Longarm and the Brazos Devil

He had only gone about a dozen feet when there was a faint rustling sound behind him. Before he could even start to turn around, an arm corded with muscle looped around his neck and clamped across his throat. He felt the pinprick of a knife’s point underneath his jaw.

“Why do you spy on my mistress?” a deep voice asked.

Longarm stood still. He knew better than to commence thrashing around with a knife at his throat. The pressure on his neck eased enough for him to say, “Take it easy, old son. I’m not spying on anybody.”

“Then what are you doing here?” the Sikh hissed in perfectly good English.

“What do you think I was doing?” Longarm didn’t know how long Singh had been watching him, but he knew that if he hemmed and hawed the knife-wielding warrior sure wouldn’t believe him. “I came down here in the trees to take a leak.”

“To relieve yourself, you mean?”

“That’s right. So I’ll thank you to let me go and get that pig-sticker away from my neck.”

Longarm tried to sound suitably offended. Singh hesitated for a moment longer; then the pressure on Longarm’s throat went away entirely, along with the knife. Singh stepped back and said, “When I saw you come into the trees, I thought you might intrude on her ladyship. My apologies, Marshal.”

Longarm rubbed his throat briefly and nodded to the Sikh. “Didn’t know you spoke our lingo so good. Hell, I wasn’t even sure you could talk at all.”

“I am a half-caste. My mother was British, and I was educated at the university known as Oxford. If I say little, it is because I have little to say.”

“Most folks should be that smart,” Longarm muttered. “Apology accepted, Singh. I don’t reckon I can blame you for looking out for her ladyship. That’s part of your job, after all.”

Singh nodded curtly. “I will go back to the others.”

“I’ll be along directly,” Longarm said. “Got to finish what I came down here for.”

Singh nodded again and faded back into the trees, rapidly disappearing. He reminded Longarm once again of an Indian—the war-paint kind—just like his fellow servant Ghote. They were as lightfooted a pair as Longarm had ever run across, and he suspected that in a fight Singh would be more trouble than an armful of wildcats. He just hoped he and the Sikh wouldn’t wind up on opposite sides before this hunt was over.

Since he hadn’t picked up Rainey’s trail again, Longarm decided he might as well continue riding with Thorp’s party. Once all the fancy trappings from lunch had been stowed away, they mounted up and rode northwest, generally following the course of the Brazos. The river was about a quarter of a mile to their right most of the time. Some of the landscape began to look familiar, and Longarm realized it wasn’t far from here that he had finally met up with Rainey and Lloyd. The spot where Rainey had seen whatever spooked him so bad was also nearby. Longarm spoke up, saying as much to Thorp and Lord Beechmuir.

“Excellent!” Booth exclaimed. “I wanted to see that spot, as you know, Marshal. The tracks you saw may still be there.”

“They should be,” Longarm said. “Hasn’t been any rain since then.”

They rode on, angling more toward the river now. They were making their way through one of the many stands of oak that covered the landscape when Singh suddenly spurred ahead of the others and held up a hand.

“Halt!” Lord Beechmuir said. “The Sikh has seen something.”

So had Longarm. There was a dark shape on the ground about fifty yards ahead of them, on the edge of a small gully. At first Longarm wasn’t sure what it was, but then he realized it was a body of some sort. Not human, though; it was too big for that.

“My God,” Helene breathed. “What is it?”

“It’s dead, whatever it is,” snapped Thorp. “Come on.”

Booth turned to his wife. “My dear, you stay here with Ghote and Benjamin’s men. The Sikh will come with us.”

Helene nodded, agreeing to stay back. Longarm and Thorp were already spurring forward. Booth and Singh rapidly caught up with them.

The ground around the body was darkly stained where blood had soaked into it. That was another way they knew the corpse didn’t belong to a human being. No one had that much blood in his body. But a horse did, and as Longarm and the others drew closer to the grisly site, he could make out some dimly equine outlines. The horse had been ripped to pieces, though, so much so that it was barely recognizable.

“Good Lord!” Booth said as they reined in. A thick cloud of flies rose from the body of the horse and buzzed away angrily. “What could have done such a thing?”

“The Brazos Devil,” Thorp said grimly. “This poor beast is ripped up just like the Lavery boys were. They didn’t even look human anymore when the monster got through with them.”

Longarm swung down from his saddle and knelt beside the gruesome remains. He touched the dark pool surrounding the horse. The blood that hadn’t soaked into the ground had dried into a sticky, congealed mass. Longarm touched it with his fingertips and then rubbed them together, grimacing. “Probably happened yesterday,” he said. “The horse wandered around for a day after he ran off the second time; then this happened to him.”

“You recognize the animal?” asked Thorp.

Longarm nodded. “It’s the gelding I was riding when I caught up to Rainey and Lloyd. There’s not much hide left on the body, but what there is of it is gray. And that’s my saddle.” He sighed. The McClellan saddle had been ripped in two and was soaked in blood. He wouldn’t be using it again, nor anything in the saddlebags.

His Winchester wasn’t in the saddle boot, though, and that was curious. He stood up and began walking in ever-widening circles around the horse, ignoring the curious stares of his companions. After a few minutes, he bent over and reached into a clump of brush. When he straightened, he was holding a rifle.

“Got some blood on the stock, but I can clean it off,” he said. “The critter was curious enough to pull my rifle out of the boot, but when he realized it wasn’t anything good to eat, he threw it away.”

“He?” Thorp repeated.

Longarm shrugged. “Who knows? Those who have seen it say the thing’s half-man, so I don’t feel right calling him an it.”

Thorp shook his head and said, “Anything that could do this to a horse … I’m not sure any part of it is human.”

The man had a point, Longarm thought. He had seen horses pulled down by wolves and mountain lions that looked like this one, but he never would have dreamed that something which walked upright could do such damage with his—its—whatever—bare hands. Longarm felt a little shiver go through him.

While he searched for his rifle, he had also been looking for tracks. He resumed that search now, and several yards away from the horse’s body he found some. “Look here,” he told the others. They joined him, and he pointed out the prints. The sharp claws on the gigantic feet had really gouged out the soft loam of the ground in places. Longarm said, “Those are the same sort of tracks I found the other day after Rainey started screaming.”

All four of the men peered closely at the misshapen footprints. Singh muttered something that sounded like “Yeti.”

“What’s that?” Longarm asked.

“A legend in the part of the world Singh comes from,” Lord Beechmuir explained. “High in the Himalayan Mountains, a creature supposedly exists that is part man and part monster, dwelling in the eternal snows of those slopes. I’ve often thought about going there and attempting to bag one of the beasts.”

“Well, it doesn’t snow very often in these parts, but I reckon the Brazos Devil could be a distant relation. What do you think, Singh?”

The expression on the Sikh’s bearded face was fierce, but he shook his head. “It is not for me to say.”

“Suit yourself.” Longarm turned to Lord Beechmuir. “Think you can track the critter?”

“We shall certainly try. Are you going to continue to accompany us, Marshal?”

Longarm thought about it, then nodded. “Anytime anything’s going on around here, the Brazos Devil seems to be somewhere close by. Maybe if we find him, we’ll find Rainey too.”

“And my wife,” Thorp put in.

“Sure,” said Longarm. “Mrs. Thorp too.”

But in his heart, he no longer believed that. He had heard about what the Brazos Devil was suspected of doing to the Lavery boys and Matt Hardcastle. but hearing about those atrocities and actually seeing what had been done to this horse were two different things. He couldn’t believe that any woman unlucky enough to fall into the hands of such a savage creature would still be alive weeks later.

And even if Emmaline Thorp was still drawing breath somewhere, it was unlikely that she was sane. Some female captives who had been carried off by the Comanches had lost their minds from the brutality with which the Indians had treated them. It had to be a lot worse being held prisoner by the Brazos Devil.

Longarm no longer doubted the existence of the creature. He had seen enough now to be convinced. Something was out here in these woods, something the likes of which folks had never run into before. Longarm had always been skeptical of such wild stories in the past, but now he believed.

And whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was a mite scared too.

Chapter 12

Only a fool never experienced fear. Longarm had been scared plenty of times in his life, first as a farm boy in West-by-God Virginia, then as a soldier in the Late Unpleasantness. Once, when he was cowboying after the War, he had gotten caught in front of a stampede on a stormy night. He would never forget the rumble of hooves and the clashing of horns behind him, the noises blending with the roar of thunder and the crackle of lightning, as the crazed herd chased and closed in on him. If he hadn’t had a good pony under him that night, he would have been mashed into the dirt of Indian Territory and left bloody and unrecognizable. As it was, he had been able to race out of the path of the stampede at the last minute, but the memory of that belly-churning, throat-clutching fear would always be with him, living a life of its own there in the back of his mind. Likewise, he had been in plenty of tough scrapes since he’d started riding for the Justice Department. There had been times when he fully expected to die and felt the fear any sane man would feel at that prospect.

But now the sensation crawling along his spine like a woolly-worm was different, and he sort of understood why some folks said the fear of the unknown was the greatest fear of all. Better the devil you know, the old saying said, rather than the one you don’t. Under the circumstances, it was mighty apt.

Longarm, Lord Beechmuir, and Singh followed the tracks of the creature while Thorp returned to the others to lead them in a circle around the horse’s body. Booth did not want his wife to get too close to the slaughtered animal. Helene had already seen enough to upset her. They all rendezvoused on the far side of the gully and pushed on north.

A mile farther on, the trail turned back toward the river. The tracks led all the way to a section of bank that had collapsed so that it sloped gently down to the streambed. Longarm reined in and followed the prints with his eyes. They led across the sand to the channel of the Brazos, then disappeared.

“The beast must have gone there to drink after its meal,” Booth said.

“But he didn’t turn around and come back,” grunted Thorp. “We’d be able to see the tracks.” From his saddlebags he took a pair of field glasses like the ones Longarm had wished he’d had earlier. Thorp scanned the far side of the river for a few moments, then shook his head. “I don’t see any tracks leaving the water on the other side. The thing must have waded upstream or downstream a ways before it came out.”

“Reckon he was trying to throw off anybody following him?” Longarm asked.

“Is the creature that intelligent?” Lord Beechmuir put in.

Thorp shrugged. “Who knows how smart the bastard is? Maybe it just wandered off, or could be it’s got enough animal cunning to be careful about leaving a trail. Maybe it’s as smart as a man.”

Longarm didn’t think that was very likely, but regardless of the Brazos Devil’s motivation, the trail was lost for the time being.

“We’re going to have to split up,” Longarm said. “That’s the only way we can cover both directions of the river.”

Thorp and Lord Beechmuir nodded, but Helene spoke up with an objection. “Is it safe for us to be separated like that with such a creature on the loose?”

“Now you understand why I didn’t want you to come,” said Booth. “I didn’t want to put you at risk. However, we have little choice in the matter. Benjamin, you and I will go downstream, and Marshal Long can go upstream. You’ll come with me, of course, Helene.”

Helene’s mouth tightened. “What if I don’t want to?”

“See here!” Lord Beechmuir’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I’ll have no arguing. I want you to be safe, my dear, so naturally you’ll accompany my party.”

With a determined shake of her head, Helene edged her horse closer to Longarm’s. His mouth tightened as he saw what she was doing. She said, “I’ll be perfectly safe with Marshal Long.”

“I’ll not hear of it,” Booth declared.

“Hold on,” Longarm said. “There’s no need to wrangle about this, your lordship. Lady Beechmuir ought to go with you and Mr. Thorp.” He pointed with his thumb at Singh and Ghote. “I’ll take these fellas. Mr. Thorp’s riders can split up, one with each bunch.”

“No!” Helene objected. “Singh, you go with Lord Beechmuir and Mr. Thorp. Randamar can accompany Marshal Long and myself.”

Booth tugged on his Vandyke, evidently a habit he had when he was angry. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it a damned bit.”

Thorp said, “While we’re arguing, that monster’s getting farther and farther away. We won’t be apart for too long. Each group will ride along the river for two miles, then come back. If any of you spot the beast’s tracks before then, fire two shots in the air, and the others will come to you. I’m sure Lady Beechmuir will be safe with Marshal Long, your lordship. One of your men and one of mine will be with them too.”

Booth took a deep breath and blew it out. “Very well. I agree that we’re wasting time. Come along, Benjamin.” He turned his horse and started back toward the south. Thorp, Singh, and one of Thorp’s men fell in with him.

Helene gave Longarm a self-satisfied smile. “It appears that you and I are a team, Marshal. Shall we go?”

Longarm tried not to cuss under his breath. It was bad enough to be out here looking for an escaped prisoner and a varmint that could rip up a horse like that, but to be saddled with a proddy, horny Englishwoman under these circumstances was even worse. He was just glad that the separation would last only a little while; then Helene would be back with her husband and Lord Beechmuir could worry about her.

“All right,” he said, not allowing his voice to reveal what he was feeling. “Let’s go.”

The channel of the river wandered back and forth across the wide streambed. Longarm sent Randamar Ghote and the Rocking T rider, whose name was Benson, across to the eastern side of the Brazos, while he and Helene Booth rode along the western edge of the stream. All four of them remained in the streambed itself, watching closely for tracks leaving the water.

As he rode, Longarm thought about a book he had once read by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper’s hero Natty Bumppo had been in a situation sort of like this, and he had solved the problem by diverting the stream so that he could see the tracks his quarry had left underneath the water—as if such tracks wouldn’t have been washed away long before ol’ Leatherstocking ever came along to look for them. It just went to show that people didn’t always know what they were writing about, but Longarm supposed that was all right as long as they spun a good yarn.

“Do you think we’ll find Mr. Thorp’s poor wife still alive, Marshal?” Helene asked, breaking into Longarm’s thoughts.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Hard to say, ma’am. I never ran up against anything like this before. After what I’ve heard about the things the Brazos Devil’s done in the past … and after seeing what happened to that poor horse …” He left the sentence unfinished, letting Helene draw her own grim conclusions.

“Yes, it was dreadful, wasn’t it? Still, I’m sure John will be able to find the beast and kill it. Despite his other failings, he is quite a hunter.” Helene paused, then went on. “I really am sorry about shooting at you earlier. I had no idea-“

“That’s all right, your ladyship. No need to apologize again.”

“Perhaps not, but I’m quite distraught about it. I wish there were some way in which I could … make it up to you, so to speak.”

Longarm looked over at her, saw the lascivious glow in her eyes, and had no doubt what she was talking about. “You don’t have to make anything up to me,” he said gruffly.

“Oh, but I’d like to.”

He recalled what she had said the night before about regarding him as a challenge, and he almost wished he had stood firm about her going with her husband when the group split up. He had no patience for senseless wrangling, though, and that was what the discussion was turning into. With a frown on his face, he turned his attention to the streambed and watched intently for any sign that the Brazos Devil might have left behind.

The river twisted and turned, and Longarm and his companions had just gone around a sharp bend when he spotted something up ahead. “Hold on a minute,” he said to Helene. He motioned to Thorp’s man, Benson. “You and Ghote stay here, Helene, whilst Benson and me take a look at this.”

