Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{AND THE}

_{COLORADO GUNDOWN}

_{JUSTICE AT GUNPOINT}

_{“We’ll be in Tipson in ten minutes or less,” Bevvy called to the men in the coach. “Everybody get ready.”}

_{There was a rattle of steel clashing on steel when Winchester levers were cranked as the posse members checked the function of their guns. Others snapped shotgun breeches open to inspect their chambers and make sure the guns were charged with man-sized buckshot and not puny bird shot. If there was any shooting tonight it would be to kill, not to scare...}

_{Also in the LONGARM series}

_{from Jove}

_{LONGARM LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR LEGEND LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR BOUNTY LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR RUSTLERS LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR DELIVERANCE LONGARM IN THE}

_{TEXAS PANHANDLE LONGARM AND THE}

_{RANCHER’S SHOWDOWN LONGARM ON THE}

_{INLAND PASSAGE LONGARM IN THE}

_{RUBY RANGE COUNTRY LONGARM AND THE}

_{GREAT CATTLE KILL LONGARM AND THE}

_{CROOKED RA1LMAN LONGARM ON THE S1WASH TRAIL LONGARM AND THE}

_{RUNAWAY THIEVES LONGARM AND THE ESCAPE ARTIST LONGARM IN THE BIG BURNOUT LONGARM AND THE}

_{TREACHEROUS TRIAL LONGARM AND THE}

_{NEW MEXICO SHOOT-OUT LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR FRAME LONGARM AND THE}

_{RENEGADE SERGEANT LONGARM IN THE SIERRA MADRES LONGARM AND THE MEDICINE WOLF LONGARM AND THE INDIAN RAIDERS LONGARM IN A DESERT SHOWDOWN EONGARM AND THE}

_{MAD DOG KILLER LONGARM AND HII;}

_{HANGMAN S NOOSE}

_{LONGARM AND THE REBEL KILLERS LONGARM AND THE}

_{HANGMAN’S LIST LONGARM IN THE CLEARWATERS LONGARM AND THE}

_{REDWOOD RAIDERS LONGARM AND THE}

_{DEADLY JAILBREAK LONGARM AND THE PAWNEE KID LONGARM AND THE}

_{DEVIL’S STAGECOACH LONGARM AND THE}

_{WYOMING BLOODBATH LONGARM IN THE RED DESERT LONGARM AND THE}

_{CROOKED MARSHAL LONGARM AND THE TEXAS RANGERS LONGARM AND THE VIGILANTES LONGARM IN THE OSAGE STRIP LONGARM AND THE LOST MINE LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONGLEY LEGEND LONGARM AND THE}

_{DEAD MAN’S BADGE LONGARM AND THE}

_{KILLER’S SHADOW LONGARM AND THE}

_{MONTANA MASSACRE LONGARM IN THE}

_{MEXICAN BADLANDS LONGARM AND THE}

_{BOUNTY HUNTRESS LONGARM AND THE}

_{DENVER BUST-OUT LONGARM AND THE SKULL CANYON GANG LONGARM AND THE}

_{RAILROAD TO HELL LONGARM AND THE}

_{LONE STAR CAPTIVE LONGARM AND THE RIVER OF DEATH LONGARM AND THE GOLD HUNTERS}

_{TABOR EVANS}

_{JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK}

_{LONGARM AND THE COLORADO GUNDOWN}

_{A Jove Book / published by arrangement with}

_{the author}

_{PRINTING HISTORY}

_{Jove edition / October 1991}

_{All rights reserved.}

_{Copyright © 1991 by Jove Publications, Inc.}

_{This book may be not be reproduced in whole}

_{or in part, by mimeograph or any other means,}

_{without permission. For information address:}

_{The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue,}

_{New York, New York 10016.}

_{ISBN: 0-515-10689-5}

_{Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,}

_{200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.}

_{The name “JOVE” and the “J” logo}

_{are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.}

_{PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA}

_{10 987654321}

_{Chapter 1}

_{Longarm clamped his lips shut to contain the belch that was surging out of his stomach. He was able to keep from embarrassing himself, but he wasn’t able to stop himself from burping. The liver flavor was just fine this second time around, but the onions tasted a trifle stale.}

_{He was just back from lunch, and normally would’ve let it rip if he needed to belch in the U.S. Marshal’s office. In fact, he might’ve tried to amplify things just to see if he could get a rise out of Marshal Vail’s dignified—a polite way of saying stuffy—clerk Henry.}

_{Not this time, though.}

_{There was a young lady standing bent over Henry’s desk signing something there. Longarm sure as hell didn’t want to disturb her. In fact, if she wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon bent over like that, well, Longarm would be so damned polite that he’d just stand right where he was and not interrupt for nothing.}

_{The view from back there was what you might call fine. Just fine.}

_{Unfortunately, the lady’s business seemed to be completed once her signature was done. She returned the steel- nibbed pen to Henry and straightened, diminishing the quality of the view somewhat once her gown was no longer stretched tight across the rear portions of her anatomy.}

_{“That should be everything, Miss Mayweather,” Henry said. ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”}

_{"Thank you, sir.” Mmm, not a bad voice, Longarm decided. Sexy.}

_{She turned, and he decided he didn’t regret losing that back view after all. This was one handsome filly. Blonde, perky, apple cheeks, ample chest—more than ample, in fact damned well overflowing. Yes, indeedy, the view from the front was fine too.}

_{He smiled and gave her a small bow. “Ma’am.”}

_{“Hello.” She had dimples when she smiled. Longarm liked dimples. “Are you the marshal, sir?”}

_{“A deputy, ma’am.” He bowed and held his brown Stetson low. “United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long, ma’am. At your service.”}

_{He was glad now that he’d stopped at the barber’s on his way to lunch today, and that his hat and jacket were as freshly brushed and decent-looking as either was likely to get. He looked, in fact, pretty much his best at the moment.}

_{Not that Longarm found anything about himself to get het up about. But the ladies didn’t real often object to what they saw when he was around.}

_{He was above six feet in height, with broad shoulders and a horseman’s narrow-waisted, muscular-legged build. He had brown hair and a large sweep of dark brown mustache set on a tanned and weathered face. He wore brown corduroy trousers and a brown tweed coat, and a flannel shirt under a brown calfskin vest. His stovepipe cavalry boots were black, as was the gunbelt that circled his waist. The butt of a .44-caliber Colt Lightning showed in a cross-draw holster at the front of the coat. A gold watch chain crossed the front of his vest, although only one end of the chain was put to a normal use. The fob end was soldered to the butt of a .44-caliber double-barreled derringer. Not that he was thinking in terms of weaponry at the moment.}

_{“Perhaps you shall be assigned to work on my case, Mr. Long,” the lady suggested.}

_{“It’d be a pleasure as well as a duty, ma’am.”}

_{She beamed. “Wonderful.” She turned to Henry and said, “Make a note of that, would you please? Mr. Long is to be my deputy.”}

_{“I’ll, uh, do that, Miss Mayweather,” Henry said. For some reason Henry looked kinda like he was having a gas pain. He coughed and turned away, took his spectacles off, and began polishing the lenses with a handkerchief.}

_{“Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much.” She turned back to Longarm. “Shall we begin, Mr. Long?”}

_{Longarm was going to say something, but damned Henry went and interrupted. “Miss Mayweather.”}

_“Yes?”

_{“Deputy Long can’t start work on your case, you understand, until the marshal himself makes the assignment. What you should do, miss, is go home now and wait for the assigned deputy to contact you.”}

_{“Really? But I’ve already told you to write down there that it is Mr. Long that I want. I distinctly specified that, did I not?”}

_{“You did, miss, and I’ve made a note of it, so I have. I will see that your wishes are conveyed to Marshal Vail. But you do understand that Deputy Long cannot begin work on your, um, case until Marshal Vail releases him from his other duties. You do understand that, don’t you?”}

_{“Of course I understand that, but...”}

_{“Please. Trust us, Miss Mayweather. I assure you that Marshal Vail will be informed at the earliest possible opportunity. Just as soon as he returns from Omaha.”}

_{Miss Mayweather made a pouting face toward Henry, then flashed a radiant smile at Longarm. “I look forward to seeing you again, Mr. Long.” She curtsied.}

_{Longarm returned the gesture with another bow, a rather more shallow one this time, and held the door so the pretty lady could make her exit into the hallways of the Federal Building on the fringes of Denver’s downtown district.}

_{Then he turned back to Henry with a frown. “Omaha? When the ...” He turned back and opened the door a crack so he could glance out and make sure Miss Mayweather}

_{wasn’t within hearing any longer. “What the hell is this about Billy going t’ Omaha? He was right here just a little while ago.”}

_{Henry chuckled. The slight clerk hooked the earpieces of his glasses behind one ear and then the other, and returned his handkerchief to a pocket. “You know as well as I do that Billy is in his office, Longarm.”}

_{“Then what... ?”}

_{Henry winked and handed Longarm the form Miss Mayweather had just signed.}

_{Confused, Longarm took the thing and skimmed over}

_it.

_{Then he laughed. “Shit. You’re kidding.”}

_{“May be,” Henry said with a grin. “But Miss Mayweather isn't.”}

_{“Shit,” Longarm repeated. He looked down and read the official complaint again. “Shee-double-it,” he said this time when he was done.}

_{Henry laughed.}

_{According to the report, filled out in the lady’s own hand and duly signed with Henry as a witness, she was asking the United States Marshal, First District Court of Colorado, to intercept, apprehend, and prosecute a host of demons who were invading her privacy every night. The demons entered her head, she said, by way of her nose. And they were awfully annoying. She, uh, wanted them arrested.}

_{“Sounds like a job for the sheriff t’ me,” Longarm suggested.}

_{“Oh, she’s tried there already. Also the city police. They sent her here.”}

_{"We’ll have t’ do something nice for them someday. Anybody figure out how we have federal jurisdiction over this?”}

_{“I asked her about that,” Henry admitted. “She thinks the demons might get their orders through the mail. That sounds to me like something Jim Sanders over at the police department might have dreamed up and suggested to her. just to get her off his back and onto ours.”}

_{“Obviously a federal case then,” Longarm agreed dryly. “You still want to ask Billy to assign you to it?” “Mmm, reckon I’d normally want t’ snap this one up. I mean, hell, think of all the glory. It ain’t everybody gets to arrest a whole gang of demons. But now that I think on it, I’m pretty busy. Give this’un to Smiley. You know he’s always game for a good laugh.” Smiley was perhaps the most taciturn and gloomy human being Custis Long had ever met. Smiley would shit little green apples if he was ever handed a “case” like this one.}

_{Henry chuckled again, wadded the official report into a crumpled ball, and deposited it into the file it was best suited for—the one beside his desk whose contents were hauled away and burned each night.}

_{“Seriously, Longarm, if you are quite ready to get back to work now, the marshal wants to see you.”}

_{“I dunno, Henry. I may be missin’ out on the case of my life by not goin’ after Miss May weather. But I expect I’ll risk it.” He laughed and went to tap on Billy Vail’s office door.}

_{Chapter 2}

_{Billy Vail looked up when Longarm came in, grunted once, and gave the paperwork on his desk a frown of concentration as he bent back to it. “Be with you in a second,” he said.}

_{Longarm helped himself to a seat in front of his boss’s desk and pulled out a slim, evil-looking cheroot. He took his time about trimming the twist off the tip, moistening the wrapper leaf on his tongue, and lighting the smoke. Wasn’t no way, he reflected, that he would ever want to swap jobs with Billy. A United States marshal had to be an administrator, a paper-pusher, much more than he was allowed to be a lawman. Custis Long knew he made a fair hand as a lawman, but lacked the patience to be any kind of administrator. In particular he lacked the thick skin that was required when a man had to deal with politicians. Billy Vail didn’t like that part of the job a lick more than his top deputy would have. The difference was that Billy was able to put up with it. Longarm was convinced he never could.}

_{Billy finished the form he was scratching on, put it atop a pile of other papers, dipped his pen nib into the inkwell, and scrawled something onto another sheet and then another. Finally he let out a sigh before bellowing for Henry, who came in and took that stack of papers away. There were plenty more remaining on the desk still to be attended to.}

_{“Deputy Long,” Billy said by way of greeting.}

_{Longarm crossed his legs and grinned at him. “Marshal Vail.”}

_{“You don’t have to look so smug, damn you,” Billy said accusingly.}

_{Longarm’s grin didn’t waver. “I think you need a drink, Boss.”}

_{Billy kneaded his face with the palms of both hands and sighed again. The impromptu massage made his already pink complexion even redder. He ran one hand back over his scalp, a gesture of habit, not necessity. There no longer was hair growing there to be smoothed down.}

_{“What I need,” Billy said, “is a thirty-hour day. Twenty- four just isn’t enough anymore.” He grimaced, then shrugged as if to say what the hell, he hadn’t taken the job in search of a vacation anyway. “What can I do for you, Longarm?”}

_{“Oh, a raise would be nice, I suppose.” Longarm held the cheroot between his teeth and grinned.}

_{“Is that what you came to see me about, dammit? If that’s all it is, well, I have work to do. More important things than to—”}

_{“Billy. Whoa. You sent for me. Remember?”}

_{“I did?” The marshal seemed taken aback by that. He sat up in his creaking swivel chair and blinked once. Then comprehension dawned and he made a rueful face. That lasted only an instant before he smiled. “Could be you’re right. Could be I do need a drink. Or something.” He reached into a stack of paperwork and rooted through the sheets and folders until he found the one he wanted. “There’s a writ of habeas corpus here that needs serving, Longarm.”}

_{“Service of a writ, Billy? Damn, can’t you find something more interesting for me to do than that?” Longarm detested simple, boring, routine matters like this. He much preferred to be out digging and scraping and tending to real criminals than playing hey-boy for the courts and the fancy-pants judges.}

_{“As a matter of fact, Longarm, I probably could. But in this particular matter, you were asked for by name.”}

