Longarm on the Overland Trail (20 page)

The older man shook his head and insisted, "Bridger's. I ain't saying Overland never sent a freight wagon over the South Pass now and again. But time was money to a mail coach. So most used Bridger's route, and to hell with the grade."

Longarm swore softly. "Send that same message to every law office in the great divide basin, then. For Lord only knows where a gent mapping out the Overland Trail from London, England, might have told a homicidal maniac it ran."

Western Union agreed and, having covered all bets, Longarm went across to a trackside saloon to consult expert opinion on just where in a lot of square miles he might be able to set up his ambush.

The cow and railroad hands he found enjoying their quitting-time cheer in the rinky-dink saloon were more than willing to help out a man they considered to be a poor wayfaring stranger lost in their mountains. They did their best, calling one another fools if not greenhorns, as Longarm gained a grudging respect for the gents trying to write even a penny dreadful based on fact or fable out this way.

Folk had to be self-confident, independent thinkers to come west in the first place. Like many poorly educated gents who'd had to learn a lot, sudden, old-timers who'd survived any time at all tended to be know-it-alls who just couldn't admit they might be guessing. Ten years was a long time in country that had changed so much, so fast, and since the Overland Trail had been licked by the railroad that far back, Longarm suspected at least half the opinionated rascals had never even seen the mail coaches they claimed to know so much about. One old whiskey drummer who said he traveled all over creation, swore on his dear mother's honor that he'd ridden the Overland stage over Bridger's Pass more than once. But he'd also ridden the Butterfield stage through Apache Pass with the famous Deadwood Dick driving. The old drummer confided, "Deadwood Dick is really a colored man, like they say Sublette was. But that boy sure could drive. You should have seen us going lickety-split with them Apache chasing us for miles. I helped, of course. The shotgun messenger got arrowed. So I had to climb up aside Deadwood Dick as he was holding the traces with his teeth and popping off Apache left and right with his big old Pattersons."

A younger cowhand, who wasn't old enough to tell tales like that without getting called on them, told Longarm he distinctly recalled the Overland coaches passing by his home spread down by Bitter Creek when he was just a lad of six or seven. Longarm thanked him gravely for the information. He was too polite to point out that the railroad town of Bitter Creek couldn't have been there earlier than Sixty-eight or -nine, or that when his informant could have been six or seven the Shoshone still owned that part of the world.

He went back to the hotel to find Ann already undressed and under the covers. He told her not to look so hurt, because he'd only had two beers in the line of duty.

She forgave him, and then some, once he'd shucked his own duds and climbed in with her. She blushed all over when he tossed the covers away to do it right, with a pillow shoved under her pretty little rump. As he got atop her she protested, "You could have at least trimmed the lamp, you wicked boy! We're both stark naked and I feel sure it can't be proper to watch what we're doing and... Oh, watch what you're doing! It's too deep this way, and I feel so embarrassed in this position with the lamp lit and, and, yesssss! That feels so marvelous, even if it does look just awful!"

He didn't think she looked awful at all. He'd thought he'd gotten to know her soft sweet body, even though a lot of textile had been in his line of vision. But her thin summer dress hadn't followed half as many delightful curves as she'd been hiding under them. She was in fine shape because of honest work, with just enough female larding under her soft, smooth skin to keep her from looking muscular.

Later, when he finally trimmed the lamp and they were cuddled up like old pals under the top sheet, she nuzzled her pert nose against his collar bone and confessed, "I've always wondered what it would feel like to do it right out and natural, like a whore."

He patted her bare shoulder. "Whores don't do it natural. What we just done was natural, not nasty or wicked. Just the way natural folk was made to do it. What sense would there have been for the Lord to make us look so nice to one another in our birthday duds if He hadn't intended us ever to peek?"

She giggled and confided, "In my rounds as a midwife I've heard other women confess to worse than fornicating with the lamp lit."

