Longarm 245: Longarm and the Vanishing Virgin (21 page)

But he was clearly determined that his intended targets weren't going to either.

Awkwardly, Carter reined in when he was about twenty feet from Longarm and Nora. He held the carbine in his right hand, the reins in his left. Even though he was badly wounded and was holding the carbine with only one hand, its barrel didn't waver. Hired killer or not, the gent had a hell of a lot of will, and Longarm could almost admire that.

“Might as well give it up, Carter,” said Longarm. “You're not going to make it back to Monahans.”

An ugly grin pulled Carter's lips back from his teeth. He wasn't the most attractive fellow in the world to start with, and now, with his face made gaunt and haggard from pain, he looked like hell. He laughed and said bluntly, “No, I won't make it back. But neither will you, Long. And as for the young lady ...

“You're going to kill her too.”

“I took the senator's money.” That summed it all up as far as Carter was concerned. He had been paid to do a job, and he would do it with his dying breath, if that was what it took.

Longarm took a stab at something. “You know, Palmer would have killed you too once you disposed of me and Miss Canady. He couldn't afford to let you live either.”

“He might have tried,” rasped Carter.

“Oh, he'd have found a way. He couldn't leave you alive to maybe testify someday that he had his own fiancée murdered. He would have been afraid too that you might try to blackmail him.”

Carter looked offended. “He never would have even seen me again, once the job was done.”

“Well, now he doesn't have to worry about it, does he? Because you're going to be dead, Carter. The senator wins, all the way around.”

“Doesn't matter to me.” Blood had pooled on Carter's saddle and was now dripping off it, falling with a steady
plop-plop
onto the ground, where it was rapidly sucked up by the ever-thirsty sand. “I'm gone either way.” The hired killer lifted the barrel of the Spencer a little. “And so are y—”

He swayed in the saddle before he could finish the sentence, and that was what Longarm had been waiting for, the reason Longarm had stalled. Loss of blood had made Carter dizzy and almost made him fall. Longarm seized the chance.

His gun came up and bucked against his palm as he fired. The Spencer erupted at practically the same instant, but Longarm's shot came a fraction of a second quicker. The slug took Carter high on the chest and drove him backward out of the saddle. The carbine's barrel had already tipped up slightly when he squeezed the trigger, sending the bullet harmlessly over the heads of Longarm and Nora. Carter's body thudded loose-limbed onto the sand and didn't move again.

A faint whimpering sound came from Nora. She had to realize how close she had just come to dying.

But close didn't mean much in a corpse-and-cartridge session like this, Longarm thought as he heeled the dun over next to the fallen killer. He held the gun ready just in case as he dismounted and checked Carter's body. The man was dead, all right. And he had evidently been the only survivor of the earlier shootout. Nobody else had shown up, and the only sounds to be heard were the faint moan of the wind and the tiny rustling of the eternally shifting sand.

Longarm holstered his gun and turned the dun back toward Nora. She watched him with eyes made wide by fear and shock as he approached. “Is ... is he dead?” she asked.

“As can be,” said Longarm with a nod. “Now, we'd better make tracks for Monahans just in case there's anybody left alive out here besides us.”

He hitched his horse into motion, and Nora fell in beside him. After a moment, she said, “You really won't make me go back to Jonas?”

“I reckon you'll be seeing the senator again sooner or later,” Longarm said, “when he stands trial for everything he's done.”

The shadow of a smile passed over Nora's face. “I'd like that,” she said.

 

It was late afternoon when the two of them reached Monahans. During the long ride, Nora had confirmed for Longarm that none of the outlaws had harmed her.

“Some of them wanted to ... to molest me, I think,” she had said. “But Mr. Wallace made it clear to them that he would kill them if they touched me. And the one they called Dutchy, he was nice to me too. Mr. Van Horn kept looking at me, but he ... he never did or said anything to hurt me.”

“Wallace wanted that ransom,” Longarm had pointed out to her.

“Yes, I know. Mr. Van Horn had written a letter to my father asking for money. He was going to take it into town and mail it.” She'd shaken her head. “He never got around to it.”