_{“Why me?”}

_{“Now that’s an age-old complaint, isn’t it,” Billy mused. “The eternal question, Custis. Why me? I ask it myself sometimes. Of course, it isn’t all that often any of us gets an answer to it.” The marshal smiled. “This time you happen to be in luck. I actually know the answer to it.”}

_{Billy was obviously in something of a mood today. Longarm went over to the cabinet where the marshal kept a little something for the oiling of troubled waters. He poured a brandy for Billy and a rye whiskey for himself while the marshal nattered on.}

_{“You remember a case a while back where you were in close, um, contact with the Ute Indian tribe?”}

_{“Not quite th’ whole tribe,” Longarm answered. When it came to close, well, there was one Ute in particular he’d gotten close to. Pretty little thing she’d been too.}

_{“You know what I mean.”}

_{“I might could,” Longarm agreed.}

_{“For some reason the Utes liked you. And apparently trust you. That’s why you are being asked to serve this writ.”}

_{“I see,” Longarm said. “More or less. Is begging gonna get me outta this?”}

_{“Nope, no chance.”}

_{“Then I expect you better tell me ’bout it.”}

_{“All right. The Utes asked for you, like 1 said. That request was passed along through their attorney.”}

_{Longarm’s eyebrows shot up. An attorney representing the Ute nation? Now wasn’t that a strange kettle o’ fish. Generally these cases involved some bunch of greedy whites filing papers to hustle Indians out of their way, not the Indians filing papers themselves.}

_{“Was there something you wanted, Longarm?”}

_{“No, you go ahead, Billy. I’ll cough an’ marvel when you’re done.”}

_{“Thank you. As I was saying, the Utes requested your participation in particular. That was passed along by the attorney representing their interests. A brief was filed with}

_{Judge John McFee, and he... Longarm, you look like you’re ready to bust. Is there something you want to ask me?”}

_{“It’s just... who the hell is this McFee? I sure thought I knew every judge in this district. And I never heard of no McFee.”}

_{“McFee is federal. He sits in Nebraska.”}

_{‘There ain’t no Utes in Nebraska, Billy. Not unless I’ve got awful forgetful all o’ a sudden.”}

_{‘There may not be Ute Indians there, Longarm, but there are federal courts in Nebraska. Including Judge McFee’s. I might point out that there is also precedent there. Newly made case law that originated in Omaha. And that is what we are dealing with here. Are you familiar with Standing Bear versus Crook?” .}

_{“Mmm, I can’t say as that turned up on my reading list yet. But I’m sure I’ll get to it real soon.”}

_{‘The case was in Judge Elmer Dundy’s court recently. Judge Dundy came up with a habeas corpus ruling that says Indians are entitled to the same privileges and protections as anyone else—the same obligations of compliance with the law too, of course—if they choose to live off their assigned reservation lands.”}

_{“Now ain’t that an unusual notion,” Longarm said dryly. “Perhaps. The point is, Dundy’s ruling means that Indians who are causing no harm have the right to leave their reservations if they wish and conduct themselves as any citizen might.”}

_{' “Causing no harm,” Longarm repeated. He took a drag on his cheroot and stared toward the ceiling while he slowly expelled the smoke. “An’ who is it, Billy, who decides if these here Indians are causing harm or not?”}

_{Vail gave him a tight-lipped smile. “That is what cuts to the heart of it, Longarm. As long as any Indian anywhere in this country wants to go to war with us whites, most whites are going to assume that any Indian off any reservation is out for scalps and glory. The interpretation of intent is where things get complicated.”}

_{“Sounds t’ me like there’s a disagreement over the intention o’ some Utes,” Longarm guessed.}

_{“In a nutshell, yes. A small group of Utes have been detained by lawful authority in a town called Snowshoe. I gather there is one faction in town that wants those and any other Utes in that part of the country rounded up and shipped back onto their reservation lands. Others, 1 understand, think the problem would be best served by hanging the ones in custody and shooting all the ones who aren’t.”}

_{Longarm grunted.}

_{“We come into it because some lawyer named Ab Able is sharper than you are when it comes to case law. Able filed a request for the habeas corpus writ before Judge McFee, citing the Dundy precedent in support of the petition. The writ was granted. And you’ve been asked to serve it.” “Filed it in Nebraska, not here.”}

_{“For obvious reasons,” Billy said.}

_{Longarm nodded. He understood those reasons quite as well as Marshal Vail did. Snowshoe was a mining camp in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, not terribly far from the Ute reservation. Logically any relevant petitions would have been filed with a federal court in Denver, closest to the scene, so to speak. But it hadn’t been very long ago when the Ute nation had rebelled against their agent. There had been a massacre of whites at the agency headquarters at the time. Other whites unlucky enough to be there on the wrong day had been beaten, and several women raped but not killed. Before it was all over troops had had to be rushed in, and a pitched battle had been fought. The army had won the fight, but there’d been casualties on both sides of the conflict. Feelings still ran high about that in Colorado, and trigger fingers were still somewhat shaky. Any judge in Colorado would’ve known about that. And if the guy was worried about his own political future, he might’ve been plenty reluctant to follow Judge Dundy’s example from Nebraska and allow a habeas corpus release for the Utes regardless of guilt or innocence.}

_{“Lawyer Able ain’t stupid,” Longarm observed.}

_{“No, he isn’t.”}

_{“So now I go down t’ Snowshoe and spring these Utes outta the local calaboose, is that it?”}

_{“That would seem to be it, yes.”}

_{Longarm grinned. “Lawyer Able might be smart. But he sure ain’t shy about making me the most unpopular son of a bitch in Snowshoe, Colorado, is he?”}

_{“If it makes you feel any better, Longarm, you can cling to this thought. It’s only the whites who might want to shoot you in the back. The Utes will still think you’re a swell fellow.”}

_{“Yeah, that does make me feel a whole heap better, Billy. Thanks for the encouragement.” He grinned and tossed off the rye that he hadn’t gotten around to tasting yet.}

_{“Giving aid and comfort to my deputies is what I’m here for, Longarm,” Billy said dryly.}

_{“We always figured there had t’ be some reason. Nice t’ know what it is at long last.”}

_{“Henry can arrange for your expense vouchers, Longarm. Do I need to mention that the quicker you handle this one the better it will be for everyone?”}

_{“Believe me, Billy, the quicker I can get in there and hurry the hell back out the happier I’ll be too. I don’t wanta set myself up as a target any longer’n I have to.”}

_{“And do watch your backside, Longarm. The paperwork is just murder when a federal employee dies on the job. I haven’t got time for it.”}

_{“Your concern is touching, Boss.”}

_{Billy winked at him and bent over the thick, messy piles of papers on his desk again. Longarm got up and retrieved the signed writ Billy had pushed over to the edge of the desk. He headed for the doorway. He was halfway through it when Billy coughed and in a soft, serious voice said, “Take care, Custis.” Longarm paused, nodded, and pulled the door closed behind him.}

_{There was, in truth, no really good way to get from Denver to Snowshoe. At least none that Custis Long knew of. And while he had never been to that exact mining camp, he had certainly been to others just like it in the same neighborhood. There just wasn’t any direct rail connection, not yet, although the railroads were building as hard and fast as track could be laid from one place to another.}

_{Longarm went into a huddle with Henry about the various possibilities, then collected a fistful of expense vouchers.}

_{“Better take some travel vouchers too,” Henry advised. “Some of those new little rail and coach lines won’t accept a badge as a pass.”}

_{“The lines that don’t have mail contracts, I take it?” Henry grinned. “Don’t have and probably won’t have.” ‘i’ll take some travel slips too then, if you please.”}

_{“I can have everything ready for you in forty-five minutes, Longarm.”}

_{“While you’re doing that, I’ll go lay in a supply of smokes. Man never knows what he’ll run into in those mining camps. Might be champagne and oysters hauled in fresh in barrels of ice one place, or the cheapest alcohol and tobacco-juice rotgut in the next.”}

_{“And if 1 know you, Longarm, you'd rather the rotgut than the champagne.”}

_{Long gave Billy Vail’s clerk a look of wounded innocence. “Please.”}

_{“Sorry. Now go on and buy your emergency supplies. I have work to do to get you ready.”}

_{“I’ll be back in a half hour.”}

_{“Fine, but if you pester me I’ll give your home address to Miss May weather.”}

_{“You wouldn’t.”}

_{“Calling my bluff are you, Longarm?”}

_{“I’ll see you in an hour, Henry. Not a minute sooner.”}

_{Henry chuckled as Longarm scuttled out into the hallway on the double-quick.}

_{The stagecoach jolted to a stop, the passengers rocking back and forth with the motion as the heavy wagon body bounced and twisted on the leather straps that were all it had in the way of springs.}

_{“Whoa, dammit, whoa.” The driver’s voice reached in through the open window. A horse stamped a foot and there was the sound of bit chains rattling.}

_{Longarm yawned and sat upright on the thinly upholstered coach seat.}

_{“Are we there? Is this Telluride?” a querulous voice whined.}

_{“Not yet,” Longarm said patiently. “This oughta be Silver Creek.”}

_{The man who’d asked the question gave him a look like it was Longarm’s fault the coach hadn’t yet reached Telluride. Longarm was not going to be greatly disappointed to be parting company from this traveler. The salesman was going on to Telluride by coach, while Longarm would be transferring to a newly completed rail line here for the rest of the trip into Snowshoe. Thank goodness.}

_{“Nice meetin’ you,” Longarm lied politely as he opened the coach door and dropped down to ground level without waiting for the wood steps to be set in place.}

_{A boy dragged the steps up and put them beside the open door so the other passengers could disembark if they wished. There had been eleven men in the coach on this run. Not bad, everything considered. The Studebaker would}

_{accommodate an even dozen inside, plus there was room for more on the roof if necessary.}

_{Longarm lighted a cheroot and waited patiently for the helper to get around to unloading luggage from the boot on the back of the coach and from the rack up top. Longarm’s bag and saddle were in the roof rack and likely would be among the last things off. He really hadn’t needed to be in any hurry to leave the coach. He yawned again and watched the men—pity there hadn’t been any women traveling the route this trip—climb stiffly down to the ground. They’d all been cooped up inside the coach for the past four hours, ever since the last change of horses.}

_{“ ... talked ’er down t’ forty cents,” one of the men was saying to his traveling companion, “but at that she got the best o’ me ’cause she had the clap.”}

_{Longarm looked off down the street. Not that there was so very much to see in Silver Creek. The mining camp was raw and ugly, but busy with almost frantic activity as men rushed to claw as much treasure from the earth as they could before the next man beat them to it.}

_{Mining claims only protected a man so far because if two outfits claimed different outcroppings of the same vein, the one who dug the quickest was the one who would be allowed to dig the most. Once they met somewhere underground they would both be out of business and looking for a fresh strike.}

_{The half-finished stores, many of them still with canvas tenting material for roofs, were doing a booming trade, and freight rigs rumbled up and down the wide main street like a horde of gigantic scurrying ants.}

_{About the only businesses that were not rushed at this time of day were the honky-tonks and the saloons. Those would not hit their stride until nightfall when the miners came off shift.}

_{Longarm had never been to Silver Creek before. He hadn’t needed to. Hell, he already knew the town well. This one and all the others just like it.}

_{“Hey, you! This stuff belong t’ you, mister?”}

_{He turned. The stagecoach helper was holding Longarm’s gear aloft.}

_{“Yeah, that’s mine.”}

_{“Take it now, mister, or buy it a ticket to Telluride, it don’t make no difference t’ me which.”}

_{“Then I expect I’ll take it, thank you.”}

_{The boy tossed the bag first, then the saddle with Longarm’s scabbarded Winchester attached.}

_{The other coach passengers had already dispersed, the ones who were staying in Silver Creek straggling off in the direction of a hotel in the next block, the men unlucky enough to suffer more jostling throughout the night as the coach went on bolting for the nearest saloon.}

_{Longarm decided against joining either party. What he needed was the terminus of the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory Narrow Gauge Rail Road. He had no idea when the next train would be scheduled out, but he intended to be on it. He flipped the butt of his cheroot into the street, shouldered his saddle, and picked up his bag.}

_{Now all he needed was for someone to point the way.}

_{“Say whatl" Longarm barked.}

_{“Hey now, mister, it ain’t my fault,” the man snapped right back at him.}

_{“But I was told—”}

_{“Yeah, yeah, everybody was told. So now I’m telling you. The railroad ain’t here. Yet, that is. Just a temporary little setback, see. It’ll get built direc’ly. Just you wait an’ see that it will.”}

_{“But dammit—”}

_{“Mister, if there was a railroad here, d’you really think I’d lie about it? I mean, that’s the sort of lie a fella could get caught out in real easy. You know? So take my word for it, friend. There ain’t no railroad here just yet. But it’ll be along.” The fellow grinned, turned his head, and spat. “You’re welcome t’ wait for it if you want.”}

_{“Son of a bitch,” Longarm complained.}

_{But of course the man inside the offices of the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory Narrow Gauge Rail Road had heard all of that before. Maybe even several times. And it wasn’t going to do anyone any good for Longarm to stand there and argue with him about passage on a railroad that did not yet exist.}

_{“Sorry,” Longarm said. “It’s just—”}

_{“Yeah, I know. Everybody’s been told there’s a line in. But it was only scheduled to be in by now. Wasn't never actually completed, see. The bosses kinda run outta money ’fore they got this far. They keep this office open for}

_{when the rails do come through.” He winked. “And for the investors. If you see what I mean.”}

_{“I’m afraid I do,” Longarm said.}

_{“If it helps you any, they did get part of the tracks laid. Tipson all the way t’ Glory. An’ a couple miles this side o’ Glory too.”}

_{“What about Snowshoe?” Longarm asked.}

_{“Pardon me?”}

_{“I thought the road was supposed to connect with Snow- shoe too.”}

_{The fellow laughed. “Lordy, mister, you have heard everything wrong, haven’t you.”}

_{“Have I?”}

_{“I’m afeered so. This line ain’t supposed to go anywheres near Snowshoe. There’s another narrow-gauge supposed to do that. The Bitterroot and Brightwater.”}

