Longarm and the Backwoods Baroness

"it got them to stop shooting, didn't it?" she replied with a defiant toss of her head.

Longarm had to admit she was right about that. He looked along the line of men who had been attacking the ranch. Now that he was closer, he could see that they had not gone completely unscathed so far. One man's left arm hung limp from a bullet that had bored through it, while several others sported bloodstains on their clothes from creases much like the one on Longarm's back. Such wounds were messy but seldom fatal. Didn't stop them from hurting like blazes, though.

Longarm noticed as well that even though the guns had fallen silent, the loggers weren't emerging from their cover. The battle could start again in a matter of seconds if things didn't go well.

Jared Flint rode up beside Longarm and Aurora and said ominously, "I don't trust those cowboys down there, Miz Mcentire. If they start shooting again, you're right out in the open."

"Maybe that will be reason enough to keep them from firing," said Aurora. She looked over at Longarm. "I'm going down there, Marshal."

"Well, then, I'm going with you," said Longarm.

"I figured you would. Your little masquerade as a cowboy may be over."

Longarm shrugged. "I never expected it to last very long anyway, and it wasn't paying any dividends."

Aurora glanced at her foreman. "Mr. Flint, I expect you to keep the men in line. There'll be no trouble, no shooting."

Flint glowered a little, but after a moment he nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am. No trouble--as long as you're down there."

Longarm and Aurora rode slowly, side by side, down the hill toward the ranch. All movement had ceased around the buildings, Longarm noticed. Kinsman and his men were hunkering down and waiting to see what was going to happen too, just like the lumberjacks.

Matt Kinsman and Joe Traywick emerged onto the porch of the big house as Longarm and Aurora drew rein in front of it. Longarm tried to look past them for any sign of Molly, but he didn't see her. All he could do was hope that she was somewhere in the house, unharmed by the bullets that had been flying a few minutes earlier.

"Custis!" exclaimed Kinsman as he realized who was accompanying Aurora. "What are you doing with that... that Jezebel?"

"Well, now, we're going to have to talk about that, Mr. Kinsman," said Longarm. "Is it all right if Mrs. Mcentire and I light and set for a spell?"

"I'm a hospitable man," Kinsman said with a glower, "but I'll be damned if I let that woman in my house!" Aurora said coolly, "I feel the same way, Mr. Kinsman, so I'll say what I have to say out here. Can I count on your men to honor the truce?"

"I don't see no white flag, Boss," Traywick put in. Like Kinsman, he held a Winchester in his hands and seemed ready to use it.

"That don't make no difference, Joe," Kinsman said. Then he turned to Aurora. "As long as those men of yours don't start shootin', neither will we. Now, if you've got somethin' to say, woman, spit it out."

Longarm glanced over at Aurora, hoping she could keep a tight rein on her temper. With a visible effort, she did so. "What I want to know, Mr. Kinsman, is why your cowboys raided my camp earlier this afternoon and killed some of my men."

Kinsman pulled his head back and squinted at her as if she had just slapped him in the face. "Hellfire and damnation!" he exploded after a moment. "What in blazes are you talkin' about?"

"I think you know," Aurora said tautly.

Longarm was watching Kinsman closely, and he was convinced that the rancher didn't have the slightest idea what Aurora was talking about. The accusation had come as a complete surprise to him. Beside him, Joe Traywick looked just as shocked and baffled.

"None of my men have been off the ranch today," Kinsman insisted, " 'cept for Custis there." He waved a hand at Longarm, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the lawman.

"And you still ain't explained what's goin' on, son."

Longarm didn't see any good way out of this, other than telling the truth. He said, "Custis is just the first part of my handle, Mr. Kinsman. The other part is Long. I'm a deputy United States marshal working out of the Denver office. My boss sent me up here because the trouble between you and Mrs. Mcentire is jeopardizing a government lumber contract."

For a moment, Kinsman stared at Longarm in amazement; then his flushed face turned an even darker shade of red as anger surged up inside him. "You lied to me!" he accused.

"More like I just... left out a few things." Longarm went on quickly. "And that ain't really important now. What matters is that Mrs. Mcentire is telling the truth about the raid on her camp. A handful of men are dead and a building's been burned down. There are plenty of witnesses to say that the men who did the killing and burning were dressed like cowboys."

"That don't make 'em cowboys," snapped Kinsman, "and it sure as hell don't make 'em Diamond K hands."

"Could it have been some of your boys, not acting on orders, just doing something they figured you'd approve of?"

Instead of answering Longarm's question directly, Kinsman turned to Traywick. "You know the whereabouts of all the hands, Joe?"

"Of course I do," replied Traywick with a snort of disgust. "They're all on Diamond K's home range. I'd stake my life on it."

Kinsman turned back toward Longarm and Aurora with a look of smug satisfaction on his florid face. "Looks to me like the only attack around here was the one your men just launched on my ranch, ma'am. And it was mighty unprovoked, if you ask me."

"That's your story?" Aurora asked coldly.

"And I'm stickin' to it."

"Then who raided my camp?" Traywick said, "Just cause some gents have range duds on don't make 'em real cowboys." He snorted again and waved toward the ridge overlooking the ranch headquarters. "Hell, you could dress up those lumberjacks of yours, and they might look like cowboys!"

That same thought had already occurred to Longarm. The raiders could have been loggers from Ben Callahan's camp, disguised as cowhands to shift the blame onto the Diamond K. If that was the case, the ruse had been a stunning success, at least at first.

As Aurora considered what Kinsman and Traywick had said, Longarm thought he saw something like doubt appear in her eyes for the first time. That was a step in the right direction, he thought. If he could get both Aurora and Kinsman to admit that someone else might be to blame for their problems, he would have a better chance of getting to the bottom of this. His investigation was bound to go more smoothly without having to worry all the time about the loggers and the Diamond K hands trying to kill each other.

"Well," said Kinsman, "what're we goin' to do about this? I don't trust Miz Mcentire, and I don't much reckon she trusts me."

"You're right about that," said Aurora.

Kinsman turned a baleful stare on Longarm. "And I ain't overly fond of what you did, Marshal."

"Just trying to do my job," said Longarm. "And as for what the two of you are going to do, I figure the best thing would be to make this truce permanent. Have your men steer clear of that lumber camp, Mr. Kinsman. You tell your men to do likewise where the Diamond K is concerned, ma'am. That way, if there's any more trouble, you'll know for sure that neither of you is to blame."

"Well..." Kinsman said grudgingly, "I reckon that might work."

"It means we'd have to trust each other," Aurora pointed out.

"Or try to anyway," Longarm said.

Kinsman nodded abruptly. "I'll do it, leastways for the time bein'."

"My men won't like it," said Aurora, "but I'll make them listen to reason."

Longarm felt a surge of relief. With both Kinsman and Aurora being reasonable about things, he had a chance to actually do some good and find out who was really behind the killings and the other trouble in these parts. Whether it was Ben Callahan or someone else entirely, Longarm intended to bring whoever had hired those owlhoots to justice.

Along with the relief came a wave of weariness. It had been a damned hard day, and it was difficult for him to believe that only this morning he had appeared before that coroner's jury in Timber City. Since then he had bedded Aurora Mcentire, been ambushed and wounded by the men working for that mysterious boss, fought his way out of that trouble, reached the lumber camp too late to prevent more murders, and raced here to the Diamond K in a desperate attempt to forestall an even more wholesale slaughter. Along the way he'd lost a heap of blood and endured more pain than any man ought to be expected to endure.

Yep, that was a full day's work, all right, he thought.

That was almost the last thing that went through his mind before blackness reached out unexpectedly to claim him. He felt himself swaying in the saddle and reached for the saddlehorn, knowing that he was about to fall. His fingers clutched at the horn but slipped off it. As he tumbled off the roan, he vaguely heard a voice--no, two voices, female voices, cry out, "Custis!"

One of the voices belonged to Aurora, the other to Molly Kinsman. Aurora and Molly... that might prove to be interesting.

Too bad he wasn't going to be awake to see what happened.

That was his last thought as he slipped away into nothingness.

CHAPTER 10

Longarm woke to a soft, cool touch on his brow. Angels? he thought. Not likely. Not after the life he'd led. A fella with a tail and a pitchfork would be more like it.

But wherever he was now, it wasn't hot, and instead of brimstone, he smelled the clean fragrance of a woman's hair. More of his senses began to return to him, and he realized he was lying on his belly on soft sheets with his face turned to the side so that it wouldn't be buried in the pillow underneath his head. A sheet covered his lower half.

He was stark naked too. That discovery made Longarm open his eyes to see what the hell was going on.

"You're awake. Good. I was worried about you, Custis."

It was Molly Kinsman's voice, hovering somewhere closely above him. With a grunt of effort, wincing from sore muscles, Longarm pushed himself up slightly so that he could look around. Molly was sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, and he could see genuine concern in her green eyes. He saw something else too... anger maybe. "What..." he managed to say.

"You're in the spare bedroom in the ranch house," she told him. "I figure where you are is what a man like you would want to know first. A U.S. marshal."

Yep, she was definitely mad at him, he thought. Her voice had dripped scorn when she mentioned his real identity.

"Deputy U.S. marshal," he corrected her. "My boss is the chief marshal in the Denver office."

Molly stood up, making the bed's mattress bounce a little. Longarm's injured back twinged.

"What does it matter?" she demanded. "You still lied to me, lied to all of us. The only reason you came here is to spy on us!"

Longarm propped himself on his elbows and regarded her solemnly. "I got the impression a few minutes ago, Molly, that you were worried about me."

"I was," she snapped. Her voice softened a little as she went on. "When I saw you fall off your horse outside, and when I saw the bloodstains on your back, I knew you'd been hurt bad." She drew a deep breath. "But that was before I thought about who you really are and why you came to the Diamond K! You're just here to protect that... that hussy!"

"You mean Aurora Mcentire?"

"Of course that's who I mean! All you care about is that government timber contract I heard you talking about. I was right inside the parlor, watching through the window. I heard the whole thing."

Longarm looked her over. She was wearing a dress again, a simple dress of light gray cotton. It clung to her lithe young body. At the moment, however, Longarm was less interested in her coltish figure than he was in whether or not she had been hurt in the fighting before he got there. He didn't see any sign of bulky bandages under the dress.

"Are you all right?" he asked her. "I was afraid you might catch a bullet, the way they were flying around so."

Molly shook her head. "A couple of the hands were wounded slightly when those loggers attacked the ranch, but that was all. No one was killed--on either side." She sounded a mite disappointed as she added that last part, thought Longarm. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Glad Mrs. Mcentire and I were in time to stop that battle 'fore it was too late."

"She's the one you ought to arrest. We haven't done anything wrong since this whole thing started."

Longarm didn't remind her of the ruckus in Timber City the day she had arrived from the East. That brawl wasn't the only one that had broken out between the cowboys and the lumberjacks either.

Fist-fights were one thing, though, and full-scale war was another. If the truce between the two factions didn't hold long enough for him to run the real rascals to ground, war was what they would have here in the Cascades.

He put that thought aside for the moment and asked, "What time is it?

How long have I been in here?" A glance at the window had already told him that night had fallen.

"It's about eight o'clock," Molly told him. "It was around five when you passed out in the yard."

So he had been unconscious for three hours. And before that, the day had been too busy for him to grab anything to eat. Breakfast in the hotel dining room in Timber City had been over twelve hours earlier, so no wonder he was suddenly ravenously hungry. And thirsty too, he realized.

"You think I could get something to eat and drink? My stomach thinks my throat's been cut, and I'm so dry I'm spitting cotton."

"Of course." Molly started toward the door, but added over her shoulder, "I'm still not sure you deserve it, but no one can say the Diamond K is inhospitable."

Longarm didn't argue the point with her. He just sank back down on the pillow and waited for her to return.

It wasn't Molly who came into the room a few minutes later carrying a tray, however. Wing grinned at Longarm and said, "Mist' Custis feelee much better now, yes?"

"Ah, hell, Wing, it's me, remember? I know how you really talk."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. Once you get into a habit..." Wing set the tray down on a bedside table. "I brought you some stew and some coffee. Think you can handle that much?"

"Damn right." Longarm sat up and twisted around, wrapping the sheet around him. His back was sore, but it didn't keep him from moving. His stomach clenched in anticipation as he smelled the stew. He reached for the tray, and Wing helped him get it situated in his lap.

"What happened to your back?" asked the cook. "I got those bandages off of you, and it looked like somebody tried to plow a furrow across there."

"That's what they did," said Longarm, "only they used a bullet instead of a plow. It's just a deep crease."

"Well, you'll have a scar there, that's for sure." Wing gestured at Longarm's bare torso, which was crisscrossed with dozens of other reminders of past wounds. "Of course, it'll have plenty of company."

Longarm shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of stew, then reached for the steaming cup of Arbuckle's. "I've been knocked around a mite," he admitted.

Wing picked up a straight-backed chair, reversed it, and straddled it. "Hear tell that you're a lawman."

"Deputy U.S. marshal," Longarm confirmed.

"And you're helping out that Mcentire woman, the one with the timber contract."

Longarm shook his head and said, "You're jumping to the same conclusion as everybody else around here. I work for Uncle Sam, not Aurora Mcentire. All I'm trying to do is get to the bottom of all the trouble that the Diamond K and the Mcentire Timber Company have been blaming each other for."

"You don't think those lumberjacks rustled our stock and poisoned our well?" Wing asked with a frown.

"No, I don't," Longarm said bluntly. "And I don't think anybody from the Diamond K has been attacking that logging operation either. I reckon somebody else is behind all of it, for reasons of his own." He didn't say anything about his suspicions of Ben Callahan.

Wing's frown deepened as he thought about what Longarm had said. "Maybe you're on to something," he said slowly. "Loggers and cattlemen don't get along that well to start with. I don't reckon it'd take much for some outsider to prod a grudge into outright fightin'."

