Longarm on the Overland Trail (19 page)

She stopped and he reined in. Both ponies lowered their heads to inhale some dew-wet mountain meadow. Longarm dismounted and helped her unhitch her gray before he unsaddled Ramona and put them on their grazing leads. They were only a few yards from the tree-line. Longarm said, "This grass will be dry enough to sit on by the time we all take a stroll in the woods and bust out the iron rations after all. I see no need to build a fire."

She didn't answer. She was heading for the trees. Neither he nor Big Dan Hogan asked why.

Longarm moved around to unfasten the one cuff from the wagon spring as he told his prisoner, "You can hold it till she gets back. Then we'll both go take a leak."

The prisoner didn't answer. He was staring at the body of his dead wife. Longarm had put her aboard with her face covered, but the bouncing had moved the tarp out of the way, some. Longarm covered her waxen face again and said quietly, "She won't spoil too bad in this mountain air before we get her to Lander."

Hogan gagged and said, "She looks so... so dead."

Longarm moved to steady him as they got his feet to the ground, saying, "Don't go crying about it again. You must have cried a gallon or more by now, and not a single tear made up for any of the tears you made that poor gal shed."

"Don't you think I know that?" Hogan sobbed. "I don't care if they hang me, now. I deserves to be hanged more than once for the way I treated that poor little gal."

The other, more lively gal they were traveling with came out of the trees about then, staring down at the grass as if she was looking for something. Longarm told his prisoner, "Our turn. This way," and led him out of Ann's path, up into the same woods.

When they'd both watered the pines Longarm stared thoughtfully about and decided, "I reckon I'd best cuff you to a stout branch and leave you here for now. We'll pick a low one so's you can stretch out on the pine needles if you want. I'll bring you some grub and water."

The prisoner asked why. Longarm just cuffed him to a low-grown limb and left him to figure it out. He was more polite when Ann asked him, back at the buckboard. He said, "If he ain't with us, when anybody asks, we won't be fibbing when we say he ain't with us, see?"

She told him he was smart again. He stood by the buckboard, opening cans on the tailboard with his pocket knife, as she got her own tarp from under the seat and spread it on the grass nearby. He mixed the contents like a barkeep until he had three cans filled with the same concoction of cold canned beans and tomato preserves. He excused himself a moment and took the prisoner's rations to him in the woods. He handed the can to Hogan and said, "This may hold you. You don't need water with such slop. If you hear loud voices from back here, don't call out to 'em. Miss Ann and me hardly ever yell. Savvy?"

Hogan had had time to guess the plan. He said he meant to stay quiet as a church mouse. Longarm told him that might not be quiet enough and went back to join Ann on her tarp.

It didn't take long to polish off their own slop. Rank having its privileges, they got to wash theirs down with water and a dash of Maryland rye Longarm carried in a saddlebag for snakebite and such social occasions. She asked for more and, after she'd had it, said, "It's funny. I've been up all night and I'm bone-tired, but I don't think I could go to sleep right now if I was back home in my bed."

He resisted the temptation to tell her he wished they were both back home in her bed, and settled for, "It's the tension one feels at times like these. I've gone three or four days and nights without sleep on a serious case, not even trying. I reckon it's like that Professor Darwin says. We're all descended from keen hunters because, before we got civilized enough to live softer, folk who couldn't keep up when times got tense never got to have descendants."

"My, you do read a lot. Anyone can see you're a keen hunter, as well. But you look sort of... well, confused, now, Custis. I mean, I can see it, deep in your eyes, that your thoughts are running around inside so fast they seem to be bumping into one another."

He smiled thinly. "Remind me never to play poker with you. You're all too right. It ain't my thoughts bumping noses. I know what's going on. It's conflicting duties that are giving me such a bother. Life would be easier on a lawman if it let him just hunt one rascal at a time. But I'm sworn to uphold the law no matter how many fools I see breaking it. So I got to run that wife-killer in and, at the same time, I feel like a fool foxhound who's been sidetracked by a rabbit."