_{“The Bitterroot and Brightwater,” Longarm repeated dully, not at all sure that this fellow wasn’t pulling his leg now.}

_{‘That’s right, mister. That line is the one supposed to run through Snowshoe. Our railroad never was intended t’ get up there, not even when it’s all the way done.”}

_{“But I thought—”}

_{“Oh, I know. Easy enough mistake for a body t’ make, our rights o’ way bein’ so close together. Why, I daresay on a map you could get mixed up which road was which. Except o’ course they go different places. But for a piece there, they run right close together, the Bitterroot an’ Brightwater being up high an’ our grade down lower t’ follow the streambeds, see. They figure to save miles by bridging, see, an’ we figure t' save costs by wiggling around some. Does that make sense t’ you, mister?”}

_{“No,” Longarm admitted.}

_{“Well, don’t let that bother you none. Fact is, their line ain’t any closer to completion than ours is. But they got them some track laid same as we do. It’s really Snowshoe you want to get to?”}

_{“Yes, sir, it is.”}

_{“Then I expect I can help you, mister. We got a string o’ wagons we run from Silver Creek t’ our track-end. I can put you on a wagon if you’re of a mind t’ go. Carry you to the tracks, then on t’ Glory. From there you can get a ride over top o' Twin Towers Mountain. That carries you over to the Bitterroot and Brightwater right of way, see, and you can get to Snowshoe easy from there.”}

_{The man was smiling.}

_{Longarm felt like he was fixing to get a headache. And if he didn’t, well, he was entitled to one anyhow.}

_{“I would appreciate a ride on your wagon to Glory, friend.”}

_{“Kinda thought you might, neighbor. Be here a half hour past dawn tomorrow. ’Less you wanta wait another day, that is. Be all right if you want t’ do that, see. Once you have your ticket you can hold onto it to use whenever you please.”}

_{The man was genial. Friendly. Pleasant. Cheerful. Helpful. Nice as nice could be.}

_{Longarm felt an impulse to take the fellow by the throat and throttle him. “Dawn tomorrow will be fine,” he said just as nicely as he knew how.}

_{Longarm had never been bound for Glory before. And the times he’d heard the expression used in the past, well, this wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned it would come to.}

_{He suspected that at least part of his morning doubts came from last night’s disappointments. There hadn’t been a decent rye whiskey available anyplace in Silver Creek— though he’d sure as hell searched the saloons of the town just as diligently and sincerely as ever a man could hope to—and the bed he’d taken at one of the hotels had turned out to be lumpy. Also empty. Longarm had ended up going to bed half drunk and wholly homy, and his discontent from last night was carrying over into this morning’s grumpiness.}

_{He gave the mule-drawn wagon a baleful look. The rig was old and rickety and might give faithful service for the next twenty years. Or it might just as easily fall to pieces five miles down the road. The four mules that were hitched to it were small and scruffy, built more on the lines of house cats than draft stock, and made all the poorer to look at from the fact that their heavy coats from last winter hadn’t yet fully shed off, so that now they were slick-skinned in some spots and hairy in others. The overall impression of the animals was that if there were any steep grades ahead, the passengers likely would have to get out and carry the mules.}

_{As for other passengers waiting for this trip to commence, there seemed to be three, not counting Longarm, two men in business suits plus a lady who was hiding behind}

_{a wide-brimmed hat and heavy veil. And there was the driver, of course. Total of five humans going to Glory.}

_{All of them, the driver included, were standing around like they were waiting for somebody to take charge, even though the stated departure time had come and then gone fifteen minutes ago.}

_{Longarm was about to get peeved about it all. He’d slept poorly during the night, and then hadn’t wanted to crawl out this morning. As it was he’d nearly overslept, and so had had to wolf his breakfast in order to get there on time. His stomach felt sour now because of that, full of undigested grease and coffee that’d tasted mostly of acid. And now they were all gonna stand around and wait?}

_{“Mister,” he said to the wagon driver, “are we gonna leave or aren’t we?”}

_{“We’ll pull out direc’ly,” the driver mumbled around a cud of tobacco.}

_{“Before noon or after?” Longarm persisted.}

_{The driver finally consented to turn his head and give the tall deputy a direct look. “Soon as the last passenger shows up, mister.”}

_{“I thought....” After all, that dang clerk yesterday had pretty much implied a man had to be on time or get left behind until the next day. Well, sauce for one was sauce for all, wasn’t it?}

_{“Dammit, mister. ’Scuse me, ma’am,” the wagon driver added with an apologetic bob of his head in the lady’s direction. “What I’m saying, mister, is that we ain’t gonna pull outta here till that last passenger is aboard. Not regardless. So’s you might just as well calm down an’ leave be.”}

_{Longarm sighed. The driver was right, of course. None of this was the driver’s responsibility no matter what some clerk might’ve said, and there was no point whatsoever in Longarm getting his stomach churning over it. This railroad that did its business with mules and wagons instead of steam engines was entitled to act however it pleased. With}

_{or without Custis Long’s consent. His snippiness now was just a carryover from last night. “Sorry,” he said. “I only thought—”}

_{“Yeah, I know, but this here passenger is different. One of the bosses, see. Owns a big piece of this here railroad line. Or what will be a railroad line by the end o’ summer. So’s you can see, I bet, why I’m gonna set here an’ wait on the man long as it takes, mister. No matter how ruffled your feathers happen t’ get.” The driver grinned and spat.}

_{“Sorry,” Longarm repeated. He took a few steps away from the others and lighted a cheroot. The dry, clean flavor of the smoke tasted good and seemed to help settle him down. Longarm decided he was just being jumpy now because of what he could expect to face in Snowshoe. Every white in the country would despise the man who’d come to stand up for the hated Utes. Longarm could handle being an object of scorn and hatred. It wouldn’t change a thing about what he thought or how he acted. But he didn’t have to look forward to it or pretend to like it. Duty didn’t go so far that it made a man less than human, and even a deputy U.S. marshal had feelings.}

_{He grunted softly to himself. There he was, borrowing troubles that weren’t in front of him. Why, he could think about all this when he got to Snowshoe. No point in fretting over it before then.}

_{Once he’d given himself that little talking to, and had decided he could wait there cheerfully for however long it took, the last passenger arrived.}

_{“All right, Jimmy, hurry it up. I don’t have time to waste for the likes of you,” the big boss snapped at the driver.}

_{The man helped himself to a seat immediately behind the driving box, and gave everyone else impatient glares while the driver supervised the loading of several bags that a uniformed porter had carried in the big man’s wake.}

_{Longarm shrugged and helped the lady onto the wagon, then stepped off to the side to take a few last puffs on his cheroot before he got aboard. He frankly didn’t give a damn what the other men might think of his smoke, but he wouldn’t}

_{have considered getting on with a lighted cigar unless he checked with the lady first. The two businessmen, drummers presumably, got onto the wagon next, with Longarm finally trailing them and the driver climbing up last.}

_{The lady sat across from the railroad boss. The drummers took up the bench in back, leaving Longarm a choice between planting himself next to the lady or beside the railroad boss. He chose to squeeze the railroad bigwig rather than force his presence on the woman.}

_{The railroad boss was a large man. Not at all fat but definitely large. He was at least as tall as Longarm but probably was twice as broad. The fellow was middle-aged now, and certainly softer of body than he would once have been. Although anything harder than this guy now was would pretty much have to be classified as a metal, Longarm decided. He looked just plain solid.}

_{And however he might have come to be where he now was, it hadn’t been by shuffling papers from one drawer to another. The man’s nose had been battered into a shape approximating that of a turnip, and there was scar tissue over both his eyes and across the knuckles on both his hands. If he hadn’t been a professional pugilist he’d been one hell of a brawler.}

_{The driver released his brake and clucked softly to the mules. The tough little animals tiptoed forward to take up the slack in the traces, then leaned into the load and began drawing the wagon along at a slow roll. It was a nice performance, Longarm noticed, accomplished without any lurch or jiggle. Very pleasant.}

_{This was going to take a while, Longarm decided, so they might as well all be civilized to one another. He turned half around on the bench so he was more or less facing the railroad man. Longarm extended his hand and said, “Custis Long, sir. And you are ... ?”}

_{The railroader acted like he was all of a sudden smelling something that’d spoiled. He gave Longarm a cold, lengthy stare, then lifted his nose into the air and turned his head away without acknowledging the offered handshake.}

_{Longarm chose not to make an issue of it. He sat back on his half of the seat and looked off in the other direction.}

_{The railroader moved, jostling Longarm slightly as the big man reached inside his coat and pulled out a fat, expensive-looking pale-leaf cigar. He took his time about sniffing it, trimming it, wetting the wrapper leaf. Finally he clamped it between his lips and got out a match.}

_{Without asking the lady’s permission, Longarm noted.}

_{The railroader scratched his lucifer aflame, and Longarm began to turn.}

_{A slight motion of the woman’s gloved hand got his attention. Longarm couldn’t see her features behind the dark, heavy veil, but he could see the movement of her hat when she shook her head in a silent warning that he knew was intended for him. No, she was saying, don’t make an issue of it.}

_{Longarm grimaced. For his own satisfaction he might have wanted to. It might be kinda pleasant and personally rewarding to deliver a lesson in manners to this SOB. But that would only distress the lady, wouldn’t it. And that wasn’t at all what Longarm had in mind here. Dam it.}

_{He grunted softly to himself and settled back into the corner of the seat bench again.}

_{“This is gonna take me a few minutes, folks. Got some fallen rock on the road, and I don’t want to risk an axle going over it. So if anybody wants to stretch a bit or get a drink this is your chance.” The driver set his brake and climbed down to begin the task of kicking chunks of stone out of the path. They had come to a halt on a flat, narrow ledge that ran between the creek they’d been following for the past half dozen miles and a steep, clifflike hillside above. It was from somewhere up there that the rock had fallen, partially blocking the way.}

_{Longarm nodded to the lady and touched the brim of his Stetson. “Ma’am?”}

_{“I am comfortable here, sir, thank you.” Her voice was pleasant. Throaty and on the deep side for a woman, yet most definitely feminine. No doubt about that.}

_{“Could I bring you a drink then?”}

_{“That would be pleasant, thank you.”}

_{He touched his hat brim again and joined the two drummers in leaving the wagon. The railroad boss pulled another cigar out of his pocket, but made no effort to climb down to ground level where his smoke would not be so close to the veiled lady.}

_{Longarm waited until he was clear before he pulled out a cheroot and allowed himself the pleasure of its flavor. He went around to the back of the wagon and reached into the luggage boot for his bag. He knew precisely where to find the article he wanted. It was ... uh ... he groped,}

_{grunted . .. there. He located it by feel and pulled it out.}

_{The camp cup was a cunning little thing. It had been a gift. From a lady. But then cute, collapsible, silver camp cups, particularly ones with sentiments engraved on them, weren’t exactly the sort of thing a man would buy for himself.}

_{The cup consisted of a set of interlocking silver bands set one inside another and another and so on. Collapsed small for the purposes of carrying, the cup looked all the world like a circle of thick silver metal, yet one good shake and the rings would slide apart and lodge top to bottom to form a cylinder capable of holding eight or ten ounces of liquid. Clever, even if not as convenient as one’s own palm when it came to drinking from mountain streams. Longarm opened it and gave it a tug to make sure the rings locked tight, then ambled over to the swift-running stream. The water was icy on his hand when he dipped the cup full, and before he was back to the wagon there was condensation forming on the outside of the metal cup. He walked around to the far side of the rig and handed the cup up rather than get back on board with his lighted cheroot.}

_{“Thank you, sir.”}

_{“My pleasure, ma’am.”}

_{She had to lift her veil to drink, and he could see that this woman was what a man would hope to find behind every veil. Lovely. Her cheeks were rosy and full, her lips even rosier and more lush. Her eyes were dark and her lashes long and curling. She had dimples when she smiled. She wasn’t any kid, being in her thirties at the least. Longarm didn’t get a very good look at her. But good enough. He liked what he saw there. She drank quickly, holding her veil just barely aside while she did so, and then handed the empty cup back down to him. “Thank you, sir, I—”}

_{“Hey!” the railroad boss barked. “You. It’s, uh, don’t tell me now.” He snapped his fingers impatiently, the way some people will do in an effort to jog reluctant memory. “Dammit, I know you. Oh, hell, yes. Frenchie!” He barked out a laugh and leaned forward, one meaty hand probing}

_{without warning or hesitation into the woman’s crotch.}

_{The lady cried out and shrank into a comer, but he had her trapped there. And his hand was searching now for the hem of her gown.}

_{Longarm roared and swarmed the side of the wagon rather than wasting the time it would take to go around to the steps.}

_{“You dumb son of a bitch,” the railroader protested, “this is—”}

_{He didn’t have time enough to finish his statement. Longarm’s right fist crushed his lips flat against his teeth, pulping soft flesh and sending blood flying.}

_{The woman screamed and tried to draw away, but she was already trapped in a comer of the seat. There was nowhere she could go.}

_{The man was no stranger to rough-and-tumble. And no single rap in the teeth was going to make him quit. Before Longarm was fully inside the wagon the railroader was responding with flying fists and elbows.}

_{Longarm smothered the force of the blows by throwing himself on top of his adversary, wrestling the man off the woman and onto the floor of the wagon.}

_{The two tussled there, neither able to get off any telling punches at such close quarters. Longarm was more or less on top of the railroader. Deliberately he drew back a little and got his legs under him while he waited for the powerfully built railroad boss to bull his way forward.}

_{The railroader grunted and chopped, but at that range was doing nothing except to wear himself out. Longarm stayed close and waited.}

_{As he expected, the railroader hadn’t much patience and was used to having things all his own way. The man tried to dominate the situation by placing himself on top of the struggle.}

_{Which was just what Longarm was wanting.}

_{As soon as the railroader clawed himself nearly upright, Longarm launched himself at the man, driving with all his leg strength and using his forearms as battering rams. He}

_{caught the railroader low in the chest, coming up at the man from a low angle and driving through him.}

