Longarm and the Diamondback Widow (10 page)

The breath wafting against Longarm's right cheek was rife with the smell of chaw and whiskey. It was accompanied by the old man smell of sour sweat and hair oil. In the corner of Longarm's right eye, he glimpsed the edge of a green eyeshade and a gray beard.

“Come on,” the old man said, pressing the pistol barrel harder against Longarm's ear. “Outside. I'm gonna kill you in the ravine out back.” There was a slight crackling sound of spittle as the graybeard spread his lips in a smile.

He grabbed Longarm's Winchester and stepped back abruptly. “Get movin' now, or I'll drill you here! No one would care except maybe the grievin' widow yonder!” He scoffed.

Longarm glanced at the depot agent he'd first seen skulking outside the Wyoming Stage Company office when the lawman had first ridden into town. He'd seen the man again later, drinking with his cronies in the Dragoon Saloon.

“What got your long handles in a twist, old-timer?” Longarm asked, raising his hands shoulder-high as he turned toward the stairs.

“Shut up an' get movin'. On down the stairs and out the back door.”

“All right, all right,” Longarm said, moving slowly toward the stairs.

Now his own rifle was being pressed against his back. The old man reached forward and slid the lawman's Colt from its holster. “Just keep movin'. No funny moves. Best be sayin' a prayer, 'cause you're about to meet your maker. I'm sorry about this—truly I am. It ain't right, such a young, good-lookin' hombre havin' to meet his maker way before his time, but there just ain't no other way.”

Longarm was descending the stairs. He glanced behind. The old man was following from about five steps up the staircase, just out of range if Longarm were to try wheeling on him to make a play for the rifle. Longarm's pistol was wedged behind the man's black belt and the waistband of his broadcloth trousers.

“No other way but to kill a federal lawman and feed his carcass to the coyotes, eh?” Longarm reached the second-floor landing and continued down the stairs toward the dark lobby below. “You did send that telegram—didn't you, old-timer?”

“That's right—I did,” said the old man behind Longarm. He was breathing hard, nervous. “Didn't know what it was all about. Then someone up and kills Rainey an' I realized it wasn't nothin' I shoulda got mixed up in. Okay, I sent the damn telegram. Didn't know Rainey was dead till later, after I sent that note to your boss. Since I caused the problem, I reckon it's only fittin' I fix it.”

As Longarm reached the bottom of the stairs, the old telegrapher said, “Turn to the left there. The back door's down the hall yonder. Dark in here but my eyesight's still keen. You try to make a move on me, I'll drill you with your own Winchester. Town'll thank me for it.”

“Why would they thank you for it?”

Longarm reached the door. The curtain in the door's top pane was drawn over the glass, but murky light still washed through it. He saw the latch lever, tripped it, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the cool, late-summer morning.

Birds chirped and fluttered. Wood smoke perfumed the air. The sky was periwinkle blue, edged with gray. Thick shadows lingered out here behind the hotel.

“'Cause I'm about to prevent a whole passel o' trouble, that's why they'll thank me. Ain't none of your business, anyways. Never was, never would be the business of the federal government. Diamondback takes care of its own damn, busi—Ahhh, shit! Goddamn!”

Longarm had wheeled on the man as the old-timer had stumbled slightly on the doorjamb. The lawman had grabbed the Winchester's barrel and given it a hard jerk, ripping it free of the old telegrapher's grasp. Longarm turned the rifle maw-forward, rammed it against the old man's belly, and slid his Colt from behind the man's belt.

When he'd shoved the .44 into the holster on his own left hip, he took the old man's own pistol out of his coat pocket. It was an old Confederate-made, cap-and-ball revolver, rusty and badly scratched, its walnut grips held together with shrunken rawhide. Keeping his rifle barrel pressed against the old man's soft belly, Longarm held the telegrapher's gun up for a quick inspection, and chuckled.

“An old Leech and Rigdon. Haven't seen one o' these since the War of Northern Aggression.”

“I carried it for the Star an' Bars,” the old man croaked out, holding his hands high above his head and resting back against the hotel's rear wall. “Took a Yankee ball at Chickamauga. You gonna shoot me, now—with my own gun? I reckon I deserve it for bein' such a fool. Go ahead!”