She sighed. "I understand. You're doing this for me, aren't you?"

He knew she'd like him better if he said that was it, but he replied, "Not entire, no offense. It is my sworn duty to see justice done, and that poor brute don't figure to get much justice off a jury of his neighbors. He ain't got no friends. I know he'll be treated fair by the federal district court in Lander. So we got to get him there, and we will. Meantime, it's out of my way, and I know I'm losing my lead on that more serious killer. What you may see running around behind my eyes is that I know I could be making two awful mistakes at once by trying to do my job two ways at the same time."

She dimpled and said, "Oh, heck, I thought it was because I let you kiss me that other time."

Her sunbonnet hardly got in the way at all. But she still untied it and let it fall off as he kissed her again, harder. For, while he was somewhat confused about his duty to the law, Longarm knew his duty when it was spelled out for him by dimples and big blue eyes.

They wrestled friendly on the tarp for a spell and she didn't fuss when he ran his free hand over her from the waist up. But when he got his hand under her skirt, kissing her as warmly as they both seemed to feel, she protested in a stifled voice, "Stop that this instant!" So he did.

She sat up, red-faced, and didn't look at him as she added, "I meant out here under the open sky, in front of God and everyone."

He started to ask who could see them, surrounded as they were by such tall grass. But by then he'd sat up, too. So he had to mutter, "Oh, Lord, I've seldom met a gal who was right so often, but when you're right you sure are right!"

They could both see the dozen-odd riders headed their way up the slope, riding sort of spread out and wary. Longarm told her, "Stay put and just follow my lead," before he got to his feet and waved a howdy with his hat.

That brought them closer, faster. As he spied the tin star one rider in the lead was wearing Longarm called out, "I reckon I know who you boys are after. I sure hope it ain't me."

The county deputy reined in to stare poker-faced down at Longarm and the girl he could now see behind him. He said, "The boy told us about you two, when he run in to say his father had beat his mother to death. We know who done it. Would you mind telling us how come you rid this way instead of coming into town? When we got to the cabin, even the body was missing."

Longarm knew better than to fib about the bundle they were all staring at, now. He said, "That's easy. I'm law, too. Federal. The Hogan woman was killed on federal land. That's her, on the buckboard. We figured to take her up to the federal court at Lander."

The older star-sporting gent staring hard from his saddle said, "You figured wrong. Blanche Hogan was murdered in Fremont County, and the county wants both her and the skunk as murdered her. In case you're wondering, I'm Fremont County."

Longarm said, "I never said you was from anywhere else. As you can see, we don't have her husband with us. So let's not act greedy. You boys look all you like for him and, meanwhile, we'll just carry her on up to Lander."

The older lawman in charge of such disgusting odds shook his head. "We're holding the trial in Saint Stephens, and that's where we mean to take the corpse, see?"

"Not hardly. You don't seem to have anyone to try, and you surely don't want a lady turning funny colors in your witness box," Longarm told him.

"We has to prove she's dead, don't we?"

"Well, sure you do. But anyone can see she is, damn it."

The old-timer knew his law, too. He stared hard at Longarm and said, "You ain't fooling us. We know you mean to hand the corpse in to the federal marshal in Lander so's you feds can steal our case from us."

Longarm grinned knowingly. "Hell, that's only fair. I seen her dead first. I'll tell you what. I'll drop the body off at Lander, and after you boys bring Dan Hogan up to the county seat, we can let the federal and county judges argue about it."

He detected the look of low cunning he'd been trying to inspire in that mean old face and quickly added, innocently, "You mean to bring Hogan up to the county seat for a proper view as soon as you can catch him, don't you?"

The posse leader was grinning like a polecat regarding the open door of a henhouse. "Why, sure we are, old son. Meanwhile, we'll just carry that dead little lady back with us to put on ice until we catch the rascal."

