Longarm and the Ambush at Holy Defiance

Chapter 12

The half-breed looked as though he were about to dive across the table at Ranger Sanders, so Longarm said, “All right, all right—enough about Big Frank here and the Mex, fer now.” He fired a match to life on the marred tabletop and touched it to the cheroot sticking out of his mouth.

Haven said, “We’re here about the stolen gold, Mr. Three Wolves. And the dead lawmen.”

“I was locked up,” Big Frank Three Wolves said, his dark eyes flaring out of his big, broad, pockmarked face at Haven and then at Longarm. “I didn’t kill no one!”

“No, but you know who did, don’t ya?” Longarm smiled knowingly at the man through the smoke wafting about his head.

Haven sat staring at Three Wolves, one fine, pale hand wrapped around her water glass, one brow arched with interest.

Longarm waved the match out and tossed it on the floor. He continued: “I got a feelin’ you sent them down there, right into an ambush. Didn’t you?”

Three Wolves shook his head, the nostrils of his big nose flaring. “You got it wrong, mister.”

“Then tell me how it really went.”

“I killed the Mex, all right. Caught him with Estella. Everyone knows how I feel about her. I get back from a freight run to Tucson early, and I find Cruz an’ Estella…in my cabin, goin’ at it like a coupla wildcats.” He looked at Agent Delacroix as though for sympathy.

She jerked with a start as a shrill cry rose from the back of the room. The whore laughed. A roar went up, and the old, pewter-haired cowboy whistled and clapped his hands, leaping down from his chair and running over to congratulate Elwyn, who stumbled back away from the whore, his dick drooping between his bare thighs.

He looked as though he’d run a long ways over rough ground.

Longarm glanced at Haven. At the same time, she cast her hazel gaze at him, and it was like she’d touched those sweet lips to his balls. A shudder rippled through him. Flushing as though she’d just read his mind, she dropped her eyes quickly to her water glass around which she’d wrapped both her hands, gripping it tightly, as the revelry continued from the back of the room.

The whore sat on the table she’d been fucked on, drew her low-cut, fancily stitched dress up over her dark, swaying bosoms, and swept her curly hair from her face with the backs of her hands.

A man was calling for a beer for Elwyn. Sanders told him to get his own damn beer, that Big Frank was busy, and then Longarm glanced once more at Haven’s hands, suppressing certain memories from a few nights ago, and turned back to Three Wolves.

“All right, you killed the Mex in a jealous rage. For consideration of a lighter sentence, you sent the rangers and the marshals down looking for stolen gold you heard about years ago from Rafael Santana. Have I got the dog by the tail?”

“That’s right,” Three Wolves said, nodding.

“Don’t wash,” Longarm told him. “If there really was gold to be found down there, why didn’t you go after it a long time ago?”

“Oh, I thought about it,” Three Wolves said, nodding. “But it wouldn’t be so easy—a big half-breed Apache with one arm. Besides, Santana said he buried the gold on old Whip Azrael’s range. White rancher with a whole lot of men on his roll, some of ’em cold-steel artists. I bought the freighting company with money I earned swampin’ saloons and livery barns up on the Rim. Always thought I might go down and scratch around for that gold, but I also knew that gold could lead to a whole lot of trouble. I’ve had trouble all my life, lawman. Some big, some not so big.”

“Got him a wicked half-breed Apache temper,” Sanders said, sitting back in his chair, holding his beer in one horny, red fist and gazing amusedly at the half-breed. He looked at Longarm. “Why do you think he sent them lawmen into an ambush, Custis? Not that I don’t agree with you, but how would he know they’d take his bait and go down and look for the gold? Hell, that gold was lost three years ago. No tellin’ who woulda dug it up.”

Longarm kept his eyes on the half-breed, trying to read the man, which he thought he was doing fairly well. He’d had plenty of experience reading the eyes of questionable men. “Where’s the gold?”

“I gave the map I drew, based on what Santana told me, to the dead rangers.”

Agent Delacroix said, “How do you know Santana told you the truth?”