Longarm lowered the Winchester and took it under his arm. He lowered the old Confederate pistol's loading lever, removed the cylinder with the nipples and balls, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. He flipped the gun in his hand and extended it to the old man, butt first.

“Now you can't hurt anybody with it. You'll get the wheel back when I leave here, though I ain't leavin' till I've run to ground the son of a bitch or sons of bitches who killed Sheriff Rainey.”

Longarm set his rifle on his shoulder and opened the hotel door, about to head back inside. The old telegrapher gaped at him, holding his pistol low in his gnarled hand. “That's it?”

Longarm stopped. “It ain't it if you wanna tell me who killed Rainey.”

The old man just stared at him, sheepish.

“Thought as much. Since you're too damn old to beat it out of, I reckon you're free to go.”

“Des Rainey was my friend.”

“You oughta help me seek justice for him, then.”

“I can't.” The old man shook his head and scrunched his eyes, genuinely grieved. “I just can't. I've got an old woman. Without me, she'd . . .” He shrugged and just wagged his head miserably.

“I understand,” Longarm said, and went on inside the hotel.

He went back up to his room, washed the sex residue from his privates, grabbed his saddlebags and rifle, and headed back outside. Since it was still too early to hit the trail with the sheet of notepaper on which Meg had scratched out the route to the Garvey ranch, he headed over to Abigaile's for breakfast.

The same sexy young girl was there, sashaying around with her hips on fire. She was no friendlier this morning than she'd been the night before, but the breakfast she served him—a large stack of griddlecakes, two eggs, and a thick wedge of ham washed down with three mugs of piping black belly wash—padded him out nicely.

He lit a cheroot as he headed over to the livery barn to pick up his horse. Astride the bay, he rode over to the jailhouse for a look around the murder site. He doubted any clues as to who had shot Rainey remained in the office or in the street where Meg had watched her husband get blown—probably by a shotgun—but he wanted a look-see, just the same.

The sun was well up and spilling buttery gold light out of a clear, blue sky. Shopkeepers were out sweeping the dog and horse shit from their boardwalks, and the town's soaks were heading for the saloons for a red-eye.

Otherwise, Diamondback was still relatively quiet—only one farm wagon heading into town from the west, a wagon loaded with firewood heading in from the east, and two dogs sniffing around the high boardwalk beneath the Diamondback Mercantile, eagerly wagging their tails.

They probably had a cat or a skunk trapped under there, Longarm absently opined to himself.

The lawman tied the bay to the hitchrack fronting the sheriff's office, tripped the crude latch of the unlocked door, and went inside. He hadn't been looking around long—but long enough to satisfy himself that there were no clues there—when he heard near voices out in the street. He looked out the window over Rainey's desk to see four men angling toward the sheriff's office from the direction of the bank, which sat east of the Diamondback Hotel.

He recognized the dapper, bespectacled, well-dressed figure of the banker, Alexander Richmond, and the slouch-shouldered Dr. Baker, but the other two men Longarm had not seen before. One was young and also dressed in a crisp three-piece suit, while the fourth man was around Richmond's age—a tall, lean man in a black pinstripe suit with a gray bowler and a sweeping salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache.

Then Longarm remembered that he had seen the fourth gent before. He was the man Richmond had been talking with between the bank and the attorney's office when Longarm had fist ridden into town . . .

Longarm walked over to the door he'd left open and stepped out onto the front stoop, spreading his boots and hooking his thumbs behind his cartridge belt. “Gentlemen, if you'd let me know you were coming, I'd have put the teapot on.”

The four stopped in the street about ten feet out from the stoop.

“That's very funny, Marshal,” Richmond said. “Very funny indeed. Here, I wanted to introduce you to some other citizens of Diamondback. The younker here is my son, Jack. That's Doc Baker to his left and Attorney Charles Mulligan on my right.”

“How do you do, Marshal Long,” said Richmond's son, a young, handsome man resembling his father in that his frame was nearly as compact, though his was broader through the chest and shoulders. He had thick, red-blond hair, freckles, and a spade-shaped chin to add some dimension to a heavy, handsome jaw. His goatee and mustache were well trimmed.