_{The railroader flew backward. He hit the rim of the wagon box and was pushed over and beyond it, toppling out of the rig to fall heavily onto the hard gravel five feet below.}

_{Longarm leaped after him, vaulting the side of the wagon and dropping knees first onto the railroader’s gut.}

_{The breath was driven out of the railroader, and he went pale. Longarm straddled the stricken man with one hand locked at the fellow’s throat and his other fist upraised.}

_{“I think,” he gritted through clenched teeth, “you owe the lady an apology.”}

_{The railroader gave Longarm a look that was venomous. But he nodded meekly enough.}

_{“Sorry I... bumped into you,” Longarm said. He stood and helped the railroad boss to his feet, even turned the man around and helped brush off his backside. “Now,” Longarm said. “I believe there was somethin’ you were gonna say t’ the lady?”}

_{The railroad man scowled and looked like he was willing to seek a second opinion, then for some reason thought better of it. He cleared his throat, bowed in the direction of the wagon where the veiled woman was watching, and made a stiffly awkward apology that sounded every bit as insincere as it no doubt was. Still, insincere or not, it satisfied the proprieties.}

_{“An honest error, I am sure,” the lady said graciously, then looked away as if to pretend that none of it had ever happened.}

_{The railroad man gave Longarm a murderous look but said nothing. He picked up the hat that he’d lost in the tussle, then climbed back onto the wagon and went to the rear, taking the seat that the two drummers had shared until now. Longarm gathered that the seating arrangements were changing for the remainder of the journey.}

_{The businessmen, who had been staying well out of the way while all this went on, boarded the wagon again too}

_{and occupied the bench that until now Longarm and the railroader had used. Longarm’s choice for the rest of the trip would be in the back beside the railroad boss or else in the middle beside the lady.}

_{The lady said nothing, but she did simplify the decision for him by sliding over to the side of her seat and ostentatiously holding her skirts aside to make room there.}

_{“Ready, mister?” the driver asked. He too seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened during the halt.}

_{“Yes, thank you.” Longarm got back on and sat beside the woman. He could feel the warmth of her thigh close beside his leg. The seat benches were narrow on this rig. But not that narrow. He smiled and touched the brim of his hat to her again.}

_{She handed him an object that at first he couldn’t identify. What it looked like was a piece of trash, a twig or bit of half-rotted bark that someone might find littering a forest floor. Then he realized that this crushed and splintered thing was what remained of the cheroot he’d been smoking when he invaded the wagon. He had quite forgotten it.}

_{“I enjoy the fragrance of a gentleman’s cigar,” she said, placing a distinct emphasis on the word “gentleman’s” loudly enough for the railroader on the bench behind them to overhear. And again Longarm was acutely aware of the warmth of her body so close beside his.}

_{‘Thank you, ma’am,” he said solemnly as he pulled out a fresh cheroot and began the rituals of tending to it.}

_{Longarm found himself hoping that the lady was on her way through to Snowshoe just like he was.}

_{It was past noon when the wagon reached the end of the railroad tracks where they could pick up the narrow-gauge line into Glory. It peeved Longarm that there was no provision made for box lunches for the passengers. He himself could get along fine without a meal, but the railroad should have been more considerate of the lady he was traveling beside. She shouldn’t be expected to travel all day without food.}

_{Traveling beside, he reflected, but certainly not traveling with. The lady hadn’t spoken again since that stop back along the way. But Longarm hadn’t exactly been able to forget about her. By the time they reached the transfer point at the track-end, she was sitting so that her leg was pressed tight against his. As he was by now uncomfortably aware. All that jostling contact had had him in a state of erection for much of the trip, damn it, and there was nothing he could do to relieve the problem.}

_{Even so, it was with mixed feelings on the subject that Longarm climbed down and helped the lady to the ground after first allowing the railroader and the drummers to leave.}

_{By then the driver was already transferring luggage to a crudely built platform near the timbered bumper that had been constructed to block the cars from rolling off the end of the track. Longarm stayed with the lady just in case the shit-for-brains railroad boss was waiting to catch her without a protector nearby.}

_{The railroader was glaring first at his pocket watch and then down the tracks in the direction of Glory. Apparently}

_{the train that was to meet them was late in arriving at this end. Longarm wouldn’t have wanted to be in the shoes of that engine crew when the boss got done with them tonight. The man didn’t look at all happy about being kept waiting there.}

_{“We made good time,” the wagon driver offered. ‘The train isn’t due for another fifteen, twenty minutes, sir.”}

_{The boss gave the driver a nasty look that shut the poor man up right quick. Apparently that train was due when the boss damned well wanted it, not when the crew previously had been told to be there, Longarm guessed. Nice guy.}

_{The wagon driver, who really had done an excellent job, quickly finished unloading the luggage from his rig, then climbed back onto his driving box and wheeled the team of small but tough little mules without waiting to give his animals a breather. He touched the brim of his cap and pulled away almost immediately, leaving the would-be train passengers standing alone in the mountain wilderness. Longarm would have been willing to place a sizable wager that most days the driver would have stayed until the train arrived. And that he wouldn’t be much more than out of sight from there before he stopped again and rested his team now.}

_{“You don’t happen to see a, um, comfort facility close by, do you?” the lady whispered to him, probably distressed now that the wagon driver was gone and no one else there would likely know anything about the services the railroad line provided. Or failed to.}

_{“I’ll look around.” Longarm walked up to the platform and checked. There were no signs in place there to show the way to any rest rooms, and certainly there were no outhouses visible. There was, however, a barely visible path beaten into the brush at trackside. Maybe that led to a sink or cat hole anyway. He went back and got the lady and guided her to the start of the path. “This way, ma’am.”}

_{The path proved to be a disappointment, though. It led not to a latrine but to a barren patch of gravel beside the creek that had carved this canyon they were in.}

_{“Sorry, ma’am. But at least there’s some brush between here an’ the platform. If you, uh, wanta put up with, um, primitive conditions.”}

_{“I am afraid I have no choice, Mr. Longarm.” “Ma’am?” His confusion arose because he hadn’t told her his name. Nor, for that matter, had he been given hers.}

_{“Forgive me if I’ve offended you. It was written on your cup.”}

_{“Oh, yes.” He’d forgotten. The engraving. “Longarm from Jessica, with Love.” And a date that had only private meaning.}

_{“Is it a pet name that I should avoid?” she asked.}

_{“No, just a nickname my friends use. An’ you’re welcome to too.”}

_{“Then so I shall, Mr. Longarm.”}

_{“Not mister, just plain Longarm, okay?”}

_{“As you wish. I am Leah Skelde.”}

_{“Miss Skelde.” He bowed to her.}

_{“Just plain Leah would be friendlier, Longarm.”}

_{“My pleasure, Leah.” He bowed again.}

_{“May I ask a favor of you, Longarm?”}

_{“Anything within reason.”}

_{“Then turn your back, please, while I make a dash for those bushes over there.”}

_{He laughed. Now that she was speaking he liked her all the more. She acted like a lady, but could talk blunt and honest too. “I think that’s within reason, Leah.” He touched his Stetson to her and turned his back. He could hear her scurry away into the brush to relieve herself.}

_{•There wasn’t anything to do but stare straight ahead, which happened to be in the direction of the mountain stream and the hillside opposite it. Leah took long enough peeing that Longarm got a very good look at that bit of empty country.}

_{A mildly odd little bit it was too, once he thought about}

_it.

_{There was the fact that a path led down there to begin with. Not that it was much of a path, and it sure hadn’t}

_{been used very often. Still, he could see where people had passed back and forth along it for no obvious purpose.}

_{Yet when he looked closer he could see that there were some flat stones laid in the creek bed. Creating a sort of ford there? He couldn’t be sure.}

_{And on the hillside opposite him there was a place that looked kind of like an avalanche chute, an area where it looked like rock had fallen, gouging the red earth bare like a footpath, except much, much too steep there for anything, even a goat, to walk. But much too narrow for it to be a winter avalanche zone. Those were always fairly broad and easily spotted from miles away. This was much smaller than that. And anyway, there wasn’t any rock scree nor fallen timbers at the base of the hillside to account for it being an avalanche site.}

_{Odd, Longarm thought.}

_{He might have suspected it was a path used by prospectors leaving the train at the end-of-track platform, except that it was so steep. Couldn’t be any sort of path, he concluded.}

_{What it came right down to, he finally determined, was that he had no idea what in hell could’ve caused it. Or why.}

_{He quit pondering it when he heard Leah’s footsteps approaching him from behind. She came up beside him and linked her arm into his.}

_{“I’m impressed, Longarm. You didn’t peek even once.” Her veil was thrown back, and this time he could get a good look at her. The sight had been worth waiting for. She was even prettier than he’d thought.}

_{“Reckon I’m a little too old t’ be satisfied with a glimpse o’ petticoat, Leah.”}

_{Her smile turned into a grin, and that into a laugh. “Oh, Longarm. You can’t know.”}

_{“Know what, Leah?”}

_{“How hard it was for me to keep from laughing before. In that wagon. When you were riding so stem and serious and trying not to admit that you had a tent pole stuck behind your fly.”}

_{“You ...T}

_{“Have I shocked you, Longarm? I apologize. Sort of.” She gave him an impish grin and squeezed his elbow. “But I couldn’t not see a thing that huge, could I?”}

_{“You aren’t....”}

_{“Everything I seem to be? No. But I’m not everything I once was either.”}

_{“Now I’m more confused than before,” he admitted.}

_{“I only brought it up so I could explain, dear Longarm. You see, the gentleman on the coach may well have remembered me from before. And I did indeed use a great many names. And do a great many things that I probably shouldn’t have done. It is entirely possible that he has fucked me in the past, Longarm. Or wanted to and couldn’t afford me then, which is somewhat more likely since I don’t remember him at all. I was expensive, you see. I was the very best if I do say so myself. Now all of that is behind me. Now I am an investor and sometimes a saloon keeper and gaming-hall proprietor. But nobody, Longarm, nobody ever comes into my bed nowadays except by invitation.” She squeezed his elbow again. “You are a lovely man, Longarm. Consider yourself invited.”}

_{“I dunno about bein’ a lovely man,” he said with a chuckle, “but I’d sure have t’ say that I’m a lucky one.” Leah smiled and came onto her tiptoes to give him a brief hint of what her invitation entailed. Her mouth found his, and her tongue darted and flickered. She tasted faintly of mint and perhaps other spices as well, and her scent was that of spring wildflowers. There was no way to -judge her figure, hidden as it was behind the padding of a gown stiff enough and heavy enough to withstand the rigors of hard travel. But her body was certainly plenty warm enough. Longarm’s erection was returning at double strength.}

_{“Later,” she whispered huskily into his mouth. Then, the promise delivered, she pulled away. She drew the veil back over her pretty face and once more seemed a remote and proper gentlewoman.}

_{The sudden gusts and eddies of sensation this woman could cause or as quickly withdraw were positively disorienting. Longarm felt himself sway unsteadily, and might actually have staggered a bit if it hadn’t been for Leah’s grip on his elbow. Then she was gone, walking ahead of him up the path toward the platform and the other travelers just as prim as prim could be.}

_{Longarm shook his head as if to clear it of a sudden fog, and hurried to catch up with her.}

_{Chapter 8}

_{It was mid-afternoon—a little past mid-afternoon, actually—before the narrow-gauge puffer dragged into Glory with a wood car, four flatcars, and one passenger coach in tow.}

_{Late enough, Longarm decided, that it would be foolish to start off again immediately on the final leg of his trip to Snowshoe. Better, he thought, to wait until morning so he could be sure of finding the way.}

_{As the few passengers were disembarking onto the Glory depot’s small platform, he noticed that the railroad boss was being met by a delegation of men wearing starched collars and long faces. Their expressions seemed even stiffer than their batwing collars, Longarm thought. He had the impression that these people were waiting for news that would be vitally important to them. And that the idiot railroad man was the one who was bringing that information, perhaps even was responsible for it, judging from the way everyone fawned over him once he stepped onto the platform.}

_{Whatever that was about, though, it wasn’t something a deputy marshal had to worry about. Longarm helped the lady down the portable steps to the firm planking, then directed a porter with a hand truck to collect her luggage and his own few things. They would, after all, be stopping at the same hotel.}

_{“Ah, yes,” the clerk at the Grand said after poring over his ledger. “I have it here, reservation in the name of L. K. Skelde.” He gave the veiled woman a questioning}

_{look. But then it wasn’t really common for a woman to be traveling alone on business. The man transferred his attention to Longarm. “And you, sir, would be wanting an, um, adjoining accommodation?”}

_{“I’ll be wantin’ an accommodation,” Longarm said coldly. “I don’t recollect saying nothing about where in the hotel it oughta be.”}

_{“My mistake, sir, ma’am.” The clerk hurriedly bent to his ledger once again. He called a bellboy to carry Leah’s luggage to Room 27 and handed Longarm the key to Room 14. “I hope you both enjoy your stay.”}

_{Longarm waited downstairs a few minutes to enjoy a cheroot and a glass of a middling-fair rye—he didn’t want to seem in too great a hurry to get up those stairs—then wandered up to his room. Number 14 was on the second floor of the narrow, boxy hotel building; 27 was on the top floor one flight up.}

_{Longarm stopped in his own room only long enough to drop his things on the foot of the bed, take his hat off, and give his hair a quick slicking back. Then he was out again and striding for the staircase.}

_{He tapped lightly on the door. “Miss Skelde? I believe this might be yours?” Just in case someone was listening.}

_{“It’s open. Come in.”}

_{Longarm let himself into the room. And stopped immediately, a quick smile tugging at his lips.}

_{“Bolt the door, won’t you please, dear?”}

_{He found the bolt by feel and slid it home. He didn’t want to take his eyes off Leah. Not yet.}

_{The heavy travel gown was gone, discarded somewhere out of sight already. So were the hat and the veil.}

_{Leah stood before him now wearing only her foundation garments: corset, pantaloons, garter belt, silk stockings, high-top shoes. Her honey-brown hair was piled high and pinned in a mass of tight curls. She wore a cameo brooch on a ribbon tied tight at her throat and matching cameo earbobs.}