"That's what I'm thinking too. Kinsman doesn't really want to believe that, though, and neither does Aurora Mcentire."

Wing chuckled. "That Mcentire woman sure acts like she's slapped her brand on you, Custis. She was mad as a wet hen when Miss Molly insisted on bringing you in the house after you fell off your horse. Didn't do her any good, though. Once Miss Molly makes up her mind about something, that's the end of it."

Longarm knew what he meant. He had encountered Molly's stubbornness himself. But Aurora was equally stubborn, and he supposed they were all lucky a brand-new fight hadn't broken out over who was going to nurse him back to health.

That thought reminded him that although his back was still sore, it didn't hurt quite as much as he would have expected it to. When he commented on that, Wing looked pleased and said, "I put some salve on there. That's what's making it feel better."

"Some ancient Chinese remedy?"

Wing's grin widened. "How'd you guess?"

Longarm scraped the last of the soup out of the bowl and drained the coffee cup. He felt pretty much human again, just extremely tired. His weariness was growing by the moment, and he felt his eyelids beginning to droop. "You best take this tray, Wing," he said. "I'm feeling a mite puny again."

"Get some rest," Wing told him as he took the tray. "You'll feel better tomorrow."

Longarm lay on his side, being careful not to put any pressure on his injured back. Wing turned down the wick on the bedside lamp, leaving only a small flame burning, then slipped out of the room. Longarm heard the door closing softly behind the cook.

Eyes closed, Longarm waited for sleep. As he was drifting on the edge of awareness, something brushed at his brain, a feather-light touch that he knew was trying to alert him to something important.

But before he could grasp it, it slipped away, and so did he.

Longarm spent the next three days recuperating. Plenty of sleep, Wing's good cooking, and the salve that the cook daubed on his back several times a day hastened Longarm's healing. By the afternoon of the third day, he felt restless, ready to be up and around and doing his job again.

The truce between the cowboys and the timber men was holding, at least according to Matt Kinsman, who had come into Longarm's room at midday to see how he was doing. The rancher still didn't have a good word to say about Aurora, but he grudgingly admitted that the loggers had been keeping to themselves.

"They're stayin' on their lease, and my boys are stayin' on Diamond K range," Kinsman had said. "I got Joe ridin' close herd on all of 'em, just to make sure none of the young hellions get any foolish ideas in their heads."

That was a good idea, thought Longarm, and he told Kinsman as much. The cattleman just grunted, his naturally combative nature chafing under this enforced peace even though he had agreed to it.

Longarm's warbag and other gear had been brought into the house from the bunkhouse, and when Molly came into the spare bedroom later that afternoon, she found him standing up and buttoning the hickory-colored shirt he had taken from his bag. He already had his pants and boots on.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips, which were encased in snug denim trousers again today.

"Getting dressed so I can move around a mite," Longarm told her. "Fella like me gets cabin fever when he's cooped up for too long."

"You're in no shape-"

"Wing says that crease on my back has just about healed up," Longarm broke in, forestalling Molly's protest. "The bone and the muscles aren't near as sore as they were. No reason I can't get back to what brought me here in the first place."

"Only that you're liable to tear that wound open and bleed to death," said Molly bitterly.

Longarm grinned. "It ain't like I'm about to go out and wrassle a grizzley or anything. I'll be careful, Molly. No reason for you to worry about me."

She stepped closer to him, so close that he could almost feel the warmth coming from her, and said, "I haven't even talked you into making love to me yet, Custis. I don't want you going and dying."

Longarm cupped her chin and lifted her face so that he could look down into her eyes. "I don't intend dying any time soon," he said quietly. He moved his head closer, intending to brush his lips lightly across hers.

Instead, she grabbed him, her arms going around his neck and holding him tightly as she mashed her lips against his. She opened her mouth and her tongue slid boldly against his, exploring, probing, tantalizing. Longarm put his arms around her and felt the softness of her belly prodding urgently against his groin. Despite everything he had been through in the past week, enough of his strength had returned to him for his manhood to begin stiffening. Molly dropped one hand to it and began caressing and kneading the heavy length of him.

Longarm took his lips away from hers and said, "This ain't the time nor the place, Molly, but sometime..."

"You promise? Swear you'll do it." At that moment, she sounded more like a pleading little girl than the full-grown woman she really was.

Longarm nodded. "I swear."

She took a deep breath and disengaged herself from him. "All right. But I'll hold you to it, Custis. It was hard enough knowing that Mcentire woman had bedded you when I thought I might never get the chance."

"Wait just a minute," Longarm said with a frown. "I don't know what you're-"

"Don't bother trying to deny it," she said blithely. "A woman can always tell. The way she was panting over you and wanting to take you back to her place, it was obvious."

Once again, Longarm was a little sorry he hadn't been awake to see the confrontation between Molly and Aurora. On the other hand, maybe it was a good thing he hadn't. Billy Vail already accused him of having a swelled head; seeing two beautiful women squabbling over him would've likely just made it worse.

As he reached for his gunbelt, he said to Molly, "Your pa tells me there hasn't been any trouble since the other day."

"That's right," said Molly. "But it's been like waiting for a storm to break. You can tell something's going to happen. You just don't know when or how bad it's going to be."

Longarm knew what she meant. That was one reason he wanted to resume his investigation. He had to find out what was really going on around here before that storm broke.

Molly insisted on saddling the roan for him herself. Longarm halfway expected her to suggest that she go along with him, but she didn't, and he was thankful for that. Arguing with Molly could be downright tiring, and he needed all his strength right now.

Like Longarm, the roan was well rested and anxious to be doing something again. He had to hold the horse back a little as it pranced along the trail leading away from the Diamond K. Longarm knew what the situation was on the ranch; now he wanted to pay a visit to the logging camp and find out how things were going there.

He reached the main trail and swung south. The day was overcast but mild, with gray clouds that promised rain later on scudding through the sky. As Longarm neared the cutoff to the Mcentire camp, he paused and listened for the sound of axes coming from higher on the mountain. The ringing of metal against wood came faintly to his ear, telling him that Aurora's men were hard at work.

He heard something else too--the squeaking of wagon wheels. A team of horses appeared at a bend in the trail ahead of him, and behind them came the wagon they were pulling. A lone man was seated on the wagon, handling the reins of the team. Longarm recognized him as the cook from Aurora's camp. That bald head was unmistakable.

Some instinct made Longarm rein his horse off the trail and into the trees. He didn't know if the cook had seen him or not, but if not, Longarm wanted to keep it that way. The wheels of his brain were clicking over a lot more quickly than those of the slow-moving camp wagon.

If the cook had been to town for supplies, which was the logical explanation for him being out in the wagon, where was he going now? He had already passed the turnoff that led to the logging camp.

Longarm swung down from the saddle and led the roan even deeper into the trees and brush. Suddenly it seemed very important that the cook not spot him when the wagon passed by on the trail.

Standing very still, Longarm watched through the screening brush as the wagon rolled past. He could keep track of its progress by the sound of its wheels and the clopping of its mule team's hooves. Once it had gone by him, Longarm turned and started making his way through the thick woods, still leading the roan. He was moving almost as fast on foot as the wagon.

Several minutes later, Longarm heard a different sound. Hoofbeats, but moving at a lighter, faster gait than the plodding of the mules. Someone else was riding along the trail. The squeaking of the wagon wheels stopped, and Longarm knew the cook must have halted the vehicle to let the rider come to him. Longarm angled toward the trail again, anxious to see just who Aurora's cook was rendezvousing with.

He didn't want the roan letting out a whinny at the wrong time, so he tied the horse's reins to a young pine and left it there, slipping closer to the trail on foot. He heard the hoofbeats of the rider's mount come to a halt. In a careful crouch, Longarm moved closer. He lifted a hand to ease aside some brush that blocked his view of the trail.

What he saw didn't really surprise him.

Ben Callahan, astride a big black horse, sat there talking to the cook from the Mcentire logging camp.

Longarm felt his muscles tense. He had suspected almost from the first that whoever was behind Aurora's troubles had a man working for him in her camp. Now he had confirmation of that. There was no reason for this clandestine meeting unless the cook was passing on vital information to his real employer.

"What have you found out, Eli?" Callahan was saying.

The cook shook his bald head. "Not much, Boss. Miz Mcentire's still all het up about something. Maybe because that marshal fella is still over at the Diamond K, 'stead of with her."

Longarm saw Callahan's face harden at the mention of him. "That lawman's caused nothing but trouble," growled Callahan. "It would've been all right with me if that ambush had killed him. I don't need him distracting Aurora right now."

"You plan on makin' a move soon?"

"It looks like I'll have to," said Callahan grimly. "Nothing else I've tried has worked. All I can do now is come after her with what she least expects."

The cook chuckled. "I reckon Miz Mcentire'll be thrown for a loop, that's for sure. She won't know what hit her, Boss."

Longarm felt rage building up inside him as he listened to the conversation. Callahan was behind all the mayhem that had infected this part of the woods, and now he was plotting his worst strike yet against Aurora. It was all Longarm could do not to pull his gun from its holster and burst out of the trees to arrest the bastard right here and now. He forced himself to keep listening, though, in hopes that Callahan would reveal something else important.

That wasn't meant to be. The sound of more riders came to Longarm's ears, and Callahan and the cook heard them too. Callahan's head lifted, and he said, "Someone's coming. You get on back to camp, Eli. I'll talk to you again another time."

"Sure thing, Boss." The cook began working to turn the wagon and the team around. Callahan wheeled his horse and rode back the way he had come, veering off the trail and into the woods before the approaching riders could sweep around a bend in the trail and spot him.

Not knowing who the riders were, Longarm had no choice but to stay where he was too. A couple of minutes later, they trotted past, about half a dozen of them, and Longarm recognized them as cowboys from the Diamond K. Seth Thomas was among them. Aurora's cook was still struggling with the wagon and the mules, and as the cowboys moved over to ride past him, they called out jeering comments. Even if they recognized the cook, thought Longarm, likely none of them would think anything about him being on a section of trail where he had no real business being. The cowhands rode on out of sight, obviously bound for Timber City. A few moments later, the cook finally got the wagon turned around and whipped the mules into motion. The wagon rolled away toward the cutoff which would take it back to the Mcentire camp.

Longarm straightened, wincing a little as muscles stiff from long minutes of crouching twinged in his legs and back. Anger still smoldered inside him. All that was left to do now was arrest Callahan, then gather up the cook too, because old Eli would probably be glad to testify against Callahan when he realized how much trouble he was in. With any luck, Longarm could wrap up this case today.

He went back to the roan, jerked the reins loose, and swung up into the saddle. He didn't know exactly where Ben Callahan's logging camp was, only that it was north of Aurora's operation and the Diamond K. Longarm thought he could find it fairly easily. All he had to do was follow the sound of axes.

About an hour later, after checking a couple of smaller trails that branched off the main one, Longarm found the path that led to Callahan's camp. Not only the ringing of axes but also the growl of a steam engine inside a small sawmill led him to his destination. Callahan's operation was smaller and less impressive than Aurora's, but as Longarm rode up to the camp, he noticed that the buildings and the equipment were well cared for, and there was an air of brisk efficiency about the place. Callahan had nothing to be ashamed of here.

Longarm noted another difference between Callahan's camp and Aurora's. There were no guards here--or if there were, they were so well hidden that Longarm couldn't spot them. But then, he reflected, Callahan didn't really need any guards. He hadn't encountered any of the problems that had been plaguing Aurora--because he was behind them.

That didn't stop a couple of the men who were working around the sawmill from picking up axes and strolling over to meet Longarm as he reined in. One of them, a burly fellow with a red beard, looked up at Longarm and asked, "What would ye be wantin' here, boyo?"

"I'm looking for Ben Callahan," Longarm answered bluntly. "Is he here?"

"Have business wi' him, do ye?"

"You could say that. I'm a U.S. deputy marshal, and I need to talk to Callahan."

The two loggers exchanged a glance, then Redbeard said, "So ye're the famous lawman we been hearin' so much about. Ye've come here t' put a stop t' all th' troubles."

"That's the general idea," said Longarm, growing impatient.

"And ye think Mr. Callahan can help ye?"

Longarm fixed the man with a cold stare. "I'm sure of it."

Before the loggers could say anything else, Callahan himself emerged from the sawmill. Longarm had expected Callahan to beat him back to the camp, since Longarm hadn't really known where he was going. Callahan glanced at Longarm in surprise, then said to the red-bearded man, "What's going on here, Rory? Who is this man?"

"He's a badge-toter, he is, Mr. Callahan, an' he wants t' see you."

Callahan looked up at Longarm again. "You're that marshal I've heard about, the one who's working for Aurora Mcentire."

Longarm suppressed a sigh of frustration. He wasn't surprised that news of his presence had spread through the mountains. After his part in stopping the battle between the Diamond K and the Mcentire loggers, that was only to be expected. But it seemed like everybody around here was determined to jump to the wrong conclusions about him.

"I'm not working for Mrs. Mcentire. I'm just trying to find out who's been causing trouble for her and Matt Kinsman," said Longarm. "I've got a few questions I want to ask you, Callahan."

The man shrugged his broad shoulders. "Sure. I don't know why you think I can help you, but if I can, I'd be glad to."

Callahan was a cool-headed son of a bitch, Longarm had to give him that. He had halfway expected Callahan to pull a gun upon being confronted like this. He had to suspect that Longarm was on to him.

Instead, Callahan turned away and said over his shoulder, "Come on in my shack, Marshal. We can talk there."

Frowning in puzzlement, Longarm swung down from the roan and handed the reins to Rory, who reached out for them. "I'll take care o' yer horse, Marshal," said the red-bearded logger.

Longarm wasn't sure what was going on here, but he remained confident in his ability to handle whatever tricks Callahan had up his sleeve. He followed the boss logger into a small cabin that evidently served as Callahan's quarters.