Longarm nodded to his morning visitors.

Richmond flourished a carved mahogany walking stick by its silver dancing-stallion handle. “Well, I suppose you've been snooping around long enough to have learned that Sheriff Rainey was killed right here.”

“That's right.”

The attorney, Mulligan, glanced owlishly at Richmond. “Rainey's wife told him, most likely.” A blunt red nose marked the lawyer as a drinking man, as did the red-rimmed, red-veined, liquid-brown eyes on either side of it.

Richmond kept his disapproving gaze on Longarm. “Yes, I figured you'd run the poor woman down sooner or later, and bother her with your questions.”

Longarm wondered if the men had any idea how long he'd been in Meg Rainey's room last night. He doubted anyone would have been able to see into her third-story windows, however. They most likely just assumed that since they were staying in the same hotel, they'd have run into each other.

“She didn't seem all that bothered,” Longarm said.

Young Jack Richmond shook his head and furrowed his strawberry-blond brows beneath a wing of strawberry-blond hair hanging down over his left, pale blue eye. “You shouldn't have done that, Marshal. Mrs. Rainey . . . is a delicate creature, and she's been driven nearly mad by her husband's death.”

“That's why she wants to find his killer,” Longarm said, taking a puff off his cheroot and blowing the smoke over his visitors' heads. “And why you should want to find him, too.”

Richmond drew a deep breath, expanding his chest and throwing his shoulders back. He glanced at the others around him, as though silently conferring, and then turned back to Longarm, jabbing the end of his walking stick at the ground before him.

“All right, Marshal, since you're so damn stubborn and won't leave this matter up to us, we've decided to tell you exactly what's been happening here. We want you to know that we thought—and continue to feel—that we came to our decision with the very best of intentions.”

“Go on.”

“We don't know who killed Rainey. We suspect a drifter who had a bone to pick with a lawman who once cost him some time behind bars, or possibly cost a friend the same. He was waiting here, shot Rainey, and fled. As simple as that.”

“Since it's so simple, why didn't you tell me that before?”

Young Jack Richmond stepped forward, carefully adjusting the set of his bowler hat on his pretty blond curls. He had a hard, cold look in his eyes. “Because it was and still is our business. We will take care of the matter. We intend to hire a bounty hunter to run the killer to ground and bring him back here for punishment that will no doubt consist of his being hanged by his neck until he is dead. We owe Rainey that much. He was a good sheriff for a lot of years, and he dearly loved his wife.”

“So you kept it quiet—you all and everyone else I've talked to in Diamondback have kept it quiet—because you want to hunt the killer yourselves. Or at least pay a bounty hunter to hunt him.” Longarm laughed.

“That's the way it lays out, Marshal Long.” This from Dr. Baker, who hadn't said anything until now. He had a nervous twitch that caused him to blink repeatedly. Unable to meet Longarm's gaze for more than a few seconds, he blinked and looked away, working his jaws like a cow chewing cud. “We'd just as soon you left our town now, sir. Leave this private, local matter to us and the rest of the citizens of Diamondback.”

“It is not a federal matter,” added Alexander Richmond. “And your presence has grown quite tiresome indeed. Now, will you please leave, or do I need to write a letter to your boss?”

“Keep your pen in your pocket, Mr. Mayor.” Longarm sighed and looked around, feigning an air of defeat while trying not to imagine Billy Vail's response to such a missive and laugh.

He shrugged and returned his gaze to his four callers. “All right, if you wanna take care of your own sheriff's murder in your own way, and if the entire town is in agreement—hell, all right.”

“What's that?” said Richmond.

Dr. Baker turned to Longarm, blinking rapidly and wrinkling the skin above the bridge of his nose. Mulligan scowled. Young Jack Richmond looked skeptical.

“I said have it your way. Never thought it would happen, but I do believe you people wore me down. And you're right, this ain't a federal matter. It's a local one.”

Longarm took a last drag from his cheroot, tossed the stub in the street between the stoop and his four visitors, and hitched his cartridge belt higher on his lean hips. “It's all yours,” he said, and walking down the porch steps, he canted his head toward the jailhouse. “Hope you find a new sheriff real soon. Every town needs a lawman.”