Benson’s horse kicked up water as he splashed through the shallow river to join Longarm. They rode forward carefully, not wanting to spoil any of the footprints Longarm had seen. As they drew closer to the tracks, Longarm’s pulse sped up. The prints were unmistakable. The Brazos Devil had left the water here and headed toward the western bank.

Longarm reined in with Benson beside him, then leaned over in the saddle to study the tracks more closely. As he did so, he heard those sounds again, the buzz of a giant bee and a sharp whip crack, much closer this time. They were followed closely by a thud and a grunt of pain. Longarm turned his head in time to see Benson tumbling from the saddle.

Longarm didn’t waste any time. He wheeled the Appaloosa and yelled “Go!” at Helene and Ghote. “Get out of here!” He slapped the spurs to his mount, sending the animal leaping ahead.

Another bullet whipped past Longarm as he turned his head to check on Benson. The Rocking T puncher was lying facedown in the muddy water at the edge of the river. The first shot must have killed him instantly, Longarm thought.

Helene and the Hindu servant were looking at him with their mouths open in dumbstruck amazement. Longarm gestured frantically at them. “Ride, damn it, ride!” A third shot rang out, and to his left, the bullet struck the water with a splash.

The shots were coming from the trees along the western bank of the river. Longarm jerked out his Colt and twisted in the saddle to throw a couple of shots in that direction. He didn’t expect to hit anything, but maybe he could distract the bushwhacker. The gunman was using a shorter-range repeater, probably a Winchester or an old Henry rifle, instead of a Sharps or a high-powered British elephant gun. Longarm thought again about Mitch Rainey.

Helene and Ghote had finally gotten it through their heads that they were in danger. Awkwardly, they pulled their horses around and started riding south. The soft, sandy bed of the stream didn’t make for very good galloping, unfortunately. Longarm, who had the Appaloosa under better control, swept up beside them. “Head for the east bank!” he shouted at them, motioning with his free hand as he did so. The east bank of the river was more sparsely wooded than the west side, but there were enough trees there to give them some cover. Longarm thought the ambusher would likely give up on the attack if they could get out of this streambed.

He triggered another shot toward the west bank, even though he knew he was far out of handgun range by now. Water splashed high around the hooves of the horses as Longarm and his two companions veered toward the east bank. Once they left the Brazos, the bank on that side was considerably closer due to the twisting of the channel. Longarm started to think that they might make it.

That was when a giant fist slammed into the side of his head and sent him spinning out of the saddle into a pool deeper and blacker than any in the Brazos River.

Mitch Rainey let out a cackle of triumphant laughter when he saw Longarm fall. He worked the lever of the Winchester he had stolen from a farmhouse downriver that morning. The old man who had been breaking up a field to plant winter wheat had been friendly when Rainey first rode up, passing the time of day with the outlaw and even offering him a smoke. Rainey had accepted gratefully since he no longer had the makin’s himself, and after a deep draw on the quirly, he had slipped Mal Burley’s gun from behind his belt and shot the old fool in the head. He’d left the dead farmer facedown in the field and ransacked the nearby cabin, finding the Winchester, three silver dollars, and some food. Then he had struck out north along the river on the horse he had stolen in Cottonwood Springs.

Setting up the ambush had been dumb luck, but that kind was as good as any, Rainey thought. He had settled down for a short siesta, but voices from the river had awakened him. His heart had pounded in excitement when he peered through the brush along the riverbank and saw Longarm riding along beside the channel with some redheaded woman. A damned nice-looking woman too, Rainey had thought, even though the riders were too far away for him to make out many details. There were a couple of other men with them, a cowboy and a fella with a rag tied around his head. Rainey had never seen his like before, but he wasn’t worried about that. What he wanted to do more than anything else was kill that son of a bitch Custis Long.

He would have gotten Long with the first shot, Rainey knew, if the lawman hadn’t bent over to look at something in the streambed. The bullet had taken down the cowboy instead. That was all right; Rainey figured he’d have to kill all four of them before he was through. He shifted his aim as Longarm and the others fled, feeling a fierce exultation when the marshal spun out of the saddle. Rainey couldn’t tell how badly Long was hit, but he intended to put another bullet or two in the bastard just to make sure he was dead before picking off the lawman’s slower-moving companions.

Rainey lined the sights of the Winchester on Longarm’s still form and took a deep breath, ready to take up the slack on the rifle’s trigger. Before he could do so, however, a deep boom sounded somewhere on the far shore and something slammed into the trunk of the tree Rainey was crouched beside. Splinters stung his face, and he fell to the side, as much from shock and surprise as from pain.

Blinking furiously, he looked up and saw the huge hole that had been gouged from the trunk of the oak. It looked almost like a cannonball had struck it. If the slug had been six inches to the right, his head would be blown to hell now and blood would be spurting from the stump of his neck. From the sound of the shot and the damage the bullet had done, he guessed the rifleman on the opposite bank was using a Sharps buffalo gun.

Scrambling back onto one knee, Rainey lifted the Winchester and searched for some sign of the man with the Sharps. He spotted a wisp of gray powder smoke drifting through the air above some brush. A glance at the riverbed told him that Longarm still hadn’t moved. The woman and the other man were still heading toward the far shore, although the woman looked back anxiously over her shoulder at the fallen lawman. They could wait, Rainey decided. He still had twelve shots left in the Winchester. He would use them to pepper that clump of brush where the man with the Sharps was concealed. He was confident that the son of a bitch hadn’t had time to reload.

Before Rainey could fire, another blast boomed from the eastern bank. Rainey was driven backward, and for one awful moment he was sure he had been hit. He was dead, a fist-sized hole punched through him by the monstrous slug, and his brain just didn’t know it yet. He couldn’t feel anything, especially in his hands and arms.

Then the pain started and he realized he was still alive after all. His arms cramped and spasmed and he gritted his teeth against the agony rippling through them. He looked around and saw the Winchester lying on the ground nearby, its barrel and breech ruined. The shot from the Sharps had struck the rifle, he realized, and once again it was pure dumb luck that the slug had been deflected enough to miss him. It could have just as easily ripped on through him.

A third shot crashed heavily through the air. Rainey knew that one had come too quickly. There had to be two enemies over there, each with a Sharps. Alternating shots as they were, they could throw almost as much lead as a lone gunman with a repeater. With the stolen Winchester now useless, Rainey didn’t need anyone to tell him that the odds had shifted dramatically against him.

The pain in his arms, a result of the impact from the slug striking the weapon he had been holding, was beginning to ease a little. Rainey was able to put a hand down to balance himself as he scrambled to his feet. He turned tail and ran. Only a pure damned fool would go up against a pair of Sharps like that while armed only with a handgun.

More of the heavy slugs ripped through the trees around him as he fled, but none of them found him. His horse was about fifty yards back from the river. Rainey stumbled up to the animal, jerked loose the reins he had looped around a sapling, and vaulted into the saddle. He slammed his heels into the horse’s flanks and gasped, “Let’s get out of here!”

At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that Long was probably dead, he told himself. The federal marshal had certainly fallen like a dead man. Rainey’s furiously thudding pulse settled down a little as he left the river behind. A Sharps rifle had a hell of a range, but those two on the other side of the Brazos would be shooting blind now. He was well out of sight.

He sent the horse up the slope of a small but fairly steep hill. Just before it reached the crest, the horse suddenly shied to one side, then reared up on its hind legs and pawed the air with its front hooves as it whinnied shrilly in fright. Rainey grabbed for the saddlehorn to keep himself in the saddle, and hauled down on the reins with the other hand, sawing cruelly at the animal’s mouth with the bit in an effort to bring it back under control. “Damn it!” he yelled. “Settle down, blast you-“

The horse leaped into the air, utterly terrified and desperate to get away. Rainey felt his grip slipping as his mount twisted frantically. He yelled another curse and kicked his feet free of the stirrups. If the horse bolted, he didn’t want to be dragged behind it. The ground came up to meet him, slamming into his back and knocking the breath from his body.

Gasping for air, Rainey rolled over onto his stomach. He heaved several huge breaths into his lungs and tried to get his hands underneath him so he could push himself up onto his knees. He had to get after that crazy horse and catch it before it went too far. The shadow that loomed over him made him freeze.

Rainey forgot about being out of breath. His body—and time itself—seemed to come to a grinding halt. All he was aware of was the massive shadow … and then the stench, worse than anything he had ever smelled before.

With near-infinite slowness, Mitch Rainey lifted his head so that he could peer up at the thing standing over him. Rainey’s eyes seemed nearly as big around as saucers. And then he began to cry.

Chapter 13

Longarm woke to the crackling of flames and the smell of smoke and wondered if he was in hell. He took a deep breath, even though it pained him, trying to decide if the smoke smelled of brimstone. Nope, he decided, it wasn’t likely he was in Hades. Not unless old Beelzebub was brewing up a pot of Arbuckle’s.

He tried to lift his head, only to have the world start spinning backwards on him. A soft groan came from his mouth as he let his head ease back onto the softness underneath it.

“Better just take it easy, Marshal,” a familiar voice said somewhere above him. “That was quite a knock on the head you took. Good thing your skull’s so danged thick.”

“So … so I’ve been … told,” Longarm rasped. His throat was dry and painful, his voice hoarse.

He felt something at his mouth, opened his lips, and blessed coolness flowed down his throat. His first impulse was to gulp at the water, but whoever was holding the canteen took it away after much too short a moment to suit Longarm. “Not too much,” the woman said again. “You’ll make yourself sick.” He had already figured out that his head was pillowed on a female lap. He pried his eyes open, wincing against the garish light from the campfire, and looked up into the face of Lucy Vermilion. She smiled at him.

“The boy’s awake, is he?” That booming question could have only come from Catamount Jack, Longarm knew. “So he ain’t dead after all.”

“‘Course not,” snorted Lucy. “I told you he’d be all right, Pa. That bullet just grazed him.”

Catamount Jack moved into view, peering down at Longarm with a curious look on his grizzled face. “How you feel, son?” asked the old mountain man.

“I’ve been better,” Longarm replied, his voice clearer now but still a little weak.

“You’ll be all right,” Lucy told him. “I reckon you’ve got what they call an iron constitution.”

Longarm’s constitution felt more like tinfoil right about now. He managed to lift a hand and touched his head, or tried to anyway. All his fingertips found was a thick bandage wound around his skull. He figured he must look sort of like one of those servants.

That thought made him remember what had been happening when he was shot out of the saddle, and he said anxiously, “Lady Beechmuir … is she all right?”

“I’m fine, Marshal,” said Helene Booth’s voice in reply. Her pale face swam into Longarm’s view as she looked down at him in concern. “The question is, how are you?”

Longarm noticed the glance that Lucy Vermilion sent up toward the Englishwoman. It was none too friendly, he judged, and he wondered if Helene had been trying to lord it over the younger woman. He suspected Helene would be biting off more trouble than she realized if she did that.

He answered her question by saying, “I’m all right, ma’am. Lucy, help me sit up.”

“You ought to rest,” Lucy said.

“Marshal Long made a reasonable request,” Helene declared haughtily. “Please assist him.” Her tone made it clear that she considered Lucy just as much a servant as either Ghote or Singh.

Lucy’s mouth tightened, but she did as Lady Beechmuir asked. Another wave of dizziness washed over Longarm as Lucy helped him sit up. Nausea that was even worse than he had experienced after eating that bad steak gripped him for a moment. But it passed quickly, and with Lucy’s strong arms supporting him, he was able to remain sitting up.

He could look around the camp then, and he wasn’t surprised to see Benjamin Thorp, John Booth, and the two servants clustered by the fire. The Rocking T hand who had survived the afternoon, a fella called Randall, was nearby tending to the hobbled horses. Everyone else was looking at Longarm with expectant expressions on their faces, and he realized they were waiting for him to say something.

“Much obliged to all of you for helping me out,” he managed with a nod. “I reckon I can guess what happened.”

“Lucy an’ me come along when some sidewinder was tryin’ to bushwhack you,” said Catamount Jack. “We threw some slugs ‘cross the river and run him off.”

“Had to be Rainey,” Longarm said grimly.

“What about the Brazos Devil?” Thorp asked from the other side of the fire.

Gingerly, Longarm shook his head. The memory of everything that had happened over the past few days had flooded back into his mind by now, and his mental processes were fairly clear as he said, “I haven’t heard any mention of the Brazos Devil ever using a Winchester, have you?”

Thorp inclined his head in acknowledgment of Longarm’s point. He said, “You’re probably right. But if Rainey ran into the Devil before and was so scared he nearly shit his pants—pardon me, ladies—why would he come back into this part of the country?”

“He knew I’d be on his trail,” Longarm said, “and he knows this Brazos River country better than anywhere else. I reckon he figured he could hide out easier here and avoid running into that monster at the same time.” Longarm pointed to the coffeepot sitting in the embers at the edge of the fire. “I could use a cup of that coffee.”

Ghote poured it for him and brought it to him, bending gracefully to hand it to him. Longarm recalled the “medicine” he had seen the servant giving to Lady Beechmuir, and wondered what the stuff was. If it cured headaches, Longarm could use some right about now to go with the coffee. He wasn’t going to ask about it, however, knowing from the way Helene had acted that she didn’t want her husband to know about what she was taking. Could be too that it was laudanum, and Longarm didn’t want any part of that. He would just put up with the pounding in his skull, he decided as he sipped the strong black brew.

Longarm shifted his gaze to Catamount Jack and Lucy. “Did either of you get a good look at the bushwhacker when you opened up on him?”

“Nope,” Lucy replied. “Pa and me heard the shootin’ and rode over to the river to see what was goin’ on. We got there just in time to see you go tumblin’ out of your saddle.”

Catamount Jack took up the story. “Saw powder smoke comin’ from the trees on the opposite bank, so we unlimbered our Sharpses and started throwin’ lead. Don’t know if we ever hit the sumbitch or not, but a couple of minutes later we heard hoofbeats ‘cross the river. Reckon he lit a shuck out o’ there once he saw what he was up against.”

“It was Rainey,” Longarm said with a nod. “Had to be. Nobody else had any reason to ambush us.”

Thorp said, “Lord Beechmuir and I arrived a few minutes later. We had heard the shooting, of course, and we abandoned the search and came as soon as we could. When we got there, I thought you were dead, Long, just like poor Benson. There was blood all over your head.” He pointed at Lucy with a thumb. “This young lady was determined to patch you up, though. She said she wasn’t going to let you die.”

Longarm looked at Lucy, who seemed a bit uncomfortable with that revelation. “I could tell you’d be all right,” she said gruffly. “You ain’t the first fella I ever saw who’d been creased by a bullet.”

“Hell, the gal’s doctored me back to health when I was a heap worse off,” Catamount Jack said, pride in his voice. “Why, I remember one time up in Wyoming when I got to rasslin’ with this ol’ silver-tip grizzly-“

“Nobody wants to hear about that, Pa,” Lucy broke in. “What’s important is that Marshal Long will be all right if he takes it easy for a few days.”

Longarm wasn’t sure he had a few days in which to rest. Not with Rainey still on the loose, Thorp’s wife still missing, and a monster still roaming around the area. By morning, he would have to be able to ride again, concussed or not.