“I didn’t. Till them lawmen took the map down there and ended up with a bad case of lead poisonin’.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean they were near the gold. Anyone might have thought they had a reason for killing the lawmen.” Haven looked at Longarm coolly, her professionalism edging aside her disdain for her badge-toting partner.

Sanders said, “Where Big Frank here sent them boys wasn’t far from where the stage got hit all them years ago. There’s got to be somethin’ to Big Frank’s story, I think.”

Longarm looked at the old ranger. “Where’s Jack Leyton? I thought he was the captain in charge around here.”

“He is. He rode down south toward Holy Defiance, lookin’ fer the gold around where the other rangers and the deputy marshals got ambushed. Figured he might kick up somethin’ before you got here, Longarm. Him and Lieutenant Sullivan.” Old Sanders hiked a shoulder and smiled at Haven as he nudged his shoulders back, obviously proud of himself. “I’m in charge till he and Sullivan get back.”

She arched a mock-impressed brow at him.

Longarm said, “Ranger Matt Sullivan?”

“That’s right. They both rode down there.”

“How long have they been gone?” Agent Delacroix asked Sanders.

“Nigh on two weeks. Left here a week after we got word from Azrael’s men about the killin’s. Double D men found ’em, and the Azraels sent a man up here to report it.”

“Two weeks, eh?” Longarm rubbed his cheek and glanced at Haven, who gave him a skeptical look. Could Jack Leyton and Matt Sullivan have ended up as dead as the other lawmen?

Longarm glanced at Big Frank Three Wolves. “You think the gold is really where Santana told you it was?”

Three Wolves shrugged. “All I know is I didn’t send them into an ambush. I thought if they found the gold—good. On account o’ that and being as it was just a dirty little Mex I killed, I’d prob’ly get a light sentence. I know I’m gonna end up in Yuma, but I been there before and I’d just as soon not stay long enough to get to know all the rattlesnakes in the hole by name.”

Longarm took a deep drag off his cheroot and looked at the coal, running all the information he’d learned about this case through his head. “You can go back to work, Big Frank.”

The half-breed studied Longarm skeptically. He’d drank half his beer and now he polished off the rest in one long draught, scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, and rose.

He walked over and picked up the ball to which his chain was attached, glanced once more with brash male interest at Haven, and then hauled his ball back behind the bar and hazed away the pewter-haired cowboy who’d been drawing beers and splashing whiskey into shot glasses for his partners.

Ranger Sanders polished off his own beer and looked from Haven to Longarm. “Was Big Frank any help to you folks?”

“Not really.” Haven shook her head, glanced at Longarm as though for corroboration, and sipped her water.

Sanders said, “Well, I reckon I had my beer and my whiskey, and now I reckon I’m gonna drift on back to the ranger office fer a nap. You two gonna be in town long?”

Longarm tossed back his whiskey shot. “We’ll be pullin’ out first thing in the mornin’. I’d like you to draw me a map to where we’re goin’, Roscoe.”

“I’ll help any way I can, Longarm. You know that.”

“The Arizona House still standin’?”

Sanders nodded. “Best hotel in town. Right where it’s always been.” He grinned at Haven, raking his randy old eyes across the girl’s well-filled shirt. “You might be able to get you a nice, hot bath, Miss Delacroix, purty yourself up.”

“Whatever for?” she asked with an ironic cast to her hazel-eyed gaze.

Sanders glanced from the girl to Longarm and back again, a strained smile creasing his face. Looking as though he’d just walked into a rattlesnake nest, he rose stiffly, pinched his hat brim to them both, and sauntered in his bandy-legged fashion through the batwings and out into the brassy, unforgiving Arizona sunshine.

Haven rose. “I believe I will go have that bath. Where’s this best hotel in town?”

“Back behind the ranger office.” Longarm grinned at her. “You need any help, you just ask polite-like. Just remember, though—it’s strictly professional.”

“No, thank you,” she said crisply. “But I suppose we should meet later and compare notes on the case.”

“As long as it’s only the case we’re comparin’ notes on.” Longarm finished his beer and belched.

Ignoring him, she strode away through the batwings. He refused to turn his head to get a good, long look at her ass.

A man had his pride.