Longarm and the Missing Husband (12 page)

Longarm put on a textbook-perfect stalk on the rise where the shot had been fired. The only problem . . . there was no one there. When he finally reached the spot he was silently stalking, he stood alone in the chill night air.

“Son of a
bitch
!” he mumbled, thumb hooked into his belt only inches away from the grips of his Colt revolver.

He removed his hat and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead then brushed off the knees of his corduroy trousers, gritty from the low profile he had kept while stalking what he thought was an ambusher.

Again, though, whoever the bastard was and whatever reason he had for trying to shoot one or both of them, he was gone now. Oh, Longarm would come back up onto the hillock in the morning and look to see if there was anything that might help him to identify the shooter. There would be nothing. He knew that. He would make the effort anyway, just in case the cocksucker slipped up and left something behind.

Cocksucker. Funny thing about that word, Longarm thought as he hiked back down to the camp, where Beth was waiting.

To call a man a cocksucker was a deadly insult that could result in the death of one or both of the parties involved.

Yet a female cocksucker was a being to be cherished and appreciated.

When he reached the glowing embers that had been their fire, Beth was waiting for him.

“Did the boys come back?” he asked.

“Briefly. But as soon as they could, they jumped on their mules and rode away. I don't think we'll see them again unless we look them up when we get back to the agency. We, uh, we will get back to the agency, won't we?” Beth asked.

Longarm smiled reassuringly and put a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, we'll live t' get back to the agency.”

“But what about the wagon and . . . and Hank?”

“The remains are loaded on the wagon already. Come morning, we'll put my mule an' your horse into harness, and we'll drive back the same way we came up here. Before we leave, you can pick through the camp and see if there's anything else you want t' take with you. Like for a, I don't know, a keepsake,” Longarm said.

“What if the man with the gun tries again to shoot us?” she asked.

“Then I'll kill the son of a bitch an' be done with it,” he said, his tone flat and expression serious.

“You mean that.”

“Damn right I do. Now lay down an' get some sleep. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day, and that wagon don't have any springs.”

Beth returned to her bedroll but a few minutes later she sat up. “Custis?”

“Yes?”

“I hope you understand. I know you want . . . something. But I just can't. Not with Hank lying right there in the wagon. It wouldn't be right. I mean, I know, technically speaking I'm a widow now and free to . . . you know. But I wouldn't feel right about it. I owe you my life. You've protected me and taken care of me and you should be entitled to some relief, but—”

“Go t' sleep, Bethlehem. Your talkin' is keepin' me awake.”

“Thank you, Custis. You're a better man than you make yourself out to be.”

“Shut up, woman. I'm tired.”

He heard her giggle, and after a moment she said, “Good night, Custis.”

“Good night, woman.”

Sitting side by side on the narrow wagon seat the next day, with no one else for miles around, they had more than ample time to talk, much more than in all the days they had been together thus far.

“Hank loved these wild Western territories,” Beth said. “I know he was happy on this job. He didn't believe he could find a rail route north to the mining camps, but Berriman and Jones were sure they'd make a lot of money if he could find one. Hank took the work mostly so he could come out here again. If he had to die, I'm glad it was in a place he loved so very much.”

If Beth was able to talk about her husband like that, Longarm thought it was a good sign. She was accepting Hank's death.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Of course. Anything.” She blushed. “Well, almost anything.”

Longarm laughed. He was beginning to suspect that Bethlehem Bacon was a prime catch. Her husband had been one lucky SOB. “How was Hank with strangers?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he talkative? Did he trust people? Would he likely turn his back on someone he didn't know, for instance?”

“I know what you are really thinking when you ask those things,” Beth said. “That Indian boy yesterday, Talle, Talla, Tally-something, the shorter one, he was proud of himself for the way he was taking care of Hank's skull. He brought it to show me. I saw . . . I saw the bullet hole in the back of his head, Custis.

“And no, Hank liked people well enough and could get along with pretty much anyone. But he would not have turned his back to a stranger like that.”

“So you think he was killed by someone he knew?” Longarm asked. “Maybe someone he had reason to trust?”

Beth nodded, her chin firm and her eyes growing moist. “Yes, Custis. Yes, I do.”