He looked at Thorp and asked, “Did you find those tracks in the riverbed?”

Thorp nodded, a look of excitement on his face. “We saw them, all right. Once we’d buried Benson and set up camp and Miss Vermilion was tending to you, Lord Beechmuir, Catamount Jack, and I went to take a better look.”

Somehow, the idea of Catamount Jack and Lord Beechmuir hunting the creature side by side struck Longarm as a little funny, but once he thought about it, there were some similarities between the two men. Both of them were hunters, both devoted to stalking their quarry through just about any kind of wilderness.

“Unfortunately, we lost the trail on the other side of the river,” Lord Beechmuir said. “Damn bad luck, if you ask me.”

“The varmint went traipsin’ over a big stretch o’ limestone up on one of them cliffs overlookin’ the river,” said Catamount Jack. “Couldn’t pick up his trail again. He’s a slippery cuss, that’un.”

Longarm heard the frustration in the mountain man’s voice. He knew the feeling. To have had Mitch Rainey locked up in jail, only to lose him again … that was the kind of thing that would have had Longarm tearing his hair out by the roots had he been the type to give in to such emotional displays.

Thorp took a cigar from inside his coat, lit it with a flaming twig from the fire, and blew out a cloud of smoke. “We’re going to join forces with Vermilion and his daughter,” he said. “I brought along enough supplies to last for several days. I’m not going back until I find that beast and find out what happened to my wife. But I can send Randall back to town with you and Lady Beechmuir if you want, Long.”

“Wait just a moment,” Helene protested before Longarm could say anything. “I haven’t asked to return to town, have I?”

Her husband snorted. “For God’s sake, you were almost killed this afternoon, Helene! Not only do we have to contend with the monster, whatever it may be, but now there’s that man Rainey to worry about. No, I insist you return to the town with Marshal Long.”

“I haven’t said I was going back,” Longarm snapped.

“You’re in no shape to go gallivanting around over the countryside,” Lucy told him.

Longarm shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got a stake in this hunt too.”

“If we find Rainey, we’ll bring him back to Cottonwood Springs,” offered Thorp.

“I don’t reckon my boss would be too understanding happen I should tell him I sat around town while a bunch of civilians tracked down an escaped prisoner for me,” Longarm said dryly. “No offense, Mr. Thorp, but you don’t know Chief Marshal Billy Vail the way I do.”

Thorp shrugged. “I’m not going to argue with you. It’s your head, Long.”

“And I’m not going to argue either,” Helene said. “I’m staying with the group, and that’s final.”

Booth seemed about to disagree some more with his wife; then an expression of resignation appeared on his distinguished features. “Very well,” he said curtly. “I know that arguing with you, Helene, is much like arguing with the London fog. It does as it pleases, no matter how one rails against it.”

Helene smiled smugly. “So very gracious of you, John.”

At the moment, Longarm wasn’t interested in the way they sniped at each other. The sickness in his belly had passed, and now he was conscious of how empty it was. “If there’s any supper left, I could do with some,” he said, and Randamar Ghote brought him a plate of bacon, biscuits, and beans. Simple fare, but Longarm had rarely tasted better. The fancy china, the folding table, and the champagne were nowhere in sight tonight. Obviously, the events of the afternoon had made everyone in the party realize that this was serious business, not some sort of lark. Longarm hoped that Lord and Lady Beechmuir, especially, would remember that.

While Longarm was finishing the food, Thorp said, “We’d better take turns standing guard tonight. I don’t want that monster stumbling over our camp in the dark … although if he did, that’d save us the trouble of hunting him down.”

“Capital idea, Benjamin,” Lord Beechmuir agreed. “There are six men, not counting the marshal, who should be exempt due to his injury, of course. I suggest we form teams of two men each. Singh and I would be glad to take the first turn, then Ghote and your man Randall could have the second part of the night, leaving yourself and Mr. Vermilion to finish the task.”

Thorp was nodding when Lucy said, “Wait just a darned minute. I can stand guard as well as any man.”

“‘Tain’t necessary, daughter,” Catamount Jack said. “What Lord Beechmuir says makes sense.”

Longarm was feeling better now that he had eaten, so he spoke up. “I don’t mind taking a turn. I had a nice long nap—even though it wasn’t my idea.”

“There’s a big difference in sleepin’ and bein’ knocked unconscious,” Lucy pointed out. “You ought to rest, Marshal.”

Longarm set his empty plate aside and fished a cheroot out of his shirt pocket. This bunch couldn’t do anything without talking it to death first, he realized. The whole lot of them should have run for Congress and gone to Washington. But he just said mildly, “If you’re worried about me, Miss Vermilion, I reckon you and me could take the same turn. Then you could keep an eye on me.”

“Well … it would only be for a couple of hours if there’s four teams,” Lucy said. “I reckon it’d be all right. We’ll stand the first watch, though, so in case you get to feelin’ poorly, we can wake up somebody else and let them take over.”

“Fair enough,” Longarm said with a nod, then looked around to see if everybody was in agreement.

No one objected, although Longarm thought he saw a definite look of disapproval in Helene Booth’s eyes. He wasn’t sure why she would care one way or the other, unless she still had her cap set for him and was jealous of the fact that Lucy would get to spend that much time with him. The way he felt, though, romance was sure as hell about the last thing on Longarm’s mind, so Helene didn’t have anything to worry about.

With the matter settled, everybody got ready to turn in except Longarm and Lucy. She poured another cup of coffee for him and one for herself, then sat down cross-legged beside him on the ground, her Sharps at her side.

Not surprisingly, Lord and Lady Beechmuir didn’t just spread their bedrolls on the ground in plain sight of everybody else. The seemingly bottomless packs they had brought along yielded up a canvas tent, which Singh and Ghote set up with practiced efficiency. The tent wasn’t large, but it was big enough for Booth and Helene. The two servants slept in the open, rolling up in blankets, as did Thorp and Randall. Catamount Jack, of course, was accustomed to having no roof except the stars, and within two minutes after he spread his buffalo robes and crawled into them, he was snoring loudly.

Longarm waited until it seemed that everybody was asleep, then stood up. Instantly, Lucy was on her feet beside him, worriedly putting a hand on his arm. “What are you doin’, Marshal? If there’s something you need, I’ll be glad to fetch …”

“No offense, Miss Vermilion, but some things a fella’s just got to do by himself,” he said with a faint smile.

“Oh. Well, in that case…” She picked up his Winchester and handed it to him. “You’d better take this with you, and keep your eyes open.”

“I generally do,” Longarm assured her, not adding that when a man took a leak with his eyes closed, he sometimes wound up pissing down his boot.

He felt a little shakier than he let on, but he was able to circle the campfire and move off into the darkness beyond the ring of light. It took only a moment for him to realize that they were camped on a bluff overlooking the river. He could see a silver line of moonlight reflecting off the Brazos below. The night was full of sounds: the call of an owl, the rustle of small animals, the far-off howl of a coyote. The noise was a welcome reassurance to Longarm that nothing strange was prowling around at the moment. He would have worried more if the night had been quiet.

He tucked the rifle under his left arm, unbuttoned his trousers, and took care of the business that had brought him here, sending his stream arcing out over the edge of the bluff and letting it splash to earth some seventy or eighty feet below. When he was done he buttoned up again and started to turn around. He froze, then edged his hand toward the action of the Winchester when he saw a shadowy figure approaching him.

It took him only an instant, however, to realize that the person coming toward him was Lucy Vermilion. As she moved, she passed between him and the fire, some twenty yards away, and he saw her silhouette clearly against the flames. “What are you doing out here, Lucy?” he called softly. “I told you I’d be right back.”

“I got to worryin’ about you bein’ so close to this bluff, Custis,” she replied as she came up to him. “I was afraid if you got dizzy, you might topple right off of it.”

“Well, I didn’t,” he told her as he took a step toward the fire. “We’d best get back to camp. We’re supposed to be standing guard.”

“In a minute,” she said, moving so that she blocked his path. She put a hand on his arm again and went on. “I’ve been thinkin’ about you ever since last night, Custis. I know you ain’t up to any slap-and-tickle tonight, but as soon as you’re feelin’ better … well, maybe I better just give you a sample of what you got to look forward to.”

She came up on her toes and her mouth found his. Longarm’s head still hurt and he experienced occasional spells of dizziness, but without hesitation, he put his free arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. Her lips opened and her tongue darted against his. He parted his lips to let her in. She probed wantonly in his mouth as her belly ground against his groin. Despite everything, he felt his staff hardening, and so did Lucy.

She took her mouth away and whispered, “I ain’t a tease, Custis, I really ain’t. But you ought to recuperate a mite before we really go at it again.”

“You’re right,” Longarm agreed. “But we don’t neither of us have to like it, do we?”

Lucy giggled, a somewhat surprising sound from such a self-reliant young woman. “We’d better get back to camp,” she said. “I shouldn’t be out here temptin’ you. I just didn’t want you to forget about what we had before … and what we’ll have again.”

“I’m not likely to forget,” Longarm said fervently. “Not likely at all

…”

Chapter 14

He had to be dreaming, Longarm thought as he woke later that night. He felt a hand at the buttons of his trousers, unfastening them. Soft, warm fingers stole inside the garment and caressed his organ through the long underwear for a moment, then unbuttoned the underwear as well so that his erect shaft could spring free of its confinement. Those fingers closed hotly around it.

Definitely not a dream, Longarm realized, but he was still half-asleep anyway, and the bullet crease on the head he had suffered was making it difficult for him to throw off the bonds of slumber. “Damn it, Lucy,” he muttered under his breath. Obviously, she hadn’t been able to wait after all. He hoped nobody else had noticed her slipping into the bedroll he had fashioned out of blankets borrowed from Thorp’s supplies.

The fingers slid lightly up and down his stalk. Longarm let out a muffled groan of passion. His hips twitched involuntarily.

With the part of his brain that was functioning, he wondered what time it was. He and Lucy had stood guard over the camp until midnight, then woken up Beechmuir and Singh and turned the duty over to them. Longarm forced his eyes open and studied the stars he could see through the trees around the camp. From the look of those celestial timepieces, several hours had passed since he fell asleep. Randamar Ghote and the cowboy called Randall were probably standing guard now. Longarm sort of hoped so anyway. Despite Lucy’s assurances otherwise the night before about how her father wouldn’t care, Longarm didn’t much cotton to the idea of Catamount Jack finding the two of them snuggled up together like this. It would be bad enough if they were discovered by one of the others.

Maybe he ought to just tell Lucy to go back to her own bedroll, he decided. He lifted his head, intending to whisper to her to do just that, when the warmth of her hand went away from his shaft and was replaced by an even greater heat.

Longarm’s head flopped back and he groaned softly once again as lips closed sweetly around his shaft. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sensation. A wet, almost searingly hot tongue circled the head of the pole of quivering flesh. His hips thrust up again, driving more of his length into her mouth. She grabbed on with both hands and sucked harder. Longarm felt his climax building.

There was no turning back. The skillful ministrations of her lips and tongue brought him to the brink in no time. Her grip on him tightened as his seed boiled up and exploded out of him. She didn’t pull her lips away, but instead swallowed greedily as he filled her mouth with the culmination of his passion. Spasms shook Longarm’s entire body for a seemingly endless moment; then he slumped back, an irresistible lassitude sweeping over him. He was still weak from his injury, he knew, and Lucy had just about worn him out. He breathed deeply, trying to recover from the internal earthquake. His head didn’t hurt at all, he realized, even though his pulse was pounding loudly inside his skull.

Suddenly, a disturbing thought occurred to him. He didn’t know that was Lucy sharing his bedroll. Whoever had just given him that mighty nice French lesson had been little more than a mouth and a pair of hands. Soft hands, at that. Uncallused hands. The hands, say, of Lady Beechmuir or even that little Hindu, Ghote. Longarm’s eyes snapped wide open, and it was all he could do to keep from bolting upright with a shout. His pulse began to race even faster, but it wasn’t from lust or excitement now. It was pure-dee fear that made him practically lunge toward the other person in the blankets with him.

Relief flooded through him as he touched long, silky hair. His fingers tangled in it, and he practically hauled its owner up closer to his head. With a chuckle, Helene Booth molded her naked body against him and said in a husky whisper, “Really, Custis, you don’t have to be so rough. Unless, of course, that’s the way you like it …”

“Lady Beechmuir!” Longarm grated. The tide of relief that had washed through him began to ebb, only to be replaced with anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The fire had burned down almost to ashes, but it still cast enough light for him to be able to see her face as she smiled and licked her lips. “I should think that would be obvious,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t you? And please, you simply must start calling me Helene. Especially now that we’ve-“

“Don’t even say it!” Longarm hissed as he closed his eyes and grimaced.

“Why, Custis, you’re acting like you didn’t even know it was me who-” She stopped short, and her attractive features hardened in the dim light from the fire. “You didn’t know it was me, did you?” she accused. “You thought I was that little whore Lucy!”

Her voice was getting louder with anger, and Longarm shushed her as quietly as he could. He lifted his head and looked around, not seeing Ghote or Randall anywhere nearby. He had spread his bedroll right on the edge of the circle of firelight, thank goodness, and that circle had shrunk even more in the time he had been asleep. Whoever was on guard duty needed to feed some more wood to the fire and build up the flames … but not until Longarm got Lady Beechmuir back into her tent!

“You’d better go on back where you belong,” he told her quietly. “How’d you manage to sneak out of that tent without Lord Beechmuir knowing anyway?”

“Oh, John sleeps like a rock. Nothing ever disturbs him.” Helene frowned. “And it’s bloody well unfair for you to make me leave after what I did for you. The least you could do is return the favor.” The frown turned into a lascivious smile. “I’ll wager that mustache of yours tickles in the most delightful fashion.”

“You’ll never know,” growled Longarm. “Now get on back where you’re supposed to be, or I won’t have any choice but to raise a ruckus.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Helene gasped. “Why, you have more to lose by doing that than I do.”

“I don’t see how you figure that.” Longarm didn’t want this whispered conversation to continue, but short of physically booting her out of the bedroll, he didn’t know what he could do other than try to talk some sense into her.

“Even if John knew about the two of us, he wouldn’t do anything to me,” she said, her voice utterly confident. “He can’t afford to.”

Longarm shook his head. “Don’t reckon I follow you. Don’t they have divorce courts in England?”

“Certainly they do, but John would never divorce me. You see, Custis …” She traced a fingertip through the thick hair at the opening of his shirt. “John may have the noble title, but I have the money in the family. If he were to divorce me, who do you think would pay for those hunting expeditions all over the globe?”

Longarm took a deep breath. He understood a lot more now. Booth had married Helene for her money, and she had married him for his title. A fair arrangement all the way around, especially for folks who didn’t take their wedding vows any too seriously. But that didn’t mean Lord Beechmuir would continue to overlook his wife’s affairs if she started flaunting them in his face. Even if he couldn’t do anything about Helene’s wanton behavior, he might not look so kindly on her male partners. He might even reach for that Markham & Halliday elephant gun.