_{She was . .. mouth-watering. Exquisite. Statuesque.}

_{Her waist was impossibly narrow, her hips and legs slim and sleek. Her bosom swelled high and sharp and proud over a taut expanse of flat belly, and the texture of her skin was that of fresh-whipped cream.}

_{“Do you like it?”}

_{“I like it,” he admitted.}

_{Leah smiled and turned in a slow and deliberately provocative pirouette so he could see and assess her from all sides.}

_{“Yeah,” he said. “I like it.”}

_{“Do you want to undress me, dear?”}

_{“You go ahead. I think I’ll watch.” He crossed the room to the one armchair that was provided and settled into it. He brought out a cheroot and lighted it, taking his time about it and giving the smoke most of his attention for the moment. Finally he stuck the cigar in his jaw at a jaunty angle, crossed his legs, and gave Leah the nod. “Now I’m set t’ appreciate you proper.”}

_{She half turned away from him and glanced briefly over a creamy shoulder as if to satisfy herself that he was still watching. Then she lifted one foot onto the side of the bed and leaned forward to begin unlacing her shoe. One shoe and then the other were slowly removed. She had fine legs. And a superb back as well, Longarm saw. She was sleek as an otter, with no spare flesh on her but with an abundance of absolutely everything that she needed.}

_{She twisted, turned, posed for his benefit while pretending to act like a lady alone in her boudoir. After the shoes the stockings went. Then the corset laces.}

_{Leah needed no corset to slim her waist, he saw. But she certainly needed help containing those magnificent breasts. They fairly leaped into view as the halves of the corset dropped away. Her tits were pale melons of proud flesh tipped with delicate pink. Despite their size they sagged only a little.}

_{Leah paused in her show and winked at him. By now she wore only the garter belt and pantaloons. The garter belt went next. She hooked her thumbs into the elasticized}

_{cloth and wriggled, stepping out of the skeletal garment and kicking it aside.}

_{“Well, dear?"}

_{Longarm smiled. “Everything,” he said. “I do want it all, Leah.”}

_{She laughed, obviously enjoying the desire she could see in his eyes. Then she pushed the pantaloons down and kicked them off too. She was naked now save for the cameo jewelry.}

_{“Perfect,” he said.}

_{And so she was. Her pubis was as naked as her belly, shaven for some reason. Whatever that reason, Longarm liked the effect. On Leah this essentially unnatural change somehow made her body seem all one piece, one long, flowing, glorious work of art.}

_{But warm art. And malleable.}

_{Longarm stood and stubbed his cheroot out in a china dish. He beckoned, and Leah rushed to him. Pressed herself against him and lifted her mouth to his.}

_{Her breath was warm and her tongue insistent. Her body molded itself gently to his. The jut of the erection that was trapped behind his fly bridged what little gap there was between them and prodded the softness of Leah’s belly.}

_{He ran his hands up and down her back. She trembled and twisted in a slow, sensuous, involuntary dance, undulating beneath his touch like some great tawny cat wanting to be petted and fondled.}

_{She pulled her lips back from his just enough to give her room to whisper, yet close enough that he could feel the movement of her mouth gently tickle him when she spoke. “Close your eyes, darling, and I’ll make this a night you’ll never forget.”}

_{“It ain’t night yet,” he pointed out.}

_{Leah smiled. “It will be, dear, before your breathing comes back to normal.”}

_“Mirim?”

_{“Guaranteed, darling. Why, I daresay I shall have you so limp and ruined that you’ll not be able to walk out of here}

_{before midnight. It won’t be until tomorrow that you return to normal.”}

_{“Pretty lady, you an’ I both know that such a thing ain’t humanly possible. But I sure got t’ admire your spunk. If awards are ever given out for ambition, I bet you take first prize.”}

_{Leah chuckled and pressed her face to his for a moment, sucking Longarm’s lower lip into her mouth and running her tongue back and forth across it. She wriggled her belly against the bulge of his cock and hugged him. “Sweetheart, you only think I’m exaggerating.”}

_{“Honey, this here is one time I’d admire t’ be proved wrong. And one thing sure. I won’t do nothing t’ stop you from trying. So have you at it, ma’am. I am yours t’ drain dry.” He threw his head back and his arms wide in surrender, and closed his eyes as Leah had requested.}

_{“Longarm, dear, you simply can’t know how much fun this is going to be for both of us. But I’m glad you are willing to find out.” She laughed again, and he felt the butterfly-light touch of her fingers tugging delicately at the buttons and buckles of his clothing.}

_{Chapter 9}

_{Longarm stretched, his teeth chattering as he contained a yawn. Damn, but he felt whipped. No doubt Leah did too. But, Lordy, she was one helluva woman. She could turn a man inside out and then wring him dry. Which Custis Long certainly was at the moment.}

_{What he needed now, he figured, was a stiff drink— wasn’t anything else about him likely to be stiff again for a long while—and a full night’s sleep. At least that part should be easy enough to come by. It wasn’t hardly past dark yet.}

_{“Where you goin’, Leah?” he asked as he felt her slide off the bed.}

_{“Mmm, you’ll see, darling.” She sounded playful and still quite fresh even though she’d bucked and shuddered through her own powerful climaxes just as frequently as he had over the past several hours.}

_{“C’mon back t’ bed an’ lemme sleep,” he mumbled. He rolled over and buried his face in one of the feather pillows. “Blow out the lamp when you come back, willya?”}

_{Distantly he could hear Leah puttering around in the room. He could hear her footsteps, the click of crockery on china, the spill of water from the pitcher into a bowl. There was a pause, and then some other noises that he couldn’t quite identify beyond realizing that they had something to do with the water she’d just poured. Oh, well. He began to drift toward sleep, began to feel almost weightless, as if he were severing the connections with his own body and was}

_{starting to float free above the rumpled, sweaty bed. The sensation was pleasant.}

_{Leah returned to the bed. He sensed her presence standing over him. Not on her own side at all but standing on his side of the bed. Then she sat beside him. He could feel the mattress depress.}

_{“Mmm-gumphhh.”}

_{Leah laughed.}

_{“Hey!” Longarm came upright with a leap as something cold and wet blanketed his face and damned near smothered him.}

_{“It’s all right, dear,” Leah soothed, pulling the washcloth away. She grinned. “Surely you didn’t think you were going to go to sleep on me so soon, darling. Why, we’ve barely begun here.”}

_{“You can’t mean that,” he said.}

_{“But of course I can. Trust me.” She pushed on his chest, guiding him back down onto the bed. She bathed his face and neck with the wet, chilly cloth, then plumped the pillow behind his neck. “Trust me,” she repeated with a smile.}

_{“You woke me up,” he said accusingly.}

_{“But of course, darling. How else could I make this lovely thing hard again so we can fuck some more? Gracious, dear, you’d be no use to me asleep. Now would you?” she asked in a gay, teasing voice. She bent forward again, bathing his throat and upper chest. “Trust me.”}

_{“Oh, I do that well enough, I s’pose. But you’re flogging a dead horse if you think you can get another rise outta that limp thing down there. You’ve plumb worn it out, honey, and I won’t get no more use out of it, nor you won’t neither, until I’ve had some rest here. Which is what I was tryin’t’ do when you went an’ woke me up.”}

_{“Trust me,” she insisted.}

_{Longarm shrugged and made no effort to stop her.}

_{Leah dunked the washcloth into the basin to wet it again, and twisted most of the fresh, really quite cold water out of it. She washed his chest and stomach. “Does that feel nice?”}

_{“So-so,” he said. “Mostly it just wakes me up.”}

_{“Trust me.”}

_{She bathed his cock and balls perfunctorily, spending no more time there than she had on his belly, then moved on to his legs and his feet. She took her time washing between his toes, much more time there in fact than she had on his pecker. He wasn’t at all interested in screwing again and wouldn’t be for hours, but even so he found that imbalance of attention slightly disconcerting. If nothing else, though, he conceded, he was damn sure awake now. Her attentions had certainly done that much.}

_{“Roll over, dear.”}

_{He did as she asked, and Leah bathed the backs of his legs, then moved up beside his head and started down his neck and back. Finally only his butt remained unwashed. He started to roll onto his back again, but Leah stopped him.}

_{“Not yet, dear.”}

_{“I know. Trust you.”}

_{“Exactly,” she said cheerfully. He could hear her dipping the cloth in the basin again, and then she began cheerfully washing his ass. “Perfectly clean all over,” she said when she was finally done.}

_{“Well, I’m glad you’re happy ’bout it. Can I go t’ sleep now?”}

_{“Longarm! Really! Tru—”}

_{‘Trust me,” he said, finishing the often-repeated phrase in unison with her.}

_{Leah patted him, and left the bedside to return the basin and cloth to the washstand in the comer. She came back to the bed and stood there for a moment while she unpinned her hair and let it fly loose with a shake of her pretty head. “Close your eyes, darling. No, don’t roll over, please. I want you on your stomach. I’ll tell you when to change. Thank you, dear.”}

_{Longarm was wide awake now. And mildly curious as to what Leah had in mind even though he wasn’t at all interested in getting it up again yet.}

_{He felt nothing. Heard nothing. Leah might have left the room, except he would have heard her if she’d moved. What the hell, he decided. Maybe he could go to sleep now after all. Then he felt... moth wings fluttering above him? A cool and gentle breeze? What? It was so light, so delicate that he wasn’t honestly sure. At first he couldn’t even be positive that he was feeling anything at all. Then ...}

_{Leah moved, and the tip ends of her hair brushed softly over his back and down to his waist. Barely in contact at first, then more fully so that he could feel and identify what she was doing.}

_{The sensation was interesting. Not arousing, certainly, but interesting in an odd sort of way. He yawned.}

_{The touch of her hair became firmer as she bent lower. Then another sensation was added to it somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder blades. Something warm. And moist. Her tongue, he decided. Yeah, he could feel it now. She was licking his back. It kinda tickled. And then went away completely. He was getting sleepy again now. Might have t’ go to sleep now even if Leah did want him t’ try again. Might have to ...}

_{She began licking the back of his neck. Behind his ears and inside them. Then down onto one shoulder and across to the other. Down his spine to the small of his back. Lower onto his ass.}

_{He realized what she was doing now. Leah was bathing him again. But this time with her tongue. Felt nice too. He yawned, a little more awake again now than he really wanted to be.}

_{Then he blinked and came wide awake of a sudden.}

_{Leah sure as hell wasn’t a shy girl. She’d cleaned him up first. Now her tongue was following everywhere that washcloth had gone. Right on into the crack of his ass. And staying there in some right serious explorations. Damn!}

_{He could feel the press of her pretty face between the cheeks of his ass, could feel the tip of her tongue circle and probe, dipping lightly inside a fraction of an inch and back out again.}

_{She began to suck on him and moan.}

_{And now she was lying partially on top of him with her arms circling his waist and her hands finding his cock and his balls.}

_{She kneaded his prick with one hand and cupped his balls in the warmth of the other while still she continued to suck and tongue his asshole.}

_{Longarm felt completely surrounded by womanflesh. Engulfed inside Leah Skelde. Captured totally within her. The experience was unusual. But not at all unpleasant.}

_{He felt his cock engorge and thicken, felt the warmly encouraging pull of her fingers and the hot probing of her tongue.}

_{He gasped and lifted his hips off the bed in an effort to help her.}

_{“Lie still, darling. Keep your eyes closed and lie still. I’ll move you when we’re ready, dear. Lie still, dear, and let me take you out of yourself more completely than you’ve ever known before. Just lie quiet and let me consume you, darling. Trust me.”}

_{Longarm let go of his last shreds of resistance. He kept his eyes closed and allowed his entire body, save for that one small portion, to be limp and quiescent.}

_{He was still engulfed by her. He felt like he was floating. At this point he no longer knew—or cared—which part of Leah was doing what to him. He only knew that he was lifted and supported and surrounded by the warmth that was Leah. Only knew that he was welling full of sensation. Full of seed. So full that he overflowed with it and his fluids spilled slowly out. Flowed, not jetted, out of him and into her. Rowed for what seemed a very long, very lovely time.}

_{He felt the contractions of Leah’s throat and felt the clasp of her lips around the base of his cock, and recognized without minding in the slightest that somehow sometime she had moved so that now her hands massaged his ass while it was her mouth that contained his pecker. At this moment he didn’t even find it odd that she could have}

_{made that change without him noticing. But then he’d been so completely surrounded by her that the details hadn’t mattered. Hadn’t and still didn’t.}

_{Longarm sighed and realized that he was no longer oozing cum into her mouth even though the ducts that carried the fluid through him felt like they remained open. That seemed a strange sensation, and not a particularly pleasant one. He sure hell was empty now, though. As completely empty as he’d ever been in his life, and maybe then some. Damn! He smiled and lay there with his eyes closed, his cock again limp but still held warm and secure within Leah’s mouth while her hands supported his balls and lay gently on the rim of his asshole.}

_{He should say something to her. He knew he really should. Congratulate her. Thank her. Some damn thing. He sighed again. He really would too. Just as soon as he woke up. Longarm felt himself floating, drifting, receding happily into a gentle darkness.}

_{And then he felt nothing at all.}

_{Chapter 10}

_{Longarm lay propped up on both pillows while Leah rested in the crook of his arm with her cheek pressed against his chest. He had a cheroot in one hand and her right tit in the other. All in all he would have admitted to being downright content at this particular moment.}

_{It was, he guessed, somewhere around five in the morning, and he was feeling fine. He’d had a good night’s sleep thanks to the early start last night, and had just finished enjoying Leah’s body once more. Now he had a cigar going. Hell, it didn’t get much better. And if he was ravenously hungry after skipping supper, well, that was what restaurants and cafes were for. He could go downstairs and take care of all that soon enough.}

_{“Can I tell you something, Longarm?” Leah whispered. “O’ course.”}

_{“I don’t want to sound silly. I mean, you aren’t some wet-behind-the-ears schoolboy. You’re smart enough and man enough to understand that whores lie, dear. A sensible gentleman never believes a word a whore tells him because it’s all a hustle. All she ever wants is his money.”}