The cabin was furnished with a table and a couple of chairs, a bunk, and a sturdy trunk that sat at the foot of the bed. Callahan opened the trunk and took out a bottle. "Care for a drink, Marshal?" he asked.

Longarm saw to his surprise that the label on the bottle proclaimed it to be Maryland rye, Tom Moore to be precise. What were the odds that Callahan would have a bottle of Longarm's favorite here in the middle of the Cascades?

It had been a long time since he had asked too many questions of such good fortune, however. He could arrest Callahan after they'd had a drink just as well as before. With a nod, he said, "Much obliged."

Callahan dug a couple of glasses out of the trunk, blew dust from them, and pulled the cork from the bottle of rye with his teeth. He splashed liquor into each glass, then replaced the bottle in the trunk and held out one of the glasses to Longarm. Longarm was about to toss off the drink when Callahan lifted his own glass and said, "Here's to Aurora Mcentire."

Longarm nodded curtly and said, "To Aurora." Then he downed the rye, licked his lips appreciatively, and went on. "You always drink to somebody you're trying to run out of business, Callahan?"

Callahan frowned, taken aback by the blunt question. "What are you talking about, Marshal? I wouldn't want to hurt Aurora's business."

"No, you just want to make things so bad for her that she'll sell out to you on the cheap, government contract and all."

Callahan's blunt fingers tightened on the empty glass he held. "You're insane," he said. "I'd never hurt Aurora."

Longarm's right hand was close to the butt of his Colt, just in case Callahan decided to try something funny. "That ain't the way I figure it," he said coldly. "You see, I was there a few days ago when you offered to buy her out. You practically admitted you were behind all her troubles. And I saw you meeting on the sly today with her cook, who's been helping you with your scheme."

For a long moment, Callahan stared hard at Longarm. Then he shook his head sadly. "You don't understand, Marshal," he said. "You just don't understand."

"Then why don't you explain it to me?" Longarm snapped.

Callahan looked down at the cabin's puncheon floor and heaved a sigh, then said, "All right. If I have to." His gaze lifted, and his eyes met Longarm's. "I don't really want to buy Aurora out. I'm in love with her, and I want to marry her."

CHAPTER 11

This time it was Longarm's turn to stare in amazement. Of all the things Callahan might have said, that was one of the last ones Longarm would have expected.

"Marry her?" he repeated. "You don't even like her. Aurora told me how you broke up your partnership with Angus Mcentire because he decided to marry her and you couldn't stand her."

A look of pure misery appeared on Callahan's face. "That's what she thinks? I ended my partnership with Angus because I couldn't stand knowing that Aurora was marrying him instead of me. I knew if Angus and I stayed partners, I'd have to see her sometimes, and that was more than I could take."

Longarm was flabbergasted by this agonized confession on Callahan's part and not sure whether to believe the man or not. He said, "Didn't you ever tell Aurora how you really felt about her?"

Callahan shook his head. "She was happy with Angus. I couldn't bring myself to cause trouble for her. I suppose you could say I just... loved her from afar."

"Maybe you could say something like that," muttered Longarm. "I couldn't." He glared at Callahan and went on. "What about that fella Eli, that bald-headed cook? Like I told you, I saw the two of you-"

Callahan held up both hands, palms out. "I know, I know. And I admit that Eli has been working for me. But not because I want to cause trouble for Aurora. I just had Eli there to keep an eye on her, so that I would know what was going on. When I first heard about the problems she was having, I figured it was time to make my move. I offered to buy her company from her."

"So, you don't want to cause trouble for her, but you don't mind taking advantage of trouble she's already got, is that it?" asked Longarm skeptically.

Callahan grimaced. "You make it sound pretty bad, Marshal, but you don't know everything I had in mind. I thought it would be better for Aurora if she didn't have to worry about the company anymore. I thought too that if maybe whoever was behind the problems had a grudge against her, he would stop if the company changed hands. Then I was going to... to ask Aurora to marry me, so that I could give the company back to her as a wedding present."

That was one of the craziest things Longarm had ever heard, but he had to admit that it was just the sort of thing a lovesick fool such as Callahan professed to be might come up with. Still, he wasn't ready to write off his suspicions just yet.

"I heard you tell Eli that you were going to try something new with Aurora, since nothing else had worked, and that old cook said she wouldn't know what hit her. What was that about?"

"I was talking about the way I've been trying to buy her out," said Callahan. "If you were eavesdropping outside the cabin the other day, you know I made my final offer to Aurora, and she turned me down flat."

Longarm nodded.

"So there's nothing else left to do," said Callahan with another shrug. "if I can't buy her out before I propose, I guess I'll just have to go ahead and ask her to marry me anyway. That was what Eli and I were talking about, Marshal. You can ask him if you don't believe me."

Longarm wasn't sure why Callahan thought he was more likely to believe the old cook. Callahan was either one hell of an actor, or he was really telling the truth about his involvement with the situation. Longarm had been counting on the man panicking when confronted with the knowledge of his guilt. That hadn't worked out at all.

And Longarm was once again left with no solid proof of anything.

"All right, Callahan," he said abruptly. "I ain't saying I believe this yarn you've spun for me, but I reckon you know I've got my eye on you now. We'll just see what happens."

"I've told you the truth, Marshal." A trace of fire appeared in Callahan's gaze. Now that he had gotten over the awkwardness of being forced to confess his love for Aurora, his normal spirit was coming back to him. "If you don't want to believe me, that's your problem."

"We'll see," said Longarm. "Thanks for the drink." He turned toward the door of the cabin.

"That's it?" asked Callahan in surprise. "You're leaving?"

"Not much else I can do, is there? Not unless you want to confess that you tried to have me killed and caused all that trouble around the Mcentire camp."

Callahan shook his head vehemently. "I didn't have anything to do with any of that."

Longarm just raised one eyebrow skeptically and stepped out of the cabin.

The roan was tied to a hitching post nearby. Longarm untied the reins and stepped up into the saddle. Callahan came out of the cabin behind him, and although Longarm didn't look back as he rode away from the camp, he could feel the boss logger watching him. Callahan's eyes seemed to bore into his back.

He had put Callahan on notice, and if the man was indeed guilty, it was now just a matter of giving the man enough rope to hang himself.

And of staying alive in the meantime, Longarm added grimly to himself.

He had been heading for the Mcentire camp when he had gotten sidetracked on this Callahan business, so that was where he pointed the roan when he reached the main trail once more. The skin on the back of his neck crawled a little as he rode. Callahan might move fast to eliminate him as a threat. Even now, some of those hired gunmen might be riding through the forest to get in front of him and set up an ambush. Or they might just come straight after him and try to ride him down. Either way, Longarm knew he had to be alert for any sign of trouble.

Nothing happened on the way to Aurora's headquarters, however. When Longarm rode up there, everything was evidently business as usual. The sawmill was operating, and Longarm saw a boom of logs floating down the creek. Some of the timbermen known as river pigs were controlling it with long poles and ropes that had been attached to the iron spikes called dogs that had been driven into the outer logs of the boom. Those outer logs were strung end to end and attached to each other to form a ring that contained the rest of the logs. The river pigs were good at their job and floated the boom gently up to the big open end of the sawmill building that extended out over the water. This boom was not going to get away and cause trouble.

The only thing Longarm noticed that was unusual was the level of the creek. It seemed to have dropped, though there was still enough water in the stream to float the boom with no trouble. There wouldn't be if the creek went down much more. Longarm resolved to satisfy his curiosity and ask Aurora about that, but first he wanted to make certain she was all right and that there had been no trouble here in his absence. He brought the roan to a stop and dismounted, looping the reins around the hitching post in front of Aurora's cabin.

Jared Flint answered his knock on the door instead of Aurora. The foreman said, "Hello, Marshal. Finally get enough of Kinsman's hospitality?"

Longarm had sensed all along that Flint didn't particularly like him, so the man's attitude came as no surprise. Also, the hatred between the loggers and the cattlemen ran so deep and strong that the slightest appearance of favoring one side over the other was enough to make enemies. Longarm didn't let it worry him. He just asked, "Is Mrs. Mcentire here?"

Aurora must have already heard Flint's greeting to him, because she appeared at the foreman's shoulder and said, "Custis! Are you all right?

Have you recovered from that wound?"

"Pretty much," Longarm said. He stepped forward, and Flint had no choice but to move aside and let him into the cabin. He ignored the bushy-browed glower Flint gave him and went on to Aurora. "I figured I'd better see how things were going here."

"It's been quiet," she told him. "If it stayed this peaceful all the time, we wouldn't have any trouble meeting the terms of that contract. We've already made up some of the time and timber we lost. And thanks to some of Mr. Flint's ideas, we're gonna be able to make up the rest of it."

Longarm looked at Flint quizzically, and the man said, "You might not understand, Marshal."

"I've been around a few logging operations before," Longarm said mildly. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the way the creek's gone down some, would it?"

"As a matter of fact, it does," said Aurora. "We've dammed off one of the tributaries that feeds into the creek higher up the mountain. When it forms a big enough pond, we're going to build a log flume from it down here to the mill. We can still float booms down the creek from the lower slopes the way we've been doing, but when we're finished with the flume we can go ahead and start cutting on the higher slopes too, and shoot the logs down that way. We'll be working on two sections of the mountain at once, instead of just one."

"That'll take more men," Longarm pointed out.

"Already hired 'em," said Flint. "They built that dam, and they've started the upper end of the flume."

Longarm nodded. If everything went as Aurora and Flint planned, the camp's production would indeed increase. Pretty soon, the sawmill might be running twenty-four hours a day.

That would make the Mcentire timber operation a mighty tempting target for somebody who wanted to take it over. Somebody like Ben Callahan, say ...

Longarm kept those thoughts to himself. He knew from experience that Aurora didn't want to believe the worst of Callahan. Nor did he say anything about old Eli, the cook, being on Callahan's payroll. He preferred that Callahan's spy stay in place here in Aurora's camp--although now that Callahan knew Longarm suspected him, he might order Eli to hightail it out of there. Either way, Longarm was going to wait and see what happened. He believed that Aurora and her people were relatively safe for the moment. He himself represented the biggest threat to the mastermind, be it Callahan or somebody else. He was more likely to be the target of whatever happened next.

"And speakin' of that flume, I'd better go see how the boys are doing," Flint went on. "I'll let you know later, Miz Mcentire."

"All right, Mr. Flint," said Aurora. She waited until the foreman was gone, then turned to Longarm and said eagerly, "You're spending the night here, aren't you?"

Longarm hesitated before saying, "All my gear's at the Diamond K, and they're expecting me back. Under the circumstances, as long as you folks are getting along, I don't want to give anybody any excuses for starting a ruckus."

Aurora's lips thinned. "You think that if you don't go back to the little redhead hellcat she's liable to bring some of those cowboys up here looking for you?"

"I reckon it might sound a little immodest," said Longarm with a grin, "but that could happen, all right."

"Very well," Aurora said coolly. "Go on back to the Diamond K. But I want you to know what you're going to be missing."

She stepped closer to him, and her hand went to his groin, cupping and caressing. Startled, Longarm said, "Hold on a minute."

Her fingers tightened on him through the fabric of his trousers. "That's just what I intend to do," she said with a smile that was half-angel, half-devil. She stroked his stiffening manhood for a moment, until it bulged out against the front of his denims.

Longarm expected her to just tease him a mite to let him know how put out she was with him for not staying at the lumber camp, but instead she began unfastening the buttons of his trousers. Her hand delved inside, and her smooth, cool fingers found the fevered length of him. Deftly, she extricated his shaft, and Longarm growled deep in his throat as the pole of flesh sprang free.

Aurora used both hands to stroke him now. She looked down and licked her lips. "There's something I've always wanted to do," she said quietly. "Angus was too stiff-necked for it, bless his heart. He was a good man, but not the most adventurous lover."

At the moment, Longarm didn't particularly want to hear about Aurora's late husband. Not with the swelling length of his manhood filling both her hands. "You just go ahead and do whatever it is you want to do," he told her hoarsely. "I was raised to be a gentleman, and a gentleman always accommodates a lady."

Again she licked her lips. "You may not think I'm a lady when I get through with you," she said.

Then she dropped to her knees in front of him, opened her mouth wide, and closed her lips around the head of his shaft.

Longarm tried not to groan too loud as she started sucking. He could believe that she had never given any French lessons, because she went right for the final stretch instead of pacing herself. "No offense," he said in a husky voice, "but I reckon it'd be more fun for both of us if you'd slow down a mite."

She took her lips away, and his shaft throbbed with the loss of the wet heat that had been enfolding it. Aurora whispered, "You mean... like this?"

Her tongue darted out of her mouth, flicking tiny, butterfly-like blows against his burning flesh. She moved all around the head, maddeningly slowly, then used the tip of her tongue to toy with the slit at the end of his pole. Eagerly, she lapped up the clear juices that were seeping from the opening. When Longarm thought he couldn't stand any more of that without going completely insane, she stopped and began raining kisses on him, trailing them down the veined underside of his shaft and then back along the side. Her tongue came out again and licked him in long, slatheing swipes.

Longarm wouldn't call any woman a liar unless she proved it to him. So he was willing to give Aurora the benefit of the doubt and believe that right now was the first time in her life she had ever done this.

But if that was the case, she sure as hell had a natural-born talent for it.

Once again she took him into her mouth, and as she did so, he began stroking her dark hair. Her head bobbed up and down over his groin. His legs, spread wide on the floor for balance, shook as tremors of passionate sensation ran through them. He felt as if his strength might desert him at any moment, leaving him helpless to keep from falling flat on his face, but somehow it didn't happen. The insistent embrace of Aurora's lips strengthened him. As he felt his climax boiling up from deep within him, he put one hand on her shoulder and the other on the back of her head. To steady herself, she reached around behind him and clutched his backside, digging her fingers into it.

It was as if both of them were aware of the explosion coming and knew they had better hold on for dear life.