Longarm didn’t want any trouble like that, at least not until Mitch Rainey was either dead or behind bars again and the mystery of the Brazos Devil and Emmaline Thorp’s disappearance had been solved.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he said sternly to Helene. “You go on back to your tent, and we won’t say any more about this.”

She stared at him in frustration and surprise. “You won’t do anything for me?”

“Damn it, I can’t! Or at least, I won’t. I’m no saint, but I’ve always figured there’s some things a fella just shouldn’t do.”

Helene glared at him. “You, sir, are a bounder!”

“Whatever you say, ma’am. Just get your noble little ass back where it belongs.”

“Oh!”

He looked around worriedly, sure that somebody must have heard her angry exclamation, but nobody seemed to be stirring around the campfire. Catamount Jack’s snores were as loud as ever, and the mound of buffalo robes near him that marked Lucy’s bedroll was still and silent except for the regular rise and fall of her breathing. Thorp looked like he was asleep too, and there was still no sign of Randall or Ghote. Longarm was beginning to worry about that. He should have seen at least one of the guards by now.

Of course, the fact that they weren’t around meant that Helene could get back in her tent unnoticed, if she ever left his bedroll. She was finally angry enough now to do that. She slipped out of the blankets and stood up, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her nude body before she wrapped it in a blanket she must have brought with her. She glowered down at him for a second, then turned and stalked back toward the tent she was supposed to be sharing with her husband.

Longarm heaved a sigh of relief when she disappeared through the flap in the canvas. Maybe this little debacle wouldn’t cause any more trouble than it already had.

Despite his weariness, he knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until he figured out where Ghote and Randall were. Now that he didn’t have to worry about Helene anymore, he realized that the whereabouts of the missing guards might be a much more important concern.

He tossed his blankets aside, climbed to his feet, and buttoned up his underwear and trousers. He picked up his Winchester and started circling the camp, moving as silently as an Indian and listening intently for any sound that might indicate trouble.

It wasn’t a sound that made him freeze a few moments later, though, his hands tightening on the rifle. It was a smell. The sharp, coppery smell of freshly spilled blood. A lot of blood.

For a long moment, Longarm listened even harder than he had before. As had been the case earlier in the night, the normal nocturnal sounds were all he heard. He took a deep breath. That was definitely blood he smelled, with an unpleasant tinge of human wastes mixed in with it. The scent of death, Longarm thought. He had smelled it too damned many times in the past.

Quietly, he moved deeper into the trees surrounding the camp, away from the direction of the river. That seemed to be the direction the smell was coming from.

The darkness was almost total, since very little of the light from the moon and stars penetrated the thick overhang of branches. Many of the trees were live oaks and still had their leaves, which blocked off that much more of the illumination. Longarm wished he could strike a match, but that would just make a target of him if anybody was waiting out there in the darkness.

Suddenly, his booted foot struck something soft. Longarm stopped in his tracks and grimaced. He knelt, holding the Winchester with his right hand gripping the stock and his index finger through the trigger guard. He reached out with his left hand and touched cloth. Moving his hand over the fabric, he found some buttons and decided it was a shirt. The man wearing it didn’t move.

Then Longarm touched something wet and sticky and knew all too well what it was. His fingertips explored the stain, and his hand drew back involuntarily when he touched rapidly cooling flesh. He had felt the deep gash in the man’s throat.

Somebody had carved this poor bastard a new smile.

Longarm figured he knew who the dead man was. From the style of the shirt, the dead man was dressed cowboy, and that meant he was Randall rather than Ghote. That explained where one of the missing guards was, but Longarm was still left with plenty of questions. Who had killed Randall, and why? Where was Ghote?

The murderer must have struck smoothly and quietly, Longarm thought, to have carried out his deadly mission without disturbing the night life around the camp. This killing, at least, couldn’t be laid at the feet of the Brazos Devil.

Longarm straightened and backed away from the body. It was time to roust the others and try to find some answers.

He turned and started toward the dimly burning fire, but he had taken only a couple of steps when a soft voice said, “Marshal Long? What are you doing out here?”

Longarm stiffened and brought up the barrel of the Winchester. He eased off on the pressure just as he was about to pull the trigger of the rifle. “Damn it, Ghote!” he snapped. “That’s a good way to get yourself killed!”

“What is wrong, Marshal?” asked the Hindu servant. Longarm could see the white turban wrapped around his head now. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was,” Longarm said. He didn’t explain what had awakened him. “I woke up and saw you and Randall weren’t anywhere around, so I got up to look for you. You shouldn’t go off and leave the camp unguarded.”

Ghote’s voice was puzzled as he said, “But the one called Randall was here when I left.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I thought I heard a noise, on the bluff over the river. I went to look. Randall stayed behind to watch the camp. But when I returned after finding nothing, I saw that not only was Randall gone, but you were too.”

Longarm jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Randall’s back there in the woods—with his throat cut. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you, Ghote?”

The little Hindu drew himself up stiffly. “I have not neglected my duty, and I am not a killer.”

“We’ll see about that,” Longarm said, his voice cold and hard. “Come on.”

Ghote didn’t say anything else, but Longarm could almost feel the anger and dislike radiating from the man. He herded Ghote back to the fire and ordered, “Throw some more wood on there. You shouldn’t have let it burn down so low.”

Ghote complied while Longarm thought about what had happened. Everything could have occurred just as Ghote said. But the servant could be lying, might be trying to cover up his part in Randall’s death by claiming that he had been investigating some mysterious noise.

Longarm knew from experience how quietly Ghote could move, and he had been instinctively suspicious of the man from the first.

Of course, Mitch Rainey was still out there somewhere too. Longarm wouldn’t have put it past Rainey to lure the cowboy out of camp some way, then slit his throat. The fugitive outlaw could be trying to eliminate the party one by one.

About the only people Longarm could truly rule out as SUSpects in Randall’s murder were himself and Lady Beechmuir, since they had been otherwise occupied when somebody was whittling on Randall’s neck.

“Wake up, folks,” Longarm said, raising his voice. Ghote had the fire burning brighter now, the flames leaping higher as the crackling noise from the burning branches also increased. “Everybody wake up, we got trouble.”

Benjamin Thorp came floundering up out of his blankets with his six-gun in his hand. “What the hell!” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong, Long?”

Catamount Jack and Lucy Vermilion also emerged from their buffalo robes, snatching up their Sharps carbines as they did so. “Catch sight o’ that Brazos Devil varmint, Marshal?” asked the old mountain man.

Nearby, Lord Beechmuir was emerging from the tent gripping a British Army pistol. The Sikh, Absalom Singh, was on his feet as well, holding that short, curved sword of his as if he was ready to chop up anything that represented a threat. Helene didn’t come out of the tent, but Longarm wasn’t worried about her. He knew she wouldn’t be able to tell him anything he didn’t already know. “We got trouble,” Longarm repeated. “Randall’s dead. Somebody cut his throat.”

“The hell you say!” Thorp burst out. “Where is he?”

“Back yonder in the woods a ways. I didn’t strike a match to look at him, but I’d guess it happened pretty recent-like. Anybody hear anything unusual in the past few minutes?”

“Only you waking us up,” grunted Thorp.

“I’m afraid I’m quite a sound sleeper, Marshal. Practically have to set off some dynamite to disturb my slumber, eh?” Booth shook his head. He looked at the Sikh. “Singh, what about you or Ghote?”

“I heard nothing,” Singh replied, “and I sleep lightly, your lordship.”

Ghote said, “The marshal has already questioned me. I know nothing about this matter.”

“I sleep about like his lordship over there,” Catamount Jack put in. “Less’n there’s some trouble, a bobcat could screech in my ear ‘thout wakin’ me up. How ‘bout you, Lucy?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Lucy said.

“Well, that’s everybody heard from except Lady Beechmuir,” Longarm said.

“Surely you don’t think my wife had anything to do with killing that poor man?” said Booth.

Longarm shook his head. “Nope, I don’t. That’s what I was about to say. So what we got on our hands is a killer who goes about his work mighty quiet-like.” He bent over and lifted one of the branches from the fire. “We’d better take a look at Randall, but I don’t reckon there’ll be anything we can do for him.”

Longarm was right about that. By the light of the makeshift torch, he and Thorp and Catamount Jack went to check on the body, leaving Lucy, Booth, and the two servants to watch the camp. Longarm was a little nervous about leaving Lucy around Ghote, since he wasn’t convinced of the little Hindu’s innocence—not by a long shot—but he didn’t think Ghote would try anything now that the whole camp was awake.

Helene came out of the tent as Longarm and his two companions started into the woods. The lawman glanced back and noted that she looked disheveled but wide awake. He wondered if she’d gone back to sleep after her visit to his bedroll.

The corpse in the woods belonged to the cowboy called Randall, all right. Thorp cursed as the light from the torch revealed the man’s bloodless face, which was frozen in a rictus of pain. Randall’s throat was cut almost from ear to ear.

“Damn it, who’d do a thing like this?” Thorp demanded.

“It wasn’t the Brazos Devil,” Longarm said. “Not unless he’s started acting mighty different than before.”

“No, I don’t blame that monster for this.” Thorp looked at Longarm. “But that escaped prisoner of yours, that outlaw Rainey, might have done it.”

Longarm nodded. “The same thought occurred to me.” He didn’t say anything about his suspicions of Ghote. He was going to keep those to himself for the time being.

Thorp heaved a sigh and shook his head. “I don’t reckon any of us will get much more sleep tonight,” he said.

Longarm looked down at the body and nodded. He figured that was a safe bet.

Chapter 15

Morning couldn’t come too soon for the members of the group. They were a sleepy-eyed bunch, Longarm saw as he knelt beside the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. His own eyes felt gritty in their sockets, and there was a painful yoke of weariness across his shoulders. His head had started to throb again too under the bandage wrapped around it. He had to be careful about settling his Stetson on his head.

The Arbuckle’s, brewed strong and black, helped considerably. Thorp was handling the cooking chores this morning, and he was frying up a mess of bacon and making johnnycakes. He was a fair trail cook, Longarm judged, especially for somebody who had branched out into banking and gotten so successful that he sometimes wore town suits.

Catamount Jack and Lucy were both up and about, as were the two servants, but Lord and Lady Beechmuir had not yet emerged from their tent as the sun started peeking over the trees. Randall was there too, wrapped in a piece of canvas, his body a grim reminder of what had happened during the night. As soon as breakfast was over, they would bury him, then resume the search for the Brazos Devil. That seemed to be the only thing they could do.

“You going to keep on riding with us, Marshal?” Thorp asked as they ate.

Longarm nodded. “I’ve got to find Rainey,” he said, “and sticking with you seems to be as good a way as any of covering the ground around here.”

“Me an’ my gal will partner up with you too,” said Catamount Jack. “Leastways, if you’re willin’, and as long as it’s understood we get that ree-ward if one of us brings down the critter.”

“Of course,” Thorp said with a nod. “My agreement with Lord Beechmuir made it clear that he gets the money only if he kills or captures the beast.”

Longarm swallowed some food, chased it down with another swig of coffee, and said, “I’ve been thinking about that, Mr. Thorp. Seems to me you’d want to take the Brazos Devil alive. Otherwise how will you find out what happened to your wife?”

“That’s true, Marshal,” the rancher admitted. “But dealing with a monster like the Brazos Devil … well, it may not be possible to capture the creature.” Thorp’s tone was as bleak and cold as a frozen river as he added, “Besides, I’m enough of a realist to know how unlikely it is Emmaline is still alive.”

Longarm was a little sorry he had pushed the man into that admission. For weeks, Thorp had been clinging to the belief—the hope—that his wife might be alive. Now, he was evidently coming to grips with the truth of what a far-fetched notion that really was.

Before the discussion could continue, the entrance flap of the tent was pushed back and Lord Beechmuir emerged. His distinguished, bearded face was set in angry lines as he stalked toward the others. Helene came hurrying out of the tent behind him. She caught up to him and reached for his arm, saying, “John, please don’t.”

Booth shrugged her off, ignoring her entreaty. As Lord Beechmuir came toward him, Longarm stood up. A blind man could have seen that something was wrong, and Longarm had a sinking feeling that he knew what the trouble might be.

He was going to try to be reasonable about this anyway. He said, “Mornin’, your lordship. What’s-“

Lord Beechmuir slapped him.

Longarm’s head jerked to the side, as much in surprise as anything else. The slap wasn’t much of a blow, but it was completely unexpected. Longarm’s hands clenched into fists, and every instinct in his body cried out for him to plant a nice hard punch right in the middle of the pompous Englishman’s face. With an effort that sent a tiny shudder through him, Longarm controlled that impulse.

“What the hell was that for?” he grated.

“I think you know quite well what it was for, sir,” Booth said stiffly.

“Please, John,” Helene said. “There’s no need-“

Booth swung toward her for a moment, fixing her with a cold glare that made her fall silent. As his wife stepped back away from him, he turned toward Longarm again and said, “You have disgraced my honor, Marshal Long, and I demand satisfaction.”

Longarm glanced at Lady Beechmuir, wondering how Booth could have found out what happened the night before if he had truly been sleeping as soundly as he’d claimed. Someone must have told him about his wife’s visit to Longarm’s bedroll, and the most likely person to have done that … was Helene herself.

Just for an instant Longarm saw maliciousness flashing in her eyes, and knew the truth. He had rejected her twice, and this was her way of getting back at him.

He looked at Booth again and said, “I swear I never did anything on purpose to offend you, Lord Beechmuir. I don’t take kindly to being slapped neither, so I’ll thank you not to do it again.”

“I don’t give a damn what you take kindly to, Marshal,” Booth said with scathing sarcasm. “You made improper advances toward my wife, and I demand satisfaction.”

That was the second time he’d said that, Longarm thought, but this just wasn’t the time or place for such foolishness. Besides, from what Booth had said, Helene hadn’t told him the whole truth. To a stiff-necked Englishman, “improper advances” could be something as minor as a little innocent flirting. Longarm didn’t think it was likely Helene had told her husband about crawling into his bedroll and giving him a fancy French lesson. She hadn’t had to go that far to get Booth all worked up.

“What’s this all about?” Thorp asked angrily. “We came out here to find the Brazos Devil, damn it, not to squabble among ourselves.”

Lucy Vermilion was giving Longarm a hard look too, and he didn’t want her getting riled up about this. He said bluntly to Lord Beechmuir, “Look, nothing happened between your Wife and me. You’d better just let this go right now while you still can.”

“Nothing?” Helene gasped. “Why, Custis, you call the things you said to me nothing?”

Lucy sauntered closer to Longarm. “Just what did you say to her ladyship, Marshal?” she asked.

Longarm grimaced, but otherwise ignored Lucy’s question. This was a hell of a way to start a morning after a bad night. He was plumb out of patience. He started to turn away from Lord Beechmuir, saying, “If you don’t want me riding with you anymore, that’s just fine by me.”

“By God, sir!” Booth burst out. “How dare you turn your back on me!” He grabbed Longarm’s shoulder and spun the lawman around. “I demand satisfaction!” Once again, his open hand cracked across Longarm’s face in a sharp slap.