_{“Is this takin’ us somewhere, Leah?”}

_{“Yes. I just... I’m not in the business now, dear, but I used to be. I don’t pretend otherwise. I mean, I was the best. Top prices and top performance and no apologies asked nor given. You understand that?”}

_{He nodded.}

_{“Well, all I’m trying to say, dear... all I want you to know ... you are a very special man, Longarm. And I’ve enjoyed being with you. That’s all I want you to know. But it isn’t a lie, darling. It isn’t any kind of a lie, and if you think that it is, well...”}

_{He laughed. “Will you shut up and stop worrying?” “But if you think that is just another lie from just another whore, dear ...”}

_{“You said what you had t’ say. Now let me say something back, okay?”}

_{She nodded solemnly.}

_{“Thank you. Thank you for the compliment an’ thank you for last night. An’ that’s all I got t’ say on the subject.” Leah smiled and seemed satisfied. She touched his face and then nuzzled his side in contentment. “Will I see you again tonight, dear?”}

_{“Wish we could, but I gotta get on. Goin’ to a place called Snowshoe.”}

_{“I’ve heard of it. In fact, I’ll be going there myself soon. I’ve come to investigate all these new boom camps. I’ll open a business in at least one of them, possibly two if I can find a reliable manager. You, um, wouldn’t be looking for work, would you, dear?”}

_{He laughed and shook his head. “Not me. I got all the work I can handle at the moment, but I thank you.” It occurred to him that he never had exactly gotten around to telling her what kind of work it was that he did. He saw no reason to change that at this late date.}

_{“Will you be in Snowshoe long?”}

_{He shrugged.}

_{“If you’re still there when I arrive ... ?”}

_{“Then I’ll be wanting to hook up with you again, you bet. You’re a fine woman, Leah. A pleasure t’ be with. An’ I don’t mean just in bed. You’re nice company. So quit down-talkin’ yourself. Anything you used t’ do got nothing t’ do with here and now. You hear me?”}

_{She smiled and nodded and kissed his chest. “If you are still there, dear, and if you still want me...”}

_{“I’ll be counting on it,” he said.}

_“Good.”

_{“Reckon I’d best be sneaking back t’ my own room now. Wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea about you.” He gave her a hug. “Besides, I oughta get more use out o’ that room than just storage for my things. At the least I can muss up the bed and do my shaving there.”}

_{“I don’t want you to go,” she said.}

_{“Got to. But I’ll see you in Snowshoe.”}

_{“Please don’t leave before I get there, dear. If you have to, at least leave a message for me. Where I can find you? I’d ... I’d go anywhere to be with you, Longarm. Isn’t that perfectly silly of me? Why, a hard-hearted old bawd like me, you’d think I would be past the moon-eyed stage of falling for some handsome ne’er-do-well.”}

_{“Are you tryin’ to call me a—”}

_{“No! Oh, please don’t think that, darling, please don’t. It’s me who’s being so awful, not you. But it’s true, dear. I would follow you anywhere, do anything for you. Give you money, be your slave, go back to selling my ass to keep you in the chips, anything you like. It’s true. And I don’t know a thing about you. Not really.”}

_{The crazy damn woman was carrying this kind of far in Longarm’s opinion. After all, a night of bounce and tickle was one thing. But no matter how damned good it was— and in Leah’s case it damn sure had been plenty good—a night of belly-bumping was all it’d been. And all he wanted it to be.}

_{Better, he decided, if he could get his business in Snowshoe wrapped up quick so he could be gone again before Leah got around to joining him there.}

_{“We’ll talk ’bout all that in Snowshoe,” he told her.}

_{“Promise?”}

_{“Absolutely,” he lied. He kissed her on the forehead, then left the bed and began dragging his clothes back on.}

_{By the time he was back in his own room he had all but forgotten Leah.}

_{Chapter 11}

_{“I’m real sorry, mister, but you can’t hardly get to that place from here,” the railroad clerk said apologetically.}

_{Longarm tipped his Stetson back and frowned. “But I’m sure the man in Silver Creek told me I could reach Snowshoe by way of Glory.”}

_{“What he maybe didn’t tell you, mister, is that our rail line and theirs are on completely different levels. Run close together part of the way, but they’re real different. We’ve been building down low along the bottoms. They’re bridging and boring and building high. The two lines never do come together. Don’t now and never will.”}

_{“He told me that,” Longarm persisted, “but he also said from Glory I should be able to get transportation up to the, oh, whatever the hell the name of that other railroad is, get up there to it anyway and take a train the rest of the way in to Snowshoe.”}

_{“The Bitterroot and Brightwater is the name of their line,” the clerk helpfully supplied.}

_{“Right, that was it.”}

_{“But you can’t get there from here,” the man insisted. “We don’t have any connection with them and we don’t plan one. Honestly.”}

_{“You’re talking about a rail connection,” Longarm said. The clerk gave him a blank look. “Certainly.”}

_{“But I could walk up and make a connection, couldn’t I?” “Walk? Climb would be more like it.” The man sniffed. Loudly. Walking? Climbing? On one’s own feet? In the}

_{mountains? Surely a man would have to be daft to even think of such a notion. He sniffed again.}

_{“But I could do it?” Longarm hadn’t come here to screw the pretty women of Glory. He’d come down here, dammit, with a job to do. In Snowshoe.}

_{The clerk sniffed and refused to answer such a patently silly question.}

_{Longarm thanked the fellow for all his help and ambled outside, where he stood in the slanting early morning sunlight and lighted a cheroot.}

_{A few questions put to a passing railroad brakeman, though, assured him that not everyone in the town of Glory mistook convenience for necessity. This man, a dark-haired little fellow with gaps in his teeth and a happy lilt to his voice, seemed to think it perfectly acceptable that someone might want to walk, climb, or crawl about the countryside without benefit of upholstered benches and dining car service. “Sure thing, mister. Easy t’ get there. Just you follow these tracks back toward the rail-end for, oh, four or five miles till you can look up an’ spot another grade up ’bove you. Then just pick you a spot an’ climb up. Don’t know for sure where their rail-end is right now, but they’d got that far along in their construction when they laid off for the weather last fall. Mayhap e’en all the way through t’ Snowshoe.”}

_{“Is that why neither line is building right now?” Longarm asked. ‘They still haven’t commenced the spring work yet?”}

_{“Me, I’m just a day-money hired man, neighbor. I ain’t paid to do no heavy thinking,” the brakeman said. “But anybody can see right plain that the weather’s broke a month ago an’ better. That makes for an excuse ’bout not having no construction crews yet, but it ain’t no reason. What I hear is that we’ve run outta money. An’ that Bitterroot an’ Brightwater line too, else I’d be up there lookin’ for a job. Hell, I’ll go you one idea more. If anybody was t’ ask me, which nobody has, I’d say that won’t very many o’ these camps survive long if they can’t get rails in to ’em.”}

_“No?”

_{“No, sir, an’ I’ll tell you why. The veins here run vertical. Takes a lotta gear an’ a lotta money to mine straight up an’ down. Whole lot more expensive than horizontal digging because you got to lift everything out a bit at a time. That makes it slow as well as hard. Worse, there’s a lotta water seepage in the deep shafts, so that has t’ be pumped out too, an’ it’s no easier to lift water than it is t’ lift gold ore. It takes heavy equipment t’ mine this country, neighbor. Big pumps, steam engines, fast hoists... all that stuff is easy enough t’ move on a railroad car, but damn difficult t’ carry on a mule’s back.”}

_{“You sound like a man who knows what he’s talking about.”}

_{The brakeman nodded solemnly and accepted the cheroot Longarm offered. He struck his own light and inhaled the smoke with obvious pleasure, holding it deep for a moment and smiling before he spoke again. “Thanks. That’s fine. An’ yessir, I know a thing or two ’bout hauling and ’bout mining too. I been a bullwhacker an’ a freighter an’ a powder monkey above ground an’ below it too. I’ve hauled light rails by mule train, an’ then turned right around an’ laid those rails inside mine adits t’ make track for ore carts. Then even hired on t’ work in one of those same mines an’ filled carts on track I’d just got done layin’ down. Yessir, I expect I do know a few things ’bout this country an’ what it takes to make a living in it.”}

_{“And you don’t think Snowshoe or any of these other camps will make it?”}

_{“That ain’t exactly what I said. Any of ’em can make it, I think. If they get the rails through so’s they can bring the proper equipment in an’ get their ores out at a reasonable cost. That’s one o’ the things about these camps, see. The ones farthest out get the shit end o’ the stick every way possible. Can’t get equipment in t’ set up mills an’ refineries that’d reduce the raw ore to something light an’ manageable. Can’t afford to haul raw ore out to have it refined elsewhere. That’s ’cause it costs, say, ten dollars t’ haul a ton of ore. Costs, say, another ten dollars to get}

_{that ore outta the ground. And on top of everything else you got to pay to have your ore processed. An’ if a ton o’ ore is only yielding, say, fifteen dollars, well, you tell me how long a man can stay in business that way.”}

_{“But if a railroad comes in .. . ?”}

_{“Then you can bring in the equipment that lets you get your ore outta the ground for maybe six dollars a ton ’stead of ten. An’ you put in your own mill an’ process your ore right on the spot at a cost of maybe a dollar a ton ’stead of paying good money to haul it elsewhere. What all that means is that your same mine, same ore, same deal all around is earning you eight dollars a ton ’stead of costing you five or six.”}

_{“You ever think about being a businessman?” Longarm asked.}

_{“Me?” The grease-stained brakeman laughed. “I ain’t smart enough for that, mister. Me, I’m just a easy-going ol’ boy with a broad back an’ no brains. Ask anybody. Draw my wages the end o’ every day an’ drink ’em up every night. That’s all I want outta life, neighbor. That an’ to be left alone.” He inspected the glowing tip of his cheroot, then added with a wink, “An’ to have me a good smoke now an’ again. For which I thank you.”}

_{“I’ve enjoyed talking to you, friend,” Longarm said, meaning it.}

_{“Any time,” the cheerful little day laborer said as he went on his way.}

_{Longarm figured it was time for him to get along on his way too. He went back to the hotel for breakfast, and as a precaution asked the dining room to make him up a box lunch, then went up to his virtually unused hotel room to reclaim his gear and carry everything down. By that time the box lunch was waiting for him. He paid for it and tucked it into his bag.}

_{He hadn’t even started out yet, but already he was grumbling under his breath.}

_{This wasn’t the sort of country, nor the sort of trip through it, that would lend itself comfortably to a man}

_{traveling with luggage and a saddle.}

_{Yet there would be no point in trying to hire a saddle horse. Even if one was available—and that wasn’t real likely in a mining camp like this—he probably would only have to abandon it in a few miles anyway. He hadn’t been paying all that much attention to the hillsides while he was on that train yesterday, but what he did see wasn’t country that would be easily covered from horseback. This was country where a man was apt to require good handholds and a keen sense of balance.}

_{And now he was having to tackle it with a saddle in one hand and a suitcase in the other?}

_{Longarm scowled. He also set out walking down the railroad tracks, though, awkward encumbrances or no. The sooner he got started, the sooner the ordeal would be done with. And the sooner those Utes would benefit from the writ of habeas corpus Lawyer Able had managed to scare up for them.}

_{That, after all, was what this nuisance was all about.}

_{Chapter 12}

_{Hell, Longarm thought as he walked into Snowshoe, this hadn’t been half as bad as he’d expected. The going had been slow but not particularly difficult. Not even getting from the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory tracks up to the level of the Bitterroot and Brightwater. That had just been a matter of picking a likely spot to climb, and then going slow and easy on the way up.}

_{Except for that little distance, though, the journey had been a flat, boring hike along graded and ballasted railroad rights of way, walking the tracks of first the one line and then the other.}

_{Longarm would have actually enjoyed the fresh air and exercise if it hadn’t been for having to carry his bag and saddle. Toting those hadn’t been especially fun. His shoulders ached now from the day-long strain, and his hands were just the least bit sore. But there wasn’t anything that a drink and a good supper wouldn’t cure, he figured.}

_{He didn’t have a hand free to pull his watch out and check the time, but his belly told him it was coming supper time. That impression was reinforced by the chill in the evening breeze. At this altitude the days might be nice and warm so long as the sun was shining, but the nights were cold the whole year round, and evening shadows could drive a chill into a man’s bones. The sun had slid down beneath the westerly peaks the better part of an hour ago now, and the daylight was commencing to slowly, almost imperceptibly}

_{diminish like a lamp with the wick being eased lower and lower.}

_{Not that he would’ve been worried about getting lost even if it had gotten dark before he got to the town. Not with the railroad tracks to follow. Still, he was glad to be getting there.}

_{Snowshoe looked from this angle about like any other young mining camp. Which is to say raw and roaring.}

_{Physically the camp was laid out like a soup bowl, the buildings of the town being in the bottom of the bowl and the mine openings and tailings dumps scattered all around the sides and rim. Most ore finds tended to be in canyon bottoms, but a good many too were found in cirques and bowls like this one. Longarm had heard geologists say that such locations were the craters of ancient volcanoes. He couldn’t say that they generally looked much like his notion of what a volcano ought to be, but then he wasn’t going to argue with the experts just because of that, being no experienced hand when it came to volcano recognition. The one time he’d been stony cold abso-damned-lutely certain sure positive that he was seeing a volcano was when he was young and wet behind the ears and was making his first trip into the Yellowstone country. And that, he’d been assured at the time, hadn’t been volcano after all but just a geyser. Right there and then he’d determined to retire from volcano wrangling and leave that business to others who cared about the distinctions a whole lot more than Custis Long ever would.}

_{Whichever it was then, fizzled-out volcano or the remains of a big-ass geyser, Longarm marched into this bowl where Snowshoe was located.}