He said, "We'd best try for some sleep. We've had a long day, with no sleep the night before, and come morning the judge's sure to make us fill out fine-print depositions about the Hogan case."

She brightened. "Oh, do you think we'll get to bear witness at Dan's trial?"

"I don't see why," he said. "Neither of us ever saw him beat her, and they'll have his confession as well as the boy's testimony."

She said, "Oh," in a small hurt voice.

He didn't have to ask her why. "I'd like to spend a month or more in this bed with you, honey," he said. "But I told you in the beginning I was trailing that killer and though it pains me, too, I just have to move on, come morning."

She snuggled closer, sighed, and said, "I know. I'd have never let you have it so soon if I'd thought you might stick around long enough for a proper romance. Do you reckon we'll ever get a chance to be like this together again, darling?"

He said he didn't know. She heaved a defeated sigh and said, "I doubt it, too. So this is another situation I've often wondered about. I get to read a lot, living alone, since the Shoshone caught my man alone in the hills. I've always wondered what it would be like to spend just one night of love with a handsome stranger."

He rolled on his side to run his hand down her soft belly as he told her, "I wouldn't want a friend to feel frustrated." But, as he proceeded to finger her friendly, she said, "Wait. Knowing this may be the last time I'll meet such an understanding gent, I've been thinking of a book I have among my medical texts. It ain't sold to the general public. It's put out as a warning about how folk get to acting when they go sex-mad, and I suspect that's what's just happened to me."

"You're more likely just curious. A warm-natured gal who'd never done it with all her duds off would have a right to be. But I'm game for anything that doesn't hurt."

She began to fondle him back as she shyly confessed, "I could never do half those awful things. But there's this one illustration... Lord knows how they ever got anyone to pose in such a position."

She made him relight the lamp and adjust the mirror on the dresser as well. And it did calm her down enough for Longarm to get a little sleep, at last.

The day started out just fine. They made love by the dawn's early light, and enjoyed a hearty breakfast to restore their strength before they went to see how long the judge meant to keep them in town.

That was where things started to go wrong, for Longarm, at least. Ann didn't look as upset when the crusty old district judge told them that while he meant to offer Dan Hogan a fair and speedy trial, he expected them to appear as witnesses.

Longarm protested, "I never saw the fool kill his woman, Your Honor, and, hell, he's confessed he beat her to death, and I got more important places to be!"

The judge said, "if you cuss again I'll have to hold you in contempt of court, Deputy. I know you're more used to the big city and its hasty ways. I know you feel I'm just a glorified J.P. in a one-horse town. But let me tell you, son, we do things right in this man's court of justice!"

"Then let me go on after that more ominous killer," said Longarm. "You don't need my testimony, even if I could swear I saw the man beat his women. His boy did, and he's owned up to it."

The stubborn old judge shook his head. "The boy is a minor. His testimony counts, but not as much as that of a grown man or even a woman, no offense, Miss Ann. The accused is an adult, sort of, but should he retract his confession in open court we'll need the two of you to back the prosecution's word that he confessed to both of you as well."

Longarm groaned. "I know full well how often a gent facing hard time considers telling it another way after he's had some words with a slick defense lawyer, Your Honor. But you still have this lady and the boy, and I can leave a sworn deposition for the court, can't I?"

"Nope. As a known peace officer with a good rep, who heard the words of both the dying woman and the man who killed her, your testimony will carry the most weight. If you won't stay willing for the trial I'll just have to hold you in another cell as a material witness. So what's it going to be?"

Longarm shot a look at the blushing Ann and decided "I'd as soon stay willing, at the hotel. But how much time are we talking about, Your Honor?"

The judge thought before he said, "Oh, we can start the trial as soon as we get the boy up here by rail. Let's say day after tomorrow, to be safe. The trial shouldn't take more than two or three days if he decides to make a fight of it. Way less than that if he don't go back on his confession. So, all in all, you should be able to go on after that outlaw by the end of the week."