Involuntarily, Longarm's hips twitched as culmination shook him. Aurora moaned and swallowed eagerly as Longarm's pearlescent seed raced along the length of his shaft and burst out into her mouth. Spasm after spasm rocked him as he spurted. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly. He wouldn't have suspected that he had that much to give her.

And she took it avidly, every drop, squeezing the last bit from him and swirling her tongue around his softening shaft to make sure none had escaped her.

Longarm closed his eyes and dropped his head forward. Blood thundered inside his head from his racing pulse. In his life, many women had done for him what Aurora had just done.

But few if any had ever done it any better.

"That was... mighty fine," he said when he had recovered a little of his breath.

Aurora looked up at him and licked her lips one last time. "I did it all right?" she asked.

Longarm took hold of her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. "More than all right," he told her. "If you were any better at it, you'd have likely killed me."

Aurora gave a little laugh and hugged him. "I wouldn't want that."

She reached down, tucked him away, and buttoned his trousers again. "I suppose if you really have to go back to the Diamond K now, at least you'll remember me."

"I'm not likely to ever forget," Longarm said sincerely.

"But next time--and there will be a next time--it's going to be my turn. Dear Angus was a bit squeamish about other things too."

Longarm could just imagine--and that was his problem. In his mind's eye, he saw Aurora spread out there on that bed, splendidly nude, creamy thighs flung wide open, the patch of dark hair and the inviting folds of pink flesh that it framed calling out to him with an urgency that would not be denied. That vision was probably exactly what she had meant for him to see, he thought.

"Next time," agreed Longarm. "You've got my word on that."

"And I'll hold you to it," said Aurora. She kissed him, then said, "All right. Go."

It was only as Longarm was riding away from the camp that he recalled the conversation he'd had with Molly Kinsman earlier in the day, before leaving the Diamond K. He had made a promise to her too, and she had responded in exactly the same words as Aurora. I'll hold you to it. Longarm shook his head in chagrin.

There were times when being a man of his word could be downright tiring--and he suspected that where Aurora and Molly were concerned, this was going to be one of those times.

CHAPTER 12

As Longarm more than halfway expected, Molly Kinsman was waiting for him when he got back to the Diamond K. She came down rapidly from the porch, where she had been standing with her hands on the railing, and hurried out to meet him as he rode up. "Did you have any trouble?" she asked anxiously.

Longarm shook his head. "Nary a bit." For the time being, he wasn't going to mention his suspicions of Ben Callahan, or the confrontation he'd had today with the man, to anyone on the Diamond K. There would be time enough for that when he had proof one way or the other.

"Did you see her?"

Wisely, Longarm refrained from grinning. But it was difficult, because the memory of what Aurora had done to him was still incredibly vivid in his mind. Instead, as he dismounted he said noncommittally, "As a matter of fact, I did. I talked to Mrs. Mcentire and her foreman and found out they haven't had any trouble since the truce they called with your father. Heard about their plans for expanding their operation too."

Molly rolled her eyes in disgust. "That's all we need, more trees cut down on the mountains. Do you know what that will do to the runoff and the soil erosion around here?"

"Well, from what I've seen so far, Mrs. Mcentire and her men are being careful not to clear-cut too much land," said Longarm as he led the roan into the barn. "A lot of those logging companies don't give a damn what kind of shape they leave the country in behind them, but that ain't true of Mrs. Mcentire and her men. I don't think you have to worry overmuch about what they're doing ruining your range."

"I hope you're right," said Molly, "but I'll believe it when I see it."

Longarm unsaddled the roan, rubbed it down, and turned it into its usual stall. Molly pitched in to help him, forking up some hay and carrying it over to the stall. They were alone in the barn at the moment, but it was late afternoon and Longarm knew that wouldn't last. Soon, the hands would be drifting in from their day's work, and they would want to put their horses up. Longarm hoped Molly realized that.

If she did, she didn't care. She stepped up to him and put her hands on his arms. "Custis," she said softly, "you made a promise to me."

"I know I did, Molly," said Longarm, his voice solemn, "but surely you don't expect me to honor it right here and now! Hell, girl, anybody could walk in on us--that young firebrand Seth, or Joe Traywick, or your daddy. Any one of 'em would be liable to up and shoot me if they caught us."

Molly turned away, pouting. "You just don't want me because you probably spent the afternoon romping with her."

She could pack an awful lot of scorn into one little word, thought Longarm. But he wasn't just about to tell her how close to the truth she was. Besides, it hadn't been all afternoon.

He put a hand on Molly's shoulder. I'm not trying to put you off," he said gently. "It's like I told you-"

"I know, the right time and place." Her voice was dull now. It became a little more spirited as she went on. "If you're not careful, Custis, I might just decide that making love with you isn't such a good idea after all."

"That'd be up to you," he said honestly.

Molly gave him a long, searching look, then turned and walked out of the barn. Longarm waited a minute or two, giving her time to get back into the house, then followed. He turned toward the bunkhouse rather than the main house, though. He wanted to talk to Joe Traywick.

Traywick was out on the range somewhere, which came as no surprise to Longarm. He sat down on a stool in front of the bunkhouse and picked up a piece of branch from the ground. Drawing his clasp knife, he opened the blade and began shaving thin curls of wood off the broken branch. To the casual observer, it would look like he was simply whittling to pass the time. In reality, though, Longarm was thinking, replaying and turning over in his mind everything that had happened since his arrival in the Cascades a week or so earlier.

Those rustled steers still bothered him. It had taken a cowboy to pull that off. But the accidents that had struck Aurora's logging operation had to have been carried out by a timber man. It was unlikely any of the Diamond K hands would have known how to rig a high topper's pulley so that it would plunge the timber cutter to his death. Nor would they be overly familiar with the booms of logs floating down the creek and know how to send one of them careening out of control.

Could there be two bunches of badmen causing trouble around here?

Longarm considered that possibility for several moments, then tentatively discarded it. Everything pointed to the fact that someone was trying to play the Mcentire Timber Company and the Diamond K against each other. Longarm's instincts told him that one person was behind the trouble, one schemer who was perfectly capable of hiring both renegade loggers and drifting hard-cases with cowboy skills to carry out his plans.

The knife blade practically flew over the wood as Longarm whittled and thought, thought and whittled.

He was on to something, he sensed. If Callahan was the culprit, he could recruit some of his own men to attack the Mcentire operation, but he would still need some place for the owlhoots he had hired to hole up whenever they weren't creating more deadly mischief on the Diamond K. And even if Callahan wasn't involved, whoever the boss was would still have to have a hiding place for his men. Some place handy, where he could get word to them fairly quickly.

Longarm turned his head, looking up at the peaks of the Cascades rising above this lower valley. Somewhere up there was the place where the troublemakers lurked, awaiting the word from their mysterious boss so that they could ride out and bring death and destruction once more to those in their path. Longarm's fingers clenched tightly on the clasp knife.

There was a little matter of a couple of bushwhackings too. The attempts on his life had come before anyone on the Diamond K knew who he really was. That was important, and he realized now that he had tried to grasp that fact several days earlier, as he was going to sleep in the spare bedroom of the ranch house following the meal Wing had brought to him. No one on the ranch--not Kinsman or Traywick, or Seth Thomas, or any of the other hands, no matter how young and hot-headed--had had any reason to try to have him killed so early on in the game. Seth held a grudge against him, sure... but the young cowboy would have tried to settle it himself, not hired a back-shooter. Longarm was sure of that.

Which left Callahan as the only logical suspect. Callahan had a spy in the Mcentire camp; that was beyond dispute. Eli could have told Callahan that a federal lawman was poking around, and Callahan could have issued orders to have that potentially thorny problem nipped in the bud--with a bullet.

But despite everything that pointed to Callahan, there was still one problem: The man had an explanation for his actions, and one that could even be considered halfway logical if you made allowances for how love could addle a man's mind.

Longarm kept coming back to the fact that the gang, no matter who their boss was, had to have a place to hide out. Those stolen cows had gone somewhere. Why not up into the mountains, to some isolated high valley? Some place above the Diamond K range, maybe along the border between the timber leases of Aurora Mcentire and Ben Callahan. It was possible. Longarm knew he was going to have to find out for sure.

He was deep in those thoughts when a familiar voice asked, "What you carvin' there, Custis?"

Longarm looked up and saw Traywick standing there in front of him. Then he glanced at the branch in his hand, which he had whittled down to practically nothing while he was thinking. There was only a thin length of pale white pine left. Longarm grinned and said, "Reckon it's an albino snake."

Traywick hooked another stool with his foot, drew it over, and sat down wearily. "You ought to see the things one of our hands named Hank can whittle. Boy carved out a little bitty Studebaker wagon once. Wheels turned and the wagon tongue went up and down, just like a real one." The ranch foreman shook his head. "Boy's got a gift."

"I've been thinking, Joe," said Longarm, changing the subject. "You've been in this part of the country for a long time, haven't you?"

Traywick nodded. "Man and boy, nigh onto thirty years. I've ridden over most of it."

"Are there any places high up in the mountains, maybe just under the timberline, where a group of men could hole up, maybe even keep a small herd of cattle?"

"You're thinkin' of that stock we had rustled back when this whole mess started, ain't you?"

"Those cows had to go somewhere," Longarm pointed out. "And those cowboys who raided the lumber camp have to have some place to hide too."

Slowly, Traywick nodded. "I suppose there are some places that fit the bill. We never really went lookin' because-" He abruptly fell silent.

"Because you just figured that Aurora Mcentire and her men were to blame," Longarm finished.

"Made sense at the time," Traywick muttered with a shrug.

"Think I'll take a ride up into the mountains tomorrow," Longarm said. "See what I can find if I look around a mite."

Traywick glanced over at him. "Want some company?"

"I'd like that, Joe," said Longarm. "Reckon I'd like that just fine."

As it turned out, though, Joe Traywick didn't ride with him. Longarm planned to start early, before dawn, and as he walked toward the barn in the grayness of approaching day, he heard yelling from inside the big building. A moment later, Traywick came hopping through the open double doors. Longarm hurried over to him to steady him.

"What happened?"

"Son-of-a-bitchin' horse stomped the hell out of my foot," Traywick groaned. "My boot's full of blood, Custis."

"Come on, let's get you in the house."

Longarm helped Traywick to the back door of the ranch house, knowing that Wing was already up and about in the kitchen. Wing took one look at the foreman's gray, haggard face and exclaimed in Chinese. "Don't start talkin' that gibberish," said Traywick as Longarm helped him sit down at the table, "nor that pidgin English neither. I know you can talk as good as anybody on the ranch, Wing, maybe better."

Wing gave a mock sigh. "Can a man have no secrets around here?" he asked rhetorically. "What in Tophet happened to you, Joe?"

"Horse stomped my foot."

"Let's get that boot off and take a look at it."

As Traywick had said, his boot was full of blood from the ugly gash that had been opened across the top of his foot. Wing examined the wound after carefully working the boot off and cutting away Traywick's blood-soaked sock. "You're going to be laid up for a good spell, Joe," said the cook solemnly. "I can sew up that cut, or we can take you to the doc in Timber City if you want. You've likely got some broken bones in there too."

Traywick shook his head. "You take care of it, Wing," he said. "I trust you more'n I do any sawbones from town. You've been patchin' us up for a long time around here."

"All too true," agreed Wing. "I'll need some whiskey."

"You and me both," grunted Traywick. A new voice came from the doorway of the kitchen. "My God, Joe, what happened?" Molly Kinsman rushed into the room, wrapped in a long blue robe. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, not yet brushed after her night's sleep, and Longarm thought she looked mighty pretty.

He had other things on his mind besides appreciating how lovely Molly was, however. As Traywick launched into yet another explanation of what had happened to him, and Wing and Molly fussed over him, Longarm eased out the back door of the house. He still had work to do.

During their conversation of the day before, Traywick had told him quite a bit about the lay of the land higher up in the mountains. Though he would have felt better about things with Traywick guiding him--and backing him up in case of trouble--Longarm felt confident he could find the places Traywick had told him about. He was sure he could get one of the other hands to ride with him, but there were none of them he trusted as much as he did Traywick. Besides, it was his job to run those badmen to ground, and he didn't really have the right to expose anyone else to the danger that might be awaiting him.

No, he would go it alone, he decided. Wouldn't be the first time he had played a lone hand, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

In the dim light of the lantern he lit in the barn, he saddled the roan and then led the horse outside. The sky was still just turning gray to the east. The rest of the hands would be rising soon, and Longarm wanted to be gone before then. He had plenty of riding to do today. He swung up into the saddle and heeled the roan into a trot.

The rising sun found Longarm high on the mountain that loomed directly above the Diamond K. He was cutting through part of the Mcentire timber lease, but it was a section the loggers had not yet reached. He was far enough away from Aurora's current operation that he couldn't even hear the axes of the men as they began their day's work. In fact, he might as well have been alone on the mountain, save for the birds that flitted from pine to pine and the small animals that rustled away through the underbrush at his approach. A chattering noise made him look up, and he grinned at a squirrel that sat perched on a branch about twenty feet over his head, scolding him. Suddenly, something bounced off Longarm's hat and rolled to a stop on the forest floor.

"Better watch it, old son," he told the squirrel. "You keep throwing pine cones at me, we're liable to have us some squirrel stew for supper tonight."

With a defiant flip of its bushy red tail, the squirrel bounded off the branch, leaping easily to another one and then vanishing among the pine boughs.

Longarm chuckled and rode on. All of his problems should be so easily solved, he thought.

As the sun rose higher, the vegetation began to thin somewhat. In places, Longarm could look up and see the bare rock of the mountain peaks. Nothing grew up there except some lichen and moss. It was always cold at those elevations too, no matter what the weather was down below. In fact, there was already a chilly breeze playing around him, but Longarm wasn't bothered enough by it to reach into his saddlebags and pull out the jacket he had rolled up and put there. He just tugged his Stetson down a little tighter on his head and rode on.