“There's another thing,” Longarm said. “That ledger. I keep wonderin' why anybody would take the time to rip pages out and burn them like they done, particularly after they just murdered the man whose campfire they were using to do the burning.”

“I can't answer that,” Beth said, “but I know Hank's ledgers were very important to him. He was meticulous about most things but passionate about his ledgers. He started a fresh one for every job.”

“So this ledger would have had his readings from this job?” Longarm said.

“Not just the numbers. He put down his thoughts, too. He put down everything that he thought might have any bearing at all on the job at hand, right down to botanical observations.”

“Yet someone thought it important enough to risk . . . small risk, true, but risk nonetheless . . . staying in the camp long enough to destroy that ledger,” Longarm said.

“That puzzles me, too,” Beth said.

After a little while she sighed. “I suppose we will never know why they went to all that trouble instead of just discarding it. Or tossing it on the fire and letting it go at that. Instead they ripped it apart bit by bit, and that would have been no easy task. Those canvas-bound ledgers are stout.”

Longarm mumbled something noncommittal, but his thoughts were churning. The killer was able to get behind Bacon. And the ledger had been important to him.

Who? Why? These were questions that needed to be answered.

There were no answers.

They rode in silence for a while after that, but a companionable silence without tension between them.

They left the wagon, still containing the mortal remains of Hank Bacon, outside the sutler's complex and put their horse and mule into the corral there then walked over to the hotel, tired but satisfied that they had accomplished what was needed.

“What about supper?” Longarm asked. “There isn't a regular restaurant but we can find something at the sutler's store.”

“If you don't mind, Custis, I'm really not hungry. I just want to wash and get a good night's sleep,” Beth said.

He nodded. “No problem.”

Longarm saw Beth safely into the hotel then helped himself to some of the jerky they had taken along with them when they went to collect the body. He ate quickly, without much interest in the food, and wished he had thought to bring a bottle of whiskey with him as he could not buy any on the reservation. It was illegal for Indians to drink alcohol in any form and illegal for anyone to sell it to them.

He settled for a long drink of water and some wistful memories to go along with it.

What this place needed, he thought, was a good, old-fashioned saloon. With dancing girls.

What it had was . . . not very damn much. With a long and heartfelt sigh, Longarm went to his room and stripped.

He hung his gun belt on a corner of the bed and treated himself to a good, all-over wash with the basin and pitcher. Feeling much better once he was clean, he stretched out on the bed and pulled the blanket over himself.

He was asleep within seconds.

Longarm awoke to the squeak of the door being opened. His first thought, and first hope, was that Beth was coming to him to get what he had declined to give her before. It was an impulse he did not intend to repeat. If she wanted the comfort of feeling a dick between her legs, he was just the boy to give it to her.

He was smiling when he looked up and saw a dark figure, definitely not Bethlehem Bacon, silhouetted against the pale glow of the lamp that was burning in the hallway.

More important than the silhouette of a man, though, was the faint glint of lamplight on steel.

The intruder was holding a wicked-looking knife.

Longarm yanked his .45 out of its leather and triggered a quick shot.

He heard a grunt of shock and pain, and the would-be assassin tumbled to the floor with a bullet in his leg.

Longarm threw himself on the man and clubbed him with the butt of his .45. The fellow continued to struggle so Longarm bashed him again then wrestled the knife away from him and tossed it harmlessly to the other side of the room.

The intruder had a bullet in his leg and a bloody gash in his scalp but he continued to buck and struggle underneath Longarm anyway.

“Hold still, dammit, or I'm gonna have to hit you again,” Longarm warned.

The man continued to fight so Longarm hit him again, slamming the butt of his .45 hard against the fellow's temple. That did the job. He went limp.

Longarm sat up, breathing hard from the unexpected exertion. He fumbled in the dark for a match, struck it, and used it to light the candle that had been provided in the room.

In the faint light from the lone candle, he saw that the man who had come into the room was an Indian.

Longarm handcuffed the intruder and quickly dressed. It was not lost on him that the gunshot and sounds of a fight had not drawn any interest from other guests in the hotel. No one had come to see what the problem was. But then perhaps they were accustomed to such goings-on in the night.