Now, as they rode slowly down the main street of the settlement, Longarm saw a familiar face as a man stepped out onto the boardwalk from one of the stores. Walt Gibson, the middle-aged rancher who had been on the stagecoach when Nora was kidnapped, dropped the package he was carrying and shouted, “You son of a bitch!” as he reached for his gun.

Longarm had the Colt out of the cross-draw rig and leveled before Gibson could clear leather. “Don't do it, Walt,” he warned the cattleman. “You don't know what happened out there.”

Nora leaned forward anxiously. “That's right, Mr. Gibson,” she said, remembering the man from the time they had spent together as passengers on the stagecoach. “Marshal Long rescued me from the bandits. He may have even saved my life.”

Gibson looked dubious, and the crowd that was beginning to gather looked confused, but after a moment the rancher took his hand away from the butt of his gun. “You mean this fella's a lawman, Miss Cassidy?”

“Yes, he is.” Nora glanced over at Longarm. “And it's Canady, Nora Canady.” She flushed. “I'm sorry I had to use a false name earlier.”

Clearly, her real name didn't mean anything to Gibson. He gave Longarm a grudging nod as Longarm holstered the Colt. “I reckon I'll take the young lady's word. I ain't forgot that clout you gave me, though, mister.”

“And I'm right sorry about it too, Walt,” said Longarm. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

Gibson snorted and bent to pick up the package he had dropped. “The lady looks like she could use somebody to look after her for a while. Come with me, ma'am. I'll see you over to the boardinghouse. Mrs. Rawlings will take good care of you.”

Nora slid down from the horse with Gibson's assistance, then said to him, “Do you ... do you think I could get a bath?”

Gibson blushed a little. “We'll see about it, ma'am,” he promised.

Before they could walk across the street to the boardinghouse, Longarm asked Gibson, “Is there a regular lawman in this town?”

“Sheriff's away. But there's a troop of Rangers down at the Ace High.”

That was the best news Longarm had heard in a long time. The Rangers could help him round up Jonas Palmer and Emily Toplin, and they could make sure as well that Nora remained safe. As he heeled the dun into a walk, he said to Gibson, “Keep an eye on the lady, Walt. There could still be trouble.”

Grim-faced, the cattleman nodded.

Longarm found the Rangers sitting around a couple of tables in the Ace High Saloon, some of them engaged in a desultory game of poker. Their leader, a solemn young man who introduced himself as Lieutenant Gillette, shook Longarm's hand and nodded at the bloodstain on the marshal's side.

“Looks like you could use a sawbones,” Gillette commented.

“I'll be all right. There's something else I need more right now, and that's somebody to back my play.”

“Whatever you say, Marshal.”

“Let's head down to the Sure Shot.” Longarm figured that with a troop of Texas Rangers at his back, he could arrest even a United States senator.

The only problem with that idea was that Jonas Palmer was gone.

“He and the gal who was with him left this morning,” explained a bartender who was obviously startled by the amount of firepower standing around in his saloon.

“You mean Miss Toplin?” asked Longarm.

The bartender nodded. “Yes, sir, that's her.”

So Emily had either gotten loose, or somebody had come along and untied her. Either way, she had gotten back to Palmer, and both of them had lit a shuck out of Monahans as soon as possible. “How'd they leave?” Longarm asked.

“Caught the northbound stage.”

That figured. Palmer wouldn't wait around to see if Carter caught up to Longarm or not. The senator was probably running back to Denver as hard as he could right about now. He would hope that Carter succeeded in killing both Longarm and Nora, but just in case of more trouble, Palmer would want to be back home, where he was in his strongest position.

Disappointed, Longarm went back to the Ace High with Lieutenant Gillette and the other Rangers. Over several shots of Maryland rye—lifesavers, every one of them, as far as Longarm was concerned—he explained everything that had happened during the past couple of weeks. Everything he knew, that is. There were still some questions that Nora was going to have to answer.