_{The lamps and lanterns were already lighted and in the windows to welcome him. Or to welcome somebody. He was willing to concede that the merchants of the town likely had workers soon to come off shift more in mind for their welcome than they did the deputy marshal who was going to piss them all off. But he would accept the lights as a nice sort of gesture anyway.}

_{He walked past a slightly startled agent at the Bitterroot and Brightwater depot—the man no doubt was unaccustomed to seeing well-dressed gentlemen stroll in off the tracks—and on to the nearest decent-looking hotel, located predictably enough within easy reach of the railroad station.}

_{“And how long will you be staying with us, sir?” the smiling desk clerk asked.}

_{“Couple nights. Maybe longer. I’ll let you know.”}

_{“Would you care to leave a deposit for the room then, sir?”}

_{“No need for that,” Longarm told him. He dragged out one of the voucher forms he’d gotten from Henry back in Denver and laid it down. “When I check out, friend, we’ll fill this in an’ I’ll sign for the charges.”}

_{The clerk’s smile faded and was replaced by a frown. “And what branch of government do you represent, sir?”}

_{“Does it matter?”}

_{“Of course not, sir. Not at all. Regardless of the branch we, um, have no vacancies at the moment.”}

_{“Now ain’t that a shame,” Longarm observed mildly.}

_{“Yes, sir. Quite a pity.” The clerk gave Longarm an oily, up-yours sort of look that said he was lying and didn’t particularly give a shit that Longarm knew it.}

_{“Funny how you had a room available till I laid down that voucher.”}

_{“Did I say that, sir? My error if so. Please accept my apologies.”}

_{Longarm opened his mouth to speak.}

_{Then closed it again.}

_{What the hell was he gonna say? Give me a room or else? Not really. This SOB hadn’t done anything to be arrested for, and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for a deputy U.S. marshal to commence his visit in Snowshoe by beating up on the citizens there.}

_{And if nothing else, this little experience gave Longarm a hint about the kind of reception he could expect in the town. Just about what he’d figured, of course, but he sure would’ve been willing to be proved wrong.}

_{What it came down to, the folks there had been warned that there was a deputy on the way to spring the Utes. No surprise about that. The judge’s ruling back in Nebraska would be announced to the public at the time the writ was issued. By now anybody who cared could know that the Utes of Snowshoe, Colorado, had gone and secured their release.}

_{And given what these people undoubtedly believed about the Indians, there wasn’t any other way they could’ve been expected to react once the knowledge reached them.}

_{After all, members of this same Ute tribe had murdered their agent and fought a pitched battle with soldiers not so very long ago. In truth—not that it was a point Longarm would want to dwell on when he discussed the matter with any local folks—it was more than merely possible that some of the individual Utes who were there today could’ve participated in that fighting too. Even if by some chance there were no actual participants there in Snowshoe at the moment, it was certain that close relatives of those Utes would’ve been involved then.}

_{It only stood to reason then that the white residents of Snowshoe would be reacting out of fear. They would honestly believe that the Utes in the neighborhood might up and go on the warpath anytime at all, with or without warning, with or without justification.}

_{Never mind that these particular Ute Indians had the same rights as anybody else. Never mind that anybody, including an Indian, should be treated as innocent until guilty. Never mind, even, that there hadn’t been any crimes committed yet for anybody to be guilty of.}

_{What it came right down to was that there were Utes in the vicinity and the white settlers were scared of ’em. That was the bare-bones truth of it.}

_{And if Custis Long wanted to come in there and set the Utes loose in that community, the townspeople would see it as him coming in there and giving a bunch of Indians permission to run wild.}

_{Longarm understood all that.}

_{He also understood that understanding the problem wasn’t going to make him a lick more comfortable tonight when he was wanting a hot bath and a soft bed to help him over the aches and pains of getting there.}

_{“Next timer Longarm said curtly, picking up his lodging voucher and shoving it back into a coat pocket.}

_{Dammit anyhow.}

_{He turned and stalked the hell out of there in search of somewhere else he might be able to secure a room and a meal.}

_{Chapter 13}

_{This was getting kinda serious. There were two hotels in Snowshoe and seven boardinghouses and no telling how many privately owned homes where a paying guest might be welcomed. Normally welcomed, that is. So far Longarm hadn’t found any sort of place that would rent him a room.}

_{Not that he had tried all of them exactly. But he had tried both hotels and three of the boardinghouses without success.}

_{After the first couple of rejections he’d gotten wise that it wasn’t going to help any if he flopped out a government payment voucher for his stay, and had resigned himself to paying cash out of pocket and then fighting it out with Henry and Billy Vail about reimbursement.}

_{By then, dammit, even that hadn’t been possible. By then the word was around, complete with description: That sonuvabitch marshal’s in town, boys. Don’t nobody lift a finger to help him. And in particular don’t nobody give him a room where he can rest his weary ass.}

_{Not that Longarm was privy to the exact language of the warnings that were circulating. But he was willing to believe it was that or something close enough that the differences didn’t matter.}

_{The point was, he was already a marked man in Snowshoe, and an unwelcome one, and he wasn’t real likely to find things pleasant there now that the word was out.}

_{He gave up looking for a room and decided to settle for the local law. There was an unwritten code that said one lawman helped another no matter what personal differences might exist between them. Longarm figured to capitalize on that now so he would have a place to sleep tonight that wouldn't involve cold breezes down the back of his neck and a mattress made of pea gravel.}

_{“Mind telling me where I can find your county sheriff or town marshal or, uh, police chief? Whoever’s in charge o’ the law here?” he asked the next man he saw on the street, a nicely dressed man in sleeve garters and a crisp collar who might have been a merchant or a banker or something similar.}

_{“That’d be Chief Bevvy,” the man said.}

_“Bevvy?”

_{“Ayuh. Chief of Police Robert Bevvy. Known as Boo to his friends.”}

_{“Boo Bevvy,” Longarm repeated.}

_{“Ayuh. But if you’re who I think you are, mister, you’d best call him Chief an’ tug your forelock when you do.”}

_{‘That sort o’ thing isn’t a habit o’ mine,” Longarm confessed.}

_{“Excellent,” the gentleman chortled. “I recommend you stand by your guns, sir. In fact, go right ahead and call our chief Boo. I could use the business.”}

_{Longarm raised an eyebrow.}

_{“Allow me to introduce myself, sir. Dr. Heygood Capwell, physician to the community of Snowshoe. Also entrepreneur, commodities speculator, mining shares investor, raconteur, hale fellow, bodacious wit, occasional imbiber, and, urn”— he grinned—“part-time mortician as well.”}

_{“It’s only fair t’ tell you that I don’t figure to give you no business,” Longarm said with a smile. “Not if I can help it, I won’t.”}

_{“We shall see, Marshal. We shall see. And your name}

_was?”

_{“Was an’ still is Custis Long. Known as Longarm to my friends.”}

_{“Very well, Marshal Long.” Capwell bowed formally. Longarm felt a momentary pang of disappointment. He’d hoped that at least this pleasant, happy-go-lucky doctor who knew who he was but smiled in spite of that would have departed from the local norm and accepted him as any other human being. But apparently that wasn’t to be. Capwell was honest enough to make that clear. Longarm supposed that was something.}

_{“You were gonna tell me where I could find Chief Bevvy, Doctor?”}

_{‘The police offices and town jail are in the basement of City Hall, Marshal Long. Two blocks down and one over. In that direction. It would be possible to miss it, I suppose, but difficult.”}

_{“Two down, one over. Thank you, Doctor.”}

_{“Good evening, Marshal.”}

_{Longarm hefted his bag and saddle—at this point he was taking the precaution of carrying the bag in his left hand and the saddle under his left arm; the arrangement wasn’t comfortable but it allowed his gun hand to be free, just in case—and walked in the direction Capwell indicated, back more or less in the direction of the railroad station and the first hotel he’d stopped at.}

_{It seemed rather fitting, he decided, that his first experience in Snowshoe was to run in circles.}

_{The night watchman—the man was wearing a badge, but surely he was only a night watchman or jailer; a man this pigheaded and dull couldn’t possibly be a town policeman— turned his head and spat a stream of thick brown juice that landed close enough to splatter the instep of Longarm’s right boot.}

_{“Closed is what I said, mister, an’ closed is what I meant. Chief ain’t here. Won’t be till momin’. You come back then an’ ask fer the chief.”}

_{Longarm put a tight rein on his patience and forced himself to speak calm and clear. “And where can I find the chief, please?”}

_{“Here. Tomorra. Chief Bevvy is gen’rally at his desk by eight. Never knowed him t’ be later than nine. You come back here then.”}

_{Longarm thought it over. Reached a conclusion. “Very well,” he said. “In the meantime I want to see the prisoners in your jail.”}

_{“When Chief Bevvy says,” the watchman agreed stubbornly. “I ain’t unlocking for you till.”}

_{“I’ve showed you my credentials,” Longarm reasoned. “You know I am a deputy United States marshal. You know I have a right to see any prisoners under federal jurisdiction.”}

_{“I don’t know shit ’bout that,” the man said, a claim that Longarm was willing to accept at face value. “What I do know is what I tolt you a’ready. When Chief Bevvy says open ’er up, I’ll open ’er up. Till then,’at door stays locked, mister. No exceptions.”}

_{“I’m not no fucking mister,” Longarm barked. “I’m a deputy United States marshal.”}

_{“All right. Lemme put it this way. I’ll open ’at door an’ let you in when Chief Bevvy says I should. Mister Deputy United States Fucking Marshal. Sir.” The SOB spat again. Closer this time.}

_{The worst part of this was that there wasn’t a damn thing Longarm could do about it short of beating the watchman up—which he could easily do—or shooting him—even easier done—and taking the jail keys from him. But what would that accomplish?}

_{Longarm whirled and stomped away through the alley toward the public street beyond. The City Hall building, he’d found, was closed for the night and locked up. There was, however, a separate entrance in this alley. A staircase dug near the back of the alley led down to the basement- level police station and jail. That was the door that was being guarded by the dimwit with the chaw in his mouth.}

_{Longarm hadn’t been in Snowshoe more than a few hours, and already he was feeling frustrated to the point of wanting to beat the crap out of somebody. Almost anybody}

_{would’ve done. Just to relieve the tension.}

_{He walked back to the front of the City Hall building, and for the lack of anything better to do set his things down on the board sidewalk there and helped himself to a seat on one of the pair of benches that flanked the doorway. It felt pretty damned good to be able to sit down, he admitted to himself. He had been on his feet practically since dawn, most of that time lugging all his traveling gear with him.}

_{He crossed his legs and pulled out a cheroot and lighted it. The dry, tasty smoke helped to calm him down, and he was able to think clearly once he wasn’t blustering and fuming in reaction to some asshole with a little authority.}

_{Things really weren’t all that bad, Longarm realized.}

_{The townspeople might not like this, but the chief of police and any other city fathers would back off quick enough once Longarm buttonholed them and showed the actual writ to them.}

_{Until the writ was formally served they might put on a show for the home folks. But once the service was duly and legally accomplished, they wouldn’t have any choice about it but to roll over and give up.}

_{Either that or have the full weight of the federal government come down on them.}

_{If push came to shove, Longarm himself could summon all the assistance he required there. Up to and including the use of U.S. Army troops. Fort Union likely would be the closest, Longarm thought. Or anyway it would have the units able to get there the quickest, even if they might not be closest by a few miles. From Fort Union soldiers could cut across the passes in the south end of the Sangre de Cristos— it was easy going through there, and the Moro route started practically in the post’s backyard—and that would get them clear of the worst of the mountain travel. They could cross the Rio Grande, move west to clear the southern thrust of the San Juans, and from there have an unimpeded march up the valley of the Dolores.}

_{Longarm decided that he would by damn point all that out to the good people of Snowshoe too. Make sure they}

_{understood the seriousness of this.}

_{Once he found someone to talk to, that is.}

_Dammit.

_{He grumped and grumbled a little more to himself, then finished his smoke and stood.}

_{Then, for the first time in quite a while, he actually smiled.}

_{It hadn’t particularly occurred to him before now, but the City Hall building of Snowshoe was a freestanding structure built of native rock.}

_{And there was an alley on either side of it.}

_{That tobacco-chewing dragon might be guarding the jail entry in that alley over yonder, Longarm knew. But the alley over on this side here was another matter entire, wasn’t it.}

_{Longarm flipped the butt of his cheroot into the street and shoved his gear underneath the bench he’d just been resting on.}

_{He tugged the tail of his coat down where it belonged, and ambled around the comer into the alley away from where that idjit watchman was.}

_{The idea was that rooms, even basement rooms, even jail cell basement rooms, have windows.}

_{And if Longarm couldn’t officially see or have a word with the Utes he’d come here to spring loose, why, there wasn’t anything would stop him from peeking in and whispering a howdy to them.}

_{At the very least, he figured, they should know that help was on hand.}

_{He took one last look over his shoulder, then made his way deep into the alley by feel, one hand hovering close to the butt of his Colt.}

_{Chapter 14}

_{Longarm was not only frustrated, he was angry. Damned angry.}

_{City Hall was closed, the jail was closed, the police chief couldn’t be located—wouldn’t be was more the truth of that—and nothing, absolutely nothing was going right.}

_{Longarm stormed into the first establishment he came to that was open for business.}

_{“You!” He stood at the bar with an accusing finger pointing into the startled face of the nearer of the two bartenders.}

_{“S-s-sir?”}

_{“I’m looking for a man who lives in this shitty town. Able. Ab Able. Where do I find him? And you’d best tell me right now, by damn, or so help me...” He didn’t bother finishing the threat. But then he didn’t have to. Fury in Custis Long’s eyes had been known to turn roaring bullies into meekly cooperative citizens. A slightly built, inoffensive fellow like this barkeep was not apt to cross the deputy at a moment like this.}

_{‘T-t-t-t-t—”}

_{“It’s all right, Henny,” the other barman said quickly. “You go an’ draw a short one for Mr. Babcock, please.”}

_{Henny bobbed his head frantically, never once taking his eyes off Longarm’s, and fled toward the far end of the bar.}

_{“It ain’t nothing personal, mister. Henny stutters when he gets excited. He was prob’ly scared you’d think he was}