That was more than Longarm could take. He didn’t waste any more time thinking about it. He just sank his left fist in the middle of Lord Beechmuir’s noble belly, then shot a hard right cross to the man’s jaw when he bent over in pain.

Helene let out a cry of dismay—or maybe deep down it was satisfaction—as her husband went stumbling backward from the blow.

Longarm didn’t have a chance to appreciate the effect of the one-two combination. Before he even had time to draw a breath, something slammed into him from the side and he went down. He crashed against the ground near the fire, close enough to feel the heat from the flames on his face. Then he felt something as cold as the fire was hot, and it was pressing against the soft flesh of his throat. He looked up to see the bearded face of the Sikh glowering down fiercely at him. Singh had the point of that short, curved sword prodding Longarm’s throat as he knelt beside the lawman.

The unmistakable metallic click of a gun being cocked sounded. Lucy Vermilion’s voice cracked tautly across the clearing. “Better tell that fella who works for you to put away his pig-sticker, Lord Beechmuir, or this Sharps’ll blow his head right off in about two seconds.”

For a nerve-wracking beat of time, John Booth said nothing. Then, grudgingly, he ordered, “Put the sword away, Singh, and let Marshal Long up.”

Singh’s lips drew back from his teeth. “If you ever touch my master again,” he grated at Longarm, “I will gut you like a pig.” He took the razor-sharp blade away from Longarm’s neck, leaving a faint red mark behind where it had pricked the skin.

Longarm sat up as Singh straightened and backed off. He put his fingers to his neck, looked at the spot of blood on one of his fingertips, then said to the Sikh, “And if you ever pull a knife on me again, old son, you better use it in a hurry, because otherwise I’ll gun you without even worrying about it.”

“For God’s sake,” Thorp said hotly, “this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“And we won’t be going anywhere until my honor has been satisfied,” Lord Beechmuir declared. He was standing and glaring at Longarm as he lightly rubbed his jaw. A bruise and a little swelling had already popped up from the punch Longarm had landed there.

Lucy eased down the hammer of her Sharps and lowered the powerful buffalo gun. She held out a hand to Longarm, who after a second’s hesitation took it and let her help him to his feet. “Thanks,” he grunted. “And not just for helping me UP.”

She nodded. They both knew what he meant.

“I thought you were an honorable man, Marshal Long,” Booth went on. “What are you going to do about this?”

Longarm heaved a tired, disgusted sigh. “Just what the hell is it you want?”

Booth’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “There’s only one way to settle something like this. A duel.”

Helene said, “John, no!”

Longarm chuckled humorlessly. “I thought it was just Frenchmen and Prussians who get so worked up that they have to fight duels.”

“I know that we English have a reputation for being rather cold,” Booth snapped, “but I assure you that our blood can burn as hotly as that of any other nationality. I’ve challenged you, Long, so the choice of weapons is yours. I should warn you, however, that I’m a crack shot with a pistol and was also the fencing champion at Eton for three consecutive years.”

Longarm didn’t bother pointing out that he had swapped lead with some pretty fair shootists himself, in situations where the only competition was to see who would live and who would die. He said, “I don’t want to fight a duel with you, Booth, but I reckon if that’s the only thing that’ll suit you, I don’t have much choice.”

Lord Beechmuir’s chin lifted. “You admit that you acted improperly toward my wife then?”

“I don’t admit anything except that you’re a bullheaded jackass … your lordship.” It was Longarm’s turn to let his voice drip with sarcasm.

“This is insane!” exclaimed Thorp. “We have to get on the trail of the Brazos Devil again.”

Longarm turned to Thorp and assured him, “This won’t take long.”

“I should say not,” Booth put in. “Well, Marshal, what about it? Name your weapon. Pistols? Sabers?”

“Neither,” Longarm said, holding up his clenched fists. “You look like you’re in pretty fair shape. I pick bare knuckles.”

The Sikh practically snarled and took a half-step forward, but Booth put out a hand to restrain him. “No, that’s perfectly all right, Singh,” he said. “The marshal is a few years younger than me, but I’m still perfectly capable of giving him a sound thrashing.”

“We’ll see about that,” Longarm said curtly.

Thorp threw his hands in the air, shook his head, and turned away muttering disgustedly. Catamount Jack came over to Longarm and clapped a hand on his back, almost staggering the younger man. “Don’t see as you had much choice, son. Try not to whup that Englisher too bad.”

Longarm hoped he could just defeat Lord Beechmuir and get it over with quickly. He wasn’t so sure, though, when he saw Booth taking off his shirt. The English nobleman’s arms and torso were surprisingly muscular. Booth was older, as he had said, but it looked like he could give a good account of himself in a scuffle. Longarm left his own shirt on but took off his gunbelt, handing it to Catamount Jack.

“Aren’t we even going to bury poor Randall first?” Thorp asked scornfully. “Not that I want to delay your duel or any thing …”

Longarm looked at Lord Beechmuir. “The burying won’t take long. All right with you if we wait?”

Booth nodded. “Of course. I can thrash you just as well half an hour from now.”

Longarm let that one pass. He got a shovel from one of the packs, as did Thorp. They found a good spot on a hillside not far away. Catamount Jack followed and took the shovel from Longarm. “I’ll handle this, son,” he said. “You just save your strength for the tussle you got comin’.”

It didn’t take long for Thorp and the old mountain man to dig the grave. Booth left his shirt off, but draped one of the fancy buckskin jackets around his shoulders against the chill of an early autumn morning. Helene retreated to the tent and didn’t watch as Thorp and Catamount Jack carefully lowered Randall’s canvas-wrapped corpse into the hole in the ground.

This burial, just like Benson’s the day before, reminded Longarm too much of awakening when Rainey and Lloyd were shoveling dirt down on him. That seemed a lot longer in the past than just a few days ago, but the memory was still all too vivid for Longarm’s taste. He never wanted to experience anything like that again.

Thorp said a few words over the grave; then he and Catamount Jack filled it up again. It wasn’t much of a spot for a man to wind up, but according to Thorp, Randall hadn’t had any family, so Longarm supposed this was as good a place as any.

“All right,” Booth said impatiently when the burying was over, “let’s get on with it.” He strode down the hill toward the camp without looking back to see if the others were following him.

Lucy Vermilion fell in step beside Longarm. “You shouldn’t be fightin’ like this,” she said in a quiet voice. “Your head just got kissed by a bullet yesterday. If that fella goes to poundin’ on it, no tellin’ what’ll happen. You might get hurt real bad, Custis.”

“Then I just won’t let him hit me in the head,” Longarm said with a smile. He sounded considerably more confident than he felt.

“You be careful,” Lucy cautioned. “Don’t let him get you down. I reckon a fella like that might try to stomp you.”

Longarm figured Lucy might be right. He didn’t intend to let that happen.

Singh had accompanied the others to Randall’s burial site, but Ghote had stayed behind with Helene. The little Hindu was just emerging from the tent when the rest of the group reached the camp. Booth asked sharply, “Is my wife all right?”

“Her ladyship is distraught,” Ghote replied, his voice as smooth as ever. “She does not wish to witness this combat.”

“Well, that’s her choice, I suppose.” Booth’s tone was gruff. “Still and all, it’s her honor I’m fightin’ for. I’ll just pop in and see her for a moment.”

Ghote looked as if he didn’t think that was a very good idea, but he folded his arms and moved out of Lord Beechmuir’s way. Booth was in the tent for only a minute, and when he came back out his face was mottled with anger. “She’s passed out,” he said. “You’ve been giving her that bloody medicine again, haven’t you, Ghote.”

That accusation took Longarm somewhat by surprise. He had figured Lord Beechmuir knew nothing about his wife’s fondness for whatever was in the bottle Ghote carried around. Evidently Beechmuir was aware of what was going on but didn’t like it.

Ghote shrugged, unperturbed by his master’s anger, and said quietly, “I serve her ladyship as well yourself, your lordship.”

“Well, I’m tellin’ you not to give her any more, do you hear me? Next thing you know, she’ll be sneakin’ off to some damned opium den like a bloody Chinaman.”

The “medicine” was probably laudanum, Longarm decided. That was how many opium addictions got started. Helene wasn’t going to be happy when she found out that her husband had forbidden Ghote to continue supplying her.

Of course, she was the one with all the money in the family. She could probably pay the servant to disregard Lord Beechmuir’s orders.

Longarm suddenly wondered just who had given Helene the stuff in the first place and gotten her hooked on it. Having her so dependent on him for the laudanum would be a pretty lucrative arrangement for Ghote.

He put that question out of his mind. There were other things to deal with at the moment, like this damned fight with Booth. The Englishman turned toward him, stripped off the jacket, and asked haughtily, “Are you ready, Marshal?”

“If you’re bound and determined to go through with this, I reckon I am,” said Longarm.

“This clearing isn’t really large enough,” Booth said. “I propose that we go over to that field where there will be plenty of room.” He pointed toward a large open area about two hundred yards downriver.

Longarm nodded. “That’s all right with me.” He started toward the spot with Lord Beechmuir stalking along beside him. Catamount Jack, Lucy, an impatient Benjamin Thorp, and the two servants followed along behind.

Helene knew the feeling quite well. It was like swimming up from the bottom of a deep, dark pool. Mentally, she kicked against the forces trying to hold her down, pulling herself up toward the light.

At the same time, she didn’t really want to go. She was content where she was, wrapped in the comforting darkness, unable to feel any of the pain and disappointment of life.

Reality would intrude its ugly face all too soon; why hurry the process?

Vaguely, though, she realized something was wrong. Some instinct was telling her that she had to wake up, that she had to leave the land of sweet nothingness behind and return to the harshness of the world. As she struggled to open her eyes, a bad smell filled her nostrils. Not just an unpleasant odor, she thought fuzzily, but an almost overpowering stench.

She opened her eyes, blinked against the morning light that came through the open entrance flap of the tent. It had been closed when she lay down on the cot after drinking deeply of the medicine from Ghote’s bottle. She was certain the servant had closed the flap behind him when he left. But now it was open.

Something moved between Helene and the light, something monstrous that blotted out the sun. Her eyes opened wider and her jaws spread apart in terror as she saw the huge, shaggy shape looming over her. A scream tried to make its way up her throat.

Then a filthy, hairy hand—or perhaps it was a paw—clamped down brutally over her mouth, cutting off the scream before any of it could escape. Helene tried to surge up off the cot, but it was hopeless. The strength of the thing holding her down was much too great for her to overcome.

This can’t be happening, she thought, and just like that she had her answer. It wasn’t happening. It was simply a dream brought on by the medicine, and soon it would pass. Even now she felt darkness creeping in around her again, blotting out the overpowering fear she had felt only seconds earlier.

She had known she didn’t want to return to the real world, and she had been right all along. She slumped back now, welcoming the darkness, letting it wash over her and protect her, sealing her away from all the ugliness in the world.

Chapter 16

“This will be suitable,” Lord Beechmuir said as he looked around the open pasture. “Plenty of room, eh?”

Longarm had fought a lot of battles in more cramped conditions, but he didn’t mind the open space. As he took off his hat and handed it to Lucy, he made one final attempt to talk some sense into the Englishman. “We don’t have to do this,” he said to Booth.

“We most certainly do. Nothing else will satisfy my honor.”

Longarm sighed and glanced at the others, as if to ask them what more he could have done to prevent this. Thorp just looked impatient, Lucy wore a worried expression on her face, and Catamount Jack was grinning with excitement and anticipation. Singh’s bearded features were set in their seemingly perpetual scowl, and as usual, it was difficult if not impossible to read the expression on Ghote’s face.

“Let’s get on with it,” Thorp snapped. “The sooner this is over, the sooner we can get back to looking for the Brazos Devil.”

“Not to worry, Benjamin, old boy,” Lord Beechmuir assured him. “I have a feeling we’ll find that bloody beast today, and my hunter’s instincts have never failed me.”

Maybe not, Longarm thought, but Booth’s inflated sense of pride was sure letting him down. The man ought to take a good look at his wife and see just what a fool she was making of him. But Longarm kept those thoughts to himself, knowing it was too late for them to do any good.

He flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders to loosen them up, then shook his arms a little. “I reckon I’m ready whenever you are, Booth,” he said, no longer bothering to use the Englishman’s title.

Booth lifted his fists and spread his legs in a boxing stance. “Have to, old man,” he said.

“Up yours, old son,” Longarm said, and threw the first punch.

It was a hard right cross that didn’t have anything fancy about it, nor did it start from any Marquis of Queensbury position. It was the kind of punch Longarm would throw at some son of a bitch in a saloon brawl who was about to hit him with a whiskey bottle. His fist rocketed past Lord Beechmuir’s belated attempt to block the punch and slammed into the Englishman’s mouth. Booth went backward a couple of steps and sat down hard.

Singh’s instincts made him reach for his sword again, but Catamount Jack casually let the barrel of the Sharps cradled in his arms swing toward the Sikh. “I wouldn’t,” the old mountain man said quietly. “This is between the two O’ them.”

His nostrils flaring with anger over his sweeping mustache, Singh took his hand away from the hilt of the curved sword.

Sitting on the ground, Lord Beechmuir shook his head, then reached up and gingerly felt his lips, which were bleeding and already starting to swell. “A good blow,” he said in grudging admiration to Longarm.

“That’s it, right?” Longarm asked. “First man knocked on his ass loses?”

“Oh, no,” Booth said with a faint smile. “This battle is just beginning, my American friend.”

“I ain’t your-“

That was as far as Longarm got before Booth seemed to explode up off the ground and tackled him around the middle. Booth’s shoulder rammed into Longarm’s stomach, knocking the breath out of him. Both men went down hard, and Lord Beechmuir was already hooking punches to Longarm’s midsection when they landed.

Longarm grabbed hold of Booth’s shoulders and rolled to the side, throwing the Englishman off him. He scrambled onto his knees, then regained his feet just as Booth did the same thing. So far, Longarm had avoided being hit in the head, and he wanted to continue that. He pressed the attack, taking the fight to his opponent so that Booth wouldn’t have time to plan any strategy. It was best to keep Booth on the defensive.

Unfortunately, Booth seemed to excel at that. He fended off more than half of Longarm’s punches, and landed a jolting left-right combination of his own on the lawman’s solar plexus. Longarm’s injury had robbed him of some of his stamina, and he felt himself growing tired and winded. His arms were starting to feel like lead. Booth lunged at him, swinging a roundhouse punch at his head. Longarm avoided it just in time. The Englishman’s fist whipped past Longarm’s chin harmlessly, and for an instant Booth was off balance.

Longarm took advantage of that opportunity, grabbing Booth’s arm, sticking a leg in front of him, and tossing Booth over his hip in a move taught to Longarm by his celestial friend Ki, who lived on Jessie Starbuck’s vast Circle Star ranch in West Texas. Booth fell heavily on his back. Longarm landed in the middle of him with both knees before Booth had a chance to get up. He sledged a couple of looping overhand blows to Booth’s face, rocking the aristocrat’s head from side to side. Booth’s nose was bleeding now, as well as his mouth. His eyes were glazed. Longarm sensed that the fight was just about over.