Around mid-morning, he found himself at the lower end of a deep coulee that ran almost straight up the side of the mountain. The slope was fairly steep, but the roan was surefooted. Longarm felt confident that the horse could make it. The floor of the coulee was littered with small boulders and dead brush that had washed down during heavy rains. The sky was clear today, with only a few white puffballs of cloud floating here and there, and no threat of a storm. Still, Longarm felt a prickle of nervousness as he started up the coulee. He had seen more than one flash flood in his time, and he knew how quickly gullies like this could turn into raging torrents.

He recognized the coulee from his conversation with Joe Traywick the day before, though, and knew from what the ranch foreman had told him that this was the quickest and best way to the upper reaches of the mountain. Longarm kept the roan moving, letting the mount set its own pace and pick its own way.

As he rode, Longarm kept an eye on the rocky ground. After a few minutes, he reined the horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle to kneel beside a small, silvery mark on the stone floor of the coulee. Only a keen observer would have ever noticed it. Longarm touched the mark lightly with his finger.

A horseshoe had scraped the rock here, Longarm knew. He looked a little farther on, and saw a small stone that appeared to have been overturned recently. Riders moving through this coulee, especially if they were careful, would leave few if any tracks.

But even the most careful riders could overlook tiny signs of their presence like these. It would take a sharp-eyed tracker to spot them... but Longarm had been taught to read sign by some of the best in the world: Apaches, Arapahos, Crows. By the time he mounted again and rode another half mile or so, he was certain that a good-sized group of horsemen had ridden through this coulee several times recently.

His pulse quickened. He was on the trail of the hired killers who worked for the man behind all the trouble down below. He was sure of it.

As he neared the upper end of the coulee, it began to twist and turn. Longarm proceeded carefully around the bends in the natural passage. It was conceivable that the hired guns would have posted guards, though he figured they probably felt pretty safe way up here on the mountain like this. Still, he didn't want to ride into another ambush.

Suddenly, the small sound of metal clinking on stone made him rein in and stiffen in the saddle. The noise had come from behind him, rather than in front of him, as he might have expected. He listened intently, and heard a few more little sounds that told him he was definitely being followed.

Grim-faced, Longarm slid down from the roan's saddle and led the horse around another bend in the coulee. There was a good-sized boulder here that jutted out from the side of the gully. Longarm hid the roan behind it, then began climbing the rough, sloping face of the big rock. When he got to the top, he would be able to look down on the primitive trail and see whoever was following him.

The noises came closer, and he was able to identify them positively now as hoofbeats. The mysterious tracker seemed to be trying to be quiet, but he wasn't very good at it. Longarm waited patiently.

The rider came into view, wearing a sheepskin jacket and a flat-crowned hat. Longarm caught only a glimpse of him before he started around the big rock on which Longarm crouched. The lawman twisted around and drew his Colt. If the rider kept moving--and there was no reason to think that he wouldn't--in a moment or two he would emerge so that once more Longarm could cover him.

That was what happened. Longarm straightened as the rider rounded the upthrust rock. The sound of a shot would echo far up the mountain, so Longarm didn't want to use the Colt unless he had to. Instead, he slid down the rock face a short distance and used his momentum to launch himself into space.

His dive carried him across the open space between himself and his mysterious follower. Longarm crashed heavily into the man, knocking him out of the saddle. They both fell, and Longarm grunted in pain as the impact of landing on the hard, rocky ground sent flashes of pain through his injured back. He didn't feel any wetness against his skin, however, so he thought the gash across his back hadn't opened up and started bleeding again.

The fellow he had jumped seemed to be stunned. Longarm scrambled up, still holding the gun, and used his free hand to grab the man's shoulder. As he rolled the follower over, the man's hat came loose.

And long red spilled out from under it.

Longarm bit back a curse. He was looking down into the face of Molly Kinsman.

He should have expected that, Longarm told himself as he stood up. Molly moved her head back and forth a little and moaned. She was stunned, all right, but she was coming around. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked up at Longarm in confusion.

"What... what happened?"

He sighed and reached down to give her a hand as she struggled to sit up. "Reckon I could ask you the same thing," he said. "What are you doing here, Molly? How'd you come to be following me?"

Slowly, she got to her feet. "Joe told me what you were doing today," she said. "He even told me where I was likely to find you. I took a few shortcuts."

"Blast it! I told Traywick I didn't want him blabbing to anybody about what we had planned."

Molly smiled. "Oh. Well, that was a waste of time, Custis. Joe's never been able to keep a secret from me."

Longarm grunted. He could just imagine. Molly probably had Traywick wrapped completely around her little finger. Likely she hadn't even had to try very hard to worm Longarm's destination out of him.

"Joe said you shouldn't have started up here by yourself," Molly went on, "and since I've ridden over every foot of this mountain a dozen times since I was a little girl, I thought I'd come lend a hand." She gestured toward the upper end of the coulee. "There's a little valley up there, just like you asked Joe about. Men could stay there, and they could hide stolen cattle there too. And that's not the only place. I know several more spots that might make good hideouts for somebody."

Longarm shook his head. "I want you to get right back on that horse and head back down to the ranch," he told her sternly. "Hunting outlaws and hired guns is no place for you."

"That's not fair," she protested, once again sounding like a little kid. "I can help you, Custis."

"Don't want your help," he said flatly. He might have to offend her in order to get her to leave, but it would be worth it.

Molly's face hardened as she looked at him. "You don't seem to want any of the things I've offered you," she said slowly. "I practically throw myself at you over and over again, and you keep shooing me away like I'm nothing more than a bratty little pest!"

Longarm shrugged eloquently.

"Oh! So that is what you think of me! Well, I'll show you, Mr. High and Mighty U.S. Marshal!" Her hands went to the collar of her flannel shirt under the open sheepskin jacket, and a quick, hard tug popped several of the buttons as she ripped the shirt open. "There! Does that look like I'm a kid?"

She had bared her breasts, small, firm, pear-shaped cones that were lightly dusted with freckles. They were tipped with pale brown nipples that puckered from the chilly air, or arousal, or both. Longarm had to admit that as breasts went, they were a mighty pert and appealing pair.

Still, he didn't think it would be wise--not to mention comfortable--to lay her down on the floor of this rocky coulee and take his pleasure with her. "Molly," he began, "I know I made you a promise-"

"Yes, you did," she broke in, "and it's time you kept it! You make love to me, here and now, and... and, well, I'll go back to the ranch like you want me to."

"And if I don't?" Longarm asked ominously.

Calmly, Molly replied, "Then I start screaming. And sound carries a long way up here, Custis. If the men you're looking for are really up there higher on the mountain, they're liable to hear me, and then you won't be able to sneak up on them."

Longarm stared at her for a long moment, his eyes narrowing in anger at being blackmailed like this. Then, abruptly, a chuckle came from him. He couldn't help but admire somebody with as much gall as Molly Kinsman seemed to possess.

As if sensing that he was weakening, she added quickly, "Anyway, up here you don't have to worry about anybody seeing us. No one will ever have to know."

"All right," said Longarm. "But not right here. Too damn many rocks. Is there any grass in that little valley you mentioned?"

Molly nodded eagerly. "Sure. Grass and trees. It's one of the nicest spots you'll ever see, Custis."

"Let's go take a look then. If there aren't any outlaws hiding there, I reckon we can see about getting what we both want. Just close up that shirt until then, all right?"

Grinning, Molly pulled the ripped shirt together over her breasts. As they mounted up, however, Longarm noticed that it didn't cover her very well anymore. One or both of those hard nipples kept peeking out impishly.

It took another ten minutes to reach the upper end of the coulee. Longarm made Molly stay back while he catfooted ahead to check it out, Winchester held ready in his hands. The little valley ran crossways at the top of the gully, like the bar of a letter T. It was perhaps a hundred yards long and fifty wide, and Longarm could see the whole place as he edged his head above the lip of the coulee. As Molly had said, there were several clumps of pines and a thin coating of grass on the ground. Longarm saw no signs of hired guns or stolen cattle or anybody else, for that matter. He and Molly had the place to themselves.

"Come on up," he told her as he turned and gestured for her to proceed. "If the hideout's up here, it must be in one of those other spots you mentioned."

"I'll show them to you," she offered as she came up even with him.

"You'll tell me how to find them," said Longarm, his tone brooking no argument. "You agreed to go back down the mountain, remember?"

"Only when we're through making love," she reminded him--as if he was likely to forget.

He let her pick the place. She chose a little hollow beneath the spreading branches of a cluster of pines. At this elevation, the trees were somewhat shorter and not as thick through their trunks. The true giants prized so highly by the loggers grew lower down on the slopes. But these were good-sized trees, and they made a shady bower around Longarm and Molly.

When they had tied their horses so that the mounts could graze on the thin grass, she stood before him and gave a toss of her head that made her long red hair swirl around her shoulders. "Undress me," she said.

"You're liable to get a mite cold," Longarm warned her.

Molly shook her head. "No. I'm already hot."

He knew what she meant. That torn shirt had spread open again, and his eyes were drawn back to her breasts. He stepped closer to her and reached up to push the jacket from her shoulders. It fell on the carpet of pine needles behind her. Slowly, Longarm unfastened the remaining buttons on the shirt and then drew it off of her as well, leaving her nude from the waist up. The little freckles that were dusted so appealingly across her breasts were scattered over the rest of her torso as well. Longarm lifted his hands and cupped her breasts, moving the firm mounds of creamy flesh in small circles. Molly closed her eyes as a look of sheer pleasure washed over her face.

Longarm squeezed her left breast and lowered his head to bring the nipple to his lips. He closed them gently over the brown nubbin and sucked lightly. Molly took his hat off so that she could let her fingers play through his thick dark hair as he suckled her. Little exhalations of joy came from her lips as gradually Longarm took more and more of her breast into his mouth. Finally he had almost all of it drawn in, and his tongue circled the nipple in wet swipes.

While he was doing that, he reached down with his other hand and unfastened her belt, then started working on the buttons of her denim trousers. They opened under his deft touch, and a moment later the pants slid down around her calves. She was wearing the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, and Longarm pushed that down as well. As he did, he abandoned her breast so that he could kneel in front of her as he lowered the barrier between himself and her womanhood. The triangle of fine-spun red hair came into view. It was long and silky and already sparkled in places with the dew of her rising passion. Molly gasped in surprise as Longarm buried his face in it.

She smelled clean and eager. As Longarm nuzzled her, he reached around and caught hold of her buttocks, squeezing and kneading them. Molly gasped again as he spread her cheeks apart and ran a fingertip lightly down the cleft between them. "Oh, Custis," she moaned softly. Her thighs spread instinctively.

Longarm rose in front of her, still cupping her bottom so that he lifted her into the air. She seemed light, almost like nothing in his arms. He bent and placed her carefully on the ground, laying her on the jacket and the shirt he had dropped behind her. He grasped her boots and pulled them off, and with a couple of kicks of her legs, she had shed the trousers and long underwear as well. She was naked before him now, her breath coming in sharp little pants from her parted lips.

Longarm liked to be undressed by a woman who took her time and knew what to do along the way, but both of them sensed that this wasn't the right time for such sensual languor. Their need was too urgent, too sharp-edged. He skinned out of his clothes as quickly as he could. Molly let out an exclamation of surprise and joy as he pushed down his trousers and his shaft bobbed into view. It was iron-hard and throbbing as Longarm dropped to his knees in front of her. He put his hands on her thighs and spread them. Unresisting, she opened herself to him. He moved over her, and she reached down to grasp him and guide him home.

With a thrust of his hips, Longarm entered her, sliding his shaft into the slick grip of her womanhood. She was incredibly tight, and he paused as she let out a small noise that could have been either pleasure or pain.

In a husky whisper, he asked, "Are you sure you've done this before, Molly?"

She clutched at his back, her fingernails digging into his flesh. "Oh, God, Custis, don't stop! Make love to me! Please make love to me!"

She reached up and drew his head down to her, kissing him with all the passion and urgency in her body.

There was no turning back. Longarm drove ahead, feeling the momentary obstruction that barred his path give way under the onslaught of his burgeoning manhood. He was ready for Molly's reaction and clapped a hand over her mouth before her scream could rip out. She had lied to him about her past, and for the first time in he couldn't remember how long, he had just deflowered a virgin. Luckily, he hadn't completely forgotten what to do in a case like this. He held himself still, his shaft buried in her to the hilt, as the pain faded and the pleasure she was feeling began to grow. Only when her frenzied breathing had slowed a little did he take his hand away from her mouth.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Wordlessly, she nodded. The way she was beginning to clutch at him again and move her hips back and forth was really all the answer he needed. He began sliding in and out of her in a steady rhythm that was as timeless as the stars.

Faster and faster, Longarm thrust into her. His breath rasped in his throat. He was glad they weren't any higher on the mountain. If the air had been any thinner, they might have both passed out. He felt his climax building, and Molly seemed to be nearing her culmination too. She gasped into his mouth as he kissed her, her breath warm and sweet.

Longarm thrust one last time, his great goad prodding deep into her feminine recesses, and stayed there as his climax shook him. Shuddering, he spurted into her, time after time. His arms pressed her tightly against him as his fluids gushed into her, filling her chamber and spilling out around his buried manhood. He worried again that she would scream, but instead she let her breath out in a long, quavery sigh. Every muscle in her body seemed to go limp as he gave one final spasm.

After a moment, Longarm rolled off her and flopped onto his back beside her. Both of them were still breathing hard. Molly rolled toward him, snuggling against his side and throwing a leg over his thighs. She pillowed her head on his shoulder.

Longarm lifted his head and looked down into her face. "You should have told me the truth," he said.

"Would you have done it if I had?"

"Well... I reckon I might not have."