Longarm took a deep breath and tried to keep from snarling as he said, "Your Honor, by that time my want may have made it over the mountains to Lord knows where."

But the judge insisted, "Joseph Slade is not the one being tried by this district court. Dan Hogan is. So, like the Indian chief said, I have spoken."

He meant it. By that afternoon Longarm had gotten Billy Vail and even the judge of the Denver District Court to wire that the mule-headed cuss in Lander was obstructing justice. But he wouldn't budge. So, while the next few nights were delightful, the days wore on tedious as hell.

Longarm spent a lot of time at the Western Union, trying to trap that other killer by wire if they wouldn't let him chase after him personal. It was sort of surprising how much a lawman could learn that way, even when he couldn't do anything. Longarm began to suspect that once they had those new Bell telephones strung everywhere, he as well as the men he got to chase figured to be out of business. Even having to wait for answers, he was able to establish that he might not have caught the rascal even had he been allowed to follow his original plan. For tiny town after town in the high country to the west reported back that, no, they hadn't spied any strangers of any description trying to get over the mountains by any trail, in open country, where a rider on a rise could see for miles in all directions.

By the afternoon the judge finally got around to throwing twenty years for manslaughter at the weeping Dan Hogan, it was too late for serious riding, even had Longarm known where to ride, now. So he took Ann and a bottle of rye to bed at the hotel early. As they were making love she suddenly blurted, "It's over between us, isn't it, darling?"

He kissed her. "Not until the cruel gray dawn. I'm sorry if I seem distracted tonight, honey. It ain't you. It's that loco little Black Jack Junior. I think I've lost him for good."

They knew one another well enough to talk and make love at the same time. So she hugged him reassuringly with her thighs and said, "I'm sure you'll pick up his trail when he acts crazy some more, dear."

He shook his head. "I was supposed to catch him before he killed again, not follow a dotted line of victims as I was wasting time up here. In that courtroom, I mean. This part has been mighty fine."

She thanked him with a teasing twist of her torso and said, "He may be in remission, you know."

"I didn't know. What are you talking about?" he said.

"Sometimes victims of dementia praecox just stop. They don't get better. There's no treatment for that condition. But a split personality can split again, to somebody crazy in yet another way, see?"

He grimaced. "Oh, swell. I could be chasing a Black Jack Slade Junior who thinks he's Buffalo Bill?"

She said, "I'm trained as a midwife, not a head doctor. But I do recall reading that the condition tends to get worse, not better. If he's still alive, sooner or later, something is sure to rub him the wrong way again and, when you rub dementia praecox the wrong way it goes off like dynamite."

"I've noticed that about the little rascal. He may think he's someone else, now. But I'd have heard if he'd been killed, acting crazy or any other way. I even found out how his model wound up buried in Salt Lake so mysterious."

"Does it really matter?" she asked, moving her hips faster. He decided it didn't, just then. But later, as they were cuddled calmer, he said, "It was neither a geographical mistake by an English writer nor that notion another had that his wife was a Mormon. They just put his box on the wrong train. When it got to Salt Lake City, late in July, old Jack was so stinky that they didn't want to ship him half way back to Illinois. So the railroad sprang for a handsome marker on hallowed ground, and his kin agreed not to sue them after all."

She didn't sound interested. She snuggled closer and said, "I wish both of them were dead and buried, so you wouldn't have to leave in the morning. Oh, Custis, so soon?"

He kissed her again and said, "I ain't kissing you because I'm horny. I'm kissing you because you just gave me a grand notion."

CHAPTER 14

Billy Vail gave Longarm more like general hell when he showed up in Denver at last, empty-handed. Vail said, "Longarm, it has been established that we can't win 'em all. But I've never seen you give up so soon. You didn't even go to Montana or Utah after the cuss, and we agreed he was heading for one or the other on the old Overland Trail."