Somewhere, though, Lord Beechmuir found the strength to lift his right leg, bring it around in front of Longarm’s neck, and toss the lawman to the side with a well-executed scissors move. Longarm’s hands slapped the ground as he fell, catching himself before he could sprawl full-length. He scrambled around to face Booth again, pushing himself upright as he did so.

Booth was on his feet too, trying to lift his hands back into that formal boxer’s pose. Obviously, though, he lacked the strength to do so. He swayed from side to side and said thickly through his swollen, bloody lips, “Come … come on … old boy … unless you’re willing to … admit defeat …”

Longarm tasted the sourness of disgust in his mouth, disgust at Booth for provoking this fight and disgust at himself for going through with it. He spat, but that didn’t help much with the taste. “I’m done,” he said harshly. “I’m not giving up, but I’m not fighting anymore either. You take that any way you want.”

“And you … you’ll stay away … from my wife?” Booth insisted.

“You can damn sure count on that,” Longarm said.

“And … apologize to her?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Smashing …”

With that, Booth fell onto his knees. He might have pitched forward on his face if Singh hadn’t been beside him instantly, grasping his arm to support him.

“Did you see, Singh?” asked Booth. “I … I thrashed the bounder … just as I said … I would…”

“I saw, your lordship,” Singh said gently. “You were magnificent, as always.”

Catamount Jack came over to Longarm, who was flexing his hands again. The fingers would be stiff and sore for a while. The mountain man handed Longarm his gunbelt and said, “Putty good little fracas whilst it lasted. Not very long, though.”

“Long enough for me,” Longarm said bitterly. “I never should have agreed to any damn duel-“

He stopped in mid-sentence as he glanced past Catamount Jack toward the camp. Something was wrong there, but it took him a minute to figure out what it was. Then the realization hit him.

The tent where Helene Booth had been resting in her drugged sleep had collapsed.

“What’s happened over there?” Longarm asked, raising his hand and pointing at the camp.

Everyone turned to look. A puzzled frown appeared on Thorp’s face. “Where’s Lady Beechmuir?” he asked.

Longarm was wondering the same thing. The way the tent was flattened, he couldn’t tell if there was anyone underneath the canvas or not. He saw some lumps there, but those could have been made by the cots.

“My God!” Booth exclaimed, realizing that something was wrong. “Singh, get over there right away!”

“Your lordship will be all right?” the Sikh asked.

“Yes, yes, just go!”

Singh broke into a run, pulling out his curved sword as he went. Randamar Ghote was right behind him, and the others followed closely. The only one who lagged behind was Lord Beechmuir, who was still unsteady on his feet. Longarm looked over his shoulder, saw the trouble the Englishman was having, and hung back. “Let me give you a hand,” he offered to Booth.

For a moment, Booth glared at him; then the nobleman nodded abruptly and accepted Longarm’s steadying hand under his arm. “I’m obliged, Long,” he said stiffly.

They hurried along as best they could, and by the time they reached the campsite, Singh had pulled the tent aside to reveal that Helene was not there. “Dear Lord, what happened to her?” Booth asked anxiously as he and Longarm came up to the flattened canvas. Both cots had collapsed.

“Somebody tore down the tent while the rest of us were watching you and Long, your lordship,” Thorp said. His voice rose excitedly. “Look!”

He pointed at some tracks on the ground. The marks made by Singh’s boots had obscured some of the huge, misshapen footprints, but there were enough of them so that most were still clearly visible. Longarm had seen them before, and the conclusion to which they led was obvious.

Helene Booth was gone, and the tracks of the Brazos Devil were all over the place.

Lord Beechmuir was almost insane with worry, not surprising considering what had happened. As the rest of the group made hurried preparations to break camp, Booth paced back and forth in a growing frenzy. The discovery of his wife’s disappearance had made him forget all about the aches and pains he had received in the fight with Longarm. Thorp had offered him sympathy, since the rancher knew what he was going through, but the Englishman had seemed to barely notice.

“Never should have left her here like that,” Booth muttered. “Should have gotten rid of that bloody Hindu a long time ago.”

Longarm overheard the comment and couldn’t disagree with it. He wondered how long Helene’s addiction had been encouraged by Ghote. Her ladyship’s dependence on him had no doubt given him quite a position of strength in the household. Longarm wondered too if the servant had been building up quite a stash of loot from what Helene paid him to supply her with her “medicine.”

All that was a matter for Lord and Lady Beechmuir to work out between themselves … assuming they could catch up to the Brazos Devil and rescue Helene from him safe and sound.

While Longarm was saddling the Appaloosa, Catamount Jack sidled over to him and said in a low voice, “You know, Marshal, somethin’ about them tracks we found strike me as mighty familiar.”

Longarm looked quickly at the old mountain man. “You’ve seen something like them before?”

“Mebbe. I ain’t sayin’ for sure, mind you, but now that I’ve got a good look at ‘em, I think maybe I have.” Catamount Jack shook his grizzled head. “I sure can’t recollect where or when, though.”

“Maybe it’ll come to you,” Longarm said. He wasn’t sure what good it would do them if Catamount Jack had run into a similar creature before, but the knowledge might come in handy. It was hard to know what they were going to find.

Longarm estimated they were less than half an hour behind the Brazos Devil when they rode out of the camp. This was perhaps their best chance yet to catch up to the creature. The varmint must have been watching them, he thought as the riders trotted toward the river, following the tracks. Man, beast, or something in between, the Devil was obviously cunning and observant enough to have known that Helene was alone in the tent while the attention of everyone else in the party was occupied elsewhere.

The tracks led to the bluff overlooking the river—straight to the edge, in fact. Booth reined in and said hollowly, “My God, did … did the beast jump off the brink with Helene?”

Carefully, Longarm walked the Appaloosa closer to the edge and peered down, wondering if he would see the broken bodies of Helene Booth and the Brazos Devil at the bottom, killed in some sort of bizarre suicide. There was nothing down there as far as he could see, however, except a narrow strip of riverbank clogged with brush.

“Look there,” Catamount Jack said, pointing. “You can see some sign where he climbed down.”

Longarm studied the scratch marks indicated by the mountain man. The bluff was basically just an out-thrust limestone ledge, and the face of it was quite rough. A man might be able to climb down it if he was careful.

But climbing down while carrying an unconscious Helene Booth was another story entirely, Longarm thought. That would take an incredible amount of strength and surefootedness … two qualities the Brazos Devil evidently possessed in abundance. The long scratches on the limestone looked like claw marks where the creature had searched for footholds.

“Is there a way down there?” asked Lord Beechmuir as he anxiously studied the markings. “We’ll have to ride north along this bluff for about a mile,” Thorp replied, “but then we’ll be able to get down to the river again and double back. That’s the closest way. Come on.”

The rancher put his horse into a ground-eating lope, and the others followed suit. Longarm found himself riding beside Lucy as the group strung out a little.

“I ain’t overly fond of Lady Beechmuir,” she said quietly to Longarm, “but I hope that critter don’t hurt her much before we catch up to ‘em.”

“Maybe we’ll be lucky this time,” Longarm said. “The Brazos Devil obviously doesn’t kill women right away when he comes across them, the way he does with men.”

“Like I said before, maybe he’s lookin’ for a mate. Maybe Mr. Thorp’s wife is still alive after all and the monster’ll take Lady Beechmuir back to where he’s got Mrs. Thorp hid out.”

Longarm had a vision of a group of concubines, like some Middle Eastern harem, only presided over by some hairy half-man, half-monster instead of an Arab sheik. That was pretty far-fetched … but who was to say what was possible and what was not. He had run across plenty of things in his life he would have considered highly unlikely.

“I reckon we’ll see, with any luck,” he said to Lucy. “We ought to be at the end of this bluff pretty soon.”

Sure enough, the ground soon sloped down toward the level of the river, and within a few minutes the searchers were able to slide their mounts down a short incline and then ride south again, this time following the narrow strip of riverbank.

The going was slow, however, because of the thick brush. It took more than half an hour to reach the spot where the Brazos Devil had climbed over the edge of the bluff with Helene. The only reason they knew they were at the right place was because Catamount Jack had tied a red bandanna on an up-thrust finger of rock at the edge before they started riding along the bluff. The bright red cloth was clearly visible above them.

“Look for any tracks or signs that the beast broke through this brush,” Thorp ordered. “We ought to be able to tell which way he went.”

Several minutes of searching did not turn up any of the huge footprints, however. Nor was there a path broken through the bushes.

“Damn!” Lord Beechmuir exclaimed in worry and frustration. “The bloody beast can’t have disappeared into thin air!”

Longarm frowned in thought for a second, then waved a hand at the rugged face of the bluff. “Maybe he worked his way along the ledge and came down off of it somewhere else.”

Catamount Jack nodded and said, “That’s the onliest explanation that makes much sense. If the critter come straight down here, we’d’ve been able to tell it.”

“So what do we do now?” snapped Booth.

“I don’t see any alternative but to split up again,” Thorp suggested. “All we can do is ride up and down this bluff in both directions and look for some sign of the creature.”

“Yes, but in the meantime, Helene is a prisoner of the beast!” Booth said hotly.

Thorp sighed. “Believe me, Lord Beechmuir, I know how you feel.”

Booth took a deep breath, then nodded curtly and said, “You’re right, of course. Sorry, old boy. I let my emotions carry me away. I won’t allow that again.” He lifted his reins. “Very well, shall we go? Singh, you come with me.”

“We’d better string out along the river pretty good,” Longarm said. “How long is this bluff, Thorp?”

“About two and a half miles, I reckon,” the rancher replied. “From where we are now, it runs a mile to the north and a mile and a half to the south.”

Longarm nodded. “I’ll ride down to the southern end and start working my way back. The rest of you scatter out between here and there and each take a section of the ledge. We didn’t see any tracks back to the north as we were coming along, so we’ll leave checking it again for last, just in case we don’t find anything south of here.”

For a second, Thorp looked as if he was going to object to Longarm giving the orders. Then he nodded and said, “Sounds all right to me.”

Longarm left the others to settle how they would split up the task of searching. He took the Appaloosa down the bank to the sandy streambed. He could make better time there than by sticking to the brushy bank, and he had the most ground to cover.

The river twisted and turned enough so that he was soon out of sight of the others, but he would be within hearing of a gunshot if any of them found anything. As usual, three evenly spaced shots would mean for everybody who could hear them to come a-runnin’.

Longarm wasn’t sure how far the Brazos Devil could have come, working his way along the face of the rocky bluff, especially burdened as he had been by Helene Booth. But they had to cover every possibility. Longarm’s own frustration was growing. What should have been a simple job had turned into a damned complicated mess.

But then life had a way of doing that, he reflected, and not just for deputy United States marshals.

As he rode along the river, he noticed another bluff rising on the western bank of the Brazos. It was almost a mirror image of the one to the east, he saw, only the limestone cliff to the west gradually became a bit taller. It was more rugged too, with shoulders and slabs of rock jutting out from its face.

Suddenly, Longarm reined in and frowned. It was not noon yet, but the sun was well up in the sky, its radiance washing over the bluff on the western side of the river. Longarm had spotted a patch of darkness on the face of that bluff, an irregular oval shadow that drew his attention for some reason. After a moment, he figured out what it was.

The dark patch was the mouth of a cave.

Longarm looked back in the direction he had come. The others were counting on him to search the riverbank on the east side of the Brazos, not to go gallivanting over to the west side. And yet, what better place to hide somebody or something around here than in a cave? Helene Booth wasn’t the only missing woman, Longarm told himself. Emmaline Thorp was still unaccounted for, and had been so a lot longer than Helene. Of course, even if the Brazos Devil had taken Emmaline to that cave, there was no guarantee she was still there. Or if she was, she might be nothing more than scattered bones by now.

Longarm grimaced and put that grisly thought out of his head. He would carry out his search of the eastern bank of the river first, he decided. He and the others could always return to that cave later and take a look in it. He started to swing the Appaloosa away.

That was when the late morning sun, shining so brilliantly on the opposite bluff, struck something shiny inside the cave and sent bright shards of light reflecting right at Longarm.

Chapter 17

He stiffened in the saddle as he stared at the reflection, then closed his eyes, shook his head, and looked again. Sure enough, the shiny brightness was still there. He hadn’t imagined it.

There could be all sorts of explanations for what he was seeing, Longarm knew. A pack rat could live in that cave and could have dragged in some bit of metal it found somewhere: an old belt buckle, an empty tin can, damn near anything like that. The fact that there was something shiny inside the cave didn’t have to mean a blessed thing.

But it would take him only a few minutes to find out whether or not the reflection was important, and Longarm had a very strong hunch he ought to do exactly that. One reason he had lived as long as he had, he was convinced, was because he knew when to listen to his instincts.

This was one of those times.

Longarm turned the Appaloosa toward the western bank of the Brazos and heeled the horse into a trot. He splashed through the shallow channel and across some more sandbars, then reached the shore. There was less brush here than on the other side, and barely enough room for the horse to stand after Longarm dismounted and wrapped the reins around the trunk of a little mesquite tree. The steep slope of the bluff started climbing toward the Texas sky almost immediately.

For a moment, Longarm stood there and studied the face of the bluff, trying to pick out a good route that would lead him to the cave. He could still see the opening in the rock face above him, but not as well since he was almost directly underneath it now. When he had settled on his first series of footholds and handholds, he took a deep breath and started climbing.

The way was easier than he had expected it to be. Anybody who had grown up in West-by-God Virginia was part mountain goat anyway, Longarm thought. He ascended quickly, pausing every now and then to figure out which way to go next. As fast as he was climbing the bluff, there might as well have been a path hewn into it.

He was breathing a little heavier than normal from the exertion of the climb as he neared the cave. He stopped just below the entrance and inflated his lungs several times, replenishing his supply of air. Then he reached across his body and slipped the .44 from its holster. There was no telling what might be inside the cave, and Longarm knew from painful experience that a fella didn’t go sticking his head into a dark hole without asking for trouble. He eased a little higher, to the point where he could almost see into the cave, then called, “Hello? Anybody in there?”

For a long moment, there was no response. Longarm was about to pull himself up into the entrance when he suddenly heard a low, muffled moan. His hand tightened on the grip of the revolver. He decided the sound was definitely human, not animal.

“I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long,” he called, not knowing if whoever was in there could understand him or not. “I’m armed, and I’m coming in there.”

That was fair warning. He wouldn’t feel any compunction about shooting back if anybody in the cave blazed away at him.

Moving quickly so that he wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky at the entrance any longer than necessary, he vaulted up and into the cave. As soon as he was inside he flattened himself against the wall on the right side, holding the pistol out in front of him, ready to fire. He had to stoop quite a bit, because the ceiling of the cave was only about five feet tall.

Longarm was aware that his heart was thudding rapidly in his chest and his pulse was pounding inside his head. His breath hissed between tightly clenched teeth. The cave was dim inside, but his eyes adjusted rapedly. He saw a small, shelf-like arrangement built on the opposite side of the cave. It served as a bunk for the shape huddled on it.