She closed her eyes and rested her head against him again. "Don't worry, Custis. I'm not expecting anything from you other than what you just gave me. It was the most wonderful moment of my life, and it's plenty ... for now."

"Meaning... ?"

"Meaning I know you have to move on when your job here is finished. I wouldn't ask you to stay, wouldn't expect you to. But now, when I settle down and get married, I'll know that whatever happens in the future, I've experienced the best lovemaking a woman could ever want."

Longarm didn't say anything. He figured she would find out soon enough that she was wrong. When she found the right man and decided to spend the rest of her life with him, it would be even better.

For now, he was content to lie there and enjoy her closeness. His fingertips played along her back and stroked the curve of her hip, then strayed back to the cleft of her bottom and toyed with it for a moment, long enough so that she was starting to breath harder again and rub her mound against his leg.

That was when they both heard the sound of a rider making his slow but steady way up the coulee toward the little high country valley.

CHAPTER 13

"Somebody's coming," said Longarm as he sat up sharply. Beside him, Molly gasped and rolled away from him, snatching up her clothes as she came to her feet.

Longarm was up too, pulling his pants on and stomping into his boots. He shrugged into his shirt but didn't bother buttoning it. Picking up his gunbelt and hat, he said to Molly, "Let's get behind these trees. Whoever that is, I'd just as soon he didn't see us."

Molly's face was red with embarrassment. "What if it's Joe?" she said. "Or my father?" Those words came out of her almost in a wail.

Under other circumstances, Longarm might have chuckled. It was nice to see that she wasn't quite the brazen hussy she liked to pretend she was, even after what they had just done. Now, though, he just caught hold of her arm and said, "Come on."

The trees here didn't grow densely enough to provide a hiding place, Longarm knew. He and Molly caught up the reins of their mounts and started toward the far end of the valley, moving quietly so that whoever was riding up the coulee wouldn't hear them. There was a jumble of large boulders there, and as Longarm and Molly led the horses among the rocks, they quickly lost sight of where they had been only a moment earlier. That was good, because it meant that whoever was coming wouldn't be able to see them either when he reached the valley.

Longarm handed his horse's reins to Molly and said, "Stay here." He turned back toward the valley.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I want to find a place where I can get a look at that fella, whoever he is. Maybe he was trailing us, maybe he wasn't. If he wasn't, then he has to have some other reason for riding up into this high country."

Molly's eyes widened. "Maybe he's one of the men you're looking for."

"Could be," said Longarm. "That's what I'm going to find out." He paused and added, "I mean it, Molly. Stay here. You go to blundering around, you could get us both killed."

She nodded, her face pale. "I understand, Custis."

He hoped she truly did. Leaving her there, he made his way back through the nest of boulders and found a tiny crack between a couple of them where he could watch the valley without being observed in turn.

The sound of hoofbeats was louder now. Whoever the rider was, he wasn't taking any pains to be quiet. Almost as if he belonged here and didn't expect anyone to challenge him.

Longarm saw the horse's head first as the newcomer crossed the valley. Then the rider himself came into view. He wore lace-up work boots, thick canvas trousers, and a woolen shirt under a corduroy jacket. A flat-crowned black hat was on his head. Longarm got a good look at his hawk-like profile and bushy gray eyebrows.

Jared Flint.

"Son of a bitch!" Longarm breathed, hissing the words almost inaudibly through his teeth. He felt like kicking himself. As the foreman of Aurora's logging operation, Flint was in a perfect position to cause trouble for her. Longarm knew he should have seen that before now. He might have, he realized, had he not been distracted first by the hostility between the loggers and the cowboys of the Diamond K, then by Ben Callahan's words and actions, which couldn't have been any more suspicious if Callahan had set out to make Longarm think he was behind the trouble.

With a grimace, Longarm reined in his wildly galloping thoughts. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions yet again, he reminded himself. Flint might have some legitimate reason for being up here. Maybe he was scouting out the timber, seeing if it would be worthwhile for the Mcentire Timber Company to extend their logging all the way to these upper slopes.

But that wasn't very likely, thought Longarm. An experienced man like Flint would know that this close to the timberline, it would be more trouble than the trees were worth to get them down to the sawmill. Longarm tried to think of some other reason for Flint to be here, but he couldn't come up with one.

Unless Flint was meeting with the killers he had hired to prod the loggers and the cattlemen into open warfare that would ultimately ruin both sides. Longarm didn't know what motive Flint might have for doing that, but it was looking more and more likely that that was exactly what had happened.

Longarm gave a little shake of his head. Flint had moved on out of Longarm's view by now. The lawman carefully edged around the boulder so that he could peer after the rider. Flint had crossed the valley and was climbing still higher now, taking a trail so faint that Longarm could barely see it. Longarm turned and hurried back to where he had left Molly and the horses.

"Who was it?" she asked anxiously when he reached her hiding place among the boulders.

"Nobody you know," Longarm told her. "A fella named Jared Flint. He's the foreman of the Mcentire logging operation."

She looked confused. "What would someone like that be doing up here?

There's not enough trees this high up to make it worthwhile for the loggers to cut them down."

Not only beautiful but smart too, thought Longarm. Molly was reaching the same conclusion he had, following the same line of logic. He saw awareness dawn in her eyes as she looked at him.

"Custis, he could be the one behind all the trouble!" she exclaimed.

Longarm nodded. "Yep. That's why I'm going to follow him. If those hired guns are hiding up here, Flint must be on his way to meet with them, maybe give them a new job."

"What are you going to do?"

"Follow him, try to find out just what he's up to."

Molly reached for her horse's reins. "I'm ready. Let's go."

Longarm caught hold of her arm and stopped her. "Not hardly," he said. "You're going back down the mountain--now."

"No, I'm not," Molly said defiantly. "I'm going to help you."

"That's what I meant. Go back to the ranch and tell your pa and Joe Traywick what's going on up here. Tell 'em to send some of the Diamond K hands up that coulee, and have 'em be ready for trouble. I'm liable to need reinforcements, Molly."

She looked doubtful. "I don't know..."

"It's the best thing you can do for me," he told her honestly.

"Well... all right." Her agreement was reluctant, but Longarm hoped she would go through with it.

"I just wouldn't mention anything else that happened up here," he added, pulling the sheepskin jacket closed over her torn shirt and buttoning it. He was aware of the soft pressure of her breasts against the cloth, but tried not to think about what had gone on earlier. He didn't need that sort of distraction right now.

"Don't worry," she said. "That was just between the two of us." She came up on her toes and kissed him again, hard. "And I'll never forget it. Custis. Never."

"Neither will I," he told her, knowing that was what she wanted to hear. Knowing too that there was a grain of truth in what he said. The memory might fade, but it would always be there, deep inside him. He turned her around and patted her on the rump. "Now scoot."

She mounted up and walked her horse out of the boulders. Longarm followed. Both of them moved carefully and quietly. The grass in the tiny valley helped muffle the steps of the horses. When they reached the upper end of the coulee, Molly paused and turned to give Longarm a brave smile. He smiled and nodded, then waved her into motion once more. She started down the coulee.

He turned and rode across the valley to the spot where the upper trail began, the trail that Jared Flint had taken. It was little more than a goat path. Longarm knew he was going to have to be very careful. The vegetation up here was sparse, so there was little cover. If Flint looked back at the wrong time, he was liable to spot Longarm following him.

That was a chance he was going to have to take, Longarm told himself. Fortunately, the trail had a lot of twists and bends in it as it weaved up toward the peak, and there were more of those good-sized boulders scattered about, providing a few hiding places if necessary. His nerves taut with anticipation, Longarm began climbing once more.

Once again, he was thankful for the good fortune that had led him to rent such a trustworthy mount from the livery stable in Timber City. The roan never faltered as it made its way up the steep slope. It placed each hoof carefully, so that no stones rolled underneath its feet. Such a slip could have led to a bad fall; at best, the clatter of rocks bouncing down the mountain might alert Flint that someone was following him. But with the help of the roan, Longarm was able to proceed steadily up the slope. Every so often, he caught a glimpse of Flint several hundred yards above him. When that happened, he slowed down a little, dropping back so that Flint couldn't see him should the timber company foreman happen to glance behind him.

The two men continued up the mountain, and Longarm had to wonder just how high Flint intended to go. Those stolen cattle couldn't have been driven this far up the peak, he decided. They had been disposed of in some other fashion, maybe taken through a pass to the other side of the Cascades. Either that, or they had been driven in the opposite direction, into the ranchlands of the broad Willamette Valley. Getting rid of them there might have attracted more notice and raised more questions, but it wasn't inconceivable.

Maybe his whole theory was wrong, thought Longarm. Maybe there wasn't a hideout up here after all.

That was when he caught sight of a tendril of almost colorless smoke curling into the sky from somewhere several hundred yards above him. From the lower slopes of the mountain, the smoke would have been practically invisible.

Longarm grinned. Somebody had a campfire burning up here, and he figured that camp was Jared Flint's destination.

Longarm dismounted. Despite the roan's surefootedness, he would have to go the rest of the way on foot. Couldn't risk letting whoever was up there know that Flint had been followed. The wind had gotten stronger and chillier the higher Longarm climbed, so before he left the horse he took his jacket from the saddlebags and put it on.

"Sorry there's no graze for you here, old son," he said quietly as he patted the horse on the neck. "We'll be back down in grass country after a while."

He left the roan tied to a scrubby pine and started up the trail once more. His hand hovered near the butt of his Colt as he climbed. His heart was slugging heavily in his chest from the elevation, the exertion, and maybe a little bit from anticipation. He didn't know for sure what he was going to find, but he sensed he was drawing near the end of this case--one way or the other.

This high up the mountain, he thought it unlikely there would be any guards posted, but he kept his eyes and ears wide open just in case. He hadn't seen any sign of Flint for several minutes now.

Suddenly, a bench opened up in front of him. This shelf of fairly level land was several hundred yards long and half that deep. Longarm dropped into a crouch behind a boulder that was perched next to the rim. From there, he could see that the bench was much like the valley down below where he and Molly had made love, only somewhat larger. The ground had a thin cover of grass on it, and a few trees were clustered around what was evidently a spring of some sort. A little creek meandered off to the right end of the bench, where it spilled over the side in a waterfall. Longarm was willing to bet that water was mighty clear and mighty cold. It made him thirsty just thinking about it.

But his attention was focused much more on the trio of ramshackle cabins built around the spring. Old prospectors' shacks, more than likely, he thought, left over from the days when folks had hoped to find gold up here. Somebody had repaired the cabins and built a pole corral, in which a couple of dozen horses grazed.

The horse Jared Flint had been riding was tied up in front of one of the cabins. There was no other sign of the timber company foreman.

Flint had to be inside the cabin, thought Longarm, no doubt conferring with the men who were hiding out here. The men he had hired to raid the lumber camp, to rustle cattle from the Diamond K... and who knows what other deadly errands he had planned for them to carry out?

He had to get closer, Longarm knew. Had to find out just what the next step in Flint's scheme was going to be. He hoped that Molly had reached the ranch without any trouble, because he was going to need help rousting these outlaws from their den.

A foot scraped on rock behind him.

Longarm twisted, his hand flashing to the Colt on his hip. He palmed the gun from the cross-draw rig and started to bring it up, his finger tightening on the trigger. He expected the crash of a shot or the impact of a blow at any instant, and he cursed himself for getting so caught up in his thoughts that he had let someone sneak up on him. Such carelessness was probably about to be the death of him, but at least he would go down fighting.

He froze, finger taut on the trigger, as Molly stepped back sharply and gasped in fear and surprise.

"Son of a bitch!" Longarm hissed. "Girl, I almost blew your head off!" Tremors of reaction went through him.

"I... I didn't mean to startle you," Molly stammered. "I saw you up here, and I knew you must have... must have found something."

"Damn it, I sent you back down the mountain!"

"I... I decided to follow you. I was afraid you'd get in trouble-"

"Oh, I'm in trouble, all right," grated Longarm. "I've got a nest full of killers sitting right in front of me and no help on the way thanks to you."

Molly's features grew tight with anger. "All I wanted to do was help!"

The conversation was being carried on in whispers. Longarm wasn't worried that their words would carry to the hard-cases he was sure were in those cabins conferring with Jared Flint. He was worried, though, that he and Molly might be spotted if there were any sentries posted around the hideout. He had planned to stay there, keeping an eye on the place until help arrived from the Diamond K. But now he knew that no help was coming. The only thing he and Molly could do was slip away as quietly as possible and return to the ranch. With luck, maybe he could still thwart whatever Flint was planning to do next.

He took hold of Molly's arm. "Come on, we've got to get back down the mountain-"

"Freeze, mister!"

The shout came from Longarm's left. He twisted in that direction, the Colt he had drawn a moment earlier still in his hand. He pulled Molly behind him, prepared to shield her body with his own. His eyes spotted the man crouched behind a rock, the rifle in his hands trained on the two of them.

"Drop that gun, you bastard!"

That yell came from the other direction, and Longarm felt his heart sinking. They were trapped in a cross fire. He might have been able to swap lead with one man and come out of the exchange alive; two men with rifles, one to each side of him, meant that he and Molly would both die if any shooting broke out. He turned his head to glance over his shoulder, and saw the second guard covering him with a Winchester from about thirty yards away. Longarm wasn't sure where either of them had been hiding until now, but that didn't really matter. What was important was that he had been spotted while he was trailing Jared Flint up here.

"Take it easy on those triggers, gents," he called out to the two outlaws as he lifted both hands, the Colt still in his right.

"Put the gun on the ground," yelled one of the men. Longarm complied with the order, bending to carefully place the Colt at his feet.

The other guard said, "Move away from it." He came out from behind the rock that had sheltered him and advanced toward Longarm and Molly, keeping the rifle trained on them. Behind him, Longarm heard the second guard approaching too. Longarm took several steps away from the Colt, and Molly moved with him.

"Custis..." she said, fear in her voice. Her arm was against his, and he could feel her trembling.

