Longarm and the Missing Husband (3 page)

Longarm could say one thing for the girl. She had an appetite. He didn't think he had ever seen anyone so small put away so much food. She ate like there was no tomorrow.

But then, come to think of it, perhaps she really felt that tomorrow was in doubt.

She was far from home with no money, depending on a stranger to help her get by, help that as far as she knew could be withdrawn at any moment.

So perhaps it was no surprise that Bethlehem Bacon was packing away as much as she could as fast as she could manage.

Longarm let her fill herself while he sat back and had a light meal, then drank coffee until Beth ran out of room.

“Satisfied?” he asked. And pretended not to notice that she filched a pair of yeast rolls and hid them in a pocket of her dress.

“Yes, I am, thank you.”

“Can we go see Hank's boss now?” Longarm said.

“Of course. That's why we are here, after all.” Acting very prim and proper, Beth led the way to a suite of second-floor offices of the Berriman and Jones Land and Investments Co. Inc.

Interesting title, Longarm thought. It would cover almost anything Messrs. Berriman and Jones wanted to undertake.

“Have you been here before?” Longarm asked on their way up the stairs.

Beth shook her head. “No, but Hank told me about it. To tell you the truth, he wasn't sure about the partners, but they offered him a very generous salary.”

Longarm raised an eyebrow at that information.

“I have no idea what happened to his pay,” Beth said, “or if he even got any. He never sent anything back home. He wrote to me, of course, but he never sent any money. I kind of think he didn't get any, but I don't know that for sure.”

“We'll ask his bosses about that. If they are holding his pay for some reason, maybe they will hand it over to you.”

“It would be nice to have something other than my nightshirt and some tooth powder in my handbag,” she said.

Longarm opened the door for Beth to enter the Berriman and Jones office. There was no receptionist in the small inner office. A door leading into a larger office in the back stood open. A man in sleeve garters and an eyeshade was seated at a rolltop desk there. He looked up when Longarm and Beth came in.

Rising, the man came into the reception area. He was tall and slender, bald but with wildly bushy eyebrows and a very thin, graying mustache. “May I help you?”

“Are you one o' the partners?” Longarm asked before Beth could launch into her tale of woe.

“I am, sir. I am Honus Berriman. And you are . . .”

“I am Mrs. Bethlehem Bacon, and I want to know where my husband is,” Beth blurted out in a rush.

“Ah, yes. Mrs. Bacon. We received your telegrams, of course. I only wish I knew what to tell you,” Berriman said. “Would you care to come in and sit while we talk?” The man smiled and spread his hands palms upward. “Not that there is so very much to talk about. You probably know everything that we do. We lost touch with your husband several weeks ago. Haven't heard a word since.”

Berriman ushered them into the main office, which was larger than the reception area and held two desks, a bookcase, and two file cabinets. “Please. Sit down, Mrs. Bacon.” He fetched the chair from the other desk for Beth. He ignored Longarm and did not offer to find him a chair.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Berriman asked, not sounding like he particularly meant it.

“Perhaps you know that the government grants land holdings on every other section along a railroad right of way. Our purpose is more the land than the railroad, although that would be nice to have, too. In order to get the land, though, we have to lay track.

“There is already another company planning to build a line north running east of the Big Horns. Our idea is to build west of that mountain range. The line would be shorter by a good many miles, and that would lessen the cost of construction,” Berriman told them.

“Wouldn't that also reduce the amount of land you can get from the government?” Longarm asked.

Berriman glanced up at him as if annoyed. Longarm had not told the man what he did for a living, and Berriman had expressed no curiosity about who Longarm was or why he should be accompanying Beth Bacon. Probably he assumed Longarm was Beth's brother or some other close relative and was acting as her chaperone.

“We have done some calculating, of course. The land grant would be more than adequate, and our construction expenses would be greatly reduced,” Berriman said. “Now, Mrs. Bacon,” he said, turning his attention entirely back to Beth, “I wish I could help you, but like we told you in those telegrams, we really do not know anything.

“Your husband outfitted in Cheyenne and took a train west to Rock Springs. After that we know nothing of him or his whereabouts.” Berriman said.

Beth took a deep breath and straightened in her chair. “What about Hank's pay?” she bluntly asked. The girl had sand, Longarm conceded. Maybe, he thought, smiling to himself, it was all that lunch she managed to pack away before they came to the office.

“Pardon?” Berriman said.

“I said what about the salary you promised Hank?” Beth persisted.

“We paid it to him, of course,” Berriman said.

“You did not,” Beth declared firmly. “Hank would have sent some of his pay home if he received any. It is obvious that you didn't pay him at all. And now he is missing. Have you done something to my husband so you won't have to pay him what you owe?”