Long, lank blond hair told Longarm the person lying there was a woman. She was gaunt, her wrists looking painfully thin where they were lashed together in front of her with cord. Her ankles were tied as well, and there was a thick rope around her waist. The other end of the rope was fastened to an iron ring driven into the limestone wall of the cave, so that she couldn’t move more than a few feet. The dress she wore was in tatters, revealing just how thin she really was. Longarm’s eyes widened in horror at the idea of anybody being treated like this.

There was a black cloth tied over the woman’s eyes, keeping her in perpetual darkness. She could hear him but not see him. He wondered if her mind was coherent enough for her to have understood him earlier when he called out his identity. Lowering the revolver a little, he said, “Ma’am? Ma’am, are you Mrs. Emmaline Thorp? Can you understand me?”

She gave that pathetic moan again and twisted her head on her stalk of a neck, trying to turn toward the sound of his voice. She writhed feebly on the bunk. Obviously, she was too weak to pull herself upright. Someone had been systematically starving her to death. As Longarm came closer to her, he saw faded bruises on her face and body as well. She had taken quite a beating sometime in the past.

“Mrs. Thorp, I’m a federal lawman,” he said as he knelt beside her and holstered the gun. “I’m here to help you.”

Most folks were skeptical, and often rightly so, when anybody from the government announced he was there to help. This time it was true, though. Longarm reached out and carefully, gently, worked the blindfold away from her eyes. She flinched violently from the light as it struck her eyes. Longarm knew it would take a moment for her to get used to it.

He glanced around the makeshift prison. On the shelf behind her was a glass bottle with a little water left in the bottom of it. That was probably what he had seen shining in the sun, he thought. The rays weren’t reaching it now, since the sun had climbed a little higher in the sky. Only for a few moments each day would the light shine directly enough into the cave to reflect off the bottle. He had been in the right place at just the right time to see it. Only that stroke of luck had brought him here to this chamber of hellish captivity.

“You are Mrs. Thorp, aren’t you?” Longarm prodded. He couldn’t think of any other woman who might be held prisoner out here. She might be mad by now; if she wasn’t, she was surely on the brink. He wanted to pull her back if he could.

Blinking rapidly, she managed to narrowly open her eyes. Her expression was more coherent than Longarm had expected. She was half-dead from her ordeal, so weak that she couldn’t sit up, but she wasn’t crazy. Her tongue came out and licked over cracked lips with zigzag patterns of dried blood on them.

“M-Marshal?” she husked.

“That’s right, ma’am,” Longarm said, relieved that she had understood who he was. “You’re Mrs. Thorp?”

Her head moved a fraction of an inch, just enough for him to know that she was nodding.

Longarm grinned reassuringly at her. “There’s been a lot of people looking for you these past few weeks, ma’am. Your husband’s been mighty worried about you. I’ll step outside and fire some shots to get the attention of him and the other folks with him; then we’ll see about getting you loose from those ropes.”

He drew away from her, intending to back out of the narrow cave and signal the others. Helene Booth was still missing, but at least one object of the long search had been found. Emmaline Thorp stopped him, though, by reaching out and laying her hands on his arm. There was no strength in her grip; the fingers she pressed against his sleeve might have been nothing more than small bundles of twigs.

“No,” she croaked. “Not … Ben …”

“But he can be here in just a little bit,” Longarm said.

She shook her head, her motions more emphatic. She was drawing strength from desperation. “Not … Ben …” she repeated. “He … put … me … here …”

Longarm’s eyes widened even more. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He said, “But the Brazos Devil.”

“Not … Devil. Ben!”

Longarm looked around the cave again. The whole setup would have required some intelligence, all right. It was hard to imagine a creature such as the Brazos Devil seemed to be having the mental capacity to tie up and blindfold Emmaline like this, let alone leaving water for her so that she wouldn’t die of thirst. The captivity had been designed to provide a lingering, painful, horrible death for Emmaline Thorp.

She was right. The Brazos Devil hadn’t done this. Longarm knew that now.

But Ben Thorp? The woman’s husband, the man who had raised such hell with Marshal Mal Burley in Cottonwood Springs, the man who had offered a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for the beast he’d said had stolen his wife?

What better way, Longarm thought grimly, to insure that Thorp himself wouldn’t be a suspect in the disappearance of Emmaline and the murder of Matt Hardcastle?

“That son of a bitch,” Longarm said under his breath. The whole thing had been some sort of perverted game. Thorp had put on a big show, when all along he knew, right where his wife was. He had probably visited her from time to time, giving her just enough food to keep her alive so that he could continue to gloat over what he was doing to her.

Some men, Longarm reflected, were born to deserve a bullet through the brain. Evidently, Benjamin Thorp was one of those men.

Longarm took a small clasp knife from the pocket of his jeans and started cutting the cords that bound Emmaline’s wrists and ankles. “I’ll sure get you out of here, ma’am,” he told her as he worked, “and then I’ll settle up with your husband.”

“He’s a … powerful man…” Emme whispered.

“Not powerful enough to get away with this,” Longarm promised her. “You got my word on that.”

When her hands and feet were free, Longarm tried to untie the knot in the thicker rope around her waist. It was too tight to come loose easily, however, so he started cutting through that rope too. As he sawed on it with the small blade, he asked, “Did your husband kill that Hardcastle fella?”

“Yes …” Emmaline’s voice was as light and fragile as a feather. “He shot Matt … then used an ax … and a knife … to chop … to cho-” A shudder went through her at the memory, and she couldn’t finish what she was saying.

“Damn,” Longarm breathed. He hadn’t seen Hardcastle’s body, of course, but he had heard the descriptions of how the man had been torn apart. Evidently that had been some skilled butchery on Thorp’s part, not only to conceal the bullet wound that had actually killed Hardcastle, but also to cast blame for the killing on the Brazos Devil.

That thought raised questions in Longarm’s mind. Thorp might have been responsible for Hardcastle’s murder and Emmaline’s disappearance, but what about the Lavery boys? Who—or what—had killed them? Something had scared the hell out of Mitch Rainey that first day along the Brazos, and something had left all the various tracks Longarm had seen. Thorp wasn’t responsible for the death of that gray gelding either; Longarm was sure of that. Nor had he carried off Lady Beechmuir—who was still among the missing, Longarm reminded himself.

Obviously, there had been more than one monster roaming along the banks of the Brazos lately.

Longarm’s blade was nearly through the thick rope now. Once he had freed Emmaline, he could pick her up and carry her out of the cave. She was so light, it wouldn’t be much trouble to make his way back down the bluff with her in his arms. Thorp must have picked this spot for her prison with ease of access in mind. He’d had to get her in here after killing Hardcastle, and if his plan had succeeded, eventually he would have had to dispose of her body.

“I’m sure sorry you had to go through all this, ma’am,” Longarm said as he cut through the last strand of rope. “It sure beats me why anybody would do such a horrible thing.”

The sound of a rock moving near the entrance of the cave warned him, but before he could do more than start to turn around in the cramped confines, something blocked the light and the metallic click of a gun being cocked echoed hollowly from the limestone. “I can tell you why, Long,” Benjamin Thorp said. “I did it because the bitch deserved it.”

Longarm turned his head enough to see Thorp standing there in the entrance. The rancher must have seen Longarm’s horse tied up down below at the foot of the bluff, and had feared that the lawman would discover his wife’s prison. So he had slipped up to the entrance of the cave, and now Longarm knew that unless he was able to turn the tables on Thorp, he might well wind up as another victim of “the Brazos Devil.”

“Nobody deserves to be treated like this, Thorp,” he said hotly, not so much to vent his justifiable anger as to get Thorp talking. As long as Thorp was gloating, Longarm still had a chance to save both himself and Emmaline.

“What do you know about it?” snapped Thorp. “I gave her a home, more money, nicer things than she ever would have had in that parlor house in New Orleans where I found her.” It was hard to see the man’s face with the light behind him like that, but Longarm could hear the sneer in his voice as Thorp went on. “Once a whore, always a whore, I guess. I’m not surprised she took up with Matt Hardcastle. But she could have had the decency to keep it from me! I might have been able to live with it if she hadn’t admitted it to my face, hadn’t told me that Matt was more of a man than I’d ever be!”

“It … was … true…” Emmaline gasped out.

“Shut up!” Thorp shouted. “Shut up, you slut! I don’t want to hear your lies anymore. I listened to enough of them after I first brought you here to this cave. I listened to you swear that it was me you really loved, that Hardcastle didn’t really mean anything to you, that you’d never betray me again. But by then I knew better, didn’t I? I knew I could never trust you again. I knew all that was left was to punish you for what you did to me.”

Emmaline started to sob, quietly, wrackingly. Longarm’s muscles ached from the awkward position in which he was frozen. He couldn’t risk moving much, though, not with Thorp’s gun cocked and aimed at him. If he had been alone in here, he might have taken a chance and thrown himself to the side, trusting that his own speed and accuracy with a gun would allow him to kill Thorp before Thorp could kill him. But in these close quarters, with Emmaline right beside him, he couldn’t risk it. One of Thorp’s bullets could easily hit her.

“What about the Brazos Devil?” Longarm asked. “What do you know about that, Thorp?”

“The same things you do,” Thorp replied with a shrug. “There’s something out here in these woods, but I don’t really give a damn about it. All I knew when the Lavery boys got killed like that was that I’d found a perfect way to get rid of Hardcastle and punish Emmaline. I could do whatever I wanted, and everybody would blame it on the Brazos Devil as long as it was savage enough.”

“And if we’d found the critter and killed it?”

“Then everyone would have believed that it dragged Emmaline off and killed her. Her body would never be found. That would end it all.”

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Longarm said. “That’s the real reason for the bounty on the Brazos Devil and for bringing in Lord Beechmuir. You wanted the varmint dead, so that all the loose ends would be tied UP.”

Thorp laughed coldly. “And it certainly made me look more like a loving husband who was worried out of his mind about his missing wife. I fooled all of you, Long, and I’ll keep on fooling the others. You’ll have to disappear, of course, but maybe everyone will think that the Brazos Devil got you too.” He lifted the gun a little, the barrel looking as big around as the mouth of a cannon in the shadows of the cave. Looked like he was going to have to take that chance after all, Longarm thought. Thorp was through talking. Longarm tensed his muscles, ready to spring away from the bunk as he grabbed for his gun. Before either of the men could make a move, though, Emmaline surprised both of them. With a strength she shouldn’t have possessed in her withered body, she exploded up off the bunk. Freed now, since Longarm had cut through the rope tied to the iron ring in the wall of the cave, Emmaline flung herself toward her husband. A hoarse scream ripped from the raw gash of her mouth.

“Mrs. Thorp! No!” Longarm shouted as he threw himself forward, landing on his belly on the floor of the cave. His .44 was in his hand, even though he didn’t remember pulling it from the cross-draw rig. He couldn’t fire, however, because Emmaline was between him and Thorp. The murderous rancher didn’t have to worry about that. His gun crashed, sending bullets slamming into his wife’s body at close range. The impact of the slugs should have thrown her back or at least dropped her in her tracks, but the rage and hate that had jerked her up from the bunk were too powerful to allow her to be stopped. Her arms outstretched, the claw-like hands reaching desperately for Thorp’s neck, she ran full-tilt into him. With a startled yell, Thorp fell backward out of the entrance of the cave. Longarm scrambled to his feet and leaped out after them, the revolver held ready in his fist.

He didn’t need it. Thorp and Emmaline were both tumbling head over heels down the face of the bluff, bouncing off rocks but somehow staying together. A second later, they hit the ground at the base of the limestone cliff. The sound of the impact sent a wave of sickness through Longarm’s belly.

He kept his gun out as he made his way back down the bluff, watching Thorp and Emmaline as he did so. Neither of them moved at all. When Longarm reached their side a few moments later, he wasn’t surprised to find that Emmaline was dead. He had heard several of Thorp’s bullets strike her. The midsection of her tattered dress was sodden with blood.

Thorp was dead too, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. In falling down the steep slope, he must have hit his head and broken his neck. At least that was what Longarm sort of wanted to think.

Emmaline’s fingers were still locked around her husband’s throat in a death grip, and Longarm couldn’t help but wonder if she had broken Thorp’s neck with a burst of unholy strength.

Either way, Longarm thought as he slid his pistol back into its holster, they were both gone. This tragedy had played itself out to its inevitable conclusion.

But all the trouble wasn’t over yet, and the sudden crackle of gunfire from upriver that made Longarm’s head jerk up reminded him of that.

Chapter 18

The Appaloosa and Thorp’s horse were both tied up nearby. Longarm ran to the Appaloosa, jerked the reins free from the little tree, and swung up quickly into the saddle. He wheeled the horse around and urged it into a run across the river. He didn’t much like leaving the bodies of Thorp and Emmaline lying there by the river, but there wasn’t much choice. He had to find out what the shooting was about. He was afraid he had a pretty good idea already.

Being careful to watch out for patches of quicksand, Longarm got as much speed out of the Appaloosa as he could. He veered north before reaching the opposite bank. He could make better time by staying in the streambed, rather than trying to force his way through the thick brush along the bank. More shots rang out, and a few distant yells drifted to Longarm’s ears. Sounded like the others had caught up to the Brazos Devil at last, he thought.

The shooting stopped just as Longarm sent the Appaloosa around one of the bends in the river. He saw movement up ahead on the eastern bank and reined in sharply. He wanted to see what was going on before he charged in there. Edging his mount toward the shore, he leaned forward in the saddle and squinted as he peered along the river.

He saw the two servants standing near the edge of the bank; it was easy to identify them by their turbans. Not far away, in a clearing in front of what appeared to be another cave at the base of the bluff, stood Lord Beechmuir. He was facing Mitch Rainey, who stood near the mouth of the cave with a pistol in one hand and his other arm around the neck of Helene Booth. Rainey kept what appeared to be a tight, painful grip on her while he covered her husband with the gun in his other hand.

Rainey again, Longarm thought bitterly. He wished he had killed the outlaw a long time ago, when he had the chance.

Moving quietly, Longarm slipped down from the saddle and climbed onto the riverbank. He tied the Appaloosa’s reins to a bush. As far as he could tell, Rainey hadn’t noticed him yet, and Longarm wanted to keep it that way. If he could work his way through the brush along the bank, maybe he could take the fugitive by surprise and get Helene away from him before he hurt her.

Rainey’s voice was loud enough for Longarm to make out most of the words as he began easing his way slowly through the thick growth. “… little lady tells me you’re rich,” Rainey was saying. “I want plenty of money and … head start … get her back safe and sound.”

Longarm frowned as he continued moving closer. From the sound of it, Rainey had kidnapped Lady Beechmuir in order to hold her for ransom. But they had found the distinctive tracks of the Brazos Devil at the campsite after Helene disappeared, Longarm recalled. They had all assumed the monster had carried her off. But maybe the Brazos Devil had come along after Helene had been abducted.

Longarm gave a little shake of his head. They could sort it all out after Helene was safe and Mitch Rainey was dead, he decided.