“We'll take a ride out into the sand hills first thing tomorrow morning,” promised Gillette. “The bodies of those outlaws and Carter and his men will need to be brought in.”

“Was that your ambush I ruined a few days ago?”

Gillette nodded. “We would have given Wallace and his bunch a chance to surrender if you hadn't come along and warned them.” The Ranger gave Longarm a cool stare. “You're lucky things worked out as well as they did.”

“I reckon you're right,” Longarm agreed mildly. He tossed back what was left of the liquor in his glass.

Gillette gestured at one of his men. “My sergeant has quite a bit of experience in patching up bullet holes. Maybe he'd better take a look at you.”

“Wouldn't hurt,” said Longarm. He was suddenly extremely tired. He started to stand up....

And promptly fell over onto the sawdust-littered floor, upsetting his chair and causing Gillette to exclaim in surprise. Longarm had pushed his tired, battered body as far as he could, and now he was out cold.

 

At some point, Longarm woke up enough to realize that someone was helping him into a bed covered with soft, cool sheets. He murmured something, then dozed off again.

He had slept all night, he discovered when he awoke the next morning. The wound in his side had been cleaned again, and the bloodstained bandages around his midsection had been replaced. Fresh clothes lay on a chair, so he got up and got dressed, moving rather slowly so that sore and stiff muscles wouldn't protest too much. He guessed that he was in the boardinghouse; the room, with a rug on the floor and a crocheted bedspread and flowery wallpaper, looked like a boardinghouse room.

He was on the second floor of the building, he found when he stepped out into the hallway. A staircase led down to a foyer. Longarm descended the stairs carefully, hanging on to the banister.

Nora must have heard his footsteps, because she stepped into the foyer from one of the other rooms to wait for him. She was smiling broadly as she looked up the stairs at him. Her hair had been washed and hung in loose, luxurious waves down her back. She wore a light blue dress that matched her eyes.

“Good morning,” she said. “I was about to decide you were going to sleep the day away.”

“Well, you're a heap more chipper than you were the last time I saw you,” Longarm said dryly.

“Mrs. Rawlings has taken good care of me, just like Mr. Gibson promised. And he's such a nice man too.” She took Longarm's arm when he reached the bottom of the stairs, linking hers with it as she turned him toward what he now saw was a dining room. “And of course those Rangers have been very helpful, especially that handsome young Lieutenant Gillette.”

Longarm frowned a little at the admiration in her voice. Not that it mattered to him who she thought was handsome, he told himself.

“Who put me to bed yesterday?” he asked.

“That was Lieutenant Gillette, with the help of his sergeant.” Nora laughed. “The Lieutenant said you called him Beth. Who's Beth, Marshal Long?”

Longarm felt himself flushing. “Just a friend.”

“An old friend?”

“Not so old,” said Longarm. He sniffed the air in the dining room. “Oh, Lord. Is that bacon I smell?”

“And eggs and hotcakes and fried potatoes. Here, sit down. I'll bring you a plate. I've made sure that Mrs. Rawlings kept some of the food warm for you.”

The next half hour was a little bit of heaven for Longarm. He ate everything Nora placed in front of him, even though she had go to back to the kitchen three times. He put away a whole pot of coffee too, and when he was finally finished he leaned back in his chair and sighed. He reckoned he would live after all.

Nora was sitting on the other side of the table, watching him with amazement in her eyes. “I've never seen anyone eat like that,” she said.

“You grew up around rich folks and politicians,” Longarm said bluntly, “instead of people who work for a living.”

Instantly, he regretted reminding her of her background. A shadow crossed her eyes, and the smile on her lips disappeared.

It was just as well, Longarm told himself. The last half hour had been mighty nice....

But it was time for some answers, and he was sure they wouldn't be pretty ones.

“None of it would have happened if I had just done what Jonas told me,” Nora said as she sat at the table in the boardinghouse dining room with Longarm. Her hands were clasped together in front of her, and she kept looking down at the entwined fingers. “He said he just had to talk to my father for a few minutes, and then we could leave. We were going to the opera house, you see.”