“Madam! How can you say such a thing? An accusation . . . unfounded . . .” Berriman sputtered with anger. Tiny droplets of spittle flew off his lip, and his face, except for the tip of his nose, became red. His nose was dead white. “I will not hear . . . cannot listen . . .
really
.”

Berriman dragged a kerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. Then he pulled his shoulders back. “I shall have to ask you to leave,” he snapped and turned his chair so that his back was to Beth and Longarm.

Beth seemed inclined to stay and argue but Longarm tapped her on the shoulder and motioned for her to leave. If Honus Berriman was that offended—or pretended to be—there probably was no point in arguing with him.

“Come on,” Longarm said when they were outside the Berriman and Jones offices and on their way back downstairs. “We'll go get us some coffee an' think this through.”

Rye whiskey and a good cigar would have been even better, but under the circumstances, coffee would have to do.

“'Bout the only thing there is t' do,” Longarm said, “will be t' go to Rock Springs an' see can we run Hank down from there.”

“That was my conclusion, too,” Beth said over her untouched cup of coffee. Damn, Longarm thought, but she was pretty. Somehow all the more appealing by being in trouble and needing his help.

Beneath the table he got a raging hard-on just from looking at that lovely face. It was a good thing, he thought, that the table was not glass. He would not want her to see that reaction.

“It's a little late in the day now t' be heading west again. We'll get us a good night's sleep an' head out again come morning,” he said.

In truth, they probably could have caught one of the UP's westbound passenger trains, or if not that, with his credentials, Longarm could have hitched a ride in the caboose of a freight train. The problem with either of those was that Beth looked dead tired now. He guessed she had not slept in days, probably not since she concluded that her husband was missing.

“We'll just relax the rest o' the afternoon,” he said, “have a nice meal, an' then turn in early. Why don't you take a nap before dinner, ma'am? I'll come wake you when it's time to eat.”

“What will you do, Marshal?”

“There's some errands I want t' run,” he said. “One o' them is to check the train schedule an' see what we can expect come morning.”

“I . . . All right,” she said. “A short nap doesn't sound bad.”

Longarm paid for their coffee—hers had not been touched—and walked with her back to the hotel. He collected the room key from the clerk and went upstairs with her, saw her safely into the room, but then touched the brim of his Stetson and pulled the door closed.

Longarm went back downstairs, the room key still in his pocket, and walked out onto the streets of Rawlins.

He had not reached the bottom of the stairs before he was reaching for a cheroot, had not reached the sidewalk before he got out a match to light it. And he would gladly have gulped down a slug of whiskey if only he'd had a flask with him. As it was, the whiskey had to wait for a few minutes.

He did take care of business before pleasure, though. He immediately headed for the UP depot to check the board for departures. There would be a westbound passenger train coming through at nine twenty the next morning. That should do nicely, Longarm thought.

As soon as he saw that, he turned on his heel and made a beeline for the Higgins and Co., Inc., Gentlemen's Club. He had been there before and knew it to be a pleasant place where a man could find a drink of whiskey and a game of cards without being bothered by whores cadging drinks or dealers who made their money by cheating.

The games at Higgins's were honest and the whiskey was of high quality, a splendid combination in Longarm's opinion.

Stepping inside was like finding an oasis of calm in a hectic world. The place was dark and quiet, sound muted by the sawdust spread liberally on the floor. It smelled of beer and cedar.

At this hour—too early for the serious gamblers—there were no tables in play, and only two men other than the bartender stood at the bar.

Longarm approached the bar with a sigh. Pretty as she was, it was frustrating being with Bethlehem Bacon knowing she was off limits. It was better being in his own sort of environment.

“Rye whiskey,” Longarm ordered when the bartender came to him, “an' a deck o' cards still fresh in the wrapper. Make that a bottle o' rye.”

“Coming right up.”

An hour later the level of excellent rye in the bottle had gone down a couple inches and Longarm was on his third cheroot since leaving Beth at the hotel.

The pair of drinkers at the bar had gone but they were replaced by a trio of men in suits and ties, one of them Honus Berriman. Berriman either did not recognize Longarm . . . or chose not to. In any case, he did not acknowledge the tall deputy seated alone at a table near the back of the room.

The three took seats at a table closer to the door and were served a bottle of something without the bartender having to ask what they wanted. They began playing poker.

Longarm would have liked to join them, but it seemed clear enough that this was a private game. He doubted that he would be welcome to play with them, so dealing solitaire would have to do.

He sighed—damn, he was doing that a lot lately, ever since he'd hooked up with Beth Bacon—and began shuffling his cards preparatory to laying out yet another game.

Then the front door opened, and two men with bandanas pulled over their faces walked in.

It took no great psychic powers to see what they were up to. Each carried a sawed-off double barrel. Each immediately eared back the hammers on their scatterguns.

By the time their muzzles began to lift, Longarm had his .45 in hand.

“Don't even think about it,” he barked in a loud, authoritative voice.