“I don’t have any cash with me,” Booth was saying in reply to Rainey’s demands. “At least not in the amounts you suggest. I’m sorry, old man, but I can’t help you.”

“Well, then, I may just have to take this pretty little gal with me,” Rainey shot back, clearly annoyed. “At least that way none of you bastards’ll come after me. Speakin’ of bastards, where’s that marshal?”

“Marshal Long will be back shortly, and so will the rest of our party. You won’t be able to get away, Mr. Rainey, so you might as well release my wife and make things easier on yourself when you’re brought to justice.”

Longarm heard Rainey laugh harshly. “Hell, nobody’s goin’ to catch me,” he boasted. “Not as long as I got that new partner of mine.”

New partner? Longarm thought. What in blazes was Rainey talking about?

A second later, Longarm’s blood seemed to freeze as he heard Helene start screaming. He hurried forward, confident that her shrieks would now muffle any slight noise he might make moving through the brush. Just before he would have broken into the open, he dropped into a crouch behind the last screening bushes and parted the growth to peer through it.

Longarm’s breath caught in his throat. Lurching out of the cave behind Rainey was something the likes of which Longarm had never seen before. The creature was stooped over, but if it had been standing upright, he judged it would have been close to seven feet tall. A thick coat of matted brown fur covered its body. Huge clawed feet left deep impressions on the ground as it walked. A low growl rumbled from the creature’s throat as burning yellow eyes peered out of a forest of hair.

Was it a bear? Longarm asked himself. No, the bone structure was wrong, he decided. Some things about the monster looked almost human. Was it … could it be … a man? Longarm couldn’t tell, but he understood now why Rainey had been so scared that other time and why Helene was screaming now. Just looking at the thing made cold chills prickle along Longarm’s spine.

“My God!” exclaimed Booth. His face was pale and helooked like he wanted to run, but he controlled his fear with a visible effort. “You’re … you’re in league with the Brazos Devil!”

“Yep, you could say that,” Rainey replied as his grip on Helene’s neck tightened and he choked off her screams. “Him and me got together yesterday. I figured he was goin’ to kill me like he did those other folks, but he ain’t so bad if you don’t rile him. Him and me get along now, and he does just about anything I tell him to do, like grabbin’ this gal of yours for me. He just don’t like it when somebody tries to hurt him, or when they make a lot of noise. I reckon when those rancher’s boys who got killed a while back happened on him, they tried to lasso him or shoot him or something like that.”

“What about Marshal Long’s horse?” asked Booth.

Rainey shrugged. “All critters got to eat. Out here in the woods, you take what you can get.”

Helene was sobbing quietly now and shuddering in Rainey’s brutal grasp. Longarm wondered if he could put a bullet in the outlaw’s head from here, taking Rainey down with a quick kill. But even if he was able to do that, the Brazos Devil would still be right there to grab Helene. Longarm didn’t think he could drop the creature with a handgun.

Where the hell were Catamount Jack and Lucy? A couple of Big Fifties would come in mighty handy right about now.

For that matter, Singh had his master’s elephant gun slung on his back, but it would take time to bring the Markham & Halliday into firing position, time that none of them would have if trouble broke out. As far as Longarm could see, it was a standoff.

Then a slight motion caught his eye and he lifted his gaze to the bluff behind Rainey. Lucy Vermilion was up there, Longarm saw as his pulse quickened. She was working her way along the rugged face of the limestone, just as they had figured the Brazos Devil had done when it carried off Helene. Longarm didn’t see any sign of Catamount Jack, but he figured the mountain man was around somewhere close by. Lucy must have come to investigate the shooting the same as Longarm had, and now she was trying to get behind Rainey without the outlaw seeing her. So far she seemed to have been successful. Rainey never even glanced in her direction.

Lucy had her Sharps strapped to her back. She reached a spot almost directly behind the group on the ground, and settled into a little crease where a boulder jutted out from the bluff. Longarm watched as she brought the Sharps around and lifted it to her shoulder, steadying both herself and the big buffalo gun. He wasn’t sure what she intended to do, but it was obvious all hell was going to break loose around here in a matter of seconds. Longarm tensed and lifted his gun, ready to act as soon as Lucy made her move.

Unfortunately, Lord Beechmuir chose that moment to glance up, spot Lucy on the bluff, and exclaim, “Good Lord!”

Rainey twisted around, yanking Helene with him. The Brazos Devil turned too, just as Lucy fired. The Sharps boomed and the creature staggered, fur flying in the air from its left shoulder where the heavy slug merely grazed it. Longarm knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He burst out of the brush and yelled, “Rainey!”

The outlaw didn’t know which way to turn. He looked around frantically, uncertain which threat to react to first. Longarm couldn’t fire with Helene so close to Rainey, but Booth lunged forward, grabbing for his wife. He shouted, “I’m coming, Helene!”

The Brazos Devil let out a roar and swung a thick arm with surprising speed. The backhanded blow slammed into Lord Beechmuir and knocked him sprawling. The creature bellowed again and lifted both hands, apparently ready to club them down on Booth’s head and crush the Englishman’s skull.

Before the blow could fall, Singh was there, slashing at the Devil with the curved sword. The Sikh shouted his defiance in as fierce a tone as the monster had. He cut and thrust with the blade as the Brazos Devil attacked, enveloping Singh in its long, heavily muscled arms.

In the meantime, Ghote was rushing toward Rainey and Helene. The little Hindu had a dagger in his hand, and despite Longarm’s dislike for Ghote, he had to admit the servant wasn’t lacking in courage. Charging into the barrel of a gun armed only with a small knife was an act of bravery—or desperation. Maybe Ghote just didn’t want to lose all the benefits he had gained from his mistress’s laudanum addiction.

Rainey saw Ghote coming and triggered a quick shot at him. The bullet hit Ghote in the chest and spun him around. While he was falling, a groggy Lord Beechmuir regained his feet and threw himself at Rainey, crashing into the outlaw and loosening his grip on Helene. She jerked free and tried to run, making only a few feet before she stumbled and fell.

But that took her out of the line of fire, and Longarm yelled at her husband, “Get down, Booth!”

Lord Beechmuir didn’t have much choice in the matter. Rainey slashed at him with the gun and the barrel raked along the side of Booth’s head. The Englishman fell.

For the first time, Longarm had a wide-open shot as Rainey turned toward him again. He took it, triggering twice before the outlaw could fire. Both slugs thudded into Rainey’s chest and drove him backward. His eyes widened in pain and shock, but he still tried to lift his pistol and bring it to bear on Longarm.

The next instant, Rainey’s head practically exploded as Lucy Vermilion’s Sharps blasted again. The slug bored through the outlaw’s brain and burst out the other side of his skull. The gruesome corpse swayed there for a second, already dead but not aware of it yet, before it slowly toppled over.

The Brazos Devil was still bellowing as Singh hacked at it. The creature’s arms had completely encircled the Sikh and were crushing him mercilessly. Blood welled from Singh’s mouth and nose as his bones splintered and his organs were pulped. But his arms kept rising and falling with the curved blade, which was now dripping with gore.

Longarm saw Catamount Jack appear at the other side of the clearing, behind the Brazos Devil. The mountain man lifted his Sharps, sighted, and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the monster’s back and knocked it forward. Its arms lost their grip on Singh and he slid limply to the ground. Ponderously, the Brazos Devil swung around toward Catamount Jack, whose eyes widened in shock.

“Luther?” said Catamount Jack.

The Brazos Devil roared and stumbled toward the mountain man. Longarm emptied his .44 into the creature’s side, staggering it but not knocking it down. The thick brown fur was covered with blood now from the bullet and sword wounds, but the Brazos Devil was still on its feet, still bent on mayhem. Longarm wondered if it could be killed.

But if it drew breath, cold steel could kill it. Longarm jammed his gun back in its holster and ran forward, bending over to snatch up the sword Singh had dropped. He wrapped both hands around its hilt and lifted it over his head as he lunged at the Brazos Devil. With a primitive yell of his own, he drove the blade into the back of the creature as hard as he could. This close, the stench of the beast was almost enough to overpower a man.

The Devil had just reached Catamount Jack, who had drawn a Bowie knife from a sheath at his waist. Catamount Jack plunged the Bowie into the creature’s chest at the same time as Longarm attacked from behind. The Brazos Devil roared in pain and rage and flailed around with its arms. One of them clipped Longarm and knocked him backward, off his feet.

“Get back, Pa!” Lucy called, and a second later the Sharps boomed yet again. Longarm heard the thud as the slug struck the Brazos Devil, but he didn’t know where the shot had landed on the creature. All he knew was that the monster was still on its feet, even with a Bowie knife sticking out of its chest and the Sikh’s sword protruding from its back. It looked around at the circle of humans around it, then threw back its head and let out a pitiful howl that died away into a whimper. It stumbled a couple of steps, then went to its knees. The Brazos Devil gave a shake of its shaggy head.

Longarm got to his feet and watched along with Catamount Jack and Lucy as the creature fell slowly onto its side like a huge tree. Its breath rasped harshly in its throat for a few seconds, then stopped. A shudder went through the massive body, but after that it was utterly still.

“I reckon he’s dead,” Catamount Jack said into the hushed silence that followed. “Poor son of a bitch. Hope he’s found peace at last.”

Longarm looked at the old mountain man with a frown. “I heard you call it Luther. You knew that … that thing?”

“He’s not a thing,” Catamount Jack said solemnly. “He’s a man. Leastways, he used to be. Him and me, we was friends a long time ago, back in the days when the buffalo still roamed the plains.”

Longarm was still out of breath, and his pulse was hammering in his head. He started to reload his gun with cartridges from his shell belt, and looked around as he did so. Lord and Lady Beechmuir were standing nearby. Booth’s arms were around Helene, and she was crying as she pressed her face against his chest. The Englishman was doing what he could to comfort her. He appeared to be all right.

Rainey was dead, of course, and so were Singh and Ghote. Longarm felt a touch of regret as he looked at the Sikh’s crushed, misshapen body. Singh had been a hell of a fighting man, upholding the reputation of his kinsmen.

Longarm holstered his gun and turned back to the fallen Brazos Devil. Catamount Jack had hold of one of the man’s feet. With a yank, he dislodged the clawed extremity. It was a boot of sorts, Longarm saw now, with what was evidently the paw of a bear attached to it.

“Them tracks we saw put me in mind of these special-made boots ol’ Luther used to wear,” said Catamount Jack. “I never thought it could be him, though. We used to hunt buffalo together, up in Kansas and the Texas Panhandle. I lost track of him ‘bout six years ago, round the time the last of the big herds disappeared. He weren’t right in the head even then, I reckon. Sometimes he claimed he was a buffalo. That’s why he dressed in them skins.”

“What was his name?” Longarm asked quietly.

“Luther Barcroft.” Catamount Jack shook his head. “Ain’t no tellin’ how he wound up down here in the Brazos country. Must’ve just drifted around after he lost his mind, gettin’ farther and farther away from folks.” With a sigh, Catamount Jack added, “I ain’t sure I’d feel right collectin’ a bounty on an old friend like this, but I reckon you and me and Lucy got it comin’, Marshal. And that feller over there who had the sword, if he’s got any kin that can claim it.”

“We don’t have to worry about that,” Longarm said bleakly. “There won’t be any bounty. Nobody to pay it. Thorp’s dead.”

“Dead?” Lucy repeated in surprise as she came up to them. “What happened to him?”

“I found his wife,” Longarm said. “She’s dead too, though. It’s a long story, and it’s sure not pretty.” Catamount Jack opened the breech of his Sharps and started reloading it. “You mean to say ever’body’s dead ‘ceptin’ us three and them two English folks?”

Longarm nodded. “Looks like it.”

Catamount Jack shook his head. “I reckon I’ve had enough of monsters and such.”

“So have I,” Longarm said tiredly. “So have I.”

“I’m still not sure I’ve got the straight of all of it,” Marshal Mal Burley said late that afternoon. He and Longarm were in the little office in front of the jail in Cottonwood Springs, and Longarm had just explained everything that had happened. He didn’t blame Burley for having trouble grasping all the bizarre turns this case had taken. Right from the start, when Longarm woke up facedown in that grave, the whole business had seemed like the kind of nightmare a fella would get after eating some bad beef.

Maybe that was it, Longarm thought with a faint, weary smile. Maybe the whole thing had been just a bad dream.

He knew it had been real, though. All too real …

“I’ll have the fella who plays the typewriter in my boss’s office send you a copy of the report I turn in when I get back to Denver,” Longarm said. “Old Henry won’t mind—too much—and then you’ll have something official if there are ever any questions about any of it.”

Burley nodded. “I’d be much obliged for that, Marshal.” He shook his head. “Ben Thorp dead … that’s hard to believe.”

“Reckon you can go about your business now without worrying whether or not Thorp’s going to like it.” Longarm knew the comment was a bit rough, but he hated to see a lawman under the thumb of some rich, influential citizen.

For a second, Burley looked like he was going to take offense, but then he sighed and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon you’re right. I hope I’m up to it.”

“I’ve got a hunch you will be,” Longarm said as he stood up.

He lit a cheroot as he left the office and turned toward the hotel. Earlier, he had left Lord and Lady Beechmuir there, and the doctor had been checking Helene to make sure she wasn’t injured. Longarm was confident she was all right, other than being shaken up and scared half out of her wits. All the way back into town, she had clung to her husband and pleaded with him to take care of her, to never let her go.

If that attitude lasted, then something good might come out of the ordeal after all. Booth and Helene would need to be closer than they had ever been if they were both going to find the strength they would need to break Helene’s addiction. Longarm wished them the best of luck, but he didn’t particularly care if he ever saw either one of them again.

He regretted the deaths of everyone except Thorp and Rainey. He even regretted the death of Randamar Ghote, as unlikable as the oily little cuss had been. Some folks might say that Emmaline Thorp was better off dead, after what she had gone through, but Longarm couldn’t bring himself to see it that way. Maybe … just maybe … some folks were so bad off that death was the best way out for them. Longarm had never been able to fully accept that idea, though. He drew on the cheroot, savoring the rich flavor of it, and thought about all the good things in life: the touch of a woman, the laughter of a little kid, the air on a spring morning in the high country when the wildflowers were blooming.

The way Longarm saw it, there was nearly always something to live for. And he intended to go on doing it for a long time to come.

He was still pondering the matter when he let himself into his hotel room a few minutes later. As he stepped into the room, he stopped in his tracks and looked at the big tin washtub in the center of the floor. It was filled with hot water, soapsuds, and Lucy Vermilion.

“How the hell’d you know?” Longarm blurted. “The clerk downstairs just rented me this room!”

Lucy smiled at him. “Who do you think slipped that slick-haired fella four bits just to make sure you got this room? I figured after everything we’d been through, you might want to clean up a mite.”

A grin spread over Longarm’s face. He threw back his head and laughed, then went forward to meet Lucy as she rose from the washtub, all pink skin and blond hair and feathery white soapsuds. He was naked by the time he got there.

Yep, he thought as he stepped into the hot water and drew her into his arms, there were definitely some good things worth living for.

And then he didn’t waste any more time or energy philosophizing about it.