_{funning you an’ smack him one.” This man gave Longarm a hostile expression along with the explanation.}

_{“Sorry,” Longarm said. “I did come on a mite strong, didn’t I?”}

_{“A mite strong? Yeah, that’d be one way to put it.”}

_{“Sorry,” he repeated, mostly meaning it. He was still pissed with the people of this town, but that didn’t mean he wanted to go around terrorizing people like Henny.}

_{“What was it you wanted, Marshal?” There was no pretense of not knowing who Longarm was. But then by now everyone in Snowshoe seemed to know that.}

_{“Ab Able,” he said.}

_{The bartender frowned as if not understanding. “Ab?”}

_{“Lawyer Able,” Longarm said.}

_{This time the barman seemed amused. “That explains it. We got a lawyer named Able. But it ain’t Ab. It’s A. B. Goes by the initials, like. That’s what confused me since I never heard of nobody named Ab Able around here.”}

_{“All right, dammit, A. B. Able then. It makes no never mind to me. Where can I find him?”}

_{“At this hour?”}

_{“At this hour, dammit.” Longarm was getting pissed again.}

_{“Don’t bust a gusset over it. Jeez. I can show you how to go. Whether you’d be welcome there at this hour is up to Lawyer Able, though.”}

_{“Fine,” Longarm snapped. “Now give me the directions and be quick about it if you please.”}

_{The barkeep grunted and left his station to walk outside so he could point and gesture while he gave his directions.}

_{“Thank you,” Longarm said curtly when all that was said and done.}

_{The barman didn’t answer with so much as a grunt or a growl. He simply turned and went back inside.}

_{That bartender had been right about one thing, Longarm conceded once he was standing in front of the split-log cabin where A. B. Able lived and conducted business.}

_{The hour was past any reasonable time for calling on a stranger. Longarm’s Ingersoll showed it to be past ten. Hardly business hours.}

_{On the other hand, this wasn’t any reasonable bit of business, Longarm decided, so the hell with it. There were things he had to know and the sooner the better. If A. B. Able objected to that, well, fuck ’im.}

_{Longarm marched to the door of the cabin and lightly rapped on it. There wasn’t any light showing inside, and the place remained dark and silent now. Longarm began to get angry again. That bartender had said Able lived there as well as having his office there. So where the hell was he? Off getting drunk someplace while his clients languished? Laying up with whores while the Utes suffered? That sort of conduct was about what Longarm would expect from anybody in Snowshoe, Colorado. Even from the lawyer who was supposed to be on the high side of things there.}

_{The more he thought about that the madder he got. And if some polite knocking on the door didn’t produce any result, maybe what he needed was a more vigorous summons.}

_{He reared back and began bashing on the damned door. Not trying to knock it down exactly. But not much interested in being gentle with it either.}

_{He finished off by giving the sonuvabitch door a couple of kicks just for good measure.}

_{That didn’t make him feel much better, but he’d damned well wanted to do it and so he had.}

_{Now, he supposed, he could turn around and go look for a place where he could spread his blanket for the damned night. What was left of it. He quit pounding on the lawyer’s door.}

_{“I... have a gun,” a quavering, timorous female voice called softly from inside the cabin. “G-go away or I’ll shoot. I will.”}

_{Just that quick Longarm went from feeling pissed to feeling like nine kinds of an idiot.}

_{Nobody’d told him that Lawyer Able had a wife, for God’s sake.}

_{Not that he’d asked.}

_{But even so ...}

_{“Ma’am? Mrs. Able? Lordy, ma’am, I do apologize. I’ve woke you up and scared you and... well, I don’t know what all else I’ve gone and done. Made a fool of myself, that’s for sure. This is Custis Long, Mrs. Able. Can you hear me? My name is Custis Long. Deputy U.S. Marshal Long, ma’am. I’ve come here to see Mr. Able about those Ute Indians, ma’am. Could you ... if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, ma’am, after I’ve gone and bothered you like this, could you please tell me where I might find Mr. Able? Please?”}

_{“You say your name is Long?” He was pleased to note that the lady’s voice sounded better now, more in control of herself. At least she didn’t sound like she was in immediate fear for her life this time.}

_{“Yes, ma’am, it is.”}

_{“Would you mind verifying that, please?”}

_{“Glad to, ma’am. I have my credentials right here.” “Would you do it without me having to open my door, please?”}

_{“Ma’am, I don’t know how I’d manage that.”}

_{“What do the Indians call you, Marshal?”}

_{“They call me Long Arm, Miz Able. Longarm is my regular nickname.”}

_{“Wait there a moment. I’ll open up.”}

_{“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”}

_{He could hear movement inside, then the sounds of bolts being drawn. At least two steel bolts on the inside of the door here, he thought, plus a wooden bar. And wasn’t that almighty strange. Generally speaking, a lady was safe from harm in these mining camps. Man-made kinds of harm anyway. She might work herself to death or come down with disease. Even starve. But it was a rare—and stupid— son of a bitch of a man who’d ever lay an unwelcome finger on a woman in any Western town Longarm’d ever known. Any man who’d do a thing like that wouldn’t live long enough to be strung up by a mob. He’d be tom to}

_{pieces before he could be dragged to a tree for the hanging. Decent men simply didn’t put up with that kind of shit in this country. So why in hell was Mrs. Able so frightened?}

_{Just a timid sort maybe, Longarm thought. Some folks were like that whether they needed to be or not.}

_{He heard the bolts being pulled and the bar lifted aside. Then the door came open a fraction of an inch and he could see the shine of moonlight striking an eye that was applied to the miniscule opening. The woman was inspecting him before she allowed the door to open any farther.}

_{“You really are Longarm?” One positive sign was that her voice seemed calm and rational now. That was good.}

_{“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out his wallet and opened it so she could see the badge that was pinned there. There wasn’t light enough for her to examine it thoroughly, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.}

_{“Give me a moment, Marshal. I’ll find my robe and light a lamp. Then you can come in.”}

_{“If you’d just tell me where I can find Mr. Able, ma’am.”}

_{“Please wait where you are, Marshal,” she said crisply. Before Longarm could say any more the door was pushed fully closed—but not bolted again while he was standing there at it, he noticed. Nice to know that he wasn’t the one she was scared of. He could hear the faint sounds of someone moving inside.}

_{He shrugged and resigned himself to doing this however Mrs. Able wanted. Not that he had much choice about it. He didn’t know where else to look for A. B. Able.}

_{And anyway, this reception, bad as it might otherwise seem, was nevertheless the warmest and most welcoming he’d yet had in Snowshoe. Hell, he probably ought to savor and enjoy it while he had the chance because from here on in things were likely to go downhill.}

_{Chapter 15}

_{When next the cabin door opened, Longarm might have thought he was in a completely different place from where he’d been just a few minutes earlier.}

_{Instead of being scared and nervous, Mrs. Able was gracious and charming in her welcome. She’d taken time to light several lamps inside, and was carrying another. Moreover, she looked mighty nice too.}

_{Longarm had no idea how she’d been dressed or what she’d looked like when he’d dragged her out of a sound sleep to come to the door, but now she looked elegant and lovely in a velvet dressing gown that had frilly wisps of ruffle showing daintily at throat and wrists.}

_{Her hair had been loosened for sleeping, of course, and Longarm certainly did not mind it hanging thick and free like it was. Her hair was a dark rich red in color, which contrasted quite fetchingly with the deep blue of the dressing gown.}

_{Her complexion was that creamy perfection that redheads are always supposed to have but seldom do.}

_{Longarm judged that Mrs. Able was in her early thirties or thereabouts. And decidedly attractive. Lawyer Able was one helluva lucky man in his opinion.}

_{“I apologize again for waking you, ma’am. It’s just that I considered it important.”}

_{“Please come in, Marshal.” She showed him to an upholstered armchair next to a lamp and table. The cabin was divided into two rooms of roughly equal size. Longarm had no idea what was in the other, but the front room was}

_{furnished as an office with a desk, storage cabinets, and several chairs arranged for conversation and reading. There was a sheet-metal heating stove at one end, but no sign of a cooking range or any sort of kitchenware. He guessed that the bedroom area must also double as the kitchen. Either that or the back part of the cabin had been cut into several tiny rooms instead of one room of serviceable size.}

_{“A drink, Marshal?” She was standing close by, ready to provide the refreshment if he wished.}

_{“No, thank you, ma’am. If you would just direct me to—”}

_{“That shallow dish beside you is used as an ashtray if you care to smoke, Marshal. I don’t mind.”}

_{“Yes, ma’am, thank you. Now if you’d just—”}

_{“I believe you have a writ in your possession signed by Judge McFee?”}

_{“Yes, ma’am, but—”}

_{The lady cut him off once again, but this time she sighed and turned away. She went to the rolltop desk that was the dominant piece of furniture in the small room, sat down there, and swiveled the chair to face him.}

_{“You are determined to keep it up, aren’t you?” she asked.}

_{“Ma’am?”}

_{“Oh, never mind. It isn’t your fault. I daresay it isn’t even my fault. It is no one’s. And everyone’s.” The lady looked sad now.}

_{“Ma’am?” he repeated, feeling more confused than ever.}

_{“As I say, Marshal, the fault is not yours. The misconceptions are just so ... infuriatingly common. Something I must face over and over again every day of my life. Sometimes I tire of it, that’s all.”}

_{“I’m sorry, Mrs. Able, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Longarm decided to take the lady up on that offer to smoke in her presence. He pulled out a cheroot, nipped off the twist, and rolled the tasty leaf on his tongue. There was a jar of broom straws provided on the table, so he didn’t have to waste a match to light his smoke. He lit a}

_{straw in the lamp flame and used that to light the cheroot. “My point exactly, Marshal,” the woman said.}

_{“I hate t’ repeat myself, ma’am. But what you talkin’ about?”}

_{“I am not Mrs. Able, Marshal.”}

_“No?”

_{“There is no Mrs. Able.”}

_{“Ma’am, really now, I didn’t come here t’ pry into any private, uh, situations. Between you an’ Mr. Able, that is. Or, um, anybody else.”}

_{“I’m not making myself clear, am I?”}

_{“No, ma’am, I would have to say that you are not,” he agreed.}

_{“Marshal Long, the point I am trying to make here is that there is no Mister Able either,” the lady said. As if that was supposed to explain everything. Longarm would’ve been satisfied if it had just explained something.}

_{“Are you tryin’t’ tell me, ma’am, that Judge McFee back in Nebraska has issued a writ o’ habeas corpus on behalf of a lawyer that don’t exist?” He whistled and shook his head. “Lordy, ma’am, I don’t know how that one is gonna set when they find out about it.”}

_{“Marshal. Longarm. May I call you Longarm?”}

_{He nodded.}

_{“You still misunderstand. There is an attorney named Able. A. B. Able. Agnes Bertha Able.”}

_{“Is that what you been hemming and hawing about, ma’am? Good grief, you been wasting my time for nothing. What I wanta know, Miss Able, is where the hell the Utes are that I’m supposed to serve papers for? 1 just been over to the jail, and it’s empty ’cept for a couple drunks. Now would you please quit fretting about gender and get down to some business with me here?”}

_{Chapter 16}

_{Once she got over the shock of realizing that Custis Long honestly didn’t give a shit if she was male, female, or something else entirely, just so she was the lawyer he’d come there to see, she was brisk, bright, and informative.}

_{“The Indians in question,” she said, “are being held in an old mine shaft close to town. The jail wasn’t large enough, and I agreed that it wasn’t healthy for the women or the children to be caged in public view like that. The quarters at the mine are not really very good, but they are better than the jail would have been. The Indians agreed to the arrangement, and as their attorney of record I concurred, Longarm.”}

_{‘That takes a load off my mind. I was wondering if the police chief was up to something.”}

_{“I’m sure Boo will release the prisoners once service of the writ is made, Longarm. I can’t imagine him doing otherwise.”}

_{“Could get it done tonight, I reckon, if you know where he lives.”}

_{“Frankly I would rather do it in daylight. You won’t believe the levels of fear and animosity that exist in this town.”}

_{“I think I might,” he commented, but didn’t push the point any further than that.}

_{“It frightens even me, Longarm. I’ve had bolts installed on my door. Six months ago I wouldn’t have believed that necessary, yet it is true. And when we do secure the release}

_{of those people from custody, I want it to be in broad daylight so we can see if there is anyone lurking about with guns.”}

_{“That bad, huh?”}

_{“That bad,” she said.}

_{“I’ll accept your judgment on it,” he said. “We won’t try and do anything until tomorrow.”}

_{“Thank you.” She stood. “Would you care for a drink now, Longarm?”}

_{“You wouldn’t have any rye, would you?”}

_{“Sorry. Calvados is the best I can do.”}

_{“Ma’am?”}

_{She smiled. “Applejack, Longarm. Hard cider that’s gone down and dirty. It will put hair on your chest, guaranteed.” “Reckon I’d best try some then.”}

_{“Good. I hope you won’t mind if I join you?”}

_{“Good likker is always better in good company,” he said.}

_{One of the cabinets that he had assumed held files instead held a black glass bottle in an odd, bulbous shape. Aggie Able poured generous measures into a pair of water glasses and gave one to Longarm. This time she chose to sit in the comfortable chair across the lamp table from his rather than returning to her desk.}

_{‘To your good health,” she said by way of a toast. “Hair on your chest,” he agreed, and Aggie laughed. The lady downed half of hers at a gulp. Longarm followed her example. And had to gasp for breath. “Lordy,” he blurted out when he was able to talk again. “That stuff is stout. I never knew you could put fire in a jug like that.” He grinned. “Good, though.”}

_{“I’m glad you like it.” Aggie set her glass down and opened a small wooden box that was sitting next to the lamp. Longarm had thought it an overlarge matchbox. Actually it contained some thin, cheap, sweet-leaf cheroots. He recognized the type. Molasses-soaked wrapper leafs and rum-soaked fillers in a vain attempt to smooth out the flavors of a basically worthless tobacco. Floor sweepings,}