The two robbers apparently had not seen him sitting toward the back of the room. Now his command threw them off their game for a second or two.

Both stopped moving and stared toward Longarm.

“Set those guns down nice an' easy,” Longarm commanded. “Don't drop 'em and don't pull the triggers.”

For a moment he thought it was working. The man on his left paused, but the one on the right raised the muzzle of his shotgun and pointed it toward Berriman and his friends at the poker table.

Longarm's shot and the killer's—the two came in acting like robbers but made no demands for money, and there was very little on the poker table that would have been worth stealing—came at almost the same moment.

Honus Berriman was blown over backward, his chair clattering to the floor along with what remained of Berriman's face.

Longarm's 255 grain lead slug slammed into the breastbone of the shooter, spilling him onto the sawdust-littered floor.

When his partner dropped, the first man woke up from his reaction to Longarm's presence. He swung the twin barrels of his 12 gauge toward the tall lawman.

Longarm did not hesitate. His second bullet took the shotgunner low in the belly and doubled him over.

The man lost all interest in his shotgun and whatever mission had brought him into the saloon. He dropped his gun muzzle down. The jolt of striking the floor was enough to dislodge the hammer sears, and one barrel fired. The recoil drove the shotgun out of the man's hands, but by then he really did not seem to care. By then he was clutching his gut and keeling over.

The man dropped to his knees and then sprawled face forward into the sawdust with its load of mud and spit and tobacco juice.

The bartender and Berriman's two friends rushed to help him but half the man's head had been blown away by the killer. There was nothing they or anyone could do to help.

Longarm fought his way through the fog of acrid gun smoke to make sure both killers were dead, then went back to his poker table and began reloading his Colt, reminding himself that he needed to clean and oil it when he got back to the hotel.

A squat, burly man with more chest and arm hair than some bears very cautiously came inside. He wore a tin star displayed on his coat and held a double-barrel shotgun.

Longarm grunted, thinking that shotguns were an awfully popular item in Rawlins this year.

“Who . . .” the town marshal began.

“Over here,” Longarm volunteered.

“You killed both these men?” the marshal said, his voice gruff and demanding.

Longarm gave the man a long, slow look before he answered. “Yeah. I did.”

“You are under arrest,” the marshal said, not sounding quite so authoritative this time.

“Check your facts before you decide that,” Longarm suggested, just as polite as he knew how. Which at the moment was not terribly polite. He did not much care for this marshal nor the man's attitude.

“Are you going to give me trouble?” the marshal said. He seemed a mite nervous when he said it.

Longarm raised a boot to the seat of the chair opposite his at the table and shoved, sending the chair out away from the table. “Set,” he said firmly. “An' find out what's happened before you go arrestin' anybody.”

“I can see that three men are dead here,” the marshal said.

“Yes, an' I killed two of 'em,” Longarm told him.

One of the men at the poker table turned away from his friend's body and said, “Leave him alone, Jonathon. He likely kept Sam and me from being shot down same as Honus was.”

“They were just robbers, right?” Jonathon said.

The well-dressed gambler shook his head. “They weren't here to rob anybody, Jonathon. They came here to kill. Honus and likely Sam and me, too. This gentleman saved our bacon.”

“Oh. Well.” Jonathon seemed not to know what he should do next since there was no one who needed to be arrested.

“Any idea who these two were or why they would've been wanting to kill you?” Longarm asked.

“No. Of course not.”

Longarm did not believe the man for a moment, but whatever the reason, he did not want to trot it out in public. “All right, suit yourself.”

The gent hesitated then extended his hand. “I'm being ungrateful, aren't I? After all, you just saved our lives. My name is Cletus Berriman. This is Samuel Bannerman Jones.”

“Sam,” Jones put in. He had left the side of his friend's body and come to stand with his partner.

“May we buy you a drink? A meal? What can we do for you, Mr.—um? Anything, just name it.”

“Long,” Longarm said, taking the hint and the man's hand. “Custis Long.”

“Believe me, it is our pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Long.”

“It's Marshal Long, actually,” he said, cutting his eyes toward the stocky town badge carrier. “Deputy United States marshal out o' Denver.”

“Oh, well, I . . .” The town marshal seemed both surprised and a little unnerved by that news. “I, uh . . .”

“Does that arrest order still stand?” Longarm asked bluntly.

“No, uh, of course not.”

“Then get the fuck away from me before I put you under arrest for interferin' with a Fed'ral investigation.”

“I . . . I . . .” Jonathon sputtered a little but turned tail and began loudly issuing wholly unnecessary orders about what should be done with the bodies.

“You're here on business?” Sam Jones said.

“Yes, sir,” Longarm said, “an' if that offer of ‘anything you can do' still stands, there in fact is somethin' you can do t' help.”

“Name it, Marshal, up to my firstborn, and you shall have it.”