was certain she could feel through the denim trousers she was wearing.

If she made that offer to him again . . .

But she would not. He was fairly sure of it. Dammit.

Longarm had his .45 in hand but nothing to shoot at. The rifleman was somewhere on the rise to their left, but it was a good hundred and fifty yards away and there was no way he could accurately shoot anything at that range.

“What is it?” Beth whispered.

“I don't reckon we got t' whisper,” he said. “Guy has to be a hundred yards off or more. Not all that good a shot either. He needs t' be close in order to do any damage, and sweetie, I'm not gonna let him come in close. Can you lay still, I mean doin' nothing but breathing, while I take a look-see?”

“Is this just a ruse so you can feel my breast?” Beth asked.

“What? Oh. Sorry. I wasn't paying no mind to where that hand was.” He chuckled. “Wish I'd noticed earlier so's I could've enjoyed it more.”

He removed the offending hand and scuttled away from her.

“Stay here. Keep to the dark. I won't be long, but it will feel a lot longer than it actually is. All right?”

“Yes. All right.”

Longarm holstered his .45—he would not be needing it until or unless he could get close to the rifleman—and moved silently away into the night.