"Don't you worry," he said quietly. "We'll get out of this somehow."

He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

"Shit, I know you," said the guard in front of them as he came closer. "You're that U.S. marshal we tried to bushwhack a couple of times." The hired killer's lips pulled back from his teeth in an ugly grimace. "You killed a couple of friends of mine, Marshal."

"They were aiming to kill me," Longarm pointed out. "I didn't have much choice."

The second man came up behind them and laughed harshly at Longarm's comment. "Sure you did," he said. "You could've just gone ahead and died and saved us all a lot of trouble."

The first guard jerked the barrel of his Winchester toward the cabins. "Come on. We'll let Flint decide what to do with the two of you... though I reckon I've got a pretty good idea what he's going to say."

"Me too," the second man put in. "I figure we're goin' to kill you, mister--and then this pretty little gal's goin' to entertain us for a while."

More than ever, Longarm wished that Molly had gone on down the mountain like he'd told her to. Now there was nothing he could do for her, for either of them, except wait and watch for an opportunity to make a desperate bid for freedom. Maybe if nothing else, they would die quickly that way. They walked ahead of the two guards across the bench toward the spring and the cabins. When they were about fifty yards away, one of the outlaws lifted his voice and shouted, "Hey, Boss, come out here and see what we found!"

The door of the largest cabin opened, and several hard-cases emerged, followed by Jared Flint. The timber man stopped short when he saw Longarm. "Damn you, Long!" he exclaimed. "You just had to keep poking around, didn't you?"

"It's my job," Longarm said coolly as he came to a stop in front of Flint and the gunmen.

"So I suppose you're proud of yourself now. Finally found out what you wanted to know, didn't you?"

Longarm nodded. "I reckon so. You and these fellas you hired have been behind the trouble down below all the time, haven't you?"

"Of course. That government timber contract's going to make us all rich once I'm running things."

"You're already Mrs. Mcentire's foreman. What more do you want?"

Flint snorted in contempt. "Angus Mcentire was supposed to leave me in charge of the company when he died. I never dreamed that... that woman would come in and start trying to run things."

"Rubbed you the wrong way, did it, taking orders from a woman?

Especially since she had the company doing so well?"

"It would have done even better with me in charge," said Flint. "And without Mrs. Mcentire around, there wouldn't be anybody to stop me from taking all the profits. That's just what I'll do once she finally realizes she's not cut out for life in a lumber camp."

Longarm's eyes narrowed. He had run up against his share of grandiose criminal schemes in his time, some of which could have had pretty far-reaching implications for the entire country. Not this case, though. At the heart of it was nothing more than a venal, greedy embezzler--albeit on a fairly large scale, if Flint had his way.

"If that's all you wanted," said Longarm, "why didn't you just kill her and be done with it?"

Flint shook his head. "There are some things I won't do, Marshal. I wasn't above arranging an accident so that Angus Mcentire would die, but I'm not going to murder a woman in cold blood. Besides, that still wouldn't necessarily leave me in charge of the operation. I want Mrs. Mcentire alive and trusting me--at least until I get my hands on enough loot to make it all worthwhile." One of the gunmen said, "That's enough jabberin'. Let's kill this badge-totin' skunk and be done with it." He leered. "I want to make the acquaintance o' that gal with him anyway."

"Shut up, Barcroft." Flint turned to Molly. "You're Molly Kinsman, aren't you?" he demanded.

She managed to nod, and her chin trembled only slightly as she did so. For the moment, she was holding on to her self-control with an iron grip, Longarm thought, but sooner or later that grip was going to weaken.

"Sorry you got mixed up in this, Miss Kinsman," said Flint, and he sounded as if he meant it. "Wish there was some way around what's going to have to happen, but I don't reckon there is."

Longarm knew he'd be wasting his breath if he pleaded for Molly's life. Now that she knew Flint was the mastermind, she would have to die too, though Longarm had no doubt the hired killers would keep her alive for a while before disposing of her. It wouldn't be a reprieve for her. They would take turns assaulting her until she was more dead than alive.

Flint turned to the burly gunman called Barcroft, who seemed to be the leader of these hired gunmen. "We'd better get moving," he said. "Get that dynamite loaded. I want to reach the dam just after dark."

Barcroft nodded, but instead of following Flint's orders, he jerked a thumb at Longarm and Molly. "What about them?"

"There'll be plenty of time to deal with them later. Put them in one of the cabins and leave a couple of men to guard them."

"Likely be better to kill the lawman now," said Barcroft, fingering the butt of his gun.

Flint shook his head firmly. "Not yet. I want Long to see some of what's in store for Miss Kinsman before he dies."

Longarm's jaw tightened. So Flint wasn't just an ambitious crook. He had a cruel streak in him too, a streak of pure meanness.

But that was all right, Longarm told himself. As long as he was still drawing breath, there was a chance for him and Molly to get out of this. Mighty slim, to be sure, but a chance nonetheless.

Whatever hopes Longarm had were quickly stifled. He and Molly were trussed up and shoved into one of the shacks, and Longarm knew without struggling against his bonds that their captors had done a professional job of tying them up. He might be able to work enough slack into the rope to worm his hands free--with a considerable loss of blood and hide in the process--but it would take too long. The outlaws who were preparing to leave the hidden camp planned to return before the coming night was over. Then they would have their fun with Molly and kill Longarm.

In the dimness of the shack, Longarm could see the pale blur that was Molly's face. "I really ruined things, didn't I?" she said miserably.

"Nope," Longarm told her. "Those fellas would have jumped me anyway. I knew I was walking into a lion's den right from the start, Molly. That's why I didn't want you along."

"But if I'd gone for help like you told me..."

Longarm sighed. There was no denying that their situation would look at least a little brighter right now if they had hopes of a bunch of Diamond K cowboys riding to their rescue. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to happen.

Molly had fallen silent, overwhelmed by the predicament in which they found themselves. They heard the sound of a lot of horses leaving the camp, and Longarm knew Flint, Barcroft, and the other gunnies had set out on their latest mission of destruction. After a few minutes, Molly said, "What was that Flint said about dynamite? And a dam?"

"I've been thinking about that too," replied Longarm. "The loggers built a dam on one of the upper creeks so that a pond would back up and give them enough water to run a flume down the mountain to the sawmill. I reckon Flint's going to blow it to kindling."

"A flume?" repeated Molly. "What's that?"

Longarm searched his mind for a way to explain the apparatus. "It's sort of like a creek on stilts," he said after a minute. "It's a big trough lined with pitch so it's watertight, set up on poles so that it runs in an elevated line down the mountain. The loggers let water into it through a sluice gate in the dam on a lake or a pond, and of course the water runs downhill. If you roll a log into the flume, it floats down too. It's a quicker, easier way to move the logs than hauling them out with mules or a donkey engine and cables. Timber companies use it when there's no stream nearby that's big enough to float booms of logs."

"Well, I'll take your word for it," said Molly, trying to inject a note of lightness into her voice despite their situation. "I was raised on a cattle ranch, and none of this logging business really makes sense to me. But if Mrs. Mcentire's men built that dam, why would Flint want to blow it up?"

"That much water, turned loose all of a sudden like that, will flood the logging camp and maybe drown some of the men. Maybe Flint's hoping that'll be the last straw for Mrs. Mcentire. All he really wants to do is run her off without hurting the operation too much. Of course, he don't seem to care how many men he kills along the way."

"He's a horrible man," Molly said with a shudder.

"Yep," agreed Longarm. "That he is."

"And... and... he's going to kill us." Molly's voice began to quaver, and Longarm could tell that her self-imposed calm was about to shatter.

He was trying to come up with something to tell her when he heard one of the guards who had been left outside the cabin say abruptly, "Hey, who's that old man? Hold it right there, mister! What're you doin' up here?" Another of the guards said scornfully, "Aw, take it easy, Jed. It's just an old Chinaman. Prob'ly a peddler."

"On top of a mountain? Not damn likely." Longarm heard the lever of a Winchester being worked. "I said stop, mister. What do you want?"

Longarm had felt his pulse jump when he heard the word "Chinaman," and now his hopes rose even more as a familiar voice said, "No pointee gun, please. Mist' Flint send me, tell you hurry down mountain. Much trouble below."

Wing. That was Wing out there, Longarm realized.

"What'n hell? Why would Flint send you with a message for us? I ain't never even seen you before, Chinaman."

"This humble one is cook in logging camp," Wing lied. "Helpee Mist' Flint much times before."

"Well... I don't know. I still ain't sure we ought to trust you. What do you think, Pete?"

The other guard was about to say something when Longarm heard a meaty thunk. Somebody yelled, "Son of a-" but then the startled shout died away in a hideous gurgle. Inside the cabin, Longarm and Molly looked at each other, wide-eyed with hope and surprise.

The door opened and Wing stepped inside, shaking his head so that his queue swung back and forth. He looked down at Longarm and Molly and said, "Missy Molly ver' naughty girl. Lucky old Chinese man follow in case she get in trouble."

"Oh, hell, Wing, stop talking like that and get these ropes off us," Longarm said urgently. "Are those guards dead?"

Wing nodded. "Yep, both of 'em. Are they the only ones Flint left behind?" He knelt beside Longarm and began using the knife he held in his hand to saw at the ropes binding the lawman's wrists. Longarm noticed that the slender blade was stained with blood.

"As far as I know," Longarm said. "I think all the others went with Flint to blow up a dam on a creek down the mountain." He grunted in satisfaction as the ropes came free. While Wing moved to his legs to cut those bonds, Longarm began rubbing the circulation back into his hands.

"Wing, what are you doing here?" asked Molly in amazement.

Wing finished freeing Longarm's legs and moved over to start on Molly's bonds. "As soon as Joe told me what he had told you," he said, "I knew you'd be following old Custis here. So I followed you."

"You came up that coulee on the side of the mountain?" asked Longarm.

"Yeah, but somebody was ahead of me. That fella Flint. I recognized him from that time the loggers attacked the ranch. You and him and that Miz Mcentire came riding up in time to keep anybody from getting hurt too bad."

"Flint led us on a so-called shortcut that day," Longarm said bitterly. "I figure he was really delaying us in hopes we'd be too late to stop a full-scale battle from breaking out. Luckily he didn't slow us down quite enough."

"You... you followed me," said Molly, still stuck on that point. Longarm wondered if she was worried that the Chinese cook had seen the two of them making love. Now that they weren't both about to die, she could spare some concern for something like that. Longarm didn't care overmuch, but he was pretty sure Wing knew nothing about that part of the afternoon. Wing had come up the coulee behind Flint, and by that time, Molly's deflowering had long since been accomplished. If Molly had gone on down the mountain as Longarm had told her to, in fact, doubtless she would have run right into Wing on his way up.

"That coulee was a busy place with folks coming and going today," Longarm commented as Wing helped Molly to her feet. "Now we've all got to get down the mountain again, as fast as we can. Maybe we can still stop Flint."

Wing slid a finger along the edge of his blade. "I'd like that," he said, and Molly stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time.

She was even more surprised and horrified a moment later when the three of them stepped out of the cabin and she saw the bodies sprawled face-down on the ground. One of the outlaws had a hatchet buried in the back of his head while the other was lying in a pool of rapidly drying blood that had gushed from his slit throat. Longarm looked at the corpses too, and said to Wing, "I reckon in your earlier days, you must've done a little work for some of those tongs down in San Francisco."

"Tongs?" repeated Wing, his face and voice emotionless. "This humble one is but a cook."

Longarm grinned tiredly and shook his head, knowing there was no point in carrying on with this conversation. No matter what Wing had been in the past, he was a good friend now. Hell, he had saved their lives, pure and simple, and he was going to help Longarm put an end to Jared Flint's schemes too.

Flint was going to be one surprised son of a bitch the next time he saw Longarm.

And Longarm hoped fervently that next time was going to be over the barrel of a gun.

CHAPTER 14

The horses ridden up there by Longarm and Molly had been brought up to the camp from where they had been left and put into the corral. Wing retrieved the mounts while Longarm helped himself to a six-gun and some extra shells from one of the dead guards. Then the three of them started back down the mountain. At the bottom of the coulee, they split up, over Molly's objections. Longarm sent her to the Diamond K with orders to bring as many men as possible to the headquarters of the Mcentire timber operation. "Your pa might not believe me if I told him what's going on," said Longarm, "but I'm betting he'll believe you."

"I'll make sure of it," she promised grimly. Longarm turned to the cook. "Wing, you head for the logging camp and warn them about what Flint's planning to do. Maybe if they know a flood's on the way, they can avoid the worst of it. Once the punchers from the Diamond K get there, bring them and Mrs. Mcentire's men up the mountain to that dam. Even if I can slow down Flint and his men and keep them from blowing up the dam, I'm liable to need a hand by then."

"You can't stop them by yourself," protested Molly. "There are too many of them!"

Longarm grinned. "Reckon I'll just have to make do. Now git, both of you!"

Reluctantly, Wing and Molly galloped away on different trails. Longarm took yet a third path, sending the roan down a narrow trail that he hoped would take him where he needed to go.

He had only a vague idea of where the dam was located, and he didn't have a lot of time to spend searching. A glance at the sky told him that the sun was lowering toward the peaks of the Cascade range. Flint had said he wanted to reach the dam just after dark. That was a good time for the explosion he had planned. None of the loggers would be there, because they would all be down in the main camp, sitting down to supper. The torrent of water that would race down the Mountainside following the blast would take them completely by surprise unless Wing got there in time to alert them to their danger. They might have a little warning, Longarm corrected himself, because they might hear the explosion that destroyed the dam. But that would be too little, too late, especially since the loggers would have no way of knowing what had caused the blast.

There was a lot riding on him, Longarm realized--not only justice for a clever criminal, but also the lives of innocent men.

And possibly the life of Aurora Mcentire as well.