Longarm sighed, turned to Ann, and said, "You'd best move over yonder, out of our line of fire, Miss Ann. For I do believe my message ain't getting through to these gents."

The older lawman looked more surprised than worried. "I reckon the lady better, too. I hope you've noticed you are making your brag with no more than six rounds against fourteen of us, each packing considerably more ammunition than that?"

Longarm nodded soberly. "What can I tell you? I have to uphold federal law as I see it. The woman was killed under my jurisdiction. I mean to carry her body to Lander as federal evidence. Anyone else who'd like to accompany her in the same condition is free to do so. But I can't promise a tarp for each and every body. It's your move. I've said all I mean to about the matter."

A million years went by. Then one of them muttered, "The kid said he was the one called Longarm, Jim."

Old Jim stared hard some more before he shrugged and said, "It must be. Nobody else would act so loco over a damned old dead woman. Let's go, boys. We can still string that rascal up, if we can get to him first."

As they turned to ride off, Longarm took his first deep breath in some time. Ann ran to him, long brown hair streaming, and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing, "Oh, Lord, you were ever so brave and I was ever so scared, Custis! You must be the bravest man who ever lived. I couldn't believe it when I saw you stand up to all those horrid men!"

He patted her back. "I couldn't believe it either. I don't know what comes over me at such times. But it goes with my job. I'd say it's safe to sit down some more, now. Where was we when we was so rudely interrupted?"

As they sank back down into each other's arms, she giggled and took his hand to show him. But though he wound up with more than his hand down there, she said they'd have to wait until they got to town before she'd take off all her duds and go to town entire with him.

CHAPTER 13

By the time they got to the county seat and end of the railroad line, the hard way, it was too late in the evening to do much more than ask an undertaker to put Blanche Hogan on ice and ask the turnkey at the federal lockup to hold her husband for the judge, come morning.

Longarm knew he'd lost two whole days of his lead on Black Jack Junior. He stood to lose most of another if the judge turned out to be picky about paperwork. But he was sort of looking forward to the night ahead after all the hours he and poor little Ann had spent prim and proper after that hasty ice-breaking with their fool duds on. So he sprang for the honeymoon suite at the best hotel in town, which wasn't as grand as it might have sounded, and they were so delighted to hire the rooms that they saw no need to ask who she might be when he signed the book for them, singular case.

Once they were upstairs and she was blushing and flustering about checking into a hotel with a man she wasn't even engaged to, he told her, "Hold the thought a spell. I aim to make you feel even more wicked as soon as I can. But I've got some errands to run before this dinky town closes down entire. I got to send me a mess of wires, and I might save time in the morning by picking up the makings of a new bedroll now."

She didn't ask why he wanted a new bedroll. She'd helped him unload the cadaver, still wrapped in his old bedding.

Down on the street, he found the outfitting store had just closed. But the card hanging behind the glass said they opened early in the morning. He made a mental note of the time they'd be open for business and headed next for the Western Union office near the end of the tracks.

Inside, he penciled a message for Billy Vail, bringing him up to date and assuring the home office he hadn't run away with any circus. He figured he still had a lead on the lunatic he hoped to bottleneck on the divide to the west. But it wasn't nearly as long a lead as before. So he wrote out a detailed warning, tossing in the suggestion that the want could be disguised as a normal man or even a woman, and carried both forms to the counter.

The telegraph clerk in Lander was around fifty, making him an old-timer in a rapidly changing West, so he felt free to scan the messages and opine, "You don't want to send this one to South Pass City. The Overland stages crossed the divide by way of Bridger's Pass, not the one that colored gent found."

Longarm frowned. "Are you sure we ain't talking about the Wells Fargo stages?" he asked. "I confess the railroad put all the transcontinental stagecoaches out of business before I ever got to ride coast-to-coast so uncomfortable. But I was told the Overland Trail ran through South Pass."