By the time Longarm was dressed, the Indian was beginning to regain consciousness.

Longarm used the fellow's own sash to make a wrap around the bullet hole in his leg then dragged him to his feet.

He was not entirely sure what he should do with a prisoner on the reservation. Surely they had a jail, but he did not know where it was. He settled for hauling the Indian over to the agency headquarters.

“This'un needs to go behind bars for a spell,” he said, dragging the man up the steps and into the headquarters building.

“We have a jail cell over at the army post. I can take him there if you like,” the night clerk said when Longarm told him what was going on.

“Fine but first I want t' know who hired him to kill me,” Longarm said, “an' why.”

There was a lengthy exchange in the Indian's native tongue, then finally the clerk said, “The answer to why he came at you is simple. He was hired to do it. He would have been allowed to take your hair as a trophy, but that was just a bonus. He was paid fifty dollars in gold and promised another fifty after you were dead.”

“I'm not 'specially sorry to deprive him of that second fifty,” Longarm drawled, reaching for a cheroot. “Now the big question. Who hired him?”

“That he refuses to say.” The clerk, a man named Jerrity, smiled. “But he is wondering if he can keep the fifty dollars he was paid up front.”

Despite the circumstances, Longarm tipped his head back and laughed out loud. “Shit yes, let him keep it. But I still want t' know who's behind it.”

“I wish I could tell you, but I doubt he would say even if you tortured him. Which is what he is expecting, by the way.”

“Then let him an' his fifty dollars rot for a spell behind bars,” Longarm said. “Can you have him taken care of from here?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then please do that. Bastard interrupted my sleep. I was right in the middle of a good dream when he woke me, an' I want t' get back to it.” Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson toward the night clerk, turned, and headed back to the hotel in search of that elusive good sleep.

Longarm woke up groggy and growling after a very poor night of sleep. He rubbed his chin but said the hell with shaving. That could wait a day. Or two.

He dressed slowly and checked on Beth. Her door was bolted shut. He did not try to wake her. He walked over to the sutler's complex and bought a slab of squaw bread and a can of beans for breakfast. Johnson had a pot of coffee warming on the potbelly so he helped himself to a cup.

He carried his purchases over to the side of the store and perched on a bale of dried coyote hides to enjoy his meal. While he was there, he idly watched the flow of commerce in the store.

Something he noticed almost at once was that there seemed to be two sets of prices for items—one price for the white men, mostly soldiers, who came in, the other for Indians of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes. The Indians paid four and sometimes five times the amount that the soldiers were charged.

That was unfair. But not illegal. Johnson could charge what he damn pleased. There was no law against it.

Longarm finished eating but carried his cup over to the stove for a refill. Whatever was in the brown bean seemed to help a man wake up. And this morning Longarm needed that help. He yawned and ambled over to the counter to buy another handful of cigars, as he was getting a little low.

“Penny apiece,” Pierre told him. “You got, let's see, you got seven of them there.”

Longarm forked over two three-cent pieces and a penny. Pierre dropped the coins into a metal box that was kept under the counter.

“I just saw an old Indian come in and buy one cigar. You charged him a nickel. D'you know the quality of a smoke I could buy in Denver for a nickel?” he said.

“Then I suggest you buy your cigars in Denver,” Pierre said, scowling.

Longarm grunted. But there was no point in getting into a pissing contest about it. He just thought it was wrong, that was all. “All right. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

A young soldier wearing a red sash, which probably meant something although Longarm did not know what, came in. “Marshal Long?”

“Here,” Longarm called.

The soldier presented himself and snapped to attention. “Sir, Agent Payne would like to see you. At your convenience, sir.”

“All right,” Longarm said, putting his coffee cup down. “Any idea what for?”

“I believe he wants you to fill out some forms, sir,” the youngster said, his voice as stiff and formal as his posture.

“You can tell Agent Payne that I'll be right over there, soon as I finish my breakfast.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The soldier executed an about-face and hurried away.

Longarm picked up his coffee cup again and took it with him back to the fur bale. He was not inclined to rush anywhere just for the sake of paperwork.