Despite Flint's high-flown statements about not wanting to kill Aurora, he had come close before, when he or one of his henchmen had set free that boom to come crashing into Aurora's cabin. The flood that would wash down the mountain after the dam was destroyed wouldn't differentiate between its victims either. As long as she was in the camp, Aurora was in deadly danger.

As shadows gathered, Longarm had to watch the trail closely. From landmarks on the mountain and in the valleys below, he estimated that he was almost directly above the timber camp now, which meant he should be reaching the dam soon. Despite the fact that any delay chafed at him, he slowed the roan to a walk so that the pounding of its hoofbeats wouldn't advertise that he was coming. If he was going to have any chance to stop Flint's plan, he had to take the men at the dam by surprise.

Suddenly, he heard voices, and he reined the horse to a quick stop. He swung down from the saddle and tied the roan to a nearby bush. "Stay here, old son," he whispered to the horse as he patted it on the neck. Then he started on foot along the path, which had all but disappeared in the thickening dusk.

Through a screen of brush and trees, he saw the dam looming ahead of him. It was built of logs, naturally enough, and had a sluice gate in its center, several feet below the top of the dam. A surefooted logger could walk out there on the dam, bend over and grasp a handle, and pull the gate up to release the water into the flume, which was already partially built. Longarm's gaze followed the steeply inclined, elevated trough as it ran down the Mountainside and disappeared into the shadows. He didn't know how much of the flume had been completed, but if that dynamite went off as Flint planned, it would be destroyed along with the dam.

The flume and the dam itself could be rebuilt, though, once Flint had succeeded in running off Aurora Mcentire. After all, the money wouldn't be coming out of his pocket.

Longarm crouched behind the thick trunk of a pine and searched the dam and the area around it for any sign of Flint and the man's hired gunmen. Surely he hadn't beaten them to the punch and gotten there first. That wasn't possible.

Nor was it the case, Longarm saw a moment later. A couple of men emerged from the shadows on the far side of the dam and began walking carefully out onto the wall of logs. No doubt the rest of the gang were over there too, in the trees beyond the big pond that had been formed by the dam. Stars were beginning to twinkle into existence in the darkening sky above, and Longarm could see the pinpoints of light reflected in the calm surface of the pond. "Lake" would have been a better word to describe the recently formed body of water, he thought; it was already larger than any pond he had ever seen. The surroundings reminded him a little of Lake Tahoe, down in Nevada, where a couple of cases had taken him in the past.

In the gloom, Longarm couldn't see the two men on the dam that well, but he thought they were Flint and Barcroft. They had just about reached the center of the dam. Longarm edged closer, using the brush for cover, and saw one of the men strike a match. The sudden glare of the lucifer revealed the craggy features of Jared Flint. Flint extended the match toward the other man, who was indeed Barcroft, Longarm confirmed. Barcroft held several sticks of dynamite that had been tied together. A single long fuse ran from the deadly bundle.

"I'll light it," said Flint, "and you wedge it down there behind that sluice gate lever."

Barcroft nodded. "All right, but don't waste any time gettin' off of here once the fuse is lit. It ought to burn for several minutes, but you can't never be sure about such things."

Longarm drew his gun as Flint held the match to the fuse. It caught with a sharp, serpent-like hissing sound. Barcroft knelt to place the dynamite.

Longarm knew he couldn't wait for them to leave the dam, then run out there himself and pull the fuse. That would be cutting it too fine. He did the only thing he could.

He shot Barcroft.

It was getting too dark for any fancy marksmanship. Longarm aimed for the gunman's bulky body and squeezed the trigger. As the Colt bucked against his palm, Barcroft let out a howl of pain and flew backwards, driven off the dam by the impact of the slug. He fell into the waters of the pond with a huge splash, the dynamite going with him just as Longarm had hoped it would. The water put out the fuse and rendered the explosives harmless.

Flint twisted toward the sound of the shot and yelled a curse. He brought up a gun and blazed away at the spot where Longarm crouched. Longarm threw himself flat as bullets whipped through the brush above him.

"Somebody's over there!" shouted Flint to his men. "Get him! Get the son of a bitch!"

More yelling came from the rest of the gunmen. Some of them started shooting across the water, their muzzle flashes winking like giant fireflies in the dusk, while others began running around the pond in an effort to close in on Longarm.

Meanwhile, Flint turned and dashed off the dam with the ease of a man who had spent quite a bit of time on such structures in the past.

Longarm thought bleakly that the foreman was probably going back for more dynamite.

On his hands and knees, Longarm crawled rapidly toward the dam. He didn't want to shoot at Flint's men because his own muzzle flashes would just give them something at which to aim. When he had almost reached the dam, he slid down the steep slope and wound up in the thick shadows underneath the flume.

Longarm moved under the flume in a crouching run and came out on the other side. Craning his neck, he looked up at the top of the dam looming above him. As he had feared, Flint was starting out onto the dam once more. Longarm was convinced he had brought more dynamite with him.

The hired killers were still throwing lead into the place where Longarm had been a few minutes earlier, but they weren't hitting anything except some tree branches. Longarm knew it wouldn't take them long to realize he had gotten out of there once some of the gunmen reached the far side of the pond. He went to one of the thick logs that supported the framework of the flume and wrapped his arms and legs around it. He began shinnying up the pole toward the flume itself.

As he climbed, he heard the sudden pounding of hoofbeats in the forest nearby. Someone yelled, "Over there!" Longarm thought it might have been Matt Kinsman. A moment later, more guns began to bang. The dusk was lit by near-constant flashes of exploding gunpowder.

The help he had sent Molly and Wing for had arrived--and just in time too.

Longarm kept climbing. He leaned his head back and looked up, spotting the dark figure of Jared Flint atop the dam. Flint was fumbling with something, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what it was. Longarm lost sight of the man as he reached the flume itself. He reached up and caught hold of the trough's edge with one hand, then two. Pain shrieked in his back as he pushed off from the framework with his legs and dangled there for a moment. That bullet crease was not yet fully healed, and Longarm figured he had just torn it open again.

Pulling himself up with a grunt of effort, he swung a leg over the flume's edge and caught his heel on it. He was able to lever himself up and roll over, landing in the still-dry flume. The angle was extreme, but he began scrambling toward the top, even as Flint struck another match and moved it toward the fuse of the second bundle of dynamite.

"Flint!" Longarm bellowed, trying to startle the man into dropping the match or the dynamite or both. Instead, Flint jerked his head around to peer down into the flume, and in the light of the match, his features contorted with hate as he saw Longarm climbing toward him. With a sneer, he reached down for the sluice gate handle with the hand holding the match.

Longarm's eyes widened, and he threw all of his strength into lunging upward toward Flint. There was no time for gunplay now, only for a desperate grab. Longarm's hand shot out and closed over Flint's ankle just as the timber company foreman pulled the sluice gate.

Water slammed into Longarm and rocketed him back down the flume, but his fingers were still wrapped around Flint's ankle in a grip of iron. With a yell, Flint was jerked off the dam and crashed down into the flume just above Longarm. The force of the water carried both of them down the mountainside in a mad, careening ride.

Longarm's mouth was full of water. He spit out as much of it as he could and coughed up some more. The racing water, which was moving with enough force to carry huge logs down the flume, slammed him into the sides of the structure. He bounced off and kept going. He had ridden the rapids of some raging rivers in his time, and this experience was somewhat similar. There was nothing he could do except let himself go limp and hope the wild ride wouldn't kill him.

Something hit him in the head, but it wasn't the side of the flume. It was Jared Flint's work-booted foot. Flint kicked at Longarm again as he slid down alongside the lawman. The flume was wide enough for both of them to go flying down it side by side. Through the turbulent water that splashed in his face, Longarm saw Flint reaching for him, felt the man's fingers close around his throat.

Longarm was already gasping for breath due to the fact that his head was constantly going in and out of the water. Flint had caught him at a bad time, when there was little air in his lungs. Desperate, Longarm struck out at Flint with his fists, hoping to knock Flint's grip loose. Instead the fingers only tightened. A gray haze that had nothing to do with nightfall began settling over Longarm's vision. He knew he was very close to losing consciousness, and if he did, Flint would kill him.

Then, suddenly, there was nothing underneath him. The water fell away, leaving Longarm and Flint shooting through thin air.

Of course, thought Longarm. The construction of the flume had only started.

They had reached the end of the line.

Instinctively, Longarm grasped Flint's shirt and twisted in midair as they traveled through a long, graceful curve toward the ground. Tree branches caught at them, slowing them slightly, then with a crash that jolted all of Longarm's teeth, they slammed into the earth. Longarm's quick thinking had put Flint on the bottom, though, and he bore the brunt of the impact. Flint's fingers were torn from Longarm's throat as their landing knocked the two men apart and sent them rolling separately down the slope.

Water was gushing in rivulets around Longarm when he finally came to a stop. The torrent pouring off the end of the flume was washing down the Mountainside. The cold water revived the stunned lawman, and he lifted his head to look toward the flume. As he watched, the flood came to a halt, dying away to a trickle. Someone up above had thought to lower the sluice gate once more. There were no more shots coming from up there either. The fight was over.

Longarm wondered who had won. For the time being, he was more concerned with Jared Flint. Here under the trees, the shadows were even thicker and darker, but after a moment he spotted the sprawled bulk that could only be Flint. Longarm pushed himself to his feet, groaning at the pain shooting through his battered body. He stumbled toward Flint, and as he did, he checked the holster on his hip. The gun he had taken from the dead guard at the outlaw camp was gone, which came as no surprise.

He didn't need it, he told himself. If Flint put up a fight, Longarm would kill the son of a bitch with his bare hands.

Flint wasn't going to be putting up a fight, though, not ever again. Longarm dropped to one knee beside the man, who lay on his back staring up sightlessly at the stars now appearing through the spaces in the canopy of trees. Slamming into the ground at such high speed with Longarm on top of him like that had probably busted up Flint inside. When Longarm grasped Flint's shoulder and turned him onto his side, even in the faint starlight he could see that the damage was much worse. The whole back of Flint's skull was caved in. He had to have died almost instantly.

With a sigh, Longarm pushed himself to his feet. The threat of Flint's schemes was over. Now he had to hope that Flint's hired gunmen had been dealt with as well.

"Custis! Damn it, Custis, where are you?"

Longarm lifted his head. That was Molly Kinsman's voice. She wouldn't be up here unless the forces led by her father had won the battle. Longarm began trudging wearily up the Mountainside toward the dam.

When he reached it a few minutes later, looking no doubt like a half-drowned rat, he saw that several lanterns had been lit. Matt Kinsman's cowboys and some of the loggers from Aurora's camp were standing together around several prisoners, covering the captured gunmen with rifles. Molly, Matt Kinsman, Joe Traywick, Wing, Aurora Mcentire, and Ben Callahan, of all people, stood near the dam. Molly spotted Longarm and ran toward him, shouting excitedly, "Custis!" She threw her arms around him, ignoring his soaked clothing.

Kinsman strode after her, followed by Traywick, who limped along being supported by Wing. Traywick's injured foot hadn't stopped him from being in on this showdown.

Aurora and Callahan joined the group clustering around Longarm.

"You all right, Marshal?" Kinsman demanded gruffly. "Or is my daughter about to squeeze you to death?"

"I reckon... I'll be fine once I catch my breath," said Longarm. Actually, every muscle and bone in his body ached, and the old wound on his back hurt like blazes. He was going to need some time to recuperate from this job.

Kinsman jerked a thumb at the prisoners. "We rounded up this bunch, them that didn't make us kill 'em. Found one floatin' in the pond too. Reckon that was probably your doin'."

Barcroft, thought Longarm. He nodded wearily. Molly wasn't hugging him anymore, but she still had an arm around him as she stood beside him. Longarm looked at Kinsman and then at Aurora and said, "Glad to see that you two finally decided you could work together."

"Once this Chinese gentleman showed up at the camp and told us what you'd found out, there wasn't much choice," said Aurora.

"When I first got to this part of the country," Longarm pointed out, "you never would've believed him since he works for Kinsman."

"Well... I hope that such distrust is behind us now." Aurora looked at Kinsman.

"Far as I'm concerned it is," the rancher grunted. "I still ain't overly fond of what you've been doin' up here, but I'll make an effort to get along if you will, ma'am."

Aurora stuck out her hand toward him. "Of course."

Kinsman took her hand, and they shook on it. Longarm felt a surge of satisfaction that gave him some renewed energy. One of the things he had set out to do had been accomplished. With luck, there would be peace between the cattlemen and the loggers from here on out.

He looked at Callahan and asked, "What are you doing up here?"

"I was at Aurora's camp," Callahan said rather awkwardly, "explaining myself to her."

"Asking me to marry him, he means," Aurora said, with a laugh. "You could have knocked me over with a feather, Ben. I always thought you couldn't stand me."

"I hope you know now that's not true."

"Certainly I do." She linked her arm with his. "And I'm very tempted to take you up on your offer to merge our companies."

"I don't think that's all he wants to merge," Molly blurted out.

Kinsman glared at her, but the others all laughed. After a moment, even the rancher gave a rueful chuckle. He said, "We'd better gather up those prisoners and all the bodies and cart 'em into town. Deputy Bullfinch'll have to make room in his jail for the live ones."

"Plenty of room at the undertaker's for the dead ones," Joe Traywick put in.

Aurora stepped closer to Longarm. "Custis, where is Mr. Flint?"

Longarm inclined his head down the Mountainside. "Back yonder at the end of that flume. Both of us went shooting off there, but Flint hit headfirst." Longarm shook his head. "He won't be causing any more trouble unless he's already trying to take over from the Devil down there in Hades."

Tugging gently on his arm, Molly led Longarm away. "I'm going to take good care of you," she said. "We'll have you back on your feet in no time."

"Sounds good to me," said Longarm.

"And then we'll have you on your back."

He looked over at her quizzically.

"I want to be on top next time," she whispered.

The End